War and Peace
visitors, usually spoken of as “a man of great merit,” having described
how he had that day seen Kutúzov, the newly chosen chief of the
Petersburg militia, presiding over the enrollment of recruits at the
Treasury, cautiously ventured to suggest that Kutúzov would be the man
to satisfy all requirements.
Anna Pávlovna remarked with a melancholy smile that Kutúzov had done
nothing but cause the Emperor annoyance.
“I have talked and talked at the Assembly of the Nobility,” Prince
Vasíli interrupted, “but they did not listen to me. I told them his
election as chief of the militia would not please the Emperor. They did
not listen to me.
“It’s all this mania for opposition,” he went on. “And who for? It is
all because we want to ape the foolish enthusiasm of those Muscovites,”
Prince Vasíli continued, forgetting for a moment that though at Hélène’s
one had to ridicule the Moscow enthusiasm, at Anna Pávlovna’s one had to
be ecstatic about it. But he retrieved his mistake at once. “Now, is
it suitable that Count Kutúzov, the oldest general in Russia, should
preside at that tribunal? He will get nothing for his pains! How could
they make a man commander in chief who cannot mount a horse, who drops
asleep at a council, and has the very worst morals! A good reputation
he made for himself at Bucharest! I don’t speak of his capacity as a
general, but at a time like this how they appoint a decrepit, blind old
man, positively blind? A fine idea to have a blind general! He can’t see
anything. To play blindman’s bulff? He can’t see at all!”
No one replied to his remarks.
This was quite correct on the twenty-fourth of July. But on the
twenty-ninth of July Kutúzov received the title of Prince. This might
indicate a wish to get rid of him, and therefore Prince Vasíli’s opinion
continued to be correct though he was not now in any hurry to express
it. But on the eighth of August a committee, consisting of Field Marshal
Saltykóv, Arakchéev, Vyazmítinov, Lopukhín, and Kochubéy met to consider
the progress of the war. This committee came to the conclusion that
our failures were due to a want of unity in the command and though the
members of the committee were aware of the Emperor’s dislike of Kutúzov,
after a short deliberation they agreed to advise his appointment as
commander in chief. That same day Kutúzov was appointed commander
in chief with full powers over the armies and over the whole region
occupied by them.
On the ninth of August Prince Vasíli at Anna Pávlovna’s again met the
“man of great merit.” The latter was very attentive to Anna Pávlovna
because he wanted to be appointed director of one of the educational
establishments for young ladies. Prince Vasíli entered the room with the
air of a happy conqueror who has attained the object of his desires.
“Well, have you heard the great news? Prince Kutúzov is field marshal!
All dissensions are at an end! I am so glad, so delighted! At last
we have a man!” said he, glancing sternly and significantly round at
everyone in the drawing room.
The “man of great merit,” despite his desire to obtain the post of
director, could not refrain from reminding Prince Vasíli of his former
opinion. Though this was impolite to Prince Vasíli in Anna Pávlovna’s
drawing room, and also to Anna Pávlovna herself who had received the
news with delight, he could not resist the temptation.
“But, Prince, they say he is blind!” said he, reminding Prince Vasíli of
his own words.
“Eh? Nonsense! He sees well enough,” said Prince Vasíli rapidly, in a
deep voice and with a slight cough—the voice and cough with which he was
wont to dispose of all difficulties.
“He sees well enough,” he added. “And what I am so pleased about,” he
went on, “is that our sovereign has given him full powers over all
the armies and the whole region—powers no commander in chief ever had
before. He is a second autocrat,” he concluded with a victorious smile.
“God grant it! God grant it!” said Anna Pávlovna.
The “man of great merit,” who was still a novice in court circles,
wishing to flatter Anna Pávlovna by defending her former position on
this question, observed:
“It is said that the Emperor was reluctant to give Kutúzov those powers.
They say he blushed like a girl to whom Joconde is read, when he said to
Kutúzov: ‘Your Emperor and the Fatherland award you this honor.’”
“Perhaps the heart took no part in that speech,” said Anna Pávlovna.
“Oh, no, no!” warmly rejoined Prince Vasíli, who would not now yield
Kutúzov to anyone; in his opinion Kutúzov was not only admirable
himself, but was adored by everybody. “No, that’s impossible,” said he,
“for our sovereign appreciated him so highly before.”
“God grant only that Prince Kutúzov assumes real power and does not
allow anyone to put a spoke in his wheel,” observed Anna Pávlovna.
Understanding at once to whom she alluded, Prince Vasíli said in a
whisper:
“I know for a fact that Kutúzov made it an absolute condition that the
Tsarévich should not be with the army. Do you know what he said to the
Emperor?”
And Prince Vasíli repeated the words supposed to have been spoken by
Kutúzov to the Emperor. “I can neither punish him if he does wrong nor
reward him if he does right.”
“Oh, a very wise man is Prince Kutúzov! I have known him a long time!”
“They even say,” remarked the “man of great merit” who did not yet
possess courtly tact, “that his excellency made it an express condition
that the sovereign himself should not be with the army.”
As soon as he said this both Prince Vasíli and Anna Pávlovna turned away
from him and glanced sadly at one another with a sigh at his naïveté.
