It is only in war that the unexpected admittedly happens. In love and other domestic calamities3 there is always a relative who knew it all the time.
The news that Napoleon was in Vilna, hastily evacuated4 by the Russians in full retreat, came as a surprise and not to all as a pleasant one, in Dantzig.
It was Papa Barlasch who brought the tidings to the Frauengasse, one hot afternoon in July. He returned before his usual hour, and sent Lisa upstairs, with a message given in dumb show and interpreted by her into matter-of-fact German, that he must see the young ladies without delay. Far back in the great days of the monarchy5, Papa Barlasch must have been a little child in a peasant's hut on those Cotes du Nord where they breed a race of Frenchmen startlingly similar to the hereditary6 foe7 across the Channel, where to this day the men kick off their sabots at the door and hold that an honest labourer has no business under a roof except in stocking-feet and shirt-sleeves.
Barlasch had never yet been upstairs in the Sebastians' house, and deemed it only respectful to the ladies to take off his boots on the mat, and prowl to the kitchen in coarse blue woollen stockings, carefully darned by himself, under the scornful immediate9 eye of Lisa.
He was in the kitchen when Mathilde and Desiree, in obedience10 to his command, came downstairs. The floor in one corner of the room was littered with his belongings11; for he never used the table. “He takes up no more room than a cat,” Lisa once said of him. “I never fall over him.”
“She leaves her greasy12 plates here and there,” explained Barlasch in return. “One must think of one's self and one's uniform.”
“Ai, ai, ai,” he said, imitating with his two hands the galloping14 of a horse. “The Russians,” he explained confidentially15.
“Has there been a battle?” asked Desiree.
And Barlasch answered “Pooh!” not without contempt for the female understanding.
“Then what is it?” she inquired. “You must remember we are not soldiers—we do not understand those manoeuvres—ai, ai, like that.”
“It is Vilna,” he said. “That is what it is. Then it will be Smolensk, and then Moscow. Ah, ah! That little man!”
He turned and took up his haversack.
“And I—I have my route. It is good-bye to the Frauengasse. We have been friends. I told you we should be. It is good-bye to these ladies—and to that Lisa. Look at her!”
He pointed17 with his curved and derisive18 finger into Lisa's eyes. And in truth the tears were there. Lisa was in heart and person that which is comprehensively called motherly. She saw perhaps some pathos19 in the sight of this rugged20 man—worn by travel, bent21 with hardship and many wounds, past his work—shouldering his haversack and trudging22 off to the war.
“The wave moves on,” he said, making a gesture, and a sound illustrating23 that watery24 progress. “And Dantzig will soon be forgotten. You will be left in peace—but we go on to—” He paused and shrugged25 his shoulders while attending to a strap26. “India or the devil,” he concluded.
“Colonel Casimir has gone,” he added in what he took to be an aside to Mathilde. Which made her wonder for a moment. “I saw him depart with his staff soon after daybreak. And the Emperor has forgotten Dantzig. It is safe enough for the patron now. You can write him a letter to tell him so. Tell him that I said it was safe for him to return quietly here, and live in the Frauengasse—I, Barlasch.”
He was ready now, and, buttoning his tunic, he fixed27 the straps28 across his chest, looking from one to the other of the three women watching him, not without some appreciation29 of an audience. Then he turned to Desiree, who had always been his friend, with whom he now considered that he had the soldier's bond of a peril30 passed through together.
“The Emperor has forgotten Dantzig,” he repeated, “and those against whom he had a grudge31. But he has also forgotten those who are in prison. It is not good to be forgotten in prison. Tell the patron that—to put it in his pipe and smoke it. Some day he may remember an old soldier. Ah, one thinks of one's self.”
And beneath his bushy brows he looked at her with a gleam of cunning. He went to the door and, turning there, pointed the finger of scorn at Lisa, stout32 and tearful. He gave a short laugh of a low-born contempt, and departed without further parley33.
On the doorstep he paused to put on his boots and button his gaiters, stooping clumsily with a groan34 beneath his burden of haversack and kit8. Desiree, who had had time to go upstairs to her bedroom, ran after him as he descended35 the steps. She had her purse in her hand, and she thrust it into his, quickly and breathlessly.
“If you take it,” she said, “I shall know that we are friends.”
He took it ungraciously enough. It was a silken thing with two small rings to keep the money in place, and he looked at it with a grimace36, weighing it in his hand. It was very light.
“Money,” he said. “No, thank you. To get drink with, and be degraded and sent to prison. Not for me, madame. No, thank you. One thinks of one's career.”
And with a gruff laugh of worldly wisdom he continued his way down the worn steps, never looking back at her as she stood in the sunlight watching him, with the purse in her hand.
So in his old age Papa Barlasch was borne forward to the war on that human tide which flooded all Lithuania, and never ebbed37 again, but sank into the barren ground, and was no more seen.
