the heart, and the other an impulse of
instinct entirely physical; and certainly it was hazarding one's life to
stop for an instant. In this universal shipwreck, the stretching forth
one's hand to a dying leader or comrade was a wonderful act of
generosity. The least movement of humanity became a sublime action.

There were a few, however, who stood firm against both heaven and earth;
these protected and assisted the weakest; but these were indeed rare.

CHAP. II.

On the 6th of December, the very day after Napoleon's departure, the sky
exhibited a still more dreadful appearance. You might see icy particles
floating in the air; the birds fell from it quite stiff and frozen. The
atmosphere was motionless and silent; it seemed as if every thing which
possessed life and movement in nature, the wind itself, had been seized,
chained, and as it were frozen by an universal death. Not the least word
or murmur was then heard: nothing but the gloomy silence of despair and
the tears which proclaimed it.

We flitted along in this empire of death like unhappy spirits. The dull
and monotonous sound of our steps, the cracking of the snow, and the
feeble groans of the dying, were the only interruptions to this vast and
doleful silence. Anger and imprecations there were none, nor any thing
which indicated a remnant of heat; scarcely did strength enough remain
to utter a prayer; most of them even fell without complaining, either
from weakness or resignation, or because people only complain when they
look for kindness, and fancy they are pitied.

Such of our soldiers as had hitherto been the most persevering, here
lost heart entirely. Sometimes the snow opened under their feet, but
more frequently its glassy surface affording them no support, they
slipped at every step, and marched from one fall to another. It seemed
as if this hostile soil refused to carry them, that it escaped under
their efforts, that it led them into snares, as if to embarrass and
slacken their march, and deliver them to the Russians who were in
pursuit of them, or to their terrible climate.

And really, whenever they halted for a moment from exhaustion, the
winter, laying his heavy and icy hand upon them, was ready to seize upon
his prey. In vain did these poor unfortunates, feeling themselves
benumbed, raise themselves, and already deprived of the power of speech
and plunged into a stupor, proceed a few steps like automatons; their
blood freezing in th