A few days before the battle of Borodinó, Nikoláy received the necessary money and warrants, and having sent some hussars on in advance, he set out with post horses for Vorónezh.

Only a man who has experienced it⁠—that is, has passed some months continuously in an atmosphere of campaigning and war⁠—can understand the delight Nikoláy felt when he escaped from the region covered by the army’s foraging operations, provision trains, and hospitals. When⁠—free from soldiers, wagons, and the filthy traces of a camp⁠—he saw villages with peasants and peasant women, gentlemen’s country houses, fields where cattle were grazing, posthouses with stationmasters asleep in them, he rejoiced as though seeing all this for the first time. What for a long while specially surprised and delighted him were the women, young and healthy, without a dozen officers making up to each of them; women, too, who were pleased and flattered that a passing officer should joke with them.