The day after the review, Boris, in
his best uniform and with his comrade Berg’s
best wishes for success, rode to Olmutz to see Bolkonski,
wishing to profit by his friendliness and obtain for
himself the best post he could preferably
that of adjutant to some important personage, a position
in the army which seemed to him most attractive.
“It is all very well for Rostov, whose father
sends him ten thousand rubles at a time, to talk about
not wishing to cringe to anybody and not be anyone’s
lackey, but I who have nothing but my brains have to
make a career and must not miss opportunities, but
must avail myself of them!” he reflected.
He did not find Prince Andrew in Olmutz
that day, but the appearance of the town where the
headquarters and the diplomatic corps were stationed
and the two Emperors were living with their suites,
households, and courts only strengthened his desire
to belong to that higher world.
He knew no one, and despite his smart
Guardsman’s uniform, all these exalted personages
passing in the streets in their elegant carriages
with their plumes, ribbons, and medals, both courtiers
and military men, seemed so immeasurably above him,
an insignificant officer of the Guards, that they
not only did not wish to, but simply could not, be
aware of his existence. At the quarters of the
commander in chief, Kutuzov, where he inquired for
Bolkonski, all the adjutants and even the orderlies
looked at him as if they wished to impress on him that
a great many officers like him were always coming
there and that everybody was heartily sick of them.
In spite of this, or rather because of it, next day,
November 15, after dinner he again went to Olmutz and,
entering the house occupied by Kutuzov, asked for
Bolkonski. Prince Andrew was in and Boris was
shown into a large hall probably formerly used for
dancing, but in which five beds now stood, and furniture
of various kinds: a table, chairs, and a clavichord.
One adjutant, nearest the door, was sitting at the
table in a Persian dressing gown, writing. Another,
the red, stout Nesvitski, lay on a bed with his arms
under his head, laughing with an officer who had sat
down beside him. A third was playing a Viennese
waltz on the clavichord, while a fourth, lying on
the clavichord, sang the tune. Bolkonski was not
there. None of these gentlemen changed his position
on seeing Boris. The one who was writing and
whom Boris addressed turned round crossly and told
him Bolkonski was on duty and that he should go through
the door on the left into the reception room if he
wished to see him. Boris thanked him and went
to the reception room, where he found some ten officers
and generals.
When he entered, Prince Andrew, his
eyes drooping contemptuously (with that peculiar expression
of polite weariness which plainly says, “If it
were not my duty I would not talk to you for a moment"),
was listening to an old Russian general with decorations,
who stood very erect, almost on tiptoe, with a soldier’s
obsequious expression on his purple face, reporting
something.
“Very well, then, be so good
as to wait,” said Prince Andrew to the general,
in Russian, speaking with the French intonation he
affected when he wished to speak contemptuously, and
noticing Boris, Prince Andrew, paying no more heed
to the general who ran after him imploring him to
hear something more, nodded and turned to him with
a cheerful smile.
At that moment Boris clearly realized
what he had before surmised, that in the army, besides
the subordination and discipline prescribed in the
military code, which he and the others knew in the
regiment, there was another, more important, subordination,
which made this tight-laced, purple-faced general
wait respectfully while Captain Prince Andrew, for
his own pleasure, chose to chat with Lieutenant Drubetskoy.
More than ever was Boris resolved to serve in future
not according to the written code, but under this
unwritten law. He felt now that merely by having
been recommended to Prince Andrew he had already risen
above the general who at the front had the power to
annihilate him, a lieutenant of the Guards. Prince
Andrew came up to him and took his hand.
“I am very sorry you did not
find me in yesterday. I was fussing about with
Germans all day. We went with Weyrother to survey
the dispositions. When Germans start being accurate,
there’s no end to it!”
Boris smiled, as if he understood
what Prince Andrew was alluding to as something generally
known. But it was the first time he had heard
Weyrother’s name, or even the term “dispositions.”
“Well, my dear fellow, so you
still want to be an adjutant? I have been thinking
about you.”
