Prince Andrew stayed at Brunn with Bilibin, a Russian acquaintance of
his in the diplomatic service.
"Ah, my dear prince! I could not have a more welcome visitor,"
said Bilibin as he came out to meet Prince Andrew. "Franz, put the
prince’s things in my bedroom," said he to the servant who was
ushering Bolkonski in. "So you’re a messenger of victory, eh?
Splendid! And I am sitting here ill, as you see."
After washing and dressing, Prince Andrew came into the diplomat’s
luxurious study and sat down to the dinner prepared for him. Bilibin
settled down comfortably beside the fire.
After his journey and the campaign during which he had been deprived of
all the comforts of cleanliness and all the refinements of life, Prince
Andrew felt a pleasant sense of repose among luxurious surroundings such
as he had been accustomed to from childhood. Besides it was pleasant,
after his reception by the Austrians, to speak if not in Russian
(for they were speaking French) at least with a Russian who would, he
supposed, share the general Russian antipathy to the Austrians which was
then particularly strong.
Bilibin was a man of thirty-five, a bachelor, and of the same circle as
Prince Andrew. They had known each other previously in Petersburg, but
had become more intimate when Prince Andrew was in Vienna with Kutuzov.
Just as Prince Andrew was a young man who gave promise of rising high
in the military profession, so to an even greater extent Bilibin gave
promise of rising in his diplomatic career. He still a young man but
no longer a young diplomat, as he had entered the service at the age
of sixteen, had been in Paris and Copenhagen, and now held a rather
important post in Vienna. Both the foreign minister and our ambassador
in Vienna knew him and valued him. He was not one of those many
diplomats who are esteemed because they have certain negative qualities,
avoid doing certain things, and speak French. He was one of those,
who, liking work, knew how to do it, and despite his indolence would
sometimes spend a whole night at his writing table. He worked well
whatever the import of his work. It was not the question "What for?"
but the question "How?" that interested him. What the diplomatic
matter might be he did not care, but it gave him great pleasure to
prepare a circular, memorandum, or report, skillfully, pointedly, and
elegantly. Bilibin’s services were valued not only for what he wrote,
but also for his skill in dealing and conversing with those in the
highest spheres.
Bilibin liked conversation as he liked work, only when it could be
made elegantly witty. In society he always awaited an opportunity to say
something striking and took part in a conversation only when that was
possible. His conversation was always sprinkled with wittily original,
finished phrases of general interest. These sayings were prepared in the
inner laboratory of his mind in a portable form as if intentionally, so
that insignificant society people might carry them from drawing room to
drawing room. And, in fact, Bilibin’s witticisms were hawked about
in the Viennese drawing rooms and often had an influence on matters
considered important.
His thin, worn, sallow face was covered with deep wrinkles, which always
looked as clean and well washed as the tips of one’s fingers after a
Russian bath. The movement of these wrinkles formed the principal play
of expression on his face. Now his forehead would pucker into deep folds
and his eyebrows were lifted, then his eyebrows would descend and
deep wrinkles would crease his cheeks. His small, deep-set eyes always
twinkled and looked out straight.
"Well, now tell me about your exploits," said he.
Bolkonski, very modestly without once mentioning himself, described the
engagement and his reception by the Minister of War.
"They received me and my news as one receives a dog in a game of
skittles," said he in conclusion.
Bilibin smiled and the wrinkles on his face disappeared.
"Cependant, mon cher," he remarked, examining his nails from a
distance and puckering the skin above his left eye, "malgre la haute
estime que je professe pour the Orthodox Russian army, j’avoue que
votre victoire n’est pas des plus victorieuses." *
* "But my dear fellow, with all my respect for the Orthodox
Russian army, I must say that your victory was not
particularly victorious."
He went on talking in this way in French, uttering only those words in
Russian on which he wished to put a contemptuous emphasis.
"Come now! You with all your forces fall on the unfortunate Mortier
and his one division, and even then Mortier slips through your fingers!
Where’s the victory?"
"But seriously," said Prince Andrew, "we can at any rate say
without boasting that it was a little better than at Ulm..."
"Why didn’t you capture one, just one, marshal for us?"
"Because not everything happens as one expects or with the smoothness
of a parade. We had expected, as I told you, to get at their rear by
seven in the morning but had not reached it by five in the afternoon."
"And why didn’t you do it at seven in the morning? You ought to have
been there at seven in the morning," returned Bilibin with a smile.
"You ought to have been there at seven in the morning."
"Why did you not succeed in impressing on Bonaparte by diplomatic
methods that he had better leave Genoa alone?" retorted Prince Andrew
in the same tone.
"I know," interrupted Bilibin, "you’re thinking it’s very
easy to take marshals, sitting on a sofa by the fire! That is true, but
still why didn’t you capture him? So don’t be surprised if not only
the Minister of War but also his Most August Majesty the Emperor and
King Francis is not much delighted by your victory. Even I, a poor
secretary of the Russian Embassy, do not feel any need in token of my
joy to give my Franz a thaler, or let him go with his Liebchen to the
Prater... True, we have no Prater here..."
He looked straight at Prince Andrew and suddenly unwrinkled his
forehead.
