War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [526]
In the slowly dispersing powder smoke over the whole space through which Napoleon was riding, horses and men lay in pools of blood, singly and in heaps. Never yet had Napoleon or any of his generals seen such horror, so many men killed on such a small space. The roar of guns, which for ten hours had never ceased to torment the ear, gave the spectacle a special significance (like the music in tableaux vivants). Napoleon rode out to the height of Semyonovskoe and saw ranks of men in uniforms of a color his eyes were not accustomed to. These were Russians.
The Russians stood in close ranks behind Semyonovskoe and the barrow, and their guns roared and smoked without ceasing along their line. There was no longer any battle. There was a continuous slaughter, which could lead nowhere either for the Russians or for the French. Napoleon stopped his horse and again fell into that pensiveness which Berthier had brought him out of; he could not stop what was happening before him and around him, which was considered to be guided by him and dependent upon him, and which for the first time, owing to its unsuccess, appeared useless and terrible.
One of the generals who rode up to Napoleon allowed himself to suggest to him that he send the old guard into action. Ney and Berthier, who stood near Napoleon, exchanged glances and smiled contemptuously at the general’s absurd suggestion.
Napoleon lowered his head and said nothing for a long time.
“À huit cent lieux de France je ne ferai demolir ma garde,”*500 he said and, turning his horse, rode back to Shevardino.
XXXV
Kutuzov sat, hanging his gray head and his heavy body sagging, on the rug-covered bench, in the same place where Pierre had seen him in the morning. He did not give any instructions, but only agreed or disagreed with what was suggested to him.
“Yes, yes, do that,” he replied to various suggestions. “Yes, yes, go, dear boy, have a look,” he said now to one of his attendants, now to another; or he said, “No, there’s no need, we’d better wait.” He listened to the reports brought to him, gave orders when his subordinates demanded it; but, as he listened to the reports, it seemed that he was not interested in the meaning of the words being said to him, but that something else in the expression of the face, in the tone of the reporter’s speech interested him. By many years of military experience he knew, and by his old man’s mind he understood, that one man cannot lead hundreds of thousands of men struggling with death, and he knew that the fate of a battle is decided not by the commander in chief’s instructions, not by the position of the troops, not by the number of cannon or of people killed, but by that elusive force known as the spirit of the troops, and he watched this force and guided it, as far as that lay in his power.
The general expression of Kutuzov’s face was one of concentrated, calm attention and a strain that barely overcame the weariness of a weak and old body.
At eleven o’clock in the morning, he was brought news that the flèches occupied by the French had been retaken, but that Prince Bagration had been wounded. Kutuzov said “Ah” and shook his head.
“Ride to Prince Pyotr Ivanovich and find out what and how in detail,” he said to one of his adjutants and then turned to the duke of Württemberg, who was standing behind him.
“May I ask Your Highness to accept command of the first army?”
Soon after the duke’s departure, so soon that he could not yet have reached Semyonovskoe, the duke’s adjutant came back from him and reported to his serenity that the duke requested more troops.
Kutuzov winced and sent an order to Dokhturov to assume command of the first army, and asked the duke to come back, saying he could not do without him in these important moments. When news was brought that Murat had been taken prisoner,36 and the staff officers congratulated Kutuzov, he smiled.
“Wait, gentlemen,” he said. “The battle is won, and the capture of Murat is nothing extraordinary. But we’d better wait before we rejoice.” However, he sent