Be wiser than other people if you can, but do not tell them so.
Whenever Papa Barlasch caught sight of his unwilling host's face, he
turned his own aside with a despairing upward nod. Once or twice, during
the early days of his occupation of the room behind the kitchen in the
Frauengasse, he smote himself sharply on the brow, as if calling upon
his brain to make an effort. But afterwards he seemed to resign himself
to this lapse of memory, and the upward despairing nod gradually lost
intensity until at last he brought himself to pass Antoine Sebastian in
the narrow passage with no more emphatic notice than a scowl.
“You and I,” he said to Desiree, “are the friends. The others--”
And his gesture seemed to permit the others to go hang if they so
desired. The army had gone forward, leaving Dantzig in that idle
restlessness which holds those who, finding themselves in a house of
sickness, are not permitted entry to the darkened chamber, but must
await the crisis elsewhere.
There were some busy enough in the commerce that must exist between a
huge army and its base, in the forwarding of war material and stores, in
accommodating the sick and sending out in return those who were to
fill the gaps. But the Dantzigers themselves had nothing to do. Their
prosperous trade was paralyzed. Those who had aught to sell had sold it.
The high-seas and the high-roads were alike blocked by the French. And
rumour, ever busy among those that wait, ran to and fro in the town.
The Emperor of Russia had been taken prisoner. Napoleon had been
checked at the passage of the Niemen. There had been a great battle at
Gumbinnen, and the French were in full retreat. Vilna had capitulated to
Murat, and the war was at an end. A hundred authentic despatches of the
morning were the subject of contemptuous laughter at the supper-table.
Lisa heard these tales in the market-place, and told Desiree, who,
as often as not, translated them to Barlasch. But he only held up his
wrinkled forefinger and shook it slowly from side to side.
“Woman's chatter!” he said. “What is the German for 'magpie'?”
And on being told the word, he repeated it gravely to Lisa. For he had
not only fulfilled his promise of settling down in the house, but had
assumed therein a distinct and clearly defined position. He was the
counsellor, and from his chair just within the kitchen he gave forth
judgment.
“And you,” he said to Desiree one morning, when household affairs had
taken her to the kitchen, “you are troubled this morning. You have had a
letter from your husband?”
“Yes--and he is in good health.”
“Ah!”
Barlasch glared at her beneath his brows, looking her up and down,
noting her quick movements, which had the uncertainty of youth.
“And now that he is gone,” he said, “and that there is war, you are
going to employ yourself by falling in love with him, when you had all
the time before, and did not take advantage of it.”
Desiree laughed at him and made no other answer. While she spoke to Lisa
he sat and watched them.
“It would be like a woman to do such a thing,” he pursued. “They are
so inconvenient--women. They get married for fun, and then one fine
Thursday they find they have missed all the fun, like one who comes late
to the theatre--when the music is over.”
He went to the table and examined the morning marketing, which Lisa
had laid out in preparation for dinner. Of some of her purchases he
approved, but he laughed aloud at a lettuce which had no heart, and at
such a buyer.
Then Desiree attracted his scrutiny again.
“Yes,” he said, half to himself, “I see it. You are in love. Just
Heaven, I know! I have had them in love with me.... Barlasch.”
“That must have been a long time ago,” answered Desiree with her gay
laugh, only giving him half her attention.
“Yes, it was a century ago. But they were the same then as they are now,
as they always will be--inconvenient. They waited, however, till they
were grown up!”
And with his ever-ready accusing finger he drew Desiree's attention to
her own slimness. They were left alone for a minute while Lisa answered
a knock at the door, during which time Barlasch sat in grim silence.
“It is a letter,” said Lisa, returning. “A sailor brought it.”
“Another?” said Barlasch, with a gesture of despair.
“Can you give me news of Charles?” Desiree read, in a writing that was
unknown to her. “I shall wait a reply until midnight on board the
Elsa, lying off the Krahn-Thor.” The letter bore the signature, “Louis
d'Arragon.” Desiree turned slowly and went upstairs, carrying it folded
small in her closed hand.
