War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [657]
The air was warm in the sun, and that warmth, along with the invigorating freshness of the morning frost still felt in the air, was especially pleasant.
On all things far and near there was that magically crystalline sheen which occurs only at that time of autumn. In the distance he could see the Sparrow Hills, with the village, the church, and a large white house. The bared trees, and the sand, and the stones, and the roofs of the houses, and the green spire of the church, and the angles of the distant white house—all this was etched with unnatural distinctness, with the finest lines, in the transparent air. Nearby he could see the familiar ruins of a half-burnt manor house occupied by the French, with still dark green lilac bushes growing along the fence. And even that ruined and befouled house, repulsively ugly in overcast weather, now, in the bright, immobile brilliance, seemed something soothingly beautiful.
A French corporal, unbuttoned in a homey way, in a nightcap, with a short pipe in his teeth, came around the corner of the shed and, with a friendly wink, approached Pierre.
“Quel soleil, hein, monsieur Kiril?” (so all the Frenchmen called Pierre). “On dirait le printemps.”*698 And the corporal leaned against the door and offered Pierre a pipe, despite the fact that he always offered it and Pierre always refused it.
“Si l’on marchait par un temps comme celui-là…”†699 he began.
Pierre asked him what he had heard about the departure, and the corporal told him that almost all the troops were leaving, and that an order should come presently about the prisoners. In the shed where Pierre was, one of the soldiers, Sokolov, was sick and dying, and Pierre told the corporal that this soldier should be looked after. The corporal said that Pierre could rest assured, that there were ambulant and stationary hospitals for that, and there would be an order about the sick, and generally whatever might happen had all been foreseen by the superiors.
“Et puis, monsieur Kiril, vous n’avez qu’a dire un mot au capitaine, vous savez. Oh, c’est un…qui n’oublie jamais rien. Dites au capitaine quand il fera sa tournée, il fera tout pour vous…”‡700
The captain the corporal was referring to conversed with Pierre frequently and at length, and was indulgent towards him in various ways.
“‘Vois-tu, St. Thomas,’ qu’il me disait l’autre jour: ‘Kiril c’est un homme qui a de l’instruction, qui parle français; c’est un seigneur russe, qui a eu des malheurs, mais c’est un homme. Et il s’y entend le…S’il demande quelque chose, qu’il me dise, il n’y a pas de refus. Quand on a fait ses études, voyez-vous, on aime l’instruction et les gens comme-il-faut.’ C’est pour vous que je dis cela, monsieur Kiril. Dans l’affaire de l’autre jour, si ce n’était grâce à vous, ça aurait fini mal.”§701
And having chatted a while longer, the corporal left. (The business the corporal referred to, which had happened the other day, was a fight between the prisoners and the French, in which Pierre had managed to pacify his comrades.) Several prisoners had listened to Pierre’s talk with the corporal and at once began asking what he had said. While Pierre was telling his comrades what the corporal had said about the departure, a skinny, yellow, ragged French soldier came to the door of the shed. Raising his fingers to his forehead in a quick and timid movement as a sign of greeting, he addressed Pierre and asked whether the soldier Platoche, whom he had asked to sew a shirt for him, was in this shed.
About a week earlier, boot-making supplies and linen cloth had been distributed to the French, and the soldiers had asked the prisoners to make boots and shirts for them.
“It’s ready, it’s ready, little falcon!” said Karataev, coming out with a neatly folded shirt.
On account of the warmth and in order to work comfortably, Karataev was in nothing but drawers and a tattered shirt as black as earth. His hair, as is done among artisans, was tied with a strip of bast, and his round