Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
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militiaman got there before him. It
was Dolokhov.
"How did that fellow get here?" asked Pierre.
"Hes a creature that wriggles in anywhere!" was the answer. "He has
been degraded, you know. Now he wants to bob up again. Hes been
proposing some scheme or other and has crawled into the enemys picket
line at night.... Hes a brave fellow."
Pierre took off his hat and bowed respectfully to Kutuzov.
"I concluded that if I reported to your Serene Highness you might
send me away or say that you knew what I was reporting, but then I
shouldnt lose anything..." Dolokhov was saying.
"Yes, yes."
"But if I were right, I should be rendering a service to my
Fatherland for which I am ready to die."
"Yes, yes."
"And should your Serene Highness require a man who will not spare
his skin, please think of me.... Perhaps I may prove useful to your
Serene Highness."
"Yes... Yes..." Kutuzov repeated, his laughing eye narrowing more
and more as he looked at Pierre.
Just then Boris, with his courtierlike adroitness, stepped up to
Pierres side near Kutuzov and in a most natural manner, without
raising his voice, said to Pierre, as though continuing an interrupted
conversation:
"The militia have put on clean white shirts to be ready to die. What
heroism, Count!"
Boris evidently said this to Pierre in order to be overheard by
his Serene Highness. He knew Kutuzovs attention would be caught by
those words, and so it was.
"What are you saying about the militia?" he asked Boris.
"Preparing for tomorrow, your Serene Highness--for death--they
have put on clean shirts."
"Ah... a wonderful, a matchless people!" said Kutuzov; and he closed
his eyes and swayed his head. "A matchless people!" he repeated with a
sigh.
"So you want to smell gunpowder?" he said to Pierre. "Yes, its a
pleasant smell. I have the honor to be one of your wifes adorers.
Is she well? My quarters are at your service."
And as often happens with old people, Kutuzov began looking about
absent-mindedly as if forgetting all he wanted to say or do.
Then, evidently remembering what he wanted, he beckoned to Andrew
Kaysarov, his adjutants brother.
"Those verses... those verses of Marins... how do they go, eh?
Those he wrote about Gerakov: Lectures for the corps inditing...
Recite them, recite them!" said he, evidently preparing to laugh.
Kaysarov recited.... Kutuzov smilingly nodded his head to the rhythm
of the verses.
When Pierre had left Kutuzov, Dolokhov came up to him and took his
hand.
"I am very glad to meet you here, Count," he said aloud,
regardless of the presence of strangers and in a particularly resolute
and solemn tone. "On the eve of a day when God alone knows who of us
is fated to survive, I am glad of this opportunity to tell you that
I regret the misunderstandings that occurred between us and should
wish you not to have any ill feeling for me. I beg you to forgive me."
Pierre looked at Dolokhov with a smile, not knowing what to say to
him. With tears in his eyes Dolokhov embraced Pierre and kissed him.
Boris said a few words to his general, and Count Bennigsen turned to
Pierre and proposed that he should ride with him along the line.
"It will interest you," said he.
"Yes, very much," replied Pierre.
Half an hour later Kutuzov left for Tatarinova, and Bennigsen and
his suite, with Pierre among them, set out on their ride along the
line.
CHAPTER XXIII
From Gorki, Bennigsen descended the highroad to the bridge which,
when they had looked at it from the hill, the officer had pointed out
as being the center of our position and where rows of fragrant
new-mown hay lay by the riverside. They rode across that bridge into
the village of Borodino and thence turned to the left, passing an
enormous number of troops and guns, and came to a high knoll where
militiamen were digging. This was the redoubt, as yet unnamed, which
afterwards became known as the Raevski Redoubt, or the Knoll
Battery, but Pierre paid no special attention to it. He did not know
that it would become more memorable to him than any other spot on
the plain of Borodino.
They then crossed the hollow to Semenovsk, where the soldiers were
dragging away the last logs from the huts and barns. Then they rode
downhill and uphill, across a ryefield trodden and beaten down as if
by hail, following a track freshly made by the artillery over the
furrows of the plowed land, and reached some fleches* which were still
being dug.
*A kind of entrenchment.
At
War And Peace page 459 War And Peace page 461
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