The Frenchman stuck out his chest, and made a regal gesture with one hand.
‘You saved my life! You are a Frenchman. You ask me to pardon him. I grant you his pardon. Take this man away.’ The French officer spoke quickly and with strong emphasis. He had latched on to Pierre, promoting him to French citizenship for having saved his life, and now walked with him further into the house.
The soldiers, who had heard the shot out in the yard, had come into the passage to find out what was happening, only too keen to help punish any offenders, but the officer stopped them in their tracks.
‘You will be sent for when you are needed,’ he said. The soldiers withdrew. The orderly, who had found his way to the kitchen, came in to report to the officer.
‘Captain, they have soup and a leg of mutton in the kitchen,’ he said. ‘Shall I serve them up?’
‘Yes, and the wine,’ said the captain.
CHAPTER 29
The French officer walked further in with Pierre, who felt duty bound to repeat for the captain’s benefit that he wasn’t French; he also made an attempt to go his own way, but the captain wouldn’t hear of it. He was so courteous, polite, affable and genuinely grateful to him for saving his life that Pierre hadn’t the heart to refuse, so he sat down with him in the first large room they came to. When Pierre kept on insisting he wasn’t French, the captain, plainly at a loss to understand how anyone could repudiate such a flattering title, gave a shrug and said that if he insisted on passing himself off as a Russian, so be it, but it made no difference – he would still feel a special bond between them that would last for ever, eternal gratitude to Pierre for saving his life.
If this man had shown even the slightest sensitivity towards the feelings of others, and had had the faintest inkling of what Pierre was going through, Pierre might well have walked away at this point. But since the man was a bundle of energy and impervious to anything beyond himself he was too much for Pierre.
‘Frenchman or Russian prince incognito,’ said the Frenchman with a glance at Pierre’s dirty but obviously high-quality linen, and the ring on his finger. ‘I owe my life to you, and I offer you my friendship. A Frenchman never forgets an insult or a favour. I offer you my friendship. That’s all I have to say.’
The officer’s smile, tone of voice, facial expression and hand-movements spoke so eloquently of open-heartedness and nobility (in the French sense) that Pierre instinctively smiled back as he accepted the outstretched hand.
‘Captain Ramballe of the Thirteenth Light Brigade, Chevalier of the Legion of Honour following the business of the 7th of September,’4 he said by way of introduction, an irrepressible smile of self-satisfaction curling the corners of his mouth under the moustache. ‘Will you now please tell me with whom I have the honour of conducting this pleasant conversation when I might have been lying in an ambulance with that madman’s bullet in my body?’
Pierre said he wasn’t in a position to give his name, and he coloured up as he tried to think of another name and started to give reasons for not being in a position to name himself, but the Frenchman cut him short.
‘Please!’ he said. ‘I understand your reasons. You’re an officer . . . maybe a staff-officer. You have taken up arms against us. That’s none of my business. I owe you my life, and that’s what counts. I am at your service. You are a nobleman, aren’t you?’ he added rather quizzically. Pierre gave a bow.
‘Well, please tell me your Christian name. I ask no more than that . . . Monsieur Pierre, you say? Splendid. That’s all I want to know.’
When they had served up the mutton, an omelette, a samovar, vodka, and some wine taken from a Russian cellar and brought along by the French, Ramballe invited Pierre to share his meal, and then he set to work himself with the greedy appetite of a healthy, hungry man, munching away with his strong teeth, and continually smacking his lips and exclaiming, ‘Splendid! Delicious!’ His reddened face was soon running with perspiration. Pierre was feeling hungry too, and he joined in with a will. Morel, the orderly, brought some hot water in a sauce-pan and put a bottle of claret in it to warm. He returned with a bottle of kvass for them to taste. This drink was already known to the French, and it had its own nickname. They called it ‘pig’s lemonade’ and Morel, who had found it in the kitchen, praised it to the skies. But since the captain had his wine, acquired on the way across Moscow, he let Morel have the kvass while he attended to the bottle of Bordeaux. He wrapped a napkin round the neck of the bottle and poured out a glass of wine for himself and Pierre. With his appetite satisfied and the wine going to his head the captain became livelier than ever, and he chatted away incessantly throughout dinner.