"It is now my turn to ask you ‘why?’ mon cher," said Bolkonski.
"I confess I do not understand: perhaps there are diplomatic
subtleties here beyond my feeble intelligence, but I can’t make it
out. Mack loses a whole army, the Archduke Ferdinand and the Archduke
Karl give no signs of life and make blunder after blunder. Kutuzov
alone at last gains a real victory, destroying the spell of the
invincibility of the French, and the Minister of War does not even care
to hear the details."
"That’s just it, my dear fellow. You see it’s hurrah for the Tsar,
for Russia, for the Orthodox Greek faith! All that is beautiful, but
what do we, I mean the Austrian court, care for your victories? Bring
us nice news of a victory by the Archduke Karl or Ferdinand (one
archduke’s as good as another, as you know) and even if it is only
over a fire brigade of Bonaparte’s, that will be another story and
we’ll fire off some cannon! But this sort of thing seems done
on purpose to vex us. The Archduke Karl does nothing, the Archduke
Ferdinand disgraces himself. You abandon Vienna, give up its
defense - as much as to say: ‘Heaven is with us, but heaven help you
and your capital!’ The one general whom we all loved, Schmidt, you
expose to a bullet, and then you congratulate us on the victory! Admit
that more irritating news than yours could not have been conceived.
It’s as if it had been done on purpose, on purpose. Besides, suppose
you did gain a brilliant victory, if even the Archduke Karl gained a
victory, what effect would that have on the general course of events?
It’s too late now when Vienna is occupied by the French army!"
"What? Occupied? Vienna occupied?"
"Not only occupied, but Bonaparte is at Schönbrunn, and the count,
our dear Count Vrbna, goes to him for orders."
After the fatigues and impressions of the journey, his reception, and
especially after having dined, Bolkonski felt that he could not take in
the full significance of the words he heard.
"Count Lichtenfels was here this morning," Bilibin continued,
"and showed me a letter in which the parade of the French in Vienna
was fully described: Prince Murat et tout le tremblement... You see that
your victory is not a matter for great rejoicing and that you can’t be
received as a savior."
"Really I don’t care about that, I don’t care at all," said
Prince Andrew, beginning to understand that his news of the battle
before Krems was really of small importance in view of such events as
the fall of Austria’s capital. "How is it Vienna was taken? What of
the bridge and its celebrated bridgehead and Prince Auersperg? We heard
reports that Prince Auersperg was defending Vienna?" he said.
"Prince Auersperg is on this, on our side of the river, and is
defending us - doing it very badly, I think, but still he is defending
us. But Vienna is on the other side. No, the bridge has not yet been
taken and I hope it will not be, for it is mined and orders have been
given to blow it up. Otherwise we should long ago have been in the
mountains of Bohemia, and you and your army would have spent a bad
quarter of an hour between two fires."
"But still this does not mean that the campaign is over," said
Prince Andrew.
"Well, I think it is. The bigwigs here think so too, but they
daren’t say so. It will be as I said at the beginning of the campaign,
it won’t be your skirmishing at Durrenstein, or gunpowder at all,
that will decide the matter, but those who devised it," said Bilibin
quoting one of his own mots, releasing the wrinkles on his forehead, and
pausing. "The only question is what will come of the meeting between
the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia in Berlin? If Prussia
joins the Allies, Austria’s hand will be forced and there will be war.
If not it is merely a question of settling where the preliminaries of
the new Campo Formio are to be drawn up."
"What an extraordinary genius!" Prince Andrew suddenly exclaimed,
clenching his small hand and striking the table with it, "and what
luck the man has!"
"Buonaparte?" said Bilibin inquiringly, puckering up his forehead
to indicate that he was about to say something witty. "Buonaparte?"
he repeated, accentuating the u: "I think, however, now that he lays
down laws for Austria at Schönbrunn, il faut lui faire grâce de
l’u! * I shall certainly adopt an innovation and call him simply
Bonaparte!"
* "We must let him off the u!"
"But joking apart," said Prince Andrew, "do you really think the
campaign is over?"
"This is what I think. Austria has been made a fool of, and she is
not used to it. She will retaliate. And she has been fooled in the
first place because her provinces have been pillaged - they say the Holy
Russian army loots terribly - her army is destroyed, her capital
taken, and all this for the beaux yeux * of His Sardinian Majesty. And
therefore - this is between ourselves - I instinctively feel that we
are being deceived, my instinct tells me of negotiations with France and
projects for peace, a secret peace concluded separately."
* Fine eyes.
"Impossible!" cried Prince Andrew. "That would be too base."
"If we live we shall see," replied Bilibin, his face again becoming
smooth as a sign that the conversation was at an end.
When Prince Andrew reached the room prepared for him and lay down in a
clean shirt on the feather bed with its warmed and fragrant pillows, he
felt that the battle of which he had brought tidings was far, far
away from him. The alliance with Prussia, Austria’s treachery,
Bonaparte’s new triumph, tomorrow’s levee and parade, and the
audience with the Emperor Francis occupied his thoughts.
