“But they’re a clean folk, lads,” the first man went on; “he was white⁠—as white as birchbark⁠—and some of them are such fine fellows, you might think they were nobles.”

“Well, what do you think? They make soldiers of all classes there.”

“But they don’t understand our talk at all,” said the dancer with a puzzled smile. “I asked him whose subject he was, and he jabbered in his own way. A queer lot!”

“But it’s strange, friends,” continued the man who had wondered at their whiteness, “the peasants at Mozháysk were saying that when they began burying the dead⁠—where the battle was you know⁠—well, those dead had been lying there for nearly a month, and says the peasant, ‘they lie as white as paper, clean, and not as much smell as a puff of powder smoke.’ ”

“Was it from the cold?” asked someone.