'Just look!' he said. 'But that's nothing—it's only a scratch; the bullet must have slipped down the side of my head.'
The Pole helped him off with his shoulder-belt. He had almost forgotten how to take off that and his fur cap, he had slept in them for so long. The girl who had washed his feet washed his head too. Everyone gathered round to serve him. The poor fellow was so much touched by their care for him that great tears rolled down his face. Scissors were needed to cut his hair, and all at once I remembered the surgeon's little case which I had taken from the Cossack. We found everything we wanted there for dressing the wound—two pairs of scissors, and several other surgical instruments, with lint and bandages. After cutting the hair off, the old woman sucked the wound, which went deeper than we thought. Then we put on some lint, a bandage, and a handkerchief. We found the ball in the midst of some rags which filled his cap. It had gone right through the left wing of the Imperial eagle on the front of the cap. To his great joy, he also found his pipe, a regular cutty, not three inches long, and he began to smoke it at once.
When our feet were washed, they dried them with lambskins, which served afterwards as a carpet; and on my chilblain they put some ointment, assuring me it would soon make me all right. They gave me a bit to take away in a piece of linen; this I put in the surgeon's case with all the instruments I had used for Picart. We already felt much better, and we thanked the Poles for all the care they had taken of us. They told us how grieved they were not to be able to do more. On a journey one must lodge one's enemies and wash their feet. How much more one's friends! Just then the old woman screamed and ran out. Her great dog had run off with Picart's cap. They wanted to beat him, but we begged him off. I proposed to Picart that we should examine the portmanteau still on the horse's back, so we carried it near the stove. First we found nine handkerchiefs embroidered in silk. 'Quick!' said Picart; 'two each for our princesses, and one for the old mother, and the others we will keep.' This was done immediately, to everyone's great satisfaction. Then we found three pairs of officer's epaulettes, three silver watches, seven crosses of honour, two silver spoons, two dozen Hussars' gilt buttons, two boxes of razors, six bank-notes of 100 roubles each, and a pair of linen trousers stained with blood. I hoped to find a shirt, but was disappointed. I had greater need of that than of anything else, as the warmth had revived the vermin which devoured me.
The girls opened their eyes wide as they looked at our presents, unable to believe they were really theirs. The gilt buttons gave them greater pleasure than anything else, and also some gold rings, which I enjoyed putting on their fingers. The girl who had washed my feet noticed, I am sure, that I gave her the best. Very likely the Cossacks cut off the dead men's fingers to take the rings.
To the old man we gave a large English watch and two razors, besides all the Russian small money, amounting to more than thirty francs. We noticed that he fixed his eyes continually on a commander's cross with the Emperor's portrait, so we also gave that to him. I cannot describe his pleasure. He pressed it several times to his lips and his heart, and finally fastened it round his neck by a leather band, making us understand that only death should part him from it.
We asked for some bread, and they brought us what they had not dared give us before, they said, it was so bad. We really could not eat it. It was made of a black paste, full of grains of barley, rye, and bits of straw, rough enough to tear one's throat to pieces. They said this bread came from the Russians, that three leagues off the French had beaten them that very morning, and had taken a large convoy from them. This news had been brought to them by the Jews who were flying from all the villages on the road to Minsk. They had also sold them this bread, which was quite uneatable, and although I had not eaten any bread for more than a month, I could not manage to get my teeth into it. For a long time, too, my lips had been so cracked by the frost that they bled constantly.
When the peasants saw that we could not eat the bread, they brought us a piece of mutton, a few potatoes, some onions, and some pickled cucumber. They gave us, in fact, everything they had, saying that they would do their best to get us something better. We put the mutton into the saucepan to make some soup. The old man told us that half a league off there was a village filled with refugee Jews, and as they had carried off all their food with them, he hoped he could find there something better to eat than what they had set before us. We wished to give him some money, but he refused it, saying that what we had given him and his daughters would be quite sufficient, and that one of them had already gone off with her mother and the big dog.
They had made a bed for us on the ground, of straw and sheepskins. Picart had already gone to sleep, and I soon followed his example. We were awakened by the loud barking of the dog. 'Good!' said the Pole, 'my wife and daughter have come back.' They brought us some milk, a few potatoes, and a little cake of rye-meal, which they had procured by heavy payment, but brandy, nima.[42]
The little there was had been taken by the Russians. We thanked these kind people who had walked nearly two leagues, with the snow up to their knees, in the middle of the night, too, in terrible cold, and exposed to the attacks of wolves and bears, which abound in Lithuanian forests. We made some milk soup and drank it at once. I felt much better after I had eaten, and then sat reflecting, my head in my hands. Picart asked me what I was thinking of.
'I am thinking,' I said, 'that if I were not with you, and bound by honour and my oath, I should stay here in this forest with these good people.'