'We must show him Amelie. She's gorgeous!' said one of 'our people', kissing his fingertips.
'To cut a long story short,' said Bilibin, 'we must turn this bloodthirsty warrior more towards love of his fellow creatures.'
'I'm afraid I shan't be able to accept your hospitality, gentlemen. It's time for me to go,' said Bolkonsky, glancing at his watch.
'Where are you off to?'
'The Emperor!'
'Oh! Oh! Oh!'
'Well, au revoir, Bolkonsky! Au revoir, Prince! Come back for an early dinner,' said various voices. 'We're going to look after you.'
'While you're talking to the Emperor do what you can to praise the procurement and route-mapping,' said Bilibin, seeing Bolkonsky into the hall.
'I'd love to do that, but from what I've seen I shan't be able to,' answered Bolkonsky with a smile.
'Well, try to do all the talking, anyway. He's a great holder of audiences, but he doesn't like talking. In fact, he can't talk at all. You'll see for yourself.'
CHAPTER 12
At the reception Prince Andrey took up his appointed place among the Austrian officers. Emperor Francis merely looked at him closely in the face and nodded his elongated head. But after the reception the adjutant of the previous evening obsequiously communicated to Bolkonsky the Emperor's desire to grant him an audience. Emperor Francis received him standing in the middle of the room. Prince Andrey was surprised to observe that before beginning the conversation, the Emperor seemed embarrassed; he didn't know what to say, and went red in the face.
'Tell me when the battle began,' he blurted out. Prince Andrey answered. The question was followed by others, just as simple: Was Kutuzov well? When did he leave Krems? and so on. The Emperor spoke as though his sole aim was to get through a series of set questions. The answers seemed not to hold the slightest interest for him.
'At what time of day did the battle begin?' asked the Emperor.
'I cannot inform your Majesty at what precise time the battle began at the front, but at Durrenstein, where I was, the troops began the attack about six in the evening,' said Bolkonsky, warming to his task and beginning to think he would now have a chance to launch into his carefully prepared description of all he knew and had seen. But the Emperor interrupted him with a smile:
'How many miles is it?'
'From where to where, your Majesty?'
'From Durrenstein to Krems.'
'Three and a half miles, your Majesty.'
'The French abandoned the left bank?'
'According to intelligence, the last of them crossed on rafts during the night.'
'Have you enough provisions at Krems?'
'Well, we were rather short of . . .'
The Emperor interrupted.
'What time was General Schmidt killed?'
'Seven o'clock, I believe.'
'At seven o'clock? Very sad! Very sad!'
The Emperor said he was grateful and bowed. Prince Andrey withdrew and was immediately surrounded on all sides by courtiers. Everywhere he saw warm, friendly eyes looking at him, and heard warm, friendly voices talking to him. Yesterday's adjutant reproached him for not staying in the palace, and offered him his own house. The minister of war came up and congratulated him on the Order of Maria Theresa (Third Class) which the Emperor wished to award him. The Empress's chamberlain invited him to call upon her Majesty. The Archduchess, too, wished to see him. He didn't know which answer should come first, and took a few seconds to gather his senses. The Russian Ambassador took him by the shoulder, led him away to a window and began to talk.
Despite all that Bilibin had said, his news was received with rejoicing. A service of thanksgiving was arranged. Kutuzov was awarded the Grand Cross of Maria Theresa, and further awards went to the whole army. Bolkonsky received invitations from all and sundry, and spent the whole morning paying visits to the top people in the Austrian government. These went on into the afternoon and it was past four o'clock when Prince Andrey was able to make his way back to Bilibin's, mentally composing a letter to his father about the battle and his reception at Brno. On the way he stopped off at a bookshop to stock up on reading material for the campaign, and stayed there for some time. When he finally reached the steps of Bilibin's house, there stood a carriage half-stowed with luggage, and here was Franz, Bilibin's servant, struggling in the doorway with a travelling trunk.
'What's happened?' asked Bolkonsky.
'Oh dear, your Excellency!' said Franz, heaving the trunk on to the carriage. 'We're moving on. That villain's at our heels again!'
'You what?' queried Prince Andrey.
