Barlasch of the Guard | Page 5

fact that this walnut-faced warrior
was smiling. She laughed gaily.
"It is well," said Barlasch. "We are friends. You are lucky to get me.
You may not think so now. Would this woman like me to speak to her
in Polish or German?"
"Do you speak so many languages?"
He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his arms as far as his many
burdens allowed. For he was hung round with a hundred parcels and
packages.
"The Old Guard," he said, "can always make itself understood."
He rubbed his hands together with the air of a brisk man ready for any
sort of work.
"Now, where shall I sleep?" he asked. "One is not particular, you
understand. A few minutes and one is at home--perhaps peeling the
potatoes. It is only a civilian who is ashamed of using his knife on a
potato. Papa Barlasch, they call me."
Without awaiting an invitation he went forward towards the kitchen.
He seemed to know the house by instinct. His progress was
accompanied by a clatter of utensils like that which heralds the coming
of a carrier's cart.
At the kitchen door he stopped and sniffed loudly. There certainly was
a slight odour of burning fat. Papa Barlasch turned and shook an
admonitory finger at the servant, but he said nothing. He looked round
at the highly polished utensils, at the table and floor both alike
scrubbed clean by a vigorous northern arm. And he was kind enough to
nod approval.
"On a campaign," he said to no one in particular, "a little bit of horse

thrust into the cinders on the end of a bayonet--but in times of
peace . . ."
He broke off and made a gesture towards the saucepans which
indicated quite clearly that he was between campaigns--inclined to
good living.
"I am a rude fork," he jerked to Desiree over his shoulder in the dialect
of the Cotes du Nord.
"How long will you be here?" asked Desiree, who was eminently
practical. A billet was a misfortune which Charles Darragon had
hitherto succeeded in warding off. He had some small influence as an
officer of the head-quarters' staff.
Barlasch held up a reproving hand. The question, he seemed to think,
was not quite delicate.
"I pay my own," he said. "Give and take--that is my motto. When you
have nothing to give . . . offer a smile."
With a gesture he indicated the bundle of firewood which Desiree still
absent-mindedly carried against her white dress. He turned and opened
a cupboard low down on the floor at the left-hand side of the fireplace.
He seemed to know by an instinct usually possessed by charwomen and
other domesticated persons of experience where the firewood was kept.
Lisa gave a little exclamation of surprise at his impertinence and his
perspicacity. He took the firewood, unknotted his handkerchief, and
threw his offering into the cupboard. Then he turned and perceived for
the first time that Desiree had a bright ribbon at her waist and on her
shoulders; that a thin chain of gold was round her throat and that there
were flowers at her breast.
"A fete?" he inquired curtly.
"My marriage fete," she answered. "I was married half an hour ago."
He looked at her beneath his grizzled brows. His face was only capable

of producing one expression--a shaggy weather-beaten fierceness. But,
like a dog which can express more than many human beings, by a
hundred instinctive gestures he could, it seemed, dispense with words
on occasion and get on quite as well without them. He clearly
disapproved of Desiree's marriage, and drew her attention to the fact
that she was no more than a schoolgirl with an inconsequent brain, and
little limbs too slight to fight a successful battle in a world full of
cruelty and danger.
Then he made a gesture half of apology as if recognizing that it was no
business of his, and turned away thoughtfully.
"I had troubles of that sort myself," he explained, putting together the
embers on the hearth with the point of a twisted, rusty bayonet, "but
that was long ago. Well, I can drink your health all the same,
mademoiselle."
He turned to Lisa with a friendly nod and put out his tongue, in the
manner of the people, to indicate that his lips were dry.
Desiree had always been the housekeeper. It was to her that Lisa
naturally turned in her extremity at the invasion of her kitchen by Papa
Barlasch. And when that warrior had been supplied with beer it was
with Desiree, in an agitated whisper in the great dark dining- room with
its gloomy old pictures and heavy carving, that she took counsel as to
where he should be quartered.
The object of their solicitude himself interrupted their