War and Peace
Not expecting to come on the enemy down by the stream, and having
stumbled on him in the fog, hearing no encouraging word from their
commanders, and with a consciousness of being too late spreading through
the ranks, and above all being unable to see anything in front or around
them in the thick fog, the Russians exchanged shots with the enemy
lazily and advanced and again halted, receiving no timely orders from
the officers or adjutants who wandered about in the fog in those unknown
surroundings unable to find their own regiments. In this way the action
began for the first, second, and third columns, which had gone down into
the valley. The fourth column, with which Kutúzov was, stood on the
Pratzen Heights.
Below, where the fight was beginning, there was still thick fog; on the
higher ground it was clearing, but nothing could be seen of what was
going on in front. Whether all the enemy forces were, as we supposed,
six miles away, or whether they were near by in that sea of mist, no one
knew till after eight o’clock.
It was nine o’clock in the morning. The fog lay unbroken like a sea
down below, but higher up at the village of Schlappanitz where Napoleon
stood with his marshals around him, it was quite light. Above him was
a clear blue sky, and the sun’s vast orb quivered like a huge hollow,
crimson float on the surface of that milky sea of mist. The whole French
army, and even Napoleon himself with his staff, were not on the far side
of the streams and hollows of Sokolnitz and Schlappanitz beyond which we
intended to take up our position and begin the action, but were on this
side, so close to our own forces that Napoleon with the naked eye could
distinguish a mounted man from one on foot. Napoleon, in the blue cloak
which he had worn on his Italian campaign, sat on his small gray Arab
horse a little in front of his marshals. He gazed silently at the hills
which seemed to rise out of the sea of mist and on which the Russian
troops were moving in the distance, and he listened to the sounds of
firing in the valley. Not a single muscle of his face—which in those
days was still thin—moved. His gleaming eyes were fixed intently on
one spot. His predictions were being justified. Part of the Russian
force had already descended into the valley toward the ponds and lakes
and part were leaving these Pratzen Heights which he intended to attack
and regarded as the key to the position. He saw over the mist that in
a hollow between two hills near the village of Pratzen, the Russian
columns, their bayonets glittering, were moving continuously in one
direction toward the valley and disappearing one after another into
the mist. From information he had received the evening before, from the
sound of wheels and footsteps heard by the outposts during the night,
by the disorderly movement of the Russian columns, and from all
indications, he saw clearly that the allies believed him to be far away
in front of them, and that the columns moving near Pratzen constituted
the center of the Russian army, and that that center was already
sufficiently weakened to be successfully attacked. But still he did not
begin the engagement.
Today was a great day for him—the anniversary of his coronation.
Before dawn he had slept for a few hours, and refreshed, vigorous, and
in good spirits, he mounted his horse and rode out into the field
in that happy mood in which everything seems possible and everything
succeeds. He sat motionless, looking at the heights visible above
the mist, and his cold face wore that special look of confident,
self-complacent happiness that one sees on the face of a boy happily
in love. The marshals stood behind him not venturing to distract his
attention. He looked now at the Pratzen Heights, now at the sun floating
up out of the mist.
When the sun had entirely emerged from the fog, and fields and mist were
aglow with dazzling light—as if he had only awaited this to begin the
action—he drew the glove from his shapely white hand, made a sign
with it to the marshals, and ordered the action to begin. The marshals,
accompanied by adjutants, galloped off in different directions, and
a few minutes later the chief forces of the French army moved rapidly
toward those Pratzen Heights which were being more and more denuded by
Russian troops moving down the valley to their left.
CHAPTER XV
At eight o’clock Kutúzov rode to Pratzen at the head of the fourth
column, Milorádovich’s, the one that was to take the place of
Przebyszéwski’s and Langeron’s columns which had already gone down
into the valley. He greeted the men of the foremost regiment and gave
them the order to march, thereby indicating that he intended to lead
that column himself. When he had reached the village of Pratzen he
halted. Prince Andrew was behind, among the immense number forming the
commander in chief’s suite. He was in a state of suppressed excitement
and irritation, though controlledly calm as a man is at the approach of
a long-awaited moment. He was firmly convinced that this was the day of
his Toulon, or his bridge of Arcola. How it would come about he did not
know, but he felt sure it would do so. The locality and the position of
our troops were known to him as far as they could be known to anyone
in our army. His own strategic plan, which obviously could not now
be carried out, was forgotten. Now, entering into Weyrother’s plan,
Prince Andrew considered possible contingencies and formed new projects
such as might call for his rapidity of perception and decision.
To the left down below in the mist, the musketry fire of unseen forces
could be heard. It was there Prince Andrew thought the fight would
concentrate. “There we shall encounter difficulties, and there,”
thought he, “I shall be sent with a brigade or division, and there,
standard in hand, I shall go forward and break whatever is in front of
me.”
He could not look calmly at the standards of the passing battalions.
Seeing them he kept thinking, “That may be the very standard with
which I shall lead the army.”
