'Just let me say this,' Prince Andrey interrupted in a tone of quiet authority. 'You're doing your best to insult me, and I must accept it's not a hard thing to do if you are going to go on showing your own lack of self-respect. But I'm sure you'll agree this is neither the time nor the place for a squabble. In a few days' time we shall be taking part in a real duel much more serious than this, and incidentally, Boris Drubetskoy tells me he's an old friend of yours - it's not his fault that you don't like the look of my face. Anyway,' he said, getting up, 'you know who I am and where you can find me. And don't forget,' he added, 'I don't consider either of us to have been insulted. My advice to you, as an older man, is to let the matter drop. So - Friday, then, after the inspection, I'll be expecting you, Drubetskoy. Goodbye till then,' Prince Andrey concluded, and he went out, bowing to them both.
By the time Rostov thought of a suitable answer he had gone, and he was all the more livid for not having thought of it in time. He had his horse brought round at once, took leave of Boris coldly and rode off. What should he do - ride over to headquarters tomorrow and challenge that stuck-up adjutant, or really let the matter drop? The question worried him all the way back. One moment he thought vindictively how much pleasure he would take in scaring that overbearing feeble little shrimp with his pistol, and the next he was surprised to find himself thinking there was no one he would rather have as a friend than that insufferable adjutant.
CHAPTER 8
The day after Rostov's visit to Boris there was to be a general review of the troops, Austrian and Russian, including the reinforcements freshly arrived from Russia and the troops back from campaigning with Kutuzov. The Russian Emperor was accompanied by his heir, the Tsarevich, and the Austrian by the archduke, and together they were to review the allied forces, an army of eighty thousand men. From early morning the troops, all spick and span, had begun moving out on to the plain before the fortress and lining up. Banners flapped in the breeze, legs marched and bayonets moved in thousands, halting at the word of command, turning, forming up and spacing out, blocks of infantry in different uniforms wheeling around each other. The cavalry jingled into position with a steady clip-clop, smartly turned out in blue, red and green braided uniforms and riding black, chestnut and grey horses, the bandsmen in front covered with frills. Between the infantry and the cavalry came the artillery, a long line of buffed and gleaming cannons trembling on their carriages, clanging as they trundled past, linstocks reeking, and rolled into their appointed places. Not only the generals in full dress uniform with scarves and medals, all of them, fat or thin, impossibly squeezed in at the waist, and with red necks squashed into stiff collars; not only the pomaded, dandified officers, but every last well-scrubbed and clean-shaven soldier with his weapons buffed to the last degree of brilliance, every horse groomed till its coat shone like stain, with every hair lying true on its dampened mane - all of them felt they were doing something profound, solemn and serious. Every general and every soldier was aware of his own insignificance, like a tiny grain of sand in an ocean of humanity, yet as a part of that vast whole they sensed a huge collective strength. Since early morning it had been all tension, bustle and hard work, but by ten o'clock everything was in place. Serried ranks of soldiers stood upon the vast plain, an entire army stretched out in three lines: cavalry in front, artillery next, infantry at the rear.
The different branches of service were separated by gaps almost as wide as streets, and the army was sharply divided into three sections: Kutuzov's men (with the Pavlograd hussars front right), the newly arrived line-regiments and guards, and the Austrian troops. But they all stood in a single line, under a single command, and in similar order.
Like a wind rustling the leaves a murmur of excitement swept through the ranks. 'They're here! They're here!' nervous voices called out, and the troops stirred with a flurry of finishing touches.
A group of horsemen came into sight moving towards them from Olmutz, and at that very moment, although there hadn't been any wind before, a faint breeze fluttered over the army, stirring the streamers on the lances and setting the unfurled colours flapping against their staffs. It was as if the army were quivering with joy as the Emperors approached. A single voice called out, 'Atten-shun!' Other voices took up the call like cockerels crowing at dawn. Then silence.
The deathly stillness was broken only by the clip-clop of hooves. It was the Emperors and their suite. As the two monarchs rode up to one flank, the trumpets of the first cavalry regiment struck up a military march. The sound appeared not to come from the buglers but as a spontaneous burst of music from the army itself, delighted at the Emperors' arrival. Through the music only one voice could be heard clearly, the genial, youthful tones of Emperor Alexander. He gave a few words of greeting, and the first regiment roared out, 'Hurrah!' The sound was so deafening, so prolonged and ecstatic that the men themselves felt a great shock, realizing the strength and enormity of their mass.
