War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy [interesting novels to read .TXT] 📗

and its celebrated bridgehead and Prince Auersperg? We heard reports that Prince Auersperg was defending Vienna?” he said.

“Prince Auersperg is on this, on our side of the river, and is defending us⁠—doing it very badly, I think, but still he is defending us. But Vienna is on the other side. No, the bridge has not yet been taken and I hope it will not be, for it is mined and orders have been given to blow it up. Otherwise we should long ago have been in the mountains of Bohemia, and you and your army would have spent a bad quarter of an hour between two fires.”

“But still this does not mean that the campaign is over,” said Prince Andréy.

“Well, I think it is. The bigwigs here think so too, but they daren’t say so. It will be as I said at the beginning of the campaign, it won’t be your skirmishing at Dürrenstein, or gunpowder at all, that will decide the matter, but those who devised it,” said Bilíbin quoting one of his own mots, releasing the wrinkles on his forehead, and pausing. “The only question is what will come of the meeting between the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia in Berlin? If Prussia joins the Allies, Austria’s hand will be forced and there will be war. If not it is merely a question of settling where the preliminaries of the new Campo Formio are to be drawn up.”

“What an extraordinary genius!” Prince Andréy suddenly exclaimed, clenching his small hand and striking the table with it, “and what luck the man has!”

“Buonaparte?” said Bilíbin inquiringly, puckering up his forehead to indicate that he was about to say something witty. “Buonaparte?” he repeated, accentuating the u: “I think, however, now that he lays down laws for Austria at Schönbrunn, il faut lui faire grâce de l’u!26 I shall certainly adopt an innovation and call him simply Bonaparte!”

“But joking apart,” said Prince Andréy, “do you really think the campaign is over?”

“This is what I think. Austria has been made a fool of, and she is not used to it. She will retaliate. And she has been fooled in the first place because her provinces have been pillaged⁠—they say the Holy Russian army loots terribly⁠—her army is destroyed, her capital taken, and all this for the beaux yeux27 of His Sardinian Majesty. And therefore⁠—this is between ourselves⁠—I instinctively feel that we are being deceived, my instinct tells me of negotiations with France and projects for peace, a secret peace concluded separately.”

“Impossible!” cried Prince Andréy. “That would be too base.”

“If we live we shall see,” replied Bilíbin, his face again becoming smooth as a sign that the conversation was at an end.

When Prince Andréy reached the room prepared for him and lay down in a clean shirt on the feather bed with its warmed and fragrant pillows, he felt that the battle of which he had brought tidings was far, far away from him. The alliance with Prussia, Austria’s treachery, Bonaparte’s new triumph, tomorrow’s levee and parade, and the audience with the Emperor Francis occupied his thoughts.

He closed his eyes, and immediately a sound of cannonading, of musketry and the rattling of carriage wheels seemed to fill his ears, and now again drawn out in a thin line the musketeers were descending the hill, the French were firing, and he felt his heart palpitating as he rode forward beside Schmidt with the bullets merrily whistling all around, and he experienced tenfold the joy of living, as he had not done since childhood.

He woke up⁠ ⁠…

“Yes, that all happened!” he said, and, smiling happily to himself like a child, he fell into a deep, youthful slumber.

XI

Next day he woke late. Recalling his recent impressions, the first thought that came into his mind was that today he had to be presented to the Emperor Francis; he remembered the Minister of War, the polite Austrian adjutant, Bilíbin, and last night’s conversation. Having dressed for his attendance at court in full parade uniform, which he had not worn for a long time, he went into Bilíbin’s study fresh, animated, and handsome, with his hand bandaged. In the study were four gentlemen of the diplomatic corps. With Prince Ippolit Kurágin, who was a secretary to the embassy, Bolkónski was already acquainted. Bilíbin introduced him to the others.

The gentlemen assembled at Bilíbin’s were young, wealthy, gay society men, who here, as in Vienna, formed a special set which Bilíbin, their leader, called les nôtres.28 This set, consisting almost exclusively of diplomats, evidently had its own interests which had nothing to do with war or politics but related to high society, to certain women, and to the official side of the service. These gentlemen received Prince Andréy as one of themselves, an honor they did not extend to many. From politeness and to start conversation, they asked him a few questions about the army and the battle, and then the talk went off into merry jests and gossip.

“But the best of it was,” said one, telling of the misfortune of a fellow diplomat, “that the Chancellor told him flatly that his appointment to London was a promotion and that he was so to regard it. Can you fancy the figure he cut?⁠ ⁠…”

“But the worst of it, gentlemen⁠—I am giving Kurágin away to you⁠—is that that man suffers, and this Don Juan, wicked fellow, is taking advantage of it!”

Prince Ippolit was lolling in a lounge chair with his legs over its arm. He began to laugh.

“Tell me about that!” he said.

“Oh, you Don Juan! You serpent!” cried several voices.

“You, Bolkónski, don’t know,” said Bilíbin turning to Prince Andréy, “that all the atrocities of the French army (I nearly said of the Russian army) are nothing compared to what this man has been doing among the women!”

“La femme est la compagne de l’homme,”29 announced Prince Ippolit,