“Your honor, your honor! A courier.”
“What? What’s that? From whom?” came a sleepy voice.
“From Dokhtúrov and from Alexéy Petróvich. Napoleon is at Formínsk,” said Bolkhovítinov, unable to see in the dark who was speaking but guessing by the voice that it was not Konovnítsyn.
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 Bolkhovítinov. “My orders are to give it at once to the general on duty.”
“Wait a moment, I’ll light a candle. You damned rascal, where do you always hide it?” said the voice of the man who was stretching himself, to the orderly. (This was Shcherbínin, Konovnítsyn’s adjutant.) “I’ve found it, I’ve found it!” he added.
The orderly was striking a light and Shcherbínin was fumbling for something on the candlestick.
“Oh, the nasty beasts!” said he with disgust.
By the light of the sparks Bolkhovítinov saw Shcherbínin’s youthful face as he held the candle, and the face of another man who was still asleep. This was Konovnítsyn.