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Updated: May 7, 2025
Again the Dantzigers laughed. "It is frozen three feet down," they said. The thermometer marked between twenty and thirty degrees of frost every night now. And it was only December only the beginning of the winter. The Russians were at the Niemen, daily coming nearer. Dantzig was full of sick and wounded. The available troops were worn out, frost-bitten, desperate.
It had overshadowed France. Its gloom had spread to Italy, Austria, Spain; had penetrated so far north as Sweden; was now hanging sullen over Dantzig, the greatest of the Hanseatic towns, the Free City. For a Dantziger had never needed to say that he was a Pole or a Prussian, a Swede or a subject of the Czar. He was a Dantziger.
Dantzig had soon succumbed to it, for the citizens had not even the satisfaction of being quite sure that they were deserving of the world's sympathy. It soon spread to the soldiers who were defending a Prussian city for a French Emperor who seemed to have forgotten them. But to-night Barlasch seemed to be more energetic. Desiree looked round over her shoulder.
"You see me in a sorry state. I have been very ill." And he made a gesture with one hand, begging her to overlook his unkempt appearance and the disorder of his room. "Where is Charles?" asked Desiree curtly. She had suddenly realized how intensely she had always disliked De Casimir, and distrusted him. "Has he not returned to Dantzig?" was the ready answer. "He should have been there a week ago.
"He enjoys a green and flourishing old age, at least I hope so; he is a man superior to his mechanic and mercantile condition by the benevolence of his behaviour to needy men of letters. And your respected aunt? She still knits stockings with the same zeal as of yore? At least I hope so. A lady of an austere virtue. I conjecture you are wishing to order another dantzig, my young friend."
Some had paid willingly enough for their warning. Others had put off the payment; for there were many Jews, then as now, in Dantzig; slow payers requiring something stronger than a threat to make them disburse.
"The Captain Louis d'Arragon." "And you have spoken to him to-day here, in Dantzig?" Barlasch nodded his head. "Was he well?" asked Desiree, with a spontaneous anxiety that made Barlasch turn slowly and look at her from beneath his great brows. "Oh, he was well enough," he answered, "he is made of steel, that gentleman. He was well enough, and he has the courage of the devil.
"Since the Jew has had his life extended, he has become silent and reserved, and only answers direct questions. When invited to become any one's guest, he eats little, and drinks in great moderation; then hurries on, never remaining long in one place. "During the period of his stay in Hamburg and Dantzig he was never seen to laugh.
Many of our best schwines he killed, but he paid all damages. He paid perhaps more than they were worth, many times more than they would have fetched in the market after a month of fattening, but he was in a hurry to get on to Dantzig. When one is in a hurry one must pay what one is asked. God be thanked for rich Americans, who are always in a hurry to get somewhere else.
"Thank you," said Desiree. She had nothing against de Casimir. She had only seen him once or twice, and she knew him to be Charles's friend, and in some sense his patron. For de Casimir held a high position in Dantzig. She was quite ready to like him since Charles liked him; but she intended to do so at her own range. It is always the woman who measures the distance.
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