War and Peace (206 page)

“Well, but after all, when one’s feet are frozen, how’s one to walk?”

“Oh, stuff and nonsense!” said the sergeant.

“Why, do you want to do the same?” said an old soldier, reproachfully addressing the man who had talked of frozen feet.

“Well, what do you think?” the sharp-nosed soldier, called “Crow,” said suddenly, in a squeaking and quavery voice, turning himself on one elbow behind the fire. “If a man’s sleek and fat, he just grows thin, but for a thin man it’s death. Look at me, now! I have no strength left,” he said, with sudden resolution, addressing a sergeant. “Say the word for me to be sent off to the hospital. I’m one ache with rheumatism, and one only gets left behind just the same …”

“There, that’s enough; that’s enough,” said the sergeant calmly.

The soldier was silent, and the conversation went on.

“There’s a rare lot of these Frenchies have been taken to-day; but not a pair of boots on one of them, one may say, worth having; no, not worth mentioning,” one of the soldiers began, starting a new subject.

“The Cossacks had stripped them of everything. We cleaned a hut for the colonel, and carried them out. It was pitiful to see them, lads,” said the dancer. “We overhauled them. One was alive, would you believe it, muttering something in their lingo.”

“They’re a clean people, lads,” said the first. “White—why, as white as a birch-tree, and brave they are, I must say, and gentlemen too.”

“Well, what would you expect? Soldiers are taken from all classes with them.”

“And yet they don’t understand a word we say,” said the dancer, with a wondering smile. “I says to him, ‘Of what kingdom are you?’ and he mutters away his lingo. A strange people!”

“I’ll tell you a wonderful thing, mates,” went on the man who had expressed surprise at their whiteness. “The peasants about Mozhaisk were telling how, when they went to take away the dead where the great battle was, why, their bodies had been lying there a good month. Well, they lay there, as white and clean as paper, and not a smell about them.”

“Why, from the cold, eh?” asked one.

“You’re a clever one! Cold, indeed! Why, it was hot weather. If it had been from the cold, our men, too, wouldn’t have rotted. But they say, go up to one of ours, and it would all be putrefied and maggoty. They tie handkerchiefs round their noses, and drag them off, turning their faces
away, so they say. They can’t help it. But they’re white as paper; not a smell about them.”

There was a general silence.

“Must be from the feeding,” said the sergeant: “they are gorged like gentry.”

No one replied.

“That peasant at Mozhaisk, where the battle was, was saying that they were fetched from ten villages round, and at work there for twenty days, and couldn’t get all the dead away. A lot of those wolves, says he …”

“That was something like a battle,” said an old soldier. “The only one worth mentioning; everything since … it’s simply tormenting folks for nothing.”

“Oh, well, uncle, we did attack them the day before yesterday. But what’s one to do? They won’t let us get at them. They were so quick at laying down their arms, and on their knees.
Pardon!
—they say. And that’s only one example. They have said twice that Platov had taken Polion himself. He catches him, and lo! he turns into a bird in his hands and flies away and away. And as to killing him, no manner of means of doing it.”

“You’re a sturdy liar, Kiselov, by the look of you!”

“Liar, indeed! It’s the holy truth.”

“Well, if you ask me, I’d bury him in the earth, if I caught him. Yes, with a good aspen cudgel. The number of folk he has destroyed!”

“Any way, we shall soon make an end of him; he won’t come again,” said the old soldier, yawning.

The conversation died away; the soldiers began making themselves comfortable for the night.

“I say, what a lot of stars; how they shine! One would say the women had been laying out their linen!” said a soldier admiring the Milky Way.

“That’s a sign of a good harvest, lads!”

“We shall want a little more wood.”

“One warms one’s back, and one’s belly freezes. That’s queer.”

“O Lord!”

“What are you shoving for—is the fire only for you, eh? See … there he sprawls.”

In the silence that reigned snoring could be heard from a few who had gone to sleep. The rest turned themselves to get warm by the fire, exchanging occasional remarks. From a fire a hundred paces away came a chorus of merry laughter.

“They are guffawing in the fifth company,” said a soldier. “And what a lot of them there!”

A soldier got up and went off to the fifth company.

“There’s a bit of fun!” he said, coming back. “Two Frenchies have come. One’s quite frozen, but the other’s a fine plucky fellow! He’s singing songs.”

“O-O! must go and look …” Several soldiers went across to the fifth company.

