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Updated: June 9, 2025
"There is a storm raging in my heart, and it blows out the light of my eyes. Read the remainder to me, my friend. I have read it to the engagement on the Beresina, where Napoleon says that General Victor gained another victory on the 28th of November."
It bred a discontent that made him hate the little village, the swift-flowing Beresina and the gray stretches that ran toward Mogilev. He wanted to be moving, but Anna had said that one rode on rubles, and rubles were hard to find. And in some mysterious way the village became aware of the secret. Donkov, the tailor, discovered it.
Does he allude to those horrors of the Beresina?" "No, general; he speaks only of the victory and the passage across the river, and then continues: 'On the following day, the 29th of November, we remained on the battle-field. We had to choose between two routes: the road of Minsk, and that of Wilna.
"Well, we got to the Beresina, My friends, I can affirm to you by all that is most sacred, by my honour, that since mankind came into the world, never, never was there seen such a fricassee of any army guns, carriages, artillery-waggons in the midst of such snows, under such relentless skies! The muzzles of the muskets burned our hands if we touched them, the iron was so cold.
He walked slowly and with bowed head to his horse, and murmured, "Another Beresina! It costs me twenty thousand soldiers!" The generals followed him, and as they saw him walking with bowed head, they whispered to one another, "Look at him now, how he is broken down! That was his very appearance when he returned from Russia! He has no strength to bear up under misfortune!"
Not having time to fell trees and to cut them into planks, they demolished the houses of the unfortunate village Studianka and took all the wood which could serve for the construction of bridges; they forged the iron needed to fasten the planks and in this way they made the trestles. At daybreak of the 26th. they plunged these trestles into the Beresina.
"Where are we, Philip?" she asked in musical tones, as she looked about her. "About five hundred paces from the bridge. We are just about to cross the Beresina. When we are on the other side, Stephanie, I will not tease you any more; I will let you go to sleep; we shall be in safety, we can go on to Wilna in peace. God grant that you may never know what your life has cost!" "You are wounded!"
I am always in fear of his life; if there were needed to save him only my blood, I would shed it drop by drop; but that would change nothing, and perhaps he may have need of me." The day preceding the passage of the Beresina was one of terrible solemnity.
If I were to do justice to the voluminous material before me of the bravery of the soldiers on their march from the Beresina to Wilna I would have to write a whole book on this part of the history alone. Once more the hope of the unfortunates should be disappointed in a most cruel way. They knew of fresh troops and of rich magazines in Wilna.
Then a last, loud wail of horror arose from the farther bank, and despair or a loathing of life drove many to end their miseries in the river or in the flames. Such was the crossing of the Beresina. The ghastly tale was told once more with renewed horrors when the floods of winter abated and laid bare some 12,000 corpses along the course of that fatal stream.
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