BOOK TEN: 1812
35. CHAPTER XXXV
(continued)
Kutuzov, without looking at Wolzogen, gave directions for the
order to be written out which the former commander in chief, to
avoid personal responsibility, very judiciously wished to receive.
And by means of that mysterious indefinable bond which maintains
throughout an army one and the same temper, known as "the spirit of
the army," and which constitutes the sinew of war, Kutuzov's words,
his order for a battle next day, immediately became known from one end
of the army to the other.
It was far from being the same words or the same order that
reached the farthest links of that chain. The tales passing from mouth
to mouth at different ends of the army did not even resemble what
Kutuzov had said, but the sense of his words spread everywhere because
what he said was not the outcome of cunning calculations, but of a
feeling that lay in the commander in chief's soul as in that of
every Russian.
And on learning that tomorrow they were to attack the enemy, and
hearing from the highest quarters a confirmation of what they wanted
to believe, the exhausted, wavering men felt comforted and inspirited.
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