He closed his eyes, and immediately a sound of cannonading, of musketry
and the rattling of carriage wheels seemed to fill his ears, and now
again drawn out in a thin line the musketeers were descending the hill,
the French were firing, and he felt his heart palpitating as he rode
forward beside Schmidt with the bullets merrily whistling all around,
and he experienced tenfold the joy of living, as he had not done since
childhood.
He woke up...
"Yes, that all happened!" he said, and, smiling happily to himself
like a child, he fell into a deep, youthful slumber.
CHAPTER XI
Next day he woke late. Recalling his recent impressions, the first
thought that came into his mind was that today he had to be presented
to the Emperor Francis; he remembered the Minister of War, the polite
Austrian adjutant, Bilibin, and last night’s conversation. Having
dressed for his attendance at court in full parade uniform, which he
had not worn for a long time, he went into Bilibin’s study fresh,
animated, and handsome, with his hand bandaged. In the study were four
gentlemen of the diplomatic corps. With Prince Hippolyte Kuragin,
who was a secretary to the embassy, Bolkonski was already acquainted.
Bilibin introduced him to the others.
The gentlemen assembled at Bilibin’s were young, wealthy, gay society
men, who here, as in Vienna, formed a special set which Bilibin, their
leader, called les nôtres. * This set, consisting almost exclusively of
diplomats, evidently had its own interests which had nothing to do with
war or politics but related to high society, to certain women, and to
the official side of the service. These gentlemen received Prince
Andrew as one of themselves, an honor they did not extend to many. From
politeness and to start conversation, they asked him a few questions
about the army and the battle, and then the talk went off into merry
jests and gossip.
* Ours.
"But the best of it was," said one, telling of the misfortune of
a fellow diplomat, "that the Chancellor told him flatly that his
appointment to London was a promotion and that he was so to regard it.
Can you fancy the figure he cut?..."
"But the worst of it, gentlemen - I am giving Kuragin away to
you - is that that man suffers, and this Don Juan, wicked fellow, is
taking advantage of it!"
Prince Hippolyte was lolling in a lounge chair with his legs over its
arm. He began to laugh.
"Tell me about that!" he said.
"Oh, you Don Juan! You serpent!" cried several voices.
"You, Bolkonski, don’t know," said Bilibin turning to Prince
Andrew, "that all the atrocities of the French army (I nearly said of
the Russian army) are nothing compared to what this man has been doing
among the women!"
"La femme est la compagne de l’homme," * announced Prince
Hippolyte, and began looking through a lorgnette at his elevated legs.
* "Woman is man’s companion."
Bilibin and the rest of "ours" burst out laughing in Hippolyte’s
face, and Prince Andrew saw that Hippolyte, of whom - he had to
admit - he had almost been jealous on his wife’s account, was the butt
of this set.
"Oh, I must give you a treat," Bilibin whispered to Bolkonski.
"Kuragin is exquisite when he discusses politics - you should see his
gravity!"
He sat down beside Hippolyte and wrinkling his forehead began talking
to him about politics. Prince Andrew and the others gathered round these
two.
"The Berlin cabinet cannot express a feeling of alliance," began
Hippolyte gazing round with importance at the others, "without
expressing... as in its last note... you understand... Besides, unless
His Majesty the Emperor derogates from the principle of our alliance...
"Wait, I have not finished..." he said to Prince Andrew, seizing
him by the arm, "I believe that intervention will be stronger than
nonintervention. And..." he paused. "Finally one cannot impute the
nonreceipt of our dispatch of November 18. That is how it will end."
And he released Bolkonski’s arm to indicate that he had now quite
finished.
"Demosthenes, I know thee by the pebble thou secretest in thy golden
mouth!" said Bilibin, and the mop of hair on his head moved with
satisfaction.
Everybody laughed, and Hippolyte louder than anyone. He was evidently
distressed, and breathed painfully, but could not restrain the wild
laughter that convulsed his usually impassive features.
"Well now, gentlemen," said Bilibin, "Bolkonski is my guest in
this house and in Brunn itself. I want to entertain him as far as I
can, with all the pleasures of life here. If we were in Vienna it would
be easy, but here, in this wretched Moravian hole, it is more difficult,
and I beg you all to help me. Brunn’s attractions must be shown him.
You can undertake the theater, I society, and you, Hippolyte, of course
the women."
"We must let him see Amelie, she’s exquisite!" said one of
"ours," kissing his finger tips.
"In general we must turn this bloodthirsty soldier to more humane
interests," said Bilibin.
"I shall scarcely be able to avail myself of your hospitality,
gentlemen, it is already time for me to go," replied Prince Andrew
looking at his watch.
"Where to?"
"To the Emperor."
"Oh! Oh! Oh!"
"Well, au revoir, Bolkonski! Au revoir, Prince! Come back early to
dinner," cried several voices. "We’ll take you in hand."
"When speaking to the Emperor, try as far as you can to praise the way
that provisions are supplied and the routes indicated," said Bilibin,
accompanying him to the hall.
"I should like to speak well of them, but as far as I know the facts,
I can’t," replied Bolkonski, smiling.
"Well, talk as much as you can, anyway. He has a passion for giving
audiences, but he does not like talking himself and can’t do it, as
you will see."
