He rejoined his comrades, and marched on; but as long as it continued in sight, he could not help looking back, every now and then, to that black spot in the snow where a comrade had lain down to die. “Soon enough,” he thought, “it will be covered with white, and all trace of my poor friend gone for ever. Perhaps I may be the next—who knows?”
But at least there was one sufferer unconscious of suffering now. A feeling of utter peace, of deep content, unknown for many days, steeped the weary senses of Henri. He seemed to be sinking into the heart of a profound and dreamless sleep. Pain and fatigue—cold and hunger of body—aching, feverish unrest of spirit—all had ceased together. The last sounds that reached his dulled ear before he passed into unconsciousness were the words of Féron, “Thy mother and Mademoiselle Clémence.” And once again those beloved faces drew near—bent over him—glimmered faintly and yet more faintly—at last vanished into air. But he did not even know that they had vanished. All was oblivion now.
Assuredly never again in this world would Henri de Talmont have awakened, had not a sudden thrill of agony called him roughly back to life. He started up to wrestle with a great half-savage wolf-dog, which had fixed its sharp fangs in his arm. Pain and desperation lent him a momentary strength, and clenching his hand, he dealt his antagonist a blow between the eyes that sent it howling away over the snow. Then he picked up Féron’s flask, and having thanked in his heart that generous friend, he drank some of its contents, which seemed to infuse new life into his frame.
Thus strengthened, he rose and stood upon his feet. It was midnight. The snow had ceased to fall, and the fierce winds of winter had dropped into utter stillness. Above his head the moon shone forth from a cloudless sky, and a thousand stars glittered with frosty brightness. Not a living thing was in sight, not a tree, not even a stone. Nothing met his gaze but a broad expanse of stainless white, covering the whole horizon like a veil of silver. How desolate it looked, yet how fair and pure! With what bright softness the moonbeams touched the snow! and how calmly the majestic eyes of those sleepless, starry watchers looked down from on high, as though they would say to the toiling, suffering sons of men, “We have seen ten thousand times ten thousand nights like this since the making of the world. We know the secret of the Lord. He means something by every star and every snowflake; and what he means is very good.”
“He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.” The words flashed unbidden through the mind of Henri. He remembered that in this solitude he was not alone. God was here. He could not turn to God as his friend, and he knew that he could not. Brought up in a religious atmosphere, he was all the more distinctly conscious that he himself was not religious—that he stood outside some sacred enclosure Clémence had entered, that he had not something which she had. But had it been a stranger or an enemy whose presence he felt amidst that immense, dreary, aching solitude, still he would have flung himself at his feet and implored his help and pity. Surely he might cast himself upon the God who counted the shining host above his head; surely that God would look down with pity on the creature his hand had made, who was “wandering in dumb dismay” over the untrodden snow. If He would only bring him home, and let him see his mother’s face again, and ask her forgiveness before he died!
He knelt down and prayed; if indeed the words were not a cry of agony rather than a prayer. But they were breathed into the ear of One who heareth the young ravens when they cry and the beasts of the forest when they seek their food. As he rose, he noticed some bright thing glistening in the moonlight near the spot where he had been lying. He took it up, and found that it was a tin case containing preserved meat. No doubt it had belonged to the general of division, and had fallen out of his carriage as he passed. But to Henri it seemed the beginning of an answer to his prayer. He ate a portion of the meat, reserving the rest for future use, and drank a little more vodka. Thus a degree of animation was restored to his exhausted system. “Even yet,” he thought, “I may rejoin my companions.”
There was no wind, yet so intense was the cold that it seemed to pierce him through and through. He felt as though he were in a bath of ice. He determined to keep moving, to walk on straight before him as long as he had strength to do so. He supposed that he was still upon a road of some kind, because when he diverged to the right or to the left the snow became deeper, while if he kept his direct course it did not reach above his ankles.
Onwards he toiled, and still onwards, weary and footsore, yet not quite despairing. He knew well that if he yielded to his ever-increasing fatigue so far as to lie down again, he should rise no more. It seemed as if years had passed since he parted with his comrades, a lifetime since he quitted Moscow; and as to his old happy life in France, that belonged to another and earlier stage of existence, almost beyond his recollection.
Red rose the sun over the snowy landscape, to sink again, after the brief wintry day, in clouds of purple and amber. Once more the stars came out, and still Henri toiled on. But his strength was well-nigh spent; he was ready to sink from fatigue, and his little store of meat and vodka had long since been exhausted. “After all,” he thought, “it is hopeless. As well die first as last.—But what is this? Have the stars come down upon the ground? or whence are those lights I see in the distance?”
He tried to collect his failing senses and to think. Could this be a town he was approaching? No; the lights were not numerous enough. Perhaps it might be a Russian village? Scarcely; for that the lights seemed too far apart,—though, even if it were, he would take his chance and go forward. Better to fall, like some of his comrades, beneath the axes of the mujiks, than to perish with cold and hunger in the trackless wilderness.