FAREWELL

BY HONORE DE BALZAC

Translated by Ellen Marriage

 DEDICATION

 To Prince Friedrich von Schwarzenberg

FAREWELL

"Come, Deputy of the Centre, come along! We shall have to mend our paceif we mean to sit down to dinner when every one else does, and that'sa fact! Hurry up! Jump, Marquis! That's it! Well done! You are boundingover the furrows just like a stag!"

These words were uttered by a sportsman seated much at his ease on theoutskirts of the Foret de l'Isle-Adam; he had just finished a Havanacigar, which he had smoked while he waited for his companion, whohad evidently been straying about for some time among the forestundergrowth. Four panting dogs by the speaker's side likewise watchedthe progress of the personage for whose benefit the remarks were made. To make their sarcastic import fully clear, it should be added that thesecond sportsman was both short and stout; his ample girth indicated atruly magisterial corpulence, and in consequence his progress acrossthe furrows was by no means easy. He was striding over a vast fieldof stubble; the dried corn-stalks underfoot added not a little to thedifficulties of his passage, and to add to his discomforts, the genialinfluence of the sun that slanted into his eyes brought great drops ofperspiration into his face. The uppermost thought in his mind being astrong desire to keep his balance, he lurched to and fro like a coachjolted over an atrocious road. 

It was one of those September days of almost tropical heat that finishesthe work of summer and ripens the grapes. Such heat forebodes a comingstorm; and though as yet there were wide patches of blue between thedark rain-clouds low down on the horizon, pale golden masses were risingand scattering with ominous swiftness from west to east, and drawinga shadowy veil across the sky. The wind was still, save in the upperregions of the air, so that the weight of the atmosphere seemed tocompress the steamy heat of the earth into the forest glades. The tallforest trees shut out every breath of air so completely that the littlevalley across which the sportsman was making his way was as hot as afurnace; the silent forest seemed parched with the fiery heat. Birds andinsects were mute; the topmost twigs of the trees swayed with scarcelyperceptible motion. Any one who retains some recollection of the summerof 1819 must surely compassionate the plight of the hapless supporterof the ministry who toiled and sweated over the stubble to rejoin hissatirical comrade. That gentleman, as he smoked his cigar, had arrived, by a process of calculation based on the altitude of the sun, to theconclusion that it must be about five o'clock. 

"Where the devil are we?" asked the stout sportsman. He wiped his browas he spoke, and propped himself against a tree in the field oppositehis companion, feeling quite unequal to clearing the broad ditch thatlay between them. 

"And you ask that question of _me_!" retorted the other, laughing fromhis bed of tall brown grasses on the top of the bank. He flung the endof his cigar into the ditch, exclaiming, "I swear by Saint Hubert thatno one shall catch me risking myself again in a country that I don'tknow with a magistrate, even if, like you, my dear d'Albon, he happensto be an old schoolfellow. "

"Why, Philip, have you really forgotten your own language? You surelymust have left your wits behind you in Siberia, " said the stouter of thetwo, with a glance half-comic, half-pathetic at the guide-post distantabout a hundred paces from them. 

"I understand, " replied the one addressed as Philip. He snatched up hisrifle, suddenly sprang to his feet, made but one jump of it into thefield, and rushed off to the guide-post. "This way, d'Albon, here youare! left about!" he shouted, gesticulating in the direction of thehighroad. "_To Baillet and l'Isle-Adam!_" he went on; "so if we go alonghere, we shall be sure to come upon the cross-road to Cassan. "

"Quite right, Colonel, " said M. D'Albon, putting the cap with which hehad been fanning himself back on his head. 

"Then _forward_! highly respected Councillor, " returned Colonel Philip, whistling to the dogs, that seemed already to obey him rather than themagistrate their owner. 

"Are you aware, my lord Marquis, that two leagues yet remain beforeus?" inquired the malicious soldier. "That village down yonder must beBaillet. "

"Great heavens!" cried the Marquis d'Albon. "Go on to Cassan by allmeans, if you like; but if you do, you will go alone. I prefer to waithere, storm or no storm; you can send a horse for me from the chateau. You have been making game of me, Sucy. We were to have a nice day'ssport by ourselves; we were not to go very far from Cassan, and goover ground that I knew. Pooh! instead of a day's fun, you have kept merunning like a greyhound since four o'clock this morning, and nothingbut a cup or two of milk by way of breakfast. Oh! if ever you findyourself in a court of law, I will take care that the day goes againstyou if you were in the right a hundred times over. "

The dejected sportsman sat himself down on one of the stumps at thefoot of the guide-post, disencumbered himself of his rifle and emptygame-bag, and heaved a prolonged sigh. 

"Oh, France, behold thy Deputies!" laughed Colonel de Sucy. "Poor oldd'Albon; if you had spent six months at the other end of Siberia as Idid. .. "

He broke off, and his eyes sought the sky, as if the story of histroubles was a secret between himself and God. 

"Come, march!" he added. "If you once sit down, it is all over withyou. "

"I can't help it, Philip! It is such an old habit in a magistrate! I amdead beat, upon my honor. If I had only bagged one hare though!"

Two men more different are seldom seen together. The civilian, a manof forty-two, seemed scarcely more than thirty; while the soldier, atthirty years of age, looked to be forty at the least. Both wore the redrosette that proclaimed them to be officers of the Legion of Honor. Afew locks of hair, mingled white and black, like a magpie's wing, had strayed from beneath the Colonel's cap; while thick, fair curlsclustered about the magistrate's temples. The Colonel was tall, spare, dried up, but muscular; the lines in his pale face told a tale ofvehement passions or of terrible sorrows; but his comrade's jollycountenance beamed with health, and would have done credit to anEpicurean. Both men were deeply sunburnt. Their high gaiters of brownleather carried souvenirs of every ditch and swamp that they crossedthat day. 

"Come, come, " cried M. De Sucy, "forward! One short hour's march, and weshall be at Cassan with a good dinner before us. "

"You never were in love, that is positive, " returned the Councillor, with a comically piteous expression. "You are as inexorable as Article304 of the Penal Code!"

Philip de Sucy shuddered violently. Deep lines appeared in his broadforehead, his face was overcast like the sky above them; but thoughhis features seemed to contract with the pain of an intolerably bittermemory, no tears came to his eyes. Like all men of strong character, hepossessed the power of forcing his emotions down into some inner depth, and, perhaps, like many reserved natures, he shrank from laying bare awound too deep for any words of human speech, and winced at the thoughtof ridicule from those who do not care to understand. M. D'Albon was oneof those who are keenly sensitive by nature to the distress of others, who feel at once the pain they have unwillingly given by some blunder. He respected his friend's mood, rose to his feet, forgot his weariness, and followed in silence, thoroughly annoyed with himself for havingtouched on a wound that seemed not yet healed. 

"Some day I will tell you my story, " Philip said at last, wringinghis friend's hand, while he acknowledged his dumb repentance with aheart-rending glance. "To-day I cannot. "

They walked on in silence. As the Colonel's distress passed off theCouncillor's fatigue returned. Instinctively, or rather urged byweariness, his eyes explored the depths of the forest around them; helooked high and low among the trees, and gazed along the avenues, hopingto discover some dwelling where he might ask for hospitality. Theyreached a place where several roads met; and the Councillor, fancyingthat he saw a thin film of smoke rising through the trees, made a standand looked sharply about him. He caught a glimpse of the dark greenbranches of some firs among the other forest trees, and finally, "Ahouse! a house!" he shouted. No sailor could have raised a cry of "Landahead!" more joyfully than he. 

He plunged at once into undergrowth, somewhat of the thickest; and theColonel, who had fallen into deep musings, followed him unheedingly. 

"I would rather have an omelette here and home-made bread, and a chairto sit down in, than go further for a sofa, truffles, and Bordeaux wineat Cassan. "

This outburst of enthusiasm on the Councillor's part was caused by thesight of the whitened wall of a house in the distance, standing out instrong contrast against the brown masses of knotted tree-trunks in theforest. 

"Aha! This used to be a priory, I should say, " the Marquis d'Albon criedonce more, as they stood before a grim old gateway. Through thegrating they could see the house itself standing in the midst of someconsiderable extent of park land; from the style of the architecture itappeared to have been a monastery once upon a time. 

"Those knowing rascals of monks knew how to choose a site!"

This last exclamation was caused by the magistrate's amazement at theromantic hermitage before his eyes. The house had been built on a spothalf-way up the hillside on the slope below the village of Nerville, which crowned the summit. A huge circle of great oak-trees, hundreds ofyears old, guarded the solitary place from intrusion. There appearedto be about forty acres of the park. The main building of the monasteryfaced the south, and stood in a space of green meadow, picturesquelyintersected by several tiny clear streams, and by larger sheets of waterso disposed as to have a natural effect. Shapely trees with contrastingfoliage grew here and there. Grottos had been ingeniously contrived; andbroad terraced walks, now in ruin, though the steps were broken andthe balustrades eaten through with rust, gave to this sylvan Thebaid acertain character of its own. The art of man and the picturesqueness ofnature had wrought together to produce a charming effect. Human passionssurely could not cross that boundary of tall oak-trees which shut outthe sounds of the outer world, and screened the fierce heat of the sunfrom this forest sanctuary. 

"What neglect!" said M. D'Albon to himself, after the first sense ofdelight in the melancholy aspect of the ruins in the landscape, whichseemed blighted by a curse. 

It was like some haunted spot, shunned of men. The twisted ivy stemsclambered everywhere, hiding everything away beneath a luxuriant greenmantle. Moss and lichens, brown and gray, yellow and red, covered thetrees with fantastic patches of color, grew upon the benches in thegarden, overran the roof and the walls of the house. The window-sasheswere weather-worn and warped with age, the balconies were dropping topieces, the terraces in ruins. Here and there the folding shutters hungby a single hinge. The crazy doors would have given way at the firstattempt to force an entrance. 