CHAPTER XII
At the levee Prince Andrew stood among the Austrian officers as he had
been told to, and the Emperor Francis merely looked fixedly into his
face and just nodded to him with his long head. But after it was
over, the adjutant he had seen the previous day ceremoniously informed
Bolkonski that the Emperor desired to give him an audience. The Emperor
Francis received him standing in the middle of the room. Before the
conversation began Prince Andrew was struck by the fact that the Emperor
seemed confused and blushed as if not knowing what to say.
"Tell me, when did the battle begin?" he asked hurriedly.
Prince Andrew replied. Then followed other questions just as simple:
"Was Kutuzov well? When had he left Krems?" and so on. The Emperor
spoke as if his sole aim were to put a given number of questions - the
answers to these questions, as was only too evident, did not interest
him.
"At what o’clock did the battle begin?" asked the Emperor.
"I cannot inform Your Majesty at what o’clock the battle began at
the front, but at Durrenstein, where I was, our attack began after
five in the afternoon," replied Bolkonski growing more animated and
expecting that he would have a chance to give a reliable account, which
he had ready in his mind, of all he knew and had seen. But the Emperor
smiled and interrupted him.
"How many miles?"
"From where to where, Your Majesty?"
"From Durrenstein to Krems."
"Three and a half miles, Your Majesty."
"The French have abandoned the left bank?"
"According to the scouts the last of them crossed on rafts during the
night."
"Is there sufficient forage in Krems?"
"Forage has not been supplied to the extent..."
The Emperor interrupted him.
"At what o’clock was General Schmidt killed?"
"At seven o’clock, I believe."
"At seven o’clock? It’s very sad, very sad!"
The Emperor thanked Prince Andrew and bowed. Prince Andrew withdrew and
was immediately surrounded by courtiers on all sides. Everywhere he
saw friendly looks and heard friendly words. Yesterday’s adjutant
reproached him for not having stayed at the palace, and offered him
his own house. The Minister of War came up and congratulated him on the
Maria Theresa Order of the third grade, which the Emperor was conferring
on him. The Empress’ chamberlain invited him to see Her Majesty. The
archduchess also wished to see him. He did not know whom to answer, and
for a few seconds collected his thoughts. Then the Russian ambassador
took him by the shoulder, led him to the window, and began to talk to
him.
Contrary to Bilibin’s forecast the news he had brought was joyfully
received. A thanksgiving service was arranged, Kutuzov was awarded
the Grand Cross of Maria Theresa, and the whole army received rewards.
Bolkonski was invited everywhere, and had to spend the whole morning
calling on the principal Austrian dignitaries. Between four and five
in the afternoon, having made all his calls, he was returning to
Bilibin’s house thinking out a letter to his father about the battle
and his visit to Brunn. At the door he found a vehicle half full of
luggage. Franz, Bilibin’s man, was dragging a portmanteau with some
difficulty out of the front door.
Before returning to Bilibin’s Prince Andrew had gone to a bookshop
to provide himself with some books for the campaign, and had spent some
time in the shop.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Oh, your excellency!" said Franz, with difficulty rolling the
portmanteau into the vehicle, "we are to move on still farther. The
scoundrel is again at our heels!"
"Eh? What?" asked Prince Andrew.
Bilibin came out to meet him. His usually calm face showed excitement.
"There now! Confess that this is delightful," said he. "This
affair of the Thabor Bridge, at Vienna.... They have crossed without
striking a blow!"
Prince Andrew could not understand.
"But where do you come from not to know what every coachman in the
town knows?"
"I come from the archduchess’. I heard nothing there."
"And you didn’t see that everybody is packing up?"
"I did not... What is it all about?" inquired Prince Andrew
impatiently.
"What’s it all about? Why, the French have crossed the bridge that
Auersperg was defending, and the bridge was not blown up: so Murat
is now rushing along the road to Brunn and will be here in a day or
two."
"What? Here? But why did they not blow up the bridge, if it was
mined?"
"That is what I ask you. No one, not even Bonaparte, knows why."
Bolkonski shrugged his shoulders.
"But if the bridge is crossed it means that the army too is lost? It
will be cut off," said he.
"That’s just it," answered Bilibin. "Listen! The French entered
Vienna as I told you. Very well. Next day, which was yesterday, those
gentlemen, messieurs les marechaux, * Murat, Lannes, and Belliard,
mount and ride to the bridge. (Observe that all three are Gascons.)
‘Gentlemen,’ says one of them, ‘you know the Thabor Bridge is
mined and doubly mined and that there are menacing fortifications at its
head and an army of fifteen thousand men has been ordered to blow up
the bridge and not let us cross? But it will please our sovereign the
Emperor Napoleon if we take this bridge, so let us three go and take
it!’ ‘Yes, let’s!’ say the others. And off they go and take the
bridge, cross it, and now with their whole army are on this side of the
Danube, marching on us, you, and your lines of communication."
* The marshalls.
"Stop jesting," said Prince Andrew sadly and seriously. This news
grieved him and yet he was pleased.
As soon as he learned that the Russian army was in such a hopeless
situation it occurred to him that it was he who was destined to lead it
out of this position; that here was the Toulon that would lift him from
the ranks of obscure officers and offer him the first step to fame!
