"You see," said the tall old man, as they entered, "the ravages

committed by that dear creature, to whom I devote myself. She is my
niece; in spite of the impotence of my art, I hope some day to restore

her reason by attempting a method which can only be employed,
unfortunately, by very rich people."

Then, like all persons living in solitude who are afflicted with an
ever present and ever renewed grief, he related to the marquis at

length the following narrative, which is here condensed, and relieved
of the many digressions made by both the narrator and the listener.

CHAPTER II
THE PASSAGE OF THE BERESINA

Marechal Victor, when he started, about nine at night, from the
heights of Studzianka, which he had defended, as the rear-guard of the

retreating army, during the whole day of November 28th, 1812, left a
thousand men behind him, with orders to protect to the last possible

moment whichever of the two bridges across the Beresina might still
exist. This rear-guard had devoted itself to the task of saving a

frightful multitude of stragglers overcome by the cold, who
obstinately refused to leave the bivouacs of the army. The heroism of

this generous troop proved useless. The stragglers who flocked in
masses to the banks of the Beresina found there, unhappily, an immense

number of carriages, caissons, and articles of all kinds which the
army had been forced to abandon when effecting its passage of the

river on the 27th and 28th of November. Heirs to such unlooked-for
riches, the unfortunate men, stupid with cold, took up their abode in

the deserted bivouacs, broke up the material which they found there to
build themselves cabins, made fuel of everything that came to hand,

cut up the frozen carcasses of the horses for food, tore the cloth and
the curtains from the carriages for coverlets, and went to sleep,

instead of continuing their way and crossing quietly during the night
that cruel Beresina, which an incredible fatality had already made so

destructive to the army.
The apathy of these poor soldiers can only be conceived by those who

remember to have crossed vast deserts of snow without other
perspective than a snow horizon, without other drink than snow,

without other bed than snow, without other food than snow or a few
frozen beet-roots, a few handfuls of flour, or a little horseflesh.

Dying of hunger, thirst, fatigue, and want of sleep, these
unfortunates reached a shore where they saw before them wood,

provisions, innumerable camp equipages, and carriages,--in short a
whole town at their service. The village of Studzianka had been wholly

taken to pieces and conveyed from the heights on which it stood to the
plain. However forlorn and dangerous that refuge might be, its

miseries and its perils only courted men who had lately seen nothing
before them but the awful deserts of Russia. It was, in fact, a vast

asylum which had an existence of twenty-four hours only.
Utter lassitude, and the sense of unexpected comfort, made that mass

of men inaccessible to every thought but that of rest. Though the
artillery of the left wing of the Russians kept up a steady fire on

this mass,--visible like a stain now black, now flaming, in the midst
of the trackless snow,--this shot and shell seemed to the torpid

creatures only one inconvenience the more. It was like a thunderstorm,
despised by all because the lightning strikes so few; the balls struck

only here and there, the dying, the sick, the dead sometimes!
Stragglers arrived in groups continually; but once here those

perambulating corpses separated; each begged for himself a place near
a fire; repulsed repeatedly, they met again, to obtain by force the

hospitality already refused to them. Deaf to the voice of some of
their officers, who warned them of probabledestruction on the morrow,

they spent the amount of courage necessary to cross the river in
building that asylum of a night, in making one meal that they

themselves doomed to be their last. The death that awaited them they
considered no evil, provided they could have that one night's sleep.

They thought nothing evil but hunger, thirst, and cold. When there was
no more wood or food or fire, horrible struggles took place between

fresh-comers and the rich who possessed a shelter. The weakest
succumbed.

At last there came a moment when a number, pursued by the Russians,
found only snow on which to bivouac, and these lay down to rise no

more. Insensibly this mass of almost annihilated beings became so
compact, so deaf, so torpid, so happy perhaps, that Marechal Victor,

who had been their heroicdefender by holding twenty thousand Russians
under Wittgenstein at bay, was forced to open a passage by main force

through this forest of men in order to cross the Beresina with five
thousand gallant fellows whom he was taking to the emperor. The

unfortunate malingerers allowed themselves to be crushed rather than
stir; they perished in silence, smiling at their extinguished fires,

without a thought of France.
It was not until ten o'clock that night that Marechal Victor reached

the bank of the river. Before crossing the bridge which led to Zembin,
he confided the fate of his own rear-guard now left in Studzianka to

Eble, the savior of all those who survived the calamities of the
Beresina. It was towards midnight when this great general, followed by

one brave officer, left the cabin he occupied near the bridge, and
studied the spectacle of that improvised camp placed between the bank

of the river and Studzianka. The Russian cannon had ceased to thunder.
Innumerable fires, which, amid that trackless waste of snow, burned

pale and scarcely sent out any gleams, illumined here and there by
sudden flashes forms and faces that were barely human. Thirty thousand

poor wretches, belonging to all nations, from whom Napoleon had
recruited his Russian army, were trifling away their lives with

brutish indifference.
"Let us save them!" said General Eble to the officer who accompanied

him. "To-morrow morning the Russians will be masters of Studzianka. We
must burn the bridge the moment they appear. Therefore, my friend,

take your courage in your hand! Go to the heights. Tell General
Fournier he has barely time to evacuate his position, force a way

through this crowd, and cross the bridge. When you have seen him in
motion follow him. Find men you can trust, and the moment Fournier had

crossed the bridge, burn, without pity, huts, equipages, caissons,
carriages,--EVERYTHING! Drive that mass of men to the bridge. Compel

all that has two legs to get to the other side of the river. The
burning of everything--EVERYTHING--is now our last resource. If

Berthier had let me destroy those damned camp equipages, this river
would swallow only my poor pontoniers, those fifty heroes who will

save the army, but who themselves will be forgotten."
The general laid his hand on his forehead and was silent. He felt that

Poland would be his grave, and that no voice would rise to do justice
to those noble men who stood in the water, the icy water of Beresina,

to destroy the buttresses of the bridges. One alone of those heroes
still lives--or, to speak more correctly, suffers--in a village,

totally ignored.
The aide-de-camp started. Hardly had this generous officer gone a

hundred yards towards Studzianka than General Eble wakened a number of
his weary pontoniers, and began the work,--the charitable work of

burning the bivouacs set up about the bridge, and forcing the
sleepers, thus dislodged, to cross the river.

Meanwhile the young aide-de-camp reached, not without difficulty, the
only wooden house still left standing in Studzianka.

"This barrack seems pretty full, comrade," he said to a man whom he
saw by the doorway.

"If you can get in you'll be a clever trooper," replied the officer,
without turning his head or ceasing to slice off with his sabre the

bark of the logs of which the house was built.
"Is that you, Philippe?" said the aide-de-camp, recognizing a friend

by the tones of his voice.
"Yes. Ha, ha! is it you, old fellow?" replied Monsieur de Sucy,

looking at the aide-de-camp, who, like himself, was only twenty-three
years of age. "I thought you were the other side of that cursed river.

What are you here for? Have you brought cakes and wine for our
dessert? You'll be welcome," and he went on slicing off the bark,

which he gave as a sort of provender to his horse.
"I am looking for your commander to tell him, from General Eble, to