War And Peace

In defiance of the Tsar’s wishes, Kutuzov kept the greater part of the troops back in Vilna. Those who were close to him kept saying how much he had declined, how much weaker he had become during his stay in Vilna. He was reluctant to deal with the army, and left everything to his generals. Meanwhile he gave himself up to the pleasures of the flesh as he waited for the Tsar to arrive.

The Tsar left Petersburg on the 7th of December with his suite – Count Tolstoy, Prince Volkonsky, Arakcheyev, and the rest – and reached Vilna on the 11th, driving straight up to the castle in his travelling sledge. There by the castle, in spite of the intense cold, stood nigh on a hundred generals and staff-officers in full dress uniform, with a guard of honour provided by the Semyonovsky regiment.

A courier galloped up to the castle ahead of the Tsar in a troika with steaming horses, and shouted, ‘He’s on his way!’, which prompted Konovnitsyn to hurry over to the vestibule and inform Kutuzov, who was waiting in the porter’s little room.

A minute later the big, bulky figure of the old man, in dress uniform and full regalia, with a scarf drawn tight beneath his belly, tottered out on to the steps. He donned his cocked hat with the peaks sideways on, picked up his gloves and sidled ponderously down the steps, clutching the report prepared for presentation to his Majesty.

After much fuss and bother and a good deal of whispering, another troika galloped past and then suddenly all eyes were on the approaching sledge, with the figures of the Tsar and Volkonsky clearly visible in it.

Fifty years of sheer habit now took their toll; all of this had a disturbing effect on the old man. He felt rapidly about his person in great anxiety, straightened his hat and just managed to pull himself together and come to attention at the very moment when the Tsar stepped down from the sledge and turned to look at him. He handed over the report, and spoke out in his measured, ingratiating voice.

Scanning Kutuzov from head to foot in one rapid glance, the Tsar frowned for a moment, but instantly regained self-control, walked over to him, opened his arms and enfolded the old general in a close embrace. Once again Kutuzov felt the effect of long years of habit combined with some deep inner feeling of his own; this embrace made its usual impact on Kutuzov, and he gave a spluttering sob.

The Tsar greeted the officers and the Semyonovsky guard of honour, shook hands again with the old man, and walked off with him back into the castle.

Alone with his commander-in-chief, the Tsar expressed his disappointment at the slow progress in pursuing the enemy, and the blunders made at Krasnoye and the Berezina, and announced his future plans for taking the campaign abroad. Kutuzov said nothing by way of comment or objection. The same expression of mindless deference that he had adopted seven years before when listening to the Tsar’s injunctions on the field at Austerlitz was now fixed on his face again.

When Kutuzov had left the room, and was trudging across the reception-hall, waddling along with downcast head, a voice stopped him.

‘Your Serene Highness,’ it said.

He looked up and gazed into the face of Count Tolstoy, who was standing there holding a silver salver with a small object on it. Kutuzov had every appearance of not knowing what was expected of him.

Then suddenly he seemed to come to his senses, a faint smile dawned on his podgy face, and with a low, respectful bow he picked up the object lying on the salver. It was the Order of St George, First Class.

CHAPTER 11

The next day the field-marshal gave a dinner and a ball which the Tsar honoured with his presence.

Kutuzov had received the Order of St George, First Class, the Tsar had bestowed the highest honours on him, but the Tsar’s dissatisfaction with the commander-in-chief was known to all. The proprieties were being observed, and in this the Tsar led by example, but everyone knew the old man was both guilty and useless. When, following an old custom from the days of Catherine the Great, Kutuzov gave orders at the ball for the captured standards to be lowered at the Tsar’s feet the moment he entered the ballroom, the Tsar gave a nasty frown and muttered something that included, according to some, the phrase ‘old comedian’.

The Tsar’s displeasure was exacerbated at Vilna, especially by Kutuzov’s obvious unwillingness or inability to see the importance of the coming campaign.

When next morning the Tsar said to the officers gathered around him, ‘You have saved more than Russia, you have saved Europe!’ everyone could see immediately that the war was not yet over.