Out in the orchard the neglected fruit-trees were running to wood, therambling branches bore no fruit save the glistening mistletoe berries, and tall plants were growing in the garden walks. All this forlornnessshed a charm across the picture that wrought on the spectator's mindwith an influence like that of some enchanting poem, filling hissoul with dreamy fancies. A poet must have lingered there in deep andmelancholy musings, marveling at the harmony of this wilderness, wheredecay had a certain grace of its own. 

In a moment a few gleams of sunlight struggled through a rift in theclouds, and a shower of colored light fell over the wild garden. Thebrown tiles of the roof glowed in the light, the mosses took brighthues, strange shadows played over the grass beneath the trees; the deadautumn tints grew vivid, bright unexpected contrasts were evoked by thelight, every leaf stood out sharply in the clear, thin air. Then allat once the sunlight died away, and the landscape that seemed to havespoken grew silent and gloomy again, or rather, it took gray soft toneslike the tenderest hues of autumn dusk. 

"It is the palace of the Sleeping Beauty, " the Councillor said tohimself (he had already begun to look at the place from the point ofview of an owner of property). "Whom can the place belong to, I wonder. He must be a great fool not to live on such a charming little estate!"

Just at that moment, a woman sprang out from under a walnut tree onthe right-hand side of the gateway, and passed before the Councillor asnoiselessly and swiftly as the shadow of a cloud. This apparition struckhim dumb with amazement. 

"Hallo, d'Albon, what is the matter?" asked the Colonel. 

"I am rubbing my eyes to find out whether I am awake or asleep, "answered the magistrate, whose countenance was pressed against thegrating in the hope of catching a second glimpse of the ghost. 

"In all probability she is under that fig-tree, " he went on, indicating, for Philip's benefit, some branches that over-topped the wall on theleft-hand side of the gateway. 

"She? Who?"

"Eh! how should I know?" answered M. D'Albon. "A strange-looking womansprang up there under my very eyes just now, " he added, in a low voice;"she looked to me more like a ghost than a living being. She was soslender, light and shadowy that she might be transparent. Her face wasas white as milk, her hair, her eyes, and her dress were black. She gaveme a glance as she flitted by. I am not easily frightened, but that coldstony stare of hers froze the blood in my veins. "

"Was she pretty?" inquired Philip. 

"I don't know. I saw nothing but those eyes in her head. "

"The devil take dinner at Cassan!" exclaimed the Colonel; "let us stayhere. I am as eager as a boy to see the inside of this queer place. Thewindow-sashes are painted red, do you see? There is a red line roundthe panels of the doors and the edges of the shutters. It might be thedevil's own dwelling; perhaps he took it over when the monks went out. Now, then, let us give chase to the black and white lady; come along!"cried Philip, with forced gaiety. 

He had scarcely finished speaking when the two sportsmen heard a cry asif some bird had been taken in a snare. They listened. There was a soundlike the murmur of rippling water, as something forced its way throughthe bushes; but diligently as they lent their ears, there was nofootfall on the path, the earth kept the secret of the mysteriouswoman's passage, if indeed she had moved from her hiding-place. 

"This is very strange!" cried Philip. 

Following the wall of the path, the two friends reached before longa forest road leading to the village of Chauvry; they went along thistrack in the direction of the highway to Paris, and reached anotherlarge gateway. Through the railings they had a complete view ofthe facade of the mysterious house. From this point of view, thedilapidation was still more apparent. Huge cracks had riven the wallsof the main body of the house built round three sides of a square. Evidently the place was allowed to fall to ruin; there were holes inthe roof, broken slates and tiles lay about below. Fallen fruit from theorchard trees was left to rot on the ground; a cow was grazing overthe bowling-green and trampling the flowers in the garden beds; a goatbrowsed on the green grapes and young vine-shoots on the trellis. 

"It is all of a piece, " remarked the Colonel. "The neglect is in afashion systematic. " He laid his hand on the chain of the bell-pull, butthe bell had lost its clapper. The two friends heard no sound save thepeculiar grating creak of the rusty spring. A little door in the wallbeside the gateway, though ruinous, held good against all their effortsto force it open. 

"Oho! all this is growing very interesting, " Philip said to hiscompanion. 

"If I were not a magistrate, " returned M. D'Albon, "I should think thatthe woman in black is a witch. "

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the cow came up to therailings and held out her warm damp nose, as if she were glad of humansociety. Then a woman, if so indescribable a being could be called awoman, sprang up from the bushes, and pulled at the cord about the cow'sneck. From beneath the crimson handkerchief about the woman's head, fairmatted hair escaped, something as tow hangs about a spindle. She woreno kerchief at the throat. A coarse black-and-gray striped woolenpetticoat, too short by several inches, left her legs bare. She mighthave belonged to some tribe of Redskins in Fenimore Cooper's novels; forher neck, arms, and ankles looked as if they had been painted brick-red. There was no spark of intelligence in her featureless face; her pale, bluish eyes looked out dull and expressionless from beneath the eyebrowswith one or two straggling white hairs on them. Her teeth were prominentand uneven, but white as a dog's. 

"Hallo, good woman, " called M. De Sucy. 

She came slowly up to the railing, and stared at the two sportsmen witha contorted smile painful to see. 

"Where are we? What is the name of the house yonder? Whom does it belongto? Who are you? Do you come from hereabouts?"

To these questions, and to a host of others poured out in successionupon her by the two friends, she made no answer save gurgling soundsin the throat, more like animal sounds than anything uttered by a humanvoice. 

"Don't you see that she is deaf and dumb?" said M. D'Albon. 

"_Minorites_!" the peasant woman said at last. 

"Ah! she is right. The house looks as though it might once have been aMinorite convent, " he went on. 

Again they plied the peasant woman with questions, but, like a waywardchild, she colored up, fidgeted with her sabot, twisted the rope bywhich she held the cow that had fallen to grazing again, stared at thesportsmen, and scrutinized every article of clothing upon them; shegibbered, grunted, and clucked, but no articulate word did she utter. 

"Your name?" asked Philip, fixing her with his eyes as if he were tryingto bewitch the woman. 

"Genevieve, " she answered, with an empty laugh. 

"The cow is the most intelligent creature we have seen so far, "exclaimed the magistrate. "I shall fire a shot, that ought to bringsomebody out. "

D'Albon had just taken up his rifle when the Colonel put out a handto stop him, and pointed out the mysterious woman who had aroused suchlively curiosity in them. She seemed to be absorbed in deep thought, asshe went along a green alley some little distance away, so slowly thatthe friends had time to take a good look at her. She wore a threadbareblack satin gown, her long hair curled thickly over her forehead, andfell like a shawl about her shoulders below her waist. Doubtless she wasaccustomed to the dishevelment of her locks, for she seldom put backthe hair on either side of her brows; but when she did so, she shook herhead with a sudden jerk that had not to be repeated to shake awaythe thick veil from her eyes or forehead. In everything that shedid, moreover, there was a wonderful certainty in the working of themechanism, an unerring swiftness and precision, like that of an animal, well-nigh marvelous in a woman. 

The two sportsmen were amazed to see her spring up into an apple-treeand cling to a bough lightly as a bird. She snatched at the fruit, ateit, and dropped to the ground with the same supple grace that charmsus in a squirrel. The elasticity of her limbs took all appearance ofawkwardness or effort from her movements. She played about upon thegrass, rolling in it as a young child might have done; then, on asudden, she lay still and stretched out her feet and hands, with thelanguid natural grace of a kitten dozing in the sun. 

There was a threatening growl of thunder far away, and at this shestarted up on all fours and listened, like a dog who hears a strangefootstep. One result of this strange attitude was to separate her thickblack hair into two masses, that fell away on either side of her faceand left her shoulders bare; the two witnesses of this singular scenewondered at the whiteness of the skin that shone like a meadow daisy, and at the neck that indicated the perfection of the rest of her form. 

A wailing cry broke from her; she rose to her feet, and stood upright. Every successive movement was made so lightly, so gracefully, so easily, that she seemed to be no human being, but one of Ossian's maids of themist. She went across the grass to one of the pools of water, deftlyshook off her shoe, and seemed to enjoy dipping her foot, white asmarble, in the spring; doubtless it pleased her to make the circlingripples, and watch them glitter like gems. She knelt down by the brink, and played there like a child, dabbling her long tresses in the water, and flinging them loose again to see the water drip from the ends, likea string of pearls in the sunless light. 

"She is mad!" cried the Councillor. 

A hoarse cry rang through the air; it came from Genevieve, and seemedto be meant for the mysterious woman. She rose to her feet in a moment, flinging back the hair from her face, and then the Colonel and d'Alboncould see her features distinctly. As soon as she saw the two friendsshe bounded to the railings with the swiftness of a fawn. 

"_Farewell_!" she said in low, musical tones, but they could notdiscover the least trace of feeling, the least idea in the sweet soundsthat they had awaited impatiently. 

M. D'Albon admired the long lashes, the thick, dark eyebrows, thedazzling fairness of skin untinged by any trace of red. Only thedelicate blue veins contrasted with that uniform whiteness. 

But when the Marquis turned to communicate his surprise at the sight ofso strange an apparition, he saw the Colonel stretched on the grass likeone dead. M. D'Albon fired his gun into the air, shouted for help, andtried to raise his friend. At the sound of the shot, the strange lady, who had stood motionless by the gate, fled away, crying out like awounded wild creature, circling round and round in the meadow, withevery sign of unspeakable terror. 

M. D'Albon heard a carriage rolling along the road to l'Isle-Adam, andwaved his handkerchief to implore help. The carriage immediately cametowards the Minorite convent, and M. D'Albon recognized neighbors, M. And Mme. De Grandville, who hastened to alight and put their carriage athis disposal. Colonel de Sucy inhaled the salts which Mme. De Grandvillehappened to have with her; he opened his eyes, looked towards themysterious figure that still fled wailing through the meadow, and afaint cry of horror broke from him; he closed his eyes again, witha dumb gesture of entreaty to his friends to take him away from thisscene. M. And Mme. De Grandville begged the Councillor to make use oftheir carriage, adding very obligingly that they themselves would walk. 

