IX.
AFTER this conversation we went out into the hayfield, and there, hoping to find more sympathy with his ideas from the peasants, he asked me to translate, to our fellow-worker, an old peasant called Prokofy, afflicted with a severe hernia, and yet hard at work, his plan of action against the Germans, which was to press upon the Germans from both sides as they lay in the middle between the Russians and the French. The Frenchman showed this to Prokofy in action, putting his white fingers on each side of Prokofy's sweat-soaked hempen shirt. I remember the good-naturedly ironical surprise of Prokofy when I explained to him the Frenchman's words and gesture. The plan for hemming in the Germans on both sides Prokofy evidently took for a jest, as he could not imagine that a grown-up educated man could with untroubled spirit and in a state of sobriety talk of its being desirable to go to war.
"Why, if we hem him in on both sides," he said, answering, as he thought, jest with jest, "he won't be able to go backwards or forwards; we must let him have room to turn round, too."
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