《War And Peace》 Book10 CHAPTER XXII
by Leo Tolstoy
STAGGERING from the crush of the crowd that carried him along with it, Pierre
looked about him.
“Count! Pyotr Kirillitch! How did you come here?” said a voice. Pierre looked
round.
Boris Drubetskoy, brushing his knee with his hand (he had probably made it
dusty in his devotions before the holy picture) came up to Pierre smiling. Boris
was elegantly dressed, though his get-up was of a style appropriate to active
service. He wore a long military coat and had a riding-whip slung across his
shoulder, as Kutuzov had.
Kutuzov had meanwhile reached the village, and sat down in the shade of the
nearest house, on a bench which one Cossack ran to fetch him, and another
hastily covered with a rug. An immense retinue of magnificent officers
surrounded him.
The procession was moving on further, accompanied by the crowd. Pierre stood
still about thirty paces from Kutuzov, talking to Boris.
He explained to him his desire to take part in the battle and to inspect the
position.
“I tell you what you had better do,” said Boris. “I will do the honours of
the camp for you. You will see everything best of all from where Count Bennigsen
is to be. I am in attendance on him. I will mention it to him. And if you like
to go over the position, come along with us; we are just going to the left
flank. And then when we come back, I beg you will stay the night with me, and we
will make up a game of cards. You know Dmitry Sergeitch, of course. He is
staying there.” He pointed to the third house in Gorky.
“But I should have liked to have seen the right flank. I'm told it is very
strong,” said Pierre. “I should have liked to go from the river Moskva through
the whole position.”
“Well, that you can do later, but the great thing is the left flank.”
“Yes, yes. And where is Prince Bolkonsky's regiment? can you point it out to
me?” asked Pierre.
“Andrey Nikolaevitch's? We shall pass it. I will take you to him.”
“What about the left flank?” asked Pierre.
“To tell you the truth, between ourselves, there's no making out how things
stand with the left flank,” said Boris confidentially, dropping his voice.
“Count Bennigsen had proposed something quite different. He proposed to fortify
that knoll over there, not at all as it has … but …” Boris shrugged his
shoulders. “His highness would not have it so, or he was talked over. You see …”
Boris did not finish because Kaisarov, Kutuzov's adjutant, at that moment came
up to Pierre. “Ah, Paisy Sergeitch,” said Boris to him, with an unembarrassed
smile, “I am trying, you see, to explain the position to the count. It's amazing
how his highness can gauge the enemy's plans so accurately!”
“Do you mean about the left flank?” said Kaisarov.
“Yes, yes; just so. Our left flank is now extremely strong.”
Although Kutuzov had made a clearance of the superfluous persons on the
staff, Boris had succeeded, after the change he had made, in retaining a post at
headquarters. Boris was in attendance on Count Bennigsen. Count Bennigsen, like
every one on whom Boris had been in attendance, looked on young Prince
Drubetskoy as an invaluable man. Among the chief officers of the army there were
two clearly defined parties: Kutuzov's party and the party of Bennigsen, the
chief of the staff. Boris belonged to the latter faction, and no one succeeded
better than he did in paying the most servile adulation to Kutuzov, while
managing to insinuate that the old fellow was not good for much, and that
everything was really due to the initiative of Bennigsen. Now the decisive
moment of battle had come, which must mean the downfall of Kutuzov and the
transfer of the command to Bennigsen, or if Kutuzov should gain the battle, the
credit of it must be skilfully put down to Bennigsen. In any case many
promotions were bound to be made, and many new men were certain to be brought to
the front after the morrow. And Boris was consequently in a state of nervous
exhilaration all that day.
Others of Pierre's acquaintances joined him; and he had not time to answer
all the questions about Moscow that were showered upon him, nor to listen to all
they had to tell him. Every face wore a look of excitement and agitation. But it
seemed to Pierre that the cause of the excitement that was betrayed by some of
those faces was to be found in questions of personal success, and he could not
forget that other look of excitement he had seen in the other faces, that
suggested problems, not of personal success, but the universal questions of life
and death.
Kutuzov noticed Pierre's figure and the group gathered about him.
“Call him to me,” said Kutuzov.
An adjutant communicated his highness's desire, and Pierre went towards the
bench. But a militiaman approached Kutuzov before him. It was Dolohov.
“How does that man come to be here?” asked Pierre.
“Oh, he's such a sly dog, he pokes himself in everywhere!” was the answer he
received. “He has been degraded to the ranks, you know. Now he wants to pop up
again. He has made plans of some sort and spies in the enemy's lines at night …
but he's a plucky fellow …”
Pierre took off his hat and bowed respectfully to Kutuzov.
“I decided that if I were to lay the matter before your highness, you might
dismiss me or say that you were aware of the facts and then I shouldn't lose
anything,” Dolohov was saying.
“To be sure.”
“And if I were right, I should do a service for my fatherland, for which I am
ready to die.”
“To be sure … to be sure …”
“And if your highness has need of a man who would not spare his skin
graciously remember me … perhaps I might be of use to your highness …”
“To be sure … to be sure …” repeated Kutuzov, looking with laughing,
half-closed eye at Pierre.
Meanwhile Boris, with his courtier-like tact, had moved close to the
commander-in-chief with Pierre, and in the most natural manner, in a quiet
voice, as though continuing his previous conversation, he said to Pierre:
“The peasant militiamen have simply put on clean, white shirts to be ready to
die. What heroism, count!”
Boris said this to Pierre with the evident intention of being overheard by
his excellency. He knew Kutuzov's attention would be caught by those words, and
his highness did in fact address him.
“What are you saying about the militia?” he said to Boris.
“They have put on white shirts, your highness, by way of preparing for
to-morrow, to be ready for death.”
“Ah! … A marvellous, unique people,” said Kutuzov, and closing his eyes he
shook his head. “A unique people!” he repeated, with a sigh.
“Do you want a sniff of powder?” he said to Pierre. “Yes; a pleasant smell. I
have the honour to be one of your wife's worshippers; is she quite well? My
quarters are at your service.” And Kutuzov began, as old people often do, gazing
abstractedly about him, as though forgetting all he had to say or do. Apparently
recollecting the object of his search, he beckoned to Andrey Sergeitch Kaisarov,
the brother of his adjutant.
“How was it, how do they go, those verses of Marin? How do they go? What he
wrote on Gerakov: ‘You will be teacher in the corps …' Tell me, tell me,” said
Kutuzov, his countenance relaxing in readiness for a laugh. Kaisarov repeated
the lines … Kutuzov, smiling, nodded his head to the rhythm of the verse.
When Pierre moved away from Kutuzov, Dolohov approached and took his
hand
“I am very glad to meet you here, count,” he said, aloud, disregarding the
presence of outsiders, and speaking with a marked determination and gravity. “On
the eve of a day which God knows who among us will be destined to survive I am
glad to have the chance of telling you that I regret the misunderstandings there
have been between us in the past; and I should be glad to think you had nothing
against me. I beg you to forgive me.”
Pierre looked with a smile at Dolohov, not knowing what to say to him. With
tears starting into his eyes, Dolohov embraced and kissed Pierre.
Boris had said a few words to his general, and Count Bennigsen addressed
Pierre, proposing that he should accompany them along the line.
“You will find it interesting,” he said.
“Yes, very interesting,” said Pierre.
Half an hour later Kutuzov was on his way back to Tatarinovo, while Bennigsen
and his suite, with Pierre among them, were inspecting the position.
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