Pierre was speechless. Before he had time to decide on a course of action, Davout looked up, pushed his spectacles up on his forehead, screwed up his eyes and stared closely at Pierre.
‘I know this man,’ he said, in an icy, even tone, clearly calculated to put the fear of death into Pierre. The chill that had been running down Pierre’s spine now seemed to crush his head in a vice-like grip.
‘You cannot know me, General, I have never seen you.’
‘He’s a Russian spy,’ Davout interrupted, speaking to another general whom Pierre had not noticed. Davout turned away. With an unexpected tremor in his voice Pierre launched forth and was soon in full flow.
‘No, monseigneur,’ he said, suddenly remembering that Davout was a duke. ‘You couldn’t know me. I’m a militia officer, and I haven’t been out of Moscow.’
‘Your name?’ Davout repeated.
‘Bezukhov.’
‘What proof is there that you’re not lying?’
‘Monseigneur!’ cried Pierre more in supplication than annoyance.
Davout looked up again and stared closely at Pierre. For several seconds they looked at one another, and it was this look that saved Pierre. The business of staring at each other took them beyond the realm of warfare and courtrooms; they were two human beings and there was a bond between them. There was a single instant that involved an infinite sharing of experience in which they knew they were both children of humanity, and they were brothers.
When Davout had first glanced up from the document that had the lives and actions of men numbered off in columns, Pierre was nothing more than a chance occurrence, and Davout could have had him shot without the slightest qualm of conscience, but now he recognized him as a man. He thought for a moment.
‘How will you prove the truth of what you say?’ asked Davout icily.
Pierre thought of Ramballe, and gave his name, his regiment and the street and house where he was staying.
‘You are not what you say,’ Davout said again.
Pierre’s voice shook and trembled as he struggled to find proof that his testimony was true.
But at that moment an adjutant came in and said something to Davout.
Davout beamed at the adjutant’s news and began buttoning up his jacket. He seemed to have completely forgotten about Pierre. When the adjutant reminded him about the prisoner, he scowled, nodded in Pierre’s direction, and told them to take him away. But where they were taking him Pierre couldn’t tell: was it back to the shed or over to the place of execution that his companions had pointed to on their way past the Virgin’s Field?
He looked round and saw that the adjutant was checking something. ‘Yes, of course,’ said Davout. But Pierre had no idea what the ‘yes’ meant.
Pierre would never remember where he went, how they got there or how long it took. In a state of total stupefaction and bemusement, taking nothing in, he made his legs move in step with the others until they all stopped, and he stopped. And all this time Pierre’s head was obsessed with a single thought, a simple question: who had condemned him to death? Who was it?
It wasn’t the men who had interrogated him at the first session; clearly, none of them had wanted to, or had the authority. It couldn’t have been Davout, who had put such humanity into his look. Davout had been no more than a minute away from understanding that things had gone badly wrong, but that had been prevented by the arrival of the adjutant. The adjutant had obviously had no evil intent, though he could have stayed outside. Who was it, then, when all was said and done, who was punishing him, killing him, taking his life, Pierre’s life, with all his memories, yearnings, hopes and ideas? Who was doing this? And Pierre felt he knew the answer: no one was.
It was the way of things. A pattern of circumstances.
It was some kind of system that was killing him, killing Pierre, taking his life, taking everything away, destroying him.
CHAPTER 11
