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"All right, all right!" he said to Prince Andrew, and turned to a general who, watch in hand, was saying it was time they started as all the left-flank columns had already descended. "Plenty of time, your excellency," muttered Kutuzov in the midst of a yawn. "Plenty of time," he repeated.
He felt that Kutuzov was upset and dissatisfied about something and that at headquarters they were dissatisfied with him, and also that at the Emperor's headquarters everyone adopted toward him the tone of men who know something others do not know: he therefore wished to speak to Dolgorukov. "Well, how d'you do, my dear fellow?" said Dolgorukov, who was sitting at tea with Bilibin.
But a little further on he saw infantry regiments with their arms piled and the soldiers, only partly dressed, eating their rye porridge and carrying fuel. He sent for an officer. The officer reported that no order to advance had been received. "How! Not rec..." Kutuzov began, but checked himself immediately and sent for a senior officer.
This is what I expected from you I knew your kindness!" He turned to go. "Wait just a word! When he has been transferred to the Guards..." she faltered. "You are on good terms with Michael Ilarionovich Kutuzov... recommend Boris to him as adjutant! Then I shall be at rest, and then..." Prince Vasili smiled. "No, I won't promise that.
He smiled, and went and lay down to sleep beside his companions. In the early days of October another envoy came to Kutuzov with a letter from Napoleon proposing peace and falsely dated from Moscow, though Napoleon was already not far from Kutuzov on the old Kaluga road.
He unexpectedly felt himself ridiculous, weak, and alone, with no ground to stand on. When, awakened from his sleep, he received that cold, peremptory note from Kutuzov, he felt the more irritated the more he felt himself to blame.
For instance..." Kutuzov seemed to reflect, searching for an example, then with a clear, naive look at Bennigsen he added: "Oh yes; take the battle of Friedland, which I think the count well remembers, and which was... not fully successful, only because our troops were rearranged too near the enemy..." There followed a momentary pause, which seemed very long to them all.
On the twenty-ninth of November Kutuzov entered Vilna his "dear Vilna" as he called it. Twice during his career Kutuzov had been governor of Vilna. In that wealthy town, which had not been injured, he found old friends and associations, besides the comforts of life of which he had so long been deprived.
Kutuzov, shrugging his shoulders, replied with his subtle penetrating smile: "I meant merely to say what I said." Contrary to the Emperor's wish Kutuzov detained the greater part of the army at Vilna. Those about him said that he became extraordinarily slack and physically feeble during his stay in that town.
Pursued by the French army of a hundred thousand men under the command of Bonaparte, encountering a population that was unfriendly to it, losing confidence in its allies, suffering from shortness of supplies, and compelled to act under conditions of war unlike anything that had been foreseen, the Russian army of thirty-five thousand men commanded by Kutuzov was hurriedly retreating along the Danube, stopping where overtaken by the enemy and fighting rearguard actions only as far as necessary to enable it to retreat without losing its heavy equipment.
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