Shortly after nine o’clock that
evening, Weyrother drove with his plans to Kutuzov’s
quarters where the council of war was to be held.
All the commanders of columns were summoned to the
commander in chief’s and with the exception
of Prince Bagration, who declined to come, were all
there at the appointed time.
Weyrother, who was in full control
of the proposed battle, by his eagerness and briskness
presented a marked contrast to the dissatisfied and
drowsy Kutuzov, who reluctantly played the part of
chairman and president of the council of war.
Weyrother evidently felt himself to be at the head
of a movement that had already become unrestrainable.
He was like a horse running downhill harnessed to
a heavy cart. Whether he was pulling it or being
pushed by it he did not know, but rushed along at
headlong speed with no time to consider what this movement
might lead to. Weyrother had been twice that
evening to the enemy’s picket line to reconnoiter
personally, and twice to the Emperors, Russian and
Austrian, to report and explain, and to his headquarters
where he had dictated the dispositions in German,
and now, much exhausted, he arrived at Kutuzov’s.
He was evidently so busy that he even
forgot to be polite to the commander in chief.
He interrupted him, talked rapidly and indistinctly,
without looking at the man he was addressing, and did
not reply to questions put to him. He was bespattered
with mud and had a pitiful, weary, and distracted
air, though at the same time he was haughty and self-confident.
Kutuzov was occupying a nobleman’s
castle of modest dimensions near Ostralitz. In
the large drawing room which had become the commander
in chief’s office were gathered Kutuzov himself,
Weyrother, and the members of the council of war.
They were drinking tea, and only awaited Prince Bagration
to begin the council. At last Bagration’s
orderly came with the news that the prince could not
attend. Prince Andrew came in to inform the commander
in chief of this and, availing himself of permission
previously given him by Kutuzov to be present at the
council, he remained in the room.
“Since Prince Bagration is not
coming, we may begin,” said Weyrother, hurriedly
rising from his seat and going up to the table on which
an enormous map of the environs of Brunn was spread
out.
Kutuzov, with his uniform unbuttoned
so that his fat neck bulged over his collar as if
escaping, was sitting almost asleep in a low chair,
with his podgy old hands resting symmetrically on its
arms. At the sound of Weyrother’s voice,
he opened his one eye with an effort.
“Yes, yes, if you please!
It is already late,” said he, and nodding his
head he let it droop and again closed his eye.
If at first the members of the council
thought that Kutuzov was pretending to sleep, the
sounds his nose emitted during the reading that followed
proved that the commander in chief at that moment was
absorbed by a far more serious matter than a desire
to show his contempt for the dispositions or anything
else he was engaged in satisfying the irresistible
human need for sleep. He really was asleep.
Weyrother, with the gesture of a man too busy to lose
a moment, glanced at Kutuzov and, having convinced
himself that he was asleep, took up a paper and in
a loud, monotonous voice began to read out the dispositions
for the impending battle, under a heading which he
also read out:
“Dispositions for an attack
on the enemy position behind Kobelnitz and Sokolnitz,
November 30, 1805.”
The dispositions were very complicated
and difficult. They began as follows:
“As the enemy’s left wing
rests on wooded hills and his right extends along
Kobelnitz and Sokolnitz behind the ponds that are there,
while we, on the other hand, with our left wing by
far outflank his right, it is advantageous to attack
the enemy’s latter wing especially if we occupy
the villages of Sokolnitz and Kobelnitz, whereby we
can both fall on his flank and pursue him over the
plain between Schlappanitz and the Thuerassa forest,
avoiding the defiles of Schlappanitz and Bellowitz
which cover the enemy’s front. For this
object it is necessary that... The first column
marches... The second column marches... The
third column marches...” and so on, read Weyrother.
The generals seemed to listen reluctantly
to the difficult dispositions. The tall, fair-haired
General Buxhowden stood, leaning his back against
the wall, his eyes fixed on a burning candle, and seemed
not to listen or even to wish to be thought to listen.
