“But I cannot take it,” said Désirée. “It is worth a million francs.”
He looked at her fiercely.
“You think that I look for something in return?”
“Oh no!” she answered, “I have nothing to give you in return. I am as poor as you.”
“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.
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.
“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.
“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?”
“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.
“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.”
He stopped and scratched his head, looked at her sideways with a grimace of bewilderment.
“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.”
“And you—what had you?” asked Désirée, over her shoulder.
“No matter,” he answered gruffly, “since I am here.”
“And yet you believe in that man still,” flashed out Désirée, turning to face him.
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.
“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.
“They say in Danzig,” 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.”
“Ah—they say that already?”
“Yes.”
He looked at her with a sudden light of anger in his eyes.
“Who has taught you to hate Napoleon?” he asked bluntly.
And again Désirée turned away from his glance as if she could not meet it.
“No one,” she answered.
“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.”
He broke off with one of his violent jerks of the head, almost threatening to dislocate his neck, and looked at her fixedly.
“It is because you have grown into a woman since I went away.”
And out came his accusing finger, though Désirée had her back turned towards him, and there was none other to see.
“Ah!” he said, with deadly contempt, “I see, I see!”
“Did you expect me to grow up into a man?” asked Désirée, over her shoulder.
Barlasch stood in the doorway, his lips and jaw moving as if he were masticating winged words. At length, having failed to find a tremendous answer, he softly closed the door.
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