"Who can the lady be?" inquired the magistrate, looking towards thestrange figure. 

"People think that she comes from Moulins, " answered M. De Grandville. "She is a Comtesse de Vandieres; she is said to be mad; but as she hasonly been here for two months, I cannot vouch for the truth of all thishearsay talk. "

M. D'Albon thanked M. And Mme. De Grandville, and they set out forCassan. 

"It is she!" cried Philip, coming to himself. 

"She? who?" asked d'Albon. 

"Stephanie. .. . Ah! dead and yet living still; still alive, but her mindis gone! I thought the sight would kill me. "

The prudent magistrate, recognizing the gravity of the crisis throughwhich his friend was passing, refrained from asking questions orexciting him further, and grew impatient of the length of the way to thechateau, for the change wrought in the Colonel's face alarmed him. Hefeared lest the Countess' terrible disease had communicated itself toPhilip's brain. When they reached the avenue at l'Isle-Adam, d'Albonsent the servant for the local doctor, so that the Colonel had scarcelybeen laid in bed before the surgeon was beside him. 

"If Monsieur le Colonel had not been fasting, the shock must have killedhim, " pronounced the leech. "He was over-tired, and that saved him, " andwith a few directions as to the patient's treatment, he went to preparea composing draught himself. M. De Sucy was better the next morning, butthe doctor had insisted on sitting up all night with him. 

"I confess, Monsieur le Marquis, " the surgeon said, "that I feared forthe brain. M. De Sucy has had some very violent shock; he is a man ofstrong passions, but, with his temperament, the first shock decideseverything. He will very likely be out of danger to-morrow. "

The doctor was perfectly right. The next day the patient was allowed tosee his friend. 

"I want you to do something for me, dear d'Albon, " Philip said, graspinghis friend's hand. "Hasten at once to the Minorite convent, find outeverything about the lady whom we saw there, and come back as soon asyou can; I shall count the minutes till I see you again. "

M. D'Albon called for his horse, and galloped over to the old monastery. When he reached the gateway he found some one standing there, a tall, spare man with a kindly face, who answered in the affirmative when hewas asked if he lived in the ruined house. M. D'Albon explained hiserrand. 

"Why, then, it must have been you, sir, who fired that unlucky shot! Youall but killed my poor invalid. "

"Eh! I fired into the air!"

"If you had actually hit Madame la Comtesse, you would have done lessharm to her. "

"Well, well, then, we can neither of us complain, for the sight of theCountess all but killed my friend, M. De Sucy. "

"The Baron de Sucy, is it possible?" cried the doctor, clasping hishands. "Has he been in Russia? was he in the Beresina?"

"Yes, " answered d'Albon. "He was taken prisoner by the Cossacks and sentto Siberia. He has not been back in this country a twelvemonth. "

"Come in, monsieur, " said the other, and he led the way to adrawing-room on the ground-floor. Everything in the room showed signs ofcapricious destruction. 

Valuable china jars lay in fragments on either side of a clock beneath aglass shade, which had escaped. The silk hangings about the windows weretorn to rags, while the muslin curtains were untouched. 

"You see about you the havoc wrought by a charming being to whom Ihave dedicated my life. She is my niece; and though medical scienceis powerless in her case, I hope to restore her to reason, though themethod which I am trying is, unluckily, only possible to the wealthy. "

Then, like all who live much alone and daily bear the burden of a heavytrouble, he fell to talk with the magistrate. This is the story that hetold, set in order, and with the many digressions made by both tellerand hearer omitted. 

When, at nine o'clock at night, on the 28th of November 1812, MarshalVictor abandoned the heights of Studzianka, which he had held throughthe day, he left a thousand men behind with instructions to protect, till the last possible moment, the two pontoon bridges over the Beresinathat still held good. This rear guard was to save if possible anappalling number of stragglers, so numbed with the cold, that theyobstinately refused to leave the baggage-wagons. The heroism of thegenerous band was doomed to fail; for, unluckily, the men who poureddown to the eastern bank of the Beresina found carriages, caissons, andall kinds of property which the Army had been forced to abandon duringits passage on the 27th and 28th days of November. The poor, half-frozenwretches, sunk almost to the level of brutes, finding such unhoped-forriches, bivouacked in the deserted space, laid hands on the militarystores, improvised huts out of the material, lighted fires with anythingthat would burn, cut up the carcasses of the horses for food, tore outthe linings of the carriages, wrapped themselves in them, and laydown to sleep instead of crossing the Beresina in peace under cover ofnight--the Beresina that even then had proved, by incredible fatality, so disastrous to the Army. Such apathy on the part of the poor fellowscan only be understood by those who remember tramping across those vastdeserts of snow, with nothing to quench their thirst but snow, snow fortheir bed, snow as far as the horizon on every side, and no food butsnow, a little frozen beetroot, horseflesh, or a handful of meal. 

The miserable creatures were dropping down, overcome by hunger, thirst, weariness, and sleep, when they reached the shores of the Beresina andfound fuel and fire and victuals, countless wagons and tents, a wholeimprovised town, in short. The whole village of Studzianka had beenremoved piecemeal from the heights of the plain, and the very perils andmiseries of this dangerous and doleful habitation smiled invitingly tothe wayfarers, who beheld no prospect beyond it but the awful Russiandeserts. A huge hospice, in short, was erected for twenty hours ofexistence. Only one thought--the thought of rest--appealed to men wearyof life or rejoicing in unlooked-for comfort. 

They lay right in the line of fire from the cannon of the Russianleft; but to that vast mass of human creatures, a patch upon thesnow, sometimes dark, sometimes breaking into flame, the indefatigablegrapeshot was but one discomfort the more. For them it was only a storm, and they paid the less attention to the bolts that fell among thembecause there were none to strike down there save dying men, thewounded, or perhaps the dead. Stragglers came up in little bands atevery moment. These walking corpses instantly separated, and wanderedbegging from fire to fire; and meeting, for the most part, withrefusals, banded themselves together again, and took by force whatthey could not otherwise obtain. They were deaf to the voices of theirofficers prophesying death on the morrow, and spent the energy requiredto cross the swamp in building shelters for the night and preparing ameal that often proved fatal. The coming death no longer seemed an evil, for it gave them an hour of slumber before it came. Hunger and thirstand cold--these were evils, but not death. 

At last wood and fuel and canvas and shelters failed, and hideous brawlsbegan between destitute late comers and the rich already in possessionof a lodging. The weaker were driven away, until a few last fugitivesbefore the Russian advance were obliged to make their bed in the snow, and lay down to rise no more. 

Little by little the mass of half-dead humanity became so dense, sodeaf, so torpid, --or perhaps it should be said so happy--that MarshalVictor, their heroic defender against twenty thousand Russians underWittgenstein, was actually compelled to cut his way by force throughthis forest of men, so as to cross the Beresina with the five thousandheroes whom he was leading to the Emperor. The miserable creaturespreferred to be trampled and crushed to death rather than stir fromtheir places, and died without a sound, smiling at the dead ashes oftheir fires, forgetful of France. 

Not before ten o'clock that night did the Duc de Belluno reach the otherside of the river. Before committing his men to the pontoon bridges thatled to Zembin, he left the fate of the rearguard at Studzianka in Eble'shands, and to Eble the survivors of the calamities of the Beresina owedtheir lives. 

About midnight, the great General, followed by a courageous officer, came out of his little hut by the bridge, and gazed at the spectacleof this camp between the bank of the Beresina and the Borizof road toStudzianka. The thunder of the Russian cannonade had ceased. Hereand there faces that had nothing human about them were lighted up bycountless fires that seemed to grow pale in the glare of the snowfields, and to give no light. Nearly thirty thousand wretches, belonging toevery nation that Napoleon had hurled upon Russia, lay there hazardingtheir lives with the indifference of brute beasts. 

"We have all these to save, " the General said to his subordinate. "To-morrow morning the Russians will be in Studzianka. The moment theycome up we shall have to set fire to the bridge; so pluck up heart, my boy! Make your way out and up yonder through them, and tell GeneralFournier that he has barely time to evacuate his post and cut his waythrough to the bridge. As soon as you have seen him set out, followhim down, take some able-bodied men, and set fire to the tents, wagons, caissons, carriages, anything and everything, without pity, and drivethese fellows on to the bridge. Compel everything that walks on two legsto take refuge on the other bank. We must set fire to the camp; itis our last resource. If Berthier had let me burn those d----d wagonssooner, no lives need have been lost in the river except my poorpontooners, my fifty heroes, who saved the Army, and will be forgotten. "

The General passed his hand over his forehead and said no more. He feltthat Poland would be his tomb, and foresaw that afterwards no voicewould be raised to speak for the noble fellows who had plunged into thestream--into the waters of the Beresina!--to drive in the piles for thebridges. And, indeed, only one of them is living now, or, to be moreaccurate, starving, utterly forgotten in a country village![*] Thebrave officer had scarcely gone a hundred paces towards Studzianka, whenGeneral Eble roused some of his patient pontooners, and began his workof mercy by setting fire to the camp on the side nearest the bridge, socompelling the sleepers to rise and cross the Beresina. Meanwhile theyoung aide-de-camp, not without difficulty, reached the one wooden houseyet left standing in Studzianka. 

 [*] This story can be found in _The Country Parson_. --eBook preparers. 

"So the box is pretty full, is it, messmate?" he said to a man whom hefound outside. 

"You will be a knowing fellow if you manage to get inside, " the officerreturned, without turning round or stopping his occupation of hacking atthe woodwork of the house with his sabre. 

"Philip, is that you?" cried the aide-de-camp, recognizing the voice ofone of his friends. 

