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diff --git a/old/brls10h.htm b/old/brls10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1554e74 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/brls10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7871 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Barlasch of the Guard</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Barlasch of the Guard, by H. S. Merriman</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Barlasch of the Guard, by H. S. Merriman + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Barlasch of the Guard + +Author: H. S. Merriman + +Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8158] +[This file was first posted on June 22, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>This etext was produced by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h1>BARLASCH OF THE GUARD BY HENRY SETON MERRIMAN</h1> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>“And they that have not heard +shall understand”</i></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>CONTENTS</p> +<p>CHAPTER</p> +<p>I. ALL ON A SUMMER’S DAY<br />II. + A CAMPAIGNER<br />III. FATE<br />IV. + THE CLOUDED MOON<br />V. THE WEISSEN +RÖSS’L<br />VI. THE SHOEMAKER OF KÖNIGSBERG<br />VII. + THE WAY OF LOVE<br />VIII. A VISITATION<br />IX. + THE GOLDEN GUESS<br />X. IN DEEP +WATER<br />XI. THE WAVE MOVES ON<br />XII. + FROM BORODINO<br />XIII. IN THE DAY OF REJOICING<br />XIV. + MOSCOW<br />XV. THE GOAL<br />XVI. + THE FIRST OF THE EBB<br />XVII. A FORLORN HOPE<br />XVIII. + MISSING<br />XIX. KOWNO<br />XX. +DÉSIRÉE’S CHOICE<br />XXI. ON THE +WARSAW ROAD<br />XXII. THROUGH THE SHOALS<br />XXIII. + AGAINST THE STREAM<br />XXIV. MATHILDE CHOOSES<br />XXV. + A DESPATCH<br />XXVI. ON THE BRIDGE<br />XXVII. + A FLASH OF MEMORY<br />XXVIII. VILNA<br />XXIX. +THE BARGAIN<br />XXX. THE FULFILMENT</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER I. ALL ON A SUMMER’S DAY.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>Il faut devoir lever les yeux pour +regarder ce qu’on aime.</i></p> +<p>A few children had congregated on the steps of the Marienkirche at +Dantzig, because the door stood open. The verger, old Peter Koch—on +week days a locksmith—had told them that nothing was going to +happen; had been indiscreet enough to bid them go away. So they +stayed, for they were little girls.</p> +<p>A wedding was in point of fact in progress within the towering walls +of the Marienkirche—a cathedral built of red brick in the great +days of the Hanseatic League.</p> +<p>“Who is it?” asked a stout fishwife, stepping over the +threshold to whisper to Peter Koch.</p> +<p>“It is the younger daughter of Antoine Sebastian,” replied +the verger, indicating with a nod of his head the house on the left-hand +side of the Frauengasse where Sebastian lived. There was a wealth +of meaning in the nod. For Peter Koch lived round the corner in +the Kleine Schmiedegasse, and of course—well, it is only neighbourly +to take an interest in those who drink milk from the same cow and buy +wood from the same Jew.</p> +<p>The fishwife looked thoughtfully down the Frauengasse where every +house has a different gable, and none of less than three floors within +the pitch of the roof. She singled out No. 36, which has a carved +stone balustrade to its broad verandah and a railing of wrought-iron +on either side of the steps descending from the verandah to the street.</p> +<p>“They teach dancing?” she inquired.</p> +<p>And Koch nodded again, taking snuff.</p> +<p>“And he—the father?”</p> +<p>“He scrapes a fiddle,” replied the verger, examining +the lady’s basket of fish in a non-committing and final way. +For a locksmith is almost as confidential an adviser as a notary. +The Dantzigers, moreover, are a thrifty race and keep their money in +a safe place; a habit which was to cost many of them their lives before +the coming of another June.</p> +<p>The marriage service was a long one and not exhilarating. Through +the open door came no sound of organ or choir, but the deep and monotonous +drawl of one voice. There had been no ringing of bells. +The north countries, with the exception of Russia, require more than +the ringing of bells or the waving of flags to warm their hearts. +They celebrate their festivities with good meat and wine consumed decently +behind closed doors.</p> +<p>Dantzig was in fact under a cloud. No larger than a man’s +hand, this cloud had risen in Corsica forty-three years earlier. +It had overshadowed France. Its gloom had spread to Italy, Austria, +Spain; had penetrated so far north as Sweden; was now hanging sullen +over Dantzig, the greatest of the Hanseatic towns, the Free City. +For a Dantziger had never needed to say that he was a Pole or a Prussian, +a Swede or a subject of the Czar. He was a Dantziger. Which +is tantamount to having for a postal address a single name that is marked +on the map.</p> +<p>Napoleon had garrisoned the Free City with French troops some years +earlier, to the sullen astonishment of the citizens. And Prussia +had not objected for a very obvious reason. Within the last fourteen +months the garrison had been greatly augmented. The clouds seemed +to be gathering over this prosperous city of the north, where, however, +men continued to eat and drink, to marry and to be given in marriage +as in another city of the plain.</p> +<p>Peter Koch replaced his snuff-stained handkerchief in the pocket +of his rusty cassock and stood aside. He murmured a few conventional +words of blessing, hard on the heels of stronger exhortations to the +waiting children. And Désirée Sebastian came out +into the sunlight—Désirée Sebastian no more.</p> +<p>That she was destined for the sunlight was clearly written on her +face and in her gay, kind blue eyes. She was tall and straight +and slim, as are English and Polish and Danish girls, and none other +in all the world. But the colouring of her face and hair was more +pronounced than in the fairness of Anglo-Saxon youth. For her +hair had a golden tinge in it, and her skin was of that startlingly +milky whiteness which is only found in those who live round the frozen +waters. Her eyes, too, were of a clearer blue—like the blue +of a summer sky over the Baltic sea. The rosy colour was in her +cheeks, her eyes were laughing. This was a bride who had no misgivings.</p> +<p>On seeing such a happy face returning from the altar the observer +might have concluded that the bride had assuredly attained her desire; +that she had secured a title; that the pre-nuptial settlement had been +safely signed and sealed.</p> +<p>But Désirée had none of these things. It was +nearly a hundred years ago.</p> +<p>Her husband must have whispered some laughing comment on Koch, or +another appeal to her quick sense of the humorous, for she looked into +his changing face and gave a low, girlish laugh of amusement as they +descended the steps together into the brilliant sunlight.</p> +<p>Charles Darragon wore one of the countless uniforms that enlivened +the outward world in the great days of the greatest captain that history +has seen. He was unmistakably French—unmistakably a French +gentleman, as rare in 1812 as he is to-day. To judge from his +small head and clean-cut features, fine and mobile; from his graceful +carriage and slight limbs, this man was one of the many bearing names +that begin with the fourth letter of the alphabet since the Terror only.</p> +<p>He was merely a lieutenant in a regiment of Alsatian recruits; but +that went for nothing in the days of the Empire. Three kings in +Europe had begun no farther up the ladder.</p> +<p>The Frauengasse is a short street, made narrow by the terrace that +each house throws outward from its face, each seeking to gain a few +inches on its neighbour. It runs from the Marienkirche to the +Frauenthor, and remains to-day as it was built three hundred years ago.</p> +<p>Désirée nodded and laughed to the children, who interested +her. She was quite simple and womanly, as some women, it is to +be hoped, may succeed in continuing until the end of time. She +was always pleased to see children; was glad, it seemed, that they should +have congregated on the steps to watch her pass. Charles, with +a faint and unconscious reflex of that grand manner which had brought +his father to the guillotine, felt in his pocket for money, and found +none.</p> +<p>He jerked his hand out with widespread fingers, in a gesture indicative +of familiarity with the nakedness of the land.</p> +<p>“I have nothing, little citizens,” he said with a mock +gravity; “nothing but my blessing.”</p> +<p>And he made a gay gesture with his left hand over their heads, not +the act of benediction, but of peppering, which made them all laugh. +The bride and bridegroom passing on joined in the laughter with hearts +as light and voices scarcely less youthful.</p> +<p>The Frauengasse is intersected by the Pfaffengasse at right angles, +through which narrow and straight street passes much of the traffic +towards the Langenmarkt, the centre of the town. As the little +bridal procession reached the corner of this street, it halted at the +approach of some mounted troops. There was nothing unusual in +this sight in the streets of Dantzig, which were accustomed now to the +clatter of the Saxon cavalry.</p> +<p>But at the sight of the first troopers Charles Darragon threw up +his head with a little exclamation of surprise.</p> +<p>Désirée looked at him and then turned to follow the +direction of his gaze.</p> +<p>“What are these?” she murmured. For the uniforms +were new and unfamiliar.</p> +<p>“Cavalry of the Old Guard,” replied her husband, and +as he spoke he caught his breath.</p> +<p>The horsemen vanished into the continuation of the Pfaffengasse, +and immediately behind them came a travelling carriage, swung on high +wheels, three times the size of a Dantzig drosky, white with dust. +It had small square windows. As Désirée drew back +in obedience to a movement of her husband’s arm, she saw a face +for an instant—pale and set—with eyes that seemed to look +at everything and yet at something beyond.</p> +<p>“Who was it? He looked at you, Charles,” said Désirée.</p> +<p>“It is the Emperor,” answered Darragon. His face +was white. His eyes were dull, like the eyes of one who has seen +a vision and is not yet back to earth.</p> +<p>Désirée turned to those behind her.</p> +<p>“It is the Emperor,” she said, with an odd ring in her +voice which none had ever heard before. Then she stood looking +after the carriage.</p> +<p>Her father, who was at her elbow—tall, white-haired, with an +aquiline, inscrutable face—stood in a like attitude, looking down +the Pfaffengasse. His hand was raised before his face with outspread +fingers which seemed rigid in that gesture, as if lifted hastily to +screen his face and hide it.</p> +<p>“Did he see me?” he asked in a low voice which only Désirée +heard.</p> +<p>She glanced at him, and her eyes, which were clear as a cloudless +sky, were suddenly shadowed by a suspicion quick and poignant.</p> +<p>“He seemed to see everything, but he only looked at Charles,” +she answered. For a moment they all stood in the sunshine looking +towards the Langenmarkt where the tower of the Rathhaus rose above the +high roofs. The dust raised by the horses’ feet and the +carriage wheels slowly settled on their bridal clothes.</p> +<p>It was Désirée who at length made a movement to continue +their way towards her father’s house.</p> +<p>“Well,” she said with a slight laugh, “he was not +bidden to my wedding, but he has come all the same.”</p> +<p>Others laughed as they followed her. For a bride at the church-door, +or a judge on the bench, or a criminal on the scaffold-steps, need make +but a very small joke to cause merriment. Laughter is often nothing +but the froth of tears.</p> +<p>There were faces suddenly bleached in the little group of wedding-guests, +and none were whiter than the handsome features of Mathilde Sebastian, +Désirée’s elder sister, who looked angry, had frowned +at the children, and seemed to find this simple wedding too bourgeois +for her taste. She carried her head with an air that told the +world not to expect that she should ever be content to marry in such +a humble style, and walk from the church in satin slippers like any +daughter of a burgher.</p> +<p>This, at all events, was what old Koch the locksmith must have read +in her beautiful, discontented face.</p> +<p>“Ah! ah!” he muttered to the bolts as he shot them. +“But it is not the lightest hearts that quit the church in a carriage.”</p> +<p>So simple were the arrangements that bride and bridegroom and wedding-guests +had to wait in the street while the servant unlocked the front door +of No. 36 with a great key hurriedly extracted from her apron-pocket.</p> +<p>There was no unusual stir in the street. The windows of one +or two of the houses had been decorated with flowers. These were +the houses of friends. Others were silent and still behind their +lace curtains, where there doubtless lurked peeping and criticizing +eyes—the house of a neighbour.</p> +<p>The wedding-guests were few in number. Only one of them had +a distinguished air, and he, like the bridegroom, wore the uniform of +France. He was a small man, somewhat brusque in attitude, as became +a soldier of Italy and Egypt. But he had a pleasant smile and +that affability of manner which many learnt in the first years of the +great Republic. He and Mathilde Sebastian never looked at each +other: either an understanding or a misunderstanding.</p> +<p>The host, Antoine Sebastian, played his part well enough when he +remembered that he had a part to play. He listened with a kind +attention to the story of a very old lady, who it seemed had been married +herself, but it was so long ago that the human interest of it all was +lost in a pottle of petty detail which was all she could recall. +Before the story was half finished, Sebastian’s attention had +strayed elsewhere, though his spare figure remained in its attitude +of attention and polite forbearance. His mind had, it would seem, +a trick of thus wandering away and leaving his body rigid in the last +attitude that it had dictated.</p> +<p>Sebastian did not notice that the door was open and all the guests +were waiting for him to lead the way.</p> +<p>“Now, old dreamer,” whispered Désirée, +with a quick pinch on his arm, “take the Gräfin upstairs +to the drawing-room and give her wine. You are to drink our healths, +remember.”</p> +<p>“Is there wine?” he asked with a vague smile. “Where +has it come from?”</p> +<p>“Like other good things, my father-in-law,” replied Charles +with his easy laugh, “it comes from France.”</p> +<p>They spoke together thus in confidence, in the language of that same +sunny land. But when Sebastian turned again to the old lady, still +recalling the details of that other wedding, he addressed her in German, +offering his arm with a sudden stiffness of gesture which he seemed +to put on with the change of tongue.</p> +<p>They passed up the low time-worn steps arm-in-arm, and beneath the +high carved doorway, whereon some pious Hanseatic merchant had inscribed +his belief that if God be in the house there is no need of a watchman, +emphasizing his creed by bolts and locks of enormous strength, and bars +to every window.</p> +<p>The servant in her Samland Sunday dress, having shaken her fist at +the children, closed the door behind the last guest, and, so far as +the Frauengasse was concerned, the exciting incident was over. +From the open window came only the murmur of quiet voices, the clink +of glasses at the drinking of a toast, or a laugh in the clear voice +of the bride herself. For Désirée persisted in her +optimistic view of these proceedings, though her husband scarcely helped +her now at all, and seemed a different man since the passage through +the Pfaffengasse of that dusty travelling carriage which had played +the part of the stormy petrel from end to end of Europe.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER II. A CAMPAIGNER.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>Not what I am, but what I Do, is +my Kingdom.</i></p> +<p>Désirée had made all her own wedding-clothes. +“Her poor little marriage-basket,” she called it. +She had even made the cake which was now cut with some ceremony by her +father.</p> +<p>“I tremble,” she exclaimed aloud, “to think what +it may be like in the middle.”</p> +<p>And Mathilde was the only person there who did not smile at the unconscious +admission. The cake was still under discussion, and the Gräfin +had just admitted that it was almost as good as that other cake which +had been consumed in the days of Frederick the Great, when the servant +called Désirée from the room.</p> +<p>“It is a soldier,” she said in a whisper at the head +of the stairs. “He has a paper in his hand. I know +what that means. He is quartered on us.”</p> +<p>Désirée hurried downstairs. In the entrance-hall, +a broad-built little man stood awaiting her. He was stout and +red, with hair all ragged at the temples, almost white. His eyes +were lost behind shaggy eyebrows. His face was made broader by +little whiskers stopping short at the level of his ear. He had +a snuff-blown complexion, and in the wrinkles of his face the dust of +a dozen campaigns seemed to have accumulated.</p> +<p>“Barlasch,” he said curtly, holding out a long strip +of blue paper. “Of the Guard. Once a sergeant. +Italy, Egypt, the Danube.”</p> +<p>He frowned at Désirée while she read the paper in the +dim light that filtered through the twisted bars of the fanlight above +the door.</p> +<p>Then he turned to the servant who stood, comely and breathless, looking +him up and down.</p> +<p>“Papa Barlasch,” he added for her edification, and he +drew down his left eyebrow with a jerk, so that it almost touched his +cheek. His right eye, grey and piercing, returned her astonished +gaze with a fierce steadfastness.</p> +<p>“Does this mean that you are quartered upon us?” asked +Désirée without seeking to hide her disgust. She +spoke in her own tongue.</p> +<p>“French?” said the soldier, looking at her. “Good. +Yes. I am quartered here. Thirty-six, Frauengasse. +Sebastian; musician. You are lucky to get me. I always give +satisfaction—ha!”</p> +<p>He gave a curt laugh in one syllable only. His left arm was +curved round a bundle of wood bound together by a red pocket-handkerchief +not innocent of snuff. He held out this bundle to Désirée, +as Solomon may have held out some great gift to the Queen of Sheba to +smooth the first doubtful steps of friendship.</p> +<p>Désirée accepted the gift and stood in her wedding-dress +holding the bundle of wood against her breast. Then a gleam of +the one grey eye that was visible conveyed to her the fact that this +walnut-faced warrior was smiling. She laughed gaily.</p> +<p>“It is well,” said Barlasch. “We are friends. +You are lucky to get me. You may not think so now. Would +this woman like me to speak to her in Polish or German?”</p> +<p>“Do you speak so many languages?”</p> +<p>He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his arms as far as his many +burdens allowed. For he was hung round with a hundred parcels +and packages.</p> +<p>“The Old Guard,” he said, “can always make itself +understood.”</p> +<p>He rubbed his hands together with the air of a brisk man ready for +any sort of work.</p> +<p>“Now, where shall I sleep?” he asked. “One +is not particular, you understand. A few minutes and one is at +home—perhaps peeling the potatoes. It is only a civilian +who is ashamed of using his knife on a potato. Papa Barlasch, +they call me.”</p> +<p>Without awaiting an invitation he went forward towards the kitchen. +He seemed to know the house by instinct. His progress was accompanied +by a clatter of utensils like that which heralds the coming of a carrier’s +cart.</p> +<p>At the kitchen door he stopped and sniffed loudly. There certainly +was a slight odour of burning fat. Papa Barlasch turned and shook +an admonitory finger at the servant, but he said nothing. He looked +round at the highly polished utensils, at the table and floor both alike +scrubbed clean by a vigorous northern arm. And he was kind enough +to nod approval.</p> +<p>“On a campaign,” he said to no one in particular, “a +little bit of horse thrust into the cinders on the end of a bayonet—but +in times of peace . . .”</p> +<p>He broke off and made a gesture towards the saucepans which indicated +quite clearly that he was between campaigns—inclined to good living.</p> +<p>“I am a rude fork,” he jerked to Désirée +over his shoulder in the dialect of the Côtes du Nord.</p> +<p>“How long will you be here?” asked Désirée, +who was eminently practical. A billet was a misfortune which Charles +Darragon had hitherto succeeded in warding off. He had some small +influence as an officer of the head-quarters’ staff.</p> +<p>Barlasch held up a reproving hand. The question, he seemed +to think, was not quite delicate.</p> +<p>“I pay my own,” he said. “Give and take—that +is my motto. When you have nothing to give . . . offer a smile.”</p> +<p>With a gesture he indicated the bundle of firewood which Désirée +still absent-mindedly carried against her white dress. He turned +and opened a cupboard low down on the floor at the left-hand side of +the fireplace. He seemed to know by an instinct usually possessed +by charwomen and other domesticated persons of experience where the +firewood was kept. Lisa gave a little exclamation of surprise +at his impertinence and his perspicacity. He took the firewood, +unknotted his handkerchief, and threw his offering into the cupboard. +Then he turned and perceived for the first time that Désirée +had a bright ribbon at her waist and on her shoulders; that a thin chain +of gold was round her throat and that there were flowers at her breast.</p> +<p>“A fête?” he inquired curtly.</p> +<p>“My marriage fête,” she answered. “I +was married half an hour ago.”</p> +<p>He looked at her beneath his grizzled brows. His face was only +capable of producing one expression—a shaggy weather-beaten fierceness. +But, like a dog which can express more than many human beings, by a +hundred instinctive gestures he could, it seemed, dispense with words +on occasion and get on quite as well without them. He clearly +disapproved of Désirée’s marriage, and drew her +attention to the fact that she was no more than a schoolgirl with an +inconsequent brain, and little limbs too slight to fight a successful +battle in a world full of cruelty and danger.</p> +<p>Then he made a gesture half of apology as if recognizing that it +was no business of his, and turned away thoughtfully.</p> +<p>“I had troubles of that sort myself,” he explained, putting +together the embers on the hearth with the point of a twisted, rusty +bayonet, “but that was long ago. Well, I can drink your +health all the same, mademoiselle.”</p> +<p>He turned to Lisa with a friendly nod and put out his tongue, in +the manner of the people, to indicate that his lips were dry.</p> +<p>Désirée had always been the housekeeper. It was +to her that Lisa naturally turned in her extremity at the invasion of +her kitchen by Papa Barlasch. And when that warrior had been supplied +with beer it was with Désirée, in an agitated whisper +in the great dark dining-room with its gloomy old pictures and heavy +carving, that she took counsel as to where he should be quartered.</p> +<p>The object of their solicitude himself interrupted their hurried +consultation by opening the door and putting his shaggy head round the +corner of it.</p> +<p>“It is not worth while to consult long about it,” he +said. “There is a little room behind the kitchen, that opens +into the yard. It is full of boxes. But we can move them—a +little straw—and there!”</p> +<p>With a gesture he described a condition of domestic peace and comfort +which far exceeded his humble requirements.</p> +<p>“The blackbeetles and I are old friends,” he concluded +cheerfully.</p> +<p>“There are no blackbeetles in the house, monsieur,” said +Désirée, hesitating to accept his proposal.</p> +<p>“Then I shall resign myself to my solitude,” he answered. +“It is quiet. I shall not hear the patron touching on his +violin. It is that which occupies his leisure, is it not?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” answered Désirée, still considering +the question.</p> +<p>“I too am a musician,” said Papa Barlasch, turning towards +the kitchen again. “I played a drum at Marengo.”</p> +<p>And as he led the way to the little room in the yard at the back +of the kitchen, he expressed by a shake of the head a fellow-feeling +for the gentleman upstairs, whose acquaintance he had not yet made, +who occupied his leisure by touching the violin.</p> +<p>They stood together in the small apartment which Barlasch, with the +promptitude of an experienced conqueror, had set apart for his own accommodation.</p> +<p>“Those trunks,” he observed casually, “were made +in France”—a mental note which he happened to make aloud, +as some do for better remembrance. “This solid girl and +I will soon move them. And you, mademoiselle, go back to your +wedding.”</p> +<p>“The good God be merciful to you,” he added under his +breath when Désirée had gone.</p> +<p>She laughed as she mounted the stairs, a slim white figure amid the +heavy woodwork long since blackened by time. The stairs made no +sound beneath her light step. How many weary feet had climbed +them since they were built! For the Dantzigers have been a people +of sorrow, torn by wars, starved by siege, tossed from one conqueror +to another from the beginning until now.</p> +<p>Désirée excused herself for her absence and frankly +gave the cause. She was disposed to make light of the incident. +It was natural to her to be optimistic. Both she and Mathilde +made a practice of withholding from their father’s knowledge the +smaller worries of daily life which sour so many women and make them +whine on platforms to be given the larger woes.</p> +<p>She was glad to note that her father did not attach much importance +to the arrival of Papa Barlasch; though Mathilde found opportunity to +convey her displeasure at the news by a movement of the eyebrows.</p> +<p>Antoine Sebastian had applied himself seriously now to his <i>rôle</i> +of host, so rarely played in the Frauengasse. He was courteous +and quick to see a want or a possible desire of any one of his guests. +It was part of his sense of hospitality to dismiss all personal matters, +and especially a personal trouble, from public attention.</p> +<p>“They will attend to him in the kitchen, no doubt,” he +said with that grand air which the dancing academy tried to imitate.</p> +<p>Charles hardly noted what Désirée said. So sunny +a nature as his might have been expected to make light of a minor trouble, +more especially the minor trouble of another. He was unusually +thoughtful. Some event of the morning had, it would appear, given +him pause on his primrose path. He glanced more than once over +his shoulder towards the window, which stood open. He seemed at +times to listen.</p> +<p>Suddenly he rose and went to the window. His action caused +a brief silence, and all heard the clatter of a horse’s feet and +the quick rattle of a sword against spur and buckle.</p> +<p>After a glance he came back into the room.</p> +<p>“Excuse me,” he said, with a bow towards Mathilde. +“It is, I think, a messenger for me.”</p> +<p>And he hurried downstairs. He did not return at once, and soon +the conversation became general again.</p> +<p>“You,” said the Gräfin, touching Désirée’s +arm with her fan, “you, who are now his wife, must be dying to +know what has called him away. Do not consider the ‘convenances,’ +my child.”</p> +<p>Désirée, thus admonished, followed Charles. She +had not been aware of this consuming curiosity until it was suggested +to her.</p> +<p>She found Charles standing at the open door. He thrust a letter +into his pocket as she approached him, and turned towards her the face +that she had seen for a moment when he drew her back at the corner of +the Pfaffengasse to allow the Emperor’s carriage to pass on its +way. It was the white, half-stupefied face of one who has for +an instant seen a vision of things not earthly.</p> +<p>“I have been sent for by the . . . I am wanted at head-quarters,” +he said vaguely. “I shall not be long . . .”</p> +<p>He took his shako, looked at her with an odd attempt to simulate +cheerfulness, kissed her fingers and hurried out into the street.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER III. FATE.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>We pass; the path that each man +trod<br /> Is dim; or will be dim, with +weeds.</i></p> +<p>When Désirée turned towards the stairs, she met the +guests descending. They were taking their leave as they came down, +hurriedly, like persons conscious of having outstayed their welcome.</p> +<p>Mathilde listened coldly to the conventional excuses. So few +people recognize the simple fact that they need never apologize for +going away. Sebastian stood at the head of the stairs bowing in +his most Germanic manner. The urbane host, with a charm entirely +French, who had dispensed a simple hospitality so easily and gracefully +a few minutes earlier, seemed to have disappeared behind a pale and +formal mask.</p> +<p>Désirée was glad to see them go. There was a +sense of uneasiness, a vague unrest in the air. There was something +amiss. The wedding party had been a failure. All had gone +well and merrily up to a certain point—at the corner of the Pfaffengasse, +when the dusty travelling carriage passed across their path. From +that moment there had been a change. A shadow seemed to have fallen +across the sunny nature of the proceedings; for never had bride and +bridegroom set forth together with lighter hearts than those carried +by Charles and Désirée Darragon down the steps of the +Marienkirche.</p> +<p>During its progress across the whole width of Germany, the carriage +had left unrest behind it. Men had travelled night and day to +stand sleepless by the roadside and see it pass. Whole cities +had been kept astir till morning by the mere rumour that its flying +wheels would be heard in the streets before dawn. Hatred and adoration, +fear and that dread tightening of the heart-strings which is caused +by the shadow of the superhuman, had sprung into being at the mere sound +of its approach.</p> +<p>When therefore it passed across the Frauengasse, throwing its dust +upon Désirée’s wedding-dress, it was only fulfilling +a mission. When it broke in upon the lives of these few persons +seeking dimly for their happiness—as the heathen grope for an +unknown God—and threw down carefully constructed plans, swept +aside the strongest will and crushed the stoutest heart, it was only +working out its destiny. The dust sprinkled on Désirée’s +hair had fallen on the faces of thousands of dead. The unrest +that entered into the quiet little house on the left-hand side of the +Frauengasse had made its way across a thousand thresholds, of Arab tent +and imperial palace alike. The lives of millions were affected +by it, the secret hopes of thousands were undermined by it. It +disturbed the sleep of half the world, and made men old before their +time.</p> +<p>“More troops must have arrived,” said Désirée, +already busying herself to set the house in order, “since they +have been forced to billet this man with us. And now they have +sent for Charles, though he is really on leave of absence.”</p> +<p>She glanced at the clock.</p> +<p>“I hope he will not be late. The chaise is to come at +four o’clock. There is still time for me to help you.”</p> +<p>Mathilde made no answer. Their father stood near the window. +He was looking out with thoughtful eyes. His face was drawn downwards +by a hundred fine wrinkles. It was the face of one brooding over +a sorrow or a vengeance. There was something in his whole being +suggestive of a bygone prosperity. This was a lean man who had +once been well-seeming.</p> +<p>“No!” said Désirée gaily, “we were +a dull company. We need not disguise it. It all came from +that man crossing our path in his dusty carriage.”</p> +<p>“He is on his way to Russia,” Sebastian said jerkily. +“God spare me to see him return!”</p> +<p>Désirée and Mathilde exchanged a glance of uneasiness. +It seemed that their father was subject to certain humours which they +had reason to dread. Désirée left her occupation +and went to him, linking her arm in his and standing beside him.</p> +<p>“Do not let us think of disagreeable things to-day,” +she said. “God will spare you much longer than that, you +depressing old wedding-guest!”</p> +<p>He patted her hand which rested on his arm and looked down at her +with eyes softened by affection. But her fair hair, rather tumbled, +which met his glance must have awakened some memory that made his face +a marble mask again.</p> +<p>“Yes,” he said grimly, “but I am an old man and +he is a young one. And I want to see him dead before I die.”</p> +<p>“I will not have you think such bloodthirsty thoughts on my +wedding-day,” said Désirée. “See, there +is Charles returning already, and he has not been absent ten minutes. +He has some one with him—who is it? Papa . . . Mathilde, +look! Who is it coming back with Charles in such a hurry?”</p> +<p>Mathilde, who was setting the room in order, glanced through the +lace curtains.</p> +<p>“I do not know,” she answered indifferently. “Just +an ordinary man.”</p> +<p>Désirée had turned away from the window as if to go +downstairs and meet her husband. She paused and looked back again +over her shoulder towards the street.</p> +<p>“Is it?” she said rather oddly. “I do not +know—I—”</p> +<p>And she stood with the incompleted sentence on her lips waiting irresolutely +for Charles to come upstairs.</p> +<p>In a moment he burst into the room with all his usual exuberance +and high spirit.</p> +<p>“Picture to yourselves!” he cried, standing in the doorway +with his arms extended before him. “I was hurrying to head-quarters +when I ran into the embrace of my dear Louis—my cousin. +I have told you a hundred times that he is brother and father and everything +to me. I am so glad that he should come to-day of all days.”</p> +<p>He turned towards the stairs with a gesture of welcome, still with +his two arms outheld, as if inviting the man, who came rather slowly +upstairs, to come to his embrace and to the embrace of those who were +now his relations.</p> +<p>“There was a little suspicion of sadness—I do not know +what it was—at the table; but now it is all gone. All is +well now that this unexpected guest has come. This dear Louis.”</p> +<p>He went to the landing as he spoke, and returned bringing by the +arm a man taller than himself and darker, with a still brown face and +steady eyes set close together. He had a lean look of good breeding.</p> +<p>“This dear Louis!” repeated Charles. “My +only relative in all the world. My cousin, Louis d’Arragon. +But he, <i>par exemple</i>, spells his name in two words.”</p> +<p>The man bowed gravely—a comprehensive bow; but he looked at +Désirée.</p> +<p>“This is my father-in-law,” continued Charles breathlessly. +“Monsieur Antoine Sebastian, and Désirée and Mathilde—my +wife, my dear Louis—your cousin, Désirée.”</p> +<p>He had turned again to Louis and shook him by the shoulders in the +fulness of his joy. He had not distinguished between Mathilde +and Désirée, and it was towards Mathilde that D’Arragon +looked with a polite and rather formal repetition of his bow.</p> +<p>“It is I . . . I am Désirée,” said +the younger sister, coming forward with a slow gesture of shyness.</p> +<p>D’Arragon took her hand.</p> +<p>“I have been happy,” he said, “in the moment of +my arrival.”</p> +<p>Then he turned to Mathilde and bowed over the hand she held out to +him. Sebastian had come forward with a sudden return of his gracious +and rather old-world manner. He did not offer to shake hands, +but bowed.</p> +<p>“A son of Louis d’Arragon who was fortunate enough to +escape to England?” he inquired with a courteous gesture.</p> +<p>“The only son,” replied the new-comer.</p> +<p>“I am honoured to make the acquaintance of Monsieur le Marquis,” +said Antoine Sebastian slowly.</p> +<p>“Oh, you must not call me that,” replied D’Arragon +with a short laugh. “I am an English sailor—that is +all.”</p> +<p>“And now, my dear Louis, I leave you,” broke in Charles, +who had rather impatiently awaited the end of these formalities. +“A brief half-hour and I am with you again. You will stay +here till I return.”</p> +<p>He turned, nodded gaily to Désirée and ran downstairs.</p> +<p>Through the open windows they heard his quick, light footfall as +he hurried up the Frauengasse. Something made them silent, listening +to it.</p> +<p>It was not difficult to see that D’Arragon was a sailor. +Not only had he the brown face of those who live in the open, but he +had the attentive air of one whose waking moments are a watch.</p> +<p>“You look at one as if one were the horizon,” Désirée +said to him long afterwards. But it was at this moment in the +drawing-room in the Frauengasse that the comparison formed itself in +her mind.</p> +<p>His face was rather narrow, with a square chin and straight lips. +He was not quick in speech like Charles, but seemed to think before +he spoke, with the result that he often appeared to be about to say +something, and was interrupted before the words had been uttered.</p> +<p>“Unless my memory is a bad one, your mother was an Englishwoman, +monsieur,” said Sebastian, “which would account for your +being in the English service.”</p> +<p>“Not entirely,” answered d’Arragon, “though +my mother was indeed English and died—in a French prison. +But it was from a sense of gratitude that my father placed me in the +English service—and I have never regretted it, monsieur.”</p> +<p>“Your father received kindnesses at English hands, after his +escape, like many others.”</p> +<p>“Yes, and he was too old to repay them by doing the country +any service himself. He would have done it if he could—”</p> +<p>D’Arragon paused, looking steadily at the tall old man who +listened to him with averted eyes.</p> +<p>“My father was one of those,” he said at length, “who +did not think that in fighting for Bonaparte one was necessarily fighting +for France.”</p> +<p>Sebastian held up a warning hand.</p> +<p>“In England—” he corrected, “in England one +may think such things. But not in France, and still less in Dantzig.”</p> +<p>“If one is an Englishman,” replied D’Arragon with +a smile, “one may think them where one likes, and say them when +one is disposed. It is one of the privileges of the nation, monsieur.”</p> +<p>He made the statement lightly, seeing the humour of it with a cosmopolitan +understanding, without any suggestion of the boastfulness of youth. +Désirée noticed that his hair was turning grey at the +temples.</p> +<p>“I did not know,” he said, turning to her, “that +Charles was in Dantzig, much less that he was celebrating so happy an +occasion. We ran against each other by accident in the street. +It was a lucky accident that allowed me to make your acquaintance so +soon after you have become his wife.”</p> +<p>“It scarcely seems possible that it should be an accident,” +said Désirée. “It must have been the work +of fate—if fate has time to think of such an insignificant person +as myself and so small an event as my marriage in these days.”</p> +<p>“Fate,” put in Mathilde in her composed voice and manner, +“has come to Dantzig to-day.”</p> +<p>“Ah!”</p> +<p>“Yes. You are the second unexpected arrival this afternoon.”</p> +<p>D’Arragon turned and looked at Mathilde. His manner, +always grave and attentive, was that of a reader who has found an interesting +book on a dusty shelf.</p> +<p>“Has the Emperor come?” he asked.</p> +<p>Mathilde nodded.</p> +<p>“I thought I saw something in Charles’s face,” +he said reflectively, looking back through the open door towards the +stairs where Charles had nodded farewell to them. “So the +Emperor is here, in Dantzig?”</p> +<p>He turned towards Sebastian, who stood with a stony face.</p> +<p>“Which means war,” he said.</p> +<p>“It always means war,” replied Sebastian in a tired voice. +“Is he again going to prove himself stronger than any?”</p> +<p>“Some day he will make a mistake,” said D’Arragon +cheerfully. “And then will come the day of reckoning.”</p> +<p>“Ah!” said Sebastian, with a shake of the head that seemed +to indicate an account so one-sided that none could ever liquidate it. +“You are young, monsieur. You are full of hope.”</p> +<p>“I am not young—I am thirty-one—but I am, as you +say, full of hope. I look to that day, Monsieur Sebastian.”</p> +<p>“And in the mean time?” suggested the man who seemed +but a shadow of someone standing apart and far away from the affairs +of daily life</p> +<p>“In the mean time one must play one’s part,” returned +D’Arragon, with his almost inaudible laugh, “whatever it +may be.”</p> +<p>There was no foreboding in his voice; no second meaning in the words. +He was open and simple and practical, like the life he led.</p> +<p>“Then you have a part to play, too,” said Désirée, +thinking of Charles, who had been called away at such an inopportune +moment, and had gone without complaint. “It is the penalty +we pay for living in one of the less dull periods of history. +He touches your life too.”</p> +<p>“He touches every one’s life, mademoiselle. That +is what makes him so great a man. Yes. I have a little part +to play. I am like one of the unseen supernumeraries who has to +see that a door is open to allow the great actors to make an effective +<i>entrée</i>. I am lent to Russia for the war that is +coming. It is a little part. I have to keep open one small +portion of the line of communication between England and St. Petersburg, +so that news may pass to and fro.”</p> +<p>He glanced towards Mathilde as he spoke. She was listening +with an odd eagerness which he noted, as he noted everything, methodically +and surely. He remembered it afterwards.</p> +<p>“That will not be easy, with Denmark friendly to France,” +said Sebastian, “and every Prussian port closed to you.”</p> +<p>“But Sweden will help. She is not friendly to France.”</p> +<p>Sebastian laughed, and made a gesture with his white and elegant +hand, of contempt and ridicule.</p> +<p>“And, <i>bon Dieu</i>! what a friendship it is,” he exclaimed, +“that is based on the fear of being taken for an enemy.”</p> +<p>“It is a friendship that waits its time, monsieur,” said +D’Arragon taking up his hat.</p> +<p>“Then you have a ship, monsieur, here in the Baltic?” +asked Mathilde with more haste than was characteristic of her usual +utterance.</p> +<p>“A very small one, mademoiselle,” he answered. +“So small that I could turn her round here in the Frauengasse.”</p> +<p>“But she is fast?”</p> +<p>“The fastest in the Baltic, mademoiselle,” he answered. +“And that is why I must take my leave—with the news you +have told me.”</p> +<p>He shook hands as he spoke, and bowed to Sebastian, whose generation +was content with the more formal salutation. Désirée +went to the door, and led the way downstairs.</p> +<p>“We have but one servant,” she said, “who is busy.”</p> +<p>On the doorstep he paused for a moment. And Désirée +seemed to expect him to do so.</p> +<p>“Charles and I have always been like brothers—you will +remember that always, will you not?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” she answered with her gay nod. “I +will remember.”</p> +<p>“Then good-bye, mademoiselle.”</p> +<p>“Madame,” she corrected lightly.</p> +<p>“Madame, my cousin,” he said, and departed smiling.</p> +<p>Désirée went slowly upstairs again.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER IV. THE CLOUDED MOON.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>Quand on se méfie on se trompe, quand on ne +se méfie pas, on est trompé.</i></p> +<p>Charles Darragon had come to Dantzig a year earlier. He was +a lieutenant in an infantry regiment, and he was twenty-five. +Many of his contemporaries were colonels in these days of quick promotion, +when men lived at such a rate that few of them lived long. But +Charles was too easy-going to envy any man.</p> +<p>When he arrived he knew no one in Dantzig, had few friends in the +army of occupation. In six months he possessed acquaintances in +every street, and was on terms of easy familiarity with all his fellow-officers.</p> +<p>“If the army of occupation had more officers like young Darragon,” +a town councillor had grimly said to Rapp, “the Dantzigers would +soon be resigned to your presence.”</p> +<p>It seemed that Charles had the gift of popularity. He was open +and hearty, hail-fellow-well-met with the new-comers, who were numerous +enough at this time, quick to understand the quiet men, ready to make +merry with the gay. Regarding himself, he was quite open and frank.</p> +<p>“I am a poor devil of a lieutenant,” he said, “that +is all.”</p> +<p>Reserve is fatal to popularity, yet friendship cannot exist without +it. Charles had, it seemed, nothing to hide, and was indifferent +to the secrets of others. It is such people who receive many confidences.</p> +<p>“But it must go no farther . . .” a hundred men had said +to him.</p> +<p>“My friend, by to-morrow I shall have forgotten all about it,” +he invariably replied, which men remembered afterwards and were glad.</p> +<p>A certain sort of friendship seemed to exist between Charles Darragon +and Colonel de Casimir—not without patronage on one side and a +slightly constraining sense of obligation on the other. It was +de Casimir who had introduced Charles to Mathilde Sebastian at a formal +reception at General Rapp’s. Charles, of course, fell in +love with Mathilde, and out again after half-an-hour’s conversation. +There was something cold and calculating about Mathilde which held him +at arm’s length with as much efficacy as the strictest duenna. +Indeed, there are some maidens who require no better chaperon for their +hearts than their own heads.</p> +<p>A few days after this introduction Charles met Mathilde and Désirée +in the Langgasse, and he fell in love with Désirée. +He went about for a whole week seeking opportunity to tell her without +delay what had happened to him. The opportunity presented itself +before long; for one morning he saw her walking quickly towards the +Kuh-brücke with her skates swinging from her wrist. It was +a sunny, still, winter morning, such as temperate countries never know. +Désirée’s eyes were bright with youth and happiness. +The cold air had slightly emphasized the rosy colour of her cheeks.</p> +<p>Charles caught his breath at the sight of her, though she did not +happen to perceive him. He called a sleigh and drove to the barracks +for his own skates. Then to the Kuh-brücke, where a reach +of the Mottlau was cleared and kept in order for skating. He overpaid +the sleigh-driver and laughed aloud at the man’s boorish surprise. +There was no one so happy as Charles Darragon in all the world. +He was going to tell Désirée that he loved her.</p> +<p>At first Désirée was surprised, as was only natural. +For she had not thought again of the pleasant young officer introduced +to her by Mathilde. They had not even commented on him after he +had made his gay bow and gone.</p> +<p>She had of course thought of these things in the abstract when her +busy mind had nothing more material and immediate to consider. +She had probably arranged how some abstract person should some day tell +her of his love and how she should make reply. But she had never +imagined the incident as it actually happened. She had never pictured +a youth in a gay uniform looking down at her with ardent eyes as he +skated by her side through the crisp still air, while the ice sang a +high clear song beneath their feet in accompaniment to his hurried laughing +words of protestation. He seemed to touch life lightly and to +anticipate nothing but happiness. In truth, it was difficult to +be tragic on such a morning.</p> +<p>These were the heedless days of the beginning of the century, when +men not only threw away their lives, but played ducks-and-drakes with +their chances of happiness in a manner quite incomprehensible to the +careful method of human thought to-day. Charles Darragon lived +only in the present moment. He was in love with her. Désirée +must marry him.</p> +<p>It was quite different from what she had anticipated. She had +looked forward to such a moment with a secret misgiving. The abstract +person of her thoughts had always inspired her with a painful shyness +and an indefinite, breathless fear. But the lover who was here +now in the flesh by her side inspired none of these feelings. +On the contrary, she felt easy and natural and quite at home with him. +There was nothing alarming about his flushed face and laughing eyes. +She was not at all afraid of him. She even felt in some vague +way older than he, though he had just told her that he was twenty-five, +and four years her senior.</p> +<p>She accepted the violets which he had hurriedly bought for her as +he came through the Langenmarkt, but she would not say that she loved +him, because she did not. She was in most ways quite a matter-of-fact +person, and she was of an honest mind. She said she would think +about it. She did not love him now—she knew that. +She could not say that she would not learn to love him some day, but +there seemed no likelihood of it at present. Then he would shoot +himself! He would certainly shoot himself unless she learnt to +love him! And she asked “When?” and they both laughed. +They changed the subject, but after a time they came back to it; which +is the worst of love—one always comes back to it.</p> +<p>Then suddenly he began to assume an air of proprietorship, and burst +into a hundred explanations of what fears he felt for her; for her happiness +and welfare. Her father was absent-minded and heedless. +He was not a fit guardian for her. Was she not the prettiest girl +in all Dantzig—in all the world? Her sister was not fond +enough of her to care for her properly. He announced his intention +of seeing her father the next day. Everything should be done in +order. Not a word must be hinted by the most watchful neighbour +against the perfect propriety of their betrothal.</p> +<p>Désirée laughed and said that he was progressing rather +rapidly. She had only her instinct to guide her through these +troubled waters; which was much better than experience. Experience +in a woman is tantamount to a previous conviction against a prisoner.</p> +<p>Charles was grave, however; a rare tribute. He was in love +for the first time, which often makes men quite honest for a brief period—even +unselfish. Of course, some men are honest and unselfish all their +lives; which perhaps means that they remain in love—for the first +time—all their lives. They are rare, of course. But +the sort of woman with whom it is possible to remain in love all through +a lifetime is rarer.</p> +<p>So Charles waylaid Antoine Sebastian the next day as he went out +of the Frauenthor for his walk in the morning sun by the side of the +frozen Mottlau. He was better received than he had any reason +to expect.</p> +<p>“I am only a lieutenant,” he said, “but in these +days, monsieur, you know—there are possibilities.”</p> +<p>He laughed gaily as he waved his gloves in the direction of Russia, +across the river. But Sebastian’s face clouded, and Charles, +who was quick and sympathetic, abandoned that point in his argument +almost before the words were out of his lips.</p> +<p>“I have a little money,” he said, “in addition +to my pay. I assure you, monsieur, I am not of mean birth.”</p> +<p>“You are an orphan?” said Sebastian curtly.</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“Of the . . . Terror?”</p> +<p>“Yes; I—well, one does not make much of one’s parentage +in these rough times—monsieur.”</p> +<p>“Your father’s name was Charles—like your own?”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“The second son?”</p> +<p>“Yes, monsieur. Did you know him?”</p> +<p>“One remembers a name here and there,” answered Sebastian, +in his stiff manner, looking straight in front of him.</p> +<p>“There was a tone in your voice—,” began Charles, +and, again perceiving that he was on a false scent, broke off abruptly. +“If love can make mademoiselle happy—,” he said; and +a gesture of his right hand seemed to indicate that his passion was +beyond the measure of words.</p> +<p>So Charles Darragon was permitted to pay his addresses to Désirée +in the somewhat formal manner of a day which, upon careful consideration, +will be found to have been no more foolish than the present. He +made no inquiries respecting Désirée’s parentage. +It was Désirée he wanted, and that was all. They +understood the arts of love and war in the great days of the Empire.</p> +<p>The rest was easy enough, and the gods were kind. Charles had +even succeeded in getting a month’s leave of absence. They +were to spend their honeymoon at Zoppot, a little fishing-village hidden +in the pines by the Baltic shore, only eight miles from Dantzig, where +the Vistula loses itself at last in the salt water.</p> +<p>All these arrangements had been made, as Désirée had +prepared her trousseau, with a zest and gaiety which all were invited +to enjoy. It is said that love is an egoist. Charles and +Désirée had no desire to keep their happiness to themselves, +but wore it, as it were, upon their sleeves.</p> +<p>The attitude of the Frauengasse towards Désirée’s +wedding was only characteristic of the period. Every house in +Dantzig looked askance upon its neighbour at this time. Each roof +covered a number of contending interests.</p> +<p>Some were for the French, and some for the conqueror’s unwilling +ally, William of Prussia. The names above the shops were German +and Polish. There are to-day Scotch names also, here as elsewhere +on the Baltic shores. When the serfs were liberated it was necessary +to find surnames for these free men—these Pauls-the-son-of-Paul; +and the nobles of Esthonia and Lithuania were reading Sir Walter Scott +at the time.</p> +<p>The burghers of Dantzig (“They must be made to pay, these rich +Dantzigers,” wrote Napoleon to Rapp) trembled for their wealth, +and stood aghast by their empty counting-houses; for their gods had +been cast down; commerce was at a standstill. There were many, +therefore, who hated the French, and cherished a secret love of those +bluff British captains—so like themselves in build, and thought, +and slowness of speech—who would thrash their wooden brigs through +the shallow seas, despite decrees and threats and sloops-of-war, so +long as they could lay them alongside the granaries of the Vistula. +Lately the very tolls had been collected by a French customs service, +and the wholesale smuggling, to which even Governor Rapp—that +long-headed Alsatian—had closed his eyes, was at an end.