War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [540]
“Give me your hand,” he said, and, turning it so as to feel the pulse, he said: “You’re unwell, my dear boy. Think what you’re saying.”
On Poklonnaya Hill, four miles from the Dorogomilovo gate, Kutuzov got out of his carriage and sat down on a bench by the side of the road. A huge crowd of generals gathered around him. Count Rastopchin, having come from Moscow, joined them. All this brilliant society, breaking up into several circles, talked among themselves about the advantages and disadvantages of the position, about the situation of the troops, about the suggested plans, about the condition of Moscow, about military questions in general. Everyone felt that, though they had not been summoned for that, though it had not been called that, this was a council of war. All conversations kept to the area of general questions. If anyone reported or asked about personal news, he spoke of it in a whisper and at once went on to general questions again: no jokes, no laughter, no smiles even, could be noticed among all these people. Everyone, with obvious effort, tried to be equal to the occasion. And all the groups, talking among themselves, tried to keep in proximity to the commander in chief (whose bench constituted the center of these circles), and spoke so that he was able to hear them. The commander in chief listened and occasionally asked them to repeat what had been said around him, but did not enter the conversation himself or express any opinion. Most often, having listened to the conversation in some circle, he turned away with a look of disappointment, as if what they were speaking about was not at all what he wished to know. One spoke of the position chosen, criticizing not so much the position as the mental abilities of those who had chosen it; another argued that the mistake had been made before, that battle should have been accepted two days earlier; a third discussed the battle of Salamanca, which the newly arrived Frenchman Crosart, in a Spanish uniform, told about. (This Frenchman, along with one of the German princes who served in the Russian army, was analyzing the siege of Saragossa,1 anticipating the possibility of defending Moscow in the same way.) In a fourth circle, Count Rastopchin said that he and the Moscow militia were ready to perish under the walls of the capital, but even so he could not help regretting the uncertainty in which he had been left, and had he known it earlier, things would have been different…A fifth, showing the profundity of its strategic reflections, spoke of the direction the troops would have to take. A sixth talked total nonsense. Kutuzov’s face was growing more and more preoccupied and sad. From all these conversations, Kutuzov saw one thing: the defense of Moscow was in no way physically possible, in the full meaning of those words, that is, impossible to such a degree that if some insane commander in chief gave the order to offer battle, confusion would set in, and there would be no battle anyway; there would not be, because all the higher officers not only acknowledged that the position was impossible, but in their conversations discussed only what would take place after the undoubted abandoning of that position. How could the officers lead their troops to a battlefield they considered impossible? The lower officers, even the soldiers (who also reason), considered the position just as impossible, and therefore could not go to fight in the certainty of defeat. If Bennigsen insisted on the defense of that position and others still discussed it, the question no longer had any meaning in itself, but only as a pretext for argument and intrigue. Kutuzov understood that.
Bennigsen, having chosen the position, ardently displaying his patriotism (which Kutuzov could not listen to without wincing), insisted on defending Moscow. Kutuzov saw Bennigsen’s aim as clear as day: if the defense failed, to throw the blame on Kutuzov, who had led the troops as far as Sparrow Hills without a battle; if it succeeded, to ascribe it to himself; in case of refusal—to clear himself of criminally