“So he insisted on more than the shout that day? Tell me about it.”
“I thought I had told you before,” said Cyprian, impatiently, and he spoke very rapidly as he proceeded. “We made some little difficulty about stripping the country people of their provisions for our own use, and just offered to go without our full rations till more were brought in. He called this mutiny, and began to talk about Poland,—the blasphemous wretch!—and called upon us to shout, as usual. I waited a moment to get voice; he marked me, and ordered me, not only to shout, but to sing a damned chorus about Praga that they boast they sang when——”
“Well, well, I know which you mean. Go on.”
“I would not, and could not sing it, happen what might; and so I told him.”
“How should you?” said Ernest, with a grim smile. “You who always said, when you had no thought of being a soldier, that it revolted you to see men made machines of; as soldiers are under the best management. How should you bear to be made something so much worse than a machine,—a slave with the soul of a free man,—a mocking-stock while you were full of gloomy wrath? No! helpless you must be; but you could at least make your slavery passive,—one degree above the lowest.”
“Passive enough I made it,” said Cyprian, covering his face with his hands. “They could make nothing of me,—except the one thing they did not choose to make me—a corpse! I hoped to die under it,—I meant it,—and I supposed they meant I should; for I have known many an one killed under the knout for a less offence; but they let me live, just to go through it again; for that hellish chorus will I never sing;—or never, at least, at that man’s bidding.”
“Never; you never shall!” cried Ernest, fervently.
Cyprian looked at him surprised, and said,
“Do you know, Ernest, I would not have borne from any other man such questioning about all these matters as I have taken patiently from you.”
“Patiently!” repeated Ernest, with a sad smile.