第 六十 章 · 第60章

The next day the Emperor stopped at Wischau, and Villier, his physician,

was repeatedly summoned to see him. At headquarters and among the troops

near by the news spread that the Emperor was unwell. He ate nothing and

had slept badly that night, those around him reported. The cause of this

indisposition was the strong impression made on his sensitive mind by

the sight of the killed and wounded.

At daybreak on the seventeenth, a French officer who had come with

a flag of truce, demanding an audience with the Russian Emperor, was

brought into Wischau from our outposts. This officer was Savary. The

Emperor had only just fallen asleep and so Savary had to wait. At midday

he was admitted to the Emperor, and an hour later he rode off with

Prince Dolgorúkov to the advanced post of the French army.

It was rumored that Savary had been sent to propose to Alexander

a meeting with Napoleon. To the joy and pride of the whole army, a

personal interview was refused, and instead of the Sovereign, Prince

Dolgorúkov, the victor at Wischau, was sent with Savary to negotiate

with Napoleon if, contrary to expectations, these negotiations were

actuated by a real desire for peace.

Toward evening Dolgorúkov came back, went straight to the Tsar, and

remained alone with him for a long time.

On the eighteenth and nineteenth of November, the army advanced two

days’ march and the enemy’s outposts after a brief interchange

of shots retreated. In the highest army circles from midday on the

nineteenth, a great, excitedly bustling activity began which lasted till

the morning of the twentieth, when the memorable battle of Austerlitz

was fought.

Till midday on the nineteenth, the activity—the eager talk, running to

and fro, and dispatching of adjutants—was confined to the Emperor’s

headquarters. But on the afternoon of that day, this activity reached

Kutúzov’s headquarters and the staffs of the commanders of columns.

By evening, the adjutants had spread it to all ends and parts of the

army, and in the night from the nineteenth to the twentieth, the whole

eighty thousand allied troops rose from their bivouacs to the hum of

voices, and the army swayed and started in one enormous mass six miles

long.

The concentrated activity which had begun at the Emperor’s

headquarters in the morning and had started the whole movement that

followed was like the first movement of the main wheel of a large tower

clock. One wheel slowly moved, another was set in motion, and a third,

and wheels began to revolve faster and faster, levers and cogwheels to

work, chimes to play, figures to pop out, and the hands to advance with

regular motion as a result of all that activity.

Just as in the mechanism of a clock, so in the mechanism of the military

machine, an impulse once given leads to the final result; and just as

indifferently quiescent till the moment when motion is transmitted

to them are the parts of the mechanism which the impulse has not yet

reached. Wheels creak on their axles as the cogs engage one another and

the revolving pulleys whirr with the rapidity of their movement, but a

neighboring wheel is as quiet and motionless as though it were prepared

to remain so for a hundred years; but the moment comes when the lever

catches it and obeying the impulse that wheel begins to creak and joins

in the common motion the result and aim of which are beyond its ken.

Just as in a clock, the result of the complicated motion of innumerable

wheels and pulleys is merely a slow and regular movement of the

hands which show the time, so the result of all the complicated human

activities of 160,000 Russians and French—all their passions, desires,

remorse, humiliations, sufferings, outbursts of pride, fear, and

enthusiasm—was only the loss of the battle of Austerlitz, the

so-called battle of the three Emperors—that is to say, a slow movement

of the hand on the dial of human history.

Prince Andrew was on duty that day and in constant attendance on the

commander in chief.

At six in the evening, Kutúzov went to the Emperor’s headquarters

and after staying but a short time with the Tsar went to see the grand

marshal of the court, Count Tolstóy.

Bolkónski took the opportunity to go in to get some details of the

coming action from Dolgorúkov. He felt that Kutúzov was upset

and dissatisfied about something and that at headquarters they were

dissatisfied with him, and also that at the Emperor’s headquarters

everyone adopted toward him the tone of men who know something others do

not know: he therefore wished to speak to Dolgorúkov.

