ADIEU

 BY

 HONORE DE BALZAC

 Translated By Katharine Prescott Wormeley

 DEDICATION

 To Prince Frederic Schwartzenburg

 ADIEU

 CHAPTER I

 AN OLD MONASTERY

"Come, deputy of the Centre, forward! Quick step! march! if we want tobe in time to dine with the others. Jump, marquis! there, that'sright! why, you can skip across a stubble-field like a deer!"

These words were said by a huntsman peacefully seated at the edge ofthe forest of Ile-Adam, who was finishing an Havana cigar whilewaiting for his companion, who had lost his way in the tangledunderbrush of the wood. At his side four panting dogs were watching, as he did, the personage he addressed. To understand how sarcasticwere these exhortations, repeated at intervals, we should state thatthe approaching huntsman was a stout little man whose protuberantstomach was the evidence of a truly ministerial "embonpoint. " He wasstruggling painfully across the furrows of a vast wheat-field recentlyharvested, the stubble of which considerably impeded him; while to addto his other miseries the sun's rays, striking obliquely on his face, collected an abundance of drops of perspiration. Absorbed in theeffort to maintain his equilibrium, he leaned, now forward, now back, in close imitation of the pitching of a carriage when violentlyjolted. The weather looked threatening. Though several spaces of bluesky still parted the thick black clouds toward the horizon, a flock offleecy vapors were advancing with great rapidity and drawing a lightgray curtain from east to west. As the wind was acting only on theupper region of the air, the atmosphere below it pressed down the hotvapors of the earth. Surrounded by masses of tall trees, the valleythrough which the hunter struggled felt like a furnace. Parched andsilent, the forest seemed thirsty. The birds, even the insects, werevoiceless; the tree-tops scarcely waved. Those persons who may stillremember the summer of 1819 can imagine the woes of the poor deputy, who was struggling along, drenched in sweat, to regain his mockingfriend. The latter, while smoking his cigar, had calculated from theposition of the sun that it must be about five in the afternoon. 

"Where the devil are we?" said the stout huntsman, mopping hisforehead and leaning against the trunk of a tree nearly opposite tohis companion, for he felt unequal to the effort of leaping the ditchbetween them. 

"That's for me to ask you, " said the other, laughing, as he lay amongthe tall brown brake which crowned the bank. Then, throwing the end ofhis cigar into the ditch, he cried out vehemently: "I swear by SaintHubert that never again will I trust myself in unknown territory witha statesman, though he be, like you, my dear d'Albon, a college mate. "

"But, Philippe, have you forgotten your French? Or have you left yourwits in Siberia?" replied the stout man, casting a sorrowfully comiclook at a sign-post about a hundred feet away. 

"True, true, " cried Philippe, seizing his gun and springing with abound into the field and thence to the post. "This way, d'Albon, thisway, " he called back to his friend, pointing to a broad paved path andreading aloud the sign: "'From Baillet to Ile-Adam. ' We shallcertainly find the path to Cassan, which must branch from this onebetween here and Ile-Adam. "

"You are right, colonel, " said Monsieur d'Albon, replacing upon hishead the cap with which he had been fanning himself. 

"Forward then, my respectable privy councillor, " replied ColonelPhilippe, whistling to the dogs, who seemed more willing to obey himthan the public functionary to whom they belonged. 

"Are you aware, marquis, " said the jeering soldier, "that we stillhave six miles to go? That village over there must be Baillet. "

"Good heavens!" cried the marquis, "go to Cassan if you must, butyou'll go alone. I prefer to stay here, in spite of the coming storm, and wait for the horse you can send me from the chateau. You've playedme a trick, Sucy. We were to have had a nice little hunt not far fromCassan, and beaten the coverts I know. Instead of that, you have keptme running like a hare since four o'clock this morning, and all I'vehad for breakfast is a cup of milk. Now, if you ever have a petitionbefore the Court, I'll make you lose it, however just your claim. "

The poor discouraged huntsman sat down on a stone that supported thesignpost, relieved himself of his gun and his gamebag, and heaved along sigh. 

"France! such are thy deputies!" exclaimed Colonel de Sucy, laughing. "Ah! my poor d'Albon, if you had been like me six years in the wildsof Siberia--"

He said no more, but he raised his eyes to heaven as if that anguishwere between himself and God. 

"Come, march on!" he added. "If you sit still you are lost. "

"How can I, Philippe? It is an old magisterial habit to sit still. Onmy honor! I'm tired out-- If I had only killed a hare!"

The two men presented a rather rare contrast: the public functionarywas forty-two years of age and seemed no more than thirty, whereas thesoldier was thirty, and seemed forty at the least. Both wore the redrosette of the officers of the Legion of honor. A few spare locks ofblack hair mixed with white, like the wing of a magpie, escaped fromthe colonel's cap, while handsome brown curls adorned the brow of thestatesman. One was tall, gallant, high-strung, and the lines of hispallid face showed terrible passions or frightful griefs. The otherhad a face that was brilliant with health, and jovially worth of anepicurean. Both were deeply sun-burned, and their high gaiters oftanned leather showed signs of the bogs and the thickets they had justcome through. 

"Come, " said Monsieur de Sucy, "let us get on. A short hour's march, and we shall reach Cassan in time for a good dinner. "

"It is easy to see you have never loved, " replied the councillor, witha look that was pitifully comic; "you are as relentless as article 304of the penal code. "

Philippe de Sucy quivered; his broad brow contracted; his face becameas sombre as the skies above them. Some memory of awful bitternessdistorted for a moment his features, but he said nothing. Like allstrong men, he drove down his emotions to the depths of his heart;thinking perhaps, as simple characters are apt to think, that therewas something immodest in unveiling griefs when human language cannotrender their depths and may only rouse the mockery of those who do notcomprehend them. Monsieur d'Albon had one of those delicate natureswhich divine sorrows, and are instantly sympathetic to the emotionthey have involuntarily aroused. He respected his friend's silence, rose, forgot his fatigue, and followed him silently, grieved to havetouched a wound that was evidently not healed. 

"Some day, my friend, " said Philippe, pressing his hand, and thankinghim for his mute repentance by a heart-rending look, "I will relate toyou my life. To-day I cannot. "

They continued their way in silence. When the colonel's pain seemedsoothed, the marquis resumed his fatigue; and with the instinct, orrather the will, of a wearied man his eye took in the very depths ofthe forest; he questioned the tree-tops and examined the branchingpaths, hoping to discover some dwelling where he could askhospitality. Arriving at a cross-ways, he thought he noticed a slightsmoke rising among the trees; he stopped, looked more attentively, andsaw, in the midst of a vast copse, the dark-green branches of severalpine-trees. 

"A house! a house!" he cried, with the joy the sailor feels in crying"Land!"

Then he sprang quickly into the copse, and the colonel, who had falleninto a deep reverie, followed him mechanically. 

"I'd rather get an omelet, some cottage bread, and a chair here, " hesaid, "than go to Cassan for sofas, truffles, and Bordeaux. "

These words were an exclamation of enthusiasm, elicited from thecouncillor on catching sight of a wall, the white towers of whichglimmered in the distance through the brown masses of the tree trunks. 

"Ha! ha! this looks to me as if it had once been a priory, " cried themarquis, as they reached a very old and blackened gate, through whichthey could see, in the midst of a large park, a building constructedin the style of the monasteries of old. "How those rascals the monksknew how to choose their sites!"

This last exclamation was an expression of surprise and pleasure atthe poetical hermitage which met his eyes. The house stood on theslope of the mountain, at the summit of which is the village ofNerville. The great centennial oaks of the forest which encircled thedwelling made the place an absolute solitude. The main building, formerly occupied by the monks, faced south. The park seemed to haveabout forty acres. Near the house lay a succession of green meadows, charmingly crossed by several clear rivulets, with here and there apiece of water naturally placed without the least apparent artifice. Trees of elegant shape and varied foliage were distributed about. Grottos, cleverly managed, and massive terraces with dilapidated stepsand rusty railings, gave a peculiar character to this lone retreat. Art had harmonized her constructions with the picturesque effects ofnature. Human passions seemed to die at the feet of those great trees, which guarded this asylum from the tumult of the world as they shadedit from the fires of the sun. 

"How desolate!" thought Monsieur d'Albon, observing the sombreexpression which the ancient building gave to the landscape, gloomy asthough a curse were on it. It seemed a fatal spot deserted by man. Ivyhad stretched its tortuous muscles, covered by its rich green mantle, everywhere. Brown or green, red or yellow mosses and lichen spreadtheir romantic tints on trees and seats and roofs and stones. Thecrumbling window-casings were hollowed by rain, defaced by time; thebalconies were broken, the terraces demolished. Some of the outsideshutters hung from a single hinge. The rotten doors seemed quiteunable to resist an assailant. Covered with shining tufts ofmistletoe, the branches of the neglected fruit-trees gave no sign offruit. Grass grew in the paths. Such ruin and desolation cast a weirdpoesy on the scene, filling the souls of the spectators with dreamythoughts. A poet would have stood there long, plunged in a melancholyreverie, admiring this disorder so full of harmony, this destructionwhich was not without its grace. Suddenly, the brown tiles shone, themosses glittered, fantastic shadows danced upon the meadows andbeneath the trees; fading colors revived; striking contrastsdeveloped, the foliage of the trees and shrubs defined itself moreclearly in the light. Then--the light went out. The landscape seemedto have spoken, and now was silent, returning to its gloom, or ratherto the soft sad tones of an autumnal twilight. 

