Chapter Text
The door to the bedroom was, by all means, one of completely ordinary character. It was the height and shade of brown which belonged to the legions of oak doors in all of France and the brass of its doorknob was of the same texture and appearance as the legions of doorknobs which marched alongside them. That was the very opinion that came to Marchand when he looked at it, and nothing more came of such thinking.
To his superior officer, it seemed to be one of the most notable things in all the world.
It was not for any aforementioned reasons in appearance and quality; in those matters he he had to agree it was simply a door which existed as any door should. Rather, he saw with his eyes an invisible air not perceivable to any other man which escaped from the space in between the door and its frame, and of the air were such indescribable things around it which he had yet to know. It was in this not knowing that made him greatly uneasy.
Nothing sounded out through the hall except for the constant noise of boot tapping on floor.
“Monsieur, what kind of a man is the Lieutenant?”
Not much changed on Marchand's face as he returned from his thoughts apart from the return of what little colour and shine he had to his eyes. He duly made use of them as he turned around to face Arsène, who had straightened up. “What do you mean, Lieutenant Chevaulord?”
Some inner part of Arsène's conscience suddenly came to the front of his mind and began calling out everything wrong with his stature and appearance, which earlier he had been too excited and blind to see; ‘Here,’ it said, ‘you were too careless putting on and moving about, and now it's horribly wrinkled and crunched up!’. ‘There,’ and his eyes were drawn to yet another part of his body, ‘you start your unbecoming with how crooked it is!’. ‘Look,’ then he was brought to somewhere which he felt but could not see, ‘at that piece of your hair which hangs so wildly from your head! Think of the rest of it: you should have looked in the mirror on the way here instead of arriving looking like an animal!’
The little voice started to annoy and trouble him, but it did not turn to vexation. Rather, it began to cause him distress and compounded the helplessness which had so seized him.
“What's he like, Monsieur,” he said, as he tried to relieve himself of part of the burden, “as a leader and a man? Is he a well-mannered one? Arrogant? Is he melancholy? Is he jovial? Is he calm? Is his temper short? Does he have no care left in the world? Is he vulgar? I beg you, I must know what I'm dealing with here.”
Marchand did not answer.
“I, well, I assume that he's a hardy man, isn't he? He's spent the past year getting you over here through the forests and rivers. The very fact that he's alive is a testament to his aptitude, I'm sure! I'm sure! So he's one I should treat with respect! Am I wrong, Monsieur?”
“…he's not one to speak with.”
At that, Arsène became quite surprised and turned fully to the Corporal. Once he had known what had been said did the turmoil and cold fear in his stomach churn more.
“Ah? Ah? What do you mean by that? Does he have anything that's, I hope not, less than pleasurable?” And one hundred uncomfortable little possibilities and potentialities came to his mind, but they did not spend long in there before being put to his tongue so that he could not ponder on them for far too long and cause more distress. “Why? Is he strict? Is he stubborn? Is he prone to anger — I pray not, Lord, I pray not, I don't think I'd like to go through something like—”
Marchand gestured with his fingers to his mouth. “No, Lieutenant, I mean it literally. He can't speak.”
Arsène was torn unexpectedly from his mind and instead looked over Marchand with great astonishment. So great was it that Marchand himself became astonished at the fact that astonishment could grow to such amounts in one person.
“Pardon?”
“Yes, he's mute. He doesn't have a voice.”
“What?”
“He can't speak.”
“I — how does that — how did that come to be?”
“I don't know. He was already mute when I transferred to the company, which was a long while ago.”
“Is that true? But, how? How does he lead you if he doesn't speak? How does he make sure that everyone is well if he doesn't have a voice to ask you all?” For a moment his fear was forgotten, and he replaced it with curiosity and interest. “How does he announce his orders? I thought Captains and Lieutenants-Commanding are a rough type of sort with the gruffest of voices, who bark at you all the time; how can he make himself heard amidst the chaos of battle?”
The Corporal's eyes found time fall to the door and get lost in thought, even as Arsène's eagerness did not halt for a second and rather grew even more.
“He's got a fine mind. Even finer eye. Very observant man, knows how to plan thoroughly. But he delegates quite a lot to us. Tells us his concoctions by writing down his words in the pages of a book. One he keeps at all times in his satchel. We follow them from there. The sergeants bark out the orders, I make sure everything is well, you see. But I needn't do too much. It's all accounted for in his words alone.”
