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One of the generals rode up to Napoleon and ventured to offer to lead the Old Guard into action. Ney and Berthier, standing near Napoleon, exchanged looks and smiled contemptuously at this general’s senseless offer.
Napoleon bowed his head and remained silent a long time.
“At eight hundred leagues from France, I will not have my Guard destroyed!” he said, and turning his horse rode back to Shevrdino.
On the rug-covered bench where Pierre had seen him in the morning sat Kutzov, his gray head hanging, his heavy body relaxed. He gave no orders, but only assented to or dissented from what others suggested.
“Yes, yes, do that,” he replied to various proposals. “Yes, yes: go, dear boy, and have a look,” he would say to one or another of those about him; or, “No, don’t, we’d better wait!” He listened to the reports that were brought him and gave directions when his subordinates demanded that of him; but when listening to the reports it seemed as if he were not interested in the import of the words spoken, but rather in something else—in the expression of face and tone of voice of those who were reporting. By long years of military experience he knew, and with the wisdom of age understood, that it is impossible for one man to direct hundreds of thousands of others struggling with death, and he knew that the result of a battle is decided not by the orders of a commander in chief, nor the place where the troops are stationed, nor by the number of cannon or of slaughtered men, but by that intangible force called the spirit of the army, and he watched this force and guided it in as far as that was in his power.
Kutzov’s general expression was one of concentrated quiet attention, and his face wore a strained look as if he found it difficult to master the fatigue of his old and feeble body.
At eleven o’clock they brought him news that the flches captured by the French had been retaken, but that Prince Bagratin was wounded. Kutzov groaned and swayed his head.
“Ride over to Prince Peter Ivnovich and find out about it exactly,” he said to one of his adjutants, and then turned to the Duke of Wrttemberg who was standing behind him.
“Will Your Highness please take command of the first army?”
Soon after the duke’s departure—before he could possibly have reached Semnovsk—his adjutant came back from him and told Kutzov that the duke asked for more troops.
Kutzov made a grimace and sent an order to Dokhtrov to take over the command of the first army, and a request to the duke—whom he said he could not spare at such an important moment—to return to him. When they brought him news that Murat had been taken prisoner, and the staff officers congratulated him, Kutzov smiled.
“Wait a little, gentlemen,” said he. “The battle is won, and there is nothing extraordinary in the capture of Murat. Still, it is better to wait before we rejoice.”
But he sent an adjutant to take the news round the army.
When Scherbnin came galloping from the left flank with news that the French had captured the flches and the village of Semnovsk, Kutzov, guessing by the sounds of the battle and by Scherbnin’s looks that the news was bad, rose as if to stretch his legs and, taking Scherbnin’s arm, led him aside.
“Go, my dear fellow,” he said to Ermlov, “and see whether something can’t be done.”
Kutzov was in Grki, near the center of the Russian position. The attack directed by Napoleon against our left flank had been several times repulsed. In the center the French had not got beyond Borodin, and on their left flank Uvrov’s cavalry had put the French to flight.
Toward three o’clock the French attacks ceased. On the faces of all who came from the field of battle, and of those who stood around him, Kutzov noticed an expression of extreme tension. He was satisfied with the day’s success—a success exceeding his expectations, but the old man’s strength was failing him. Several times his head dropped low as if it were falling and he dozed off. Dinner was brought him.
Adjutant General Wolzogen, the man who when riding past Prince Andrew had said, “the war should be extended widely,” and whom Bagratin so detested, rode up while Kutzov was at dinner. Wolzogen had come from Barclay de Tolly to report on the progress of affairs on the left flank. The sagacious Barclay de Tolly, seeing crowds of wounded men running back and the disordered rear of the army, weighed all the circumstances, concluded that the battle was lost, and sent his favorite officer to the commander in chief with that news.
Kutzov was chewing a piece of roast chicken with difficulty and glanced at Wolzogen with eyes that brightened under their puckering lids.
Wolzogen, nonchalantly stretching his legs, approached Kutzov with a half-contemptuous smile on his lips, scarcely touching the peak of his cap.
He treated his Serene Highness with a somewhat affected nonchalance intended to show that, as a highly trained military man, he left it to Russians to make an idol of this useless old man, but that he knew whom he was dealing with. “Der alte Herr” (as in their own set the Germans called Kutzov) “is making himself very comfortable,” thought Wolzogen, and looking severely at the dishes in front of Kutzov he began to report to “the old gentleman” the position of affairs on the left flank as Barclay had ordered him to and as he himself had seen and understood it.
“All the points of our position are in the enemy’s hands and we cannot dislodge them for lack of troops, the men are running away and it is impossible to stop them,” he reported.
Kutzov ceased chewing and fixed an astonished gaze on Wolzogen, as if not understanding what was said to him. Wolzogen, noticing “the old gentleman’s” agitation, said with a smile:
“I have not considered it right to conceal from your Serene Highness what I have seen. The troops are in complete disorder....”
“You have seen? You have seen?...” Kutzov shouted. Frowning and rising quickly, he went up to Wolzogen.
“How... how dare you!...” he shouted, choking and making a threatening gesture with his trembling arms: “How dare you, sir, say that to me? You know nothing about it. Tell General Barclay from me that his information is incorrect and that the real course of the battle is better known to me, the commander in chief, than to him.”
Wolzogen was about to make a rejoinder, but Kutzov interrupted him.
“The enemy has been repulsed on the left and defeated on the right flank. If you have seen amiss, sir, do not allow yourself to say what you don’t know! Be so good as to ride to General Barclay and inform him of my firm intention to attack the enemy tomorrow,” said Kutzov sternly.