"It is the palace of the Sleeping Beauty, " said the marquis, beginningto view the house with the eyes of a land owner. "I wonder to whom itbelongs! He must be a stupid fellow not to live in such an exquisitespot. "

At that instant a woman sprang from beneath a chestnut-tree standingto the right of the gate, and, without making any noise, passed beforethe marquis as rapidly as the shadow of a cloud. This vision made himmute with surprise. 

"Why, Albon, what's the matter?" asked the colonel. 

"I am rubbing my eyes to know if I am asleep or awake, " replied themarquis, with his face close to the iron rails as he tried to getanother sight of the phantom. 

"She must be beneath that fig-tree, " he said, pointing to the foliageof a tree which rose above the wall to the left of the gate. 

"She! who?"

"How can I tell?" replied Monsieur d'Albon. "A strange woman rose upthere, just before me, " he said in a low voice; "she seemed to comefrom the world of shades rather than from the land of the living. Sheis so slender, so light, so filmy, she must be diaphanous. Her facewas as white as milk; her eyes, her clothes, her hair jet black. Shelooked at me as she flitted by, and though I may say I'm no coward, that cold immovable look froze the blood in my veins. "

"Is she pretty?" asked Philippe. 

"I don't know. I could see nothing but the eyes in that face. "

"Well, let the dinner at Cassan go to the devil!" cried the colonel. "Suppose we stay here. I have a sudden childish desire to enter thatsingular house. Do you see those window-frames painted red, and thered lines on the doors and shutters? Doesn't the place look to you asif it belonged to the devil?--perhaps he inherited it from the monks. Come, let us pursue the black and white lady--forward, march!" criedPhilippe, with forced gaiety. 

At that instant the two huntsmen heard a cry that was something likethat of a mouse caught in a trap. They listened. The rustle of a fewshrubs sounded in the silence like the murmur of a breaking wave. Invain they listened for other sounds; the earth was dumb, and kept thesecret of those light steps, if, indeed, the unknown woman moved atall. 

"It is very singular!" said Philippe, as they skirted the park wall. 

The two friends presently reached a path in the forest which led tothe village of Chauvry. After following this path some way toward themain road to Paris, they came to another iron gate which led to theprincipal facade of the mysterious dwelling. On this side thedilapidation and disorder of the premises had reached their height. Immense cracks furrowed the walls of the house, which was built onthree sides of a square. Fragments of tiles and slates lying on theground, and the dilapidated condition of the roofs, were evidence of atotal want of care on the part of the owners. The fruit had fallenfrom the trees and lay rotting on the ground; a cow was feeding on thelawn and treading down the flowers in the borders, while a goatbrowsed on the shoots of the vines and munched the unripe grapes. 

"Here all is harmony; the devastation seems organized, " said thecolonel, pulling the chain of a bell; but the bell was without aclapper. 

The huntsmen heard nothing but the curiously sharp noise of a rustyspring. Though very dilapidated, a little door made in the wall besidethe iron gates resisted all their efforts to open it. 

"Well, well, this is getting to be exciting, " said de Sucy to hiscompanion. 

"If I were not a magistrate, " replied Monsieur d'Albon, "I shouldthink that woman was a witch. "

As he said the words, the cow came to the iron gate and pushed herwarm muzzle towards them, as if she felt the need of seeing humanbeings. Then a woman, if that name could be applied to the indefinablebeing who suddenly issued from a clump of bushes, pulled away the cowby its rope. This woman wore on her head a red handkerchief, beneathwhich trailed long locks of hair in color and shape like the flax on adistaff. She wore no fichu. A coarse woollen petticoat in black andgray stripes, too short by several inches, exposed her legs. She mighthave belonged to some tribe of Red-Skins described by Cooper, for herlegs, neck, and arms were the color of brick. No ray of intelligenceenlivened her vacant face. A few whitish hairs served her foreyebrows; the eyes themselves, of a dull blue, were cold and wan; andher mouth was so formed as to show the teeth, which were crooked, butas white as those of a dog. 

"Here, my good woman!" called Monsieur de Sucy. 

She came very slowly to the gate, looking with a silly expression atthe two huntsmen, the sight of whom brought a forced and painful smileto her face. 

"Where are we? Whose house is this? Who are you? Do you belong here?"

To these questions and several others which the two friendsalternately addressed to her, she answered only with guttural soundsthat seemed more like the growl of an animal than the voice of a humanbeing. 

"She must be deaf and dumb, " said the marquis. 

"Bons-Hommes!" cried the peasant woman. 

"Ah! I see. This is, no doubt, the old monastery of the Bons-Hommes, "said the marquis. 

He renewed his questions. But, like a capricious child, the peasantwoman colored, played with her wooden shoe, twisted the rope of thecow, which was now feeding peaceably, and looked at the two hunters, examining every part of their clothing; then she yelped, growled, andclucked, but did not speak. 

"What is your name?" said Philippe, looking at her fixedly, as if hemeant to mesmerize her. 

"Genevieve, " she said, laughing with a silly air. 

"The cow is the most intelligent being we have seen so far, " said themarquis. "I shall fire my gun and see if that will being some one. "

Just as d'Albon raised his gun, the colonel stopped him with agesture, and pointed to the form of a woman, probably the one who hadso keenly piqued his curiosity. At this moment she seemed lost in thedeepest meditation, and was coming with slow steps along a distantpathway, so that the two friends had ample time to examine her. 

She was dressed in a ragged gown of black satin. Her long hair fell inmasses of curls over her forehead, around her shoulders, and below herwaist, serving her for a shawl. Accustomed no doubt to this disorder, she seldom pushed her hair from her forehead; and when she did so, itwas with a sudden toss of her head which only for a moment cleared herforehead and eyes from the thick veil. Her gesture, like that of ananimal, had a remarkable mechanical precision, the quickness of whichseemed wonderful in a woman. The huntsmen were amazed to see hersuddenly leap up on the branch of an apple-tree, and sit there withthe ease of a bird. She gathered an apple and ate it; then she droppedto the ground with the graceful ease we admire in a squirrel. Herlimbs possessed an elasticity which took from every movement theslightest appearance of effort or constraint. She played upon theturf, rolling herself about like a child; then, suddenly, she flungher feet and hands forward, and lay at full length on the grass, withthe grace and natural ease of a young cat asleep in the sun. Thundersounded in the distance, and she turned suddenly, rising on her handsand knees with the rapidity of a dog which hears a coming footstep. 

The effects of this singular attitude was to separate into two heavymasses the volume of her black hair, which now fell on either side ofher head, and allowed the two spectators to admire the white shouldersglistening like daisies in a field, and the throat, the perfection ofwhich allowed them to judge of the other beauties of her figure. 

Suddenly she uttered a distressful cry and rose to her feet. Hermovements succeeded each other with such airiness and grace that sheseemed not a creature of this world but a daughter of the atmosphere, as sung in the poems of Ossian. She ran toward a piece of water, shookone of her legs lightly to cast off her shoe, and began to dabble herfoot, white as alabaster, in the current, admiring, perhaps, theundulations she thus produced upon the surface of the water. Then sheknelt down at the edge of the stream and amused herself, like a child, in casting in her long tresses and pulling them abruptly out, to watchthe shower of drops that glittered down, looking, as the sunlightstruck athwart them, like a chaplet of pearls. 

"That woman is mad!" cried the marquis. 

A hoarse cry, uttered by Genevieve, seemed uttered as a warning to theunknown woman, who turned suddenly, throwing back her hair from eitherside of her face. At this instant the colonel and Monsieur d'Alboncould distinctly see her features; she, herself, perceiving the twofriends, sprang to the iron railing with the lightness and rapidity ofa deer. 

"Adieu!" she said, in a soft, harmonious voice, the melody of whichdid not convey the slightest feeling or the slightest thought. 

Monsieur d'Albon admired the long lashes of her eyelids, the blacknessof her eyebrows, and the dazzling whiteness of a skin devoid of eventhe faintest tinge of color. Tiny blue veins alone broke theuniformity of its pure white tones. When the marquis turned to hisfriend as if to share with him his amazement at the sight of thissingular creature, he found him stretched on the ground as if dead. D'Albon fired his gun in the air to summon assistance, crying out"Help! help!" and then endeavored to revive the colonel. At the soundof the shot, the unknown woman, who had hitherto stood motionless, fled away with the rapidity of an arrow, uttering cries of fear like awounded animal, and running hither and thither about the meadow withevery sign of the greatest terror. 

Monsieur d'Albon, hearing the rumbling of a carriage on the high-roadto Ile-Adam, waved his handkerchief and shouted to its occupants forassistance. The carriage was immediately driven up to the oldmonastery, and the marquis recognized his neighbors, Monsieur andMadame de Granville, who at once gave up their carriage to the serviceof the two gentlemen. Madame de Granville had with her, by chance, abottle of salts, which revived the colonel for a moment. When heopened his eyes he turned them to the meadow, where the unknown womanwas still running and uttering her distressing cries. A smotheredexclamation escaped him, which seemed to express a sense of horror;then he closed his eyes again, and made a gesture as if to implore hisfriend to remove him from that sight. 

