stupid joy, and he waited with impatience until the fragment of the
mare given to his orderly was cooked. The smell of the roasting flesh
increased his hunger, and his hunger silenced his heart, his courage,
and his love. He looked, without anger, at the results of the pillage
of his carriage. All the men seated around the fire had shared his
blankets, cushions, pelisses, robes, also the clothing of the Comte
and Comtesse de Vandieres and his own. Philippe looked about him to
see if there was anything left in or near the vehicle that was worth
saving. By the light of the flames he saw gold and diamonds and plate
scattered everywhere, no one having thought it worth his while to take
any.

Each of the individuals collected by chance around this fire
maintained a silence that was almost horrible, and did nothing but
what he judged necessary for his own welfare. Their misery was even
grotesque. Faces, discolored by cold, were covered with a layer of
mud, on which tears had made a furrow from the eyes to the beard,
showing the thickness of that miry mask. The filth of their long
beards made these men still more repulsive. Some were wrapped in the
countess's shawls, others wore the trappings of horses and muddy
saddlecloths, or masses of rags from which the hoar-frost hung; some
had a boot on one leg and a shoe on the other; in fact, there were
none whose costume did not present some laughable singularity. But in
presence of such amusing sights the men themselves were grave and
gloomy. The silence was broken only by the snapping of the wood, the
crackling of the flames, the distant murmur of the camps, and the
blows of the sabre given to what remained of Bichette in search of her
tenderest morsels. A few miserable creatures, perhaps more weary than
the rest, were sleeping; when one of their number rolled into the fire
no one attempted to help him out. These stern logicians argued that if