</p> +<p>Again, the Poles who looked on Dantzig as the seaport of that great +kingdom of Eastern Europe which was and is no more, had been assured +that France would set up again the throne of the Jagellons and the Sobieskis. +There was a Poniatowski high in the Emperor’s service and esteem. +The Poles were for France.</p> +<p>The Jew, hurrying along close by the wall—always in the shadow—traded +with all and trusted none. Who could tell what thoughts were hidden +beneath the ragged fur cap—what revenge awaited its consummation +in the heart crushed by oppression and contempt?</p> +<p>Besides these civilians there were many who had a military air within +their civil garb. For the pendulum of war had swung right across +from Cadiz to Dantzig, and swept northwards in its wake the merchants +of death, the men who live by feeding soldiers and rifling the dead.</p> +<p>All these were in the streets, rubbing shoulders with the gay epaulettes +of the Saxons, the Badeners, the Würtembergers, the Westphalians, +and the Hessians, who had been poured into Dantzig by Napoleon during +the months when he had continued to exchange courteous and affectionate +letters with Alexander of Russia. For more than a year the broad-faced +Bavarians (who have borne the brunt of every war in Central Europe) +had been peaceably quartered in the town. Half a dozen different +tongues were daily heard in this city of the plain, and no man knew +who might be his friend and who his enemy. For some who were allies +to-day were commanded by their kings to slay each other to-morrow.</p> +<p>In the wine-cellars and the humbler beer-shops, in the great houses +of the councillors, and behind the snowy lace curtains of the Frauengasse +and the Portchaisengasse a thousand slow Northerners spoke of these +things and kept them in their hearts. A hundred secret societies +passed from mouth to mouth instruction, warning, encouragement. +Germany has always been the home of the secret society. Northern +Europe gave birth to those countless associations which have proved +stronger than kings and surer than a throne. The Hanseatic League, +the first of the commercial unions which were destined to build up the +greatest empire of the world, lived longest in Dantzig.</p> +<p>The Tugendbund, men whispered, was not dead but sleeping. Napoleon, +who had crushed it once, was watching for its revival; had a whole army +of his matchless secret police ready for it. And the Tugendbund +had had its centre in Dantzig.</p> +<p>Perhaps, in the Rathskeller itself—one of the largest wine +stores in the world, where tables and chairs are set beneath the arches +of the Exchange, a vast cave under the streets—perhaps here the +Tugendbund still encouraged men to be virtuous and self-denying for +no other or higher purpose than the overthrow of the Scourge of Europe. +Here the richer citizens have met from time immemorial to drink with +solemnity and a decent leisure the wines sent hither in their own ships +from the Rhine, from Greece and the Crimea, from Bordeaux and Burgundy, +from the Champagne and Tokay. This is not only the Rathskeller, +but the real Rathhaus, where the Dantzigers have taken counsel over +their afternoon wine from generation to generation, whence have been +issued to all the world those decrees of probity and a commercial uprightness +between buyer and seller, debtor and creditor, master and man, which +reached to every corner of the commercial world. And now it was +whispered that the latter-day Dantzigers—the sons of those who +formed the Hanseatic League: mostly fat men with large faces and shrewd, +calculating eyes; high foreheads; good solid men, who knew the world, +and how to make their way in it; withal, good judges of a wine and great +drinkers, like that William the Silent, who braved and met and conquered +the European scourge of mediæval times—it was whispered +that these were reviving the Tugendbund.</p> +<p>Amid such contending interests, and in a free city so near to several +frontiers, men came and went without attracting undesired attention. +Each party suspected a new-comer of belonging to the other.</p> +<p>“He scrapes a fiddle,” Koch had explained to the inquiring +fishwife. And perhaps he knew no more than this of Antoine Sebastian. +Sebastian was poor. All the Frauengasse knew that. But the +Frauengasse itself was poor, and no man in Dantzig was so foolish at +this time as to admit that he had possessions.</p> +<p>This was, moreover, not the day of display or snobbery. The +king of snobs, Louis XVI., had died to some purpose, for a wave of manliness +had swept across human thought at the beginning of the century. +The world has rarely been the poorer for the demise of a Bourbon.</p> +<p>The Frauengasse knew that Antoine Sebastian played the fiddle to +gain his daily bread, while his two daughters taught dancing for that +same safest and most satisfactory of all motives.</p> +<p>“But he holds his head so high!” once observed the stout +and matter-of-fact daughter of a Councillor. “Why has he +that grand manner?”</p> +<p>“Because he is a dancing-master,” replied Désirée +with a grave assurance. “He does it so that you may copy +him. Chin up. Oh! how fat you are.”</p> +<p>Désirée herself was slim enough and as yet only half +grown. She did not dance so well as Mathilde, who moved through +a quadrille with the air of a duchess, and threw into a polonaise or +mazurka a quiet grace which was the envy and despair of her pupils. +Mathilde was patient with the slow and heavy of foot, while Désirée +told them bluntly that they were fat. Nevertheless, they were +afraid of Mathilde, and only laughed at Désirée when she +rushed angrily at them, and, seizing them by the arms, danced them round +the room with the energy of despair.</p> +<p>Sebastian, who had an oddly judicial air, such as men acquire who +are in authority, held the balance evenly between the sisters, and smiled +apologetically over his fiddle towards the victim of Désirée’s +impetuosity.</p> +<p>“Yes,” he would reply to watching mothers, who tried +to lead him to say that their daughter was the best dancer in the school: +“Yes, Mathilde puts it into their heads, and Désirée +shakes it down to their feet.”</p> +<p>In all matters of the household Désirée played a similar +part. She was up early and still astir after nine o’clock +at night, when the other houses in the Frauengasse were quiet, if there +were work to do.</p> +<p>“It is because she has no method,” said Mathilde, who +had herself a well-ordered mind, and that quickness which never needs +to hurry.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER V. THE WEISSEN RÖSS’L.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>The moth will singe her wings, and +singed return,<br /> Her love of light +quenching her fear of pain.</i></p> +<p>There are quite a number of people who get through life without realizing +their own insignificance. Ninety-nine out of a hundred persons +signify nothing, and the hundredth is usually so absorbed in the message +which he has been sent into the world to deliver that he loses sight +of the messenger altogether.</p> +<p>By a merciful dispensation of Providence we are permitted to bustle +about in our immediate little circle like the ant, running hither and +thither with all the sublime conceit of that insect. We pick up, +as he does, a burden which on close inspection will be found to be absolutely +valueless, something that somebody else has thrown away. We hoist +it over obstructions while there is usually a short way round; we fret +and sweat and fume. Then we drop the burden and rush off at a +tangent to pick up another. We write letters to our friends explaining +to them what we are about. We even indite diaries to be read by +goodness knows whom, explaining to ourselves what we have been doing. +Sometimes we find something that really looks valuable, and rush to +our particular ant-heap with it while our neighbours pause and watch +us. But they really do not care; and if the rumour of our discovery +reach so far as the next ant-heap, the bustlers there are almost indifferent, +though a few may feel a passing pang of jealousy. They may perhaps +remember our name, and will soon forget what we discovered—which +is Fame. While we are falling over each other to attain this, +and dying to tell each other what it feels like when we have it, or +think we have it, let us pause for a moment and think of an ant—who +kept a diary.</p> +<p>Désirée did not keep a diary. Her life was too +busy for ink. She had had to work for her daily bread, which is +better than riches. Her life had been full of occupation from +morning till night, and God had given her sleep from night till morning. +It is better to work for others than to think for them. Some day +the world will learn to have a greater respect for the workers than +for the thinkers, who are idle, wordy persons, frequently thinking wrong.</p> +<p>Désirée remembered the siege and the occupation of +Dantzig by French troops. She was at school in the Jopengasse +when the Treaty of Tilsit—that peace which was nothing but a pause—was +concluded. She had seen Luisa of Prussia, the good Queen who baffled +Napoleon. Her childhood had passed away in the roar of siege-guns. +Her girlhood, in the Frauengasse, had been marked by the various woes +of Prussia, by each successive step in the development of Napoleon’s +ambition. There were no bogey-men in the night-nursery at the +beginning of the century. One Aaron’s rod of a bogey had +swallowed all the rest, and children buried their sobs in the pillow +for fear of Napoleon. There were no ghosts in the dark corners +of the stairs when Désirée, candle in hand, went to bed +at eight o’clock, half an hour before Mathilde. The shadows +on the wall were the shadows of soldiers—the wind roaring in the +chimney was like the sound of distant cannon. When the timid glanced +over their shoulders, the apparition they looked for was that of a little +man in a cocked hat and a long grey coat.</p> +<p>This was not an age in which the individual life was highly valued. +Men were great to-day and gone to-morrow. Women were of small +account. It was the day of deeds and not of words.</p> +<p>Désirée had never been oppressed by a sense of her +own importance, which oppression leaves its mark on many a woman’s +face in these times. She had not, it would seem, expected much +from life; and when much was given to her she received it without misgivings. +She was young and light-hearted, and she lived in a reckless age.</p> +<p>She was not surprised when Charles failed to return. The chaise +that was to carry them to Zoppot stood in the Frauengasse on the shady +side of the street in the heat of the afternoon for more than an hour. +Then she ran out and told the driver to go back to his stables.</p> +<p>“One cannot go for a honeymoon alone,” she explained +airily to her father, who was peevish and restless, standing by the +window with the air of one who expects without knowing what to expect. +“It is, at all events, quite clear that there is nothing for me +to do but wait.”</p> +<p>She made light of it, and laughed at her father’s grave face. +Mathilde said nothing, but her silence seemed to suggest that this was +no more than she had foretold, or at all events foreseen. She +was too proud or too generous to put her thoughts into words. +For pride and generosity are often confounded. There are many +who give because they are too proud to withhold.</p> +<p>Désirée got her needlework and sat by the open window +awaiting Charles. She could hear the continuous clatter of carts +on the quay, and the voices of the men working in the great granaries +across the river.</p> +<p>The whole city seemed to be astir, and men hurried to and fro in +even the quiet Frauengasse, while the clatter of cavalry and the heavy +rumble of gun carriages could be heard over the roofs from the direction +of the Langenmarkt. There was a sense of hurry in the dusty air. +The Emperor had arrived, and the magic of his name lifted men out of +themselves. It seemed nothing extraordinary to Désirée +that her life should be taken up by this whirlwind, and carried on she +knew not whither.</p> +<p>At dinner-time Charles had not returned. Antoine Sebastian +dined at half-past four, in the manner of Northern Europe; but his daughters +provided his table with the lighter meats of France, which he preferred +to the German cuisine. Sebastian’s dinner was an event in +the day, though he ate sparingly enough, and found a mental rather than +a physical pleasure in the ceremonious sequence of courses.</p> +<p>It was now too late to think of going to Zoppot. After dinner +Mathilde and Désirée prepared the rooms which had been +destined for the occupation of the married pair after the honeymoon.</p> +<p>“We shall have to omit Zoppot, that is all,” said Désirée +cheerfully, and fell to unpacking the bridal clothes which had been +so merrily laid in the trunks.</p> +<p>At half-past six a soldier brought a hurried note from Charles.</p> +<p>“I cannot return to-night, as I am about to start for Königsberg,” +he wrote. “It is a commission which I could not refuse if +I wished to. You, I know, would have me go and do my duty.”</p> +<p>There was more which Désirée did not read aloud. +Charles had always found it easy enough to tell Désirée +how much he loved her, and was gaily indifferent to the ears of others. +But she seemed to be restrained by some feeling which had found birth +in her heart during her wedding day. She said nothing of Charles’s +protestations of love.</p> +<p>“Decidedly,” she said, folding the letter, and placing +it in her work-basket, “Fate is interfering in our affairs to-day.”</p> +<p>She turned to her work again without further complaint, almost with +a sense of relief. Mathilde, whose steady grey eyes saw everything, +penetrating every thought, glanced at her with a suddenly aroused interest. +Désirée herself was half surprised at the philosophy with +which she met this fresh misfortune.</p> +<p>Antoine Sebastian had never acquired the habit of drinking tea in +the evening, which had found favour in these northern countries bordering +on Russia. Instead, he usually went out at this time to one of +the many wine-rooms or Bier Halles in the town to drink a slow and meditative +glass of beer with such friends as he had made in Dantzig. For +he was a lonely man, whose face was quite familiar to many who looked +for a bow or a friendly salutation in vain.</p> +<p>If he went to the Rathskeller it was on the invitation of a friend; +for he could not afford to pay the vintage of that cellar, though he +drank the wine with the slow mouthing of a connoisseur when he had it.</p> +<p>More often than not he took a walk first, passing out of the Frauenthor +on to the quay, where he turned to left or right and made his way back +through one or other of the town gates, by devious narrow streets to +that which is still called the Portchaisengasse though chairs and carriers +have long ceased to pass along it. Here, on the northern side +of the street is an old inn, “Zum weissen Röss’l,” +with a broken, ill-carved head of a white horse above the door. +Across the face of the house is written, in old German letters, an invitation:</p> +<p> Grüss +Gott. Tritt ein!<br /> Bring +Glück herein.</p> +<p>But few seemed to accept it. Even a hundred years ago the White +Horse was behind the times, and fashion sought the wider streets.</p> +<p>Antoine Sebastian was perhaps ashamed of frequenting so humble a +house of entertainment, where for a groschen he could have a glass of +beer. He seemed to make his way through the narrower streets for +some purpose, changing his route from day to day, and hurrying across +the wider thoroughfares with the air of one desirous to attract but +little attention. He was not alone in the quiet streets, for there +were many in Dantzig at this time who from wealth had fallen to want. +Many counting-houses once noisy with prosperity were now closed and +silent. For five years the prosperous Dantzig had lain crushed +beneath the iron heel of the conqueror.</p> +<p>It would seem that Sebastian had only waited for the explanation +of Charles’s most ill-timed absence to carry out his usual programme. +The clock in the tower of the Rathhaus had barely struck seven when +he took his hat and cloak from the peg near the dining-room door. +He was so absorbed that he did not perceive Papa Barlasch seated just +within the open door of the kitchen. But Barlasch saw him, and +scratched his head at the sight.</p> +<p>The northern evenings are chill even in June, and Sebastian fumbled +with his cloak. It would appear that he was little used to helping +himself in such matters. Barlasch came out of the kitchen when +Sebastian’s back was turned and helped him to put the flowing +cloak straight upon his shoulders.</p> +<p>“Thank you, Lisa, thank you,” said Sebastian in German, +without looking round. By accident Barlasch had performed one +of Lisa’s duties, and the master of the house was too deeply engaged +in thought to notice any difference in the handling or to perceive the +smell of snuff that heralded the approach of Papa Barlasch. Sebastian +took his hat and went out closing the door behind him, and leaving Barlasch, +who had followed him to the door, standing rather stupidly on the mat.</p> +<p>“Absent-minded—the citizen,” muttered Barlasch, +returning to the kitchen, where he resumed his seat on a chair by the +open door. He scratched his head and appeared to lapse into thought. +But his brain was slow as were his movements. He had been drinking +to the health of the bride. He thumped himself on the brow with +his closed fist.</p> +<p>“Sacred-name-of-a-thunderstorm,” he said. “Where +have I seen that face before?”</p> +<p>Sebastian went out by the Frauenthor to the quay. Although +it was dusk, the granaries were still at work. The river was full +of craft and the roadway choked by rows and rows of carts, all of one +pattern, too big and too heavy for roads that are laid across a marsh.</p> +<p>He turned to the right, but found his way blocked at the corner of +the Langenmarkt, where the road narrows to pass under the Grünes +Thor. Here the idlers of the evening hour were collected in a +crowd, peering over each other’s shoulders towards the roadway +and the bridge. Sebastian was a tall man, and had no need to stand +on tip-toe in order to see the straight rows of bayonets swinging past, +and the line of shakos rising and falling in unison with the beat of +a thousand feet on the hollow woodwork of the drawbridge.</p> +<p>The troops had been passing out of the city all the afternoon on +the road to Elbing and Königsberg.</p> +<p>“It is the same,” said a man standing near to Sebastian, +“at the Hohes Thor, where they are marching out by the road leading +to Königsberg by way of Dessau.”</p> +<p>“It is farther than Königsberg that they are going,” +was the significant answer of a white-haired veteran who had probably +been at Eylau, for he had a crushed look.</p> +<p>“But war is not declared,” said the first speaker.</p> +<p>“Does that matter?”</p> +<p>And both turned towards Sebastian with the challenging air that invites +opinion or calls for admiration of uncommon shrewdness. He was +better clad than they. He must know more than they did. +But Sebastian looked over their heads and did not seem to have heard +their conversation.</p> +<p>He turned back and went another way, by side streets and the little +narrow alleys that nearly always encircle a cathedral, and are still +to be found on all sides of the Marienkirche. At last he came +to the Portchaisengasse, which was quiet enough in the twilight, though +he could hear the tramp of soldiers along the Langgasse and the rumble +of the guns.</p> +<p>There were only two lamps in the Portchaisengasse, swinging on wrought-iron +gibbets at each end of the street. These were not yet alight, +though the day was fading fast, and the western light could scarcely +find its way between the high gables which hung over the road and seemed +to lean confidentially towards each other.</p> +<p>Sebastian was going towards the door of the Weissen Röss’l +when some one came out of the hostelry, as if he had been awaiting him +within the porch.</p> +<p>The new-comer, who was a fat man with baggy cheeks and odd, light +blue eyes—the eyes of an enthusiast, one would say—passed +Sebastian, making a little gesture which at once recommended silence, +and bade him turn and follow. At the entrance to a little alley +leading down towards the Marienkirche the fat man awaited Sebastian, +whose pace had not quickened, nor had his walk lost any of its dignity.</p> +<p>“Not there to-night,” said the man, holding up a thick +forefinger and shaking it sideways.</p> +<p>“Then where?”</p> +<p>“Nowhere to-night,” was the answer. “He has +come—you know that?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” answered Sebastian slowly, “for I saw him.”</p> +<p>“He is at supper now with Rapp and the others. The town +is full of his people. His spies are everywhere. There are +two in the Weissen Röss’l who pretend to be Bavarians. +See! There is another—just there.”</p> +<p>He pointed the thick forefinger down the Portchaisengasse where it +widens to meet the Langgasse, where the last remains of daylight, reflected +to and fro between the houses, found freer play than in the narrow alley +where they stood.</p> +<p>Sebastian looked in the direction indicated. An officer was +walking away from them. A quick observer would have noticed that +his spurs made no noise, and that he carried his sword instead of allowing +it to clatter after him. It was not clear whence he had come. +It must have been from a doorway nearly opposite to the Weissen Röss’l.</p> +<p>“I know that man,” said Sebastian.</p> +<p>“So do I,” was the reply. “It is Colonel +de Casimir.”</p> +<p>With a little nod the fat man went out again into the Portchaisengasse +in the direction of the inn, as if he were keeping watch there.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER VI. THE SHOEMAKER OF KÖNIGSBERG.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>Chacun ne comprend que ce qu’il +trouve en soi.</i></p> +<p>Nearly two years had passed since the death of Queen Luisa of Prussia. +And she from her grave yet spake to her people—as sixty years +later she was destined to speak to another King of Prussia, who said +a prayer by her tomb before departing on a journey that was to end in +Fontainebleau with an imperial crown and the reckoning for all time +of the seven years of woe that followed Tilsit and killed a queen.</p> +<p>Two years earlier than that, in 1808, while Luisa yet lived, a few +scientists and professors of Königsberg had formed a sort of Union—vague +enough and visionary—to encourage virtue and discipline and patriotism. +And now, in 1812, four years later, the memory of Luisa still lingered +in those narrow streets that run by the banks of the Pregel beneath +the great castle of Königsberg, while the Tugendbund, like a seed +that has been crushed beneath an iron heel, had spread its roots underground.</p> +<p>From Dantzig, the commercial, to Königsberg, the kingly and +the learned, the tide of war rolled steadily onwards. It is a +tide that carries before it a certain flotsam of quick and active men, +keen-eyed, restless, rising—men who speak with a sharp authority +and pay from a bottomless purse. The arrival of Napoleon in Dantzig +swept the first of the tide on to Königsberg.</p> +<p>Already every house was full. The high-gabled warehouses on +the riverside could not be used for barracks, for they too had been +crammed from floor to roof with stores and arms. So the soldiers +slept where they could. They bivouacked in the timber-yards by +the riverside. The country-women found the Neuer Markt transformed +into a camp when they brought their baskets in the early morning, but +they met with eager buyers, who haggled laughingly in half a dozen different +tongues. There was no lack of money, however.</p> +<p>Cartloads of it were on the road.</p> +<p>The Neuer Markt in Königsberg is a square, of which the lower +side is a quay on the Pregel. The river is narrow here. +Across it the country is open. The houses surrounding the quadrangle +are all alike—two-storied buildings with dormer windows in the +roof. There are trees in front. In front of that which is +now Number Thirteen, at the right-hand corner, facing west, sideways +to the river, the trees grow quite close to the windows, so that an +active man or a boy might without great risk leap from the eaves below +the dormer window into the topmost branches of the linden, which here +grows strong and tough, as it surely should do in the fatherland.</p> +<p>A young soldier, seeking lodgings, who happened to knock at the door +of Number Thirteen less than thirty hours after the arrival of Napoleon +at Dantzig, looked upward through the shady boughs, and noted their +growth with the light of interest in his eye. It would almost +seem that the house had been described to him as that one in the Neuer +Markt against which the lindens grew. For he had walked all round +the square between the trees and houses before knocking at this door, +which bore no number then, as it does to-day.</p> +<p>His tired horse had followed him meditatively, and now stood with +drooping head in the shade. The man himself wore a dark uniform, +white with dust. His hair was dusty and rather lank. He +was not a very tidy soldier.</p> +<p>He stood looking at the sign which swung from the doorpost, a relic +of the Polish days. It bore the painted semblance of a boot. +For in Poland—a frontier country, as in frontier cities where +many tongues are heard—it is the custom to paint a picture rather +than write a word. So that every house bears the sign of its inmate’s +craft, legible alike to Lithuanian or Ruthenian, Swede or Cossack of +the Don.</p> +<p>He knocked again, and at last the door was opened by a thickly-built +man, who looked, not at his face, but at his boots. As these wanted +no repair he half closed the door again and looked at the newcomer’s +face.</p> +<p>“What do you want?” he asked.</p> +<p>“A lodging.”</p> +<p>The door was almost closed, when the soldier made an odd and, as +it would seem, tentative gesture with his left hand. All the fingers +were clenched, and with his extended thumb he scratched his chin slowly +from side to side.</p> +<p>“I have no lodging to let,” said the bootmaker. +But he did not shut the door.</p> +<p>“I can pay,” said the other, with his thumb still at +his chin. He had quick, blue eyes beneath the shaggy hair that +wanted cutting. “I am very tired—it is only for one +night.”</p> +<p>“Who are you?” asked the bootmaker.</p> +<p>The soldier was a dull and slow man. He leant against the doorpost +with tired gestures before replying.</p> +<p>“Sergeant in a Schleswig regiment, in charge of spare horses.”</p> +<p>“And you have come far?”</p> +<p>“From Dantzig without a halt.”</p> +<p>The shoemaker looked him up and down with a doubting eye, as if there +were something about him that was not quite clear and above-board. +The dust and fatigue were, however, unmistakable.</p> +<p>“Who sent you to me, anyway?” he grumbled.</p> +<p>“Oh, I do not know,” was the half-impatient answer; “the +man I lodged with in Dantzig or another, I forget. It was Koch +the locksmith in the Schmiedegasse. See, I have money. I +tell you it is for one night. Say yes or no. I want to get +to bed and to sleep.”</p> +<p>“How much do you pay?”</p> +<p>“A thaler—if you like. Among friends, one is willing +to pay.”</p> +<p>After a short minute of hesitation the shoemaker opened the door +wider and came out.</p> +<p>“And there will be another thaler for the horse, which I shall +have to take to the stable of the wood-merchant at the corner. +Go into the workshop and sit down till I come.”</p> +<p>He stood in the doorway and watched the soldier seat himself wearily +on a bench in the workshop among the ancient boots, past repair, one +would think, and lean his head against the wall.</p> +<p>He was half asleep already, and the bootmaker, who was lame, shrugged +his shoulders as he led away the tired horse, with a gesture half of +pity, half of doubting suspicion. Had it suggested itself to his +mind, and had it been within the power of one so halt and heavy-footed +to turn back noiselessly, he would have found his visitor wide-awake +enough, hurriedly opening every drawer and peering under the twine and +needles, lifting every bale of leather, shaking out the very boots awaiting +repair.</p> +<p>When the dweller in Number Thirteen returned, the soldier was asleep, +and had to be shaken before he would open his eyes.</p> +<p>“Will you eat before you go to bed?” asked the bootmaker +not unkindly.</p> +<p>“I ate as I came along the street,” was the reply. +“No, I will go to bed. What time is it?”</p> +<p>“It is only seven o’clock—but no matter.”</p> +<p>“No, it is no matter. To-morrow I must be astir by five.”</p> +<p>“Good,” said the shoemaker. “But you will +get your money’s worth. The bed is a good one. It +is my son’s. He is away, and I am alone in the house.”</p> +<p>He led the way upstairs as he spoke, going heavily one step at a +time, so that the whole house seemed to shake beneath his tread. +The room was that attic in the roof which has a dormer window overhanging +the linden tree. It was small and not too clean; for Königsberg +was once a Polish city, and is not far from the Russian frontier.</p> +<p>The soldier hardly noticed his surroundings, but sat down instantly, +with the abandonment of a shepherd’s dog at the day’s end.</p> +<p>“I will put a stitch in your boots for you while you sleep,” +said the host casually. “The thread is rotten, I can see. +Look here—and here!”</p> +<p>He stooped, and with a quick turn of the awl which he carried in +his belt he snapped the sewing at the join of the leg and the upper +leather, bringing the frayed ends of the thread out to view.</p> +<p>Without answering, the soldier looked round for the boot-jack, lacking +which, no German or Polish bedroom is complete.</p> +<p>When the bootmaker had gone, carrying the boots under his arm, the +soldier, left to himself, made a grimace at the closed door. Without +boots he was a prisoner in the house. He could hear his host at +work already, downstairs in the shop, of which the door opened to the +stairs and allowed passage to that smell of leather which breeds Radical +convictions.</p> +<p>The regular “tap-tap” of the cobbler’s hammer continued +for an hour until dusk, and all the while the soldier lay dressed on +his bed. Soon after, a creaking of the stairs told of the surreptitious +approach of the unwilling host. He listened outside, and even +tried the door, but found it bolted. The soldier, open-eyed on +the bed, snored aloud. At the sound of the key on the outside +of the door he made a grimace again. His features were very mobile, +for Schleswig.</p> +<p>He heard the bootmaker descend the stairs again almost noiselessly, +and, rising from the bed, he took his station at the window. All +the Langgasse would seem to be eating-houses. The basement, which +has a separate door, gives forth odours of simple Pomeranian meats, +and every other house bears to this day the curt but comforting inscription, +“Here one eats.” It was only to be supposed that the +bootmaker at the end of his day would repair for supper to some special +haunt near by.</p> +<p>But the smell of cooking mingling with that of leather told that +he was preparing his own evening meal. He was, it seemed, an unsociable +man, who had but a son beneath his roof, and mostly lived alone.</p> +<p>Seated near the window, where the sunset light yet lingered, the +Schleswiger opened his haversack, which was well supplied, and finding +paper, pens and ink, fell to writing with one eye watchful of the window +and both ears listening for any movement in the room below.</p> +<p>He wrote easily with a running pen, and sometimes he smiled as he +wrote. More than once he paused and looked across the Neuer Markt +above the trees and the roofs, towards the western sky, with a sudden +grave wistfulness. He was thinking of some one in the west. +It was assuredly not of war that this soldier wrote. Then, again, +his attention would be attracted to some passer in the street below. +He only gave half of his attention to his letter. He was, it seemed, +a man who as yet touched life lightly; for he was quite young. +But, nevertheless, his pen, urged by only half a mind that had all the +energy of spring, flew over the paper. Sowing is so much easier +than reaping.</p> +<p>Suddenly he threw his pen aside and moved quickly to the window which +stood open. The shoemaker had gone out, closing the door softly +behind him.</p> +<p>It was to be expected that he would turn to the left, upwards towards +the town and the Langgasse, but it was in the direction of the river +that his footsteps died away. There was no outlet on that side +except by boat.</p> +<p>It was almost dark now, and the trees growing close to the window +obscured the view. So eager was the lodger to follow the movements +of his landlord that he crept in stocking-feet out on to the roof. +By lying on his face below the window he could just distinguish the +shadowy form of a lame man by the river edge. He was moving to +and fro, unchaining a boat moored to the steps, which are more used +in winter when the Pregel is a frozen roadway than in summer. +There was no one else in the Neuer Markt, for it was the supper hour.</p> +<p>Out in the middle of the river a few ships were moored: high-prowed, +square-sterned vessels of a Dutch build trading in the Frische Haaf +and in the Baltic.</p> +<p>The soldier saw the boat steal out towards them. There was +no other boat at the steps or in sight. He stood up on the edge +of the roof, and after carefully measuring his distance, with quick +eyes aglow with excitement, he leapt lightly across the leafy space +into the topmost boughs, where he alighted in a forked branch almost +without sound.</p> +<p>At dawn the next morning, while the shoemaker still slept, the soldier +was astir again. He shivered as he rose, and went to the window, +where his clothes were hanging from a rafter. The water was still +dripping from them. Wrapt in a blanket he sat down by the open +window to write while the morning air should dry his clothes.</p> +<p>That which he wrote was a long report—sheet after sheet closely +written. And in the middle of his work he broke off to read again +the letter that he had written the night before. With a quick, +impulsive gesture he kissed the name it bore. Then he turned to +his work again.</p> +<p>The sun was up before he folded the papers together. By way +of a postscript he wrote a brief letter.</p> +<p>“DEAR C.—I have been fortunate, as you will see from +the enclosed report. His Majesty cannot again say that I have +been neglectful. I was quite right. It is Sebastian and +only Sebastian that we need fear. Here they are clumsy conspirators +compared to him. I have been in the river half the night listening +at the open stern-window of a Reval pink to every word they said. +His Majesty can safely come to Königsberg. Indeed, he is +better out of Dantzig. For the whole country is riddled with that +which they call patriotism, and we treason. But I can only repeat +what his Majesty disbelieved the day before yesterday—that the +heart of the ill is Dantzig, and the venom of it Sebastian. Who +he really is and what he is about you must find out how you can. +I go forward to-day to Gumbinnen. The enclosed letter to its address, +I beg of you, if only in acknowledgment of all that I have sacrificed.”</p> +<p>The letter was unsigned, and bore the date, “Dawn, June 10.” +This and the report, and that other letter (carefully sealed with a +wafer) which did not deal with war or its alarms, were all placed in +one large envelope. He did not seal it, however, but sat thinking +while the sun began to shine on the opposite houses. Then he withdrew +the open letter, and added a postscript to it:</p> +<p>“If an attempt were made on N.’s life—I should +say Sebastian. If Prussia were to play us false suddenly, and +cut us off from France—I should say nothing else than Sebastian. +He is more dangerous than a fanatic; for he is too clever to be one.”</p> +<p>The writer shivered and laughed in sheer amusement at his own misery +as he drew on his wet clothes. The shoemaker was already astir, +and presently knocked at his door.</p> +<p>“Yes, yes,” the soldier cried, “I am astir.”</p> +<p>And as his host rattled the door he opened it. He had unrolled +his long cavalry cloak, and wore it over his wet clothes.</p> +<p>“You never told me your name,” said the shoemaker. +A suspicious man is always more suspicious at the beginning of the day.</p> +<p>“My name,” answered the other carelessly. “Oh! +my name is Max Brunner.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER VII. THE WAY OF LOVE.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>Celui qui souffle le feu s’expose à +être brûlé par les étincelles.</i></p> +<p>It was said that Colonel de Casimir—that guest whose presence +and uniform lent an air of distinction to the quiet wedding in the Frauengasse—was +a Pole from Cracow. Men also whispered that he was in the confidence +of the Emperor. But this must only have been a manner of speaking. +For no man was ever admitted fully into the thoughts of that superhuman +mind.</p> +<p>De Casimir was left behind in Dantzig when the army moved forward.</p> +<p>“There will be a great battle,” he said, “somewhere +near Vilna—and I shall miss it.”</p> +<p>Indeed, every man was striving to get to the front. He who, +himself, had given a new meaning to human ambition seemed able to inspire +not only Frenchmen but soldiers of every nationality with fire from +his own consuming flame.</p> +<p>“Yes! madame,” said de Casimir; for it was to Désirée +that he spoke, “and your husband is more fortunate than I. +He is sure of a staff appointment. He will be among the first. +It will soon be over. To-morrow war is to be declared.”</p> +<p>They were in the street—not far from the Frauengasse, whence +Désirée, always practical, was hurrying towards the market-place. +De Casimir had seemed idle until he perceived her.</p> +<p>Désirée made a little movement of horror at the announcement. +She did not know that the fighting had already begun.</p> +<p>“Ah!” cried de Casimir with a reassuring smile. +“You must be of good cheer. There will be no war at all. +I tell you that in confidence. Russia will be paralyzed. +I was going towards the Frauengasse when I perceived you; to pay my +respects to your father, to say a word to you. Come—you +are smiling again. That is right. You were so grave, madame, +as you hurried along with your eyes looking far away. You must +not think of Charles, if the thoughts make you look as you looked then.”</p> +<p>His manner was kind and confidential and easy—inviting in response +that which the confidential always expect, a return in kind. It +is either hit or miss with such people; and de Casimir missed. +He saw Désirée draw back. She was young, and of +that clear fairness of skin which seems to let the thoughts out through +the face so that any can read them. That which her face expressed +at that moment was a clear and definite refusal to confide anything +whatsoever in this little dark man who stood in front of her, looking +into her eyes with a deferential and sympathetic glance.</p> +<p>“I know for certain,” he said, “that Charles was +well two days ago, and that he is highly thought of in high quarters. +I can tell you that, at all events.”</p> +<p>“Thank you,” said Désirée. She had +nothing against de Casimir. She had only seen him once or twice, +and she knew him to be Charles’s friend, and in some sense his +patron. For de Casimir held a high position in Dantzig. +She was quite ready to like him since Charles liked him; but she intended +to do so at her own range. It is always the woman who measures +the distance.</p> +<p>Désirée made a little movement as if to continue on +her way; and de Casimir instantly stood aside, with a bow.</p> +<p>“Shall I find your father at home?” he asked.</p> +<p>“I think so. He was at home when I left,” she answered, +responding to his salute with a friendly nod.</p> +<p>De Casimir watched her go and stood for a moment in reflection, as +if going over in his mind that which had passed between them.</p> +<p>“I must try the other one,” he said to himself as he +turned down the Pfaffengasse. He continued his way at a leisurely +pace. At the corner of the Frauengasse he lingered in the shadow +of the linden trees, and while so doing saw Antoine Sebastian quit the +door of No. 36, going in the opposite direction towards the river, and +pass out through the Frauenthor on to the quay.</p> +<p>He made a little gesture of annoyance on being told by the servant +that Sebastian was out. After a moment’s reflection, he +seemed to make up his mind to ignore the conventionalities.</p> +<p>“It is merely,” he said in his friendly and confidential +manner to the servant, in perfect German, “that I have news from +Monsieur Darragon, the husband of Mademoiselle Désirée. +Madame is out—you say. Well, then, what is to be done?”</p> +<p>He had a most charming, grave manner of asking advice which few could +resist.</p> +<p>The servant nodded at him with a twinkle of understanding in her +eye.</p> +<p>“There is Fräulein Mathilde.”</p> +<p>“But . . . well, ask her if she will do me the honour +of speaking to me for an instant. I leave it to you . . . .”</p> +<p>“But come in,” protested the servant. “Come +upstairs. She will see you; why not?”</p> +<p>And she led the way upstairs. Papa Barlasch, sitting just within +the kitchen door, where he sat all day doing nothing, glanced upwards +through his overhanging eyebrows at the clink of spurs and the clatter +of de Casimir’s sword against the banisters. He had the +air of a watchdog.</p> +<p>Mathilde was not in the drawing-room, and the servant left the visitor +there alone, saying that she would seek her mistress. There were +one or two books on the tables. One table was rather untidy; it +was Désirée’s. A writing-desk stood in the +corner of the room. It was locked—and the lock was a good +one. De Casimir was an observant man. He had time to make +this observation, and to see that there were no letters in Désirée’s +work-basket; to note the titles of the books and the absence of name +on the flyleaf, and was looking out of the window when the door opened +and Mathilde came in.</p> +<p>This was a day when women were treated with a great show of deference, +while in reality they had but little voice in the world’s affairs. +De Casimir’s bow was deeper and more elaborate than would be considered +polite to-day. On standing erect he quickly suppressed a glance +of surprise.</p> +<p>Mathilde must have expected him. She was dressed in white, +and her hair was tied with a bright ribbon. In her cheeks, usually +so pale, was a little touch of colour. It may have been because +Désirée was not near, but de Casimir had never known until +this moment how pretty Mathilde really was. There was something +in her eyes, too, which gripped his attention. He remembered that +at the wedding he had never seen her eyes. They had always been +averted. But now they met his with a troubling directness.</p> +<p>De Casimir had a gallant manner. All women commanded his eager +respect, which they could assess at such value as their fancy painted, +remembering that it is for the woman to measure the distance. +On the few occasions of previous encounters, de Casimir had been <i>empressé</i> +in his manner towards Mathilde. As he looked at her, his quick +mind ran back to former meetings. He had no recollection of having +actually made love to her.</p> +<p>“Mademoiselle,” he said, “for a soldier—in +time of war—the conventions may, perhaps, be slightly relaxed. +I was told that you were alone—that your father is out, and yet +I persisted—”</p> +<p>He spread out his hands and laughed appealingly, begging her, it +would seem, to help him out of the social difficulty in which he found +himself.</p> +<p>“My father will be sorry—” she began.</p> +<p>“That is hardly the question,” he interrupted; “I +was thinking of your displeasure. But I have an excuse, I assure +you. I only ask a moment to tell you that I have heard from Königsberg +that Charles Darragon is in good health there, and is moving forward +with the advance-guard to the frontier.”</p> +<p>“You are kind to come so soon,” answered Mathilde, and +there was an odd note of disappointment in her voice. De Casimir +must have heard it, for he glanced at her again with a gleam of surprise +in his eyes.</p> +<p>“That is my excuse, Mademoiselle,” he said with a tentative +emphasis, as if he were feeling his way. He was an opportunist +with all the quickness of one who must live by his wits among others +existing on the same uncertain fare. He saw her flush, and again +he hesitated as a wayfarer may hesitate when he finds an easy road where +he had expected to climb a hill. What was the meaning of it? he +seemed to ask himself.</p> +<p>“Charles does not interest you so much as he interests your +sister?” he suggested.</p> +<p>“He has never interested me much,” she replied indifferently. +She did not ask him to sit down. It would not have been etiquette +in an age when women were by some odd misjudgment considered incapable +of managing their own hearts.</p> +<p>“Is that because he is in love, Mademoiselle?” inquired +de Casimir with a guarded laugh.</p> +<p>“Perhaps so.”</p> +<p>She did not look at him. De Casimir had not missed this time. +His air of candid confidence had met with a quick response. He +laughed again and moved towards the door. Mathilde stood motionless, +and although she said no word, nor by any gesture bade him stay, he +stopped on the threshold and turned again towards her.</p> +<p>“It was my conscience,” he said, looking at her over +his shoulder, “that bade me go.”</p> +<p>Her face and her averted eyes asked why, but her straight lips were +silent.</p> +<p>“Because I cannot claim to be more interesting than Charles +Darragon,” he hazarded. “And you, Mademoiselle, confess +that you have no tolerance for a man who is in love.”</p> +<p>“I have no tolerance for a man who is weakened by love. +He should be strengthened and hardened by it.”</p> +<p>“To—?”</p> +<p>“To do a man’s work in the world,” said Mathilde +coldly.</p> +<p>De Casimir was standing by the open door. He closed it with +his foot. He was professedly a man alert for the chance of a moment, +which he was content to grasp without pausing to look ahead. Should +there be difficulties yet unperceived, these in turn might present an +opportunity to be seized by the quick-witted.</p> +<p>“Then you would admit, Mademoiselle,” he said gravely, +“that there may be good in a love that fights continually against +ambition, and—does not prevail.”</p> +<p>Mathilde did not answer at once. There was an odd suggestion +of antagonism in their attitude towards each other—not irreconcilable, +the poets tell us, with love—but this is assuredly not the Love +that comes from Heaven and will go back there to live through eternity.</p> +<p>“Yes,” said she at length.</p> +<p>“Such is my love for you,” he said, his quick instinct +telling him that with Mathilde few words were best.</p> +<p>He only spoke the thoughts of his age; for ambition was the ruling +passion in men’s hearts at this time. All who served the +Great Adventurer gave it the first place in their consideration, and +de Casimir only aped his betters. Though oddly enough the only +two of all the great leaders who were to emerge still greater from the +coming war—Ney and Eugene—thought otherwise on these matters.</p> +<p>“I mean to be great and rich, Mademoiselle,” he added +after a pause. “I have risked my life for that purpose half +a dozen times.”</p> +<p>Mathilde stood looking across the room towards the window. +He could only see her profile and the straight line of her lips. +She too was the product of a generation in which men rose to dazzling +heights without the aid of women.</p> +<p>“I should not have troubled you with these details, Mademoiselle,” +he said, watching her. His instinct was very keen, for not one +woman in a thousand, even in those days, would have admitted that love +was a detail. “I should not have mentioned it—had +you not given me your views—so strangely in harmony with my own.”</p> +<p>Whatever his nationality, his voice was that of a Pole—rich, +musical, and expressive. He could have made, one would have thought, +a very different sort of love had he wished, or had he been sincere. +But he was an opportunist. This was the sort of love that Mathilde +wanted.</p> +<p>He came a step nearer to her and stood resting on his sword—a +lean hard man who had seen much war.</p> +<p>“Until you opened my eyes,” he said, “I did not +know, or did not care to know, that love, far from being a drag on ambition, +may be a help.”</p> +<p>Mathilde made a little movement towards him which she instantly repressed. +The heart is quicker, but the head nearly always has the last word.</p> +<p>“Mademoiselle,” he said—and no doubt he saw the +movement and the restraint—“will you help me now at the +beginning of the war, and listen to me again at the end of it—if +I succeed?”</p> +<p>After all, he was modest in his demands.</p> +<p>“Will you help me? Together, Mademoiselle—to what +height may we not rise in these days?”</p> +<p>There was a ring of sincerity in his voice, and her eyes answered +it.</p> +<p>“How can I help you?” she asked in a doubting voice.</p> +<p>“Oh, it is a small matter,” was the reply. “But +it is one in which the Emperor is personally interested. Such +things have a special attraction for him. The human interest never +fails to hold his attention. If I do well, he will know it and +remember me. It is a question, Mademoiselle, of secret societies. +You know that Prussia is riddled with them.”</p> +<p>Mathilde did not answer. He studied her face, which was clean +cut and hard like a marble bust—a good face to hide a secret.</p> +<p>“It is my duty to watch here in Dantzig and to report to the +Emperor. In serving myself I could also perhaps serve a friend, +one who might otherwise run into danger—who may be in danger while +you and I stand here. For the Emperor strikes hard and quickly. +I speak of your father, Mademoiselle—and of the Tugendbund.”</p> +<p>Still he could not see from the pale profile whether Mathilde knew +anything at all.</p> +<p>“And if I procure information for you?” asked she at +length, in a quiet and collected voice.</p> +<p>“You will help me to attain a position such as I could ask—even +you—to share with me. And you would do your father no harm. +You would even render him a service. For all the secret societies +in Germany will not stop Napoleon. It is only God who can stop +him now, Mademoiselle. All men who attempt it will only be crushed +beneath the wheels. I might save your father.”</p> +<p>But Mathilde did not seem to be thinking of her father.</p> +<p>“I am hampered by poverty,” de Casimir said, changing +his ground. “In the old days it did not matter. But +now, in the Empire, one must be rich. I shall be rich—at +the end of this campaign.”</p> +<p>Again his voice was sincere, and again her eyes responded. +He made a step forward, and gently taking her hand, he raised it to +his lips.</p> +<p>“You will help me!” he said, and, turning abruptly on +his heel, he left her.</p> +<p>De Casimir’s quarters were in the Langenmarkt. On returning +to them, he took from his despatch-case a letter which he turned over +thoughtfully in his hand. It was addressed to Désirée, +and sealed carefully with a wafer.</p> +<p>“She may as well have it,” he said. “It will +be as well that she should be occupied with her own affairs.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII. A VISITATION.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i> Be wiser than other people if you +can, but do not tell them so.</i></p> +<p>Whenever Papa Barlasch caught sight of his unwilling host’s +face, he turned his own aside with a despairing upward nod. Once +or twice, during the early days of his occupation of the room behind +the kitchen in the Frauengasse, he smote himself sharply on the brow, +as if calling upon his brain to make an effort. But afterwards +he seemed to resign himself to this lapse of memory, and the upward +despairing nod gradually lost intensity until at last he brought himself +to pass Antoine Sebastian in the narrow passage with no more emphatic +notice than a scowl.</p> +<p>“You and I,” he said to Désirée, “are +the friends. The others—”</p> +<p>And his gesture seemed to permit the others to go hang if they so +desired. The army had gone forward, leaving Dantzig in that idle +restlessness which holds those who, finding themselves in a house of +sickness, are not permitted entry to the darkened chamber, but must +await the crisis elsewhere.</p> +<p>There were some busy enough in the commerce that must exist between +a huge army and its base, in the forwarding of war material and stores, +in accommodating the sick and sending out in return those who were to +fill the gaps. But the Dantzigers themselves had nothing to do. +Their prosperous trade was paralyzed. Those who had aught to sell +had sold it. The high-seas and the high-roads were alike blocked +by the French. And rumour, ever busy among those that wait, ran +to and fro in the town.</p> +<p>The Emperor of Russia had been taken prisoner. Napoleon had +been checked at the passage of the Niemen. There had been a great +battle at Gumbinnen, and the French were in full retreat. Vilna +had capitulated to Murat, and the war was at an end. A hundred +authentic despatches of the morning were the subject of contemptuous +laughter at the supper-table.</p> +<p>Lisa heard these tales in the market-place, and told Désirée, +who, as often as not, translated them to Barlasch. But he only +held up his wrinkled forefinger and shook it slowly from side to side.</p> +<p>“Woman’s chatter!” he said. “What is +the German for ‘magpie’?”</p> +<p>And on being told the word, he repeated it gravely to Lisa. +For he had not only fulfilled his promise of settling down in the house, +but had assumed therein a distinct and clearly defined position. +He was the counsellor, and from his chair just within the kitchen he +gave forth judgment.</p> +<p>“And you,” he said to Désirée one morning, +when household affairs had taken her to the kitchen, “you are +troubled this morning. You have had a letter from your husband?”</p> +<p>“Yes—and he is in good health.”</p> +<p>“Ah!”