In the morning all that was left of the night mist on the heights was
a hoar frost now turning to dew, but in the valleys it still lay like a
milk-white sea. Nothing was visible in the valley to the left into which
our troops had descended and from whence came the sounds of firing.
Above the heights was the dark clear sky, and to the right the vast orb
of the sun. In front, far off on the farther shore of that sea of mist,
some wooded hills were discernible, and it was there the enemy probably
was, for something could be descried. On the right the Guards were
entering the misty region with a sound of hoofs and wheels and now and
then a gleam of bayonets; to the left beyond the village similar masses
of cavalry came up and disappeared in the sea of mist. In front and
behind moved infantry. The commander in chief was standing at the end of
the village letting the troops pass by him. That morning Kutúzov seemed
worn and irritable. The infantry passing before him came to a halt
without any command being given, apparently obstructed by something in
front.
“Do order them to form into battalion columns and go round the
village!” he said angrily to a general who had ridden up. “Don’t
you understand, your excellency, my dear sir, that you must not
defile through narrow village streets when we are marching against the
enemy?”
“I intended to re-form them beyond the village, your excellency,”
answered the general.
Kutúzov laughed bitterly.
“You’ll make a fine thing of it, deploying in sight of the enemy!
Very fine!”
“The enemy is still far away, your excellency. According to the
dispositions...”
“The dispositions!” exclaimed Kutúzov bitterly. “Who told you
that?... Kindly do as you are ordered.”
“Yes, sir.”
“My dear fellow,” Nesvítski whispered to Prince Andrew, “the old
man is as surly as a dog.”
An Austrian officer in a white uniform with green plumes in his hat
galloped up to Kutúzov and asked in the Emperor’s name had the fourth
column advanced into action.
Kutúzov turned round without answering and his eye happened to fall
upon Prince Andrew, who was beside him. Seeing him, Kutúzov’s
malevolent and caustic expression softened, as if admitting that what
was being done was not his adjutant’s fault, and still not answering
the Austrian adjutant, he addressed Bolkónski.
“Go, my dear fellow, and see whether the third division has passed the
village. Tell it to stop and await my orders.”
Hardly had Prince Andrew started than he stopped him.
“And ask whether sharpshooters have been posted,” he added. “What
are they doing? What are they doing?” he murmured to himself, still
not replying to the Austrian.
Prince Andrew galloped off to execute the order.
Overtaking the battalions that continued to advance, he stopped
the third division and convinced himself that there really were no
sharpshooters in front of our columns. The colonel at the head of the
regiment was much surprised at the commander in chief’s order to throw
out skirmishers. He had felt perfectly sure that there were other troops
in front of him and that the enemy must be at least six miles away.
There was really nothing to be seen in front except a barren descent
hidden by dense mist. Having given orders in the commander in chief’s
name to rectify this omission, Prince Andrew galloped back. Kutúzov
still in the same place, his stout body resting heavily in the saddle
with the lassitude of age, sat yawning wearily with closed eyes. The
troops were no longer moving, but stood with the butts of their muskets
on the ground.
“All right, all right!” he said to Prince Andrew, and turned to a
general who, watch in hand, was saying it was time they started as all
the left-flank columns had already descended.
“Plenty of time, your excellency,” muttered Kutúzov in the midst of
a yawn. “Plenty of time,” he repeated.
Just then at a distance behind Kutúzov was heard the sound of regiments
saluting, and this sound rapidly came nearer along the whole extended
line of the advancing Russian columns. Evidently the person they were
greeting was riding quickly. When the soldiers of the regiment in front
of which Kutúzov was standing began to shout, he rode a little to one
side and looked round with a frown. Along the road from Pratzen galloped
what looked like a squadron of horsemen in various uniforms. Two of them
rode side by side in front, at full gallop. One in a black uniform with
white plumes in his hat rode a bobtailed chestnut horse, the other who
was in a white uniform rode a black one. These were the two Emperors
followed by their suites. Kutúzov, affecting the manners of an old
soldier at the front, gave the command “Attention!” and rode up
to the Emperors with a salute. His whole appearance and manner were
suddenly transformed. He put on the air of a subordinate who obeys
without reasoning. With an affectation of respect which evidently struck
Alexander unpleasantly, he rode up and saluted.
This unpleasant impression merely flitted over the young and happy face
of the Emperor like a cloud of haze across a clear sky and vanished.
After his illness he looked rather thinner that day than on the field
of Olmütz where Bolkónski had seen him for the first time abroad, but
there was still the same bewitching combination of majesty and mildness
in his fine gray eyes, and on his delicate lips the same capacity for
varying expression and the same prevalent appearance of goodhearted
innocent youth.
At the Olmütz review he had seemed more majestic; here he seemed
brighter and more energetic. He was slightly flushed after galloping two
miles, and reining in his horse he sighed restfully and looked round
at the faces of his suite, young and animated as his own. Czartorýski,