“Yes, I was thinking” for
some reason Boris could not help blushing “of
asking the commander in chief. He has had a letter
from Prince Kuragin about me. I only wanted to
ask because I fear the Guards won’t be in action,”
he added as if in apology.
“All right, all right.
We’ll talk it over,” replied Prince Andrew.
“Only let me report this gentleman’s business,
and I shall be at your disposal.”
While Prince Andrew went to report
about the purple-faced general, that gentleman evidently
not sharing Boris’ conception of the advantages
of the unwritten code of subordination looked
so fixedly at the presumptuous lieutenant who had
prevented his finishing what he had to say to the
adjutant that Boris felt uncomfortable. He turned
away and waited impatiently for Prince Andrew’s
return from the commander in chief’s room.
“You see, my dear fellow, I
have been thinking about you,” said Prince Andrew
when they had gone into the large room where the clavichord
was. “It’s no use your going to the
commander in chief. He would say a lot of pleasant
things, ask you to dinner” ("That would not be
bad as regards the unwritten code,” thought
Boris), “but nothing more would come of it.
There will soon be a battalion of us aides-de-camp
and adjutants! But this is what we’ll do:
I have a good friend, an adjutant general and an excellent
fellow, Prince Dolgorukov; and though you may not know
it, the fact is that now Kutuzov with his staff and
all of us count for nothing. Everything is now
centered round the Emperor. So we will go to
Dolgorukov; I have to go there anyhow and I have already
spoken to him about you. We shall see whether
he cannot attach you to himself or find a place for
you somewhere nearer the sun.”
Prince Andrew always became specially
keen when he had to guide a young man and help him
to worldly success. Under cover of obtaining help
of this kind for another, which from pride he would
never accept for himself, he kept in touch with the
circle which confers success and which attracted him.
He very readily took up Boris’ cause and went
with him to Dolgorukov.
It was late in the evening when they
entered the palace at Olmutz occupied by the Emperors
and their retinues.
That same day a council of war had
been held in which all the members of the Hofkriegsrath
and both Emperors took part. At that council,
contrary to the views of the old generals Kutuzov
and Prince Schwartzenberg, it had been decided to
advance immediately and give battle to Bonaparte.
The council of war was just over when Prince Andrew
accompanied by Boris arrived at the palace to find
Dolgorukov. Everyone at headquarters was still
under the spell of the day’s council, at which
the party of the young had triumphed. The voices
of those who counseled delay and advised waiting for
something else before advancing had been so completely
silenced and their arguments confuted by such conclusive
evidence of the advantages of attacking that what
had been discussed at the council the coming
battle and the victory that would certainly result
from it no longer seemed to be in the future
but in the past. All the advantages were on our
side. Our enormous forces, undoubtedly superior
to Napoleon’s, were concentrated in one place,
the troops inspired by the Emperors’ presence
were eager for action. The strategic position
where the operations would take place was familiar
in all its details to the Austrian General Weyrother:
a lucky accident had ordained that the Austrian army
should maneuver the previous year on the very fields
where the French had now to be fought; the adjacent
locality was known and shown in every detail on the
maps, and Bonaparte, evidently weakened, was undertaking
nothing.
Dolgorukov, one of the warmest advocates
of an attack, had just returned from the council,
tired and exhausted but eager and proud of the victory
that had been gained. Prince Andrew introduced
his protege, but Prince Dolgorukov politely and firmly
pressing his hand said nothing to Boris and, evidently
unable to suppress the thoughts which were uppermost
in his mind at that moment, addressed Prince Andrew
in French.
“Ah, my dear fellow, what a
battle we have gained! God grant that the one
that will result from it will be as victorious!
However, dear fellow,” he said abruptly and
eagerly, “I must confess to having been unjust
to the Austrians and especially to Weyrother.
What exactitude, what minuteness, what knowledge of
the locality, what foresight for every eventuality,
every possibility even to the smallest detail!
No, my dear fellow, no conditions better than our
present ones could have been devised. This combination
of Austrian precision with Russian valor what
more could be wished for?”
