Pagina 352 di 3800

"All I can say, General," said he with a pleasant elegance of

expression and intonation that obliged one to listen to each

deliberately spoken word. It was evident that Kutuzov himself

listened with pleasure to his own voice. "All I can say, General,

is that if the matter depended on my personal wishes, the will of

His Majesty the Emperor Francis would have been fulfilled long

ago. I should long ago have joined the archduke. And believe me

on my honour that to me personally it would be a pleasure to hand

over the supreme command of the army into the hands of a better

informed and more skillful general-of whom Austria has so

many-and to lay down all this heavy responsibility. But

circumstances are sometimes too strong for us, General."

And Kutuzov smiled in a way that seemed to say, "You are quite at

liberty not to believe me and I don't even care whether you do or

not, but you have no grounds for telling me so. And that is the

whole point."