War and Peace
I won’t leave here without having done all I can for Denísov and
certainly not without getting his letter to the Emperor. The Emperor!...
He is here!” thought Rostóv, who had unconsciously returned to the
house where Alexander lodged.
Saddled horses were standing before the house and the suite were
assembling, evidently preparing for the Emperor to come out.
“I may see him at any moment,” thought Rostóv. “If only I were
to hand the letter direct to him and tell him all... could they really
arrest me for my civilian clothes? Surely not! He would understand on
whose side justice lies. He understands everything, knows everything.
Who can be more just, more magnanimous than he? And even if they did
arrest me for being here, what would it matter?” thought he, looking
at an officer who was entering the house the Emperor occupied. “After
all, people do go in.... It’s all nonsense! I’ll go in and hand
the letter to the Emperor myself so much the worse for Drubetskóy who
drives me to it!” And suddenly with a determination he himself did not
expect, Rostóv felt for the letter in his pocket and went straight to
the house.
“No, I won’t miss my opportunity now, as I did after Austerlitz,”
he thought, expecting every moment to meet the monarch, and conscious of
the blood that rushed to his heart at the thought. “I will fall at
his feet and beseech him. He will lift me up, will listen, and will even
thank me. ‘I am happy when I can do good, but to remedy injustice is
the greatest happiness,’” Rostóv fancied the sovereign saying. And
passing people who looked after him with curiosity, he entered the porch
of the Emperor’s house.
A broad staircase led straight up from the entry, and to the right he
saw a closed door. Below, under the staircase, was a door leading to the
lower floor.
“Whom do you want?” someone inquired.
“To hand in a letter, a petition, to His Majesty,” said Nicholas,
with a tremor in his voice.
“A petition? This way, to the officer on duty” (he was shown the
door leading downstairs), “only it won’t be accepted.”
On hearing this indifferent voice, Rostóv grew frightened at what
he was doing; the thought of meeting the Emperor at any moment was so
fascinating and consequently so alarming that he was ready to run away,
but the official who had questioned him opened the door, and Rostóv
entered.
A short stout man of about thirty, in white breeches and high boots and
a batiste shirt that he had evidently only just put on, standing in that
room, and his valet was buttoning on to the back of his breeches a
new pair of handsome silk-embroidered braces that, for some reason,
attracted Rostóv’s attention. This man was speaking to someone in the
adjoining room.
“A good figure and in her first bloom,” he was saying, but on seeing
Rostóv, he stopped short and frowned.
“What is it? A petition?”
“What is it?” asked the person in the other room.
“Another petitioner,” answered the man with the braces.
“Tell him to come later. He’ll be coming out directly, we must
go.”
“Later... later! Tomorrow. It’s too late...”
Rostóv turned and was about to go, but the man in the braces stopped
him.
“Whom have you come from? Who are you?”
“I come from Major Denísov,” answered Rostóv.
“Are you an officer?”
“Lieutenant Count Rostóv.”
“What audacity! Hand it in through your commander. And go along with
you... go,” and he continued to put on the uniform the valet handed
him.
Rostóv went back into the hall and noticed that in the porch there were
many officers and generals in full parade uniform, whom he had to pass.
Cursing his temerity, his heart sinking at the thought of finding
himself at any moment face to face with the Emperor and being put to
shame and arrested in his presence, fully alive now to the impropriety
of his conduct and repenting of it, Rostóv, with downcast eyes, was
making his way out of the house through the brilliant suite when a
familiar voice called him and a hand detained him.
“What are you doing here, sir, in civilian dress?” asked a deep
voice.
It was a cavalry general who had obtained the Emperor’s special favor
during this campaign, and who had formerly commanded the division in
which Rostóv was serving.
Rostóv, in dismay, began justifying himself, but seeing the kindly,
jocular face of the general, he took him aside and in an excited voice
told him the whole affair, asking him to intercede for Denísov, whom
the general knew. Having heard Rostóv to the end, the general shook his
head gravely.
“I’m sorry, sorry for that fine fellow. Give me the letter.”
Hardly had Rostóv handed him the letter and finished explaining
Denísov’s case, when hasty steps and the jingling of spurs were heard
on the stairs, and the general, leaving him, went to the porch. The
gentlemen of the Emperor’s suite ran down the stairs and went to their
horses. Hayne, the same groom who had been at Austerlitz, led up the
Emperor’s horse, and the faint creak of a footstep Rostóv knew at
once was heard on the stairs. Forgetting the danger of being recognized,
Rostóv went close to the porch, together with some inquisitive
civilians, and again, after two years, saw those features he adored:
that same face and same look and step, and the same union of majesty and
mildness.... And the feeling of enthusiasm and love for his sovereign
rose again in Rostóv’s soul in all its old force. In the uniform of
the Preobrazhénsk regiment—white chamois-leather breeches and high
boots—and wearing a star Rostóv did not know (it was that of the
Légion d’honneur), the monarch came out into the porch, putting on
his gloves and carrying his hat under his arm. He stopped and looked
about him, brightening everything around by his glance. He spoke a few
words to some of the generals, and, recognizing the former commander of
Rostóv’s division, smiled and beckoned to him.
All the suite drew back and Rostóv saw the general talking for some
time to the Emperor.
