Russian soldiers with red and vacant eyes. Occasionally he
emitted a long-drawn groan and then again became silent.
Morel, pointing to his shoulders, tried to impress on the soldiers the fact that Ramballe was an officer and ought to be
warmed. A Russian officer who had come up to the fire sent
to ask his colonel whether he would not take a French officer
into his hut to warm him, and when the messenger returned
and said that the colonel wished the officer to be brought to
him, Ramballe was told to go. He rose and tried to walk, but
staggered and would have fallen had not a soldier standing
by held him up.
‘You won’t do it again, eh?’ said one of the soldiers, winking and turning mockingly to Ramballe.
‘Oh, you fool! Why talk rubbish, lout that you area real
peasant!’ came rebukes from all sides addressed to the jesting soldier.
They surrounded Ramballe, lifted him on the crossed
arms of two soldiers, and carried him to the hut. Ramballe
put his arms around their necks while they carried him and
began wailing plaintively:
‘Oh, you fine fellows, my kind, kind friends! These are
men! Oh, my brave, kind friends,’ and he leaned his head
against the shoulder of one of the men like a child.
Meanwhile Morel was sitting in the best place by the fire,
surrounded by the soldiers.
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Morel, a short sturdy Frenchman with inflamed and
streaming eyes, was wearing a woman’s cloak and had
a shawl tied woman fashion round his head over his cap.
He was evidently tipsy, and was singing a French song in a
hoarse broken voice, with an arm thrown round the nearest
soldier. The soldiers simply held their sides as they watched
him.
‘Now then, now then, teach us how it goes! I’ll soon pick
it up. How is it?’ said the mana singer and a wagwhom Morel was embracing.
‘Vive Henri Quatre! Vive ce roi valiant!’ sang Morel,
winking. ‘Ce diable a quatre…’*
”Long live Henry the Fourth, that valiant king! That rowdy devil.’ ‘Vivarika! Vif-seruvaru! Sedyablyaka!’ repeated the soldier, flourishing his arm and really catching the tune. ‘Bravo! Ha, ha, ha!’ rose their rough, joyous laughter from all sides. Morel, wrinkling up his face, laughed too. ‘Well, go on, go on!’ ‘Qui eut le triple talent, De boire, de battre, Et d’etre un vert galant.’
*Who had a triple talent
For drinking, for fighting,
And for being a gallant old boy…
‘It goes smoothly, too. Well, now, Zaletaev!’
‘Ke…’ Zaletaev, brought out with effort: ‘ke-e-e-e,’ he
drawled, laboriously pursing his lips, ‘le-trip-ta-la-de-bude-ba, e de-tra-va-ga-la ‘ he sang.
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‘Fine! Just like the Frenchie! Oh, ho ho! Do you want
some more to eat?’
‘Give him some porridge: it takes a long time to get filled
up after starving.’
They gave him some more porridge and Morel with
a laugh set to work on his third bowl. All the young soldiers smiled gaily as they watched him. The older men, who
thought it undignified to amuse themselves with such nonsense, continued to lie at the opposite side of the fire, but one
would occasionally raise himself on an elbow and glance at
Morel with a smile.
‘They are men too,’ said one of them as he wrapped
himself up in his coat. ‘Even wormwood grows on its own
root.’
‘O Lord, O Lord! How starry it is! Tremendous! That
means a hard frost…’
They all grew silent. The stars, as if knowing that no one
was looking at them, began to disport themselves in the
dark sky: now flaring up, now vanishing, now trembling,
they were busy whispering something gladsome and mysterious to one another.
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Chapter X
The French army melted away at the uniform rate of a
mathematical progression; and that crossing of the Berezina about which so much has been written was only one
intermediate stage in its destruction, and not at all the decisive episode of the campaign. If so much has been and
still is written about the Berezina, on the French side this
is only because at the broken bridge across that river the
calamities their army had been previously enduring were
suddenly concentrated at one moment into a tragic spectacle that remained in every memory, and on the Russian side
merely because in Petersburgfar from the seat of wara plan
(again one of Pfuel’s) had been devised to catch Napoleon
in a strategic trap at the Berezina River. Everyone assured
himself that all would happen according to plan, and therefore insisted that it was just the crossing of the Berezina
that destroyed the French army. In reality the results of the
crossing were much less disastrous to the Frenchin guns
and men lostthan Krasnoe had been, as the figures show.
