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 slash, 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 axe, leaving
us to smooth the edges of the gaping wound and smile, and say that we
are not hurt; to pare away the knots and broken stumps; and hope that
our neighbour, concealing such himself, will have the decency 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 spoke 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 creed that good blood
should show an example of self-restraint and a certain steadfast,
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 do