Monsieur and Madame de Granville placed their carriage entirely at thedisposal of the marquis, assuring him courteously that they would liketo continue their way on foot. 

"Who is that lady?" asked the marquis, signing toward the unknownwoman. 

"I believe she comes from Moulins, " replied Monsieur de Granville. "She is the Comtesse de Vandieres, and they say she is mad; but as shehas only been here two months I will not vouch for the truth of thesehearsays. "

Monsieur d'Albon thanked his friends, and placing the colonel in thecarriage, started with him for Cassan. 

"It is she!" cried Philippe, recovering his senses. 

"Who is she?" asked d'Albon. 

"Stephanie. Ah, dead and living, living and mad! I fancied I wasdying. "

The prudent marquis, appreciating the gravity of the crisis throughwhich his friend was passing, was careful not to question or excitehim; he was only anxious to reach the chateau, for the change whichhad taken place in the colonel's features, in fact in his wholeperson, made him fear for his friend's reason. As soon, therefore, asthe carriage had reached the main street of Ile-Adam, he dispatchedthe footman to the village doctor, so that the colonel was no soonerfairly in his bed at the chateau than the physician was beside him. 

"If monsieur had not been many hours without food the shock would havekilled him, " said the doctor. 

After naming the first precautions, the doctor left the room, toprepare, himself, a calming potion. The next day, Monsieur de Sucy wasbetter, but the doctor still watched him carefully. 

"I will admit to you, monsieur le marquis, " he said, "that I havefeared some affection of the brain. Monsieur de Sucy has received aviolent shock; his passions are strong; but, in him, the first blowdecides all. To-morrow he may be entirely out of danger. "

The doctor was not mistaken; and the following day he allowed themarquis to see his friend. 

"My dear d'Albon, " said Philippe, pressing his hand, "I am going toask a kindness of you. Go to the Bons-Hommes, and find out all you canof the lady we saw there; and return to me as quickly as you can; Ishall count the minutes. "

Monsieur d'Albon mounted his horse at once, and galloped to the oldabbey. When he arrived there, he saw before the iron gate a tall, spare man with a very kindly face, who answered in the affirmativewhen asked if he lived there. Monsieur d'Albon then informed him ofthe reasons for his visit. 

"What! monsieur, " said the other, "was it you who fired that fatalshot? You very nearly killed my poor patient. "

"But, monsieur, I fired in the air. "

"You would have done the countess less harm had you fired at her. "

"Then we must not reproach each other, monsieur, for the sight of thecountess has almost killed my friend, Monsieur de Sucy. "

"Heavens! can you mean Baron Philippe de Sucy?" cried the doctor, clasping his hands. "Did he go to Russia; was he at the passage of theBeresina?"

"Yes, " replied d'Albon, "he was captured by the Cossacks and kept forfive years in Siberia; he recovered his liberty a few months ago. "

"Come in, monsieur, " said the master of the house, leading the marquisinto a room on the lower floor where everything bore the marks ofcapricious destruction. The silken curtains beside the windows weretorn, while those of muslin remained intact. 

"You see, " said the tall old man, as they entered, "the ravagescommitted by that dear creature, to whom I devote myself. She is myniece; in spite of the impotence of my art, I hope some day to restoreher 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 anever present and ever renewed grief, he related to the marquis atlength the following narrative, which is here condensed, and relievedof 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 theheights of Studzianka, which he had defended, as the rear-guard of theretreating army, during the whole day of November 28th, 1812, left athousand men behind him, with orders to protect to the last possiblemoment whichever of the two bridges across the Beresina might stillexist. This rear-guard had devoted itself to the task of saving afrightful multitude of stragglers overcome by the cold, whoobstinately refused to leave the bivouacs of the army. The heroism ofthis generous troop proved useless. The stragglers who flocked inmasses to the banks of the Beresina found there, unhappily, an immensenumber of carriages, caissons, and articles of all kinds which thearmy had been forced to abandon when effecting its passage of theriver on the 27th and 28th of November. Heirs to such unlooked-forriches, the unfortunate men, stupid with cold, took up their abode inthe deserted bivouacs, broke up the material which they found there tobuild themselves cabins, made fuel of everything that came to hand, cut up the frozen carcasses of the horses for food, tore the cloth andthe curtains from the carriages for coverlets, and went to sleep, instead of continuing their way and crossing quietly during the nightthat cruel Beresina, which an incredible fatality had already made sodestructive to the army. 

The apathy of these poor soldiers can only be conceived by those whoremember to have crossed vast deserts of snow without otherperspective than a snow horizon, without other drink than snow, without other bed than snow, without other food than snow or a fewfrozen beet-roots, a few handfuls of flour, or a little horseflesh. Dying of hunger, thirst, fatigue, and want of sleep, theseunfortunates reached a shore where they saw before them wood, provisions, innumerable camp equipages, and carriages, --in short awhole town at their service. The village of Studzianka had been whollytaken to pieces and conveyed from the heights on which it stood to theplain. However forlorn and dangerous that refuge might be, itsmiseries and its perils only courted men who had lately seen nothingbefore them but the awful deserts of Russia. It was, in fact, a vastasylum which had an existence of twenty-four hours only. 

Utter lassitude, and the sense of unexpected comfort, made that massof men inaccessible to every thought but that of rest. Though theartillery of the left wing of the Russians kept up a steady fire onthis mass, --visible like a stain now black, now flaming, in the midstof the trackless snow, --this shot and shell seemed to the torpidcreatures only one inconvenience the more. It was like a thunderstorm, despised by all because the lightning strikes so few; the balls struckonly here and there, the dying, the sick, the dead sometimes!Stragglers arrived in groups continually; but once here thoseperambulating corpses separated; each begged for himself a place neara fire; repulsed repeatedly, they met again, to obtain by force thehospitality already refused to them. Deaf to the voice of some oftheir officers, who warned them of probable destruction on the morrow, they spent the amount of courage necessary to cross the river inbuilding that asylum of a night, in making one meal that theythemselves doomed to be their last. The death that awaited them theyconsidered no evil, provided they could have that one night's sleep. They thought nothing evil but hunger, thirst, and cold. When there wasno more wood or food or fire, horrible struggles took place betweenfresh-comers and the rich who possessed a shelter. The weakestsuccumbed. 

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 nomore. Insensibly this mass of almost annihilated beings became socompact, so deaf, so torpid, so happy perhaps, that Marechal Victor, who had been their heroic defender by holding twenty thousand Russiansunder Wittgenstein at bay, was forced to open a passage by main forcethrough this forest of men in order to cross the Beresina with fivethousand gallant fellows whom he was taking to the emperor. Theunfortunate malingerers allowed themselves to be crushed rather thanstir; 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 reachedthe 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 toEble, the savior of all those who survived the calamities of theBeresina. It was towards midnight when this great general, followed byone brave officer, left the cabin he occupied near the bridge, andstudied the spectacle of that improvised camp placed between the bankof the river and Studzianka. The Russian cannon had ceased to thunder. Innumerable fires, which, amid that trackless waste of snow, burnedpale and scarcely sent out any gleams, illumined here and there bysudden flashes forms and faces that were barely human. Thirty thousandpoor wretches, belonging to all nations, from whom Napoleon hadrecruited his Russian army, were trifling away their lives withbrutish indifference. 

"Let us save them!" said General Eble to the officer who accompaniedhim. "To-morrow morning the Russians will be masters of Studzianka. Wemust burn the bridge the moment they appear. Therefore, my friend, take your courage in your hand! Go to the heights. Tell GeneralFournier he has barely time to evacuate his position, force a waythrough this crowd, and cross the bridge. When you have seen him inmotion follow him. Find men you can trust, and the moment Fournier hadcrossed the bridge, burn, without pity, huts, equipages, caissons, carriages, --EVERYTHING! Drive that mass of men to the bridge. Compelall that has two legs to get to the other side of the river. Theburning of everything--EVERYTHING--is now our last resource. IfBerthier had let me destroy those damned camp equipages, this riverwould swallow only my poor pontoniers, those fifty heroes who willsave the army, but who themselves will be forgotten. "

The general laid his hand on his forehead and was silent. He felt thatPoland would be his grave, and that no voice would rise to do justiceto those noble men who stood in the water, the icy water of Beresina, to destroy the buttresses of the bridges. One alone of those heroesstill lives--or, to speak more correctly, suffers--in a village, totally ignored. 

The aide-de-camp started. Hardly had this generous officer gone ahundred yards towards Studzianka than General Eble wakened a number ofhis weary pontoniers, and began the work, --the charitable work ofburning the bivouacs set up about the bridge, and forcing thesleepers, thus dislodged, to cross the river. 

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

"This barrack seems pretty full, comrade, " he said to a man whom hesaw 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 thebark of the logs of which the house was built. 

"Is that you, Philippe?" said the aide-de-camp, recognizing a friendby 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-threeyears 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 ourdessert? 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, tomake for Zembin. You'll have barely enough time to get through thatcrowd of men below. I am going presently to set fire to their camp andforce them to march. "

"You warm me up--almost! That news makes me perspire. I have twofriends I MUST save. Ah! without those two to cling to me, I should bedead already. It is for them that I feed my horse and don't eatmyself. Have you any food, --a mere crust? It is thirty hours sinceanything has gone into my stomach, and yet I have fought like a madman--just to keep a little warmth and courage in me. "

"Poor Philippe, I have nothing--nothing! But where's your general, --inthis house?"

