“On the contrary, your highness, in indecisive actions it is always the most obstinate who remains victorious,” answered Raevsky; “and my opinion…”

“Kaisarov,” Kutuzov called to his adjutant, “sit down and write the order for to-morrow. And you,” he turned to another, “ride along the line and announce that to-morrow we attack.”

While he was talking to Raevsky and dictating the order, Woltzogen came back from Barclay and announced that General Barclay de Tolly would be glad to have a written confirmation of the order given by the field-marshal.

Kutuzov, without looking at Woltzogen, ordered an adjutant to make out this written order, which the former commander-in-chief very prudently wished to have to screen himself from all responsibility. And through the undefinable, mysterious link that maintains through a whole army the same temper, called the spirit of the army, and constituting the chief sinew of war, Kutuzov’s words, his order for the battle next day, were transmitted instantaneously from one end of the army to the other.

The words and the phrases of the order were by no means the same when they reached the furthest links in the chain. There was, indeed, not a word in the stories men were repeating to one another from one end of the army to the other, that resembled what Kutuzov had actually said; but the drift of his words spread everywhere, because what Kutuzov had said was not the result of shrewd considerations, but the outflow of a feeling that lay deep in the heart of the commander-in-chief, and deep in the heart of every Russian.

And learning that to-morrow we were to attack the enemy, hearing from the higher spheres of the army the confirmation of what they wanted to believe, the worn-out, wavering men took comfort and courage again.