Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 1, 2025
He screwed up his seeing eye to scrutinize the messenger more carefully, as if wishing to read in his face what preoccupied his own mind. "Tell me, tell me, friend," said he to Bolkhovitinov in his low, aged voice, as he pulled together the shirt which gaped open on his chest, "come nearer nearer. What news have you brought me? Eh? That Napoleon has left Moscow? Are you sure? Eh?"
Napoleon is at Forminsk," said Bolkhovitinov, unable to see in the dark who was speaking but guessing by the voice that it was not Konovnitsyn. The man who had wakened yawned and stretched himself. "I don't like waking him," he said, fumbling for something. "He is very ill. Perhaps this is only a rumor." "Here is the dispatch," said Bolkhovitinov.
"But this is very important, from General Dokhturov," said Bolkhovitinov, entering the open door which he had found by feeling in the dark. The orderly had gone in before him and began waking somebody. "Your honor, your honor! A courier." "What? What's that? From whom?" came a sleepy voice. "From Dokhturov and from Alexey Petrovich.
"Who gave the report?" inquired Shcherbinin, taking the envelope. "The news is reliable," said Bolkhovitinov. "Prisoners, Cossacks, and the scouts all say the same thing." "There's nothing to be done, we'll have to wake him," said Shcherbinin, rising and going up to the man in the nightcap who lay covered by a greatcoat. "Peter Petrovich!" said he.
By the light of the sparks Bolkhovitinov saw Shcherbinin's youthful face as he held the candle, and the face of another man who was still asleep. This was Konovnitsyn.
For this purpose a capable officer, Bolkhovitinov, was chosen, who was to explain the whole affair by word of mouth, besides delivering a written report. Toward midnight Bolkhovitinov, having received the dispatch and verbal instructions, galloped off to the General Staff accompanied by a Cossack with spare horses. It was a warm, dark, autumn night. It had been raining for four days.
Bolkhovitinov gave a detailed account from the beginning of all he had been told to report. "Speak quicker, quicker! Don't torture me!" Kutuzov interrupted him. Bolkhovitinov told him everything and was then silent, awaiting instructions. Toll was beginning to say something but Kutuzov checked him.
On the night of the eleventh 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 Bolkhovitinov. "Eh, who's there? Come in, come in! What news?" the field marshal called out to them. While a footman was lighting a candle, Toll communicated the substance of the news.
When the flame of the sulphur splinters kindled by the tinder burned up, first blue and then red, Shcherbinin lit the tallow candle, from the candlestick of which the cockroaches that had been gnawing it were running away, and looked at the messenger. Bolkhovitinov was bespattered all over with mud and had smeared his face by wiping it with his sleeve.
Having changed horses twice and galloped twenty miles in an hour and a half over a sticky, muddy road, Bolkhovitinov reached Litashevka after one o'clock at night. Dismounting at a cottage on whose wattle fence hung a signboard, GENERAL STAFF, and throwing down his reins, he entered a dark passage. "The general on duty, quick!
Word Of The Day
Others Looking