War and Peace

n the rug-covered bench where Pierre had seen him in the morning sat
Kutúzov, his gray head hanging, his heavy body relaxed. He gave no
orders, but only assented to or dissented from what others suggested.

“Yes, yes, do that,” he replied to various proposals. “Yes, yes: go,
dear boy, and have a look,” he would say to one or another of those
about him; or, “No, don’t, we’d better wait!” He listened to the reports
that were brought him and gave directions when his subordinates demanded
that of him; but when listening to the reports it seemed as if he
were not interested in the import of the words spoken, but rather in
something else—in the expression of face and tone of voice of those who
were reporting. By long years of military experience he knew, and with
the wisdom of age understood, that it is impossible for one man to
direct hundreds of thousands of others struggling with death, and he
knew that the result of a battle is decided not by the orders of a
commander in chief, nor the place where the troops are stationed, nor by
the number of cannon or of slaughtered men, but by that intangible force
called the spirit of the army, and he watched this force and guided it
in as far as that was in his power.

Kutúzov’s general expression was one of concentrated quiet attention,
and his face wore a strained look as if he found it difficult to master
the fatigue of his old and feeble body.

At eleven o’clock they brought him news that the flèches captured by the
French had been retaken, but that Prince Bagratión was wounded. Kutúzov
groaned and swayed his head.

“Ride over to Prince Peter Ivánovich and find out about it exactly,” he
said to one of his adjutants, and then turned to the Duke of Württemberg
who was standing behind him.

“Will Your Highness please take command of the first army?”

Soon after the duke’s departure—before he could possibly have reached
Semënovsk—his adjutant came back from him and told Kutúzov that the duke
asked for more troops.

Kutúzov made a grimace and sent an order to Dokhtúrov to take over the
command of the first army, and a request to the duke—whom he said he
could not spare at such an important moment—to return to him. When
they brought him news that Murat had been taken prisoner, and the staff
officers congratulated him, Kutúzov smiled.

“Wait a little, gentlemen,” said he. “The battle is won, and there is
nothing extraordinary in the capture of Murat. Still, it is better to
wait before we rejoice.”

But he sent an adjutant to take the news round the army.

When Scherbínin came galloping from the left flank with news that the
French had captured the flèches and the village of Semënovsk, Kutúzov,
guessing by the sounds of the battle and by Scherbínin’s looks that the
news was bad, rose as if to stretch his legs and, taking Scherbínin’s
arm, led him aside.

“Go, my dear fellow,” he said to Ermólov, “and see whether something
can’t be done.”

Kutúzov was in Górki, near the center of the Russian position. The
attack directed by Napoleon against our left flank had been several
times repulsed. In the center the French had not got beyond Borodinó,
and on their left flank Uvárov’s cavalry had put the French to flight.

Toward three o’clock the French attacks ceased. On the faces of all
who came from the field of battle, and of those who stood around him,
Kutúzov noticed an expression of extreme tension. He was satisfied with
the day’s success—a success exceeding his expectations, but the old
man’s strength was failing him. Several times his head dropped low as if
it were falling and he dozed off. Dinner was brought him.

Adjutant General Wolzogen, the man who when riding past Prince Andrew
had said, “the war should be extended widely,” and whom Bagratión so
detested, rode up while Kutúzov was at dinner. Wolzogen had come from
Barclay de Tolly to report on the progress of affairs on the left flank.
The sagacious Barclay de Tolly, seeing crowds of wounded men running
back and the disordered rear of the army, weighed all the circumstances,
concluded that the battle was lost, and sent his favorite officer to the
commander in chief with that news.

Kutúzov was chewing a piece of roast chicken with difficulty and glanced
at Wolzogen with eyes that brightened under their puckering lids.

Wolzogen, nonchalantly stretching his legs, approached Kutúzov with a
half-contemptuous smile on his lips, scarcely touching the peak of his
cap.

