The soldier was silent, and the conversation went on.
“There’s a rare lot of these Frenchies have been taken to-day; but not a pair of boots on one of them, one may say, worth having; no, not worth mentioning,” one of the soldiers began, starting a new subject.
“The Cossacks had stripped them of everything. We cleaned a hut for the colonel, and carried them out. It was pitiful to see them, lads,” said the dancer. “We overhauled them. One was alive, would you believe it, muttering something in their lingo.”
“They’re a clean people, lads,” said the first. “White—why, as white as a birch-tree, and brave they are, I must say, and gentlemen too.”
“Well, what would you expect？ Soldiers are taken from all classes with them.”
“And yet they don’t understand a word we say,” said the dancer, with a wondering smile. “I says to him, ‘Of what kingdom are you？’ and he mutters away his lingo. A strange people！”
“I’ll tell you a wonderful thing, mates,” went on the man who had expressed surprise at their whiteness. “The peasants about Mozhaisk were telling how, when they went to take away the dead where the great battle was, why, their bodies had been lying there a good month. Well, they lay there, as white and clean as paper, and not a smell about them.”
“Why, from the cold, eh？” asked one.
“You’re a clever one！ Cold, indeed！ Why, it was hot weather. If it had been from the cold, our men, too, wouldn’t have rotted. But they say, go up to one of ours, and it would all be putrefied and maggoty. They tie handkerchiefs round their noses, and drag them off, turning their faces away, so they say. They can’t help it. But they’re white as paper; not a smell about them.”
There was a general silence.
“Must be from the feeding,” said the sergeant： “they are gorged like gentry.”
No one replied.
“That peasant at Mozhaisk, where the battle was, was saying that they were fetched from ten villages round, and at work there for twenty days, and couldn’t get all the dead away. A lot of those wolves, says he …”
“That was something like a battle,” said an old soldier. “The only one worth mentioning; everything since … it’s simply tormenting folks for nothing.”
“Oh, well, uncle, we did attack them the day before yesterday. But what’s one to do？ They won’t let us get at them. They were so quick at laying down their arms, and on their knees. Pardon！—they say. And that’s only one example. They have said twice that Platov had taken Polion himself. He catches him, and lo！ he turns into a bird in his hands and flies away and away. And as to killing him, no manner of means of doing it.”
“You’re a sturdy liar, Kiselov, by the look of you！”
“Liar, indeed！ It’s the holy truth.”
“Well, if you ask me, I’d bury him in the earth, if I caught him. Yes, with a good aspen cudgel. The number of folk he has destroyed！”
“Any way, we shall soon make an end of him; he won’t come again,” said the old soldier, yawning.
The conversation died away; the soldiers began ****** themselves comfortable for the night.
“I say, what a lot of stars; how they shine！ One would say the women had been laying out their linen！” said a soldier admiring the Milky Way.
“That’s a sign of a good harvest, lads！”
“We shall want a little more wood.”
“One warms one’s back, and one’s belly freezes. That’s queer.”
“O Lord！”
“What are you shoving for—is the fire only for you, eh？ See … there he sprawls.”
In the silence that reigned snoring could be heard from a few who had gone to sleep. The rest turned themselves to get warm by the fire, exchanging occasional remarks. From a fire a hundred paces away came a chorus of merry laughter.
“They are guffawing in the fifth company,” said a soldier. “And what a lot of them there！”
A soldier got up and went off to the fifth company.
“There’s a bit of fun！” he said, coming back. “Two Frenchies have come. One’s quite frozen, but the other’s a fine plucky fellow！ He’s singing songs.”
“O-O！ must go and look …” Several soldiers went across to the fifth company.