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After the execution Pierre was separated from the rest of
the prisoners and placed alone in a small, ruined, and befouled
church.
Toward evening a noncommissioned officer entered with two
soldiers and told him that he had been pardoned and would now
go to the barracks for the prisoners of war. Without understanding
what was said to him, Pierre got up and went with the soldiers.
They took him to the upper end of the field, where there were
some sheds built of charred planks, beams, and battens, and led
him into one of them. In the darkness some twenty different men
surrounded Pierre. He looked at them without understanding who
they were, why they were there, or what they wanted of him. He
heard what they said, but did not understand the meaning of the
words and made no kind of deduction from or application of them.
He replied to questions they put to him, but did not consider
who was listening to his replies, nor how they would understand
them. He looked at their faces and figures, but they all seemed
to him equally meaningless.
From the moment Pierre had witnessed those terrible murders
committed by men who did not wish to commit them, it was as if
the mainspring of his life, on which everything depended and which
made everything appear alive, had suddenly been wrenched out and
everything had collapsed into a heap of meaningless rubbish. Though
he did not acknowledge it to himself, his faith in the right ordering
of the universe, in humanity, in his own soul, and in God, had
been destroyed. He had experienced this before, but never so strongly
as now. When similar doubts had assailed him before, they had
been the result of his own wrongdoing, and at the bottom of his
heart he had felt that relief from his despair and from those
doubts was to be found within himself. But now he felt that the
universe had crumbled before his eyes and only meaningless ruins
remained, and this not by any fault of his own. He felt that it
was not in his power to regain faith in the meaning of life.
Around him in the darkness men were standing and evidently
something about him interested them greatly. They were telling
him something and asking him something. Then they led him away
somewhere, and at last he found himself in a corner of the shed
among men who were laughing and talking on all sides.
"Well, then, mates... that very prince who..." some
voice at the other end of the shed was saying, with a strong emphasis
on the word who.
Sitting silent and motionless on a heap of straw against the
wall, Pierre sometimes opened and sometimes closed his eyes. But
as soon as he closed them he saw before him the dreadful face
of the factory lad- especially dreadful because of its simplicity-
and the faces of the murderers, even more dreadful because of
their disquiet. And he opened his eyes again and stared vacantly
into the darkness around him.
Beside him in a stooping position sat a small man of whose
presence he was first made aware by a strong smell of perspiration
which came from him every time he moved. This man was doing something
to his legs in the darkness, and though Pierre could not see his
face he felt that the man continually glanced at him. On growing
used to the darkness Pierre saw that the man was taking off his
leg bands, and the way he did it aroused Pierre's interest.
Having unwound the string that tied the band on one leg, he
carefully coiled it up and immediately set to work on the other
leg, glancing up at Pierre. While one hand hung up the first string
the other was already unwinding the band on the second leg. In
this way, having carefully removed the leg bands by deft circular
motions of his arm following one another uninterruptedly, the
man hung the leg bands up on some pegs fixed above his head. Then
he took out a knife, cut something, closed the knife, placed it
under the head of his bed, and, seating himself comfortably, clasped
his arms round his lifted knees and fixed his eyes on Pierre.
The latter was conscious of something pleasant, comforting, and
well rounded in these deft movements, in the man's well-ordered
arrangements in his corner, and even in his very smell, and he
looked at the man without taking his eyes from him.
"You've seen a lot of trouble, sir, eh?" the little
man suddenly said.
And there was so much kindliness and simplicity in his singsong
voice that Pierre tried to reply, but his jaw trembled and he
felt tears rising to his eyes. The little fellow, giving Pierre
no time to betray his confusion, instantly continued in the same
pleasant tones:
"Eh, lad, don't fret!" said he, in the tender singsong
caressing voice old Russian peasant women employ. "Don't
fret, friend- 'suffer an hour, live for an age!' that's how it
is, my dear fellow. And here we live, thank heaven, without offense.
Among these folk, too, there are good men as well as bad,"
said he, and still speaking, he turned on his knees with a supple
movement, got up, coughed, and went off to another part of the
shed.
"Eh, you rascal!" Pierre heard the same kind voice
saying at the other end of the shed. "So you've come, you
rascal? She remembers... Now, now, that'll do!"
And the soldier, pushing away a little dog that was jumping
up at him, returned to his place and sat down. In his hands he
had something wrapped in a rag.
"Here, eat a bit, sir," said he, resuming his former
respectful tone as he unwrapped and offered Pierre some baked
potatoes. "We had soup for dinner and the potatoes are grand!"
Pierre had not eaten all day and the smell of the potatoes
seemed extremely pleasant to him. He thanked the soldier and began
to eat.
"Well, are they all right?" said the soldier with
a smile. "You should do like this."
He took a potato, drew out his clasp knife, cut the potato
into two equal halves on the palm of his hand, sprinkled some
salt on it from the rag, and handed it to Pierre.
"The potatoes are grand!" he said once more. "Eat
some like that!"
Pierre thought he had never eaten anything that tasted better.
"Oh, I'm all right," said he, "but why did
they shoot those poor fellows? The last one was hardly twenty."
"Tss, tt...!" said the little man. "Ah, what
a sin... what a sin!" he added quickly, and as if his words
were always waiting ready in his mouth and flew out involuntarily
he went on: "How was it, sir, that you stayed in Moscow?"
"I didn't think they would come so soon. I stayed accidentally,"
replied Pierre.
"And how did they arrest you, dear lad? At your house?"
"No, I went to look at the fire, and they arrested me
there, and tried me as an incendiary."
"Where there's law there's injustice," put in the
little man.
"And have you been here long?" Pierre asked as he
munched the last of the potato.
"I? It was last Sunday they took me, out of a hospital
in Moscow."
"Why, are you a soldier then?"
"Yes, we are soldiers of the Apsheron regiment. I was
dying of fever. We weren't told anything. There were some twenty
of us lying there. We had no idea, never guessed at all."
"And do you feel sad here?" Pierre inquired.
"How can one help it, lad? My name is Platon, and the
surname is Karataev," he added, evidently wishing to make
it easier for Pierre to address him. "They call me 'little
falcon' in the regiment. How is one to help feeling sad? Moscow-
she's the mother of cities. How can one see all this and not feel
sad? But 'the maggot gnaws the cabbage, yet dies first'; that's
what the old folks used to tell us," he added rapidly.
"What? What did you say?" asked Pierre.
"Who? I?" said Karataev. "I say things happen
not as we plan but as God judges," he replied, thinking that
he was repeating what he had said before, and immediately continued:
"Well, and you, have you a family estate, sir? And a
house? So you have abundance, then? And a housewife? And your
old parents, are they still living?" he asked.
And though it was too dark for Pierre to see, he felt that
a suppressed smile of kindliness puckered the soldier's lips as
he put these questions. He seemed grieved that Pierre had no parents,
especially that he had no mother.
"A wife for counsel, a mother-in-law for welcome, but
there's none as dear as one's own mother!" said he. "Well,
and have you little ones?" he went on asking.
Again Pierre's negative answer seemed to distress him, and
he hastened to add:
"Never mind! You're young folks yet, and please God may
still have some. The great thing is to live in harmony...."
"But it's all the same now," Pierre could not help
saying.
"Ah, my dear fellow!" rejoined Karataev, "never
decline a prison or a beggar's sack!"
He seated himself more comfortably and coughed, evidently
preparing to tell a long story.
"Well, my dear fellow, I was still living at home,"
he began. "We had a well-to-do homestead, plenty of land,
we peasants lived well and our house was one to thank God for.
When Father and we went out mowing there were seven of us. We
lived well. We were real peasants. It so happened..."
And Platon Karataev told a long story of how he had gone into
someone's copse to take wood, how he had been caught by the keeper,
had been tried, flogged, and sent to serve as a soldier.
"Well, lad," and a smile changed the tone of his
voice "we thought it was a misfortune but it turned out a
blessing! If it had not been for my sin, my brother would have
had to go as a soldier. But he, my younger brother, had five little
ones, while I, you see, only left a wife behind. We had a little
girl, but God took her before I went as a soldier. I come home
on leave and I'll tell you how it was, I look and see that they
are living better than before. The yard full of cattle, the women
at home, two brothers away earning wages, and only Michael the
youngest, at home. Father, he says, 'All my children are the same
to me: it hurts the same whichever finger gets bitten. But if
Platon hadn't been shaved for a soldier, Michael would have had
to go.' called us all to him and, will you believe it, placed
us in front of the icons. 'Michael,' he says, 'come here and bow
down to his feet; and you, young woman, you bow down too; and
you, grandchildren, also bow down before him! Do you understand?'
he says. That's how it is, dear fellow. Fate looks for a head.
But we are always judging, 'that's not well- that's not right!'
Our luck is like water in a dragnet: you pull at it and it bulges,
but when you've drawn it out it's empty! That's how it is."
And Platon shifted his seat on the straw.
After a short silence he rose.
"Well, I think you must be sleepy," said he, and
began rapidly crossing himself and repeating:
"Lord Jesus Christ, holy Saint Nicholas, Frola and Lavra!
Lord Jesus Christ, holy Saint Nicholas, Frola and Lavra! Lord
Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and save us!" he concluded,
then bowed to the ground, got up, sighed, and sat down again on
his heap of straw. "That's the way. Lay me down like a stone,
O God, and raise me up like a loaf," he muttered as he lay
down, pulling his coat over him.
"What prayer was that you were saying?" asked Pierre.
"Eh?" murmured Platon, who had almost fallen asleep.
"What was I saying? I was praying. Don't you pray?"
"Yes, I do," said Pierre. "But what was that
you said: Frola and Lavra?"
"Well, of course," replied Platon quickly, "the
horses' saints. One must pity the animals too. Eh, the rascal!
Now you've curled up and got warm, you daughter of a bitch!"
said Karataev, touching the dog that lay at his feet, and again
turning over he fell asleep immediately.
Sounds of crying and screaming came from somewhere in the
distance outside, and flames were visible through the cracks of
the shed, but inside it was quiet and dark. For a long time Pierre
did not sleep, but lay with eyes open in the darkness, listening
to the regular snoring of Platon who lay beside him, and he felt
that the world that had been shattered was once more stirring
in his soul with a new beauty and on new and unshakable foundations.
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