“Well, how d’you do, my dear fellow?” said Dolgorúkov, who was

sitting at tea with Bilíbin. “The fete is for tomorrow. How is your

old fellow? Out of sorts?”

“I won’t say he is out of sorts, but I fancy he would like to be

heard.”

“But they heard him at the council of war and will hear him when he

talks sense, but to temporize and wait for something now when Bonaparte

fears nothing so much as a general battle is impossible.”

“Yes, you have seen him?” said Prince Andrew. “Well, what is

Bonaparte like? How did he impress you?”

“Yes, I saw him, and am convinced that he fears nothing so much as

a general engagement,” repeated Dolgorúkov, evidently prizing this

general conclusion which he had arrived at from his interview with

Napoleon. “If he weren’t afraid of a battle why did he ask for that

interview? Why negotiate, and above all why retreat, when to retreat is

so contrary to his method of conducting war? Believe me, he is afraid,

afraid of a general battle. His hour has come! Mark my words!”

“But tell me, what is he like, eh?” said Prince Andrew again.

“He is a man in a gray overcoat, very anxious that I should call

him ‘Your Majesty,’ but who, to his chagrin, got no title from

me! That’s the sort of man he is, and nothing more,” replied

Dolgorúkov, looking round at Bilíbin with a smile.

“Despite my great respect for old Kutúzov,” he continued, “we

should be a nice set of fellows if we were to wait about and so give him

a chance to escape, or to trick us, now that we certainly have him in

our hands! No, we mustn’t forget Suvórov and his rule—not to put

yourself in a position to be attacked, but yourself to attack. Believe

me in war the energy of young men often shows the way better than all

the experience of old Cunctators.”

“But in what position are we going to attack him? I have been at the

outposts today and it is impossible to say where his chief forces are

situated,” said Prince Andrew.

He wished to explain to Dolgorúkov a plan of attack he had himself

formed.

“Oh, that is all the same,” Dolgorúkov said quickly, and getting up

he spread a map on the table. “All eventualities have been foreseen.

If he is standing before Brünn...”

And Prince Dolgorúkov rapidly but indistinctly explained Weyrother’s

plan of a flanking movement.

Prince Andrew began to reply and to state his own plan, which might

have been as good as Weyrother’s, but for the disadvantage that

Weyrother’s had already been approved. As soon as Prince Andrew began

to demonstrate the defects of the latter and the merits of his own plan,

Prince Dolgorúkov ceased to listen to him and gazed absent-mindedly not

at the map, but at Prince Andrew’s face.

“There will be a council of war at Kutúzov’s tonight, though; you

can say all this there,” remarked Dolgorúkov.

“I will do so,” said Prince Andrew, moving away from the map.

“Whatever are you bothering about, gentlemen?” said Bilíbin, who,

till then, had listened with an amused smile to their conversation and

now was evidently ready with a joke. “Whether tomorrow brings

victory or defeat, the glory of our Russian arms is secure. Except your

Kutúzov, there is not a single Russian in command of a column! The

commanders are: Herr General Wimpfen, le Comte de Langeron, le Prince de

Lichtenstein, le Prince de Hohenlohe, and finally Prishprish, and so on

like all those Polish names.”

“Be quiet, backbiter!” said Dolgorúkov. “It is not true; there

are now two Russians, Milorádovich, and Dokhtúrov, and there would be

a third, Count Arakchéev, if his nerves were not too weak.”

“However, I think General Kutúzov has come out,” said Prince

Andrew. “I wish you good luck and success, gentlemen!” he added and

went out after shaking hands with Dolgorúkov and Bilíbin.

On the way home, Prince Andrew could not refrain from asking Kutúzov,

who was sitting silently beside him, what he thought of tomorrow’s

battle.

Kutúzov looked sternly at his adjutant and, after a pause, replied:

“I think the battle will be lost, and so I told Count Tolstóy and

asked him to tell the Emperor. What do you think he replied? ‘But, my

dear general, I am engaged with rice and cutlets, look after military

matters yourself!’ Yes... That was the answer I got!”