The fifth company was bivouacking close up to the birch copse. An immense camp-fire was blazing brightly in the middle of the snow, lighting up the rime-covered boughs of the trees.

In the middle of the night the soldiers had heard footsteps and the cracking of branches in the copse.

“A bear, lads,” said one soldier.

All raised their heads and listened; and out of the copse there stepped into the bright light of the fire two strangely garbed human figures clinging to one another. These were two Frenchmen, who had been hiding in the wood. Hoarsely articulating something in a tongue incomprehensible to the soldiers, they approached the fire. One, wearing an officer’s hat, was rather the taller, and seemed utterly spent. He tried to sit down by the fire, but sank on to the ground. The other, a little, stumpy man, with a kerchief bound round his cheeks, was stronger. He held his companion up, and said something pointing to his mouth. The soldiers surrounded the Frenchmen, laid a coat under the sick man, and brought both of them porridge and vodka. The exhausted French officer was Ramballe; the little man bandaged up in the kerchief was his servant, Morel.

When Morel had drunk some vodka and eaten a bowl of porridge, he suddenly passed into a state of morbid hilarity, and kept up an incessant babble with the soldiers, who could not understand him. Ramballe refused food, and leaning on one elbow by the fire, gazed dumbly with red, vacant eyes at the Russian soldiers. At intervals he uttered a prolonged groan and then was mute again. Morel, pointing to his shoulders, gave the soldiers to understand that this was an officer, and that he needed warmth. A Russian officer, who had come up to the fire, sent to
ask the colonel whether he would take a French officer into his warm cottage. When they came back and said that the colonel bade them bring the officer, they told Ramballe to go to him. He got up and tried to walk, but staggered, and would have fallen had not a soldier standing near caught him.

“What? You don’t want to, eh?” said a soldier addressing Ramballe with a jocose wink.

“Eh, you fool! It’s no time for your fooling. A peasant, a real peasant,” voices were heard on all sides blaming the jocose soldier. The others surrounded Ramballe. Two of them held him up under the arms and carried him to the cottage. Ramballe put his arms round the soldiers’ necks, and as they lifted him he began wailing plaintively.

“O you good fellows! O my kind, kind friends. These are men! O my brave, kind friends”; and like a child he put his head down on the soldier’s shoulder.

Meanwhile Morel was sitting in the best place surrounded by the soldiers.

Morel, a little, thickset Frenchman, with swollen, streaming eyes, was dressed in a woman’s jacket and had a woman’s kerchief tied over his forage cap. He was evidently tipsy, and with one arm thrown round the soldier sitting next him, he was singing a French song in a husky, broken voice. The soldiers simply held their sides as they looked at him.

“Now then, now then, teach it me; how does it go? I’ll catch it in no time. How was it?” said the soldier Morel was hugging, who was one of the singers and fond of a joke.

“
Vive Henri Quatre! Vive ce roi vaillant!…”
sang Morel, winking. “
Ce diable à quatre
 …”

“
Vi-va-ri-ka! Viff-se-ru-va-ru! Si-dya-blya-ka!
…” repeated the soldier, waving his hand and catching the tune correctly.

“Bravo! Ho-ho-ho-ho!” a hoarse guffaw of delight rose on all sides. Morel, wrinkling up his face, laughed too.

“Come, strike up, more, more!”

“
Qui eut le triple talent de boire, de battre, et d’être un vert galant
.”

“That sounds well too. Now, Zaletaev!…”

“
Kyu
,” Zaletaev articulated with effort. “
Kyu-yu-yu
 …” he sang, puckering up his lips elaborately; “
le-trip-ta-la-de-boo-de-ba-ce-detra-va-ga-la
.”

“That’s fine! That’s a fine Frenchman, to be sure! oy … ho-ho-ho. Well, do you want some more to eat?”

“Give him some porridge; it’ll take him some time to satisfy his hunger.”

They gave him more porridge, and Morel, laughing, attacked a third bowlful. There were gleeful smiles on the faces of all the young soldiers watching him. The old soldiers, considering it beneath their dignity to show interest in such trifles, lay on the other side of the fire, but now and then one would raise himself on his elbow and glance with a smile at Morel.

“They are men, too,” said one, rolling himself up in his coat. “Even the wormwood has its roots.”

“O Lord! What lots of stars! It’s a sign of frost …” And all sank into silence.

