Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/284

270 is, when he declared war, all expressed their assent. When Napoleon, with his "twelve languages," marched against us, and aroused the Germans and Poland against us, all were overwhelmed with grief.

A German friend of mine was present in the room. "Ah! and you, too, were against us!" cried Petka, our best story-teller, to him.

"Hush, now!" cried the others.

The retreat of our armies was a cruel disappointment to my listeners, and on all sides were heard exclamations and objurgations on Kutuzof and Barklay:—

"Why! and what a coward Kutuzof was!"

"You wait!" said another.

"Well, did he surrender?" asked a third.

When we came to the battle of Borodino, and when at the end I was obliged to tell them that after all we did not conquer, I could not help pitying them: it was evident that I was giving them all such a terrible shock.

"Still, it was neither ours nor theirs that beat."

When Napoleon came to Moscow and demanded the keys and the salutations, there was a perfect storm expressing their disgust.

The burning of Moscow, of course, was hailed with satisfaction. Finally, there came the triumph—the retreat.

"As soon as he left Moscow, then Kutuzof began to follow him, and began to attack him," said I.

"He got a-straddle of him," interrupted Fedka, who, all of a glow, was sitting in front of me, and in his excitement was twisting his little dirty fingers. That was a habit of his.

As soon as he said that, the whole room seemed to groan with proud enthusiasm. They crowded one little fellow in the rear, and no one noticed it.

"Ah! that's the way to do it! That's how he got the keys!" and so on.

Then I went on to tell how we drove out the Frenchmen. It was painful for the scholars to hear about the delay at the Berezina River, and that we let him escape.