Listening to Bilibin he was already imagining how on reaching the army
he would give an opinion at the war council which would be the only one
that could save the army, and how he alone would be entrusted with the
executing of the plan.
"Stop this jesting," he said.
"I am not jesting," Bilibin went on. "Nothing is truer or sadder.
These gentlemen ride onto the bridge alone and wave white handkerchiefs;
they assure the officer on duty that they, the marshals, are on
their way to negotiate with Prince Auersperg. He lets them enter the
tête-de-pont. * They spin him a thousand gasconades, saying that
the war is over, that the Emperor Francis is arranging a meeting with
Bonaparte, that they desire to see Prince Auersperg, and so on. The
officer sends for Auersperg; these gentlemen embrace the officers, crack
jokes, sit on the cannon, and meanwhile a French battalion gets to
the bridge unobserved, flings the bags of incendiary material into
the water, and approaches the tête-de-pont. At length appears the
lieutenant general, our dear Prince Auersperg von Mautern himself.
‘Dearest foe! Flower of the Austrian army, hero of the Turkish wars!
Hostilities are ended, we can shake one another’s hand.... The
Emperor Napoleon burns with impatience to make Prince Auersperg’s
acquaintance.’ In a word, those gentlemen, Gascons indeed, so
bewildered him with fine words, and he is so flattered by his rapidly
established intimacy with the French marshals, and so dazzled by the
sight of Murat’s mantle and ostrich plumes, qu’il n’y voit que du
feu, et oublie celui qu’il devait faire faire sur l’ennemi!" *(2)
In spite of the animation of his speech, Bilibin did not forget to
pause after this mot to give time for its due appreciation. "The
French battalion rushes to the bridgehead, spikes the guns, and the
bridge is taken! But what is best of all," he went on, his excitement
subsiding under the delightful interest of his own story, "is that the
sergeant in charge of the cannon which was to give the signal to fire
the mines and blow up the bridge, this sergeant, seeing that the French
troops were running onto the bridge, was about to fire, but Lannes
stayed his hand. The sergeant, who was evidently wiser than his general,
goes up to Auersperg and says: ‘Prince, you are being deceived, here
are the French!’ Murat, seeing that all is lost if the sergeant is
allowed to speak, turns to Auersperg with feigned astonishment (he is a
true Gascon) and says: ‘I don’t recognize the world-famous Austrian
discipline, if you allow a subordinate to address you like that!’ It
was a stroke of genius. Prince Auersperg feels his dignity at stake and
orders the sergeant to be arrested. Come, you must own that this affair
of the Thabor Bridge is delightful! It is not exactly stupidity, nor
rascality...."
* Bridgehead.
* (2) That their fire gets into his eyes and he forgets that
he ought to be firing at the enemy.
"It may be treachery," said Prince Andrew, vividly imagining the
gray overcoats, wounds, the smoke of gunpowder, the sounds of firing,
and the glory that awaited him.
"Not that either. That puts the court in too bad a light," replied
Bilibin. "It’s not treachery nor rascality nor stupidity: it is
just as at Ulm... it is..." - he seemed to be trying to find the right
expression. "C’est... c’est du Mack. Nous sommes mackes (It is...
it is a bit of Mack. We are Macked)," he concluded, feeling that he
had produced a good epigram, a fresh one that would be repeated. His
hitherto puckered brow became smooth as a sign of pleasure, and with a
slight smile he began to examine his nails.
"Where are you off to?" he said suddenly to Prince Andrew who had
risen and was going toward his room.
"I am going away."
"Where to?"
"To the army."
"But you meant to stay another two days?"
"But now I am off at once."
And Prince Andrew after giving directions about his departure went to
his room.
"Do you know, mon cher," said Bilibin following him, "I have been
thinking about you. Why are you going?"
And in proof of the conclusiveness of his opinion all the wrinkles
vanished from his face.
Prince Andrew looked inquiringly at him and gave no reply.
"Why are you going? I know you think it your duty to gallop back to
the army now that it is in danger. I understand that. Mon cher, it is
heroism!"
"Not at all," said Prince Andrew.
"But as you are a philosopher, be a consistent one, look at the other
side of the question and you will see that your duty, on the contrary,
is to take care of yourself. Leave it to those who are no longer fit for
anything else.... You have not been ordered to return and have not been
dismissed from here; therefore, you can stay and go with us wherever our
ill luck takes us. They say we are going to Olmutz, and Olmutz is a
very decent town. You and I will travel comfortably in my caleche."
"Do stop joking, Bilibin," cried Bolkonski.
"I am speaking sincerely as a friend! Consider! Where and why are
you going, when you might remain here? You are faced by one of two
things," and the skin over his left temple puckered, "either you
will not reach your regiment before peace is concluded, or you will
share defeat and disgrace with Kutuzov’s whole army."
And Bilibin unwrinkled his temple, feeling that the dilemma was
insoluble.
"I cannot argue about it," replied Prince Andrew coldly, but he
thought: "I am going to save the army."
"My dear fellow, you are a hero!" said Bilibin.