"Yes. Aha! is it you, old fellow?" returned M. De Sucy, looking round atthe aide-de-camp, who like himself was not more than twenty-three yearsold. "I fancied you were on the other side of this confounded river. Do you come to bring us sweetmeats for dessert? You will get a warmwelcome, " he added, as he tore away a strip of bark from the wood andgave it to his horse by way of fodder. 

"I am looking for your commandant. General Eble has sent me to tell himto file off to Zembin. You have only just time to cut your way throughthat mass of dead men; as soon as you get through, I am going to setfire to the place to make them move--"

"You almost make me feel warm! Your news has put me in a fever; I havetwo friends to bring through. Ah! but for those marmots, I should havebeen dead before now, old fellow. On their account I am taking careof my horse instead of eating him. But have you a crust about you, forpity's sake? It is thirty hours since I have stowed any victuals. I havebeen fighting like a madman to keep up a little warmth in my body andwhat courage I have left. "

"Poor Philip! I have nothing--not a scrap!--But is your General inthere?"

"Don't attempt to go in. The barn is full of our wounded. Go up a bithigher, and you will see a sort of pig-sty to the right--that is wherethe General is. Good-bye, my dear fellow. If ever we meet again in aquadrille in a ballroom in Paris--"

He did not finish the sentence, for the treachery of the northeast windthat whistled about them froze Major Philip's lips, and the aide-de-campkept moving for fear of being frost-bitten. Silence soon prevailed, scarcely broken by the groans of the wounded in the barn, or the stifledsounds made by M. De Sucy's horse crunching on the frozen bark withfamished eagerness. Philip thrust his sabre into the sheath, caught atthe bridle of the precious animal that he had managed to keep for solong, and drew her away from the miserable fodder that she was boltingwith apparent relish. 

"Come along, Bichette! come along! It lies with you now, my beauty, tosave Stephanie's life. There, wait a little longer, and they will let uslie down and die, no doubt;" and Philip, wrapped in a pelisse, to whichdoubtless he owed his life and energies, began to run, stamping his feeton the frozen snow to keep them warm. He was scarce five hundred pacesaway before he saw a great fire blazing on the spot where he had lefthis carriage that morning with an old soldier to guard it. A dreadfulmisgiving seized upon him. Many a man under the influence of a powerfulfeeling during the Retreat summoned up energy for his friend's sake whenhe would not have exerted himself to save his own life; so it was withPhilip. He soon neared a hollow, where he had left a carriage shelteredfrom the cannonade, a carriage that held a young woman, his playmate inchildhood, dearer to him than any one else on earth. 

Some thirty stragglers were sitting round a tremendous blaze, whichthey kept up with logs of wood, planks wrenched from the floors of thecaissons, and wheels, and panels from carriage bodies. These had been, doubtless, among the last to join the sea of fires, huts, and humanfaces that filled the great furrow in the land between Studzianka andthe fatal river, a restless living sea of almost imperceptibly movingfigures, that sent up a smothered hum of sound blended with frightfulshrieks. It seemed that hunger and despair had driven these forlorncreatures to take forcible possession of the carriage, for the oldGeneral and his young wife, whom they had found warmly wrapped inpelisses and traveling cloaks, were now crouching on the earth besidethe fire, and one of the carriage doors was broken. 

As soon as the group of stragglers round the fire heard the footfallof the Major's horse, a frenzied yell of hunger went up from them. "Ahorse!" they cried. "A horse!"

All the voices went up as one voice. 

"Back! back! Look out!" shouted two or three of them, leveling theirmuskets at the animal. 

"I will pitch you neck and crop into your fire, you blackguards!" criedPhilip, springing in front of the mare. "There are dead horses lying upyonder; go and look for them!"

"What a rum customer the officer is!--Once, twice, will you get out ofthe way?" returned a giant grenadier. "You won't? All right then, justas you please. "

A woman's shriek rang out above the report. Luckily, none of the bulletshit Philip; but poor Bichette lay in the agony of death. Three of themen came up and put an end to her with thrusts of the bayonet. 

"Cannibals! leave me the rug and my pistols, " cried Philip indesperation. 

"Oh! the pistols if you like; but as for the rug, there is a fellowyonder who has had nothing to wet his whistle these two days, and isshivering in his coat of cobwebs, and that's our General. "

Philips looked up and saw a man with worn-out shoes and a dozen rents inhis trousers; the only covering for his head was a ragged foragingcap, white with rime. He said no more after that, but snatched up hispistols. 

Five of the men dragged the mare to the fire, and began to cut up thecarcass as dexterously as any journeymen butchers in Paris. The scrapsof meat were distributed and flung upon the coals, and the whole processwas magically swift. Philip went over to the woman who had given the cryof terror when she recognized his danger, and sat down by her side. Shesat motionless upon a cushion taken from the carriage, warming herselfat the blaze; she said no word, and gazed at him without a smile. Hesaw beside her the soldier whom he had left mounting guard over thecarriage; the poor fellow had been wounded; he had been overpowered bynumbers, and forced to surrender to the stragglers who had set upon him, and, like a dog who defends his master's dinner till the last moment, he had taken his share of the spoil, and had made a sort of cloak forhimself out of a sheet. At that particular moment he was busy toastinga piece of horseflesh, and in his face the major saw a gleefulanticipation of the coming feast. 

The Comte de Vandieres, who seemed to have grown quite childish in thelast few days, sat on a cushion close to his wife, and stared intothe fire. He was only just beginning to shake off his torpor underthe influence of the warmth. He had been no more affected by Philip'sarrival and danger than by the fight and subsequent pillaging of histraveling carriage. 

At first Sucy caught the young Countess' hand in his, trying to expresshis affection for her, and the pain that it gave him to see her reducedlike this to the last extremity of misery; but he said nothing as hesat by her side on the thawing heap of snow, he gave himself up to thepleasure of the sensation of warmth, forgetful of danger, forgetful ofall things else in the world. In spite of himself his face expanded withan almost fatuous expression of satisfaction, and he waited impatientlytill the scrap of horseflesh that had fallen to his soldier's shareshould be cooked. The smell of charred flesh stimulated his hunger. Hunger clamored within and silenced his heart, his courage, and hislove. He coolly looked round on the results of the spoliation of hiscarriage. Not a man seated round the fire but had shared the booty, therugs, cushions, pelisses, dresses, --articles of clothing that belongedto the Count and Countess or to himself. Philip turned to see ifanything worth taking was left in the berline. He saw by the light ofthe flames, gold, and diamonds, and silver lying scattered about; no onehad cared to appropriate the least particle. There was something hideousin the silence among those human creatures round the fire; none of themspoke, none of them stirred, save to do such things as each considerednecessary for his own comfort. 

It was a grotesque misery. The men's faces were wrapped and disfiguredwith the cold, and plastered over with a layer of mud; you could seethe thickness of the mask by the channel traced down their cheeks bythe tears that ran from their eyes, and their long slovenly-kept beardsadded to the hideousness of their appearance. Some were wrapped round inwomen's shawls, others in horse-cloths, dirty blankets, rags stiffenedwith melting hoar-frost; here and there a man wore a boot on one footand a shoe on the other, in fact, there was not one of them but woresome ludicrously odd costume. But the men themselves with such matterfor jest about them were gloomy and taciturn. 

The silence was unbroken save by the crackling of the wood, the roaringof the flames, the far-off hum of the camp, and the sound of sabreshacking at the carcass of the mare. Some of the hungriest of the menwere still cutting tidbits for themselves. A few miserable creatures, more weary than the others, slept outright; and if they happened to rollinto the fire, no one pulled them back. With cut-and-dried logic theirfellows argued that if they were not dead, a scorching ought to besufficient warning to quit and seek out more comfortable quarters. Ifthe poor wretch woke to find himself on fire, he was burned to death, and nobody pitied him. Here and there the men exchanged glances, as ifto excuse their indifference by the carelessness of the rest; the thinghappened twice under the Countess' eyes, and she uttered no sound. Whenall the scraps of horseflesh had been broiled upon the coals, they weredevoured with a ravenous greediness that would have been disgusting inwild beasts. 

"And now we have seen thirty infantrymen on one horse for the firsttime in our lives!" cried the grenadier who had shot the mare, the onesolitary joke that sustained the Frenchmen's reputation for wit. 

Before long the poor fellows huddled themselves up in their clothes, and lay down on planks of timber, on anything but the bare snow, andslept--heedless of the morrow. Major de Sucy having warmed himself andsatisfied his hunger, fought in vain against the drowsiness that weighedupon his eyes. During this brief struggle he gazed at the sleeping girlwho had turned her face to the fire, so that he could see her closedeyelids and part of her forehead. She was wrapped round in a furredpelisse and a coarse horseman's cloak, her head lay on a blood-stainedcushion; a tall astrakhan cap tied over her head by a handkerchiefknotted under the chin protected her face as much as possible from thecold, and she had tucked up her feet in the cloak. As she lay curled upin this fashion, she bore no likeness to any creature. 

Was this the lowest of camp-followers? Was this the charming woman, thepride of her lover's heart, the queen of many a Parisian ballroom? Alas!even for the eyes of this most devoted friend, there was no discernibletrace of womanhood in that bundle of rags and linen, and the cold wasmightier than the love in a woman's heart. 

Then for the major the husband and wife came to be like two distant dotsseen through the thick veil that the most irresistible kind of slumberspread over his eyes. It all seemed to be part of a dream--the leapingflames, the recumbent figures, the awful cold that lay in wait for themthree paces away from the warmth of the fire that glowed for a littlewhile. One thought that could not be stifled haunted Philip--"If I go tosleep, we shall all die; I will not sleep, " he said to himself. 

He slept. After an hour's slumber M. De Sucy was awakened by a hideousuproar and the sound of an explosion. The remembrance of his duty, ofthe danger of his beloved, rushed upon his mind with a sudden shock. Heuttered a cry like the growl of a wild beast. He and his servant stoodupright above the rest. They saw a sea of fire in the darkness, andagainst it moving masses of human figures. Flames were devouring thehuts and tents. Despairing shrieks and yelling cries reached theirears; they saw thousands upon thousands of wild and desperate faces;and through this inferno a column of soldiers was cutting its way to thebridge, between the two hedges of dead bodies. 

