2007/2. How Winter Came to the Duchy of Warsaw
Jakob Walter, German conscript:
Berezina is where I almost died, and I should have considered myself lucky to get so far when starvation and the cold had taken so many. Many had died in Russia far from their homes, though they had tried desperate measures without hesitation. People ate their horses, and indeed I even heard at that time that several men had been murdered for the sake of bread. On our march to the bridge across the Berezina, my last meal had been horse's blood, caught in a basin, cooked over a fire, and eaten without salt, and it had been too long ago. Men moved mechanically away from the distantly-heard cannon at our back, as fear was part of our humanity that we had lost in our hunger, but at Berezina was something that woke our fear anew.
I came upon the river that was edged in ice and blood. There were women in the river, and as I watched, they pulled a man off the pontoon bridge and under the river's dark face. In a few moments, the three women came up again; the man never did. They moved towards the bridge, and among the men of the army there was a stampede towards the bridge’s two shores that I was unprepared for, though I would see the army make this same move several times, some men getting across each time, and some disappearing into the gray water. The women--they were not women, of course, but we had no name to call them that we could agree on, for I called them nix, while the Poles called them rusalka, and the French kept uncharacteristic silence--when we needed to speak of them together, we called them les femmes, and let that serve.
Several hours it took me to cross the river, and I saw without emotion the man next to me get pulled under the water by the quiet women, who neither sang nor talked to lure men to their deaths. The man went under quietly as well, and though I saw him go the whole time, I cannot remember his face. At that point in the march, I could look cold-bloodedly into the lamenting faces of the wounded, the freezing, and the burned, as I shall tell later, and think of other things. Some called this strength when I returned to Wuerttemberg.
Yefim Chaplits, Russian officer:
Wise men don't listen to rumors, but they listen to rumor-mongers, as my mother used to say. I was leading the advance guard of Chichagov's army to Berezina when I began to hear the talk about the Eternal Western Spring, as men called it. As if they could capitalize in speaking in that way that strikes me as peculiar to the illiterate Russian. The men's talk was nothing remarkable, I thought, and taking my mother's advice, I learned only that the men were cold and wished to be warm. But soon I heard them speak of the Spring of Warsaw, and I could imagine it: the city of Warsaw, blanketed by flowers and the singing of birds.
You understand, I serve Russia, but I am born Polish, so I listened with some interest when I heard about the Spring of Warsaw. Poles are not known for their invention, and if you want a good lie, my mother would say, don't go to a Pole, go to a Jew. I thought then, and time would prove me to be more right than wrong, that if the story were told by Poles, then it might be true and Warsaw might be enjoying balmy days and sultry nights as we marched through blizzards.
I was wounded at Borisov, and took Vilna, and crossed Berezina, where the rusalka swam joylessly with their dead men, and I had other things to worry about than Spring. Truth be told, in my protean way, I had grown to love the Russian winter as my sword and shield. And so, it wasn't until I reached Torun that I turned my head to the west and tasted Spring. It was then that I knew that Spring was over all of Warsaw, not the city but all the Duchy, all of Poland, that was not Poland but was Napoleon's plaything. The rumor among the men--or among the officers--was that Poniatowksi had captured the Firebird, and that the Firebird kept Spring around it like men keep coats.
Isaac Cahan, Polish witness:
I was young, I don't remember. How can war be talked about? It makes no sense, it unmakes the sense that the world made before. War kills more meanings than men. Yes, war makes you see things anew--you know, after only a few weeks of war could I look at the sun and think that it rolled across the sky like a bloody head, rolling across the dusty ground. These were my thoughts when I was a boy during wartime. What sense could I make of it now, for you, how could I describe what I saw of the Napoleons and Alexanders marching and marching, back and forth? You know, I once even saw the boy who wore claws, the boy who climbed the Glass Mountain, or so they said. He wore an eagle on a leather strap around his neck--I suppose we could have called him "the boy who wore an eagle," but it was the claws that had made him famous, and we called him the boy who wore claws. I don't know if the eagle was alive, all I know is that he had it for a long time--yes, the same eagle, and he used its blood to bring men back from the dead. So I suppose, why shouldn't the eagle itself be alive? Or alive in some strange fashion--life changes, you know, and even during war, it might have the strength to keep going. I heard later that the Russians killed the boy who wore claws, but I never could believe it. Even under the Russians, life must find a way, yes?