Rostov was standing in the front ranks of Kutuzov's army, those which the Tsar approached first, and he was seized by the same feeling as every other soldier in that army, a feeling of utter self-forgetfulness, a proud sense of mighty power and a passionate devotion to the man who was the cause of this sensation of solemn triumph.
Feeling as he did that at a single word from this man the entire vast mass of them (including him, no more than a grain of sand) would go through fire and water, commit any crime, face death or fight on to glory, he could not suppress a shivering thrill at the immanency of that word.
'Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!' thundered on all sides, and one regiment after another greeted the Tsar with the strains of the march followed by another 'Hurrah!' . . . then the music again, then more and more hurrahs surging louder and expanding until they merged into one solid, deafening roar.
Waiting for the Tsar, each regiment in its rigid silence seemed like a lifeless body. But once the Tsar reached them each regiment erupted in new life and further clamour, joining in unison with the general roar from all down the line where the Tsar had been. And to the dreadful sound of these shattering cheers, moving in and out among the great rectangles of massed troops standing rigidly to attention as if turned to stone, some hundreds of men rode about casually, freely, defying all symmetry. These were the officers in the royal suite, and ahead of them rode two men, the Emperors, on whom the uncontainable passion of all that mass of men was focused.
It was Emperor Alexander, young and handsome in the uniform of the horse guards with a cocked hat, who attracted most of the attention because of his pleasant face and his soft rich voice.
Rostov was standing near the buglers, and with his keen eyes he spotted the Tsar a long way off and watched him approaching. When the Tsar was only twenty paces away and Nikolay could clearly see every detail of Alexander's handsome, young and happy face, he experienced a surge of emotion and ecstasy such as he had never known before. Everything about the Tsar - every feature, every movement - seemed to him utterly captivating.
Coming to a halt before the Pavlograd regiment, the Tsar said something in French to the Austrian Emperor and smiled. Seeing him smile, Rostov automatically began to smile himself and felt an even stronger spasm of love for his Emperor. He longed for some means of expressing his love for the Tsar. His eyes watered from knowing it was impossible. The Tsar called up the colonel of the regiment and said a few words to him.
'My God! What would I do if the Emperor spoke to me?' thought Rostov. 'I think I'd die of happiness.'
The Tsar addressed the officers, too.
'I thank you all, gentlemen,' he said, every word sounding to Rostov like music from heaven, 'I thank you from the bottom of my heart.'
Rostov would have gladly died there and then for his Emperor.
'You have won the colours of St George and you will be worthy of them.'
'Oh, if only I could die for him, die for him!' thought Rostov.
The Tsar said something else that Rostov couldn't hear, and the men, lungs bursting, ro
ared their hurrah.
Rostov, too, thrusting forward in his saddle, roared with all his might, willing to do himself an injury cheering, as long as he could give full voice to his zeal for the Tsar.
The Tsar stood for a few seconds facing the hussars as if wondering what to do next.
'How could the Emperor wonder what to do next?' Rostov asked himself, but then sure enough, even this hesitation seemed to him majestic and enchanting, like everything the Tsar did.
The Tsar's hesitation lasted only an instant. Then the royal foot in its fashionable narrow-pointed boot touched the belly of his bobtailed chestnut mare. The royal hand in its white glove gathered up the reins, and he moved off, accompanied by a sea of aides bobbing up and down. He moved further and further away, stopping at other regiments, until eventually all that Rostov could see of him through the suite surrounding the Emperors was the white plume of his cocked hat.
Among the gentlemen of the suite, Rostov noticed Bolkonsky, sitting in a slack, indolent pose. Rostov remembered yesterday's quarrel and again wondered whether or not to challenge him. 'Of course not,' Rostov reflected. 'How could anyone even think or talk about such things at a time like this? A time of such love, such bliss, such self-sacrifice, what do our insults and squabbles matter? This is a time when I love everybody and forgive everybody,' thought Rostov.
When the Tsar had inspected almost all the regiments, the troops began their march past, and Rostov, bringing up the rear on Bedouin, so recently bought from Denisov, was the last rider in his squadron, and completely exposed to the Tsar's view.
