were a wild-looking lot in those unforgotten days which so many, so very
many of us did not survive. You know our losses were awful, too. Yes, we
looked wild. _Des Russes sauvages_--what!

"So he had a beard--this Tomassov I mean; but he did not look _sauvage_.
He was the youngest of us all. And that meant real youth. At a distance
he passed muster fairly well, what with the grime and the particular
stamp of that campaign on our faces. But directly you were near enough
to have a good look into his eyes, that was where his lack of age
showed, though he was not exactly a boy.

"Those same eyes were blue, something like the blue of autumn skies,
dreamy and gay, too--innocent, believing eyes. A topknot of fair hair
decorated his brow like a gold diadem in what one would call normal
times.

"You may think I am talking of him as if he were the hero of a novel.
Why, that's nothing to what the adjutant discovered about him. He
discovered that he had a 'lover's lips'--whatever that may be. If the
adjutant meant a nice mouth, why, it was nice enough, but of course it
was intended for a sneer. That adjutant of ours was not a very delicate
fellow. 'Look at those lover's lips,' he would exclaim in a loud tone
while Tomassov was talking.

"Tomassov didn't quite like that sort of thing. But to a certain extent
he had laid himself open to banter by the lasting character of his
impressions which were connected with the passion of love and, perhaps,
were not of such a rare kind as he seemed to think them. What made
his comrades tolerant of his rhapsodies was the fact that they were
connected with France, with Paris!