laton did not want to understand what the Frenchman
was saying, and he looked on without interfering. Karataev thanked the
Frenchman for the money and went on admiring his own work. The Frenchman
insisted on having the pieces returned that were left over and asked
Pierre to translate what he said.

"What does he want the bits for?" said Karataev. "They'd make fine leg
bands for us. Well, never mind."

And Karataev, with a suddenly changed and saddened expression, took
a small bundle of scraps from inside his shirt and gave it to the
Frenchman without looking at him. "Oh dear!" muttered Karataev and went
away. The Frenchman looked at the linen, considered for a moment, then
looked inquiringly at Pierre and, as if Pierre's look had told him
something, suddenly blushed and shouted in a squeaky voice:

"Platoche! Eh, Platoche! Keep them yourself!" And handing back the odd
bits he turned and went out.

"There, look at that," said Karataev, swaying his head. "People said
they were not Christians, but they too have souls. It's what the old
folk used to say: 'A sweating hand's an open hand, a dry hand's close.'
He's naked, but yet he's given it back."

Karataev smiled thoughtfully and was silent awhile looking at the
pieces.

"But they'll make grand leg bands, dear friend," he said, and went back
into the shed.

CHAPTER XII

Four weeks had passed since Pierre had been taken prisoner and though
the French had offered to move him from the men's to the officers' shed,
he had stayed in the shed where he was first put.

In burned and devastated Moscow Pierre experienced almost the extreme
limits of privation a man can endure; but thanks to his physical
strength and health, of which he had till then been unconscious, and
thanks especially to the fact that the privations came so gradually that
it was impossible to say when they began, he endured his position
not only lightly but joyfully. And just at this time he obtained the
tranquillity and ease of mind he had formerly striven in vain to reach.
He had long sought in different ways that tranquillity of mind, that
inner harmony which had so impressed him in the soldiers at the battle
of Borodino. He had sought it in philanthropy, in Freemasonry, in the
dissipations of town life, in wine, in heroic feats of self-sacrifice,
and in romantic love for Natasha; he had sought it by reasoning--and all
these quests and experiments had failed him. And now without thinking