The next day came the battle. Napoleonder led his forces, cloud upon cloud, to the field of Borodino; but he was shaking as if in a chill. His generals and field-marshals looked at him and were filled with dismay.
"You ought to take a drink of vodka, Napoleonder," they say; "you don't look like yourself."
When the Russian troops attacked the hordes of Napoleonder, on the field of Borodino, the soldiers of the great conqueror at once gave way.
"It's a bad business, Napoleonder," the generals and field-marshals say. "For some reason the Russians are fighting harder to-day than ever. You'd better call out your dead men."
Napoleonder shouted at the top of his voice, "Bonaparty!"--six hundred and sixty-six,--the number of the Beast. But, cry as he would, he only frightened the jackdaws. The dead men didn't come out of their graves, nor answer his call. And Napoleonder was left on the field of Borodino alone. All his generals and field-marshals had fled, and he sat there alone on his horse, shouting, "Bonaparty! Bonaparty!"
Then suddenly there appeared beside him the smooth-faced, blue-eyed, fair-haired Russian recruit whom he had killed the day before. And the young soldier said: "It's useless to shout, Napoleonder. Nobody will come. Yesterday you felt sorry for me and for my dead brothers, and because of your pity your corpse-soldiers no longer come at your call. Your power over them is gone."
Then Napoleonder began to weep and sob, and cried out, "You have ruined me, you wretched, miserable soldier!"
But the soldier (who was Ivan-angel, and not a soldier at all) replied: "I have not ruined you, Napoleonder; I have saved you. If you had gone on in your merciless, pitiless course, there would have been no forgiveness for you, either in this life or in the life to come. Now God has given you time for repentance. In this world you shall be punished; but there, beyond, if you repent of your sins, you shall be forgiven."
And the angel vanished.
Then our Don Cossacks fell on Napoleonder, dragged him from his horse, and took him to Alexander the Blessed. Some said, "Napoleonder ought to be shot!" Others cried, "Send him to Siberia to!" But the Lord God softened the heart of Alexander the Blessed, and the merciful Tsar would not allow Napoleonder to be shot or sent to Siberia. He ordered that the great conqueror be put into an iron cage, and be carried around and exhibited to the people at country fairs. So Napoleonder was carried from one fair to another for a period of thirty summers and three years--until he had grown quite old. Then, when he was an old man, they sent him to the island of Buan to watch geese.
* * * * *
THE NAPOLEON OF THE PEOPLE [1]
[Footnote 1: A story told to a group of French peasants one evening, in a barn, by Goguelat, the village postman, who had served under Napoleon in a regiment of infantry.]
Napoleon, my friends, was born, you know, in Corsica. That's a French island, but it's warmed by the sun of Italy, and everything's as hot there as if it were a furnace. It's a place, too, where the people kill one another, from father to son, generation after generation, for nothing at all; that is, for no reason in particular except that it's their way.
Well, to begin with the most wonderful part of the story, it so happened that on the very day when Napoleon was born, his mother dreamed that the world was on fire. She was a shrewd, clever woman, as well as the prettiest woman of her time; and when she had this dream, she thought she'd save her son from the dangers of life by dedicating him to God. And, indeed, that was a prophetic dream of hers! So she asked God to protect the boy, and promised that when he grew up he should reestablish God's holy religion, which had then been overthrown. That was the agreement they made; and although it seems strange, such things have happened. It's sure and certain, anyhow, that only a man who had an agreement with God could pass through the enemy's lines, and move about in showers of bullets and grape-shot, as Napoleon did. They swept us away like flies, but his head they never touched at all. I had a proof of that--I myself, in particular--at Eylau, where the Emperor went up on a little hill to see how things were going. I can remember, to this day, exactly how he looked as he took out his field-glass, watched the battle for a minute, and finally said: "It's all right! Everything is going well." Then, just as he was coming back, an ambitious chap in a plumed hat, who was always following him around, and who bothered him, they said, even at his meals, thought he'd play smart by going up on the very same hill; but he had hardly taken the Emperor's place when--batz!--away he went, plume and all!
Now follow me closely, and tell me whether what you are going to hear was natural.
Napoleon, you know, had promised that he'd keep his agreement with God to himself. That's the reason why his companions and even his particular friends--men like Duroc, Bessieres, and Lannes, who were strong as bars of steel, but whom he molded to suit his purposes--all fell, like nuts from a shaken tree, while he himself was never even hurt.