War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [500]
XXII
Reeling from the crush he was caught up in, Pierre glanced about.
“Count! Pyotr Kirilych! What are you doing here?” said someone’s voice. Pierre turned to look.
Boris Drubetskoy, brushing his knees with his hand (he had probably dirtied them venerating the icon), smiling, was approaching Pierre. Boris was elegantly dressed, with a hint of the soldier on campaign. He was wearing a long tunic and a whip over his shoulder, just like Kutuzov.
Kutuzov meanwhile went to the village and sat down in the shade of the nearest house, on a bench which one Cossack ran to fetch and another quickly covered with a rug. An immense, brilliant suite surrounded the commander in chief.
The icon started off again, accompanied by the crowd. Pierre stopped some thirty paces from Kutuzov, talking to Boris.
Pierre explained his intention of taking part in the battle and looking over the position.
“Here’s how to do it,” said Boris. “Je vous ferai les honneurs du camp.*462 You’ll see everything best from where Count Bennigsen is. I’m attached to him. I’ll tell him. And if you want to ride around the position, come with us: we’re now going to the left flank. And then we’ll come back, and you’re welcome to spend the night with me, and we’ll get up a game of cards. You know Dmitri Sergeich? He’s staying here.” He pointed to the third house in Gorki.
“But I’d like to see the right flank; they say it’s very strong,” said Pierre. “I’d like to start from the Moskva River and ride around the whole position.”
“Well, you can do that later, but the main thing is the left flank…”
“Yes, yes. And where is Prince Bolkonsky’s regiment? Can you point it out for me?” asked Pierre.
“Andrei Nikolaevich’s? We’ll go past it, I’ll take you to him.”
“So what about the left flank?” asked Pierre.
“To tell you the truth, entre nous,†463 our left flank is in God knows what state,” said Boris, lowering his voice confidentially. “Count Bennigsen proposed something quite different. He proposed fortifying that barrow over there, not at all like…but.” Boris shrugged his shoulders. “His serenity didn’t want to, or somebody talked him out of it. You know…” And Boris did not finish, because just then Kaisarov, Kutuzov’s adjutant, came up to Pierre. “Ah! Païssy Sergeich,” said Boris, addressing Kaisarov with an easy smile. “I’m trying to explain the position to the count. It’s astonishing how his serenity could guess the intentions of the French so correctly!”
“You mean the left flank?” said Kaisarov.
“Yes, yes, precisely. Our left flank is now very, very strong.”
Though Kutuzov had chased out all the superfluous men of the staff, Boris, after the changes made by Kutuzov, had been able to maintain himself at headquarters. Boris had attached himself to Count Bennigsen. Count Bennigsen, like all the men on whom Boris had been in attendance, considered the young Prince Drubetskoy an invaluable man.
In the army’s high command there were two clear-cut, well-defined parties: the party of Kutuzov and the party of Bennigsen, the chief of staff. Boris belonged to the latter party, and no one knew so well as he how, while rendering servile respect to Kutuzov, to make it felt that the old man was no good and that everything was being conducted by Bennigsen. Now the decisive moment of battle had come, which should either destroy Kutuzov and hand power over to Bennigsen, or, even if Kutuzov won the battle, make it felt that it had all been done by Bennigsen. In any case, for tomorrow big rewards should be given out and new men brought to the fore. And owing to that, Boris was in nervous animation all that day.
After Kaisarov, other acquaintances came up to