War and Peace
“and you ought to sign it and ask this gentleman to take it. No doubt
he” (indicating Rostóv) “has connections on the staff. You won’t
find a better opportunity.”
“Haven’t I said I’m not going to gwovel?” Denísov interrupted
him, went on reading his paper.
Rostóv had not the courage to persuade Denísov, though he
instinctively felt that the way advised by Túshin and the other
officers was the safest, and though he would have been glad to be of
service to Denísov. He knew his stubborn will and straightforward hasty
temper.
When the reading of Denísov’s virulent reply, which took more than an
hour, was over, Rostóv said nothing, and he spent the rest of the day
in a most dejected state of mind amid Denísov’s hospital comrades,
who had gathered round him, telling them what he knew and listening to
their stories. Denísov was moodily silent all the evening.
Late in the evening, when Rostóv was about to leave, he asked Denísov
whether he had no commission for him.
“Yes, wait a bit,” said Denísov, glancing round at the officers,
and taking his papers from under his pillow he went to the window, where
he had an inkpot, and sat down to write.
“It seems it’s no use knocking one’s head against a wall!” he
said, coming from the window and giving Rostóv a large envelope. In
it was the petition to the Emperor drawn up by the auditor, in
which Denísov, without alluding to the offenses of the commissariat
officials, simply asked for pardon.
“Hand it in. It seems...”
He did not finish, but gave a painfully unnatural smile.
CHAPTER XIX
Having returned to the regiment and told the commander the state of
Denísov’s affairs, Rostóv rode to Tilsit with the letter to the
Emperor.
On the thirteenth of June the French and Russian Emperors arrived in
Tilsit. Borís Drubetskóy had asked the important personage on whom he
was in attendance, to include him in the suite appointed for the stay at
Tilsit.
“I should like to see the great man,” he said, alluding to Napoleon,
whom hitherto he, like everyone else, had always called Buonaparte.
“You are speaking of Buonaparte?” asked the general, smiling.
Borís looked at his general inquiringly and immediately saw that he was
being tested.
“I am speaking, Prince, of the Emperor Napoleon,” he replied. The
general patted him on the shoulder, with a smile.
“You will go far,” he said, and took him to Tilsit with him.
Borís was among the few present at the Niemen on the day the two
Emperors met. He saw the raft, decorated with monograms, saw Napoleon
pass before the French Guards on the farther bank of the river, saw the
pensive face of the Emperor Alexander as he sat in silence in a tavern
on the bank of the Niemen awaiting Napoleon’s arrival, saw both
Emperors get into boats, and saw how Napoleon—reaching the raft
first—stepped quickly forward to meet Alexander and held out his hand
to him, and how they both retired into the pavilion. Since he had begun
to move in the highest circles Borís had made it his habit to watch
attentively all that went on around him and to note it down. At the time
of the meeting at Tilsit he asked the names of those who had come with
Napoleon and about the uniforms they wore, and listened attentively to
words spoken by important personages. At the moment the Emperors went
into the pavilion he looked at his watch, and did not forget to look at
it again when Alexander came out. The interview had lasted an hour and
fifty-three minutes. He noted this down that same evening, among other
facts he felt to be of historic importance. As the Emperor’s suite
was a very small one, it was a matter of great importance, for a man who
valued his success in the service, to be at Tilsit on the occasion of
this interview between the two Emperors, and having succeeded in this,
Borís felt that henceforth his position was fully assured. He had not
only become known, but people had grown accustomed to him and accepted
him. Twice he had executed commissions to the Emperor himself, so
that the latter knew his face, and all those at court, far from
cold-shouldering him as at first when they considered him a newcomer,
would now have been surprised had he been absent.
Borís lodged with another adjutant, the Polish Count Zhilínski.
Zhilínski, a Pole brought up in Paris, was rich, and passionately
fond of the French, and almost every day of the stay at Tilsit, French
officers of the Guard and from French headquarters were dining and
lunching with him and Borís.
On the evening of the twenty-fourth of June, Count Zhilínski arranged a
supper for his French friends. The guest of honor was an aide-de-camp of
Napoleon’s, there were also several French officers of the Guard,
and a page of Napoleon’s, a young lad of an old aristocratic French
family. That same day, Rostóv, profiting by the darkness to avoid being
recognized in civilian dress, came to Tilsit and went to the lodging
occupied by Borís and Zhilínski.
Rostóv, in common with the whole army from which he came, was far
from having experienced the change of feeling toward Napoleon and the
French—who from being foes had suddenly become friends—that had
taken place at headquarters and in Borís. In the army, Bonaparte and
the French were still regarded with mingled feelings of anger, contempt,
and fear. Only recently, talking with one of Plátov’s Cossack
officers, Rostóv had argued that if Napoleon were taken prisoner he
would be treated not as a sovereign, but as a criminal. Quite lately,
happening to meet a wounded French colonel on the road, Rostóv had
maintained with heat that peace was impossible between a legitimate
sovereign and the criminal Bonaparte. Rostóv was therefore unpleasantly
struck by the presence of French officers in Borís’ lodging, dressed
in uniforms he had been accustomed to see from quite a different point
of view from the outposts of the flank. As soon as he noticed a French
officer, who thrust his head out of the door, that warlike feeling of
hostility which he always experienced at the sight of the enemy suddenly
seized him. He stopped at the threshold and asked in Russian whether
Drubetskóy lived there. Borís, hearing a strange voice in the
anteroom, came out to meet him. An expression of annoyance showed itself
for a moment on his face on first recognizing Rostóv.
