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One of my favorite scenes in the novel is when Kutuzov sees that he is about to receive bad news as to the state of the battle, stands up, puts his arm around the man, and takes the news away from ears that could hear and thus kill the morale. This is the “spirit of the army” Tolstoy is writing about, that feeling that all is won (or lost), and it’s the one thing Kutuzov knows he has some control over.