IX
You will see how it all happened, and will need no further words from me.
Taking the Cossacks down to madame's salle à manger to keep them from the Emperor, I also had been overpowered by their cursed liquor, and had fallen under the table with the rest of them. There I dreamed of Russian camps, and France, and death, and all the nonsense of it, and there I awoke to find our own Red Hussars in possession of the dwelling. How they laughed at me! Yet what music their laughter proved to be!
As to old Madame Zchekofsky, I veritably believe that she played a double part that night with all a woman's cunning. Desiring the Emperor's friendship, she encouraged his belief in her daughter's power of prophecy, at the same time trying to keep in with the Russians by informing them of our presence in the house at a moment when she believed we would already have left it. Thus her anxiety and that disquiet I had observed with such misgiving.
I saw her in Paris in the memorable year 1815, and her daughter was with her. Naturally my nephew Léon desired to know so mysterious a personage, and I fancy she found his gifts of prophecy not less considerable than her own. This, however, was long after the terrible weeks when so many thousands of brave Frenchmen left their bones upon the snows of Russia because the Emperor had willed it.
CHAPTER VII
LITTLE PETROVKA
I
The Emperor was often in personal danger during the retreat from Moscow, but never more so, I think, than after the Battle of Krasnoë.