“So the attack is definitely
resolved on?” asked Bolkonski.
“And do you know, my dear fellow,
it seems to me that Bonaparte has decidedly lost bearings,
you know that a letter was received from him today
for the Emperor.” Dolgorukov smiled significantly.
“Is that so? And what did he say?”
inquired Bolkonski.
“What can he say? Tra-di-ri-di-ra
and so on... merely to gain time. I tell you
he is in our hands, that’s certain! But
what was most amusing,” he continued, with a
sudden, good-natured laugh, “was that we could
not think how to address the reply! If not as
‘Consul’ and of course not as ‘Emperor,’
it seemed to me it should be to ‘General Bonaparte.’”
“But between not recognizing
him as Emperor and calling him General Bonaparte,
there is a difference,” remarked Bolkonski.
“That’s just it,”
interrupted Dolgorukov quickly, laughing. “You
know Bilibin he’s a very clever fellow.
He suggested addressing him as ‘Usurper and
Enemy of Mankind.’”
Dolgorukov laughed merrily.
“Only that?” said Bolkonski.
“All the same, it was Bilibin
who found a suitable form for the address. He
is a wise and clever fellow.”
“What was it?”
“To the Head of the French Government...
Au chef du gouvernement francais,”
said Dolgorukov, with grave satisfaction. “Good,
wasn’t it?”
“Yes, but he will dislike it extremely,”
said Bolkonski.
“Oh yes, very much! My
brother knows him, he’s dined with him the
present Emperor more than once in Paris,
and tells me he never met a more cunning or subtle
diplomatist you know, a combination of French
adroitness and Italian play-acting! Do you know
the tale about him and Count Markov? Count Markov
was the only man who knew how to handle him.
You know the story of the handkerchief? It is
delightful!”
And the talkative Dolgorukov, turning
now to Boris, now to Prince Andrew, told how Bonaparte
wishing to test Markov, our ambassador, purposely
dropped a handkerchief in front of him and stood looking
at Markov, probably expecting Markov to pick it up
for him, and how Markov immediately dropped his own
beside it and picked it up without touching Bonaparte’s.
“Delightful!” said Bolkonski.
“But I have come to you, Prince, as a petitioner
on behalf of this young man. You see...”
but before Prince Andrew could finish, an aide-de-camp
came in to summon Dolgorukov to the Emperor.
“Oh, what a nuisance,”
said Dolgorukov, getting up hurriedly and pressing
the hands of Prince Andrew and Boris. “You
know I should be very glad to do all in my power both
for you and for this dear young man.” Again
he pressed the hand of the latter with an expression
of good-natured, sincere, and animated levity.
“But you see... another time!”
Boris was excited by the thought of
being so close to the higher powers as he felt himself
to be at that moment. He was conscious that here
he was in contact with the springs that set in motion
the enormous movements of the mass of which in his
regiment he felt himself a tiny, obedient, and insignificant
atom. They followed Prince Dolgorukov out into
the corridor and met coming out of the door
of the Emperor’s room by which Dolgorukov had
entered a short man in civilian clothes
with a clever face and sharply projecting jaw which,
without spoiling his face, gave him a peculiar vivacity
and shiftiness of expression. This short man
nodded to Dolgorukov as to an intimate friend and stared
at Prince Andrew with cool intensity, walking straight
toward him and evidently expecting him to bow or to
step out of his way. Prince Andrew did neither:
a look of animosity appeared on his face and the other
turned away and went down the side of the corridor.
“Who was that?” asked Boris.
“He is one of the most remarkable,
but to me most unpleasant of men the Minister
of Foreign Affairs, Prince Adam Czartoryski....
It is such men as he who decide the fate of nations,”
added Bolkonski with a sigh he could not suppress,
as they passed out of the palace.
Next day, the army began its campaign,
and up to the very battle of Austerlitz, Boris was
unable to see either Prince Andrew or Dolgorukov again
and remained for a while with the Ismaylov regiment.