Briggs: Konovnitsyn, who brought news of the retreat, is another unsung hero.
Pevear and Volokhonsky: The envoy finds Konovnitsyn. He reports to Kutuzov. Praise of Konovnitsyn.
Translation:
XVI.
The night was dark, warm, and autumn. Rain was coming now for the fourth day. Two times changing horses and in one and a half hours galloping 30 versts by the dirty swampy road, Bolhovitinov in the second hour of the night was at Letashevka. Getting down in the huts, at the wicker fence which was a signboard: "main staff", and throwing off his horse, he entered in the dark canopy.
— A duty officer general soon! Very major! — he spoke to someone, rising and puffing in the dark canopy.
— From the evening he is very unhealthy, for the third night not asleep, — intercessioningly whispered the batman’s voice. — Really you wake up the captain first.
— Very major, from General Dohturov, — said Bolhovitinov, entering at the groped by them dissolved door. The valet passed forward to him and began to wake up someone. — Your nobleness, your nobleness — a courier.
— What, what? From whom? — spoke some sleepy voice.
— From Dohturov and from Aleksey Petrovich. Napoleon is in Fominskoe, — said Bolhovitinov, not seeing in the dark who asked him, but by the sound of the voice assuming that this was not Konovnitsyn.
The woke up person yawned and pulled.
— He does not want me to wake him up, — he said, palpating something. — Sick! May be, gossip.
— Here is the report, — said Bolhovitinov: — It is ordered now already to deliver it to the duty officer general.
— Wait, light up a fire. Where are you, cursed, always shoved? — turning to the batman, said the pulled person. This was Shcherbinin, the adjutant of Konovnitsyn. — Found, found, — he added.
The valet chopped the fire, Shcherbinin groped the candlestick.
— Ah, vile, — with disgust he said.
In the sparks of light Bolhovitinov saw the young face of Shcherbinin with the candles and in the front corner a still sleeping man. This was Konovnitsyn.
When the first blue and then the red flames burned the sulfur match about the tinder, Shcherbinin lit a greasy candle, from the candlestick ran a gnawing on it cockroach, and he examined the bulletin. Bolhovitinov was all in mud and, wiping his sleeve, smeared it on his face.
— And who informs? — said Shcherbinin, taking the envelope.
— The news is true, — said Bolhovitinov. — The captives, Cossacks, and scouts, all unanimously show one and the same.
— There is nothing to do, need to wake him up, — said Shcherbinin, getting up and coming up to the person in a nightcap, covered by an overcoat; — Petr Petrovich! — he spoke. Konovnitsyn did not move. — In the main staff! — he spoke smiling, knowing that these words for sure would wake him up. And really, the head in the night cap went up immediately the same. In the beautiful, solid face of Konovnitsyn with feverishly-inflamed cheeks, in this moment stayed still an expression of distant from the current situation dreams and sleep, but then suddenly he flinched: this face accepted an usually calm and solid expression.
— Well what is so? From whom? — leisurely, but immediately the same he asked, blinking from the light. Listening to the report of the officer, Konovnitsyn unsealed and read. Barely reading, he lowered his legs in woolen stockings to the earthy floor and began to put on shoes. Then he stripped off the cap and, combing his whiskers, allotted the cap.
— You rode so far so soon? Go to the lordly.
Konovnitsyn immediately got that the brought news had big importance, and that it cannot be to procrastinate. Whether it was okay, whether it was bad, he did not think and did not ask himself. He was not interested in this. In all the business of war he watched not mind, not reason, but something other. In his soul was a deep, not expressed convinction that all will be okay; but that this belief was not needed, and by that more it was not needed to speak this, but it was needed to do only his business. And this business he did, giving back all his forces.
Petr Petrovich Konovnitsyn, so the same as Dohturov, only as from decency brought into the list of so called heroes of the 12-th year — the Barclays, Raevskis, Ermolovs, Platovs, and Miloradoviches, so the same as Dohturov, employed the reputation of a man quite limited in abilities and information, and so the same as Dohturov, Konovnitsyn never made projects of battles, but always was found there, where it was only harder; sleeping always with a disclosed door since he was assigned as the duty general, ordering each sent to wake up himself, always in the time of battles was under fire, so that Kutuzov reproached him for that and was afraid to send him, and was so the same as Dohturov, one of those less noticable gears, which not popping and not noisy, form the very essential part of the machine.
Exiting from the hut in the raw, dark night, Konovnitsyn frowned partly from the intensified pain in his head, partly from the unpleasantness coming into his head thought about how now was worried all this nest of staff, influential people, at this news, in particular Bennigsen, after Tarutin formerly at knives with Kutuzov; how it will be proposed, argued, ordered, and canceled. And this premonition was unpleasant to him, although he knew that without this cannot be.
Really, Toll, to whom he called for to report the news, immediately and already began to set out his considerations to the general who lived with him, and Konovnitsyn silently and tiredly listened, reminding him that they needed to go to the lordly.
Mentioned: autumn, four days, hour and a half, three nights, 1812
Locations: Letashevka (Letashovko in Briggs. Litashevka in Maude and Dunnigan. Litashovka in Mandelker. Letashevko in Garnett and Dole. Letachevka in Bell.)
Mentioned: Fominskoe, Tarutino
Pevear and Volokhonsky Notes: Bolkhovitinov, sent to staff headquarters, is caught in a semi-humorous scene where he is forced to wait for the general on duty because he is sick and then it becomes difficult to find a candle.
Konovnitsyn is described as looking "at the whole business of war not with his mind, not with his reason, but with something else. There was a deep, unspoken conviction in his soul that all would be well". He is described, like Dokhturov, as one of the indispensable gears of the machine.
Characters (characters who do not appear, but are mentioned are placed in italics. First appearances are in Bold. First mentions are underlined. Final appearance denoted by *):
Bolkhovitinof (also his Cossack.)
General Dokhturof
Yermolof (Also "Aleksei Petrovitch" in Dole. "Aleksyey Petrovitch" in Wiener. Bell drops the name. "Aleksei Petrovich" in Dunnigan. "Alexey Petrovitch" in Garnett. "Alexei Petrovich" in Mandelker and Edmonds. "Alexey Petrovich" in Briggs and Maude.)
Napoleon
Piotr Petrovitch Konovnitsyn (see chapter 16 for variations on "Piotr". See above for variations on Petrovitch.)
Shcherbinin (Konovnitsyn's adjutant. Also his servant or denshchik.)
Barclay (the next few names are used in the plural as types.)
Rayevsky
Platof
Miloradovitch
Kutuzof (also "serene highness".)
Toll
Abridged Versions: No break in Bell.
Gibian: line break instead of chapter break.
Fuller: Entire chapter is cut.
Komroff: The basic episode of the chapter is preserved, but the names of the characters in the episode is removed, so the personality reflections at the end of the chapter is removed.
Kropotkin: Entire chapter is cut.
Simmons: The whole discussion of the sick master and the striking of the light is removed. The praise for Konovnitsyn is shortened, with the cog of the machine section removed.
Additional Notes:
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