| AS THE FRENCH OFFICER drew Pierre with him into the room, the latter thought it his duty to assure the captain again that he was not a Frenchman, and would have withdrawn, but the French officer would not hear of it. He was so courteous, polite, good-humoured, and genuinely grateful to him for saving his life that Pierre had not the heart to refuse, and sat down with him in the dining-room, the first room they entered. To Pierre’s asseveration that he was not a Frenchman, the captain, plainly unable to comprehend how any one could refuse so flattering a title, shrugged his shoulders, and said that if he insisted in passing for a Russian, so be it, but that in spite of that he should yet feel bound to him for ever by sentiments of gratitude for the defence of his life. If this man had been endowed with even the slightest faculty of perceiving the feelings of others, and had had the faintest inkling of Pierre’s sentiments, the latter would probably have left him. But his lively impenetrability to everything not himself vanquished Pierre. “Frenchman or Russian prince incognito,” said the Frenchman, looking at Pierre’s fine, though dirty linen, and the ring on his finger; “I owe my life to you, and I offer you my friendship. A Frenchman never forgets an insult or a service. I offer you my friendship. That’s all I say.” In the tones of the voice, the expression of the face, and the gestures of the officer, there was so much naïve good nature and good breeding (in the French sense) that Pierre unconsciously responded with a smile to his smile, as he took his outstretched hand. “Captain Ramballe of the 13th Light Brigade, decorated for the affair of the 7th September,” he introduced himself, an irrepressible smile of complacency lurking under his moustache. “Will you tell me now to whom I have the honour of speaking so agreeably, instead of remaining in the ambulance with that madman’s ball in my body?” Pierre answered that he would not tell him his name, and was beginning with a blush, while trying to invent a name, to speak of the reasons for which he was unable to do so, but the Frenchman hurriedly interrupted him. “Enough!” he said. “I understand your reasons; you are an officer … a staff officer, perhaps. You have borne arms against us. That’s not my business. I owe you my life. That’s enough for me. I am at your disposal. You are a nobleman?” he added, with an intonation of inquiry. Pierre bowed. “Your baptismal name, if you please? I ask nothing more. M. Pierre, you say? Perfect! That’s all I want to know.” When they had brought in the mutton, an omelette, a samovar, vodka, and wine from a Russian cellar brought with them by the French, Ramballe begged Pierre to share his dinner; and at once with the haste and greediness of a healthy, hungry man, set to work on the viands himself, munching vigorously with his strong teeth, and continually smacking his lips and exclaiming, “Excellent! exquis!” His face became flushed and perspiring. Pierre was hungry, and pleased to share the repast. Morel, the orderly, brought in a pot of hot water, and put a bottle of red wine to warm in it. He brought in too a bottle of kvass from the kitchen for them to taste. This beverage was already known to the French, and had received a nickname. They called it limonade de cochon, and Morel praised this “pigs’ lemonade,” which he had found in the kitchen. But as the captain had the wine they had picked up as they crossed Moscow, he left the kvass for Morel, and attacked the bottle of bordeaux. He wrapped a napkin round the bottle, and poured out wine for himself and Pierre. The wine, and the satisfaction of his hunger, made the captain even more lively, and he chatted away without a pause all dinner-time. “Yes, my dear M. Pierre, I owe you a fine votive candle for saving me from that maniac. I have bullets enough in my body, you know. Here is one from Wagram” (he pointed to his side), “and two from Smolensk” (he showed the scar on his cheek). “And this leg which won’t walk, as you see. It was at the great battle of la Moskowa on the 7th that I got that. Sacré Dieu, it was fine! You ought to have seen that; it was a deluge of fire. You cut us out a tough job; you can boast of that, my word on it! And on my word, in spite of the cough I caught, I should be ready to begin again. I pity those who did not see it.” “I was there,” said Pierre. “Really!” pursued the Frenchman. “Well, so much the better. You are fine enemies, though. The great redoubt was well held, by my pipe. And you made us pay heavily for it too. I was at it three times, as I’m sitting here. Three times we were upon the cannons, and three times we were driven back like cardboard figures. Oh, it was fine, M. Pierre. Your grenadiers were superb, God’s thunder. I saw them six times in succession close the ranks and march as though on parade. Fine fellows. Our king of Naples, who knows all about it, cried, Bravo! Ah, ah, soldiers like ourselves,” he said after a moment’s silence. “So much the better, so much the better, M. Pierre. Terrible in war … gallant, with the fair” (he winked with a smile)—“there you have the French, M. Pierre, eh?” The captain was so naïvely and good-humouredly gay and obtuse and self-satisfied that Pierre almost winked in response, as he looked good-humouredly at him. Probably the word “gallant” brought the captain to reflect on the state of things in Moscow. “By the way, tell me, is it true that all the women have left Moscow? What a queer idea! What had they to fear?” “Would not the French ladies quit Paris, if the Russians were to enter it?” said Pierre. “Ha—ha—ha!