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Volume I, Part Two, Chapter XII

That same night, having taken his leave of the minister of war, Bolkonsky set off for the army, not knowing himself where he should find it, and fearing to be captured by the French on the way to Krems.

At Brünn all the court personnel were packing, and the heavy baggage was already being sent to Olmütz. Near Etzelsdorf Prince Andrei struck the road along which the Russian army was moving with the greatest haste and in the greatest disorder. The road was so blocked with carts that it was impossible to travel in a carriage. Taking a horse and a Cossack from a Cossack commander, Prince Andrei, hungry and tired, rode past the baggage trains in search of the commander in chief and of his own carriage. The most sinister rumors as to the position of the army reached him on the way, and the appearance of the fleeing army in disorder confirmed these rumors.

"Cette armée russe que l'or de l'Angleterre a transportée des extrémités de l'univers, nous allons lui faire éprouver le même sort (le sort de l'armée d'Ulm)," ["This Russian army, which the gold of England has transported from the ends of the universe, we will cause to experience the same fate (the fate of the army at Ulm)."] he remembered the words of Bonaparte's address to his army at the beginning of the campaign, and these words aroused in him at the same time admiration for the genius hero, a feeling of wounded pride, and the hope of glory. "And if nothing is left but to die?" he thought. "Well, if need be! I shall do it no worse than others."

Prince Andrei looked with contempt at these endless, mingled detachments, carts, parks, artillery, and again carts, carts, and carts of all possible kinds, overtaking one another and blocking the muddy road three or four abreast. From all sides, behind and before, as far as the ear could reach, were heard the rumble of wheels, the clatter of bodies, carts, and gun carriages, the trampling of horses, the crack of whips, shouts urging horses on, the swearing of soldiers, orderlies, and officers. Along the sides of the road were constantly to be seen fallen horses, some flayed, some not, broken-down carts by which solitary soldiers sat waiting for something, and soldiers detached from their companies who went in crowds to the neighboring villages, or returned from them dragging fowls, sheep, hay, or sacks filled with something. At ascents and descents the crowds grew denser, and an unceasing din of shouts arose. Soldiers floundering knee-deep in mud caught hold of guns and wagons by the wheels; whips cracked, hoofs slipped, traces broke, and chests were strained with shouting. Officers directing the march rode backward and forward among the carts. Their voices were faintly heard amidst the general uproar, and one could see by their faces that they despaired of the possibility of stopping this disorder.

"Voilà le cher [Here is the dear] Orthodox army," thought Bolkonsky, recalling Bilibin's words.

Wishing to ask someone where the commander in chief was, he rode up to a convoy. Directly in front of him a strange one-horse vehicle, evidently rigged up by soldiers out of domestic resources, representing something between a cart, a cabriolet, and a calèche, was moving along. A soldier was driving it, and a woman enveloped in shawls sat behind the apron under the leather hood. Prince Andrei rode up and was already addressing a question to the soldier when his attention was drawn by the desperate shrieks of the woman sitting in the vehicle. An officer in charge of the transport was beating the soldier who was driving this little carriage for trying to get ahead of others, and the whip was falling on the apron of the equipage. The woman screamed piercingly. Seeing Prince Andrei, she thrust her head out from under the apron, and waving her thin arms, which emerged from under a woolen shawl, cried:

— Adjutant! Mr. Adjutant! ... For God's sake... protect me... What will happen? ... I am the doctor's wife of the 7th Chasseurs... they won't let us pass; we are left behind, we have lost our people...

— I'll smash you to a pulp, turn back! — shouted the exasperated officer to the soldier, — turn back with your slut.

— Mr. Adjutant, protect me. What does this mean? — cried the doctor's wife.

— Kindly let this cart pass. Don't you see it's a woman? — said Prince Andrei, riding up to the officer.

The officer glanced at him, and without replying, turned again to the soldier: — I'll teach you to pass... Back! ...

— Let them pass, I tell you, — repeated Prince Andrei, compressing his lips.

— And who are you? — suddenly turned the officer upon him with drunken fury. — Who are you? Are you (he laid special stress on the familiar you) a commander, or what? Here I am the commander, not you. You, back, — he repeated, — I'll smash you to a pulp.

This expression evidently pleased the officer.

— That was a good dressing-down for the little adjutant, — came a voice from behind.

Prince Andrei saw that the officer was in that drunken fit of causeless fury in which people do not remember what they are saying. He saw that his championship of the doctor's wife in the little carriage was full of what he feared more than anything else in the world — what is called ridicule — but his instinct prompted otherwise. Before the officer had finished his last words, Prince Andrei, his face distorted with fury, rode up to him and raised his riding whip:

— Be—so—good—as—to—let—them—pass!

The officer waved his hand and rode hastily away.

— It's all from these staff fellows that all this disorder comes, — he muttered. — Do as you like.

Prince Andrei hastily, without raising his eyes, rode away from the doctor's wife, who was calling him her savior, and recalling with disgust the minutest details of this humiliating scene, galloped on to the village where he was told the commander in chief was.

Having ridden into the village, he dismounted and went to the first house, intending to rest if only for a minute, eat something, and clear his mind of all these insulting, tormenting thoughts. "This is a mob of scoundrels, not an army," he was thinking as he went up to the window of the first house, when a familiar voice called him by name.

He looked round. Nesvitsky's handsome face was thrust out of a small window. Nesvitsky, munching something in his juicy mouth and waving his arms, was calling him.

— Bolkonsky, Bolkonsky! Don't you hear? Come here quick, — he shouted.

