, but they
thought about their next pay, their next quarters, of Matreshka the
vivandiere, and like matters.

As the war had caught him in the service, Nicholas Rostov took a close
and prolonged part in the defense of his country, but did so casually,
without any aim at self-sacrifice, and he therefore looked at what was
going on in Russia without despair and without dismally racking his
brains over it. Had he been asked what he thought of the state of
Russia, he would have said that it was not his business to think about
it, that Kutuzov and others were there for that purpose, but that he had
heard that the regiments were to be made up to their full strength, that
fighting would probably go on for a long time yet, and that things being
so it was quite likely he might be in command of a regiment in a couple
of years' time.

As he looked at the matter in this way, he learned that he was being
sent to Voronezh to buy remounts for his division, not only without
regret at being prevented from taking part in the coming battle, but
with the greatest pleasure--which he did not conceal and which his
comrades fully understood.

A few days before the battle of Borodino, Nicholas received the
necessary money and warrants, and having sent some hussars on in
advance, he set out with post horses for Voronezh.

Only a man who has experienced it--that is, has passed some months
continuously in an atmosphere of campaigning and war--can understand
the delight Nicholas felt when he escaped from the region covered by the
army's foraging operations, provision trains, and hospitals. When--free
from soldiers, wagons, and the filthy traces of a camp--he saw villages
with peasants and peasant women, gentlemen's country houses, fields
where cattle were grazing, posthouses with stationmasters asleep in
them, he rejoiced as though seeing all this for the first time. What for
a long while specially surprised and delighted him were the women, young
and healthy, without a dozen officers making up to each of them; women,
too, who were pleased and flattered that a passing officer should joke
with them.

In the highest spirits Nicholas arrived at night at a hotel in Voronezh,
ordered things he had long been deprived of in camp, and next day, very
clean-shaven and in a full-dress uniform he had not worn for a long
time, went to present himself to the authorities.

The commander of the militia was a civilian general, an old man who was
evidently p