When the major was warm, and his hunger appeased, an invincible desire to sleep weighed down his eyelids. During the short moment of his struggle against that desire he looked at the young woman, who had turned her face to the fire and was now asleep, leaving her closed eyes and a portion of her forehead exposed to sight. She was wrapped in a furred pelisse and a heavy dragoon's cloak; her head rested on a pillow stained with blood; an astrakhan hood, kept in place by a handkerchief knotted round her neck, preserved her face from the cold as much as possible. Her feet were wrapped in the cloak. Thus rolled into a bundle, as it were, she looked like nothing at all. Was she the last of the "vivandieres"? Was she a charming woman, the glory of a lover, the queen of Parisian salons? Alas! even the eye of her most devoted friend could trace no sign of anything feminine in that mass of rags and tatters. Love had succumbed to cold in the heart of a woman!
Through the thick veils of irresistible sleep, the major soon saw the husband and wife as mere points or formless objects. The flames of the fire, those outstretched figures, the relentless cold, waiting, not three feet distant from that fugitive heat, became all a dream. One importunate thought terrified Philippe:
"If I sleep, we shall all die; I will not sleep," he said to himself.
And yet he slept.
A terrible clamor and an explosion awoke him an hour later. The sense of his duty, the peril of his friend, fell suddenly on his heart. He uttered a cry that was like a roar. He and his orderly were alone afoot. A sea of fire lay before them in the darkness of the night, licking up the cabins and the bivouacs; cries of despair, howls, and imprecations reached their ears; they saw against the flames thousands of human beings with agonized or furious faces. In the midst of that hell, a column of soldiers was forcing its way to the bridge, between two hedges of dead bodies.
"It is the retreat of the rear-guard!" cried the major. "All hope is gone!""I have saved your carriage, Philippe," said a friendly voice.
Turning round, de Sucy recognized the young aide-de-camp in the flaring of the flames.
"Ah! all is lost!" replied the major, "they have eaten my horse; and how can I make this stupid general and his wife walk?""Take a brand from the fire and threaten them.""Threaten the countess!"
"Good-bye," said the aide-de-camp, "I have scarcely time to get across that fatal river--and I MUST; I have a mother in France. What a night!
These poor wretches prefer to lie here in the snow; half will allow themselves to perish in those flames rather than rise and move on. It is four o'clock, Philippe! In two hours the Russians will begin to move. I assure you you will again see the Beresina choked with corpses. Philippe! think of yourself! You have no horses, you cannot carry the countess in your arms. Come--come with me!" he said urgently, pulling de Sucy by the arm.
"My friend! abandon Stephanie!"
De Sucy seized the countess, made her stand upright, shook her with the roughness of a despairing man, and compelled her to wake up. She looked at him with fixed, dead eyes.
"You must walk, Stephanie, or we shall all die here."For all answer the countess tried to drop again upon the snow and sleep. The aide-de-camp seized a brand from the fire and waved it in her face.
"We will save her in spite of herself!" cried Philippe, lifting the countess and placing her in the carriage.
He returned to implore the help of his friend. Together they lifted the old general, without knowing whether he were dead or alive, and put him beside his wife. The major then rolled over the men who were sleeping on his blankets, which he tossed into the carriage, together with some roasted fragments of his mare.
"What do you mean to do?" asked the aide-de-camp.
"Drag them."
"You are crazy."
"True," said Philippe, crossing his arms in despair.
Suddenly, he was seized by a last despairing thought.
"To you," he said, grasping the sound arm of his orderly, "I confide her for one hour. Remember that you must die sooner than let any one approach her."The major then snatched up the countess's diamonds, held them in one hand, drew his sabre with the other, and began to strike with the flat of its blade such of the sleepers as he thought the most intrepid. He succeeded in awaking the colossal grenadier, and two other men whose rank it was impossible to tell.
"We are done for!" he said.
"I know it," said the grenadier, "but I don't care.""Well, death for death, wouldn't you rather sell your life for a pretty woman, and take your chances of seeing France?""I'd rather sleep," said a man, rolling over on the snow, "and if you trouble me again, I'll stick my bayonet into your stomach.""What is the business, my colonel?" said the grenadier. "That man is drunk; he's a Parisian; he likes his ease.""That is yours, my brave grenadier," cried the major, offering him a string of diamonds, "if you will follow me and fight like a madman.
The Russians are ten minutes' march from here; they have horses; we are going up to their first battery for a pair.""But the sentinels?"
"One of us three--" he interrupted himself, and turned to the aide-de-camp. "You will come, Hippolyte, won't you?"Hippolyte nodded.
"One of us," continued the major, "will take care of the sentinel.
Besides, perhaps they are asleep too, those cursed Russians.""Forward! major, you're a brave one! But you'll give me a lift on your carriage?" said the grenadier.
"Yes, if you don't leave your skin up there-- If I fall, Hippolyte, and you, grenadier, promise me to do your utmost to save the countess.""Agreed!" cried the grenadier.
They started for the Russian lines, toward one of the batteries which had so decimated the hapless wretches lying on the banks of the river.