Chapter 10 chapter Ten

On September 8, a very important officer entered the prisoner's garage, which was evident from the degree of respect the guards had for him.This officer, probably someone from the staff, took a list, named all the Russians by name, and called Pierre: celuiquin'avoue passonnom (who does not want to be named).He looked over the captives with a cold and lazy look, and ordered the guarding officer to dress and tidy them up and take them to the marshal.An hour later a company of soldiers arrived, and Pierre and thirteen others were led to the Place Notre-Dame.It was a sunny day after rain, and the air was very clean.The smoke does not hang down like it did on the day Pierre was brought out of the Zubowski fortress detention: it rises like a column through the clean air.The flames were nowhere to be seen, but columns of smoke were rising on all sides, and all Moscow, so far as Pierre could see, was a devastated ruin.Here and there you can see the rubble of stoves and chimneys, and here and there the charred walls of stone houses.As Pierre surveyed the ruins, he could no longer recognize the familiar neighbors.There are still intact churches in some places.The unspoiled Kremlin looms white from a distance, with its towers and Ivan the Great's bell tower.Nearby, the vaults of the Convent of Santa Maria Novella shone brilliantly, and the bells sounded especially loud from there.The bell reminded Pierre that it was Sunday, the Feast of the Nativity.But no one seemed to celebrate the holiday: everywhere was the devastation of the disaster, and the occasional Russian, shabby and terrified, hid at the sight of the French.

Obviously, this nest of Russia has been overturned and destroyed, but behind the destruction of the order of Russian life, Pierre unconsciously felt that a completely different and stable society had been established on top of this overturned nest. French system.He saw it by the way the soldiers escorting him and the other convicts marched in order, in good spirits and in a good mood; It was evident that the merry music of the military band coming from the square to the left had made him feel this too, and especially from the list of prisoners that had been read out by the French officer who had come this morning.The soldiers who captured Pierre took him to one place and took him with dozens of others to another; it seemed as if they would forget him and confuse him with the others.But no: he remembered that when he answered the interrogation, he was called again: celuiquin'avouepassonnom (the person who did not want to give his name).Pierre, bearing the name that now frightened him, was being led somewhere, with the unmistakable confidence on the faces of the escorts, that all the rest of the prisoners and he were the ones they had to escort, they is being taken where it needs to go.Pierre felt himself a speck of wood falling into the wheels of a machine he did not recognize, but which was working precisely.

Pierre and the other convicts were taken to the right of the Place Notre-Dame, not far from the abbey, near the great white house with its large garden.This was the residence of Prince Shcherbatov, where Pierre used to come to visit his master, and now, he learned from the conversation of the soldiers, that the Field Marshal, Prince Ekmir (Daou), was stationed here. They were brought to the porch and began to be led into the house one by one, Pierre being the sixth.Passing a corridor with a glass window, a hallway, an antechamber where the surface of things cannot be grasped, the reality of things can only be grasped by intuition, (this is all familiar to Pierre), he is led into a long and narrow room. In the office, an adjutant stood at the door.

Davu sat at the far end of the room, leaning against a table, a pair of glasses resting on the bridge of his nose.Pierre came close to him.Davu did not raise his eyes.Apparently reviewing the official document in front of him, without raising his eyes, he asked quietesvous (who are you) in a low voice? Pierre was silent because he could not speak.It seemed to him that Daou was not only a French general, but to Pierre Daou had a reputation for being cruel.Pierre looked at the hard face of Daou (like a good teacher who is willing to wait patiently for a moment for an answer), and he felt that every second of delay would cost him his life; but he did not know Say what.He couldn't decide whether to say what he had said at his first trial; it was dangerous and ashamed to reveal his title and position.Pierre was silent.But before Pierre could decide what to do, Davu raised his head, pushed his glasses to his forehead, and squinted his eyes to observe Pierre carefully.

"I know him," he said in a calm, cold voice, evidently trying to frighten Pierre.A chill ran through Pierre's spine, then gripped his head like a vise. "Mongeneral, vousnepouvezpasmeconnaitre, jenevousaijamaisvu..." "C'estunespionrusse," Daou interrupted, addressing another general in the room, whom Pierre had not noticed.Dawu turned his face to the general again.Suddenly Pierre said hastily, in a trembling voice: -------- ① "You can't know me, General, I've never met you..." "Non, monseigneur," he said, and at the same time unexpectedly remembered that Daou was a duke. "Non, monseigneur, vousn'avezpaspumeconnaitre. Jesusunofficiermilitionnaireetjen'aipasquitteMoscou."

"Votrenom." Davu asked again. "This man is a Russian spy." "Besouhof." "Qu'est cequime prouveraque vousnementezpas?" "Monseigneur!" cried Pierre, not in a tone of grievance but of entreaty. Davous raised his eyes to look carefully at Pierre.They looked at each other for a few seconds, and this "look" saved Pierre.This "seeing" established a human relationship between the two, bypassing the war and interrogation.At this moment, both of them vaguely felt countless things again and again, and understood that both of them were children of human beings, brothers.

Davous raised his head from the list (the list is marked with numbers of persons and lives), and the Pierre he saw at first sight was only a prop, and Davous could shoot him with no regrets; But now he sees people in him.He pondered for a while. "Commentmeprouverezvouslaveritedicequevous Medites? "② He said coldly. Pierre thought of Lambalet, and called out his regimental name, his surname, and the street in which the house stood. "Vousn'etespascequevousdites." ③Dawu said again. -------- ① "No, sir... No, sir, you cannot possibly know me. I am a militia officer, and I have not left Moscow." "Your name?" "Bezukhov." "Who can prove that you are not lying?" "Your Mightiness."

②How can you prove to me that what you said is true? ③You are not who you say you are. Trembling, Pierre gave examples intermittently to prove what he said was true. But at this moment an adjutant came in and reported something to Davous. As soon as Dawu heard the news from the adjutant, he immediately showed a happy look and started to button and buckle.It seemed that he had completely forgotten about Pierre. When the adjutant mentioned the prisoner to him, he frowned and nodded towards Pierre, saying that he would take him away.But where to take it, Pierre didn't know: whether to go back to the garage, or to the execution ground, the place the fellow prisoners had pointed out to him when they passed the Notre-Dame Square.

He turned his head and saw the adjutant asking about something. "Qui, sansdoute!" (Yes, of course!) Daou said, but what was "right", Pierre did not know. Pierre could not remember how he got there, how long he went, or where he went.With his mind completely blank and numb, he couldn't see anything around him, he just moved his feet and walked with the others until everyone stopped, and he stopped too. During all this time only one thought was entangled in Pierre's head.That is: who, exactly, finally sentenced him to death?These were not the men whom the committee tried him: none of them wanted to do so, and it seemed that they were incapable of passing the verdict.It wasn't Dawu either, he looked at him so humanely.Had he waited another minute, Davous would have understood what they were doing stupidly, but the adjutant who had come got in the way.And the adjutant obviously didn't want to do bad things, but he might as well not have come in.Who was it after all to execute Di, to shoot him, to take his Pierre's life—with all his memories, aspirations, hopes, and thoughts?

Who decides?And so Pierre felt that no one here would do that. This is a system, a makeshift of various circumstances. Some system wanted to kill him—Pierre, to take his life and everything, to destroy him.