…” The Frenchman gave vent to a gay, sanguine chuckle, slapping Pierre on the shoulder. “That’s a good one, that is,” he went on. “Paris … But Paris…” “Paris is the capital of the world,” said Pierre, finishing the sentence for him. The captain looked at Pierre. He had the habit of stopping short in the middle of conversation, and staring intently with his laughing genial eyes. “Well, if you had not told me you are a Russian, I would have wagered you were a Parisian. You have that indescribable something …” and uttering this compliment, he again gazed at him mutely. “I have been in Paris. I spent years there,” said Pierre. “One can see that! Paris! A man who does not know Paris is a savage … A Parisian can be told two leagues off. Paris—it is Talma, la Duschénois, Potier, the Sorbonne, the boulevards.” Perceiving that the conclusion of his phrase was somewhat of an anticlimax, he added hurriedly, “There is only one Paris in the world.… You have been in Paris, and you remain Russian. Well, I don’t think the less of you for that.” After the days he had spent alone with his gloomy thoughts, Pierre, under the influence of the wine he had drunk, could not help taking pleasure in conversing with this good-humoured and naïve person. “To return to your ladies, they are said to be beautiful. What a silly idea to go and bury themselves in the steppes, when the French army is in Moscow. What a chance they have lost. Your peasants are different; but you civilised people ought to know better than that. We have taken Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, Naples, Rome, Warsaw—all the capitals in the world. We are feared, but we are loved. We are worth knowing. And then the Emperor…” he was beginning, but Pierre interrupted him. “The Emperor,” repeated Pierre, and his face suddenly wore a mournful and embarrassed look. “What of the Emperor?” “The Emperor? He is generosity, mercy, justice, order, genius—that is the Emperor. It is I, Ramballe, who tell you that. I was his enemy eight years ago. My father was an emigrant count. But he has conquered me, that man. He has taken hold of me. I could not resist the spectacle of the greatness and glory with which he was covering France. When I understood what he wanted, when I saw he was preparing a bed of laurels for us, I said to myself: ‘That is a monarch.’ And I gave myself up to him. Oh yes, he is the greatest man of the centuries, past and to come.” “And is he in Moscow?” Pierre asked, hesitating and looking guilty. The Frenchman gazed at Pierre’s guilty face, and grinned. “No, he will make his entry to-morrow,” he said, and went on with his talk. Their conversation was interrupted by several voices shouting at the gates, and Morel coming in to tell the captain that some Würtemberg hussars had come and wanted to put up their horses in the yard in which the captain’s had been put up. The difficulty arose chiefly from the hussars not understanding what was said to them. The captain bade the senior sergeant be brought to him, and in a stern voice asked him to what regiment he belonged, who was his commanding officer, and on what pretext he dared attempt to occupy quarters already occupied. The German, who knew very little French, succeeded in answering the first two questions, but in reply to the last one, which he did not understand, he answered in broken French and German that he was quartermaster of the regiment, and had received orders from his superior officer to occupy all the houses in the row. Pierre, who knew German, translated the German’s words to the captain, and translated the captain’s answer back for the Würtemberg hussar. On understanding what was said to him, the German gave in, and took his men away. The captain went out to the entrance and gave some loud commands. When he came back into the room, Pierre was sitting where he had been sitting before, with his head in his hands. His face expressed suffering. He really was at that moment suffering. As soon as the captain had gone out, and Pierre had been left alone, he suddenly came to himself, and recognised the position he was in. It was not that Moscow had been taken, not that these lucky conquerors were making themselves at home there and patronising him, bitterly as Pierre felt it, that tortured him at that moment. He was tortured by the consciousness of his own weakness. The few glasses of wine he had drunk, the chat with this good-natured fellow, had dissipated that mood of concentrated gloom, which he had been living in for the last few days, and which was essential for carrying out his design. The pistol and the dagger and the peasant’s coat were ready, Napoleon was making his entry on the morrow. Pierre felt it as praiseworthy and as beneficial as ever to slay the miscreant; but he felt now that he would not do it. He struggled against the consciousness of his own weakness, but he vaguely felt that he could not overcome it, that his past