'Ah Carpolan'

Carpolan was commissioned as a lieutenant in the cavalry and posted to galisia. His depression and the grim conditions he found there ran together. The russian winter and the blackish step made him feel sick at heart. At one time, i remember the cold was so intense that when my horse stumbled and fell, i was too apathetic to get out of the saddle. This vignette is perhaps the only reminiscence poliny ever wrote of physical conditions at the front. During the war, he had two books with him, the bible and a single volume edition of the complete shakespeare. Hamlet was the play to which he constantly reverted.