Still some distance away from him, Rostov, a first-class horseman, twice put his spurs to Bedouin, urging him into the frenzied, eye-catching trot which Bedouin always fell into when he was worked up. Bending his foaming nose down to his chest, arching his tail, virtually floating in mid-air without touching the ground, Bedouin seemed no less conscious of the Tsar's eye upon him as he lifted his legs in a graceful high action, trotting past in superb style.
Rostov himself drew his legs back and sucked his stomach in, very much at one with his horse, and rode past the Tsar with a frowning but ecstatic face, looking a 'wight devil', as Denisov would have said.
'Bravo, Pavlograds!' shouted the Tsar.
'My God! I'd be so happy if he ordered me to go through fire here and now,' thought Rostov.
When the review was over the officers of both groups, the reinforcements and Kutuzov's men, began to break down into little clusters. The talk was of honours won, the Austrians and their uniforms, their front line, Napoleon and the trouble in store for him once Essen's corps arrived and Prussia came in on our side. But the main topic of conversation in every circle was Emperor Alexander, his every word and gesture recalled with huge delight.
They were united in a single desire: under the Emperor's leadership to march on the enemy at the earliest opportunity. With the Emperor himself in command they could not fail to conquer any foe - this was the opinion of Rostov and most of the officers after the review. After the review they all felt more confident of victory than they would have done if they'd had a couple of victories behind them.
CHAPTER 9
The day after the inspection Boris Drubetskoy donned his best uniform and rode into Olmutz, bolstered by his comrade Berg's best wishes, to see Bolkonsky, hoping to take advantage of his good relationship with him to improve his own position by becoming an adjutant to some person of significance, an army post that he saw as particularly attractive.
'It's all right for Rostov with a father who keeps sending him the odd ten thousand to talk about not sucking up to people and not being anybody's flunkey. I'm not like him - I've got to rely on my brains and I have a career to make. I can't afford to miss any opportunities. I've got to take them when they come.'
He didn't find Prince Andrey in Olmutz that day. But the very sight of the town where the staff headquarters and the diplomatic corps were based and where both Emperors were staying with their suites, household and court, only served to reinforce his desire to belong to this elevated world.
He didn't know anybody there, and in spite of his stylish guardsman's uniform, all these exalted persons scurrying up and down the streets in their fine carriages, plumes, ribbons and medals - courtiers and military men - seemed to be so infinitely far above him, a little guards officer, that they were not so much reluctant to recognize his existence as simply unaware of it. At the quarters of the commander-in-chief, Kutuzov, where he asked for Bolkonsky, all the aides and even the orderlies looked at him as though they wished to impress on him that there were always plenty of officers like him hanging around and they were all heartily sick of seeing them. Despite this, or rather because of it, he went back the following day, the 15th, after dinner, walked into the house occupied by Kutuzov and asked for Bolkonsky. Prince Andrey was in, and Boris was shown into a large room probably once used for dancing though now it contained five beds and various other pieces of furniture: a table, some chairs and a clavier. One adjutant was sitting near the door dressed in a Persian dressing gown, writing at a table. Another, the stout, red-faced Nesvitsky, was lying on a bed with his arms under his head, sharing a joke with an officer sitting at his side. A third was playing a Viennese waltz on the clavier, while a fourth leant on the instrument, humming along. Bolkonsky wasn't there. These gentlemen saw Boris come in, but not one of them moved. Boris approached the one who was writing, and he turned round looking irritated and said that Bolkonsky was the duty adjutant, and if he wanted to see him he should go through the door on the left into the reception-room. Boris thanked him, and did as instructed. In the reception-room he found a dozen men, officers and generals.
When Boris entered Prince Andrey was wincing disdainfully (with the air of polite weariness which so clearly says, 'If I was off duty I wouldn't waste a minute of my time talking to you'), as he listened to an old Russian general weighed down with medals, who was standing there rigidly almost on tiptoe, red in the face, expounding something to Prince Andrey and looking as obsequious as any common soldier.