She was alone in the house, for Mathilde was out and her father had not
yet returned from his evening walk. She stood at the head of the stairs,
where the last of the daylight filtered through the barred window, and
read the letter again. Then she turned and gave a slight start to see
Barlasch at the foot of the stairs beckoning to her. He made no attempt
to come up, but stood on the mat like a dog that has been forbidden the
upper rooms.
“Is it about your father?” he asked, in a hoarse whisper.
“No!”
He made a gesture commanding secrecy and silence. Then he went to close
the kitchen door and returned on tip-toe.
“It is,” he explained, “that they are talking of him in the cafes. There
are many to be arrested to-morrow. They say the patron is one of them,
and employs himself in plotting. That his name is not Sebastian at all.
That he is a Frenchman who escaped the guillotine. What do I know? It is
the gossip of the cafes. But I tell it you because we are friends, you
and I. And some day I may want you to do something for me. One thinks
of one's self, eh? It is good to make friends. For some day one may want
them. That is why I do it. I think of myself. An old soldier. Of the
Guard.”
With many gestures of tremendous import, and a face all wrinkled and
twisted with mystery, he returned to the kitchen.
Mathilde was not to return until late. She had gone to the house of the
old Grafin whose reminiscences had been a fruitful topic at Desiree's
wedding. After dining there she and the Grafin were to go together to
a farewell reception given by the Governor. For Rapp was bound for the
frontier with the rest, and was to go to the war as first aide-de-camp
to the Emperor.
Mathilde could not be back until ten o'clock. She, who was so quick and
quiet, had been much occupied in social observances lately, and had made
fast friends with the Grafin during the last few days, constantly going
to see her.
Desiree knew that what Barlasch had repeated as the gossip of the cafes
was in part, if not wholly, true. She and Mathilde had long known that
any mention of France had the instant effect of turning their father
into a man of stone. It was the skeleton in this quiet house that sat at
table with its inmates, a shadowy fourth tying their tongues. The rattle
of its bones seemed to paralyze Sebastian's mind, and at any moment he
would fall into a dumb and stricken apathy which terrified those about
him. At such times it seemed that one thought in his mind had swallowed
all the rest, so that he heard without understanding and saw without
perceiving.
He was in such a humour when he came back to dinner. He passed Desiree
on the stairs without speaking and went to his room to change his
clothes, for he never relaxed his formal habits. At the dinner-table he
glanced at her as a dog, knowing that he is ill, may be seen to glance
with a secret air at his master, wondering whether he is detected.
Desiree had always hoped that her father would speak to her when this
humour was upon him and tell her the meaning of it. Perhaps it would
come to-night, when they were alone. There was an unspoken sympathy
existing between them in which Mathilde took no share, which had even
shut out Charles as out of a room where there was no light, into which
Desiree and her father went at times and stood hand-in-hand without
speaking.
They dined in silence, while Lisa hurried about her duties, oppressed by
a sense of unknown fear. After dinner they went to the drawing-room as
usual. It had been a dull day, with great clouds creeping up from the
West. The evening fell early, and the lamps were already alight. Desiree
looked to the wicks with the eye of experience when she entered the
room. Then she went to the window. Lisa did not always draw the curtains
effectually. She glanced down into the street, and turned suddenly on
her heel, facing her father.
“They are there,” she said. For she had seen shadowy forms lurking
beneath the trees of the Frauengasse. The street was ill-lighted, but
she knew the shadows of the trees.
“How many?” asked Sebastian, in a dull voice.
She glanced at him quickly--at his still, frozen face and quiescent
hands. He was not going to rise to the occasion, as he sometimes did
even from his deepest apathy. She must do alone anything that was to be
accomplished to-night.
The house, like many in the Frauengasse, had been built by a careful
Hanseatic merchant, whose warehouse was his own cellar half sunk beneath
the level of the street. The door of the warehouse was immediately under
the front door, down a few steps below the street, while a few more
steps, broad and footworn, led up to the stone veranda and the level of
the lower dwelling-rooms. A guard placed in the street could thus watch
both doors without moving.
There was a third door, giving exit from the little room where Barlasch
slept to the small yard where he had placed those trunks which were made
in France.
