Book Twelve: 1812 - Chapter IX

by Leo Tolstoy

　　The officer and soldiers who had arrested Pierre treated him withhostility but yet with respect, in the guardhouse to which he wastaken. In their attitude toward him could still be felt bothuncertainty as to who he might be- perhaps a very important person-and hostility as a result of their recent personal conflict with him.

　　But when the guard was relieved next morning, Pierre felt that forthe new guard- both officers and men- he was not as interesting ashe had been to his captors; and in fact the guard of the second daydid not recognize in this big, stout man in a peasant coat thevigorous person who had fought so desperately with the marauder andthe convoy and had uttered those solemn words about saving a child;they saw in him only No. 17 of the captured Russians, arrested anddetained for some reason by order of the Higher Command. If theynoticed anything remarkable about Pierre, it was only his unabashed,meditative concentration and thoughtfulness, and the way he spokeFrench, which struck them as surprisingly good. In spite of this hewas placed that day with the other arrested suspects, as theseparate room he had occupied was required by an officer.

　　All the Russians confined with Pierre were men of the lowest classand, recognizing him as a gentleman, they all avoided him, moreespecially as he spoke French. Pierre felt sad at hearing themmaking fun of him.

　　That evening he learned that all these prisoners (he, probably,among them) were to be tried for incendiarism. On the third day he wastaken with the others to a house where a French general with a whitemustache sat with two colonels and other Frenchmen with scarves ontheir arms. With the precision and definiteness customary inaddressing prisoners, and which is supposed to preclude human frailty,Pierre like the others was questioned as to who he was, where he hadbeen, with what object, and so on.

　　These questions, like questions put at trials generally, left theessence of the matter aside, shut out the possibility of thatessence's being revealed, and were designed only to form a channelthrough which the judges wished the answers of the accused to flowso as to lead to the desired result, namely a conviction. As soon asPierre began to say anything that did not fit in with that aim, thechannel was removed and the water could flow to waste. Pierre felt,moreover, what the accused always feel at their trial, perplexity asto why these questions were put to him. He had a feeling that it wasonly out of condescension or a kind of civility that this device ofplacing a channel was employed. He knew he was in these men's power,that only by force had they brought him there, that force alone gavethem the right to demand answers to their questions, and that the soleobject of that assembly was to inculpate him. And so, as they hadthe power and wish to inculpate him, this expedient of an inquiryand trial seemed unnecessary. It was evident that any answer wouldlead to conviction. When asked what he was doing when he was arrested,Pierre replied in a rather tragic manner that he was restoring toits parents a child he had saved from the flames. Why had he foughtthe marauder? Pierre answered that he "was protecting a woman," andthat "to protect a woman who was being insulted was the duty ofevery man; that..." They interrupted him, for this was not to thepoint. Why was he in the yard of a burning house where witnesses hadseen him? He replied that he had gone out to see what was happening inMoscow. Again they interrupted him: they had not asked where he wasgoing, but why he was found near the fire? Who was he? they asked,repeating their first question, which he had declined to answer. Againhe replied that he could not answer it.

　　"Put that down, that's bad... very bad," sternly remarked thegeneral with the white mustache and red flushed face.

　　On the fourth day fires broke out on the Zubovski rampart.

　　Pierre and thirteen others were moved to the coach house of amerchant's house near the Crimean bridge. On his way through thestreets Pierre felt stifled by the smoke which seemed to hang over thewhole city. Fires were visible on all sides. He did not then realizethe significance of the burning of Moscow, and looked at the fireswith horror.

　　He passed four days in the coach house near the Crimean bridge andduring that time learned, from the talk of the French soldiers, thatall those confined there were awaiting a decision which might come anyday from the marshal. What marshal this was, Pierre could not learnfrom the soldiers. Evidently for them "the marshal" represented a veryhigh and rather mysterious power.

　　These first days, before the eighth of September when theprisoners were had up for a second examination, were the hardest ofall for Pierre.