“Even on the Tsaritsyn review ground they wouldn’t be turned off.”

The commander of the regiment was a sanguine-looking general past middle age, with grey whiskers and eyebrows, broad and thick-set, and thicker through from the chest to the back than across the shoulders. He wore a brand-new uniform with the creases still in it where it had been folded, and rich gold epaulettes, which seemed to stand up instead of lying down on his thick shoulders. The general had the air of a man who has successfully performed one of the most solemn duties of his life. He walked about in front of the line, and quivered as he walked, with a slight jerk of his back at each step. The general was unmistakably admiring his regiment, and happy in it, and it was evident that his whole brain was engrossed by the regiment. But for all that, his quivering strut seemed to say that, apart from his military interests, he had plenty of warmth in his heart for the attractions of social life and the fair sex.

“Well, Mihail Mitritch, sir,” he said, addressing a major (the major came forward smiling; they were evidently in excellent spirits).

“We have had our hands full all night…But it’ll do, I fancy; the regiment’s not so bad as some…eh?”

The major understood this good-humoured irony and laughed.

“Even on the Tsaritsyn review ground they wouldn’t be turned off.”

“Eh?” said the commander.

At that moment two figures on horseback came into sight on the road from the town, where sentinels had been posted to give the signal. They were an adjutant, and a Cossack riding behind him.

The adjutant had been sent by the commander-in-chief to confirm to the commander what had not been clearly stated in the previous order, namely, that the commander-in-chief wished to inspect the regiment exactly in the order in which it had arrived—wearing their overcoats, and carrying their baggage, and without any sort of preparation.

A member of the Hofkriegsrath from Vienna had been with Kutuzov the previous day, proposing and demanding that he should move on as quickly as possible to effect a junction with the army of Archduke Ferdinand and Mack; and Kutuzov, not considering this combination advisable, had intended, among other arguments in support of his view, to point out to the Austrian general the pitiable condition in which were the troops that had arrived from Russia. It was with this object, indeed, that he had meant to meet the regiment, so that the worse the condition of the regiment, the better pleased the commander-in-chief would be with it. Though the adjutant did not know these details, he gave the general in command of the regiment the message that the commander-in-chief absolutely insisted on the men being in their overcoats and marching order, and that, if the contrary were the case, the commander-in-chief would be displeased.

On hearing this the general’s head sank; he shrugged his shoulders, and flung up his hands with a choleric gesture.