Exactly opposite Weyrother, with his glistening wide-open
eyes fixed upon him and his mustache twisted upwards,
sat the ruddy Miloradovich in a military pose, his
elbows turned outwards, his hands on his knees, and
his shoulders raised. He remained stubbornly
silent, gazing at Weyrother’s face, and only
turned away his eyes when the Austrian chief of staff
finished reading. Then Miloradovich looked round
significantly at the other generals. But one
could not tell from that significant look whether he
agreed or disagreed and was satisfied or not with the
arrangements. Next to Weyrother sat Count Langeron
who, with a subtle smile that never left his typically
southern French face during the whole time of the reading,
gazed at his delicate fingers which rapidly twirled
by its corners a gold snuffbox on which was a portrait.
In the middle of one of the longest sentences, he
stopped the rotary motion of the snuffbox, raised
his head, and with inimical politeness lurking in the
corners of his thin lips interrupted Weyrother, wishing
to say something. But the Austrian general, continuing
to read, frowned angrily and jerked his elbows, as
if to say: “You can tell me your views later,
but now be so good as to look at the map and listen.”
Langeron lifted his eyes with an expression of perplexity,
turned round to Miloradovich as if seeking an explanation,
but meeting the latter’s impressive but meaningless
gaze drooped his eyes sadly and again took to twirling
his snuffbox.
“A geography lesson!”
he muttered as if to himself, but loud enough to be
heard.
Przebyszewski, with respectful but
dignified politeness, held his hand to his ear toward
Weyrother, with the air of a man absorbed in attention.
Dohkturov, a little man, sat opposite Weyrother, with
an assiduous and modest mien, and stooping over the
outspread map conscientiously studied the dispositions
and the unfamiliar locality. He asked Weyrother
several times to repeat words he had not clearly heard
and the difficult names of villages. Weyrother
complied and Dohkturov noted them down.
When the reading which lasted more
than an hour was over, Langeron again brought his
snuffbox to rest and, without looking at Weyrother
or at anyone in particular, began to say how difficult
it was to carry out such a plan in which the enemy’s
position was assumed to be known, whereas it was perhaps
not known, since the enemy was in movement. Langeron’s
objections were valid but it was obvious that their
chief aim was to show General Weyrother who
had read his dispositions with as much self-confidence
as if he were addressing school children that
he had to do, not with fools, but with men who could
teach him something in military matters.
When the monotonous sound of Weyrother’s
voice ceased, Kutuzov opened his eye as a miller wakes
up when the soporific drone of the mill wheel is interrupted.
He listened to what Langeron said, as if remarking,
“So you are still at that silly business!”
quickly closed his eye again, and let his head sink
still lower.
Langeron, trying as virulently as
possible to sting Weyrother’s vanity as author
of the military plan, argued that Bonaparte might easily
attack instead of being attacked, and so render the
whole of this plan perfectly worthless. Weyrother
met all objections with a firm and contemptuous smile,
evidently prepared beforehand to meet all objections
be they what they might.
“If he could attack us, he would
have done so today,” said he.
“So you think he is powerless?” said Langeron.
“He has forty thousand men at
most,” replied Weyrother, with the smile of
a doctor to whom an old wife wishes to explain the
treatment of a case.
“In that case he is inviting
his doom by awaiting our attack,” said Langeron,
with a subtly ironical smile, again glancing round
for support to Miloradovich who was near him.
But Miloradovich was at that moment
evidently thinking of anything rather than of what
the generals were disputing about.
“Ma foi!” said he, “tomorrow
we shall see all that on the battlefield.”
Weyrother again gave that smile which
seemed to say that to him it was strange and ridiculous
to meet objections from Russian generals and to have
to prove to them what he had not merely convinced himself
of, but had also convinced the sovereign Emperors
of.
“The enemy has quenched his
fires and a continual noise is heard from his camp,”
said he. “What does that mean? Either
he is retreating, which is the only thing we need
fear, or he is changing his position.” (He smiled
ironically.) “But even if he also took up a position
in the Thuerassa, he merely saves us a great deal
of trouble and all our arrangements to the minutest
detail remain the same.”
