War and Peace
The Frenchman, having pushed his head and hands through, without raising
his eyes, looked down at the shirt and examined the seams.
“You see, dear man, this is not a sewing shop, and I had no proper
tools; and, as they say, one needs a tool even to kill a louse,” said
Platón with one of his round smiles, obviously pleased with his work.
“It’s good, quite good, thank you,” said the Frenchman, in French, “but
there must be some linen left over.”
“It will fit better still when it sets to your body,” said Karatáev,
still admiring his handiwork. “You’ll be nice and comfortable....”
“Thanks, thanks, old fellow.... But the bits left over?” said the
Frenchman again and smiled. He took out an assignation ruble note and
gave it to Karatáev. “But give me the pieces that are over.”
Pierre saw that Platón did not want to understand what the Frenchman
was saying, and he looked on without interfering. Karatáev thanked the
Frenchman for the money and went on admiring his own work. The Frenchman
insisted on having the pieces returned that were left over and asked
Pierre to translate what he said.
“What does he want the bits for?” said Karatáev. “They’d make fine leg
bands for us. Well, never mind.”
And Karatáev, with a suddenly changed and saddened expression, took
a small bundle of scraps from inside his shirt and gave it to the
Frenchman without looking at him. “Oh dear!” muttered Karatáev and went
away. The Frenchman looked at the linen, considered for a moment, then
looked inquiringly at Pierre and, as if Pierre’s look had told him
something, suddenly blushed and shouted in a squeaky voice:
“Platoche! Eh, Platoche! Keep them yourself!” And handing back the odd
bits he turned and went out.
“There, look at that,” said Karatáev, swaying his head. “People said
they were not Christians, but they too have souls. It’s what the old
folk used to say: ‘A sweating hand’s an open hand, a dry hand’s close.’
He’s naked, but yet he’s given it back.”
Karatáev smiled thoughtfully and was silent awhile looking at the
pieces.
“But they’ll make grand leg bands, dear friend,” he said, and went back
into the shed.
CHAPTER XII
Four weeks had passed since Pierre had been taken prisoner and though
the French had offered to move him from the men’s to the officers’ shed,
he had stayed in the shed where he was first put.
In burned and devastated Moscow Pierre experienced almost the extreme
limits of privation a man can endure; but thanks to his physical
strength and health, of which he had till then been unconscious, and
thanks especially to the fact that the privations came so gradually that
it was impossible to say when they began, he endured his position
not only lightly but joyfully. And just at this time he obtained the
tranquillity and ease of mind he had formerly striven in vain to reach.
He had long sought in different ways that tranquillity of mind, that
inner harmony which had so impressed him in the soldiers at the battle
of Borodinó. He had sought it in philanthropy, in Freemasonry, in the
dissipations of town life, in wine, in heroic feats of self-sacrifice,
and in romantic love for Natásha; he had sought it by reasoning—and all
these quests and experiments had failed him. And now without thinking
about it he had found that peace and inner harmony only through the
horror of death, through privation, and through what he recognized in
Karatáev.
Those dreadful moments he had lived through at the executions had as it
were forever washed away from his imagination and memory the agitating
thoughts and feelings that had formerly seemed so important. It did
not now occur to him to think of Russia, or the war, or politics, or
Napoleon. It was plain to him that all these things were no business
of his, and that he was not called on to judge concerning them and
therefore could not do so. “Russia and summer weather are not bound
together,” he thought, repeating words of Karatáev’s which he found
strangely consoling. His intention of killing Napoleon and his
calculations of the cabalistic number of the beast of the Apocalypse now
seemed to him meaningless and even ridiculous. His anger with his wife
and anxiety that his name should not be smirched now seemed not merely
trivial but even amusing. What concern was it of his that somewhere or
other that woman was leading the life she preferred? What did it matter
to anybody, and especially to him, whether or not they found out that
their prisoner’s name was Count Bezúkhov?
He now often remembered his conversation with Prince Andrew and quite
agreed with him, though he understood Prince Andrew’s thoughts somewhat
differently. Prince Andrew had thought and said that happiness could
only be negative, but had said it with a shade of bitterness and irony
as though he was really saying that all desire for positive happiness is
implanted in us merely to torment us and never be satisfied. But Pierre
believed it without any mental reservation. The absence of suffering,
the satisfaction of one’s needs and consequent freedom in the choice of
one’s occupation, that is, of one’s way of life, now seemed to Pierre to
be indubitably man’s highest happiness. Here and now for the first time
he fully appreciated the enjoyment of eating when he wanted to eat,
drinking when he wanted to drink, sleeping when he wanted to sleep, of
warmth when he was cold, of talking to a fellow man when he wished to
talk and to hear a human voice. The satisfaction of one’s needs—good
food, cleanliness, and freedom—now that he was deprived of all this,
seemed to Pierre to constitute perfect happiness; and the choice
of occupation, that is, of his way of life—now that that was so
restricted—seemed to him such an easy matter that he forgot that a
superfluity of the comforts of life destroys all joy in satisfying one’s
needs, while great freedom in the choice of occupation—such freedom as
his wealth, his education, and his social position had given him in his
own life—is just what makes the choice of occupation insolubly difficult
and destroys the desire and possibility of having an occupation.
All Pierre’s daydreams now turned on the time when he would be free. Yet
subsequently, and for the rest of his life, he thought and spoke with
enthusiasm of that month of captivity, of those irrecoverable, strong,
joyful sensations, and chiefly of the complete peace of mind and inner
freedom which he experienced only during those weeks.
When on the first day he got up early, went out of the shed at dawn, and
saw the cupolas and crosses of the New Convent of the Virgin still dark
at first, the hoarfrost on the dusty grass, the Sparrow Hills, and the
wooded banks above the winding river vanishing in the purple distance,
when he felt the contact of the fresh air and heard the noise of the
crows flying from Moscow across the field, and when afterwards light
gleamed from the east and the sun’s rim appeared solemnly from behind a
cloud, and the cupolas and crosses, the hoarfrost, the distance and the
river, all began to sparkle in the glad light—Pierre felt a new joy and
strength in life such as he had never before known. And this not only
stayed with him during the whole of his imprisonment, but even grew in
strength as the hardships of his position increased.
That feeling of alertness and of readiness for anything was still
further strengthened in him by the high opinion his fellow prisoners
formed of him soon after his arrival at the shed. With his knowledge
of languages, the respect shown him by the French, his simplicity, his
readiness to give anything asked of him (he received the allowance
of three rubles a week made to officers); with his strength, which he
showed to the soldiers by pressing nails into the walls of the hut; his
gentleness to his companions, and his capacity for sitting still and
thinking without doing anything (which seemed to them incomprehensible),
he appeared to them a rather mysterious and superior being. The very
qualities that had been a hindrance, if not actually harmful, to him in
the world he had lived in—his strength, his disdain for the comforts of
life, his absent-mindedness and simplicity—here among these people gave
him almost the status of a hero. And Pierre felt that their opinion
placed responsibilities upon him.
CHAPTER XIII
The French evacuation began on the night between the sixth and seventh
of October: kitchens and sheds were dismantled, carts loaded, and troops
and baggage trains started.
At seven in the morning a French convoy in marching trim, wearing shakos
and carrying muskets, knapsacks, and enormous sacks, stood in front
of the sheds, and animated French talk mingled with curses sounded all
along the lines.
In the shed everyone was ready, dressed, belted, shod, and only awaited
the order to start. The sick soldier, Sokolóv, pale and thin with dark
shadows round his eyes, alone sat in his place barefoot and not dressed.
His eyes, prominent from the emaciation of his face, gazed inquiringly
at his comrades who were paying no attention to him, and he moaned
regularly and quietly. It was evidently not so much his sufferings that
caused him to moan (he had dysentery) as his fear and grief at being
left alone.
Pierre, girt with a rope round his waist and wearing shoes Karatáev had
made for him from some leather a French soldier had torn off a tea chest
and brought to have his boots mended with, went up to the sick man and
squatted down beside him.
“You know, Sokolóv, they are not all going away! They have a hospital
here. You may be better off than we others,” said Pierre.
“O Lord! Oh, it will be the death of me! O Lord!” moaned the man in a
louder voice.
“I’ll go and ask them again directly,” said Pierre, rising and going to
the door of the shed.
Just as Pierre reached the door, the corporal who had offered him a
pipe the day before came up to it with two soldiers. The corporal and
soldiers were in marching kit with knapsacks and shakos that had metal
straps, and these changed their familiar faces.
The corporal came, according to orders, to shut the door. The prisoners
had to be counted before being let out.
“Corporal, what will they do with the sick man?...” Pierre began.
But even as he spoke he began to doubt whether this was the corporal
he knew or a stranger, so unlike himself did the corporal seem at that
moment. Moreover, just as Pierre was speaking a sharp rattle of drums
was suddenly heard from both sides. The corporal frowned at Pierre’s
words and, uttering some meaningless oaths, slammed the door. The shed
became semidark, and the sharp rattle of the drums on two sides drowned
the sick man’s groans.
“There it is!... It again!...” said Pierre to himself, and an
involuntary shudder ran down his spine. In the corporal’s changed face,
in the sound of his voice, in the stirring and deafening noise of the
drums, he recognized that mysterious, callous force which compelled
people against their will to kill their fellow men—that force the effect
of which he had witnessed during the executions. To fear or to try to
escape that force, to address entreaties or exhortations to those who
served as its tools, was useless. Pierre knew this now. One had to wait
and endure. He did not again go to the sick man, nor turn to look at
him, but stood frowning by the door of the hut.
When that door was opened and the prisoners, crowding against one
another like a flock of sheep, squeezed into the exit, Pierre pushed
his way forward and approached that very captain who as the corporal had
assured him was ready to do anything for him. The captain was also in
marching kit, and on his cold face appeared that same it which Pierre
had recognized in the corporal’s words and in the roll of the drums.