Laughing, she answered that it was the case. I told her that I should certainly have done the same, as she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Madame Gentil began to laugh, to blush, and to talk, and she was talking still when I fell asleep, and did not awake till nine o'clock the next morning.
For some little time I could not remember where I was. The servant entered, accompanied by Madame Gentil, who was bringing me coffee, tea and rolls. It was a long time indeed since I had had such a feast! I forgot the past; I thought only of the present and Madame Gentil. I even forgot my comrades.
Madame Gentil looked at me attentively; then, passing her hand over my face, asked me what was the matter. I replied there was nothing wrong.
'But there is,' she said; 'your face is swollen.'
Then she told me that a non-commissioned officer of the Imperial Guard had come the preceding afternoon to inquire if she had not a non-commissioned officer lodging with her. She had said yes, there was one, and had shown him my room; but he had gone away again, saying I was not the man he was looking for.
While Madame Gentil was relating this, my friend Grangier came in, but was going out again, saying:
'I beg your pardon, but ever since yesterday I have been looking for one of my comrades, and can't find him. And yet this is certainly the street and the number of the house marked upon his billet.'
I said: 'It's I you are looking for, isn't it?'
Grangier then burst out laughing. He hadn't recognised me. This was not surprising. I had no queue, my face was swollen, I was as white as a swan, in consequence of my bath, or, rather, of the way the servant had curry-combed me; I was wearing fine white linen, my head well brushed, my hair curled. He told me that he had called the day before, but seeing a pair of red trousers over a chair, he had gone away convinced he had made some mistake. He had just been informed, he said, that there was to be a muster of the remnant of the Guards at three o'clock, and that everyone must do his utmost to appear. He would come back for me.
At two o'clock he came to fetch me, as he had promised, accompanied by my other comrades, who on seeing me began to laugh so much that their poor lips bled, cracked as they were with frost.