'A drink of rogomme, as at drill-time.'
'Rogomme! You know very well I have none.' And she returned to her former position.
Another woman who was near the fire wore on her head a schabraque, bordered with red cloth, cut into festoons and drawn around the neck with the cord of a Grenadier's bearskin, the tassels of which fell under her chin. She had also over her dress a Guard's blue overcoat. This woman, hearing the Chasseur's voice, looked up, asking who wanted spirits.
'Ah! is that you, Mother Gâteau?' answered the soldier. 'It is I who am asking for spirits. I, Michaut. I dare say you are surprised to see me. Well, if anyone is more amazed than I am at meeting you, particularly schabraquée as you are, may the devil take him! Even before the passage of the Bérézina, thinking of you sometimes, dear Mother Gâteau, I imagined that the crows must long since have made a fristouille à la neige of your old carcase!'
'Wretch!' replied Mother Gâteau; 'they will eat you before they do me, you old drunkard! Ah,' she continued, in a jeering tone, 'you must be wanting spirits indeed! You've had to go without for three months; but very likely at Wilna, and yesterday at Kowno, you've taken a good dose: that's why you have so much tongue now. One thing astonishes me: that you're not dead of drink, like so many of the others we saw in the street. So many brave fellows left down yonder, and this good-for-nothing, this bad soldier, still lives!'
'Stop there, Mother Gâteau!' replied the old soldier; 'slang me as much as you like, but stop short of bad soldier! Halte-là!'
Then, jeering all the time, he continued to eat the piece of horseflesh he was holding in his hand, and which he had ceased to bite at while answering the old cantinière.
Directly afterwards she began again: 'For two years now he's had a spite against me, ever since I wouldn't give him credit at the Military School. Ah! if my poor husband were not dead—if a rascally ball had not cut him in two at Krasnoë!...'
And then she stopped.
'It wasn't your husband! You weren't married!'