Up flew my cane. "Chargez! En
avant! Vive l'Empereur!"
It was the past calling to the present. But oh, what a thin,
piping voice! Was this the voice that had once thundered from
wing to wing of a strong brigade? And the arm that could scarce
wave a cane, were these the muscles of fire and steel which had
no match in all Napoleon's mighty host? They smiled at me. They
cheered me. The Emperor laughed and bowed. But to me the
present was a dim dream, and what was real were my eight hundred
dead Hussars and the Etienne of long ago.
Enough--a brave man can face age and fate as he faced Cossacks
and Uhlans. But there are times when Montrachet is better than
the wine of Bordeaux.
It is to Russia that they go, and so I will tell you a story of
Russia. Ah, what an evil dream of the night it seems! Blood and
ice. Ice and blood. Fierce faces with snow upon the whiskers.
Blue hands held out for succour. And across the great white
plain the one long black line of moving figures, trudging,
trudging, a hundred miles, another hundred, and still always the
same white plain.
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