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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: that cruel Beresina, which an incredible fatality had already made so
destructive to the army.
The apathy of these poor soldiers can only be conceived by those who
remember to have crossed vast deserts of snow without other
perspective than a snow horizon, without other drink than snow,
without other bed than snow, without other food than snow or a few
frozen beet-roots, a few handfuls of flour, or a little horseflesh.
Dying of hunger, thirst, fatigue, and want of sleep, these
unfortunates reached a shore where they saw before them wood,
provisions, innumerable camp equipages, and carriages,--in short a
whole town at their service. The village of Studzianka had been wholly
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