</p> +<p>Barlasch glared at her beneath his brows, looking her up and down, +noting her quick movements, which had the uncertainty of youth.</p> +<p>“And now that he is gone,” he said, “and that there +is war, you are going to employ yourself by falling in love with him, +when you had all the time before, and did not take advantage of it.”</p> +<p>Désirée laughed at him and made no other answer. +While she spoke to Lisa he sat and watched them.</p> +<p>“It would be like a woman to do such a thing,” he pursued. +“They are so inconvenient—women. They get married +for fun, and then one fine Thursday they find they have missed all the +fun, like one who comes late to the theatre—when the music is +over.”</p> +<p>He went to the table and examined the morning marketing, which Lisa +had laid out in preparation for dinner. Of some of her purchases +he approved, but he laughed aloud at a lettuce which had no heart, and +at such a buyer.</p> +<p>Then Désirée attracted his scrutiny again.</p> +<p>“Yes,” he said, half to himself, “I see it. +You are in love. Just Heaven, I know! I have had them in +love with me . . . . Barlasch.”</p> +<p>“That must have been a long time ago,” answered Désirée +with her gay laugh, only giving him half her attention.</p> +<p>“Yes, it was a century ago. But they were the same then +as they are now, as they always will be—inconvenient. They +waited, however, till they were grown up!”</p> +<p>And with his ever-ready accusing finger he drew Désirée’s +attention to her own slimness. They were left alone for a minute +while Lisa answered a knock at the door, during which time Barlasch +sat in grim silence.</p> +<p>“It is a letter,” said Lisa, returning. “A +sailor brought it.”</p> +<p>“Another?” said Barlasch, with a gesture of despair.</p> +<p>“Can you give me news of Charles?” Désirée +read, in a writing that was unknown to her. “I shall wait +a reply until midnight on board the <i>Elsa</i>, lying off the Krahn-Thor.” +The letter bore the signature, “Louis d’Arragon.” +Désirée turned slowly and went upstairs, carrying it folded +small in her closed hand.</p> +<p>She was alone in the house, for Mathilde was out and her father had +not yet returned from his evening walk. She stood at the head +of the stairs, where the last of the daylight filtered through the barred +window, and read the letter again. Then she turned and gave a +slight start to see Barlasch at the foot of the stairs beckoning to +her. He made no attempt to come up, but stood on the mat like +a dog that has been forbidden the upper rooms.</p> +<p>“Is it about your father?” he asked, in a hoarse whisper.</p> +<p>“No!”</p> +<p>He made a gesture commanding secrecy and silence. Then he went +to close the kitchen door and returned on tip-toe.</p> +<p>“It is,” he explained, “that they are talking of +him in the cafés. There are many to be arrested to-morrow. +They say the patron is one of them, and employs himself in plotting. +That his name is not Sebastian at all. That he is a Frenchman +who escaped the guillotine. What do I know? It is the gossip +of the cafés. But I tell it you because we are friends, +you and I. And some day I may want you to do something for me. +One thinks of one’s self, eh? It is good to make friends. +For some day one may want them. That is why I do it. I think +of myself. An old soldier. Of the Guard.”</p> +<p>With many gestures of tremendous import, and a face all wrinkled +and twisted with mystery, he returned to the kitchen.</p> +<p>Mathilde was not to return until late. She had gone to the +house of the old Gräfin whose reminiscences had been a fruitful +topic at Désirée’s wedding. After dining there +she and the Gräfin were to go together to a farewell reception +given by the Governor. For Rapp was bound for the frontier with +the rest, and was to go to the war as first aide-de-camp to the Emperor.</p> +<p>Mathilde could not be back until ten o’clock. She, who +was so quick and quiet, had been much occupied in social observances +lately, and had made fast friends with the Gräfin during the last +few days, constantly going to see her.</p> +<p>Désirée knew that what Barlasch had repeated as the +gossip of the cafés was in part, if not wholly, true. She +and Mathilde had long known that any mention of France had the instant +effect of turning their father into a man of stone. It was the +skeleton in this quiet house that sat at table with its inmates, a shadowy +fourth tying their tongues. The rattle of its bones seemed to +paralyze Sebastian’s mind, and at any moment he would fall into +a dumb and stricken apathy which terrified those about him. At +such times it seemed that one thought in his mind had swallowed all +the rest, so that he heard without understanding and saw without perceiving.</p> +<p>He was in such a humour when he came back to dinner. He passed +Désirée on the stairs without speaking and went to his +room to change his clothes, for he never relaxed his formal habits. +At the dinner-table he glanced at her as a dog, knowing that he is ill, +may be seen to glance with a secret air at his master, wondering whether +he is detected.</p> +<p>Désirée had always hoped that her father would speak +to her when this humour was upon him and tell her the meaning of it. +Perhaps it would come to-night, when they were alone. There was +an unspoken sympathy existing between them in which Mathilde took no +share, which had even shut out Charles as out of a room where there +was no light, into which Désirée and her father went at +times and stood hand-in-hand without speaking.</p> +<p>They dined in silence, while Lisa hurried about her duties, oppressed +by a sense of unknown fear. After dinner they went to the drawing-room +as usual. It had been a dull day, with great clouds creeping up +from the West. The evening fell early, and the lamps were already +alight. Désirée looked to the wicks with the eye +of experience when she entered the room. Then she went to the +window. Lisa did not always draw the curtains effectually. +She glanced down into the street, and turned suddenly on her heel, facing +her father.</p> +<p>“They are there,” she said. For she had seen shadowy +forms lurking beneath the trees of the Frauengasse. The street +was ill-lighted, but she knew the shadows of the trees.</p> +<p>“How many?” asked Sebastian, in a dull voice.</p> +<p>She glanced at him quickly—at his still, frozen face and quiescent +hands. He was not going to rise to the occasion, as he sometimes +did even from his deepest apathy. She must do alone anything that +was to be accomplished to-night.</p> +<p>The house, like many in the Frauengasse, had been built by a careful +Hanseatic merchant, whose warehouse was his own cellar half sunk beneath +the level of the street. The door of the warehouse was immediately +under the front door, down a few steps below the street, while a few +more steps, broad and footworn, led up to the stone veranda and the +level of the lower dwelling-rooms. A guard placed in the street +could thus watch both doors without moving.</p> +<p>There was a third door, giving exit from the little room where Barlasch +slept to the small yard where he had placed those trunks which were +made in France.</p> +<p>Désirée had no time to think. She came of a race +of women of a brighter intelligence than any women in the world. +She took her father by the arm and hastened downstairs. Barlasch +was at his post within the kitchen door. His eyes shone suddenly +as he saw her face. It was said of Papa Barlasch that he was a +gay man in battle, laughing and making a hundred jests, but at other +times lugubrious. Désirée saw him smile for the +first time, in the dim light of the passage.</p> +<p>“They are there in the street,” he said; “I have +seen them. I thought you would come to Barlasch. They all +do—the women. In here. Leave him to me. When +they ring the bell, receive them yourself—with smiles. They +are only men. Let them search the house if they want to. +Tell them he has gone to the reception with Mademoiselle.”</p> +<p>As he spoke the bell rang just above his head. He looked up +at it and laughed.</p> +<p>“Ah, ah!” he said, “the fanfare begins.”</p> +<p>He drew Sebastian within and closed the door of his little room. +Lisa had already gone to answer the bell. When she opened the +door three men stepped quickly over the threshold, and one of them, +thrusting her aside, closed the door and turned the key. Désirée, +in her white evening dress, on the bottom step, just beneath the lamp +that hung from the ceiling, made them pause and look at each other. +Then one of the three came towards her, hat in hand.</p> +<p>“Our duty, Fräulein,” he said awkwardly. “We +are but obeying orders. A mere formality. It will all be +explained, no doubt, if the householder, Antoine Sebastian, will put +on his hat and come with us.”</p> +<p>“His hat is not there, as you see,” answered Désirée. +“You must seek him elsewhere.”</p> +<p>The man shook his head with a knowing smile. “We must +seek him in this house,” he said. “We will make it +as easy for you as we can, Fräulein—if you make it easy for +us.”</p> +<p>As he spoke he produced a candle from his pocket, and encouraged +the broken wick with his finger-nail.</p> +<p>“It will make it pleasanter for all,” said Désirée +cheerfully, “if you will accept a candlestick.”</p> +<p>The man glanced at her. He was a heavy man, with little suspicious +eyes set close together. He seemed to be concluding that she had +outwitted him—that Sebastian was not in the house.</p> +<p>“Where are the cellar-stairs?” he asked. “I +warn you, Fräulein, it is useless to conceal your father. +We shall, of course, find him.”</p> +<p>Désirée pointed to the door next to that giving entry +to the kitchen. It was bolted and locked. Désirée +found the key for them. She not only gave them every facility, +but was anxious that they should be as quick as possible. They +did not linger in the cellar, which, though vast, was empty; and when +they returned, Désirée, who was waiting for them, led +the way upstairs.</p> +<p>They were rather abashed by her silence. They would have preferred +protestations and argument. Discussion always belittles. +The smile recommended by Papa Barlasch, lurking at the corner of her +lips, made them feel foolish. She was so slight and young and +helpless, that a sort of shame rendered them clumsy.</p> +<p>They felt more at home in the kitchen when they arrived there, and +the sight of Lisa, sturdy and defiant, reminded them of the authority +upon which Désirée had somehow cast a mystic contempt.</p> +<p>“There is a door there,” said the heavy official, with +a brusque return of his early manner. “Come, what is that +door?”</p> +<p>“That is a little room.”</p> +<p>“Then open it.”</p> +<p>“I cannot,” returned Lisa. “It is locked.”</p> +<p>“Aha!” said the man, with a laugh of much meaning. +“On the inside, eh?”</p> +<p>He went to it, and banged on it with his fist.</p> +<p>“Come,” he shouted, “open it and be done.”</p> +<p>There was a short silence, during which those in the kitchen listened +breathlessly. A shuffling sound inside the door made the officer +of the law turn and beckon to his two men to come closer.</p> +<p>Then, after some fumbling, as of one in the dark, the door was unlocked +and slowly opened.</p> +<p>Papa Barlasch stood in a very primitive night-apparel within the +door. He had not done things by halves, for he was an old campaigner, +and knew that a thing half done is better left undone in times of war. +He noted the presence of Désirée and Lisa, but was not +ashamed. The reason of it was soon apparent. For Papa Barlasch +was drunk, and the smell of drink came out of his apartment in a warm +wave.</p> +<p>“It is the soldier billeted in the house,” explained +Lisa, with a half-hysterical laugh.</p> +<p>Then Barlasch harangued them in the language of intoxication. +If he had not spared Désirée’s feelings, he spared +her ears less now; for he was an ignorant man, who had lived through +a brutal period in the world’s history the roughest life a man +can lead. Two of the men held him with difficulty against the +wall, while the third hastily searched the room—where, indeed, +no one could well be concealed.</p> +<p>Then they quitted the house, followed by the polyglot curses of Barlasch, +who was now endeavouring to find his bayonet amidst his chaotic possessions.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER IX. THE GOLDEN GUESS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>The +golden guess<br /> Is morning star to the +full round of truth.</i></p> +<p>Barlasch was never more sober in his life than when he emerged a +minute later from his room, while Lisa was still feverishly bolting +the door. He had not wasted much time at his toilet. In +his flannel shirt, his arms bare to the elbow, knotted and muscular, +he looked like some rude son of toil.</p> +<p>“One thinks of one’s self,” he hastened to explain +to Désirée, fearing that she might ascribe some other +motive to his action. “Some day the patron may be in power +again, and then he will remember a poor soldier. It is good to +think of the future.”</p> +<p>He shook his head pessimistically at Lisa as belonging to a sex liable +to error: instanced in this case by bolting the door too eagerly.</p> +<p>“Now,” he said, turning to Désirée again, +“have you any in Dantzig to help you?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” she answered rather slowly.</p> +<p>“Then send for him.”</p> +<p>“I cannot do that.”</p> +<p>“Then go for him yourself,” snapped Barlasch impatiently.</p> +<p>He looked at her fiercely beneath his shaggy eyebrows.</p> +<p>“It is no use to be afraid,” he said; “you are +afraid—I see it in your face. And it is never any use. +Before they hammered on that door there, my legs shook. For I +am easily afraid—I. But it is never any use. And when +one opens the door, it goes.”</p> +<p>He looked at her with a puzzled frown, seeking in vain, it may have +been, the ordinary symptoms of fear. She was hesitating but not +afraid. There ran blood in her veins which will for all time be +associated by history with a gay and indomitable courage.</p> +<p>“Come,” he said sharply; “there is nothing else +to do.”</p> +<p>“I will go,” said Désirée, at length, deciding +suddenly to do the one thing that is left to a woman once or twice in +her life—to go to the one man and trust him.</p> +<p>“By the back way,” said Barlasch, helping her with the +cloak that Lisa had brought, and pulling the hood forward over her face +with a jerk. “Ah, I know that way. The patron is hiding +in the yard. An old soldier looks to the retreat—though +the Emperor has saved us that, so far. Come, I will help you over +the wall, for the door is rusted.”</p> +<p>The way, which Barlasch had perceived, led through the room at the +back of the kitchen to a yard, and thence through a door not opened +by the present occupiers of the old house, into a very labyrinth of +narrow alleys running downward to the river and round the tall houses +that stand against the cathedral walls.</p> +<p>The wall was taller than Barlasch, but he ran at it like a cat, and +Désirée standing below could see the black outline of +his limbs crouching on the top. He stooped down, and grasping +her hands, lifted her by the sheer strength of one arm, balanced her +for an instant on the wall, and then lowered her on the outer side.</p> +<p>“Run,” he whispered.</p> +<p>She knew the way, and although the night was dark, and these narrow +alleys between high walls had no lamps, Désirée lost no +time. The Krahn-Thor is quite near to the Frauengasse. Indeed, +the whole of Dantzig occupied but a small space between the rivers in +those straitened days. The town was quieter than it had been for +months, and Désirée passed unmolested through the narrow +streets. She made her way to the quay, passing through the low +gateway known as the door of the Holy Ghost, and here found people still +astir. For the commerce that thrives on a northern river is paralyzed +all the winter, and feverishly active when the ice has gone.</p> +<p>“The <i>Elsa</i>,” replied a woman, who had been selling +bread all day on the quay, and was now packing up her stall, “you +ask for the <i>Elsa</i>. There is such a ship, I know. But +how can I say which she is? See, they lie right across the river +like a bridge. Besides, it is late, and sailors are rough men.”</p> +<p>Désirée hurried on. Louis d’Arragon had +said that the ship was lying near to the Krahn-Thor, of which the great +hooded roof loomed darkly against the stars above her. She was +looking about her when a man came forward with the hesitating step of +one who has been told to wait the arrival of some one unknown to him.</p> +<p>“The <i>Elsa</i>,” she said to him; “which ship +is it?”</p> +<p>“Come along with me, Mademoiselle,” the man replied; +“though I was not told to look for a woman.”</p> +<p>He spoke in English, which Désirée hardly understood; +for she had never heard it from English lips, and looked for the first +time on one of that race upon which all the world waited now for salvation. +For the English, of all the nations, were the only men who from the +first had consistently defied Napoleon.</p> +<p>The sailor led the way towards the river. As he passed the +lamp burning dimly above some steps, Désirée saw that +he was little more than a boy. He turned and offered her his hand +with a shy laugh, and together they stood at the bottom of the steps +with the water lapping at their feet.</p> +<p>“Have you a letter,” he said, “or will you come +on board?”</p> +<p>Then perceiving that she did not understand, he repeated the question +in German.</p> +<p>“I will come on board,” she answered.</p> +<p>The <i>Elsa</i> was lying in the middle of the river, and the boat +into which Désirée stepped shot across the water without +sound of oars. The sailor was paddling it noiselessly at the stern. +Désirée was not unused to boats, and when they came alongside +the <i>Elsa</i> she climbed on board without help.</p> +<p>“This way,” said the sailor, leading her towards the +deckhouse where a light burned dimly behind red curtains. He knocked +at the door and opened it without awaiting a reply. In the little +cabin two men sat at a table, and one of them was Louis d’Arragon +dressed in the rough clothes of a merchant seaman. He seemed to +recognize Désirée at once, though she still stood without +the door, in the darkness.</p> +<p>“You?” he said in surprise. “I did not expect +you, madame. You want me?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” answered Désirée, stepping over +the combing. Louis’s companion, who was also a sailor, coarsely +clad, rose and, awkwardly taking off his cap, hurried to the door, murmuring +some vague apology. It is not always the roughest men who have +the worst manners towards women.</p> +<p>He closed the door behind him, leaving Désirée and +Louis looking at each other by the light of an oil lamp that flickered +and gave forth a greasy smell. The little cabin was smoke-ridden, +and smelt of ancient tar. It was no bigger than the table in the +drawing-room in the Frauengasse, across which he had bowed to her in +farewell a few days earlier, little knowing when and where they were +to meet again. For fate can always turn a surprise better than +the human fancy.</p> +<p>Behind the curtain, the window stood open, and the high, clear song +of the wind through the rigging filled the little cabin with a continuous +minor note of warning which must have been part of his life; for he +must have heard it, as all sailors do, sleeping or waking, night and +day.</p> +<p>He was probably so accustomed to it that he never heeded it. +But it filled Désirée’s ears, and whenever she heard +it in after-life, in memory this moment came again to her, and she looked +back to it, as a traveller may look back to a milestone at a cross-road, +and wonder where his journey might have ended had he taken another turning.</p> +<p>“My father,” she said quickly, “is in danger. +There is no one else in Dantzig to whom we can turn, and—”</p> +<p>She paused. What was she going to add? She hesitated, +and then was silent. There was no reason why she should have elected +to come to him. At all events she gave none.</p> +<p>“I am glad I was in Dantzig when it happened,” he said, +turning to take up his cap, which was of rough dark fur, such as seamen +wear even in summer at night in the Northern seas.</p> +<p>“Come,” he added, “you can tell me as we go ashore.”</p> +<p>But they did not speak while the sailor sculled the boat to the steps. +On the quay they would probably pass unnoticed, for there were many +strange sailors at this time in Dantzig, and Louis d’Arragon might +easily be mistaken for one of the French seamen who had brought stores +by sea from Bordeaux and Brest and Cherbourg.</p> +<p>“Now tell me,” he said, as they walked side by side; +and in voluble French, Désirée launched into her story. +It was rather incoherent, by reason, perhaps, of its frankness.</p> +<p>“Stop—stop,” he interrupted gravely, “who +is Barlasch?”</p> +<p>Louis walked rather slowly in his stiff sea-boots at her side, and +she instinctively spoke less rapidly as she explained the part that +Barlasch had played.</p> +<p>“And you trust him?”</p> +<p>“Of course,” she answered.</p> +<p>“But why?”</p> +<p>“Oh, you are so matter-of-fact,” she exclaimed; “I +do not know. Because he is trustworthy, I suppose.”</p> +<p>She continued the story, but suddenly stopped and looked up at him +under the shadow of her hood.</p> +<p>“You are silent,” she said. “Do you know +something about my father of which I am ignorant? Is that it?”</p> +<p>“No,” he answered, “I am trying to follow—that +is all. You leave so much to my imagination.”</p> +<p>“But I have no time to explain things,” she protested. +“Every moment is of value. I will explain all those things +some other time. At this moment all I can think of is my father +and the danger he is in. If it had not been for Barlasch, he would +have been in prison by now. And as it is, the danger is only half +averted. For he, himself, is so little help. All must be +done for him. He will do nothing for himself while this humour +is upon him; you understand?”</p> +<p>“Partly,” he answered slowly.</p> +<p>“Oh!” she exclaimed half-impatiently, “one sees +that you are an Englishman.”</p> +<p>And she found time, even in her hurry, to laugh. For she was +young enough to float buoyant upon that sea of hope which ebbs in the +course of years and leaves men stranded on the hard facts of life.</p> +<p>“You forget,” he said in self-defence.</p> +<p>“I forget what?”</p> +<p>“That a week ago I had never seen Dantzig, or your father, +or your sister, or the Frauengasse. A week ago I did not know +that there was anybody called Sebastian in the world—and did not +care.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” she admitted thoughtfully, “I had forgotten +that.”</p> +<p>And they walked on in silence, a long way, till they came to the +Gate of the Holy Ghost.</p> +<p>“But you can help him to escape?” she said at length, +as if following the course of her own thoughts.</p> +<p>“Yes,” he answered, and that was all.</p> +<p>They passed through the smaller streets in silence, and Désirée +led the way into a narrow alley running between the street of the Holy +Ghost and the Frauengasse.</p> +<p>“There is the wall to be climbed,” she said; but, as +she spoke, the door giving exit to the alley was cautiously opened by +Barlasch.</p> +<p>“A little oil,” he whispered, “and it was soon +done.”</p> +<p>The yard was dark within, for there might be watchers at any of the +windows above them in the pointed gables that made patterns against +the star-lit sky.</p> +<p>“All is well,” said Barlasch; “those sons of dogs +have not returned, and the patron is waiting in the kitchen, cloaked +and ready for a journey. He has collected himself—the patron.”</p> +<p>He led the way through his own room, which was dark, save for a shaft +of lamp-light coming from the kitchen. He looked back keenly at +Louis d’Arragon.</p> +<p>“Salut!” he growled, scowling at his boots. “A +sailor,” he muttered after a pause. “Good. She +has her wits at the top of the basket—that child.”</p> +<p>Désirée was throwing back her hood and looking at her +father with a reassuring smile.</p> +<p>“I have brought Monsieur d’Arragon,” she said, +“to help us.”</p> +<p>For Sebastian has not recognized the new-comer. He now bowed +in his stiff way, and began a formal apology, which D’Arragon +cut short with a quick gesture.</p> +<p>“It is the least I could do,” he said, “in the +absence of Charles. Have you money?”</p> +<p>“Yes—a little.”</p> +<p>“You will require money and a few clothes. I can get +you a passage to Riga or to Helsingborg to-night. From there you +can communicate with your daughter. Events will follow each other +rapidly. One never knows what a week may bring forth in time of +war. It may be safe for you to return soon. Come, monsieur, +we must go.”</p> +<p>Sebastian made a gesture with his outspread arms, half of protestation, +half of acquiescence. It was plain that he had no sympathy with +these modern, hurried methods of meeting the emergencies of daily life. +A valise, packed and strapped, lay on the table. D’Arragon +weighed it in his hand, and then lifted it to his shoulder.</p> +<p>“Come, monsieur,” he repeated leading the way through +Barlasch’s room to the yard. “And you,” he added, +addressing himself to that soldier, “shut the door behind us.”</p> +<p>With another gesture of protest Sebastian gathered his cloak round +him and followed. D’Arragon had taken Désirée +so literally at her word that he allowed her father no time for hesitation, +nor a moment to say farewell.</p> +<p>She was alone in the kitchen before she had realized that they were +going. In a minute Barlasch returned. She could hear him +setting in order the room which had been hurriedly disorganized in order +to open the door leading to the yard, where her father had concealed +himself. He was muttering to himself as he lifted the furniture.</p> +<p>Coming back into the kitchen, he found Désirée standing +where he had left her. Glancing at her, he scratched his grey +head in a plebeian way, and gave a little laugh.</p> +<p>“Yes,” he said, pointing to the spot where D’Arragon +had stood. “That was a man, that you fetched to help us—a +man. It makes a difference when such as that goes out of the room—eh?”</p> +<p>He busied himself in the kitchen, setting in order that which remained +of the <i>mise en scène</i> of his violent reception of the secret +police. Suddenly he turned in his emphatic manner, and threw out +his rugged forefinger to hold her attention.</p> +<p>“If there had been some like that in Paris, there would have +been no Revolution. Za-za, za-za!” he concluded, imitating +effectively the buzz of many voices in an assembly. “Words +and not deeds,” Barlasch protested. Whereas to-night, he +clearly showed by two gestures, they had met a man of deeds.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER X. IN DEEP WATER.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>Le coeur humain est un abîme +qui trompe tous les calculs.</i></p> +<p>It is to be presumed that Colonel de Casimir met friends at the reception +given by Governor Rapp in the great rooms of the Rathhaus. For +there were many Poles present, and not a few officers of other nationalities.</p> +<p>The army indeed that set forth to conquer Russia was not a French-speaking +army. Less than half of the regiments were of that nationality, +while Italians, Bavarians, Saxons, Würtembergers, Westphalians, +Prussians, Swiss, and Portuguese went gaily forward on the great venture. +There were soldiers from the numerous petty states of the German Confederation +which acknowledged Napoleon as their protector, for the good reason +that they could not protect themselves against him. Finally, there +were those Poles who had fought in Spain for Napoleon, hoping that in +return he would some day set the ancient kingdom upon its feet among +the nations. Already the whisperers pointed to Davoust as the +future king of the new Poland.</p> +<p>Many present at the farewell reception of the Governor carried a +sword, though they were the merest civilians, plotting, counter-plotting, +and whispering a hundred rumours. Perhaps Rapp himself, speaking +bluff French with a German accent, was as honest as any man in the room, +though he lacked the polish of the Parisian and had not the subtlety +of the Pole. Rapp was not a shining light in these brilliant circles. +He was a Governor not for peace, but for war. His day was yet +to come.</p> +<p>Such men as de Casimir shrugged their supple shoulders at his simple +talk. They spoke of him half-contemptuously as of one who had +had a thousand chances and had never taken them. He was not even +rich, and he had handled great sums of money. He was only a General, +and he had slept in the Emperor’s tent—had had access to +him in every humour. He might do the same again in the coming +campaign. He was worth cultivating. De Casimir and his like +were full of smiles which in no wise deceived the shrewd Alsatian.</p> +<p>Mathilde Sebastian was among the ladies to whom these brilliant warriors +paid their uncouth compliments. Perhaps de Casimir was aware that +her measuring eyes followed him wherever he went. He knew, at +all events, that he could hold his own amid these adventurers, many +of whom had risen from the ranks; while others, from remote northern +States, had birth but no manners at all. He was easy and gay, +carrying lightly that subtle air of distinction which is vouchsafed +to many Poles.</p> +<p>“Here to-day, Mademoiselle, and gone to-morrow,” he said. +“All these eager soldiers. And who can tell which of us +may return?”</p> +<p>If he had expected Mathilde to flinch at this reminder of his calling, +he was disappointed. Her eyes were hard and bright. She +had had so few chances of moving amidst this splendour, of seeing close +at hand the greatness which Napoleon shed around him as the sun its +rays. She was carried away by the spirit of the age. Anything +was better, she felt, than obscurity.</p> +<p>“And who can tell,” whispered de Casimir with a careless +and confident laugh, “which of us shall come back rich and great?”</p> +<p>This brought the glance from her dark eyes for which his own lay +waiting. She was certainly beautiful, and wore the difficult dress +of that day with assurance and grace. She possessed something +which the German ladies about her lacked; something which many suddenly +lack when a Frenchwoman is near.</p> +<p>His manner, half respectful, half triumphant, betrayed an understanding +to which he did not refer in words. She had bestowed some favour +upon him—had acceded to some request. He hoped for more. +He had overstepped some barrier. She, who should have measured +the distance, had allowed him to come too close. The barriers +of love are one-sided; there is no climbing back.</p> +<p>“A hundred envious eyes are watching me,” he said in +an undertone as he passed on; “I dare not stay longer. I +am on duty to-night.”</p> +<p>She bowed and watched him go. She was, it would seem, aware +of that fallen barrier. She had done nothing, had permitted nothing +from weakness. There was no weakness at all perhaps in Mathilde +Sebastian. She had the quiet manner of a skilled card-player with +folded cards laid face down upon the table, who knows what is in her +hand and is waiting for the foe to lead.</p> +<p>De Casimir did not see her again. In such a throng it would +have been difficult to find her had he so desired. But, as he +had told her, he was on duty to-night. There were to be a hundred +arrests before dawn. Many who were laughing and talking with the +French officers to-night were already in the grasp of Napoleon’s +secret police, and would drive straight from the door of the Rathhaus +to the town prison or to the old Watch-house in the Portchaisengasse. +Others, moving through the great rooms with a high head, were already +condemned out of their own bureaux and escritoires now being rifled +by the Emperor’s spies.</p> +<p>The Emperor himself had given the order, before quitting Dantzig +to take command of the maddest and greatest enterprise conceived by +the mind of man. There was nothing above the reach of his mind, +it seemed, and nothing too low for him to bend down and touch. +Every detail had been considered by himself. He was like a man +who, having an open wound on his back, attends to it hurriedly before +showing an undaunted face to the enemy.</p> +<p>His inexorable finger had come down on the name of Antoine Sebastian, +figuring on all the secret reports—first in many.</p> +<p>“Who is this man?” he asked, and none could answer.</p> +<p>He had gone to the frontier without awaiting the solution to the +question. Such was his method now. He had so much to do +that he could but skim the surface of his task. For the human +mind, though it be colossal, can only work within certain limits. +The greatest orator in the world can only move his immediate hearers. +Those beyond the inner circle catch a word here and there, and imagination +supplies the rest or improves upon it. But those in the farthest +gallery hear nothing and see a little man gesticulating.</p> +<p>De Casimir was not entrusted with the execution of the Emperor’s +orders. As a member of General Rapp’s staff, resident in +Dantzig since the city’s occupation by the French, he had been +called upon to make exhaustive reports upon the feeling of the burghers. +There were many doubtful cases. De Casimir did not pretend to +be better than his fellows. To some he had sold the benefit of +the doubt. Some had paid willingly enough for their warning. +Others had put off the payment; for there were many Jews, then as now, +in Dantzig; slow payers requiring something stronger than a threat to +make them disburse.</p> +<p>De Casimir therefore quitted the Rathhaus among the first to go, +and walked through the busy streets to his rooms in the Langenmarkt, +where he not only lived but had a small office to which orderlies and +aides-de-camp came by day or night. Two sentries kept guard on +the pavement. Since the spring, this office had been one of the +busiest military posts in Dantzig. Its doors were open at all +hours, and in truth many of de Casimir’s assistants preferred +to transact their business in the dark.</p> +<p>There might be some recalcitrant debtor driven by stress of circumstance +to clear his conscience to-night. It would be as well, de Casimir +thought, to be at one’s post. Nor was he mistaken. +Though it was only ten o’clock, two men were awaiting his return, +and, their business despatched, de Casimir deemed it wise to send away +his assistants. Immediately after they had gone a woman came. +She was half distracted with fear, and the tears ran down her pallid +cheeks. But she dried them at the mention of de Casimir’s +price, and fell to abusing him.</p> +<p>“If your husband is innocent, there is all the more reason +why he should be grateful to me for warning him,” he said, with +a smile. And at last the lady paid and went away.</p> +<p>The town clocks had struck eleven before another footstep on the +pavement made de Casimir raise his head. He did not actually expect +any one, but a certain surreptitiousness in the approach of this visitor, +and the low knock on the door, made him suspect that this was grist +for his mill.</p> +<p>He opened the door and, seeing that it was a woman, stepped back. +When she had entered, he closed the door while she stood watching him +in the dark passage, beneath the shadow of her hood. Knowing the +value of such small details, he locked the door rather ostentatiously +and dropped the key into his pocket.</p> +<p>“And now, madame,” he said reassuringly, as he followed +his visitor into the room where a shaded lamp lighted his writing-table. +She threw back her hood, and it was Mathilde! The surprise on +de Casimir’s face was genuine enough. Romance could not +have brought about this visit, nor love be its motive.</p> +<p>“Something has happened,” he said, looking at her doubtfully.</p> +<p>“Where is my father?” was the reply.</p> +<p>“Unless there has been some mistake,” he answered glibly, +“he is at home in bed.”</p> +<p>She smiled contemptuously into his innocent face.</p> +<p>“There has been a mistake,” she said; “they came +to arrest him to-night.”</p> +<p>De Casimir made a gesture of anger and seemed to be mentally assigning +a punishment to some blunderer.</p> +<p>“And?” he asked, without looking at her.</p> +<p>“And he escaped.”</p> +<p>“For the moment?”</p> +<p>“No; he has left Dantzig.”</p> +<p>Something in her voice—the cold note of warning—made +him glance uneasily at her. This was not a woman to be deceived, +and yet she was womanly enough to fear deception and to resent her own +fears, visiting her anger on any who aroused them. In the flash +of an eye he understood her, and forestalled the words that were upon +her lips.</p> +<p>“And I promised that he should come to no harm—I know +that,” he said quickly. “At first I thought that it +must have been a blunder, but on reflection I am sure that it is not. +It is the Emperor. He must have given the order for the arrest +himself, behind my back. That is his way. He trusts no one. +He deceives those nearest to him. I made out the list of those +to be arrested to-night, and your father’s name was not on it. +Do you believe me? Mademoiselle, do you believe me?”</p> +<p>It was only natural in such a man to look for disbelief. The +air he breathed was infected by suspicion. No deception was too +small for the great man whom he served. Mathilde made no answer.</p> +<p>“You came here to accuse me of having deceived you,” +he said rather anxiously. “Is that it?”</p> +<p>She nodded without meeting his eyes. It was not the truth. +She had come to hear his defence, hoping against hope that she might +be able to believe him.</p> +<p>“Mathilde,” he asked slowly, “do you believe me?”</p> +<p>He came a step nearer, looking down at her averted face, which was +oddly white. Then suddenly she turned, without a sound, without +lifting her eyes—and was in his arms. It seemed that she +had done it against her will, and it took him by surprise. He +had thought that she was trying to attract his love because she believed +in his capability to make his fortune like so many soldiers of France; +that she was only playing a woman’s subtle game. And, after +all, she was like the rest—a little cleverer, a little colder—but, +like the rest.</p> +<p>While his arms were still round her, his quick mind leapt forward +to the future, wondering already to what end this would lead them. +For a moment he was taken aback. He was over the last of those +barriers which are so easy from the outside and unclimbable from within. +She had thrust into his hands a power greater than, for the moment, +he knew how to wield. It was characteristic of him to think first +whither it would lead him, and next how he could turn it to good account.</p> +<p>Some instinct told him that this was a different love from any that +he had met before. The same instinct made him understand that +it was crying aloud to be convinced; and, oddly enough, he had told +her the truth.</p> +<p>“See,” he said, “here is a copy of the list, and +your father’s name is not on it. See, here is Napoleon’s +letter, expressing satisfaction with my work here and in Königsberg, +where I have been served by an agent of my own choosing. Many +have climbed to a throne with less than that letter for their first +step. See . . . !” he opened another drawer. It was +full of money.</p> +<p>“See, again!” he said with a low laugh, and from an iron +chest he took two or three bags which fell upon the table with the discreet +unmistakable chink of gold. “That is the Emperor’s. +He trusts me, you see. These bags are mine. They are to +be sent back to France before I follow the army to Russia. What +I have told you is true, you see.”</p> +<p>It was an odd way of wooing, but this man rarely made a mistake. +There are many women who, like Mathilde Sebastian, are readier to love +success than console failure.</p> +<p>“See,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation, opening +another drawer in his writing-table, “before I went away I had +intended to ask you to remember me.”</p> +<p>As he spoke he drew a jewel-case from under some papers, and slowly +opened it. He had others like it in the drawer; for emergencies.</p> +<p>“But I never hoped,” he went on, “to have an opportunity +of seeing you thus alone—to ask you never to forget me. +You permit me?”</p> +<p>He clasped the diamonds round her throat, and they glittered on the +poor, cheap dress, which was the best she had. She looked down +at them with a catching breath, and for an instant the glitter was reflected +in her eyes.</p> +<p>She had come asking for reassurance, and he gave her diamonds; which +is an old tale told over and over again. For in human love we +have to accept not what we want, but what is given to us.</p> +<p>“No one in Dantzig,” he said, “is so glad to hear +that your father has escaped as I am.”</p> +<p>And, with the glitter still lurking in her dark-grey eyes, she believed +him. He drew her cloak round her, and gently brought her hood +over her hair.</p> +<p>“I must take you home,” he said tenderly, “without +delay. And as we go through the streets you must tell me how it +happened, and how you were able to come to me.”</p> +<p>“Désirée was not asleep,” she answered; +“she was waiting for me to return, and told me at once. +Then she went to bed, and I waited until she was asleep. It was +she who managed the escape.”</p> +<p>De Casimir, who was locking the drawers of his writing-table, glanced +up sharply.</p> +<p>“Ah! but not alone?”</p> +<p>“No—not alone. I will tell you as we go through +the streets.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XI. THE WAVE MOVES ON.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>La même fermeté qui +sert à résister à l’amour sert aussi à +le rendre violent et durable.</i></p> +<p>It is only in war that the unexpected admittedly happens. In +love and other domestic calamities there is always a relative who knew +it all the time.</p> +<p>The news that Napoleon was in Vilna, hastily evacuated by the Russians +in full retreat, came as a surprise and not to all as a pleasant one, +in Dantzig.</p> +<p>It was Papa Barlasch who brought the tidings to the Frauengasse, +one hot afternoon in July. He returned before his usual hour, +and sent Lisa upstairs, with a message given in dumb show and interpreted +by her into matter-of-fact German, that he must see the young ladies +without delay. Far back in the great days of the monarchy, Papa +Barlasch must have been a little child in a peasant’s hut on those +Côtes du Nord where they breed a race of Frenchmen startlingly +similar to the hereditary foe across the Channel, where to this day +the men kick off their sabots at the door and hold that an honest labourer +has no business under a roof except in stocking-feet and shirt-sleeves.</p> +<p>Barlasch had never yet been upstairs in the Sebastians’ house, +and deemed it only respectful to the ladies to take off his boots on +the mat, and prowl to the kitchen in coarse blue woollen stockings, +carefully darned by himself, under the scornful immediate eye of Lisa.</p> +<p>He was in the kitchen when Mathilde and Désirée, in +obedience to his command, came downstairs. The floor in one corner +of the room was littered with his belongings; for he never used the +table. “He takes up no more room than a cat,” Lisa +once said of him. “I never fall over him.”</p> +<p>“She leaves her greasy plates here and there,” explained +Barlasch in return. “One must think of one’s self +and one’s uniform.”</p> +<p>He was in his stocking-feet with unbuttoned tunic when the two girls +came to him.</p> +<p>“Aï, aï, aï,” he said, imitating with +his two hands the galloping of a horse. “The Russians,” +he explained confidentially.</p> +<p>“Has there been a battle?” asked Désirée.</p> +<p>And Barlasch answered “Pooh!” not without contempt for +the female understanding.</p> +<p>“Then what is it?” she inquired. “You must +remember we are not soldiers—we do not understand those manœuvres—aï, +aï, like that.”</p> +<p>And she copied his gesture beneath his scowling contempt.</p> +<p>“It is Vilna,” he said. “That is what it +is. Then it will be Smolensk, and then Moscow. Ah, ah! +That little man!”</p> +<p>He turned and took up his haversack.</p> +<p>“And I—I have my route. It is good-bye to the Frauengasse. +We have been friends. I told you we should be. It is good-bye +to these ladies—and to that Lisa. Look at her!”</p> +<p>He pointed with his curved and derisive finger into Lisa’s +eyes. And in truth the tears were there. Lisa was in heart +and person that which is comprehensively called motherly. She +saw perhaps some pathos in the sight of this rugged man—worn by +travel, bent with hardship and many wounds, past his work—shouldering +his haversack and trudging off to the war.</p> +<p>“The wave moves on,” he said, making a gesture, and a +sound illustrating that watery progress. “And Dantzig will +soon be forgotten. You will be left in peace—but we go on +to—” He paused and shrugged his shoulders while attending +to a strap. “India or the devil,” he concluded.</p> +<p>“Colonel Casimir has gone,” he added in what he took +to be an aside to Mathilde. Which made her wonder for a moment. +“I saw him depart with his staff soon after daybreak. And +the Emperor has forgotten Dantzig. It is safe enough for the patron +now. You can write him a letter to tell him so. Tell him +that I said it was safe for him to return quietly here, and live in +the Frauengasse—I, Barlasch.”</p> +<p>He was ready now, and, buttoning his tunic, he fixed the straps across +his chest, looking from one to the other of the three women watching +him, not without some appreciation of an audience. Then he turned +to Désirée, who had always been his friend, with whom +he now considered that he had the soldier’s bond of a peril passed +through together.</p> +<p>“The Emperor has forgotten Dantzig,” he repeated, “and +those against whom he had a grudge. But he has also forgotten +those who are in prison. It is not good to be forgotten in prison. +Tell the patron that—to put it in his pipe and smoke it. +Some day he may remember an old soldier. Ah, one thinks of one’s +self.”</p> +<p>And beneath his bushy brows he looked at her with a gleam of cunning. +He went to the door and, turning there, pointed the finger of scorn +at Lisa, stout and tearful. He gave a short laugh of a low-born +contempt, and departed without further parley.</p> +<p>On the doorstep he paused to put on his boots and button his gaiters, +stooping clumsily with a groan beneath his burden of haversack and kit. +Désirée, who had had time to go upstairs to her bedroom, +ran after him as he descended the steps. She had her purse in +her hand, and she thrust it into his, quickly and breathlessly.</p> +<p>“If you take it,” she said, “I shall know that +we are friends.”</p> +<p>He took it ungraciously enough. It was a silken thing with +two small rings to keep the money in place, and he looked at it with +a grimace, weighing it in his hand. It was very light.</p> +<p>“Money,” he said. “No, thank you. To +get drink with, and be degraded and sent to prison. Not for me, +madame. No, thank you. One thinks of one’s career.”</p> +<p>And with a gruff laugh of worldly wisdom he continued his way down +the worn steps, never looking back at her as she stood in the sunlight +watching him, with the purse in her hand.</p> +<p>So in his old age Papa Barlasch was borne forward to the war on that +human tide which flooded all Lithuania, and never ebbed again, but sank +into the barren ground, and was no more seen.</p> +<p>As the slow autumn approached, it became apparent that Dantzig no +longer interested the watchers. Vilna became the base of operations. +Smolensk fell, and, most wonderful of all, the Russians were retiring +on Moscow. Dantzig was no longer on the route. For a time +it was of the world forgotten, while, as Barlasch had predicted, free +men continued at liberty, though their names had an evil savour, while +innocent persons in prison were left to rot there.</p> +<p>Désirée continued to receive letters from her husband, +full of love and war. For a long time he lingered at Königsberg, +hoping every day to be sent forward. Then he followed Murat across +the Niemen, and wrote of weary journeys over the rolling plains of Lithuania.</p> +<p>Towards the end of July he mentioned curtly the arrival of de Casimir +at head-quarters.</p> +<p>“With him came a courier,” wrote Charles, “bringing +your dead letter. I don’t believe you love me as I love +you. At all events, you do not seem to tell me that you do so +often as I want to tell you. Tell me what you do and think every +moment of the day . . . . . . ” And so on. Charles +seemed to write as easily as he talked, and had no difficulty in setting +forth his feelings. “The courier is in the saddle,” +he concluded. “De Casimir tells me that I must finish. +Write and tell me everything. How is Mathilde? And your +father? Is he in good health? How does he pass his day? +Does he still go out in the evening to his cafe?”</p> +<p>This seemed to be an afterthought, suggested perhaps by conversation +passing in the room in which he sat.</p> +<p>The other exile, writing from Stockholm, was briefer in his communications.</p> +<p>“I am well,” wrote Antoine Sebastian, “and hope +to arrive soon after you receive this. Felix Meyer, the notary, +has instructions to furnish you with money for household expenses.”</p> +<p>It would appear that Sebastian possessed other friends in Dantzig, +who had kept him advised of all that passed in the city.</p> +<p>For neither Mathilde nor Désirée had obeyed Barlasch’s +blunt order to write to their father. They did not know whither +he had fled, neither had they received any communication giving an address +or a hint as to his future movements. It would appear that the +same direct and laconic mind which had carried out his escape deemed +it wiser that those left behind should be in no position to furnish +information.</p> +<p>In fairness to Barlasch, Désirée had made little of +that soldier’s part in Sebastian’s evasion, and Mathilde +displayed small interest in such details. She rather fastened, +however, upon the assistance rendered by Louis d’Arragon.</p> +<p>“Why did he do it?” she asked.</p> +<p>“Oh, because I asked him,” was the reply.</p> +<p>“And why did you ask him?”</p> +<p>“Who else was there to ask?” returned Désirée, +which was indeed unanswerable.</p> +<p>Perhaps the question had been suggested to her by de Casimir, who, +on learning that Louis d’Arragon had helped her father to slip +through the Emperor’s fingers, had asked the same in his own characteristic +way.</p> +<p>“What could he hope to gain by doing it?” he had inquired +as he walked by Mathilde’s side, along the Pfaffengasse. +And he made other interrogations respecting D’Arragon which Mathilde +was no more able to satisfy, as he accompanied her to the Frauengasse.</p> +<p>Since that time the dancing-lessons had been resumed to the music +of a hired fiddler, and Désirée had once more taken up +her household task of making both ends meet. She approached the +difficulties as impetuously as ever, and danced the stout pupils round +the room with undiminished energy.</p> +<p>“It seems no good at all, your being married,” said one +of these breathlessly, while Désirée laughingly attended +to her dishevelled hair.</p> +<p>“Why not?”</p> +<p>“Because you still make your own dresses and teach dancing,” +replied the pupil, with a quick sigh at the thought of some smart bursch +in the Prussian contingent.</p> +<p>“Ah, but Charles will return a colonel, and I shall bow to +you in a silk dress from a chaise and pair—come, left foot first. +You are not so tired as you think you are.”</p> +<p>For those that are busy, time flies quickly enough. And there +is nothing more absorbing than keeping the wolf from the door, else +assuredly the hungry thousands would find time to arise and rend the +overfed few.</p> +<p>August succeeded a hot July and brought with it Sebastian’s +curt letter. Sebastian himself—that shadowy father—returned +to his home a few hours later. He was not alone, for a heavier +step followed his into the passage, and Désirée, always +quick to hear and see and act, coming to the head of the stairs, perceived +her father looking upwards towards her, while his companion in rough +sailor’s clothes turned to lay aside the valise he had carried +on his shoulder.</p> +<p>Mathilde was close behind Désirée, and Sebastian kissed +his daughters with that cold repression of manner which always suggested +a strenuous past in which the emotions had been relinquished for ever +as an indulgence unfit for a stern and hard-bitten age.</p> +<p>“I took him away and now return him,” said the sailor +coming forward. Désirée had always known that it +was Louis, but Mathilde gave a little start at the sound of the neat +clipping French in the mouth of an educated Frenchman so rarely heard +in Dantzig—so rarely heard in all broad France to-day.</p> +<p>“Yes—that is true,” answered Sebastian, turning +to him with a sudden change of manner. There was that in voice +and attitude which his hearers had never noted before, although Charles +had often evoked something approaching it. It seemed to indicate +that, of all the people with whom they had seen their father hold intercourse, +Louis d’Arragon was the only man who stood upon equality with +him.</p> +<p>“That is true—and at great risk to yourself,” he +said, not assigning, however, so great an importance to personal danger +as men do in these careful days. As he spoke, he took Louis by +the arm and by a gesture invited him to precede him upstairs with a +suggestion of <i>camaraderie</i> somewhat startling in one usually so +cold and formal as Antoine Sebastian, the dancing-master of the Frauengasse.</p> +<p>“I was writing to Charles,” said Désirée +to D’Arragon, when they reached the drawing-room, and, crossing +to her own table, she set the papers in order there. These consisted +of a number of letters from her husband, read and re-read, it would +appear. And the answer to them, a clean sheet of paper bearing +only the date and address, lay beneath her hand.</p> +<p>“The courier leaves this evening,” she said, with a queer +ring of anxiety in her voice, as if she feared that for some reason +or another she ran the risk of failing to despatch her letter. +She glanced at the clock, and stood, pen in hand, thinking of what she +should write.</p> +<p>“May I enclose a line?” asked Louis. “It +is not wise, perhaps, for me to address to him a letter—since +I am on the other side. It is a small matter of a heritage which +he and I divide. I have placed some money in a Dantzig bank for +him. He may require it when he returns.”