“The enemy have extinguished their fires and a continual noise has been heard in their camp,” he said. “What does that mean？ Either they are retreating—the only thing we have to fear, or changing their position” （he smiled ironically）. “But even if they were to take up their position at Turas, it would only be saving us a great deal of trouble, and all our arrangements will remain unchanged in the smallest detail.”
“How can that be？…” said Prince Andrey, who had a long while been looking out for an opportunity of expressing his doubts. Kutuzov waked up, cleared his throat huskily, and looked round at the generals.
“Gentlemen, the disposition for to-morrow, for to-day indeed （for it’s going on for one o’clock）, can’t be altered now,” he said. “You have heard it, and we will all do our duty. And before a battle nothing is of so much importance…” （he paused） “as a good night’s rest.”
He made a show of rising from his chair. The generals bowed themselves out. It was past midnight. Prince Andrey went out.
The council of war at which Prince Andrey had not succeeded in expressing his opinion, as he had hoped to do, had left on him an impression of uncertainty and uneasiness. Which was right—Dolgorukov and Weierother？ or Kutuzov and Langeron and the others, who did not approve of the plan of attack—he did not know. But had it really been impossible for Kutuzov to tell the Tsar his views directly？ Could it not have been managed differently？ On account of personal and court considerations were tens of thousands of lives to be risked—“and my life, mine？” he thought.
“Yes, it may well be that I shall be killed to-morrow,” he thought.
And all at once, at that thought of death, a whole chain of memories, the most remote and closest to his heart, rose up in his imagination. He recalled his last farewell to his father and his wife; he recalled the early days of his love for her, thought of her approaching motherhood; and he felt sorry for her and for himself, and in a nervously overwrought and softened mood he went out of the cottage at which he and Nesvitsky were putting up, and began to walk to and fro before it. The night was foggy, and the moonlight glimmered mysteriously through the mist. “Yes, to-morrow, to-morrow！” he thought. “To-morrow, maybe, all will be over for me, all these memories will be no more, all these memories will have no more meaning for me. To-morrow, perhaps—for certain, indeed—to-morrow, I have a presentiment, I shall have for the first time to show all I can do.” And he pictured the engagement, the loss of it, the concentration of the fighting at one point, and the hesitation of all the commanding officers. And then the happy moment—that Toulon he had been waiting for so long—at last comes to him. Resolutely and clearly he speaks his opinion to Kutuzov and Weierother, and the Emperors. All are struck by the justness of his view, but no one undertakes to carry it into execution, and behold, he leads the regiment, only making it a condition that no one is to interfere with his plans, and he leads his division to the critical point and wins the victory alone. “And death and agony！” said another voice. But Prince Andrey did not answer that voice, and went on with his triumphs. The disposition of the battle that ensues is all his work alone. Nominally, he is an adjutant on the staff of Kutuzov, but he does everything alone. The battle is gained by him alone. Kutuzov is replaced, he is appointed.… “Well, and then？” said the other voice again, “what then, if you do a dozen times over escape being wounded, killed, or deceived before that; well, what then？” “Why, then…” Prince Andrey answered himself, “I don’t know what will come then, I can’t know, and don’t want to; but if I want that, if I want glory, want to be known to men, want to be loved by them, it’s not my fault that I want it, that it’s the only thing I care for, the only thing I live for. Yes, the only thing！ I shall never say to any one, but, my God！ what am I to do, if I care for nothing but glory, but men’s love？ Death, wounds, the loss of my family—nothing has terrors for me. And dear and precious as many people are to me： father, sister, wife—the people dearest to me; yet dreadful and unnatural as it seems, I would give them all up for a moment of glory, of triumph over men, of love from men whom I don’t know, and shall never know, for the love of those people there,” he thought, listening to the talk in the courtyard of Kutuzov’s house. He could hear the voices of the officers’ servants packing up; one of them, probably a coachman, was teasing Kutuzov’s old cook, a man called Tit, whom Prince Andrey knew. He kept calling him and making a joke on his name.
“Tit, hey, Tit？” he said.
“Well？” answered the old man.
“Tit, stupay molotit” （“Tit, go a-thrashing”）, said the jester.
“Pooh, go to the devil, do,” he heard the cook’s voice, smothered in the laughter of the servants.
“And yet, the only thing I love and prize is triumph over all of them, that mysterious power and glory which seems hovering over me in this mist！”
