He was the fad of the hour , the adventurer who had stormed parnassus while the gods nodded . the hundreds of thousands read him and acclaimed him with the same brute non - understanding with which they had flung themselves on brissenden s " ephemera " and torn it to pieces - a wolf - rabble that fawned on him instead of fanging him 千千万万的读者读他的书，却带着畜生般的理解向他欢呼，他们跟外向布里森登的蜉蝣并把它扯成碎片的是同样的群氓群狼，只不过他们没有向他露出獠牙，而是向他讨好。
Who has not asked himself : how was it all the french were not captured or cut to pieces , when all the three russian armies were surrounding them in superior numbers , when the french were a disorderly , starving , and freezing rabble , and the whole aim of the russians so history tells us was to check , to cut off , and to capture all the french 有谁又不向自己提出这样一个问题：既然，所有三路大军以优势兵力包围了法国军队，既然溃逃的法国人又饿又冻，成群地投降，既然历史这样告诉我们俄国人的计划就是要阻截活捉全部法国人，那么，为什么又没有俘获和消灭全部法国人呢？
One might have supposed that the historians , who ascribe the actions of the masses to the will of one man , would have found it impossible to explain the retreat of the french on their theory , considering that they did everything possible during this period of the campaign to bring about their own ruin , and that not a single movement of that rabble of men , from their turning into the kaluga road up to the flight of the commander from his army , showed the slightest trace of design 法国人在整个溃逃过程中，做尽了他们所能够做的断送自己命运的一切事情，从转向卢日斯卡雅大道到主帅扔下自己的部队只身逃跑，这一群乌合之众的每一个行动，都没有丝毫意义。这样，我们可以说，在这一阶段的战役中，要把群众的行动归因于某个人意志的历史学家们，要按照他们的思想来描述这次大溃逃是绝对不可能了。