“Ah, it’s you? Very glad, very glad to see you,” he said, however,
coming toward him with a smile. But Rostóv had noticed his first
impulse.
“I’ve come at a bad time I think. I should not have come, but I have
business,” he said coldly.
“No, I only wonder how you managed to get away from your regiment.
Dans un moment je suis à vous,” * he said, answering someone who
called him.
* “In a minute I shall be at your disposal.”
“I see I’m intruding,” Rostóv repeated.
The look of annoyance had already disappeared from Borís’ face:
having evidently reflected and decided how to act, he very quietly took
both Rostóv’s hands and led him into the next room. His eyes, looking
serenely and steadily at Rostóv, seemed to be veiled by something,
as if screened by blue spectacles of conventionality. So it seemed to
Rostóv.
“Oh, come now! As if you could come at a wrong time!” said Borís,
and he led him into the room where the supper table was laid and
introduced him to his guests, explaining that he was not a civilian, but
an hussar officer, and an old friend of his.
“Count Zhilínski—le Comte N. N.—le Capitaine S. S.,” said he,
naming his guests. Rostóv looked frowningly at the Frenchmen, bowed
reluctantly, and remained silent.
Zhilínski evidently did not receive this new Russian person very
willingly into his circle and did not speak to Rostóv. Borís did not
appear to notice the constraint the newcomer produced and, with the same
pleasant composure and the same veiled look in his eyes with which
he had met Rostóv, tried to enliven the conversation. One of the
Frenchmen, with the politeness characteristic of his countrymen,
addressed the obstinately taciturn Rostóv, saying that the latter had
probably come to Tilsit to see the Emperor.
“No, I came on business,” replied Rostóv, briefly.
Rostóv had been out of humor from the moment he noticed the look of
dissatisfaction on Borís’ face, and as always happens to those in a
bad humor, it seemed to him that everyone regarded him with aversion
and that he was in everybody’s way. He really was in their way, for he
alone took no part in the conversation which again became general. The
looks the visitors cast on him seemed to say: “And what is he sitting
here for?” He rose and went up to Borís.
“Anyhow, I’m in your way,” he said in a low tone. “Come and talk
over my business and I’ll go away.”
“Oh, no, not at all,” said Borís. “But if you are tired, come and
lie down in my room and have a rest.”
“Yes, really...”
They went into the little room where Borís slept. Rostóv, without
sitting down, began at once, irritably (as if Borís were to blame in
some way) telling him about Denísov’s affair, asking him whether,
through his general, he could and would intercede with the Emperor on
Denísov’s behalf and get Denísov’s petition handed in. When he
and Borís were alone, Rostóv felt for the first time that he could not
look Borís in the face without a sense of awkwardness. Borís, with one
leg crossed over the other and stroking his left hand with the slender
fingers of his right, listened to Rostóv as a general listens to the
report of a subordinate, now looking aside and now gazing straight into
Rostóv’s eyes with the same veiled look. Each time this happened
Rostóv felt uncomfortable and cast down his eyes.
“I have heard of such cases and know that His Majesty is very severe
in such affairs. I think it would be best not to bring it before the
Emperor, but to apply to the commander of the corps.... But in general,
I think...”
“So you don’t want to do anything? Well then, say so!” Rostóv
almost shouted, not looking Borís in the face.
Borís smiled.
“On the contrary, I will do what I can. Only I thought...”
At that moment Zhilínski’s voice was heard calling Borís.
“Well then, go, go, go...” said Rostóv, and refusing supper and
remaining alone in the little room, he walked up and down for a long
time, hearing the lighthearted French conversation from the next room.
CHAPTER XX
Rostóv had come to Tilsit the day least suitable for a petition
on Denísov’s behalf. He could not himself go to the general in
attendance as he was in mufti and had come to Tilsit without permission
to do so, and Borís, even had he wished to, could not have done so on
the following day. On that day, June 27, the preliminaries of peace were
signed. The Emperors exchanged decorations: Alexander received the Cross
of the Legion of Honor and Napoleon the Order of St. Andrew of the
First Degree, and a dinner had been arranged for the evening, given by
a battalion of the French Guards to the Preobrazhénsk battalion. The
Emperors were to be present at that banquet.
Rostóv felt so ill at ease and uncomfortable with Borís that, when the
latter looked in after supper, he pretended to be asleep, and early next
morning went away, avoiding Borís. In his civilian clothes and a
round hat, he wandered about the town, staring at the French and their
uniforms and at the streets and houses where the Russian and French
Emperors were staying. In a square he saw tables being set up and
preparations made for the dinner; he saw the Russian and French colors
draped from side to side of the streets, with huge monograms A and N. In
the windows of the houses also flags and bunting were displayed.
“Borís doesn’t want to help me and I don’t want to ask him.
That’s settled,” thought Nicholas. “All is over between us, but