War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [658]
“Promised and done are born brothers. I said by Friday, and so I did,” said Platon, smiling and unfolding the shirt he had made.
The Frenchman glanced around uneasily and, as if overcoming his hesitations, quickly took off his jacket and put on the shirt. Under the jacket there was no shirt on the Frenchman, but on his bare, yellow, thin body he was wearing a long, greasy waistcoat of flowered silk. The Frenchman was clearly afraid that the prisoners would laugh, looking at him, and he hastily thrust his head into the shirt. None of the prisoners said a word.
“See, it’s just right,” Platon kept saying as he straightened the shirt on him. The Frenchman, having put his head and arms through without raising his eyes, studied the shirt on himself and examined the stitching.
“What, little falcon, this is no sewing shop, we’ve got no real tools; they say you can’t even kill a louse without the right gear,” Platon said, smiling roundly and clearly rejoicing over his own work himself.
“C’est bien, c’est bien, merci, mais vous devez avoir de la toile de reste?”*702 said the Frenchman.
“It’ll fit better if you put it on your body,” said Karataev, continuing to rejoice over his work. “See, it’ll be fine and nice…”
“Merci, merci, mon vieux, le reste?…” the Frenchman repeated, smiling, and taking out a banknote, he handed it to Karataev, “mais le reste…”†703
Pierre saw that Platon did not want to understand what the Frenchman was saying and watched them without interfering. Karataev thanked him for the money and went on admiring his work. The Frenchman insisted on the leftovers and asked Pierre to translate what he said.
“What does he need the leftovers for?” said Karataev. “They’d make us some grand foot cloths. Well, God be with him.” And Karataev, with a suddenly changed, sad face, took the bundle of scraps from his bosom and handed it to the Frenchman without looking at him. “Ah, well!” said Karataev, and he went back inside. The Frenchman looked at the cloth, fell to thinking, glanced questioningly at Pierre, and it was as if Pierre’s gaze said something to him.
“Platoche, dites-donc, Platoche,” the Frenchman, suddenly blushing, called out in a squeaky voice. “Gardez pour vous,”*704 he said, handed him the scraps, turned and walked away.
“So there you have it,” said Karataev, shaking his head. “People say they’re heathenish, but they’ve got souls, too. It’s like the old folks say: a sweaty hand’s generous, a dry’s ungiving. He’s naked himself, and here he’s given them to me.” Karataev, looking at the leftovers with a pensive smile, was silent for a time. “And, dear friend, they’ll make the grandest foot cloths,” he said and went back into the shed.
XII
Four weeks had gone by since Pierre was taken prisoner. Though the French had offered to transfer him from the soldiers’ shed to the officers’, he had stayed in the shed he had entered on the first day.
In devastated and burnt Moscow, Pierre experienced almost the final limits of privation that a man can endure; but, owing to his strong constitution and health, which he had not been conscious of until then, and especially owing to the fact that these privations came so imperceptibly that it was impossible to tell when they began, he bore his situation not only lightly, but joyfully. And precisely in that time he received the peace and contentment with himself which he had previously striven for in vain. In his life he had long sought in various directions for that peace, that harmony with himself, which had struck him so much in the soldiers during the battle of Borodino—he had sought it in philanthropy, in Masonry, in the distractions of social life, in wine, in a heroic deed of self-sacrifice, in romantic love for Natasha; he had sought it by way of thought, and all this seeking and trying had disappointed him. And, without thinking, he had received that peace and harmony with himself only through the horror of death, through privation, and through what he had understood in Karataev. It was as if those terrible moments he