“How is that?...” began
Prince Andrew, who had for long been waiting an opportunity
to express his doubts.
Kutuzov here woke up, coughed heavily,
and looked round at the generals.
“Gentlemen, the dispositions
for tomorrow or rather for today, for it
is past midnight cannot now be altered,”
said he. “You have heard them, and we shall
all do our duty. But before a battle, there is
nothing more important...” he paused, “than
to have a good sleep.”
He moved as if to rise. The generals
bowed and retired. It was past midnight.
Prince Andrew went out.
The council of war, at which Prince
Andrew had not been able to express his opinion as
he had hoped to, left on him a vague and uneasy impression.
Whether Dolgorukov and Weyrother, or Kutuzov, Langeron,
and the others who did not approve of the plan of
attack, were right he did not know.
“But was it really not possible for Kutuzov to
state his views plainly to the Emperor? Is it
possible that on account of court and personal considerations
tens of thousands of lives, and my life, my life,”
he thought, “must be risked?”
“Yes, it is very likely that
I shall be killed tomorrow,” he thought.
And suddenly, at this thought of death, a whole series
of most distant, most intimate, memories rose in his
imagination: he remembered his last parting from
his father and his wife; he remembered the days when
he first loved her. He thought of her pregnancy
and felt sorry for her and for himself, and in a nervously
emotional and softened mood he went out of the hut
in which he was billeted with Nesvitski and began to
walk up and down before it.
The night was foggy and through the
fog the moonlight gleamed mysteriously. “Yes,
tomorrow, tomorrow!” he thought. “Tomorrow
everything may be over for me! All these memories
will be no more, none of them will have any meaning
for me. Tomorrow perhaps, even certainly, I have
a presentiment that for the first time I shall have
to show all I can do.” And his fancy pictured
the battle, its loss, the concentration of fighting
at one point, and the hesitation of all the commanders.
And then that happy moment, that Toulon for which
he had so long waited, presents itself to him at last.
He firmly and clearly expresses his opinion to Kutuzov,
to Weyrother, and to the Emperors. All are struck
by the justness of his views, but no one undertakes
to carry them out, so he takes a regiment, a division-stipulates
that no one is to interfere with his arrangements leads
his division to the decisive point, and gains the
victory alone. “But death and suffering?”
suggested another voice. Prince Andrew, however,
did not answer that voice and went on dreaming of
his triumphs. The dispositions for the next battle
are planned by him alone. Nominally he is only
an adjutant on Kutuzov’s staff, but he does
everything alone. The next battle is won by him
alone. Kutuzov is removed and he is appointed...
“Well and then?” asked the other voice.
“If before that you are not ten times wounded,
killed, or betrayed, well... what then?...”
“Well then,” Prince Andrew answered himself,
“I don’t know what will happen and don’t
want to know, and can’t, but if I want this want
glory, want to be known to men, want to be loved by
them, it is not my fault that I want it and want nothing
but that and live only for that. Yes, for that
alone! I shall never tell anyone, but, oh God!
what am I to do if I love nothing but fame and men’s
esteem? Death, wounds, the loss of family I
fear nothing. And precious and dear as many persons
are to me father, sister, wife those
dearest to me yet dreadful and unnatural
as it seems, I would give them all at once for a moment
of glory, of triumph over men, of love from men I
don’t know and never shall know, for the love
of these men here,” he thought, as he listened
to voices in Kutuzov’s courtyard. The voices
were those of the orderlies who were packing up; one
voice, probably a coachman’s, was teasing Kutuzov’s
old cook whom Prince Andrew knew, and who was called
Tit. He was saying, “Tit, I say, Tit!”
“Well?” returned the old man.
“Go, Tit, thresh a bit!” said the wag.
“Oh, go to the devil!”
called out a voice, drowned by the laughter of the
orderlies and servants.
“All the same, I love and value
nothing but triumph over them all, I value this mystic
power and glory that is floating here above me in this
mist!”