“‘It is all useless, my dear doctor,’ Préville said; ‘this is my last day; I feel that. Far better shoot me, or leave me by the roadside, than risk your life for my sake.’
“I took no heed, but tried to cheer him. Those unclean beasts, the Cossacks, were hovering around us as usual, and at times the bullets fell pretty thick. Not a quarter of an hour had elapsed since I set Préville on my horse, when a shot struck his right eye—not entering the head, but glancing across the globe, and completely destroying the sight. Well, sir, then there occurred a physiological phenomenon which I have never been able satisfactorily to account for. This man, whom the loss of an arm had reduced to despair, seemed to derive fresh courage from the loss of an eye. At any rate, from that moment he complained no more of his fate, resumed his usual manly tone, and bore up like a hero. Paul was lucky enough to catch a riderless horse, which I mounted. The worst was over, and we soon got a respite. Without troubling you with details, and incredible though it may seem to you, my poor friend escaped with life, although with a limb and an eye the less.”
“There must have been many extraordinary escapes from that campaign,” I remarked.
“Innumerable. There was a sergeant of dragoons, a former comrade of my servant’s, who, for many days, marched beside me and Paul. He received a severe wound. There were some vehicles still with us at that time, and we got him a place in one of them, and made him as comfortable as we could. The following night we stopped at a town. In the morning, as we were about to march, the Cossacks came down. There was great confusion; several baggage-carts were captured in the street, and some of the wounded were abandoned in the houses where they had passed the night. Amongst these was Sergeant Fritz. Not many houses in the town were still in good condition—most of them had been burned and knocked to pieces by the soldiers. The house in which Fritz lay had still its doors and windows, and was one of the most comfortable in the place, on which account it had been converted into a temporary hospital. Well, the Russians came in, brought their wounded, and turned out our poor fellows to make room for them. Some, who could not move quickly enough, were brutally pitched through a low window into a garden behind the house, there to perish miserably. Fritz was one of these. Only just able to crawl, he made his way round the garden, seeking egress. He reached a gate communicating with another garden. It was locked, and pain and weakness forbade his climbing over. He sat close to the gate, propped against it, and looking wistfully through the bars at the windows of a house, and at the cheerful glow of a fire, when he was perceived by a young girl. She came out and opened the gate, and helped him into the house. Her father was a German clockmaker, long settled in Russia, and Fritz, a Swiss, spoke German well. The kind people put him to bed, hid his uniform, and tended him like a son. When, in the following spring, his health was restored, and he would have left them, the German proposed to him to remain and assist him in his trade. He accepted the offer, married the German’s daughter, and remained in Russia until his father-in-law’s death, when he was taken with a longing to revisit his native mountains, and returned to Switzerland with his wife and family. I met him since at Paris, and he told me his story. But although his escape was narrow, and romantic enough, there must have been others much more remarkable. Most of the prisoners made by the Russians, and who survived severe cold and harsh treatment, were sent to Moscow, to labour at rebuilding the city. When the fine season came, some of them managed to escape, and to make their way, in various disguises, and through countless adventures, back to their own country.”
I have set down but the most striking portions of our conversation—or rather, of the doctor’s narrative, since I did little but listen; and occasionally, by a question or remark, direct his communicativeness into the channel I wished it to take. We were now near Orleans.
“The letter I was reading when we started,” said my companion, “and which has brought back to my memory all that I have told you—at risk, perhaps, of wearying you,” he added with a slight bow and smile, “and a host of other circumstances, to me of thrilling and everlasting interest, is from General Préville, who lives in the south of France, but has come unexpectedly to Orleans to pass a month with me. That is his way. He lives happily with a married daughter; but now and then the desire to see an old comrade, and to fight old battles over again, comes so strongly upon him, that he has his valise packed at an hour’s notice, and takes me by surprise. He knows well that ‘The General’s Room’ and an affectionate reception always await him. I received his letter—full of references to old times—yesterday evening, and am now hurrying back to Orleans to see him. He may very likely be waiting for me at the station; and you will see that, for a man who gave himself up for dead forty years ago in the snows of Russia, and begged, as a favour, a bullet through his brain, he looks tolerably hearty and satisfied to live.”
