Napoleon and his Grand Army had been starved out of Moscow; they had
made their futile attempt to destroy the Kremlin, they had delivered
their last savage onslaught upon the inhabitants, lighted the last
fire, desecrated the last church, exploded the last mine, insulted the
last woman; they had manoeuvred in the direction of St. Petersburg
and of the rich Volga provinces in order to cover the movements of the
main force, and finally they had thrown to the winds all subterfuge and
frankly made off with all speed towards the frontier and France, leaving
behind them a city of smoke and of fire, of starvation, of desertion and
of the dead. Within the cathedrals was the stench of stabled horses,
with all the filth attendant thereon. Dead bodies of men and women,
of horses and dogs, lay about the streets unremoved. Scarcely a house
within a twelve-mile radius of the centre of the city but was wholly or
partially burned, pillaged, and its contents pulled hither and thither
and destroyed.
Scarcely had the last Frenchman left the place to its silence and
emptiness when back into this city of death and destruction began to
creep, cautiously, at first, but presently to crowd into each gate that
gave access within the walls, a dense mob of her banished inhabitants,
each anxious to make his way to the quarter of the city in which his
home had existed a month ago. Would it be found standing now? Of the
Lares and Penates left behind in the terror and stress of sudden
departure, would anything be left to him?
The great majority found their houses burned. Those whose four walls
were still standing found their homes sacked and looted, their
possessions ruthlessly destroyed and themselves ruined.
From end to end of Moscow a wail of despair arose and continued day
long, for in the city proper, out of 6,000 wooden houses 4,500 were
burned down, while of the 2,500 brick dwellings which had existed before
the fires, only 500 now remained standing.
But meanwhile the last of the retiring French were leaving the city by
the Borovitsky Gate, and here, at the very first opportunity, began
the stupendous anguish of their terrible retreat. For from the first
they marched from ambush to ambush, from disaster to disaster, through
miseries of frost and hunger and sleeplessness and unceasing attack in
flank and rear. Truly the avenging of Moscow began from her very gates.
Vera Demidof came with the rest of the returning fugitives into Moscow,
came--like thousands of others--to find that the house in the Sloboda
had been looted and wrecked, though the fire had not reached it. Vera
had hurried back to Moscow, however, not from any anxiety as to the
family mansion or its contents, she came because she had ascertained
from Sasha Maximof that his regiment was to be one of those which should
first engage the retreating French beyond the walls of Moscow.
"Just to hurry them up and see them safely off the premises," Sasha had
laughingly expressed it but yesterday, paying her a hurried visit at the
village to which she had retired on leaving Moscow.
Indeed, as the crowds of Muscovites entered the city at one side, the
roar of cannon from the opposite end of the town, beyond the Borovitsky
Gate, gave grim evidence that the Frenchmen were not being permitted to
march away in peace and impunity.
"If you should be wounded outside Moscow, send me word," Vera had
said at parting. She felt depressed and inclined to expect disaster,
though she was not one to indulge weakly and without resistance in
presentiments; Vera's healthy intelligence was accustomed to look upon
such things as foolishness.
"Why do you expect me to get hurt?" Sasha had laughed. "When my time
comes I shall die, but I do not think that is yet, Vera. There is
something I am determined to achieve before I finish with life--can you
guess what it is?"
Vera did not attempt to guess. "You are always getting hurt," she
laughed. "Send me word by a soldier if you are clumsy enough to stand in
the way of a French bullet." Vera laughed though she spoke with a full
heart.
In consequence of this conversation, Sasha actually wrote Vera's address
upon a slip of paper which he gave to a trooper in his regiment, bidding
him keep an eye upon him and ride back to Moscow quickly, if he should
fall, in order to tell the lady named in the written address of what
had occurred. When, later in the day, Sasha's regiment received orders
to charge from their cover a body of French foot-guards, the trooper to
whose care Sasha had entrusted his slip of paper and who rode close at
Sasha's stirrup saw a notable sight.
In the mélée he heard a French officer call gaily to the Count Maximof:--
"Hi," he cried, "_mon ami_, Maximof, here am I, let us finish that old
matter".
Sasha had turned his horse, and with an exclamation made straight for
the Frenchman, at whom he lunged and struck with his sabre. But the
Frenchman skilfully dodged his blows, and watching his opportunity
planted a thrust of his bayonet which entered the Count's body and
tumbled him off his horse senseless.
"Aha!" the Frenchman cried, "that was more than I meant; what will the
fair Vera say!" Almost at the same moment a Russian trooper rode this
French officer down, and the messenger himself dealt him a whack with
his sword that half severed his left arm at the shoulder.
