IN THE CAMP.
“Our souls are parched with agonizing thirst,
Which must be quenched though death were in the draught:
We must have vengeance.”
One evening towards the end of October, and just when the first snow of
the year was beginning to fall, Ivan Pojarsky and Michael Ivanovitch
entered the head-quarters of the Russian army at Tarovtino. Their fleet
Arabian horses were flecked with foam, for they had traversed the ten
leagues which divided them from Moscow without once drawing rein. As
they dashed along, they shouted to all whom they passed, “Napoleon has
quitted Moscow!” and answering “houras” and cries of joy cheered them
on their way.
“Bring us at once to Count Rostopchine,” said Ivan to the soldiers who
crowded around them. “He is here, is he not?”
“He is here, gospodin; but the Marshal--”
“With all due respect to the dignity of his Highness the
General-in-Chief, our business is with the Count, brothers,” returned
Ivan.
He was accordingly conducted to the presence of Rostopchine, who, after
a lengthened interview, dismissed him to seek rest and refreshment,
desiring him to return early in the morning.
Rostopchine’s aide-de-camp offered his hospitality, and Ivan thanked
him courteously, but inquired whether Captain Adrian Wertsch, of the
Moscow militia, was not then in the camp. The aide-de-camp answered
in the affirmative, and agreed to bring Ivan to his tent, though very
reluctantly; for he was sorry to lose the honour and pleasure of
entertaining one who could give him so many interesting details about
the French occupation of Moscow.
Adrian was standing outside his tent when Ivan approached, and he
greeted him with joyful astonishment, as one risen from the dead.
“I did not think to see your face again,” he said.
“Life is still left me,” returned Ivan in a broken voice; for, after so
many horrors, the sight of a familiar face proved at the moment almost
more than he could bear.
“Come in,” said Adrian, drawing his arm affectionately within his own.
“A good draught of champagne is what you want now.”
“Will you tell your orderly to take care of my friend Michael
Ivanovitch? He has behaved like a hero.”
“Certainly.”
Adrian gave a few rapid directions, then led Ivan into his tent, and
before he would listen to a word, poured for him a sparkling goblet of
the beverage which he considered a panacea for all the ills, mental and
bodily, of the noble, as vodka was for those of the mujik.
Ivan needed the stimulant, for he was worn out with fatigue and
excitement. He said, as he finished the draught, “You got my letter,
Adrian?”
“Yes. My poor mother!”
“No one was to blame. We did all we could, but nothing would induce her
to leave the old home; and when the French entered Moscow, the shock
was more than she could bear. We buried her honourably, by the side of
her husband, in the Church of St. Eustacius. Pope Yefim performed the
funeral services.”
“That was nobly done, Ivan, and I thank you most heartily.--By the way,
your friend Pope Yefim has made himself famous.”
“How? By remaining in the city?”
“By daring to celebrate, with a solemn service, the Czar’s coronation
day, under the very beard of Napoleon.[33] We have all heard of it.”
“He never supposed he was doing anything extraordinary. The Prior of
the Dominican Monastery, whom he consulted, agreed that he was right.
I can tell you, Adrian, that good man himself was by no means in love
with his countrymen. Though his religion is their own, and he kept his
church open the whole time of the Occupation, scarcely a Frenchman
darkened its doors, except a few officers of noble birth belonging to
the old _régime_. As a rule, the soldiers of Napoleon are infidels.
Sometimes, out of curiosity, they would stray into our churches. On
the coronation day, a poor young fellow, a mere lad, stole into Pope
Yefim’s church, and was near paying dearly for his rashness; for a
party of mujiks set upon him after the service, taking him for a spy.
They might have killed him; but--strangest chance of all--my friend
Michael, whose thoughts by day and dreams by night are only of slaying
Nyemtzi, interposed to save this one, saying he knew him, and had
received a kindness at his hands. I spoke to the youth, and he told
me he had been religiously brought up, and said the very sound of a
church-bell, and the sight of men kneeling in prayer, seemed to do him
good, though he could not understand a word of the service.”
“A queer taste,” said Adrian, shrugging his shoulders. Then to his
orderly, who had just entered the tent, “Bring us the best supper you
can get, and more champagne.”
“Adrian,” asked Ivan, “where is Leon?”
Adrian’s face assumed a sorrowful expression. “Gone to our mother,” he
answered. “He was wounded at Borodino, though not severely. He insisted
upon going out again, and met his death in a skirmish ten days ago.”
Ivan felt and showed real sorrow. Of the two companions of his youth,
Leon had been his favourite, and he could not hear unmoved the tidings
of his death. “Death--death everywhere,” he murmured sadly.
“Come, my friend,” said Adrian kindly, “you must not give way. It is
only the fate of war. You have been so long in that horrible den of a
city that your nerves are shattered. Take some more wine.”
“That horrible den!” Ivan repeated. “A lair of wild beasts! Such it
has been indeed. The count, who is as hard as _this_,” laying his hand
upon Adrian’s iron camp-bedstead, “has been asking me for reports and
descriptions. I cannot describe, I can scarcely even report facts.
Picture to yourself nine-tenths of the town in ashes--or in charred
blackened ruins--with thousands of the wretched inhabitants, who could
not, or did not, make good their escape, wandering about homeless and
starving, filling the air with their lamentations. Then think of the
French, like a host of demons turned loose upon their prey, ransacking
the smoking ruins in search of plunder. I have seen the gold-laced
uniform of the general and the woollen jacket of the private side by
side, contending for the spoils of our desolated homes; while all the
dangerous classes, all the thieves and ruffians who are to be found
amongst the scum of the populace in every great city, joined them in
the horrible work and added to the confusion and misery.”
