- The More I Look'd At Him, His Croix, And His
Basket, The Stronger They Wove Themselves Into My Brain.
- I got out
of the remise, and went towards him.
He was begirt with a clean linen apron which fell below his knees,
and with a sort of a bib that went half way up his breast; upon the
top of this, but a little below the hem, hung his croix. His
basket of little pates was covered over with a white damask napkin;
another of the same kind was spread at the bottom; and there was a
look of proprete and neatness throughout, that one might have
bought his pates of him, as much from appetite as sentiment.
He made an offer of them to neither; but stood still with them at
the corner of an hotel, for those to buy who chose it without
solicitation.
He was about forty-eight; - of a sedate look, something approaching
to gravity. I did not wonder. - I went up rather to the basket than
him, and having lifted up the napkin, and taking one of his pates
into my hand, - I begg'd he would explain the appearance which
affected me.
He told me in a few words, that the best part of his life had
passed in the service, in which, after spending a small patrimony,
he had obtained a company and the croix with it; but that, at the
conclusion of the last peace, his regiment being reformed, and the
whole corps, with those of some other regiments, left without any
provision, he found himself in a wide world without friends,
without a livre, - and indeed, said he, without anything but this, -
(pointing, as he said it, to his croix). - The poor Chevalier won my
pity, and he finished the scene with winning my esteem too.
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