Arsène visibly became even more amazed and intrigued. “Is that so?”
Marchand nodded. “Senses quite a lot, the man. Knows when things are off even slightly. But he's got a good, calm head on him. He's not all a sitter, though. He takes to the field an awful lot of the times. He leads us well, and we know him well enough to know what to do from his motions. There's nothing disappointing about him, that's what I'll say.”
“Well. He seems like an interesting man. Well, isn't he?”
“Yes. He is.”
All fell into silence for some moments.
“Just… don't expect to know him much.”
Whatever worries that Arsène had with him halted their exit just as they had approached the figurative doorway of his mind and had instead rushed back in to intrude it once again, evident in the slight bulging of his eyes.
Wonder, mixed with fear, often turned into a troubling and sometimes frightening emotion. To the irritation of higher reason, it had the tendency to trawl up impossible and absurd thoughts from depths yet unexplored and present them in the same class as those natural laws of the universe and divine to which all constants were set. It was only made worse with a colourful imagination and a restless mind, two qualities which Arsène bore like a premier specimen. “Why so? I — it's something I must ask, why so? Is he a cold man? Hostile? Strict? Like one of the instructors? Does he dislike you all? I, well, I hope not. Does he? Does he not? Or does he? Why do you say that?”
The face of the Corporal, seemingly unchanging and constant, fell into a tired sigh. He pressed the knuckles of his left hand into his hip. “He's not malicious. He's not. It's just that he's just distant, so to say.”
“What do you mean by that?” said Arsène warily.
“Chevaulord, we're comrades in this sorry group. We live and die by and for each other. It's natural that we learn a few things on the way.” Marchand gave vague gestures around in the air, the meanings of which were lost to his officer. He paused for some seconds with his mouth beginning to morph around oddly, and for some moments Arsène thought that it would turn into a frown, or into a grimace, or a smirk, but in the end it would come to the disappointing realisation that it remained all the same. “But with him, not a single one of us knows anything about his life than that he is ‘Jacob Louise’. Nothing more.”
“Why, that's quite… why is that? Is it perhaps because he can't speak?”
“He's mute, yes. But, I think it’s more from his character. He's not a man for regular merriment and talks. Don't take me the wrong way, he presides over our company once in a while, and the men do respect him, that's true. But you'll find him over maps, notes, and books more times than with us.”
“Well, well, well, well, well… I've but to say that it's… have any of you ever tried knowing him better?”
“Some of us try foolishly. But he doesn't answer.”
‘What a difficult man!’ thought Arsène with a grimace hidden behind his lips.
“For your conduct, Lieutenant Chevaulord, I guess you should be formal with him at all times. Like the rest of us.”
“The rest of you?”
“Yes. He's always got that air around him at all times. He always addresses us as a lieutenant does to his subordinates. Nothing more. And here's something odd: he doesn't mind relaxed address from us, yet not a a single one of us has managed to earn familiar terms from him.”
“Not one?” For a man who has long found himself in the company of a certain order of young and old officers of unpleasant and lofty demands, such a thing was baffling, and in his mind a circumstance practically impossible.
“None at all.”
“None! I can't believe a word you say!”
“No, I don't lie. Not one. Not me, nor the Padre. Not even Blessure, believe it or not. Even though he's treated him for months now.”
“How lonely!”
The only response which came from Marchand was a slow, thinking nod, which was then succeeded by a shrug.
“It is, but I don't think it'll be a problem for you in particular, though. Manners and courtesy and all — they teach all of that at the Polytechnique, right?”
“Well, it's a thing one must learn as an officer, it's but expected of us, Monsieur.”
“And you don't seem like a bother. Not at all. You'll do well with the Lieutenant. Just keep it all nice and it'll be fine. You will, won't you?”
No small amount of pleasure was derived from Marchand's statement, and indeed there was enough for it to become visible in his face and reinvigorate his vigour. He spoke back, with suddenly renewed confidence, “Yes, I will!”
“Very good, Lieutenant.”
They both turned to the door to stare it down for some few moments in silence, then the Corporal did not wait any longer before moving to the doorknob and turning to open it.
“Wait, wait, Monsieur, we should knock, shouldn't we?”
“He doesn't mind.”
The door opened pleasingly without any creak or irritating noise. Arsène moved to follow Marchand as he walked into the room, but some remaining parts of his anxiousness grabbed at him by the knees and nailed him to the floor for some few moments. With some rounds of breathing, he managed to banish enough of it for him to finally come in.