</p> +<p>“Then you do not correspond with Charles?” said Mathilde, +clearing a space for him on the larger table, and setting before him +ink and pens and paper.</p> +<p>“Thank you, Mademoiselle,” he said, glancing at her with +that light of interest in his dark eyes which she had ignited once before +by a question on the only occasion that they had met. He seemed +to detect that she was more interested in him than her indifferent manner +would appear to indicate. “No, I am a bad correspondent. +If Charles and I, in our present circumstances, were to write to each +other it could only lead to intrigue, for which I have no taste and +Charles no capacity.”</p> +<p>“You seem to hint that Charles might have such a taste then,” +she said, with her quiet smile, as she moved away leaving him to write.</p> +<p>“Charles has probably found out by this time,” he answered +with the bluntness which he claimed as a prerogative of his calling +and nation, “that a soldier of Napoleon’s who intrigues +will make a better career than one who merely fights.”</p> +<p>He took up his pen and wrote with the absorption of one who has but +little time and knows exactly what to say. By chance he glanced +towards Désirée, who sat at her own table near the window. +She was stroking her cheek with the feather of her pen, looking with +puzzled eyes at the blank paper before her. Each time D’Arragon +dipped his pen he glanced at her, watching her. And Mathilde, +with her needlework, watched them both.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XII. FROM BORODINO.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>However we brave it out, we men +are a little breed.</i></p> +<p>War is the gambling of kings. Napoleon, the arch-gambler, from +that Southern sea where men, lacking cards or dice and the money to +buy either, will yet play a game of chance with the ten fingers that +God gave them for another purpose—Napoleon had dealt a hand with +every monarch in Europe before he met for the second time that Northern +adversary of cool blood who knew the waiting game.</p> +<p>It is only where the stakes are small that the leisurely players, +idly fingering the fallen cards, return in fancy to certain points—to +this trick trumped or that chance missed, playing the game over again. +But when the result is great it overshadows the game, and all men’s +thoughts fly to speculation on the future. How will the loser +meet his loss? What use will the winner make of his gain?</p> +<p>The results of the Russian campaign were so stupendous to history +that the historians of the day, in their bewilderment, sought rather +to preserve these than the details of the war. Thus the student +of to-day, in piecing together an impression of bygone times, will inevitably +find portions of his picture missing. As a matter of fact, no +one can say for certain whether Alexander gently led Napoleon onward +to Moscow or was himself driven thither in confusion by the conqueror.</p> +<p>Perhaps each merely pushed on from day to day, as men who are not +Emperors must needs do in the stress of life. It is only in calm +weather that the eye is able to discern things afar off and make ready; +but in a storm the horizon is dimmed by cloud and spray. All Europe +was so obscured at this time. And even Emperors, being only men, +could look no farther than the immediate and urgent danger of the moment.</p> +<p>Napoleon’s generals were scarcely social lights. Ney, +the hero of the retreat, the bravest of the brave, was a rough man who +ate horseflesh without troubling to cook it. Rapp, whose dogged +defence of an abandoned city is without compare in the story of war, +had the manners and the mind of a peasant. These gentlemen dealt +more in deeds than in words. They had not much to say for themselves.</p> +<p>As for the Russians, Russia remains at this time the one European +country unhampered and unharassed by a cheap press—the one country +where prominent men have a quiet tongue. A hundred years ago Russians +did great deeds, and the rest was silence. Neither Kutusoff nor +Alexander ever stated clearly whether the retreat to Moscow was intentional +or unavoidable; and these are the only men who knew. Perhaps Napoleon +knew; at all events, he thought he did, or pretended to think it long +afterwards at St. Helena, for Napoleon the Great was a consummate liar.</p> +<p>Be that as it may, the Russians retreated, and the French advanced +farther and farther from their base. It was a great army—the +greatest ever seen. For Napoleon had eight monarchs serving with +the eagles; generals innumerable, many of them immortal—Davoust, +the greatest strategist; Prince Eugene, the incomparable lieutenant; +Ney, the fearless; four hundred thousand men. And they carried +with them only twenty days’ provision.</p> +<p>They had marched from the Vistula, full of shipping, across the Pregel, +loaded with stores, to the Niemen, where there was no navigation. +Dantzig, behind them—that Gibraltar of the North—was stored +with provision enough for the whole army. But there was no transport; +for the roads of Lithuania were unsuitable for the heavy carts provided.</p> +<p>The country across the Niemen could scarce sustain its own sparse +population, and had nothing to spare for an invading army. This +had once been Poland, and was now inimical to Russia; but Russia did +not care, and the friendship of Lithuania was like many human friendships +which we make sacrifices to preserve—not worth having.</p> +<p>All the while the Russians retreated, and, stranger still, the French +followed them, eking out their twenty days’ provision.</p> +<p>“I will make them fight a big battle, and beat them,” +said Napoleon; “and then the Emperor will sue for peace.”</p> +<p>But Barclay de Tolly continued to run away from that great battle. +Then came the news that Barclay had been deposed; that Kutusoff was +coming from the South to take command. It was true enough; and +Barclay cheerfully served in a subordinate position to the new chief. +September brought great hopes of a battle, for Kutusoff seemed to retreat +with less despatch, like a man choosing his ground—Kutusoff, that +master of the waiting game.</p> +<p>Early in September Murat, the impetuous leader of the pursuit, complained +to Nansouty that a cavalry charge had not been pushed home.</p> +<p>“The horses have no patriotism,” replied Nansouty. +“The men will fight on empty stomachs, but not the horses.”</p> +<p>An ominous reply at the beginning of a campaign, while communications +were still open.</p> +<p>At last, within a few days’ march of Moscow, Kutusoff made +a stand. At last the great battle was imminent, after a hundred +false alarms, after many disappointed hopes. The country had been +flat hitherto. The Borodino, running in a wider valley than many +of these rivers, which are merely great ditches, seemed to offer possibilities +of defence. It was the only hope for Moscow.</p> +<p>“At last,” wrote Charles to Désirée on +September 6, “we are to have a great battle. There has been +much fighting the last few days, but I have seen none of it. We +are only eighty miles from Moscow. If there is a great battle +to-morrow we shall see Moscow in less than a week. For we shall +win. I have now found out from one who is near him that the Emperor +saw and remembered me the day he passed us in the Frauengasse—our +wedding-day, dearest. Nobody is too insignificant for him to know. +He thought that my marriage to you (for he knows that you are French) +would militate against the work I had been given to do in Dantzig, so +he gave orders for me to be sent at once to Königsberg and to continue +the work there. De Casimir tells me that the Emperor is pleased +with me. De Casimir is the best friend I have; I am sure of that. +It is said that under the walls of Moscow the Emperor will dictate his +terms to Alexander. Every one wonders that Alexander of Russia +did not make proposals of peace when Vilna and Smolensk fell. +In a week we may be at Moscow. In a month I may be back at Dantzig, +Désirée . . . . “</p> +<p>And the rest would have been for Désirée’s eyes +alone, had it ever been penned. For next in sacredness to heaven-inspired +words are mere human love letters; and those who read the love-letters +of another commit a sacrilege. But Charles never finished the +letter, for the dawn surprised him where he wrote in a shed by the miserable +Kalugha, a streamlet running to the Moskwa. And it was the dawn +of September 7, 1812.</p> +<p>“There is the sun of Austerlitz,” said Napoleon to those +who were near him when it arose. But it was not. It was +the sun of Borodino. And before it set the great battle desired +by the French had been fought, and eight French generals lay dead, while +thirty more were wounded. Murat, Davoust, Ney, Junot, Prince Eugene, +Napoleon himself—all were there; and all fought to finish a war +which from the first had been disliked. The French claimed it +as a victory; but they gained nothing by it, and they lost forty thousand +killed and wounded.</p> +<p>During the night the Russians evacuated the position which they had +held, and lost, and retaken. They retreated towards Moscow, but +Napoleon was hardly ready to pursue.</p> +<p>These things, however, are history, and those who wish to know of +them may read them in another volume. While to the many orderly +persons who would wish to see everything in its place and the history-books +on the top shelf to be taken down and read on a future day (which will +never come), to such the explanation is due that this battle of Borodino +is here touched upon because it changed the current of some lives with +which we have to deal.</p> +<p>For battles and revolutions and historical events of any sort are +the jagged instruments with which Fate rough-hews our lives, leaving +us to shape them as we will. In other days, no doubt, men rough-hewed, +while Fate shaped. But as civilization advances men will wax so +tender, so careful of the individual, that they will never cut and slash, +but move softly, very tolerant, very easy-going, seeking the compromise +that brings peace and breeds a small and timid race of men.</p> +<p>Into such lives Fate comes crashing like a woodman with his axe, +leaving us to smooth the edges of the gaping wound and smile, and say +that we are not hurt; to pare away the knots and broken stumps; and +hope that our neighbour, concealing such himself, will have the decency +to pretend not to see.</p> +<p>Thus the battle of Borodino crashed into the lives of Désirée +and Mathilde, and their father, living quietly on the sunny side of +the Frauengasse in Dantzig. Antoine Sebastian was the first to +hear the news. He had, it seemed, special facilities for learning +news at the Weissen Röss’l, whither he went again now in +the evening.</p> +<p>“There has been a great battle,” he said, with so much +more than his usual self-restraint that Désirée and Mathilde +exchanged a glance of anxiety. “A man coming this evening +from Dirschau saw and spoke with the Imperial couriers on their way +to Berlin and Paris. It was a great victory, quite near to Moscow. +But the loss on both sides has been terrible.”</p> +<p>He paused and glanced at Désirée. It was his +creed that good blood should show an example of self-restraint and a +certain steadfast, indifferent courage.</p> +<p>“Not so much among the French,” he said, “as among +the Bavarians and Italians. It is an odd way of showing patriotism, +to gain victories for the conqueror. One hoped—” he +paused and made a gesture with his right hand, scarcely indicative of +a staunch hope, “that the man’s star might be setting, but +it would appear to be still in the ascendant. Charles,” +he added, as an afterthought, “would be on the staff. No +doubt he only saw the fighting from a distance.”</p> +<p>Désirée, from whose face the colour had faded, nodded +cheerfully enough.</p> +<p>“Oh yes,” she answered, “I have no doubt he is +safe. He has good fortune.”</p> +<p>For she was an apt pupil, and had already learnt that the world only +wishes to leave us in undisputed possession of our anxieties or sorrows, +however ready it may be to come forward and take a hand in good fortune.</p> +<p>“But there is no definite news,” said Mathilde, hardly +looking up from the needlework at which her fingers were so deft and +industrious.</p> +<p>“No.”</p> +<p>“No news of Charles, I mean,” she continued, “or +of any of our friends. Of Monsieur de Casimir, for instance?”</p> +<p>“No. As for Colonel de Casimir,” returned Sebastian +thoughtfully, “he, like Charles, holds some staff appointment +of which one does not understand the scope. He is without doubt +uninjured.”</p> +<p>Mathilde glanced at her father not without suspicion. His grand +manner might easily be at times a screen. One never knows how +much is perceived by those who look down from a high place.</p> +<p>The town was quiet enough all that night. Sebastian must have +heard the news from some unofficial source, for none other seemed to +know it. But at daybreak the church bells, so rarely used in Dantzig +for rejoicing, awoke the burghers to the fact that the Emperor bade +them make merry. Napoleon gave great heed to such matters. +In the churches of Lithuania and farther on in Russia he had commanded +the popes to pray for him at their altars instead of for the Czar.</p> +<p>When Désirée came downstairs, she found a packet awaiting +her. The courier had come in during the night. This was +more than a letter. A number of papers had been folded in a handkerchief +and bound with string. The address was written on a piece of white +leather cut from the uniform of one who had fallen at Borodino, and +had no more need of sabretasche or trapping.</p> +<p> “Madame Désirée +Darragon—<i>née</i> Sebastian,<br /> Frauengasse +36,<br /> Dantzig.”</p> +<p>Désirée’s heart stood still; for the writing +was unknown to her. As she cut the network of string, she thought +that Charles was dead. When the enclosed papers fell upon the +table, she was sure of it; for they were all in his writing. She +did not pick and choose as one would who has leisure and no very strong +excitement, but took up the first paper and read:</p> +<p>“Dear C.—I have been fortunate, as you will see from +the enclosed report. His Majesty cannot again say that I have +been neglectful. I was quite right. It is Sebastian and +only Sebastian that we need fear. Here, they are clumsy conspirators +compared to him. I have been in the river half the night, listening +at the open stern window of a Reval pink to every word they said. +His Majesty can safely come to Königsberg. Indeed, he is +better out of Dantzig. For the whole country is riddled with that +which they call patriotism, and we, treason. But I can only repeat +what His Majesty disbelieved the day before yesterday—that the +heart of the ill is Dantzig, and the venom of it Sebastian. Who +he really is and what he is about, you must find out how you can. +I go forward to-day to Gumbinnen. The enclosed letter to its address—I +beg of you—if only in acknowledgment of all that I have sacrificed.”</p> +<p>The letter was unsigned, but the writing was the writing of Charles +Darragon, and Désirée knew what he had sacrificed—what +he could never recover.</p> +<p>There were two or three more letters addressed to “Dear C.,” +bearing no signature, and yet written by Charles. Désirée +read them carefully with a sort of numb attention which photographed +them permanently on her memory like writing that is carved in stone +upon a wall. There must be some explanation in one of them. +Who had sent them to her? Was Charles dead?</p> +<p>At last she came to a sealed envelope addressed to herself by Charles. +Some other hand had copied the address from it in identical terms on +the piece of white leather. She opened and read it. It was +the letter written to her by Charles on the bank of the Kalugha river +on the eve of Borodino, and left unfinished by him. He must be +dead. She prayed that he might be.</p> +<p>She was alone in the room, having come down early, as was her wont, +to prepare breakfast. She heard Lisa talking with some one at +the door—a messenger, no doubt, to say that Charles was dead.</p> +<p>One letter still remained unread. It was in a different writing—the +writing on the white leather.</p> +<p>“Madame,” it read, “The enclosed papers were found +on the field by one of my orderlies. One of them being addressed +to you, furnishes a clue to their owner, who must have dropped them +in the hurry of the advance. Should Captain Charles Darragon be +your husband, I have the pleasure to inform you that he was seen alive +and well at the end of the day.” The writer assured Désirée +of his respectful consideration, and wrote “Surgeon” after +his name.</p> +<p>Désirée had read the explanation too late.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII. IN THE DAY OF REJOICING.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>Truth, though it crush me</i>.</p> +<p>The door of the room stood open, and the sound of a step in the passage +made Désirée glance up, as she hastily put together the +papers found on the battlefield of Borodino.</p> +<p>Louis d’Arragon was coming into the room, and for an instant, +before his expression changed, she saw all the fatigue that he must +have endured during the night; all that he must have risked. His +face was usually still and quiet; a combination of that contemplative +calm which characterises seafaring faces, and the clean-cut immobility +of a racial type developed by hereditary duties of self-restraint and +command.</p> +<p>He knew that there had been a battle, and, seeing the papers on the +table, his eyes asked her the inevitable question which his lips were +slow to put into words.</p> +<p>In reply Désirée shook her head. She looked at +the papers in quick thought. Then she withdrew from them the letter +written to her by Charles—and put the others together.</p> +<p>“You told me to send for you,” she said in a quiet, tired +voice, “if I wanted you. You have saved me the trouble.”</p> +<p>His eyes were hard with anxiety as he looked at her. She held +the letters towards him.</p> +<p>“By coming,” she added, with a glance at him which took +in the dust, and the stains of salt-water on his clothes, the fatigue +he sought to conceal by a rigid stillness, and the tension that was +left by the dangers he had passed through—daring all—to +come.</p> +<p>Seeing that he looked doubtfully at the papers, she spoke again.</p> +<p>“One,” she said, “that one on the stained paper, +is addressed to me. You can read it—since I ask you.”</p> +<p>The letter told him, at all events, that Charles was not killed, +and, seeing his face clear as he read, she gave an odd, curt laugh.</p> +<p>“Read the others,” she said. “Oh! you need +not hesitate. You need not be so particular. Read one, the +top one. One is enough.”</p> +<p>The windows stood open, and the morning breeze fluttering the curtains +brought in the gay sound of bells, the high clear bells of Hanseatic +days, rejoicing at Napoleon’s new success—by order of Napoleon. +A bee sailed harmoniously into the room, made the circuit of it, and +sought the open again with a hum that faded drowsily into silence.</p> +<p>D’Arragon read the letter slowly from beginning to the unsigned +end, while Désirée, sitting at the table, upon which she +leant one elbow, resting her small square chin in the palm of her hand, +watched him.</p> +<p>“Ah?” she exclaimed at length, with a ring of contempt +in her voice, as if at the thought of something unclean. “A +spy! It is so easy for you to keep still, and to hide all you +feel.”</p> +<p>D’Arragon folded the letter slowly. It was the fatal +letter written in the upper room in the shoemaker’s house in Königsberg +in the Neuer Markt, where the linden trees grow close to the window. +In it Charles spoke lightly of the sacrifice he had made in leaving +Désirée on his wedding-day, to do the Emperor’s +bidding. It was indeed the greatest sacrifice that man can make; +for he had thrown away his honour.</p> +<p>“It may not be so easy as you think,” returned D’Arragon, +looking towards the door</p> +<p>He had no time to say more; for Mathilde and her father were talking +together on the stairs as they came down. D’Arragon thrust +the letters into his pocket, the only indication he had time to give +to Désirée of the policy they must pursue. He stood +facing the door, alert and quiet, with only a moment in which to shape +the course of more than one life.</p> +<p>“There is good news, Monsieur,” he said to Sebastian. +“Though I did not come to bring it.”</p> +<p>Sebastian pointed interrogatively to the open window, where the sound +of the bells seemed to emphasize the sunlight and the freshness of the +morning.</p> +<p>“No—not that,” returned D’Arragon. +“It is a great victory, they tell me; but it is hard to say whether +such news would be good or bad. It was of Charles that I spoke. +He is safe—Madame has heard.”</p> +<p>He spoke rather slowly, and turned towards Désirée +with a measured gesture, not unlike Sebastian’s habitual manner, +and a quick glance to satisfy himself that she had understood and was +ready.</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Désirée, “he was safe +and well after the battle, but he gives no details; for the letter was +actually written the day before.”</p> +<p>“With a mere word, added in postscriptum, to say that he was +unhurt at the end of the day,” suggested Sebastian, already drawing +forward a chair with a gesture full of hospitality, inviting D’Arragon +to be seated at the simple breakfast-table. But D’Arragon +was looking at Mathilde, who had gone rather hurriedly to the window, +as if to breathe the air. He had caught a glimpse of her face +as she passed. It was hard and set, quite colourless, with bright, +sleepless eyes. D’Arragon was a sailor. He had seen +that look in rougher faces and sterner eyes, and knew what it meant.</p> +<p>“No details?” asked Mathilde in a muffled voice, without +looking round.</p> +<p>“No,” answered Désirée, who had noticed +nothing. How much more clearly we should understand what is going +on around us if we had no secrets of our own to defend!</p> +<p>In obedience to Sebastian’s gesture, D’Arragon took a +chair, and even as he did so Mathilde came to the table, calm and mistress +of herself again, to pour out the coffee, and do the honours of the +simple meal. D’Arragon, besides having acquired the seamen’s +habit of adapting himself unconsciously and unobtrusively to his surroundings, +was of a direct mind, lacking self-consciousness, and simplified by +the pressure of a strong and steady purpose. For men’s minds +are like the atmosphere, which is always cleared by a steady breeze, +while a changing wind generates vapours, mist, uncertainty.</p> +<p>“And what news do you bring from the sea?” asked Sebastian. +“Is your sky there as overcast as ours in Dantzig?”</p> +<p>“No, Monsieur, our sky is clearing,” answered D’Arragon, +eating with a hearty appetite the fresh bread and butter set before +him. “Since I saw you, the treaties have been signed, as +you doubtless know, between Sweden and Russia and England.”</p> +<p>Nodding his head with silent emphasis, Sebastian gave it to be understood +that he knew that and more.</p> +<p>“It makes a great difference to us at sea in the Baltic,” +said D’Arragon. “We are no longer harassed night and +day, like a dog, hounded from end to end of a hostile street, not daring +to look into any doorway. The Russian ports and Swedish ports +are open to us now.”</p> +<p>“One is glad to hear that your life is one of less hardship,” +said Sebastian gravely. “I . . . . who have tasted it.”</p> +<p>Désirée glanced at his lean, hard face. She rose, +went out of the room, and returned in a few minutes carrying a new loaf +which she set on the table before him with a short laugh, and something +glistening in her eyes that was not mirth.</p> +<p>But neither Désirée nor Mathilde joined in the conversation. +They were glad for their father to have a companion so sympathetic as +to produce a marked difference in his manner. For Sebastian was +more at ease with Louis d’Arragon than he was with Charles, though +the latter had the tie of a common fatherland, and spoke the same French +that Sebastian spoke. D’Arragon’s French had the roundness +always imparted to that language by an English voice. It was perfect +enough, but of an educated perfection.</p> +<p>The talk was of such matters as concerned men more than women; of +armies and war and treaties of peace. For all the world thought +that Alexander of Russia would be brought to his knees by the battle +of Borodino. None knew better how to turn a victory to account +than he who claimed to be victor now. “It does not suffice,” +Napoleon wrote to his brother at this time, “to gain a victory. +You must learn to turn it to advantage.”</p> +<p>Save for the one reference to his life in the Baltic during the past +two months, D’Arragon said nothing of himself, of his patient, +dogged work carried on by day and by night in all weathers. Content +to have escaped with his life, he neither referred to, nor thought of, +his part in the negotiations which had resulted in the treaty just signed. +For he had been the link between Russia and England; the never-failing +messenger passing from one to the other with question and answer which +were destined to bear fruit at last in an understanding brought to perfection +in Paris, culminating at Elba.</p> +<p>Both were guarded in what they said of passing events, and both seemed +to doubt the truth of the reports now flying through the streets of +Dantzig. Even in the quiet Frauengasse all the citizens were out +on their terraces calling questions to those that passed by beneath +the trees. The itinerant tradesman, the milkman going his round, +the vendors of fruit from Langfuhr and the distant villages of the plain, +lingered at the doors to tell the servants the latest gossip of the +market-place. Even in this frontier city, full of spies, strangers +spoke together in the streets, and the sound of their voices, raised +above the clang of carillons, came in at the open window.</p> +<p>“At first a victory is always a great one,” said D’Arragon, +looking towards the window.</p> +<p>“It is so easy to ring a bell,” added Sebastian, with +his rare smile.</p> +<p>He was quite himself this morning, and only once did the dull look +arrest his features into the stony stillness which his daughters knew.</p> +<p>“You are the only one of your name in Dantzig,” said +D’Arragon, in the course of question and answer as to the safe +delivery of letters in time of war.</p> +<p>“So far as I know, there is no other Sebastian,” replied +he; and Désirée, who had guessed the motive of the question, +which must have been in D’Arragon’s mind from the beginning, +was startled by the fulness of the answer. It seemed to make reply +to more than D’Arragon had asked. It shattered the last +faint hope that there might have been another Sebastian of whom Charles +had written.</p> +<p>“For myself,” said D’Arragon, changing the subject +quickly, “I can now make sure of receiving letters addressed to +me in the care of the English Consul at Riga, or the Consul at Stockholm, +should you wish to communicate with me, or should Madame find leisure +to give me news of her husband.”</p> +<p>“Désirée will no doubt take pleasure in keeping +you advised of Charles’s progress. As for myself, I fear +I am a bad correspondent. Perhaps not a desirable one in these +days,” said Sebastian, his face slowly clearing. He waved +the point aside with a gesture that looked out of place on a hand lean +and spare, emerging from a shabby brown sleeve without cuff or ruffle.</p> +<p>“For I feel assured,” he went on, “that we shall +continue to hear good news of your cousin; not only that he is safe +and well, but that he makes progress in his profession. He will +go far, I am sure.”</p> +<p>D’Arragon bowed his acknowledgment of this kind thought, and +rose rather hastily.</p> +<p>“My best chance of quitting the city unseen,” he said, +“is to pass through the gates with the market-people returning +to the villages. To do that, I must not delay.”</p> +<p>“The streets are so full,” replied Sebastian, glancing +out of the window, “that you will pass through them unnoticed. +I see beneath the trees, a neighbour, Koch the locksmith, who is perhaps +waiting to give me news. While you are saying farewell, I will +go out and speak to him. What he has to tell may interest you +and your comrades at sea—may help your escape from the city this +morning.”</p> +<p>He took his hat as he spoke and went to the door. Mathilde, +thirsting for the news that seemed to hum in the streets like the sound +of bees, rose and followed him. Désirée and D’Arragon +were left alone. She had gone to the window, and, turning there, +she looked back at him over her shoulder, where he stood by the door +watching her.</p> +<p>“So, you see,” she said, “there is no other Sebastian.”</p> +<p>D’Arragon made no reply. She came nearer to him, her +blue eyes sombre with contempt for the man she had married. Suddenly +she pointed to the chair which D’Arragon had just vacated.</p> +<p>“That is where he sat. He has eaten my father’s +salt a hundred times,” she said, with a short laugh. For +whithersoever civilization may take us, we must still go back to certain +primæval laws of justice between man and man.</p> +<p>“You judge too hastily,” said D’Arragon; but she +interrupted him with a gesture of warning.</p> +<p>“I have not judged hastily,” she said. “You +do not understand. You think I judge from that letter. That +is only a confirmation of something that has been in my mind for a long +time—ever since my wedding-day. I knew when you came into +the room upstairs on that day that you did not trust Charles.”</p> +<p>“I—?” he asked.</p> +<p>“Yes,” she answered, standing squarely in front of him +and looking him in the eyes. “You did not trust him. +You were not glad that I had married him. I could see it in your +face. I have never forgotten.”</p> +<p>D’Arragon turned away towards the window. Sebastian and +Mathilde were in the street below, in the shade of the trees, talking +with the eager neighbours.</p> +<p>“You would have stopped it if you could,” said Désirée; +and he did not deny it.</p> +<p>“It was some instinct,” he said at length. “Some +passing misgiving.”</p> +<p>“For Charles?” she asked sharply.</p> +<p>And D’Arragon, looking out of the window, would not answer. +She gave a sudden laugh.</p> +<p>“One cannot compliment you on your politeness,” she said. +“Was it for Charles that you had misgivings?”</p> +<p>At last D’Arragon turned on his heel.</p> +<p>“Does it matter?” he asked. “Since I came +too late.”</p> +<p>“That is true,” she said, after a pause. “You +came too late; so it doesn’t matter. And the thing is done +now, and I . . . , well, I suppose I must do what others have done before +me—I must make the best of it.”</p> +<p>“I will help you,” said D’Arragon slowly, almost +carefully, “if I can.”</p> +<p>He was still avoiding her eyes, still looking out of the window. +Sebastian was coming up the steps.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV. MOSCOW.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>Nothing is so disappointing as failure—except +success.</i></p> +<p>While the Dantzigers with grave faces discussed the news of Borodino +beneath the trees in the Frauengasse, Charles Darragon, white with dust, +rose in his stirrups to catch the first sight of the domes and cupolas +of Moscow.</p> +<p>It was a sunny morning, and the gold on the churches gleamed and +glittered in the shimmering heat like fairyland. Charles had ridden +to the summit of a hill and sat for a moment, as others had done, in +silent contemplation. Moscow at last! All around him men +were shouting: “Moscow! Moscow!” Grave, white-haired +generals waved their shakos in the air. Those at the summit of +the hill called the others to come. Far down in the valley, where +the dust raised by thousands of feet hung in the air like a mist, a +faint sound like the roar of falling water could be heard. It +was the word “Moscow!” sweeping back to the rearmost ranks +of these starving men who had marched for two months beneath the glaring +sun, parched with dust, through a country that seemed to them a Sahara. +Every house they approached, they had found deserted. Every barn +was empty. The very crops ripening to harvest had been gathered +in and burnt. Near to the miserable farmhouses, a pile of ashes +hardly cold marked where the poor furniture had been tossed upon the +fire kindled with the year’s harvest.</p> +<p>Everywhere it was the same. There are, as God created it, few +countries of a sadder aspect than that which spreads between the Moskwa +and the Vistula. But it has been decreed by the dim laws of Race +that the ugly countries shall be blessed with the greater love of their +children, while men born in a beautiful land seem readiest to emigrate +from it and make the best settlers in a new home. There is only +one country in the world with a ring-fence round it. If a Russian +is driven from his home, he will go to another part of Russia: there +is always room.</p> +<p>Before the advance of the spoilers, chartered by their leader to +unlimited and open rapine—indeed, he had led them hither with +that understanding—the Prussians, peasant and noble alike, fled +to the East. A hundred times the advance guard, fully alive to +the advantages of their position, had raced to the gates of a château +only to find, on breaking open the doors, that it was empty—the +furniture destroyed, the stores burnt, the wine poured out.</p> +<p>So also in the peasants’ huts. Some, more careful than +the rest, had pulled the thatch from the roof to burn it. There +was no corn in this the Egypt of their greedy hopes. And, lest +they should bring the corn with them, the spoilers found the mills everywhere +wrecked.</p> +<p>It was something new to them. It was new to Napoleon, who had +so frequently been met halfway, who knew that men for greed will part +smilingly with half in order to save the residue. He knew that +many, rather than help a neighbour who is in danger by a robber, will +join the robber and share the spoil, crying out that <i>force majeure</i> +was used to them.</p> +<p>But, as every man must judge according to his lights, so must even +the greatest find himself in the dark at last. No man of the Latin +race will ever understand the Slav. And because the beginning +is easy—because in certain superficial tricks of speech and thought +Paris and Petersburg are not unlike—so much the more is the breach +widened when necessity digs deeper than the surface. For, to make +the acquaintance of a stranger who seems to be a counterpart of one’s +self in thought and taste, is like the first hearing of a kindred language +such as Dutch to the English ear. At first it sounds like one’s +own tongue with a hundred identical words, but on closer listening it +will be found that the words mean something else, and that the whole +is incomprehensible and the more difficult to acquire by the very reason +of its resemblance.</p> +<p>Napoleon thought that the Russians would act as his enemies of the +Latin race had acted. He thought that like his own people they +would be over-confident, urging each other on to great deeds by loud +words and a hundred boasts. But the Russians lack self-confidence, +are timid rather than over-bold, dreamy rather than fiery. Only +their women are glib of speech. He thought that they would begin +very brilliantly and end with a compromise, heart-breaking at first +and soon lived down.</p> +<p>“They are savages out here in the plains,” he said. +“It is a barbaric and stupid instinct that makes them destroy +their own property for the sake of hampering us. As we approach +Moscow we shall find that the more civilized inhabitants of the villages, +enervated by an easy life, rendered selfish by possession of wealth, +will not abandon their property, but will barter and sell to us and +find themselves the victims of our might.”</p> +<p>And the army believed him. For they always believed him. +Faith can, indeed, move mountains. It carried four hundred thousand +men, without provisions, through a barren land.</p> +<p>And now, in sight of the golden city, the army was still hungry. +Nay! it was ragged already. In three columns it converged on the +doomed capital, driving before it like a swarm of flies the Cossacks +who harassed the advance.</p> +<p>Here again, on the hill looking down into the smiling valley of the +Moskwa, the unexpected awaited the invaders. The city, shimmering +in the sunlight like the realization of some Arab’s dream, was +silent. The Cossacks had disappeared. Except those around +the Kremlin, towering above the river, the city had no walls.</p> +<p>The army halted while aides-de-camp flew hither and thither on their +weary horses. Charles Darragon, sunburnt, dusty, hoarse with cheering, +was among the first. He looked right and left for de Casimir, +but could not see him. He had not seen his chief since Borodino, +for he was temporarily attached to the staff of Prince Eugene, who had +lost heavily at the Kalugha river.</p> +<p>It was usual for the army to halt before a beleaguered city and await +the advent in all humility of the vanquished. Commonly it was +the mayor of a town who came, followed by his councillors in their robes, +to explain that the army had abandoned the city, which now begged to +throw itself upon the mercy of the conqueror.</p> +<p>For this the army waited on that sunny September morning.</p> +<p>“He is putting on his robes,” they said gaily. +“He is new to this work.”</p> +<p>But the mayor of Moscow disappointed them. At last the troops +moved on and camped for the night in a village under the Kremlin walls. +It was here that Charles received a note from de Casimir.</p> +<p>“I am slightly wounded,” wrote that officer, “but +am following the army. At Borodino my horse was killed under me, +and I was thrown. While I was insensible, I was robbed and lost +what money I had, as well as my despatch-case. In the latter was +the letter you wrote to your wife. It is lost, my friend; you +must write another.”</p> +<p>Charles was tired. He would put off till to-morrow, he thought, +and write to Désirée from Moscow. As he lay, all +dressed on the hard ground, he fell to thinking of what he should write +to Désirée to-morrow from Moscow. The mere date +and address of such a letter would make her love him the more, he thought; +for, like his leaders, he was dazed by a surfeit of glory.</p> +<p>As he fell asleep smiling at these happy reflections, Désirée, +far away in Dantzig, was locking in her bureau the letter which had +been lost and found again; while, on the deck of his ship, lifting gently +to the tideway where the Vistula sweeps out into the Dantziger Bucht, +Louis d’Arragon stood fingering reflectively in his jacket-pocket +the unread papers which had fallen from the same despatch-case. +For it is a very small world in which to do wrong, though if a man do +a little good in his lifetime it is—heaven knows—soon mislaid +and trodden under the feet of the new-comers.</p> +<p>The next day it was definitely ascertained that the citizens of Moscow +had no communication to make to the conquering leaders. Soon after +daylight the army moved towards the city. The suburbs were deserted. +The houses stood with closed shutters and locked doors. Not so +much as a dog awaited the triumphant entry through the city gates.</p> +<p>Long streets without a living being from end to end met the eyes +of those daring organizers of triumphal entries who had been sent forward +to clear a path and range the respectful citizens on either hand. +But there were no citizens. There was not a single witness to +this triumph of the greatest army the world had seen, led across Europe +by the first captain in all history to conquer a virgin capital.</p> +<p>The various corps marched to their quarters in silence, with nervous +glances at the shuttered windows. Some, breaking rank, ventured +into the churches which stood open. The candles were lighted on +the altars, they reported to their comrades in a hushed voice when they +returned, but there was no one there.</p> +<p>Certain palaces were selected as head-quarters for the general officers +and the chiefs of various departments. As often as not a summons +would be answered and the door opened by an obsequious porter, who handed +the keys to the first-comer. But he spoke no French, and only +cringed in silence when addressed. Other doors were broken in.</p> +<p>It was like a play acted in dumb show on an immense stage. +It was disquieting and incomprehensible even to the oldest campaigner, +while the young fire-eaters, fresh from St. Cyr, were strangely depressed +by it. There was a smell of sour smoke in the air, a suggestion +of inevitable tragedy.</p> +<p>On the Krasnaya Plòschad—the great Red Square, which +is the central point of the old town—the soldiers were already +buying and selling the spoil wrested from the burning Exchange. +It seemed that the citizens before leaving had collected their merchandise +in this building to burn it. To the rank-and-file this meant nothing +but an incomprehensible stupidity. To the educated and the thoughtful +it was another evidence of that dumb and sullen capacity for infinite +self-sacrifice which makes Russians different from any other race, and +which has yet to be reckoned with in the history of the world. +For it will tend to the greatest good of the greatest number, and is +a power for national aggrandisement quite unattainable by any Latin +people.</p> +<p>Charles, with the other officers of Prince Eugene’s staff, +was quartered in a palace on the Petrovka—that wide street running +from the Kremlin northward to the boulevards and the parks. Going +towards it he passed through the bazaars and the merchants’ quarters, +where, like an army of rag-pickers, the eager looters were silently +hurrying from heap to heap. Every warehouse had, it seemed, been +ransacked and its contents thrown out into the streets. The first-comers +had hurried on, seeking something more valuable, more portable, leaving +the later arrivals to turn over their garbage like dogs upon a dust-heap.</p> +<p>The Petrovka is a long street of great houses, and was now deserted. +The pillagers were nervous and ill at ease, as men must always be in +the presence of something they do not understand. The most experienced +of them—and there were some famous robbers in Murat’s vanguard—had +never seen an empty city abandoned all standing, as the Russians had +abandoned Moscow. They felt apprehensive of the unknown. +Even the least imaginative of them looked askance at the tall houses, +at the open doors of the empty churches, and they kept together for +company’s sake.</p> +<p>Charles’s rooms were in the Momonoff Palace, where even the +youngest lieutenant had vast apartments assigned to him. It was +in one of these—a lady’s boudoir, where his dust-covered +baggage had been thrown down carelessly by his orderly on a blue satin +sofa—that he sat down to write to Désirée.</p> +<p>His emotions had been stirred by all that he had passed through—by +the first sight of Moscow, by the passage beneath the Gate of the Redeemer, +where every man must uncover and only Napoleon dared to wear a hat; +by the bewildering sense of triumph and the knowledge that he was taking +part in one of the epochs of man’s history on this earth. +The emotions lie very near together, so that laughter being aroused +must also touch on tears, and hatred being kindled warms the heart to +love.</p> +<p>And, here in this unknown woman’s room, with the very pen that +she had thrown aside, Charles, who wrote and spoke his love with such +facility, wrote to Désirée a love-letter such as he had +never written before.</p> +<p>When it was sealed and addressed he called his orderly to take it +to the officer to whose duty it fell to make up the courier for Germany. +But he received no reply. The man had joined his comrades in the +busier quarters of the city. Charles went to the head of the stairs +and called again, with no better success. The house was comparatively +modern, built on the familiar lines of a Parisian <i>hôtel</i>, +with a wide stair descending to an entrance archway where carriages +passed through into a courtyard.</p> +<p>Descending the stairs, Charles found that even the sentry had absented +himself from his duty. His musket, leant against the post of the +stone doorway, indicated that he was not far. Listening in the +silence of that great house, Charles heard some one at work with hammer +and chisel in the courtyard. He went there, and found the sentry +kneeling at a low door, endeavouring to break it open. The man +had not been idle; from a piece of rope slung across his back half a +dozen clocks were suspended. They rattled together like the wares +of a travelling tinsmith at every movement of his arms.</p> +<p>“What are you doing there, my friend?” asked Charles.</p> +<p>The man held up one finger over his shoulder without looking round, +and shook it from side to side, as not desiring to be interrupted.</p> +<p>“The cellar,” he answered, “always the cellar. +It is human nature. We get it from the animals.”</p> +<p>He glanced round as he worked, and, perceiving that he had been addressing +an officer, he scrambled to his feet with a grumbled curse. He +was an old man, baked by the sun. The wrinkles in his face were +filled with dust. Since quitting the banks of the Vistula no opportunity +for ablution seemed to have presented itself to him. He stood +at attention, his lips working over sunken gums.</p> +<p>“I want you to take this letter,” said Charles, “to +the officer on service at head-quarters, and ask him to include it in +his courier. It is, as you see, a private letter—to my wife +at Dantzig.”</p> +<p>The man looked at it, and grumbled something inaudible. He +took it in his hand and turned it over with the slow manner of the illiterate.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XV. THE GOAL.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>God writes straight on crooked lines.</i></p> +<p>Charles, having given his letter to the sentry with the order to +take it to its immediate destination, turned towards the stairs again. +In those days an order was given in a different tone to that which servitude +demands in later times.</p> +<p>He returned to his room on the first floor without even waiting to +make sure that he would be obeyed. He had scarcely seated himself +when, after a fumbling knock, the sentry opened the door and followed +him into the room, still holding the letter in his hand.</p> +<p>“Mon capitaine,” he said with a certain calmness of manner +as from an old soldier to a young one, “a word—that is all. +This letter,” he turned it in his hand as he spoke, and looking +at Charles beneath scowling brows, awaited an explanation. “Did +you pick it up?”</p> +<p>“No—I wrote it.”</p> +<p>“Good. I . . . ” he paused, and tapped himself +on the chest so that there could be no mistake; there was a rattling +sound behind him suggestive of ironware. Indeed, he was hung about +with other things than clocks, and seemed to be of opinion that if a +soldier sets value upon any object he must attach it to his person. +“I, Barlasch of the Guard—Marengo, the Danube, Egypt—picked +up after Borodino a letter like it. I cannot read very quickly—indeed— +Bah! the old Guard needs no pens and paper—but that letter I picked +up was just like this”</p> +<p>“Was it addressed like that to Madame Désirée +Darragon?”</p> +<p>“So a comrade told me. It is you, her husband?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” answered Charles, “since you ask; I am her +husband.”</p> +<p>“Ah!” replied Barlasch darkly, and his limbs and features +settled themselves into a patient waiting.</p> +<p>“Well,” asked Charles, “what are you waiting for?”</p> +<p>“Whatever you may think proper, mon capitaine, for I gave the +letter to the surgeon who promised that it should be forwarded to its +address.”</p> +<p>Charles laughingly sought his purse. But there was nothing +in it, so he looked round the room.</p> +<p>“Here, add this to your collection,” and he took a small +French clock from the writing-table, a pretty, gilded toy from Paris.</p> +<p>“Thank you, mon capitaine.”</p> +<p>Barlasch, with shaking fingers, unknotted the rope around his shoulders. +As he was doing so one of the clocks on his back began to strike. +He paused, and stood looking gravely at his superior officer. +Another clock took up the tale and a third, while Barlasch sternly stood +at attention.</p> +<p>“Four o’clock,” he said to himself, “and +I, who have not yet breakfasted—”</p> +<p>With a grunt and a salute he turned towards the door which stood +open. Some one was coming up the stairs rather slowly, his spurs +clinking, his scabbard clashing against the gilded banisters. +Papa Barlasch stood aside at attention, and Colonel de Casimir came +into the room with a gay word of greeting. Barlasch went out, +but he did not close the door. It is to be presumed that he stood +without, where he might have overheard all that they said to each other +for quite a long time, until it was almost the half-hour when the clocks +would strike again. But de Casimir, perceiving that the door was +open, closed it quietly from within, and Barlasch, shut out on the wide +landing, made a grimace at the massive woodwork before turning to descend +the stairs.</p> +<p>It was the middle of September, and the days were shortening. +The dusk of evening had already closed over the city when de Casimir +and Charles at length came downstairs. No one had troubled to +open the shutters of such rooms as were not required; and these were +many. For Moscow was even at that day a great city, though less +spacious and more fantastic than it is to-day. There was plenty +of room for the whole army in the houses left empty by their owners, +so that many lodged as they had never lodged before and would never +lodge again.</p> +<p>The stairs were almost dark when Charles and his companion descended +them. The rusted musket poised against the doorpost still indicated +the supposed presence of a sentry.</p> +<p>“Listen,” said Charles, “I found him burrowing +like a rat at a cellar-door in the courtyard. Perhaps he has got +in.”</p> +<p>They listened, but could hear nothing. Charles led the way +towards the courtyard. A glimmer of light guided him to the door +he sought. It stood open. Barlasch had succeeded in effecting +an entry to the cellar, where his experience taught him to seek the +best that an abandoned house contains.</p> +<p>Charles and de Casimir peered down the narrow stairs. By the +light of a candle Barlasch was working vigorously amid a confused pile +of cases, and furniture, and roughly tied bundles of clothing. +He had laid aside nothing, and his movements were attended by the usual +rattle of hollow-ware. They could see the perspiration gleaming +on his face. Even in this cellar there lingered the faint smell +of sour smoke that filled the air of Moscow.</p> +<p>De Casimir caught the gleam of jewellery, and went hurriedly downstairs.</p> +<p>“What are you doing there, my friend?” he asked, and +the words were scarcely out of his mouth, when Barlasch extinguished +his candle. There followed a dead silence, such as comes when +a rodent is disturbed at his work. The two men on the cellar-stairs +were conscious of the gaze of the bright, rat-like eyes below.</p> +<p>De Casimir turned and followed Charles upstairs again.</p> +<p>“Come up,” he said, “and go to your post.”</p> +<p>There was no movement in response.</p> +<p>“Name of a dog,” cried de Casimir, “is all discipline +relaxed? Come up, I tell you, and obey my orders.”</p> +<p>He emphasized his command with the cocking of a pistol, and a slight +disturbance in the darkness of the cellar heralded the unwilling approach +of Barlasch, who climbed the stairs step by step like a schoolboy coming +to punishment.</p> +<p>“It is I who found the door, mon colonel, behind that pile +of firewood. It is I who opened it. What is down there is +mine,” he said, sullenly. But the only reply that de Casimir +made was to seize him by the arm and jerk him away from the stairs.</p> +<p>“To your post,” he said, “take your arm, and out +into the street, in front of the house. That is your place.”</p> +<p>But while he was still speaking, they were all startled by a sudden +disturbance in the cellar, and in the gloom a man stumbled up the stairs +and ran past them. Barlasch had taken the precaution of bolting +the huge front door, which was large enough to give passage to a carriage. +The man, who exhaled an atmosphere of dust mingled with the disquieting +and all-pervading odour of smoke, rushed at the huge door and tugged +furiously at its handles.</p> +<p>Charles, who was on his heels, grasped his arm, but the man swung +round and threw him off as if he were a child. He had a hatchet +in his hand with which he aimed a blow at Charles, but missed him. +Barlasch was already going towards his musket, which stood in the corner +against the door-post, but the Russian saw his movement, and forestalled +him. Seizing the gun, he presented the bayonet to them, and stood +with his back to the door, facing the three men in a breathless silence. +He was a large man, dishevelled, with long hair tumbled about his head, +and light-coloured eyes, glaring like the eyes of a beast at bay.</p> +<p>In the background de Casimir, quick and calm, had already covered +him with the pistol produced as a persuasive to Barlasch. For +a second there was silence, during which they all could hear the call +to arms in the street outside. The patrol was hurrying down the +Petrovka, calling the assembly.</p> +<p>The report of the pistol rang through the house, shaking the doors +and windows. The man threw up his arms and stood for a moment +looking at de Casimir with an expression of blank amazement. Then +his legs seemed to slip away from beneath him, and he collapsed to the +floor. He turned over with movements singularly suggestive of +a child seeking a comfortable position in bed, and lay quite still, +his cheek on the pavement and his staring eyes turned towards the cellar-door +from which he had emerged.</p> +<p>“He has his affair—that parishioner,” muttered +Barlasch, looking at him with a smile that twisted his mouth to one +side. And, as he spoke, the man’s throat rattled. +De Casimir was reloading his pistol. So persistent was the gaze +of the dead man’s eyes that de Casimir turned on his heel to look +in the same direction.</p> +<p>“Quick!” he exclaimed, pointing to the doorway, from +which a lazy white smoke emerged in thin puffs. “Quick, +he has set fire to the house!”