So far I admit that I was wrong, but now I come to the sequel.
Supper over, the colonel and some other officers left the room,
for it was in a farm-house that the mess was held. There
remained a dozen or so, and a goat-skin of Spanish wine having
been brought in we all made merry. Presently this Major Olivier
asked me some questions concerning the army of Germany and as to
the part which I had myself played in the campaign. Flushed with
the wine, I was drawn on from story to story. It was not
unnatural, my friends.
You will sympathise with me. Up there I had been the model for
every officer of my years in the army. I was the first
swordsman, the most dashing rider, the hero of a hundred
adventures. Here I found myself not only unknown, but even
disliked. Was it not natural that I should wish to tell these
brave comrades what sort of man it was that had come among them?
Was it not natural that I should wish to say, "Rejoice, my
friends, rejoice! It is no ordinary man who has joined you
to-night, but it is I, THE Gerard, the hero of Ratisbon, the
victor of Jena, the man who broke the square at Austerlitz"? I
could not say all this.
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