"No, don't go there; the place is full of wounded. Go up the street;you'll find on your left a sort of pig-pen; the general is there. Good-bye, old fellow. If we ever dance a trenis on a Paris floor--"

He did not end his sentence; the north wind blew at that moment withsuch ferocity that the aide-de-camp hurried on to escape being frozen, and the lips of Major de Sucy stiffened. Silence reigned, broken onlyby the moans which came from the house, and the dull sound made by themajor's horse as it chewed in a fury of hunger the icy bark of thetrees with which the house was built. Monsieur de Sucy replaced hissabre in its scabbard, took the bridle of the precious horse he hadhitherto been able to preserve, and led it, in spite of the animal'sresistance, from the wretched fodder it appeared to think excellent. 

"We'll start, Bichette, we'll start! There's none but you, my beauty, who can save Stephanie. Ha! by and bye you and I may be able to rest--and die, " he added. 

Philippe, wrapped in a fur pelisse, to which he owed his preservationand his energy, began to run, striking his feet hard upon the frozensnow to keep them warm. Scarcely had he gone a few hundred yards fromthe village than he saw a blaze in the direction of the place where, since morning, he had left his carriage in charge of his formerorderly, an old soldier. Horrible anxiety laid hold of him. Like allothers who were controlled during this fatal retreat by some powerfulsentiment, he found a strength to save his friends which he could nothave put forth to save himself. 

Presently he reached a slight declivity at the foot of which, in aspot sheltered from the enemy's balls, he had stationed the carriage, containing a young woman, the companion of his childhood, the beingmost dear to him on earth. At a few steps distant from the vehicle henow found a company of some thirty stragglers collected around animmense fire, which they were feeding with planks, caisson covers, wheels, and broken carriages. These soldiers were, no doubt, the lastcomers of that crowd who, from the base of the hill of Studzianka tothe fatal river, formed an ocean of heads intermingled with fires andhuts, --a living sea, swayed by motions that were almost imperceptible, and giving forth a murmuring sound that rose at times to frightfuloutbursts. Driven by famine and despair, these poor wretches must haverifled the carriage before de Sucy reached it. The old general and hisyoung wife, whom he had left lying in piles of clothes and wrapped inmantles and pelisses, were now on the snow, crouching before the fire. One door of the carriage was already torn off. 

No sooner did the men about the fire hear the tread of the major'shorse than a hoarse cry, the cry of famine, arose, --

"A horse! a horse!"

Those voices formed but one voice. 

"Back! back! look out for yourself!" cried two or three soldiers, aiming at the mare. Philippe threw himself before his animal, cryingout, --

"You villains! I'll throw you into your own fire. There are plenty ofdead horses up there. Go and fetch them. "

"Isn't he a joker, that officer! One, two--get out of the way, " crieda colossal grenadier. "No, you won't, hey! Well, as you please, then. "

A woman's cry rose higher than the report of the musket. Philippefortunately was not touched, but Bichette, mortally wounded, wasstruggling in the throes of death. Three men darted forward anddispatched her with their bayonets. 

"Cannibals!" cried Philippe, "let me at any rate take the horse-clothand my pistols. "

"Pistols, yes, " replied the grenadier. "But as for that horse-cloth, no! here's a poor fellow afoot, with nothing in his stomach for twodays, and shivering in his rags. It is our general. "

Philippe kept silence as he looked at the man, whose boots were wornout, his trousers torn in a dozen places, while nothing but a raggedfatigue-cap covered with ice was on his head. He hastened, however, totake his pistols. Five men dragged the mare to the fire, and cut herup with the dexterity of a Parisian butcher. The pieces were instantlyseized and flung upon the embers. 

The major went up to the young woman, who had uttered a cry onrecognizing him. He found her motionless, seated on a cushion besidethe fire. She looked at him silently, without smiling. Philippe thensaw the soldier to whom he had confided the carriage; the man waswounded. Overcome by numbers, he had been forced to yield to themalingerers who attacked him; and, like the dog who defended to thelast possible moment his master's dinner, he had taken his share ofthe booty, and was now sitting beside the fire, wrapped in a whitesheet by way of cloak, and turning carefully on the embers a slice ofthe mare. Philippe saw upon his face the joy these preparations gavehim. The Comte de Vandieres, who, for the last few days, had falleninto a state of second childhood, was seated on a cushion beside hiswife, looking fixedly at the fire, which was beginning to thaw historpid limbs. He had shown no emotion of any kind, either atPhilippe's danger, or at the fight which ended in the pillage of thecarriage and their expulsion from it. 

At first de Sucy took the hand of the young countess, as if to showher his affection, and the grief he felt at seeing her reduced to suchutter misery; then he grew silent; seated beside her on a heap of snowwhich was turning into a rivulet as it melted, he yielded himself upto the happiness of being warm, forgetting their peril, forgetting allthings. His face assumed, in spite of himself, an expression of almoststupid joy, and he waited with impatience until the fragment of themare given to his orderly was cooked. The smell of the roasting fleshincreased his hunger, and his hunger silenced his heart, his courage, and his love. He looked, without anger, at the results of the pillageof his carriage. All the men seated around the fire had shared hisblankets, cushions, pelisses, robes, also the clothing of the Comteand Comtesse de Vandieres and his own. Philippe looked about him tosee if there was anything left in or near the vehicle that was worthsaving. By the light of the flames he saw gold and diamonds and platescattered everywhere, no one having thought it worth his while to takeany. 

Each of the individuals collected by chance around this firemaintained a silence that was almost horrible, and did nothing butwhat he judged necessary for his own welfare. Their misery was evengrotesque. Faces, discolored by cold, were covered with a layer ofmud, on which tears had made a furrow from the eyes to the beard, showing the thickness of that miry mask. The filth of their longbeards made these men still more repulsive. Some were wrapped in thecountess's shawls, others wore the trappings of horses and muddysaddlecloths, or masses of rags from which the hoar-frost hung; somehad a boot on one leg and a shoe on the other; in fact, there werenone whose costume did not present some laughable singularity. But inpresence of such amusing sights the men themselves were grave andgloomy. The silence was broken only by the snapping of the wood, thecrackling of the flames, the distant murmur of the camps, and theblows of the sabre given to what remained of Bichette in search of hertenderest morsels. A few miserable creatures, perhaps more weary thanthe rest, were sleeping; when one of their number rolled into the fireno one attempted to help him out. These stern logicians argued that ifhe were not dead his burns would warn him to find a safer place. Ifthe poor wretch waked in the flames and perished, no one cared. Two orthree soldiers looked at each other to justify their own indifferenceby that of others. Twice this scene had taken place before the eyes ofthe countess, who said nothing. When the various pieces of Bichette, placed here and there upon the embers, were sufficiently broiled, eachman satisfied his hunger with the gluttony that disgusts us when wesee it in animals. 

"This is the first time I ever saw thirty infantrymen on one horse, "cried the grenadier who had shot the mare. 

It was the only jest made that night which proved the nationalcharacter. 

Soon the great number of these poor soldiers wrapped themselves inwhat they could find and lay down on planks, or whatever would keepthem from contact with the snow, and slept, heedless of the morrow. When the major was warm, and his hunger appeased, an invincible desireto sleep weighed down his eyelids. During the short moment of hisstruggle against that desire he looked at the young woman, who hadturned her face to the fire and was now asleep, leaving her closedeyes and a portion of her forehead exposed to sight. She was wrappedin a furred pelisse and a heavy dragoon's cloak; her head rested on apillow stained with blood; an astrakhan hood, kept in place by ahandkerchief knotted round her neck, preserved her face from the coldas much as possible. Her feet were wrapped in the cloak. Thus rolledinto a bundle, as it were, she looked like nothing at all. Was she thelast of the "vivandieres"? Was she a charming woman, the glory of alover, the queen of Parisian salons? Alas! even the eye of her mostdevoted friend could trace no sign of anything feminine in that massof rags and tatters. Love had succumbed to cold in the heart of awoman!

Through the thick veils of irresistible sleep, the major soon saw thehusband and wife as mere points or formless objects. The flames of thefire, those outstretched figures, the relentless cold, waiting, notthree feet distant from that fugitive heat, became all a dream. Oneimportunate thought terrified Philippe:

"If I sleep, we shall all die; I will not sleep, " he said to himself. 

And yet he slept. 

A terrible clamor and an explosion awoke him an hour later. The senseof his duty, the peril of his friend, fell suddenly on his heart. Heuttered a cry that was like a roar. He and his orderly were aloneafoot. A sea of fire lay before them in the darkness of the night, licking up the cabins and the bivouacs; cries of despair, howls, andimprecations reached their ears; they saw against the flames thousandsof human beings with agonized or furious faces. In the midst of thathell, a column of soldiers was forcing its way to the bridge, betweentwo hedges of dead bodies. 

"It is the retreat of the rear-guard!" cried the major. "All hope isgone!"

"I have saved your carriage, Philippe, " said a friendly voice. 

Turning round, de Sucy recognized the young aide-de-camp in theflaring of the flames. 

