12. Conversation and Music

“Such a little nation, a handful of people, has no right to live as it pleases. Great empires are necessary to accomplish great things.”

“It is possible. But to live as you please in a dear little home that you adore, is a good thing, without doubt. Love of country, which is good for great nations, cannot be bad for small ones,” said a young captain.

“You are right,” said the old officer, philosophically, “for those nations which are too large finally fall to pieces. I am sometimes afraid of all our greatness.”

It was plain that everyone spoke without restraint. This will astonish those only who have not lived in camps. Discipline rules the body only, the tongue is less frequently enslaved there than elsewhere. The free soul takes its revenge everywhere.

Their talk turned little by little to the battle of the morning and of the day before.

“These peasants fight like heroes,” said one.

“Like demons,” said a robust fellow whose arm was in a sling. “If they had leaders and instruction, it wouldn’t be so very easy to conquer them.”

“To die from the wound of a pitch-fork isn’t pleasant for a soldier,” added another. “Who would have said that our colonel would end thus? ‘ What! not even by a thrust of a lance,’“ he exclaimed, falling down. “Cursed be this war! What ugly wounds! The surgeons do not understand them. They are all puzzled, and how many there are wounded, how many dead! They are wolves, these peasants, real mad wolves. You think them killed; not at all, they rise up to bite you. Two more victories like this last one, and, if the reinforcements do not arrive, we can no longer keep the field.”

“If our soldiers would only fight as they do!” said an old officer.

“They would fight thus,” said a wounded soldier, “if they were fighting for their wives and children, and the homes of their fathers.” How pale he was, this poor soldier! And what an effort he had made to raise himself up a little to speak such a truth to his superior! The officer spoke to him. But the soldier was silent, he had fallen back, he was dead.

The old minstrel had lost nothing of this conversation. Did he think that he had heard enough?

Suddenly he began such a joyous air, so bewitching, so gay, that it would make even a hermit want to dance.

It was the story of a young and brave girl, who had sold her petticoat to buy a pipe for her lover, and had carried it, lighted, to him, through a shower of balls on the field of battle. The general humor changed at once. The older soldiers beat time, the younger ones joined in the chorus with the singer. “What a fine singer!” they said. “What tones he draws from his théorbe! What a pleasant evening! Who could have expected it?”