War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [527]
When Shcherbinin came galloping from the left flank with a report that the French had taken the flèches and Semyonovskoe, Kutuzov, guessing by the sounds from the battlefield and Shcherbinin’s face that the news was bad, got up as if to stretch his legs and, taking Shcherbinin’s arm, led him aside.
“Go there, dear boy,” he said to Ermolov, “see if anything can be done.”
Kutuzov was in Gorki, at the center of the Russian army’s position. Napoleon’s attack against our left flank had been repulsed several times. In the center, the French had moved no further than Borodino. On their left flank, Uvarov’s cavalry had put the French to flight.
After two o’clock the French attacks ceased. On all the faces of those who came from the battlefield and of those who stood around him, Kutuzov read an expression of tension that had reached the highest degree. Kutuzov was pleased with the success of the day, which was beyond expectation. But the old man’s physical powers were failing him. Several times his head dropped as if falling, and he dozed off. They served him dinner.
The imperial adjutant Wolzogen, the same one who, riding past Prince Andrei, had said that war should be im Raum verlegen, and whom Bagration hated so much, rode up to Kutuzov during dinner. Wolzogen came from Barclay with a report on the course of things on the left flank. The sensible Barclay de Tolly, seeing crowds of retreating wounded and the disorderly rear guard of the army, having weighed all the circumstances, decided that the battle was lost, and sent his favorite to the commander in chief with that information.
Kutuzov was chewing roast chicken with difficulty and glanced at Wolzogen with narrowed, merry eyes.
Wolzogen, stretching his legs casually, with a half-contemptuous smile on his lips, went up to Kutuzov, touching the visor of his cap slightly.
Wolzogen treated his serenity with a certain affected casualness, intended to show that, as a highly educated military man, he left it to the Russians to make an idol of this old, useless man, while he knew whom he was dealing with. “Der alte Herr” (as the Germans called Kutuzov in their circle) “macht sich ganz bequem,”*501 thought Wolzogen, and glancing sternly at the plates in front of Kutuzov, he began to report to the old gentleman the state of things on the left flank, as Barclay had ordered him to do and as he himself had seen and understood it.
“All the points of our position are in the hands of the enemy, and they cannot be repulsed, because there are no troops; they are running away, and it is not possible to stop them,” he reported.
Kutuzov stopped chewing and in astonishment, as if not understanding what he was being told, fixed his eyes on Wolzogen. Wolzogen, noticing the agitation des alten Herrn, said with a smile:
“I did not consider it right for me to conceal from Your Serenity what I saw…The troops are in total disarray…”
“You saw? You saw?…” Kutuzov shouted, frowning, and rising quickly, he went up close to Wolzogen. “How…how dare you!…” he shouted, making threatening gestures with his trembling hands and spluttering. “How dare you, my dear sir, say that to me! You know nothing. Tell General Barclay from me that his information is incorrect and that the true course of the battle is known better to me, the commander in chief, than to him.”
Wolzogen was about to make some objection, but Kutuzov cut him off.
“The enemy has been repulsed on the left and beaten on the right flank. If you see so poorly, my dear sir, don’t allow yourself to speak of what you don’t know. Kindly go to General Barclay and tell him that I firmly intend to attack the enemy tomorrow,” Kutuzov said sternly. Everyone fell silent, and nothing was heard but the heavy breathing of the puffing old general. “They’ve been repulsed everywhere, for which I thank God and our brave army. The enemy is defeated, and tomorrow we will begin driving him out of the holy Russian land,” said Kutuzov, crossing himself; and he suddenly choked from the tears welling up in him. Wolzogen,