‘Less fine natures than his own did not understand this very well. In the regiment they had nicknamed him the Humane Tomassov.

‘He didn’t take offence at it. There’s nothing incompatible between humanity and a warrior’s soul. People without compassion are the civilians, Government officials and such like. As to the ferocious talk one hears from a lot of people in war time—well, the tongue is an unruly member at best, and when there’s some excitement going on there’s no curbing its furious activity.

‘So I had not been very surprised to see our Tomassov sheathe his sword before the end of the charge. As we rode away from there he was very silent. He was not talkative as a rule, but it was evident that this close view of the Grand Army had affected him deeply, like some sight not of this earth. You know I had always been a pretty tough individual—well even I … And there was that fellow with a lot of poetry in his nature! You may imagine what he made of it, to himself. We rode side by side in silence. I was simply beyond words.

‘We established our bivouac^* along the edge of the wood so as to get some shelter for our horses. However, the boisterous north wind had dropped as quickly as it had sprung up, and the great winter stillness lay on the land from the Baltic to the Black sea. One could almost feel its cold lifeless immensity reaching up to the stars.

‘Our men had lighted several fires for their officers and had cleared the snow around them. There were logs of wood for seats. It was a very tolerable bivouac upon the whole, even without the exultation of victory. That we were to feel later, but at present we felt it but a stern and arduous task.

‘There were three of us round my fire. The third one was the adjutant. He was perhaps a well-meaning chap but not so nice as he might have been had he been less rough in manner and less crude in his perceptions. He would reason about people’s conduct as though a man were as simple a figure, as, say, two sticks laid across each other; whereas a man’s much more like the sea, whose movements are too complicated to explain and whose depths may bring up God only knows what at any time.

‘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 you know I had very soon let my sword hang idle at my wrist. That helpless crowd 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. That’s something. It has made me warm. 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’s sorry for them. Never mind, my boy, we are on the Paris road now, and you shall soon see her.”

‘We let that pass for one of his foolish speeches. None of us but believed that 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 hall 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 wanted just 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 on the other side 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,