"Our rearguard is in full retreat, " cried the major. "There is no hopeleft!"

"I have spared your traveling carriage, Philip, " said a friendly voice. 

Sucy turned and saw the young aide-de-camp by the light of the flames. 

"Oh, it is all over with us, " he answered. "They have eaten my horse. And how am I to make this sleepy general and his wife stir a step?"

"Take a brand, Philip, and threaten them. "

"Threaten the Countess?. .. "

"Good-bye, " cried the aide-de-camp; "I have only just time to get acrossthat unlucky river, and go I must, there is my mother in France!. .. Whata night! This herd of wretches would rather lie here in the snow, andmost of them would sooner be burned alive than get up. .. . It is fouro'clock, Philip! In two hours the Russians will begin to move, and youwill see the Beresina covered with corpses a second time, I can tellyou. You haven't a horse, and you cannot carry the Countess, so comealong with me, " he went on, taking his friend by the arm. 

"My dear fellow, how am I to leave Stephanie?"

Major de Sucy grasped the Countess, set her on her feet, and shook herroughly; he was in despair. He compelled her to wake, and she stared athim with dull fixed eyes. 

"Stephanie, we must go, or we shall die here!"

For all answer, the Countess tried to sink down again and sleep on theearth. The aide-de-camp snatched a brand from the fire and shook it inher face. 

"We must save her in spite of herself, " cried Philip, and he carried herin his arms to the carriage. He came back to entreat his friend to helphim, and the two young men took the old general and put him beside hiswife, without knowing whether he were alive or dead. The major rolledthe men over as they crouched on the earth, took away the plunderedclothing, and heaped it upon the husband and wife, then he flung some ofthe broiled fragments of horseflesh into a corner of the carriage. 

"Now, what do you mean to do?" asked the aide-de-camp. 

"Drag them along!" answered Sucy. 

"You are mad!"

"You are right!" exclaimed Philip, folding his arms on his breast. 

Suddenly a desperate plan occurred to him. 

"Look you here!" he said, grasping his sentinel by the unwounded arm. "I leave her in your care for one hour. Bear in mind that you must diesooner than let any one, no matter whom, come near the carriage!"

The major seized a handful of the lady's diamonds, drew his sabre, andviolently battered those who seemed to him to be the bravest among thesleepers. By this means he succeeded in rousing the gigantic grenadierand a couple of men whose rank and regiment were undiscoverable. 

"It is all up with us!" he cried. 

"Of course it is, " returned the grenadier; "but that is all one to me. "

"Very well then, if die you must, isn't it better to sell your life fora pretty woman, and stand a chance of going back to France again?"

"I would rather go to sleep, " said one of the men, dropping downinto the snow; "and if you worry me again, major, I shall stick mytoasting-iron into your body. "

"What is it all about, sir?" asked the grenadier. "The man's drunk. Heis a Parisian, and likes to lie in the lap of luxury. "

"You shall have these, good fellow, " said the major, holding out ariviere of diamonds, "if you will follow me and fight like a madman. TheRussians are not ten minutes away; they have horses; we will march up tothe nearest battery and carry off two stout ones. "

"How about the sentinels, major?"

"One of us three--" he began; then he turned from the soldier and lookedat the aide-de-camp. --"You are coming, aren't you, Hippolyte?"

Hippolyte nodded assent. 

"One of us, " the major went on, "will look after the sentry. Besides, perhaps those blessed Russians are also fast asleep. "

"All right, major; you are a good sort! But will you take me in yourcarriage?" asked the grenadier. 

"Yes, if you don't leave your bones up yonder. --If I come to grief, promise me, you two, that you will do everything in your power to savethe Countess. "

"All right, " said the grenadier. 

They set out for the Russian lines, taking the direction of thebatteries that had so cruelly raked the mass of miserable creatureshuddled together by the river bank. A few minutes later the hoofs of twogalloping horses rang on the frozen snow, and the awakened battery fireda volley that passed over the heads of the sleepers; the hoof-beatsrattled so fast on the iron ground that they sounded like the hammeringin a smithy. The generous aide-de-camp had fallen; the stalwartgrenadier had come off safe and sound; and Philip himself receiveda bayonet thrust in the shoulder while defending his friend. Notwithstanding his wound, he clung to his horse's mane, and gripped himwith his knees so tightly that the animal was held as in a vise. 

"God be praised!" cried the major, when he saw his soldier still on thespot, and the carriage standing where he had left it. 

"If you do the right thing by me, sir, you will get me the cross forthis. We have treated them to a sword dance to a pretty tune from therifle, eh?"

"We have done nothing yet! Let us put the horses in. Take hold of thesecords. "

"They are not long enough. "

"All right, grenadier, just go and overhaul those fellows sleepingthere; take their shawls, sheets, anything--"

"I say! the rascal is dead, " cried the grenadier, as he plundered thefirst man who came to hand. "Why, they are all dead! how queer!"

"All of them?"

"Yes, every one. It looks as though the horseflesh _a la neige_ wasindigestible. "

Philip shuddered at the words. The night had grown twice as cold asbefore. 

"Great heaven! to lose her when I have saved her life a score of timesalready. "

He shook the Countess, "Stephanie! Stephanie!" he cried. 

She opened her eyes. 

"We are saved, madame!"

"Saved!" she echoed, and fell back again. 

The horses were harnessed after a fashion at last. The major held hissabre in his unwounded hand, took the reins in the other, saw to hispistols, and sprang on one of the horses, while the grenadier mountedthe other. The old sentinel had been pushed into the carriage, and layacross the knees of the general and the Countess; his feet were frozen. Urged on by blows from the flat of the sabre, the horses dragged thecarriage at a mad gallop down to the plain, where endless difficultiesawaited them. Before long it became almost impossible to advance withoutcrushing sleeping men, women, and even children at every step, all ofwhom declined to stir when the grenadier awakened them. In vain M. DeSucy looked for the track that the rearguard had cut through this densecrowd of human beings; there was no more sign of their passage than thewake of a ship in the sea. The horses could only move at a foot-pace, and were stopped most frequently by soldiers, who threatened to killthem. 

"Do you mean to get there?" asked the grenadier. 

"Yes, if it costs every drop of blood in my body! if it costs the wholeworld!" the major answered. 

"Forward, then!. .. You can't have the omelette without breaking eggs. "And the grenadier of the Garde urged on the horses over the prostratebodies, and upset the bivouacs; the blood-stained wheels ploughing thatfield of faces left a double furrow of dead. But in justice it should besaid that he never ceased to thunder out his warning cry, "Carrion! lookout!"

"Poor wretches!" exclaimed the major. 

"Bah! That way, or the cold, or the cannon!" said the grenadier, goadingon the horses with the point of his sword. 

Then came the catastrophe, which must have happened sooner but formiraculous good fortune; the carriage was overturned, and all furtherprogress was stopped at once. 

"I expected as much!" exclaimed the imperturbable grenadier. "Oho! he isdead!" he added, looking at his comrade. 

"Poor Laurent!" said the major. 

"Laurent! Wasn't he in the Fifth Chasseurs?"

"Yes. "

"My own cousin. --Pshaw! this beastly life is not so pleasant that oneneed be sorry for him as things go. "

But all this time the carriage lay overturned, and the horses were onlyreleased after great and irreparable loss of time. The shock had beenso violent that the Countess had been awakened by it, and the subsequentcommotion aroused her from her stupor. She shook off the rugs and rose. 

"Where are we, Philip?" she asked in musical tones, as she looked abouther. 

"About five hundred paces from the bridge. We are just about to crossthe Beresina. When we are on the other side, Stephanie, I will not teaseyou any more; I will let you go to sleep; we shall be in safety, we cango on to Wilna in peace. God grant that you may never know what yourlife has cost!"

"You are wounded!"

"A mere trifle. "

The hour of doom had come. The Russian cannon announced the day. TheRussians were in possession of Studzianka, and thence were raking theplain with grapeshot; and by the first dim light of the dawn the majorsaw two columns moving and forming above the heights. Then a cry ofhorror went up from the crowd, and in a moment every one sprang to hisfeet. Each instinctively felt his danger, and all made a rush for thebridge, surging towards it like a wave. 

Then the Russians came down upon them, swift as a conflagration. Men, women, children, and horses all crowded towards the river. Luckily forthe major and the Countess, they were still at some distance from thebank. General Eble had just set fire to the bridge on the other side;but in spite of all the warnings given to those who rushed towards thechance of salvation, not one among them could or would draw back. Theoverladen bridge gave way, and not only so, the impetus of the franticliving wave towards that fatal bank was such that a dense crowd of humanbeings was thrust into the water as if by an avalanche. The sound of asingle human cry could not be distinguished; there was a dull crash asif an enormous stone had fallen into the water--and the Beresina wascovered with corpses. 

The violent recoil of those in front, striving to escape this death, brought them into hideous collision with those behind then, who werepressing towards the bank, and many were suffocated and crushed. TheComte and Comtesse de Vandieres owed their lives to the carriage. Thehorses that had trampled and crushed so many dying men were crushed andtrampled to death in their turn by the human maelstrom which eddied fromthe bank. Sheer physical strength saved the major and the grenadier. They killed others in self-defence. That wild sea of human faces andliving bodies, surging to and fro as by one impulse, left the bankof the Beresina clear for a few moments. The multitude had hurledthemselves back on the plain. Some few men sprang down from the banksof the river, not so much with any hope of reaching the opposite shore, which for them meant France, as from dread of the wastes of Siberia. For some bold spirits despair became a panoply. An officer leaped fromhummock to hummock of ice, and reached the other shore; one of thesoldiers scrambled over miraculously on the piles of dead bodies anddrift ice. But the immense multitude left behind saw at last that theRussians would not slaughter twenty thousand unarmed men, too numbwith the cold to attempt to resist them, and each awaited his fatewith dreadful apathy. By this time the major and his grenadier, theold general and his wife, were left to themselves not very far fromthe place where the bridge had been. All four stood dry-eyed and silentamong the heaps of dead. A few able-bodied men and one or two officers, who had recovered all their energy at this crisis, gathered about them. The group was sufficiently large; there were about fifty men all told. A couple of hundred paces from them stood the wreck of the artillerybridge, which had broken down the day before; the major saw this, and"Let us make a raft!" he cried. 

