Jacques was making a wooden corporal and six légionnaires, excellent reproductions of the original things, three inches high and each able to stand on its own feet. They were in full marching uniform, blue overcoats turned back to show the red trousers, knapsack and all.
They took two months in the making and a lot of trouble in obtaining the paint for the coats and trousers, but they were finished for the time appointed: Christmas Day.
Karasloff, who had seen the making of the things, was much moved when he found that they were for Ivan, but he said scarcely anything. Ivan did all the thanking, and the valiant wooden soldiers formed another bond, if such a thing were wanted, between himself and the légionnaire.
One day Karasloff said to Jacques, "Life in the Legion is a healthy life; though hard enough at times, the work is not without interest, one has the sunshine and the blue sky and the good wine is only three sous a bottle. All the same, this life in the Legion is killing me."
II
Jacques looked at Karasloff in surprise. He had noticed lately that Karasloff was growing thinner.
"Killing you!" said Jacques. "What ails you?"
The Slav smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
"I think it is this way with men," said he, "they do not bear transplanting. The real soil in which the mind grows is the social condition to which it is accustomed. Minds die when torn up by the roots from everything to which they have been used to. Then there are some men whose bodies are affected by their minds, and to whom mental decay means bodily decay—that is how it is."
All this was Greek to Jacques.