As the slow autumn approached, it became apparent that Dantzig no longer interested the watchers. Vilna became the base of operations. Smolensk fell, and, most wonderful of all, the Russians were retiring on Moscow. Dantzig was no longer on the route. For a time it was of the world forgotten, while, as Barlasch had predicted, free men continued at liberty, though their names had an evil savour, while innocent persons in prison were left to rot there.
Desiree continued to receive letters from her husband, full of love and war. For a long time he lingered at Konigsberg, hoping every day to be sent forward. Then he followed Murat across the Niemen, and wrote of weary journeys over the rolling plains of Lithuania.
“With him came a courier,” wrote Charles, “bringing your dead letter. I don't believe you love me as I love you. At all events, you do not seem to tell me that you do so often as I want to tell you. Tell me what you do and think every moment of the day....” And so on. Charles seemed to write as easily as he talked, and had no difficulty in setting forth40 his feelings. “The courier is in the saddle,” he concluded. “De Casimir tells me that I must finish. Write and tell me everything. How is Mathilde? And your father? Is he in good health? How does he pass his day? Does he still go out in the evening to his cafe?”
This seemed to be an afterthought, suggested perhaps by conversation passing in the room in which he sat.
The other exile, writing from Stockholm, was briefer in his communications.
“I am well,” wrote Antoine Sebastian, “and hope to arrive soon after you receive this. Felix Meyer, the notary41, has instructions to furnish you with money for household expenses.”
It would appear that Sebastian possessed42 other friends in Dantzig, who had kept him advised of all that passed in the city.
For neither Mathilde nor Desiree had obeyed Barlasch's blunt order to write to their father. They did not know whither he had fled, neither had they received any communication giving an address or a hint as to his future movements. It would appear that the same direct and laconic43 mind which had carried out his escape deemed it wiser that those left behind should be in no position to furnish information.
In fairness to Barlasch, Desiree had made little of that soldier's part in Sebastian's evasion44, and Mathilde displayed small interest in such details. She rather fastened, however, upon the assistance rendered by Louis d'Arragon.
“Why did he do it?” she asked.
“Oh, because I asked him,” was the reply.
“And why did you ask him?”
“Who else was there to ask?” returned Desiree, which was indeed unanswerable.
Perhaps the question had been suggested to her by de Casimir, who, on learning that Louis d'Arragon had helped her father to slip through the Emperor's fingers, had asked the same in his own characteristic way.
“What could he hope to gain by doing it?” he had inquired as he walked by Mathilde's side, along the Pfaffengasse. And he made other interrogations respecting D'Arragon which Mathilde was no more able to satisfy, as he accompanied her to the Frauengasse.
Since that time the dancing-lessons had been resumed to the music of a hired fiddler, and Desiree had once more taken up her household task of making both ends meet. She approached the difficulties as impetuously as ever, and danced the stout pupils round the room with undiminished energy.
“It seems no good at all, your being married,” said one of these breathlessly, while Desiree laughingly attended to her dishevelled hair.
“Why not?”
“Because you still make your own dresses and teach dancing,” replied the pupil, with a quick sigh at the thought of some smart bursch in the Prussian contingent45.
“Ah, but Charles will return a colonel, and I shall bow to you in a silk dress from a chaise and pair—come, left foot first. You are not so tired as you think you are.”
For those that are busy, time flies quickly enough. And there is nothing more absorbing than keeping the wolf from the door, else assuredly the hungry thousands would find time to arise and rend1 the overfed few.
August succeeded a hot July and brought with it Sebastian's curt39 letter. Sebastian himself—that shadowy father—returned to his home a few hours later. He was not alone, for a heavier step followed his into the passage, and Desiree, always quick to hear and see and act, coming to the head of the stairs, perceived her father looking upwards46 towards her, while his companion in rough sailor's clothes turned to lay aside the valise he had carried on his shoulder.
Mathilde was close behind Desiree, and Sebastian kissed his daughters with that cold repression47 of manner which always suggested a strenuous48 past in which the emotions had been relinquished49 for ever as an indulgence unfit for a stern and hard-bitten age.
“I took him away and now return him,” said the sailor coming forward. Desiree had always known that it was Louis, but Mathilde gave a little start at the sound of the neat clipping French in the mouth of an educated Frenchman so rarely heard in Dantzig—so rarely heard in all broad France to-day.
“Yes—that is true,” answered Sebastian, turning to him with a sudden change of manner. There was that in voice and attitude which his hearers had never noted50 before, although Charles had often evoked51 something approaching it. It seemed to indicate that, of all the people with whom they had seen their father hold intercourse52, Louis d'Arragon was the only man who stood upon equality with him.