</p> +<p>“Quick—with what, mon colonel?” asked Barlasch.</p> +<p>“Why, go and fetch some men with a fire-engine.”</p> +<p>“There are no fire-engines left in Moscow, mon colonel!”</p> +<p>“Then find buckets, and tell me where the well is.”</p> +<p>“There are no buckets left in Moscow, mon colonel. We +found that out last night, when we wanted to water the horses. +The citizens have removed them. And there is not a well of which +the rope has not been cut. They are droll companions, these Russians, +I can tell you.”</p> +<p>“Do as I tell you,” repeated de Casimir, angrily, “or +I shall put you under arrest. Go and fetch men to help me to extinguish +this fire.”</p> +<p>By way of reply, Barlasch held up one finger in a childlike gesture +of attention to some distant sound.</p> +<p>“No, thank you,” he said, coolly, “not for me. +Discipline, mon colonel, discipline. Listen, you can hear the +‘assembly’ as well as I. It is the Emperor that one +obeys. One thinks of one’s military career.”</p> +<p>With knotted and shaking fingers he drew back the bolts and opened +the door. On the threshold he saluted.</p> +<p>“It is the call to arms, mes officiers,” he said. +Then, shouldering his musket, he turned away, and all his clocks struck +six. The bells of the city churches seemed to greet him as he +stepped into the street, for in Moscow each hour is proclaimed with +deafening iteration from a thousand towers.</p> +<p>He looked down the Petrovka; from half the houses which bordered +the wide roadway—a street of palaces—the smoke was pouring +forth in puffs. He went uphill towards the Red Square and the +Kremlin, where the Emperor had his head-quarters. It was to this +centre that the patrols had converged. Looking back, Barlasch +saw, not one house on fire, but a hundred. The smoke arose from +every quarter of the city at once. He hurried on, but was stopped +by a crowd of soldiers, all laden with booty, gesticulating, shouting, +abusing one another. It was Babel over again. The riff-raff +of sixteen nations had followed Napoleon to Moscow—to rob. +Half a dozen different tongues were spoken in one army corps. +There remained no national pride to act as a deterrent. No man +cared what he did. The blame would be laid upon France.</p> +<p>The crowd was collected in front of a high, many-windowed building +in flames.</p> +<p>“What is it?” Barlasch asked first one and then another. +But no one spoke his tongue. At last he found a Frenchman.</p> +<p>“It is the hospital.”</p> +<p>“And what is that smell? What is burning there?”</p> +<p>“Twelve thousand wounded,” answered the man, with a sickening +laugh. And even as he spoke one or two of the wounded dragged +themselves, half burnt, down the wide steps. No one dared to approach +them, for the walls of the building were already bulging outwards. +One man was half covered with a sheet which was black, and his bare +limbs were black with smoke. All the hair was burnt from his head +and face. He stood for a moment in the doorway—a sight never +to be forgotten—and then fell headlong down the steps, where he +lay motionless. Some one in the crowd laughed—a high cackle +which was heard above the roar of the fire and the deafening chorus +of burning timbers.</p> +<p>Barlasch passed on, following some officers who were leading their +horses towards the Kremlin. The streets were full of soldiers +carrying burdens, and staggering beneath the weight of their spoil. +Many were wearing priceless fur cloaks, and others walked in women’s +wraps of sable and ermine. Some wore jewellery, such as necklaces, +on their rough uniforms, and bracelets round their sunburnt wrists. +No one laughed at them, but only glanced enviously at the pillage. +All were in deadly earnest, and none graver than those who had found +drink and now regretted that they had given way to the temptation; for +their sober comrades had outwitted them in finding treasure.</p> +<p>One man gravely wore a gilt coronet crammed over the crown of his +shako. He joined Barlasch, staggering along beside him.</p> +<p>“I come from the Cathedral,” he explained, confidentially. +“St. Michael they call it. They said there was great treasure +there hidden in the cellars, but I only found a company of old kings +in their coffins. We stirred them up. They were quiet enough +when we found them, under their counterpanes of red velvet. We +stirred them up with the bayonet, and the dust got into our throats +and choked us. Name of God, I am thirsty. You have nothing +in your bottle, comrade?”</p> +<p>“No.”</p> +<p>Barlasch trudged on, all his possessions swinging and clanking together. +The confidential man turned towards him and lifted his water-bottle, +weighed it, and found it wanting.</p> +<p>“Name of a name, of a name, of a name,” he muttered, +walking on. “Yes, there was nothing there. Even the +silver plates on the coffins with the names of those gentlemen were +no thicker than a sword. But I found a crown in the church itself. +I borrowed it from St. Michael. He had a sword in his hand, but +he did not strike. No. And there was only tinsel on the +hilt. No jewels.”</p> +<p>He walked on in silence for a few minutes, coughing out the smoke +and dust from his lungs. It was almost dark, but the whole city +was blazing now, and the sky glowed with a red light that mingled with +the remnants of a lurid sunset. A strong wind blew the smoke and +the flying sparks across the roofs.</p> +<p>“Then I went into the sacristy,” continued the man, stumbling +over the dead body of a young girl and turning to curse her. Barlasch +looked at him sideways and cursed him for doing it, with a sudden fierce +eloquence. For Papa Barlasch was a man of unclean lips.</p> +<p>“There was an old man in there, a sacristan. I asked +him where he kept the dishes, and he said he could not speak French. +I jerked my bayonet into him—name of a name! he soon spoke French.”</p> +<p>Barlasch broke off these delicate confidences by a quick word of +command, and himself stood rigid in the roadway before the Imperial +Palace of the Kremlin, presenting arms. A man passed close by +them on his way towards a waiting carriage. He was stout and heavy-shouldered, +peculiarly square, with a thick neck and head set low in the shoulders. +On the step of the carriage he turned and surveyed the lurid sky and +the burning city to the east with an indifferent air. Into his +deep bloodshot eyes there flashed a sudden gleam of life and power, +as he glanced along the row of watching faces to read what was written +there.</p> +<p>It was Napoleon, at the summit of his dream, hurriedly quitting the +Kremlin, the boasted goal of his ambition, after having passed but one +night under that proud roof.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XVI. THE FIRST OF THE EBB.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>Tho’ +he trip and fall<br /> He shall not blind +his soul with clay.</i></p> +<p>The days were short, and November was drawing to its end when Barlasch +returned to Dantzig. Already the frost, holding its own against +a sun that seemed to linger in the North that year, exercised its sway +almost to midday, and drew a mist from the level plains.</p> +<p>The autumn had been one of unprecedented splendour, making the imaginative +whisper that Napoleon, like a second Joshua, could exact obedience even +from the sun. A month earlier, soon after the retreat was ordered, +the nights had begun to be cold, but the days remained brilliant. +Now the rivers were shrouded in white mist, and still water was frozen.</p> +<p>Barlasch seemed to take it for understood that a billet holds good +throughout a whole campaign. But the door of No. 36 Frauengasse +was locked when he turned its iron handle. He knocked, and waited +on the step.</p> +<p>It was Désirée who opened the door at length—Désirée, +grown older, with something new in her eyes. Barlasch, sure of +his <i>entrée</i>, had already removed his boots, which he carried +in his hand; this added to a certain surreptitiousness in his attitude. +A handkerchief was bound over his left eye. He wore his shako +still, but the rest of his uniform verged on the fantastic. Under +a light-blue Bavarian cavalry cape he wore a peasant’s homespun +shirt, and he carried no arms.</p> +<p>He pushed past Désirée rather unceremoniously, glad +to get within doors. He was very lame, and of his blue knitted +stockings only the legs remained; he was barefoot.</p> +<p>He limped towards the kitchen, glancing over his shoulder to make +sure that Désirée shut the door. The chair he had +made his own stood just within the open door of the kitchen. It +was nine o’clock in the morning, and Lisa had gone to market. +Barlasch sat down.</p> +<p>“Voilà,” he said, and that was all. But +by a gesture he described the end of the world. Then he scowled +at her with his available eye with suspicion, and she turned away suddenly, +as one may who has not a clear conscience.</p> +<p>“What is the matter with your eye?” she asked, in order +to break the silence. He laid aside his hat, and his ragged hair, +quite white, fell to his shoulders. By way of answer, he unknotted +the bloodstained dusky handkerchief, and looked up at her. The +hidden eye was uninjured and as bright as the other.</p> +<p>“Nothing,” he answered, and he confirmed the statement +by a low-born wink. More than once he glanced, with a glaring +light in his eye, towards the cupboard where Lisa kept the bread, and +quite suddenly Désirée knew that he was starving. +She ran to the cupboard, and hurriedly set down on the table before +him what was there. It was not much—a piece of cold meat +and a whole loaf.</p> +<p>He had taken off his haversack, and was fumbling in it with unsteady +hands. At last he found that which he sought. It was wrapped +in a silk scarf that must have come from Cashmere to Moscow, and from +Moscow in his haversack with pieces of horseflesh and muddy roots to +Dantzig. With that awkwardness in giving and taking which belongs +to his class, he held out to Désirée a little square “ikon” +no bigger than a playing-card. It was of gold, set with diamonds, +and the faces of the Virgin and Child were painted with exquisite delicacy.</p> +<p>“It is a thing to say your prayers to,” he said gruffly.</p> +<p>By an effort he kept his eyes averted from the food on the table.</p> +<p>“I met a baker on the bridge,” he said, “and offered +it to him for a loaf, but he refused.”</p> +<p>And there was a whole history of human suffering and temptation—of +the human fall—in his curt laugh. While Désirée +was looking at the treasure in speechless admiration, he turned suddenly +and took the bread and meat in his grimy hands. His crooked fingers +closed over the loaf, making the crust crack, and for a second the expression +of his face was not human. Then he hurried to the room that had +been his, like a dog that seeks to hide its greed in its kennel.</p> +<p>In a surprisingly short time he came back, the greyness all gone +from his face, though his eyes still glittered with the dry, hard light +of starvation. He went back to the chair near the door, and sat +down.</p> +<p>“Seven hundred miles,” he said, looking down at his feet +with a shake of the head, “seven hundred miles in six weeks.”</p> +<p>Then he glanced at her and out through the open door, to make sure +none could overhear.</p> +<p>“Because I was afraid,” he added in a whisper. +“I am easily frightened. I am not brave.”</p> +<p>Désirée shook her head and laughed. Women have +from all time accepted the theory that a uniform makes a man courageous.</p> +<p>“They had to abandon the guns,” he went on, “soon +after quitting Moscow. The horses were starving. There was +a steep hill, and the guns were left at the bottom. Then I began +to be afraid. There were some marching with candelabras on their +backs and nothing in their <i>carnassières</i>. They carried +a million francs on their shoulders and death in their faces. +I was afraid. I carried salt—salt—and nothing else. +Then one day I saw the Emperor’s face. That was enough. +The same night I crept away while the others slept round the fire. +They looked like a masquerade. Some of them wore ermine. +Oh! I was afraid, I tell you. I only had the salt and some horse. +There was plenty of that on the road. And that toy. I found +it in Moscow. I stood in a cellar, as big as this room, full of +such things. But one thinks of one’s life. I only +carried salt, and that picture for you . . . to say your prayers +to. The good God will hear you, perhaps; He has no time to listen +to us others.”</p> +<p>And he used the last words as a French peasant, which is a survival +of serfdom that has come down through the furnace of the Revolution.</p> +<p>“But I cannot take it,” said Désirée. +“It is worth a million francs.”</p> +<p>He looked at her fiercely.</p> +<p>“You think that I look for something in return?”</p> +<p>“Oh no!” she answered, “I have nothing to give +you in return. I am as poor as you.”</p> +<p>“Then we can be friends,” he said. He was eyeing +surreptitiously a mug of beer which Désirée had set before +him on the table. Some instinct, or the teaching of the last two +months, made it repugnant to him to eat or drink beneath his neighbour’s +eye. He was a sorry-looking figure, not far removed from the animals, +and in his downward journey he had picked up, perhaps, the instinct +which none can explain, telling an animal to take its food in secret.</p> +<p>Désirée went to the window, turning her back to him, +and looked out into the yard. She heard him drink, and set the +mug down again with a gulp.</p> +<p>“You were in Moscow?” she said at length, half turning +towards him so that he could see her profile and her short upper lip, +which was parted as if to ask a question which she did not put into +words. He looked her slowly up and down beneath his heavy eyebrows, +his little cunning eyes alight with suspicion. He watched her +parted lips, which were tilted at the corners, showing humour and a +nature quick to laugh or suffer. Then he jerked his head upwards +as if he saw the unasked question quivering there, and bore her some +malice for her silence.</p> +<p>“Yes! I was in Moscow,” he said, watching the colour +fade from her face. “And I saw him—your husband—there. +I was on guard outside his door the night we entered the city. +It was I who carried to the post the letter he wrote you. He was +very anxious that it should reach you. You received it—that +love-letter?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” answered Désirée gravely, in no +wise responding to a sudden forced gaiety in Papa Barlasch, which was +only an evidence of the shyness with which rough men all the world over +approach the subject of love. The gaiety lapsed into a sudden +silence. He waited for her to ask a question, but in vain.</p> +<p>“I never saw him again,” went on Barlasch, “for +the ‘general’ sounded, and I went out into the streets to +find the city on fire. In a great army, as in a large country, +one may easily lose one’s own brother. But he will return—have +no fear. He has good fortune—the fine gentleman.”</p> +<p>He stopped and scratched his head, looked at her sideways with a +grimace of bewilderment.</p> +<p>“It is good news I bring you,” he muttered. “He +was alive and well when we began the retreat. He was on the staff, +and the staff had horses and carriages. They had bread to eat, +I am told.”</p> +<p>“And you—what had you?” asked Désirée, +over her shoulder.</p> +<p>“No matter,” he answered gruffly, “since I am here.”</p> +<p>“And yet you believe in that man still,” flashed out +Désirée, turning to face him.</p> +<p>Barlasch held up a warning finger, as if bidding her to be silent +on a subject on which she was not capable of forming a judgment. +He wagged his head from side to side and heaved a sigh.</p> +<p>“I tell you,” he said, “I saw his face after Malo-Jaroslavetz; +we lost ten thousand that day. And I was afraid. For I saw +in it that he was going to leave us as he did in Egypt. I am not +afraid when he is there—not afraid of the Devil—or the bon +Dieu, but when Napoleon is not there—” He broke off +with a gesture describing abject terror.</p> +<p>“They say in Dantzig,” said Désirée, “that +he will never get back across the Bérésina, for the Russians +are bringing two armies to stop him there. They say that the Prussians +will turn against him.”</p> +<p>“Ah—they say that already?”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>He looked at her with a sudden light of anger in his eyes.</p> +<p>“Who has taught you to hate Napoleon?” he asked bluntly.</p> +<p>And again Désirée turned away from his glance as if +she could not meet it.</p> +<p>“No one,” she answered.</p> +<p>“It is not the patron,” said Barlasch, muttering his +thoughts as he hobbled to the door of his little room, and began unloading +his belongings with a view to ablution; for he was a self-contained +traveller, carrying with him all he required. “It is not +the patron. Because such a hatred as his cannot be spoken of. +It is not your husband, because Napoleon is his god.”</p> +<p>He broke off with one of his violent jerks of the head, almost threatening +to dislocate his neck, and looked at her fixedly.</p> +<p>“It is because you have grown into a woman since I went away.”</p> +<p>And out came his accusing finger, though Désirée had +her back turned towards him, and there was none other to see.</p> +<p>“Ah!” he said, with deadly contempt, “I see, I +see!”</p> +<p>“Did you expect me to grow up into a man?” asked Désirée, +over her shoulder.</p> +<p>Barlasch stood in the doorway, his lips and jaw moving as if he were +masticating wingèd words. At length, having failed to find +a tremendous answer, he softly closed the door.</p> +<p>This was not the only wise old veteran of the Grand Army to see which +way the wind blew; for many another after the battle of Malo-Jaroslavetz +packed upon his back such spoil as he could carry, and set off on foot +for France. For the cold had come at length, and not a horse in +the French army was roughed for the snowy roads, nor, indeed, had provision +been made to rough them. This was a sign not lost upon those who +had horses to care for. The Emperor, who forgot nothing, had forgotten +this. He who foresaw everything, had omitted to foresee the winter. +He had ordered a retreat from Moscow, in the middle of October, of an +army in summer clothing, without provision for the road. The only +hope was to retreat through a new line of country not despoiled by the +enormous army in its advance of every grain of corn, every blade of +grass. But this hope was frustrated by the Russians who, hemming them +in, forced them to keep the road along which they had made so triumphant +a march on Moscow.</p> +<p>Already, in the ranks, it was whispered that by the light of the +burning city some had perceived dark forms moving on the distant plains—a +Russian army passing westward in front of them to await and cut them +off at the passage of some river. The Russians had fought well +at Borodino: they fought desperately at Malo-Jaroslavetz, which town +was taken and retaken eleven times and left in cinders.</p> +<p>The Grand Army was no longer in a position to choose its way. +It was forced to cross again the battlefield of Borodino, where thirty +thousand dead lay yet unburied. But Napoleon was still with them, +his genius flashing out at times with something of the fire which had +taken men’s breath away and burnt his name indelibly into the +pages of the world’s history. Even when hard pressed, he +never missed a chance of attacking. The enemy never made a mistake +that he did not give them reason to rue it.</p> +<p>To the waiting world came at length the news that the winter, so +long retarded, had closed down over Russia. In Dantzig, so near +the frontier, a hundred rumours chased each other through the streets; +and day by day Antoine Sebastian grew younger and gayer. It seemed +as if a weight long laid upon his heart had been lifted at last. +He made a journey to Königsberg soon after Barlasch’s return, +and came back with eager eyes. His correspondence was enormous. +He had, it seemed, a hundred friends who gave him news and asked something +in exchange—advice, encouragement, warning. And all the +while men whispered that Prussia would ally herself to Russia, Sweden, +and England.</p> +<p>From Paris came news of a growing discontent. For France, among +a multitude of virtues, has one vice unpardonable to Northern men: she +turns from a fallen friend.</p> +<p>Soon followed the news of Bérésina—a poor little +river of Lithuania—where the history of the world hung for a day +as on a thread. But a flash of the dying genius surmounted superhuman +difficulties, and the catastrophe was turned into a disaster. +The divisions of Victor and Oudinot—the last to preserve any semblance +of military discipline—were almost annihilated. The French +lost twelve thousand killed or drowned in the river, sixteen thousand +prisoners, twelve of the remaining guns. But they were across +the Bérésina. There was no longer a Grand Army, +however. There was no army at all—only a starving, struggling +trail of men stumbling through the snow, without organization or discipline +or hope.</p> +<p>It was a disaster on the same gigantic scale as the past victories—a +disaster worthy of such a conqueror. Even his enemies forgot to +rejoice. They caught their breath and waited.</p> +<p>And suddenly came the news that Napoleon was in Paris.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XVII. A FORLORN HOPE.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>The +fire i’ the flint<br /> Shows not, +till it be struck.</i></p> +<p>“It is time to do something,” said Papa Barlasch on the +December morning when the news reached Dantzig that Napoleon was no +longer with the army—that he had made over the parody of command +of the phantom army to Murat, King of Naples—that he had passed +like an evil spirit unknown through Poland, Prussia, Germany, travelling +twelve hundred miles night and day at breakneck speed, alone, racing +to Paris to save his throne.</p> +<p>“It is time to do something,” said all Europe, when it +was too late. For Napoleon was himself again—alert, indomitable, +raising a new army, calling on France to rise to such heights of energy +and vitality as only France can compass; for the colder nations of the +North lack the imagination that enables men to pit themselves against +the gods at the bidding of some stupendous will, only second to the +will of God Himself.</p> +<p>“Go to Dantzig, and hold it till I come,” Napoleon had +said to Rapp. “Retreat to Poland, and hold on to anything +you can till I come back with a new army,” he had commanded Murat +and Prince Eugene.</p> +<p>“It is time to do something,” said all the conquered +nations, looking at each other for initiation. And lo! the Master +of Surprises struck them dumb by his sudden apparition in his own capital, +with all the strings of the European net gathered as if by magic into +his own hands again.</p> +<p>While everybody told his neighbour that it was time to do something, +no one knew what to do. For it has pleased the Creator to put +a great many talkers into this world and only a few men of action to +make its history.</p> +<p>Papa Barlasch knew what to do, however.</p> +<p>“Where is that sailor?” he asked Désirée, +when she had told him the news which Mathilde brought in from the streets. +“He who took the patron’s valise that night—the cousin +of your husband.”</p> +<p>“There is a man at Zoppot who will tell you,” she answered.</p> +<p>“Then I go to Zoppot.”</p> +<p>Barlasch had lived unmolested in the Frauengasse since his return. +He was an old man, ill-clad, with a bloody handkerchief bound over one +eye. No one asked him any questions, except Sebastian, who heard +again and again the tale of Moscow—how the army which had crossed +into Russia four hundred thousand strong was reduced to a hundred thousand +when the retreat began; how handmills were issued to the troops to grind +corn which did not exist; how the horses died in thousands and the men +in hundreds from starvation; how God at last had turned his face from +Napoleon.</p> +<p>“Something must be done. The patron will do nothing; +he is in the clouds, he is dreaming dreams of a new France, that <i>bourgeois</i>. +I am an old man. Yes, I will go to Zoppot.”</p> +<p>“You mean that we should have heard from Charles before now,” +said Désirée.</p> +<p>“Name of thunder! he may be in Paris!” exclaimed Barlasch, +with the sudden anger that anxiety commands. “He is on the +staff, I tell you.”</p> +<p>For suspense is one of the most contagious of human emotions, and +makes a quicker call upon our sympathy than any other. Do we not +feel such a desire that our neighbour may know the worst without delay, +that we race to impart it to him?</p> +<p>Nor was Désirée alone in the trial which had drawn +certain lines about her gay lips; for Mathilde had told her father and +sister that should Colonel de Casimir return from the war he would ask +her hand in marriage.</p> +<p>“And that other—the Colonel,” added Barlasch, glancing +at Mathilde, “he is on the staff too. They are safe enough, +I tell you that. They are doubtless together. They were +together at Moscow. I saw them, and took an order from them. +They were . . . at their work.”</p> +<p>Mathilde did not like Papa Barlasch. She would, it seemed, +rather have no news at all of de Casimir than learn it from the old +soldier, for she quitted the room without even troubling to throw him +a glance of disdain.</p> +<p>Barlasch waited with working lips until the sound of her footsteps +ceased on the stairs. Then he pushed across the kitchen table +a piece of writing-paper, rather yellow and woolly. It had been +to Moscow and back.</p> +<p>“Write a word to him,” he said. “I will take +it to Zoppot.”</p> +<p>“But you can send a message by the fisherman whose name I have +given you,” answered Désirée.</p> +<p>“And will he heed the message? Will he come ashore at +a word from me—only Barlasch? Remember it is his life that +he carries in his hand. An English sailor with a French name! +Thunder of thunder! They would shoot him like a rat!”</p> +<p>Désirée shook her head; but Barlasch was not to be +denied. He brought pen and ink from the dresser, and pushed them +across the table.</p> +<p>“I would not ask it,” he said, “if it was not necessary. +Do you think he will mind the danger? He will like it. He +will say to me, ‘Barlasch, I thank you.’ Ah? I know +him. Write. He will come.”</p> +<p>“Why?” asked Désirée.</p> +<p>“Why? How should I know that? He came before when +you asked him.”</p> +<p>Désirée leant over the table and wrote six words:</p> +<p>“Come, if you can come safely.”</p> +<p>Barlasch took up the paper, and, pushing up the bandage which had +served to bring him unharmed through Russia, he frowned at it without +understanding.</p> +<p>“It is not all writings that I can read,” he admitted. +“Have you signed it?”</p> +<p>“No.”</p> +<p>“Then sign something that he will know, and no other—they +might shoot me. Your baptismal name.”</p> +<p>And she wrote “Désirée” after the six words.</p> +<p>Barlasch folded the paper carefully and placed it in the lining of +an old felt hat of Sebastian’s which he now wore. He bound +a scarf over his ears, after the manner of those who live on the Baltic +shores in winter.</p> +<p>“You can leave the rest to me,” he said; and, with a +nod and a grimace expressive of cunning, he left her.</p> +<p>He did not return that night. The days were short now, for +the winter was well set in. It was nearly dark the next afternoon +and very cold when he came back. He sent Lisa upstairs for Désirée.</p> +<p>“First,” he said, “there is a question for the +patron. Will he quit Dantzig?—that is the question.”</p> +<p>“No,” answered Désirée.</p> +<p>“Rapp is coming,” said Barlasch, emphasizing each point +with one finger against the side of his nose. “He will hold +Dantzig. There will be a siege. Let the patron make no mistake. +It will not be like the last one. Rapp was outside then; he will +be inside this time. He will hold Dantzig till the bottom falls +out of the world.”</p> +<p>“My father will not leave,” said Désirée. +“He has said so. He knows that Rapp is coming, with the +Russians behind him.”</p> +<p>“But,” interrupted Barlasch, “he thinks that Prussia +will turn and declare war against Napoleon. That may be. +Who knows? The question is, Can the patron be induced to quit +Dantzig?”</p> +<p>Désirée shook her head.</p> +<p>“It is not I,” said Barlasch, “who ask the question. +You understand?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I understand. My father will not quit Dantzig.”</p> +<p>Whereupon Barlasch made a gesture conveying a desire to think as +kindly of Antoine Sebastian as he could.</p> +<p>“In half an hour,” he said, “when it is dark, will +you come for a walk with me along the Langfuhr road—where the +unfinished ramparts are?”</p> +<p>Désirée looked at him and hesitated.</p> +<p>“Oh—good—if you are afraid—” said Barlasch.</p> +<p>“I am not afraid—I will come,” she answered quickly.</p> +<p>The snow was hard when they set out, and squeaked under their feet, +as it does with a low thermometer.</p> +<p>“We shall leave no tracks,” said Barlasch, as he led +the way off the Langfuhr road towards the river. There was broken +ground here, where earthworks had been begun and never completed. +The trees had been partly cut, and beneath the snow were square mounds +showing where the timber had been piled up. But since the departure +of Rapp, all had been left incomplete.</p> +<p>Barlasch turned towards Désirée and pointed out a rising +knoll of land with fir-trees on it—an outline against the sky +where a faint aurora borealis lit the north. She understood that +Louis was waiting there, and must necessarily see them approaching across +the untrodden snow. For an instant she lingered, and Barlasch +turning, glanced at her sharply over his shoulder. She had come +against her will, and her companion knew it. Her feet were heavy +with misgiving, like the feet of one who treads an uncertain road into +a strange country. She had been afraid of Louis d’Arragon +when she first caught sight of him in the Frauengasse. The fear +of him was with her now, and would not depart until he himself swept +it away by the first word he spoke.</p> +<p>He came out from beneath the trees, made a few steps forward, and +then stopped. Again Désirée lingered, and Barlasch, +who was naturally impatient, turned and took her by the arm.</p> +<p>“Is it the snow—that you find slippery?” he asked, +not requiring an answer. A moment later Louis came forward.</p> +<p>“There is nothing but bad news,” he said laconically. +“Barlasch will have told you; but there is no need to give up +hope. The army has reached the Niemen; the rearguard has quitted +Vilna. There is nothing for it but to go and look for him.”</p> +<p>“Who will go?” she asked quietly.</p> +<p>“I.”</p> +<p>He was looking at her with grave eyes trained to darkness. +But she looked past him towards the sky, which was faintly lighted by +the aurora. Her averted eyes and rigid attitude were not without +some suggestion of guilt.</p> +<p>“My ship is ice-bound at Reval,” said D’Arragon, +in a matter-of-fact way. “They have no use for me until +the winter is over, and they have given me three months’ leave.”</p> +<p>“To go to England?” she asked.</p> +<p>“To go anywhere I like,” he said, with a short laugh. +“So I am going to look for Charles, and Barlasch will come with +me.”</p> +<p>“At a price,” put in that soldier, in a shrewd undertone. +“At a price.”</p> +<p>“A small one,” corrected Louis, turning to look at him +with the close attention of one exploring a new country.</p> +<p>“Bah! You give what you can. One does not go back +across the Niemen for pleasure. We bargained, and we came to terms. +I got as much as I could.”</p> +<p>Louis laughed, as if this were the blunt truth.</p> +<p>“If I had more, I would give you more. It is the money +I placed in a Dantzig bank for my cousin. I must take it out again, +that is all.”</p> +<p>The last words were addressed to Désirée, as if he +had acted in assurance of her approval.</p> +<p>“But I have more,” she said; “a little—not +very much. We must not think of money. We must do everything +to find him—to give him help, if he needs it.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” answered Louis, as if she had asked him a question. +“We must do everything; but I have no more money.”</p> +<p>“And I have none with me. I have nothing that I can sell.”</p> +<p>She withdrew her fur mitten and held out her hand, as if to show +that she had no rings, except the plain gold one on her third finger.</p> +<p>“You have the ikon I brought you from Moscow,” said Barlasch +gruffly. “Sell that.”</p> +<p>“No,” answered Désirée; “I will not +sell that.”</p> +<p>Barlasch laughed cynically.</p> +<p>“There you have a woman,” he said, turning to Louis. +“First she will not have a thing, then she will not part with +it.”</p> +<p>“Well,” said Désirée, with some spirit, +“a woman may know her own mind.”</p> +<p>“Some do,” admitted Barlasch carelessly; “the happy +ones. And since you will not sell your ikon, I must go for what +Monsieur le capitaine offers me.</p> +<p>“Five hundred francs,” said Louis. “A thousand +francs, if we succeed in bringing my cousin safely back to Dantzig.”</p> +<p>“It is agreed,” said Barlasch, and Désirée +looked from one to the other with an odd smile of amusement. For +women do not understand that spirit of adventure which makes the mercenary +soldier, and urges the sailor to join an exploring expedition without +hope of any reward beyond his daily pay, for which he is content to +work and die loyally.</p> +<p>“And I,” she asked, “what am I to do?”</p> +<p>“We must know where to find you,” replied D’Arragon.</p> +<p>There was so much in the simple answer that Désirée +fell into a train of thought. It did not seem much for her to +do, and yet it was all. For it summed up in six words a woman’s +life: to wait till she is found.</p> +<p>“I shall wait in Dantzig,” she said at length.</p> +<p>Barlasch held up his finger close to her face so that she could not +fail to see it, and shook it slowly from side to side commanding her +careful and entire attention.</p> +<p>“And buy salt,” he said. “Fill a cupboard +full of salt. It is cheap enough in Dantzig now. The patron +will not think of it. He is a dreamer. But a dreamer awakes +at length, and is hungry. It is I who tell you—Barlasch.”</p> +<p>He emphasized himself with a touch of his curved fingers on either +shoulder.</p> +<p>“Buy salt,” he said, and walked away to a rising knoll +to make sure that no one was approaching. The moon was just below +the horizon, and a yellow glow was already in the sky.</p> +<p>Désirée and Louis were left alone. He was looking +at her, but she was watching Barlasch with a still persistency.</p> +<p>“He said that it is the happy women who know their own minds,” +she said slowly.</p> +<p>“I suppose he meant—Duty,” she added at length, +when Louis made no sign of answering.</p> +<p>“Yes,” he said.</p> +<p>Barlasch was beckoning to her. She moved away, but stopped +a few yards off, and looked at Louis again.</p> +<p>“Do you think it is any good trying?” she asked, with +a short laugh.</p> +<p>“It is no good trying unless you mean to succeed,” he +answered lightly. She laughed a second time and lingered, though +Barlasch was calling her to come.</p> +<p>“Oh,” she said, “I am not afraid of you when you +say things like that. It is what you leave unsaid. I am +afraid of you, I think, because you expect so much.”</p> +<p>She tried to see his face.</p> +<p>“I am only an ordinary human being, you know,” she said +warningly.</p> +<p>Then she followed Barlasch.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XVIII. MISSING.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>I should fear those that dance before +me now<br /> Would one day stamp upon me; +it has been done:<br /> Men shut their +doors against a setting sun.</i></p> +<p>During the first weeks of December the biting wind abated for a time, +and immediately the snow came. It fell for days, until at length +the grey sky seemed exhausted; for the flakes sailed downwards in twos +and threes like the stragglers of an army bringing up the rear. +Then the sun broke through again, and all the world was a dazzling white.</p> +<p>There had been a cessation in that stream of pitiable men who staggered +across the bridge from the Königsberg road. Some instinct +had turned it southwards. Now it began again, and the rumour spread +throughout the city that Rapp was coming. At length, in the middle +of December, an officer brought word that Rapp with his staff would +arrive next day.</p> +<p>Désirée heard the news without comment.</p> +<p>“You do not believe it?” asked Mathilde, who had come +in with shining eyes and a pale face.</p> +<p>“Oh yes, I believe it.”</p> +<p>“Then you forget,” persisted Mathilde, “that Charles +is on the staff. They may arrive to-night.”</p> +<p>While they were speaking Sebastian came in. He looked quickly +from one to the other.</p> +<p>“You have heard the news?” he asked.</p> +<p>“That the General is coming back?” said Mathilde.</p> +<p>“No; not that. Though it is true. Macdonald is +in full retreat on Dantzig. The Prussians have abandoned him—at +last.”</p> +<p>He gave a queer laugh and stood looking towards the window with restless +eyes that flitted from one object to another, as if he were endeavouring +to follow in mind the quick course of events. Then he remembered +Désirée and turned towards her.</p> +<p>“Rapp returns to-morrow,” he said. “We may +presume that Charles is with him.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Désirée, in a lifeless voice.</p> +<p>Sebastian wrinkled his eyes and gave an apologetic laugh.</p> +<p>“We cannot offer him a fitting welcome,” he said, with +a gesture of frustrated hospitality. “We must do what we +can. You and he may, of course, consider this your home as long +as it pleases you to remain with us. Mathilde, you will see that +we have such delicacies in the house as Dantzig can now afford—and +you, Désirée, will of course make such preparations as +are necessary. It is well to remember, he may return . . . to-night.”</p> +<p>Désirée went towards the door while Mathilde laid aside +the delicate needlework which seemed to absorb her mind and employ her +fingers from morning till night. She made a movement as if to +accompany her sister, but Désirée shook her head sharply +and Mathilde remained where she was, leaving Désirée to +go upstairs alone.</p> +<p>The day was already drawing to its long twilight, and at four o’clock +the night came. Sebastian went out as usual, though he had caught +cold. But Mathilde stayed at home. Désirée +sent Lisa to the shops in the Langenmarkt, which is the centre of business +and gossip in Dantzig. Lisa always brought home the latest news. +Mathilde came to the kitchen to seek something when the messenger returned. +She heard Lisa tell Désirée that a few more stragglers +had come in, but they brought no news of the General. The house +seemed lonely now that Barlasch was gone.</p> +<p>Throughout the night the sound of sleigh-bells could be faintly heard +through the double windows, though no sleigh passed through the Frauengasse. +A hundred times the bells seemed to come closer, and always Désirée +was ready behind the curtains to see the light flash past into the Pfaffengasse. +With a shiver of suspense she crept back to bed to await the next alarm. +In the early morning, long before it was light, the dull thud of steps +on the trodden snow called her to the window again. She caught +her breath as she drew back the curtain; for through the long watches +of the night she had imagined every possible form of return.</p> +<p>This must be Barlasch. Louis and Barlasch must, of course, +have met Rapp on his homeward journey. On finding Charles, they +had sent Barlasch back in advance to announce the safety of Désirée’s +husband. Louis would, of course, not come to Dantzig. He +would go north to Russia, to Reval, and perhaps home to England—never +to return.</p> +<p>But it was not Barlasch. It was a woman who staggered past +under a burden of firewood which she had collected in the woods of Schottland, +and did not dare to carry through the streets by day.</p> +<p>At last the clocks struck six, and, soon after, Lisa’s heavy +footstep made the stairs creak and crack.</p> +<p>Désirée went downstairs before daylight. She +could hear Mathilde astir in her room, and the light of candles was +visible under her door. Désirée busied herself with +household affairs.</p> +<p>“I have not slept,” said Lisa bluntly, “for thinking +that your husband might return, and fearing that we should make him +wait in the street. But without doubt you would have heard him.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I should have heard him.”</p> +<p>“If it had been my husband, I should have been at the window +all night,” said Lisa, with a gay laugh—and Désirée +laughed too.</p> +<p>Mathilde seemed a long time in coming, and when at length she appeared +Désirée could scarcely repress a movement of surprise. +Mathilde was dressed, all in her best, as for a <i>fête</i>.</p> +<p>At breakfast Lisa brought the news told to her at the door that the +Governor would re-enter the city in state with his staff at midday. +The citizens were invited to decorate their streets, and to gather there +to welcome the returning garrison.</p> +<p>“And the citizens will accept the invitation,” commented +Sebastian, with a curt laugh. “All the world has sneered +at Russia since the Empire existed—and yet it has to learn from +Moscow what part a citizen may play in war. These good Dantzigers +will accept the invitation.”</p> +<p>And he was right. For one reason or another the city did honour +to Rapp. Even the Poles must have known by now that France had +made tools of them. But as yet they could not realize that Napoleon +had fallen. There were doubtless many spies in the streets that +cold December day—one who listened for Napoleon; and another, +peeping to this side and that, for the King of Prussia. Sweden +also would need to know what Dantzig thought, and Russia must not be +ignorant of the gossip in a great Baltic port.</p> +<p>Enveloped in their stiff sheepskins, concealed by the high collars +which reached to the brim of their hats—showing nothing but eyes +where the rime made old faces and young all alike, it was difficult +for any to judge of his neighbour—whether he were Pole or Prussian, +Dantziger or Swede. The women in thick shawls, with hoods or scarves +concealing their faces, stood silently beside their husbands. +It was only the children who asked a thousand questions, and got never +an answer from the cautious descendants of a Hanseatic people.</p> +<p>“Is it the French or the Russians that are coming?” asked +a child near to Désirée.</p> +<p>“Both,” was the answer.</p> +<p>“But which will come first?”</p> +<p>“Wait and see—silentium,” replied the careful Dantziger, +looking over his shoulder.</p> +<p>Désirée had changed her clothes, and wore beneath her +furs the dress that had been prepared for the journey to Zoppot so long +ago. Mathilde had noticed the dress, which had not been seen for +six months. Lisa, more loquacious, nodded to it as to a friend +when helping Désirée with her furs.</p> +<p>“You have changed,” she said, “since you last wore +it.”</p> +<p>“I have grown older—and fatter,” answered Désirée +cheerfully.</p> +<p>And Lisa, who had no imagination, seemed satisfied with the explanation. +But the change was in Désirée’s eyes.</p> +<p>With Sebastian’s permission—almost at his suggestion—they +had selected the Grüne Brücke as the point from which to see +the sight. This bridge spans the Mottlau at the entrance to the +Langenmarkt, and the roadway widens before it narrows again to pass +beneath the Grünes Thor. There is rising ground where the +road spreads like a fan, and here they could see and be seen.</p> +<p>“Let us hope,” said Sebastian, “that two of these +gentlemen may perceive you as they pass.”</p> +<p>But he did not offer to accompany them.</p> +<p>By half-past eleven the streets were full. The citizens knew +their governor, it seemed. He would not keep them waiting. +Although Rapp lacked that power of appealing to the imagination which +has survived Napoleon’s death with such astounding vitality that +it moves men’s minds to-day as surely as it did a hundred years +ago, he was shrewd enough to make use of his master’s methods +when such would seem to serve his purpose. He was not going to +creep into Dantzig like a whipped dog into his kennel.</p> +<p>He had procured a horse at Elbing. Between that town and the +Mottlau he had halted to form his army into something like order, to +get together a staff with which to surround himself.</p> +<p>But the Dantzigers did not cheer. They stood and watched him +in a sullen silence as he rode across the bridge now known as the “Milk-Can.” +His bridle was twisted round his arm, for all his fingers were frostbitten. +His nose and his ears were in the same plight, and had been treated +by a Polish barber who, indeed, effected a cure. One eye was almost +closed. His face was astonishingly red. But he carried himself +like a soldier, and faced the world with the audacity that Napoleon +taught to all his disciples.</p> +<p>Behind him rode a few staff officers, but the majority were on foot. +Some effort had been made to revive the faded uniforms. One or +two heroic souls had cast aside the fur cloaks to which they owed their +life, but the majority were broken men without spirit, without pride—appealing +only to pity. They hugged themselves closely in their ragged cloaks +and stumbled as they walked. It was impossible to distinguish +between the officers and the men. The biggest and the strongest +were the best clad—the bullies were the best fed. All were +black and smoke-grimed—with eyes reddened and inflamed by the +dazzling snow through which they stumbled by day, as much as by the +smoke into which they crouched at night. Every garment was riddled +by the holes burnt by flying sparks—every face was smeared with +blood that ran from the horseflesh they had torn asunder with their +teeth while it yet smoked.</p> +<p>Some laughed and waved their hands to the crowd. Others, who +had known the tragedy of Vilna and Kowno, stumbled on in stubborn silence +still doubting that Dantzig stood—that they were at last in sight +of food and warmth and rest.</p> +<p>“Is that all?” men asked each other in astonishment. +For the last stragglers had crossed the new Mottlau before the head +of the procession had reached the Grüne Brücke.</p> +<p>“If I had such an army as that,” said a stout Dantziger, +“I should bring it into the city quietly, after dusk.”</p> +<p>But the majority were silent, remembering the departure of these +men—the triumph, the glory, and the hope. For a great catastrophe +is a curtain that for a moment shuts out all history and makes the human +family little children again who can but cower and hold each other’s +hands in the dark.</p> +<p>“Where are the guns?” asked one.</p> +<p>“And the baggage?” suggested another.</p> +<p>“And the treasure of Moscow?” whispered a Jew with cunning +eyes, who had hidden behind his neighbour when Rapp glanced in his direction.</p> +<p>Emerging on the bridge, the General glanced at the old Mottlau. +A crowd was collected on it. The citizens no longer used the bridges +but crossed without fear where they pleased, and heavy sleighs passed +up and down as on a high-road. Rapp saw it, made a grimace, and, +turning in his saddle, spoke to his neighbour, an engineer officer, +who was to make an immortal name and die in Dantzig.</p> +<p>The Mottlau was one of the chief defences of the city, but instead +of a river the Governor found a high-road!</p> +<p>Rapp alone seemed to look about him with the air of one who knew +his whereabouts. In the straggling trail of men behind him, not +one in a hundred looked for a friendly face. Some stared in front +of them with lifeless eyes, while others, with a little spirit plucked +up at the end of a weary march, glanced up at the gabled houses with +the interest called forth by the first sight of a new city.</p> +<p>It was not until long afterwards that the world, piecing together +information purposely delayed and details carefully falsified, knew +that of the four hundred thousand men who marched triumphantly to the +Niemen, only twenty thousand recrossed that river six months later, +and of these two-thirds had never seen Moscow.</p> +<p>Rapp, whose bloodshot eyes searched the crowd of faces turned towards +him, recognized a number of people. To Mathilde he bowed gravely, +and with a kindlier glance turned in his saddle to bow again to Désirée. +They hardly heeded him, but with colourless faces turned towards the +staff riding behind him.</p> +<p>Most of the faces were strange: others were so altered that the features +had to be sought for as in the face of a mummy. Neither Charles +nor de Casimir was among the horsemen. One or two of them bowed, +as their leader had done, to the two girls.</p> +<p>“That is Captain de Villars,” said Mathilde, “and +the other I do not know. Nor that tall man who is bowing now. +Who are they?”</p> +<p>Désirée did not answer. None of these men was +Charles. Unconsciously holding her two mittened hands at her throat, +she searched each face.</p> +<p>They were well placed to see even those who followed on foot. +Many of them were not French. It would have been easy to distinguish +Charles or de Casimir among the dark-visaged southerners. Désirée +was not conscious of the crowd around her. She heard none of the +muttered remarks. All her soul was in her eyes.</p> +<p>“Is that all?” she said at length—as the others +had said at the entrance to the town.</p> +<p>She found she was standing hand-in-hand with Mathilde, whose face +was like marble.</p> +<p>At last, when even the crowd had passed away beneath the Grünes +Thor, they turned and walked home in silence.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XIX. KOWNO.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>Distinct +with footprints yet<br /> Of many a mighty +marcher gone that way.</i></p> +<p>There are many who overlook the fact that in Northern lands, more +especially in such plains as Lithuania, Courland, and Poland, travel +in winter is easier than at any other time of year. The rivers, +which run sluggishly in their ditch-like beds, are frozen so completely +that the bridges are no longer required. The roads, in summer +almost impassable—mere ruts across the plain—are for the +time ignored, and the traveller strikes a bee-line from place to place +across a level of frozen snow.</p> +<p>Louis d’Arragon had worked out a route across the plain, as +he had been taught to shape a course across a chart.</p> +<p>“How did you return from Kowno?” he asked Barlasch.</p> +<p>“Name of my own nose,” replied that traveller. +“I followed the line of dead horses.”</p> +<p>“Then I will take you by another route,” replied the +sailor.</p> +<p>And three days later—before General Rapp had made his entry +into Dantzig—Barlasch sold two skeletons of horses and a sleigh +at an enormous profit to a staff officer of Murat’s at Gumbinnen.</p> +<p>They had passed through Rapp’s army. They had halted +at Königsberg to make inquiry, and now, almost in sight of the +Niemen, where the land begins to heave in great waves, like those that +roll round Cape Horn, they were asking still if any man had seen Charles +Darragon.</p> +<p>“Where are you going, comrades?” a hundred men had paused +to ask them.</p> +<p>“To seek a brother,” answered Barlasch, who, like many +unprincipled persons, had soon found that a lie is much simpler than +an explanation.</p> +<p>But the majority glanced at them stupidly without comment, or with +only a shrug of their bowed shoulders. They were going the wrong +way. They must be mad. Between Dantzig and Königsberg +they had indeed found a few travellers going eastward—despatch-bearers +seeking Murat—spies going northwards to Tilsit, and General Yorck +still in treaty with his own conscience—a prominent member of +the Tugendbund, wondering, like many others, if there were any virtue +left in the world. Others, again, told them that they were officers +ordered to take up some new command in the retreating army.</p> +<p>Beyond Königsberg, however, D’Arragon and Barlasch found +themselves alone on their eastward route. Every man’s face +was set towards the west. This was not an army at all, but an +endless procession of tramps. Without food or shelter, with no +baggage but what they could carry on their backs, they journeyed as +each of us must journey out of this world into that which lies beyond—alone, +with no comrade to help them over the rough places or lift them when +they fell. For there was only one man of all this rabble who rose +to the height of self-sacrifice, and a persistent devotion to duty. +And he was coming last of all.</p> +<p>Many had started off in couples—with a faithful friend—only +to quarrel at last. For it is a peculiarity of the French that +they can only have one friend at a time. Long ago—back beyond +the Niemen—all friendships had been dissolved, and discipline +had vanished before that. For when Discipline and a Republic are +wedded we shall have the millennium. Liberty, they cry: meaning, +I may do as I like. Equality: I am better than you. Fraternity: +what is yours is mine, if I want it.</p> +<p>So they quarrelled over everything, and fought for a place round +the fire that another had lighted. They burnt the houses in which +they had passed a night, though they knew that thousands trudging behind +them must die for lack of this poor shelter.</p> +<p>At the Bérésina they had fought on the bridge like +wild animals, and those who had horses trod their comrades underfoot, +or pushed them over the parapet. Twelve thousand perished on the +banks or in the river; and sixteen thousand were left behind to the +mercy of the Cossacks.</p> +<p>At Vilna the people were terrified at the sight of this inhuman rabble, +which had commanded their admiration on the outward march. And +the commander, with his staff, crept out of the city at night, abandoning +sick, wounded, and fighting men.</p> +<p>At Kowno they crowded numbly across the bridge, fighting for precedence, +when they might have walked at leisure across the ice. They were +no longer men at all, but dumb and driven animals, who fell by the roadside, +and were stripped by their comrades before the warmth of life had left +their limbs.