The Human Comedy (25 page)

“Who is this woman?” asked the magistrate, pointing at the stranger.

“She’s thought to come from Moulins,” answered Monsieur de Grandville. “She calls herself the Comtesse de Vandières. Word has it she’s mad, but as she’s been here only two months, I cannot vouch for the truth of those rumors.”

Thanking Monsieur and Madame de Grandville, d’Albon started off for Cassan.

“It’s her,” cried Philippe, recovering his senses.

“Who?” asked d’Albon.

“Stéphanie. Ah! Dead and living, living and mad! I thought it would be the end of me.”

Understanding all the gravity of the crisis afflicting his friend, the prudent magistrate questioned him no further and took pains not to upset him. He was anxious to arrive at the château, for the change he could see in Colonel Philippe made him fear that the countess might have contaminated him with her terrible illness. On reaching avenue de L’Isle-Adam, d’Albon sent the footman ahead to summon the village doctor; thus, when the colonel was laid in his bed, the surgeon was already at his side.

“Had the colonel’s stomach not been nearly empty,” he said, “he would surely have died. It was his depletion that saved him.”

Once he had dictated the immediate measures to be taken, the doctor left to prepare a sedative potion. The next morning Monsieur de Sucy’s condition had improved, but the doctor insisted on watching over him personally.

“I will admit, monsieur le marquis,” said the doctor to Monsieur d’Albon, “my first fear was a brain lesion. Monsieur de Sucy has had a terrible shock, and he is a man of strong passions, but with him it’s the first blow that decides everything. Tomorrow he may well be out of danger.”

The doctor was not mistaken, and the next day he permitted the magistrate to see his friend.

“My dear d’Albon,” said Philippe, pressing his hand, “I want a favor from you! Hurry straight to Bons-Hommes, find out all you can about that woman, and then come back quick as you can! I’ll be counting the minutes.”

Monsieur d’Albon leapt onto a horse and galloped to the former abbey. As he drew near, he saw a tall, thin man standing before the fence, a man of amenable mien, who answered in the affirmative when the magistrate asked if this ruined house was his home. Monsieur d’Albon revealed the motive of his visit.

“Was it you, then, monsieur,” cried the stranger, “who fired that cursed shot? You very nearly killed my poor patient.”

“See here, monsieur, I fired in the air.”

“You would have done less harm to the countess if you’d hit her.”

“In that case we’re even, for the sight of your countess nearly killed my friend, Monsieur de Sucy.”

“Would that be the Baron Philippe de Sucy?” cried the doctor, joining his hands. “Was he in Russia, at
the crossing of the Berezina
?”

“That’s right,” d’Albon answered. “He was captured by the Cossacks and taken to Siberia. He returned to us some eleven months ago.”

“Come in, monsieur,” said the stranger, showing the magistrate into a salon on the ground floor of his house. Some destructive force had been at work in this room, but in a capricious and unpredictable manner. Precious porcelain vases sat in pieces beside a clock whose glass dome remained intact. The silk curtains over the windows were torn, the double muslin drapes untouched.

“You see here,” he said to Monsieur d’Albon as they entered, “the ravages wrought by the charming creature to whom I have devoted my existence. She is my niece; despite the impotence of my art, I hope one day to restore her to reason by means of a method that, alas, only the rich can afford.”

Then, rambling like all those who live solitary lives, preyed on by an irremediable sorrow, he recounted the following adventure, whose relation has here been adapted and stripped of the many digressions interjected by the narrator and the councillor.

