Collage 598

After the executions, Pierre is separated from the other prisoners and left alone in a small, devastated and befouled church. He is haunted by what he has just experienced and seems on the verge of insanity. Then he meets Platon Karataev, a peasant soldier full of wisdom whose simple understanding of life comforts Pierre.

"(After carefully unwrapping his footcloths, Karataev) folded the knife, put it under his pillow, and, settling himself more comfortably, put his arms around his raised knees, and fixed his eyes directly on Pierre. Pierre felt something pleasant, soothing and rounded in these deft movements, in this well-arranged domain of his in the corner, even in the smell of this man, and he looked at him without taking his eyes away. 'So you've seen a lot of misery, master? Eh?' the little man suddenly said. And in the man's melodious voice there was such an expression of tenderness and simplicity that Pierre wanted to reply, but his jaw trembled, and he felt tears rising."


"Pierre did not fall asleep for a long time and lay in his place in the dark with open eyes, listening to the regular snoring of Platon, who lay beside him, and he felt that the previously destroyed world was now arising in his soul with a new beauty, on some new and unshakeable foundations." -- Otto

Otto Mayr
from page 451-452, volume 2 of original text
collage
made 9/2/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 967-969