ter's impressive but meaningless gaze drooped his eyes sadly and again took to twirling his snuffbox.
"A geography lesson!" he muttered as if to himself, but loud enough to be heard.
Przebyszéwski, with respectful but dignified politeness, held his hand to his ear toward Weyrother, with the air of a man absorbed in attention. Dohktúrov, a little man, sat opposite Weyrother, with an assiduous and modest mien, and stooping over the outspread map conscientiously studied the dispositions and the unfamiliar locality. He asked Weyrother several times to repeat words he had not clearly heard and the difficult names of villages. Weyrother complied and Dohkturov noted them down.
When the reading which lasted more than an hour was over, Langeron again brought his snuffbox to rest and, without looking at Weyrother or at anyone in particular, began to say how difficult it was to carry out such a plan in which the enemy's position was assumed to be known, whereas it was perhaps not known, since the enemy was in movement. Langeron 's objections were valid but it was obvious that their chief aim was to show General Weyrother who had read his dispositions with as much self-confidence as if he were addressing school children that he had to do, not with fools, but witlrmen who could teach him something in military matters.
When the monotonous sound of Weyrother's voice ceased, Kutuzov opened his eye as a miller wakes up when the soporific drone of the mill wheel is interrupted. He listened to what Langeron said, as if remarking, "So you are still at that silly business!" quickly closed his eye again, and let his head sink still lower. Langeron, trying as virulently as possible to sting Weyrother's vanity as author of the military plan, argued that Bonaparte might easily attack instead of being attacked, and so render the whole of this plan perfectly worthless. Weyrother met all objections with a firm and contemptuous smile, evidently prepared beforehand to meet all objections be they what they might.
"If he could attack us, he would have done so today," said he.
"So you think he is powerless?" said Langeron.
"He has forty thousand men at most," replied Weyrother, with the smile of a doctor to whom an old wife wishes to explain the treatment of a case.
"In that case he is inviting his doom by awaiting our attack," said Langeron, with a subtly ironical smile, again glancing round for support to Milorádovich who was near him.
But Milorádovich was at that moment evidently thinking of anything rather than of what the generals were disputing about.
"Ma foi!" said he, "tomorrow we shall see all that on the battlefield."
Weyrother again gave that smile which seemed to say that to him it was strange and ridiculous to meet objections from Russian generals and to have to prove to them what he had not merely convinced himself of, but had also convinced the sovereign Emperors of. "The enemy has quenched his fires and a continual noise is heard from his camp," said he. "What does that mean? Either he is retreating, which is the only thing we need fear, or he is changing his position." (He smiled ironically.) "But even if he also took up a position in the Thuerassa, he merely saves us a great deal of trouble and all our arrangements to the minutest detail remain the same."
"How is that? . . ." began Prince Andrew, who had for long been waiting an opportunity to express his doubts.
Kutúzov here woke up, coughed heavily, and looked round at the generals.
"Gentlemen, the dispositions for tomorrow or rather for today, for it is past midnight cannot now be altered," said he. "You have heard them, and we shall all do our duty. But before a battle, there is nothing more important . . ." he paused, "than to have a good sleep."
He moved as if to rise. The generals bowed and retired. It was past midnight. Prince Andrew went out.
The council of war, at which Prince Andrew had not been able to express his opinion as he had hoped to, left on him a vague and uneasy impression. Whether Dolgorúkov and Weyrother, or Kutuzov, Langeron, and the others who did not approve of the plan of attack, were right he did not know. "But was it really not possible for Kutúzov to state his views plainly to the Emperor? Is it possible that on account of court and personal considerations tens of thousands of lives, and my life, my life," he thought, "must be risked?"
"Yes, it is very likely that I shall be killed tomorrow," he thought. And suddenly, at this thought of death, a whole series of most distant, most intimate, memories rose in his im-
