He ordered a bottle of Burgundy, and having filled Jean's glass and his own, drank.
Then, drinking it in a draught, he placed the glass upon the table.
"I am really very pleased to see you again. I live pretty well alone, and you know my tastes outside my profession, which I adore, above which I place nothing whatever, nothing if it be not God, who is the great judge of it. I love hunting best--I think man is made to move in large spaces, to strengthen his power and his dominion over the beasts, when he has not the occasion to do it over his kind. For me there is no pleasure to equal it. Apropos of this, it seems that M. Oberlé has been ousted from his hunting rights?"
"Yes," said Jean; "he has given them up almost entirely----"
"Would you like to have a turn at my place? I have rented some shooting near Haguenau, half wood and half plain; I have roebuck which come from the forest--the ancient Sacred Forest; I have hares and pheasants, and snipe at the time of passage; and if you like glowworms, I have some who fly under the pine-trees and shine like the lances of my Hussars."
The conversation ran on for a while on this subject. Then Farnow finished the bottle of Carolis wine with Jean, and lifting the hawthorn which beflowered his epaulet and letting it drop to the ground, said:
"If you will allow me, Oberlé, I will go some way with you. What direction do you take?"
The two young men got up together. They were nearly of the same height and figure; both were of an energetic type, although different in expression--Oberlé, careful to relax all that was too serious in his face when at rest; Farnow exaggerating the harshness of his whole personality. The young lieutenant drew down his tunic to take out the creases, took from a chair his flat cap decorated in front with a cockade of the Prussian colours, and walking first with a studied stiffness, half turned towards the table where the commandant and the captain were sitting, saluted them with an almost invisible and several times repeated inclination of the body. The respectful good-fellowship of a short time ago was not now in place. The two chiefs from habit inspected this lieutenant leaving Carolis. Gentlemen themselves, very jealous of the honour of their corps, having learned by heart all the articles of the code of the perfect officer, they interested themselves in all that had to do with the conduct, the attitude, the dress, and the speech of a subordinate, who is the object of public criticism. The examination must have been favourable to Farnow. With a friendly and protective movement of his hand, the commandant dismissed him.