</p> +<p>“Excuse me, comrade? I thought you were dead,” +said one, on being remonstrated with by a dying man. And he went +on his way reluctantly, for he knew that in a few minutes another would +snatch the booty. But for the most part they were not so scrupulous.</p> +<p>At first D’Arragon, to whom these horrors were new, attempted +to help such as appealed to him, but Barlasch laughed at him.</p> +<p>“Yes,” he said. “Take the medallion, and +promise to send it to his mother. Holy Heaven—they all have +medallions, and they all have mothers. Every Frenchman remembers +his mother—when it is too late. I will get a cart. +By to-morrow we shall fill it with keepsakes. And here is another. +He is hungry. So am I, comrade. I come from Moscow—bah!”</p> +<p>And so they fought their way through the stream. They could +have journeyed by a quicker route—D’Arragon could have steered +a course across the frozen plain as over a sea—but Charles must +necessarily be in this stream. He might be by the wayside. +Any one of these pitiable objects, half blind, frost-bitten, with one +limb or another swinging useless, like a snapped branch, wrapped to +the eyes in filthy furs—inhuman, horrible—any one of these +might be Désirée’s husband.</p> +<p>They never missed a chance of hearing news. Barlasch interrupted +the last message of a dying man to inquire whether he had ever heard +of Prince Eugene. It was startling to learn how little they knew. +The majority of them were quite ignorant of French, and had scarcely +heard the name of the commander of their division. Many spoke +in a language which even Barlasch could not identify.</p> +<p>“His talk is like a coffee-mill,” he explained to D’Arragon, +“and I do not know to what regiment he belonged. He asked +me if I was Russki—I! Then he wanted to hold my hand. +And he went to sleep. He will wake among the angels—that +parishioner.”</p> +<p>Not only had no one heard of Charles Darragon, but few knew the name +of the commander to whose staff he had been attached in Moscow. +There was nothing for it but to go on towards Kowno, where it was understood +temporary head-quarters had been established.</p> +<p>Rapp himself had told D’Arragon that officers had been despatched +to Kowno to form a base—a sort of rock in the midst of a torrent +to divert the currents. There had then been a talk of Tilsit, +and diverting the stream, or part of it towards Macdonald in the north. +But D’Arragon knew that Macdonald was likely to be in no better +plight than Murat; for it was an open secret in Dantzig that Yorck, +with four-fifths of Macdonald’s army, was about to abandon him.</p> +<p>The road to Kowno was not to be mistaken. On either side of +it, like fallen landmarks, the dead lay huddled on the snow. Sometimes +D’Arragon and Barlasch found the remains of a fire, where, amid +the ashes, the chains and rings showed that a gun-carriage had been +burnt. The trees were cut and scored where, as a forlorn hope, +some poor imbecile had stripped the bark with the thought that it might +burn. Nearly every fire had its grim guardian; for the wounds +of the injured nearly always mortified when the flesh was melted by +the warmth. Once or twice, with their ragged feet in the ashes, +a whole company had never awakened from their sleep.</p> +<p>Barlasch pessimistically went the round of these bivouacs, but rarely +found anything worth carrying away. If he recognized a veteran +by the grizzled hair straggling out of the rags in which all faces were +enveloped, or perceived some remnant of a Garde uniform, he searched +more carefully.</p> +<p>“There may be salt,” he said. And sometimes he +found a little. They had been on foot since Gumbinnen, because +no horse would be allowed by starving men to live a day. They +existed from day to day on what they found, which was, at the best, +frozen horse. But Barlasch ate singularly little.</p> +<p>“One thinks of one’s digestion,” he said vaguely, +and persuaded D’Arragon to eat his portion because it would be +a sin to throw it away.</p> +<p>At length D’Arragon, who was quick enough in understanding +rough men, said—</p> +<p>“No, I don’t want any more. I will throw it away.”</p> +<p>And an hour later, while pretending to be asleep, he saw Barlasch +get up, and crawl cautiously into the trees where the unsavoury food +had been thrown.</p> +<p>“Provided,” muttered Barlasch one day, “that you +keep your health. I am an old man. I could not do this alone.”</p> +<p>Which was true, for D’Arragon was carrying all the baggage +now.</p> +<p>“We must both keep our health,” answered Louis. +“I have eaten worse things than horse.”</p> +<p>“I saw one yesterday,” said Barlasch, with a gesture +of disgust; “he had three stripes on his arm, too; he was crouching +in a ditch eating something much worse than horse, mon capitaine. +Bah! It made me sick. For three sous I would have put my +heel on his face. And later on at the roadside I saw where he +or another had played the butcher. But you saw none of these things, +mon capitaine?”</p> +<p>“It was by that winding stream where a farm had been burnt,” +said Louis.</p> +<p>Barlasch glanced at him sideways.</p> +<p>“If we should come to that, mon capitaine . . . . “</p> +<p>“We won’t.”</p> +<p>They trudged on in silence for some time. They were off the +road now, and D’Arragon was steering by dead-reckoning. +Even amid the pine-woods, which seemed interminable, they frequently +found remains of an encampment. As often as not they found the +campers huddled over their last bivouac.</p> +<p>“But these,” said Barlasch, pointing to what looked like +a few bundles of old clothes, continuing the conversation where he had +left it after a long silence, as men learn to do who are together day +and night in some hard enterprise, “even these have a woman dinning +the ears of the good God for them, just as we have.”</p> +<p>For Barlasch’s conception of a Deity could not get further +than the picture of a great Commander who in times of stress had no +leisure to see that non-commissioned officers did their best for the +rank and file. Indeed, the poor in all lands rather naturally +conclude that God will think of carriage-people first.</p> +<p>They came within sight of Kowno one evening, after a tiring day over +snow that glittered in a cloudless sun. Barlasch sat down wearily +against a pine tree, when they first caught sight of a distant church-tower. +The country is much broken up into little valleys here, through which +streams find their way to the Niemen. Each river necessitated +a rapid descent and an arduous climb over slippery snow.</p> +<p>“Voilà,” said Barlasch. “That is Kowno. +I am done. Go on, mon capitaine. I will lie here, and if +I am not dead to-morrow morning, I will join you.”</p> +<p>Louis looked at him with a slow smile.</p> +<p>“I am tired as you,” he said. “We will rest +here until the moon rises.”</p> +<p>Already the bare larches threw shadows three times their own length +on the snow. Near at hand it glittered like a carpet of diamonds, +while the distance was of a pale blue, merging to grey on the horizon. +A far-off belt of pines against a sky absolutely cloudless suggested +infinite space—immeasurable distance. Nothing was sharp +and clearly outlined, but hazy, silvery, as seen through a thin veil. +The sea would seem to be our earthly picture of infinite space, but +no sea speaks of distance so clearly as the plain of Lithuania—absolutely +flat, quite lonely. The far-off belt of pines only leads the eye +to a shadow beyond, which is another pine-wood; and the traveller walking +all day towards it knows that when at length he gets there he will see +just such another on the far horizon.</p> +<p>Louis sat down wearily beside Barlasch. As far as eye could +see, they were alone in this grim white world. They had nothing +to say to each other. They sat and watched the sun go down with +drawn eyes and a queer stolidity which comes to men in great cold, as +if their souls were numb.</p> +<p>As the sun sank, the shadows turned bluer, and all the snow gleamed +like a lake. The silver tints slowly turned to gold; the greys +grew darker. The distant lines of pines were almost black now, +a silhouette against the golden sky. Near at hand the little inequalities +in the snow loomed blue, like deeper pools in shallow water.</p> +<p>The sun sank very slowly, moving along the horizon almost parallel +with it towards two bars of golden cloud awaiting it, the bars of the +West forming a prison to this poor pale captive of the snows. +The stems of a few silver-birch near at hand were rosy now, and suddenly +the snow took a similar tint. At the same moment, a wave of cold +seemed to sweep across the world.</p> +<p>The sun went down at length, leaving a brownish-red sky. This, +too, faded to grey in a few minutes, and a steely cold gripped the world +as in a vice.</p> +<p>Louis d’Arragon made a sudden effort and rose to his feet, +beneath which the snow squeaked.</p> +<p>“Come,” he said. “If we stay, we shall fall +asleep, and then—”</p> +<p>Barlasch roused himself and looked sleepily at his companion. +He had a patch of blue on either cheek.</p> +<p>“Come!” shouted Louis, as if to a deaf man. “Let +us go on to Kowno, and find out whether he is alive or dead.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XX. DÉSIRÉE’S CHOICE.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>Our wills and fates do so contrary +run,<br /> That our devices still are overthrown.<br /> Our +thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.</i></p> +<p>Rapp found himself in a stronghold which was strong in theory only. +For the frozen river formed the easiest possible approach, instead of +an insuperable barrier to the enemy. He had an army which was +a paper army only.</p> +<p>He had, according to official returns, thirty-five thousand men. +In reality a bare eight thousand could be collected to show a face to +the enemy. The rest were sick and wounded. There was no +national spirit among these men; they hardly had a language in common. +For they were men from Africa and Italy, from France, Germany, Poland, +Spain, and Holland. The majority of them were recruits, raw and +of poor physique. All were fugitives, flying before those dread +Cossacks whose “hurrah! hurrah!”—the Arabic “kill! +kill!”—haunted their fitful sleep at night. They came +to Dantzig not to fight, but to lie down and rest. They were the +last of the great army—the reinforcements dragged to the frontier +which many of them had never crossed. For those who had been to +Moscow were few and far between. The army of Moscow had perished +at Malo-Jaroslavetz, at the Bérésina, in Smolensk and +Vilna.</p> +<p>These fugitives had fled to Dantzig for safety; and Rapp in crossing +the bridge had made a grimace, for he saw that there was no safety here.</p> +<p>The fortifications had been merely sketched out. The ditches +were full of snow, the rivers were frozen. All work was at a standstill. +Dantzig lay at the mercy of the first-comer.</p> +<p>In twenty-four hours every available smith was at work, forging ice-axes +and picks. Rapp was going to cut the frozen Vistula and set the +river free. The Dantzigers laughed aloud.</p> +<p>“It will freeze again in a night,” they said. And +it did. So Rapp set the ice-cutters to work again next day. +He kept boats moving day and night in the water, which ran sluggish +and thick, like porridge, with the desire to freeze and be still.</p> +<p>He ordered the engineers to set to work on the abandoned fortifications. +But the ground was hard like granite, and the picks sprang back in the +worker’s grip, jarring his bones, and making not so much as a +mark on the surface of the earth.</p> +<p>Again the Dantzigers laughed.</p> +<p>“It is frozen three feet down,” they said.</p> +<p>The thermometer marked between twenty and thirty degrees of frost +every night now. And it was only December—only the beginning +of the winter. The Russians were at the Niemen, daily coming nearer. +Dantzig was full of sick and wounded. The available troops were +worn out, frost-bitten, desperate. There were only a few doctors, +who were without medical stores; no meat, no vegetables, no spirits, +no forage.</p> +<p>No wonder the Dantzigers laughed. Rapp, who had to rely on +Southerners to obey his orders—Italians, Africans, a few Frenchmen, +men little used to cold and the hardships of a Northern winter—Rapp +let them laugh. He was a medium-sized man, with a bullet-head +and a round chubby face, a small nose, round eyes, and, if you please, +side-whiskers.</p> +<p>Never for a moment did he admit that things looked black. He +lit enormous bonfires, melted the frozen earth, and built the fortifications +that had been planned.</p> +<p>“I took counsel,” he said, long afterwards, “with +two engineer officers whose devotion equalled their brilliancy—Colonel +Richemont and General Campredon.”</p> +<p>Soldiers might for all time study with advantage the acts of such +obscure and almost forgotten men as these. For, through them, +Napoleon was now teaching the world that a fortified place might be +made stronger than any had hitherto suspected. That he should +turn round and teach, on the other hand, that a city usually considered +impregnable could be taken without great loss of life, was only characteristic +of his splendid genius, which, like a towering tree, grew and grew until +it fell.</p> +<p>The days were very short now, and it was dark when the sappers—whose +business it was to keep the ice moving in the river at that spot where +the Government building-yard abuts the river front to-day—were +roused from their meditations by a shout on the farther bank.</p> +<p>They pushed their clumsy boat through the ice, and soon perceived +against the snowy distance the outline of a man wrapped, swaddled, disguised +in the heaped-up clothing so familiar to Eastern Europe at this time. +The joke of seeing a grave artilleryman clad in a lady’s ermine +cloak had long since lost its savour for those who dwelt near the Moscow +road.</p> +<p>“Ah! comrade,” said one of the boatmen, an Italian who +spoke French and had learnt his seamanship on the Mediterranean, by +whose waters he would never idle again. “Ah! you are from +Moscow?”</p> +<p>“And you, countryman?” replied the new-comer, with a +non-committing readiness, as he stumbled over the gunwale.</p> +<p>“And you—an old man?” remarked the Italian, with +the easy frankness of Piedmont.</p> +<p>By way of reply, the new-comer held out one hand roughly swathed +in cloth, and shook it from side to side slowly, taking exception to +such personal matters on a short acquaintance.</p> +<p>“A week ago, when I quitted Dantzig on a mission to Kowno,” +he said, with a careless air, “one could cross the Vistula anywhere. +I have been walking on the bank for half a league looking for a way +across. One would think there is a General in Dantzig now.”</p> +<p>“There is Rapp,” replied the Italian, poling his boat +through the floating ice.</p> +<p>“He will be glad to see me.”</p> +<p>The Italian turned and looked over his shoulder. Then he gave +a curt, derisive laugh.</p> +<p>“Barlasch—of the Old Guard!” explained the new-comer, +with a careless air.</p> +<p>“Never heard of him.”</p> +<p>Barlasch pushed up the bandage which he still wore over his left +eye, in order to get a better sight of this phenomenal ignoramus, but +he made no comment.</p> +<p>On landing he nodded curtly, at which the boatman made a quick gesture +and spat.</p> +<p>“You have not the price of a glass in your purse, perhaps,” +he suggested.</p> +<p>Barlasch disappeared in the darkness without deigning a reply. +Half an hour later he was on the steps of Sebastian’s house in +the Frauengasse. On his way through the streets a hundred evidences +of energy had caught his attention, for many of the houses were barricaded, +and palisades were built at the end of the streets running down towards +the river. The town was busy, and everywhere soldiers passed to +and fro. Like Samuel, Barlasch heard the bleating of sheep and +the lowing of oxen in his ears.</p> +<p>The houses in the Frauengasse were barricaded like others—many +of the lower windows were built up. The door of No. 36 was bolted, +and through the shutters of the upper windows no glimmer of light penetrated +to the outer darkness of the street. Barlasch knocked and waited. +He thought he could hear surreptitious movements within the house. +Again he knocked.</p> +<p>“Who is that?” asked Lisa just within, on the mat. +She must have been there all the time.</p> +<p>“Barlasch,” he replied. And the bolts which he, +in his knowledge of such matters, himself had oiled, were quickly drawn.</p> +<p>Inside he found Lisa, and behind her Mathilde and Désirée.</p> +<p>“Where is the patron?” he asked, turning to bolt the +door again.</p> +<p>“He is out, in the town,” answered Désirée, +in a strained voice. “Where are you from?”</p> +<p>“From Kowno.”</p> +<p>Barlasch looked from one face to the other. His own was burnt +red, and the light of the lamp hanging over his head gleamed on the +icicles suspended to his eyebrows and ragged whiskers. In the +warmth of the house his frozen garments began to melt, and from his +limbs the water dripped to the floor with a sound like rain. Then +he caught sight of Désirée’s face.</p> +<p>“He is alive, I tell you that,” he said abruptly. +“And well, so far as we know. It was at Kowno that we got +news of him. I have a letter.”</p> +<p>He opened his cloak, which was stiff like cardboard and creaked when +he bent the rough cloth. Under his cloak he wore a Russian peasant’s +sheepskin coat, and beneath that the remains of his uniform.</p> +<p>“A dog’s country,” he muttered, as he breathed +on his fingers.</p> +<p>At last he found the letter, and gave it to Désirée.</p> +<p>“You will have to make your choice,” he commented, with +a grimace indicative of a serious situation, “like any other woman. +No doubt you will choose wrong.”</p> +<p>Désirée went up two steps in order to be nearer the +lamp, and they all watched her as she opened the letter.</p> +<p>“Is it from Charles?” asked Mathilde, speaking for the +first time.</p> +<p>“No,” answered Désirée, rather breathlessly.</p> +<p>Barlasch nudged Lisa, indicated his own mouth, and pushed her towards +the kitchen. He nodded cunningly to Mathilde, as if to say that +they were now free to discuss family affairs; and added, with a gesture +towards his inner man—</p> +<p>“Since last night—nothing.”</p> +<p>In a few minutes Désirée, having read the letter twice, +handed it to her sister. It was characteristically short.</p> +<p>“We have found a man here,” wrote Louis d’Arragon, +“who travelled as far as Vilna with Charles. There they +parted. Charles, who was ordered to Warsaw on staff work, told +his friend that you were in Dantzig, and that, foreseeing a siege of +the city, he had written to you to join him at Warsaw. This letter +has doubtless been lost. I am following Charles to Warsaw, tracing +him step by step, and if he has fallen ill by the way, as so many have +done, shall certainly find him. Barlasch returns to bring you +to Thorn, if you elect to join Charles. I will await you at Thorn, +and if Charles has proceeded, we will follow him to Warsaw.”</p> +<p>Barlasch, who had watched Désirée, now followed Mathilde’s +eyes as they passed to and fro over the closely written lines. +As she neared the end, and her face, upon which deep shadows had been +graven by sorrow and suspense, grew drawn and hopeless, he gave a curt +laugh.</p> +<p>“There were two,” he said, “travelling together—the +Colonel de Casimir and the husband of—of la petite. They +had facilities—name of God!—two carriages and an escort. +In the carriages they had some of the Emperor’s playthings—holy +pictures, the imperial loot—I know not what. Besides that, +they had some of their own—not furs and candlesticks such as we +others carried on our backs, but gold and jewellery enough to make a +man rich all his life.”</p> +<p>“How do you know that?” asked Mathilde, a dull light +in her eyes.</p> +<p>“I—I know where it came from,” replied Barlasch, +with an odd smile. “Allez! you may take it from me.” +And he muttered to himself in the patois of the Côtes du Nord.</p> +<p>“And they were safe and well at Vilna?” asked Mathilde.</p> +<p>“Yes—and they had their treasure. They had good +fortune, or else they were more clever than other men; for they had +the Imperial treasure to escort, and could take any man’s horse +for the carriages in which also they had placed their own treasure. +It was Captain Darragon who held the appointment, and the other—the +Colonel—had attached himself to him as volunteer. For it +was at Vilna that the last thread of discipline was broken, and every +man did as he wished.”</p> +<p>“They did not come to Kowno?” asked Mathilde, who had +a clear mind, and that grasp of a situation which more often falls to +the lot of the duller sex.</p> +<p>“They did not come to Kowno. They would turn south at +Vilna. It was as well. At Kowno the soldiers had broken +into the magazines—the brandy was poured out in the streets. +The men were lying there, the drunken and the dead all confused together +on the snow. But there would be no confusion the next morning; +for all would be dead.”</p> +<p>“Was it at Kowno that you left Monsieur d’Arragon?” +asked Désirée, in a sharp voice.</p> +<p>“No—no. We quitted Kowno together, and parted on +the heights above the town. He would not trust me—monsieur +le marquis—he was afraid that I should get at the brandy. +And he was right. I only wanted the opportunity. He is a +strong one—that!” And Barlasch held up a warning hand, +as if to make known to all and sundry that it would be inadvisable to +trifle with Louis d’Arragon.</p> +<p>He drew the icicles one by one from his whiskers with a wry face +indicative of great agony, and threw them down on the mat.</p> +<p>“Well,” he said, after a pause, to Désirée, +“have you made your choice?”</p> +<p>Désirée was reading the letter again, and before she +could answer, a quick knock on the front door startled them all. +Barlasch’s face broke into that broad smile which was only called +forth by the presence of danger.</p> +<p>“Is it the patron?” he asked in a whisper, with his hand +on the heavy bolts affixed by that pious Hanseatic merchant who held +that if God be in the house there is no need of watchmen.</p> +<p>“Yes,” answered Mathilde. “Open quickly.”</p> +<p>Sebastian came in with a light step. He was like a man long +saddled with a burden of which he had at length been relieved.</p> +<p>“Ah! What news?” he asked, when he recognised Barlasch.</p> +<p>“Nothing that you do not know already, monsieur,” replied +Barlasch, “except that the husband of Mademoiselle is well and +on the road to Warsaw. Here—read that.”</p> +<p>And he took the letter from Désirée’s hand.</p> +<p>“I knew he would come back safely,” said Désirée; +and that was all.</p> +<p>Sebastian read the letter in one quick glance—and then fell +to thinking.</p> +<p>“It is time to quit Dantzig,” said Barlasch quietly, +as if he had divined the old man’s thoughts. “I know +Rapp. There will be trouble—here, on the Vistula.”</p> +<p>But Sebastian dismissed the suggestion with a curt shake of the head.</p> +<p>Barlasch’s attention had been somewhat withdrawn by a smell +of cooking meat, to which he opened his nostrils frankly and noisily +after the manner of a dog.</p> +<p>“Then it remains,” he said, looking towards the kitchen, +“for Mademoiselle to make her choice.”</p> +<p>“There is no choice,” replied Désirée, +“I shall be ready to go with you—when you have eaten.”</p> +<p>“Good,” said Barlasch, and the word applied as well to +Lisa, who was beckoning to him.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXI. ON THE WARSAW ROAD.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>Oft expectation fails, and most +oft there<br /> Where it most promises; +and oft it hits<br /> Where hope is coldest +and despair most sits.</i></p> +<p>Love, it is said, is blind. But hatred is as bad. In +Antoine Sebastian hatred of Napoleon had not only blinded eyes far-seeing +enough in earlier days, but it had killed many natural affections. +Love, too, may easily die—from a surfeit or a famine. Hatred +never dies; it only sleeps.</p> +<p>Sebastian’s hatred was all awake now. It was aroused +by the disasters that had befallen Napoleon; of which disasters the +Russian campaign was only one small part. For he who stands above +all his compeers must expect them to fall upon him should he stumble. +Napoleon had fallen, and a hundred foes who had hitherto nursed their +hatred in a hopeless silence were alert to strike a blow should he descend +within their reach.</p> +<p>When whole empires had striven in vain to strike, how could a mere +association of obscure men hope to record its blow? The Tugendbund +had begun humbly enough; and Napoleon, with that unerring foresight +which raised him above all other men, had struck at its base. +For an association in which kings and cobblers stand side by side on +an equal footing must necessarily be dangerous to its foes.</p> +<p>Sebastian was not carried off his feet by the great events of the +last six months. They only rendered him steadier. For he +had waited a lifetime. It is only a sudden success that dazzles. +Long waiting nearly always ensures a wise possession.</p> +<p>Sebastian, like all men absorbed in a great thought, was neglectful +of his social and domestic obligations. Has it not been shown +that he allowed Mathilde and Désirée to support him by +giving dancing lessons? But he was not the ordinary domestic tyrant +who is familiar to all—the dignified father of a family who must +have the best of everything, whose teaching to his offspring takes the +form of an unconscious and solemn warning. He did not ask the +best; he hardly noticed what was offered to him; and it was not owing +to his demand, but to that feminine spirit of self-sacrifice which has +ruined so many men, that he fared better than his daughters.</p> +<p>If he thought about it at all, he probably concluded that Mathilde +and Désirée were quite content to give their time and +thought to the support of himself—not as their father, but as +the motive power of the Tugendbund in Prussia. Many greater men +have made the same mistake, and quite small men with a great name make +it every day, thinking complacently that it is a privilege to some woman +to minister to their wants while they produce their immortal pictures +or deathless books; whereas, the woman would tend him as carefully were +he a crossing-sweeper, and is only following the dictates of an instinct +which is loftier than his highest thought and more admirable than his +most astounding work of art.</p> +<p>Barlasch had not lived so long in the Frauengasse without learning +the domestic economy of Sebastian’s household. He knew that +Désirée, like many persons with kind blue eyes, shaped +her own course through life, and abided by the result with a steadfastness +not usually attributed to the light-hearted. He concluded that +he must make ready to take the road again before midnight. He +therefore gave a careful and businesslike attention to the simple meal +set before him by Lisa; and, looking up over his plate, he saw for the +second time in his life Sebastian hurrying into his own kitchen.</p> +<p>Barlasch half rose, and then, in obedience to a gesture from Sebastian, +or remembering perhaps the sturdy Republicanism which he had not learnt +until middle-age, he sat down again, fork in hand.</p> +<p>“You are prepared to accompany Madame Darragon to Thorn?” +inquired Sebastian, inviting his guest by a gesture to make himself +at home—scarcely a necessary thought in the present instance.</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“And how do you propose to make the journey?”</p> +<p>This was so unlike Sebastian’s usual method, so far from his +lax comprehension of a father’s duty, that Barlasch paused and +looked at him with suspicion. With the back of his hand he pushed +up the unkempt hair which obscured his eyes. This unusual display +of parental anxiety required looking into.</p> +<p>“From what I could see in the streets,” he answered, +“the General will not stand in the way of women and useless mouths +who wish to quit Dantzig.”</p> +<p>“That is possible; but he will not go so far as to provide +horses.”</p> +<p>Barlasch gave his companion a quick glance, and returned to his supper, +eating with an exaggerated nonchalance, as if he were alone.</p> +<p>“Will you provide them?” he asked abruptly, at length, +without looking up.</p> +<p>“I can get them for you, and can ensure you relays by the way.”</p> +<p>Barlasch cut a piece of meat very carefully, and, opening his mouth +wide, looked at Sebastian over the orifice.</p> +<p>“On one condition,” pursued Sebastian quietly; “that +you deliver a letter for me in Thorn. I make no pretence; if it +is found on you, you will be shot.”</p> +<p>Barlasch smiled pleasantly.</p> +<p>“The risks are very great,” said Sebastian, tapping his +snuff-box reflectively.</p> +<p>“I am not an officer to talk of my honour,” answered +Barlasch, with a laugh. “And as for risk”—he +paused and put half a potato into his mouth—“it is Mademoiselle +I serve,” concluded this uncouth knight with a curt simplicity.</p> +<p>So they set out at ten o’clock that night in a light sleigh +on high runners, such as may be seen on any winter day in Poland down +to the present time. The horses were as good as any in Dantzig +at this date, when a horse was more costly than his master. The +moon, sailing high overhead through fleecy clouds, found it no hard +task to light a world all snow and ice. The streets of Dantzig +were astir with life and the rumble of waggons. At first there +were difficulties, and Barlasch explained airily that he was not so +accomplished a whip in the streets as in the open country.</p> +<p>“But never fear,” he added. “We shall get +there, soon enough.”</p> +<p>At the city gates there was, as Barlasch had predicted, no objection +made to the departure of a young girl and an old man. Others were +quitting Dantzig by the same gate, on foot, in sleighs and carts; but +all turned westward at the cross-roads and joined the stream of refugees +hurrying forward to Germany. Barlasch and Désirée +were alone on the wide road that runs southward across the plain towards +Dirschau. The air was very cold and still. On the snow, +hard and dry like white dust, the runners of the sleigh sang a song +on one note, only varied from time to time by a drop of several octaves +as they passed over a culvert or some hollow in the road, after which +the high note, like the sound of escaping steam, again held sway. +The horses fell into a long steady trot, their feet beating the ground +with a regular, sleep-inducing thud. They were harnessed well +forward to a very long pole, and covered the ground with free strides, +unhampered by any thought of their heels. The snow pattered against +the cloth stretched like a wind-sail from their flanks to the rising +front of the sleigh.</p> +<p>Barlasch sat upright, a thick motionless figure, four-square to the +cutting wind. He drove with one hand at a time, sitting on the +other to restore circulation between whiles. It was impossible +to distinguish the form of his garments, for he was wrapped round in +a woollen shawl like a mummy, showing only his eyes beneath the ragged +fur of a sheepskin cap upon which the rime caused by the warmth of the +horses and his own breath had frozen like a coating of frosted silver.</p> +<p>Désirée was huddled down beside him, with her head +bent forward so as to protect her face from the wind, which seared like +a hot iron. She wore a hood of white fur lined with a darker fur, +and when she lifted her face only her eyes, bright and wakeful, were +visible.</p> +<p>“If you are warm, you may go to sleep,” said Barlasch +in a mumbling voice, for his face was drawn tight and his lips stiffened +by the cold. “But if you shiver, you must stay awake.”</p> +<p>But Désirée seemed to have no wish for sleep. +Whenever Barlasch leant forward to peer beneath her hood she looked +round at him with wakeful eyes. Whenever, to see if she were still +awake, he gave her an unceremonious nudge, she nudged back again instantly. +As the night wore on, she grew more wakeful. When they halted +at a wayside inn, which must have been minutely described to Barlasch +by Sebastian, and Désirée accepted the innkeeper’s +offer of a cup of coffee by the fire while fresh horses were being put +into harness, she was wide awake and looked at Barlasch with a reckless +laugh as he shook the rime from his eyebrows. In response he frowningly +scrutinized as much of her face as he could see, and shook his head +disapprovingly.</p> +<p>“You laugh when there is nothing to laugh at,” he said +grimly. “Foolish. It makes people wonder what is in +your mind.”</p> +<p>“There is nothing in my mind,” she answered gaily.</p> +<p>“Then there is something in your heart, and that is worse!” +said Barlasch, which made Désirée look at him doubtfully.</p> +<p>They had done forty miles with the same horses, and were nearly halfway. +For some hours the road had followed the course of the Vistula on the +high tableland above the river, and would so continue until they reached +Thorn.</p> +<p>“You must sleep,” said Barlasch curtly, when they were +once more on the road. She sat silent beside him for an hour. +The horses were fresh, and covered the ground at a great pace. +Barlasch was no driver, but he was skilful with the horses, and husbanded +their strength at every hill.</p> +<p>“If we go on like this, when shall we arrive?” asked +Désirée suddenly.</p> +<p>“By eight o’clock, if all goes well.”</p> +<p>“And we shall find Monsieur Louis d’Arragon awaiting +us at Thorn?”</p> +<p>Barlasch shrugged his shoulders doubtfully.</p> +<p>“He said he would be there,” he muttered, and, turning +in his seat, he looked down at her with some contempt.</p> +<p>“That is like a woman,” he said. “They think +all men are fools except one, and that one is only to be compared with +the bon Dieu.”</p> +<p>Désirée could not have heard the remark, for she made +no answer and sat silent, leaning more and more heavily against her +companion. He changed the reins to his other hand, and drove with +it for an hour after all feeling had left it. Désirée +was asleep. She was still sleeping when, in the dim light of a +late dawn, Barlasch saw the distant tower of Thorn Cathedral.</p> +<p>They were no longer alone on the road now, but passed a number of +heavy market-sleighs bringing produce and wood to the town. Barlasch +had been in Thorn before. Désirée was still sleeping +when he turned the horses into the crowded yard of the “Drei Kronen.” +The sleighs and carriages were packed side by side as in a warehouse, +but the stables were empty. No eager host came out to meet the +travellers. The innkeepers of Thorn had long ceased to give themselves +that trouble. For the city was on the direct route of the retreat, +and few who got so far had any money left.</p> +<p>Slowly and painfully Barlasch unwound himself and disentangled his +legs. He tried first one and then the other, as if uncertain whether +he could walk. Then he staggered numbly across the yard to the +door of the inn.</p> +<p>A few minutes later Désirée woke up. She was +in a room warmed by a great white stove and dimly lighted by candles. +Some one was pulling off her gloves and feeling her hands to make sure +that they were not frost-bitten. She looked sleepily at a white +coffee-pot standing on the table near the candles; then her eyes, still +uncomprehending, rested on the face of the man who was loosening her +hood, which was hard with rime and ice. He had his back to the +candles, and was half-hidden by the collar of his fur coat, which met +the cap pressed down over his ears.</p> +<p>He turned towards the table to lay aside her gloves, and the light +fell on his face. Désirée was wideawake in an instant, +and Louis d’Arragon, hearing her move, turned anxiously to look +at her again. Neither spoke for a minute. Barlasch was holding +his numbed hand against the stove, and was grinding his teeth and muttering +at the pain of the restored circulation.</p> +<p>Désirée shook the icicles from her hood, and they rattled +like hail on the bare floor. Her hair, all tumbled round her face, +caught the light of the candles. Her eyes were bright and the +colour was in her cheeks. D’Arragon glanced at her with +a sudden look of relief, and then turned to Barlasch. He took +the numbed hand and felt it; then he held a candle close to it. +Two of the fingers were quite white, and Barlasch made a grimace when +he saw them. D’Arragon began rubbing at once, taking no +notice of his companion’s moans and complaints.</p> +<p>Without desisting, he looked over his shoulder towards Désirée, +but not actually at her face.</p> +<p>“I heard last night,” he said, “that the two carriages +are standing in an inn-yard three leagues beyond this on the Warsaw +road. I have traced them step by step from Kowno. My informant +tells me that the escort has deserted, and that the officer in charge, +Colonel Darragon, was going on alone, with the two drivers, when he +was taken ill. He is nearly well again, and hopes to continue +his journey to-morrow or the next day.”</p> +<p>Désirée nodded her head to signify that she had heard +and understood. Barlasch gave a cry of pain, and withdrew his +hand with a jerk.</p> +<p>“Enough, enough!” he said. “You hurt me. +The life is returning now; a drop of brandy perhaps—”</p> +<p>“There is no brandy in Thorn,” said D’Arragon, +turning towards the table. “There is only coffee.”</p> +<p>He busied himself with the cups, and did not look at Désirée +when he spoke again.</p> +<p>“I have secured two horses,” he said, “to enable +you to proceed at once, if you are able to. But if you would rather +rest here to-day—”</p> +<p>“Let us go on at once,” interrupted Désirée +hastily.</p> +<p>Barlasch, crouching against the stove, glanced from one to the other +beneath his heavy brows, wondering, perhaps, why they avoided looking +at each other.</p> +<p>“You will wait here,” said D’Arragon, turning towards +him, “until—until I return.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” was the answer. “I will lie on the +floor here and sleep. I have had enough. I—”</p> +<p>Louis left the room to give the necessary orders. When he returned +in a few minutes, Barlasch was asleep on the floor, and Désirée +had tied on her hood again, which concealed her face. He drank +a cup of coffee and ate some dry bread absent-mindedly, in silence.</p> +<p>The sound of bells, feebly heard through the double windows, told +them that the horses were being harnessed.</p> +<p>“Are you ready?” asked D’Arragon, who had not sat +down; and in response, Désirée, standing near the stove, +went towards the door, which he held open for her to pass out. +As she passed him, she glanced at his face, and winced.</p> +<p>In the sleigh she looked up at him as if expecting him to speak. +He was looking straight in front of him. There was, after all, +nothing to be said. She could see his steady eyes between his +high collar and the fur cap. They were hard and unflinching. +The road was level now, and the snow beaten to a gleaming track like +ice. D’Arragon put the horses to a gallop at the town gate, +and kept them at it.</p> +<p>In half an hour he turned towards her and pointed with his whip to +a roof half hidden by some thin pines.</p> +<p>“That is the inn,” he said.</p> +<p>In the inn yard he indicated with his whip two travelling-carriages +standing side by side.</p> +<p>“Colonel Darragon is here?” he said to the cringing Jew +who came to meet them; and the innkeeper led the way upstairs. +The house was a miserable one, evil-smelling, sordid. The Jew +pointed to a door, and, cringing again, left them.</p> +<p>Désirée made a gesture telling Louis to go in first, +which he did at once. The room was littered with trunks and cases. +All the treasure had been brought into the sick man’s chamber +for greater safety.</p> +<p>On a narrow bed near the window a man lay huddled on his side. +He turned and looked over his shoulder, showing a haggard face with +a ten-days’ beard on it. He looked from one to the other +in silence.</p> +<p>It was Colonel de Casimir.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXII. THROUGH THE SHOALS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>I see my way, as birds their trackless +way.</i></p> +<p>De Casimir had never seen Louis d’Arragon, and yet some dim +resemblance to his cousin must have introduced the new-comer to a conscience +not quite easy.</p> +<p>“You seek me, Monsieur,” he asked, not having recognized +Désirée, who stood behind her companion, in her furs.</p> +<p>“I seek Colonel Darragon, and was told that we should find +him in this room.”</p> +<p>“May I ask why you seek him in this rather unceremonious manner?” +asked De Casimir, with the ready insolence of his calling and his age.</p> +<p>“Because I am his cousin,” replied Louis quietly, “and +Madame is his wife.”</p> +<p>Désirée came forward, her face colourless. She +caught her breath, but made no attempt to speak.</p> +<p>De Casimir tried to lift himself on his elbows.</p> +<p>“Ah! madame,” he said. “You see me in a sorry +state. I have been very ill.” And he made a gesture +with one hand, begging her to overlook his unkempt appearance and the +disorder of his room.</p> +<p>“Where is Charles?” asked Désirée curtly. +She had suddenly realized how intensely she had always disliked De Casimir, +and distrusted him.</p> +<p>“Has he not returned to Dantzig?” was the ready answer. +“He should have been there a week ago. We parted at Vilna. +He was exhausted—a mere question of over-fatigue—and at +his request I left him there to recover and to pursue his way to Dantzig, +where he knew you would be awaiting him.”</p> +<p>He paused and looked from one to the other with quick and furtive +eyes. He felt himself easily a match for them in quickness of +perception, in rapid thought, in glib speech. Both were dumb—he +could not guess why. But there was a steadiness in D’Arragon’s +eyes which rarely goes with dulness of wit. This was a man who +could be quick at will—a man to be reckoned with.</p> +<p>“You are wondering why I travel under your cousin’s name, +Monsieur,” said De Casimir, with a friendly smile.</p> +<p>“Yes,” returned Louis, without returning the smile.</p> +<p>“It is simple enough,” explained the sick man. +“At Vilna we found all discipline relaxed. There were no +longer any regiments. There was no longer staff. There was +no longer an army. Every man did as he thought best. Many, +as you know, elected to await the Russians at Vilna, rather than attempt +to journey farther. Your cousin had been given the command of +the escort which has now filtered away, like every other corps. +He was to conduct back to Paris two carriages laden with imperial treasure +and certain papers of value. Charles did not want to go back to +Paris. He wished most naturally to return to Dantzig. I, +on the other hand, desired to go to France; and there place my sword +once more at the Emperor’s service. What more simple than +to change places?”</p> +<p>“And names,” suggested D’Arragon, without falling +into De Casimir’s easy and friendly manner.</p> +<p>“For greater security in passing through Poland and across +the frontier,” explained De Casimir readily. “Once +in France—and I hope to be there in a week—I shall report +the matter to the Emperor as it really happened: namely, that, owing +to Colonel Darragon’s illness, he transferred his task to me at +Vilna. The Emperor will be indifferent, so long as the order has +been carried out.”</p> +<p>De Casimir turned to Désirée as likely to be more responsive +than this dark-eyed stranger, who listened with so disconcerting a lack +of comment or sympathy.</p> +<p>“So you see, madame,” he said, “Charles will still +get the credit for having carried out his most difficult task, and no +harm is done.”</p> +<p>“When did you leave Charles at Vilna?” asked she.</p> +<p>De Casimir lay back on the pillow in an attitude which betrayed his +weakness and exhaustion. He looked at the ceiling with lustreless +eyes.</p> +<p>“It must have been a fortnight ago,” he said at length. +“I was trying to count the days. We have lost all account +of dates since quitting Moscow. One day has been like another—and +all, terrible. Believe me, madame, it has always been in my mind +that you were awaiting the return of your husband at Dantzig. +I spared him all I could. A dozen times we saved each other’s +lives.”</p> +<p>In six words Désirée could have told him all she knew: +that he was a spy who had betrayed to death and exile many Dantzigers +whose hospitality had been extended to him as a Polish officer; that +Charles was a traitor who had gained access to her father’s house +in order to watch him—though he had honestly fallen in love with +her. He was in love with her still, and he was her husband. +It was this thought that broke into her sleep at night, that haunted +her waking hours.</p> +<p>She glanced at Louis d’Arragon, and held her peace.</p> +<p>“Then, Monsieur,” he said, “you have every reason +to suppose that if Madame returns to Dantzig now, she will find her +husband there?”</p> +<p>De Casimir looked at D’Arragon, and hesitated for an instant. +They both remembered afterwards that moment of uncertainty.</p> +<p>“I have every reason to suppose it,” replied De Casimir +at length, speaking in a low voice, as if fearful of being overheard.</p> +<p>Louis waited a moment, and glanced at Désirée, who, +however, had evidently nothing more to say.</p> +<p>“Then we will not trouble you farther,” he said, going +towards the door, which he held open for Désirée to pass +out. He was following her when De Casimir called him back.</p> +<p>“Monsieur,” cried the sick man, “Monsieur, one +moment, if you can spare it.”</p> +<p>Louis came back. They looked at each other in silence while +they heard Désirée descend the stairs and speak in German +to the innkeeper who had been waiting there.</p> +<p>“I will be quite frank with you,” said De Casimir, in +that voice of confidential friendliness which so rarely failed in its +effect. “You know that Madame Darragon has an elder sister, +Mademoiselle Mathilde Sebastian?”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>De Casimir raised himself on his elbows again, with an effort, and +gave a short, half shamefaced laugh which was quite genuine. It +was odd that Mathilde and he, who had walked most circumspectly, should +both have been tripped up, as it were, by love.</p> +<p>“Bah!” he said, with a gesture dismissing the subject, +“I cannot tell you more. It is a woman’s secret, Monsieur, +not mine. Will you deliver a letter for me in Dantzig, that is +all I ask?”</p> +<p>“I will give it to Madame Darragon to give to Mademoiselle +Mathilde, if you like; I am not returning to Dantzig,” replied +Louis. But de Casimir shook his head.</p> +<p>“I am afraid that will not do,” he said doubtfully. +“Between sisters, you understand—”</p> +<p>And he was no doubt right; this man of quick perception. Is +it not from our nearest relative that our dearest secret is usually +withheld?</p> +<p>“You cannot find another messenger?” asked De Casimir, +and the anxiety in his face was genuine enough.</p> +<p>“I can—if you wish it.”</p> +<p>“Ah, Monsieur, I shall not forget it! I shall never forget +it,” said the sick man quickly and eagerly. “The letter +is there, beneath that sabretasche. It is sealed and addressed.”</p> +<p>Louis found the letter, and went towards the door, as he placed it +in his pocket.</p> +<p>“Monsieur,” said De Casimir, stopping him again. +“Your name, if I may ask it, so that I may remember a countryman +who has done me so great a service.”</p> +<p>“I am not a countryman; I am an Englishman,” replied +Louis. “My name is Louis d’Arragon.”</p> +<p>“Ah! I know. Charles has told me, Monsieur le—”</p> +<p>But D’Arragon heard no more, for he closed the door behind +him.</p> +<p>He found Désirée awaiting him in the entrance hall +of the inn, where a fire of pine-logs burnt in an open chimney. +The walls and low ceiling were black with smoke, the little windows +were covered with ice an inch thick. It was twilight in this quiet +room, and would have been dark but for the leaping flames of the fire.</p> +<p>“You will go back to Dantzig,” he asked, “at once?”</p> +<p>He carefully avoided looking at her, though he need not have feared +that she would have allowed her eyes to meet his. And thus they +stood, looking downward to the fire—alone in a world that heeded +them not, and would forget them in a week—and made their choice +of a life.</p> +<p>“Yes,” she answered.</p> +<p>He stood thinking for a moment. He was quite practical and +matter-of-fact; and had the air of a man of action rather than of one +who deals in thoughts, and twists them hither and thither so that good +is made to look ridiculous, and bad is tricked out with a fine new name. +He frowned as he looked at the fire with eyes that flitted from one +object to another, as men’s eyes do who think of action and not +of thought. This was the sailor—second to none in the shallow +northern sea, where all marks had been removed, and every light extinguished—accustomed +to facing danger and avoiding it, to foresee remote contingencies and +provide against them, day and night, week in, week out; a sailor, careful +and intrepid. He had the air of being capable of that concentration +without which no man can hope to steer a clear course at all.</p> +<p>“The horses that brought you from Marienwerder will not be +fit for the road till to-morrow morning,” he said. “I +will take you back to Thorn at once, and—leave you there with +Barlasch.”</p> +<p>He glanced towards her, and she nodded, as if acknowledging the sureness +and steadiness of the hand at the helm.</p> +<p>“You can start early to-morrow morning, and be in Dantzig to-morrow +night.”</p> +<p>They stood side by side in silence for some minutes. He was +still thinking of her journey—of the dangers and the difficulties +of that longer journey through life without landmark or light to guide +her.</p> +<p>“And you?” she asked curtly.</p> +<p>He did not reply at once but busied himself with his ponderous fur +coat, which he buttoned, as if bracing himself for the start. +Beneath her lashes she looked sideways at the deliberate hands and the +lean strong face, burnt to a red-brown by sun and snow, half hidden +in the fur collar of his worn and weather-beaten coat.</p> +<p>“Königsberg,” he answered, “and Riga.”</p> +<p>A light passed through her watching eyes, usually so kind and gay; +like the gleam of jealousy.</p> +<p>“Your ship?” she asked sharply.</p> +<p>“Yes,” he answered, as the innkeeper came to tell them +that their sleigh awaited them.</p> +<p>It was snowing now, and a whistling, fitful wind swept down the valley +of the Vistula from Poland and the far Carpathians which made the travellers +crouch low in the sleigh and rendered talk impossible, had there been +anything to say. But there was nothing.</p> +<p>They found Barlasch asleep where they had left him in the inn at +Thorn, on the floor against the stove. He roused himself with +the quickness and completeness of one accustomed to brief and broken +rest, and stood up shaking himself in his clothes, like a dog with a +heavy coat. He took no notice of D’Arragon, but looked at +Désirée with questioning eyes.</p> +<p>“It was not the Captain?” he asked.</p> +<p>And Désirée shook her head. Louis was standing +near the door giving orders to the landlady of the inn—a kindly +Pomeranian, clean and slow—for Désirée’s comfort +till the next morning.</p> +<p>Barlasch went close to Désirée, and, nudging her arm +with exaggerated cunning, whispered—</p> +<p>“Who was it?”</p> +<p>“Colonel de Casimir.”</p> +<p>“With the two carriages and the treasure from Moscow?” +asked Barlasch, watching Louis out of the corner of one eye, to make +sure that he did not hear. It did not matter whether he heard +or not, but Barlasch came of a peasant stock that always speaks of money +in a whisper. And when Désirée nodded, he cut short +the conversation.</p> +<p>The hostess came forward to tell Désirée that her room +was ready, kindly suggesting that the “gnädiges Fraülein” +must need sleep and rest. Désirée knew that Louis +would go on to Königsberg at once. She wondered whether she +should ever see him again—long afterwards, perhaps, when all this +would seem like a dream. Barlasch, breathing noisily on his frost-bitten +fingers, was watching them. Désirée shook hands +with Louis in an odd silence, and, turning on her heel, followed the +woman out of the room without looking back.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIII. AGAINST THE STREAM.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i> Wo viel Licht ist, ist starker Schatten.</i></p> +<p>In the mean time the last of the Great Army had reached the Niemen, +that narrow winding river in its ditch-like bed sunk below the level +of the tableland, to which six months earlier the greatest captain this +world has ever seen rode alone, and, coming back to his officers, said—</p> +<p>“Here we cross.”</p> +<p>Four hundred thousand men had crossed—a bare eighty thousand +lived to pass the bridge again. Twelve hundred cannons had been +left behind, nearly a thousand in the hands of the enemy, and the remainder +buried or thrown into those dull rivers whose slow waters flow over +them to this day. One hundred and twenty-five thousand officers +and men had been killed in battle, another hundred thousand had perished +by cold and disaster at the Bérésina or other rivers where +panic seized the fugitives.</p> +<p>Forty-eight generals had been captured by the Russians, three thousand +officers, one hundred and ninety thousand men, swallowed by the silent +white Empire of the North and no more seen.</p> +<p>As the retreat neared Vilna the cold had increased, killing men as +the first cold of an English winter kills flies. And when the +French quitted Vilna, the Russians were glad enough to seek its shelter, +Kutusoff creeping in with forty thousand men, all that remained to him +of two hundred thousand. He could not carry on the pursuit, but +sent forward a handful of Cossacks to harry the hare-brained few who +called themselves the rearguard. He was an old man, nearly worn +out, with only three months more to live—but he had done his work.</p> +<p>Ney—the bravest of the brave—left alone in Russia at +the last with seven hundred foreign recruits, men picked from here and +there, called in from the highways and hedges to share the glory of +the only Marshal who came back from Moscow with a name untarnished—Ney +and Girard, musket in hand, were the last to cross the bridge, shouting +defiance at their Cossack foes, who, when they had hounded the last +of the French across the frontier, flung themselves down on the bloodstained +snow to rest.