The crowd dispersed in silence after the ceremony.

Dancing in the street followed at 6 p.m., and was kept up with spirit for some hours, during which a large quantity of beer was given away." The Major lay in the next room--the casualty ward--and stared up at the whitewashed ceiling.
His whole being ached as though, mind and body, he had been set upon and beaten senseless with bladders.

And this was the second time! Yes--good heavens, how had he deserved it ?--the second time! He remembered, after the disaster off Boulogne--many days after-- awaking to consciousness in his prison bed in the fortress of Givet.
Then, as now, he had lain staring, his whole soul sickened by the cruel jar of the jest.

Hand of fate, was it?
Nay, a jocose and blundering finger, rather, that had flipped him, as a man might flip a beetle, into the night.

Then, as now, his soul had welled up in sullen indignation.