“...The luckiest of all was the young Prince Bolkonsky, Kutuzov’s adjutant, suffering from the emptiness of life and family grief, fame-loving and serious in character. Before him, our entire quick and unfortunate foreign campaign of 1805–1807 develops with all its tragic and poetic sides; and besides, he sees the entire situation of the commander-in-chief and part of the prim Austrian court and the Gofkriegsrat. Emperor Franz, Kutuzov, and a little later - Speransky, Arakcheev and others come to pose for him, although the author himself takes extremely effective portraits from them...”