So you have twenty or thirty English prisoners in the jail?
Where are all the rest; for, of course, in such a great victory, we must have taken, some thousands of prisoners ?" The count glanced angrily at her.
"They have, no doubt, been sent to Odessa and other places," he said.
"You do not doubt, countess, surely, that a great victory was gained by the soldiers of his Majesty ?" "Doubt," the countess said, in a tone of slight surprise.

"Have I not read the official bulletins describing the victory?
Only we poor women, of course, are altogether ignorant of war, and cannot understand how it is that, when they are always beaten, these enemies of the Czar are still in front of Sebastopol." "It may be," said the count, "that the Archdukes are only waiting until all the reinforcements arrive to drive them into the sea, or capture them to the last man." "No doubt it is that," said the countess blandly, "but from the number of sick and wounded who arrive here, to say nothing of those taken to Odessa and the other towns among which, as you say, the prisoners are distributed, it is to be wished that the reinforcements may soon be up, so as to bring the fighting to an end." "The enemy are suffering much more than we are," the governor said, "and before the spring comes we may find that there are none left to conquer.

If the soldiers of the Czar, accustomed to the climate as they are, feel the cold, although they have warm barracks to sleep in, what must be the case with the enemy on the bleak heights?
I hear that the English newspapers are full of accounts of the terrible sufferings of their troops.

They are dying like sheep." "Poor creatures!" the countess said gravely.

"They are our fellow-beings, you know, Count Smerskoff, although they are our enemies, and one cannot but feel some pity for them." "I feel no pity for the dogs," the count said fiercely.