I also saw Poniatowski once, in a conference with some advisors that we called the French advisors, though I knew that they were not French, or not French originally, you know. You could pick them out in a crowd, they stood so tall and thin, and one would almost say they sparkled. No, that's not right, not sparkled. Maybe they shone, but then again, maybe not. I spoke to one, a tall, proper man, with pointed ears and sharp teeth, and a fair grasp of Yiddish, as they are said to speak whatever language they need. It was when I was walking around, looking for food or odd chores to do for the soldiers, and suddenly, I heard a flapping sound, like a fat chicken trying to fly, and without thinking, I grabbed out of the air this bird-like thing that grew quiet in my hands. The tall man came over, and asked me for it, and I gave him what I was holding, which was a map. There was a moment when the map was between us, and the paper crumpled into a shape with many legs, but it soon grew flat and calm in his hands, though not quiet, as in no wind its edge still flapped gently. He smiled his sharp-toothed smile, and said to me that, even here on Earth, as in the kingdoms under the Earth where he came from, maps were protean things.
And I wonder now if he may have been trying to warn me of the coming of the end then. I saw that too, as it came. My family was moving west, back towards the city of Warsaw, but I kept my eyes to the East, and I could see what seemed like forever--I had good eyes then, though you can see me now, what I can see could fit in a thimble with room left over for a finger. But back then, I could see the line that marked the beginning of Russia as it moved west, following us. We moved west, still in Spring, wagon-wheels crushing wildflowers in the field (for the roads were full of the army’s own wagons). But I could see behind us, the white line of snow that marked the edge, the end of the world I knew--for I was young then, born the year that Warsaw became a Duchy, and had only known the Spring of Warsaw--but now I could see the coming of the Russian winter.
Berezina is where I almost died, and I should have considered myself lucky to get so far when starvation and the cold had taken so many. Many had died in Russia far from their homes, though they had tried desperate measures without hesitation. People ate their horses, and indeed I even heard at that time that several men had been murdered for the sake of bread. On our march to the bridge across the Berezina, my last meal had been horse's blood, caught in a basin, cooked over a fire, and eaten without salt, and it had been too long ago. Men moved mechanically away from the distantly-heard cannon at our back, as fear was part of our humanity that we had lost in our hunger, but at Berezina was something that woke our fear anew.
I came upon the river that was edged in ice and blood. There were women in the river, and as I watched, they pulled a man off the pontoon bridge and under the river's dark face. In a few moments, the three women came up again; the man never did. They moved towards the bridge, and among the men of the army there was a stampede towards the bridge’s two shores that I was unprepared for, though I would see the army make this same move several times, some men getting across each time, and some disappearing into the gray water. The women--they were not women, of course, but we had no name to call them that we could agree on, for I called them nix, while the Poles called them rusalka, and the French kept uncharacteristic silence--when we needed to speak of them together, we called them les femmes, and let that serve.
Several hours it took me to cross the river, and I saw without emotion the man next to me get pulled under the water by the quiet women, who neither sang nor talked to lure men to their deaths. The man went under quietly as well, and though I saw him go the whole time, I cannot remember his face. At that point in the march, I could look cold-bloodedly into the lamenting faces of the wounded, the freezing, and the burned, as I shall tell later, and think of other things. Some called this strength when I returned to Wuerttemberg.
Yefim Chaplits, Russian officer:
Wise men don't listen to rumors, but they listen to rumor-mongers, as my mother used to say. I was leading the advance guard of Chichagov's army to Berezina when I began to hear the talk about the Eternal Western Spring, as men called it. As if they could capitalize in speaking in that way that strikes me as peculiar to the illiterate Russian. The men's talk was nothing remarkable, I thought, and taking my mother's advice, I learned only that the men were cold and wished to be warm. But soon I heard them speak of the Spring of Warsaw, and I could imagine it: the city of Warsaw, blanketed by flowers and the singing of birds.
