peasants of the militia in white shirts, with crosses on their caps. With loud talk and laughter, eager and perspiring, they were working on the right of the road at a huge mound overgrown with grass.

Some of them were digging out the earth, others were carrying the earth away in wheelbarrows, while a third lot stood doing nothing.

There were two officers on the knoll giving them instructions. Seeing these peasants, who were unmistakably enjoying the novelty of their position as soldiers, Pierre thought again of the wounded soldiers at Mozhaisk, and he understood what the soldier had tried to express by the words “they want to mass all the people together.” The sight of these bearded peasants toiling on the field of battle with their queer, clumsy boots, with their perspiring necks, and here and there with shirts unbuttoned showing their sun-burnt collar- bones, impressed Pierre more strongly than anything he had yet seen and heard with the solemnity and gravity of the moment.


  By PanEris using Melati.

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