By the light of the sparks Bolkhovitinov saw Shcherbinin’s youthful face as he held the candle, and the face of
another man who was still asleep. This was Konovnitsyn.
When the flame of the sulphur splinters kindled by the
tinder burned up, first blue and then red, Shcherbinin lit
the tallow candle, from the candlestick of which the cockroaches that had been gnawing it were running away, and
looked at the messenger. Bolkhovitinov was bespattered all
over with mud and had smeared his face by wiping it with
his sleeve.
‘Who gave the report?’ inquired Shcherbinin, taking the
envelope.
‘The news is reliable,’ said Bolkhovitinov. ‘Prisoners,
Cossacks, and the scouts all say the same thing.’
‘There’s nothing to be done, we’ll have to wake him,’ said
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Shcherbinin, rising and going up to the man in the nightcap
who lay covered by a greatcoat. ‘Peter Petrovich!’ said he.
(Konovnitsyn did not stir.) ‘To the General Staff!’ he said
with a smile, knowing that those words would be sure to
arouse him.
And in fact the head in the nightcap was lifted at once.
On Konovnitsyn’s handsome, resolute face with cheeks
flushed by fever, there still remained for an instant a faraway dreamy expression remote from present affairs, but
then he suddenly started and his face assumed its habitual
calm and firm appearance.
‘Well, what is it? From whom?’ he asked immediately but
without hurry, blinking at the light.
While listening to the officer’s report Konovnitsyn broke
the seal and read the dispatch. Hardly had he done so before
he lowered his legs in their woolen stockings to the earthen
floor and began putting on his boots. Then he took off his
nightcap, combed his hair over his temples, and donned his
cap.
‘Did you get here quickly? Let us go to his Highness.’
Konovnitsyn had understood at once that the news
brought was of great importance and that no time must be
lost. He did not consider or ask himself whether the news
was good or bad. That did not interest him. He regarded the
whole business of the war not with his intelligence or his
reason but by something else. There was within him a deep
unexpressed conviction that all would be well, but that one
must not trust to this and still less speak about it, but must
only attend to one’s own work. And he did his work, giving
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his whole strength to the task.
Peter Petrovich Konovnitsyn, like Dokhturov, seems to
have been included merely for propriety’s sake in the list
of the so-called heroes of 1812the Barclays, Raevskis, Ermolovs, Platovs, and Miloradoviches. Like Dokhturov he
had the reputation of being a man of very limited capacity
and information, and like Dokhturov he never made plans
of battle but was always found where the situation was most
difficult. Since his appointment as general on duty he had
always slept with his door open, giving orders that every
messenger should be allowed to wake him up. In battle he
was always under fire, so that Kutuzov reproved him for it
and feared to send him to the front, and like Dokhturov he
was one of those unnoticed cogwheels that, without clatter
or noise, constitute the most essential part of the machine.
Coming out of the hut into the damp, dark night Konovnitsyn frownedpartly from an increased pain in his head
and partly at the unpleasant thought that occurred to him,
of how all that nest of influential men on the staff would be
stirred up by this news, especially Bennigsen, who ever since
Tarutino had been at daggers drawn with Kutuzov; and how
they would make suggestions, quarrel, issue orders, and rescind them. And this premonition was disagreeable to him
though he knew it could not be helped.
And in fact Toll, to whom he went to communicate the
news, immediately began to expound his plans to a general sharing his quarters, until Konovnitsyn, who listened in
weary silence, reminded him that they must go to see his
Highness.
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Chapter XVII
Kutuzov like all old people did not sleep much at night.
He often fell asleep unexpectedly in the daytime, but at
night, lying on his bed without undressing, he generally remained awake thinking.
So he lay now on his bed, supporting his large, heavy,
scarred head on his plump hand, with his one eye open,
meditating and peering into the darkness.
Since Bennigsen, who corresponded with the Emperor
and had more influence than anyone else on the staff, had
begun to avoid him, Kutuzov was more at ease as to the possibility of himself and his troops being obliged to take part
in useless aggressive movements. The lesson of the Tarutino
battle and of the day before it, which Kutuzov remembered
with pain, must, he thought, have some effect on others
too.
‘They must understand that we can only lose by taking
the offensive. Patience and time are my warriors, my champions,’ thought Kutuzov. He knew that an apple should not
be plucked while it is green. It will fall of itself when ripe,
but if picked unripe the apple is spoiled, the tree is harmed,
and your teeth are set on edge. Like an experienced sportsman he knew that the beast was wounded, and wounded
as only the whole strength of Russia could have wounded
it, but whether it was mortally wounded or not was still
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an undecided question. Now by the fact of Lauriston and
Barthelemi having been sent, and by the reports of the guerrillas, Kutuzov was almost sure that the wound was mortal.
