The eternal sameness of it all will so
distress us we shall awake one morning, find them at our bedsides,
give a kick, and die from sheer ennui. They'll use our banners to
boil their fat puddings in, they'll roast oxen in the highways,
and after our girls have married them they'll turn them into
kitchen wenches with frowsy skirts and ankles like beeves!"
But, indeed, beneath his dangerous irony there was a strain of
impishness, and he would, if need be, laugh at his own troubles,
and torture himself as he had tortured others. This morning he
was full of a carbolic humour. As the razor came to his neck he
said:
"Voban, a barber must have patience. It is a sad thing to
mistake friend for enemy. What is a friend? Is it one who says
sweet words?"
There was a pause, in which the shaving went on, and then he
continued:
"Is it he who says, I have eaten Voban's bread, and Voban shall
therefore go to prison, or be hurried to Walhalla? Or is it he who
stays the iron hand, who puts nettles in Voban's cold, cold bed,
that he may rise early and go forth among the heroes?"
I do not think Voban understood that, through some freak of purpose,
Doltaire was telling him thus obliquely he had saved him from
Bigot's cruelty, from prison or death.
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