“Quite ready, sir.”
“I know it, my lad. Your orders are there: ride forward to Ettingen, and prepare the billets for the fourth demi-brigade, which will reach that village by to-morrow evening; you'll have time for something to eat, and a glass of wine, before the orderly arrives. This piece of duty is put on you, because a certain Captain Pichot, the only one of the commissaries' department who can speak German, has just been put under arrest for a duel he fought yesterday. I wish the court-marshal would shoot the fellow, with all my heart and soul; he's a perfect curse to the whole division. In any case, if he escape this time, I'll keep my eye on him, and he'll scarce get clear through my hands, I'll warrant him.”
It may be supposed that I heard these words with no common emotion, bearing as they did so closely on my own circumstances at the moment. But I hung down my head and affected to eat, while the old general walked hastily up and down the salon muttering half aloud heavy denunciations on the practice of duelling, which at any cost of life he resolved to put down in his command.
“Done already! Why, man, you've eaten nothing. Well, then, I see the orderly without; you've got a capital moonlight for your ride. And so, au revoir.”
“Good-by, sir,” said I, as I sprang into the saddle. “And now for Ettingen.”
CHAPTER XLIII. THE MARCH ON THE DANUBE.
There is a strange, unnatural kind of pleasure felt sometimes in the continued attacks of evil fortune: the dogged courage with which we bear up against the ills of fate, swimming more strongly as the waves grow rougher, has its own meed of consolation. It is only at such a time, perhaps, that the really independent spirit of our natures is in the ascendant, and that we can stand amid the storm, conscious of our firmness, and bid the winds “blow and crack their cheeks.” Yet, through how many sorrows must one have waded, ere he reach this point! through what trials must he have passed I how must hope have paled, and flickered, and died out I how must all self-love, all ambition, all desire itself have withered within us, till we become like the mere rock amid the breakers, against which the waves beat in vain! When that hour comes, the heart has grown cold and callous, the affections have dried up, and man looks no more upon his fellow-men as brothers.
Towards this sad condition I found myself rapidly verging; the isolation of my homeless, friendless state, the death of my hopes, the uncheered path in which I walked, all conspired to make me feel depressed, and I perceived that a half-recklessness was already stealing over me, and that in my indifference as to fortune now lay my greatest consolation. There was a time when such a rencontre as lately befell me had made me miserable till the hour came when I should meet my adversary; now, my blood boiled with no indignant passion, no current of angry vengeance stirred through my veins, a stupid sullenness was over me, and I cared nothing what might happen. And if this state became not permanent, I owe it to youth alone—the mainspring of many of our best endeavors.
We had travelled some seven or eight miles when we stopped for a few seconds at the door of a cabaret, and then I discovered for the first time that my old friend Pioche was the corporal of our little party. To my slight reproach for his not having sooner made himself known to me, the honest fellow replied that he saw I was low in spirits about something, and did not wish to obtrude upon me.