Oblivious of all that went on about her,
she seemed wholly engrossed in her daughter, a beautiful child of four,
that she held in the saddle before her. She made several unsuccessful
attempts to cross the bridge and was driven back every time, at which she
seemed overwhelmed with blank despair. She did not weep; she would gaze
heavenward, then fix her eyes upon her daughter, and once I heard her say:
'O God, how wretched I am, I cannot even pray!' Almost at the same moment a
bullet struck her horse and another one penetrated her left thigh above the
knee. With the deliberation of mute despair she took up the child that was
crying, kissed it again and again; then, using the blood-stained garter
removed from her fractured limb, she strangled the poor little thing and
sat down with it, wrapped in her arms and hugged close to her bosom, beside
her fallen horse. Thus she awaited her end, without uttering a single word,
and before long she was trampled down by the riders making for the bridge."
The great surgeon Larrey tells how he nearly perished at the crossing of
the Beresina, how he went over the bridge twice to save his equipment and
surgical instruments, and how he was vainly attempting to break through the
crowd on the third trip, when, at the mention of his name, every one
proffered assistance, and he was carried along by soldier after soldier to
the end of the bridge.
He has related the incident in a letter to his wife, dated from Leipzig,
March 11th.
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