The Nameless Dog and Human Dignity — War and Peace

Early on the sixth of October Pierre went out of the shed and on returning stopped to play with a little blue-grey dog with a long body and short bandy legs. It slept beside Karataev, made excursions into town, and always came back. It had probably never had an owner. The French called it Azor; a storyteller called it Femgalka; Karataev and others called it Grey or sometimes Flabby. The lack of a master, a name, or even a definite colour did not trouble it. Its tail stood up like a plume; it often ran on three legs as if disdaining the fourth. Pierre's attire was now a dirty torn shirt, soldier's trousers tied at the ankles, a peasant coat and cap. He no longer seemed stout, though still solid. A beard covered his face, lice infested the tangle of hair, and his eyes were resolute, calm, and alert as never before. His feet were bare. Every time he looked at them a smile of self-satisfaction flitted across his face. They reminded him of all he had learned in these weeks, and the recollection was pleasant.

The weather was what is called an old wives' summer: slight morning frosts, warm sun, a magic crystal glitter. The Sparrow Hills, the church, even a half-burned mansion with lilac still dark green, stood out in unnatural clearness. A French corporal in a skullcap offered Pierre a pipe he always declined, called him Monsieur Kiril, and said nearly all the troops were starting and there ought to be an order about the prisoners that day. Sokolov in the shed was dying. The corporal said they had an ambulance and a hospital, and that Captain St. Thomas would do anything for an educated Russian seigneur. The affair he alluded to was a fight Pierre had pacified a few days before.

A thin tattered Frenchman asked for Platoche, to whom he had given a shirt to sew. Karataev came out in trousers and a soot-black shirt, hair bound with lime-tree bast, and unfolded the work, smiling that a promise is own brother to performance. The Frenchman threw off his uniform over a greasy silk waistcoat, afraid the prisoners would laugh, paid an assignation ruble, and demanded the leftover bits. Karataev's face saddened; those scraps would have made fine leg bands. He handed them over. The Frenchman blushed, shouted to keep them, and went out. People said they were not Christians, Karataev told Pierre, but they too have souls: a sweating hand's an open hand, a dry hand's close. He went back into the shed still looking at the pieces.