The bedroom which he walked into was an unremarkably-sized one of especially dark appearance and sparse yet large furnishing. There was a window at the end of the room directly across from them which let the sun in, but some especially thick curtains went in between and set in such a way to prevent most of it arriving, thus bathing everything with just enough light to wander about without knocking over things.
He saw to his left a large bed, presumably for the master and mistress of the house, and a wardrobe, both made of dark mahogany and against the backdrop of a wallpaper the colour of wine; on the wallpaper were some splotches of lighter crimson that one could assume were floral designs, but the darkness was far too overwhelming to identify anything further.
To his right there were two other pieces of furniture by the wall which greeted them: the first was an relatively tall bookcase of oak that had in it a divider that ran down its middle from top to bottom. The right side of the bookcase was completely and wholly filled with numerous old tomes of various sizes, neatly arranged in row after row on shelf after shelf with their titles emblazoned in bold, sometimes gold lettering. Upon further investigation a thick layer of dust of seemingly a few years presented itself, and it appeared clearly that not a single book had been moved in that time. Meanwhile, the left side yet had ample space in them looked to have accumulated and transferred many books in its life up until very recently, but those which remained and laid there was arranged in such a discordant way, with several of its volumes strewn messily and disorderly across the entire section in some attempt to find the best way to fit whatever that was left and imitate the orderliness of the other half, yet ultimately failing.
The second was the large floor clock next to the bookcase. It was an old and fine work of some craftsman somewhere which reached nearly to the ceiling, and it had accompanying its apparent age were the marks of years upon years of wear, with some damage and chipping near the mother-of-pearl face and some slight bending evident in its hands being shone upon by what little light that managed to go through clearly. Yet Arsène could not hear the sound of the familiar, gentle tick-tock coming from it, and he saw that the pendulum had long ceased to swing, and that the clock had long since fallen silent.
As his eyes wandered over the clock, his eyes caught a strange lump perched on top of it. A few paces forward, and he found that he was close enough to identify it as the wood carving of a small, plump, robin. It stared back at him with sad, tiny, beady eyes painted black, and this stare for some odd reason made him adore it though it held nothing in itself. Even odder still it also made him feel sorry for it though he could not see why.
While he was distracted by the ornament, he heard the sound of footsteps in a march, calling him back to where he was and hitting him over the head with a newfound panic. His head snapped back in a hurry to find Marchand approaching towards the opposite end of the room before he stopping abruptly.
His eyes followed in the direction where the Corporal gazed, and found it staring at the back of a tall chair in front of a writing desk, directly before the window and thus receiving most of the light which went through.
He noticed the torn beaten-up shako of the Second Regiment du Génie which sat by the right side of the desk and shone brightly even in spite of its condition next to an extended arm which reached back around and wrote in some book. Then, he found the top of the man's head, one with short dark-brown hair, hunched over and fully engrossed in whatever assignment or task he was doing at present.
“Mon Lieutenant,” said Marchand, standing tall in such a way that reminded Arsène that he should do the same. “I've got someone who needs to meet you.”
There was nothing said in return, not a statement, nor a word, nor a single noise, but the sound of scratching on paper stopped immediately. The next thing that they heard was the sound of a pencil being put down.
The officer rose from his chair, and he turned around to meet the two new men who had intruded upon him.
Sub-Lieutenant Arsène-Thierry Chevaulord's eyes met with those of his superior's, Lieutenant Jacob Louise. And for and at him he became struck and amazed, surprised and wondrous, shocked and stupefied, intrigued and interested — all emotions of the unknown rose up to his face and coalesced into one gathering, one amalgamation.
There were many strikingly prevalent things about him, and even more which he was only then gathering into one place, but perhaps what was first and foremost of them all was the face that looked at him in return, one which was most interesting to him. It was one peppered with scars and cuts, of endless shapes and sizes and of endless campaigns and battles on every single portion, from his forehead down to his cheek, with some of them of them faded away, some of them still fresh either with sutures or open as if to let blood flow from it. Some presented themselves prominently and proudly like the long and deep cut which stretched from just below the bottom of his right eye to his left eyebrow, and yet more faded into obscurity which he had to look closer to realise were there. The sheer amount of the wounds — which he previously thought to be incomprehensible and impossible — made Arsène forget where he was, and childishly did he think of personages the like of Marshal Oudinot, of the aged veterans of the Seven Years' War with whom he had met in the company of his grandfather countless times who did wear their hurts and disfiguration like trophies and medals, so that his mouth gaped open in admiration; an admiration which turned to horror at the realisation of the endless tribulations and terrible sufferings to cause such horrors on a singular face, which was then a horror that turned to shame for even entertaining such insensitive thinking.
