the truth of the main idea with no such undercurrent of feeling. The absence of suffering, the satisfaction of needs, and following upon that, freedom in the choice of occupation, that is, of one’s manner of life, seemed to Pierre the highest and most certain happiness of man. Only here and now for the first time in his life Pierre fully appreciated the enjoyment of eating when he was hungry, of drinking when he was thirsty, of sleep when he was sleepy, of warmth when he was cold, of talking to a fellow creature when he wanted to talk and to hear men’s voices. The satisfaction of his needs—good food, cleanliness, freedom— seemed to Pierre now that he was deprived of them to be perfect happiness; and the choice of his occupation, that is, of his manner of life now that that choice was so limited, seemed to him such an easy matter that he forgot that a superfluity of the conveniences of life destroys all happiness in satisfying the physical needs, while a great freedom in the choice of occupation, that freedom which education, wealth, and position in society had given him, makes the choice of occupations exceedingly difficult, and destroys the very desire and possibility of occupation.
All Pierre’s dreams now turned to the time when he would be free. And yet, in all his later life, Pierre thought and spoke with enthusiasm of that month of imprisonment, of those intense and joyful sensations that could never be recalled, and above all of that full, spiritual peace, of that perfect, inward freedom, of which he had only experience at that period.
On the first day, when, getting up early in the morning, he came out of the shed into the dawn, and saw the cupolas and the crosses of the New Monastery of the Virgin, all still in darkness, saw the hoar frost on the long grass, saw the slopes of the Sparrow Hills and the wood-clad banks of the encircling river vanishing into the purple distance, when he felt the contact of the fresh air and heard the sounds of the rooks flying out of Moscow across the fields, and when flashes of light suddenly gleamed out of the east and the sun’s rim floated triumphantly up from behind a cloud, and cupolas and crosses and hoar frost and the horizon and the river were all sparkling in the glad light, Pierre felt a new feeling of joy and vigour in life such as he had never experienced before.
And that feeling had not left him during the whole period of his imprisonment, but on the contrary had gone on growing in him as the hardships of his position increased.
That feeling—of being ready for anything, of moral alertness—was strengthened in Pierre by the high opinion in which he began to be held by his companions very soon after he entered the shed. His knowledge of languages, the respect shown him by the French, the good-nature with which he gave away anything he was asked for (he received the allowance of three roubles a week, given to officers among the prisoners), the strength he showed in driving nails into the wall, the gentleness of his behaviour to his companions, and his capacity—which seemed to him mysterious—of sitting stockstill doing nothing and plunged in thought all made him seem to the soldiers a rather mysterious creature of a higher order. The very peculiarities that in the society he had previously lived
9 S 4 WAR AND PEACE
in had been a source of embarrassment, if not of annoyance—his strength, his disdain for the comforts of life, his absent-mindedness, his goodnature—here among these men gave him the prestige almost of a hero. And Pierre felt that their view of him brought its duties.
XIII
On the night of the 6th of October, the march of the retreating French army began: kitchens and shanties were broken up, waggons were packed, and troops and trains of baggage began moving.
At seven o'clock in the morning an escort of French soldiers in marching order, in shakoes, with guns, knapsacks, and huge sacks, stood before the sheds and a running fire of eager French talk, interspersed with oaths, was kept up all along the line.
In the shed they were ready, dressed and belted and shod, only waiting for the word of command to come out. The sick soldier, Sokolov, pale and thin, with blue rings round his eyes, sat alone in his place, without boots or out-of-door clothes on. His eyes, that looked prominent from the thinness of his face, gazed inquiringly at his companions, who took no notice of him, and he uttered low groans at regular intervals. It was evidently not so much his sufferings—he was ill with dysentery—as the dread and grief of being left alone that made him groan.
Pierre was shod with a pair of slippers that Karataev had made for him out of the leather cover of a tea-chest, brought him by a Frenchman for soling his boots. With a cord tied round for a belt, he went up to the sick man, and squatted on his heels beside him.
‘Come, Sokolov, they are not going away altogether, you know. They have a hospital here. Very likely you will be better off than we others,’ said Pierre.
