MEANWHILE another column was to have fallen upon the French in the centre, but of this column Kutuzov was in command. He knew very well that nothing but muddle would come of this battle, begun against his will, and, as far as it was in his power, he held his forces back. He did not move.

Kutuzov rode mutely about on his grey horse, making languid replies to the suggestions for an attack.

“You can all talk about attacking, but you don't see that we don't know how to execute complicated man?uvres,” he said to Miloradovitch, who was begging to be allowed to advance.

“We couldn't take Murat alive in the morning, nor be in our places in time; now there's nothing to be done!” he said to another.

When it was reported to Kutuzov that there were now two battalions of Poles in the rear of the French, where according to the earlier reports of the Cossacks there had been none, he took a sidelong glance behind him at Yermolov, to whom he had not spoken since the previous day.

“Here they are begging to advance, proposing projects of all sorts, and as soon as you get to work, there's nothing ready, and the enemy, forewarned, takes his measures.”

Yermolov half closed his eyelids, and faintly smiled, as he heard those words. He knew that the storm had blown over him, and that Kutuzov would not go beyond that hint.

“That's his little joke at my expense,” said Yermolov softly, poking Raevsky, near him, with his knee.

Soon after that, Yermolov moved forward to Kutuzov and respectfully submitted:

“The time has not passed, your highness; the enemy has not gone away. If you were to command an advance? Or else the guards won't have a sight of smoke.”

Kutuzov said nothing, but when news was brought him that Murat's troops were in retreat, he gave orders for an advance; but every hundred paces he halted for three-quarters of an hour.

The whole battle was confined to what had been done by the Cossacks of Orlov-Denisov; the rest of the troops simply lost a few hundreds of men for nothing.

In consequence of this battle, Kutuzov received a diamond decoration; Bennigsen, too, was rewarded with diamonds and a hundred thousand roubles; and the other generals, too, received agreeable recognition according to their rank, and more changes were made on the staff.

“That's how things are always done among us, everything topsy-turvy!” the Russian officers and generals said after the battle of Tarutino; just as they say it ............