"Ah! here is our sergeant!" cried Safel, triumphantly.
"Oh! that is good," replied my wife, in a cheerful tone. "Come in, Mr.
Sergeant, come in! We were expecting you. I knew that we were to have
the honor of having a sergeant; we were glad to hear it, because we
have had only common soldiers before. Be so good as to come in, Mr.
Sergeant."
[Illustration: "BE SO GOOD AS TO COME IN, MR. SERGEANT."]
She spoke in this way as if she were really pleased, and I thought to
myself:
"O Sorle, Sorle! You shrewd woman! You sensible woman! I see through
it now. I see your cunning. You are going to mollify this rascal!
Ah, Moses! what a wife you have! Congratulate yourself! Congratulate
yourself!"
I hastened to dress myself, laughing all the while; and I heard this
brute of a sergeant say:
"Yes, yes! It is all very well. But that isn't the point! Show me my
room, my bed. You can't pay me with fine speeches; people know
Sergeant Trubert too well for that."
"Certainly, Mr. Sergeant, certainly," replied my wife, "here is your
room and your bed. See, it is the best we have."
Then they went into the passage, and I heard Sorle open the door of the
handsome room which Baruch and Zeffen occupied when they came to
Phalsburg.
I followed them softly. The sergeant thrust his fist into the bed to
feel if it was soft. Sorle and Safel looked on smilingly behind him.
He examined every corner with a scowl. You never saw such a face,
Fritz; a gray bristling mustache, a long thin nose, hooked over the
mouth; a yellow skin, full of wrinkles: he dragged the butt-end of his
gun on the floor, without seeming to notice anything, and muttered
ill-naturedly:
"Hem! hem! What is that down there?"
"It is the wash-basin, Mr. Sergeant."
"And these chairs, are they strong? Will they bear anything?"
He knocked them rudely down. It was evident he wanted to find fault
with something.
On turning round he saw me, and looking at me sideways, asked:
"Are you the citizen?"
"Yes, sergeant; I am."
"Ah!"
He put his gun in a corner, threw his knapsack on the table, and said:
"That will do! You may go."
Safel had opened the kitchen door, and the good smell of the roast came
into the room.
"Mr. Sergeant," said Sorle very pleasantly, "allow me to ask a favor of
you."
"You!" said he, looking at her over his shoulder, "ask a favor of me!"
"Yes. It is that since you now lodge with us, and will be in some
respects one of the family, you will give us the pleasure of dining
with us, at least for once."
"Ah, ah!" said he, turning his nose toward the kitchen, "that is
another thing!"
He seemed to be considering whether to grant us this favor or not. We
waited for him to answer, when he gave another sniff and threw his
cartridge-box on the bed, saying:
"Well, so be it! We will go and see!"
"Wretch!" thought I, "if I could make you eat potatoes!"
But Sorle seemed satisfied, and said:
"This way, Mr. Sergeant; this way, if you please."
When we went into the dining-room I saw that everything was prepared as
if for a prince; the floor swept, the table carefully laid, a white
table-cloth, and our silver knives and forks.
Sorle placed the sergeant in my arm-chair at the head of the table,
which seemed to him the most natural thing in the world.
Our servant brought in the large tureen and took off the cover; the
odor of a good cream soup filled the room, and we began our dinner.
Fritz, I could tell you everything we had for dinner; but believe me,
neither you nor I ever had a better. We had a roasted goose, a
magnificent pike, sauerkraut, everything, in fact, which could be
desired for a grand dinner, and all served by Sorle in the most perfect
manner. We had, too, four bottles of Beaujolais warmed in napkins, as
was the custom in winter, and an abundant dessert.
Well! do you believe that the rascal once had the grace to seem pleased
with all this? Do you believe that all through this dinner, which
lasted nearly two hours, he once thought of saying, "This pike is
excellent!" or, "This fat goose is well cooked!" or, "You have very
good wine!" or any of the other things which we know are pleasant for a
host to hear, and which repay a good cook for his trouble? No, Fritz,
not once! You would have supposed that he had such dinners every day.
The more even that my wife flattered him, and the more kindly she spoke
to him, the more he rebuffed her, the more he scowled, the more
defiantly he looked at us, as if we wanted to poison him.
From time to time I looked indignantly at Sorle, but she kept on
smiling; she kept on giving the nicest bits to the sergeant; she kept
on filling his glass.
Two or three times I wanted to say, "Ah, Sorle, what a good cook you
are! How nice this force-meat is!" But suddenly the sergeant would
look down upon me as if to say, "What does that signify? Perhaps you
want to give me lessons? Don't I know better than you do whether a
thing is good or bad?"
So I kept silence. I could have wished him--well, in worse company; I
grew more and more indignant at every morsel which he swallowed in
silence. Nevertheless Sorle's example encouraged me to put a good face
on the matter, and toward the end I thought, "Now, since the dinner is
eaten, since it is almost over, we will go on, with God's help. Sorle
was mistaken, but it is all the same; her idea was a good one, except
for such a rascal!"
And I myself ordered coffee; I went to the closet, too, to get some
cherry-brandy and old rum.
"What is that?" asked the sergeant.
"Rum and cherry-brandy; old cherry-brandy from the 'Black Forest,'" I
replied.
"Ah," said he, winking, "everybody says, 'I have got some cherry-brandy
from the Black Forest!' It is very easy to say; but they can't cheat
Sergeant Trubert; we will see about this!"
In taking his coffee he twice filled his glass with cherry-brandy, and
both times said, "He! he! We will see whether it is genuine."