Prince Nesvitsky

A Russian staff officer

BOOK ONE

Book One, Part Two

27 Jan: Chapter 2
Tall and extremely stout, with a kindly, smiling, handsome face. He is Andrei’s comrade on Kutuzov’s staff.

28 Jan: Chapter 3
Andrei meets him in the corridor after seeing Kutuzov. Nesvitsky is sharing a joke with the wag Zherkov, who goes on to taunt an Austrian general. Andrei seems especially offended that his comrade Nesvitsky should hang out with a “schoolboy” like Zherkov.

31 Jan: Chapter 6
I think Andrei, myself and others, hoped for better from Nesvitsky than casual jokes about raping nuns. But he disappoints and appals on the hill above the River Enns. He generously shares pies with the officers, but he turns our stomachs.

1 Feb: Chapter 7
After his vulgarity on the hill, Nesvitsky gives us poetry on the bridge, as we see him compare the river flow with the waves of men. He’s pleased to see a dandy Denisov, and together, they force their way across the packed and panicking mass of men.

2 Feb: Chapter 8
He brings the same order as Zherkov to the colonel to burn the bridge. He is irritated that the colonel has taken his previous orders so literally. When the Hussars are fired on, Nesvitsky exclaims: “If I were Tsar I would never go to war”. But when the colonel later bemoans the waste of men, Nesvitsky points out that men want to show their courage and win honours and ribbons.

7 Feb: Chapter 13
He is with Kutuzov when Andrei catches up with the army. His “usually laughing countenance” is transformed into one of “alarm and agitation”. “It’s terrible!” he tells Andrei.