"'Why, it warmed the men a bit. It has made me warm. That's a good
enough reason. But our Tomassov is so humane! And besides he has been in
love with a French woman, and thick as thieves with a lot of Frenchmen,
so he is sorry for them. Never mind, my boy, we are on the Paris road
now and you shall soon see her!' This was one of his usual, as we
believed them, foolish speeches. None of us but believed that the
getting to Paris would be a matter of years--of years. And lo! less than
eighteen months afterwards I was rooked of a lot of money in a gambling
hell in the Palais Royal.

"Truth, being often the most senseless thing in the world, is sometimes
revealed to fools. I don't think that adjutant of ours believed in his
own words. He just wanted to tease Tomassov from habit. Purely from
habit. We of course said nothing, and so he took his head in his hands
and fell into a doze as he sat on a log in front of the fire.

"Our cavalry was on the extreme right wing of the army, and I must
confess that we guarded it very badly. We had lost all sense of
insecurity by this time; but still we did keep up a pretence of doing
it in a way. Presently a trooper rode up leading a horse and Tomassov
mounted stiffly and went off on a round of the outposts. Of the
perfectly useless outposts.

"The night was still, except for the crackling of the fires. The raging
wind had lifted far above the earth and not the faintest breath of it
could be heard. Only the full moon swam out with a rush into the sky and
suddenly hung high and motionless overhead. I remember raising my hairy
face to it for a moment. Then, I verily believe, I dozed off, too, bent
double on my log with my head towards the fierce blaze.