"Ah! all is lost!" replied the major, "they have eaten my horse; andhow can I make this stupid general and his wife walk?"

"Take a brand from the fire and threaten them. "

"Threaten the countess!"

"Good-bye, " said the aide-de-camp, "I have scarcely time to get acrossthat fatal river--and I MUST; I have a mother in France. What a night!These poor wretches prefer to lie here in the snow; half will allowthemselves to perish in those flames rather than rise and move on. Itis four o'clock, Philippe! In two hours the Russians will begin tomove. I assure you you will again see the Beresina choked withcorpses. Philippe! think of yourself! You have no horses, you cannotcarry the countess in your arms. Come--come with me!" he saidurgently, pulling de Sucy by the arm. 

"My friend! abandon Stephanie!"

De Sucy seized the countess, made her stand upright, shook her withthe roughness of a despairing man, and compelled her to wake up. Shelooked at him with fixed, dead eyes. 

"You must walk, Stephanie, or we shall all die here. "

For all answer the countess tried to drop again upon the snow andsleep. The aide-de-camp seized a brand from the fire and waved it inher face. 

"We will save her in spite of herself!" cried Philippe, lifting thecountess and placing her in the carriage. 

He returned to implore the help of his friend. Together they liftedthe old general, without knowing whether he were dead or alive, andput him beside his wife. The major then rolled over the men who weresleeping on his blankets, which he tossed into the carriage, togetherwith some roasted fragments of his mare. 

"What do you mean to do?" asked the aide-de-camp. 

"Drag them. "

"You are crazy. "

"True, " said Philippe, crossing his arms in despair. 

Suddenly, he was seized by a last despairing thought. 

"To you, " he said, grasping the sound arm of his orderly, "I confideher for one hour. Remember that you must die sooner than let any oneapproach her. "

The major then snatched up the countess's diamonds, held them in onehand, drew his sabre with the other, and began to strike with the flatof its blade such of the sleepers as he thought the most intrepid. Hesucceeded in awaking the colossal grenadier, and two other men whoserank it was impossible to tell. 

"We are done for!" he said. 

"I know it, " said the grenadier, "but I don't care. "

"Well, death for death, wouldn't you rather sell your life for apretty woman, and take your chances of seeing France?"

"I'd rather sleep, " said a man, rolling over on the snow, "and if youtrouble me again, I'll stick my bayonet into your stomach. "

"What is the business, my colonel?" said the grenadier. "That man isdrunk; he's a Parisian; he likes his ease. "

"That is yours, my brave grenadier, " cried the major, offering him astring of diamonds, "if you will follow me and fight like a madman. The Russians are ten minutes' march from here; they have horses; weare going up to their first battery for a pair. "

"But the sentinels?"

"One of us three--" he interrupted himself, and turned to theaide-de-camp. "You will come, Hippolyte, won't you?"

Hippolyte nodded. 

"One of us, " continued the major, "will take care of the sentinel. Besides, perhaps they are asleep too, those cursed Russians. "

"Forward! major, you're a brave one! But you'll give me a lift on yourcarriage?" said the grenadier. 

"Yes, if you don't leave your skin up there-- If I fall, Hippolyte, and you, grenadier, promise me to do your utmost to save thecountess. "

"Agreed!" cried the grenadier. 

They started for the Russian lines, toward one of the batteries whichhad so decimated the hapless wretches lying on the banks of the river. A few moments later, the gallop of two horses echoed over the snow, and the wakened artillery men poured out a volley which ranged abovethe heads of the sleeping men. The pace of the horses was so fleetthat their steps resounded like the blows of a blacksmith on hisanvil. The generous aide-de-camp was killed. The athletic grenadierwas safe and sound. Philippe in defending Hippolyte had received abayonet in his shoulder; but he clung to his horse's mane, and claspedhim so tightly with his knees that the animal was held as in a vice. 

"God be praised!" cried the major, finding his orderly untouched, andthe carriage in its place. 

"If you are just, my officer, you will get me the cross for this, "said the man. "We've played a fine game of guns and sabres here, I cantell you. "

"We have done nothing yet-- Harness the horses. Take these ropes. "

"They are not long enough. "

"Grenadier, turn over those sleepers, and take their shawls and linen, to eke out. "

"Tiens! that's one dead, " said the grenadier, stripping the first manhe came to. "Bless me! what a joke, they are all dead!"

"All?"

"Yes, all; seems as if horse-meat must be indigestible if eaten withsnow. "

The words made Philippe tremble. The cold was increasing. 

"My God! to lose the woman I have saved a dozen times!"

The major shook the countess. 

"Stephanie! Stephanie!"

The young woman opened her eyes. 

"Madame! we are saved. "

"Saved!" she repeated, sinking down again. 

The horses were harnessed as best they could. The major, holding hissabre in his well hand, with his pistols in his belt, gathered up thereins with the other hand and mounted one horse while the grenadiermounted the other. The orderly, whose feet were frozen, was throwninside the carriage, across the general and the countess. Excited bypricks from a sabre, the horses drew the carriage rapidly, with a sortof fury, to the plain, where innumerable obstacles awaited it. It wasimpossible to force a way without danger of crushing the sleeping men, women, and even children, who refused to move when the grenadier awokethem. In vain did Monsieur de Sucy endeavor to find the swathe cut bythe rear-guard through the mass of human beings; it was alreadyobliterated, like the wake of a vessel through the sea. They couldonly creep along, being often stopped by soldiers who threatened tokill their horses. 

"Do you want to reach the bridge?" said the grenadier. 

"At the cost of my life--at the cost of the whole world!"

"Then forward, march! you can't make omelets without breaking eggs. "

And the grenadier of the guard urged the horses over men and bivouacswith bloody wheels and a double line of corpses on either side ofthem. We must do him the justice to say that he never spared hisbreath in shouting in stentorian tones, --

"Look out there, carrion!"

"Poor wretches!" cried the major. 

"Pooh! that or the cold, that or the cannon, " said the grenadier, prodding the horses, and urging them on. 

A catastrophe, which might well have happened to them much sooner, puta stop to their advance. The carriage was overturned. 

"I expected it, " cried the imperturbable grenadier. "Ho! ho! your manis dead. "

"Poor Laurent!" said the major. 

"Laurent? Was he in the 5th chasseurs?"

"Yes. "

"Then he was my cousin. Oh, well, this dog's life isn't happy enoughto waste any joy in grieving for him. "

The carriage could not be raised; the horses were taken out withserious and, as it proved, irreparable loss of time. The shock of theoverturn was so violent that the young countess, roused from herlethargy, threw off her coverings and rose. 

"Philippe, where are we?" she cried in a gentle voice, looking abouther. 

"Only five hundred feet from the bridge. We are now going to cross theBeresina, Stephanie, and once across I will not torment you any more;you shall sleep; we shall be in safety, and can reach Wilna easily. -- God grant that she may never know what her life has cost!" hethought. 

"Philippe! you are wounded!"

"That is nothing. "

Too late! the fatal hour had come. The Russian cannon sounded thereveille. Masters of Studzianka, they could sweep the plain, and bydaylight the major could see two of their columns moving and formingon the heights. A cry of alarm arose from the multitude, who startedto their feet in an instant. Every man now understood his dangerinstinctively, and the whole mass rushed to gain the bridge with themotion of a wave. 

The Russians came down with the rapidity of a conflagration. Men, women, children, horses, --all rushed tumultuously to the bridge. Fortunately the major, who was carrying the countess, was still somedistance from it. General Eble had just set fire to the supports onthe other bank. In spite of the warnings shouted to those who wererushing upon the bridge, not a soul went back. Not only did the bridgego down crowded with human beings, but the impetuosity of that floodof men toward the fatal bank was so furious that a mass of humanitypoured itself violently into the river like an avalanche. Not a crywas heard; the only sound was like the dropping of monstrous stonesinto the water. Then the Beresina was a mass of floating corpses. 

The retrograde movement of those who now fell back into the plain toescape the death before them was so violent, and their concussionagainst those who were advancing from the rear so terrible, thatnumbers were smothered or trampled to death. The Comte and Comtesse deVandieres owed their lives to their carriage, behind which Philippeforced them, using it as a breastwork. As for the major and thegrenadier, they found their safety in their strength. They killed toescape being killed. 

This hurricane of human beings, the flux and reflux of living bodies, had the effect of leaving for a few short moments the whole bank ofthe Beresina deserted. The multitude were surging to the plain. If afew men rushed to the river, it was less in the hope of reaching theother bank, which to them was France, than to rush from the horrors ofSiberia. Despair proved an aegis to some bold hearts. One officersprang from ice-cake to ice-cake, and reached the opposite shore. Asoldier clambered miraculously over mounds of dead bodies and heaps ofice. The multitude finally comprehended that the Russians would notput to death a body of twenty thousand men, without arms, torpid, stupid, unable to defend themselves; and each man awaited his fatewith horrible resignation. Then the major and the grenadier, thegeneral and his wife, remained almost alone on the river bank, a fewsteps from the spot where the bridge had been. They stood there, withdry eyes, silent, surrounded by heaps of dead. A few sound soldiers, afew officers to whom the emergency had restored their natural energy, were near them. This group consisted of some fifty men in all. Themajor noticed at a distance of some two hundred yards the remains ofanother bridge intended for carriages and destroyed the day before. 

"Let us make a raft!" he cried. 

He had hardly uttered the words before the whole group rushed to theruins, and began to pick up iron bolts, and screws, and pieces of woodand ropes, whatever materials they could find that were suitable forthe construction of a raft. A score of soldiers and officers, who werearmed, formed a guard, commanded by the major, to protect the workersagainst the desperate attacks which might be expected from the crowd, if their scheme was discovered. The instinct of freedom, strong in allprisoners, inspiring them to miraculous acts, can only be comparedwith that which now drove to action these unfortunate Frenchmen. 

"The Russians! the Russians are coming!" cried the defenders to theworkers; and the work went on, the raft increased in length andbreadth and depth. Generals, soldiers, colonel, all put theirshoulders to the wheel; it was a true image of the building of Noah'sark. The young countess, seated beside her husband, watched theprogress of the work with regret that she could not help it; and yetshe did assist in making knots to secure the cordage. 

At last the raft was finished. Forty men launched it on the river, adozen others holding the cords which moored it to the shore. But nosooner had the builders seen their handiwork afloat, than they sprangfrom the bank with odious selfishness. The major, fearing the fury ofthis first rush, held back the countess and the general, but too latehe saw the whole raft covered, men pressing together like crowds at atheatre. 

"Savages!" he cried, "it was I who gave you the idea of that raft. Ihave saved you, and you deny me a place. "

A confused murmur answered him. The men at the edge of the raft, armedwith long sticks, pressed with violence against the shore to send offthe frail construction with sufficient impetus to force its waythrough corpses and ice-floes to the other shore. 

"Thunder of heaven! I'll sweep you into the water if you don't takethe major and his two companions, " cried the stalwart grenadier, whoswung his sabre, stopped the departure, and forced the men to standcloser in spite of furious outcries. 

"I shall fall, "--"I am falling, "--"Push off! push off!--Forward!"resounded on all sides. 

The major looked with haggard eyes at Stephanie, who lifted hers toheaven with a feeling of sublime resignation. 

"To die with thee!" she said. 

There was something even comical in the position of the men inpossession of the raft. Though they were uttering awful groans andimprecations, they dared not resist the grenadier, for in truth theywere so closely packed together, that a push to one man might sendhalf of them overboard. This danger was so pressing that a cavalrycaptain endeavored to get rid of the grenadier; but the latter, seeingthe hostile movement of the officer, seized him round the waist andflung him into the water, crying out, --

"Ha! ha! my duck, do you want to drink? Well, then, drink!-- Here aretwo places, " he cried. "Come, major, toss me the little woman andfollow yourself. Leave that old fossil, who'll be dead by to-morrow. "

"Make haste!" cried the voice of all, as one man. 

"Come, major, they are grumbling, and they have a right to do so. "

The Comte de Vandieres threw off his wrappings and showed himself inhis general's uniform. 

"Let us save the count, " said Philippe. 

Stephanie pressed his hand, and throwing herself on his breast, sheclasped him tightly. 

"Adieu!" she said. 

They had understood each other. 

The Comte de Vandieres recovered sufficient strength and presence ofmind to spring upon the raft, whither Stephanie followed him, afterturning a last look to Philippe. 

"Major! will you take my place? I don't care a fig for life, " criedthe grenadier. "I've neither wife nor child nor mother. "

"I confide them to your care, " said the major, pointing to the countand his wife. 

"Then be easy; I'll care for them, as though they were my very eyes. "

The raft was now sent off with so much violence toward the oppositeside of the river, that as it touched ground, the shock was felt byall. The count, who was at the edge of it, lost his balance and fellinto the river; as he fell, a cake of sharp ice caught him, and cutoff his head, flinging it to a great distance. 

"See there! major!" cried the grenadier. 

"Adieu!" said a woman's voice. 

Philippe de Sucy fell to the ground, overcome with horror and fatigue. 

 CHAPTER III

 THE CURE

"My poor niece became insane, " continued the physician, after a fewmoment's silence. "Ah! monsieur, " he said, seizing the marquis's hand, "life has been awful indeed for that poor little woman, so young, sodelicate! After being, by dreadful fatality, separated from thegrenadier, whose name was Fleuriot, she was dragged about for twoyears at the heels of the army, the plaything of a crowd of wretches. She was often, they tell me, barefooted, and scarcely clothed; formonths together, she had no care, no food but what she could pick up;sometimes kept in hospitals, sometimes driven away like an animal, Godalone knows the horrors that poor unfortunate creature has survived. She was locked up in a madhouse, in a little town in Germany, at thetime her relatives, thinking her dead, divided her property. In 1816, the grenadier Fleuriot was at an inn in Strasburg, where she wentafter making her escape from the madhouse. Several peasants told thegrenadier that she had lived for a whole month in the forest, wherethey had tracked her in vain, trying to catch her, but she had alwaysescaped them. I was then staying a few miles from Strasburg. Hearingmuch talk of a wild woman caught in the woods, I felt a desire toascertain the truth of the ridiculous stories which were current abouther. What were my feelings on beholding my own niece! Fleuriot told meall he knew of her dreadful history. I took the poor man with my nieceback to my home in Auvergne, where, unfortunately, I lost him somemonths later. He had some slight control over Madame de Vandieres; healone could induce her to wear clothing. 'Adieu, ' that word, which isher only language, she seldom uttered at that time. Fleuriot hadendeavored to awaken in her a few ideas, a few memories of the past;but he failed; all that he gained was to make her say that melancholyword a little oftener. Still, the grenadier knew how to amuse her andplay with her; my hope was in him, but--"

He was silent for a moment. 

"Here, " he continued, "she has found another creature, with whom sheseems to have some strange understanding. It is a poor idioticpeasant-girl, who, in spite of her ugliness and stupidity, loved aman, a mason. The mason was willing to marry her, as she had someproperty. Poor Genevieve was happy for a year; she dressed in her bestto dance with her lover on Sunday; she comprehended love; in her heartand soul there was room for that one sentiment. But the mason, Dallot, reflected. He found a girl with all her senses, and more land thanGenevieve, and he deserted the poor creature. Since then she has lostthe little intellect that love developed in her; she can do nothingbut watch the cows, or help at harvesting. My niece and this poor girlare friends, apparently by some invisible chain of their commondestiny, by the sentiment in each which has caused their madness. See!" added Stephanie's uncle, leading the marquis to a window. 

The latter then saw the countess seated on the ground betweenGenevieve's legs. The peasant-girl, armed with a huge horn comb, wasgiving her whole attention to the work of disentangling the long blackhair of the poor countess, who was uttering little stifled cries, expressive of some instinctive sense of pleasure. Monsieur d'Albonshuddered as he saw the utter abandonment of the body, the carelessanimal ease which revealed in the hapless woman a total absence ofsoul. 

"Philippe, Philippe!" he muttered, "the past horrors are nothing!--Isthere no hope?" he asked. 

The old physician raised his eyes to heaven. 

"Adieu, monsieur, " said the marquis, pressing his hand. "My friend isexpecting me. He will soon come to you. "

"Then it was really she!" cried de Sucy at d'Albon's first words. "Ah!I still doubted it, " he added, a few tears falling from his eyes, which were habitually stern. 

"Yes, it is the Comtesse de Vandieres, " replied the marquis. 

The colonel rose abruptly from his bed and began to dress. 

"Philippe!" cried his friend, "are you mad?"

"I am no longer ill, " replied the colonel, simply. "This news hasquieted my suffering. What pain can I feel when I think of Stephanie?I am going to the Bons-Hommes, to see her, speak to her, cure her. Sheis free. Well, happiness will smile upon us--or Providence is not inthis world. Think you that that poor woman could hear my voice and notrecover reason?"

"She has already seen you and not recognized you, " said his friend, gently, for he felt the danger of Philippe's excited hopes, and triedto cast a salutary doubt upon them. 

The colonel quivered; then he smiled, and made a motion ofincredulity. No one dared to oppose his wish, and within a very shorttime he reached the old priory. 

"Where is she?" he cried, on arriving. 

"Hush!" said her uncle, "she is sleeping. See, here she is. "

Philippe then saw the poor insane creature lying on a bench in thesun. Her head was protected from the heat by a forest of hair whichfell in tangled locks over her face. Her arms hung gracefully to theground; her body lay easily posed like that of a doe; her feet werefolded under her without effort; her bosom rose and fell at regularintervals; her skin, her complexion, had that porcelain whiteness, which we admire so much in the clear transparent faces of children. Standing motionless beside her, Genevieve held in her hand a branchwhich Stephanie had doubtless climbed a tall poplar to obtain, and thepoor idiot was gently waving it above her sleeping companion, to chaseaway the flies and cool the atmosphere. 

The peasant-woman gazed at Monsieur Fanjat and the colonel; then, likean animal which recognizes its master, she turned her head slowly tothe countess, and continued to watch her, without giving any sign ofsurprise or intelligence. The air was stifling; the stone benchglittered in the sunlight; the meadow exhaled to heaven those impishvapors which dance and dart above the herbage like silvery dust; butGenevieve seemed not to feel this all-consuming heat. 

The colonel pressed the hand of the doctor violently in his own. Tearsrolled from his eyes along his manly cheeks, and fell to the earth atthe feet of his Stephanie. 

