“And have you been here long?” Pierre asked as he munched the last of the potato.
“I? It was last Sunday they took me, out of a hospital in Moscow.”
“Why, are you a soldier then?”
“Yes, we are soldiers of the Ápsheron regiment. I was dying of fever. We weren’t told anything. There were some twenty of us lying there. We had no idea, never guessed at all.”
“And do you feel sad here?” Pierre inquired.
“How can one help it, lad? My name is Platón, and the surname is Karatáev,” he added, evidently wishing to make it easier for Pierre to address him. “They call me ‘little falcon’ in the regiment. How is one to help feeling sad? Moscow—she’s the mother of cities. How can one see all this and not feel sad? But ‘the maggot gnaws the cabbage, yet dies first’; that’s what the old folks used to tell us,” he added rapidly.
“What? What did you say?” asked Pierre.
“Who? I?” said Karatáev. “I say things happen not as we plan but as God judges,” he replied, thinking that he was repeating what he had said before, and immediately continued:
“Well, and you, have you a family estate, sir? And a house? So you have abundance, then? And a housewife? And your old parents, are they still living?” he asked.
And though it was too dark for Pierre to see, he felt that a suppressed smile of kindliness puckered the soldier’s lips as he put these questions. He seemed grieved that Pierre had no parents, especially that he had no mother.