Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/179

Rh our mother," he answered. "He was wounded at Borodino, though not severely. He insisted upon going out again, and met his death in a skirmish ten days ago."

Ivan felt and showed real sorrow. Of the two companions of his youth, Leon had been his favourite, and he could not hear unmoved the tidings of his death. "Death—death everywhere," he murmured sadly.

"Come, my friend," said Adrian kindly, "you must not give way. It is only the fate of war. You have been so long in that horrible den of a city that your nerves are shattered. Take some more wine."

"That horrible den!" Ivan repeated. "A lair of wild beasts! Such it has been indeed. The count, who is as hard as this," laying his hand upon Adrian's iron camp-bedstead, "has been asking me for reports and descriptions. I cannot describe, I can scarcely even report facts. Picture to yourself nine-tenths of the town in ashes—or in charred blackened ruins—with thousands of the wretched inhabitants, who could not, or did not, make good their escape, wandering about homeless and starving, filling the air with their lamentations. Then think of the French, like a host of demons turned loose upon their prey, ransacking the smoking ruins in search of plunder. I have seen the gold-laced uniform of the general and the woollen jacket of the private side by side, contending for the spoils of our desolated homes; while all the dangerous classes, all the thieves and ruffians who are to be found amongst the scum of the populace in every great city, joined them in the horrible work and added to the confusion and misery."

"Did not Napoleon shoot or hang a great number of our people?"

"If you call three hundred a great number; so many at least he executed as incendiaries—and indeed most of them were taken in the act. They died in silence, without asking