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"You think he went off just by chance?" said a comrade, who was on the staff that evening, to the officer of the Horse Guards, referring to Ermolov. "It was a trick. It was done on purpose to get Konovnitsyn into trouble. You'll see what a mess there'll be tomorrow."

Coming out of the hut into the damp, dark night Konovnitsyn frowned partly from an increased pain in his head and partly at the unpleasant thought that occurred to him, of how all that nest of influential men on the staff would be stirred up by this news, especially Bennigsen, who ever since Tarutino had been at daggers drawn with Kutuzov; and how they would make suggestions, quarrel, issue orders, and rescind them.

With this object his staff was gradually reconstructed and its real strength removed and transferred to the Emperor. Toll, Konovnitsyn, and Ermolov received fresh appointments. Everyone spoke loudly of the field marshal's great weakness and failing health. His health had to be bad for his place to be taken away and given to another. And in fact his health was poor.

There is a certain limit of time in less than which no amount of heat can melt the snow. On the contrary the greater the heat the more solidified the remaining snow becomes. Of the Russian commanders Kutuzov alone understood this. When the flight of the French army along the Smolensk road became well defined, what Konovnitsyn had foreseen on the night of the eleventh of October began to occur.

"What relation are you to Intendant General Kiril Andreevich Denisov?" asked Kutuzov, interrupting him. "He is my uncle, your Sewene Highness." "Ah, we were friends," said Kutuzov cheerfully. "All right, all right, friend, stay here at the staff and tomorrow we'll have a talk." With a nod to Denisov he turned away and put out his hand for the papers Konovnitsyn had brought 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.

In spite of the severe frost some hundred generals and staff officers in full parade uniform stood in front of the castle, as well as a guard of honor of the Semenov regiment. A courier who galloped to the castle in advance, in a troyka with three foam-flecked horses, shouted "Coming!" and Konovnitsyn rushed into the vestibule to inform Kutuzov, who was waiting in the hall porter's little lodge.

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.

From whom?" he asked immediately but without hurry, blinking at the light. While listening to the officer's report Konovnitsyn broke the seal and read the dispatch. Hardly had he done so before he lowered his legs in their woolen stockings to the earthen floor and began putting on his boots. Then he took off his nightcap, combed his hair over his temples, and donned his cap.

Peter Petrovich Konovnitsyn, like Dokhturov, seems to have been included merely for propriety's sake in the list of the so-called heroes of 1812 the Barclays, Raevskis, Ermolovs, Platovs, and Miloradoviches.