ect a woman who was being insulted
was the duty of every man; that..." They interrupted him, for this
was not to the point. Why was he in the yard of a burning house where
witnesses had seen him? He replied that he had gone out to see what
was happening in Moscow. Again they interrupted him: they had not asked
where he was going, but why he was found near the fire? Who was he? they
asked, repeating their first question, which he had declined to answer.
Again he replied that he could not answer it.

"Put that down, that's bad... very bad," sternly remarked the general
with the white mustache and red flushed face.

On the fourth day fires broke out on the Zubovski rampart.

Pierre and thirteen others were moved to the coach house of a merchant's
house near the Crimean bridge. On his way through the streets Pierre
felt stifled by the smoke which seemed to hang over the whole
city. Fires were visible on all sides. He did not then realize the
significance of the burning of Moscow, and looked at the fires with
horror.

He passed four days in the coach house near the Crimean bridge and
during that time learned, from the talk of the French soldiers, that all
those confined there were awaiting a decision which might come any day
from the marshal. What marshal this was, Pierre could not learn from the
soldiers. Evidently for them "the marshal" represented a very high and
rather mysterious power.

These first days, before the eighth of September when the prisoners were
had up for a second examination, were the hardest of all for Pierre.

CHAPTER X

On the eighth of September an officer--a very important one judging by
the respect the guards showed him--entered the coach house where the
prisoners were. This officer, probably someone on the staff, was holding
a paper in his hand, and called over all the Russians there, naming
Pierre as "the man who does not give his name." Glancing indolently and
indifferently at all the prisoners, he ordered the officer in charge
to have them decently dressed and tidied up before taking them to the
marshal. An hour later a squad of soldiers arrived and Pierre with
thirteen others was led to the Virgin's Field. It was a fine day, sunny
after rain, and the air was unusually pure. The smoke did not hang low
as on the day when Pierre had been taken from the guardhouse on the
Zubovski rampart, but rose through the pure air in columns. No flames
were seen, but columns of smoke rose on