- After asking permission (well, sort of) Nikolai rides off to Tilsit to hand in Denisov’s petition to the highest ranking person he knows.
- Also in Tilsit, Emperor Napoleon and Emperor Alexander are meeting to sign a peace treaty.
- Boris is important enough now that he is there not by luck, but because it would be weird if he weren’t included in such an important thing.
- He hangs out with another adjutant, who is a total Francophile (someone who is into French stuff). The night Nikolai rides out, Boris, Boris’s friend, and a bunch of French officers are having a little party in Boris’s room.
- Nikolai shows up and immediately can tell that Boris doesn’t want him there. On top of that, Nikolai is not too into the idea that the French are so suddenly their friends.
- Grumpily, he tells Boris the deal with Denisov, and realizes that he feels totally inferior to Boris for some reason. And also uncomfortable around him. May we venture a guess why? Maybe because the whole Boris-Natasha thing didn’t work out, and now Nikolai is trying to get his sister’s ex-boyfriend to do him a huge favor?