Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
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Andrew rang and Natasha went to him,
but Sonya, feeling unusually excited and touched, remained at the
window thinking about the strangeness of what had occurred.
They had an opportunity that day to send letters to the army, and
the countess was writing to her son.
"Sonya!" said the countess, raising her eyes from her letter as
her niece passed, "Sonya, wont you write to Nicholas?" She spoke in a
soft, tremulous voice, and in the weary eyes that looked over her
spectacles Sonya read all that the countess meant to convey with these
words. Those eyes expressed entreaty, shame at having to ask, fear
of a refusal, and readiness for relentless hatred in case of such
refusal.
Sonya went up to the countess and, kneeling down, kissed her hand.
"Yes, Mamma, I will write," said she.
Sonya was softened, excited, and touched by all that had occurred
that day, especially by the mysterious fulfillment she had just seen
of her vision. Now that she knew that the renewal of Natashas
relations with Prince Andrew would prevent Nicholas from marrying
Princess Mary, she was joyfully conscious of a return of that
self-sacrificing spirit in which she was accustomed to live and
loved to live. So with a joyful consciousness of performing a
magnanimous deed--interrupted several times by the tears that dimmed
her velvety black eyes--she wrote that touching letter the arrival
of which had so amazed Nicholas.
CHAPTER IX
The officer and soldiers who had arrested Pierre treated him with
hostility but yet with respect, in the guardhouse to which he was
taken. In their attitude toward him could still be felt both
uncertainty as to who he might be--perhaps a very important
person--and hostility as a result of their recent personal conflict
with him.
But when the guard was relieved next morning, Pierre felt that for
the new guard--both officers and men--he was not as interesting as
he had been to his captors; and in fact the guard of the second day
did not recognize in this big, stout man in a peasant coat the
vigorous person who had fought so desperately with the marauder and
the convoy and had uttered those solemn words about saving a child;
they saw in him only No. 17 of the captured Russians, arrested and
detained for some reason by order of the Higher Command. If they
noticed anything remarkable about Pierre, it was only his unabashed,
meditative concentration and thoughtfulness, and the way he spoke
French, which struck them as surprisingly good. In spite of this he
was placed that day with the other arrested suspects, as the
separate room he had occupied was required by an officer.
All the Russians confined with Pierre were men of the lowest class
and, recognizing him as a gentleman, they all avoided him, more
especially as he spoke French. Pierre felt sad at hearing them
making fun of him.
That evening he learned that all these prisoners (he, probably,
among them) were to be tried for incendiarism. On the third day he was
taken with the others to a house where a French general with a white
mustache sat with two colonels and other Frenchmen with scarves on
their arms. With the precision and definiteness customary in
addressing prisoners, and which is supposed to preclude human frailty,
Pierre like the others was questioned as to who he was, where he had
been, with what object, and so on.
These questions, like questions put at trials generally, left the
essence of the matter aside, shut out the possibility of that
essences being revealed, and were designed only to form a channel
through which the judges wished the answers of the accused to flow
so as to lead to the desired result, namely a conviction. As soon as
Pierre began to say anything that did not fit in with that aim, the
channel was removed and the water could flow to waste. Pierre felt,
moreover, what the accused always feel at their trial, perplexity as
to why these questions were put to him. He had a feeling that it was
only out of condescension or a kind of civility that this device of
placing a channel was employed. He knew he was in these mens power,
that only by force had they brought him there, that force alone gave
them the right to demand answers to their questions, and that the sole
object of that assembly was to inculpate him. And so, as they had
the power and wish to inculpate him, this expedient of an inquiry
and trial seemed unnecessary. It was evident that any answer would
lead
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