Upon closer inspection, the Lieutenant's face showed to be divided into two halves, which were incredibly jarring by simply being next to each other. The left side was one of the most unjustly abused things that Arsène had ever beheld in his life, for it suffered greatly in scars and deformations in terms of quantity and severity, including a portion of his ear being shot off and a small portion of his nose being gone — but of all of them, there was one wide, ever-reaching swathe of burn that simply reached out everywhere. It fell over his eye, over his nose, down his mouth, through his burnt-off scalp and eyebrow, the ugly, dark red flesh of some horrible event that Arsène both felt faint to even wonder about and awed to see that he survived. Yet the other surprised him even more, for it was an overall ordinary face — relatively undisturbed even with its scars and almost mocking the other side with its very existence — which, to his utter disbelief, had the appearance of a man only a few years older than he himself who had newly been graduated. He even took some moments to check and recheck and recheck again that his eyes were not deceiving him, and even when he found it true for the fifth time he still doubted himself.
There was indeed an air that surrounded him, but Arsène could have never anticipated the sheer strength of a higher, indescribable power or quality that at the same time cowed him, made him speechless, and made his heart beat in frightened yet full admiration. It was an aura of something greater, perhaps nobler and more majestic, than the ones he had seen in so many of his comrades at the Polytechnique and so often found in those gems and senior commandants who inspired order, and its components were so complex and impossible to describe that he resolved that he would never find a way to identify its true name. It leaked and pushed into the way he held himself, into what he felt was the steadfastness of his heart that showed and shone through his body, and in so many other things that would be too long to find and gather. For one moment Arsène did not feel as if he were standing in front of a mortal man, but rather a portrait of some great general or the most noble of gentleman from so long ago made by the hand of some master artist, whose virtues and character in life was duly put to canvas without any blemishes at all and thus immortalised into some perfect image. The feeling that it inspired in him caused great confusion, and for some moments there would be pangs of a bizarre kind of distress in his heart not mired by dislike or hatred coursing through him.
The most defining thing about him were the deep brown eyes which rested on his face, which by an absolute miracle remained completely unimpeded in their functions despite the scarring that had come to the left one. And the matter was that they were paradoxical to an extreme — once Arsène had thought the eyes of Marchand dull, but now they became the most vibrant things to ever grace the earth when shown with these simple, incomprehensible things which betrayed absolutely no emotion at all — it was so surprising that he felt concern, and he felt wonder at how it could be so, as if he were staring into the eyes of the deadest of the dead. Yet it confused him even more, for they were among the deepest and most incredibly drawing eyes that he had ever found in all the world, eyes where he felt lost when staring into them, eyes which stared not only at him but through him, and he felt every constituent section of his body subjected to it react in such an unsettling but awed way, where they simply called out they knew they were being watched and unnerved by it. He could only freeze and stare back, and though sometimes he tried to remove himself from it he could not look away for even a single moment, for his thoughts were deafened by the look, and for there was something which attracted all to them.
“Mon Lieutenant. This Arsène-Thierry Chevaulord. He's been sent here as your Sub-Lieutenant and deputy. He wishes to introduce himself to you.”
And the Lieutenant stared through Arsène with his eyes perpetually unchanging. There was nothing which shifted in his expression, and that fact somehow greatly unnerved him that he began to move his feet and grasp at his sabre.
Marchand moved back to the door, catching Arsène unwawares and causing him to look back in panic. A wave of betrayal flushed through his face for leaving him alone with such an intense man in the room with no support. Yet Marchand answered back and gave him a nod and a comforting look so simple yet somehow so genuine that immediately did it calm him and find at least some courage he had forgotten.
The door clicked in place. He turned back to the Lieutenant and all fell completely and utterly silent. No one moved in those minutes-turned-eternity, and Arsène found himself too enraptured to do anything but stare back.
Those eyes terrified him, that was but the truth, yet they enraptured him, yet at the same time they enveloped him, and they interested him. And he was filled with wonder with what they could be thinking of him, for he could not discern a single thing about it. In spite of how deep they were in colour, in spite of how striking they were, there was absolutely nothing resembling any emotion that he knew or ever will know in them, there seemed to be an absence of a certain sparkle or shine which felt as if it had been removed and should have stayed there, and it made him all the more fascinated.
