War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [860]
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‡580Excellent, exquisite!
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*581Yes, my dear Monsieur Pierre, I owe you a debt of gratitude for having saved me…from that madman…You see, I have enough bullets in me. Here’s one…from Wagram and a second from Smolensk…And there’s this leg, as you see, that doesn’t want to walk. It was at the great battle of the 7th on the Moskova that I got that. Holy God, it was beautiful. You had to have seen it, it was a flood of fire. You carved out a rough task for us; you can be proud of it, by golly. And, on my word, despite the lick I came in for, I’d be ready to do it over again. I pity those who didn’t see it.
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†582I was there.
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‡583Ah, really! Well, so much the better…You’re tough enemies, anyhow. The great redoubt held out, bedad. And you made us pay pluckily for it. I went up it three times, as I’m here before you. Three times we were on the cannon and three times they knocked us over like cardboard hares. Oh! it was beautiful, Monsieur Pierre. Your grenadiers were superb, by God’s thunder. I saw them close ranks six times in a row and march as if they were on review. Fine men! Our king of Naples, who knows something about it, shouted: Bravo! Ha, ha! Soldiers like the rest of us!…So much the better, so much the better, Monsieur Pierre. Terrible in battle…gallant…with the pretty women, that’s the French for you, Monsieur Pierre, isn’t it so?
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§584By the way, tell me, is it true that all the women have left Moscow? What a funny idea! What did they have to fear?
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#585Wouldn’t the French ladies leave Paris if the Russians entered it?
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*586Ha, ha, ha!…Oh! that’s a good one…Paris…But Paris…Paris…
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†587Paris, capital of the world…
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‡588Well, if you hadn’t told me you were a Russian, I would have bet you were a Parisian. You have that…I don’t know what, that…
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§589I was in Paris. I spent years there.
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#590Oh, that’s quite obvious. Paris!…A man who doesn’t know Paris is a savage. You can smell a Parisian two leagues away. Paris is Talma, la Duchesnois, Potier, the Sorbonne, the boulevards…There is only one Paris in the world. You’ve been in Paris and you’ve remained a Russian. Well, I don’t respect you any the less for it.
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**591To come back to your ladies, they’re said to be very beautiful. What an awful idea to go and bury themselves in the steppes when the French army is in Moscow. What a chance they’ve missed. Your muzhiks are another thing, but you more civilized people ought to know us better than that. We’ve taken Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, Naples, Rome, Warsaw, all the capitals of the world…We’re feared, but we’re loved. We’re good to know. And then the emperor…
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††592The emperor…Is the emperor…
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*593The emperor? He is generosity, clemency, justice, order, genius, that’s the emperor! It is I, Ramballe, who tell you so. As I’m here before you, I was his enemy eight years ago. My father was an émigré count…But the man won me over. He gripped me. I couldn’t resist the spectacle of the greatness and glory with which he covered France. When I understood what he wanted, when I saw that he was making us a bed of laurels, you see, I said to myself: there’s a real sovereign, and I gave myself to him. Well, there! Oh, yes, my dear, he’s the greatest man of ages past and to come.
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†594Is he in Moscow?
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‡595No, he will make his entry tomorrow.
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*596Charming…the colonel of these Württembergers [sic]! He’s a German, but a good fellow if there ever was one. But German.
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†597By the way, you know German, then?
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‡598How do you say “shelter” in German?
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§599The Germans are downright fools. Isn’t it so, Monsieur Pierre?
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