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Updated: May 7, 2025
The captain looked at Pierre by the candlelight and was evidently struck by the troubled expression on his companion's face. Ramballe, with genuine distress and sympathy in his face, went up to Pierre and bent over him. "There now, we're sad," said he, touching Pierre's hand. "Have I upset you? No, really, have you anything against me?" he asked Pierre. "Perhaps it's the state of affairs?"
On the third of September Pierre awoke late. His head was aching, the clothes in which he had slept without undressing felt uncomfortable on his body, and his mind had a dim consciousness of something shameful he had done the day before. That something shameful was his yesterday's conversation with Captain Ramballe. It was eleven by the clock, but it seemed peculiarly dark out of doors.
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!
Ramballe refused food and resting his head on his elbow lay silent beside the campfire, looking at the Russian soldiers with red and vacant eyes. Occasionally he emitted a long-drawn groan and then again became silent. Morel, pointing to his shoulders, tried to impress on the soldiers the fact that Ramballe was an officer and ought to be warmed.
"The Emperor," Pierre repeated, and his face suddenly became sad and embarrassed, "is the Emperor...?" "The Emperor? He is generosity, mercy, justice, order, genius that's what the Emperor is! It is I, Ramballe, who tell you so.... I assure you I was his enemy eight years ago. My father was an emigrant count.... But that man has vanquished me. He has taken hold of me.
Pierre remembered Ramballe, and named him and his regiment and the street where the house was. "You are not what you say," returned Davout. In a trembling, faltering voice Pierre began adducing proofs of the truth of his statements. But at that moment an adjutant entered and reported something to Davout. Davout brightened up at the news the adjutant brought, and began buttoning up his uniform.
The exhausted French officer was Ramballe and the man with his head wrapped in the shawl was Morel, his orderly. When Morel had drunk some vodka and finished his bowl of porridge he suddenly became unnaturally merry and chattered incessantly to the soldiers, who could not understand him.
A Russian officer who had come up to the fire sent to ask his colonel whether he would not take a French officer into his hut to warm him, and when the messenger returned and said that the colonel wished the officer to be brought to him, Ramballe was told to go. He rose and tried to walk, but staggered and would have fallen had not a soldier standing by held him up.
Ramballe put his arms around their necks while they carried him and began wailing plaintively: "Oh, you fine fellows, my kind, kind friends! These are men! Oh, my brave, kind friends," and he leaned his head against the shoulder of one of the men like a child. Meanwhile Morel was sitting in the best place by the fire, surrounded by the soldiers.
"Captain Ramballe, of the 13th Light Regiment, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor for the affair on the seventh of September," he introduced himself, a self-satisfied irrepressible smile puckering his lips under his mustache. "Will you now be so good as to tell me with whom I have the honor of conversing so pleasantly, instead of being in the ambulance with that maniac's bullet in my body?"
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