'What I have just said,' the old Chasseur replied, 'is no joke, and to prove it I will offer Mother Gâteau, without any malice, what I have just offered you—a little piece of "gee-gee" on my thumb.'
As he spoke, he moved forward to offer it; but Mother Gâteau, seeing him coming, looked at him angrily, and said, 'Go to the devil! I don't want anything of yours.'
At this speech of Mother Gâteau's, Marie, who was sitting in front of me, lifted her head, saying that this was no time to quarrel. Then she stared at me from head to foot.
'I am not mistaken,' she said, addressing me by name—'mon pays, is it you?'
'It is, Marie, really.'
I had just recognised her, too, by her voice, not by her face, for poor Marie's freshness had disappeared; cold, hardship, fire, and the smoke of the bivouac had made her unrecognisable. It was Marie, our former cantinière, whom I thought dead, and whose deserted cart with two wounded I had come upon on the night of November 22nd. This is her history:
Marie came from Namur; that is why she called me her pays. Her husband belonged to Liége, a fencing-master, and rather a bad lot. Marie was a good sort, thinking nothing of herself, retailing her goods to the soldiers—to those who had no money as well as to those who had.
In every one of our battles she had shown herself most devoted in helping the wounded. One day she herself was wounded; it did not prevent her from going on with her help, careless of the risks she was running, for the bullets and grape-shot were falling all round her. Besides all these good qualities, Marie was pretty; she had a number of friends, too, and her husband was not jealous.
In 1811, while encamped before Almeida (Portugal), some months before leaving for the Russian campaign, the poor fellow must go plundering in a village. He entered a country-house, carried off a clock not worth twenty francs, was foolish enough to bring it into camp, and was arrested. There were very severe orders against marauders, and General Roguet, our Commandant, court-martialed him. He was condemned to be shot within twenty-four hours. Marie therefore became a widow. In a regiment, particularly during a campaign, if a woman is pretty, she is not long without a husband; so at the end of two months' mourning Marie was consoled and married again, as they marry in the army.