Book Fourteen: 1812 - Chapter XIII

by Leo Tolstoy

　　At midday on the twenty-second of October Pierre was going uphillalong the muddy, slippery road, looking at his feet and at theroughness of the way. Occasionally he glanced at the familiar crowdaround him and then again at his feet. The former and the latterwere alike familiar and his own. The blue-gray bandy legged dog ranmerrily along the side of the road, sometimes in proof of itsagility and self-satisfaction lifting one hind leg and hopping alongon three, and then again going on all four and rushing to bark atthe crows that sat on the carrion. The dog was merrier and sleekerthan it had been in Moscow. All around lay the flesh of differentanimals- from men to horses- in various stages of decomposition; andas the wolves were kept off by the passing men the dog could eat allit wanted.

　　It had been raining since morning and had seemed as if at any momentit might cease and the sky clear, but after a short break it beganraining harder than before. The saturated road no longer absorbedthe water, which ran along the ruts in streams.

　　Pierre walked along, looking from side to side, counting his stepsin threes, and reckoning them off on his fingers. Mentallyaddressing the rain, he repeated: "Now then, now then, go on! Peltharder!"

　　It seemed to him that he was thinking of nothing, but far down anddeep within him his soul was occupied with something important andcomforting. This something was a most subtle spiritual deductionfrom a conversation with Karataev the day before.

　　At their yesterday's halting place, feeling chilly by a dyingcampfire, Pierre had got up and gone to the next one, which wasburning better. There Platon Karataev was sitting covered up- head andall- with his greatcoat as if it were a vestment, telling the soldiersin his effective and pleasant though now feeble voice a story Pierreknew. It was already past midnight, the hour when Karataev was usuallyfree of his fever and particularly lively. When Pierre reached thefire and heard Platon's voice enfeebled by illness, and saw hispathetic face brightly lit up by the blaze, he felt a painful prick athis heart. His feeling of pity for this man frightened him and hewished to go away, but there was no other fire, and Pierre sat down,trying not to look at Platon.

　　"Well, how are you?" he asked.

　　"How am I? If we grumble at sickness, God won't grant us death,"replied Platon, and at once resumed the story he had begun.

　　"And so, brother," he continued, with a smile on his paleemaciated face and a particularly happy light in his eyes, " yousee, brother..."

　　Pierre had long been familiar with that story. Karataev had toldit to him alone some half-dozen times and always with a speciallyjoyful emotion. But well as he knew it, Pierre now listened to thattale as to something new, and the quiet rapture Karataev evidentlyfelt as he told it communicated itself also to Pierre. The story wasof an old merchant who lived a good and God-fearing life with hisfamily, and who went once to the Nizhni fair with a companion- arich merchant.

　　Having put up at an inn they both went to sleep, and next morninghis companion was found robbed and with his throat cut. A bloodstainedknife was found under the old merchant's pillow. He was tried,knouted, and his nostrils having been torn off, "all in due form" asKarataev put it, he was sent to hard labor in Siberia.

　　"And so, brother" (it was at this point that Pierre came up), "tenyears or more passed by. The old man was living as a convict,submitting as he should and doing no wrong. Only he prayed to Godfor death. Well, one night the convicts were gathered just as weare, with the old man among them. And they began telling what each wassuffering for, and how they had sinned against God. One told how hehad taken a life, another had taken two, a third had set a house onfire, while another had simply been a vagrant and had done nothing. Sothey asked the old man: 'What are you being punished for, Daddy?'- 'I,my dear brothers,' said he, 'am being punished for my own and othermen's sins. But I have not killed anyone or taken anything that wasnot mine, but have only helped my poorer brothers. I was a merchant,my dear brothers, and had much property. 'And he went on to tellthem all about it in due order. 'I don't grieve for myself,' hesays, 'God, it seems, has chastened me. Only I am sorry for my oldwife and the children,' and the old man began to weep. Now it happenedthat in the group was the very man who had killed the othermerchant. 'Where did it happen, Daddy?' he said. 'When, and in whatmonth?' He asked all about it and his heart began to ache. So he comesup to the old man like this, and falls down at his feet! 'You areperishing because of me, Daddy,' he says. 'It's quite true, lads, thatthis man,' he says, 'is being tortured innocently and for nothing! I,'he says, 'did that deed, and I put the knife under your head while youwere asleep. Forgive me, Daddy,' he says, 'for Christ's sake!'"

　　Karataev paused, smiling joyously as he gazed into the fire, andhe drew the logs together.

　　"And the old man said, 'God will forgive you, we are all sinnersin His sight. I suffer for my own sins,' and he wept bitter tears.Well, and what do you think, dear friends?" Karataev continued, hisface brightening more and more with a rapturous smile as if what henow had to tell contained the chief charm and the whole meaning of hisstory: "What do you think, dear fellows? That murderer confessed tothe authorities. 'I have taken six lives,' he says (he was a greatsinner), 'but what I am most sorry for is this old man. Don't lethim suffer because of me.' So he confessed and it was all written downand the papers sent off in due form. The place was a long way off, andwhile they were judging, what with one thing and another, filling inthe papers all in due form- the authorities I mean- time passed. Theaffair reached the Tsar. After a while the Tsar's decree came: toset the merchant free and give him a compensation that had beenawarded. The paper arrived and they began to look for the old man.'Where is the old man who has been suffering innocently and in vain? Apaper has come from the Tsar!' so they began looking for him," hereKarataev's lower jaw trembled, "but God had already forgiven him- hewas dead! That's how it was, dear fellows!" Karataev concluded and satfor a long time silent, gazing before him with a smile.

　　And Pierre's soul was dimly but joyfully filled not by the storyitself but by its mysterious significance: by the rapturous joy thatlit up Karataev's face as he told it, and the mystic significance ofthat joy.