His
fresh cheek was bent to the brown, delicate wood, and he was playing
to his sister the air of the undying chanson, "Je vais mourir pour
ma belle reine." I loved the look of his face, like that of a young
Apollo, open, sweet, and bold, all his body having the epic strength
of life. I wished that I might have him near me as a comrade, for
out of my hard experience I could teach him much, and out of his
youth he could soften my blunt nature, by comradeship making
flexuous the hard and ungenial.
I went on talking to the Intendant, while some of the guests
rose and scattered about the rooms, at tables, to play picquet,
the jesting on our cause and the scorn of myself abating not at
all. I would not have it thought that anything was openly coarse or
brutal; it was all by innuendo, and brow-lifting, and maddening,
allusive phrases such as it is thought fit for gentlefolk to use
instead of open charge. There was insult in a smile, contempt
in the turn of a shoulder, challenge in the flicking of a
handkerchief. With great pleasure I could have wrung their noses
one by one, and afterwards have met them tossing sword-points in
the same order.
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