The servant in her Samland Sunday dress, having shaken
her fist at the children, closed the door behind the
last guest, and, so far as the Frauengasse was concerned,
the exciting incident was over. From the open
window came only the murmur of quiet voices, the clink
of glasses at the drinking of a toast, or a laugh
in the clear voice of the bride herself. For
Desiree persisted in her optimistic view of these
proceedings, though her husband scarcely helped her
now at all, and seemed a different man since the passage
through the Pfaffengasse of that dusty travelling
carriage which had played the part of the stormy petrel
from end to end of Europe.
Not what I am, but what
I Do, is my Kingdom.
Desiree had made all her own wedding-clothes.
“Her poor little marriage-basket,” she
called it. She had even made the cake which
was now cut with some ceremony by her father.
“I tremble,” she exclaimed aloud, “to
think what it may be like in the middle.”
And Mathilde was the only person there who did not
smile at the unconscious admission. The cake
was still under discussion, and the Grafin had just
admitted that it was almost as good as that other
cake which had been consumed in the days of Frederick
the Great, when the servant called Desiree from the
room.
“It is a soldier,” she said in a whisper
at the head of the stairs. “He has a paper
in his hand. I know what that means. He
is quartered on us.”
Desiree hurried downstairs. In the entrance-hall,
a broad-built little man stood awaiting her.
He was stout and red, with hair all ragged at the
temples, almost white. His eyes were lost behind
shaggy eyebrows. His face was made broader by
little whiskers stopping short at the level of his
ear. He had a snuff-blown complexion, and in
the wrinkles of his face the dust of a dozen campaigns
seemed to have accumulated.
“Barlasch,” he said curtly, holding out
a long strip of blue paper. “Of the Guard.
Once a sergeant. Italy, Egypt, the Danube.”
He frowned at Desiree while she read the paper in
the dim light that filtered through the twisted bars
of the fanlight above the door.
Then he turned to the servant who stood, comely and
breathless, looking him up and down.
“Papa Barlasch,” he added for her edification,
and he drew down his left eyebrow with a jerk, so
that it almost touched his cheek. His right
eye, grey and piercing, returned her astonished gaze
with a fierce steadfastness.
“Does this mean that you are quartered upon
us?” asked Desiree without seeking to hide her
disgust. She spoke in her own tongue.
“French?” said the soldier, looking at
her. “Good. Yes. I am quartered
here. Thirty-six, Frauengasse. Sebastian;
musician. You are lucky to get me. I always
give satisfaction—ha!”
