Volume I, Book II, Chapter XV

Andrei, turns out, convinced Kuzutov to let him go back with Bagration. Yikes.

There's a lot more, and stuff I want to get into, but I am beat. Long day. Ended up making a short film, surprisingly, and went to a play. So must sleep.

But will leave this space free and fill tomorrow. After all, I did keep to reading a chapter a day. Still on target.

Unlike, it seems, the Russians. Yipes.

So, Andrei is lead around by a staff officer, who doesn't speak good French. Quelle horreur! Here we meet a man with no boots, who is trying to dry them and makes light of it - Captain Tushin.

Prince Andrei looked once more at the little figure of the artillerist. There was something special in it, totally unmilitary, slightly comical, but extremely attractive.

Isn't the 19th century excellent - men could express affection for each other and knowledge of each other's attraction on different levels without feeling that someone would question their masculinity. I'm all for Larry Kramer, but sometimes it's nice to just say that men feel this way about each other and they're not gay. And it's a beautiful thing. And if I like I can read some tension into it or not, but mostly it just makes the novel richer. It shows the heart, gives us people to root for. Since I'm writing this two days later, I know that Tushin comes back, so I'm spending some time here. I don't know if he survives past XVII yet.

Andrei then sees a man being whipped for stealing. Ouch. And then hears a heated conversation in French between a Russian soldier and a French one. Guess who? None other than Dolokhov. He shows up everywhere. He and the Frenchman disagree, and then another soldier makes light of it, making the men on both sides laugh.

But the guns remained loaded, the loopholes in the houses and fortifications looked out just as menacingly, and the unlimbered cannon remained turned against each other just as before.