“Yes,” answered Louis slowly. “It is better to know.”
And something in his voice made the Russian officer turn and watch him as he went away.
CHAPTER XXIX. THE BARGAIN.
Like plants in mines which never saw the sun,
But dream of him and guess where he may be,
And do their best to climb and get to him.
“Oh yes,” Barlasch was saying, “it is easier to die—it is that that you are thinking—it is easier to die.”
Desiree did not answer. She was sitting in the little kitchen at the back of the house in the Frauengasse. For they had no firing now, and were burning the furniture. Her father had been buried a week. The siege was drawn closer than ever. There was nothing to eat, nothing to do, no one to talk to. For Sebastian's political friends did not dare to come near his house. Desiree was alone in this hopeless world with Barlasch, who was on duty now in one of the trenches near the river. He went out in the morning, and only returned at night. He had just come in, and she could see by the light of the single candle that his face was grey and haggard, with deep lines drawn downwards from eyes to chin. Desiree's own face had lost all its roundness and the bloom of her northern girlhood.
Barlasch glanced at her, and bit his lip. He had brought nothing with him. At one time he had always managed to bring something to the house every day—a chicken, or a turnip, or a few carrots. But to-night there was nothing. And he was tired out. He did not sit down, however, but stood breathing on his fingers and rubbing them together to restore circulation. He pushed the candle farther forward on the table, so that it cast a better light upon her face.
“Yes,” he said, “it is often so. I, who speak to you, have seen it so a dozen times in my life. When it is easier to sit down and die. Bah! That is a fine thing to do—a brave thing—to sit down and die.”
“I am not going to do it, so do not make that mistake,” said Desiree, with a laugh that had no mirth in it.