Be it said that the men were very merry and that a spirit of drunken hilarity prevailed in the place. None seemed to remember that it was a holy building, nor would it have been worth while to remonstrate with poor devils who had suffered so much. I saw usually sober officers dancing in the vestments of the priests and preaching mock sermons from a splendid pulpit. The organist was an accomplished fellow, and played the wildest dance with precision. Even the wounded cheered up at his music and tried to join in the songs which the army knew so well. It was pitiful to hear them moaning:
"Ram, ram, ram, tam,
Plan, tire-lire ram plan":
those who would never see France again and might never quit that building.
One such I shall never forget. His leg had been amputated that very day, and yet in his drunken frenzy he reared himself up from the rude bed they had made him and rolled over and over until he was dead, like a mad dervish from the Indies. Scenes like this were repeated during that long and wonderful night, until, indeed, the organist, coming down the stairs for brandy, stumbled by the way and pitched headlong into the nave. Both his legs were broken, and although I did what I could for him, I knew that he, too, would never leave Slawkowo.
Valerie St. Antoine supported all this with wonderful fortitude. We had had little converse with her hitherto, but now she began to talk to us very rationally, and we had some insight into that dual personality which many men have found so interesting.
Very frankly she told us that she had had no thought of returning to France until she had heard that her father was with the army. This was the more surprising since it would appear that she had not seen him since she was quite a child.
"He left Nice in the days of the Terror," she said. "We went—my brother and I—with my mother to Leipsic, and then to one of her kinsmen, who was a Pole. She died in Poland five years ago, and my brother had to enter Prince Nicholas's household and to take me to Moscow with him. You will imagine what happened to a child among a strange people and with none but an absent brother to protect her. René was sent to St. Petersburg, and I was left alone with the Prince. Sometimes I forgot altogether that I had been born in France. They surrounded me with riches, and anything for which I chose to ask was at my hand. Then came the story of General Bonaparte and of his victories. That did not interest me; I was still a Russian at heart, and remained so until your army entered Moscow and all was remembered. It was the Emperor who set me dreaming again and made me remember my home by the Mediterranean Sea: I recalled my father in his uniform of green and gold; I recollected how we were taught as children to cry, 'Vive la République!' but never 'Vive le Roi!' Oh, yes, my heart went back to France and I became a Frenchwoman again. Now I shall go to Paris and try to earn my living there. It will be difficult, but I am not afraid; the world has taught me too many things that I should fear my own independence."
Léon told her gallantly enough that she had no need to fear any such thing. He, I made sure, was ready enough to set her upon the road of his choice; and yet there was something about the girl which forbade love-making as soldiers know it, and set her upon a pinnacle of which even my nephew was a little shy.
"Come to Paris," said he, "and you shall be as famous as any woman in the city. There is always a career for beauty there, and you, Valerie, have other gifts. I promise you that you will not be disappointed. I will make it my business to see that you are not."
She looked at him with curiosity. Perhaps there was a measure of pity in her tone when she said, "Ah, Captain Léon, if we ever see Paris again how lucky we shall be!"