* * *

When, toward nine in the evening, he withdrew from the heights of Studyanka, which he had defended all through that day of November 28, 1812, Marshal Victor left behind some thousand men whose charge was to protect one of the two surviving bridges over the Berezina as long as humanly possible. This rear guard had fought valiantly to save a vast crowd of stragglers, who, numb with cold, had gathered around the retreating army’s abandoned equipment and refused to go on. In the end, the heroism of those devoted troops would prove useless. By a stroke of misfortune, the soldiers who poured onto the banks of the Berezina found a massive array of coaches, caissons, and materiel left behind by the army as it crossed the river on November 27 and 28. Inheritors of riches beyond their wildest dreams, wits dulled by the cold, these wretches settled into the unoccupied campsites, broke up the equipment to build huts, made fire with whatever was at hand, butchered the horses for food, stripped the carriages of their felt or canvas for blankets, and slept; slept, rather than pressing on, rather than tranquilly crossing the Berezina under cover of darkness—that same Berezina that an unimaginable twist of fate had already rendered so deadly for the armed forces of France. These pitiable soldiers’ apathy can only be understood by those who remember traversing those vast deserts of snow, with no other drink than snow, no other bed than snow, no other prospect than a horizon of snow, no other food than snow, except for a few frozen beets, a few handfuls of flour, perhaps a bit of horsemeat. Dying of hunger, of thirst, of sleeplessness and exhaustion, the wretches had happened onto a riverbank where they found wood, fires, food, countless abandoned vehicles, campsites, in short an entire improvised city. The village of Studyanka had been wholly dismantled, divided, transported from the heights down to the plain. However
dolente
and perilous that city, its miseries and dangers could not have seemed more welcoming to people who saw before them only the fearsome wastelands of Russia. In short, it was an enormous sanctuary, in existence for not yet twenty hours. Whether by weariness of life or delight in an unhoped-for comfort, that mass of men was impermeable to any thought other than rest. To be sure, the artillery of the Russians’ left flank fired relentlessly on that horde, which appeared as a massive blot in the snow, here black, there aglow with flames, but to the numbed multitudes those implacable cannonballs seemed only one more inconvenience to be borne. It was like a thunderstorm whose bolts inspired only derision, for wherever they fell their victims would already be ailing or dying, if not already dead. At every moment, fresh packs of stragglers appeared. These walking corpses scattered at once, staggering from bonfire to bonfire, begging for a place to rest; then, having generally been turned away, they joined up again to obtain by brute force the hospitality they’d been refused a moment before. Deaf to the voices of a small number of officers who predicted that the coming day would be their last, they exhausted their courage and energy—the very courage and energy they would need to cross over the river—in the fabrication of a shelter for the night, in the confection of an often deadly meal. The death that awaited them no longer seemed so terrible a horror; at least it would allow them an hour of sleep. The word
horror
they reserved for their hunger, for their thirst, for the cold. When there was no more wood to be found, no more fire, nor canvas, nor shelter, fierce clashes erupted between the empty-handed newcomers and those so wealthy as to enjoy some manner of hearth. The weakest perished. At length the moment came when a group of men fleeing the Russians found nothing but snow for their campsite, and there they lay down, never to rise again. Gradually this mass of half-annihilated beings grew so dense, so deaf, and so dulled—or perhaps so happy—that Marshal Victor, Duke de Bellune, he who had so heroically defended them in battle against Wittgenstein’s twenty thousand Russian troops, had no choice but to force his way through that human forest in order to cross the Berezina with the five thousand warriors he was bringing to the emperor. Rather than make way, the dejected masses allowed themselves to be crushed, and they died in silence, smiling at their extinguished fires, never thinking of France.

Not until ten o’clock in the evening did the Duke de Bellune find himself on the opposite bank. Before starting over the bridges and on toward Zembin, he had entrusted the fate of the rear guard of Studyanka to Éblé, that savior of all those who survived the calamities of the Berezina. Toward midnight, the great general, with a particularly courageous officer at his side, left the little riverside hut that served as his shelter and contemplated the spectacle of the enormous encampment that covered every inch of ground from the Berezina to the Borisov–Studyanka road. The Russians’ cannon had ceased their roar; on that expanse of snow, countless scattered fires, paling and seeming to cast no light, illuminated faces with nothing human about them. Some thirty thousand wretches from all the varied nations whose forces Napoleon had thrown at Russia were gathered on the riverbank, at great risk to their lives, brutishly unconcerned for their fate.

“So many to be saved,” said the general to the officer. “Tomorrow morning the Russians will be the masters of Studyanka. We’ve no choice but to set fire to the bridge as soon as we catch sight of them. And so, my friend, summon your courage! Find your way up to the heights, and tell General Fournier he has no time to lose: He must vacate his position at once, drive through these crowds, and cross the bridge. Once he’s set off, follow close behind him. Find a few able men to assist you and set fire to the campsites, the equipment, the caissons, the coaches, everything! No pity! Herd all these men onto the bridge! Leave everything with two legs no choice but to take shelter on the opposite bank. Fire is now our only hope. Oh, if Berthier had allowed me to destroy that damned gear, this river would have swallowed up no one but my poor
pontoniers
, those fifty heroes who saved the army and who will be forgotten by all!”

