Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
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had no notion that this spot, on which
small trenches had been dug and from which a few guns were firing, was
the most important point of the battle.
On the contrary, just because he happened to be there he thought
it one of the least significant parts of the field.
Having reached the knoll, Pierre sat down at one end of a trench
surrounding the battery and gazed at what was going on around him with
an unconsciously happy smile. Occasionally he rose and walked about
the battery still with that same smile, trying not to obstruct the
soldiers who were loading, hauling the guns, and continually running
past him with bags and charges. The guns of that battery were being
fired continually one after another with a deafening roar,
enveloping the whole neighborhood in powder smoke.
In contrast with the dread felt by the infantrymen placed in
support, here in the battery where a small number of men busy at their
work were separated from the rest by a trench, everyone experienced
a common and as it were family feeling of animation.
The intrusion of Pierres nonmilitary figure in a white hat made
an unpleasant impression at first. The soldiers looked askance at
him with surprise and even alarm as they went past him. The senior
artillery officer, a tall, long-legged, pockmarked man, moved over
to Pierre as if to see the action of the farthest gun and looked at
him with curiosity.
A young round-faced officer, quite a boy still and evidently only
just out of the Cadet College, who was zealously commanding the two
guns entrusted to him, addressed Pierre sternly.
"Sir," he said, "permit me to ask you to stand aside. You must not
be here."
The soldiers shook their heads disapprovingly as they looked at
Pierre. But when they had convinced themselves that this man in the
white hat was doing no harm, but either sat quietly on the slope of
the trench with a shy smile or, politely making way for the
soldiers, paced up and down the battery under fire as calmly as if
he were on a boulevard, their feeling of hostile distrust gradually
began to change into a kindly and bantering sympathy, such as soldiers
feel for their dogs, cocks, goats, and in general for the animals that
live with the regiment. The men soon accepted Pierre into their
family, adopted him, gave him a nickname ("our gentleman"), and made
kindly fun of him among themselves.
A shell tore up the earth two paces from Pierre and he looked around
with a smile as he brushed from his clothes some earth it had thrown
up.
"And hows it youre not afraid, sir, really now?" a red-faced,
broad-shouldered soldier asked Pierre, with a grin that disclosed a
set of sound, white teeth.
"Are you afraid, then?" said Pierre.
"What else do you expect?" answered the soldier. "She has no
mercy, you know! When she comes spluttering down, out go your innards.
One cant help being afraid," he said laughing.
Several of the men, with bright kindly faces, stopped beside Pierre.
They seemed not to have expected him to talk like anybody else, and
the discovery that he did so delighted them.
"Its the business of us soldiers. But in a gentleman its
wonderful! Theres a gentleman for you!"
"To your places!" cried the young officer to the men gathered
round Pierre.
The young officer was evidently exercising his duties for the
first or second time and therefore treated both his superiors and
the men with great precision and formality.
The booming cannonade and the fusillade of musketry were growing
more intense over the whole field, especially to the left where
Bagrations fleches were, but where Pierre was the smoke of the firing
made it almost impossible to distinguish anything. Moreover, his whole
attention was engrossed by watching the family circle--separated
from all else--formed by the men in the battery. His first unconscious
feeling of joyful animation produced by the sights and sounds of the
battlefield was now replaced by another, especially since he had
seen that soldier lying alone in the hayfield. Now, seated on the
slope of the trench, he observed the faces of those around him.
By ten oclock some twenty men had already been carried away from
the battery; two guns were smashed and cannon balls fell more and more
frequently on the battery and spent bullets buzzed and whistled
around. But the men in the battery seemed not to notice this, and
merry voices and jokes were heard on all sides.
"A live one!" shouted a man as a whistling shell
War And Peace page 475 War And Peace page 477
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