This lasted until night; still the same scene over and over again.
I ran from the place; I wanted to know nothing about it.
I went to Monsieur the Commandant's. Entering a parlor, I saw him at breakfast. He was an old man, but hale, with a red face and good appetite.
"Ah! it is you!" said he, "Monsieur Goulden is not coming, then?"
"No, Monsieur the Commandant, the bad news has made him ill."
"Ah! I understand," he said, emptying his glass; "yes, it is unfortunate."
And while I was regulating the clock, he added:
"Well! tell Monsieur Goulden that we will have our revenge. We cannot always have the upper hand. For fifteen years we have kept the drums beating over them, and it is only right to let them have this little morsel of consolation. And then our honor is safe; we were not beaten fighting; without the cold and the snow, those poor Cossacks would have had a hard time of it. But patience; the skeletons of our regiments will soon be filled, and then let them beware."
I wound up the clock; he rose and came to look at it, for he was a great amateur in clock-making. He pinched my ear in a merry mood; and then, as I was going away, he cried as he buttoned up his overcoat, which he had opened before beginning breakfast:
"Tell Father Goulden to rest easy; the dance will begin again in the spring; the Kalmucks will not always have winter fighting for them. Tell him that."