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From Gorki, Bennigsen descended the highroad to the bridge
which, when they had looked it from the hill, the officer had
pointed out as being the center of our position and where rows
of fragrant new-mown hay lay by the riverside. They rode across
that bridge into the village of Borodino and thence turned to
the left, passing an enormous number of troops and guns, and came
to a high knoll where militiamen were digging. This was the redoubt,
as yet unnamed, which afterwards became known as the Raevski Redoubt,
or the Knoll Battery, but Pierre paid no special attention to
it. He did not know that it would become more memorable to him
than any other spot on the plain of Borodino.
They then crossed the hollow to Semenovsk, where the soldiers
were dragging away the last logs from the huts and barns. Then
they rode downhill and uphill, across a ryefield trodden and beaten
down as if by hail, following a track freshly made by the artillery
over the furrows of the plowed land, and reached some fleches*
which were still being dug.
*A kind of entrenchment.
At the fleches Bennigsen stopped and began looking at the
Shevardino Redoubt opposite, which had been ours the day before
and where several horsemen could be descried. The officers said
that either Napoleon or Murat was there, and they all gazed eagerly
at this little group of horsemen. Pierre also looked at them,
trying to guess which of the scarcely discernible figures was
Napoleon. At last those mounted men rode away from the mound and
disappeared.
Bennigsen spoke to a general who approached him, and began
explaining the whole position of our troops. Pierre listened to
him, straining each faculty to understand the essential points
of the impending battle, but was mortified to feel that his mental
capacity was inadequate for the task. He could make nothing of
it. Bennigsen stopped speaking and, noticing that Pierre was listening,
suddenly said to him:
"I don't think this interests you?"
"On the contrary it's very interesting!" replied
Pierre not quite truthfully.
From the fleches they rode still farther to the left, along
a road winding through a thick, low-growing birch wood. In the
middle of the wood a brown hare with white feet sprang out and,
scared by the tramp of the many horses, grew so confused that
it leaped along the road in front of them for some time, arousing
general attention and laughter, and only when several voices shouted
at it did it dart to one side and disappear in the thicket. After
going through the wood for about a mile and a half they came out
on a glade where troops of Tuchkov's corps were stationed to defend
the left flank.
Here, at the extreme left flank, Bennigsen talked a great
deal and with much heat, and, as it seemed to Pierre, gave orders
of great military importance. In front of Tuchkov's troops was
some high ground not occupied by troops. Bennigsen loudly criticized
this mistake, saying that it was madness to leave a height which
commanded the country around unoccupied and to place troops below
it. Some of the generals expressed the same opinion. One in particular
declared with martial heat that they were put there to be slaughtered.
Bennigsen on his own authority ordered the troops to occupy the
high ground. This disposition on the left flank increased Pierre's
doubt of his own capacity to understand military matters. Listening
to Bennigsen and the generals criticizing the position of the
troops behind the hill, he quite understood them and shared their
opinion, but for that very reason he could not understand how
the man who put them there behind the hill could have made so
gross and palpable a blunder.
Pierre did not know that these troops were not, as Bennigsen
supposed, put there to defend the position, but were in a concealed
position as an ambush, that they should not be seen and might
be able to strike an approaching enemy unexpectedly. Bennigsen
did not know this and moved the troops forward according to his
own ideas without mentioning the matter to the commander in chief.
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