Go back inside and shut the door.

Julie, get me some water from the pump to wash up with, then get inside with your mother

Yes, Herr Colonel.

Is this the property of Perrier LaPadite?

It is a pleasure to meet you, Monsieur LaPadite. I am Colonel Hans Landa of the S.S.

Colonel Landa, this is my family.

Col. Hans Landa of the S.S., Madame, at your service. Please excuse my rude intrusion on your routine.

PERRIER’s wife/family. Compliments

Monsieur LaPadite, the rumors I have heard in the village about your family are all true. Your wife is a beautiful woman. And each of your daughters is more lovely than the last

Merci. Please have a seat.

Merci beaucoup, Monsieur LaPadite, but no wine. This being a dairy farm, one would be safe in assuming you have milk?

Monsieur, to both your family and your cows I say: Bravo

Please, join me at your table.

Monsieur LaPadite, what we have to discuss would be better discussed in private. You’ll notice, I left my men outdoors. If it wouldn’t offend them, could you ask your lovely ladies to step outside?

Charlotte, would you take the girls outside. The Colonel and I need to have a few words.

Ask to speak English

Monsieur LaPadite, I regret to inform you I’ve exhausted the extent of my French. To continue to speak it so inadequately would only serve to embarrass me. However, I’ve been led to believe you speak English quite well?

Ask for familiarity

Monsieur LaPadite, while I’m very familiar with you and your family, I have no way of knowing if you are familiar with whoIam. Are you aware of my existence?

Ask more specificly

This is good. Are you aware of the job I’ve been ordered to carry out in France?

Continue asking

Please tell me what you’ve heard?

Continue answering

I’ve heard the Führer has put you in charge of rounding up the Jews left in France who are either hiding or passing for gentile

The meaning of the visit

But the meaning of your visit, pleasant though it is, is mysterious to me. The Germans looked through my house nine months ago for hiding Jews and found nothing.

I’m aware of that. I read the report on this area. But like any enterprise, when under new management, there’s always a slight duplication of efforts. Most of it being a complete waste of time, but it needs to be done nevertheless. I just have a few questions, Monsieur LaPadite. If you can assist me with answers, my department can close the file on your family.

Now, before the occupation there were four Jewish families in this area, all dairy farmers like yourself: the Loveitts, the Doleracs, the Rollins, and the Dreyfuses, is that correct?

To my knowledge those were the Jewish families among the dairy farmers. Herr Colonel, would it disturb you if I smoked my pipe?

Smoking, elaborationg on question

Please, Monsieur LaPadite, it is your house. Make yourself comfortable. Now, according to these papers, all the Jewish families in this area have been accounted for—except the Dreyfuses. Somewhere in the last year it would appear they have vanished. Which leads me to the conclusion that they’ve either made good their escape or someone is very successful hiding them. What have you heard about the Dreyfuses, Monsieur LaPadite?

—I love rumors! Facts can be so misleading, where rumors, true or false, are often revealing. So, Monsieur LaPadite, what rumors have you heard regarding the Dreyfuses? Speak freely, Monsieur LaPadite, I want to hear what the rumors are, not who told them to you.

Again, this is just a rumor—but we heard the Dreyfuses had made their way into Spain.

So the rumors you’ve heard have been of escape?

Were the LaPadites and the Dreyfuses friendly?

We were families in the same community, in the same business. I wouldn’t say we were friends, but members of the same community. We had common interests.

Having never met the Dreyfuses, would you confirm for me the exact members of the household and their names?

There were five of them. The father, Jacob . . . wife, Miriam . . . her brother, Bob . . .

-How old is Bob?

Thirty—thirty-one?

And the children . . . Amos . . . and Shosanna

Ages of the children?

Amos—six—I believe. And Shosanna was fifteen or sixteen, I’m not really sure

Greet for goodbye, milk

Well, I guess that should do it. However, before I go, could I have another glass of your delicious milk?

COL. LANDA’s nikname

Monsieur LaPadite, are you aware of the nickname the people of France have given me?

COL. LANDA’s nickname

I have no interest in such things.

COL. LANDA’s nickname

But you are aware of what they call me?

COL. LANDA’s nickname

COL. LANDA’s nickname

What are you aware of?

COL. LANDA’s nickname

That they call you “the Jew Hunter.”

COL. LANDA’s nikname

Precisely! Now I understand your trepidation in repeating it. Before he was assassinated, Heydrich apparently hated the moniker the good people of Prague bestowed on him. Actually, why he would hate the name “the Hangman” is baffling to me. It would appear he did everything in his power to earn it. But I, on the other hand, love my unofficial title, precisely because I’ve earned it. The feature that makes me such an effective hunter of the Jews is, as opposed to most German soldiers, I can think like a Jew, where they can only think like a German or, more precisely, a German soldier. Now if one were to determine what attribute the German people share with a beast, it would be the cunning and predatory instinct of a hawk. Negroes—gorillas—brain—lips—smell—physical strength—penis size. But if one were to determine what attributes the Jews share with a beast, it would be that of the rat. Now the Führer and Goebbels’s propaganda have said pretty much the same thing. Where our conclusions differ is I don’t consider the comparison an insult. Consider for a moment the world a rat lives in. It’s a hostile world indeed. If a rat were to scamper through your front door right now, would you greet it with hostility?

I suppose I would.

Has a rat ever done anything to you to create this animosity you feel toward them?

Rats spread disease, they bite people—

Rats and disease

Unless some fool is stupid enough to try and handle a live one, rats don’t make it a practice of biting human beings. Rats were the cause of the bubonic plague, but that was some time ago. In all your born days, has a rat ever caused you to be sick a day in your life? I propose to you, any disease a rat could spread a squirrel would equally carry. Yet I assume you don’t share the same animosity with squirrels that you do with rats, do you?

However, interesting as the thought may be, it makes not one bit of difference to how you feel. If a rat were to scamper through your door this very minute, would you offer it a saucer of your delicious milk?