War and Peace
The handsome young Emperor Alexander, in the uniform of the Horse
Guards, wearing a cocked hat with its peaks front and back, with his
pleasant face and resonant though not loud voice, attracted everyone’s
attention.
Rostóv was not far from the trumpeters, and with his keen sight had
recognized the Tsar and watched his approach. When he was within twenty
paces, and Nicholas could clearly distinguish every detail of his
handsome, happy young face, he experienced a feeling of tenderness
and ecstasy such as he had never before known. Every trait and every
movement of the Tsar’s seemed to him enchanting.
Stopping in front of the Pávlograds, the Tsar said something in French
to the Austrian Emperor and smiled.
Seeing that smile, Rostóv involuntarily smiled himself and felt a still
stronger flow of love for his sovereign. He longed to show that love in
some way and knowing that this was impossible was ready to cry. The Tsar
called the colonel of the regiment and said a few words to him.
“Oh God, what would happen to me if the Emperor spoke to me?”
thought Rostóv. “I should die of happiness!”
The Tsar addressed the officers also: “I thank you all, gentlemen, I
thank you with my whole heart.” To Rostóv every word sounded like a
voice from heaven. How gladly would he have died at once for his Tsar!
“You have earned the St. George’s standards and will be worthy of
them.”
“Oh, to die, to die for him,” thought Rostóv.
The Tsar said something more which Rostóv did not hear, and the
soldiers, straining their lungs, shouted “Hurrah!”
Rostóv too, bending over his saddle, shouted “Hurrah!” with all his
might, feeling that he would like to injure himself by that shout, if
only to express his rapture fully.
The Tsar stopped a few minutes in front of the hussars as if undecided.
“How can the Emperor be undecided?” thought Rostóv, but then even
this indecision appeared to him majestic and enchanting, like everything
else the Tsar did.
That hesitation lasted only an instant. The Tsar’s foot, in the narrow
pointed boot then fashionable, touched the groin of the bobtailed bay
mare he rode, his hand in a white glove gathered up the reins, and he
moved off accompanied by an irregularly swaying sea of aides-de-camp.
Farther and farther he rode away, stopping at other regiments, till at
last only his white plumes were visible to Rostóv from amid the suites
that surrounded the Emperors.
Among the gentlemen of the suite, Rostóv noticed Bolkónski, sitting
his horse indolently and carelessly. Rostóv recalled their quarrel of
yesterday and the question presented itself whether he ought or ought
not to challenge Bolkónski. “Of course not!” he now thought. “Is
it worth thinking or speaking of it at such a moment? At a time of such
love, such rapture, and such self-sacrifice, what do any of our quarrels
and affronts matter? I love and forgive everybody now.”
When the Emperor had passed nearly all the regiments, the troops began
a ceremonial march past him, and Rostóv on Bedouin, recently purchased
from Denísov, rode past too, at the rear of his squadron—that is,
alone and in full view of the Emperor.
Before he reached him, Rostóv, who was a splendid horseman, spurred
Bedouin twice and successfully put him to the showy trot in which the
animal went when excited. Bending his foaming muzzle to his chest, his
tail extended, Bedouin, as if also conscious of the Emperor’s eye
upon him, passed splendidly, lifting his feet with a high and graceful
action, as if flying through the air without touching the ground.
Rostóv himself, his legs well back and his stomach drawn in and feeling
himself one with his horse, rode past the Emperor with a frowning but
blissful face “like a vewy devil,” as Denísov expressed it.
“Fine fellows, the Pávlograds!” remarked the Emperor.
“My God, how happy I should be if he ordered me to leap into the fire
this instant!” thought Rostóv.
When the review was over, the newly arrived officers, and also
Kutúzov’s, collected in groups and began to talk about the awards,
about the Austrians and their uniforms, about their lines, about
Bonaparte, and how badly the latter would fare now, especially if the
Essen corps arrived and Prussia took our side.
But the talk in every group was chiefly about the Emperor Alexander. His
every word and movement was described with ecstasy.
They all had but one wish: to advance as soon as possible against the
enemy under the Emperor’s command. Commanded by the Emperor himself
they could not fail to vanquish anyone, be it whom it might: so thought
Rostóv and most of the officers after the review.
All were then more confident of victory than the winning of two battles
would have made them.
CHAPTER IX
The day after the review, Borís, in his best uniform and with his
comrade Berg’s best wishes for success, rode to Olmütz to see
Bolkónski, wishing to profit by his friendliness and obtain for himself
the best post he could—preferably that of adjutant to some important
personage, a position in the army which seemed to him most attractive.
“It is all very well for Rostóv, whose father sends him ten thousand
rubles at a time, to talk about not wishing to cringe to anybody and not
be anyone’s lackey, but I who have nothing but my brains have to
make a career and must not miss opportunities, but must avail myself of
them!” he reflected.
He did not find Prince Andrew in Olmütz that day, but the appearance of
the town where the headquarters and the diplomatic corps were stationed
and the two Emperors were living with their suites, households, and
courts only strengthened his desire to belong to that higher world.
