Pierre is examined by the French marshal. The marshal is called away on business. The prisoners are led away. Pierre fears the guards may be taking him and the other prisoners to be executed.
Pierre is examined by the French marshal. The marshal is called away on business. The prisoners are led away. Pierre fears the guards may be taking him and the other prisoners to be executed.
Book 12, Chapter 10
Pierre is examined by the French marshal. The marshal is called away on business. The prisoners are led away. Pierre fears the guards may be taking him and the other prisoners to be executed.
Summary:
On the eighth of September Pierre with thirteen other prisoners were tidied up to be walked over to be examined by the French marshal. Once outside, as far as Pierre could see on all sides, all Moscow appeared one vast charred ruin. Pierre could see the French military bustling about everywhere he looked over the ruined and destroyed city. The few Russians to be seen were tattered and frightened people who tried to hide when they saw the French. Pierre and the other prisoners were taken into a large house to be examined by the marshal, the Duke of Eckmühl (Davout). Pierre was the sixth to enter. Davout accuses Pierre of being a Russian spy, but Pierre says he is merely a militia officer who did not flee the city. Worried he will be executed; Pierre tries to offer Davout any facts he can think of to establish his identity. Davout does not believe him. Then, just as Davout and Pierre begin to form a human connection, Davout is called away on business. Pierre and the other prisoners are led away. Pierre fears the French are going to execute him and his fellow prisoners.
quote from the chapter:
What proof have I that you are not lying?
Monseigneur! exclaimed Pierre, not in an offended but in a pleading voice.
Davout looked up and gazed intently at him. For some seconds they looked at one another, and that look saved Pierre. Apart from conditions of war and law, that look established human relations between the two men. At that moment an immense number of things passed dimly through both their minds, and they realized that they were both children of humanity and were brothers.
At the first glance, when Davout had only raised his head from the papers where human affairs and lives were indicated by numbers, Pierre was merely a circumstance, and Davout could have shot him without burdening his conscience with an evil deed, but now he saw in him a human being. He reflected for a moment.
How can you show me that you are telling the truth? said Davout coldly.
Pierre remembered Ramballe, and named him and his regiment and the street where the house was.
You are not what you say, returned Davout.
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