CHAPTER VII
While this was taking place in Petersburg the French had already passed
Smolénsk and were drawing nearer and nearer to Moscow. Napoleon’s
historian Thiers, like other of his historians, trying to justify his
hero says that he was drawn to the walls of Moscow against his will. He
is as right as other historians who look for the explanation of historic
events in the will of one man; he is as right as the Russian historians
who maintain that Napoleon was drawn to Moscow by the skill of the
Russian commanders. Here besides the law of retrospection, which regards
all the past as a preparation for events that subsequently occur,
the law of reciprocity comes in, confusing the whole matter. A good
chessplayer having lost a game is sincerely convinced that his loss
resulted from a mistake he made and looks for that mistake in the
opening, but forgets that at each stage of the game there were similar
mistakes and that none of his moves were perfect. He only notices the
mistake to which he pays attention, because his opponent took advantage
of it. How much more complex than this is the game of war, which
occurs under certain limits of time, and where it is not one will that
manipulates lifeless objects, but everything results from innumerable
conflicts of various wills!
After Smolénsk Napoleon sought a battle beyond Dorogobúzh at Vyázma, and
then at Tsárevo-Zaymíshche, but it happened that owing to a conjunction
of innumerable circumstances the Russians could not give battle till
they reached Borodinó, seventy miles from Moscow. From Vyázma Napoleon
ordered a direct advance on Moscow.
Moscou, la capitale asiatique de ce grand empire, la ville sacrée des
peuples d’Alexandre, Moscou avec ses innombrables églises en forme de
pagodes chinoises, * this Moscow gave Napoleon’s imagination no rest.
On the march from Vyázma to Tsárevo-Zaymíshche he rode his light bay
bobtailed ambler accompanied by his Guards, his bodyguard, his pages,
and aides-de-camp. Berthier, his chief of staff, dropped behind to
question a Russian prisoner captured by the cavalry. Followed by
Lelorgne d’Ideville, an interpreter, he overtook Napoleon at a gallop
and reined in his horse with an amused expression.
* “Moscow, the Asiatic capital of this great empire, the
sacred city of Alexander’s people, Moscow with its
innumerable churches shaped like Chinese pagodas.”
“Well?” asked Napoleon.
“One of Plátov’s Cossacks says that Plátov’s corps is joining up with
the main army and that Kutúzov has been appointed commander in chief. He
is a very shrewd and garrulous fellow.”
Napoleon smiled and told them to give the Cossack a horse and bring the
man to him. He wished to talk to him himself. Several adjutants galloped
off, and an hour later, Lavrúshka, the serf Denísov had handed over
to Rostóv, rode up to Napoleon in an orderly’s jacket and on a French
cavalry saddle, with a merry, and tipsy face. Napoleon told him to ride
by his side and began questioning him.
“You are a Cossack?”
“Yes, a Cossack, your Honor.”
“The Cossack, not knowing in what company he was, for Napoleon’s plain
appearance had nothing about it that would reveal to an Oriental mind
the presence of a monarch, talked with extreme familiarity of the
incidents of the war,” says Thiers, narrating this episode. In
reality Lavrúshka, having got drunk the day before and left his master
dinnerless, had been whipped and sent to the village in quest of
chickens, where he engaged in looting till the French took him prisoner.
Lavrúshka was one of those coarse, bare-faced lackeys who have seen all
sorts of things, consider it necessary to do everything in a mean and
cunning way, are ready to render any sort of service to their master,
and are keen at guessing their master’s baser impulses, especially those
prompted by vanity and pettiness.
Finding himself in the company of Napoleon, whose identity he had easily
and surely recognized, Lavrúshka was not in the least abashed but merely
did his utmost to gain his new master’s favor.
He knew very well that this was Napoleon, but Napoleon’s presence could
no more intimidate him than Rostóv’s, or a sergeant major’s with the
rods, would have done, for he had nothing that either the sergeant major
or Napoleon could deprive him of.
So he rattled on, telling all the gossip he had heard among the
orderlies. Much of it true. But when Napoleon asked him whether the
Russians thought they would beat Bonaparte or not, Lavrúshka screwed up
his eyes and considered.
In this question he saw subtle cunning, as men of his type see cunning
in everything, so he frowned and did not answer immediately.
“It’s like this,” he said thoughtfully, “if there’s a battle soon, yours
will win. That’s right. But if three days pass, then after that, well,
then that same battle will not soon be over.”
Lelorgne d’Ideville smilingly interpreted this speech to Napoleon thus:
“If a battle takes place within the next three days the French will
win, but if later, God knows what will happen.” Napoleon did not smile,
though he was evidently in high good humor, and he ordered these words
to be repeated.
Lavrúshka noticed this and to entertain him further, pretending not to
know who Napoleon was, added:
“We know that you have Bonaparte and that he has beaten everybody in the
world, but we are a different matter...”—without knowing why or how this
bit of boastful patriotism slipped out at the end.
The interpreter translated these words without the last phrase, and
Bonaparte smiled. “The young Cossack made his mighty interlocutor
smile,” says Thiers. After riding a few paces in silence, Napoleon
turned to Berthier and said he wished to see how the news that he was
talking to the Emperor himself, to that very Emperor who had written his
immortally victorious name on the Pyramids, would affect this enfant du
Don. *
* “Child of the Don.”
The fact was accordingly conveyed to Lavrúshka.
Lavrúshka, understanding that this was done to perplex him and that
Napoleon expected him to be frightened, to gratify his new masters