is face the joy these preparations gave him. The Comte de Vandieres,
who, for the last few days, had fallen into a state of second childhood,
was seated on a cushion beside his wife, looking fixedly at the fire,
which was beginning to thaw his torpid limbs. He had shown no emotion
of any kind, either at Philippe's danger, or at the fight which ended in
the pillage of the carriage and their expulsion from it.

At first de Sucy took the hand of the young countess, as if to show her
his affection, and the grief he felt at seeing her reduced to such utter
misery; then he grew silent; seated beside her on a heap of snow which
was turning into a rivulet as it melted, he yielded himself up to the
happiness of being warm, forgetting their peril, forgetting all things.
His face assumed, in spite of himself, an expression of almost 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 t