and fluttered the ribbons with which the holy picture was decked; the singing sounded subdued under the open sky. An immense crowd—officers, soldiers, and militiamen—stood round, all with bare heads. In a space apart, behind the priests and deacons, stood the persons of higher rank. A bald general, with the order of St. George on his neck, stood directly behind the priest. He was unmistakably a German, for he stood, not crossing himself, patiently waiting for the end of the service, to which he thought it right to listen, probably as a means of arousing the patriotism of the Russian peasantry; another general stood in a martial pose and swung his arm before his chest, looking about him as he made the sign of the cross. Pierre, standing among the peasants, recognised in this group of higher rank several persons he knew. But he did not look at them; his whole attention was engrossed by the serious expression of the faces in the crowd, soldiers and peasants alike, all gazing with the same eagerness at the holy picture. As soon as the weary choristers (it was their twentieth service) began languidly singing their habitual chant, “O Mother of God, save Thy servants from calamity,” and priest and deacon chimed in, “For to Thee we all fly as our invincible Bulwark and Protectress,” there was a gleam on every face of that sense of the solemnity of the coming moment, which he had seen on the hill at Mozhaisk and by glimpses in so many of the faces meeting him that morning. And heads were bowed lower, while locks of hair fluttered in the breeze, and there was the sound of sighing and beating the breast as the soldiers crossed themselves.

The crowd suddenly parted and pressed upon Pierre. Some one, probably a very great person, judging by the promptitude with which they made way for him, was approaching the holy picture.

It was Kutuzov, who had been making the round of the position. On his way back to Tatarinovo, he joined the service. Pierre at once recognised him from his peculiar figure, which marked him out at once.

In a long military coat, with his enormously stout figure and bent back, with his white head uncovered, and his blind white eye, conspicuous in his puffy face, Kutuzov walked with his waddling swaying gait into the ring and stood behind the priest. He crossed himself with an habitual gesture, bent down, with his hand touching the earth, and, sighing heavily, bowed his grey head. Kutuzov was followed by Bennigsen and his suite. In spite of the presence of the commander-in-chief, which drew the attention of all persons of higher rank, the militiamen and soldiers went on praying without looking at him.

When the service was over, Kutuzov went up to the holy picture, dropped heavily down on his knees, bowing to the earth, and for a long time he attempted to get up, and was unable from his weakness and heavy weight. His grey head twitched with the strain. At last he did get up, and putting out his lips in a naïve, childlike way kissed the holy picture, and again bowed down, with one hand touching the ground. The other generals followed his example; then the officers, and after them the soldiers and militiamen ran up with excited faces, pushing each other, and shoving breathlessly forward.