| KUTUZOV, with his grey head hanging, and his heavy, corpulent frame sunk into a heap, was sitting on a bench covered with a rug, in the same place in which Pierre had seen him in the morning. He issued no orders, and simply gave or withheld his assent to what was proposed to him. “Yes, yes, do so,” he would say in reply to various suggestions. “Yes, yes, go across, my dear boy, and see,” he would cry first to one and the to another of the adjutants near him; or, “No, better not; we’d better wait a bit,” he would say. He listened to the reports brought him, and gave orders, when they were asked for. But as he heard the reports, he seemed to take little interest in the import of the words spoken; something else in the expression of his face, in the tone of the voice of the speaker, seemed to interest him more. From long years of military experience he had learned, and with the wisdom of old age he had recognised, that one man cannot guide hundreds of thousands of men struggling with death; that the fate of battles is not decided by the orders given by the commander-in-chief, nor the place in which the troops are stationed, nor the number of cannons, nor of killed, but by that intangible force called the spirit of the army, and he followed that force and led it as far as it lay in his power. The general expression of Kutuzov’s face was concentrated, quiet attention and intensity, with difficulty overcoming his weak and aged body. At eleven o’clock they brought him the news that the French had been driven back again from the flèches they had captured, but that Bagration was wounded. Kutuzov groaned, and shook his head. “Ride over to Prince Pyotr Ivanovitch and find out exactly about it,” he said to one of the adjutants, and then he turned to the Prince of Würtemberg, who was standing behind him: “Will your highness be pleased to take the command of the first army?” Soon after the prince’s departure—so soon that he could not yet have reached Semyonovskoye—his adjutant came back with a message from him asking Kutuzov for more troops. Kutuzov frowned, and sent Dohturov orders to take the command of the first army, and begged the prince to come back, saying that he found he could not get on without him at such an important moment. When news was brought that Murat had been taken prisoner, and the members of the staff congratulated Kutuzov, he smiled. “Wait a little, gentlemen,” he said. “The battle is won, and Murat’s being taken prisoner is nothing very extraordinary. But we had better defer our rejoicings.” Still he sent an adjutant to take the news to the troops. When Shtcherbinin galloped up from the left flank with the report of the capture of the flèche, and Semyonovskoye by the French, Kutuzov, guessing from the sounds of the battlefield and Shtcherbinin’s face, that the news was bad, got up as though to stretch his legs, and taking Shtcherbinin by the arm drew him aside. “You go, my dear boy,” he said to Yermolov, “and see whether something can’t be done.” Kutuzov was in Gorky, the centre of the Russian position. The attack on our left flank had been several times repulsed. In the centre the French did not advance beyond Borodino. Uvarov’s cavalry had sent the French flying from the left flank. At three o’clock the attacks of the French ceased. On the faces of all who came from the battlefield, as well as of those standing round him, Kutuzov read an expression of effort, strained to the utmost tension. He was himself satisfied with the success of the day beyond his expectations. But the old man’s physical force was failing him. Several times his head sank, as though he were falling, and he dropped asleep. Dinner was brought him. The adjutant-general, Woltzogen, the man whom Prince Andrey had overheard saying that the war ought to be “im Raum verlegen,” and whom Bagration so particularly detested, rode up to Kutuzov while he was at dinner. Woltzogen had come from Barclay to report on the progress of the fight on the left flank. The sagacious Barclay de Tolly, seeing crowds of wounded men running back, and the ranks in disorder, and weighing all the circumstances of the case, made up his mind that the battle was lost, and sent his favourite adjutant to the commander-in-chief to tell him so. Kutuzov was with difficulty chewing roast chicken, and his eyes were screwed up with a more cheerful expression as he glanced at Woltzogen. With a half-contemptuous smile Woltzogen walked carelessly up to Kutuzov, scarcely touching the peak of his cap. He behaved to his highness with a certain affected negligence, which aimed at showing that he, as a highly trained military man, left it to the Russians to make a prodigy of this useless old person, and was himself well aware what kind of a man he had to deal with. “The ‘old gentleman’ ” —this was how Kutuzov was always spoken of in Woltzogen’s German circle—“is making himself quite comfortable,” he thought; and glancing severely at the dishes before Kutuzov, he began reporting to the old gentleman Barclay’s message and his own impressions and views. “Every point of our position is in the enemy’s hands, and they cannot be driven back, because there are not the troops to do it; the men run away and there’s no possibility of stopping them,” he submitted. Kutuzov, stopping short in his munching, stared at Woltzogen in amazement, as though not understanding what was said to him. Woltzogen, noticing the old gentleman’s excitement, said with a smile: “I did not consider I had a right to conceal from your highness what I saw.… The troops are completely routed.…” “You saw? You saw?…” cried Kutuzov, getting up quickly, and stepping up to Woltzogen. “How…how dare you!…” making a menacing gesture with his trembling hands, he cried, with a catch in his breath: “How dare you, sir, tell me that? You know nothing about it. Tell General Barclay from me that his information is incorrect, and that I, the commander-in-chief, know more of the course of the battle than he does.” Woltzogen would have made some protest, but Kutuzov interrupted him. “The enemy has been repulsed on the left and defeated on the right flank. If you have seen amiss, sir, do not permit yourself to speak of what you do not understand. Kindly return to General Barclay and inform him of my unhesitating intention to attack the French to-morrow,” said Kutuzov sternly. All were silent, and nothing was to be heard but the heavy breathing of the gasping, old general. “Repulsed at all points, for which I thank God and our brave men. The enemy is defeated, and to-morrow we will drive him out of the holy land of Russia!” said Kutuzov, crossing himself; and all at once he gave a sob from the rising tears. Woltzogen, shrugging his shoulders, and puckering his lips, walked away in silence, marvelling “über diese Eingenommenheit des alten Herrn.” “Ah, here he is, my hero!” said Kutuzov, as a stoutish, handsome, black-haired general came up the hillside. It was Raevsky, who had spent the whole day at the most important part of the battlefield. Raevsky reported that the men were standing their ground firmly, and that the French were not venturing a further attack. When he had heard him out, Kutuzov said in French: “You do not think, like some others, that we are obliged to retreat?” “On the contrary, your highness, in indecisive actions it is always the most obstinate who remains victorious,” answered Raevsky; “and my opinion…” “Kaisarov,” Kutuzov called to his adjutant, “sit down and write the order for to-morrow. And you,” he turned to another, “ride along the line and announce that to-morrow we attack.” While he was talking to Raevsky and dictating the order, Woltzogen came back from Barclay and announced that General Barclay de Tolly would be glad to have a written confirmation of the order given by the field-marshal. Kutuzov, without looking at Woltzogen, ordered an adjutant to make out this written order, which the former commander-in-chief very prudently wished to have to screen himself from all responsibility. And through the undefinable, mysterious link that maintains through a whole army the same temper, called the spirit of the army, and constituting the chief sinew of war, Kutuzov’s words, his order for the battle next day, were transmitted instantaneously from one end of the army to the other. The words and the phrases of the order were by no means the same when they reached the furthest links in the chain. There was, indeed, not a word in the stories men were repeating to one another from one end of the army to the other, that resembled what Kutuzov had actually said; but the drift of his words spread everywhere, because what Kutuzov had said was not the result of shrewd considerations, but the outflow of a feeling that lay deep in the heart of the commander-in-chief, and deep in the heart of every Russian. And learning that to-morrow we were to attack the enemy, hearing from the higher spheres of the army the confirmation of what they wanted to believe, the worn-out, wavering men took comfort and courage again. |
