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Staggering amid the crush, Pierre looked about him.
"Count Peter Kirilovich! How did you get here?"
said a voice.
Pierre looked round. Boris Drubetskoy, brushing his knees
with his hand (he had probably soiled them when he, too, had knelt
before the icon), came up to him smiling. Boris was elegantly
dressed, with a slightly martial touch appropriate to a campaign.
He wore a long coat and like Kutuzov had a whip slung across his
shoulder.
Meanwhile Kutuzov had reached the village and seated himself
in the shade of the nearest house, on a bench which one Cossack
had run to fetch and another had hastily covered with a rug. An
immense and brilliant suite surrounded him.
The icon was carried further, accompanied by the throng. Pierre
stopped some thirty paces from Kutuzov, talking to Boris.
He explained his wish to be present at the battle and to see
the position.
"This is what you must do," said Boris. "I
will do the honors of the camp to you. You will see everything
best from where Count Bennigsen will be. I am in attendance on
him, you know; I'll mention it to him. But if you want to ride
round the position, come along with us. We are just going to the
left flank. Then when we get back, do spend the night with me
and we'll arrange a game of cards. Of course you know Dmitri Sergeevich?
Those are his quarters," and he pointed to the third house
in the village of Gorki.
"But I should like to see the right flank. They say it's
very strong," said Pierre. "I should like to start from
the Moskva River and ride round the whole position."
"Well, you can do that later, but the chief thing is
the left flank."
"Yes, yes. But where is Prince Bolkonski's regiment?
Can you point it out to me?"
"Prince Andrew's? We shall pass it and I'll take you
to him."
What about the left flank?" asked Pierre
"To tell you the truth, between ourselves, God only knows
what state our left flank is in," said Boris confidentially
lowering his voice. "It is not at all what Count Bennigsen
intended. He meant to fortify that knoll quite differently, but..."
Boris shrugged his shoulders, "his Serene Highness would
not have it, or someone persuaded him. You see..." but Boris
did not finish, for at that moment Kaysarov, Kutuzov's adjutant,
came up to Pierre. "Ah, Kaysarov!" said Boris, addressing
him with an unembarrassed smile, "I was just trying to explain
our position to the count. It is amazing how his Serene Highness
could so the intentions of the French!"
"You mean the left flank?" asked Kaysarov.
"Yes, exactly; the left flank is now extremely strong."
Though Kutuzov had dismissed all unnecessary men from the
staff, Boris had contrived to remain at headquarters after the
changes. He had established himself with Count Bennigsen, who,
like all on whom Boris had been in attendance, considered young
Prince Drubetskoy an invaluable man.
In the higher command there were two sharply defined parties:
Kutuzov's party and that of Bennigsen, the chief of staff. Boris
belonged to the latter and no one else, while showing servile
respect to Kutuzov, could so create an impression that the old
fellow was not much good and that Bennigsen managed everything.
Now the decisive moment of battle had come when Kutuzov would
be destroyed and the power pass to Bennigsen, or even if Kutuzov
won the battle it would be felt that everything was done by Bennigsen.
In any case many great rewards would have to be given for tomorrow's
action, and new men would come to the front. So Boris was full
of nervous vivacity all day.
After Kaysarov, others whom Pierre knew came up to him, and
he had not time to reply to all the questions about Moscow that
were showered upon him, or to listen to all that was told him.
The faces all expressed animation and apprehension, but it seemed
to Pierre that the cause of the excitement shown in some of these
faces lay chiefly in questions of personal success; his mind,
however, was occupied by the different expression he saw on other
faces- an expression that spoke not of personal matters but of
the universal questions of life and death. Kutuzov noticed Pierre's
figure and the group gathered round him.
"Call him to me," said Kutuzov.
An adjutant told Pierre of his Serene Highness' wish, and
Pierre went toward Kutuzov's bench. But a militiaman got there
before him. It was Dolokhov.
"How did that fellow get here?" asked Pierre.
"He's a creature that wriggles in anywhere!" was
the answer. "He has been degraded, you know. Now he wants
to bob up again. He's been proposing some scheme or other and
has crawled into the enemy's picket line at night.... He's a brave
fellow."
Pierre took off his hat and bowed respectfully to Kutuzov.
"I concluded that if I reported to your Serene Highness
you might send me away or say that you knew what I was reporting,
but then I shouldn't lose anything..." Dolokhov was saying.
"Yes, yes."
"But if I were right, I should be rendering a service
to my Fatherland for which I am ready to die."
"Yes, yes."
"And should your Serene Highness require a man who will
not spare his skin, please think of me.... Perhaps I may prove
useful to your Serene Highness."
"Yes... Yes..." Kutuzov repeated, his laughing eye
narrowing more and more as he looked at Pierre.
Just then Boris, with his courtierlike adroitness, stepped
up to Pierre's side near Kutuzov and in a most natural manner,
without raising his voice, said to Pierre, as though continuing
an interrupted conversation:
"The militia have put on clean white shirts to be ready
to die. What heroism, Count!"
Boris evidently said this to Pierre in order to be overheard
by his Serene Highness. He knew Kutuzov's attention would be caught
by those words, and so it was.
"What are you saying about the militia?" he asked
Boris.
"Preparing for tomorrow, your Serene Highness- for death-
they have put on clean shirts."
"Ah... a wonderful, a matchless people!" said Kutuzov;
and he closed his eyes and swayed his head. "A matchless
people!" he repeated with a sigh.
"So you want to smell gunpowder?" he said to Pierre.
"Yes, it's a pleasant smell. I have the honor to be one of
your wife's adorers. Is she well? My quarters are at your service."
And as often happens with old people, Kutuzov began looking
about absent-mindedly as if forgetting all he wanted to say or
do.
Then, evidently remembering what he wanted, he beckoned to
Andrew Kaysarov, his adjutant's brother.
"Those verses... those verses of Marin's... how do they
go, eh? Those he wrote about Gerakov: 'Lectures for the corps
inditing'... Recite them, recite them!" said he, evidently
preparing to laugh.
Kaysarov recited.... Kutuzov smilingly nodded his head to
the rhythm of the verses.
When Pierre had left Kutuzov, Dolokhov came up to him and
took his hand.
"I am very glad to meet you here, Count," he said
aloud, regardless of the presence of strangers and in a particularly
resolute and solemn tone. "On the eve of a day when God alone
knows who of us is fated to survive, I am glad of this opportunity
to tell you that I regret the misunderstandings that occurred
between us and should wish you not to have any ill feeling for
me. I beg you to forgive me."
Pierre looked at Dolokhov with a smile, not knowing what to
say to him. With tears in his eyes Dolokhov embraced Pierre and
kissed him.
Boris said a few words to his general, and Count Bennigsen
turned to Pierre and proposed that he should ride with him along
the line.
"It will interest you," said he.
"Yes, very much," replied Pierre.
Half an hour later Kutuzov left for Tatarinova, and Bennigsen
and his suite, with Pierre among them, set out on their ride along
the line.
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