as if about to fall asleep, as he leaned against the wall.
“Brigand! You shall pay for this,” said the Frenchman, letting go of him. “We French are merciful after victory, but we do not pardon traitors,” he added, with a look of gloomy dignity and a fine energetic gesture.
Pierre continued, in French, to persuade the officer not to hold that drunken imbecile to account. The Frenchman listened in silence with the same gloomy expression, but suddenly turned to Pierre with a smile. For a few seconds he looked at him in silence. His handsome face assumed a melodramatically gentle expression and he held out his hand.
“You have saved my life. You are French,” said he.
For a Frenchman that deduction was indubitable. Only a Frenchman could perform a great deed, and to save his life—the life of M. Ramballe, captain of the 13th Light Regiment—was undoubtedly a very great deed.
But however indubitable that conclusion and the officer’s conviction based upon it, Pierre felt it necessary to disillusion him.
“I am Russian,” he said quickly.
“Tut, tut, tut! Tell that to others,” said the officer, waving his finger before his nose and smiling. “You shall tell me all about that presently. I am delighted to meet a compatriot. Well, and what are we to do with this man?” he added, addressing himself to Pierre as to a brother.
Even if Pierre were not a Frenchman, having once received that loftiest of human appellations he could not renounce it, said the officer’s look and tone. In reply to his last question Pierre again explained who Makár Alexéevich was and how just before their arrival that drunken imbecile had seized the loaded pistol which they had not had