After this the stress of battle separated the trooper from these two
fallen men, but when the fight was done and the Frenchmen had gone
forward, pursued by the Russian mounted men, the trooper, whose name was
Markof, returned to the spot to see how the Count fared. Here he found
the Frenchman actually giving Maximof a drink from his flask, talking to
him the while in French and laughing; Maximof's eyes were open, but he
breathed with difficulty.
Markof spoke to him, saying he would now ride back to the address given
upon his paper, which name and address he read aloud in order to make
sure he had it right.
"Ah, ah!" said the Frenchman, "Vera Demidof--good--go back and tell
her, my friend, that there are two who wish to see her before they die.
_Sapristi_, we are in luck, Maximof, both of us!"
At this the Count smiled, but said nothing, being apparently very weak.
Presently he shut his eyes and swooned.
"Go, my friend, I will keep him alive till she comes," said the
Frenchman, and away went Markof upon his mission.
Vera received the messenger, pale but dry-eyed and resolute.
"He is alive?" she asked. Markof nodded.
"When I left," he said; "but he is bad, lady; do not expect too much. A
Frenchman sits by his side, wounded also, who has undertaken to keep him
alive with brandy until you come. They seem to know one another."
Vera looked puzzled for a minute, then her face brightened.
"I am ready," she said, "and my droshka is ready, we will go at once."
Markof led the way to the spot in which Sasha had fallen. Amid the dead
and dying around they found Paul de Tourelle dozing, but Sasha had
disappeared. Paul opened his eyes at the sound of their voices.
"Ah! the fair Vera," he said; "I am glad I have lived long enough to see
you; I am desolate, Mademoiselle, by reason of your treatment of me, yet
I forgive you. Your friend Maximof has been taken by Russian peasants to
the village yonder; me they left, after bestowing a great whack upon my
head with a bludgeon--Maximof is alive; he----" Paul's head drooped and
he closed his eyes. He had spoken gaily, but his voice came faintly and
in gasps.
"Markof, my friend, go to the village and find the Count Maximof,"
said Vera. "I will come very soon. See that I am shown the right house
without delay when I arrive."
Vera took the flask which lay at Paul's feet; she administered a drop or
two of its contents to the swooning man. He opened his eyes and smiled.
"This is the irony of fate, Mademoiselle Vera--two splendid lovers, and
both to lie dying. I am glad to see you again. _Mon Dieu_, how I loved
you in Paris! I have never yet loved faithfully, but in you I thought I
had at length found my destiny."
"Monsieur, can I ease your pain, is there anything I can do for you?"
said Vera.
"_Ma mie_, I am past praying for; tell me, were you near loving me
in Paris? _Sapristi_, but for this war I believe we should have come
together. You are lucky, Mademoiselle, to have escaped me. I am not
one of the constant ones. Perhaps Maximof is different, he is slow and
stolid and perhaps faithful, not like us Frenchmen--we are like the
bubbles in champagne--we come and go--I pray that Maximof may live."
Paul's head drooped again and his eyes closed. Vera thought he was dead.
She bent and kissed his forehead, preparing to depart. De Tourelle
opened his eyes again.
"Was that a kiss?" he murmured. "Ah, I was right--you might have loved
me, but for my ill-fortune when you overheard me ask for Clotilde--ha
ha! do you remember? That was accursed bad luck, indeed! To go to the
house of the beautiful, the chaste Vera Demidof, not knowing it was
hers, and to ask for Clotilde!"
Paul spoke very faintly; his words came slowly and more slowly.
"Was it a kiss, or did I dream?" he murmured. "Mademoiselle, I--I did my
best to protect Maximof as he lay here--it was for your sake--will you
reward me with a kiss? I shall not live to tell of you."
Vera bent and put her lips to his forehead. Paul smiled.
"It is paradise," he murmured. "I die content."
They were his last words. Vera waited a moment or two, then she knelt
and prayed, made over the dead man the sign of the cross and departed.
In the village she found a peasant awaiting her. "This is the way,
lady," he said, in the obsequious manner of the moujik who expects
largess. "It was I that found and brought in the gentleman. Lord, he is
handsome--and heavy also!"
Vera gave the man money. "Is he alive--is he alive?" she said--"speak
quickly!"
"Alive? Lord, yes!" said the moujik, "doing well. We have found a
doctor for him and we have not ceased to pray--assuredly he will live,
Barishnya!"
The moujik returned to the battlefield, where he spent the night
reaping a glorious harvest, with other vultures of his kidney, from the
unfortunate dead and dying.
Vera entered the hut.