The unanswered question, whether the wound dealt at Borodino were mortal or not, had been for a whole month hanging over Kutuzov’s head. On one side, the French had taken possession of Moscow. On the other side, in all his being, Kutuzov felt beyond all doubt that the terrible blow for which, together with all the Russians, he had strained all his strength must have been mortal. But in any case proofs were wanted, and he had been waiting for them now a month, and as time went on he grew more impatient. As he lay on his bed through sleepless nights, he did the very thing these younger generals did, the very thing he found fault with in them. He imagined all possible contingencies, just like the younger generation, but with this difference that he based no conclusion on the suppositions, and that he saw these contingencies not as two or three, but as thousands. The more he pondered, the more of them he saw. He imagined all sorts of movements of Napoleon’s army, acting as a whole or in part, on Petersburg, against him, to out-flank him （that was what he was most afraid of）, and also the possibility that Napoleon would fight against him with his own weapon, that he would stay on in Moscow waiting for him to move. Kutuzov even imagined Napoleon’s army marching back to Medyn and Yuhnov. But the one thing he could not foresee was what happened—the mad, convulsive stampede of Napoleon’s army during the first eleven days of its march from Moscow—the stampede that made possible what Kutuzov did not yet dare to think about, the complete annihilation of the French. Dorohov’s report of Broussier’s division, the news brought by the irregulars of the miseries of Napoleon’s army, rumours of preparations for leaving Moscow, all confirmed the supposition that the French army was beaten and preparing to take flight. But all this was merely supposition, that seemed of weight to the younger men, but not to Kutuzov. With his sixty years’ experience he knew how much weight to attach to rumours; he knew how ready men are when they desire anything to manipulate all evidence so as to confirm what they desire; and he knew how readily in that case they let everything of an opposite significance pass unheeded. And the more Kutuzov desired this supposition to be correct, the less he permitted himself to believe it. This question absorbed all his spiritual energies. All the rest was for him the mere customary performance of the routine of life. Such a customary performance and observance of routine were his conversations with the staff-officers, his letters to Madame de Sta？l that he wrote from Tarutino, his French novels, distribution of rewards, correspondence with Petersburg, and so on. But the destruction of the French, which he alone foresaw, was the one absorbing desire of his heart.
On the night of the 11th of October he lay leaning on his arm and thinking of that.
There was a stir in the next room, and he heard the steps of Toll, Konovnitsyn and Bolhovitinov.
“Hey, who is there？ Come in, come in！ Anything new？” the commander-in-chief called to them.
While a footman lighted a candle, Toll told the drift of the news.
“Who brought it？” asked Kutuzov, with a face that impressed Toll when the candle was lighted by its frigid sternness.
“There can be no doubt of it, your highness.”
“Call him, call him here！”
Kutuzov sat with one leg out of bed and his unwieldy, corpulent body propped on the other leg bent under him. He screwed up his one seeing eye to get a better view of the messenger, as though he hoped in his face to read what he cared to know.
“Tell me, tell me, my dear fellow,” he said to Bolhovitinov, in his low, aged voice, pulling the shirt together that had come open over his chest. “Come here, come closer. What news is this you have brought me？ Eh？ Napoleon has marched out of Moscow？ Is it truly so？ Eh？”
Bolhovitinov began repeating in detail the message that had been given him.
“Tell me, make haste, don’t torture me,” Kutuzov interrupted him.
Bolhovitinov told him all and paused, awaiting instructions. Toll was beginning to speak, but Kutuzov checked him. He tried to say something, but all at once his face began to work, to pucker; waving his hand at Toll, he turned the other way to the corner of the hut, which looked black with the holy pictures. “Lord, my Creator！ Thou hast heard our prayer …” he said in a trembling voice, clasping his hands. “Russia is saved. I thank Thee, O Lord.” And he burst into tears.