Barlasch of the Guard Part 40

Many were blind, others had lost their speech or hearing. Nearly all were marred by some disfigurement--some terrible sore, the result of a frozen wound, of frostbite, of scurvy, of gangrene.

The Cossacks, half civilized as they were, wild with the excitement of killing and the chase of a human quarry, stood aghast in the streets of Vilna.

When the Emperor arrived, he set to work to clear the streets first, to get these piteous men indoors. There was no question yet of succouring them. It was not even possible to feed them all. The only thought was to find them some protection against the ruthless cold.

The first thought was, of course, directed to the hospitals. They looked in and saw a storehouse of the dead. The dead could wait; but the living must be housed.

So the dead waited, and it was their turn now at the St. Basile Hospital, where Louis presented himself at dawn.

"Looking for some one?" asked a man in uniform, who must have been inside the hospital, for he hurried down the steps with a set mouth and quailing eyes.

"Yes."

"Then don't go in--wait here."

Louis looked in and took the doctor's advice. The dead were stored in the pa.s.sages, one on the top of the other, like bales of goods in a warehouse.

Some attempt seemed to have been made to clear the wards, but those whose task it had been had not had time to do more than drag the dead out into the pa.s.sage.

The soldiers were now at work in the lower pa.s.sage. Carts began to arrive. An officer told off to this dread duty came up hurriedly smoking a cigarette, his high fur collar about his ears. He glanced at Louis, and bowed to him.

"Looking for some one?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Then stand here beside me. It is I who have to keep count. They say there are eight thousand in here. They will be carried past here to the carts. Have a cigarette."

It is hard to talk when the thermometer registers more than twenty degrees of frost, for the lips stiffen and contract into wrinkles like the lips of a very old woman. Perhaps neither of the watchers was in the humour to begin an acquaintance.

They stood side by side, stamping their feet to keep the blood going, without speaking. Once or twice Louis stepped forward, and at a signal from the officer the bearers stopped. But Louis shook his head, and they pa.s.sed on. At midday the officer was relieved, his place being taken by another, who bowed stiffly to Louis and took no more notice of him. For war either hardens or softens. It never leaves a man as it found him.

All day the work was carried on. Through the hours this procession of the bearded dead went silently by. At the invitation of a sergeant, Louis took some soup and bread from the soldiers' table. The men laughingly apologized for the quality of both.

Towards evening the officer who had first come on duty returned to his work.

"Not yet?" he asked, offering the inevitable cigarette.

"Not yet," answered Louis, and even as he spoke he stepped forward and stopped the bearers. He brushed aside the matted hair and beard.

"Is that your friend?" asked the officer.

"Yes."

It was Charles at last.

"The doctor says these have been dead two months," volunteered the first bearer, over his shoulder.

"I am glad you have found him," said the officer, signing to the men to go on with their burden. "It is better to know--is it not?"

"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 Frauenga.s.se. 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.

"But you would like to. Listen. It is not what you feel that matters; it is what you do. Remember that."

There was an unusual vigour in his voice. Of late, since the death of Sebastian, Barlasch seemed to have fallen victim to the settled apathy which lives within a prison wall and broods over a besieged city. It is a sort of silent mourning worn by the soul for a lost liberty. Dantzig had soon succ.u.mbed to it, for the citizens had not even the satisfaction of being quite sure that they were deserving of the world's sympathy.

It soon spread to the soldiers who were defending a Prussian city for a French Emperor who seemed to have forgotten them.

But to-night Barlasch seemed to be more energetic. Desiree looked round over her shoulder. He had not laid on the table any contribution to a bare larder; and yet his manner was that of one who has prepared a surprise and is waiting to enjoy its effect. He was restless, moving from one foot to another, rubbing together his crooked fingers and darting sidelong glances at her face.

"What is it?" she asked suddenly, and Barlasch gave a start as if he had been detected in some deceit. He bustled forward to the smouldering fire and held his hands over it.

"It is that it is very cold to-night," he answered, with that exaggerated ease of manner with which the young and the simple seek to conceal embarra.s.sment. "Tell me, mademoiselle, what have we for supper to-night? It is I who will cook it. To-night we will keep a fete. There is that piece of beef for you. I know a way to make it appetizing. For me there is my portion of horse. It is the friend of man--the horse."

He laughed and made an effort to be gay, which had a poignant pathos in it that made Desiree bite her lip.

"What fete is it that we are to keep?" she asked, with a wan smile. Her kind blue eyes had that glitter in them which is caused by a constant and continuous hunger. Six months ago they had only been gay and kind, now they saw the world as it is, as it always must be so long as the human heart is capable of happiness and the human reason recognizes the rarity of its attainment.

"The fete of St. Matthias--my fete, mademoiselle."

"But I thought your name was Jean."

"So it is. But I keep my fete at St. Matthias, because on that day we won a battle in Egypt. We will have wine--a bottle of wine--eh?"

So Barlasch prepared a great feast which was to be celebrated by Desiree in the dining-room, where he lighted a fire, and by himself in the kitchen. For he held strongly to a code of social laws which the great Revolution had not succeeded in breaking. And one of these laws was that it would be in some way degrading to Desiree to see him eat.

He was a skilled and delicate cook, only hampered by that insatiable pa.s.sion for economy which is the dominant characteristic of the peasant of Northern France. To-night, however, he was reckless, and Desiree could hear him searching in his secret hiding-place beneath the floor for concealed condiments and herbs.

"There," he said, when he set the dish before her, "eat it with an easy mind. There is nothing unclean in it. It is not rat or cat or the liver of a starved horse, such as we others eat and ask no better. It is all clean meat."

He poured out wine, and stood in the darkened doorway watching her drink it. Then he went away to his own meal in the kitchen, leaving Desiree vaguely uneasy--for he was not himself to-night. She could hear him muttering as he ate and moved hither and thither in the kitchen. At short intervals he came and looked in at the door to make sure that she was doing full honour to St. Matthias. When she had finished, he came into the room.