On the eleventh of October, 1805, one of the infantry regiments just arrived in Braunau had halted half a mile from the town, waiting to be reviewed by the commander in chief. Despite the non-Russian locality and surroundings—orchards, stone walls, tile roofs, mountains visible in the distance—and the non-Russian folk gazing with curiosity at the soldiers, the regiment looked exactly the same as any Russian regiment waiting for review somewhere in central Russia.
In the evening of the latest march an order had been received that the commander in chief would review the regiment on the march. Though the wording of the order seemed unclear to the regimental commander and the question arose of how to take the wording of the order—in marching uniform or not?—in the council of battalion commanders it was decided to present the regiment for review in parade uniform, on the grounds that it is always better to bow too much than not to bow enough. And so the soldiers, after a twenty-mile march, without a wink of sleep, spent the whole night mending and cleaning; the adjutants and company commanders calculated and counted off; and by morning the regiment, instead of the straggling, disorderly crowd it had been the day before, during the latest march, was a well-ordered mass of two thousand men, each of whom knew his place, his duty, each of whose buttons and straps was in its place and sparkling clean. Not only were the externals in good order, but if it should please the commander in chief to look under the uniform, he would see on each man the same clean shirt, and in each pack he would find the prescribed number of things, “the whole kit and caboodle,” as soldiers say. There was only one circumstance with regard to which no one could be at ease. This was footgear. More than half the men had their boots falling to pieces. But this shortcoming was not the regimental commander’s fault, since, despite his repeated requests, the Austrian department had not released a supply, and the regiment had walked seven hundred miles.
The regimental commander was an elderly, sanguine general with grizzled eyebrows and side-whiskers, stocky and broader from chest to back than from shoulder to shoulder. He was wearing a brand-new uniform with creases from being packed away, and thick gold epaulettes which seemed not to weigh down but to lift up his massive shoulders. The regimental commander had the look of a man happily performing one of the most solemn duties in life. He strolled about before the front line, bouncing at each step as he strolled, and arching his back slightly. It was clear that the regimental commander admired his regiment, was happy with it, and that all his inner forces were taken up only with the regiment; but, in spite of that, his bouncing gait seemed to say that, besides military interests, no small part of his soul was taken up by the interests of social life and the female sex.
“Well, Mikhailo Mitrich, old boy,” he addressed one of the battalion commanders (the battalion commander, smiling, moved forward; it was clear that both men were happy), “we were hard put to it last night. However, it seems the regiment’s not such a bad one…Eh?”
The battalion commander understood the merry irony and laughed.
“Wouldn’t even be driven off the Tsaritsyn Field.”1
“What?”
Just then two horsemen appeared on the road from town along which signalmen had been posted. They were an adjutant with a Cossack riding behind him.
The adjutant had been sent from headquarters to confirm to the regimental commander what had been said unclearly in the previous day’s order, namely, that the commander in chief wished to see the regiment in exactly the same condition it had been in on the march—in greatcoats, in dustcovers, and without any preparations.
The day before, a member of the Hofkriegsrath from Vienna had come to Kutuzov with proposals and demands that he go as quickly as possible to join with the army of the archduke Ferdinand and Mack, and Kutuzov, who did not consider that juncture advantageous, intended, among other arguments in favor of his opinion, to show the Austrian general the sorry condition in which his troops arrived from Russia. It was with that purpose that he wanted to come and meet the regiment, so that the worse the condition of the regiment was, the more pleasing it would be to the commander in chief. Though the adjutant did not know these details, he conveyed to the regimental commander the absolute demand of the commander in chief that his people be in greatcoats and dustcovers, and that in the contrary case the commander in chief would be displeased.
Having listened to these words, the regimental commander hung his head, silently heaved his shoulders, and spread his arms in a sanguine gesture.
“Now we’ve done it!” he said. “See, I told you, Mikhailo Mitrich, if it’s on the march, then it’s greatcoats,” he turned reproachfully to the battalion commander. “Ah, my God!” he added and resolutely stepped forward. “Company commanders!” he cried in a voice accustomed to command. “Sergeant majors!…How soon will he come?” he turned to the adjutant with an expression of deferential politeness which evidently related to the person of whom he was speaking.
“In an hour, I think.”
“Do we have time to change?”
“I don’t know, General…”
The regimental commander approached the ranks himself and gave orders to change back into overcoats. The company commanders ran to their companies, the sergeant majors began bustling about (the overcoats were not in good order), and that same instant the previously orderly, silent rectangles heaved, stretched, and began humming with talk. Soldiers ran back and forth on all sides, tossed their packs off one shoulder and pulled them over their heads, took their overcoats out, and raised their arms high, putting them into the sleeves.
Half an hour later everything was back in its former order, only the rectangles had become gray instead of black. The regimental commander again stepped before the regiment with his bouncing gait and looked it over from a distance.
“What’s this now? what’s this?” he shouted, stopping. “Commander of the third company!…”
“Commander of the third company to the general! commander to the general, third company to the commander!…” voices were heard in the ranks, and an adjutant ran to look for the belated officer.
When the sounds of the zealous voices, distorting the message and now shouting “the general to the third company,” reached their destination, the summoned officer emerged from the back of the ranks and, though already an elderly man and not accustomed to running, cantered, clumsily tripping over his toes, towards the general. The captain’s face expressed the anxiety of a schoolboy who is asked to recite a lesson he had not learned. Blotches appeared on his red (evidently from intemperance) face, and his mouth would not stay put. The regimental commander looked the captain up and down as he approached, puffing, slackening his pace the nearer he came.
“Soon you’ll have your people dressed in sarafans! What is that?” shouted the regimental commander, thrusting his lower jaw out and pointing to a soldier in the ranks of the third company who was wearing a greatcoat of blue factory broadcloth, different from the other greatcoats. “Where have you been? We’re expecting the commander in chief, and you leave your post? Eh?…I’ll teach you to dress your people in gaudy colors for a review!…Eh!…”
The company commander, not taking his eyes off his superior officer, pressed his two fingers more and more firmly to his visor, as if he now saw salvation only in this pressing.
“Well, why are you silent? Who have you got there dressed up like a Hungarian?” the regimental commander joked sternly.
“Your Excellency…”
“Well, ‘Your Excellency’ what? Your Excellency! Your Excellency! But Your Excellency what—nobody knows.”