He knew no one, and despite his smart Guardsman’s uniform, all these
exalted personages passing in the streets in their elegant carriages
with their plumes, ribbons, and medals, both courtiers and military
men, seemed so immeasurably above him, an insignificant officer of the
Guards, that they not only did not wish to, but simply could not, be
aware of his existence. At the quarters of the commander in chief,
Kutúzov, where he inquired for Bolkónski, all the adjutants and even
the orderlies looked at him as if they wished to impress on him that a
great many officers like him were always coming there and that everybody
was heartily sick of them. In spite of this, or rather because of
it, next day, November 15, after dinner he again went to Olmütz and,
entering the house occupied by Kutúzov, asked for Bolkónski. Prince
Andrew was in and Borís was shown into a large hall probably formerly
used for dancing, but in which five beds now stood, and furniture of
various kinds: a table, chairs, and a clavichord. One adjutant, nearest
the door, was sitting at the table in a Persian dressing gown, writing.
Another, the red, stout Nesvítski, lay on a bed with his arms under his
head, laughing with an officer who had sat down beside him. A third was
playing a Viennese waltz on the clavichord, while a fourth, lying on
the clavichord, sang the tune. Bolkónski was not there. None of these
gentlemen changed his position on seeing Borís. The one who was writing
and whom Borís addressed turned round crossly and told him Bolkónski
was on duty and that he should go through the door on the left into the
reception room if he wished to see him. Borís thanked him and went to
the reception room, where he found some ten officers and generals.
When he entered, Prince Andrew, his eyes drooping contemptuously (with
that peculiar expression of polite weariness which plainly says, “If
it were not my duty I would not talk to you for a moment”), was
listening to an old Russian general with decorations, who stood very
erect, almost on tiptoe, with a soldier’s obsequious expression on his
purple face, reporting something.
“Very well, then, be so good as to wait,” said Prince Andrew to the
general, in Russian, speaking with the French intonation he affected
when he wished to speak contemptuously, and noticing Borís, Prince
Andrew, paying no more heed to the general who ran after him imploring
him to hear something more, nodded and turned to him with a cheerful
smile.
At that moment Borís clearly realized what he had before surmised, that
in the army, besides the subordination and discipline prescribed in the
military code, which he and the others knew in the regiment, there was
another, more important, subordination, which made this tight-laced,
purple-faced general wait respectfully while Captain Prince Andrew, for
his own pleasure, chose to chat with Lieutenant Drubetskóy. More than
ever was Borís resolved to serve in future not according to the written
code, but under this unwritten law. He felt now that merely by having
been recommended to Prince Andrew he had already risen above the general
who at the front had the power to annihilate him, a lieutenant of the
Guards. Prince Andrew came up to him and took his hand.
“I am very sorry you did not find me in yesterday. I was fussing about
with Germans all day. We went with Weyrother to survey the dispositions.
When Germans start being accurate, there’s no end to it!”
Borís smiled, as if he understood what Prince Andrew was alluding to
as something generally known. But it was the first time he had heard
Weyrother’s name, or even the term “dispositions.”
“Well, my dear fellow, so you still want to be an adjutant? I have
been thinking about you.”
“Yes, I was thinking”—for some reason Borís could not help
blushing—“of asking the commander in chief. He has had a letter from
Prince Kurágin about me. I only wanted to ask because I fear the Guards
won’t be in action,” he added as if in apology.
“All right, all right. We’ll talk it over,” replied Prince Andrew.
“Only let me report this gentleman’s business, and I shall be at
your disposal.”
While Prince Andrew went to report about the purple-faced general, that
gentleman—evidently not sharing Borís’ conception of the advantages
of the unwritten code of subordination—looked so fixedly at the
presumptuous lieutenant who had prevented his finishing what he had to
say to the adjutant that Borís felt uncomfortable. He turned away and
waited impatiently for Prince Andrew’s return from the commander in
chief’s room.
“You see, my dear fellow, I have been thinking about you,”
said Prince Andrew when they had gone into the large room where the
clavichord was. “It’s no use your going to the commander in chief.
He would say a lot of pleasant things, ask you to dinner” (“That
would not be bad as regards the unwritten code,” thought Borís),
“but nothing more would come of it. There will soon be a battalion of
us aides-de-camp and adjutants! But this is what we’ll do: I have
a good friend, an adjutant general and an excellent fellow, Prince
Dolgorúkov; and though you may not know it, the fact is that now
Kutúzov with his staff and all of us count for nothing. Everything is
now centered round the Emperor. So we will go to Dolgorúkov; I have to
go there anyhow and I have already spoken to him about you. We shall
see whether he cannot attach you to himself or find a place for you
somewhere nearer the sun.”
Prince Andrew always became specially keen when he had to guide a young
man and help him to worldly success. Under cover of obtaining help
of this kind for another, which from pride he would never accept for
himself, he kept in touch with the circle which confers success and
which attracted him. He very readily took up Borís’ cause and went
with him to Dolgorúkov.
It was late in the evening when they entered the palace at Olmütz
occupied by the Emperors and their retinues.
That same day a council of war had been held in which all the members of
the Hofkriegsrath and both Emperors took part. At that council, contrary