“We talked a little about that charge.  Not much.  That sort of thing does not lend itself to conversation.  Tomassov muttered a few words about a mere butchery.  I had nothing to say.  As I told you I had very soon let my sword hang idle at my wrist.  That starving mob had not even tried to defend itself.  Just a few shots.  We had two men wounded.  Two!... and we had charged the main column of Napoleon’s Grand Army.

“Tomassov muttered wearily:  ‘What was the good of it?’ I did not wish to argue, so I only just mumbled:  ‘Ah, well!’ But the adjutant struck in unpleasantly: 

“’Why, it warmed the men a bit.  It has made me warm.  That’s a good enough reason.  But our Tomassov is so humane!  And besides he has been in love with a French woman, and thick as thieves with a lot of Frenchmen, so he is sorry for them.  Never mind, my boy, we are on the Paris road now and you shall soon see her!’ This was one of his usual, as we believed them, foolish speeches.  None of us but believed that the getting to Paris would be a matter of years—­of years.  And lo! less than eighteen months afterwards I was rooked of a lot of money in a gambling hell in the Palais Royal.

“Truth, being often the most senseless thing in the world, is sometimes revealed to fools.  I don’t think that adjutant of ours believed in his own words.  He just wanted to tease Tomassov from habit.  Purely from habit.  We of course said nothing, and so he took his head in his hands and fell into a doze as he sat on a log in front of the fire.

“Our cavalry was on the extreme right wing of the army, and I must confess that we guarded it very badly.  We had lost all sense of insecurity by this time; but still we did keep up a pretence of doing it in a way.  Presently a trooper rode up leading a horse and Tomassov mounted stiffly and went off on a round of the outposts.  Of the perfectly useless outposts.

“The night was still, except for the crackling of the fires.  The raging wind had lifted far above the earth and not the faintest breath of it could be heard.  Only the full moon swam out with a rush into the sky and suddenly hung high and motionless overhead.  I remember raising my hairy face to it for a moment.  Then, I verily believe, I dozed off, too, bent double on my log with my head towards the fierce blaze.

“You know what an impermanent thing such slumber is.  One moment you drop into an abyss and the next you are back in the world that you would think too deep for any noise but the trumpet of the Last Judgment.  And then off you go again.  Your very soul seems to slip down into a bottomless black pit.  Then up once more into a startled consciousness.  A mere plaything of cruel sleep one is, then.  Tormented both ways.

“However, when my orderly appeared before me, repeating:  ’Won’t your Honour be pleased to eat?...  Won’t your Honour be pleased to eat?...’  I managed to keep my hold of it—­I mean that gaping consciousness.  He was offering me a sooty pot containing some grain boiled in water with a pinch of salt.  A wooden spoon was stuck in it.