At eight o’clock Kutuzov rode
to Pratzen at the head of the fourth column, Miloradovich’s,
the one that was to take the place of Przebyszewski’s
and Langeron’s columns which had already gone
down into the valley. He greeted the men of the
foremost regiment and gave them the order to march,
thereby indicating that he intended to lead that column
himself. When he had reached the village of Pratzen
he halted. Prince Andrew was behind, among the
immense number forming the commander in chief’s
suite. He was in a state of suppressed excitement
and irritation, though controlledly calm as a man
is at the approach of a long-awaited moment.
He was firmly convinced that this was the day of his
Toulon, or his bridge of Arcola. How it would
come about he did not know, but he felt sure it would
do so. The locality and the position of our troops
were known to him as far as they could be known to
anyone in our army. His own strategic plan, which
obviously could not now be carried out, was forgotten.
Now, entering into Weyrother’s plan, Prince
Andrew considered possible contingencies and formed
new projects such as might call for his rapidity of
perception and decision.
To the left down below in the mist,
the musketry fire of unseen forces could be heard.
It was there Prince Andrew thought the fight would
concentrate. “There we shall encounter difficulties,
and there,” thought he, “I shall be sent
with a brigade or division, and there, standard in
hand, I shall go forward and break whatever is in front
of me.”
He could not look calmly at the standards
of the passing battalions. Seeing them he kept
thinking, “That may be the very standard with
which I shall lead the army.”
In the morning all that was left of
the night mist on the heights was a hoar frost now
turning to dew, but in the valleys it still lay like
a milk-white sea. Nothing was visible in the
valley to the left into which our troops had descended
and from whence came the sounds of firing. Above
the heights was the dark clear sky, and to the right
the vast orb of the sun. In front, far off on
the farther shore of that sea of mist, some wooded
hills were discernible, and it was there the enemy
probably was, for something could be descried.
On the right the Guards were entering the misty region
with a sound of hoofs and wheels and now and then
a gleam of bayonets; to the left beyond the village
similar masses of cavalry came up and disappeared
in the sea of mist. In front and behind moved
infantry. The commander in chief was standing
at the end of the village letting the troops pass
by him. That morning Kutuzov seemed worn and
irritable. The infantry passing before him came
to a halt without any command being given, apparently
obstructed by something in front.
“Do order them to form into
battalion columns and go round the village!”
he said angrily to a general who had ridden up.
“Don’t you understand, your excellency,
my dear sir, that you must not defile through narrow
village streets when we are marching against the enemy?”
“I intended to re-form them
beyond the village, your excellency,” answered
the general.
Kutuzov laughed bitterly.
“You’ll make a fine thing
of it, deploying in sight of the enemy! Very
fine!”
“The enemy is still far away,
your excellency. According to the dispositions...”
“The dispositions!” exclaimed
Kutuzov bitterly. “Who told you that?...
Kindly do as you are ordered.”
“Yes, sir.”
“My dear fellow,” Nesvitski
whispered to Prince Andrew, “the old man is
as surly as a dog.”
An Austrian officer in a white uniform
with green plumes in his hat galloped up to Kutuzov
and asked in the Emperor’s name had the fourth
column advanced into action.
Kutuzov turned round without answering
and his eye happened to fall upon Prince Andrew, who
was beside him. Seeing him, Kutuzov’s malevolent
and caustic expression softened, as if admitting that
what was being done was not his adjutant’s fault,
and still not answering the Austrian adjutant, he
addressed Bolkonski.
“Go, my dear fellow, and see
whether the third division has passed the village.
Tell it to stop and await my orders.”
Hardly had Prince Andrew started than he stopped him.
“And ask whether sharpshooters
have been posted,” he added. “What
are they doing? What are they doing?” he
murmured to himself, still not replying to the Austrian.
Prince Andrew galloped off to execute the order.
Overtaking the battalions that continued
to advance, he stopped the third division and convinced
himself that there really were no sharpshooters in
front of our columns. The colonel at the head
of the regiment was much surprised at the commander
in chief’s order to throw out skirmishers.
He had felt perfectly sure that there were other troops
in front of him and that the enemy must be at least
six miles away. There was really nothing to be
seen in front except a barren descent hidden by dense
mist. Having given orders in the commander in
chief’s name to rectify this omission, Prince
Andrew galloped back. Kutuzov still in the same
place, his stout body resting heavily in the saddle
with the lassitude of age, sat yawning wearily with
closed eyes. The troops were no longer moving,
but stood with the butts of their muskets on the ground.
“All right, all right!”
he said to Prince Andrew, and turned to a general
who, watch in hand, was saying it was time they started
as all the left-flank columns had already descended.
“Plenty of time, your excellency,”
muttered Kutuzov in the midst of a yawn. “Plenty
of time,” he repeated.
Just then at a distance behind Kutuzov
was heard the sound of regiments saluting, and this
sound rapidly came nearer along the whole extended
line of the advancing Russian columns. Evidently
the person they were greeting was riding quickly.
When the soldiers of the regiment in front of which
Kutuzov was standing began to shout, he rode a little
to one side and looked round with a frown. Along
the road from Pratzen galloped what looked like a
squadron of horsemen in various uniforms. Two
of them rode side by side in front, at full gallop.
One in a black uniform with white plumes in his hat
rode a bobtailed chestnut horse, the other who was
in a white uniform rode a black one. These were
the two Emperors followed by their suites. Kutuzov,
affecting the manners of an old soldier at the front,
gave the command “Attention!” and rode
up to the Emperors with a salute. His whole appearance
and manner were suddenly transformed. He put
on the air of a subordinate who obeys without reasoning.
