He was evidently too preoccupied to be polite to his commander-in-chief. He kept on interrupting, spoke too fast and rambled on without looking at the person he was talking to and ignored all questions put to him. He sat there spattered with mud, looking pathetically weary and bemused and yet also confident and condescending.
Kutuzov had taken over a small castle belonging to a nobleman near Ostralitz. There in the drawing-room, converted into a study for the commander-in-chief, the members of the council of war were assembled, including Kutuzov himself and Weierother. They were drinking tea and waiting only for Prince Bagration to arrive so that the council could get down to business. Then Bagration’s orderly officer arrived with a message that the prince would not be able to attend. Prince Andrey came in to inform the commander-in-chief of this, and he remained in the room, acting on Kutuzov’s permission earlier for him to be present at the council.
‘Well, since Prince Bagration isn’t coming, I think we can begin,’ said Weierother, jumping to his feet and crossing over to a table on which an enormous map was spread out, showing Brno and the surrounding locality.
Kutuzov sat there in a Voltaire armchair with his uniform unbuttoned, his fat neck bulged out over his collar as if escaping, and his podgy old hands laid out symmetrically along the arms of the chair. He was nearly asleep. At the sound of Weierother’s voice he forced his one eye open and said, ‘Yes, yes, do that or it’ll be too late,’ after which he nodded his head, then let it droop and closed his eye again.
If at first the council members had believed that Kutuzov was only pretending to be asleep, the nasal sounds issuing from him during the reading that followed proved beyond doubt that the commander-in-chief was attending to something much more important than the wish to pour scorn on their disposition of troops or anything else; he was attending to an irresistible human need – sleep. He really was asleep. Weierother moved like a man too busy to waste any time, glanced across at Kutuzov to make sure he was asleep, took up a document and started reading out in a loud drone the entire disposition of the troops in the impending battle, not omitting the title: ‘Disposition for an assault on the enemy’s position behind Kobelnitz and Sokolnitz, 20th November, 1805.’
The disposition was very complicated and hard to understand. Written originally in German, it began as follows:
Whereas the left wing of the enemy reposes against the forested hills and his right wing is extended by way of Kobelnitz and Sokolnitz behind the ponds there situated, while conversely our left wing greatly surpasses their right, it will be advantageous for us to attack the latter aforesaid enemy wing, especially if we occupy the villages of Sokolnitz and Kobelnitz, it then being within our capacity to mount an assault on the enemy flank and pursue him across the open terrain between Schlapanitz and the forest of Thuerassa thereby avoiding the defiles of Schlapanitz and Bellowitz by which the enemy’s front is covered. With this in mind it will be essential . . . The first column marches . . . The second column marches . . . The third column marches . . .
Weierother went on and on.
