TABLEAU IX

Tage 12S,

Suwarroff's troops are hère seen in full retreat, toiling through the snow, along the steep and dangerous mountain pass that leads down to Panix ; the path is beginning to yield under the incessant tramp of the troops which for days hâve been passing along it, -the guns hâve to be abandoned ; men and horses roll into the yawning abyss. AU at once the worn-out Russians, who form the tail of the column, see themselves arrested on their march by French troops which hâve found their way across the mountains. Ivanowitche, pressed hard by Ogiski, leaps dowa headiong into the abyss, under the very eyes of Ivanowna.

1. 3. il côtoie les précipices... à la cime des ain, 'it winds along the précipitons sides of the Rinkenkopf, high up in the clouds'.

1. 6. le vide bleuâtre, 'the bluish void', i.e. 'blue space'.

1. 8. une file de soldats russes passent en silence. Note that the verb is hère in the plural because soldats is prominently the agent ; cp. p. 110, 1. 8.

Page 127.

1. 18. fati^^té, 'strained', 'shaken'; see Introduction, p. xv.

1. 23. /(.' r^/«...'the leilge will give way umler such a weight'; this coin is what has been described before (p. 126, 1. 4) as un angle de ce sentier en corniche sur r abîme, 'an elbow of the path julting out as a comice over the abyss'.

1. 23. il entraînera plus d'un arpent de terre, ' it will carry away with it more than an acre of ground' ; arp-:nt is a measure varying from i to I \ acres. Note that before a number de is used for than instead of que.

Page 128.

1. 19. mais les voilà dans le bleu, ' but herc they are launched into space'. Cp. p. 126, 1. 6.

1. 22. il prend son fusil par le canon. ..'he takes his musket by the barrel, breaks it againsl the gun, and thiows the fragments into tl.e abyss'.

1. 24. et rajuste, 'and aims at him'; cp. le couche en joue, 'levels lus gun at him', p. 46, 1. 7.

1. 28. nous devions arriver le lendemain, 'we were to reach our destination on the foUowing day'. Lendetnain, formerly fendonain is compd. of en and demain (Lat. in de-manè). In the i4th century the article le, by a singular misunderstanding became attached to the body of the Word (cp. lierre originally Pierre or Phicrre) and produced the subst. lettdemain, which in its turn is again preceded by the article {le lendemain).