CHAPTER XIII
That same night, having taken leave of the Minister of War, Bolkonski
set off to rejoin the army, not knowing where he would find it and
fearing to be captured by the French on the way to Krems.
In Brunn everybody attached to the court was packing up, and the heavy
baggage was already being dispatched to Olmutz. Near Hetzelsdorf Prince
Andrew struck the high road along which the Russian army was moving with
great haste and in the greatest disorder. The road was so obstructed
with carts that it was impossible to get by in a carriage. Prince Andrew
took a horse and a Cossack from a Cossack commander, and hungry and
weary, making his way past the baggage wagons, rode in search of the
commander in chief and of his own luggage. Very sinister reports of the
position of the army reached him as he went along, and the appearance of
the troops in their disorderly flight confirmed these rumors.
"Cette armee russe que l’or de l’Angleterre a transportee des
extremites de l’univers, nous allons lui faire eprouver le même
sort - (le sort de l’armee d’Ulm)." * He remembered these words
in Bonaparte’s address to his army at the beginning of the campaign,
and they awoke in him astonishment at the genius of his hero, a feeling
of wounded pride, and a hope of glory. "And should there be nothing
left but to die?" he thought. "Well, if need be, I shall do it no
worse than others."
* "That Russian army which has been brought from the ends of
the earth by English gold, we shall cause to share the same
fate - (the fate of the army at Ulm)."
He looked with disdain at the endless confused mass of detachments,
carts, guns, artillery, and again baggage wagons and vehicles of all
kinds overtaking one another and blocking the muddy road, three and
sometimes four abreast. From all sides, behind and before, as far as ear
could reach, there were the rattle of wheels, the creaking of carts
and gun carriages, the tramp of horses, the crack of whips, shouts, the
urging of horses, and the swearing of soldiers, orderlies, and officers.
All along the sides of the road fallen horses were to be seen, some
flayed, some not, and broken-down carts beside which solitary soldiers
sat waiting for something, and again soldiers straggling from their
companies, crowds of whom set off to the neighboring villages, or
returned from them dragging sheep, fowls, hay, and bulging sacks. At
each ascent or descent of the road the crowds were yet denser and the
din of shouting more incessant. Soldiers floundering knee-deep in mud
pushed the guns and wagons themselves. Whips cracked, hoofs slipped,
traces broke, and lungs were strained with shouting. The officers
directing the march rode backward and forward between the carts. Their
voices were but feebly heard amid the uproar and one saw by their faces
that they despaired of the possibility of checking this disorder.
"Here is our dear Orthodox Russian army," thought Bolkonski,
recalling Bilibin’s words.
Wishing to find out where the commander in chief was, he rode up to
a convoy. Directly opposite to him came a strange one-horse vehicle,
evidently rigged up by soldiers out of any available materials and
looking like something between a cart, a cabriolet, and a caleche.
A soldier was driving, and a woman enveloped in shawls sat behind the
apron under the leather hood of the vehicle. Prince Andrew rode up
and was just putting his question to a soldier when his attention
was diverted by the desperate shrieks of the woman in the vehicle. An
officer in charge of transport was beating the soldier who was driving
the woman’s vehicle for trying to get ahead of others, and the strokes
of his whip fell on the apron of the equipage. The woman screamed
piercingly. Seeing Prince Andrew she leaned out from behind the apron
and, waving her thin arms from under the woolen shawl, cried:
"Mr. Aide-de-camp! Mr. Aide-de-camp!... For heaven’s sake... Protect
me! What will become of us? I am the wife of the doctor of the Seventh
Chasseurs.... They won’t let us pass, we are left behind and have lost
our people..."
"I’ll flatten you into a pancake!" shouted the angry officer to
the soldier. "Turn back with your slut!"
"Mr. Aide-de-camp! Help me!... What does it all mean?" screamed the
doctor’s wife.
"Kindly let this cart pass. Don’t you see it’s a woman?" said
Prince Andrew riding up to the officer.
The officer glanced at him, and without replying turned again to the
soldier. "I’ll teach you to push on!... Back!"
"Let them pass, I tell you!" repeated Prince Andrew, compressing his
lips.
"And who are you?" cried the officer, turning on him with tipsy
rage, "who are you? Are you in command here? Eh? I am commander here,
not you! Go back or I’ll flatten you into a pancake," repeated he.
This expression evidently pleased him.
"That was a nice snub for the little aide-de-camp," came a voice
from behind.
Prince Andrew saw that the officer was in that state of senseless,
tipsy rage when a man does not know what he is saying. He saw that his
championship of the doctor’s wife in her queer trap might expose him
to what he dreaded more than anything in the world - to ridicule; but
his instinct urged him on. Before the officer finished his sentence
Prince Andrew, his face distorted with fury, rode up to him and raised
his riding whip.
"Kind...ly let - them - pass!"
The officer flourished his arm and hastily rode away.
"It’s all the fault of these fellows on the staff that there’s
this disorder," he muttered. "Do as you like."
Prince Andrew without lifting his eyes rode hastily away from the
doctor’s wife, who was calling him her deliverer, and recalling with
a sense of disgust the minutest details of this humiliating scene he
galloped on to the village where he was told that the commander in chief
was.
