There were two of them. One was an officer, tall and handsome, a fine figure of a man; the other, obviously a common soldier or an orderly, was a short, thin, sunburnt man with sunken cheeks and a blank look on his face. The officer limped in first, leaning on a stick. He took only a few steps before apparently deciding that these would make good quarters; he stopped, turned round and bawled in an authoritative voice to the soldiers standing in the doorway to put up the horses. Having seen to this, he crooked an elbow and raised it on high ostentatiously, smoothing his moustache and touching his hat.
‘Good day to you one and all!’ he said in French with a cheery smile, taking a good look around.
There was no response.
‘Are you the master of the house?’ the officer asked Gerasim.
Gerasim gave the officer an anxious, quizzical look.
‘Quarters. Quarters. Lodgings,’ said the officer, peering down at the little man from his great height with a cheery, ingratiating smile. ‘The French are good fellows. No harsh words between us, old fellow,’ he went on in French, looking at Gerasim, who was too scared to speak, and clapping him on the shoulder. ‘I say, are there no French-speakers in this establishment?’ he added, looking round and meeting Pierre’s eyes. Pierre shrank back from the door.
The officer turned back to Gerasim, and asked to be shown over the house.
‘Gone master . . . no savvy . . . me you . . .’ said Gerasim, trying to add meaning to his words by saying them in the wrong order.
The French officer gave a smile, waved his hands in front of Gerasim’s nose to let him know he didn’t understand either, and limped over towards the door where Pierre was standing. Pierre made a move, intending to go and hide, but at that very moment he caught a glimpse of Makar Bazdeyev, who had appeared at the open kitchen door with a pistol in his hand. With a madman’s cunning Makar eyed the Frenchmen, raised his pistol and took aim.
‘Prepare for boarding!’ yelled the drunken man, squeezing the trigger. The French officer spun round at this cry, and at the same instant Pierre flung himself at the drunkard. As Pierre grabbed the pistol and jerked it up in the air, Makar finally managed to get his finger on the trigger, there was a terrific bang and they were all enveloped in a cloud of smoke. The Frenchman turned pale and rushed back to the door.
Forgetting his intention of hiding his knowledge of French, Pierre snatched the pistol away and threw it down, before running over to the officer and speaking to him in French. ‘You’re not wounded, are you?’ he asked.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ answered the officer, checking all over his body, ‘but it was a near thing,’ he added, pointing to a hole in the plaster on one wall.
‘Who is this man?’ he asked with a grim look at Pierre.
‘Oh, I really am in despair at what’s happened,’ Pierre blurted out, forgetting the part he was supposed to be playing. ‘He’s a madman, a wretched creature. He didn’t know what he was doing.’
The officer went over to Makar and fingered his collar.
Makar’s lips were pouting as he leant shakily against the wall; he seemed almost to be falling asleep.
‘You brigand! You’re going to pay for this!’ said the Frenchman, letting go of him. ‘We are merciful in victory, but we do not pardon traitors,’ he added with a splendid flourish, looking all grave and gloomy.
Pierre carried on in French, trying to persuade the officer not to be too hard on this drunken imbecile. The Frenchman listened in silence with the same gloomy air, and then suddenly turned to Pierre with a smile on his face. He stared at him for several seconds without saying anything. Then his handsome face melted into an expression of histrionic sentimentality, and he held out his hand.
‘You saved my life. You are French,’ he said. For this Frenchman there could be no other conclusion. Heroic deeds could only be performed by Frenchmen and saving the life of Monsieur Ramballe, captain of the Thirteenth Light Brigade, had been an unmistakably heroic deed.
But, for all the sureness of the officer’s conclusion and his absolute certainty, Pierre felt he had to disillusion him.
‘I’m Russian,’ he said quickly.
‘Tut-tut-tut! Tell that to other people,’ said the Frenchman, smiling and waving a finger before his nose. ‘You can tell me all about it later on,’ he said. ‘Delighted to meet a fellow countryman. Well then, what shall we do with this man?’ he added, treating Pierre like a brother-in-arms. The French officer’s expression and tone seemed to imply that if Pierre really wasn’t a Frenchman he would hardly want to disavow the designation once it had been bestowed, this being the most honourable title in the world. Pierre dealt with his last question, and explained again who Makar Bazdeyev was. He also explained that just before the officer’s arrival the drunken imbecile had managed to snatch a loaded pistol and they had been unable to get it off him. Pierre begged him to let his action go unpunished.
