“I’m waiting to see, your majesty,” repeated Kutuzov （Prince Andrey noticed that Kutuzov’s upper lip quivered unnaturally as he uttered that： “I’m waiting”）. “Not all the columns are massed yet, your majesty.”
The Tsar heard him, but the answer apparently did not please him; he shrugged his sloping shoulders, and glanced at Novosiltsov, who stood near, with a look that seemed to complain of Kutuzov.
“We are not on the Tsaritsin field, you know, Mihail Larionovitch, where the parade is not begun till all the regiments are ready,” said the Tsar, glancing again at the Emperor Francis as though inviting him, if not to take part, at least to listen to what he was saying. But the Emperor Francis still gazed away and did not listen.
“That’s just why I’m not beginning, sire,” said Kutuzov in a resounding voice, as though foreseeing a possibility his words might be ignored, and once more there was a quiver in his face. “That’s why I am not beginning, sire; because we are not on parade and not on the Tsaritsin field,” he articulated clearly and distinctly.
All in the Tsar’s suite exchanged instantaneous glances with one another, and every face wore an expression of regret and reproach. “However old he may be, he ought not, he ought never to speak like that,” the faces expressed.
The Tsar looked steadily and attentively into Kutuzov’s face, waiting to see if he were not going to say more. But Kutuzov too on his side, bending his head respectfully, seemed to be waiting. The silence lasted about a minute.
“However, if it’s your majesty’s command,” said Kutuzov, lifting his head and relapsing into his former affectation of the tone of a stupid, uncritical general, who obeys orders. He moved away, and beckoning the commanding officer of the column, Miloradovitch, gave him the command to advance.
The troops began to move again, and two battalions of the Novgorod regiment and a battalion of the Apsheron regiment passed before the Tsar.
While the Apsheron battalion was marching by, Miloradovitch, a red-faced man, wearing a uniform and orders, with no overcoat, and a turned-up hat with huge plumes stuck on one side, galloped ahead of them, and saluting in gallant style, reined up his horse before the Tsar.
“With God’s aid, general,” said the Tsar.
“Ma foi, sire, we will do whatever is in our power to do,” he answered gaily, arousing none the less an ironical smile among the gentlemen of the Tsar’s suite by his bad French accent. Miloradovitch wheeled his horse round sharply, and halted a few steps behind the Tsar. The Apsheron men, roused by the presence of the Tsar, stepped out gallantly as they marched by the Emperors and their suites.
“Lads！” shouted Miloradovitch in his loud, self-confident, and cheery voice. He was apparently so excited by the sounds of the firing, the anticipation of battle, and the sight of the gallant Apsheron men, his old comrades with Suvorov, that he forgot the Tsar’s presence. “Lads！ it’s not the first village you’ve had to take！” he shouted.
“Glad to do our best,” roared the soldiers. The Tsar’s horse reared at the unexpected sound. This horse, who had carried the Tsar at reviews in Russia, bore his rider here on the field of Austerlitz, patiently enduring the heedless blows of his left foot, and pricked up his ears at the sound of shots as he had done on the review ground with no comprehension of the significance of these sounds, nor of the nearness of the raven horse of Emperor Francis, nor of all that was said and thought and felt that day by the man who rode upon his back.
The Tsar turned with a smile to one of his courtiers, pointing to the gallant-looking Apsheron regiment, and said something to him.