The words were scarcely out of his mouth before the whole group hurriedto the ruins of the bridge. A crowd of men began to pick up iron clampsand to hunt for planks and ropes--for all the materials for a raft, inshort. A score of armed men and officers, under command of the major, stood on guard to protect the workers from any desperate attempt on thepart of the multitude if they should guess their design. The longing forfreedom, which inspires prisoners to accomplish impossibilities, cannotbe compared with the hope which lent energy at that moment to theseforlorn Frenchmen. 

"The Russians are upon us! Here are the Russians!" the guard shouted tothe workers. 

The timbers creaked, the raft grew larger, stronger, and moresubstantial. Generals, colonels, and common soldiers all alike bentbeneath the weight of wagon-wheels, chains, coils of rope, and planks oftimber; it was a modern realization of the building of Noah's ark. Theyoung Countess, sitting by her husband's side, looked on, regretful thatshe could do nothing to aide the workers, though she helped to knot thelengths of rope together. 

At last the raft was finished. Forty men launched it out into the river, while ten of the soldiers held the ropes that must keep it moored tothe shore. The moment that they saw their handiwork floating onthe Beresina, they sprang down onto it from the bank with callousselfishness. The major, dreading the frenzy of the first rush, held backStephanie and the general; but a shudder ran through him when he saw thelanding place black with people, and men crowding down like playgoersinto the pit of a theatre. 

"It was I who thought of the raft, you savages!" he cried. "I have savedyour lives, and you will not make room for me!"

A confused murmur was the only answer. The men at the edge took up stoutpoles, trust them against the bank with all their might, so as to shovethe raft out and gain an impetus at its starting upon a journey across asea of floating ice and dead bodies towards the other shore. 

"_Tonnerre de Dieu_! I will knock some of you off into the water ifyou don't make room for the major and his two companions, " shouted thegrenadier. He raised his sabre threateningly, delayed the departure, andmade the men stand closer together, in spite of threatening yells. 

"I shall fall in!. .. I shall go overboard!. .. " his fellows shouted. 

"Let us start! Put off!"

The major gazed with tearless eyes at the woman he loved; an impulse ofsublime resignation raised her eyes to heaven. 

"To die with you!" she said. 

In the situation of the folk upon the raft there was a certain comicelement. They might utter hideous yells, but not one of them dared tooppose the grenadier, for they were packed together so tightly thatif one man were knocked down, the whole raft might capsize. At thisdelicate crisis, a captain tried to rid himself of one of his neighbors;the man saw the hostile intention of his officer, collared him, andpitched him overboard. "Aha! The duck has a mind to drink. . .. Over withyou!--There is room for two now!" he shouted. "Quick, major! throw yourlittle woman over, and come! Never mind that old dotard! he will dropoff to-morrow!"

"Be quick!" cried a voice, made up of a hundred voices. 

"Come, major! Those fellows are making a fuss, and well they may. "

The Comte de Vandieres flung off his ragged blankets, and stood beforethem in his general's uniform. 

"Let us save the Count, " said Philip. 

Stephanie grasped his hand tightly in hers, flung her arms about, andclasped him close in an agonized embrace. 

"Farewell!" she said. 

Then each knew the other's thoughts. The Comte de Vandieres recoveredhis energies and presence of mind sufficiently to jump on to the raft, whither Stephanie followed him after one last look at Philip. 

"Major, won't you take my place? I do not care a straw for life; I haveneither a wife, nor child, nor mother belonging to me--"

"I give them into your charge, " cried the major, indicating the Countand his wife. 

"Be easy; I will take as much care of them as of the apple of my eye. "

Philip stood stock-still on the bank. The raft sped so violently towardsthe opposite shore that it ran aground with a violent shock to all onboard. The Count, standing on the very edge, was shaken into the stream;and as he fell, a mass of ice swept by and struck off his head, and sentit flying like a ball. 

"Hey! major!" shouted the grenadier. 

"Farewell!" a woman's voice called aloud. 

An icy shiver ran through Philip de Sucy, and he dropped down where hestood, overcome with cold and sorrow and weariness. 

"My poor niece went out of her mind, " the doctor added after a briefpause. "Ah! monsieur, " he went on, grasping M. D'Albon's hand, "whata fearful life for a poor little thing, so young, so delicate! Anunheard-of misfortune separated her from that grenadier of the Garde(Fleuriot by name), and for two years she was dragged on after the army, the laughing-stock of a rabble of outcasts. She went barefoot, Iheard, ill-clad, neglected, and starved for months at a time; sometimesconfined to a hospital, sometimes living like a hunted animal. God aloneknows all the misery which she endured, and yet she lives. She was shutup in a madhouse in a little German town, while her relations, believingher to be dead, were dividing her property here in France. 

"In 1816 the grenadier Fleuriot recognized her in an inn in Strasbourg. She had just managed to escape from captivity. Some peasants told himthat the Countess had lived for a whole month in a forest, and how thatthey had tracked her and tried to catch her without success. 

"I was at that time not many leagues from Strasbourg; and hearing thetalk about the girl in the wood, I wished to verify the strange factsthat had given rise to absurd stories. What was my feeling when I beheldthe Countess? Fleuriot told me all that he knew of the piteous story. I took the poor fellow with my niece into Auvergne, and there I had themisfortune to lose him. He had some ascendancy over Mme. De Vandieres. He alone succeeded in persuading her to wear clothes; and in those daysher one word of human speech--_Farewell_--she seldom uttered. Fleuriotset himself to the task of awakening certain associations; but therehe failed completely; he drew that one sorrowful word from her a littlemore frequently, that was all. But the old grenadier could amuse her, and devoted himself to playing with her, and through him I hoped; but--"here Stephanie's uncle broke off. After a moment he went on again. 

"Here she has found another creature with whom she seems to havean understanding--an idiot peasant girl, who once, in spite of herplainness and imbecility, fell in love with a mason. The mason thoughtof marrying her because she had a little bit of land, and for a wholeyear poor Genevieve was the happiest of living creatures. She dressed inher best, and danced on Sundays with Dallot; she understood love; therewas room for love in her heart and brain. But Dallot thought better ofit. He found another girl who had all her senses and rather more landthan Genevieve, and he forsook Genevieve for her. Then the poor thinglost the little intelligence that love had developed in her; she can donothing now but cut grass and look after the cattle. My niece and thepoor girl are in some sort bound to each other by the invisible chain oftheir common destiny, and by their madness due to the same cause. Justcome here a moment; look!" and Stephanie's uncle led the Marquis d'Albonto the window. 

There, in fact, the magistrate beheld the pretty Countess sitting on theground at Genevieve's knee, while the peasant girl was wholly absorbedin combing out Stephanie's long, black hair with a huge comb. TheCountess submitted herself to this, uttering low smothered cries thatexpressed her enjoyment of the sensation of physical comfort. A shudderran through M. D'Albon as he saw her attitude of languid abandonment, the animal supineness that revealed an utter lack of intelligence. 

"Oh! Philip, Philip!" he cried, "past troubles are as nothing. Is itquite hopeless?" he asked. 

The doctor raised his eyes to heaven. 

"Good-bye, monsieur, " said M. D'Albon, pressing the old man's hand. "Myfriend is expecting me; you will see him here before long. "

"Then it is Stephanie herself?" cried Sucy when the Marquis had spokenthe first few words. "Ah! until now I did not feel sure!" he added. Tears filled the dark eyes that were wont to wear a stern expression. 

"Yes; she is the Comtesse de Vandieres, " his friend replied. 

The colonel started up, and hurriedly began to dress. 

"Why, Philip!" cried the horrified magistrate. "Are you going mad?"

"I am quite well now, " said the colonel simply. "This news has soothedall my bitterest grief; what pain could hurt me while I think ofStephanie? I am going over to the Minorite convent, to see her and speakto her, to restore her to health again. She is free; ah, surely, surely, happiness will smile on us, or there is no Providence above. How canyou think she could hear my voice, poor Stephanie, and not recover herreason?"

"She has seen you once already, and she did not recognize you, " themagistrate answered gently, trying to suggest some wholesome fears tothis friend, whose hopes were visibly too high. 

The colonel shuddered, but he began to smile again, with a slightinvoluntary gesture of incredulity. Nobody ventured to oppose his plans, and a few hours later he had taken up his abode in the old priory, to benear the doctor and the Comtesse de Vandieres. 

"Where is she?" he cried at once. 

"Hush!" answered M. Fanjat, Stephanie's uncle. "She is sleeping. Stay;here she is. "

Philip saw the poor distraught sleeper crouching on a stone bench inthe sun. Her thick hair, straggling over her face, screened it from theglare and heat; her arms dropped languidly to the earth; she lay at easeas gracefully as a fawn, her feet tucked up beneath her; her bosomrose and fell with her even breathing; there was the same transparentwhiteness as of porcelain in her skin and complexion that we so oftenadmire in children's faces. Genevieve sat there motionless, holding aspray that Stephanie doubtless had brought down from the top of one ofthe tallest poplars; the idiot girl was waving the green branch aboveher, driving away the flies from her sleeping companion, and gentlyfanning her. 