"Monsieur, " said the uncle, "for two years past, my heart is brokenday by day. Soon you will be like me. You may not always weep, but youwill always feel your sorrow. "

The two men understood each other; and again, pressing each other'shands, they remained motionless, contemplating the exquisite calmnesswhich sleep had cast upon that graceful creature. From time to timeshe gave a sigh, and that sigh, which had all the semblance ofsensibilities, made the unhappy colonel tremble with hope. 

"Alas!" said Monsieur Fanjat, "do not deceive yourself, monsieur;there is no meaning in her sigh. "

Those who have ever watched for hours with delight the sleep of onewho is tenderly beloved, whose eyes will smile to them at waking, canunderstand the sweet yet terrible emotion that shook the colonel'ssoul. To him, this sleep was an illusion; the waking might be death, death in its most awful form. Suddenly, a little goat jumped in threebounds to the bench, and smelt at Stephanie, who waked at the sound. She sprang to her feet, but so lightly that the movement did notfrighten the freakish animal; then she caught sight of Philippe, anddarted away, followed by her four-footed friend, to a hedge of elders;there she uttered the same little cry like a frightened bird, whichthe two men had heard near the other gate. Then she climbed an acacia, and nestling into its tufted top, she watched the stranger with theinquisitive attention of the forest birds. 

"Adieu, adieu, adieu, " she said, without the soul communicating onesingle intelligent inflexion to the word. 

It was uttered impassively, as the bird sings his note. 

"She does not recognize me!" cried the colonel, in despair. "Stephanie! it is Philippe, thy Philippe, PHILIPPE!"

And the poor soldier went to the acacia; but when he was a few stepsfrom it, the countess looked at him, as if defying him, although aslight expression of fear seemed to flicker in her eye; then, with asingle bound she sprang from the acacia to a laburnum, and thence to aNorway fir, where she darted from branch to branch with extraordinaryagility. 

"Do not pursue her, " said Monsieur Fanjat to the colonel, "or you willarouse an aversion which might become insurmountable. I will help youto tame her and make her come to you. Let us sit on this bench. If youpay no attention to her, she will come of her own accord to examineyou. "

"SHE! not to know me! to flee me!" repeated the colonel, seatinghimself on a bench with his back to a tree that shaded it, and lettinghis head fall upon his breast. 

The doctor said nothing. Presently, the countess came gently down thefir-tree, letting herself swing easily on the branches, as the windswayed them. At each branch she stopped to examine the stranger; butseeing him motionless, she at last sprang to the ground and cameslowly towards him across the grass. When she reached a tree about tenfeet distant, against which she leaned, Monsieur Fanjat said to thecolonel in a low voice, --

"Take out, adroitly, from my right hand pocket some lumps of sugar youwill feel there. Show them to her, and she will come to us. I willrenounce in your favor my sole means of giving her pleasure. Withsugar, which she passionately loves, you will accustom her to approachyou, and to know you again. "

"When she was a woman, " said Philippe, sadly, "she had no taste forsweet things. "

When the colonel showed her the lump of sugar, holding it between thethumb and forefinger of his right hand, she again uttered her littlewild cry, and sprang toward him; then she stopped, struggling againstthe instinctive fear he caused her; she looked at the sugar and turnedaway her head alternately, precisely like a dog whose master forbidshim to touch his food until he has said a letter of the alphabet whichhe slowly repeats. At last the animal desire triumphed over fear. Stephanie darted to Philippe, cautiously putting out her little brownhand to seize the prize, touched the fingers of her poor lover as shesnatched the sugar, and fled away among the trees. This dreadful sceneovercame the colonel; he burst into tears and rushed into the house. 

"Has love less courage than friendship?" Monsieur Fanjat said to him. "I have some hope, Monsieur le baron. My poor niece was in a far worsestate than that in which you now find her. "

"How was that possible?" cried Philippe. 

"She went naked, " replied the doctor. 

The colonel made a gesture of horror and turned pale. The doctor sawin that sudden pallor alarming symptoms; he felt the colonel's pulse, found him in a violent fever, and half persuaded, half compelled himto go to bed. Then he gave him a dose of opium to ensure a calm sleep. 

Eight days elapsed, during which Colonel de Sucy struggled againstmortal agony; tears no longer came to his eyes. His soul, oftenlacerated, could not harden itself to the sight of Stephanie'sinsanity; but he covenanted, so to speak, with his cruel situation, and found some assuaging of his sorrow. He had the courage to slowlytame the countess by bringing her sweetmeats; he took such pains inchoosing them, and he learned so well how to keep the little conquestshe sought to make upon her instincts--that last shred of her intellect--that he ended by making her much TAMER than she had ever been. 

Every morning he went into the park, and if, after searching for herlong, he could not discover on what tree she was swaying, nor thecovert in which she crouched to play with a bird, nor the roof onwhich she might have clambered, he would whistle the well-known air of"Partant pour la Syrie, " to which some tender memory of their loveattached. Instantly, Stephanie would run to him with the lightness ofa fawn. She was now so accustomed to see him, that he frightened herno longer. Soon she was willing to sit upon his knee, and clasp himclosely with her thin and agile arm. In that attitude--so dear tolovers!--Philippe would feed her with sugarplums. Then, having eatenthose that he gave her, she would often search his pockets withgestures that had all the mechanical velocity of a monkey's motions. When she was very sure there was nothing more, she looked at Philippewith clear eyes, without ideas, with recognition. Then she would playwith him, trying at times to take off his boots to see his feet, tearing his gloves, putting on his hat; she would even let him passhis hands through her hair, and take her in his arms; she accepted, but without pleasure, his ardent kisses. She would look at himsilently, without emotion, when his tears flowed; but she alwaysunderstood his "Partant pour la Syrie, " when he whistled it, though henever succeeded in teaching her to say her own name Stephanie. 

Philippe was sustained in his agonizing enterprise by hope, whichnever abandoned him. When, on fine autumn mornings, he found thecountess sitting peacefully on a bench, beneath a poplar nowyellowing, the poor lover would sit at her feet, looking into her eyesas long as she would let him, hoping ever that the light that was inthem would become intelligent. Sometimes the thought deluded him thathe saw those hard immovable rays softening, vibrating, living, and hecried out, --

"Stephanie! Stephanie! thou hearest me, thou seest me!"

But she listened to that cry as to a noise, the soughing of the windin the tree-tops, or the lowing of the cow on the back of which sheclimbed. Then the colonel would wring his hands in despair, --despairthat was new each day. 

One evening, under a calm sky, amid the silence and peace of thatrural haven, the doctor saw, from a distance, that the colonel wasloading his pistols. The old man felt then that the young man hadceased to hope; he felt the blood rushing to his heart, and if heconquered the vertigo that threatened him, it was because he wouldrather see his niece living and mad than dead. He hastened up. 

"What are you doing?" he said. 

"That is for me, " replied the colonel, pointing to a pistol alreadyloaded, which was lying on the bench; "and this is for her, " he added, as he forced the wad into the weapon he held. 

The countess was lying on the ground beside him, playing with theballs. 

"Then you do not know, " said the doctor, coldly, concealing histerror, "that in her sleep last night she called you: Philippe!"

"She called me!" cried the baron, dropping his pistol, which Stephaniepicked up. He took it from her hastily, caught up the one that was onthe bench, and rushed away. 

"Poor darling!" said the doctor, happy in the success of his lie. Hepressed the poor creature to his breast, and continued speaking tohimself: "He would have killed thee, selfish man! because he suffers. He does not love thee for thyself, my child! But we forgive, do wenot? He is mad, out of his senses, but thou art only senseless. No, God alone should call thee to Him. We think thee unhappy, we pity theebecause thou canst not share our sorrows, fools that we are!--But, " hesaid, sitting down and taking her on his knee, "nothing troubles thee;thy life is like that of a bird, of a fawn--"

As he spoke she darted upon a young blackbird which was hopping nearthem, caught it with a little note of satisfaction, strangled it, looked at it, dead in her hand, and flung it down at the foot of atree without a thought. 

The next day, as soon as it was light, the colonel came down into thegardens, and looked about for Stephanie, --he believed in the cominghappiness. Not finding her he whistled. When his darling came to him, he took her on his arm; they walked together thus for the first time, and he led her within a group of trees, the autumn foliage of whichwas dropping to the breeze. The colonel sat down. Of her own accordStephanie placed herself on his knee. Philippe trembled with joy. 

"Love, " he said, kissing her hands passionately, "I am Philippe. "

She looked at him with curiosity. 

"Come, " he said, pressing her to him, "dost thou feel my heart? It hasbeaten for thee alone. I love thee ever. Philippe is not dead; he isnot dead, thou art on him, in his arms. Thou art MY Stephanie; I amthy Philippe. "

"Adieu, " she said, "adieu. "

The colonel quivered, for he fancied he saw his own excitementcommunicated to his mistress. His heart-rending cry, drawn from him bydespair, that last effort of an eternal love, of a delirious passion, was successful, the mind of his darling was awaking. 

"Ah! Stephanie! Stephanie! we shall yet be happy. "

She gave a cry of satisfaction, and her eyes brightened with a flashof vague intelligence. 

"She knows me!--Stephanie!"

