Others of Pierre’s acquaintances joined him; and he had not time to answer all the questions about Moscow that were showered upon him, nor to listen to all they had to tell him. Every face wore a look of excitement and agitation. But it seemed to Pierre that the cause of the excitement that was betrayed by some of those faces was to be found in questions of personal success, and he could not forget that other look of excitement he had seen in the other faces, that suggested problems, not of personal success, but the universal questions of life and death.
Kutuzov noticed Pierre’s figure and the group gathered about him.
“Call him to me,” said Kutuzov.
An adjutant communicated his highness’s desire, and Pierre went towards the bench. But a militiaman approached Kutuzov before him. It was Dolohov.
“How does that man come to be here？” asked Pierre.
“Oh, he’s such a sly dog, he pokes himself in everywhere！” was the answer he received. “He has been degraded to the ranks, you know. Now he wants to pop up again. He has made plans of some sort and spies in the enemy’s lines at night … but he’s a plucky fellow …”
Pierre took off his hat and bowed respectfully to Kutuzov.
“I decided that if I were to lay the matter before your highness, you might dismiss me or say that you were aware of the facts and then I shouldn’t lose anything,” Dolohov was saying.
“To be sure.”
“And if I were right, I should do a service for my fatherland, for which I am ready to die.”
“To be sure … to be sure …”
“And if your highness has need of a man who would not spare his skin graciously remember me … perhaps I might be of use to your highness …”
“To be sure … to be sure …” repeated Kutuzov, looking with laughing, half-closed eye at Pierre.
Meanwhile Boris, with his courtier-like tact, had moved close to the commander-in-chief with Pierre, and in the most natural manner, in a quiet voice, as though continuing his previous conversation, he said to Pierre：
“The peasant militiamen have simply put on clean, white shirts to be ready to die. What heroism, count！”
Boris said this to Pierre with the evident intention of being overheard by his excellency. He knew Kutuzov’s attention would be caught by those words, and his highness did in fact address him.
“What are you saying about the militia？” he said to Boris.
“They have put on white shirts, your highness, by way of preparing for to-morrow, to be ready for death.”
“Ah！ … A marvellous, unique people,” said Kutuzov, and closing his eyes he shook his head. “A unique people！” he repeated, with a sigh.
“Do you want a sniff of powder？” he said to Pierre. “Yes; a pleasant smell. I have the honour to be one of your wife’s worshippers; is she quite well？ My quarters are at your service.” And Kutuzov began, as old people often do, gazing abstractedly about him, as though forgetting all he had to say or do. Apparently recollecting the object of his search, he beckoned to Andrey Sergeitch Kaisarov, the brother of his adjutant.
“How was it, how do they go, those verses of Marin？ How do they go？ What he wrote on Gerakov： ‘You will be teacher in the corps …’ Tell me, tell me,” said Kutuzov, his countenance relaxing in readiness for a laugh. Kaisarov repeated the lines … Kutuzov, smiling, nodded his head to the rhythm of the verse.
When Pierre moved away from Kutuzov, Dolohov approached and took his hand
“I am very glad to meet you here, count,” he said, aloud, disregarding the presence of outsiders, and speaking with a marked determination and gravity. “On the eve of a day which God knows who among us will be destined to survive I am glad to have the chance of telling you that I regret the misunderstandings there have been between us in the past; and I should be glad to think you had nothing against me. I beg you to forgive me.”
Pierre looked with a smile at Dolohov, not knowing what to say to him. With tears starting into his eyes, Dolohov embraced and kissed Pierre.
Boris had said a few words to his general, and Count Bennigsen addressed Pierre, proposing that he should accompany them along the line.
“You will find it interesting,” he said.
“Yes, very interesting,” said Pierre.
Half an hour later Kutuzov was on his way back to Tatarinovo, while Bennigsen and his suite, with Pierre among them, were inspecting the position.