《War And Peace》　Book12 　CHAPTER XI
　　　　by Leo Tolstoy

FROM PRINCE SHTCHERBATOV'S HOUSE the prisoners were taken straight downhill
across the Virgin's Meadow to the left of the monastery of the Virgin, and led
to a kitchen garden, in which there stood a post. A big pit had been dug out
near the post, and the freshly turned-up earth was heaped up by it. A great
crowd of people formed a semicircle about the pit and the post. The crowd
consisted of a small number of Russians and a great number of Napoleon's
soldiers not on duty: there were Germans, Italians, and Frenchmen in various
uniforms. To the right and left of the post stood rows of French soldiers, in
blue uniforms, with red epaulettes, in Hessians and shako. The prisoners were
stood in a certain order, in accordance with a written list (Pierre was sixth)
and led up to the post. Several drums suddenly began beating on both sides of
them, and Pierre felt as though a part of his soul was being torn away from him
by that sound. He lost all power of thought and reflection. He could only see
and hear. And there was only one desire left in him, the desire that the
terrible thing that was to be done should be done more quickly. Pierre looked
round at his companions and scrutinised them.

The two men at the end were shaven convicts; one tall and thin, the other a
swarthy, hirsute, muscular fellow with a flattened nose. The third was a
house-serf, a man of five-and-forty, with grey hair and a plump, well-fed
figure. The fourth was a peasant, a very handsome fellow with a full, flaxen
beard and black eyes. The fifth was a factory hand, a thin, sallow lad of
eighteen, in a dressing-gown.

Pierre heard the Frenchmen deliberating how they were to be shot, singly, or
two at a time. “Two at a time,” a senior officer answered coldly. There was a
stir in the ranks of the soldiers, and it was evident that every one was in
haste and not making haste, not as people do when they are getting through some
job every one can understand, but as men hasten to get something done that is
inevitable, but is disagreeable and incomprehensible.

A French official wearing a scarf came up to the right side of the file of
prisoners, and read aloud the sentence in Russian and in French.

Then two couples of French soldiers came up to the prisoners by the
instruction of an officer, and took the two convicts who stood at the head. The
convicts went up to the post, stopped there, and while the sacks were being
brought, they looked dumbly about them, as a wild beast at bay looks at the
approaching hunter. One of them kept on crossing himself, the other scratched
his back and worked his lips into the semblance of a smile. The soldiers with
hurrying fingers bandaged their eyes, put the sacks over their heads and bound
them to the post.

A dozen sharpshooters, with muskets, stepped out of the ranks with a fine,
regular tread, and halted eight paces from the post. Pierre turned away not to
see what was coming. There was a sudden bang and rattle that seemed to Pierre
louder than the most terrific clap of thunder, and he looked round. There was a
cloud of smoke, and the French soldiers, with trembling hands and pale faces,
were doing something in it by the pit. The next two were led up. Those two, too,
looked at every one in the same way, with the same eyes, dumbly, and in vain,
with their eyes only begging for protection, and plainly unable to understand or
believe in what was coming. They could not believe in it, because they only knew
what their life was to them, and so could not understand, and could not believe,
that it could be taken from them.

Pierre tried not to look, and again turned away; but again a sort of awful
crash smote his hearing, and with the sound he saw smoke, blood, and the pale
and frightened faces of the Frenchmen, again doing something at the post, and
balking each other with their trembling hands. Pierre, breathing hard, looked
about him as though asking, “What does it mean?” The same question was written
in all the eyes that met Pierre's eyes. On all the faces of the Russians, on the
faces of the French soldiers and officers, all without exception, he read the
same dismay, horror, and conflict as he felt in his own heart. “But who is it
doing it there really? They are all suffering as I am! Who is it? who?” flashed
for one second through Pierre's mind. “Sharpshooters of the eighty-sixth,
forward!” some one shouted. The fifth prisoner standing beside Pierre was led
forward—alone. Pierre did not understand that he was saved; that he and all the
rest had been brought here simply to be present at the execution. With growing
horror, with no sense of joy or relief, he gazed at what was being done. The
fifth was the factory lad in the loose gown. As soon as they touched him, he
darted away in terror and clutched at Pierre (Pierre shuddered and tore himself
away from him). The factory lad could not walk. He was held up under the arms
and dragged along, and he screamed something all the while. When they had
brought him to the post he was suddenly quiet. He seemed suddenly to have
grasped something. Whether he grasped that it was no use to scream, or that it
was impossible for men to kill him, he stood at the post, waiting to be bound
like the others, and like a wild beast under fire looked about him with
glittering eyes.

Pierre could not make himself turn away and close his eyes. The curiosity and
emotion he felt, and all the crowd with him, at this fifth murder reached its
highest pitch. Like the rest, this fifth man seemed calm. He wrapped his
dressing-gown round him, and scratched one bare foot with the other.

When they bound up his eyes, of himself he straightened the knot, which hurt
the back of his head; then, when they propped him against the blood-stained
post, he staggered back, and as he was uncomfortable in that position, he
shifted his attitude, and leaned back quietly, with his feet put down
symmetrically. Pierre never took his eyes off him, and did not miss the
slightest movement he made.

The word of command must have sounded, and after it the shots of the eight
muskets. But Pierre, however earnestly he tried to recollect it afterwards, had
not heard the slightest sound from the shots. He only saw the factory lad
suddenly fall back on the cords, saw blood oozing in two places, and saw the
cords themselves work loose from the weight of the hanging body, and the factory
lad sit down, his head falling unnaturally, and one leg bent under him. Pierre
ran up to the post. No one hindered him. Men with pale and frightened faces were
doing something round the factory lad. There was one old whiskered Frenchman,
whose lower jaw twitched all the while as he untied the cords. The body sank
down. The soldiers, with clumsy haste, dragged it from the post and shoved it
into the pit.

All of them clearly knew, beyond all doubt, that they were criminals, who
must make haste to hide the traces of their crime.

Pierre glanced into the pit and saw that the factory lad was lying there with
his knees up close to his head, and one shoulder higher than the other. And that
shoulder was convulsively, rhythmically rising and falling. But spadefuls of
earth were already falling all over the body. One of the soldiers, in a voice of
rage, exasperation, and pain, shouted to Pierre to stand aside. But Pierre did
not understand him, and still stood at the post, and no one drove him
away.

When the pit was quite filled up, the word of command was heard, Pierre was
taken back to his place, and the French troops, standing in ranks on both sides
of the post, faced about, and began marching with a measured step past the post.
The twenty-four sharpshooters, standing in the middle of the circle, with
uncharged muskets, ran back to their places as their companies marched by
them.

Pierre stared now with dazed eyes at these sharpshooters, who were running
two together out of the circle. All of them had joined their companies except
one. A young soldier, with a face of deathly pallor, still stood facing the pit
on the spot upon which he had shot, his shako falling backwards off his head,
and his fuse dropping on to the ground. He staggered like a drunken man, taking
a few steps forward, and then a few back, to keep himself from falling. An old
under-officer ran out of the ranks, and, seizing the young soldier by the
shoulder, dragged him to his company. The crowd of Frenchmen and Russians began
to disperse. All walked in silence, with downcast eyes.

“That will teach them to set fire to the places,” said some one among the
French. Pierre looked round at the speaker, and saw that it was a soldier who
was trying to console himself somehow for what had been done, but could not.
Without finishing his sentence, he waved his hand and went on.

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