War And Peace: Book 14 - CHAPTER XIII

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AT MIDDAY on the 22nd, Pierre was walking along the muddy, slippery road

uphill, looking at his feet and at the unevenness of the road. From time to time

he glanced at the familiar crowd around him, and then again at his feet. Both

that crowd and those feet were alike his and familiar to him. The purplish,

bandy-legged, grey dog was running merrily along at the side of the road;

sometimes picking up a hind leg, and skipping along on three paws as a sign of

content and briskness, or barking at the crows that perched on the carrion. The

grey dog was sleeker and merrier than in Moscow. All around lay the flesh of

different animals— from men to horses—in different stages of decomposition, and

the marching soldiers prevented wolves from coming near it, so that the grey dog

could feast to her heart's content.

Rain had been falling since early morning; and it seemed continually as

though in another minute it would cease and the sky would clear, when, after a

short break, the rain came on again more heavily. The road, saturated with rain,

could soak up no more, and streams flowed along the ruts.

Pierre walked, looking from side to side, counting his steps, and reckoning

them off in threes on his fingers. Inwardly addressing the rain, he said to it,

“Now then, come on then, pelt away!”

It seemed to him that he was thinking of nothing at all; but somewhere deep

down his soul was pondering something grave and consolatory. That something was

the subtlest, spiritual deduction arising from his talk the night before with

Karataev.

Getting chilled by the dying fire on the previous night's halt, Pierre had

got up and moved to the next fire, which was burning better. There Platon was

sitting, with a coat put over his head, like a priest's chasuble. In his

flexible, pleasant voice, feeble now from illness, he was telling the soldiers a

story Pierre had heard already. It was past midnight, the time when Karataev's

fever usually abated, and he was particularly lively. As he drew near the fire

and heard Platon's weak, sickly voice, and saw his piteous mien in the bright

firelight, Pierre felt a pang at heart. He was frightened at his own pity for

this man, and would have gone away, but there was no other fire to go to, and

trying not to look at Platon, he sat down by it.

“Well, how is your fever?” he asked.

“How is my fever? Weep over sickness, and God won't give you death,” said

Karataev, and he went back at once to the story he had begun.

“And so, brother,” he went on with a smile on his thin, white face, and a

peculiar, joyful light in his eyes, “And so, brother …”

Pierre had heard the story long before. Karataev had told it to him, about

six times already, and always with special joyful emotion. But well as Pierre

knew the story, he listened to it now as though it were something new, and the

subdued ecstasy, which Karataev evidently felt in telling it, infected Pierre

too.

It was the story of an old merchant, who had lived in good works and in the

fear of God with his family, and had made a journey one day with a companion, a

rich merchant, to Makary.

Both the merchants had put up at an inn and gone to sleep; and next day the

rich merchant had been found robbed, and with his throat cut. A knife, stained

with blood, was found under the old merchant's pillow. The merchant was tried,

sentenced to be flogged, and to have his nostrils slit—all according to the law

in due course, as Karataev said—and sent to hard labour.

“And so, brother” (it was at this point in the story that Pierre found

Karataev) “ten years or more passed by after that. The old man lives on in

prison. He submits, as is fitting; he does nothing wrong. Only he prays to God

for death. Very well. And so at night-time they are gathered together, the

convicts, just as we are here, and the old man with them. And so they fall to

talking of what each is suffering for, and how he has sinned against God. One

tells how he took a man's life, another two, another had set fire to something,

and another was a runaway just for no reason. So they began asking the old man,

‘What,' they say, ‘are you suffering for, grandfather?' ‘I am suffering, dear

brethren,' says he, ‘for my own sins, and for other men's sins. I have not taken

a life, nor taken other men's goods, save what I have bestowed on poorer

brethren. I was a merchant, dear brethren, and I had great wealth.' And he tells

them this and that, and how the whole thing had happened. ‘For myself,' says he,

‘I do not grieve. God has chastened me. The only thing,' says he, ‘I am sorry

for my old wife and my children.' And so the old man fell a-weeping. And it so

happened that in that company there was the very man, you know, who had killed

the merchant. ‘Where did it happen, grandfather?' says he. ‘When and in what

month?' and so he asked him all about it. His heart began to ache. He goes up to

the old man like this—and falls down at his feet. ‘You are suffering for me, old

man,' says he. ‘It's the holy truth; this man is tormented innocently, for

nothing, lads,' says he. ‘I did that deed,' says he, ‘and put the knife under

his head when he was asleep. Forgive me, grandfather, for Christ's sake!' says

he.”

Karataev paused, smiling blissfully, and gazing at the fire, as he rearranged

the logs.

“The old man, he says, ‘God forgive you,' says he, ‘but we are all sinners

before God,' says he. ‘I am suffering for my own sins.' And he wept with bitter

tears. What do you think, darling?” said Karataev, his ecstatic smile growing

more and more radiant, as though the great charm and whole point of his story

lay in what he was going to tell now, “what do you think, darling, that murderer

confessed of himself to the police. ‘I have killed six men,' says he (for he was

a great criminal), ‘but what I am most sorry for is this old man. Let him not

weep through my fault.' He confessed. It was written down, and a paper sent off

to the right place. The place was far away. Then came a trial. Then all the

reports were written in due course, by the authorities, I mean. It was brought

to the Tsar. Then a decree comes from the Tsar to let the merchant go free; to

give him the recompense they had awarded him. The paper comes; they fall to

looking for the old man. Where was that old man who had suffered innocently? The

paper had come from the Tsar, and they fell to looking for him.” Karataev's

lower jaw quivered. “But God had pardoned him already—he was dead! So it

happened, darling!” Karataev concluded, and he gazed a long while straight

before him, smiling silently.

Not the story itself, but its mysterious import, the ecstatic gladness that

beamed in Karataev's face as he told it, the mysterious significance of that

gladness vaguely filled and rejoiced Pierre's soul now.

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