Few cities are, to this day, so behind the times as Vilna. The streets are still narrow, winding, ill-paved, ill-lighted. When D’Arragon quitted his lodging, he found no lights at all, for the starving soldiers had climbed to the lamps for the sake of the oil, which they had greedily drunk. It was a full moon, however, and the patrols at the street corners were willing to give such information as they could. They were strangers to Vilna like Louis himself, and not without suspicion; for this was a city which had bidden the French welcome. There had been dancing and revelry on the outward march. The citizens themselves were afraid of the strange, wild-eyed men who returned to them from Moscow.
At last, in the Episcopal Palace, where headquarters had been hurriedly established, Louis found the man he sought, the officer in charge of the arrangements for despatching prisoners into Russia and to Siberia. He was a grizzled warrior of the old school, speaking only French and Russian. He was tired out and hungry, but he listened to Louis’ story.
“There is the list,” he said, “it is more or less complete. Many have called themselves officers who never held a commission from the Emperor Napoleon. But we have done what we can to sort them out.”
So Louis sat down in the dimly lighted room and deciphered the names of those officers who had been left behind, detained by illness or wounds or the lack of spirit to persevere.
“You understand,” said the Russian, returning to his work, “I cannot afford the time to help you. We have twenty-five thousand prisoners to feed and keep alive.”
“Yes—I understand,” answered Louis, who had the seaman’s way of making himself a part of his surroundings.
The old colonel glanced at him across the table with a grim smile.
“The Emperor,” he said, “was sitting in that chair an hour ago. He may come back at any moment.”
“Ah!” said Louis, following the written lines with a pencil.
But no interruption came, and at last the list was finished. Charles was not among the officers taken prisoner at Vilna.
“Well?” inquired the Russian, without looking up.
“Not there.”
The old officer took a sheet of paper and hurriedly wrote a few words on it.
“Try the Basile Hospital tomorrow morning,” he said. “That will gain you admittance. It is to be cleared out by the Emperor’s orders. We have about twenty thousand dead to dispose of as well—but they are in no hurry.”
He laughed grimly, and bade Louis good night.
“Come to me again,” he called out after him, drawn by a sudden chord of sympathy to this stranger, who had the rare capacity of confining himself to the business in hand.
By daybreak the next morning Louis was at the hospital of St. Basile. It had been prepared by the Duc de Bassano under Napoleon’s orders when Vilna was selected as the base of the great army. When the Russians entered Vilna after the retreating remnant of Murat’s rabble, they found the dead and the dying in the streets and the marketplace. Some had made fires and had lain themselves down around them—to die. Others were without food or firing, almost without clothes. Many were barefoot. All, officers and men alike, were in rags. It was a piteous sight; for half of these men were no longer human. Some were gnawing at their own limbs. Many were blind, others had lost their speech or hearing. Nearly all were marred by some disfigurement—some terrible sore, the result of a frozen wound, of frostbite, of scurvy, of gangrene.
The Cossacks, half civilized as they were, wild with the excitement of killing and the chase of a human quarry, stood aghast in the streets of Vilna.
When the Emperor arrived, he set to work to clear the streets first, to get these piteous men indoors. There was no question yet of succouring them. It was not even possible to feed them all. The only thought was to find them some protection against the ruthless cold.
The first thought was, of course, directed to the hospitals. They looked in and saw a storehouse of the dead. The dead could wait; but the living must be housed.
So the dead waited, and it was their turn now at the St. Basile Hospital, where Louis presented himself at dawn.
“Looking for someone?” asked a man in uniform, who must have been inside the hospital, for he hurried down the steps with a set mouth and quailing eyes.
“Yes.”
“Then don’t go in—wait here.”
Louis looked in and took the doctor’s advice. The dead were stored in the passages, one on the top of the other, like bales of goods in a warehouse.
Some attempt seemed to have been made to clear the wards, but those whose task it had been had not had time to do more than drag the dead out into the passage.
The soldiers were now at work in the lower passage. Carts began to arrive. An officer told off to this dread duty came up hurriedly smoking a cigarette, his high fur collar about his ears. He glanced at Louis, and bowed to him.
“Looking for someone?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Then stand here beside me. It is I who have to keep count. They say there are eight thousand in here. They will be carried past here to the carts. Have a cigarette.”
It is hard to talk when the thermometer registers more than twenty degrees of frost, for the lips stiffen and contract into wrinkles like the lips of a very old woman. Perhaps neither of the watchers was in the humour to begin an acquaintance.
They stood side by side, stamping their feet to keep the blood going, without speaking. Once or twice Louis stepped forward, and at a signal from the officer the bearers stopped. But Louis shook his head, and they passed on. At midday the officer was relieved, his place being taken by another,
