“There was an old man in there, a sacristan.
I asked him where he kept the dishes, and he said
he could not speak French. I jerked my bayonet
into him—name of a name! he soon spoke French.”
Barlasch broke off these delicate confidences by a
quick word of command, and himself stood rigid in
the roadway before the Imperial Palace of the Kremlin,
presenting arms. A man passed close by them
on his way towards a waiting carriage. He was
stout and heavy-shouldered, peculiarly square, with
a thick neck and head set low in the shoulders.
On the step of the carriage he turned and surveyed
the lurid sky and the burning city to the east with
an indifferent air. Into his deep bloodshot
eyes there flashed a sudden gleam of life and power,
as he glanced along the row of watching faces to read
what was written there.
It was Napoleon, at the summit of his dream, hurriedly
quitting the Kremlin, the boasted goal of his ambition,
after having passed but one night under that proud
roof.
Tho’
he trip and fall
He shall not blind his
soul with clay.
The days were short, and November was drawing to its
end when Barlasch returned to Dantzig. Already
the frost, holding its own against a sun that seemed
to linger in the North that year, exercised its sway
almost to midday, and drew a mist from the level plains.
The autumn had been one of unprecedented splendour,
making the imaginative whisper that Napoleon, like
a second Joshua, could exact obedience even from the
sun. A month earlier, soon after the retreat
was ordered, the nights had begun to be cold, but the
days remained brilliant. Now the rivers were
shrouded in white mist, and still water was frozen.
Barlasch seemed to take it for understood that a billet
holds good throughout a whole campaign. But
the door of No. 36 Frauengasse was locked when he
turned its iron handle. He knocked, and waited
on the step.
It was Desiree who opened the door at length—Desiree,
grown older, with something new in her eyes.
Barlasch, sure of his entree, had already removed
his boots, which he carried in his hand; this added
to a certain surreptitiousness in his attitude.
A handkerchief was bound over his left eye.
He wore his shako still, but the rest of his uniform
verged on the fantastic. Under a light-blue Bavarian
cavalry cape he wore a peasant’s homespun shirt,
and he carried no arms.
He pushed past Desiree rather unceremoniously, glad
to get within doors. He was very lame, and of
his blue knitted stockings only the legs remained;
he was barefoot.
He limped towards the kitchen, glancing over his shoulder
to make sure that Desiree shut the door. The
chair he had made his own stood just within the open
door of the kitchen. It was nine o’clock
in the morning, and Lisa had gone to market.
Barlasch sat down.
