Though no water had flowed
beneath this bridge, many strange feet had passed across it.
It had vibrated beneath Napoleon's heavy carriage, under the
lumbering guns that Macdonald took northward to blockade Riga.
Within the last few weeks it had given passage to the last of the
retreating army, a mere handful of heartsick fugitives. Macdonald
with his staff had been ignominiously driven across it by the
Cossacks who followed hard after them, the great marshal still wild
with rage at the defection of Yorck and the Prussian contingent.
And now the Cossacks on their spare and ill-tempered horses passed
to and fro, wild men under an untamed leader whose heart was
hardened to stone by bereavement. The cobbler looked at them with a
countenance of wood. It was hard to say whether he preferred them
to the French, or was indifferent to one as to the other. He looked
at their boots with professional disdain. For all men must look at
the world from their own standpoint and consider mankind in the
light of their own interests. Thus those who live on the greed or
the vanity, or batten on the charity of their neighbour, learn to
watch the lips.
The cobbler, by reason of looking at the lower end of men, attracted
little attention from the passer-by. He who has his eyes on the
ground passes unheeded. For the surest way of awakening interest is
to appear interested. It would seem that this cobbler was waiting
for a pair of boots not made in Konigsberg.
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