62

I WAS SO COLD.

It was all I could think of, how cold I was.

Despite the fur coat, hat and boots Christian had bought for me, and the many layers of skirts and petticoats that I had put on, I could not stop shivering, and my teeth chattered constantly. I nestled down beside Donovan, but found no warmth there; he was as cold as I was.

We attempted to follow the wagon in front of us, but it was very hard to see what was ahead, so thick was the falling snow and so blinding the whiteness all around. We felt very much alone, enveloped in the swarming snowflakes that turned everything we could discern to indistinct mounds of white.

On and on we went, hour after hour, desperately cold and, eventually, quite hungry. But when the light failed and we stopped for the night, our bellies growling, the pitiful fire we managed to start kept sputtering, nearly going out. Edward gathered damp tree branches from under the snow and, by lining the wagon with them, kept us from turning to icicles. We hovered inside the cave of branches, our breaths steaming, our teeth still chattering. We did not freeze.

But a fire, we discovered, can freeze if the air is cold enough, and ours provided barely enough warmth to melt our teapot full of snow. At least we had some half-brewed tea, which tasted very good and kept our stomachs from growling for a short time.

Our turnips and beets were frozen, our flour had melded itself into frigid clumps and had Edward not found some dead birds, their small bodies still faintly warm, we would have had to go to sleep hungry. We skinned and half-boiled the birds, ate them ravenously, and lay down to sleep.

In the morning all was as it had been the day before: an all-enveloping whiteness, snow clouds that obscured the sun and fierce cold. We started ahead, but had not gone far before we began to see soldiers on the road— not living soldiers, but frozen ones, lying along the roadway, half covered in the newly fallen snow. Some looked as if they had fallen asleep, their faces peaceful, others stared open-eyed, open-mouthed into a vacant emptiness.

They were beyond help. We crossed ourselves hurriedly and went on, trying not to think, soon we will be like them, dead by the roadside.

“Damn Bonaparte!” I shouted. “I hope he dies too!” But I knew he was in a warm carriage, not an open wagon like ours, with every luxury, even his favorite silk-lined boots, boots he wore in order to protect the beautiful soft feet he was so proud of. And even as I cursed him, I realized, I had played an important part in keeping him in Moscow. I had played on his overweening pride, his jealousy, his physical weaknesses, to prevent him from leaving. And now I was looking at the result.

Yet as I stared at the frozen soldiers, I imagined I could hear what Orgulon would say—what Euphemia did say—that the evil Bonaparte had loosed upon the world must be destroyed, and that we were witnessing its destruction. It was a lesser evil, brought about to prevent a greater one.

I buried my face in Donovan’s comforting shoulder and cried.

Fighting the cold, rubbing my arms again and again in an effort to bring some warmth back into them, tensing my muscles against the onslaughts of the merciless wind, I felt myself grow very tired. I was numb in mind and body both. I looked at my companions, ice-covered, frostbitten, and felt oddly detached from them. I could not feel the care and concern I normally felt. I was too sunken in my own wretchedness.

We spoke little to one another. It was all we could do to carry out our necessary tasks. We had no energy to spare in looking out for anyone but ourselves. I felt a dreadful aloneness. I could not even bring myself to pray, beyond repeating the words, Our Father, Our Father, again and again, until they were an all but meaningless buzz in my ears, a small sound pitted against the vast silence.

Then there came a day of sun, and thaw.

Not all the snow melted, of course, there were only droplets that melted, and then small rivulets at our feet, and, by midday, streams that appeared from nowhere at the verges of the emerging muddy roadway.

The pale, weak sun felt warm and I lifted my face to its rays.

We were able to make a real, hot fire for the first time in days. Euphemia concocted a broth from our flour and vegetables and we had a meal of sorts, though we burned our mouths on the hot soup, we were so eager to drink it. We laughed—how long had it been since we had laughed! We smiled at each other. Donovan and I embraced, lovingly

Then we heard the hoofbeats.

From a distance came riders, not riders in the blue jackets of cuirassiers or the grey-blue greatcoats of lancers, but the brown skins and furs of Cossacks!

“Get back!” Donovan called out, indicating that Euphemia and I should get behind the men, who were drawing their muskets. Euphemia obeyed him at once.

“I can fire that,” I said confidently, taking up one of the guns. “My father taught me when I was a girl.”

“Here.” Donovan handed me the cane knife he always carried. “Use this if you have to.”

There were four riders, far more fleet, despite the snow and mud of the road, than our plodding horsedrawn wagon. Donovan and Edward wounded two of the men, who veered away, but that left two others, who continued to bear down on us, whipping their big, strong-looking horses, yelling at the top of their lungs, long curved sabers drawn.

I began throwing things out of the wagon, the carpets we had been sleeping on, our bronze teapot and cooking pot, our few personal possessions and last of all, my precious jewelry box.

The box landed on a patch of ice and the priceless rubies, emeralds and sapphires spilled out, sparkling in the wintry sunlight as if lit from within by tiny fires.

Forgetting us, the men reined in their horses and, jumping quickly down, began to scoop up the gems.

Christian shot one of the men in the chest and Edward and Donovan ran toward the other, falling on him and shouting. There was a scuffle, more shouting, and the Cossack went down under the blows from the butt of Edward’s musket.

“Gather everything, quickly, before the others return.” We did as Donovan said and had the presence of mind to search the two Cossacks and the saddlebags of their horses. We found no food, but gold coins and half a dozen men’s wedding rings, presumably taken from previous victims. We resumed our way forward, muskets reloaded and ourselves vigilant. I kept my jewelry box near at hand.

We saw no more Cossacks that day, but we did see horrid sights: our own cold and desperate men, plundering the bodies of their frozen comrades, and even taking food from the arms of the dying. Women, camp followers, abandoned by the roadside, sitting in desolate clusters. Broken drums, discarded breastplates, regimental banners dropped into the snow and never retrieved. Crows feasting on bodies of fallen men and horses. In the distance, at night, we heard the mournful howling of wolves.

When I peered into the desolate whiteness during our long, hungry days my eyes burned. I blinked again and again but the burning persisted. The buzzing in my ears continued as well, and my poor black stumps of teeth throbbed. I felt a thousand tiny daggers being thrust into my gums, and a thousand more being thrust into my temples, whenever my headaches struck. Euphemia, who had her own aches and torments, rubbed my head and sang to me, but between the cold and my empty belly I was at times so miserable I wanted nothing more than to give up the struggle to live.

There came a day when we had no food, nothing to give our poor thin horse and the very air seemed made of ice. This is over, I thought. This is the end. We cannot go on.

My eyelids drooped. I was shivering uncontrollably. I tried to think but my mind was awhirl in confusion. Dizzy, I lay down and sank toward sleep.

Whether it was a dream or an apparition, or whether I opened my eyes and saw what I thought I saw I will never know. Before me were men in torn blue uniforms, their bleeding feet wrapped in thin cloths, the blood seeping out and staining the cloths red, their faces wrapped in icestiffened beards, their hands empty. They shuffled past me with heads bowed, following one another in an endless procession, defenseless against the blowing snow.

I saw them, or thought I did, and with a twitch and jerk of my muscles I opened my mouth to scream.

But then I felt Donovan shaking me, telling me to wake up, and I thought, I don’t want to leave him. I felt his touch, and my eyes opened, and I tried with all my force to stay awake.