But he needed further proofs and it was necessary to wait.
‘They want to run to see how they have wounded it. Wait
and we shall see! Continual maneuvers, continual advances!’ thought he. ‘What for? Only to distinguish themselves!
As if fighting were fun. They are like children from whom
one can’t get any sensible account of what has happened because they all want to show how well they can fight. But
that’s not what is needed now.
‘And what ingenious maneuvers they all propose to me!
It seems to them that when they have thought of two or
three contingencies’ (he remembered the general plan sent
him from Petersburg) ‘they have foreseen everything. But
the contingencies are endless.’
The undecided question as to whether the wound inflicted at Borodino was mortal or not had hung over Kutuzov’s
head for a whole month. On the one hand the French had
occupied Moscow. On the other Kutuzov felt assured with
all his being that the terrible blow into which he and all the
Russians had put their whole strength must have been mortal. But in any case proofs were needed; he had waited a
whole month for them and grew more impatient the longer
he waited. Lying on his bed during those sleepless nights
he did just what he reproached those younger generals for
doing. He imagined all sorts of possible contingencies, just
like the younger men, but with this difference, that he saw
thousands of contingencies instead of two or three and
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based nothing on them. The longer he thought the more
contingencies presented themselves. He imagined all sorts
of movements of the Napoleonic army as a whole or in sectionsagainst Petersburg, or against him, or to outflank him.
He thought too of the possibility (which he feared most of
all) that Napoleon might fight him with his own weapon
and remain in Moscow awaiting him. Kutuzov even imagined that Napoleon’s army might turn back through Medyn
and Yukhnov, but the one thing he could not foresee was
what happenedthe insane, convulsive stampede of Napoleon’s army during its first eleven days after leaving Moscow:
a stampede which made possible what Kutuzov had not yet
even dared to think ofthe complete extermination of the
French. Dorokhov’s report about Broussier’s division, the
guerrillas’ reports of distress in Napoleon’s army, rumors
of preparations for leaving Moscow, all confirmed the supposition that the French army was beaten and preparing
for flight. But these were only suppositions, which seemed
important to the younger men but not to Kutuzov. With
his sixty years’ experience he knew what value to attach to
rumors, knew how apt people who desire anything are to
group all news so that it appears to confirm what they desire, and he knew how readily in such cases they omit all that
makes for the contrary. And the more he desired it the less
he allowed himself to believe it. This question absorbed all
his mental powers. All else was to him only life’s customary
routine. To such customary routine belonged his conversations with the staff, the letters he wrote from Tarutino to
Madame de Stael, the reading of novels, the distribution of
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awards, his correspondence with Petersburg, and so on. But
the destruction of the French, which he alone foresaw, was
his heart’s one desire.
On the night of the eleventh of October he lay leaning on
his arm and thinking of that.
There was a stir in the next room and he heard the steps
of Toll, Konovnitsyn, and Bolkhovitinov.
‘Eh, who’s there? Come in, come in! What news?’ the
field marshal called out to them.
While a footman was lighting a candle, Toll communicated the substance of the news.
‘Who brought it?’ asked Kutuzov with a look which,
when the candle was lit, struck Toll by its cold severity.
‘There can be no doubt about it, your Highness.’
‘Call him in, call him here.’
Kutuzov sat up with one leg hanging down from the bed
and his big paunch resting against the other which was doubled under him. He screwed up his seeing eye to scrutinize
the messenger more carefully, as if wishing to read in his
face what preoccupied his own mind.
‘Tell me, tell me, friend,’ said he to Bolkhovitinov in his
low, aged voice, as he pulled together the shirt which gaped
open on his chest, ‘come nearernearer. What news have you
brought me? Eh? That Napoleon has left Moscow? Are you
sure? Eh?’
Bolkhovitinov gave a detailed account from the beginning of all he had been told to report.
‘Speak quicker, quicker! Don’t torture me!’ Kutuzov interrupted him.
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Bolkhovitinov told him everything and was then silent,
awaiting instructions. Toll was beginning to say something
but Kutuzov checked him. He tried to say something, but
his face suddenly puckered and wrinkled; he waved his arm
at Toll and turned to the opposite side of the room, to the
corner
