moment at parting from him. And Pierre began to feel in the same way toward Karatáev.
To all the other prisoners Platón Karatáev seemed a most ordinary soldier. They called him “little falcon” or “Platósha,” chaffed him good-naturedly, and sent him on errands.
But to Pierre he always remained what he had seemed that first night: an unfathomable, rounded, eternal personification of the spirit of simplicity and truth.
Platón Karatáev knew nothing by heart except his prayers. When he began to speak he seemed not to know how he would conclude.
Sometimes Pierre, struck by the meaning of his words, would ask him to repeat them, but Platón could never recall what he had said a moment before, just as he never could repeat to Pierre the words of his favorite song: native and birch tree and my heart is sick occurred in