She stared at M. Fanjat and the colonel as they came up; then, likea dumb animal that recognizes its master, she slowly turned her facetowards the countess, and watched over her as before, showing notthe slightest sign of intelligence or of astonishment. The air wasscorching. The glittering particles of the stone bench shone like sparksof fire; the meadow sent up the quivering vapors that hover abovethe grass and gleam like golden dust when they catch the light, butGenevieve did not seem to feel the raging heat. 

The colonel wrung M. Fanjat's hands; the tears that gathered inthe soldier's eyes stole down his cheeks, and fell on the grass atStephanie's feet. 

"Sir, " said her uncle, "for these two years my heart has been brokendaily. Before very long you will be as I am; if you do not weep, youwill not feel your anguish the less. "

"You have taken care of her!" said the colonel, and jealousy no lessthan gratitude could be read in his eyes. 

The two men understood one another. They grasped each other by the handagain, and stood motionless, gazing in admiration at the serenity thatslumber had brought into the lovely face before them. Stephanie heaveda sigh from time to time, and this sigh, that had all the appearance ofsensibility, made the unhappy colonel tremble with gladness. 

"Alas!" M. Fanjat said gently, "do not deceive yourself, monsieur; asyou see her now, she is in full possession of such reason as she has. "

Those who have sat for whole hours absorbed in the delight of watchingover the slumber of some tenderly-beloved one, whose waking eyes willsmile for them, will doubtless understand the bliss and anguish thatshook the colonel. For him this slumber was an illusion, the waking mustbe a kind of death, the most dreadful of all deaths. 

Suddenly a kid frisked in two or three bounds towards the bench andsnuffed at Stephanie. The sound awakened her; she sprang lightly to herfeet without scaring away the capricious creature; but as soon as shesaw Philip she fled, followed by her four-footed playmate, to a thicketof elder-trees; then she uttered a little cry like the note of astartled wild bird, the same sound that the colonel had heard oncebefore near the grating, when the Countess appeared to M. D'Albon forthe first time. At length she climbed into a laburnum-tree, ensconcedherself in the feathery greenery, and peered out at the _strange man_with as much interest as the most inquisitive nightingale in the forest. 

"Farewell, farewell, farewell, " she said, but the soul sent no traceof expression of feeling through the words, spoken with the carelessintonation of a bird's notes. 

"She does not know me!" the colonel exclaimed in despair. "Stephanie!Here is Philip, your Philip!. .. Philip!" and the poor soldier wenttowards the laburnum-tree; but when he stood three paces away, theCountess eyed him almost defiantly, though there was timidity in hereyes; then at a bound she sprang from the laburnum to an acacia, andthence to a spruce-fir, swinging from bough to bough with marvelousdexterity. 

"Do not follow her, " said M. Fanjat, addressing the colonel. "You wouldarouse a feeling of aversion in her which might become insurmountable; Iwill help you to make her acquaintance and to tame her. Sit down on thebench. If you pay no heed whatever to her, poor child, it will not belong before you will see her come nearer by degrees to look at you. "

"That _she_ should not know me; that she should fly from me!" thecolonel repeated, sitting down on a rustic bench and leaning his backagainst a tree that overshadowed it. 

He bowed his head. The doctor remained silent. Before very long theCountess stole softly down from her high refuge in the spruce-fir, flitting like a will-o'-the-wisp; for as the wind stirred the boughs, she lent herself at times to the swaying movements of the trees. Ateach branch she stopped and peered at the stranger; but as she saw himsitting motionless, she at length jumped down to the grass, stood awhile, and came slowly across the meadow. When she took up her positionby a tree about ten paces from the bench, M. Fanjat spoke to the colonelin a low voice. 

"Feel in my pocket for some lumps of sugar, " he said, "and let her seethem, she will come; I willingly give up to you the pleasure of givingher sweetmeats. She is passionately fond of sugar, and by that means youwill accustom her to come to you and to know you. "

"She never cared for sweet things when she was a woman, " Philip answeredsadly. 

When he held out the lump of sugar between his thumb and finger, andshook it, Stephanie uttered the wild note again, and sprang quicklytowards him; then she stopped short, there was a conflict betweenlonging for the sweet morsel and instinctive fear of him; she looked atthe sugar, turned her head away, and looked again like an unfortunatedog forbidden to touch some scrap of food, while his master slowlyrecites the greater part of the alphabet until he reaches the letterthat gives permission. At length the animal appetite conquered fear;Stephanie rushed to Philip, held out a dainty brown hand to pounce uponthe coveted morsel, touched her lover's fingers, snatched the piece ofsugar, and vanished with it into a thicket. This painful scene wastoo much for the colonel; he burst into tears, and took refuge in thedrawing-room. 

"Then has love less courage than affection?" M. Fanjat asked him. "Ihave hope, Monsieur le Baron. My poor niece was once in a far morepitiable state than at present. "

"Is it possible?" cried Philip. 

"She would not wear clothes, " answered the doctor. 

The colonel shuddered, and his face grew pale. To the doctor's mind thispallor was an unhealthy symptom; he went over to him and felt his pulse. M. De Sucy was in a high fever; by dint of persuasion, he succeeded inputting the patient in bed, and gave him a few drops of laudanum to gainrepose and sleep. 

The Baron de Sucy spent nearly a week, in a constant struggle with adeadly anguish, and before long he had no tears left to shed. He wasoften well-nigh heartbroken; he could not grow accustomed to the sightof the Countess' madness; but he made terms for himself, as it were, inthis cruel position, and sought alleviations in his pain. His heroismwas boundless. He found courage to overcome Stephanie's wild shynessby choosing sweetmeats for her, and devoted all his thoughts to this, bringing these dainties, and following up the little victories thathe set himself to gain over Stephanie's instincts (the last gleamof intelligence in her), until he succeeded to some extent--she grew_tamer_ than ever before. Every morning the colonel went into the park;and if, after a long search for the Countess, he could not discover thetree in which she was rocking herself gently, nor the nook where shelay crouching at play with some bird, nor the roof where she had perchedherself, he would whistle the well-known air _Partant pour la Syrie_, which recalled old memories of their love, and Stephanie would runtowards him lightly as a fawn. She saw the colonel so often that she wasno longer afraid of him; before very long she would sit on his knee withher thin, lithe arms about him. And while thus they sat as lovers loveto do, Philip doled out sweetmeats one by one to the eager Countess. When they were all finished, the fancy often took Stephanie to searchthrough her lover's pockets with a monkey's quick instinctive dexterity, till she had assured herself that there was nothing left, and then shegazed at Philip with vacant eyes; there was no thought, no gratitude intheir clear depths. Then she would play with him. She tried to take offhis boots to see his foot; she tore his gloves to shreds, and put on hishat; and she would let him pass his hands through her hair, and take herin his arms, and submit passively to his passionate kisses, and at last, if he shed tears, she would gaze silently at him. 

She quite understood the signal when he whistled _Partant pour laSyrie_, but he could never succeed in inducing her to pronounce herown name--_Stephanie_. Philip persevered in his heart-rending task, sustained by a hope that never left him. If on some bright autumnmorning he saw her sitting quietly on a bench under a poplar tree, grownbrown now as the season wore, the unhappy lover would lie at her feetand gaze into her eyes as long as she would let him gaze, hoping thatsome spark of intelligence might gleam from them. At times he lenthimself to an illusion; he would imagine that he saw the hard, changeless light in them falter, that there was a new life and softnessin them, and he would cry, "Stephanie! oh, Stephanie! you hear me, yousee me, do you not?"

But for her the sound of his voice was like any other sound, thestirring of the wind in the trees, or the lowing of the cow on which shescrambled; and the colonel wrung his hands in a despair that lost noneof its bitterness; nay, time and these vain efforts only added to hisanguish. 

One evening, under the quiet sky, in the midst of the silence and peaceof the forest hermitage, M. Fanjat saw from a distance that the Baronwas busy loading a pistol, and knew that the lover had given up allhope. The blood surged to the old doctor's heart; and if he overcame thedizzy sensation that seized on him, it was because he would rathersee his niece live with a disordered brain than lose her for ever. Hehurried to the place. 

"What are you doing?" he cried. 

"That is for me, " the colonel answered, pointing to a loaded pistol onthe bench, "and this is for her!" he added, as he rammed down the wadinto the pistol that he held in his hands. 

The Countess lay stretched out on the ground, playing with the balls. 

"Then you do not know that last night, as she slept, she murmured'Philip?'" said the doctor quietly, dissembling his alarm. 

"She called my name?" cried the Baron, letting his weapon fall. Stephanie picked it up, but he snatched it out of her hands, caught theother pistol from the bench, and fled. 

"Poor little one!" exclaimed the doctor, rejoicing that his stratagemhad succeeded so well. He held her tightly to his heart as he wenton. "He would have killed you, selfish that he is! He wants you to diebecause he is unhappy. He cannot learn to love you for your own sake, little one! We forgive him, do we not? He is senseless; you are onlymad. Never mind; God alone shall take you to Himself. We look uponyou as unhappy because you no longer share our miseries, fools that weare!. .. Why, she is happy, " he said, taking her on his knee; "nothingtroubles her; she lives like the birds, like the deer--"

Stephanie sprang upon a young blackbird that was hopping about, caughtit with a little shriek of glee, twisted its neck, looked at the deadbird, and dropped it at the foot of a tree without giving it anotherthought. 

The next morning at daybreak the colonel went out into the garden tolook for Stephanie; hope was very strong in him. He did not see her, and whistled; and when she came, he took her arm, and for the first timethey walked together along an alley beneath the trees, while the freshmorning wind shook down the dead leaves about them. The colonel satdown, and Stephanie, of her own accord, lit upon his knee. Philiptrembled with gladness. 

"Love!" he cried, covering her hands with passionate kisses, "I amPhilip. .. "

She looked curiously at him. 

"Come close, " he added, as he held her tightly. "Do you feel the beatingof my heart? It has beat for you, for you only. I love you always. Philip is not dead. He is here. You are sitting on his knee. You are myStephanie, I am your Philip. "

"Farewell!" she said, "farewell!"