“Did not Napoleon shoot or hang a great number of our people?”
“If you call three hundred a great number; so many at least he executed
as incendiaries--and indeed most of them were taken in the act. They
died in silence, without asking for mercy, and without accusing any
one as having instigated them to the deed.”
“How did _you_ escape?” asked Adrian.
“There was little difficulty in escaping. It was easy enough to hide in
the ruins or in the cellars, many of which had been left well stocked
with provisions when the city was abandoned. But have you heard about
our wounded men?” he asked, with a return of animation, and even of
something like cheerfulness.
“No; I have heard nothing.”
“The count was obliged to leave two thousand men, who were too
desperately wounded to bear removal, concealed in the cellars of the
city. Here they managed to drag on their lives, though in a state of
extreme wretchedness. We found them out, and used to bring them food
and other comforts. That work was even more hazardous than setting the
city on fire; for discovery would have cost, not our lives alone, but
theirs. Napoleon’s last act before he left the city was to order ten
sick men, found in a cellar, to be shot.”
“Wretch!” cried Adrian, clenching his hand.
“The half has not been told you, or you would find no name to call him
by,” returned Ivan fiercely. “He has defiled our holiest sanctuaries;
he has torn open our imperial tombs; he has stabled his horses in the
church where our Czar was crowned; he has carried everything away upon
which he could lay his sacrilegious hands, even to the cross upon the
tower of Ivan Veliki, and the Tartar banners which hung as trophies in
the Arsenal. Well may Count Rostopchine curse him, as only he knows how
to curse. But those wounded--we contrived somehow to keep them alive;
and I think a goodly number may be saved yet. I asked the count not to
lose an hour in sending them succour.”
“I hope he has had the grace to do justice to your courage and your
exertions.”
“He has condescended to approve my conduct,” said Ivan with modest
satisfaction. “And now he offers me three things, by way of recompense,
as he is pleased to say. If I choose to return with him to the city,
he will give me an appointment in the civil service, with the rank
of titular counsellor, which, as you know, answers to that of senior
captain in the army.”[34]
“Surely you will not do that! You could not sheathe your sword _now_,”
Adrian exclaimed.
“So much I said to the count; and he answered that, if I pleased, he
would request the marshal to put me on his staff.”
“Capital! What more could you desire?”
“He made another proposal--to send me to the Czar with the report of
what I had seen and done.”
“And which did you accept?”
“_The last_,” said Ivan. At that moment a sound, dull, prolonged, and
loud, like distant thunder, smote upon their ears. Again it came, and
yet again, making the air tremble around them and the earth shake
beneath their feet. “What is that?” cried Ivan.
“Not musketry or cannon,” said Adrian, with a look of alarm and
perplexity. “We are tolerably familiar with those sounds. _This_ is
different.”
“More like an explosion--if so, a terrible one. Perhaps a great powder
magazine. But where?” mused Ivan.
Adrian hurried out in search of information, and soon returned to tell
his friend that the noise evidently came from the direction of Moscow.
More than that no one knew.
Morning brought the explanation. Ivan was still enjoying the profound
slumber of youth and weariness, when a brother officer of Adrian’s
rushed into the tent. “The Kremlin is destroyed!” he cried. “That demon
Napoleon had it undermined before he left, and last night it was blown
into fragments!”
“The Kremlin?--Impossible!” cried Adrian, who was dressing for parade.
“Too possible, and too true,” said his informant. “A messenger from
the city has just arrived to bring the tidings to the marshal and the
count.”
Meanwhile Ivan, who had been suddenly awakened, started up in horror,
exclaiming, “The Czar! oh, what will it be to _him_?”
“Blown into fragments, did you say?” returned Adrian. “Utterly
impossible! The masonry is as solid as the rocks beneath our feet, and
the walls of the arsenal are three yards in thickness.”
“Those walls are now level with the ground,” said the officer; “and the
palace--the Czar’s ancient palace--is in ruins.”
Ivan uttered a bitter cry, and Adrian asked breathlessly, “What of the
churches?”
“One of them, I have not heard which, is thrown down. The mines were
fired by slow-consuming fusees; and our men, who arrived just before
the messenger left, were beginning a perilous search for powder, to
prevent further mischief, if they could.”
“But,” said Ivan, who had risen now,--“but there must be a mistake
somewhere; for the French kept their own sick and wounded in the
Kremlin, and I happen to know that those unfit to be moved were still
there when I left the city. That Napoleon could have exposed _them_ to
a horrible death is simply inconceivable.”
“Yet too true,” the officer answered. “He has sacrificed his own
helpless followers to his revenge and hatred. For this barbarous deed
can have had no other motive. There was nothing to be gained by it.”
Adrian laid his hand upon Ivan’s shoulder. “Do not go to St
Petersburg,” he said. “Stay with us, and fight. We will pay this
Napoleon double for all his atrocities.”
“I wish his neck were _there_,” said Adrian’s comrade, grinding the
earth with his strong heel. “But I would not kill him,” he added, after
a pause. “No. I would drag him in chains to the feet of the Czar, and
let _him_ kill him with his own hand.”
“I think,” said Ivan slowly and with deliberation,--“I think every
Russian, from the Czar himself down to the lowest mujik, should swear a
solemn oath not to sheathe the sword until we have taken such vengeance
upon Napoleon and his Frenchmen as the world has never yet seen.”
“So be it,” said Michael, who came in while he was speaking. “I, a
mujik, will be the first to swear.--Barrinka, what is the name of
Napoleon’s great city, where he has his palace and all his treasures?
Suppose the Czar were to make a blaze of _that_ some day! It may be.
God is just!”