gloomy train of ideas, of vengeance, murder, and self-sacrifice, had been blown away like dust at contact with the first human being. The captain came into the room, limping a little, and whistling some tune. The Frenchman’s chatter that had amused Pierre struck him now as revolting. And his whistling a tune, and his gait, and his gesture in twisting his moustaches, all seemed insulting to Pierre now. “I’ll go away at once, I won’t say another word to him,” thought Pierre. He thought this, yet went on sitting in the same place. Some strange feeling of weakness riveted him to his place; he longed to get up and go, and could not. The captain, on the contrary, seemed in exceedingly good spirits. He walked a couple of times up and down the room. His eyes sparkled and his moustaches slightly twitched as though he were smiling to himself at some amusing notion. “Charming fellow the colonel of these Würtembergers,” he said all at once. “He’s a German, but a good fellow if ever there was one. But a German.” He sat down facing Pierre. “By the way, you know German?” Pierre looked at him in silence. “How do you say ‘asile’ in German?” “Asile?” repeated Pierre. “Asile in German is Unterkunft.” “What do you say?” the captain queried quickly and doubtfully. “Unterkunft,” repeated Pierre. “Onterkoff,” said the captain, and for several seconds he looked at Pierre with his laughing eyes. “The Germans are awful fools, aren’t they, M. Pierre?” he concluded. “Well, another bottle of this Moscow claret, eh? Morel, warm us another bottle!” the captain shouted gaily. Morel brought candles and a bottle of wine. The captain looked at Pierre in the candle-light, and was obviously struck by the troubled face of his companion. With genuine regret and sympathy in his face, Ramballe approached Pierre, and bent over him. “Eh, we are sad!” he said, touching Pierre on the hand. “Can I have hurt you? No, really, have you anything against me?” he questioned. “Perhaps it is owing to the situation of affairs?” Pierre made no reply, but looked cordially into the Frenchman’s eyes. This expression of sympathy was pleasant to him. “My word of honour, to say nothing of what I owe you, I have a liking for you. Can I do anything for you? Dispose of me. It is for life and death. With my hand and my heart, I say so,” he said, slapping himself on the chest. “Thank you,” said Pierre. The captain gazed at Pierre as he had gazed at him when he learnt the German for “refuge,” and his face suddenly brightened. “Ah, in that case, I drink to our friendship,” he cried gaily, pouring out two glasses of wine. Pierre took the glass and emptied it. Ramballe emptied his, pressed Pierre’s hand once more, and leaned his elbow on the table in a pose of pensive melancholy. “Yes, my dear friend, such are the freaks of fortune,” he began. “Who would have said I should be a soldier and captain of dragoons in the service of Bonaparte, as we used to call him. And yet here I am at Moscow with him. I must tell you, my dear fellow,” he continued in the mournful and measured voice of a man who intends to tell a long story, “our name is one of the most ancient in France.” And with the easy and naïve unreserve of a Frenchman, the captain told Pierre the history of his forefathers, his childhood, boyhood, and manhood, and all his relations, his fortunes, and domestic affairs. “Ma pauvre mère,” took, of course, a prominent part in this recital. “But all that is only the setting of life; the real thing is love. Love! Eh, M. Pierre?” he said, warming up. “Another glass.” Pierre again emptied his glass, and filled himself a third. “O women! women!” and the captain, gazing with moist eyes at Pierre, began talking of love and his adventures with the fair sex. They were very numerous, as might readily be believed, judging from the officer’s conceited, handsome face and the eager enthusiasm with which he talked of women. Although all Ramballe’s accounts of his love affairs were characterised by that peculiar nastiness in which the French find the unique charm and poetry of love, the captain told his stories with such genuine conviction that he was the only man who had tasted and known all the sweets of love, and he described the women he had known in such an alluring fashion that Pierre listened to him with curiosity. It was evident that l’amour the Frenchman was so fond of was neither that low and simple kind of love Pierre had at one time felt for his wife, nor the romantic love, exaggerated by himself, that he felt for Natasha. For both those kinds of love Ramballe had an equal contempt—one was l’amour des charretiers, the other l’amour des nigauds. L’amour for which the Frenchman had a weakness consisted principally in an unnatural relation to the woman, and in combinations of monstrous circumstances which lent the chief charm to the feeling. Thus the captain related the touching history of his love for a fascinating marquise of five-and-thirty, and at the same time for a charming, innocent child of seventeen, the daughter of the fascinating marquise. The conflict of generosity between mother and daughter, ending in the mother sacrificing herself and offering her daughter in marriage to her lover, even now, though it was a memory in the remote past, moved the captain