ion the army we belonged to had been wrestling with Oudinot in
the north. We had only come down lately, driving him before us to the
Beresina.

"This was the first occasion, then, that I and my comrades had a close
view of Napoleon's Grand Army. It was an amazing and terrible sight. I
had heard of it from others; I had seen the stragglers from it: small
bands of marauders, parties of prisoners in the distance. But this was
the very column itself! A crawling, stumbling, starved, half-demented
mob. It issued from the forest a mile away and its head was lost in the
murk of the fields. We rode into it at a trot, which was the most we
could get out of our horses, and we stuck in that human mass as if in a
moving bog. There was no resistance. I heard a few shots, half a dozen
perhaps. Their very senses seemed frozen within them. I had time for a
good look while riding at the head of my squadron. Well, I assure you,
there were men walking on the outer edge so lost to everything but
their misery that they never turned their heads to look at our charge.
Soldiers!

"My horse pushed over one of them with his chest. The poor wretch had a
dragoon's blue cloak, all torn and scorched, hanging from his shoulders
and he didn't even put his hand out to snatch at my bridle and save
himself. He just went down. Our troopers were pointing and slashing;
well, and of course at first I myself... What would you have! An enemy's
an enemy. Yet a sort of sickening awe crept into my heart. There was no
tumult--only a low deep murmur dwelt over them interspersed with louder
cries and groans while that mob kept on pushing and surging past us,
sightless and without feeling. A smell of scorched rags and festering
wounds hung in the air. My horse staggered in the eddies of swaying
men. But it was like cutting down galvanized corpses that didn't care.
Invaders! Yes... God was already dealing with them.

"I touched my horse with the spurs to get clear. There was a sudden rush
and a sort of angry moan when our second squadron got into them on our
right. My horse plunged and somebody got hold of my leg. As I had no
mind to get pulled out of the saddle I gave a back-handed slash without
looking. I heard a cry and my leg was let go suddenly.

"Just then I caught sight of the subaltern of my troop at some little
distance from me. His name was Tomassov. That multitude of resurrected
bodies with glassy eyes was seething round his horse as if blind,
growling c