With an affectation of respect which evidently struck
Alexander unpleasantly, he rode up and saluted.
This unpleasant impression merely
flitted over the young and happy face of the Emperor
like a cloud of haze across a clear sky and vanished.
After his illness he looked rather thinner that day
than on the field of Olmutz where Bolkonski had seen
him for the first time abroad, but there was still
the same bewitching combination of majesty and mildness
in his fine gray eyes, and on his delicate lips the
same capacity for varying expression and the same
prevalent appearance of goodhearted innocent youth.
At the Olmutz review he had seemed
more majestic; here he seemed brighter and more energetic.
He was slightly flushed after galloping two miles,
and reining in his horse he sighed restfully and looked
round at the faces of his suite, young and animated
as his own. Czartoryski, Novosiltsev, Prince
Volkonsky, Strogonov, and the others, all richly dressed
gay young men on splendid, well-groomed, fresh, only
slightly heated horses, exchanging remarks and smiling,
had stopped behind the Emperor. The Emperor Francis,
a rosy, long faced young man, sat very erect on his
handsome black horse, looking about him in a leisurely
and preoccupied manner. He beckoned to one of
his white adjutants and asked some question “Most
likely he is asking at what o’clock they started,”
thought Prince Andrew, watching his old acquaintance
with a smile he could not repress as he recalled his
reception at Brunn. In the Emperors’ suite
were the picked young orderly officers of the Guard
and line regiments, Russian and Austrian. Among
them were grooms leading the Tsar’s beautiful
relay horses covered with embroidered cloths.
As when a window is opened a whiff
of fresh air from the fields enters a stuffy room,
so a whiff of youthfulness, energy, and confidence
of success reached Kutuzov’s cheerless staff
with the galloping advent of all these brilliant young
men.
“Why aren’t you beginning,
Michael Ilarionovich?” said the Emperor Alexander
hurriedly to Kutuzov, glancing courteously at the same
time at the Emperor Francis.
“I am waiting, Your Majesty,”
answered Kutuzov, bending forward respectfully.
The Emperor, frowning slightly, bent
his ear forward as if he had not quite heard.
“Waiting, Your Majesty,”
repeated Kutuzov. (Prince Andrew noted that Kutuzov’s
upper lip twitched unnaturally as he said the word
“waiting.”) “Not all the columns
have formed up yet, Your Majesty.”
The Tsar heard but obviously did not
like the reply; he shrugged his rather round shoulders
and glanced at Novosiltsev who was near him, as if
complaining of Kutuzov.
“You know, Michael Ilarionovich,
we are not on the Empress’ Field where a parade
does not begin till all the troops are assembled,”
said the Tsar with another glance at the Emperor Francis,
as if inviting him if not to join in at least to listen
to what he was saying. But the Emperor Francis
continued to look about him and did not listen.
“That is just why I do not begin,
sire,” said Kutuzov in a resounding voice, apparently
to preclude the possibility of not being heard, and
again something in his face twitched “That
is just why I do not begin, sire, because we are not
on parade and not on the Empress’ Field,”
said clearly and distinctly.
In the Emperor’s suite all exchanged
rapid looks that expressed dissatisfaction and reproach.
“Old though he may be, he should not, he certainly
should not, speak like that,” their glances seemed
to say.
The Tsar looked intently and observantly
into Kutuzov’s eye waiting to hear whether he
would say anything more. But Kutuzov, with respectfully
bowed head, seemed also to be waiting. The silence
lasted for about a minute.
“However, if you command it,
Your Majesty,” said Kutuzov, lifting his head
and again assuming his former tone of a dull, unreasoning,
but submissive general.
He touched his horse and having called
Miloradovich, the commander of the column, gave him
the order to advance.
The troops again began to move, and
two battalions of the Novgorod and one of the Apsheron
regiment went forward past the Emperor.
As this Apsheron battalion marched
by, the red-faced Miloradovich, without his greatcoat,
with his Orders on his breast and an enormous tuft
of plumes in his cocked hat worn on one side with its
corners front and back, galloped strenuously forward,
and with a dashing salute reined in his horse before
the Emperor.
“God be with you, general!” said the Emperor.
“Ma foi, sire, nous ferons ce
qui sera dans nôtre possibilité,
sire,” he answered gaily, raising nevertheless
ironic smiles among the gentlemen of the Tsar’s
suite by his poor French.
“Indeed, Sire,
we shall do everything it is possible to
do, Sire.”
Miloradovich wheeled his horse sharply
and stationed himself a little behind the Emperor.
The Apsheron men, excited by the Tsar’s presence,
passed in step before the Emperors and their suites
at a bold, brisk pace.
“Lads!” shouted Miloradovich
in a loud, self-confident, and cheery voice, obviously
so elated by the sound of firing, by the prospect
of battle, and by the sight of the gallant Apsherons,
his comrades in Suvorov’s time, now passing
so gallantly before the Emperors, that he forgot the
sovereigns’ presence. “Lads, it’s
not the first village you’ve had to take,”
cried he.
“Glad to do our best!” shouted the soldiers.
The Emperor’s horse started
at the sudden cry. This horse that had carried
the sovereign at reviews in Russia bore him also here
on the field of Austerlitz, enduring the heedless
blows of his left foot and pricking its ears at the
sound of shots just as it had done on the Empress’
Field, not understanding the significance of the firing,
nor of the nearness of the Emperor Francis’
black cob, nor of all that was being said, thought,
and felt that day by its rider.
The Emperor turned with a smile to
one of his followers and made a remark to him, pointing
to the gallant Apsherons.