Entering the house, Prince Andrei saw Nesvitsky and another adjutant having a snack. They hastily turned to Bolkonsky, asking if he knew any news. On their familiar faces Prince Andrei read an expression of alarm and anxiety. This expression was particularly noticeable on Nesvitsky's usually laughing face.

— Where is the commander in chief? — asked Bolkonsky.

— Here, in that house, — answered the adjutant.

— Well, is it true that it's peace and capitulation? — asked Nesvitsky.

— I am asking you. I know nothing, except that I had the greatest difficulty in getting to you.

— And what about us, my boy! It's awful! I must confess, my boy, we laughed at Mack, but we are in an even worse plight ourselves, — said Nesvitsky. — But sit down, have something to eat.

— Now, Prince, you won't find your baggage, or anything, and your Pyotr is God knows where, — said the other adjutant.

— Where are headquarters?

— We are sleeping in Znaim.

— And I have got everything I need packed on two horses, — said Nesvitsky, — and they have made me excellent packs. To make my escape even through the Bohemian mountains. It's a bad business, my boy. But what's the matter with you, you must be ill, you are shuddering so? — asked Nesvitsky, noticing how Prince Andrei twitched as if he had touched a Leyden jar.

— It's nothing, — answered Prince Andrei.

He remembered at that moment his recent encounter with the doctor's wife and the transport officer.

— What is the commander in chief doing here? — he asked.

— I don't understand anything at all, — said Nesvitsky.

— All I understand is that everything is abominable, abominable, abominable, — said Prince Andrei, and he went to the house where the commander in chief was staying.

Passing by Kutuzov's carriage and the exhausted saddle horses of his suite, and the Cossacks who were talking loudly together, Prince Andrei entered the porch. Kutuzov himself, Prince Andrei was told, was in the house with Prince Bagration and Weyrother. Weyrother was the Austrian general who had replaced the killed Schmidt. In the passage the little Kozlovsky was squatting on his heels before a clerk. The clerk, with his cuffs turned up, was hastily writing on a tub turned upside down. Kozlovsky's face was worn out — he too had evidently not slept all night. He glanced at Prince Andrei and did not even nod to him.

— The second line... Have you written it? — he continued dictating to the clerk. — The Kiev Grenadiers, the Podolian...

— One can't write so fast, Your Honor, — answered the clerk disrespectfully and angrily, looking round at Kozlovsky.

Through the door Kutuzov's animated, dissatisfied voice was heard, interrupted by another, unfamiliar voice. From the sound of these voices, from the inattention with which Kozlovsky glanced at him, from the disrespect of the exhausted clerk, from the fact that the clerk and Kozlovsky were sitting on the floor by a tub so near the commander in chief, and from the fact that the Cossacks holding the horses were laughing loudly under the window of the house — from all this Prince Andrei felt that something important and disastrous was about to happen.

Prince Andrei urgently addressed questions to Kozlovsky.

— In a moment, Prince, — said Kozlovsky. — Disposition for Bagration.

— And the capitulation?

— There is none; orders are issued for a battle.

Prince Andrei went toward the door from behind which the voices were heard. But just as he was going to open the door, the voices in the room ceased, the door opened of itself, and Kutuzov, with his eagle nose on his puffy face, appeared on the threshold. Prince Andrei stood directly opposite Kutuzov; but from the expression of the commander in chief's only seeing eye it was evident that thought and anxiety preoccupied him so strongly as to obscure his vision. He looked straight at his adjutant's face and did not recognize him.

— Well, have you finished? — he addressed Kozlovsky.

— This very second, Your Excellency.

Bagration, a short, thin man, not yet old, with a firm and immobile face of Oriental type, came out after the commander in chief.

— I have the honor to report myself, — Prince Andrei repeated rather loudly, handing him an envelope.

— Ah, from Vienna? Good. Later, later!

Kutuzov went out onto the porch with Bagration.

— Well, Prince, good-bye, — he said to Bagration. — Christ be with you. I bless you for a great feat.

Kutuzov's face suddenly softened, and tears appeared in his eyes. With his left hand he drew Bagration toward him, and with his right, on which he wore a ring, he made the sign of the cross over him with a visibly accustomed gesture, and offered him his puffy cheek, but Bagration instead kissed him on the neck.

— Christ be with you! — repeated Kutuzov, and walked to his carriage. — Get in with me, — he said to Bolkonsky.

— Your Excellency, I should like to be of use here. Allow me to remain with Prince Bagration's detachment.

— Get in, — said Kutuzov, and noticing that Bolkonsky hesitated, — I need good officers myself, I need them myself.

They got into the carriage and drove in silence for some minutes.

— There is still much, very much before us, — he said, with an old man's expression of perspicacity, as if having understood all that was passing in Bolkonsky's soul. — If one tenth of his detachment returns tomorrow, I shall thank God, — Kutuzov added as if speaking to himself.

Prince Andrei glanced at Kutuzov, and his eyes involuntarily caught, half a yard from him, the cleanly washed seams of the scar on Kutuzov's temple, where the bullet had pierced his head at Izmail, and his lost eye. "Yes, he has a right to speak so calmly of the destruction of these men!" thought Bolkonsky.

— That is why I ask to be sent to that detachment, — he said.

Kutuzov did not reply. He seemed to have already forgotten what he had said, and sat plunged in thought. Five minutes later, swaying smoothly on the soft springs of the carriage, Kutuzov turned to Prince Andrei. There was no trace of emotion on his face. With subtle mockery he questioned Prince Andrei about the details of his interview with the Emperor, about the remarks heard at court concerning the Krems affair, and about some common women acquaintances.