War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [419]
Of all these persons, the one who most awakened Prince Andrei’s sympathy was the embittered, resolute, and senselessly self-assured Pfuel. He alone of all the persons present there obviously desired nothing for himself, felt no enmity against anyone, and desired only one thing: the putting into action of a plan worked out according to a theory arrived at through years of labor. He was ridiculous, he was unpleasant in his irony, but at the same time he inspired an involuntary respect by his boundless devotion to his idea. Besides that, in all the speeches of all the speakers, with the exception of Pfuel, there was one common feature which had not been there at the council of war in 1805: there was now, however concealed, a panic fear before the genius of Napoleon, a fear that voiced itself in every objection. Every possible supposition was made with regard to Napoleon, he was expected on all sides, and with his terrible name they demolished each other’s suggestions. Pfuel alone, it seemed, considered him, Napoleon, as much a barbarian as all the opponents of his theory. But, besides a feeling of respect, Pfuel inspired a feeling of pity in Prince Andrei. From the tone in which the courtiers addressed him, from what Paulucci had allowed himself to say to the emperor, but above all from a certain desperation in Pfuel’s own expressions, it was clear that the others knew and he himself sensed that his fall was near. And despite his self-assurance and grumbling German irony, he was pitiful with his hair slicked down on his temples and tufts sticking out on his nape. Though he concealed it behind an appearance of irritation and contempt, he was clearly in despair, because the sole remaining opportunity of making an enormous experiment and proving the correctness of his theory to the whole world was slipping away from him.
The debate went on for a long time, and the longer it went on, the more heated the argument became, reaching the point of shouting and personal remarks, and the less possible it was to draw any general conclusion from all that had been said. Listening to this multilingual talk, and these suggestions, plans, and refutations, and shouts, Prince Andrei was simply amazed at what they all said. The thoughts he often used to have long ago, during the time of his military activity, that there was not and could not be any military science, and therefore there could not be any so-called military genius, now acquired for him the perfect evidence of truth. “What theory and what science could there be in a matter of which the conditions and circumstances are unknown and cannot be determined, in which the strength of those active in war can still less be determined? No one could or can know what position our own and the enemy army will be in a day later, and no one can know the strength of this or that detachment. Sometimes, when there’s no coward at the head who shouts ‘We’re cut off!’ and runs away, but a cheerful, bold man who shouts ‘Hurrah!’—a detachment of five thousand is worth thirty thousand, as at Schöngraben, and sometimes fifty thousand flee in the face of eight, as at Austerlitz. What science can there be in a matter in which, as in any practical matter, nothing can be determined and everything depends on countless circumstances, the significance of which is determined at a certain moment, and no one knows when that moment will come? Armfelt says our army is cut off, and Paulucci says we’ve put the French army between two fires; Michaud says the Drissa camp is no good because the river is behind it, and Pfuel says its strength lies in that. Toll suggests one plan, Armfelt another; they’re all good, and they’re all bad, and the advantages of any position can become evident only at the moment when the event occurs. And why do they all talk about military genius? Is that man a genius who manages to order a timely delivery of biscuits and tells this one to go right and that one to go left? It is only because military men are clothed in splendor and power, and masses of scoundrels