On reaching the village he dismounted and went to the nearest house,
intending to rest if but for a moment, eat something, and try to sort
out the stinging and tormenting thoughts that confused his mind. "This
is a mob of scoundrels and not an army," he was thinking as he went
up to the window of the first house, when a familiar voice called him by
name.
He turned round. Nesvitski’s handsome face looked out of the little
window. Nesvitski, moving his moist lips as he chewed something, and
flourishing his arm, called him to enter.
"Bolkonski! Bolkonski!... Don’t you hear? Eh? Come quick..." he
shouted.
Entering the house, Prince Andrew saw Nesvitski and another adjutant
having something to eat. They hastily turned round to him asking if he
had any news. On their familiar faces he read agitation and alarm.
This was particularly noticeable on Nesvitski’s usually laughing
countenance.
"Where is the commander in chief?" asked Bolkonski.
"Here, in that house," answered the adjutant.
"Well, is it true that it’s peace and capitulation?" asked
Nesvitski.
"I was going to ask you. I know nothing except that it was all I could
do to get here."
"And we, my dear boy! It’s terrible! I was wrong to laugh at Mack,
we’re getting it still worse," said Nesvitski. "But sit down and
have something to eat."
"You won’t be able to find either your baggage or anything else now,
Prince. And God only knows where your man Peter is," said the other
adjutant.
"Where are headquarters?"
"We are to spend the night in Znaim."
"Well, I have got all I need into packs for two horses," said
Nesvitski. "They’ve made up splendid packs for me - fit to cross
the Bohemian mountains with. It’s a bad lookout, old fellow! But
what’s the matter with you? You must be ill to shiver like that," he
added, noticing that Prince Andrew winced as at an electric shock.
"It’s nothing," replied Prince Andrew.
He had just remembered his recent encounter with the doctor’s wife and
the convoy officer.
"What is the commander in chief doing here?" he asked.
"I can’t make out at all," said Nesvitski.
"Well, all I can make out is that everything is abominable,
abominable, quite abominable!" said Prince Andrew, and he went off to
the house where the commander in chief was.
Passing by Kutuzov’s carriage and the exhausted saddle horses of
his suite, with their Cossacks who were talking loudly together, Prince
Andrew entered the passage. Kutuzov himself, he was told, was in the
house with Prince Bagration and Weyrother. Weyrother was the Austrian
general who had succeeded Schmidt. In the passage little Kozlovski was
squatting on his heels in front of a clerk. The clerk, with cuffs turned
up, was hastily writing at a tub turned bottom upwards. Kozlovski’s
face looked worn - he too had evidently not slept all night. He glanced
at Prince Andrew and did not even nod to him.
"Second line... have you written it?" he continued dictating to the
clerk. "The Kiev Grenadiers, Podolian..."
"One can’t write so fast, your honor," said the clerk, glancing
angrily and disrespectfully at Kozlovski.
Through the door came the sounds of Kutuzov’s voice, excited and
dissatisfied, interrupted by another, an unfamiliar voice. From the
sound of these voices, the inattentive way Kozlovski looked at him, the
disrespectful manner of the exhausted clerk, the fact that the clerk and
Kozlovski were squatting on the floor by a tub so near to the commander
in chief, and from the noisy laughter of the Cossacks holding the
horses near the window, Prince Andrew felt that something important and
disastrous was about to happen.
He turned to Kozlovski with urgent questions.
"Immediately, Prince," said Kozlovski. "Dispositions for
Bagration."
"What about capitulation?"
"Nothing of the sort. Orders are issued for a battle."
Prince Andrew moved toward the door from whence voices were heard.
Just as he was going to open it the sounds ceased, the door opened, and
Kutuzov with his eagle nose and puffy face appeared in the doorway.
Prince Andrew stood right in front of Kutuzov but the expression of
the commander in chief’s one sound eye showed him to be so preoccupied
with thoughts and anxieties as to be oblivious of his presence. He
looked straight at his adjutant’s face without recognizing him.
"Well, have you finished?" said he to Kozlovski.
"One moment, your excellency."
Bagration, a gaunt middle-aged man of medium height with a firm,
impassive face of Oriental type, came out after the commander in chief.
"I have the honor to present myself," repeated Prince Andrew rather
loudly, handing Kutuzov an envelope.
"Ah, from Vienna? Very good. Later, later!"
Kutuzov went out into the porch with Bagration.
"Well, good-by, Prince," said he to Bagration. "My blessing, and
may Christ be with you in your great endeavor!"
His face suddenly softened and tears came into his eyes. With his left
hand he drew Bagration toward him, and with his right, on which he wore
a ring, he made the sign of the cross over him with a gesture evidently
habitual, offering his puffy cheek, but Bagration kissed him on the
neck instead.
"Christ be with you!" Kutuzov repeated and went toward his
carriage. "Get in with me," said he to Bolkonski.
"Your excellency, I should like to be of use here. Allow me to remain
with Prince Bagration’s detachment."
"Get in," said Kutuzov, and noticing that Bolkonski still delayed,
he added: "I need good officers myself, need them myself!"
