hose German gentlemen won't win the battle tomorrow but will only
make all the mess they can, because they have nothing in their German
heads but theories not worth an empty eggshell and haven't in their
hearts the one thing needed tomorrow--that which Timokhin has. They
have yielded up all Europe to him, and have now come to teach us. Fine
teachers!" and again his voice grew shrill.

"So you think we shall win tomorrow's battle?" asked Pierre.

"Yes, yes," answered Prince Andrew absently. "One thing I would do if
I had the power," he began again, "I would not take prisoners. Why take
prisoners? It's chivalry! The French have destroyed my home and are on
their way to destroy Moscow, they have outraged and are outraging me
every moment. They are my enemies. In my opinion they are all criminals.
And so thinks Timokhin and the whole army. They should be executed!
Since they are my foes they cannot be my friends, whatever may have been
said at Tilsit."

"Yes, yes," muttered Pierre, looking with shining eyes at Prince Andrew.
"I quite agree with you!"

The question that had perturbed Pierre on the Mozhaysk hill and all
that day now seemed to him quite clear and completely solved. He now
understood the whole meaning and importance of this war and of the
impending battle. All he had seen that day, all the significant and
stern expressions on the faces he had seen in passing, were lit up
for him by a new light. He understood that latent heat (as they say in
physics) of patriotism which was present in all these men he had seen,
and this explained to him why they all prepared for death calmly, and as
it were lightheartedly.

"Not take prisoners," Prince Andrew continued: "That by itself would
quite change the whole war and make it less cruel. As it is we have
played at war--that's what's vile! We play at magnanimity and all that
stuff. Such magnanimity and sensibility are like the magnanimity and
sensibility of a lady who faints when she sees a calf being killed: she
is so kindhearted that she can't look at blood, but enjoys eating the
calf served up with sauce. They talk to us of the rules of war, of
chivalry, of flags of truce, of mercy to the unfortunate and so on. It's
all rubbish! I saw chivalry and flags of truce in 1805; they humbugged
us and we humbugged them. They plunder other people's houses, issue
false paper money, and worst of all they kill my children and my
father, and then talk of rules of war and magnanimit