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By Root 3546 0

abandoning Moscow. But this question of intrigue did not concern the old man now. One terrible question concerned him. And he heard no answer to this question from anyone. For him the question now consisted only in this: “Can it be that I allowed Napoleon to get as far as Moscow? And when, then, did I do it? When was it decided? Was it yesterday, when I sent Platov the order to retreat, or was it the evening before, when I dozed off and told Bennigsen to give the orders? Or still earlier?…But when, when was this terrible matter decided? Moscow must be abandoned. The troops must retreat, and the order has to be given.” To give this terrible order seemed to him the same as giving up command of the army. And it was not just that he loved power and was used to it (the honors given to Prince Prozorovsky, to whom he had been attached in Turkey, piqued him), but he was convinced that he was destined to save Russia, and only because of that, against the will of the sovereign and by the will of the people, was he chosen commander in chief. He was convinced that he alone, in those difficult circumstances, could maintain himself at the head of the army, and that he alone in the whole world was capable of knowing without dread that his adversary was the invincible Napoleon; and he dreaded the thought of the order he had to give. But he had to decide something, had to stop these conversations around him, which were beginning to take on too free a character.

He called the senior generals to him.

“Ma tête, fut-elle bonne ou mauvaise, n’a qu’à s’aider d’elle-même,”*510 he said, getting up from the bench and riding to Fili, where his carriages were waiting.

IV

In the spacious better side of the muzhik Andrei Savostyanov’s cottage, a council gathered at two o’clock. The men, women, and children of the large peasant family crowded into the kitchen side, across the front hall. Only Andrei’s granddaughter Malasha, a six-year-old girl whom his serenity caressed and gave a lump of sugar at tea, stayed on the stove in the big side. Malasha looked down timidly and joyfully from the stove on the faces, uniforms, and crosses of the generals, who came into the cottage one after another and sat down in the best corner, on wide benches under the icons. Grandpa himself, as Malasha mentally called Kutuzov, sat apart from them in a dark corner behind the stove. He sat deeply immersed in a folding armchair, constantly groaning and spreading the collar of his tunic, which, though unbuttoned, still seemed to chafe his neck. The entering men went up to the field marshal one after another; he shook hands with some, nodded to others. The adjutant Kaisarov was about to pull open the curtain on the window opposite Kutuzov, but Kutuzov waved his hand crossly, and Kaisarov understood that his serenity did not want people to see his face.

There were so many people gathered around the peasant pine table, on which lay maps, plans, pencils, and papers, that the orderlies brought another bench and set it down at the table. On this bench sat the already arrived: Ermolov, Kaisarov, and Toll. Just under the icons, in the foremost place, a St. George on his neck, with a pale, sickly face, and with his high forehead merging into his bald head, sat Barclay de Tolly. It was the second day that he had been suffering from a fever, and just then he had chills and cramps. Next to him sat Uvarov, who, in a low voice (as they all spoke), was telling Barclay something, gesticulating rapidly. The small, round Dokhturov, with raised eyebrows, listened attentively, his hands folded on his stomach. On the other side, his broad head with its bold features and shining eyes propped on his hand, sat Count Ostermann-Tolstoy, who seemed to be immersed in his own thoughts. Raevsky, with an impatient expression, twirling the black hair on his temples with a habitual gesture, glanced now at Kutuzov, now at the door. The firm, handsome, and kindly face of Konovnitsyn shone with a tender and sly smile. He met Malasha’s gaze and made signs to her with his eyes that made the girl smile.

They