War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [607]
“Take the child, take her,” said Pierre, addressing the woman peremptorily and hurriedly, and handing her the girl. “Give her to them!” he almost shouted at the woman, sitting the screaming little girl on the ground, and he again looked at the Frenchmen and the Armenian family. The old man was already sitting without his boots. The little Frenchman had taken the remaining boot off him and was slapping the two boots against each other. The old man, sobbing, was saying something, but Pierre saw it only fleetingly; his whole attention was turned to the Frenchman in the long coat, who meanwhile moved towards the young woman, swaying slowly, and, taking his hands out of his pockets, put them to her neck.
The Armenian beauty went on sitting in the same motionless position, with her long lashes lowered, as if she did not see or feel what the soldier was doing to her.
While Pierre was running the few steps that separated him from the Frenchman, the tall looter in the long coat was already tearing the necklace that the Armenian girl was wearing from her neck, and the young woman, seizing her neck with her hands, cried out in a piercing voice.
“Laissez cette femme!”*622 Pierre rasped in a furious voice, seizing the tall, stooping soldier by the shoulders and flinging him away. The soldier fell, got up, and ran off. But his comrade, throwing down the boots, drew his sword and moved threateningly towards Pierre.
“Voyons, pas de bêtises!”†623 he cried.
Pierre was in that ecstasy of fury in which he was oblivious to everything and his strength increased tenfold. He fell upon the barefoot Frenchman and, before he had time to draw his sword, had already knocked him off his feet and was pummeling him with his fists. An approving cry came from the surrounding crowd, and at the same time a mounted patrol of French uhlans appeared from around the corner. The uhlans trotted up to Pierre and the Frenchman and surrounded them. Pierre remembered nothing of what came after that. He remembered beating something, being beaten, and in the end felt that his hands were tied and that a crowd of French soldiers was standing around him, searching his clothes.
“Il a un poignard, lieutenant,”‡624 were the first words Pierre understood.
“Ah, une arme!”*625 said the officer, and he turned to the barefoot soldier who had been taken together with Pierre.
“C’est bon, vous direz tout cela au conseil de guerre,” said the officer. And then he turned to Pierre. “Parlez-vous français, vous?”†626
Pierre looked around with bloodshot eyes and did not reply. His face probably looked very frightful, because the officer said something in a whisper, and four more uhlans separated from the unit and stood on either side of Pierre.
“Parlez-vous français?” the officer repeated the question, keeping his distance from him. “Faites venir l’interprète.”‡627
A little man in Russian civil dress rode out of the ranks. By his clothes and pronunciation, Pierre recognized him at once as a Frenchman from one of the Moscow shops.
“Il n’a pas l’air d’un homme du peuple,”§628 said the interpreter, looking Pierre over.
“Oh, oh! ça m’a bien l’air d’un des incendiaires,” said the officer. “Demandez-lui ce qu’il est?”#629 he added.
“Who you?” asked the interpreter. “You must answer the superiority,” he said.
“Je ne vous dirai pas qui je suis. Je suis votre prisonnier. Emmènemoi,”**630 Pierre suddenly said in French.
“Ah! Ah!” said the officer, frowning. “Marchons!”††631
A crowd had gathered around the uhlans. Closest to Pierre stood the pockmarked woman with the girl; when the patrol started off, she moved forward.
“Where are they taking you, my dearest?