He fished up his nerves from wherever they had fallen and began approaching the Lieutenant.
“Monsieur, I have to — I have to say, good afternoon,” Arsène outstretched his hand towards him, smiling nervously. “I hope that you are well, I hope? Monsieur?”
The Lieutenant did not answer, but continued staring. The uneasiness in him grew to torturous anticipation and he tried his best not to let it show on his face, but failed with the showing of the clenching of his jaw.
The Lieutenant eventually reached back what felt like an entire campaign, and shook it at just the right force in return. Such a motion assured and thus invigorated Arsène, allowing him to relax and rest somewhat easier.
“Ah, Monsieur, forgive my manners, but, it's a pleasure to meet you. I swear I'll try my best.”
And again that expression remained completely and utterly unchanged, with not a single hair being moved. Arsène allowed himself to forget his feelings of nervousness for one moment to be confused at him, and he wondered if there was anything else that could ever go by his face.
The Lieutenant returned to his little station — such a motion scared Arsène, who wondered if he had already tired of him, but he relaxed again when it was all to pick up the items which he had there.
The Lieutenant went towards him now bearing open the book which Marchand had so talked about and which he had been writing in just earlier. It was a thick, leather-bound one, damaged here and there and somewhat falling apart, just like its owner. Its pages alternated between being completely blank and wholly filled with and the faint lines of writing. In his other hand he held a pencil which had been cut to a stub, which he used to write with a hand as fast as the bony aged one of an ancient government clerk who started in the service of a department which was long since abolished, and opened under a sovereign now reduced to mud and dirt.
Eventually he was done writing in spite of how little time had passed and presented it to Arsène under the sunlight; Arsène had a few moments to wonder what he had to do before realising and leaning forward to read what was there. It was a tidy, neat, and overall simple handwriting devoid of flourishes and unnecessary ornaments, and incredibly legible, an overall rather impressive feat given how fast it was.
‘Good afternoon, Sub-Lieutenant Chevaulord. Where is your pistol?’
“My pistol—?”
He looked down, and with a gasp became mortified to discover that he did not wear any holster, much less have a pistol upon him. His cheeks flushed in embarrassment and his hands started patting around to grab at something that perhaps blended together with his weapon and had hidden itself from his view. A few times he grabbed at his sabre and was about to pull it out before realising that it was in fact not which he was looking for.
“Ah! Ah, forgive me!” he cried out, and he looked up to find the eyes staring back at him, and that at once gave him such a great fright and terror that he hastened his search. “Ah, a-ah, forgive me, Monsieur, I must've misplaced it somewhere, or, or, I beg you — do forgive me, I haven't seen it, and my mind fails me, and I can't remember if I'd been given one at all, and — forgive me, forgive me, I'm sorry, Monsieur, I—”
He continued his attempts to procure it wherever it had gone, yet no success or fortune appeared for him, only the ever-intensifying emotions of embarrassment and chagrin that were starting to overwhelm him and his mind.
In his confusion he heard the sounds of shuffling around some drawers, and Arsène looked up to find the Lieutenant again returned to his station and looking about it, all the while with his pencil and book placed securely in his armpit. He watched carefully — realising that he almost ceased to breath — for whatever thing happened next, and indeed the Lieutenant emerged bearing something brown in his hand.
He walked over and presented it towards him and Arsène looked closer to find that it was indeed a pistol in its holster, with some decoration to occupy it and a mallet to accompany it in its pouch. He was greatly amazed at first and could only stare at it, before there was a slight jerk forward to him, which he assumed the signal for him to accept it, which he did so only hesitantly.
“Ah, ah, Monsieur?” He carefully cupped both hands around it as if it were some porcelain doll or fragile babe which he were holding.
The Lieutenant did not stare back up at him but rather took the book back from his armpit and turned to writing, and again in no time at all did he show it to him.
‘This is a spare pistol we had found from the corpse of a hussar. It is rifled, so you may need to use the mallet to put the charge in place.’
“Oh, Monsieur! I, I… I can't accept, I—” Arsène's eyes flickered between the item and the Lieutenant who had gave this gift, and he deceived himself to think that he stared expectantly, “—rifled, you say? But, surely, don't you wish to have this?”
