where I bedded down on a heap of straw. The next day I told Pertelay
of my misadventure, and he reported it to the sub-lieutenant
commanding the platoon. He was a well-educated man named
Leisteinschneider (in German, a stone-worker) who was later killed
in action. He understood how painful it must be for me to have to
sleep with a bootmaker, and he took it on himself to arrange for me
to have a bed in the N.C.O's room, something which pleased me
greatly.

Although the revolution had produced a great relaxation in the
general turn-out of troops, the 1st Hussars had kept theirs exactly
as it was when they were Bercheny's Hussars; so except for the
physical differences imposed by nature, all troopers had to resemble
one another in their appearance, and as the regiments of Hussars of
that period had not only pig-tails, but long plaited tresses which
hung from their temples and turned-up moustaches, it was the rule
that everyone belonging to the regiment must have moustache, pig-tail
and tresses. Now, as I had none of these things, my mentor took me
to the regimental wig-maker where I bought a false pig-tail and
tresses, which were attached to my own hair, already fairly long, as
I had let it grow since my enlistment. These embellishments
embarrassed me at first but I got used to them in a few days, and it
pleased me to imagine that they gave me the appearance of a seasoned
trooper. It was a different matter when it came to the moustache I
had no more of a moustache than a girl, and as a hairless face would
have spoiled the ranks of the squadron, Pertelay, as was the custom
of Bercheny, took a pot of black wax, and with his thumb he gave me
an enormous curling moustache, which covered my upper lip and reached
almost to, my eyes. The shakos of the time did not have a vizor, so
that, when I was on guard duty, or during an inspection, when one has