"I know that trick," he thought. "It's that same wounded soldier again.
All right. I won't give in to him. 'Why? Why?' As if I knew why!
Perhaps if I knew why I shouldn't make war."
He lay down on his bed; but hardly had he closed his eyes when he saw by
his bedside the wounded soldier--young, fair-faced, blond-haired, with
just the first faint shadow of a mustache. His forehead was pale, his
lips were livid, his blue eyes were dim, and in his left temple there
was a round black hole made by the bullet from his--Napoleonder's--pistol.
And the ghastly figure seemed to ask again, "Why did you kill me?"
Napoleonder turns over and over, from side to side, in his bed. He sees
that it's a bad business. He can't get rid of that soldier. And, more
than all, he wonders at himself. "What an extraordinary occurrence!" he
thinks. "I've killed millions of people, of all countries and nations,
without the least misgiving; and now, suddenly, one miserable soldier
comes and throws all my ideas into a tangle!"
Finally Napoleonder got up; but the confinement of his golden tent
seemed oppressive. He went out into the open air, mounted his horse, and
rode away to the place where he had shot to death the vexatious soldier.
"I've heard," he said to himself, "that when a dead man appears in a
vision, it is necessary to sprinkle earth on the eyes of the corpse;
then he'll lie quiet."
Napoleonder rides on. The moon is shining brightly, and the bodies of
the dead are lying on the battle-field in heaps. Everywhere he sees
corruption and smells corruption.
"And all these," he thought, "I have killed."
And, wonderful to say, it seems to him as if all the dead men have the
same face,--a young face with blue eyes, and blond hair, and the faint
shadow of a mustache,--and they all seem to be looking at him with
kindly, pitying eyes, and their bloodless lips move just a little as
they ask, without anger or reproach, "Why? Why?"
Napoleonder felt a dull, heavy pressure at his heart. He had not spirit
enough left to go to the little mound where the body of the dead soldier
lay, so he turned his horse and rode back to his tent; and every corpse
that he passed seemed to say, "Why? Why?"
He no longer felt the desire to ride at a gallop over the dead bodies of
the Russian soldiers. On the contrary, he picked his way among them
carefully, riding respectfully around the remains of every man who had
died with honor on that field of blood; and now and then he even crossed
himself and said: "Akh, that one ought to have lived! What a fine fellow
that one was! He must have fought with splendid courage. And I killed
him--why?"
The great conqueror never noticed that his heart was growing softer and
warmer, but so it was. He pitied his dead enemies at last, and then the
evil spirit went away from him, and left him in all respects like other
people.
The next day came the battle. Napoleonder led his forces, cloud upon
cloud, to the field of Borodino; but he was shaking as if in a chill.
His generals and field-marshals looked at him and were filled with
dismay.
"You ought to take a drink of vodka, Napoleonder," they say; "you don't
look like yourself."
When the Russian troops attacked the hordes of Napoleonder, on the field
of Borodino, the soldiers of the great conqueror at once gave way.
"It's a bad business, Napoleonder," the generals and field-marshals say.
"For some reason the Russians are fighting harder to-day than ever.
You'd better call out your dead men."
Napoleonder shouted at the top of his voice, "Bonaparty!"--six hundred
and sixty-six,--the number of the Beast. But, cry as he would, he only
frightened the jackdaws. The dead men didn't come out of their graves,
nor answer his call. And Napoleonder was left on the field of Borodino
alone. All his generals and field-marshals had fled, and he sat there
alone on his horse, shouting, "Bonaparty! Bonaparty!"
Then suddenly there appeared beside him the smooth-faced, blue-eyed,
fair-haired Russian recruit whom he had killed the day before. And the
young soldier said: "It's useless to shout, Napoleonder. Nobody will
come. Yesterday you felt sorry for me and for my dead brothers, and
because of your pity your corpse-soldiers no longer come at your call.
Your power over them is gone."
Then Napoleonder began to weep and sob, and cried out, "You have ruined
me, you wretched, miserable soldier!"
But the soldier (who was Ivan-angel, and not a soldier at all) replied:
"I have not ruined you, Napoleonder; I have saved you. If you had gone
on in your merciless, pitiless course, there would have been no
forgiveness for you, either in this life or in the life to come. Now God
has given you time for repentance. In this world you shall be punished;
but there, beyond, if you repent of your sins, you shall be forgiven."
And the angel vanished.
Then our Don Cossacks fell on Napoleonder, dragged him from his horse,
and took him to Alexander the Blessed. Some said, "Napoleonder ought to
be shot!" Others cried, "Send him to Siberia to!" But the Lord God
softened the heart of Alexander the Blessed, and the merciful Tsar would
not allow Napoleonder to be shot or sent to Siberia. He ordered that the
great conqueror be put into an iron cage, and be carried around and
exhibited to the people at country fairs. So Napoleonder was carried
from one fair to another for a period of thirty summers and three
years--until he had grown quite old. Then, when he was an old man, they
sent him to the island of Buan to watch geese.
* * * * *