The Night of the Ascension

We approached Moscow as victors, and leave it as victims of cruel and mocking silence. Bonaparte has never received terms from Alexander. Why are we not on the march for no whispers to me in the dark? When the snow has already become the fall, how will we be fed if we stay or if we go? I do not answer him. I only imagine his name etched faintly on granite, somewhere near my own, in some field far away from the place we were born.