The Lieutenant brushed his hand to his waist, and Arsène looked down to find his own battered pistol that he motioned towards. He then looked to the various silver flourishes and nigh-golden brass which was embedded near the handle, and at once he was filled with both enticement and guilt.
“Ah, but — Monsieur, it's rifled, you can shoot well with it, I'm no good of a shot, I… and even then it's a pricey thing and perhaps a personal model, you can get some good one-hundred and fifty francs from this if you found someone you could barter with and held on to, I can't possibly…”
The Lieutenant simply stared back at him. He looked down again and in that moment determined to accept. Some warmth filled his chest, and a smile spread across his face while he said back with the greatest pleasure, “Eh, but, I guess — I guess I shan't be ungrateful! Thank you, Monsieur, I…”
Gingerly he hung it from his belt, and he stared at it proudly and wistfully for some seconds before he turned back to the Lieutenant. The smile which he had in his face grew wider in some attempt to thaw the mood between them.
The Lieutenant's expression did not change, and with every second the intimidation it brought along became less overwhelming, and instead began bowing more and more to the growing confusion at such a thing. It was not some angry thing, as Arsène unfortunately knew so intimately, but rather completely blank and observant. He dared say that he knew that his mind — which he somehow felt in full confidence was a complex thing — was ticking patiently behind it, but what it was doing in specific was completely unknown, and that interested him greatly. This mysteriousness made him more inclined to him, and his familiar friend named curiosity struck out a mild spark of pleased, genuine wonder.
Eventually, he realised he had been simply staring back at him in a far too long period of silence with a stupid grin on his face, causing him to flush again and accidentally dash his words to the ground, all to force him to gather them up once again before he could speak coherently.
“I, well, I must say, Monsieur, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
No answer. This time Arsène pursed his lips.
“Monsieur. Er, anyways,” a few mutters and stray thoughts sounded out from under his breath, then he brightened slightly, his right hand falling to his sabre, “er, I must ask, what is it that I should do?”
The Lieutenant's face continued looking at him, becoming more apparent and ingrained into his mind as time went on. At one moment he was taken aback, for he thought he saw that there was some sort of change in it, perhaps something so incredibly. Then he determined he was mad, for when he looked upon it he did not see anything meaningfully different than when he had last looked.
“I must confess that I don't know what I'm supposed to do, I'm not sure,” Arsène became rather sheepish, “for I'm… I'm new, Monsieur. I'm very new. I can scarcely herd about what little I remember from my studies into something coherent — I'm sure, I'm confident that I'll recall them once the time comes, but I need to know exactly what it is I do before, and I need to understand what that is…”
He looked up, and hastened his words so that he would not feel guilt for wasting too much time. “I should assume that I'm your deputy, right? Yes, of course, that's obvious, we've said it multiple times before — I must ask, how may I assist you?”
And the Lieutenant took to writing into his book and showing it again to Arsène.
‘I shall write and forward my orders to you, which you shall then communicate to the sub-officers — you shall be an intermediary in that case. I shall also see that you shall hold command. You will learn on the way and become a leader of your own.’
“I can see that, yes.”
It was a very simple and broad order, and part of Arsène felt happy and by no means disappointed; the prospects of support made him even happier and even more confident. Yet there was also another portion of him that rose up after the initial reactions, and it felt underwhelmed, as if there was something missing.
“But, is that all?”
He found that the Lieutenant nodded, and that motion perplexed him.
‘Never in my life,’ he thought, ‘have I found such a carefree man! But, surely, surely, of course, he should need some support with himself? Why, it would be an affront and actively harm him, he looks like he's already worked enough! What a man, what a man, and his eyes stare at me like they reluctantly wish to tell a story yet are to tired to do so. What a man, but he looks as he needs some rest—’
Something in him clicked into place once his thoughts had been determined, and like a mechanism he lit up and became more animated with a few motions and points of his hand. He looked at him and outreached his arm again, now helpfully, and he spoke inquiringly, “But, what of you? Monsieur?”
For the first time since meeting he could see something change clearly without any chances of delusion. The Lieutenant — no matter how ever so slightly it had been, and though his face remained the same — visibly froze in the posture of his arm and in his body. This was a great surprise to Arsène, and even for a moment felt excitement and joy to see that there was indeed something different and novel, and that he were discovering it for the first time.
