"We established our bivouac along the edge of the forest so as to get
some shelter for our horses. However, the boisterous north wind had
dropped as quickly as it had sprung up, and the great winter stillness
lay on the land from the Baltic to the Black Sea. One could almost feel
its cold, lifeless immensity reaching up to the stars.

"Our men had lighted several fires for their officers and had cleared
the snow around them. We had big logs of wood for seats; it was a
very tolerable bivouac upon the whole, even without the exultation of
victory. We were to feel that later, but at present we were oppressed by
our stern and arduous task.

"There were three of us round my fire. The third one was that adjutant.
He was perhaps a well-meaning chap but not so nice as he might have been
had he been less rough in manner and less crude in his perceptions. He
would reason about people's conduct as though a man were as simple a
figure as, say, two sticks laid across each other; whereas a man is much
more like the sea whose movements are too complicated to explain, and
whose depths may bring up God only knows what at any moment.

"We talked a little about that charge. Not much. That sort of thing does
not lend itself to conversation. Tomassov muttered a few words about a
mere butchery. I had nothing to say. As I told you I had very soon let
my sword hang idle at my wrist. That starving mob had not even _tried_
to defend itself. Just a few shots. We had two men wounded. Two!... and
we had charged the main column of Napoleon's Grand Army.

"Tomassov muttered wearily: 'What was the good of it?' I did not wish
to argue, so I only just mumbled: 'Ah, well!' But the adjutant struck in
unpleasantly: