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!"
CHAPTER XIII
That same night, Rostov was with a platoon on skirmishing duty in
front of Bagration's detachment. His hussars were placed along the
line in couples and he himself rode along the line trying to master
the sleepiness that kept coming over him. An enormous space, with
our army's campfires dimly glowing in the fog, could be seen behind
him; in front of him was misty darkness. Rostov could see nothing,
peer as he would into that foggy distance: now something gleamed gray,
now there was something black, now little lights seemed to glimmer
where the enemy ought to be, now he fancied it was only something in
his own eyes. His eyes kept closing, and in his fancy appeared - now
the Emperor, now Denisov, and now Moscow memories - and he again
hurriedly opened his eyes and saw close before him the head and ears
of the horse he was riding, and sometimes, when he came within six
paces of them, the black figures of hussars, but in the distance was
still the same misty darkness. "Why not?... It might easily happen,"
thought Rostov, "that the Emperor will meet me and give me an order as
he would to any other officer; he'll say: 'Go and find out what's
there.' There are many stories of his getting to know an officer in
just such a chance way and attaching him to himself! What if he gave
me a place near him? Oh, how I would guard him, how I would tell him
the truth, how I would unmask his deceivers!" And in order to
realize vividly his love devotion to the sovereign, Rostov pictured to
himself an enemy or a deceitful German, whom he would not only kill
with pleasure but whom he would slap in the face before the Emperor.
Suddenly a distant shout aroused him. He started and opened his eyes.
"Where am I? Oh yes, in the skirmishing line... pass and
watchword - shaft, Olmutz. What a nuisance that our squadron will be in
reserve tomorrow," he thought. "I'll ask leave to go to the front,
this may be my only chance of seeing the Emperor. It won't be long now
before I am off duty. I'll take another turn and when I get back
I'll go to the general and ask him." He readjusted himself in the
saddle and touched up his horse to ride once more round his hussars.
It seemed to him that it was getting lighter. To the left he saw a
sloping descent lit up, and facing it a black knoll that seemed as
steep as a wall. On this knoll there was a white patch that Rostov
could not at all make out: was it a glade in the wood lit up by the
moon, or some unmelted snow, or some white houses? He even thought
something moved on that white spot. "I expect it's snow... that
spot... a spot - une tache," he thought. "There now... it's not a
tache... Natasha... sister, black eyes... Na... tasha... (Won't she be
surprised when I tell her how I've seen the Emperor?) Natasha...
take my sabretache..." - "Keep to the right, your honor, there are
bushes here," came the voice of an hussar, past whom Rostov was riding
in the act of falling asleep. Rostov lifted his head that had sunk
almost to his horse's mane and pulled up beside the hussar. He was
succumbing to irresistible, youthful, childish drowsiness. "But what
was I thinking? I mustn't forget. How shall I speak to the Emperor?
No, that's not it - that's tomorrow. Oh yes! Natasha... sabretache...
saber them...Whom? The hussars... Ah, the hussars with mustaches.
Along the Tverskaya Street rode the hussar with mustaches... I thought
about him too, just opposite Guryev's house... Old Guryev.... Oh,
but Denisov's a fine fellow. But that's all nonsense. The chief
thing is that the Emperor is here. How he looked at me and wished to
say something, but dared not.... No, it was I who dared not. But
that's nonsense, the chief thing is not to forget the important
thing I was thinking of. Yes, Na-tasha, sabretache, oh, yes, yes!
That's right!" And his head once more sank to his horse's neck. All at
once it seemed to him that he was being fired at. "What? What?
What?... Cut them down! What?..." said Rostov, waking up. At the
moment he opened his eyes he heard in front of him, where the
enemy was, the long-drawn shouts of thousands of voices. His horse and
the horse of the hussar near him pricked their ears at these shouts.
Over there, where the shouting came from, a fire flared up and went
out again, then another, and all along the French line on the hill
fires flared up and the shouting grew louder and louder. Rostov
could hear the sound of French words but could not distinguish them.
