The soldiers pressed and crowded, the horses tossed their heads, the
knout swished in the air, and the bare, shamed human flesh swelled up,
tore, ran over with blood, and curled like a snake. Oaths, wild
shrieks rained upon the village through the clean white air of that
spring day.
Andersen now saw five men's faces at the steps of the town hall, the
faces of those men who had already undergone their shame. He quickly
turned his eyes away. After seeing this a man must die, he thought.
III
There were seventeen of them, fifteen soldiers, a subaltern and a
young beardless officer. The officer lay in front of the fire looking
intently into the flames. The soldiers were tinkering with the
firearms in the wagon.
Their grey figures moved about quietly on the black thawing ground,
and occasionally stumbled across the logs sticking out from the
blazing fire.
Gabriel Andersen, wearing an overcoat and carrying his cane behind his
back, approached them. The subaltern, a stout fellow with a moustache,
jumped up, turned from the fire, and looked at him.
"Who are you? What do you want?" he asked excitedly.
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