It
was not compassion or even mere nervous sensibility. The fact was that
though Sotillo did never for a moment believe his story--he could not
believe it; nobody could believe such nonsense--yet those accents of
despairing truth impressed him disagreeably. They made him feel sick.
And he suspected also that the man might have gone mad with fear. A
lunatic is a hopeless subject. Bah! A pretence. Nothing but a pretence.
He would know how to deal with that.
He was working himself up to the right pitch of ferocity. His fine eyes
squinted slightly; he clapped his hands; a bare-footed orderly appeared
noiselessly, a corporal, with his bayonet hanging on his thigh and a
stick in his hand.
The colonel gave his orders, and presently the miserable Hirsch, pushed
in by several soldiers, found him frowning awfully in a broad armchair,
hat on head, knees wide apart, arms akimbo, masterful, imposing,
irresistible, haughty, sublime, terrible.
Hirsch, with his arms tied behind his back, had been bundled violently
into one of the smaller rooms. For many hours he remained apparently
forgotten, stretched lifelessly on the floor.
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