This was said with the obvious intention of being overheard by his Serene Highness. Boris knew Kutuzov would prick up his ears at these words, and sure enough, his Highness did speak to him.
‘What was that about the militia?’ he said to Boris.
‘They have put clean shirts on, sir, for tomorrow, ready for death.’
‘Ah . . . Wonderful people . . . Nobody like them,’ said Kutuzov, eyes closed, shaking his head. ‘Nobody like them!’ he said again with a sigh.
‘So, you want a whiff of gunpowder?’ he said to Pierre. ‘Yes, it’s a nice smell . . . I have the honour of being a great admirer of your wife. I do hope she’s well. My quarters are at your service.’ And then Kutuzov began behaving as old people often do, gazing around vacantly as if he could not remember what to say or do next. But suddenly he seemed to remember what he was after, and he beckoned to Andrey Kaysarov, the brother of his adjutant.
‘What was that thing? How does it go? You know, that bit of poetry by Marin. How does it go? He was on about Gerakov7 . . . “You’ll stay a teacher in the corps . . .” Go on, you remember,’ said Kutuzov, his face ready for a good laugh. Kaysarov recited the poem; a beaming Kutuzov nodded in time to the rhythm.
When Pierre walked away from Kutuzov, Dolokhov came over and took him by the arm.
‘I’m so pleased to meet you here, Count,’ he said in a loud voice, ignoring all bystanders and speaking with assertiveness and the utmost gravity. ‘On the eve of a day which, God knows, not all of us will be destined to survive, I’m glad of an opportunity to tell you that I regret any past misunderstandings between us, and I would like to think you hold nothing against me. Will you please forgive me?’
Pierre looked at Dolokhov with a smile, not knowing what to say. Dolokhov’s eyes were watering with tears as he embraced Pierre and kissed him.
Boris put a word in with his general, and Count Bennigsen spoke to Pierre, offering to take him along on their tour of the lines.
‘You’ll find it interesting,’ he said.
‘I’m sure I shall,’ said Pierre.
Half an hour later Kutuzov had set off back to Tatarinova, while Bennigsen and his entourage, now including Pierre, went off to look at the lines.
CHAPTER 23
Bennigsen went down the high road from Gorki and made for the bridge which the officer on the mound had pointed out to Pierre as being the centre of the position, where rows of new-mown grass were turning into sweet-smelling hay down by the riverside. They crossed the bridge and went on to the village of Borodino, where they turned left, rode past vast numbers of men and cannons, and climbed up to the high mound where militiamen were digging earthworks. This was the redoubt, so far without a name, that would come to be called Rayevsky’s redoubt, or ‘the battery on the mound’.
Pierre took no special notice of this redoubt. He wasn’t to know that for him this spot would turn out to be more unforgettable than any other part of the Borodino plain. Then they rode down through a ravine to Semyonovsk, where the soldiers were hauling the last logs away from shacks and barns. On they went, first downhill then up again across a field of rye, all trampled and flattened as if a hail-storm had passed over it, along a track recently laid down across the ploughed furrows by the artillery, until they got to some more earthworks, pointed ones known as flèches, which were also still under construction.
Bennigsen stopped at the flèches and peered across at the Shevardino redoubt, which had been ours only yesterday, where you could see several men on horseback. The officers told him Napoleon and Murat were over there. Everybody gazed intently at the little group of horsemen. Pierre stared with the rest, trying to work out which one of the barely discernible figures was Napoleon. Eventually the group of horsemen went off down the hill and rode away.
Bennigsen turned to a general who had just ridden up and launched into a description of our entire troop disposition. Pierre listened to what he was saying, straining every nerve to grasp the essential features of the impending battle, but he was forced to the disappointing conclusion that his brain was not up to it. He could not understand a word. Bennigsen stopped speaking, and noticing that Pierre was all ears he spoke to him rather curtly.
‘Not very interesting, I imagine.’
‘Oh, it is. It’s really interesting.’ Pierre echoed his word at some cost to the truth.