The din of many voices was too great; all he could hear was: "ahahah!"
and "rrrr!"
"What's that? What do you make of it?" said Rostov to the hussar
beside him. "That must be the enemy's camp!"
The hussar did not reply.
"Why, don't you hear it?" Rostov asked again, after waiting for a
reply.
"Who can tell, your honor?" replied the hussar reluctantly.
"From the direction, it must be the enemy," repeated Rostov.
"It may be he or it may be nothing," muttered the hussar. "It's
dark... Steady!" he cried to his fidgeting horse.
Rostov's horse was also getting restive: it pawed the frozen ground,
pricking its ears at the noise and looking at the lights. The shouting
grew still louder and merged into a general roar that only an army
of several thousand men could produce. The lights spread farther and
farther, probably along the line of the French camp. Rostov no
longer wanted to sleep. The gay triumphant shouting of the enemy
army had a stimulating effect on him. "Vive l'Empereur! L'Empereur!"
he now heard distinctly.
"They can't be far off, probably just beyond the stream," he said to
the hussar beside him.
The hussar only sighed without replying and coughed angrily. The
sound of horse's hoofs approaching at a trot along the line of hussars
was heard, and out of the foggy darkness the figure of a sergeant of
hussars suddenly appeared, looming huge as an elephant.
"Your honor, the generals!" said the sergeant, riding up to Rostov.
Rostov, still looking round toward the fires and the shouts, rode
with the sergeant to meet some mounted men who were riding along the
line. One was on a white horse. Prince Bagration and Prince Dolgorukov
with their adjutants had come to witness the curious phenomenon of the
lights and shouts in the enemy's camp. Rostov rode up to Bagration,
reported to him, and then joined the adjutants listening to what the
generals were saying.
"Believe me," said Prince Dolgorukov, addressing Bagration, "it is
nothing but a trick! He has retreated and ordered the rearguard to
kindle fires and make a noise to deceive us."
"Hardly," said Bagration. "I saw them this evening on that knoll; if
they had retreated they would have withdrawn from that too....
Officer!" said Bagration to Rostov, "are the enemy's skirmishers still
there?"
"They were there this evening, but now I don't know, your
excellency. Shall I go with some of my hussars to see?" replied
Rostov.
Bagration stopped and, before replying, tried to see Rostov's face
in the mist.
"Well, go and see," he said, after a pause.
"Yes, sir."
Rostov spurred his horse, called to Sergeant Fedchenko and two other
hussars, told them to follow him, and trotted downhill in the
direction from which the shouting came. He felt both frightened and
pleased to be riding alone with three hussars into that mysterious and
dangerous misty distance where no one had been before him. Bagration
called to him from the hill not to go beyond the stream, but Rostov
pretended not to hear him and did not stop but rode on and on,
continually mistaking bushes for trees and gullies for men and
continually discovering his mistakes. Having descended the hill at a
trot, he no longer saw either our own or the enemy's fires, but
heard the shouting of the French more loudly and distinctly. In the
valley he saw before him something like a river, but when he reached
it he found it was a road. Having come out onto the road he reined
in his horse, hesitating whether to ride along it or cross it and ride
over the black field up the hillside. To keep to the road which
gleamed white in the mist would have been safer because it would be
easier to see people coming along it. "Follow me!" said he, crossed
the road, and began riding up the hill at a gallop toward the point
where the French pickets had been standing that evening.
"Your honor, there he is!" cried one of the hussars behind him.
And before Rostov had time to make out what the black thing was that
had suddenly appeared in the fog, there was a flash, followed by a
report, and a bullet whizzing high up in the mist with a plaintive
sound passed out of hearing. Another musket missed fire but flashed in
the pan. Rostov turned his horse and galloped back. Four more
reports followed at intervals, and the bullets passed somewhere in the
fog singing in different tones. Rostov reined in his horse, whose
spirits had risen, like his own, at the firing, and went back at a
footpace. "Well, some more! Some more!" a merry voice was saying in
his soul. But no more shots came.
Only when approaching Bagration did Rostov let his horse gallop
again, and with his hand at the salute rode up to the general.
Dolgorukov was still insisting that the French had retreated and had
only lit fires to deceive us.
"What does that prove?" he was saying as Rostov rode up. "They might
retreat and leave the pickets."
"It's plain that they have not all gone yet, Prince," said
Bagration. "Wait till tomorrow morning, we'll find out everything
tomorrow."
"The picket is still on the hill, your excellency, just where it was
in the evening," reported Rostov, stooping forward with his hand at
the salute and unable to repress the smile of delight induced by his
ride and especially by the sound of the bullets.
"Very good, very good," said Bagration. "Thank you, officer."
"Your excellency," said Rostov, "may I ask a favor?"
"What is it?"
"Tomorrow our squadron is to be in reserve. May I ask to be attached
to the first squadron?"
"What's your name?"
"Count Rostov."
"Oh, very well, you may stay in attendance on me."
"Count Ilya Rostov's son?" asked Dolgorukov.
But Rostov did not reply.
"Then I may reckon on it, your excellency?"
"I will give the order."
"Tomorrow very likely I may be sent with some message to the
Emperor," thought Rostov.
"Thank God!"
The fires and shouting in the enemy's army were occasioned by the
fact that while Napoleon's proclamation was being read to the troops
the Emperor himself rode round his bivouacs. The soldiers, on seeing
him, lit wisps of straw and ran after him, shouting, "Vive
l'Empereur!" Napoleon's proclamation was as follows:
Soldiers! The Russian army is advancing against you to avenge the
Austrian army of Ulm. They are the same battalions you broke at
Hollabrunn and have pursued ever since to this place. The position
we occupy is a strong one, and while they are marching to go round
me on the right they will expose a flank to me. Soldiers! I will
myself direct your battalions. I will keep out of fire if you with
your habitual valor carry disorder and confusion into the enemy's
ranks, but should victory be in doubt, even for a moment, you will see
your Emperor exposing himself to the first blows of the enemy, for
there must be no doubt of victory, especially on this day when what is
at stake is the honor of the French infantry, so necessary to the
honor of our nation.
Do not break your ranks on the plea of removing the wounded! Let
every man be fully imbued with the thought that we must defeat these
hirelings of England, inspired by such hatred of our nation! This
victory will conclude our campaign and we can return to winter
quarters, where fresh French troops who are being raised in France
will join us, and the peace I shall conclude will be worthy of my
people, of you, and of myself.
NAPOLEON
CHAPTER XIV
At five in the morning it was still quite dark. The troops of the
center, the reserves, and Bagration's right flank had not yet moved,
but on the left flank the columns of infantry, cavalry, and artillery,
which were to be the first to descend the heights to attack the French
right flank and drive it into the Bohemian mountains according to
plan, were already up and astir. The smoke of the campfires, into
which they were throwing everything superfluous, made the eyes
smart. It was cold and dark. The officers were hurriedly drinking
tea and breakfasting, the soldiers, munching biscuit and beating a
tattoo with their feet to warm themselves, gathering round the fires
throwing into the flames the remains of sheds, chairs, tables, wheels,
tubs, and everything that they did not want or could not carry away
with them. Austrian column guides were moving in and out among the
Russian troops and served as heralds of the advance. As soon as an
Austrian officer showed himself near a commanding officer's
quarters, the regiment began to move: the soldiers ran from the fires,
thrust their pipes into their boots, their bags into the carts, got
their muskets ready, and formed rank. The officers buttoned up their
coats, buckled on their swords and pouches, and moved along the
ranks shouting. The train drivers and orderlies harnessed and packed
the wagons and tied on the loads. The adjutants and battalion and
regimental commanders mounted, crossed themselves, gave final
instructions, orders, and commissions to the baggage men who
remained behind, and the monotonous tramp of thousands of feet
resounded. The column moved forward without knowing where and
unable, from the masses around them, the smoke and the increasing fog,
to see either the place they were leaving or that to which they were
going.
