War And Peace: Book 10 - CHAPTER XXII

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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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