The sole importance of the crossing of the Berezina lies
in the fact that it plainly and indubitably proved the fallacy of all the plans for cutting off the enemy’s retreat and
the soundness of the only possible line of actionthe one Kutuzov and the general mass of the army demandednamely,
simply to follow the enemy up. The French crowd fled at a
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continually increasing speed and all its energy was directed to reaching its goal. It fled like a wounded animal and
it was impossible to block its path. This was shown not so
much by the arrangements it made for crossing as by what
took place at the bridges. When the bridges broke down,
unarmed soldiers, people from Moscow and women with
children who were with the French transport, allcarried on
by vis inertiaepressed forward into boats and into the icecovered water and did not, surrender.
That impulse was reasonable. The condition of fugitives
and of pursuers was equally bad. As long as they remained
with their own people each might hope for help from his
fellows and the definite place he held among them. But
those who surrendered, while remaining in the same pitiful plight, would be on a lower level to claim a share in the
necessities of life. The French did not need to be informed
of the fact that half the prisonerswith whom the Russians
did not know what to doperished of cold and hunger despite
their captors’ desire to save them; they felt that it could not
be otherwise. The most compassionate Russian commanders, those favorable to the Frenchand even the Frenchmen
in the Russian servicecould do nothing for the prisoners.
The French perished from the conditions to which the Russian army was itself exposed. It was impossible to take bread
and clothes from our hungry and indispensable soldiers to
give to the French who, though not harmful, or hated, or
guilty, were simply unnecessary. Some Russians even did
that, but they were exceptions.
Certain destruction lay behind the French but in front
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there was hope. Their ships had been burned, there was
no salvation save in collective flight, and on that the whole
strength of the French was concentrated.
The farther they fled the more wretched became the
plight of the remnant, especially after the Berezina, on
which (in consequence of the Petersburg plan) special hopes
had been placed by the Russians, and the keener grew the
passions of the Russian commanders, blamed one another and Kutuzov most of all. Anticipation that the failure of
the Petersburg Berezina plan would be attributed to Kutuzov led to dissatisfaction, contempt, and ridicule, more and
more strongly expressed. The ridicule and contempt were of
course expressed in a respectful form, making it impossible
for him to ask wherein he was to blame. They did not talk
seriously to him; when reporting to him or asking for his
sanction they appeared to be fulfilling a regrettable formality, but they winked behind his back and tried to mislead
him at every turn.
Because they could not understand him all these people assumed that it was useless to talk to the old man; that
he would never grasp the profundity of their plans, that he
would answer with his phrases (which they thought were
mere phrases) about a ‘golden bridge,’ about the impossibility of crossing the frontier with a crowd of tatterdemalions,
and so forth. They had heard all that before. And all he saidthat it was necessary to await provisions, or that the men
had no bootswas so simple, while what they proposed was
so complicated and clever, that it was evident that he was
old and stupid and that they, though not in power, were
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commanders of genius.
After the junction with the army of the brilliant admiral
and Petersburg hero Wittgenstein, this mood and the gossip of the staff reached their maximum. Kutuzov saw this
and merely sighed and shrugged his shoulders. Only once,
after the affair of the Berezina, did he get angry and write
to Bennigsen (who reported separately to the Emperor) the
following letter:
‘On account of your spells of ill health, will your excellency please be so good as to set off for Kaluga on receipt of
this, and there await further commands and appointments
from His Imperial Majesty.’
But after Bennigsen’s departure, the Grand Duke Tsarevich Constantine Pavlovich joined the army. He had taken
part in the beginning of the campaign but had subsequently
been removed from the army by Kutuzov. Now having come
to the army, he informed Kutuzov of the Emperor’s displeasure at the poor success of our forces and the slowness of
their advance. The Emperor intended to join the army personally in a few days’ time.
The old man, experienced in court as well as in military
affairsthis same Kutuzov who in August had been chosen
commander in chief against the sovereign’s wishes and who
had removed the Grand Duke and heirapparent from the
armywho on his own authority and contrary to the Emperor’s will had decided on the abandonment of Moscow,
now realized at once that his day was over, that his part was
played, and that the power he was supposed to hold was no
longer his. And he understood this not merely from the at
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titude of the court. He saw on the one hand that the military
business in which he had played his part was ended and felt
that his mission was accomplished; and at the same time he
began to be conscious of the physical weariness of his aged
body and of the necessity of physical rest.
On the twenty-ninth of November Kutuzov
