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 essence's
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 men's 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 to conviction. When asked what he
was doing when he was arrested, Pierre replied in a rather tragic manner
that he was restoring to its parents a child he had saved from the
flames. Why had he fought the marauder? Pierre answered that he "was
protecting a woman," and that "to prot