The Emperor said a few words to him and took a step toward his horse.
Again the crowd of members of the suite and street gazers (among whom
was Rostóv) moved nearer to the Emperor. Stopping beside his horse,
with his hand on the saddle, the Emperor turned to the cavalry general
and said in a loud voice, evidently wishing to be heard by all:
“I cannot do it, General. I cannot, because the law is stronger than
I,” and he raised his foot to the stirrup.
The general bowed his head respectfully, and the monarch mounted and
rode down the street at a gallop. Beside himself with enthusiasm,
Rostóv ran after him with the crowd.
CHAPTER XXI
The Emperor rode to the square where, facing one another, a battalion
of the Preobrazhénsk regiment stood on the right and a battalion of the
French Guards in their bearskin caps on the left.
As the Tsar rode up to one flank of the battalions, which presented
arms, another group of horsemen galloped up to the opposite flank, and
at the head of them Rostóv recognized Napoleon. It could be no one
else. He came at a gallop, wearing a small hat, a blue uniform open over
a white vest, and the St. Andrew ribbon over his shoulder. He was riding
a very fine thoroughbred gray Arab horse with a crimson gold-embroidered
saddlecloth. On approaching Alexander he raised his hat, and as he did
so, Rostóv, with his cavalryman’s eye, could not help noticing
that Napoleon did not sit well or firmly in the saddle. The battalions
shouted “Hurrah!” and “Vive l’Empereur!” Napoleon said
something to Alexander, and both Emperors dismounted and took each
other’s hands. Napoleon’s face wore an unpleasant and artificial
smile. Alexander was saying something affable to him.
In spite of the trampling of the French gendarmes’ horses, which
were pushing back the crowd, Rostóv kept his eyes on every movement
of Alexander and Bonaparte. It struck him as a surprise that Alexander
treated Bonaparte as an equal and that the latter was quite at ease with
the Tsar, as if such relations with an Emperor were an everyday matter
to him.
Alexander and Napoleon, with the long train of their suites, approached
the right flank of the Preobrazhénsk battalion and came straight up to
the crowd standing there. The crowd unexpectedly found itself so close
to the Emperors that Rostóv, standing in the front row, was afraid he
might be recognized.
“Sire, I ask your permission to present the Legion of Honor to the
bravest of your soldiers,” said a sharp, precise voice, articulating
every letter.
This was said by the undersized Napoleon, looking up straight into
Alexander’s eyes. Alexander listened attentively to what was said to
him and, bending his head, smiled pleasantly.
“To him who has borne himself most bravely in this last war,” added
Napoleon, accentuating each syllable, as with a composure and assurance
exasperating to Rostóv, he ran his eyes over the Russian ranks drawn
up before him, who all presented arms with their eyes fixed on their
Emperor.
“Will Your Majesty allow me to consult the colonel?” said Alexander
and took a few hasty steps toward Prince Kozlóvski, the commander of
the battalion.
Bonaparte meanwhile began taking the glove off his small white hand,
tore it in doing so, and threw it away. An aide-de-camp behind him
rushed forward and picked it up.
“To whom shall it be given?” the Emperor Alexander asked Kozlóvski,
in Russian in a low voice.
“To whomever Your Majesty commands.”
The Emperor knit his brows with dissatisfaction and, glancing back,
remarked:
“But we must give him an answer.”
Kozlóvski scanned the ranks resolutely and included Rostóv in his
scrutiny.
“Can it be me?” thought Rostóv.
“Lázarev!” the colonel called, with a frown, and Lázarev, the
first soldier in the rank, stepped briskly forward.
“Where are you off to? Stop here!” voices whispered to Lázarev who
did not know where to go. Lázarev stopped, casting a sidelong look at
his colonel in alarm. His face twitched, as often happens to soldiers
called before the ranks.
Napoleon slightly turned his head, and put his plump little hand out
behind him as if to take something. The members of his suite, guessing
at once what he wanted, moved about and whispered as they passed
something from one to another, and a page—the same one Rostóv
had seen the previous evening at Borís’—ran forward and, bowing
respectfully over the outstretched hand and not keeping it waiting a
moment, laid in it an Order on a red ribbon. Napoleon, without looking,
pressed two fingers together and the badge was between them. Then he
approached Lázarev (who rolled his eyes and persistently gazed at his
own monarch), looked round at the Emperor Alexander to imply that what
he was now doing was done for the sake of his ally, and the small white
hand holding the Order touched one of Lázarev’s buttons. It was as if
Napoleon knew that it was only necessary for his hand to deign to touch
that soldier’s breast for the soldier to be forever happy, rewarded,
and distinguished from everyone else in the world. Napoleon merely laid
the cross on Lázarev’s breast and, dropping his hand, turned toward
Alexander as though sure that the cross would adhere there. And it
really did.
Officious hands, Russian and French, immediately seized the cross and
fastened it to the uniform. Lázarev glanced morosely at the little
man with white hands who was doing something to him and, still standing
motionless presenting arms, looked again straight into Alexander’s
eyes, as if asking whether he should stand there, or go away, or do
something else. But receiving no orders, he remained for some time in
that rigid position.
The Emperors remounted and rode away. The Preobrazhénsk battalion,
breaking rank, mingled with the French Guards and sat down at the tables
prepared for them.