So after the usual wanderings we were admitted to our night's
lodging--a roof supported by four posts, and with the four quarters
of the compass for its walls. But it was a good roof--an advantage
which we could appreciate. It was already sheltering a cart and a
plow, and we settled ourselves by them. Paradis, who had fumed and
complained without ceasing during the hour we had spent in tramping
to and fro, threw down his knapsack and then himself, and stayed
there awhile, weary to the utmost, protesting that his limbs were
benumbed, that the soles of his feet were painful, and indeed all
the rest of him.
But now the house to which our hanging roof was subject, the house
which stood just in front of us, was lighted up. Nothing attracts a
soldier in the gray monotony of evening so much as a window whence
beams the star of a lamp.
"Shall we have a squint?" proposed Volpatte.
"So be it," said Paradis. He gets up gradually, and hobbling with
weariness, steers himself towards the golden window that has
appeared in the gloom, and then towards the door. Volpatte follows
him, and I Volpatte.
We enter, and ask the old man who has let us in and whose twinkling
head is as threadbare as an old hat, if he has any wine to sell.
"No," replies the old man, shaking his head, where a little white
fluff crops out in places.
"No beer? No coffee? Anything at all--"
"No, mes amis, nothing of anything. We don't belong here; we're
refugees, you know.
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