Bilibin came out to meet Bolkonsky. His usually composed face showed some agitation.
'No, no, you'll have to admit there's a nice little story here,' he said. 'It's the Tabor bridge at Vienna - they crossed it without a shot being fired.'
Prince Andrey couldn't follow him.
'Where've you been? You don't seem to know what every coachman in the town has heard by now.'
'I've been with the Archduchess. I heard nothing there.'
'Haven't you seen everybody packing their things?'
'I haven't seen anything . . . What's gone wrong?' Prince Andrey asked impatiently.
'Gone wrong? What's gone wrong is that the French have crossed the bridge that Auersperg was supposed to be defending, and they didn't blow it up, so even as we speak Murat is coming hotfoot down the road to Brno, and they'll be here soon - tomorrow at the latest.'
'What do you mean? Why wasn't the bridge blown up? I thought it had been mined.'
'Why? That's what I'm asking you. Nobody knows why. Even Bonaparte doesn't know why.'
Bolkonsky shrugged.
'But if they're over the bridge, the army's finished. It'll be cut off,' he said.
'Of course it will,' answered Bilibin. 'Listen to this. The French enter Vienna, as I said. Fine. The following day, yesterday, Marshals Murat, Lannes and Beliard jump on their horses and ride down to the bridge. (Please note: all three are Gascons.)11 "Gentlemen," says one, "you know the Tabor bridge has been mined and countermined. It is protected by formidable defences, oh and fifteen thousand troops with orders to blow it up and stop us getting across. But our Sovereign Emperor Napoleon will be very pleased if we take the bridge. So, let the three of us go and take it." "Yes, let's," say the others, and they set off and they take the bridge, and they march across, and now with their entire army on this side of the Danube they're heading straight for us - and for you and your lines of communication.'
'It's no joke,' said Prince Andrey, saddened and serious. The news grieved Prince Andrey, but it also gave him pleasure. Once he knew the Russian army was in such a hopeless situation, it immediately occurred to him that he might be the very man destined to extricate the Russian army from that situation, and that just as Napoleon rose from obscurity at Toulon12 this was where he would be raised for ever from the ranks of anonymous officers. This was his first step on the road to glory! Even as he listened to Bilibin he could see himself getting through to the army, presenting to a council of war his version of events, the army's only salvation, and taking personal responsibility for the execution of his plan.
'It's no joke,' he said.
'I'm not joking,' Bilibin went on. 'Nothing could be truer or sadder than this. These three gentlemen advance to the bridge unaccompanied and waving white handkerchiefs. It's a truce, they say, and they, the marshals, have come to parley with Prince Auersperg. The duty officer lets them on to the bridgehead. They spin him a thousand gasconades: the war is over, Emperor Francis has arranged a meeting with Bonaparte, they wish to see Prince Auersperg and so on. The officer sends for Auersperg. These Gascon gentlemen embrace the officers, make a lot of jokes and sit there on the big guns, and meanwhile a French battalion creeps up quietly on to the bridge, hurls the sacks of incendiary material down into the river, and marches up to the bridgehead. Eventually the lieutenant-general appears, our dear Prince Auersperg von Mautern, no less. "Esteemed enemy
! Flower of the Austrian yeomanry! Hero of the Turkish wars! Hostilities are at end. We can all shake hands . . . Emperor Napoleon has a burning desire to make the acquaintance of Prince Auersperg." In a nutshell, these gentlemen - true Gascons all - bamboozle Auersperg with their clever talk; he is so flattered by this rapidly developed intimacy with French marshals, so dazzled by Murat's fine cloak and ostrich feathers, that he is blinded by their fire and forgets that firing's what he ought to be doing to the enemy.' (Carried away as he was by the lively telling of his story, Bilibin did not forget to pause after this bon mot, to allow it to sink in.) 'A French battalion storms the bridgehead, spikes the cannons and that's it, the bridge is taken. But wait, the best part of the whole story,' he went on, a skilled raconteur relaxing in mid-narrative, 'is that the sergeant in charge of the cannon which was due to give the signal to light the fuses and blow up the bridge, this sergeant, seeing the French troops running on to the bridge, wanted to open fire, but Lannes stayed his hand. The sergeant, obviously brighter than his general, goes up to Auersperg and he says, "Prince, it's a trick. Look, the French are coming!" Murat sees that all is lost if he lets the sergeant have his say. With pretended amazement (a true Gascon indeed!) he addresses Auersperg: "Is this Austrian discipline, famed the world over?" he asks. "How can you let a man of low rank address you like that?" This was a stroke of genius. Prince Auersperg preserves his honour by having the sergeant arrested. Be honest, this Tabor bridge affair makes a sweet little story, doesn't it? No stupidity, no cowardice . . .'