His heart swelled; his eyelids were wet with tears. Then, suddenly, the countess showed him a bit of sugar she had found in his pocketwhile he was speaking to her. He had mistaken for human thought theamount of reason required for a monkey's trick. Philippe dropped tothe ground unconscious. Monsieur Fanjat found the countess sitting onthe colonel's body. She was biting her sugar, and testifying herpleasure by pretty gestures and affectations with which, had she herreason, she might have imitated her parrot or her cat. 

"Ah! my friend, " said Philippe, when he came to his senses, "I dieevery day, every moment! I love too well! I could still bear all, if, in her madness, she had kept her woman's nature. But to see her alwaysa savage, devoid even of modesty, to see her--"

"You want opera madness, do you? something picturesque and pleasing, "said the doctor, bitterly. "Your love and your devotion yield before aprejudice. Monsieur, I have deprived myself for your sake of the sadhappiness of watching over my niece; I have left to you the pleasureof playing with her; I have kept for myself the heaviest cares. Whileyou have slept, I have watched, I have-- Go, monsieur, go! abandonher! leave this sad refuge. I know how to live with that dear darlingcreature; I comprehend her madness, I watch her gestures, I know hersecrets. Some day you will thank me for thus sending you away. "

The colonel left the old monastery, never to return but once. Thedoctor was horrified when he saw the effect he had produced upon hisguest, whom he now began to love when he saw him thus. Surely, ifeither of the two lovers were worthy of pity, it was Philippe; did henot bear alone the burden of their dreadful sorrow?

After the colonel's departure the doctor kept himself informed abouthim; he learned that the miserable man was living on an estate nearSaint-Germain. In truth, the baron, on the faith of a dream, hadformed a project which he believed would yet restore the mind of hisdarling. Unknown to the doctor, he spent the rest of the autumn inpreparing for his enterprise. A little river flowed through his parkand inundated during the winter the marshes on either side of it, giving it some resemblance to the Beresina. The village of Satout, onthe heights above, closed in, like Studzianka, the scene of horror. The colonel collected workmen to deepen the banks, and by the help ofhis memory, he copied in his park the shore where General Ebledestroyed the bridge. He planted piles, and made buttresses and burnedthem, leaving their charred and blackened ruins, standing in the waterfrom shore to shore. Then he gathered fragments of all kinds, likethose of which the raft was built. He ordered dilapidated uniforms andclothing of every grade, and hired hundreds of peasants to wear them;he erected huts and cabins for the purpose of burning them. In short, he forgot nothing that might recall that most awful of all scenes, andhe succeeded. 

Toward the last of December, when the snow had covered with its thick, white mantle all his imitative preparations, he recognized theBeresina. This false Russia was so terribly truthful, that several ofhis army comrades recognized the scene of their past misery at once. Monsieur de Sucy took care to keep secret the motive for this tragicimitation, which was talked of in several Parisian circles as a proofof insanity. 

Early in January, 1820, the colonel drove in a carriage, the verycounterpart of the one in which he had driven the Comte and Comtessede Vandieres from Moscow to Studzianka. The horses, too, were likethose he had gone, at the peril of his life, to fetch from the Russianoutposts. He himself wore the soiled fantastic clothing, the sameweapons, as on the 29th of November, 1812. He had let his beard grow, also his hair, which was tangled and matted, and his face wasneglected, so that nothing might be wanting to represent the awfultruth. 

"I can guess your purpose, " cried Monsieur Fanjat, when he saw thecolonel getting out of the carriage. "If you want to succeed, do notlet my niece see you in that equipage. To-night I will give her opium. During her sleep, we will dress her as she was at Studzianka, andplace her in the carriage. I will follow you in another vehicle. "

About two in the morning, the sleeping countess was placed in thecarriage and wrapped in heavy coverings. A few peasants with torcheslighted up this strange abduction. Suddenly, a piercing cry broke thesilence of the night. Philippe and the doctor turned, and sawGenevieve coming half-naked from the ground-floor room in which sheslept. 

"Adieu, adieu! all is over, adieu!" she cried, weeping hot tears. 

"Genevieve, what troubles you?" asked the doctor. 

Genevieve shook her head with a motion of despair, raised her arm toheaven, looked at the carriage, uttering a long-drawn moan with everysign of the utmost terror; then she returned to her room silently. 

"That is a good omen!" cried the colonel. "She feels she is to loseher companion. Perhaps she SEES that Stephanie will recover herreason. "

"God grant it!" said Monsieur Fanjat, who himself was affected by theincident. 

Ever since he had made a close study of insanity, the good man had metwith many examples of the prophetic faculty and the gift of secondsight, proofs of which are frequently given by alienated minds, andwhich may also be found, so travellers say, among certain tribes ofsavages. 

As the colonel had calculated, Stephanie crossed the fictitious plainof the Beresina at nine o'clock in the morning, when she was awakenedby a cannon shot not a hundred yards from the spot where theexperiment was to be tried. This was a signal. Hundreds of peasantsmade a frightful clamor like that on the shore of the river thatmemorable night, when twenty thousand stragglers were doomed to deathor slavery by their own folly. 

At the cry, at the shot, the countess sprang from the carriage, andran, with delirious emotion, over the snow to the banks of the river;she saw the burned bivouacs and the charred remains of the bridge, andthe fatal raft, which the men were launching into the icy waters ofthe Beresina. The major, Philippe, was there, striking back the crowdwith his sabre. Madame de Vandieres gave a cry, which went to allhearts, and threw herself before the colonel, whose heart beat wildly. She seemed to gather herself together, and, at first, looked vaguelyat the singular scene. For an instant, as rapid as the lightning'sflash, her eyes had that lucidity, devoid of mind, which we admire inthe eye of birds; then passing her hand across her brow with the keenexpression of one who meditates, she contemplated the living memory ofa past scene spread before her, and, turning quickly to Philippe, sheSAW HIM. An awful silence reigned in the crowd. The colonel gasped, but dared not speak; the doctor wept. Stephanie's sweet face coloredfaintly; then, from tint to tint, it returned to the brightness ofyouth, till it glowed with a beautiful crimson. Life and happiness, lighted by intelligence, came nearer and nearer like a conflagration. Convulsive trembling rose from her feet to her heart. Then thesephenomena seemed to blend in one as Stephanie's eyes cast forth acelestial ray, the flame of a living soul. She lived, she thought! Sheshuddered, with fear perhaps, for God himself unloosed that silenttongue, and cast anew His fires into that long-extinguished soul. Human will came with its full electric torrent, and vivified the bodyfrom which it had been driven. 

"Stephanie!" cried the colonel. 

"Oh! it is Philippe, " said the poor countess. 

She threw herself into the trembling arms that the colonel held out toher, and the clasp of the lovers frightened the spectators. Stephanieburst into tears. Suddenly her tears stopped, she stiffened as thoughthe lightning had touched her, and said in a feeble voice, --

"Adieu, Philippe; I love thee, adieu!"

"Oh! she is dead, " cried the colonel, opening his arms. 

The old doctor received the inanimate body of his niece, kissed it asthough he were a young man, and carrying it aside, sat down with itstill in his arms on a pile of wood. He looked at the countess andplaced his feeble trembling hand upon her heart. That heart no longerbeat. 

"It is true, " he said, looking up at the colonel, who stoodmotionless, and then at Stephanie, on whom death was placing thatresplendent beauty, that fugitive halo, which is, perhaps, a pledge ofthe glorious future--"Yes, she is dead. "

"Ah! that smile, " cried Philippe, "do you see that smile? Can it betrue?"

"She is turning cold, " replied Monsieur Fanjat. 

Monsieur de Sucy made a few steps to tear himself away from the sight;but he stopped, whistled the air that Stephanie had known, and whenshe did not come to him, went on with staggering steps like a drunkenman, still whistling, but never turning back. 

General Philippe de Sucy was thought in the social world to be a veryagreeable man, and above all a very gay one. A few days ago, a ladycomplimented him on his good humor, and the charming equability of hisnature. 

"Ah! madame, " he said, "I pay dear for my liveliness in my lonelyevenings. "

"Are you ever alone?" she said. 

"No, " he replied smiling. 

If a judicious observer of human nature could have seen at that momentthe expression on the Comte de Sucy's face, he would perhaps haveshuddered. 

"Why don't you marry?" said the lady, who had several daughters atschool. "You are rich, titled, and of ancient lineage; you havetalents, and a great future before you; all things smile upon you. "

"Yes, " he said, "but a smile kills me. "

The next day the lady heard with great astonishment that Monsieur deSucy had blown his brains out during the night. The upper ranks ofsociety talked in various ways over this extraordinary event, and eachperson looked for the cause of it. According to the proclivities ofeach reasoner, play, love, ambition, hidden disorders, and vices, explained the catastrophe, the last scene of a drama begun in 1812. Two men alone, a marquis and former deputy, and an aged physician, knew that Philippe de Sucy was one of those strong men to whom God hasgiven the unhappy power of issuing daily in triumph from awful combatswhich they fight with an unseen monster. If, for a moment, Godwithdraws from such men His all-powerful hand, they succumb. 

ADDENDUM

The following personage appears in other stories of the Human Comedy. 

Note: Adieu is also entitled Farewell. 

Granville, Vicomte de The Gondreville Mystery A Second Home Farewell (Adieu) Cesar Birotteau Scenes from a Courtesan's Life A Daughter of Eve Cousin Pons