On receiving command of the armies Kutuzov remembers Andrew and sends an order for him to report at headquarters. Andrew arrives at Tsarevo-Zaymishche on the day and hour Kutuzov first reviews the troops. He waits on a bench at the priest's house before the commander in chief's carriage. From the field come music and hurrahs. A short, swarthy lieutenant colonel of hussars with thick mustaches rides up, inquires whether his Serene Highness is putting up there, dismounts at the orderly's contemptuous tone, and sits beside Andrew. They say he receives everyone, thank God. It's awful with those sausage eaters. Ermolov had reason to ask to be promoted to be a German. Perhaps Russians will get a look in. Did you take part in the campaign? Andrew had the pleasure not only of the retreat but of losing all he held dear, not to mention the estate of his birth: his father, who died of grief. He belongs to Smolensk. Ah? Prince Bolkonski? Lieutenant Colonel Denisov, better known as Vaska, presses his hand. Scythian warfare is all very well, only not for those who get it in the neck.
Andrew knows Denisov from what Natasha told him of her first suitor. The memory carries him sadly and sweetly back, but of late Smolensk, Bald Hills, and his father's death have so filled him that those feelings act with less than their former strength. For Denisov too the name belongs to a distant past, when after supper and Natasha's singing he proposed to a girl of fifteen without realizing what he was doing. He smiles and passes at once to the plan he devised at the outposts and proposed to Barclay: the French line is too extended; instead of, or with, action on the front, attack the communications. Give me five hundred men and I will break the line. There's only one way: guerrilla warfare. Shouts and hoofs near. Kutuzov comes down the street on a rather small sorrel horse, Barclay almost beside him, a crowd shouting hurrah. He nods in a white Horse Guard's cap with a red band and no peak. He looks silently at a guard of honour of decorated Grenadiers, shrugs with a subtle expression: And with such fine fellows to retreat and retreat! Since Andrew last saw him he has grown still more corpulent. The bleached eyeball, the scar, and the weariness are the same. He lurches off the horse into the arms of Cossacks, whistles, looks at Andrew without at first recognizing him, then: Ah, how do you do, my dear prince? Come along. And how's your father? Andrew received news of his death yesterday. Kutuzov takes off his cap, crosses himself, embraces Andrew to his fat breast, and tears are in his eyes.
Denisov, no more intimidated by superiors than by the enemy, comes up despite adjutants. He has a matter of great importance for their country's welfare. Kutuzov folds his hands: Well, what is it? Speak! Denisov blushes like a girl on that shaggy, time-worn face and expounds cutting the line between Smolensk and Vyazma. Kutuzov glances at the door as if expecting something unpleasant. A general with a portfolio appears. What relation are you to Intendant General Kiril Andreevich Denisov? He is my uncle. Ah, we were friends. Stay here at the staff and tomorrow we'll have a talk. Konovnitsyn has papers. Kutuzov will not go inside till he is disengaged. Bring a small table out here. Don't go away, he tells Andrew. Behind the door a plump woman in pink with a lilac kerchief holds a dish: the priest's wife with bread and salt. The adjutant whispers that she is very pretty. Kutuzov listens to a criticism of the Tsarevo-Zaymishche position as he listened to Denisov and, seven years before, to the Austerlitz council: because he has ears, one with a piece of tow, not because anything will surprise him. He despises knowledge and cleverness, even Denisov's patriotic feeling, not from his own intellect but from old age and experience. The only instruction he gives of his own accord is about looting. A paper for signature would recover payment from army commanders for green oats when landowners lodge petitions. Into the stove, into the fire with all such things. Let them cut the crops and burn wood. I don't order it or allow it, but I don't exact compensation either. When wood is chopped the chips will fly. Oh, this German precision!
Coming Up in Chapter 206
Well, that's all, says Kutuzov as he signs the last of the documents, and rising heavily and smoothing out the folds in his fat white neck he moves toward the door with a more cheerful expression. The priest's wife, flushing rosy red, catches up the dish she has not managed to present at the right moment and with a low bow offers it to him.
