"Every single one—I saw it done; that's what I say, that I shall dream of it; I called the French soldiers shameful names, but they do not understand Russian, though they turned us all out for booing at them; it is a mercy we too were not shot; yet who could stand and see the murder done without protesting? Why, what ails you, dooshá tui moyá? One would think your sweetheart had been among these butchered men."
Vera said nothing but turned away with dry eyes and a steady lip. Within her breast, however, her heart lay dead-cold and heavy as lead.
"I wish I had been among them," the thought came a hundred times into her brain. "Why was I not among them, at his side?"
"Yes, that would have been far better—to have died at his side!"
Vera heard the sound of horses' hoofs behind her, but took no notice. Some one shouted, and she stepped automatically out of the roadway upon the raised wooden pavement at the side.
"That is a French dress," she heard a man say, and seemed to recognise the voice, but her thoughts were far away. "How came she here?—ask her, General." Vera half awoke from her dream of misery and looked up; Napoleon was at her elbow on horseback, with his suite in attendance. She was about to make the reverence which her familiarity with the Court in Paris prompted her to offer automatically at sight of the sovereign; but she bethought herself and left the curtsy half made.
"Who is it—I know the face," said Napoleon; "who are you, mon enfant, and what do you here? Have I not seen you in Paris?"
"Sire, it is the daughter of the Secretary of the Russian Embassy," explained an aide-de-camp; "Mademoiselle Demidof."
"Of course," said Napoleon, smiling benignly; "pardon me, Mademoiselle, I took you for a French lady and wondered at your presence here; may I add that so fair a face courts danger in Moscow at the present moment?"
Vera had stood still, gazing with set face from one man to the other as each spoke. Her heart swelled with indignation and hatred. This was the very arch-enemy himself; the fiend in man's likeness who had brought ruin upon her country and upon this holy city.