The intervention of England on the seas made him imagine a frightful
famine, coming providentially like a thunder-clap to torture the enemy.
He honestly believed that ten days of this maritime blockade would
convert Germany into a group of shipwrecked sailors floating on a raft.
This vision made him repeat his visits to the kitchen to gloat over his
packages of provisions.
"Ah, what they would give in Berlin for my treasures!" . . .
Never had Argensola eaten with greater avidity. Consideration of the
great privations suffered by the adversary was sharpening his appetite
to a monstrous capacity. White bread, golden brown and crusty, was
stimulating him to an almost religious ecstasy.
"If friend William could only get his claws on this!" he would chuckle
to his companion.
So he chewed and swallowed with increasing relish; solids and liquids on
passing through his mouth seemed to be acquiring a new flavor, rare
and divine. Distant hunger for him was a stimulant, a sauce of endless
delight.
While France was inspiring his enthusiasm, he was conceding greater
credit to Russia. "Ah, those Cossacks!" . . . He was accustomed to speak
of them as intimate friends. He loved to describe the unbridled gallop
of the wild horsemen, impalpable as phantoms, and so terrible in their
wrath that the enemy could not look them in the face.
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