“There is one thing, Monsieur le Docteur,” I said, “which you have not yet explained to me, and which I do not understand. Did you mean literally what you said, that since the Russian campaign you have never had your feet warm?”
“Literally and truly, sir. When we got to Orcha, where Jomini was in command, and where the heroic Ney, who had been separated from the army, rejoined us with the skeleton of his corps—having cut his way, by sheer valour and soldiership, through clouds of Platoff’s Cossacks—we took a day’s rest. It was the 20th of November, the last day of anything approaching to comfort which we were to enjoy before crossing the Russian frontier. True, we made one more halt, at Molodetschino, whence Napoleon dated his bulletin of our terrible disasters, but then only a portion of us could find lodging; we were sick, half-frozen, and numbers died in the streets. At Orcha we found shelter and tranquillity; the governor had provided provisions against our passage, the enemy left us quiet, and we enjoyed a day of complete repose. My baggage had long since been lost, and my only pair of boots were torn to shreds. I had been riding with fragments of a soldier’s jacket tied round my feet, which I usually kept out of the stirrups, the contact of the iron increasing the cold. At Orcha, the invaluable Paul brought me a Jew (the Jews were our chief purveyors on that retreat) with boots for sale. I selected a pair and threw away my old ones, which for many days I had not taken off. My feet were already in a bad state, sore and livid. I bathed them, put on fresh stockings and my new boots, and contrived with a pair of old trousers, a sort of leggings or overalls, closed at the bottom, and to be worn over the boots. From that day till we got beyond the Niemen, a distance of one hundred and ten leagues, which we took three weeks to perform, I never took off any part of my dress. During that time I suffered greatly from my feet; they swelled till my boots were too tight for me, and at times I was in agony. When we at last were comparatively in safety, and I found myself, for the first time since I left Orcha, in a warm room, with a bed to lie upon and water to wash, I called Paul to pull off my boots. Sir, with them came off my stockings, and the entire skin of both feet. A flayer’s knife could hardly have done the thing more completely. For a moment I gave myself up as lost. I had seen enough of this kind of thing to know that my feet were on the verge of mortification. There was scarcely time to amputate, had any been at hand to do it, and had I been willing to preserve life at such a price. Only one thing could save me, and I resolved to try it. I ordered Paul to bring a bottle of brandy; I put a piece of silver between my teeth, and bade him pour the spirits over my feet. I can give you no idea of the excruciating torture I then endured. Whilst it lasted, assuredly no martyr’s sufferings ever exceeded mine. It was agony—but it was safety. I bit the florin nearly in two, and broke this tooth.” (Here the doctor drew up his lip and exhibited a defective tooth, in company with some very white and powerful grinders.) “The martyrdom saved me; I recovered, but the new integuments, which in time covered my scarred feet, seem chilled by the recollection of their predecessors’ sufferings, and from that day to this I have never had my feet otherwise than cold. But here we are at Orleans, sir, and yonder as I expected stands my old Préville.”
The train stopped as he concluded, and a fine-looking veteran, with white hair, an empty sleeve, and a silken patch over one eye, peered inquisitively into the carriages. Like most Englishmen, I have a particular aversion to the Continental fashion of men kissing and hugging each other, but I confess I beheld with interest and sympathy the cordial embrace of these two old comrades, who then quickly separated, and, with hands grasped, looked joyously and affectionately into each other’s faces, whilst a thousand recollections of old kindness and long comradeship were evidently swelling at their hearts. In his joy, my travelling companion did not forget the attentive listener, whose journey he had so agreeably shortened. Turning to me, he presented me to the general, as an Englishman and a new acquaintance, and then cordially invited me to pass the rest of the day at his house. But the business that took me to Orleans was urgent, and my return to Paris must be speedy. And had it been otherwise, I think I still should have scrupled to restrain, by a stranger’s presence, the first flow of intimate communion to which the two friends evidently looked forward with such warm and pleasurable feelings. So I gratefully declined, but pledged myself to take advantage of the doctor’s hospitality upon my next visit to Orleans. When that occurs, I shall hope to glean another Russian Reminiscence.