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By Root 3901 0

another man’s copse beyond the forest and got caught by the watchman, how they flogged him, tried him, and sent him for a soldier. “What then, little falcon,” he said in a voice altered by a smile, “we thought it was grief, but it was joy! If it wasn’t for my sin, my brother would have had to go. And my younger brother had four children, while I had only my wife left, you see. There was a daughter, but God took her before I was sent for a soldier. I came home on leave, I’ll tell you. I look—they’re living better than ever. A yard full of little stomachs, the women are at home, two brothers are off doing hired work. Only the youngest, Mikhailo, is there. My good father says: ‘All my children are the same to me,’ he says, ‘whichever finger you bite, it hurts. But if Platon hadn’t been sent, then Mikhailo would have had to go.’ He called us all together—would you believe it?—stood us under the icons. ‘Mikhailo,’ he says, ‘come here, bow down to his feet, and you, woman, bow down, and you grandchildren bow down, too. Understand?’ he says. That’s how things are, my gentle friend. Fate seeks a head. But we keep judging: this isn’t good, this isn’t right. Our luck is like water in a fishnet: drag it and it swells, pull it out and nothing’s there. So it is.” And Platon shifted on his straw.

After some silence, Platon got up.

“I suppose you must be sleepy?” he said, and he quickly began crossing himself, saying:

“Lord Jesus Christ, St. Nicholas, Frola and Lavra, Lord Jesus Christ, St. Nicholas, Frola and Lavra, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and save us!” he concluded, bowed to the ground, stood up, and, sighing, sat on his straw. “So there. Lord, lay me down like a stone, raise me up like a loaf,” he said and lay down, pulling his greatcoat over him.

“What was that prayer you recited?” asked Pierre.

“Eh?” said Platon (he was already asleep). “What did I recite? I prayed to God. What, don’t you pray?”

“No, I do pray,” said Pierre. “But what was it you said: Frola and Lavra?”

“Of course,” Platon replied quickly, “it’s the horses’ feast.7 Beasts should also be pitied,” said Karataev. “Look how she’s curled up, the rascal. Got nice and warm, the daughter of a bitch,” he said, touching the dog at his feet, and, turning over again, he fell asleep at once.

Outside, weeping and shouting could be heard somewhere in the distance, and fire could be seen through the cracks in the shed, but inside the shed it was quiet and dark. Pierre did not fall asleep for a long time and lay in his place in the dark with open eyes, listening to the regular snoring of Platon, who lay beside him, and he felt that the previously destroyed world was now arising in his soul with a new beauty, on some new and unshakeable foundations.

XIII

In the shed that Pierre entered and in which he stayed for four weeks, twenty-three soldiers, three officers, and two officials were held prisoner.

Later Pierre pictured them all as in a fog, but Platon Karataev remained forever in Pierre’s soul as the strongest and dearest memory and the embodiment of everything Russian, kindly and round. When at dawn the next day Pierre saw his neighbor, his first impression of something round was fully confirmed: the whole figure of Platon in his French greatcoat tied with a rope, in a peaked cap and bast shoes, was round, his head was perfectly round, his back, chest, shoulders, even his arms, which he held as if always about to embrace something, were round; his pleasant smile and his large, brown, tender eyes were round.

Platon Karataev must have been over fifty, judging by his stories of the campaigns he had taken part in long ago as a soldier. He himself did not know and had no way of determining how old he was; but his teeth, bright white and strong, which kept popping out in two semicircles when he laughed (which he often did), were all sound and intact; there was not a single gray hair in his beard or on his head, and his whole body had an air of suppleness and especially of firmness and hardiness.

His face, despite its small, round wrinkles, had an expression of