'Very good, if you'll kindly wait for a moment,' he said to the general in Russian but with the French accent that he always adopted when he wanted to speak scornfully, and once he saw Boris, Prince Andrey ignored the general (who came trotting along begging him to listen because he had more to say) and nodded to Boris with a bright smile as he turned towards him. At that moment Boris clearly saw what he had always suspected, that in the army, alongside the ranking and discipline written into the manuals, recognized throughout the regiment and known to him personally, there was a different order of ranking, a more important one, that could force this rigid, red-faced general to stand and wait politely while Prince Andrey - a mere captain - found it pleasant and convenient to have a chat with Lieutenant Drubetskoy. Boris felt all the more determined that from now on he was going to follow not the written code laid down in the regulations, but the unwritten one. He sensed that just by being recommended to Prince Andrey he was one up on the general, who in another setting, say at the front, could have annihilated him, a mere lieutenant. Prince Andrey came over and shook hands.
'I'm so sorry you didn't find me in yesterday. I was busy all day with the Germans. I went out with Weierother to check the disposition. You know what Germans are like about details - they go on for ever!'
Boris smiled, as if he understood as a matter of common knowledge what Prince Andrey was talking about. But it was the first time he'd heard the name Weierother, and he didn't know what 'disposition' meant in this context.
'Well, my dear fellow, I assume you still want to be an adjutant. I've been thinking about that since we last met.'
'Yes,' said Boris, colouring for some reason, 'I was thinking of asking the commander-in-chief. He's had a letter about me from Prince Kuragin. I wanted to ask because,' he added, apparently by way of an apology, 'I'm afraid the guards won't be in action.'
'Splendid! Splendid! We can talk about this in a minute,' said Prince Andrey. 'Jus
t let me deal with this gentleman and I'm all yours.' While Prince Andrey was away reporting to the commander-in-chief on behalf of the red-faced general, the general himself - he seemed not to share Boris's views on the superiority of the unwritten code - glared so fiercely at the impertinent lieutenant who had stopped him saying his piece that Boris felt embarrassed. He turned away and waited impatiently for Prince Andrey to emerge from the commander-in-chief's room.
'Yes, old fellow, I have been thinking about you - along these lines,' said Prince Andrey, when they had gone into the big room with the clavier in it. 'It's no good going to the commander-in-chief. He'll be very nice to you, and invite you to dinner,' ('which wouldn't come amiss in the service of that unwritten code,' thought Boris) 'but nothing would come of it. Adjutants, staff officers - we'll soon have our own battalion. But I'll tell you what we can do. I have a friend who is an adjutant general, an excellent fellow - Prince Dolgorukov. And you may not know it, but the fact is - Kutuzov, his staff, the whole lot of us don't count for anything now. Everything's concentrated around the Emperor. So let's pay a visit to Dolgorukov. I need to see him, and I've already told him about you. We'll be able to see whether he can find you a job on his staff, or somewhere else closer to the sun.'
Prince Andrey was always invigorated by guiding a young man and helping him on in the world. This propensity for helping other people - the kind of help he would have been too proud ever to accept for himself - kept him in close touch with the circle which had success in its gift, and which he found attractive. Only too pleased to take up Boris's cause, he took him to see Prince Dolgorukov.
It was late evening when they entered the palace in Olmutz which was occupied by the two Emperors, each with his entourage. Earlier that day a council of war had been held, attended by the members of the Hofkriegsrath and the two Emperors. They had decided to ignore the advice of the older generation, Kutuzov and Prince Schwartzenberg, to advance immediately and mount a general offensive against Napoleon. The council of war had just finished when Prince Andrey walked into the palace with Boris to see Prince Dolgorukov. All the staff at headquarters were still under the spell of today's triumph by the younger party at the council. The voices of delay that said wait, do not advance, had been so unanimously shouted down and their arguments refuted by such convincing evidence of the advantages to be gained from an attack that the main business of the council, the coming battle and certain victory, seemed to belong not to the future but to the past. All the advantages were on our side. Our immense forces, undoubtedly superior to Napoleon's, were concentrated in one place, morale had been raised by the presence of the two Emperors and they were straining to go. The commander of the troops, the Austrian general Weierother, knew the overall battle plan in minute detail. As it happened, the Austrian forces had been on manoeuvres last year on the very terrain where they were now proposing to fight the French, and every feature of the locality was known and mapped. Napoleon, meanwhile, was evidently weakened and doing precisely nothing.