deeply. Then he related an episode in which the husband played the part of the lover, and he—the lover—the part of the husband, and several comic episodes among his reminiscences of Germany, where Unterkunft means asile, where the husbands eat cabbage soup, and where the young girls are too flaxen-haired. The last episode was one in Poland, still fresh in the captain’s memory, and described by him with rapid gestures and a glowing face. The story was that he had saved the life of a Pole—the episode of saving life was continually cropping up in the captain’s anecdotes—and that Pole had intrusted to his care his bewitching wife, a Parisian in heart, while he himself entered the French service. The captain had been happy, the bewitching Polish lady had wanted to elope with him; but moved by a magnanimous impulse, the captain had restored the wife to the husband with the words: “I saved your life, and I save your honour.” As he repeated these words, the captain wiped his eyes and shook himself, as though to shake off the weakness that overcame him at this touching recollection. As men often do at a late hour at night, and under the influence of wine, Pierre listened to the captain’s stories, and while he followed and understood all he told him, he was also following a train of personal reminiscences which had for some reason risen to his imagination. As he listened to those love affairs, his own love for Natasha suddenly came into his mind, and going over all the pictures of that love in his imagination, he mentally compared them with Ramballe’s stories. As he heard the account of the conflict between love and duty, Pierre saw before him every detail of the meeting with the object of his love at the Suharev Tower. That meeting had not at the time made much impression on him; he had not once thought of it since. But now it seemed to him that there was something very significant and romantic in that meeting. “Pyotr Kirillitch, come here, I recognise you”; he could hear her words now, could see her eyes, her smile, her travelling cap, and the curl peeping out below it … and he felt that there was something moving, touching in all that. When he had finished his tale about the bewitching Polish lady, the captain turned to Pierre with the inquiry whether he had had any similar experience of self-sacrifice for love and envy of a lawful husband. Pierre, roused by this question, lifted his head and felt an irresistible impulse to give expression to the ideas in his mind. He began to explain that he looked upon love for woman somewhat differently. He said he had all his life long loved one woman, and still loved her, and that that woman could never be his. “Tiens!” said the captain. Then Pierre explained that he had loved this woman from his earliest youth, but had not dared to think of her because she was too young, and he had been an illegitimate son, with no name of his own. Then when he had received a name and wealth, he had not dared think of her because he loved her too much, because he set her too high above all the world, and so even more above himself. On reaching this point, Pierre asked the captain, did he understand that. The captain made a gesture expressing that whether he understood it or not, he begged him to proceed. “Platonic love; moonshine…” he muttered. The wine he had drunk, or an impulse of frankness, or the thought that this man did not know and never would know, any of the persons concerned in his story, or all together loosened Pierre’s tongue. With faltering lips and with a faraway look in his moist eye, he told all his story; his marriage and the story of Natasha’s love for his dearest friend and her betrayal of him, and all his own simple relations with her. In response to questions from Ramballe, he told him, too, what he had at first concealed—his position in society—and even disclosed his name. What impressed the captain more than anything else in Pierre’s story was the fact that Pierre was very wealthy, that he had two palatial houses in Moscow, and that he had abandoned everything, and yet had not left Moscow, but was staying in the town concealing his name and station. Late in the night they went out together into the street. The night was warm and clear. On the left there was the glow of the first fire that broke out in Moscow, in Petrovka. On the right a young crescent moon stood high in the sky, and in the opposite quarter of the heavens hung the brilliant comet which was connected in Pierre’s heart with his love. At the gates of the yard stood Gerasim, the cook, and two Frenchmen. Pierre could hear their laughter and talk, incomprehensible to one another. They were looking at the glow of the fire burning in the town. There was nothing alarming in a small remote fire in the immense city. Gazing at the lofty, starlit sky, at the moon, at the comet and the glow of the fire, Pierre felt a thrill of joyous and tender emotion. “How fair it all is! what more does one want?” he thought. And all at once, when he recalled his design, his head seemed going round; he felt so giddy that he leaned against the fence so as not to fall. Without taking leave of his new friend, Pierre left the gate with unsteady steps, and going back to his room lay down on the sofa and at once fell asleep. |
