"I will put him there. He will stand. And"--his face lit up with sudden fire--"and 'where he wants to go' he shall go, please God!"
He swept the soldiers into a heap and pushed them from him, waiting impatiently while Mrs. Schotz deftly made them up into a parcel. But when that was done he still lingered. Suddenly he turned to Joseph Schotz with a sort of desperation.
"Did he never--waver--your Napoleon--even when he watched thousands of you--even men with children--die, and die because he placed you there--bound in the shambles?"
The cabinet-maker raised his head from his work in surprise. The inexplicable agony in the face of the other man brought an unusual thoughtfulness into the peasant's face.
"I do not know"--he hesitated--"I am not sure. He must have felt--but no one ever saw him. He could not stop. There was not a moment when, if he had halted--even to pity--all the great Thing he was building would not have fallen about his ears--and carried all France down with it. No, he could not stop. If he had been of those who falter"--here Schotz shrugged his shoulders with the gesture of the Frenchmen he had fought among--"Buonaparte should not have played the game of war."
The tall man winced. He looked for a moment as if the cabinet-maker had taunted him--knowing. Then he straightened his shoulders. His face hardened into lines of steadfastness and determination. Taking up his parcel--
"Thank you," he said, with a deeper intonation than one would have expected in return for so slight a deed--"thank you," he said to Joseph Schotz, and wrung his hand with a grasp that hurt. Then he hurried out.
When they had watched the great figure out of sight--
"Who is he--that tall man? Do you know, my wife?" asked Joseph Schotz, in their own tongue.
"Some American," replied his wife, with democratic unconcern. Then when her husband continued to gaze earnestly at the door from which their guest had departed, "A sad-looking man, I think."
"Yes, he is one that carries with him the sorrows of the world. When he came into the world he had already known what it was to sorrow. Men like that must learn to laugh or they cannot live."
"What does it matter?" she said, rallying him. "He is not thy Napoleon."