Page 375 of 470

“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 psheron 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 Platn, and the surname is Karatev,” 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 Karatev. “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 Karatev, “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 Platn Karatev 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 Platn 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.”