apathy on the part of the poor fellows can only be understood by those
who remember tramping across those vast deserts of snow, with nothing
to quench their thirst but snow, snow for their bed, snow as far as
the horizon on every side, and no food but snow, a little frozen
beetroot, horseflesh, or a handful of meal.

The miserable creatures were dropping down, overcome by hunger,
thirst, weariness, and sleep, when they reached the shores of the
Beresina and found fuel and fire and victuals, countless wagons and
tents, a whole improvised town, in short. The whole village of
Studzianka had been removed piecemeal from the heights of the plain,
and the very perils and miseries of this dangerous and doleful
habitation smiled invitingly to the wayfarers, who beheld no prospect
beyond it but the awful Russian deserts. A huge hospice, in short, was
erected for twenty hours of existence. Only one thought--the thought
of rest--appealed to men weary of life or rejoicing in unlooked-for
comfort.

They lay right in the line of fire from the cannon of the Russian
left; but to that vast mass of human creatures, a patch upon the snow,
sometimes dark, sometimes breaking into flame, the indefatigable
grapeshot was but one discomfort the more. For them it was only a
storm, and they paid the less attention to the bolts that fell among
them because there were none to strike down there save dying men, the
wounded, or perhaps the dead. Stragglers came up in little bands at
every moment. These walking corpses instantly separated, and wandered
begging from fire to fire; and meeting, for the most part, with
refusals, banded themselves together again, and took by force what
they could not otherwise obtain. They were deaf to the voices of their
officers prophesying death on the morrow, and spent the energy