</p> +<p>All along the banks of the Vistula, from Königsberg and Dantzig +up to Warsaw—that slow river which at the last call shall assuredly +give up more dead than any other—the fugitives straggled homewards. +For the Russians paused at their own frontier, and Prussia was still +nominally the friend of France. She had still to wear the mask +for three long months when she should at last openly side with Russia, +only to be beaten again by Napoleon.</p> +<p>Murat was at Königsberg with the Imperial staff, left in supreme +command by the Emperor, and already thinking of his own sunny kingdom +of the Mediterranean, and the ease and the glory of it. In a few +weeks he, too, must tarnish his name.</p> +<p>“I make over the command to you,” he said to Prince Eugene; +and Napoleon’s step-son made an answer which shows, as Eugene +showed again and again, that contact with a great man makes for greatness.</p> +<p>“You cannot make it over to me,” he replied. “Only +the Emperor can do that. You can run away in the night, and the +supreme command will devolve on me the next morning.”</p> +<p>And what Murat did is no doubt known to the learned reader.</p> +<p>Macdonald, abandoned by Yorck with the Prussian contingent, in great +peril, alone in the north, was retreating with the remains of the Tenth +Army Corps, wondering whether Königsberg or Dantzig would still +be French when he reached them. On his heels was Wittgenstein, +in touch with St. Petersburg and the Emperor Alexander, communicating +with Kutusoff at Vilna. And Macdonald, like the Scotchman and +the Frenchman that he was, turned at a critical moment and rent Wittgenstein. +Here was another bulldog in that panic-stricken pack, who turned and +snarled and fought while his companions slunk homewards with their tails +between their legs. There were three of such breed—Ney and +Macdonald, and Prince Eugene de Beauharnais.</p> +<p>Napoleon was in Paris, getting together in wild haste the new army +with which he was yet to frighten Europe into fits. And Rapp, +doggedly fortifying his frozen city, knew that he was to hold Dantzig +at any cost—a remote, far-thrown outpost on the Northern sea, +cut off from all help, hundreds of miles from the French frontier, nearly +a thousand miles from Paris.</p> +<p>At Marienwerder, Barlasch and Désirée found themselves +in the midst of that bustle and confusion which attends the arrival +or departure of an army corps. The majority of the men were young +and of a dark skin. They seemed gay, and called out salutations +to which Barlasch replied curtly enough.</p> +<p>“They are Italians,” said he to his companion; “I +know their talk and their manners. To you and me, who come from +the North, they are like children. See that one who is dancing. +It is some fête. What is to-day?”</p> +<p>“It is New Year’s Day,” replied Désirée.</p> +<p>“New Year’s Day,” echoed Barlasch. “Good. +And we have been on the road since six o’clock; and I, who have +forgotten to wish you—” He paused and called cheerily +to the horses, which had covered more than forty miles since leaving +their stable at Thorn. “Bon Dieu!” he said in a lower +tone, glancing at her beneath the ice-bound rim of his fur cap, “Bon +Dieu—what am I to wish you, I wonder?”</p> +<p>Désirée did not answer, but smiled a little and looked +straight in front of her.</p> +<p>Barlasch made a movement of the shoulders and eyebrows indicative +of a hidden anger.</p> +<p>“We are friends,” he asked suddenly, “you and I?”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“We have been friends since—that day—when you were +married?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” answered Désirée.</p> +<p>“Then between friends,” said Barlasch, gruffly; “it +is not necessary to smile—like that—when it is tears that +are there.”</p> +<p>Désirée laughed.</p> +<p>“Would you have me weep?” she asked.</p> +<p>“It would hurt one less,” said Barlasch, attending to +his horses. They were in the town now, and the narrow streets +were crowded. Many sick and wounded were dragging themselves wearily +along. A few carts, drawn by starving horses, went slowly down +the hill. But there was some semblance of order, and thus men +had the air and carriage of soldiers under discipline. Barlasch +was quick to see it.</p> +<p>“It is the Fourth Corps. The Viceroy’s army. +They have done well. He is a soldier, who commands them. +Ah! There is one I know.”</p> +<p>He threw the reins to Désirée, and in a moment he was +out on the snow. A man, as old, it would seem, as himself, in +uniform and carrying a musket, was marching past with a few men who +seemed to be under his orders, though his uniform was long past recognition. +He did not perceive, for some minutes, that Barlasch was coming towards +him, and then the process of recognition was slow. Finally, he +laid aside his musket, and the two old men gravely kissed each other.</p> +<p>Quite forgetful of Désirée, they stood talking together +for twenty minutes. Then they gravely embraced once more, and +Barlasch returned to the sleigh. He took the reins, and urged +the horses up the hill without commenting on his encounter, but Désirée +could see that he had heard news.</p> +<p>The inn was outside the town, on the road that follows the Vistula +northwards to Dirschau and Dantzig. The horses were tired, and +stumbled on the powdery snow which was heavy, like sand, and of a sandy +colour. Here and there, by the side of the road, were great stains +of blood and the remains of a horse that had been killed, and eaten +raw. The faces of many of the men were smeared with blood, which +had dried on their cheeks and caked there. Nearly all were smoke-grimed +and had sore eyes.</p> +<p>At last Barlasch spoke, with the decisive air of one who has finally +drawn up a course of action in a difficult position.</p> +<p>“He comes from my own country, that man. You heard us? +We spoke together in our patois. I shall not see him again. +He has a catarrh. When he coughs there is blood. Alas!”</p> +<p>Désirée glanced at the rugged face half turned away +from her. She was not naturally heartless; but she quite forgot +to sympathize with the elderly soldier who had caught a cold on the +retreat from Moscow; for his friend’s grief lacked conviction. +Barlasch had heard news which he had decided to keep to himself.</p> +<p>“Has he come from Vilna?” asked Désirée.</p> +<p>“From Vilna—oh yes. They are all from Vilna.”</p> +<p>“And he had no news”—persisted she, “of—Captain +Darragon?”</p> +<p>“News—oh no! He is a common soldier, and knows +nothing of the officers on the staff. We are the same—he +and I—poor animals in the ranks. A little gentleman rides +up, all sabretasche and gold lace. It is an officer of the staff. +‘Go down into the valley and get shot,’ he says. And—<i>bon +jour</i>! we go. No—no. He has no news, my poor comrade.”</p> +<p>They were at the inn now, and found the huge yard still packed with +sleighs and disabled carriages, and the stables ostentatiously empty.</p> +<p>“Go in,” said Barlasch; “and tell them who your +father is—say Antoine Sebastian and nothing else. I would +do it myself, but when it is so cold as that, the lips are stiff, and +I cannot speak German properly. They would find out that I am +French, and it is no good being French now. My comrade told me +that in Königsberg, Murat himself was ill-received by the burgomaster +and such city stuff as that.”</p> +<p>It was as Barlasch foretold. For at the name of Antoine Sebastian +the innkeeper found horses—in another stable.</p> +<p>It would take a few minutes, he said, to fetch them, and in the meantime +there were coffee and some roast meat—his own dinner. Indeed, +he could not do enough to testify his respect for Désirée, +and his commiseration for her, being forced to travel in such weather +through a country infested by starving brigands.</p> +<p>Barlasch consented to come just within the inner door, but refused +to sit at the table with Désirée. He took a piece +of bread, and ate it standing.</p> +<p>“See you,” he said to her when they were left alone, +“the good God has made very few mistakes, but there is one thing +I would have altered. If He intended us for such a rough life, +He should have made the human frame capable of going longer without +food. To a poor soldier marching from Moscow to have to stop every +three hours and gnaw a piece of horse that has died—and raw—it +is not amusing.”</p> +<p>He watched Désirée with a grudging eye. For she +was young, and had eaten nothing for six freezing hours.</p> +<p>“And for us,” he added; “what a waste of time!”</p> +<p>Désirée rose at once with a laugh.</p> +<p>“You want to go,” she said. “Come, I am ready.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” he admitted, “I want to go. I am afraid—name +of a dog! I am afraid, I tell you. For I have heard the +Cossacks cry, ‘Hurrah! Hurrah!’ And they are coming.”</p> +<p>“Ah!” said Désirée, “that is what +your friend told you.”</p> +<p>“That, and other things.”</p> +<p>He was pulling on his gloves as he spoke, and turned quickly on his +heel when the innkeeper entered the room, as if he had expected one +of those dread Cossacks of Toula who were half savage. But the +innkeeper carried nothing more lethal in his hand than a yellow mug +of beer, which he offered to Barlasch. And the old soldier only +shook his head.</p> +<p>“There is poison in it,” he muttered. “He +knows I am a Frenchman.”</p> +<p>“Come,” said Désirée, with her gay laugh, +“I will show you that there is no poison in it.”</p> +<p>She took the mug and drank, and handed the measure to Barlasch. +It was a poor thin beer, and Barlasch was not one to hide his opinion +from the host, to whom he made a reproving grimace when he returned +the empty mug. But the effect upon him was nevertheless good, +for he took the reins again with a renewed energy, and called to the +horses gaily enough.</p> +<p>“Allons,” he said; “we shall reach Dantzig safely +by nightfall, and there we shall find your husband awaiting us, and +laughing at us for our foolish journey.”</p> +<p>But being an old man, the beer could not warm his heart for long, +and he soon lapsed again into melancholy and silence. Nevertheless, +they reached Dantzig by nightfall, and although it was a bitter twilight—colder +than the night itself—the streets were full. Men stood in +groups and talked. In the brief time required to journey to Thorn +something had happened. Something happened every day in Dantzig; +for when history wakes from her slumber and moves, it is with a heavy +and restless tread.</p> +<p>“What is it?” asked Barlasch of the sentry at the town +gate, while they waited for their passports to be returned to them.</p> +<p>“It is a proclamation from the Emperor of Russia—no one +knows how it has got here.”</p> +<p>“And what does he proclaim—that citizen?”</p> +<p>“He bids the Dantzigers rise and turn us out,” answered +the soldier, with a grim laugh.</p> +<p>“Is that all?”</p> +<p>“No, comrade, that is not all,” was the answer in a graver +voice.</p> +<p>“He proclaims that every Pole who submits now will be forgiven +and set at liberty; the past, he says, will be committed to an eternal +oblivion and a profound silence—those are his words.”</p> +<p>“Ah!”</p> +<p>“Yes, and half the defenders of Dantzig are Poles—there +are your passports—pass on.”</p> +<p>They drove through the dark streets where men like shadows hurried +silently about their business.</p> +<p>The Frauengasse seemed to be deserted when they reached it. +It was Mathilde who opened the door. She must have been at the +darkened window, behind the curtain. Lisa had gone home to her +native village in Sammland in obedience to the Governor’s orders. +Sebastian had not been home all day. Charles had not returned, +and there was no news of him.</p> +<p>Barlasch, wiping the snow from his face, watched Désirée, +and made no comment.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIV. MATHILDE CHOOSES.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>But strong is fate, O Love,<br /> Who +makes, who mars, who ends.</i></p> +<p>Désirée was telling Mathilde the brief news of her +futile journey, when a knock at the front door made them turn from the +stairs where they were standing. It was Sebastian’s knock. +His hours had been less regular of late. He came and went without +explanation.</p> +<p>When he had freed his throat from his furs, and laid aside his gloves, +he glanced hastily at Désirée, who had kissed him without +speaking.</p> +<p>“And your husband?” he asked curtly.</p> +<p>“It was not he whom we found at Thorn,” she answered. +There was something in her father’s voice—in his quick, +sidelong glance at her—that caught her attention. He had +changed lately. From a man of dreams he had been transformed into +a man of action. It is customary to designate a man of action +as a hard man. Custom is the brick wall against which feeble minds +come to a standstill and hinder the progress of the world. Sebastian +had been softened by action, through which his mental energy had found +an outlet. But to-night he was his old self again—hard, +scornful, incomprehensible.</p> +<p>“I have heard nothing of him,” said Désirée.</p> +<p>Sebastian was stamping the snow from his boots.</p> +<p>“But I have,” he said, without looking up.</p> +<p>Désirée said nothing. She knew that the secret +she had guarded so carefully—the secret kept by herself and Louis—was +hers no longer. In the silence of the next moments she could hear +Barlasch breathing on his fingers, within the kitchen doorway just behind +her. Mathilde made a little movement. She was on the stairs, +and she moved nearer to the balustrade and held to it breathlessly. +For Charles Darragon’s secret was De Casimir’s too.</p> +<p>“These two gentlemen,” said Sebastian slowly, “were +in the secret service of Napoleon. They are hardly likely to return +to Dantzig.”</p> +<p>“Why not?” asked Mathilde.</p> +<p>“They dare not.”</p> +<p>“I think the Emperor will be able to protect his officers,” +said Mathilde.</p> +<p>“But not his spies,” replied Sebastian coldly.</p> +<p>“Since they wore his uniform, they cannot be blamed for doing +their duty. They are brave enough. They would hardly avoid +returning to Dantzig because—because they have outwitted the Tugendbund.”</p> +<p>Mathilde’s face was colourless with anger, and her quiet eyes +flashed. She had been surprised into this sudden advocacy, and +an advocate who displays temper is always a dangerous ally. Sebastian +glanced at her sharply. She was usually so self-controlled that +her flashing eyes and quick breath betrayed her.</p> +<p>“What do you know of the Tugendbund?” he asked.</p> +<p>But she would not answer, merely shrugging her shoulders and closing +her thin lips with a snap.</p> +<p>“It is not only in Dantzig,” said Sebastian, “that +they are unsafe. It is anywhere where the Tugendbund can reach +them.”</p> +<p>He turned sharply to Désirée. His wits, cleared +by action, told him that her silence meant that she, at all events, +had not been surprised. She had, therefore, known already the +part played by De Casimir and Charles, in Dantzig, before the war.</p> +<p>“And you,” he said, “you have nothing to say for +your husband.”</p> +<p>“He may have been misled,” she said mechanically, in +the manner of one making a prepared speech or meeting a foreseen emergency. +It had been foreseen by Louis d’Arragon. The speech had +been, unconsciously, prepared by him.</p> +<p>“You mean, by Colonel de Casimir,” suggested Mathilde, +who had recovered her usual quiet. And Désirée did +not deny her meaning. Sebastian looked from one to the other. +It was the irony of Fate that had married one of his daughters to Charles +Darragon, and affianced the other to De Casimir. His own secret, +so well kept, had turned in his hand like a concealed weapon.</p> +<p>They were all startled by Barlasch, who spoke from the kitchen door, +where he had been standing unobserved or forgotten. He came forward +to the light of the lamp hanging overhead.</p> +<p>“That reminds me . . . ” he said a second time, and having +secured their attention, he instituted a search in the many pockets +of his nondescript clothing. He still wore a dirty handkerchief +bound over one eye. It served to release him from duty in the +trenches or work on the frozen fortifications. By this simple +device, coupled with half a dozen bandages in various parts of his person, +where a frost-bite or a wound gave excuse, he passed as one of the twenty-five +thousand sick and wounded who encumbered Dantzig at this time, and were +already dying at the rate of fifty a day.</p> +<p>“A letter . . . ” he said, still searching with his maimed +hand. “You mentioned the name of the Colonel de Casimir. +It was that which recalled to my mind . . . ” He paused, +and produced a letter carefully sealed. He turned it over, glancing +at the seals with a reproving jerk of the head, which conveyed as clearly +as words a shameless confession that he had been frustrated by them +. . . “this letter. I was told to give it you, without fail, +at the right moment.”</p> +<p>It could hardly be the case that he honestly thought this moment +might be so described. But he gave the letter to Mathilde with +a gesture of grim triumph. Perhaps he was thinking of the cellar +in the Palace on the Petrovka at Moscow, and the treasure which he had +found there.</p> +<p>“It is from the Colonel de Casimir,” he said, “a +clever man,” he added, turning confidentially to Sebastian, and +holding his attention by an upraised hand. “Oh! . . . a +clever man.”</p> +<p>Mathilde, her face all flushed, tore open the envelope, while Barlasch, +breathing on his fingers, watched with twinkling eye and busy lips.</p> +<p>The letter was a long one. Colonel de Casimir was an adept +at explanation. There was, no doubt, much to explain. Mathilde +read the letter carefully. It was the first she had ever had—a +love-letter in its guise—with explanations in it. Love and +explanation in the same breath. Assuredly De Casimir was a daring +lover.</p> +<p>“He says that Dantzig will be taken by storm,” she said +at length, “and that the Cossacks will spare no one.”</p> +<p>“Does it signify,” inquired Sebastian in his smoothest +voice, “what Colonel de Casimir may say?”</p> +<p>His grand manner had come back to him. He made a gesture with +his hand almost suggestive of a ruffle at the wrist, and clearly insulting +to Colonel de Casimir.</p> +<p>“He urges us to quit the city before it is too late,” +continued Mathilde, in her measured voice, and awaited her father’s +reply. He took snuff with a cold smile.</p> +<p>“You will not do so?” she asked. And by way of +reply, Sebastian laughed as he dusted the snuff from his coat with his +pocket-handkerchief.</p> +<p>“He asks me to go to Cracow with the Gräfin, and marry +him,” said Mathilde finally. And Sebastian only shrugged +his shoulders. The suggestion was beneath contempt.</p> +<p>“And . . . ?” he inquired with raised eyebrows.</p> +<p>“I shall do it,” replied Mathilde, defiance shining in +her eyes.</p> +<p>“At all events,” commented Sebastian, who knew Mathilde’s +mind, and met her coldness with indifference, “you will do it +with your eyes open, and not leap in the dark, as Désirée +did. I was to blame there; a man is always to blame if he is deceived. +With you . . . Bah! you know what the man is. But you do +not know, unless he tells you in that letter, that he is even a traitor +in his treachery. He has accepted the amnesty offered by the Czar; +he has abandoned Napoleon’s cause; he has petitioned the Czar +to allow him to retire to Cracow, and there live on his estates.”</p> +<p>“He has no doubt good reasons for his action,” said Mathilde.</p> +<p>“Two carriages full,” muttered Barlasch, who had withdrawn +to the dark corner near the kitchen door. But no one heeded him.</p> +<p>“You must make your choice,” said Sebastian, with the +coldness of a judge. “You are of age. Choose.”</p> +<p>“I have already chosen,” answered Mathilde. “The +Gräfin leaves to-morrow. I will go with her.”</p> +<p>She had, at all events, the courage of her own opinions—a courage +not rare in women, however valueless may be the judgment upon which +it is based. And in fairness it must be admitted that women usually +have the courage not only of the opinion, but of the consequence, and +meet it with a better grace than men can summon in misfortune.</p> +<p>Sebastian dined alone and hastily. Mathilde was locked in her +room, and refused to open the door. Désirée cooked +her father’s dinner while Barlasch made ready to depart on some +vague errand in the town.</p> +<p>“There may be news,” he said. “Who knows? +And afterwards the patron will go out, and it would not be wise for +you to remain alone in the house.”</p> +<p>“Why not?”</p> +<p>Barlasch turned and looked at her thoughtfully over his shoulder.</p> +<p>“In some of the big houses down in the Niederstadt there are +forty and fifty soldiers quartered—diseased, wounded, without +discipline. There are others coming. I have told them we +have fever in the house. It is the only way. We may keep +them out; for the Frauengasse is in the centre of the town, and the +soldiers are not needed in this quarter. But you—you cannot +lie as I can. You laugh—ah! A woman tells more lies; +but a man tells them better. Push the bolts, when I am gone.”</p> +<p>After his dinner, Sebastian went out, as Barlasch had predicted. +He said nothing to Désirée of Charles or of the future. +There was nothing to be said, perhaps. He did not ask why Mathilde +was absent. In the stillness of the house, he could probably hear +her moving in her rooms upstairs.</p> +<p>He had not been long gone when Mathilde came down, dressed to go +out. She came into the kitchen where Désirée was +doing the work of the absent Lisa, who had reluctantly gone to her home +on the Baltic coast. Mathilde stood by the kitchen table and ate +some bread.</p> +<p>“The Gräfin has arranged to quit Dantzig to-morrow,” +she said. “I am going to ask her to take me with her.”</p> +<p>Désirée nodded and made no comment. Mathilde +went to the door, but paused there. Without looking round, she +stood thinking deeply. They had grown from childhood together—motherless—with +a father whom neither understood. Together they had faced the +difficulties of life; the hundred petty difficulties attending a woman’s +life in a strange land, among neighbours who bear the sleepless grudge +of unsatisfied curiosity. They had worked together for their daily +bread. And now the full stream of life had swept them together +from the safe moorings of childhood.</p> +<p>“Will you come too?” asked Mathilde. “All +that he says about Dantzig is true.”</p> +<p>“No, thank you,” answered Désirée, gently +enough. “I will wait here. I must wait in Dantzig.”</p> +<p>“I cannot,” said Mathilde, half excusing herself. +“I must go. I cannot help it. You understand?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Désirée, and nothing more.</p> +<p>Had Mathilde asked her the question six months ago, she would have +said “No.” But she understood now, not that Mathilde +could love De Casimir; that was beyond her individual comprehension, +but that there was no alternative now.</p> +<p>Soon after Mathilde had gone, Barlasch returned.</p> +<p>“If Mademoiselle Mathilde is going, she will have to go to-morrow,” +he said. “Those that are coming in at the gates now are +the rearguard of the Heudelet Division which was driven out of Elbing +by the Cossacks three days ago.”</p> +<p>He sat mumbling to himself by the fire, and only turned to the supper +which Désirée had placed in readiness for him when she +quitted the room and went upstairs. It was he who opened the door +for Mathilde, who returned in half an hour. She thanked him absent-mindedly +and went upstairs. He could hear the sisters talking together +in a low voice in the drawing-room, which he had never seen, at the +top of the stairs.</p> +<p>Then Désirée came down, and he helped her to find in +a shed in the yard one of those travelling-trunks which he had recognized +as being of French manufacture. He took off his boots, and carried +it upstairs for her.</p> +<p>It was ten o’clock before Sebastian came in. He nodded +his thanks to Barlasch, and watched him bolt the door. He made +no inquiry as to Mathilde, but extinguished the lamp, and went to his +room. He never mentioned her name again.</p> +<p>Early the next morning, the girls were astir. But Barlasch +was before them, and when Désirée came down, she found +the kitchen fire alight. Barlasch was cleaning a knife, and nodded +a silent good morning. Désirée’s eyes were +red, and Barlasch must have noted this sign of grief, for he gave a +contemptuous laugh, and continued his occupation.</p> +<p>It was barely daylight when the Gräfin’s heavy, old-fashioned +carriage drew up in front of the house. Mathilde came down, thickly +veiled and in her travelling furs. She did not seem to see Barlasch, +and omitted to thank him for carrying her travelling-trunk to the carriage.</p> +<p>He stood on the terrace beside Désirée until the carriage +had turned the corner into the Pfaffengasse.</p> +<p>“Bah!” he said, “let her go. There is no +stopping them, when they are like that. It is the curse—of +the Garden of Eden.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXV. A DESPATCH.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>In counsel it is good to see dangers; +and in execution not to see them unless they be very great.</i></p> +<p>Mathilde had told Désirée that Colonel de Casimir made +no mention of Charles in his letter to her. Barlasch was able +to supply but little further information on the matter.</p> +<p>“It was given to me by the Captain Louis d’Arragon at +Thorn,” he said. “He handled it as if it were not +too clean. And he had nothing to say about it. You know +his way, for the rest. He says little; but he knows the look of +things. It seemed that he had promised to deliver the letter—for +some reason, who knows what? and he kept his promise. The man +was not dying by any chance—that De Casimir?”</p> +<p>And his little sharp eyes, reddened by the smoke of camp-fires, inflamed +by the glare of sun on snow, searched her face. He was thinking +of the treasure.</p> +<p>“Oh no!”</p> +<p>“Was he ill at all?”</p> +<p>“He was in bed,” answered Désirée, doubtfully.</p> +<p>Barlasch scratched his head without ceremony, and fell into a long +train of thought.</p> +<p>“Do you know what I think?” he said at length. +“I think that De Casimir was not ill at all—any more than +I am; I, Barlasch. Not so ill, perhaps, as I am, for I have an +indigestion. It is always there at the summit of the stomach. +It is horse without salt.”</p> +<p>He paused and rubbed his chest tenderly.</p> +<p>“Never eat horse without salt,” he put in parenthetically.</p> +<p>“I hope never to eat it at all,” answered Désirée. +“What about Colonel de Casimir?”</p> +<p>He waved her aside as a babbler who broke in upon his thoughts. +These seemed to be lodged in his mouth, for, when reflecting, he chewed +and mumbled with his lips.</p> +<p>“Listen,” he said at length. “This is De +Casimir. He goes to bed and lets his beard grow—half an +inch of beard will keep any man in the hospital. You nod your +head. Yes; I thought so. He knows that the viceroy, with +the last of the army, is at Thorn. He keeps quiet. He waits +in his roadside inn until the last of the army has gone. He waits +until the Russians come, and to them he hands over the Emperor’s +possessions—all the papers, the maps, the despatches. For +that he will be rewarded by the Emperor Alexander, who has already promised +pardon to all Poles who have taken arms against Russia and now submit. +De Casimir will be allowed to retain his own baggage. He has no +loot taken at Moscow—oh no! Only his own baggage. +Ah—that man! See, I spit him out.”</p> +<p>And it is painful to record that he here resorted to graphic illustration.</p> +<p>“Ah!” he went on triumphantly, “I know. I +can see right into the mind of such a man. I will tell you why. +It is because I am that sort of man myself.”</p> +<p>“You do not seem to have been so successful—since you +are poor,” said Désirée, with a laugh.</p> +<p>He frowned at her apparently in speechless anger, seeking an answer. +But for the moment he could think of none, so he turned to the knives +again, which he was cleaning on a board on the kitchen-table. +At length he paused and glanced at Désirée.</p> +<p>“And your husband,” he said slowly. “Remember +that he is a partner with this De Casimir. They hunt together. +I know it; for I was in Moscow. Ah! that makes you stand stiffly, +and push your chin out.”</p> +<p>He went on cleaning the knives, and, without looking at her, seemed +to be speaking his own thoughts aloud.</p> +<p>“Yes! He is a traitor. And he is worse than the +other; for he is no Pole, but a Frenchman. And if he returns to +France, the Emperor will say: ‘Where are my despatches, my maps, +my papers, which were given into your care?’”</p> +<p>He finished the thought with three gestures, which seemed to illustrate +the placing of a man against a wall and shooting him. His meaning +could not be mistaken.</p> +<p>“And that is what the patron means when he says that Monsieur +Charles Darragon will not return to Dantzig. I knew that he meant +that last night, when he was so angry—on the mat.”</p> +<p>“And why did you not tell me?”</p> +<p>Barlasch looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, before replying +slowly and impressively.</p> +<p>“Because, if I had told you, you might have decided to quit +Dantzig with Mademoiselle Mathilde, and go hunting your husband in a +country overrun by desperate fugitives and untamed Cossacks. And +I did not want that. I want you here—in Dantzig; in the +Frauengasse; in this kitchen; under my hand—so that I can take +care of you till the war is over. I—who speak to you—Papa +Barlasch, at your service. And there is not another man in the +world who will do it so well. No; not one.”</p> +<p>And his eyes flashed as he threw the knives into a drawer.</p> +<p>“But why should you do all this for me?” asked Désirée. +“You could have gone home to France—quite easily—and +have left us to our fate here in Dantzig. Why did you not go home?”</p> +<p>Barlasch looked at her with surprise, not unmixed with a sudden dumb +disappointment. He was preparing to go out according to his wont +immediately after breakfast; for Lisa had unconsciously hit the mark +when she compared him to a cat. He had the regular and self-contained +habits of that unobtrusive friend. He buttoned his rough coat +slowly, and looked round the kitchen with eyes dimly wistful. +He was very old and ragged and homeless.</p> +<p>“Is it not enough,” he said, “that we are friends?”</p> +<p>He went towards the door, but came back and warned her by the familiar +upheld finger not to let her attention wander from his words.</p> +<p>“You will be glad yet that I have stayed. It is because +I speak a little plainly of your husband that you wish me gone. +Bah! What does it matter? All men are alike. We are +only men—not angels. And you can go on loving him all the +same. You are not particular, you women. You can love anything—even +a man like that.”</p> +<p>And he went out muttering anathemas on the hearts of all women.</p> +<p>“It seems,” he said, “that a woman can love anything.”</p> +<p>Which is true; and a very good thing for some of us. For without +that Heaven-sent capacity the world could not go on at all.</p> +<p>It was later in the day when Barlasch made his way into the low and +smoke-grimed Bier Halle of the Weissen Röss’l. He must +have known Sebastian’s habits, for he went straight to that corner +of the great room where the violin-player usually sat. The stout +waitress—a country girl of no intelligence, smiled broadly at +the sight of such a ragged customer as she followed him down the length +of the sawdust-strewn floor.</p> +<p>Sebastian’s face showed no surprise when he looked up and recognized +the new-comer. The surrounding tables were empty. It was +too early in the evening for the regular customers, whose numbers, moreover, +had been sadly thinned during the last few months. For the peaceful +Dantzigers, remembering the siege of seven years ago, had mostly fled +at the first mention of the word.</p> +<p>Sebastian nodded in answer to Barlasch’s somewhat ceremonious +bow, and by a gesture invited him to be seated on the chair upon which +he had already laid his hand. The atmosphere of the room was warm, +and Barlasch laid aside his sheepskin coat, as he had seen the great +and the rich divest themselves of their sables. He turned sharply +and caught the waitress with an amused smile still on her face. +He drew her attention to a little pool of beer on the table, and stood +until she had made good this lapse in her duty. Then he pointed +to Sebastian’s mug of beer and dismissed her giggling, to get +one for him of the same size and contents.</p> +<p>Making sure that there was no one within earshot, he waited until +Sebastian’s dreamy eye met his, and then said—</p> +<p>“It is time we understood each other.”</p> +<p>A light of surprise—passing and half-indifferent—flashed +into Sebastian’s eyes and vanished again at once when he saw Barlasch +had meant nothing: made no sign or countersign with his hand.</p> +<p>“By all means, my friend,” he answered.</p> +<p>“I delivered your letters,” said Barlasch, “at +Thorn and at the other places.”</p> +<p>“I know; I have already had answers. You would be wise +to forget the incident.”</p> +<p>Barlasch shrugged his shoulders.</p> +<p>“You were paid,” said Sebastian, jumping to a natural +conclusion.</p> +<p>“A little,” admitted Barlasch, “a small little—but +it was not that. I always get paid in advance, when I can. +Except by the Emperor. He owes me some—that citizen. +It was another question. In the house I am friends with all—with +Lisa who has gone—with Mademoiselle Mathilde who has gone—with +Mademoiselle Désirée, so-called Madame Darragon, who remains. +With all except you. Why should we not be friends?”</p> +<p>“But we are friends—” protested Sebastian, with +a bow. As if in confirmation of the statement, he held out his +beer-mug, and Barlasch touched it with the rim of his own before drinking. +Sebastian’s attitude, his bow, his manner of drinking, were those +of the Court; Barlasch was distinctly of the camp. But these were +strange days, and all society had been turned topsy-turvy by one man.</p> +<p>“Then,” said Barlasch, licking his lips, “let us +understand one another. You say there will be no siege. +I say you are wrong. You think that the Dantzigers will rise in +answer to the Emperor Alexander’s proclamations, and turn the +French out. I say the Dantzigers’ stomachs are too big. +I say that Rapp will hold Dantzig, and that the Russians will not take +it by storm, because they are too weak. There will be a siege, +and a long one. Are you and Mademoiselle and I going to sit it +out in the Frauengasse together?”</p> +<p>“We shall be honoured to have you as our guest,” answered +Sebastian, with that levity which went before the Revolution, and was +never understood of the people.</p> +<p>Barlasch did not understand it. He glanced doubtfully at his +companion, and sipped his beer.</p> +<p>“Then I will begin to-night.”</p> +<p>“Begin what, my friend?”</p> +<p>Barlasch waved aside all petty detail.</p> +<p>“My preparations. I go out about ten o’clock—after +you are in. I will take the key of the front door, and let myself +in when I come back. I shall make two journeys. Under the +kitchen floor is a large hollow space. I fill that with bags of +corn.”</p> +<p>“But where will you get the corn, my friend?”</p> +<p>“I know where to get it—corn and other things. +Salt I have already—enough for a year. Other things I can +get for three months.”</p> +<p>“But we have no money to pay for them.”</p> +<p>“Bah!”</p> +<p>“You mean you will steal them,” suggested Sebastian, +not without a ring of contempt in his mincing voice.</p> +<p>“A soldier never steals,” answered Barlasch, carelessly +announcing a great truth.</p> +<p>Sebastian laughed. It was obvious that his mind, absorbed in +great thought, heeded small things not at all. His companion pushed +his fur cap to the back of his head, and ruffled his hair forward.</p> +<p>“That is not all,” he said at length. He looked +round the vast room, which was almost deserted. The stout waitress +was polishing pewter mugs at the bar. “You say you have +already had answers to those letters. It is a great organization—your +secret society—whatever it is called. It delivers letters +all over Prussia—eh? and Poland perhaps—or farther still.”</p> +<p>Sebastian shrugged one shoulder, and made no answer for some time.</p> +<p>“I have already told you,” he said impatiently, at length, +“to forget the incident; you were paid.”</p> +<p>By way of reply, the old soldier laboriously emptied his pockets, +searching the most remote of them for small copper coins. He counted +slowly and carefully until he had made up a thaler.</p> +<p>“But it is not my turn to be paid this time. It is I +who pay.”</p> +<p>He held out his hand with a pound weight of base metal in it, but +Sebastian refused the money with a sudden assumption of his cold and +scornful manner, oddly out of keeping with his humble surroundings.</p> +<p>“As between friends—” suggested Barlasch, and, +on receiving a more decided negative, returned the coins to his pocket, +not without satisfaction.</p> +<p>“I want your friends to pass on a letter for me—I am +willing to pay,” he said in a whisper. “A letter to +Captain Louis d’Arragon—it concerns the happiness of Mademoiselle +Désirée. Do not shake your head. Think before +you refuse. The letter will be an open one—six words or +so—telling the Captain that his cousin, Mademoiselle’s husband, +is not in Dantzig, and cannot now return here since the last of the +rearguard entered the city this morning.”</p> +<p>Sebastian seemed to be considering the matter, and Barlasch was quick +to combat possible objections.</p> +<p>“The Captain went to Königsberg. He is there now. +Your friends can easily find him, and give him the letter. It +is of great importance to Mademoiselle. The Captain is not looking +for Monsieur Charles Darragon, because he thinks that he is here in +Dantzig. Colonel de Casimir assured him that Mademoiselle would +find him here. Where is he—that Monsieur Charles—I +wonder? It is of great importance to Mademoiselle. The Captain +would perhaps continue his search.”</p> +<p>“Where is your letter?” asked Sebastian.</p> +<p>By way of reply, Barlasch laid on the table a sheet of paper.</p> +<p>“You must write it,” he said. “My hand is +injured. I write not badly, you understand. But this evening +I do not feel that my hand is well enough.”</p> +<p>So, with the sticky, thick ink of the Weissen Röss’l, +Sebastian wrote the letter, and Barlasch, forgetting his scholarly acquirements, +took the pen and made a mark beneath his own name written at the foot +of it.</p> +<p>Then he went out, and left Sebastian to pay for the beer.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVI. ON THE BRIDGE.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>They that are above<br /> Have +ends in everything.</i></p> +<p>A lame man was standing on the bridge that crosses the Neuer Pregel +from the Kant Strasse—which is the centre of the city of Königsberg—to +the island known as the Kneiphof. This bridge is called the Krämer +Brücke, and may be described as the heart of the town. From +it on either hand diverge the narrow streets that run along the river +bank, busy with commerce, crowded with the narrow sleighs that carry +wood from the Pregel up into the town.</p> +<p>The wider streets—such as the Kant Strasse, running downhill +from the royal castle to the river, and the Kneiphöf’sche +Langgasse, leading southward to the Brandenburg gate and the great world—must +needs make use of the Krämer Brücke. Here, it may be +said, every man in the town must sooner or later pass in the execution +of his daily business, whether he go about it on foot or in a sleigh +with a pair of horses. Here the idler and those grave professors +from the University, which was still mourning the death of the aged +Kant, nearly always passed in their thoughtful and conscientious promenades.</p> +<p>Here this lame man, a cobbler by trade, plying his quiet calling +in a house in the Neuer Markt, where the lime-trees grow close to the +upper windows, had patiently kept watch for three days. He was, +like many lame men, of an abnormal width and weight. He had a +large, square, dogged face, which seemed to promise that he would wait +there till the crack of doom rather than abandon a quest.</p> +<p>It was very cold—mid-winter within a few miles of the frozen +Baltic on the very verge of Russia, at that point where old Europe stretches +a long arm out into the unknown. The cobbler was wrapped in a +sheepskin coat, which stood out all round him with the stiffness of +wood, so that he seemed to be living inside a box. To keep himself +warm he occasionally limped across from end to end of the bridge, but +never went farther. At times he leant his arms on the stone wall +at the Kant Strasse end of the bridge, and looked down into the Lower +Fish Market, where women from Pillau and the Baltic shores—mere +bundles of clothes—stood over their baskets of fish frozen hard +like sticks. It was a silent market. One cannot haggle long +when a minute’s exposure to the air will give a frost-bite to +the end of the nose. The would-be purchaser can scarcely make +an effective bargain through a fringe of icicles that rattle against +his lips if he open them.</p> +<p>The Pregel had been frozen for three months, with only the one temporary +thaw in November which cost Napoleon so many thousands at his broken +bridge across the Bérésina. Though no water had +flowed beneath this bridge, many strange feet had passed across it.</p> +<p>It had vibrated beneath Napoleon’s heavy carriage, under the +lumbering guns that Macdonald took northward to blockade Riga. +Within the last few weeks it had given passage to the last of the retreating +army, a mere handful of heartsick fugitives. Macdonald with his +staff had been ignominiously driven across it by the Cossacks who followed +hard after them, the great marshal still wild with rage at the defection +of Yorck and the Prussian contingent.</p> +<p>And now the Cossacks on their spare and ill-tempered horses passed +to and fro, wild men under an untamed leader whose heart was hardened +to stone by bereavement. The cobbler looked at them with a countenance +of wood. It was hard to say whether he preferred them to the French, +or was indifferent to one as to the other. He looked at their +boots with professional disdain. For all men must look at the +world from their own standpoint and consider mankind in the light of +their own interests. Thus those who live on the greed or the vanity, +or batten on the charity of their neighbour, learn to watch the lips.</p> +<p>The cobbler, by reason of looking at the lower end of men, attracted +little attention from the passer-by. He who has his eyes on the +ground passes unheeded. For the surest way of awakening interest +is to appear interested. It would seem that this cobbler was waiting +for a pair of boots not made in Königsberg. And on the third +day his expressionless black eyes lighted on feet not shod in Poland, +or France, or Germany, nor yet in square-toed Russia.</p> +<p>The owner of these far-travelled boots was a lightly-built dark-faced +man, with eyes quietly ubiquitous. He caught the interested glance +of the cobbler, and turned to look at him again with the uneasiness +that is bred of war. The cobbler instantly hobbled towards him.</p> +<p>“Will you help a poor man?” he said.</p> +<p>“Why should I?” was the answer, with one hand already +half out of its thick glove. “You are not hungry; you have +never been starved in your life.”</p> +<p>The German was quick enough, but it was not quite the Prussian German.</p> +<p>The cobbler looked at the speaker slowly.</p> +<p>“An Englishman?” he asked.</p> +<p>And the other nodded.</p> +<p>“Come this way.”</p> +<p>The cobbler hobbled towards the Kneiphof, where the streets are quiet, +and the Englishman followed him. At the corner of the Kohl Markt +he turned and looked, not at the man, but at his boots.</p> +<p>“You are a sailor?” he said.</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“I was told to look for an English sailor—Louis d’Arragon.”</p> +<p>“Then you have found me,” was the reply.</p> +<p>Still the cobbler hesitated.</p> +<p>“How am I to know it?” he asked suspiciously.</p> +<p>“Can you read?” asked D’Arragon. “I +can prove who I am—if I want to. But I am not sure that +I want to.”</p> +<p>“Oh! it is only a letter—of no importance. Some +private business of your own. It comes from Dantzig—written +by one whose name begins with ‘B.’”</p> +<p>“Barlasch,” suggested D’Arragon quietly, as he +took from his pocket a paper which he unfolded and held beneath the +eyes of the cobbler. It was a passport written in three languages. +If the man could read, he was not anxious to boast of an accomplishment +so far above his station; but he glanced at the paper, not without a +practised skill, to seize the essential parts of it.</p> +<p>“Yes, that is the name,” he said, searching in his pockets. +“The letter is an open one. Here it is.”</p> +<p>In passing the letter, the man made a scarcely perceptible movement +of the hand which might have been a signal.</p> +<p>“No,” said D’Arragon, “I do not belong to +the Tugendbund or to any other secret society. We have need of +no such associations in my country.”</p> +<p>The cobbler laughed, not without embarrassment.</p> +<p>“You have a quick eye,” he said. “It is a +great country, England. I have seen the river full of English +ships before Napoleon chased you off the seas.”</p> +<p>D’Arragon smiled as he unfolded the letter.</p> +<p>“He has not done it yet,” he said, with that spirit which +enables mariners of the Anglo-Saxon race to be amused when there is +a talk of supremacy on the high seas. He read the letter carefully, +and his face hardened.</p> +<p>“I was instructed,” said the cobbler, “to give +you the letter, and at the same time to inform you that any assistance +or facilities you may require will be forth-coming; besides . . . ” +he broke off and pointed with his thick, leather-stained finger, “that +writing is not the writing of him who signs.”</p> +<p>“He who signs cannot write at all.”</p> +<p>“That writing,” went on the cobbler, “is a passport +in any German state. He who carries a letter written in that hand +can live and travel free anywhere from here to the Rhine or the Danube.”</p> +<p>“Then I am lucky in possessing a powerful friend,” said +D’Arragon, “for I know who wrote this letter. I think +I may say he is a friend of mine.”</p> +<p>“I am sure of it. I have already been told so,” +said the cobbler. “Have you a lodging in Königsberg? +No? Then you can lodge in my house.”</p> +<p>Without awaiting a reply, which he seemed to consider a foregone +conclusion, he limped down the Kohl Markt towards the steps leading +to the river, which in winter is a thoroughfare.</p> +<p>“I live in the Neuer Markt,” he said breathlessly, as +he laboured onwards. “I have waited for you three days on +that bridge. Where have you been all this time?”</p> +<p>“Avoiding the French,” replied D’Arragon curtly. +Respecting his own affairs he was reticent, as commanders and other +lonely men must always be. They walked side by side on the dusty +and trodden ice without further speech. At the steps from the +river to Neuer Markt, D’Arragon gave the lame man his hand, and +glanced a second time at the fingers which clasped his own. They +had not been born to toil, but had had it thrust upon them.</p> +<p>They crossed the Neuer Markt together, and went into that house where +the linden grows so close as to obscure the windows. And the lodging +offered to Louis was the room in which Charles Darragon had slept in +his wet clothes six months earlier. So small is the world in which +we live, and so narrow are the circles drawn by Fate around human existence +and endeavour.</p> +<p>The cobbler having shown his visitor the room, and pointed out its +advantages, was turning to go when D’Arragon, who was laying aside +his fur coat, seemed to catch his attention, and he paused on the threshold.</p> +<p>“There is French blood in your veins,” he said abruptly.</p> +<p>“Yes—a little.”</p> +<p>“So. I thought there must be. You reminded me—it +was odd, the way you laid aside your coat—reminded me of a Frenchman +who lodged here for one night. He was like you, too, in build +and face. He was a spy, if you please—one of the French +Emperor’s secret police. I was new at the work then, but +still I suspected there was something wrong about him. I took +his boots—a pretext of mending them. I locked him in. +He got out of that window, if you please, without his boots. He +followed me, and learnt much that he was not meant to know. I +have since heard it from others. He did the Emperor a great service—that +man. He saved his life, I think, from assassination in Dantzig. +And he did me an ill turn—but it was my own carelessness. +I thought to make a thaler by lodging him, and he was tricking me all +the while.”</p> +<p>“What was his name?” asked D’Arragon.</p> +<p>“Oh—I forgot the name he gave. It was a false one. +He was disguised as a common soldier—and he was in reality an +officer of the staff. But I know the name of the officer to whom +he wrote his report of his night’s lodging here—his colleague +in the secret police, it would seem.”</p> +<p>“Ah!” said D’Arragon, busying himself with his +haversack.</p> +<p>“It was De Casimir—a Polish name. And in the last +two days I have heard of him. He has accepted the Emperor’s +amnesty. He has married a beautiful woman, and is living like +a prince at Cracow. All this since the siege of Dantzig began. +In time of war there is no moment to lose, eh?”</p> +<p>“And the other? He who slept in this room. Has +he passed through Königsberg again?”</p> +<p>“No, that he has not. If he had, I should have seen him. +You can believe me, I wanted to see him. I was at my place on +the bridge all the time—while the French occupied Königsberg—when +the last of them hurried away a month ago with the Cossacks close behind. +No. I should have seen him, and known him. He is not on +this side of the Niemen, that fine young gentleman. Now, what +can I do to help you to-morrow?”</p> +<p>“You can help me on the way to Vilna,” answered D’Arragon.</p> +<p>“You will never get there.”</p> +<p>“I will try,” said the sailor.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVII. A FLASH OF MEMORY.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>Nothing can cover his high fame +but Heaven,<br /> No pyramids set off his +memories,<br /> But the eternal substance +of his greatness<br /> To which I leave +him.</i></p> +<p>“Why I will not let you go out into the streets?” said +Barlasch one February morning, stamping the snow from his boots. +“Why I will not let you go out into the streets?”</p> +<p>He turned and followed Désirée towards the kitchen, +after having carefully bolted the heavy oaken door which had been strengthened +as if to resist a siege. Désirée’s face had +that clear pallor which marks an indoor life; but Barlasch, weather-beaten, +scorched and wrinkled, showed no sign of having endured a month’s +siege in an overcrowded city.</p> +<p>“I will tell you why I will not let you go into the streets. +Because they are not fit for any woman to go into—because if you +walked from here to the Rathhaus you would see sights that would come +back to you in your sleep, and wake you from it, when you are an old +woman. Do you know what they do with their dead? They throw +them outside their doors—with nothing to cover their starved nakedness—as +Lisa put her ashes in the street every morning. And the cart goes +round, as the dustman’s cart used to go in times of peace, and, +like the dustman’s cart, it drops part of its load, and the dust +that blows round it is the infection of typhus. That is why you +cannot go into the streets.”</p> +<p>He unbuttoned his fur coat and displayed a smart new uniform; for +Rapp had put his miserable army into new clothes, with which many of +the Dantzig warehouses had been filled by Napoleon’s order at +the beginning of the war.</p> +<p>“There,” he said, laying a small parcel on the table, +“there is my daily ration. Two ounces of horse, one ounce +of salt beef, the same as yesterday. One does not know how long +we shall be treated so generously. Let us keep the beef—we +may come to want some day.”</p> +<p>And giving a hoarse laugh, he lifted a board in the floor, beneath +which he hoarded his stores.</p> +<p>“Will you cook your <i>déjeuner</i> yourself,” +asked Désirée. “I have something else for +my father.”</p> +<p>“And what have you?” asked Barlasch curtly; “you +are not keeping anything hidden from me?”</p> +<p>“No,” answered Désirée, with a laugh at +the sternness of his face, “I will give him a piece of the ham +which was left over from last night.”</p> +<p>“Left over?” echoed Barlasch, going close to her and +looking up into her face, for she was two inches taller than he. +“Left over? Then you did not eat your supper last night?”</p> +<p>“Neither did you eat yours, for it is there under the floor.”</p> +<p>Barlasch turned away with a gesture of despair. He sat down +in the high armchair that stood on the hearth, and tapped on the floor +with one foot in pessimistic thought.</p> +<p>“Ah! the women, the women,” he muttered, looking into +the smouldering fire. “Lies—all lies. You said +that your supper was very nice,” he shouted at her over his shoulder.</p> +<p>“So it was,” answered she gaily, “so it is still.”</p> +<p>Barlasch did not rise to her lighter humour. He sat in reflection +for some minutes. Then his thoughts took their usual form of a +muttered aside.</p> +<p>“It is a case of compromise. Always like that. +The good God had to compromise with the first woman he created almost +at once. And men have done it ever since—and have never +had the best of it. See here,” he said aloud, turning to +Désirée, “I will make a bargain with you. +I will eat my last night’s supper here at this table, now, if +you will eat yours.”</p> +<p>“Agreed.”</p> +<p>“Are you hungry?” asked Barlasch, when the scanty meal +was set out before him.</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“So am I.”</p> +<p>He laughed quite gaily now, and the meal was not without a certain +air of festivity, though it consisted of nothing better than two ounces +of horse and half an ounce of ham eaten in company of that rye-bread +made with one-third part of straw which Rapp allowed the citizens to +buy.