beyond Zembin, where I was so well received, this
captain was sitting opposite to me, and his wife was at the other end
of the table, facing the Colonel. This Sicilian was a little woman named
Rosina, very dark, but with all the fire of the Southern sun in her
black almond-shaped eyes. At this moment she was deplorably thin; her
face was covered with dust, like fruit exposed to the drought of a
highroad. Scarcely clothed in rags, exhausted by marches, her hair in
disorder, and clinging together under a piece of a shawl tied close
over her head, still she had the graces of a woman; her movements were
engaging, her small rose mouth and white teeth, the outline of her
features and figure, charms which misery, cold, and neglect had not
altogether defaced, still suggested love to any man who could think of
a woman. Rosina had one of those frames which are fragile in appearance,
but wiry and full of spring. Her husband, a gentleman of Piedmont, had
a face expressive of ironical simplicity, if it is allowable to ally
the two words. Brave and well informed, he seemed to know nothing of
the connections which had subsisted between his wife and the Colonel for
three years past. I ascribed this unconcern to Italian manners, or to
some domestic secret; yet there was in the man's countenance one feature
which always filled me with involuntary distrust. His under lip, which
was thin and very restless, turned down at the corners instead of
turning up, and this, as I thought, betrayed a streak of cruelty in a
character which seemed so phlegmatic and indolent.

"As you may suppose the conversation was not very sparkling when I went
in. My weary comrades ate in silence; of course, they asked me some
questions, and we related our misadventures, mingled with reflections on
the campaign, the generals, their mistakes, the Russians, and the cold.
A minute after my arrival the colonel, having finished his meagre meal,
wiped his moustache, bid us good-night, shot a black look at the Italian
woman, saying, 'Rosina?' and then, without waiting for a reply, went
into the little barn full of hay, to bed. The meaning of the Colonel's
utterance was self-evident. The young wife replied by an indescribable
gesture, expressing all the annoyance she could not feel at seeing her
thralldom thus flaunted without human decency, and the offence to her
dignity as a woman, and to her husband. But there was, too, in the rigid
setting of her features and the tight k