War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [666]
“Here is the report,” said Bolkhovitinov. “The order was to hand it at once to the general on duty.”
“Wait, I’ll light a candle. You always stick it away somewhere, curse you,” the stretching man said, addressing the orderly. It was Shcherbinin, Konovnitsyn’s adjutant. “I’ve found it, I’ve found it,” he added.
The orderly was striking a light, Shcherbinin was feeling for the candlestick.
“Ah, loathesome creatures,” he said with revulsion.
By the light of the sparks, Bolkhovitinov saw the young face of Shcherbinin with the candle and in the front corner a still-sleeping man. This was Konovnitsyn.
When the sulfur crumbs caught fire from the tinder, giving first a blue, then a red flame, Shcherbinin lit a tallow candle, causing the cockroaches that were gnawing on it to flee from the candlestick, and looked at the messenger. Bolkhovitinov was all covered with mud, and, wiping it with his sleeve, he smeared it over his face.
“Whose report is it?” asked Shcherbinin, taking the envelope.
“The information is correct,” said Bolkhovitinov. “The prisoners, the Cossacks, and the scouts all unanimously bear out the same thing.”
“No help for it, we’ll have to wake him up,” said Shcherbinin, getting up and going over to the man in the nightcap, covered with a greatcoat. “Pyotr Petrovich!” he said. Konovnitsyn did not stir. “To staff headquarters!” he said, smiling, knowing that these words were sure to wake him up. And indeed, the head in the nightcap rose at once. The handsome, firm face of Konovnitsyn, with its feverishly inflamed cheeks, still kept for a moment an expression of dreamy sleep, far from the present situation, but then he suddenly gave a start: his face assumed his usual calm and firm expression.
“Well, what is it? From whom?” he asked unhurriedly but at once, blinking from the light. Listening to the officer’s report, Konovnitsyn opened the letter and read it. Having barely read it, he lowered his feet in woollen stockings to the beaten-earth floor and began putting his boots on. Then he took off his nightcap, combed his side-whiskers, and put on his peaked cap.
“Were you quick in getting here? Let’s go to his serenity.”
Konovnitsyn realized at once that the news brought to him was of great importance and brooked no delay. Whether it was good or bad he did not consider or ask himself. That did not interest him. He looked at the whole business of war not with his mind, not with his reason, but with something else. There was a deep, unspoken conviction in his soul that all would be well, but that it was not to be believed, still less spoken about, and that he had only to do his duty. And this duty of his he did, giving all his forces to it.
Pyotr Petrovich Konovnitsyn, like Dokhturov, was put on the list of the so-called heroes of the year twelve—the Barclays, the Raevskys, the Ermolovs, the Platovs, the Miloradovichs—merely out of propriety, as it were; like Dokhturov, he had the reputation of a man of quite limited abilities and knowledge; and, like Dokhturov, Konovnitsyn never made plans of battles, but was always where things were most difficult; since his appointment as general on duty, he had always slept with the door open, giving instructions that every messenger should wake him up; in battle he was always under fire, so that Kutuzov reproached him for it and was afraid to send him in; and, like Dokhturov, he was one of those inconspicuous gears which, without clatter or noise, constitute the most essential part of the machine.
Coming out of the cottage into the damp, dark night, Konovnitsyn frowned, partly from an increased pain in his head, partly from the unpleasant thought that came to him about how that whole nest of influential staff people would now get stirred up at this news, especially Bennigsen, who, after Tarutino, was at daggers drawn with Kutuzov; how they would suggest, argue, order, cancel. And this presentiment was unpleasant to him, though he knew it was impossible to do without it.
In fact, Toll, to whom he came to report the fresh news, at once began