A soldier on the march is hemmed in and borne along by his
regiment as much as a sailor is by his ship. However far he has
walked, whatever strange, unknown, and dangerous places he reaches,
just as a sailor is always surrounded by the same decks, masts, and
rigging of his ship, so the soldier always has around him the same
comrades, the same ranks, the same sergeant major Ivan Mitrich, the
same company dog Jack, and the same commanders. The sailor rarely
cares to know the latitude in which his ship is sailing, but on the
day of battle - heaven knows how and whence - a stern note of which
all are conscious sounds in the moral atmosphere of an army,
announcing the approach of something decisive and solemn, and
awakening in the men an unusual curiosity. On the day of battle the
soldiers excitedly try to get beyond the interests of their
regiment, they listen intently, look about, and eagerly ask concerning
what is going on around them.
The fog had grown so dense that though it was growing light they
could not see ten paces ahead. Bushes looked like gigantic trees and
level ground like cliffs and slopes. Anywhere, on any side, one
might encounter an enemy invisible ten paces off. But the columns
advanced for a long time, always in the same fog, descending and
ascending hills, avoiding gardens and enclosures, going over new and
unknown ground, and nowhere encountering the enemy. On the contrary,
the soldiers became aware that in front, behind, and on all sides,
other Russian columns were moving in the same direction. Every soldier
felt glad to know that to the unknown place where he was going, many
more of our men were going too.
"There now, the Kurskies have also gone past," was being said in the
ranks.
"It's wonderful what a lot of our troops have gathered, lads! Last
night I looked at the campfires and there was no end of them. A
regular Moscow!"
Though none of the column commanders rode up to the ranks or
talked to the men (the commanders, as we saw at the council of war,
were out of humor and dissatisfied with the affair, and so did not
exert themselves to cheer the men but merely carried out the
orders), yet the troops marched gaily, as they always do when going
into action, especially to an attack. But when they had marched for
about an hour in the dense fog, the greater part of the men had to
halt and an unpleasant consciousness of some dislocation and blunder
spread through the ranks. How such a consciousness is communicated
is very difficult to define, but it certainly is communicated very
surely, and flows rapidly, imperceptibly, and irrepressibly, as
water does in a creek. Had the Russian army been alone without any
allies, it might perhaps have been a long time before this
consciousness of mismanagement became a general conviction, but as
it was, the disorder was readily and naturally attributed to the
stupid Germans, and everyone was convinced that a dangerous muddle had
been occasioned by the sausage eaters.
"Why have we stopped? Is the way blocked? Or have we already come up
against the French?"
"No, one can't hear them. They'd be firing if we had."
"They were in a hurry enough to start us, and now here we stand in
the middle of a field without rhyme or reason. It's all those damned
Germans' muddling! What stupid devils!"
"Yes, I'd send them on in front, but no fear, they're crowding up
behind. And now here we stand hungry."
"I say, shall we soon be clear? They say the cavalry are blocking
the way," said an officer.
"Ah, those damned Germans! They don't know their own country!"
said another.
"What division are you?" shouted an adjutant, riding up.
"The Eighteenth."
"Then why are you here? You should have gone on long ago, now you
won't get there till evening."
"What stupid orders! They don't themselves know what they are
doing!" said the officer and rode off.
Then a general rode past shouting something angrily, not in Russian.
"Tafa-lafa! But what he's jabbering no one can make out," said a
soldier, mimicking the general who had ridden away. "I'd shoot them,
the scoundrels!"
"We were ordered to be at the place before nine, but we haven't
got halfway. Fine orders!" was being repeated on different sides.
And the feeling of energy with which the troops had started began to
turn into vexation and anger at the stupid arrangements and at the
Germans.
The cause of the confusion was that while the Austrian cavalry was
moving toward our left flank, the higher command found that our center
was too far separated from our right flank and the cavalry were all
ordered to turn back to the right. Several thousand cavalry crossed in
front of the infantry, who had to wait.
