War is the gambling1 of kings. Napoleon, the arch-gambler, from that Southern sea where men, lacking cards or dice2 and the money to buy either, will yet play a game of chance with the ten fingers that God gave them for another purpose—Napoleon had dealt a hand with every monarch3 in Europe before he met for the second time that Northern adversary4 of cool blood who knew the waiting game.
It is only where the stakes are small that the leisurely5 players, idly fingering the fallen cards, return in fancy to certain points—to this trick trumped6 or that chance missed, playing the game over again. But when the result is great it overshadows the game, and all men's thoughts fly to speculation7 on the future. How will the loser meet his loss? What use will the winner make of his gain?
The results of the Russian campaign were so stupendous to history that the historians of the day, in their bewilderment, sought rather to preserve these than the details of the war. Thus the student of to-day, in piecing together an impression of bygone times, will inevitably8 find portions of his picture missing. As a matter of fact, no one can say for certain whether Alexander gently led Napoleon onward9 to Moscow or was himself driven thither10 in confusion by the conqueror11.
Perhaps each merely pushed on from day to day, as men who are not Emperors must needs do in the stress of life. It is only in calm weather that the eye is able to discern things afar off and make ready; but in a storm the horizon is dimmed by cloud and spray. All Europe was so obscured at this time. And even Emperors, being only men, could look no farther than the immediate13 and urgent danger of the moment.
Napoleon's generals were scarcely social lights. Ney, the hero of the retreat, the bravest of the brave, was a rough man who ate horseflesh without troubling to cook it. Rapp, whose dogged defence of an abandoned city is without compare in the story of war, had the manners and the mind of a peasant. These gentlemen dealt more in deeds than in words. They had not much to say for themselves.
As for the Russians, Russia remains14 at this time the one European country unhampered and unharassed by a cheap press—the one country where prominent men have a quiet tongue. A hundred years ago Russians did great deeds, and the rest was silence. Neither Kutusoff nor Alexander ever stated clearly whether the retreat to Moscow was intentional15 or unavoidable; and these are the only men who knew. Perhaps Napoleon knew; at all events, he thought he did, or pretended to think it long afterwards at St. Helena, for Napoleon the Great was a consummate16 liar17.
Be that as it may, the Russians retreated, and the French advanced farther and farther from their base. It was a great army—the greatest ever seen. For Napoleon had eight monarchs18 serving with the eagles; generals innumerable, many of them immortal—Davoust, the greatest strategist; Prince Eugene, the incomparable lieutenant19; Ney, the fearless; four hundred thousand men. And they carried with them only twenty days' provision.
They had marched from the Vistula, full of shipping20, across the Pregel, loaded with stores, to the Niemen, where there was no navigation. Dantzig, behind them—that Gibraltar of the North—was stored with provision enough for the whole army. But there was no transport; for the roads of Lithuania were unsuitable for the heavy carts provided.
The country across the Niemen could scarce sustain its own sparse21 population, and had nothing to spare for an invading army. This had once been Poland, and was now inimical to Russia; but Russia did not care, and the friendship of Lithuania was like many human friendships which we make sacrifices to preserve—not worth having.
All the while the Russians retreated, and, stranger still, the French followed them, eking22 out their twenty days' provision.
“I will make them fight a big battle, and beat them,” said Napoleon; “and then the Emperor will sue for peace.”
But Barclay de Tolly continued to run away from that great battle. Then came the news that Barclay had been deposed23; that Kutusoff was coming from the South to take command. It was true enough; and Barclay cheerfully served in a subordinate position to the new chief. September brought great hopes of a battle, for Kutusoff seemed to retreat with less despatch24, like a man choosing his ground—Kutusoff, that master of the waiting game.
Early in September Murat, the impetuous leader of the pursuit, complained to Nansouty that a cavalry25 charge had not been pushed home.
“The horses have no patriotism26,” replied Nansouty. “The men will fight on empty stomachs, but not the horses.”
At last, within a few days' march of Moscow, Kutusoff made a stand. At last the great battle was imminent28, after a hundred false alarms, after many disappointed hopes. The country had been flat hitherto. The Borodino, running in a wider valley than many of these rivers, which are merely great ditches, seemed to offer possibilities of defence. It was the only hope for Moscow.
“At last,” wrote Charles to Desiree on September 6, “we are to have a great battle. There has been much fighting the last few days, but I have seen none of it. We are only eighty miles from Moscow. If there is a great battle to-morrow we shall see Moscow in less than a week. For we shall win. I have now found out from one who is near him that the Emperor saw and remembered me the day he passed us in the Frauengasse—our wedding-day, dearest. Nobody is too insignificant29 for him to know. He thought that my marriage to you (for he knows that you are French) would militate against the work I had been given to do in Dantzig, so he gave orders for me to be sent at once to Konigsberg and to continue the work there. De Casimir tells me that the Emperor is pleased with me. De Casimir is the best friend I have; I am sure of that. It is said that under the walls of Moscow the Emperor will dictate30 his terms to Alexander. Every one wonders that Alexander of Russia did not make proposals of peace when Vilna and Smolensk fell. In a week we may be at Moscow. In a month I may be back at Dantzig, Desiree....”
