Book Fourteen: 1812 - Chapter XIV

by Leo Tolstoy

　　"A vos places!"* suddenly cried a voice.

　　*"To your places."

　　A pleasant feeling of excitement and an expectation of somethingjoyful and solemn was aroused among the soldiers of the convoy and theprisoners. From all sides came shouts of command, and from the leftcame smartly dressed cavalrymen on good horses, passing theprisoners at a trot. The expression on all faces showed the tensionpeople feel at the approach of those in authority. The prisonersthronged together and were pushed off the road. The convoy formed up.

　　"The Emperor! The Emperor! The Marshal! The Duke!" and hardly hadthe sleek cavalry passed, before a carriage drawn by six gray horsesrattled by. Pierre caught a glimpse of a man in a three-cornered hatwith a tranquil look on his handsome, plump, white face. It was one ofthe marshals. His eye fell on Pierre's large and striking figure,and in the expression with which he frowned and looked away Pierrethought he detected sympathy and a desire to conceal that sympathy.

　　The general in charge of the stores galloped after the carriage witha red and frightened face, whipping up his skinny horse. Severalofficers formed a group and some soldiers crowded round them. Theirfaces all looked excited and worried.

　　"What did he say? What did he say?" Pierre heard them ask.

　　While the marshal was passing, the prisoners had huddled together ina crowd, and Pierre saw Karataev whom he had not yet seen thatmorning. He sat in his short overcoat leaning against a birch tree. Onhis face, besides the look of joyful emotion it had worn yesterdaywhile telling the tale of the merchant who suffered innocently,there was now an expression of quiet solemnity.

　　Karataev looked at Pierre with his kindly round eyes now filled withtears, evidently wishing him to come near that he might saysomething to him. But Pierre was not sufficiently sure of himself.He made as if he did not notice that look and moved hastily away.

　　When the prisoners again went forward Pierre looked round.Karataev was still sitting at the side of the road under the birchtree and two Frenchmen were talking over his head. Pierre did not lookround again but went limping up the hill.

　　From behind, where Karataev had been sitting, came the sound of ashot. Pierre heard it plainly, but at that moment he remembered thathe had not yet finished reckoning up how many stages still remained toSmolensk- a calculation he had begun before the marshal went by. Andhe again started reckoning. Two French soldiers ran past Pierre, oneof whom carried a lowered and smoking gun. They both looked pale,and in the expression on their faces- one of them glanced timidly atPierre- there was something resembling what he had seen on the face ofthe young soldier at the execution. Pierre looked at the soldier andremembered that, two days before, that man had burned his shirtwhile drying it at the fire and how they had laughed at him.

　　Behind him, where Karataev had been sitting, the dog began tohowl. "What a stupid beast! Why is it howling?" thought Pierre.

　　His comrades, the prisoner soldiers walking beside him, avoidedlooking back at the place where the shot had been fired and the dogwas howling, just as Pierre did, but there was a set look on all theirfaces.