rived 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 Bilibin 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 Bilibin, 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,[1] and so on like all those Polish names."
"Be quiet, backbiter!" said Dolgoriikov. "It is not true; there are now two Russians, Milorádovich, and Dokhtiirov, and there would be a third, Count Arakchev, 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 Bilibin.
On the way home, Prince Andrew could not refrain from asking Kutiizov, 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!"
CHAPTER XII
Shortly after nine o'clock that evening, Weyrother drove with his plans to Kutúzov's quarters where the council of war was to be held. All the commanders of columns were summoned to the commander in chief's and with the exception of Prince Bagratión, who declined to come, were all there at the appointed time.
Weyrother, who was in full control of the proposed battle, by his eagerness and briskness presented a marked contrast to the dissatisfied and drowsy Kutúzov, who reluctantly played the part of chairman and president of the council of war. Weyrother evidently felt himself to be at the head of a movement that had already become unrestrainable. He was like a horse running downhill harnessed to a heavy cart. Whether he was pulling it or being pushed by it he did not know, but rushed along at headlong speed with no time to consider what this movement might lead to. Weyrother had been twice that evening to the enemy's picket line to reconnoiter personally, and twice to the
- ↑ General Przebyszéwski. TR.