</p> +<p>For Rapp had first tamed his army, and was now taming the Dantzigers. +He had effected discipline in his own camp by getting his regiments +into shape, by establishing hospitals (which were immediately filled), +and by protecting the citizens from the depredations of the starving +fugitives who had been poured pell-mell into the town.</p> +<p>Then he turned his attention to the Dantzigers, who were openly or +secretly opposed to him. He seized their churches and turned them +into stores; their schools he used for hospitals, their monasteries +for barracks. He broke into their cellars, and took the wine for +the sick. Their storehouses he placed under the strictest guard, +and no man could claim possession of his own goods.</p> +<p>“We are,” he said in effect, with that grim Alsatian +humour which the Prussians were slow to understand; “we are one +united family in a narrow house, and it is I who keep the storeroom +key.”</p> +<p>Barlasch had proved to be no false prophet. His secret store +escaped the vigilance of the picket, whom he himself conducted to the +cellars in the Frauengasse. Although he was sparing enough, he +could always provide Désirée with anything for which she +expressed a wish, and even forestalled those which she left unspoken. +In return he looked for absolute obedience, and after their frugal breakfast +he took her to task for depriving herself of such food as they could +afford.</p> +<p>“See you,” he said, “a siege is a question of the +stomach. It is not the Russians we have to fight; for they will +not fight. They sit outside and wait for us to die of cold, of +starvation, of typhus. And we are obliging them at the rate of +two hundred a day. Yes, each day Rapp is relieved of the responsibility +of two hundred mouths that drop open and require nothing more. +Be greedy—eat all you have, and hope for release to-morrow, and +you die. Be sparing—starve yourself from parsimony or for +the love of some one who will eat your share and forget to thank you, +and you will die of typhus. Be careful, and patient, and selfish—eat +a little, take what exercise you can, cook your food carefully with +salt, and you will live. I was in a siege thirty years before +you were born, and I am alive yet, after many others. Obey me +and we will get through the siege of Dantzig, which is only just beginning.”</p> +<p>Then suddenly he gave way to anger, and banged his hand down on the +table.</p> +<p>“But, sacred name of thunder, do not make me believe you have +eaten when you have not,” he shouted. “Never do that.”</p> +<p>Carried away by the importance of this question, he said many things +which cannot be set before the eyes of a generation sensitive to plainness +of speech, and only tolerant of it in suggestions of impropriety.</p> +<p>“And the patron,” he ended abruptly, “how is he?”</p> +<p>“He is not very well,” answered Désirée. +Which answer did not satisfy Barlasch, who insisted on taking off his +boots, and going upstairs to see Sebastian.</p> +<p>It was a mere nothing, the invalid said. Such food did not +suit him.</p> +<p>“You have been accustomed to live well all your life,” +answered Barlasch, looking at him with the puzzled light of a baffled +memory in his eye which always came when he looked at Désirée’s +father. “One must see what can be done.”</p> +<p>And he went out forthwith to return after an hour and more with a +chicken freshly killed. Désirée did not ask him +where he had procured it. She had given up such inquiries, for +Barlasch always confessed quite bluntly to theft, and she did not know +whether to believe him or not.</p> +<p>But the change of diet had no beneficial effect, and the next day +Désirée sent Barlasch to the house of the doctor whose +practice lay in the Frauengasse. He came and shook his head bluntly. +For even an old doctor may be hardened at the end of his life by an +orgy, as it were, of death.</p> +<p>“I could cure him,” he said, “if there were no +Russians outside the walls; if I could give him fresh milk and good +brandy and strong soup.”</p> +<p>But even Barlasch could not find milk in Dantzig. The brandy +was forthcoming, and the fresh meat; the soup Désirée +made with her own hands. Sebastian had not been the same man since +the closing of the roads and the gradual death of his hopes that the +Dantzigers would rise against the soldiers that thronged their streets. +At one time it would have been easy to carry out such a movement, and +to throw themselves and their city upon the mercy of the Russians. +But Dantzig awoke to this possibility too late, when Rapp’s iron +hand had closed in upon it. He knew his own strength so well that +he treated with a contemptuous leniency such citizens as were convicted +of communicating with the enemy.</p> +<p>Sebastian’s friends seemed to have deserted him. Perhaps +it was not discreet to be seen in the company of one who had come under +Napoleon’s displeasure. Some had quitted the city after +hurriedly concealing their valuables in their gardens, behind the chimneys, +beneath the floors, where it is to be supposed they still lie hidden. +Others were among the weekly thousand or twelve hundred who were carted +out by the Oliva Gate to be thrown into huge trenches, while the waiting +Russians watched from their lines on the heights of Langfuhr.</p> +<p>It was true that news continued to filter in, and never quite ceased, +all through the terrible twelve months that were to follow. More +especially did news that was unfavourable to the French find its way +into the beleaguered city. But it was not authentic news, and +Sebastian gathered little comfort from the fact—not unknown to +the whispering citizens—that Rapp himself had heard nothing from +the outer world since the Elbing mail-cart had been turned back by the +first of the Cossacks on the night of the seventh of January.</p> +<p>Perhaps Sebastian had that most fatal of maladies—to which +nearly all men come at last—weariness of life.</p> +<p>“Why don’t you fortify yourself, and laugh at fortune?” +asked Barlasch, twenty years his senior, as he stood sturdily on his +stocking-feet at the sick man’s bedside.</p> +<p>“I take what my daughter gives me,” protested Sebastian, +half peevishly.</p> +<p>“But that does not suffice,” answered the materialist. +“It does not suffice to swallow evil fortune—one must digest +it.”</p> +<p>Sebastian made no answer. He was a quiet patient, and lay all +day with wide-open, dreaming eyes. He seemed to be waiting for +something. This, indeed, was his mental attitude as presented +to his neighbours, and perhaps to the few friends he possessed in Dantzig. +He had waited through the years during which Désirée had +grown to womanhood. He waited on doggedly through the first month +of the siege, without enthusiasm, without comment—without hope, +perhaps. He seemed to be waiting now to get better.</p> +<p>“He has made little or no progress,” said the doctor, +who could only give a passing glance at his patients, for he was working +day and night. He had not time to beat about the bush, as his +kind heart would have liked, for he had known Désirée +all her life.</p> +<p>It was Shrove Tuesday, and the streets were full of revellers. +The Neapolitans and other Southerners had made great preparations for +the carnival, and the Governor had not denied them their annual licence. +They had built a high car in one of the entrance yards to the Marienkirche; +and finding that the ancient arch would not allow the erection to pass +out into the street, they had pulled down the pious handiwork of a bygone +generation.</p> +<p>The shouts of these merrymakers could be dimly heard through the +double windows, but Sebastian made no inquiry as to the meaning of the +cry. A sort of lassitude—the result of confinement within +doors, of insufficient food, of waning hope—had come over Désirée. +She listened heedlessly to the sounds in the streets through which the +dead were passing to the Oliva Gate, while the living danced by in their +hideous travesty of rejoicing.</p> +<p>It was dusk when Barlasch came in.</p> +<p>“The streets,” he said, “are full of fools, dressed +as such.” Receiving no answer, he crossed the room to where +Désirée sat, treading noiselessly, and stood in front +of her, trying to see her averted face. He stooped down and peered +at her until she could no longer hide her tear-stained eyes.</p> +<p>He made a wry face and a little clicking noise with his tongue, such +as the women of his race make when they drop and break some household +utensil. Then he went back towards the bed. Hitherto he +had always observed a certain ceremoniousness of manner in the sick +chamber. He laid this aside this evening, and sat down on a chair +that stood near.</p> +<p>Thus they remained in a silence which seemed to increase with the +darkness. At length the stillness became so marked that Barlasch +slowly turned his head towards the bed. The same instinct had +come to Désirée at the same moment.</p> +<p>They both rose and groped their way towards Sebastian. Désirée +found the flint and struck it. The sulphur burnt blue for interminable +moments, and then flared to meet the wick of the candle. Barlasch +watched Désirée as she held the light down to her father’s +face. Sebastian’s waiting was over. Barlasch had not +needed a candle to recognize death.</p> +<p>From Désirée his bright and restless eyes turned slowly +towards the dead man’s face—and he stepped back.</p> +<p>“Ah!” he said, with a hoarse cry of surprise, “now +I remember. I was always sure that I had seen his face before. +And when I saw it it was like that—like the face of a dead man. +It was on the Place de la Nation, on a tumbrel—going to the guillotine. +He must have escaped, as many did, by some accident or mistake.”</p> +<p>He went slowly to the window, holding his shaggy head between his +two clenched hands as if to spur his memory to an effort. Then +he turned and pointed to the silent form on the bed.</p> +<p>“That is a noble of France,” he said; “one of the +greatest. And all France thinks him dead this twenty years. +And I cannot remember his name—goodness of God—I cannot +remember his name!”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII. VILNA.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>It +is our trust<br /> That there is yet another +world to mend<br /> All error and mischance.</i></p> +<p>Louis d’Arragon knew the road well enough from Königsberg +to the Niemen. It runs across a plain, flat as a table, through +which many small streams seek their rivers in winding beds. This +country was not thinly inhabited, though the villages had been stripped, +as foliage is stripped by a cloud of locusts. Each cottage had +its ring of silver birch-trees to protect it from the winds which sweep +from the Baltic and the steppe. These had been torn and broken +down by the retreating army, in a vain hope of making fire with green +wood.</p> +<p>It was quite easy to keep in the steps of the retreating army, for +the road was marked by recumbent forms huddled on either side. +Few vehicles had come so far, for the broken country near to Vilna and +around Kowno had presented slopes up which the starving horses were +unable to drag their load.</p> +<p>D’Arragon reached Kowno without mishap, and there found a Russian +colonel of Cossacks who proved friendly enough, and not only appreciated +the value of his passport and such letters of recommendation as he had +been able to procure at Königsberg, but gave him others, and forwarded +him on his journey.</p> +<p>He still nourished a lingering belief in De Casimir’s word. +Charles must have been left behind at Vilna to recover from his exhaustion. +He would, undoubtedly, make his way westward as soon as possible. +He might have got away to the South. Any one of these huddled +human landmarks might be Charles Darragon.</p> +<p>Louis was essentially a thorough man. The sea is a mistress +demanding a whole and concentrated attention—and concentration +soon becomes a habit. Louis did not travel at night, for fear +of passing Charles on the road, alive or dead. He knew his cousin +better than any in the Frauengasse had learnt to know this gay and inconsequent +Frenchman. A certain cunning lay behind the happy laugh—a +great capacity was hidden by the careless manner. If ready wit +could bring man through the dangers of the retreat, Charles had as good +a chance of surviving as any.</p> +<p>Nevertheless, Louis rarely passed a dead man on the road, but drew +up, and quitting his sleigh, turned over the body, which was almost +invariably huddled with its back offered to the deadly, prevailing North +wind. Against each this wind had piled a sloping bank of that +fine snow which, even in the lightest breeze, drifts over the surface +of the land like an ivory mist, waist high, and cakes the clothes. +In a high wind it will rise twenty feet in the air, and blind any who +try to face it.</p> +<p>As often as not a mere glance sufficed to show that this was not +Charles, for few of the bodies were clad. Many had been stripped, +while still living, by their half-frozen comrades. But sometimes +Louis had to dust the snow from strange bearded faces before he could +pass on with a quick sigh of relief.</p> +<p>Beyond Kowno, the country is thinly populated, and spreading pine-forests +bound the horizon. The Cossacks—the wild men of Toula, who +reaped the laurels of the rearguard fighting—were all along the +road. D’Arragon frequently came upon a picket—as often +as not the men were placidly sitting on a frozen corpse, as on a seat—and +stopped to say a few words and gather news.</p> +<p>“You will find your friend at Vilna,” said one young +officer, who had been attached to General Wilson’s staff, and +had many stories to tell of the energetic and indefatigable English +commissioner. “At Vilna we took twenty thousand prisoners—poor +devils who came and asked us for food—and I don’t know how +many officers. And if you see Wilson there, remember me to him. +If Napoleon has need to hate one man more than another for this business, +it is that firebrand, Wilson. Yes, you will assuredly find your +cousin at Vilna among the prisoners. But you must not linger by +the road, for they are being sent back to Moscow to rebuild that which +they have caused to be destroyed.”</p> +<p>He laughed and waved his gloved hand as D’Arragon drove on.</p> +<p>After the broken land and low abrupt hills of Kowno, the country +was flat again until the valley of the Vilia opened out. And here, +almost within sight of Vilna, D’Arragon drove down a short hill +which must ever be historic. He drove slowly, for on either side +were gun-carriages deep sunken in the snow where the French had left +them. This hill marked the final degeneration of the Emperor’s +army into a shapeless rabble hopelessly flying before an exhausted enemy.</p> +<p>Half on the road and half in the ditch were hundreds of carriages +which had been hurriedly smashed up to provide firewood. Carts, +still laden with the booty of Moscow, stood among the trees. Some +of them contained small square boxes of silver coin, brought by Napoleon +to pay his army and here abandoned. Silver coin was too heavy +to carry. The rate of exchange had long been sixty francs in silver +for a gold napoleon or a louis. The cloth coverings of the cushions +had been torn off to shape into rough garments; the straw stuffing had +been eaten by the horses.</p> +<p>Inside the carriages were—crouching on the floor—the +frozen bodies of fugitives too badly wounded or too ill to attempt to +walk. They had sat there till death came to them. Many were +women. In one carriage four women, in silks and fine linen, were +huddled together. Their furs had been dragged from them either +before or after death.</p> +<p>Louis stopped at the bottom and looked back. De Casimir at +all events had succeeded in surmounting this obstacle which had proved +fatal to so many—the grave of so many hopes—God’s +rubbish-heap, where gold and precious stones, silks and priceless furs, +all that greedy men had schemed and striven and fought to get, fell +from their hands at last.</p> +<p>Vilna lies all down a slope—a city built upon several hills—and +the Vilia runs at the bottom. That Way of Sorrow, the Smolensk +Road, runs eastward by the river bank, and here the rearguard held the +Cossacks in check while Murat hastily decamped, after dark, westwards +to Kowno. The King of Naples, to whom Napoleon gave the command +of his broken army quite gaily—“à vous, Roi de Naples,” +he is reported to have said, as he hurried to his carriage—Murat +abandoned his sick and wounded; did not even warn the stragglers.</p> +<p>D’Arragon entered the city by the narrow gate known as the +Town Gate, through which, as through that greater portal of Moscow, +every man must pass bareheaded.</p> +<p>“The Emperor is here,” were the first words spoken to +him by the officer on guard.</p> +<p>But the streets were quiet enough, and the winner in this great game +of chance maintained the same unostentatious silence in victory as that +which, in the hour of humiliation, had baffled Napoleon.</p> +<p>It was almost night, and D’Arragon had been travelling since +daylight. He found a lodging, and, having secured the comfort +of the horse provided by the lame shoemaker of Königsberg, he went +out into the streets in search of information.</p> +<p>Few cities are, to this day, so behind the times as Vilna. +The streets are still narrow, winding, ill-paved, ill-lighted. +When D’Arragon quitted his lodging, he found no lights at all, +for the starving soldiers had climbed to the lamps for the sake of the +oil, which they had greedily drunk. It was a full moon, however, +and the patrols at the street corners were willing to give such information +as they could. They were strangers to Vilna like Louis himself, +and not without suspicion; for this was a city which had bidden the +French welcome. There had been dancing and revelry on the outward +march. The citizens themselves were afraid of the strange, wild-eyed +men who returned to them from Moscow.</p> +<p>At last, in the Episcopal Palace, where head-quarters had been hurriedly +established, Louis found the man he sought, the officer in charge of +the arrangements for despatching prisoners into Russia and to Siberia. +He was a grizzled warrior of the old school, speaking only French and +Russian. He was tired out and hungry, but he listened to Louis’ +story.</p> +<p>“There is the list,” he said, “it is more or less +complete. Many have called themselves officers who never held +a commission from the Emperor Napoleon. But we have done what +we can to sort them out.”</p> +<p>So Louis sat down in the dimly lighted room and deciphered the names +of those officers who had been left behind, detained by illness or wounds +or the lack of spirit to persevere.</p> +<p>“You understand,” said the Russian, returning to his +work, “I cannot afford the time to help you. We have twenty-five +thousand prisoners to feed and keep alive.”</p> +<p>“Yes—I understand,” answered Louis, who had the +seaman’s way of making himself a part of his surroundings.</p> +<p>The old colonel glanced at him across the table with a grim smile.</p> +<p>“The Emperor,” he said, “was sitting in that chair +an hour ago. He may come back at any moment.”</p> +<p>“Ah!” said Louis, following the written lines with a +pencil.</p> +<p>But no interruption came, and at last the list was finished. +Charles was not among the officers taken prisoner at Vilna.</p> +<p>“Well?” inquired the Russian, without looking up.</p> +<p>“Not there.”</p> +<p>The old officer took a sheet of paper and hurriedly wrote a few words +on it.</p> +<p>“Try the Basile Hospital to-morrow morning,” he said. +“That will gain you admittance. It is to be cleared out +by the Emperor’s orders. We have about twenty thousand dead +to dispose of as well—but they are in no hurry.”</p> +<p>He laughed grimly, and bade Louis good night.</p> +<p>“Come to me again,” he called out after him, drawn by +a sudden chord of sympathy to this stranger, who had the rare capacity +of confining himself to the business in hand.</p> +<p>By daybreak the next morning Louis was at the hospital of St. Basile. +It had been prepared by the Duc de Bassano under Napoleon’s orders +when Vilna was selected as the base of the great army. When the +Russians entered Vilna after the retreating remnant of Murat’s +rabble, they found the dead and the dying in the streets and the market-place. +Some had made fires and had lain themselves down around them—to +die. Others were without food or firing, almost without clothes. +Many were barefoot. All, officers and men alike, were in rags. +It was a piteous sight; for half of these men were no longer human. +Some were gnawing at their own limbs. Many were blind, others +had lost their speech or hearing. Nearly all were marred by some +disfigurement—some terrible sore, the result of a frozen wound, +of frostbite, of scurvy, of gangrene.</p> +<p>The Cossacks, half civilized as they were, wild with the excitement +of killing and the chase of a human quarry, stood aghast in the streets +of Vilna.</p> +<p>When the Emperor arrived, he set to work to clear the streets first, +to get these piteous men indoors. There was no question yet of +succouring them. It was not even possible to feed them all. +The only thought was to find them some protection against the ruthless +cold.</p> +<p>The first thought was, of course, directed to the hospitals. +They looked in and saw a storehouse of the dead. The dead could +wait; but the living must be housed.</p> +<p>So the dead waited, and it was their turn now at the St. Basile Hospital, +where Louis presented himself at dawn.</p> +<p>“Looking for some one?” asked a man in uniform, who must +have been inside the hospital, for he hurried down the steps with a +set mouth and quailing eyes.</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“Then don’t go in—wait here.”</p> +<p>Louis looked in and took the doctor’s advice. The dead +were stored in the passages, one on the top of the other, like bales +of goods in a warehouse.</p> +<p>Some attempt seemed to have been made to clear the wards, but those +whose task it had been had not had time to do more than drag the dead +out into the passage.</p> +<p>The soldiers were now at work in the lower passage. Carts began +to arrive. An officer told off to this dread duty came up hurriedly +smoking a cigarette, his high fur collar about his ears. He glanced +at Louis, and bowed to him.</p> +<p>“Looking for some one?” he asked.</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“Then stand here beside me. It is I who have to keep +count. They say there are eight thousand in here. They will +be carried past here to the carts. Have a cigarette.”</p> +<p>It is hard to talk when the thermometer registers more than twenty +degrees of frost, for the lips stiffen and contract into wrinkles like +the lips of a very old woman. Perhaps neither of the watchers +was in the humour to begin an acquaintance.</p> +<p>They stood side by side, stamping their feet to keep the blood going, +without speaking. Once or twice Louis stepped forward, and at +a signal from the officer the bearers stopped. But Louis shook +his head, and they passed on. At midday the officer was relieved, +his place being taken by another, who bowed stiffly to Louis and took +no more notice of him. For war either hardens or softens. +It never leaves a man as it found him.</p> +<p>All day the work was carried on. Through the hours this procession +of the bearded dead went silently by. At the invitation of a sergeant, +Louis took some soup and bread from the soldiers’ table. +The men laughingly apologized for the quality of both.</p> +<p>Towards evening the officer who had first come on duty returned to +his work.</p> +<p>“Not yet?” he asked, offering the inevitable cigarette.</p> +<p>“Not yet,” answered Louis, and even as he spoke he stepped +forward and stopped the bearers. He brushed aside the matted hair +and beard.</p> +<p>“Is that your friend?” asked the officer.</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>It was Charles at last.</p> +<p>“The doctor says these have been dead two months,” volunteered +the first bearer, over his shoulder.</p> +<p>“I am glad you have found him,” said the officer, signing +to the men to go on with their burden. “It is better to +know—is it not?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” answered Louis slowly. “It is better +to know.”</p> +<p>And something in his voice made the Russian officer turn and watch +him as he went away.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIX. THE BARGAIN.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>Like plants in mines which never +saw the sun,<br /> But dream of him and +guess where he may be,<br /> And do their +best to climb and get to him.</i></p> +<p>“Oh yes,” Barlasch was saying, “it is easier to +die—it is that that you are thinking—it is easier to die.”</p> +<p>Désirée did not answer. She was sitting in the +little kitchen at the back of the house in the Frauengasse. For +they had no firing now, and were burning the furniture. Her father +had been buried a week. The siege was drawn closer than ever. +There was nothing to eat, nothing to do, no one to talk to. For +Sebastian’s political friends did not dare to come near his house. +Désirée was alone in this hopeless world with Barlasch, +who was on duty now in one of the trenches near the river. He +went out in the morning, and only returned at night. He had just +come in, and she could see by the light of the single candle that his +face was grey and haggard, with deep lines drawn downwards from eyes +to chin. Désirée’s own face had lost all its +roundness and the bloom of her northern girlhood.</p> +<p>Barlasch glanced at her, and bit his lip. He had brought nothing +with him. At one time he had always managed to bring something +to the house every day—a chicken, or a turnip, or a few carrots. +But to-night there was nothing. And he was tired out. He +did not sit down, however, but stood breathing on his fingers and rubbing +them together to restore circulation. He pushed the candle farther +forward on the table, so that it cast a better light upon her face.</p> +<p>“Yes,” he said, “it is often so. I, who speak +to you, have seen it so a dozen times in my life. When it is easier +to sit down and die. Bah! That is a fine thing to do—a +brave thing—to sit down and die.”</p> +<p>“I am not going to do it, so do not make that mistake,” +said Désirée, with a laugh that had no mirth in it.</p> +<p>“But you would like to. Listen. It is not what +you feel that matters; it is what you do. Remember that.”</p> +<p>There was an unusual vigour in his voice. Of late, since the +death of Sebastian, Barlasch seemed to have fallen victim to the settled +apathy which lives within a prison wall and broods over a besieged city. +It is a sort of silent mourning worn by the soul for a lost liberty. +Dantzig had soon succumbed to it, for the citizens had not even the +satisfaction of being quite sure that they were deserving of the world’s +sympathy. It soon spread to the soldiers who were defending a +Prussian city for a French Emperor who seemed to have forgotten them.</p> +<p>But to-night Barlasch seemed to be more energetic. Désirée +looked round over her shoulder. He had not laid on the table any +contribution to a bare larder; and yet his manner was that of one who +has prepared a surprise and is waiting to enjoy its effect. He +was restless, moving from one foot to another, rubbing together his +crooked fingers and darting sidelong glances at her face.</p> +<p>“What is it?” she asked suddenly, and Barlasch gave a +start as if he had been detected in some deceit. He bustled forward +to the smouldering fire and held his hands over it.</p> +<p>“It is that it is very cold to-night,” he answered, with +that exaggerated ease of manner with which the young and the simple +seek to conceal embarrassment. “Tell me, mademoiselle, what +have we for supper to-night? It is I who will cook it. To-night +we will keep a <i>fête</i>. There is that piece of beef +for you. I know a way to make it appetizing. For me there +is my portion of horse. It is the friend of man—the horse.”</p> +<p>He laughed and made an effort to be gay, which had a poignant pathos +in it that made Désirée bite her lip.</p> +<p>“What <i>fête</i> is it that we are to keep?” she +asked, with a wan smile. Her kind blue eyes had that glitter in +them which is caused by a constant and continuous hunger. Six +months ago they had only been gay and kind, now they saw the world as +it is, as it always must be so long as the human heart is capable of +happiness and the human reason recognizes the rarity of its attainment.</p> +<p>“The <i>fête</i> of St. Matthias—my <i>fête</i>, +mademoiselle.”</p> +<p>“But I thought your name was Jean.”</p> +<p>“So it is. But I keep my <i>fête</i> at St. Matthias, +because on that day we won a battle in Egypt. We will have wine—a +bottle of wine—eh?”</p> +<p>So Barlasch prepared a great feast which was to be celebrated by +Désirée in the dining-room, where he lighted a fire, and +by himself in the kitchen. For he held strongly to a code of social +laws which the great Revolution had not succeeded in breaking. +And one of these laws was that it would be in some way degrading to +Désirée to see him eat.</p> +<p>He was a skilled and delicate cook, only hampered by that insatiable +passion for economy which is the dominant characteristic of the peasant +of Northern France. To-night, however, he was reckless, and Désirée +could hear him searching in his secret hiding-place beneath the floor +for concealed condiments and herbs.</p> +<p>“There,” he said, when he set the dish before her, “eat +it with an easy mind. There is nothing unclean in it. It +is not rat or cat or the liver of a starved horse, such as we others +eat and ask no better. It is all clean meat.”</p> +<p>He poured out wine, and stood in the darkened doorway watching her +drink it. Then he went away to his own meal in the kitchen, leaving +Désirée vaguely uneasy—for he was not himself to-night. +She could hear him muttering as he ate and moved hither and thither +in the kitchen. At short intervals he came and looked in at the +door to make sure that she was doing full honour to St. Matthias. +When she had finished, he came into the room.</p> +<p>“Ah!” he said, glancing at her suspiciously and rubbing +his hands together. “That strengthens, eh?—that strengthens. +We others who lead a rough life—we know that a little food and +a glass of wine fit one out for any enterprise, for—well, any +catastrophe.”</p> +<p>And Désirée knew in a flash of comprehension that the +food and the wine and the forced gaiety were nothing but preliminaries +to bad news.</p> +<p>“What is it?” she asked a second time. “Is +it . . . bombardment?”</p> +<p>“Bombardment,” he laughed, “they cannot shoot, +those Cossacks. It is only the French who understand artillery.”</p> +<p>“Then what is it?—for you have something to tell me, +I know.”</p> +<p>He ruffled his shock-head of white hair, with a grimace of despair.</p> +<p>“Yes,” he admitted, “it is news.”</p> +<p>“From outside?” cried Désirée, with a sudden +break in her voice.</p> +<p>“From Vilna,” answered Barlasch. He came into the +room, and went past her towards the fire, where he put the logs together +carefully.</p> +<p>“It is that he is alive,” said Désirée, +“my husband.”</p> +<p>“No, it is not that,” Barlasch corrected. He stood +with his back to her, vaguely warming his hands. He had no learning, +nor manners, nor any polish: nothing but those instincts of the heart +that teach the head. And his instinct bade him turn his back on +Désirée, and wait in silence until she had understood +his meaning.</p> +<p>“Dead?” she asked, in a whisper.</p> +<p>And, still warming his hands, he nodded his head vigorously. +He waited a long time for her to speak, and at last broke the silence +himself without looking round.</p> +<p>“Troubles,” he said, “troubles for us all. +There is no avoiding them. One can only push against them as against +your cold wind of Dantzig that comes from the sea. One can only +push on. You must push, mademoiselle.”</p> +<p>“When did he die?” asked Désirée; “where?”</p> +<p>“At Vilna, three months ago. He has been dead three months. +I knew he was dead when you came back to the inn at Thorn, and told +me that you had seen De Casimir. De Casimir had left him dying—that +liar. You remember, I met a comrade on the road—one of my +own country—he told me that they had left ten thousand dead at +Vilna, and twenty thousand prisoners little better than dead. +And I knew then that De Casimir had left him there dying, or dead.”</p> +<p>He glanced back at her over his shoulder, and at the sight of her +face made that little click in his throat which, in peasant circles, +denotes a catastrophe. Then he shook his head slowly from side +to side.</p> +<p>“Listen,” he said roughly, “the good God knows +best. I knew when I saw you first, that day in June, in this kitchen, +that you were beginning your troubles; for I knew the reputation of +Monsieur, your husband. He was not what you thought him. +A man is never what a woman thinks him. But he was worse than +most. And this trouble that has come to you is chosen by the good +God—and he has chosen the least in his sack for you. You +will know it some day—as I know it now.”</p> +<p>“You know a great deal,” said Désirée, +who was quick in speech, and he swung round on his heel to meet her +spirit.</p> +<p>“You are right,” he said, pointing his accusatory finger. +“I know a great deal about you—and I am a very old man.”</p> +<p>“How did you learn this news from Vilna?” she asked, +and his hand went up to his mouth as if to hide his thoughts and control +his lips.</p> +<p>“From one who comes straight from there—who buried your +husband there.”</p> +<p>Désirée rose and stood with her hands resting on the +table, looking at the persistent back again turned towards her.</p> +<p>“Who?” she asked, in little more than a whisper.</p> +<p>“The Captain—Louis d’Arragon.”</p> +<p>“And you have spoken to him to-day—here, in Dantzig?”</p> +<p>Barlasch nodded his head.</p> +<p>“Was he well?” asked Désirée, with a spontaneous +anxiety that made Barlasch turn slowly and look at her from beneath +his great brows.</p> +<p>“Oh, he was well enough,” he answered, “he is made +of steel, that gentleman. He was well enough, and he has the courage +of the devil. There are some fishermen who come from Zoppot to +sell their fish. They steal through the Russian lines—on +the ice of the river at night and come to our outposts at daylight. +One of them said my name this morning. I looked at him. +He was wrapped up only to show the eyes. He drew his scarf aside. +It was the Captain d’Arragon.”</p> +<p>“And he was well?” asked Désirée again, +as if nothing else in the world mattered.</p> +<p>“Oh, mon Dieu, yes,” cried Barlasch, impatiently, “he +was well, I tell you. Do you know why he came?”</p> +<p>Désirée had sat down at the table again, where she +leant her arms and rested her chin in the palms of her two hands; for +she was weakened by starvation, and confinement, and sorrow.</p> +<p>“No,” she answered.</p> +<p>“He came because he had learnt that the patron was dead. +It was known in Königsberg a week ago. It is known all over +Germany; that quiet old gentleman who scraped a fiddle here in the Frauengasse. +And it is only I, in all the world, who know that he was a greater man +in Paris than ever he was in Germany—with his Tugendbund—and +I cannot remember his name.”</p> +<p>Barlasch broke off and thumped his brow with his fists, as if to +awaken that dead memory. And all the while he was searching Désirée’s +face, with eyes made brighter and sharper than ever by starvation.</p> +<p>“And do you know what he came for—the Captain—for +he never does anything in idleness? He will run a great risk—but +it is for a great purpose. Do you know what he came for?”</p> +<p>“No.”</p> +<p>Barlasch jerked his head back and laughed.</p> +<p>“For you.”</p> +<p>He turned and looked at her; but she had raised her clasped hands +to her forehead, as if to shield her eyes from the light of the candle, +and he could not see her face.</p> +<p>“Do you remember,” said Barlasch, “that night when +the patron was so angry—on the mat—when Mademoiselle Mathilde +had to make her choice. It is your turn to-night. You have +to make your choice. Will you go?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” answered Désirée, behind her fingers.</p> +<p>“‘If Mademoiselle will come,’ he said to me, ‘bring +her to this place!’ ‘Yes, mon capitaine,’ answered +I. ‘At any cost, Barlasch?’ ‘At any cost, +mon capitaine.’ And we are not men to break our words. +I will take you there—at any cost, mademoiselle. And he +will meet you there—at any cost.”</p> +<p>And Barlasch expectorated emphatically into the fire, after the manner +of low-born men.</p> +<p>“What a pity,” he added reflectively, “that he +is only an Englishman.”</p> +<p>“When are we to go?” asked Désirée, still +behind her barrier of clasped fingers.</p> +<p>“To-morrow night, after midnight. We have arranged it +all—the Captain and I—at the outpost nearest to the river. +He has influence. He has rendered services to the Russians, and +the Russian commander will make a night attack on the outpost. +In the confusion we get through. We arranged it together. +He pays me well. It is a bargain, and I am to have my money. +We shook hands on it, and those who saw us must have thought that I +was buying fish. I, who have no money—and he, who had no +fish.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXX. THE FULFILMENT.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p> <i>And I have laboured somewhat in +my time<br /> And not been paid profusely.</i></p> +<p>When Désirée came down the next morning, she found +Barlasch talking to himself and laughing as he prepared his breakfast.</p> +<p>He met her with a gay salutation, and seemed unable to control his +hilarity.</p> +<p>“It is,” he explained, “because to-night we shall +be under fire. We shall be in danger. It makes me afraid, +and I laugh. I cannot help it. When I am afraid, I laugh.”</p> +<p>He bustled about the room, and Désirée saw that he +had already opened his secret store beneath the floor, to take from +it such delicacies as remained.</p> +<p>“You slept?” he asked sharply. “Yes, I can +see you did. That is good, for to-night we shall be awake. +And now you must eat.”</p> +<p>For Barlasch was a materialist. He had fought death in one +form or another all his life, and he knew that those who eat and sleep +are better equipped for the battle than those who cherish high ideals +or think great thoughts.</p> +<p>“It is a good thing,” he said, looking at her, “that +you are so slim. In a military coat—if you put on that short +dress in which you skate, and your high boots—you will look like +a soldier. It is a good thing that it is winter, for you can wear +the hood of your military coat over your head, as they all do out in +the trenches to keep their ears from falling. So you need not +cut off your hair—all that golden hair. Name of thunder, +that would be a pity, would it not?”</p> +<p>He turned to the fire and stirred his coffee reflectively.</p> +<p>“In my own country,” he said, “a long time ago, +there was a girl who had hair like yours. That is why we are friends, +perhaps.”</p> +<p>He gave a queer, short laugh, and took up his sheepskin coat preparatory +to going out.</p> +<p>“I have my preparations to make,” he said, with an air +of importance. “There is much to be thought of. We +had not long together, for the others were watching us. But we +understand each other. I go now to give him the signal that it +is for to-night. I have borrowed one of Lisa’s dusters—a +blue one that will show against the snow—with which to give him +the signal. And he is watching from Zoppot with his telescope. +That fat Lisa—if I had held up my finger, she would have fallen +in love with me. It has always been so. These women—”</p> +<p>And he went away muttering.</p> +<p>If he had preparations to make, Désirée had no less. +She could take but little with her, and she was quitting the house which +had always been her home so long as she could remember. Those +trunks which Barlasch had so unhesitatingly recognized as coming from +France were, it seemed, destined never to be used again. Mathilde +had gone, taking with her her few simple possessions; for they had always +been poor in the Frauengasse. Sebastian had departed on that journey +which the traveller must face alone, taking naught with him. And +it was characteristic of the man that he had left nothing behind him—no +papers, no testament, no clue to that other life so different from his +life in the Frauengasse that it must have lapsed into a fleeting, intangible +memory, such as the brain is sometimes allowed to retain of a dream +dreamt in this existence, or perhaps in another. Sebastian was +gone—with his secret.</p> +<p>Désirée, alone with hers, was left in this quiet house +for a few hours longer. Mechanically she set it in order. +What would it matter to-morrow whether it were set in order or not? +Who would come to note the last touches? She worked with that +feverish haste which is responsible for much unnecessary woman’s +work in this world—the haste that owes its existence to the fear +of having time to think. Many talk for the same reason. +What a quiet world, if those who have nothing to say said nothing! +But speech or work must fail at last, and lo! the thoughts are lying +in wait.</p> +<p>Désirée’s thoughts found their opportunity when +she went into the drawing-room upstairs, where her wedding-breakfast +had been set before the guests only eight months ago. The guests—De +Casimir, the Gräfin, Sebastian, Mathilde, Charles!</p> +<p>Désirée stood alone now in the silent room. She +did not look at the table. The guests were all gone. The +dead past had buried its dead. She went to the window and drew +aside the curtain as she had drawn it aside on her wedding-day to look +down into the Frauengasse and see Louis d’Arragon. And again +her heart leapt in her breast with that throb of fear. She turned +where she stood, and looked at the door as if she expected to see Charles +come in at it, laughing and gay, explaining (he was so good at explaining) +his encounter in the street, and stepping aside to allow Louis to come +forward. Louis, who looked at no one but her, and came into the +room and into her life.</p> +<p>She had been afraid of him. She was afraid of him still. +And her heart had leapt at the thought that he had been restlessly, +sleeplessly thinking of her, working for her—had been to Vilna +and back for her, and was now waiting for her beyond the barrier of +Russian camp-fires. The dangers which made Barlasch laugh—and +she knew they were real enough, for it was only a real danger that stirred +something in the old soldier’s blood to make him gay—these +dangers were of no account. She knew, she had known instantly +and for all time when she looked down into the Frauengasse and saw Louis, +that nothing in heaven or earth could keep them apart.</p> +<p>She stood now, looking at the empty doorway. What was the rest +of her life to be?</p> +<p>Barlasch returned in the afternoon. He was leisurely and inclined +to contemplativeness. It would seem that his preparations having +all been completed, he was left with nothing to do. War is a purifier; +it clears the social atmosphere and puts womanly men and manly women +into their right places. It is also a simplifier; it teaches us +to know how little we really require in daily life, and how many of +the environments with which men and women hamper themselves are superfluous +and the fruit of idleness.</p> +<p>“I have nothing to do,” said Barlasch, “I will +cook a careful dinner. All that I have saved in money I cannot +carry away; all that was stored beneath the floor must be left there. +It is often so in war.”</p> +<p>He had told Désirée that they would have to walk twelve +miles across the snow-clad marshes bordering the frozen Vistula, between +midnight and dawn. It needed no telling that they could carry +little with them.</p> +<p>“You will have to make a new beginning in life,” he said +curtly, “with the clothes upon your back. How many times +have I done it—the Saints alone know! But take money, if +you have it in gold or silver. Mine is all in copper gröschen, +and it is too heavy to carry. I have never yet been anywhere that +money was not useful—and name of a dog! I have never had it.”</p> +<p>So Désirée divided what money she possessed with Barlasch, +who added it carefully up and repeated several times for accuracy the +tale of what he had received. For, like many who do not hesitate +to steal, he was very particular in money matters.</p> +<p>“As for me,” he said, “I shall make a new beginning, +too. The Captain will enable me to get back to France, when I +shall go to the Emperor again. It is no place for one of the Old +Guard, here with Rapp. I am getting old, but he will find something +for me to do, that little Emperor.”</p> +<p>At midnight they set out, quitting the house in the Frauengasse noiselessly. +The street was quiet enough, for half the houses were empty now. +Their footsteps were inaudible on the trodden snow. It was a dark +night and not cold; for the great frosts of this terrible winter were +nearly over.</p> +<p>Barlasch carried his musket and bayonet. He had instructed +Désirée to walk in front of him, should they meet a patrol. +But Rapp had no men to spare for patrolling the town. There was +no spirit left in Dantzig; for typhus and starvation patrolled the narrow +streets.</p> +<p>They quitted the town to the north-west, near the Oliva Gate. +There was no guard-house here because Langfuhr was held by the French, +and Rapp’s outposts were three miles out on the road to Zoppot.</p> +<p>“I have played this game for fifty years,” said Barlasch, +with a low laugh, when they reached the earthworks, completed, at such +enormous cost of life and strength, by Rapp; “follow me and do +as I do. When I stoop, stoop; when I crawl, crawl; when I run, +run.”</p> +<p>For he was a soldier now and nothing else. He stood erect, +and looked round him with the air of a young man—ready, keen, +alert. Then he moved forward with confidence towards the high +land which terminates in the Johannesberg, where the peaceful Dantzigers +now repair on a Sunday afternoon to drink thin beer and admire the view.</p> +<p>Below them on the right hand lay the marshes, a white expanse of +snow with a single dark line drawn across it—the Langfuhr road +with its double border of trees.</p> +<p>Barlasch turned once or twice to make sure that Désirée +was following him; but he added nothing to his brief instructions. +When he gained the summit of the tableland which runs parallel with +the coast and the Langfuhr road, he paused for breath.</p> +<p>“When I crawl, crawl. When I run, run,” he whispered +again; and led the way. He went up the bed of a stream, turning +his back to the coast, and at a certain point stopped and by a gesture +of the hand bade Désirée crouch down and wait till he +returned. He came back and signed to her to quit the bed of the +stream and follow him. When she came up to the tableland, she +found that they were quite close to a camp-fire. Through the low +pines she could perceive the dark outline of a house.</p> +<p>“Now run,” whispered Barlasch, leading the way across +an open space which seemed to extend to the line of the horizon. +Without looking back, Désirée ran—her only thought +was a sudden surprise that Barlasch could move so quickly and silently.</p> +<p>When he gained the shelter of some trees, he threw himself down on +the snow, and Désirée coming up to him found him breathlessly +holding his sides and laughing aloud.</p> +<p>“We are through the lines,” he gasped, “name of +a dog, I was so frightened. There they go—pam! pam! +Buz . . z . . z . .”</p> +<p>And he imitated the singing buzz of the bullets humming through the +trees over their heads. For half a dozen shots were fired, while +he was yet speaking, from behind the camp-fires. There were no +more, however, and presently, having recovered his breath, Barlasch +rose.</p> +<p>“Come,” he said, “we have a long walk. <i>En +route</i>.”</p> +<p>They made a great circuit in the pine-woods, through which Barlasch +led the way with an unerring skill, and descending towards the plain +far beyond Langfuhr they came out on to a lower tableland, below which +the great marshes of the Vistula stretched in the darkness, slowly merging +at last into the sea.</p> +<p>“Those,” said Barlasch, pausing at the edge of the slope, +“those are the lights of Oliva, where the Russians are. +That line of lights straight in front is the Russian fleet lying off +Zoppot, and with them are English ships. One of them is the little +ship of Captain d’Arragon. And he will take you home with +him; for the ship is ordered to England, to Plymouth—which is +across the Channel from my own country. Ah—cristi! +I sometimes want to see my own country again—and my own people—mademoiselle.”</p> +<p>He went on a few paces and then stopped again, and in the darkness +held up one hand, commanding silence. It was the churches of Dantzig +striking the hour.</p> +<p>“Six o’clock,” he whispered, “it will soon +be dawn. Yes—we are half an hour too early.”</p> +<p>He sat down, and, by a gesture, bade Désirée sit beside +him.</p> +<p>“Yes,” he said, “the Captain told me that he is +bound for England to convoy larger ships, and you will sail in one of +them. He has a home in the west of England, and he will take you +there—a sister or a mother, I forget which—some woman. +You cannot get on without women—you others. It is there +that you will be happy, as the bon Dieu meant you to be. It is +only in England that no one fears Napoleon. One may have a husband +there and not fear that he will be killed. One may have children +and not tremble for them—and it is that that makes you happy—you +women.”</p> +<p>Presently he rose and led the way down the slope. At the foot +of it, he paused, and pointing out a long line of trees, said in a whisper—</p> +<p>“He is there—where there are three taller trees. +Between us and those trees are the French outposts. At dawn the +Russians attack the outposts, and during the attack we have simply to +go through it to those trees. There is no other way—that +is the rendezvous. Those three tall trees. When I give the +word, you get up and run to those trees—run without pausing, without +looking round. I will follow. It is you he has come for—not +Barlasch. You think I know nothing. Bah! I know everything. +I have always known it—your poor little secret.”</p> +<p>They lay on the snow crouching in a ditch until a grey line appeared +low down in the Eastern sky and the horizon slowly distinguished itself +from the thin thread of cloud that nearly always awaits the rising of +the sun in Northern latitudes.</p> +<p>A minute later the dark group of trees broke into intermittent flame +and the sharp, short “Hurrah!” of the Cossacks, like an +angry bark, came sweeping across the plain on the morning breeze.</p> +<p>“Not yet,” whispered Barlasch, with a gay chuckle of +enjoyment. “Not yet—not yet. Listen, the bullets +are not coming here, but are going past to the right of us. When +you go, keep to the left. Slowly at first—keep a little +breath till the end. Now, up! Mademoiselle, run; name of thunder, +let us run!”</p> +<p>Désirée did not understand which were the French lines +and which the line of Russian attack. But there was a clear way +to the three trees which stood above the rest, and she went towards +them. She knew she could not run so far, so she walked. +Then the bullets, instead of passing to the right, seemed to play round +her—like bees in a garden on a summer day—and she ran until +she was tired.</p> +<p>The trees were quite close now, and the sky was light behind them. +Then she saw Louis coming towards her, and she ran into his arms. +The sound of the humming bullets was still in her dazed brain, and she +touched him all over with her gloved hand as she clung to him, as a +mother touches her child when it has fallen, to see whether it be hurt.</p> +<p>“How was I to know?” she whispered breathlessly. +“How was I to know that you were to come into my life?”</p> +<p>The bullets did not matter, it seemed, nor the roar of the firing +to the right of them. Nothing mattered—except that Louis +must know that she had never loved Charles.</p> +<p>He held her and said nothing. And she wanted him to say nothing. +Then she remembered Barlasch, and looked back over her shoulder.</p> +<p>“Where is Barlasch?” she asked, with a sudden sinking +at her heart.</p> +<p>“He is coming slowly,” replied Louis. “He +came slowly behind you all the time, so as to draw the fire away from +you.”</p> +<p>They turned and waited for Barlasch, who seemed to be going in the +wrong direction with an odd vagueness in his movements. Louis +ran towards him with Désirée at his heels.</p> +<p>“Ça-y-est,” said Barlasch; which cannot be translated, +and yet has many meanings. “Ça-y-est.”</p> +<p>And he sat down slowly on the snow. He sat quite upright and +rigid, and in the cold light of the Baltic dawn they saw the meaning +of his words. One hand was within his fur coat. He drew +it out, and concealed it from Désirée behind his back. +He did not seem to see them, but presently he put out his hand and lightly +touched Désirée. Then he turned to Louis with that +confidential drop of the voice with which he always distinguished his +friends from those who were not his friends.</p> +<p>“What is she doing?” he asked. “I cannot +see in the dark. Is it not dark? I thought it was. +What is she doing? Saying a prayer? What—because I +have my affair? Hey, mademoiselle. You may leave it to me. +I will get in, I tell you that.”</p> +<p>He put his finger to his nose, and then shook it from side to side +with an air of deep cunning.</p> +<p>“Leave it to me. I shall slip in. Who will stop +an old man, who has many wounds? Not St. Peter, assuredly. +Let him try. And if the good God hears a commotion at the gate, +He will only shrug His shoulders. He will say to St. Peter, ‘Let +pass; it is only Papa Barlasch!’”</p> +<p>And then there was silence. For Barlasch had gone to his own +people.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines4"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, BARLASCH OF THE GUARD ***</p> +<pre> + +******This file should be named brls10h.htm or brls10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, brls11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, brls10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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