War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [590]
The officer went up to Makar Alexeich and seized him by the collar.
Makar Alexeevich, slackening his lips as if falling asleep, swayed, leaning against the wall.
“Brigand, tu me la payeras,” said the Frenchman, taking his hand away. “Nous autres nous sommes cléments après la victoire: mais nous ne pardon-nons pas aux traîtres,”†568 he added with gloomy solemnity in his face and with a handsome, energetic gesture.
Pierre went on persuading the officer in French not to punish the drunken, insane man. The Frenchman listened silently, without changing his gloomy look, and suddenly turned to Pierre with a smile. For a few seconds he looked at him silently. His handsome face assumed a tragically tender expression, and he held out his hand.
“Vous m’avez sauvé la vie! Vous êtes français,”‡569 he said. For a Frenchman that conclusion was unquestionable. Only a Frenchman could do a great deed, and the saving of his life, the life of M. Ramballe, capitaine du 13e léger,§570 was without question a very great deed.
But however unquestionable this conclusion and the officer’s conviction based on it were, Pierre found it necessary to disappoint him.
“Je suis russe,”#571 he said quickly.
“Tut, tut, tut, à d’autres,” said the Frenchman, wagging his finger before his nose and smiling. “Tout à l’heure vous allez me conter tout ça,” he said. “Charmé de rencontrer un compatriote. Eh bien! qu’allons nous faire de cet homme?”**572 he added, already addressing Pierre as his own brother. Even if Pierre was not a Frenchman, having received this highest title in the world, he could not renounce it, said the tone of the French officer and the expression of his face. To the last question, Pierre explained once again who Makar Alexeich was, explained that just before their arrival, this drunken, insane man had stolen a loaded pistol, which they had not managed to take away from him, and asked that his act go unpunished.
The Frenchman thrust out his chest and made a royal gesture with his hand.
“Vous m’avez sauvé la vie. Vous êtes français. Vous me demandez sa grâce? Je vous l’accorde. Qu’on emmène cet homme,”††573 the French officer said quickly and energetically, taking the arm of Pierre, whom he had just promoted to Frenchman for saving his life, and going into the house with him.
The soldiers in the courtyard, hearing the shot, came into the front hall, asking what had happened, and showing a readiness to punish the guilty ones; but the officer sternly stopped them.
“On vous demandera quand on aura besoin de vous,”*574 he said. The soldiers left. The orderly, who meanwhile had had time to visit the kitchen, came up to the officer.
“Capitaine, ils ont de la soupe et du gigot de mouton dans la cuisine,” he said. “Faut-il vous l’apporter?”†575
“Oui, et le vin,”‡576 said the captain.
XXIX
When the French officer went into the house with Pierre, Pierre considered it his duty to assure the captain again that he was not French and wished to leave, but the French officer would not hear of it. He was so courteous, amiable, good-natured, and truly grateful for the saving of his life that Pierre did not have the heart to refuse him and sat down with him in the reception room, the first one they came to. To Pierre’s assertion that he was not French, the captain, obviously not understanding how anybody could refuse such a flattering title, shrugged his shoulders and said that if he insisted so much on passing for a Russian, so be it, but in spite of that, he would be forever bound to him all the same by a feeling of gratitude for saving his life.
If this man had been endowed with at least some ability to understand the feelings of other people and had guessed Pierre’s feelings, Pierre would probably have left him; but this man’s lively imperviousness to everything that was not himself won Pierre over.
“Français ou prince Russe incognito,” said the Frenchman, examining Pierre’s dirty but fine shirt and the signet ring on his finger, “je