The colonel shivered. He thought that some vibration of his highlywrought feeling had surely reached his beloved; that the heart-rendingcry, drawn from him by hope, the utmost effort of a love that must lastfor ever, of passion in its ecstasy, striving to reach the soul of thewoman he loved, must awaken her. 

"Oh, Stephanie! we shall be happy yet!"

A cry of satisfaction broke from her, a dim light of intelligencegleamed in her eyes. 

"She knows me!. .. Stephanie!. .. "

The colonel felt his heart swell, and tears gathered under his eyelids. But all at once the Countess held up a bit of sugar for him to see; shehad discovered it by searching diligently for it while he spoke. What hehad mistaken for a human thought was a degree of reason required for amonkey's mischievous trick!

Philip fainted. M. Fanjat found the Countess sitting on his prostratebody. She was nibbling her bit of sugar, giving expression to herenjoyment by little grimaces and gestures that would have been thoughtclever in a woman in full possession of her senses if she tried to mimicher paroquet or her cat. 

"Oh, my friend!" cried Philip, when he came to himself. "This islike death every moment of the day! I love her too much! I could bearanything if only through her madness she had kept some little trace ofwomanhood. But, day after day, to see her like a wild animal, not even asense of modesty left, to see her--"

"So you must have a theatrical madness, must you!" said the doctorsharply, "and your prejudices are stronger than your lover's devotion?What, monsieur! I resign to you the sad pleasure of giving my niece herfood, and the enjoyment of her playtime; I have kept for myself nothingbut the most burdensome cares. I watch over her while you are asleep, I--Go, monsieur, and give up the task. Leave this dreary hermitage; Ican live with my little darling; I understand her disease; I study hermovements; I know her secrets. Some day you shall thank me. "

The colonel left the Minorite convent, that he was destined to see onlyonce again. The doctor was alarmed by the effect that his words madeupon his guest; his niece's lover became as dear to him as his niece. Ifeither of them deserved to be pitied, that one was certainly Philip; didhe not bear alone the burden of an appalling sorrow?

The doctor made inquiries, and learned that the hapless colonel hadretired to a country house of his near Saint-Germain. A dream hadsuggested to him a plan for restoring the Countess to reason, and thedoctor did not know that he was spending the rest of the autumn incarrying out a vast scheme. A small stream ran through his park, and inwinter time flooded a low-lying land, something like the plain on theeastern side of the Beresina. The village of Satout, on the slope ofa ridge above it, bounded the horizon of a picture of desolation, something as Studzianka lay on the heights that shut in the swamp of theBeresina. The colonel set laborers to work to make a channel to resemblethe greedy river that had swallowed up the treasures of France andNapoleon's army. By the help of his memories, Philip reconstructed onhis own lands the bank where General Eble had built his bridges. Hedrove in piles, and then set fire to them, so as to reproduce thecharred and blackened balks of timber that on either side of the rivertold the stragglers that their retreat to France had been cut off. Hehad materials collected like the fragments out of which his comrades inmisfortune had made the raft; his park was laid waste to completethe illusion on which his last hopes were founded. He ordered raggeduniforms and clothing for several hundred peasants. Huts and bivouacsand batteries were raised and burned down. In short, he omittedno device that could reproduce that most hideous of all scenes. Hesucceeded. When, in the earliest days of December, snow covered theearth with a thick white mantle, it seemed to him that he saw theBeresina itself. The mimic Russia was so startlingly real, that severalof his old comrades recognized the scene of their past sufferings. M. De Sucy kept the secret of the drama to be enacted with this tragicalbackground, but it was looked upon as a mad freak in several circles ofsociety in Paris. 

In the early days of the month of January 1820, the colonel drove overto the Forest of l'Isle-Adam in a carriage like the one in which M. And Mme. De Vandieres had driven from Moscow to Studzianka. The horsesclosely resembled that other pair that he had risked his life tobring from the Russian lines. He himself wore the grotesque and soiledclothes, accoutrements, and cap that he had worn on the 29th of November1812. He had even allowed his hair and beard to grow, and neglected hisappearance, that no detail might be lacking to recall the scene in allits horror. 

"I guessed what you meant to do, " cried M. Fanjat, when he saw thecolonel dismount. "If you mean your plan to succeed, do not let hersee you in that carriage. This evening I will give my niece a littlelaudanum, and while she sleeps, we will dress her in such clothes asshe wore at Studzianka, and put her in your traveling-carriage. I willfollow you in a berline. "

Soon after two o'clock in the morning, the young Countess was liftedinto the carriage, laid on the cushions, and wrapped in a coarseblanket. A few peasants held torches while this strange elopement wasarranged. 

A sudden cry rang through the silence of night, and Philip and thedoctor, turning, saw Genevieve. She had come out half-dressed from thelow room where she slept. 

"Farewell, farewell; it is all over, farewell!" she called, cryingbitterly. 

"Why, Genevieve, what is it?" asked M. Fanjat. 

Genevieve shook her head despairingly, raised her arm to heaven, lookedat the carriage, uttered a long snarling sound, and with evident signsof profound terror, slunk in again. 

"'Tis a good omen, " cried the colonel. "The girl is sorry to lose hercompanion. Very likely she sees that Stephanie is about to recover herreason. "

"God grant it may be so!" answered M. Fanjat, who seemed to be affectedby this incident. Since insanity had interested him, he had knownseveral cases in which a spirit of prophecy and the gift of secondsight had been accorded to a disordered brain--two faculties which manytravelers tell us are also found among savage tribes. 

So it happened that, as the colonel had foreseen and arranged, Stephanietraveled across the mimic Beresina about nine o'clock in the morning, and was awakened by an explosion of rockets about a hundred paces fromthe scene of action. It was a signal. Hundreds of peasants raised aterrible clamor, like the despairing shouts that startled the Russianswhen twenty thousand stragglers learned that by their own fault theywere delivered over to death or to slavery. 

When the Countess heard the report and the cries that followed, shesprang out of the carriage, and rushed in frenzied anguish over thesnow-covered plain; she saw the burned bivouacs and the fatal raft aboutto be launched on a frozen Beresina. She saw Major Philip brandishinghis sabre among the crowd. The cry that broke from Mme. De Vandieresmade the blood run cold in the veins of all who heard it. She stood faceto face with the colonel, who watched her with a beating heart. At firstshe stared blankly at the strange scene about her, then she reflected. For an instant, brief as a lightning flash, there was the same quickgaze and total lack of comprehension that we see in the bright eyes of abird; then she passed her hand across her forehead with the intelligentexpression of a thinking being; she looked round on the memories thathad taken substantial form, into the past life that had been transportedinto her present; she turned her face to Philip--and saw him! An awedsilence fell upon the crowd. The colonel breathed hard, but darednot speak; tears filled the doctor's eyes. A faint color overspreadStephanie's beautiful face, deepening slowly, till at last she glowedlike a girl radiant with youth. Still the bright flush grew. Life andjoy, kindled within her at the blaze of intelligence, swept through herlike leaping flames. A convulsive tremor ran from her feet to her heart. But all these tokens, which flashed on the sight in a moment, gatheredand gained consistence, as it were, when Stephanie's eyes gleamed withheavenly radiance, the light of a soul within. She lived, she thought!She shuddered--was it with fear? God Himself unloosed a second timethe tongue that had been bound by death, and set His fire anew in theextinguished soul. The electric torrent of the human will vivified thebody whence it had so long been absent. 

"Stephanie!" the colonel cried. 

"Oh! it is Philip!" said the poor Countess. 

She fled to the trembling arms held out towards her, and the embraceof the two lovers frightened those who beheld it. Stephanie burst intotears. 

Suddenly the tears ceased to flow; she lay in his arms a dead weight, asif stricken by a thunderbolt, and said faintly:

"Farewell, Philip!. .. I love you. .. . Farewell!"

"She is dead!" cried the colonel, unclasping his arms. 

The old doctor received the lifeless body of his niece in his arms as ayoung man might have done; he carried her to a stack of wood and sether down. He looked at her face, and laid a feeble hand, tremulous withagitation, upon her heart--it beat no longer. 

"Can it really be so?" he said, looking from the colonel, who stoodthere motionless, to Stephanie's face. Death had invested it witha radiant beauty, a transient aureole, the pledge, it may be, of aglorious life to come. 

"Yes, she is dead. "

"Oh, but that smile!" cried Philip; "only see that smile. Is itpossible?"

"She has grown cold already, " answered M. Fanjat. 

M. De Sucy made a few strides to tear himself from the sight; then hestopped, and whistled the air that the mad Stephanie had understood;and when he saw that she did not rise and hasten to him, he walked away, staggering like a drunken man, still whistling, but he did not turnagain. 

In society General de Sucy is looked upon as very agreeable, andabove all things, as very lively and amusing. Not very long ago a ladycomplimented him upon his good humor and equable temper. 

"Ah! madame, " he answered, "I pay very dearly for my merriment in theevening if I am alone. "

"Then, you are never alone, I suppose. "

"No, " he answered, smiling. 

If a keen observer of human nature could have seen the look that Sucy'sface wore at that moment, he would, without doubt, have shuddered. 

"Why do you not marry?" the lady asked (she had several daughters of herown at a boarding-school). "You are wealthy; you belong to an old andnoble house; you are clever; you have a future before you; everythingsmiles upon you. "

"Yes, " he answered; "one smile is killing me--"

On the morrow the lady heard with amazement that M. De Sucy had shothimself through the head that night. 

The fashionable world discussed the extraordinary news in diversways, and each had a theory to account for it; play, love, ambition, irregularities in private life, according to the taste of the speaker, explained the last act of the tragedy begun in 1812. Two men alone, amagistrate and an old doctor, knew that Monsieur le Comte de Sucy wasone of those souls unhappy in the strength God gives to them to enablethem to triumph daily in a ghastly struggle with a mysterious horror. Iffor a minute God withdraws His sustaining hand, they succumb. 

PARIS, March 1830.