At the front an altercation occurred between an Austrian guide and a
Russian general. The general shouted a demand that the cavalry
should be halted, the Austrian argued that not he, but the higher
command, was to blame. The troops meanwhile stood growing listless and
dispirited. After an hour's delay they at last moved on, descending
the hill. The fog that was dispersing on the hill lay still more
densely below, where they were descending. In front in the fog a
shot was heard and then another, at first irregularly at varying
intervals - trata... tat - and then more and more regularly and rapidly,
and the action at the Goldbach Stream began.
Not expecting to come on the enemy down by the stream, and having
stumbled on him in the fog, hearing no encouraging word from their
commanders, and with a consciousness of being too late spreading
through the ranks, and above all being unable to see anything in front
or around them in the thick fog, the Russians exchanged shots with the
enemy lazily and advanced and again halted, receiving no timely orders
from the officers or adjutants who wandered about in the fog in
those unknown surroundings unable to find their own regiments. In this
way the action began for the first, second, and third columns, which
had gone down into the valley. The fourth column, with which Kutuzov
was, stood on the Pratzen Heights.
Below, where the fight was beginning, there was still thick fog;
on the higher ground it was clearing, but nothing could be seen of
what was going on in front. Whether all the enemy forces were, as we
supposed, six miles away, or whether they were near by in that sea
of mist, no one knew till after eight o'clock.
It was nine o'clock in the morning. The fog lay unbroken like a
sea down below, but higher up at the village of Schlappanitz where
Napoleon stood with his marshals around him, it was quite light. Above
him was a clear blue sky, and the sun's vast orb quivered like a
huge hollow, crimson float on the surface of that milky sea of mist.
The whole French army, and even Napoleon himself with his staff,
were not on the far side of the streams and hollows of Sokolnitz and
Schlappanitz beyond which we intended to take up our position and
begin the action, but were on this side, so close to our own forces
that Napoleon with the naked eye could distinguish a mounted man
from one on foot. Napoleon, in the blue cloak which he had worn on his
Italian campaign, sat on his small gray Arab horse a little in front
of his marshals. He gazed silently at the hills which seemed to rise
out of the sea of mist and on which the Russian troops were moving
in the distance, and he listened to the sounds of firing in the
valley. Not a single muscle of his face - which in those days was still
thin - moved. His gleaming eyes were fixed intently on one spot. His
predictions were being justified. Part of the Russian force had
already descended into the valley toward the ponds and lakes and
part were leaving these Pratzen Heights which he intended to attack
and regarded as the key to the position. He saw over the mist that
in a hollow between two hills near the village of Pratzen, the Russian
columns, their bayonets glittering, were moving continuously in one
direction toward the valley and disappearing one after another into
the mist. From information he had received the evening before, from
the sound of wheels and footsteps heard by the outposts during the
night, by the disorderly movement of the Russian columns, and from all
indications, he saw clearly that the allies believed him to be far
away in front of them, and that the columns moving near Pratzen
constituted the center of the Russian army, and that that center was
already sufficiently weakened to be successfully attacked. But still
he did not begin the engagement.
Today was a great day for him - the anniversary of his coronation.
Before dawn he had slept for a few hours, and refreshed, vigorous, and
in good spirits, he mounted his horse and rode out into the field in
that happy mood in which everything seems possible and everything
succeeds. He sat motionless, looking at the heights visible above
the mist, and his cold face wore that special look of confident,
self-complacent happiness that one sees on the face of a boy happily
in love. The marshals stood behind him not venturing to distract his
attention. He looked now at the Pratzen Heights, now at the sun
floating up out of the mist.
When the sun had entirely emerged from the fog, and fields and
mist were aglow with dazzling light - as if he had only awaited this to
begin the action - he drew the glove from his shapely white hand,
made a sign with it to the marshals, and ordered the action to
begin. The marshals, accompanied by adjutants, galloped off in
different directions, and a few minutes later the chief forces of
the French army moved rapidly toward those Pratzen Heights which
were being more and more denuded by Russian troops moving down the
valley to their left.
CHAPTER XV
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