You understand, I serve Russia, but I am born Polish, so I listened with some interest when I heard about the Spring of Warsaw. Poles are not known for their invention, and if you want a good lie, my mother would say, don't go to a Pole, go to a Jew. I thought then, and time would prove me to be more right than wrong, that if the story were told by Poles, then it might be true and Warsaw might be enjoying balmy days and sultry nights as we marched through blizzards.
I was wounded at Borisov, and took Vilna, and crossed Berezina, where the rusalka swam joylessly with their dead men, and I had other things to worry about than Spring. Truth be told, in my protean way, I had grown to love the Russian winter as my sword and shield. And so, it wasn't until I reached Torun that I turned my head to the west and tasted Spring. It was then that I knew that Spring was over all of Warsaw, not the city but all the Duchy, all of Poland, that was not Poland but was Napoleon's plaything. The rumor among the men--or among the officers--was that Poniatowksi had captured the Firebird, and that the Firebird kept Spring around it like men keep coats.
Isaac Cahan, Polish witness:
I was young, I don't remember. How can war be talked about? It makes no sense, it unmakes the sense that the world made before. War kills more meanings than men. Yes, war makes you see things anew--you know, after only a few weeks of war could I look at the sun and think that it rolled across the sky like a bloody head, rolling across the dusty ground. These were my thoughts when I was a boy during wartime. What sense could I make of it now, for you, how could I describe what I saw of the Napoleons and Alexanders marching and marching, back and forth? You know, I once even saw the boy who wore claws, the boy who climbed the Glass Mountain, or so they said. He wore an eagle on a leather strap around his neck--I suppose we could have called him "the boy who wore an eagle," but it was the claws that had made him famous, and we called him the boy who wore claws. I don't know if the eagle was alive, all I know is that he had it for a long time--yes, the same eagle, and he used its blood to bring men back from the dead. So I suppose, why shouldn't the eagle itself be alive? Or alive in some strange fashion--life changes, you know, and even during war, it might have the strength to keep going. I heard later that the Russians killed the boy who wore claws, but I never could believe it. Even under the Russians, life must find a way, yes?
I also saw Poniatowski once, in a conference with some advisors that we called the French advisors, though I knew that they were not French, or not French originally, you know. You could pick them out in a crowd, they stood so tall and thin, and one would almost say they sparkled. No, that's not right, not sparkled. Maybe they shone, but then again, maybe not. I spoke to one, a tall, proper man, with pointed ears and sharp teeth, and a fair grasp of Yiddish, as they are said to speak whatever language they need. It was when I was walking around, looking for food or odd chores to do for the soldiers, and suddenly, I heard a flapping sound, like a fat chicken trying to fly, and without thinking, I grabbed out of the air this bird-like thing that grew quiet in my hands. The tall man came over, and asked me for it, and I gave him what I was holding, which was a map. There was a moment when the map was between us, and the paper crumpled into a shape with many legs, but it soon grew flat and calm in his hands, though not quiet, as in no wind its edge still flapped gently. He smiled his sharp-toothed smile, and said to me that, even here on Earth, as in the kingdoms under the Earth where he came from, maps were protean things.
And I wonder now if he may have been trying to warn me of the coming of the end then. I saw that too, as it came. My family was moving west, back towards the city of Warsaw, but I kept my eyes to the East, and I could see what seemed like forever--I had good eyes then, though you can see me now, what I can see could fit in a thimble with room left over for a finger. But back then, I could see the line that marked the beginning of Russia as it moved west, following us. We moved west, still in Spring, wagon-wheels crushing wildflowers in the field (for the roads were full of the army’s own wagons). But I could see behind us, the white line of snow that marked the edge, the end of the world I knew--for I was young then, born the year that Warsaw became a Duchy, and had only known the Spring of Warsaw--but now I could see the coming of the Russian winter.