“News—oh no! He is a common soldier, and knows nothing of the officers on the staff. We are the same—he and I—poor animals in the ranks. A little gentleman rides up, all sabretasche and gold lace. It is an officer of the staff. 'Go down into the valley and get shot,' he says. And—bon jour! we go. No—no. He has no news, my poor comrade.”
They were at the inn now, and found the huge yard still packed with sleighs and disabled carriages, and the stables ostentatiously empty.
“Go in,” said Barlasch; “and tell them who your father is—say Antoine Sebastian and nothing else. I would do it myself, but when it is so cold as that, the lips are stiff, and I cannot speak German properly. They would find out that I am French, and it is no good being French now. My comrade told me that in Konigsberg, Murat himself was ill-received by the burgomaster and such city stuff as that.”
It was as Barlasch foretold. For at the name of Antoine Sebastian the innkeeper found horses—in another stable.
It would take a few minutes, he said, to fetch them, and in the meantime there were coffee and some roast meat—his own dinner. Indeed, he could not do enough to testify his respect for Desiree, and his commiseration for her, being forced to travel in such weather through a country infested by starving brigands.
Barlasch consented to come just within the inner door, but refused to sit at the table with Desiree. He took a piece of bread, and ate it standing.
“See you,” he said to her when they were left alone, “the good God has made very few mistakes, but there is one thing I would have altered. If He intended us for such a rough life, He should have made the human frame capable of going longer without food. To a poor soldier marching from Moscow to have to stop every three hours and gnaw a piece of horse that has died—and raw—it is not amusing.”
He watched Desiree with a grudging eye. For she was young, and had eaten nothing for six freezing hours.
“And for us,” he added; “what a waste of time!”
Desiree rose at once with a laugh.