Barlasch had never yet been upstairs in the Sebastians' house, and
deemed it only respectful to the ladies to take off his boots on the
mat, and prowl to the kitchen in coarse blue woollen stockings,
carefully darned by himself, under the scornful immediate eye of
Lisa.
He was in the kitchen when Mathilde and Desiree, in obedience to his
command, came downstairs. The floor in one corner of the room was
littered with his belongings; for he never used the table. "He
takes up no more room than a cat," Lisa once said of him. "I never
fall over him."
"She leaves her greasy plates here and there," explained Barlasch in
return. "One must think of one's self and one's uniform."
He was in his stocking-feet with unbuttoned tunic when the two girls
came to him.
"Ai, ai, ai," he said, imitating with his two hands the galloping of
a horse. "The Russians," he explained confidentially.
"Has there been a battle?" asked Desiree.
And Barlasch answered "Pooh!" not without contempt for the female
understanding.
"Then what is it?" she inquired. "You must remember we are not
soldiers--we do not understand those manoeuvres--ai, ai, like that."
And she copied his gesture beneath his scowling contempt.
"It is Vilna," he said. "That is what it is. Then it will be
Smolensk, and then Moscow. Ah, ah! That little man!"
He turned and took up his haversack.
"And I--I have my route. It is good-bye to the Frauengasse.
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