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The fifth of November was the first day of what is called
the battle of Krasnoe. Toward evening- after much disputing and
many mistakes made by generals who did not go to their proper
places, and after adjutants had been sent about with counterorders-
when it had become plain that the enemy was everywhere in flight
and that there could and would be no battle, Kutuzov left Krasnoe
and went to Dobroe whither his headquarters had that day been
transferred.
The day was clear and frosty. Kutuzov rode to Dobroe on his
plump little white horse, followed by an enormous suite of discontented
generals who whispered among themselves behind his back. All along
the road groups of French prisoners captured that day (there were
seven thousand of them) were crowding to warm themselves at campfires.
Near Dobroe an immense crowd of tattered prisoners, buzzing with
talk and wrapped and bandaged in anything they had been able to
get hold of, were standing in the road beside a long row of unharnessed
French guns. At the approach of the commander in chief the buzz
of talk ceased and all eyes were fixed on Kutuzov who, wearing
a white cap with a red band and a padded overcoat that bulged
on his round shoulders, moved slowly along the road on his white
horse. One of the generals was reporting to him where the guns
and prisoners had been captured.
Kutuzov seemed preoccupied and did not listen to what the
general was saying. He screwed up his eyes with a dissatisfied
look as he gazed attentively and fixedly at these prisoners, who
presented a specially wretched appearance. Most of them were disfigured
by frost-bitten noses and cheeks, and nearly all had red, swollen
and festering eyes.
One group of the French stood close to the road, and two of
them, one of whom had his face covered with sores, were tearing
a piece of raw flesh with their hands. There was something horrible
and bestial in the fleeting glance they threw at the riders and
in the malevolent expression with which, after a glance at Kutuzov,
the soldier with the sores immediately turned away and went on
with what he was doing.
Kutuzov looked long and intently at these two soldiers. He
puckered his face, screwed up his eyes, and pensively swayed his
head. At another spot he noticed a Russian soldier laughingly
patting a Frenchman on the shoulder, saying something to him in
a friendly manner, and Kutuzov with the same expression on his
face again swayed his head.
"What were you saying?" he asked the general, who
continuing his report directed the commander in chief's attention
to some standards captured from the French and standing in front
of the Preobrazhensk regiment.
"Ah, the standards!" said Kutuzov, evidently detaching
himself with difficulty from the thoughts that preoccupied him.
He looked about him absently. Thousands of eyes were looking
at him from all sides awaiting a word from him.
He stopped in front of the Preobrazhensk regiment, sighed
deeply, and closed his eyes. One of his suite beckoned to the
soldiers carrying the standards to advance and surround the commander
in chief with them. Kutuzov was silent for a few seconds and then,
submitting with evident reluctance to the duty imposed by his
position, raised his head and began to speak. A throng of officers
surrounded him. He looked attentively around at the circle of
officers, recognizing several of them.
"I thank you all!" he said, addressing the soldiers
and then again the officers. In the stillness around him his slowly
uttered words were distinctly heard. "I thank you all for
your hard and faithful service. The victory is complete and Russia
will not forget you! Honor to you forever."
He paused and looked around.
"Lower its head, lower it!" he said to a soldier
who had accidentally lowered the French eagle he was holding before
the Preobrazhensk standards. "Lower, lower, that's it. Hurrah
lads!" he added, addressing the men with a rapid movement
of his chin.
"Hur-r-rah!" roared thousands of voices.
While the soldiers were shouting Kutuzov leaned forward in
his saddle and bowed his head, and his eye lit up with a mild
and apparently ironic gleam.
"You see, brothers..." said he when the shouts had
ceased... and all at once his voice and the expression of his
face changed. It was no longer the commander in chief speaking
but an ordinary old man who wanted to tell his comrades something
very important.
There was a stir among the throng of officers and in the ranks
of the soldiers, who moved that they might hear better what he
was going to say.
"You see, brothers, I know it's hard for you, but it
can't be helped! Bear up; it won't be for long now! We'll see
our visitors off and then we'll rest. The Tsar won't forget your
service. It is hard for you, but still you are at home while they-
you see what they have come to," said he, pointing to the
prisoners. "Worse off than our poorest beggars. While they
were strong we didn't spare ourselves, but now we may even pity
them. They are human beings too. Isn't it so, lads?"
He looked around, and in the direct, respectful, wondering
gaze fixed upon him he read sympathy with what he had said. His
face grew brighter and brighter with an old man's mild smile,
which drew the corners of his lips and eyes into a cluster of
wrinkles. He ceased speaking and bowed his head as if in perplexity.
"But after all who asked them here? Serves them right,
the bloody bastards!" he cried, suddenly lifting his head.
And flourishing his whip he rode off at a gallop for the first
time during the whole campaign, and left the broken ranks of the
soldiers laughing joyfully and shouting "Hurrah!"
Kutuzov's words were hardly understood by the troops. No one
could have repeated the field marshal's address, begun solemnly
and then changing into an old man's simplehearted talk; but the
hearty sincerity of that speech, the feeling of majestic triumph
combined with pity for the foe and consciousness of the justice
of our cause, exactly expressed by that old man's good-natured
expletives, was not merely understood but lay in the soul of every
soldier and found expression in their joyous and long-sustained
shouts. Afterwards when one of the generals addressed Kutuzov
asking whether he wished his caleche to be sent for, Kutuzov in
answering unexpectedly gave a sob, being evidently greatly moved.
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