'It could be treason,' said Prince Andrey, still vividly imagining grey overcoats, wounds, gunsmoke and roaring cannons - and the glory that would be his.
'Oh, it's not that. But it does put the court in an awkward spot,' pursued Bilibin. 'It's not treason, or cowardice, or stupidity - it's Ulm all over again.' He seemed to pause for reflection, wondering just how to put it, 'It's that man Mack . . . We have been Macked!' he said, satisfied that he had coined another bon mot, a brand-new one that was going to get repeated. His wrinkled brow relaxed smartly in self-congratulation, and with a thin smile he began to inspect his fingernails.
'Where are you off to?' he asked abruptly, turning to Prince Andrey, who had got up and was heading for his room.
'I must get going.'
'Where to?'
'Back to the army.'
'I thought you were going to stay on for a couple of days.'
'Not now. I've got to leave at once.'
And Prince Andrey, after making the necessary arrangements for the journey, went to his room.
'You know, my dear fellow,' said Bilibin, following him in, 'I've been thinking about you. Why do you have to go?' As if to prove the sureness of his coming argument, all the wrinkles disappeared from his face.
Prince Andrey looked at him quizzically but said nothing.
'Why do you have to go? I know duty calls - you must gallop off to the army now that the army is in danger. I understand this, my boy. It's called heroism.'
'Absolutely not,' said Prince Andrey.
'But you're a cultivated man, so be one in the fullest sense. Look at things the other way round and you'll see you've got it all wrong. Your duty is to take care of yourself. Leave that sort of thing to other people who are good for nothing better . . . No one has ordered you back, and you haven't been dismissed from here, so you can stay on and go with us wherever misfortune takes us. I've heard it said we're going to Olmutz. Olmutz is a very charming town. And we can travel there together quite pleasantly in my carriage.'
'That's enough of the jokes, Bilibin,' said Bolkonsky.
'No, I speak sincerely as a friend. Think it over. Where are you off to now, and why are you going at all when you can stay on here? There only two possibilities,' (he wrinkled up the skin of his left temple) 'either peace will be declared before you get back to the army, or it will mean defeat and disgrace along with Kutuzov and the whole army.'
And Bilibin relaxed his brow again, confident that this dilemma was irrefutable.
'This is something I can't argue about,' said Prince Andrey coldly, but he thought to himself, 'I have to go - to save the army.'
'My dear fellow, you're a hero,' said Bilibin.
CHAPTER 13
The same night, after taking leave of the war minister, Bolkonsky was on his way to rejoin the army, not knowing where to find it and worried about being captured by the French on the way to Krems.
At Brno the whole court and everyone attached to it was busy packing, and the heavy baggage was already on the road to Olmutz. Near Etzelsdorf, Prince Andrey came to the road along which the Russian army was moving with maximum speed and in maximum disorder. It was so blocked with wagons that no carriage could possibly get through. Prince Andrey procured a horse and a Cossack from the officer in charge of the Cossacks, and, hungry and weary as he was, he wove in and out between the wagons and rode on in search of the commander-in-chief and his own luggage. The most sinister rumours about the situation of the army reached him along the road, and they were confirmed by the sight of the army fleeing in such disorder.
He recalled the words of Napoleon's address to his army at the beginning of the campaign: 'That Russian army which English gold has brought from the ends of the universe is going to suffer at our hands the same fate - the fate of the army of Ulm.' These words aroused in him simultaneously open-mouthed admiration for the genius of his hero, a feeling of hurt pride and the hope of glory. 'And what if there's nothing left but to die?' he thought. 'Well if I must - I'll do it as well as the next man!'