He treated his Serene Highness with a somewhat affected nonchalance
intended to show that, as a highly trained military man, he left it to
Russians to make an idol of this useless old man, but that he knew whom
he was dealing with. “Der alte Herr” (as in their own set the Germans
called Kutúzov) “is making himself very comfortable,” thought Wolzogen,
and looking severely at the dishes in front of Kutúzov he began to
report to “the old gentleman” the position of affairs on the left flank
as Barclay had ordered him to and as he himself had seen and understood
it.

“All the points of our position are in the enemy’s hands and we cannot
dislodge them for lack of troops, the men are running away and it is
impossible to stop them,” he reported.

Kutúzov ceased chewing and fixed an astonished gaze on Wolzogen, as
if not understanding what was said to him. Wolzogen, noticing “the old
gentleman’s” agitation, said with a smile:

“I have not considered it right to conceal from your Serene Highness
what I have seen. The troops are in complete disorder....”

“You have seen? You have seen?...” Kutúzov shouted. Frowning and rising
quickly, he went up to Wolzogen.

“How... how dare you!...” he shouted, choking and making a threatening
gesture with his trembling arms: “How dare you, sir, say that to me? You
know nothing about it. Tell General Barclay from me that his information
is incorrect and that the real course of the battle is better known to
me, the commander in chief, than to him.”

Wolzogen was about to make a rejoinder, but Kutúzov interrupted him.

“The enemy has been repulsed on the left and defeated on the right
flank. If you have seen amiss, sir, do not allow yourself to say what
you don’t know! Be so good as to ride to General Barclay and inform
him of my firm intention to attack the enemy tomorrow,” said Kutúzov
sternly.

All were silent, and the only sound audible was the heavy breathing of
the panting old general.

“They are repulsed everywhere, for which I thank God and our brave army!
The enemy is beaten, and tomorrow we shall drive him from the sacred
soil of Russia,” said Kutúzov crossing himself, and he suddenly sobbed
as his eyes filled with tears.

Wolzogen, shrugging his shoulders and curling his lips, stepped silently
aside, marveling at “the old gentleman’s” conceited stupidity.

“Ah, here he is, my hero!” said Kutúzov to a portly, handsome,
dark-haired general who was just ascending the knoll.

This was Raévski, who had spent the whole day at the most important part
of the field of Borodinó.

Raévski reported that the troops were firmly holding their ground and
that the French no longer ventured to attack.

After hearing him, Kutúzov said in French:

“Then you do not think, like some others, that we must retreat?”

“On the contrary, your Highness, in indecisive actions it is always
the most stubborn who remain victors,” replied Raévski, “and in my
opinion...”

“Kaysárov!” Kutúzov called to his adjutant. “Sit down and write out
the order of the day for tomorrow. And you,” he continued, addressing
another, “ride along the line and announce that tomorrow we attack.”

While Kutúzov was talking to Raévski and dictating the order of the day,
Wolzogen returned from Barclay and said that General Barclay wished to
have written confirmation of the order the field marshal had given.

Kutúzov, without looking at Wolzogen, gave directions for the order to
be written out which the former commander in chief, to avoid personal
responsibility, very judiciously wished to receive.

And by means of that mysterious indefinable bond which maintains
throughout an army one and the same temper, known as “the spirit of
the army,” and which constitutes the sinew of war, Kutúzov’s words, his
order for a battle next day, immediately became known from one end of
the army to the other.

It was far from being the same words or the same order that reached the
farthest links of that chain. The tales passing from mouth to mouth at
different ends of the army did not even resemble what Kutúzov had said,
but the sense of his words spread everywhere because what he said was
not the outcome of cunning calculations, but of a feeling that lay in
the commander in chief’s soul as in that of every Russian.

And on learning that tomorrow they were to attack the enemy, and hearing
from the highest quarters a confirmation of what they wanted to believe,
the exhausted, wavering men felt comforted and inspirited.