s
activity in 1812, never once swerving by word or deed from Borodino to
Vilna, presented an example exceptional in history of self-sacrifice
and a present consciousness of the future importance of what was
happening--Kutuzov seems to them something indefinite and pitiful, and
when speaking of him and of the year 1812 they always seem a little
ashamed.

And yet it is difficult to imagine an historical character whose
activity was so unswervingly directed to a single aim; and it would be
difficult to imagine any aim more worthy or more consonant with the
will of the whole people. Still more difficult would it be to find
an instance in history of the aim of an historical personage being so
completely accomplished as that to which all Kutuzov's efforts were
directed in 1812.

Kutuzov never talked of "forty centuries looking down from the
Pyramids," of the sacrifices he offered for the fatherland, or of
what he intended to accomplish or had accomplished; in general he said
nothing about himself, adopted no prose, always appeared to be the
simplest and most ordinary of men, and said the simplest and most
ordinary things. He wrote letters to his daughters and to Madame de
Stael, read novels, liked the society of pretty women, jested with
generals, officers, and soldiers, and never contradicted those who tried
to prove anything to him. When Count Rostopchin at the Yauza bridge
galloped up to Kutuzov with personal reproaches for having caused the
destruction of Moscow, and said: "How was it you promised not to abandon
Moscow without a battle?" Kutuzov replied: "And I shall not abandon
Moscow without a battle," though Moscow was then already abandoned. When
Arakcheev, coming to him from the Emperor, said that Ermolov ought to
be appointed chief of the artillery, Kutuzov replied: "Yes, I was
just saying so myself," though a moment before he had said quite the
contrary. What did it matter to him--who then alone amid a senseless
crowd understood the whole tremendous significance of what was
happening--what did it matter to him whether Rostopchin attributed the
calamities of Moscow to him or to himself? Still less could it matter to
him who was appointed chief of the artillery.

Not merely in these cases but continually did that old man--who by
experience of life had reached the conviction that thoughts and the
words serving as their expression are not what move people--use quite
meaningless words that happened to enter his head