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And it was characteristic of the man that he had left nothing behind him no papers, no testament, no clue to that other life so different from his life in the Frauengasse that it must have lapsed into a fleeting, intangible memory, such as the brain is sometimes allowed to retain of a dream dreamt in this existence, or perhaps in another. Sebastian was gone with his secret.
For Peter Koch lived round the corner in the Kleine Schmiedegasse, and of course well, it is only neighbourly to take an interest in those who drink milk from the same cow and buy wood from the same Jew. The fishwife looked thoughtfully down the Frauengasse where every house has a different gable, and none of less than three floors within the pitch of the roof.
There has been much fighting the last few days, but I have seen none of it. We are only eighty miles from Moscow. If there is a great battle to-morrow we shall see Moscow in less than a week. For we shall win. I have now found out from one who is near him that the Emperor saw and remembered me the day he passed us in the Frauengasse our wedding-day, dearest.
She was up early and still astir after nine o'clock at night, when the other houses in the Frauengasse were quiet, if there were work to do. "It is because she has no method," said Mathilde, who had herself a well-ordered mind, and that quickness which never needs to hurry. The moth will singe her wings, and singed return, Her love of light quenching her fear of pain.
Amid such contending interests, and in a free city so near to several frontiers, men came and went without attracting undesired attention. Each party suspected a new-comer of belonging to the other. "He scrapes a fiddle," Koch had explained to the inquiring fishwife. And perhaps he knew no more than this of Antoine Sebastian. Sebastian was poor. All the Frauengasse knew that.
All these arrangements had been made, as Desiree had prepared her trousseau, with a zest and gaiety which all were invited to enjoy. It is said that love is an egoist. Charles and Desiree had no desire to keep their happiness to themselves, but wore it, as it were, upon their sleeves. The attitude of the Frauengasse towards Desiree's wedding was only characteristic of the period.
Her girlhood, in the Frauengasse, had been marked by the various woes of Prussia, by each successive step in the development of Napoleon's ambition. There were no bogey-men in the night-nursery at the beginning of the century. One Aaron's rod of a bogey had swallowed all the rest, and children buried their sobs in the pillow for fear of Napoleon.
Mathilde had gone, taking with her her few simple possessions; for they had always been poor in the Frauengasse. Sebastian had departed on that journey which the traveller must face alone, taking naught with him.
"Yes! madame," said de Casimir; for it was to Desiree that he spoke, "and your husband is more fortunate than I. He is sure of a staff appointment. He will be among the first. It will soon be over. To-morrow war is to be declared." They were in the street not far from the Frauengasse, whence Desiree, always practical, was hurrying towards the market-place.
The Frauengasse is intersected by the Pfaffengasse at right angles, through which narrow and straight street passes much of the traffic towards the Langenmarkt, the centre of the town. As the little bridal procession reached the corner of this street, it halted at the approach of some mounted troops.
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