Leo Tolstoy - WAR & PEACE

This unpleasant impression merely flitted over the young and happy face of the Emperor like a cloud of haze across a clear sky and vanished. After his illness he looked rather thinner that day than on the field of Olmutz where Bolkonski had seen him for the first time abroad, but there was still the same bewitching combination of majesty and mildness in his fine gray eyes, and on his delicate lips the same capacity for varying expression and the same prevalent appearance of goodhearted innocent youth.

At the Olmutz review he had seemed more majestic; here he seemed brighter and more energetic. He was slightly flushed after galloping two miles, and reining in his horse he sighed restfully and looked round at the faces of his suite, young and animated as his own. Czartoryski, Novosiltsev, Prince Volkonsky, Strogonov, and the others, all richly dressed gay young men on splendid, well-groomed, fresh, only slightly heated horses, exchanging remarks and smiling, had stopped behind the Emperor. The Emperor Francis, a rosy, long faced young man, sat very erect on his handsome black horse, looking about him in a leisurely and preoccupied manner. He beckoned to one of his white adjutants and asked some question—“Most likely he is asking at what o’clock they started,” thought Prince Andrew, watching his old acquaintance with a smile he could not repress as he recalled his reception at Brunn. In the Emperors’ suite were the picked young orderly officers of the Guard and line regiments, Russian and Austrian. Among them were grooms leading the Tsar’s beautiful relay horses covered with embroidered cloths.

As when a window is opened a whiff of fresh air from the fields enters a stuffy room, so a whiff of youthfulness, energy, and confidence of success reached Kutuzov’s cheerless staff with the galloping advent of all these brilliant young men.

“Why aren’t you beginning, Michael Ilarionovich?” said the Emperor Alexander hurriedly to Kutuzov, glancing courteously at the same time at the Emperor Francis.

“I am waiting, Your Majesty,” answered Kutuzov, bending forward respectfully.

The Emperor, frowning slightly, bent his ear forward as if he had not quite heard.

“Waiting, Your Majesty,” repeated Kutuzov. (Prince Andrew noted that Kutuzov’s upper lip twitched unnaturally as he said the word “waiting.”) “Not all the columns have formed up yet, Your Majesty.”

The Tsar heard but obviously did not like the reply; he shrugged his rather round shoulders and glanced at Novosiltsev who was near him, as if complaining of Kutuzov.

“You know, Michael Ilarionovich, we are not on the Empress’ Field where a parade does not begin till all the troops are assembled,” said the Tsar with another glance at the Emperor Francis, as if inviting him if not to join in at least to listen to what he was saying. But the Emperor Francis continued to look about him and did not listen.

“That is just why I do not begin, sire,” said Kutuzov in a resounding voice, apparently to preclude the possibility of not being heard, and again something in his face twitched—“That is just why I do not begin, sire, because we are not on parade and not on the Empress’ Field,” said clearly and distinctly.

In the Emperor’s suite all exchanged rapid looks that expressed dissatisfaction and reproach. “Old though he may be, he should not, he certainly should not, speak like that,” their glances seemed to say.

The Tsar looked intently and observantly into Kutuzov’s eye waiting to hear whether he would say anything more. But Kutuzov, with respectfully bowed head, seemed also to be waiting. The silence lasted for about a minute.

“However, if you command it, Your Majesty,” said Kutuzov, lifting his head and again assuming his former tone of a dull, unreasoning, but submissive general.

He touched his horse and having called Miloradovich, the commander of the column, gave him the order to advance.

The troops again began to move, and two battalions of the Novgorod and one of the Apsheron regiment went forward past the Emperor.

As this Apsheron battalion marched by, the red-faced Miloradovich, without his greatcoat, with his Orders on his breast and an enormous tuft of plumes in his cocked hat worn on one side with its corners front and back, galloped strenuously forward, and with a dashing salute reined in his horse before the Emperor.

“God be with you, general!” said the Emperor.

“Ma foi, sire, nous ferons ce qui sera dans notre possibilite, sire,” * he answered gaily, raising nevertheless ironic smiles among the gentlemen of the Tsar’s suite by his poor French.

* “Indeed, Sire, we shall do everything it is possible to

do, Sire.”

Miloradovich wheeled his horse sharply and stationed himself a little behind the Emperor. The Apsheron men, excited by the Tsar’s presence, passed in step before the Emperors and their suites at a bold, brisk pace.

“Lads!” shouted Miloradovich in a loud, self-confident, and cheery voice, obviously so elated by the sound of firing, by the prospect of battle, and by the sight of the gallant Apsherons, his comrades in Suvorov’s time, now passing so gallantly before the Emperors, that he forgot the sovereigns’ presence. “Lads, it’s not the first village you’ve had to take,” cried he.

“Glad to do our best!” shouted the soldiers.

The Emperor’s horse started at the sudden cry. This horse that had carried the sovereign at reviews in Russia bore him also here on the field of Austerlitz, enduring the heedless blows of his left foot and pricking its ears at the sound of shots just as it had done on the Empress’ Field, not understanding the significance of the firing, nor of the nearness of the Emperor Francis’ black cob, nor of all that was being said, thought, and felt that day by its rider.

The Emperor turned with a smile to one of his followers and made a remark to him, pointing to the gallant Apsherons.

Kutuzov accompanied by his adjutants rode at a walking pace behind the carabineers.

When he had gone less than half a mile in the rear of the column he stopped at a solitary, deserted house that had probably once been an inn, where two roads parted. Both of them led downhill and troops were marching along both.

The fog had begun to clear and enemy troops were already dimly visible about a mile and a half off on the opposite heights. Down below, on the left, the firing became more distinct. Kutuzov had stopped and was speaking to an Austrian general. Prince Andrew, who was a little behind looking at them, turned to an adjutant to ask him for a field glass.

“Look, look!” said this adjutant, looking not at the troops in the distance, but down the hill before him. “It’s the French!”

The two generals and the adjutant took hold of the field glass, trying to snatch it from one another. The expression on all their faces suddenly changed to one of horror. The French were supposed to be a mile and a half away, but had suddenly and unexpectedly appeared just in front of us.

“It’s the enemy?… No!… Yes, see it is!… for certain…. But how is that?” said different voices.

With the naked eye Prince Andrew saw below them to the right, not more than five hundred paces from where Kutuzov was standing, a dense French column coming up to meet the Apsherons.

“Here it is! The decisive moment has arrived. My turn has come,” thought Prince Andrew, and striking his horse he rode up to Kutuzov.

“The Apsherons must be stopped, your excellency,” cried he. But at that very instant a cloud of smoke spread all round, firing was heard quite close at hand, and a voice of naive terror barely two steps from Prince Andrew shouted, “Brothers! All’s lost!” And at this as if at a command, everyone began to run.