“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!”
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.
“Has he come from Vilna?” asked Désirée.
“From Vilna—oh yes. They are all from Vilna.”
“And he had no news”—persisted she, “of—Captain Darragon?”
“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 sabretache and gold lace. It is an officer of the staff. ‘Go down into the valley and get shot,’ he says. And—bonjour! we go. No—no. He has no news, my poor comrade.”
They were at the inn now, and found the huge yard still packed with sleighs and disabled carriages, and the stables ostentatiously empty.
“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.”
It was as Barlasch foretold. For at the name of Antoine Sebastian the innkeeper found horses—in another stable.
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.
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.
“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.”
He watched Désirée with a grudging eye. For she was young, and had eaten nothing for six freezing hours.
“And for us,” he added; “what a waste of time!”
Désirée rose at once with a laugh.
“You want to go,” she said. “Come, I am ready.”
“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.”
“Ah!” said Désirée, “that is what your friend told you.”
“That, and other things.”
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.
“There is poison in it,” he muttered. “He knows I am a Frenchman.”
“Come,” said Désirée, with her gay laugh, “I will show you that there is no poison in it.”
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.
“Allons,” he said; “we shall reach Danzig safely by nightfall, and there we shall find your husband awaiting us, and laughing at us for our foolish journey.”
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 Danzig 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 Danzig; for when history wakes from her slumber and moves, it is with a heavy and restless tread.
“What is it?” asked Barlasch of the sentry at the town gate, while they waited for their passports to be returned to them.
“It is a proclamation from the Emperor of Russia—no one knows how it has got here.”
“And what does he proclaim—that citizen?”
“He bids the Danzigers rise and turn us out,” answered the soldier, with a grim laugh.
“Is that all?”
“No, comrade, that is not all,” was the answer in a graver voice.
“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.”
“Ah!”
“Yes, and half the defenders of Danzig are Poles—there are your passports—pass on.”
They drove through the dark streets where men like shadows hurried silently about their business.
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.
Barlasch, wiping the
