He sat down facing Pierre.

“By the way, you know German?”

Pierre looked at him in silence.

“How do you say ‘asile’ in German?”

“Asile?” repeated Pierre. “Asile in German is Unterkunft.”

“What do you say?” the captain queried quickly and doubtfully.

“Unterkunft,” repeated Pierre.

“Onterkoff,” said the captain, and for several seconds he looked at Pierre with his laughing eyes. “The Germans are awful fools, aren’t they, M. Pierre?” he concluded.

“Well, another bottle of this Moscow claret, eh? Morel, warm us another bottle!” the captain shouted gaily.

Morel brought candles and a bottle of wine. The captain looked at Pierre in the candle-light, and was obviously struck by the troubled face of his companion. With genuine regret and sympathy in his face, Ramballe approached Pierre, and bent over him.

“Eh, we are sad!” he said, touching Pierre on the hand. “Can I have hurt you? No, really, have you anything against me?” he questioned. “Perhaps it is owing to the situation of affairs?”

Pierre made no reply, but looked cordially into the Frenchman’s eyes. This expression of sympathy was pleasant to him.

“My word of honour, to say nothing of what I owe you, I have a liking for you. Can I do anything for you? Dispose of me. It is for life and death. With my hand and my heart, I say so,” he said, slapping himself on the chest.

“Thank you,” said Pierre. The captain gazed at Pierre as he had gazed at him when he learnt the German for “refuge,” and his face suddenly brightened.

“Ah, in that case, I drink to our friendship,” he cried gaily, pouring out two glasses of wine.

Pierre took the glass and emptied it. Ramballe emptied his, pressed Pierre’s hand once more, and leaned his elbow on the table in a pose of pensive melancholy.

“Yes, my dear friend, such are the freaks of fortune,” he began. “Who would have said I should be a soldier and captain of dragoons in the service of Bonaparte, as we used to call him. And yet here I am at Moscow with him. I must tell you, my dear fellow,” he continued in the mournful and measured voice of a man who intends to tell a long story, “our name is one of the most ancient in France.”

And with the easy and naïve unreserve of a Frenchman, the captain told Pierre the history of his forefathers, his childhood, boyhood, and manhood, and all his relations, his fortunes, and domestic affairs. “Ma pauvre mère,” took, of course, a prominent part in this recital.

“But all that is only the setting of life; the real thing is love. Love! Eh, M. Pierre?” he said, warming up. “Another glass.”

Pierre again emptied his glass, and filled himself a third.