They got into the carriage and drove for a few minutes in silence.
"There is still much, much before us," he said, as if with an old
man’s penetration he understood all that was passing in Bolkonski’s
mind. "If a tenth part of his detachment returns I shall thank God,"
he added as if speaking to himself.
Prince Andrew glanced at Kutuzov’s face only a foot distant from him
and involuntarily noticed the carefully washed seams of the scar near
his temple, where an Ismail bullet had pierced his skull, and the empty
eye socket. "Yes, he has a right to speak so calmly of those men’s
death," thought Bolkonski.
"That is why I beg to be sent to that detachment," he said.
Kutuzov did not reply. He seemed to have forgotten what he had been
saying, and sat plunged in thought. Five minutes later, gently swaying
on the soft springs of the carriage, he turned to Prince Andrew.
There was not a trace of agitation on his face. With delicate irony he
questioned Prince Andrew about the details of his interview with the
Emperor, about the remarks he had heard at court concerning the Krems
affair, and about some ladies they both knew.
CHAPTER XIV
On November 1 Kutuzov had received, through a spy, news that the army
he commanded was in an almost hopeless position. The spy reported that
the French, after crossing the bridge at Vienna, were advancing in
immense force upon Kutuzov’s line of communication with the troops
that were arriving from Russia. If Kutuzov decided to remain at Krems,
Napoleon’s army of one hundred and fifty thousand men would cut him
off completely and surround his exhausted army of forty thousand, and he
would find himself in the position of Mack at Ulm. If Kutuzov decided
to abandon the road connecting him with the troops arriving from Russia,
he would have to march with no road into unknown parts of the Bohemian
mountains, defending himself against superior forces of the enemy and
abandoning all hope of a junction with Buxhöwden. If Kutuzov decided
to retreat along the road from Krems to Olmutz, to unite with the
troops arriving from Russia, he risked being forestalled on that road
by the French who had crossed the Vienna bridge, and encumbered by his
baggage and transport, having to accept battle on the march against an
enemy three times as strong, who would hem him in from two sides.
Kutuzov chose this latter course.
The French, the spy reported, having crossed the Vienna bridge, were
advancing by forced marches toward Znaim, which lay sixty-six miles
off on the line of Kutuzov’s retreat. If he reached Znaim before the
French, there would be great hope of saving the army; to let the
French forestall him at Znaim meant the exposure of his whole army to a
disgrace such as that of Ulm, or to utter destruction. But to forestall
the French with his whole army was impossible. The road for the French
from Vienna to Znaim was shorter and better than the road for the
Russians from Krems to Znaim.
The night he received the news, Kutuzov sent Bagration’s vanguard,
four thousand strong, to the right across the hills from the Krems-Znaim
to the Vienna-Znaim road. Bagration was to make this march without
resting, and to halt facing Vienna with Znaim to his rear, and if he
succeeded in forestalling the French he was to delay them as long as
possible. Kutuzov himself with all his transport took the road to
Znaim.
Marching thirty miles that stormy night across roadless hills, with his
hungry, ill-shod soldiers, and losing a third of his men as stragglers
by the way, Bagration came out on the Vienna-Znaim road at Hollabrunn
a few hours ahead of the French who were approaching Hollabrunn from
Vienna. Kutuzov with his transport had still to march for some days
before he could reach Znaim. Hence Bagration with his four thousand
hungry, exhausted men would have to detain for days the whole enemy army
that came upon him at Hollabrunn, which was clearly impossible. But
a freak of fate made the impossible possible. The success of the trick
that had placed the Vienna bridge in the hands of the French without
a fight led Murat to try to deceive Kutuzov in a similar way. Meeting
Bagration’s weak detachment on the Znaim road he supposed it to be
Kutuzov’s whole army. To be able to crush it absolutely he awaited
the arrival of the rest of the troops who were on their way from Vienna,
and with this object offered a three days’ truce on condition that
both armies should remain in position without moving. Murat declared
that negotiations for peace were already proceeding, and that he
therefore offered this truce to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Count
Nostitz, the Austrian general occupying the advanced posts, believed
Murat’s emissary and retired, leaving Bagration’s division
exposed. Another emissary rode to the Russian line to announce the peace
negotiations and to offer the Russian army the three days’ truce.
Bagration replied that he was not authorized either to accept or refuse
a truce and sent his adjutant to Kutuzov to report the offer he had
received.
A truce was Kutuzov’s sole chance of gaining time, giving
Bagration’s exhausted troops some rest, and letting the transport and
heavy convoys (whose movements were concealed from the French) advance
if but one stage nearer Znaim. The offer of a truce gave the only, and
a quite unexpected, chance of saving the army. On receiving the news
he immediately dispatched Adjutant General Wintzingerode, who was in
attendance on him, to the enemy camp. Wintzingerode was not merely
to agree to the truce but also to offer terms of capitulation, and
meanwhile Kutuzov sent his adjutants back to hasten to the utmost the
movements of the baggage trains of the entire army along the Krems-Znaim
road. Bagration’s exhausted and hungry detachment, which alone
covered this movement of the transport and of the whole army, had to
remain stationary in face of an enemy eight times as strong as itself.
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