And the rest would have been for Desiree's eyes alone, had it ever been penned. For next in sacredness to heaven-inspired words are mere12 human love letters; and those who read the love-letters of another commit a sacrilege. But Charles never finished the letter, for the dawn surprised him where he wrote in a shed by the miserable31 Kalugha, a streamlet running to the Moskwa. And it was the dawn of September 7, 1812.
“There is the sun of Austerlitz,” said Napoleon to those who were near him when it arose. But it was not. It was the sun of Borodino. And before it set the great battle desired by the French had been fought, and eight French generals lay dead, while thirty more were wounded. Murat, Davoust, Ney, Junot, Prince Eugene, Napoleon himself—all were there; and all fought to finish a war which from the first had been disliked. The French claimed it as a victory; but they gained nothing by it, and they lost forty thousand killed and wounded.
During the night the Russians evacuated32 the position which they had held, and lost, and retaken. They retreated towards Moscow, but Napoleon was hardly ready to pursue.
These things, however, are history, and those who wish to know of them may read them in another volume. While to the many orderly persons who would wish to see everything in its place and the history-books on the top shelf to be taken down and read on a future day (which will never come), to such the explanation is due that this battle of Borodino is here touched upon because it changed the current of some lives with which we have to deal.
For battles and revolutions and historical events of any sort are the jagged instruments with which Fate rough-hews our lives, leaving us to shape them as we will. In other days, no doubt, men rough-hewed, while Fate shaped. But as civilization advances men will wax so tender, so careful of the individual, that they will never cut and slash33, but move softly, very tolerant, very easy-going, seeking the compromise that brings peace and breeds a small and timid race of men.
Into such lives Fate comes crashing like a woodman with his axe34, leaving us to smooth the edges of the gaping35 wound and smile, and say that we are not hurt; to pare away the knots and broken stumps36; and hope that our neighbour, concealing37 such himself, will have the decency38 to pretend not to see.
Thus the battle of Borodino crashed into the lives of Desiree and Mathilde, and their father, living quietly on the sunny side of the Frauengasse in Dantzig. Antoine Sebastian was the first to hear the news. He had, it seemed, special facilities for learning news at the Weissen Ross'l, whither he went again now in the evening.
“There has been a great battle,” he said, with so much more than his usual self-restraint that Desiree and Mathilde exchanged a glance of anxiety. “A man coming this evening from Dirschau saw and spoke39 with the Imperial couriers on their way to Berlin and Paris. It was a great victory, quite near to Moscow. But the loss on both sides has been terrible.”
He paused and glanced at Desiree. It was his creed40 that good blood should show an example of self-restraint and a certain steadfast41, indifferent courage.
“Not so much among the French,” he said, “as among the Bavarians and Italians. It is an odd way of showing patriotism, to gain victories for the conqueror. One hoped—” he paused and made a gesture with his right hand, scarcely indicative of a staunch hope, “that the man's star might be setting, but it would appear to be still in the ascendant. Charles,” he added, as an afterthought, “would be on the staff. No doubt he only saw the fighting from a distance.”
Desiree, from whose face the colour had faded, nodded cheerfully enough.
“Oh yes,” she answered, “I have no doubt he is safe. He has good fortune.”
For she was an apt pupil, and had already learnt that the world only wishes to leave us in undisputed possession of our anxieties or sorrows, however ready it may be to come forward and take a hand in good fortune.
“But there is no definite news,” said Mathilde, hardly looking up from the needlework at which her fingers were so deft42 and industrious43.
“No.”
“No news of Charles, I mean,” she continued, “or of any of our friends. Of Monsieur de Casimir, for instance?”
“No. As for Colonel de Casimir,” returned Sebastian thoughtfully, “he, like Charles, holds some staff appointment of which one does not understand the scope. He is without doubt uninjured.”
Mathilde glanced at her father not without suspicion. His grand manner might easily be at times a screen. One never knows how much is perceived by those who look down from a high place.
The town was quiet enough all that night. Sebastian must have heard the news from some unofficial source, for none other seemed to know it. But at daybreak the church bells, so rarely used in Dantzig for rejoicing, awoke the burghers to the fact that the Emperor bade them make merry. Napoleon gave great heed44 to such matters. In the churches of Lithuania and farther on in Russia he had commanded the popes to pray for him at their altars instead of for the Czar.
When Desiree came downstairs, she found a packet awaiting her. The courier had come in during the night. This was more than a letter. A number of papers had been folded in a handkerchief and bound with string. The address was written on a piece of white leather cut from the uniform of one who had fallen at Borodino, and had no more need of sabretasche or trapping.
