“Une leçon de géographie,” he said, as if to himself, but loudly enough to be heard.
Przebyszewski, with deferential but dignified politeness, put his hand to his ear towards Weyrother, having the air of a man whose attention is absorbed. The short Dokhturov sat directly opposite Weyrother with a diligent and modest look, and, bending over the spread-out map, conscientiously studied the disposition and the unfamiliar terrain. He asked Weyrother several times to repeat words he had not heard properly and the difficult names of the villages. Weyrother did as he asked, and Dokhturov wrote them down.
When the reading, which lasted more than an hour, was over, Langeron again stopped the snuffbox and, without looking at Weyrother or anyone in particular, began speaking about the difficulty of following such a disposition, in which the position of the enemy is assumed to be known, when that position may not be known to us, since the enemy is on the move. Langeron’s objections were well-founded, but it was obvious that the purpose of those objections consisted primarily in bringing it home to General Weyrother, who had read his disposition with such self-assurance, as if to schoolboys, that he had to do not with mere fools, but with people who could give him lessons in military matters. When the monotonous sound of Weyrother’s voice fell silent, Kutuzov opened his eyes, like a miller who wakes up at an interruption of the soporific sound of the mill wheels, listened to what Langeron was saying, and—as if to say, “Ah, you’re still going on about these stupidities!”—quickly closed his eyes and lowered his head still more.
Trying to offend Weyrother as stingingly as he could in his amour propre as a military author, Langeron demonstrated that Bonaparte could easily attack, instead of being attacked, and thereby make this disposition totally useless. Weyrother responded to all his objections with a firm, contemptuous smile, obviously prepared beforehand for every objection, regardless of what might be said to him.
“If he could attack us, he would have done so today,” he said.
“You think, then, that he is powerless?” asked Langeron.
“He has forty thousand men, if that,” Weyrother replied, with the smile of a doctor being told by a wise woman how to treat a patient.
“In that case he’s going to his destruction by waiting for our attack,” Langeron said with a subtle, ironic smile, again glancing for support to Miloradovich, who was nearest to him.
But at that moment Miloradovich was obviously thinking least of all of what the generals were arguing about.
“Ma foi,” he said, “tomorrow we’ll see it all on the battlefield.”
Weyrother again smiled that same ironic smile, which said that to him it was ridiculous and strange to meet objections from Russian generals and prove that of which he was not only all too well assured himself, but of which he had assured the two emperors.
“The enemy has put out his fires, and a continual noise is heard from his camp,” he said. “What does that mean? Either he is retreating, which is the one thing we should fear, or he is changing his position” (he smiled). “But even if he takes up a position in Thuerassa, he is only saving us a great deal of trouble, and all orders, to the smallest detail, remain the same.”
“But how is that?…” said Prince Andrei, who had already been waiting a long time for a chance to express his doubts.
Kutuzov woke up, cleared his throat loudly, and glanced around at the generals.
“Gentlemen, the disposition for tomorrow, for today even (because it’s already past twelve), cannot be changed,” he said. “You have heard it, and we will all do our duty. And there’s nothing more important before a battle…” (he paused) “than a good night’s sleep.”
He made as if to rise. The generals bowed and withdrew. It was already past midnight. Prince Andrei left.
The council of war, at which Prince Andrei had not managed to speak out his opinion as he had hoped to, left in him a vague and disturbing impression. Who was right—Dolgorukov and Weyrother, or Kutuzov and Langeron and the others who did not approve the plan of attack—he did not know. “But was it really impossible for Kutuzov to speak his mind directly to the sovereign? Can it really not be done otherwise? Can it really be that, for court and personal considerations, tens of thousands of lives must be risked—and my own, my life?” he thought.
“Yes, I may very well be killed tomorrow,” he thought. And suddenly, with that thought of death, a whole series of the most remote and most soul-felt memories arose in his imagination; he remembered his last farewell from his father and his wife; he remembered the first time of his love for her; remembered her pregnancy and felt sorry for her and for himself; and in an emotionally softened and troubled state, he left the cottage in which he was billeted with Nesvitsky and began pacing in front of the house.
The night was misty, and through the mist moonlight shone mysteriously. “Yes, tomorrow, tomorrow!” he thought. “Tomorrow maybe everything will be over for me, all these memories will be no more, all these memories will simply have no more sense for me. Tomorrow maybe—even certainly, I have a presentiment of it—for the first time I’ll finally have to show all I can do.” And he imagined the battle, its loss, the concentration of the fighting at one point, and the bewilderment of all the superiors. And here that happy moment, that Toulon he has so long awaited, finally presents itself to him. He voices his opinion firmly and clearly to Kutuzov and Weyrother, and to the emperors. All are struck by the correctness of his thinking, but no one undertakes to carry it out, and here he takes a regiment, a division, negotiates the condition that no one interfere with his instructions, and leads his division to the decisive point, and alone wins the victory. “And death and suffering?” says another voice. But Prince Andrei does not respond to that voice and goes on with his successes. The disposition for the next battle he does alone. He bears the title of an officer on duty in Kutuzov’s army, but he does everything alone. He alone wins the next battle. Kutuzov is replaced, he is appointed…“Well, and then?” the other voice says again. “And then, if you’re not wounded, killed, or deceived ten times over—well, then what?” “Well, then…” Prince Andrei answers himself, “I don’t know what will happen then, I don’t want to know and I can’t know; but if I want this, want glory, want to be known to people, want to be loved by them, it’s not my fault that I want it, that it’s the only thing I want, the only thing I live for. Yes, the only thing! I’ll never tell it to anyone, but my God! what am I to do if I love nothing except glory, except people’s love? Death, wounds, loss of family, nothing frightens me. And however near and dear many people are to me—my father, my sister, my wife—the dearest people to me—but, however terrible and unnatural it seems, I’d give them all now for a moment of glory, of triumph over people, for love from people I don’t know and will never know, for the love of these people here,” he thought, listening to the talk in Kutuzov’s yard. From Kutuzov’s yard came the voices of orderlies preparing to sleep; one voice, probably of a coachman who was teasing Kutuzov’s old cook, whom Prince Andrei knew and whose name was Titus, said: “Titus, hey, Titus?”