“That is true—and at great risk to yourself,” he said, not assigning, however, so great an importance to personal danger as men do in these careful days. As he spoke53, he took Louis by the arm and by a gesture invited him to precede him upstairs with a suggestion of camaraderie54 somewhat startling in one usually so cold and formal as Antoine Sebastian, the dancing-master of the Frauengasse.
“I was writing to Charles,” said Desiree to D'Arragon, when they reached the drawing-room, and, crossing to her own table, she set the papers in order there. These consisted of a number of letters from her husband, read and re-read, it would appear. And the answer to them, a clean sheet of paper bearing only the date and address, lay beneath her hand.
“The courier leaves this evening,” she said, with a queer ring of anxiety in her voice, as if she feared that for some reason or another she ran the risk of failing to despatch55 her letter. She glanced at the clock, and stood, pen in hand, thinking of what she should write.
“May I enclose a line?” asked Louis. “It is not wise, perhaps, for me to address to him a letter—since I am on the other side. It is a small matter of a heritage which he and I divide. I have placed some money in a Dantzig bank for him. He may require it when he returns.”
“Then you do not correspond with Charles?” said Mathilde, clearing a space for him on the larger table, and setting before him ink and pens and paper.
“Thank you, Mademoiselle,” he said, glancing at her with that light of interest in his dark eyes which she had ignited once before by a question on the only occasion that they had met. He seemed to detect that she was more interested in him than her indifferent manner would appear to indicate. “No, I am a bad correspondent. If Charles and I, in our present circumstances, were to write to each other it could only lead to intrigue56, for which I have no taste and Charles no capacity.”
“You seem to hint that Charles might have such a taste then,” she said, with her quiet smile, as she moved away leaving him to write.
“Charles has probably found out by this time,” he answered with the bluntness which he claimed as a prerogative57 of his calling and nation, “that a soldier of Napoleon's who intrigues58 will make a better career than one who merely fights.”
He took up his pen and wrote with the absorption of one who has but little time and knows exactly what to say. By chance he glanced towards Desiree, who sat at her own table near the window. She was stroking her cheek with the feather of her pen, looking with puzzled eyes at the blank paper before her. Each time D'Arragon dipped his pen he glanced at her, watching her. And Mathilde, with her needlework, watched them both.
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1
rend
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| vt.把…撕开，割裂；把…揪下来，强行夺取 | |
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durable
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| adj.持久的，耐久的 | |
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calamities
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| n.灾祸，灾难( calamity的名词复数 )；不幸之事 | |
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evacuated
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| 撤退者的 | |
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monarchy
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| n.君主，最高统治者；君主政体，君主国 | |
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hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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foe
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| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
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kit
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| n.用具包，成套工具；随身携带物 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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tunic
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| n.束腰外衣 | |
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galloping
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| adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式 | |
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confidentially
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| ad.秘密地，悄悄地 | |
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scowling
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| 怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的现在分词 ) | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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derisive
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| adj.嘲弄的 | |
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pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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trudging
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| vt.& vi.跋涉，吃力地走（trudge的现在分词形式） | |
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illustrating
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| 给…加插图( illustrate的现在分词 )； 说明； 表明； （用示例、图画等）说明 | |
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watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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strap
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| n.皮带，带子；v.用带扣住，束牢；用绷带包扎 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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straps
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| n.带子( strap的名词复数 )；挎带；肩带；背带v.用皮带捆扎( strap的第三人称单数 )；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带 | |
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29
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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grudge
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| n.不满，怨恨，妒嫉；vt.勉强给，不情愿做 | |
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parley
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| n.谈判 | |
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groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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grimace
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| v.做鬼脸，面部歪扭 | |
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ebbed
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| （指潮水）退( ebb的过去式和过去分词 )； 落； 减少； 衰落 | |
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curtly
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| adv.简短地 | |
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curt
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| adj.简短的，草率的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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notary
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| n.公证人，公证员 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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laconic
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| adj.简洁的；精练的 | |
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evasion
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| n.逃避，偷漏(税) | |
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contingent
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| adj.视条件而定的；n.一组，代表团，分遣队 | |
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upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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repression
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| n.镇压，抑制，抑压 | |
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48
strenuous
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| adj.奋发的，使劲的；紧张的；热烈的，狂热的 | |
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49
relinquished
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| 交出，让给( relinquish的过去式和过去分词 )； 放弃 | |
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50
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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51
evoked
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| [医]诱发的 | |
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52
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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53
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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54
camaraderie
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| n.同志之爱，友情 | |
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55
despatch
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| n./v.(dispatch)派遣；发送；n.急件；新闻报道 | |
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56
intrigue
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| vt.激起兴趣，迷住；vi.耍阴谋；n.阴谋，密谋 | |
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prerogative
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| n.特权 | |
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intrigues
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| n.密谋策划( intrigue的名词复数 )；神秘气氛；引人入胜的复杂情节v.搞阴谋诡计( intrigue的第三人称单数 )；激起…的好奇心 | |
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