The stars, as though they knew no one would see them now, were twinkling brightly in the black sky. Flaring up and growing dim again, and quivering, they seemed to be busily signalling some joyful mystery to each other.

The French army went on melting away at a regularly increasing rate. And the crossing of the Berezina, of which so much has been written, was only one of the intermediate stages of the destruction of the army, and by no means the decisive episode of the campaign. The reason that so much has been written about Berezina on the French side is that at the broken-down bridge of Berezina the woes, which had till then come upon them in a sort of regular succession, were suddenly concentrated there in a single moment—in one tragic catastrophe, which remained printed on the memory of all. On the Russian side, the reason that so much has been made of Berezina was simply that at Petersburg, far away from the theatre of war, a plan had been devised (again by Pfuhl of all people) for catching Napoleon in a strategic snare on the banks of the Berezina. Every one was convinced that the plan would come off exactly as arranged, and so they insisted that Berezina had in any case been the scene of the final ruin of the French. In reality the results of Berezina were less ruinous to the French in loss of cannons and prisoners than was the fighting at Krasnoe, as statistics prove.

The sole significance of the disaster of Berezina lies in the fact that it proved obviously and unmistakably how misleading were all plans for cutting off the enemy’s retreat; and the one possible course of action was that which was supported by Kutuzov and the mass of the Russian army—simply to follow on the enemy’s track. The crowd of French soldiers fled with continually accelerating velocity, with all their energies directed to the attainment of their goal. It was fleeing like a wounded beast and could not be stopped on the way. This was proved, not so much by the construction of the crossing, as by what happened at the bridges. When the bridges were broken down, unarmed soldiers, camp-followers from Moscow, women with children, who were with the French transport, all under the influence of
vis inertiœ
, dashed forward for the boats, or rushed into the frozen water, instead of surrendering.

Their impulse was a reasonable one. The position of fugitives and of pursuers was equally wretched. By remaining with his own men, each hoped for the help of comrades in misfortune, for a definite place of his own among them. By surrendering to the Russians, he found himself in the same wretched circumstances, but placed on a lower level than others as regards the satisfaction of his vital needs. The French had no need of authentic evidence that half of the prisoners—whom the Russians were unable to look after, however much they desired to save them—were dying of cold and hunger. They felt that it could not but be so. The most humane Russian officers, even those naturally warmly disposed to the French, Frenchmen in the Russian service, could do nothing for the prisoners. They perished from the wretched plight in which the Russians were themselves placed. Bread and clothing could not be taken from the starving, insistent soldiers to give it to Frenchmen—not hated, not obnoxious, nor in any way to blame—but simply superfluous. Some did even do this; but it was only an exception.

Behind them lay certain destruction; before them lay hope. Their ships were burnt; there was no hope of safety but in keeping together and in flight, and all the forces of the French were bent on this united flight.

The more precipitate the flight of the French, and the more wretched the plight of those left behind (especially after Berezina, on which great hopes had been set, owing to the Petersburg plan), the more violent were the attacks made by the Russian generals on one another, and still more on Kutuzov. Assuming that the failure of the Petersburg plan would be ascribed to him, the dissatisfaction with him, contempt of him,
and jeering at him became more and more pronounced. This contempt and jeering was of course expressed in respectful form—in such a form that Kutuzov could not even ask what he was accused of. They did not talk to him seriously; they submitted their reports and asked for his decisions with an air of performing a melancholy ceremony, while they winked behind his back, and at every step tried to deceive him. It was accepted as a recognised thing by all those men that it was useless talking to the old man, simply because they could not understand him. They took it for granted that he could never comprehend the deep significance of their plans, that he would answer them with his phrases (they fancied they were only meaningless phrases) about a golden bridge, and about the impossibility of going beyond the frontier with a crowd of barefoot beggars. And everything he said—for instance, that they must wait for provisions, or that the men had no boots—all was so simple; while everything they proposed was so complicated and so clever, that it was obvious to them that he was stupid and in his dotage, while they were military officers of genius, without authority to take the lead. The dissatisfaction and malicious gossip of the staff reached its utmost limits after the brilliant admiral, the favourite hero of Petersburg, Wittgenstein, had joined the army. Kutuzov saw it, and simply sighed and shrugged his shoulders. Only once, after Berezina, he lost his temper and wrote to Bennigsen, who was in private correspondence with the Tsar, the following note: