“Then it may have moved on only after the night had become dark. But at least you heard it rumbling?”
“We have not,” said Jahel.
“It is then that this night is blind as well as deaf. It is not to be supposed that yonder coach, which had not a wheel broken, not a horse lamed, would have remained standing still on the road. What for?”
“Yes, what for?” said Jahel.
“Our supper,” said my good tutor, “reminds me of the simplicity of the repasts described in the Bible, where the pious traveller divided with an angel, on the bank of the river, the fishes of the Tigris. But we are in want of bread, salt and wine. I’ll try to take out of our coach the provisions put there, and look if by a fortunate chance some bottles have remained intact. There are occasions when glass remains whole but steel is broken. Tournebroche, my son, give me your steel; and you, mademoiselle, do not fail to turn the grilling fish. I’ll be back in a moment.”
He left. His somewhat heavy tread sounded in a de crescendo, and soon we could hear him no more.
“This very night,” said M. d’Anquetil, “reminds me of the night before the battle of Parma. You may be aware that I have served under Villars and been in the War of Succession. I was with the scouts. We could not see anything. That’s one of the best ruses of war. Men are sent out to reconnoitre the enemy who return without having reconnoitred anything. But reports are drawn up, after the battle, and then it is that the tacticians are triumphant. Thus, at nine o’clock at night, I was sent out scouting with twelve men—”
And he gave us a narrative of the War of Succession and of his amours in Italy; his story had lasted for well-nigh a quarter of an hour when he exclaimed:
“That rascal of an abbé does not come back. I bet he drinks all the wine which remained in the coach.”
Thinking that my dear tutor might possibly be embarrassed, I rose and went to help him. It was a moonless night, and if the sky was resplendent in the light of thousands of stars, the earth was clad in a darkness which my eyes, dazzled by the light of the flames, could not pierce.