THE OPEN COUNTRY BETWEEN SMORGONI AND WILNA
[The winter is more merciless, and snow continues to fall upon a
deserted expanse of unenclosed land in Lithuania. Some scattered
birch bushes merge in a forest in the background.
It is growing dark, though nothing distinguishes where the sun
sets. There is no sound except that of a shuffling of feet in
the direction of a bivouac. Here are gathered tattered men like
skeletons. Their noses and ears are frost-bitten, and pus is
oozing from their eyes.
These stricken shades in a limbo of gloom are among the last
survivors of the French army. Few of them carry arms. One squad,
ploughing through snow above their knees, and with icicles dangling
from their hair that clink like glass-lustres as they walk, go
into the birch wood, and are heard chopping. They bring back
boughs, with which they make a screen on the windward side, and
contrive to light a fire. With their swords they cut rashers from
a dead horse, and grill them in the flames, using gunpowder for
salt to eat them with. Two others return from a search, with a
dead rat and some candle-ends. Their meal shared, some try to
repair their gaping shoes and to tie up their feet, that are
chilblained to the bone.
A straggler enters, who whispers to one or two soldiers of the
group. A shudder runs through them at his words.]
FIRST SOLDIER [dazed]
What--gone, do you say? Gone?
STRAGGLER
Yes, I say gone!
He left us at Smorgoni hours ago.
The Sacred Squadron even he has left behind.
By this time he's at Warsaw or beyond,
Full pace for Paris.
SECOND SOLDIER [jumping up wildly]
Gone? How did he go?
No, surely! He could not desert us so!
STRAGGLER
He started in a carriage, with Roustan
The Mameluke on the box: Caulaincourt, too,
Was inside with him. Monton and Duroc
Rode on a sledge behind.--The order bade
That we should not be told it for a while.
[Other soldiers spring up as they realize the news, and stamp
hither and thither, impotent with rage, grief, and despair, many
in their physical weakness sobbing like children.]
SPIRIT SINISTER
Good. It is the selfish and unconscionable characters who are so much
regretted.
STRAGGLER
He felt, or feigned, he ought to leave no longer
A land like Prussia 'twixt himself and home.
There was great need for him to go, he said,
To quiet France, and raise another army
That shall replace our bones.
SEVERAL [distractedly]
Deserted us!
Deserted us!--O, after all our pangs
We shall see France no more!
[Some become insane, and go dancing round. One of them sings.]
MAD SOLDIER'S SONG
I
Ha, for the snow and hoar!
Ho, for our fortune's made!
We can shape our bed without sheets to spread,
And our graves without a spade.
So foolish Life adieu,
And ingrate Leader too.
--Ah, but we loved you true!
Yet--he-he-he! and ho-ho-ho-!--
We'll never return to you.
II
What can we wish for more?
Thanks to the frost and flood
We are grinning crones--thin bags of bones
Who once were flesh and blood.
So foolish Life adieu,
And ingrate Leader too.
--Ah, but we loved you true!
Yet--he-he-he! and ho-ho-ho!--
We'll never return to you.
[Exhausted, they again crouch round the fire. Officers and
privates press together for warmth. Other stragglers arrive, and
sit at the backs of the first. With the progress of the night the
stars come out in unusual brilliancy, Sirius and those in Orion
flashing like stilettos; and the frost stiffens.
The fire sinks and goes out; but the Frenchmen do not move. The
day dawns, and still they sit on.
In the background enter some light horse of the Russian army,
followed by KUTUZOF himself and a few of his staff. He presents
a terrible appearance now--bravely serving though slowly dying,
his face puffed with the intense cold, his one eye staring out as
he sits in a heap in the saddle, his head sunk into his shoulders.
The whole detachment pauses at the sight of the French asleep.
They shout; but the bivouackers give no sign.
KUTUZOF
Go, stir them up! We slay not sleeping men.
[The Russians advance and prod the French with their lances.]
RUSSIAN OFFICER
Prince, here's a curious picture. They are dead.
KUTUZOF [with indifference]
Oh, naturally. After the snow was down
I marked a sharpening of the air last night.
We shall be stumbling on such frost-baked meat
Most of the way to Wilna.
OFFICER [examining the bodies]
They all sit
As they were living still, but stiff as horns;
And even the colour has not left their cheeks,
Whereon the tears remain in strings of ice.--
It was a marvel they were not consumed:
Their clothes are cindered by the fire in front,
While at their back the frost has caked them hard.
KUTUZOF
'Tis well. So perish Russia's enemies!
[Exeunt KUTUZOF, his staff, and the detachment of horse in the
direction of Wilna; and with the advance of day the snow resumes
its fall, slowly burying the dead bivouackers.]