Desiree had no time to think. She came of a race of women of a brighter
intelligence than any women in the world. She took her father by the
arm and hastened downstairs. Barlasch was at his post within the kitchen
door. His eyes shone suddenly as he saw her face. It was said of Papa
Barlasch that he was a gay man in battle, laughing and making a hundred
jests, but at other times lugubrious. Desiree saw him smile for the
first time, in the dim light of the passage.
“They are there in the street,” he said; “I have seen them. I thought
you would come to Barlasch. They all do--the women. In here. Leave him
to me. When they ring the bell, receive them yourself--with smiles. They
are only men. Let them search the house if they want to. Tell them he
has gone to the reception with Mademoiselle.”
As he spoke the bell rang just above his head. He looked up at it and
laughed.
“Ah, ah!” he said, “the fanfare begins.”
He drew Sebastian within and closed the door of his little room. Lisa
had already gone to answer the bell. When she opened the door three
men stepped quickly over the threshold, and one of them, thrusting her
aside, closed the door and turned the key. Desiree, in her white evening
dress, on the bottom step, just beneath the lamp that hung from the
ceiling, made them pause and look at each other. Then one of the three
came towards her, hat in hand.
“Our duty, Fraulein,” he said awkwardly. “We are but obeying orders. A
mere formality. It will all be explained, no doubt, if the householder,
Antoine Sebastian, will put on his hat and come with us.”
“His hat is not there, as you see,” answered Desiree. “You must seek him
elsewhere.”
The man shook his head with a knowing smile. “We must seek him in
this house,” he said. “We will make it as easy for you as we can,
Fraulein--if you make it easy for us.”
As he spoke he produced a candle from his pocket, and encouraged the
broken wick with his finger-nail.
“It will make it pleasanter for all,” said Desiree cheerfully, “if you
will accept a candlestick.”
The man glanced at her. He was a heavy man, with little suspicious eyes
set close together. He seemed to be concluding that she had outwitted
him--that Sebastian was not in the house.
“Where are the cellar-stairs?” he asked. “I warn you, Fraulein, it is
useless to conceal your father. We shall, of course, find him.”
Desiree pointed to the door next to that giving entry to the kitchen. It
was bolted and locked. Desiree found the key for them. She not only gave
them every facility, but was anxious that they should be as quick as
possible. They did not linger in the cellar, which, though vast, was
empty; and when they returned, Desiree, who was waiting for them, led
the way upstairs.
They were rather abashed by her silence. They would have preferred
protestations and argument. Discussion always belittles. The smile
recommended by Papa Barlasch, lurking at the corner of her lips, made
them feel foolish. She was so slight and young and helpless, that a sort
of shame rendered them clumsy.
They felt more at home in the kitchen when they arrived there, and the
sight of Lisa, sturdy and defiant, reminded them of the authority upon
which Desiree had somehow cast a mystic contempt.
“There is a door there,” said the heavy official, with a brusque return
of his early manner. “Come, what is that door?”
“That is a little room.”
“Then open it.”
“I cannot,” returned Lisa. “It is locked.”
“Aha!” said the man, with a laugh of much meaning. “On the inside, eh?”
He went to it, and banged on it with his fist.
“Come,” he shouted, “open it and be done.”
There was a short silence, during which those in the kitchen listened
breathlessly. A shuffling sound inside the door made the officer of the
law turn and beckon to his two men to come closer.
Then, after some fumbling, as of one in the dark, the door was unlocked
and slowly opened.
Papa Barlasch stood in a very primitive night-apparel within the door.
He had not done things by halves, for he was an old campaigner, and knew
that a thing half done is better left undone in times of war. He noted
the presence of Desiree and Lisa, but was not ashamed. The reason of it
was soon apparent. For Papa Barlasch was drunk, and the smell of drink
came out of his apartment in a warm wave.
“It is the soldier billeted in the house,” explained Lisa, with a
half-hysterical laugh.
Then Barlasch harangued them in the language of intoxication. If he had
not spared Desiree's feelings, he spared her ears less now; for he was
an ignorant man, who had lived through a brutal period in the world's
history the roughest life a man can lead. Two of the men held him
with difficulty against the wall, while the third hastily searched the
room--where, indeed, no one could well be concealed.
Then they quitted the house, followed by the polyglot curses of
Barlasch, who was now endeavouring to find his bayonet amidst his
chaotic possessions.