The general put his hand to his brow and stood silent. He sensed that Poland would be his grave, and that no voice would ever be raised in support of those glorious men who willingly leapt into the waters—the waters of the Berezina!—to sink trestles for the bridges. Today only one of their number is still living, or more precisely languishing, in a provincial village, unknown! The aide-de-camp set off. That devoted officer had scarcely taken a hundred paces toward Studyanka when General Éblé roused a few of his ailing pontoniers and started off on his mission of mercy, setting fire to the campsites around the bridge, forcing the crowd of sleeping soldiers to rise and cross the Berezina. In the meantime, after considerable struggles, the young aide-de-camp had arrived at the one wooden house still standing in Studyanka.

“Is this hut so full, then, comrade?” he said to a man standing outside.

“You’re a hard man if you can get in here,” the officer answered, never turning around, still hacking at the house’s wooden wall with his sword.

“Is that you, Philippe?” said the aide-de-camp, recognizing a comrade by the sound of his voice.

“Yes. Ah! It’s you, my friend,” answered Monsieur de Sucy, looking at the aide-de-camp, only twenty-three years old, like himself. “I thought surely you’d be across that accursed river by now. Have you come to bring us cakes and jam for our dessert? I can promise you a warm welcome,” he added, pulling away a strip of bark and giving it to his horse, by way of fodder.

“I’m looking for your commander. On behalf of General Éblé, I must tell him to make for Zembin fast as he can! You have just enough time to plow your way through that crowd of living corpses. And then I’m to set them on fire, so they’ll get up and walk.”

“You’re almost making me warm! I’m sweating already. Listen, I have two friends I must save. Ah, without those two dormice, my friend, I’d be a dead man at this moment! It’s for their sake that I’m looking after my horse rather than eating it. For pity’s sake, do you have a crust of bread? It’s been thirty hours since I last had something in my belly, and I’ve fought like a madman to keep up what little warmth and courage I have left.”

“Poor Philippe! I have nothing, nothing. But is your general here?”

“Don’t try to get in! This barn’s for our wounded. Go a little farther uphill. On your right, you’ll come upon a sort of pigsty, that’s where you’ll find the general. Adieu, my good fellow. If we ever again dance
la trénis
on a Paris floor . . .”

There was no way to finish this sentence: The wind was blowing so viciously that the aide-de-camp had to walk in order not to freeze, and Major Philippe’s lips were too cold for words. Soon silence reigned, broken only by groans from the house and the muffled sound of Monsieur de Sucy’s starving, enraged horse, chewing the frozen bark of the trees from which the house was built. The major resheathed his cutlass, briskly took up the reins of the precious animal whose life he had managed to safeguard, and despite its resistance tugged it away from the wretched food it was downing so desperately.

“Off we go, Bichette! Off we go. Only you can save Stéphanie now, my beauty. Come on! We’ll rest later—or more likely die.”

Wrapped in a
pelisse
to which he owed his continued existence and hardiness, Philippe set off at a run, stomping the packed snow to warm his feet. After no more than a hundred paces the major caught sight of a well-fed fire at the spot where, that morning, he’d left his coach in the care of an old trooper. A dreadful foreboding flooded over him. Like all those driven by an overpowering emotion amid this debacle, he found within himself the strength to rescue his friends, a strength he would never have had to save himself. Soon he was within a few paces of a sheltered hollow, well protected from the cannonballs, where he had left a young woman, his childhood companion and his most precious belonging!

A few paces from the carriage, some thirty stragglers huddled around an enormous blaze, diligently stoking it with planks, boxes from the caissons, carriage wheels, and side panels. No doubt these soldiers were the latest newcomers to the crowd that filled the broad plain from Studyanka to the fateful river with a sort of sea of heads, fires, and huts, a living ocean stirred by vague currents, from which rose a vague hum, sometimes punctuated by fearsome shouts. Possessed by hunger and despair, the wretches had likely ransacked his carriage. The aged general and young woman they’d found inside, sleeping on bundles of baggage, wrapped in overcoats and pelisses, now sat slumped by the fire. One door of the carriage was broken. On hearing the horse and the major approaching, the mob let out a shout, a cry of rage inspired by hunger.