“Madame Desiree Darragon—nee Sebastian,
Frauengasse 36,
Dantzig.”
Desiree's heart stood still; for the writing was unknown to her. As she cut the network of string, she thought that Charles was dead. When the enclosed papers fell upon the table, she was sure of it; for they were all in his writing. She did not pick and choose as one would who has leisure and no very strong excitement, but took up the first paper and read:
“Dear C.—I have been fortunate, as you will see from the enclosed report. His Majesty46 cannot again say that I have been neglectful. I was quite right. It is Sebastian and only Sebastian that we need fear. Here, they are clumsy conspirators47 compared to him. I have been in the river half the night, listening at the open stern window of a Reval pink to every word they said. His Majesty can safely come to Konigsberg. Indeed, he is better out of Dantzig. For the whole country is riddled48 with that which they call patriotism, and we, treason. But I can only repeat what His Majesty disbelieved the day before yesterday—that the heart of the ill is Dantzig, and the venom49 of it Sebastian. Who he really is and what he is about, you must find out how you can. I go forward to-day to Gumbinnen. The enclosed letter to its address—I beg of you—if only in acknowledgment of all that I have sacrificed.”
The letter was unsigned, but the writing was the writing of Charles Darragon, and Desiree knew what he had sacrificed—what he could never recover.
There were two or three more letters addressed to “Dear C.,” bearing no signature, and yet written by Charles. Desiree read them carefully with a sort of numb45 attention which photographed them permanently50 on her memory like writing that is carved in stone upon a wall. There must be some explanation in one of them. Who had sent them to her? Was Charles dead?
At last she came to a sealed envelope addressed to herself by Charles. Some other hand had copied the address from it in identical terms on the piece of white leather. She opened and read it. It was the letter written to her by Charles on the bank of the Kalugha river on the eve of Borodino, and left unfinished by him. He must be dead. She prayed that he might be.
She was alone in the room, having come down early, as was her wont51, to prepare breakfast. She heard Lisa talking with some one at the door—a messenger, no doubt, to say that Charles was dead.
One letter still remained unread. It was in a different writing—the writing on the white leather.
“Madame,” it read, “The enclosed papers were found on the field by one of my orderlies. One of them being addressed to you, furnishes a clue to their owner, who must have dropped them in the hurry of the advance. Should Captain Charles Darragon be your husband, I have the pleasure to inform you that he was seen alive and well at the end of the day.” The writer assured Desiree of his respectful consideration, and wrote “Surgeon” after his name.
Desiree had read the explanation too late.
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1
gambling
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| n.赌博；投机 | |
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dice
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| n.骰子；vt.把（食物）切成小方块，冒险 | |
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monarch
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| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
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adversary
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| adj.敌手，对手 | |
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leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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trumped
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| v.（牌戏）出王牌赢（一牌或一墩）( trump的过去分词 )；吹号公告，吹号庆祝；吹喇叭；捏造 | |
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speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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onward
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| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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conqueror
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| n.征服者，胜利者 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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intentional
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| adj.故意的，有意（识）的 | |
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consummate
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| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
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liar
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| n.说谎的人 | |
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monarchs
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| 君主，帝王( monarch的名词复数 ) | |
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lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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shipping
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| n.船运（发货，运输，乘船） | |
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sparse
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| adj.稀疏的，稀稀落落的，薄的 | |
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eking
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| v.（靠节省用量）使…的供应持久( eke的现在分词 )；节约使用；竭力维持生计；勉强度日 | |
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deposed
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| v.罢免( depose的过去式和过去分词 )；（在法庭上）宣誓作证 | |
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24
despatch
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| n./v.(dispatch)派遣；发送；n.急件；新闻报道 | |
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cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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imminent
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| adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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dictate
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| v.口授；(使)听写；指令，指示，命令 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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evacuated
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| 撤退者的 | |
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33
slash
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| vi.大幅度削减；vt.猛砍，尖锐抨击，大幅减少；n.猛砍，斜线，长切口，衣衩 | |
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axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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stumps
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| （被砍下的树的）树桩( stump的名词复数 )； 残肢； （板球三柱门的）柱； 残余部分 | |
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concealing
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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39
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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steadfast
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| adj.固定的，不变的，不动摇的；忠实的；坚贞不移的 | |
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deft
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| adj.灵巧的，熟练的（a deft hand 能手） | |
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industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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44
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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45
numb
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| adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木 | |
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majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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conspirators
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| n.共谋者，阴谋家( conspirator的名词复数 ) | |
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48
riddled
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| adj.布满的；充斥的；泛滥的v.解谜，出谜题(riddle的过去分词形式) | |
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49
venom
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| n.毒液，恶毒，痛恨 | |
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50
permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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51
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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