He told a
thousand anecdotes. He knew all the story of the pass; how the Swiss,
filing through it, had scattered the Milanese; how Suwarrow and Massena
had made its sterility fertile with blood.
Hugenot's admiration amounted to envy. He had never known his associate
so brilliant, so pleasing; the exaltation was too great, indeed, to
arise from any ordinary cause; but Hugenot was not shrewd enough to
inquire into the affair. He wearied at length of the talk and of the
scene, and when at last they reached the region of perpetual ice, he
closed the cabriolet windows, and watched the filtering flakes, and
heard the snow crush under the wheels, and dropped into a deep sleep
which the other seemed to share.
The clouds around them made the mountains dusky, and the interior of the
carriage was quite gloomy. At length the large gentleman turned his
head, so that his ear could catch every breath, and he regarded the dim
outlines of the lesser with motionless interest. Then he took a straw
from the litter at his feet, and, bending forward, touched his comrade's
throat. The other snored measuredly for a while, but the titillation
startled him at length, and he beat the air in his slumber. When the
irritation ceased he breathed tranquilly again, and then the first-named
placed his hand softly into the sleeper's pocket.
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