“I'm your deputy, Monsieur! And I must help you, Monsieur — that's what I should do, should I not? Otherwise, I would be especially horrible and unkind to you, and I don't wish to do that! What do you say?”
Nothing shifted. Arsène puffed out his chest.
“I, Monsieur, I know myself, and, Monsieur, I assure you that I'm able! I'll take every chance wherever it is, and I won't complain! I swear!”
At first there was nothing, but the Lieutenant finally wrote to him.
‘You will assist me in paperwork and some plannings, but I will delegate mostly to you.’
“And, and—” his voice raised up slightly in hope, almost like that of an expectant child, “—if I do need help, may I request your assistance to guide me through?”
Again the Lieutenant stopped, though this time for a much faster interval, before he started writing again.
‘You can learn much from the sub-officers.’ There was a pause in the middle of the writing. ‘They know more than I do.’
“Monsieur, Monsieur, but you're the officer in charge! And you look well experienced — I'm very sure that there's also much to learn from you! I promise I won't take up too much of a hassle, may I humbly request such a thing, Monsieur?”
No more writing came, but there was a slight nod from the Lieutenant's head. This satisfied Arsène, and he nodded much more eagerly.
They stood in silence for some few moments more, enough for the feeling of the moment to fade away and once again become awkward and for Arsène to start scratching at his head and humming. Then he started to think of the audacity his actions and became embarrassed again.
“Is there anything else, Monsieur?” he tried again.
No answer, and the Lieutenant looked at him blankly. Again he felt embarrassed with some emotion coming to his chest that he looked away slightly. He then saw the Lieutenant shake his head.
“Oh, of course, thank you, Monsieur.”
With that, a sense of finality fell through the room. Arsène felt it, and realised enough he knew nothing else to pry or say about that matter. On one hand, he became somewhat shocked at the length of the audience and the lack of words said. On the other, he was rather disappointed because of it.
‘He really doesn't say much!’
His mind began to wonder, and the silence eventually became far too deafening that he soon wished for some last words to enter into the silence.
“Well… well, thank you, Monsieur. I think that's all?” Again did a smile fall upon his face. “I must confess, I hope that I'll bond with the men well enough for us to garner a mutual respect, and I hope that I'll be able to earn your respect. I, I look forward to serving under you, in all truth, Monsieur.”
There was yet nothing in his expression, and yet again he thought there was something in his face. Arsène then wondered if he was hallucinating everything, and began tapping at his heart to see if all was well.
Finally, the Lieutenant nodded, and they returned to simply standing there.
Then, Arsène realised that there was truly nothing to speak about, even if he tried, and he coughed.
“May I… forgive me, Lieutenant, may I leave? I'll be getting back to the men.”
Again, the Lieutenant nodded. The smile on his face grew wider.
“Thank you, Monsieur.”
Though he did not have any shako on his head, he cared not about such a fact and raised his arm to salute nonetheless in a motion of great, eager respect.
With the cadence of one in a parade march, he turned back around, hand on the hilt of sabre, and went through the door and closed it behind him.
Once again he was engulfed in silence, this time the less suffocating kind that rested in the hallway. He looked to his right and found to his regret that the Corporal was not there.
All that he could do in that moment was stand and not say a word. Though his mouth lay at rest, however, his mind was all but, and eventually everything else was drowned out completely by his wonders and his reveries. He began to ponder, and his brow scrunched up slightly as he ignored the world around him.
He thought only of the Lieutenant, and multitudes of emotions began to blossom in his heart as he thought of him. There was relief at his survival of the meeting. There was awe, there was admiration of a certain kind, there was concern for his state, there was eagerness to see him again, there was fright of the prospect of seeing him again, there was a certain pleased emotion that he had by meeting him.
But, most of all, there was curiosity.
‘How did he come to be here?’
‘Why doesn't he speak?’
‘Why does he treat me so?’
‘What kind of a man lies there behind that face?’
‘Who is he?’ And it was that question which made him think more. His wondering became laced with an extreme desire to know, then with vexation, as he realised that, try as he might, he could not fish out anything from the details of his very recent memory. He tried to conclude something from one vague thread that hung from the image in his mind, but it only served to unravel and give way to even more questions, which made him even more vexed. ‘Where does he come from? What was his life like before the cannibals? How did he become this—’
“There he is! Mio figlio, come here! Come meet him!”
And that thread was snapped immediately with a sudden cry.
Then, he turned left, to find a black cassock and the navy blue coat of the medical service ready to great him.