Prince Andrey turned his scornful gaze on the endless, chaotic mass of detachments, wagons, supply vehicles, artillery and more wagons, wagons, wagons of every size and shape, overtaking one another and blocking the muddy road three and four abreast. On all sides, right up front and way behind, as far as the ear could strain in every direction, you could hear wheels rumbling, carts rattling, wagons creaking, gun-carriages groaning, horses trampling, whips cracking, drivers shouting and everybody swearing, soldiers, orderlies and officers. The roadsides were littered everywhere with fallen horses, flayed and unflayed, broken-down wagons with solitary soldiers sitting by them just waiting, other soldiers separated from their units, heading in little groups for the next village or carrying loot from the last one - chickens, sheep, hay, or sackfuls of something or other. When the road went uphill or downhill the crowds squashed together even closer, and there was an endless hubbub of shouts and groans. Soldiers floundering knee-deep in mud heaved guns and wagons along with their bare hands while the whips cracked, hoofs slithered, traces snapped and the air rang with the most heart-rending cries. The transport officers rode up and down, in and out of the wagons, their voices barely audible amid the general uproar and their faces showing all too clearly that they despaired of ever controlling this chaos.
'And this is our well-loved Holy Russian military machine,' thought Bolkonsky, recalling Bilibin's words.
He rode up to a convoy, intending to ask someone where he could find the commander-in-chief. There in front of him trundled a strange one-horse vehicle obviously knocked up by some soldiers out of any everyday bits and pieces they could lay their hands on, part-wagon, part-carriage, part-cab. A soldier was driving, and under a cover behind the leather hood sat a woman swathed in shawls. Prince Andrey rode up and was just beginning to ask the soldier a question when he was distracted by the desperate cries of the woman sitting in this contraption. The transport officer had lashed out at the soldier in the coachman's seat for trying to overtake, and the whip had cracked against the cover of the vehicle. The woman was screaming. Catching sight of Prince Andrey, she thrust her head out from under the cover, waved at him with her thin little arms sticking out from under the matting shawls, and yelled, 'Adjutant! Sir! . . . For heaven's sake . . . give us some protection . . . What's going to happen to us? . . . I'm a doctor's wife - in the Seventh Chasseurs13 . . . they won't let us get past. We're miles behind. We've lost our own people.'
; 'I'll cut you to pieces! Get back!' shouted the exasperated officer to the soldier. 'Get back and take that whore with you!'
'Sir, please protect us. What does he think he's doing?' screamed the doctor's wife.
'Kindly let this carriage through. Can't you see there's a lady in it?' said Prince Andrey, riding up to the officer.
The officer glanced at him, said nothing and turned back to the soldier. 'I'll teach you to shove in . . . Get back!'
'Let it through, I tell you,' repeated Prince Andrey, tightening his lips.
'Who do you think you are?' cried the officer, turning upon him suddenly in a drunken rage. 'Just who are you? Are you in charge here?' he asked with brazen insubordination. 'No, you're not, I'm in charge! You get back!' he repeated, 'or I'll cut you to pieces!' - a phrase which had obviously caught his imagination.
'One in the eye for our little adjutant,' came a voice from the background.
Prince Andrey could see the officer was in one of those drunken senseless rages when people don't remember what they have been saying. He could see that his championing of the doctor's wife in that odd contraption was exposing him to the one thing he most dreaded - becoming a laughing stock - but instinct spoke differently. Hardly were these last words out of the officer's mouth when Prince Andrey rode straight up to him, his face distorted with fury, and raised his riding whip.
'Let - them - through!'
The officer waved at him and galloped off.
'It's their fault, these staff officers, all this chaos,' he grumbled. 'Do what you want now.'
Prince Andrey, without looking up, hurried to get away from the doctor's wife, who was calling him her saviour, and with every last detail of this humiliating scene nauseatingly lodged in his memory, he galloped on towards the village where he had been told he would find the commander-in-chief.
Once in the village, he got off his horse and went up to the very first house with the intention of relaxing for a minute or two, finding a bite to eat and somehow sorting out all the hateful impressions that were tormenting him. 'It's a gang of crooks, not an army,' he thought, and he was just going up to a window when he heard a familiar voice calling his name.