ROSTOV had arrived at Tilsit on the day least suitable for interceding in Denisov’s behalf. It was out of the question skechers shoes for him to go himself to the general in attendance, since he was wearing civilian dress, and had come to Tilsit without permission to do so, and Boris, even had he been willing, could not have done so on the day following Rostov’s arrival. On that day, the 27th of June, the preliminaries of peace were signed. The Emperors exchanged orders: Alexander received the Legion of Honour, and Napoleon the Order of St. Andrey of the first degree, and that day had been fixed for the dinner to be given by a battalion of French guards to the Preobrazhensky battalion. The Emperors were to be present at this banquet. Rostov felt so uncomfortable and ill at ease with Boris, that when the latter peeped in at him after supper he pretended to be asleep, and the next day he left early in the morning to avoid seeing him. In a frock coat and round hat, Nikolay strolled about the town, staring at the French and their uniforms, examining the streets and the houses where the Russian and the French Emperors were staying. In the market-place he saw tables set out and preparations for the banquet; in the streets he saw draperies hung across with flags of the Russian and French colours, and huge monograms of A and N. In the windows of the houses, too, there were flags and monograms.
“Boris doesn’t care to help me, and I don’t care to apply to him. That question’s closed,” thought Nikolay; “everything’s over between us, but I’m not going away from here without having done all I can for Denisov, and, above all, getting the letter given to the Emperor. To the Emperor? … He is here!” thought Rostov, who had unconsciously gone back to the house occupied by Alexander.
Saddle horses were standing at the entrance, and the suite were riding up, evidently getting ready for the Emperor to come out.
“Any minute I may see him,” thought Rostov. “If only I could give him the letter directly, and tell him all … could they really arrest me for my frock coat? Impossible. He would understand on which side the truth lay. He understands everything, he knows everything. Who can be juster and more magnanimous than he? Besides, even if they were to arrest me for being here, what would it matter?” he thought, looking at an officer who was going into the house. “Why, people go in, I see. Oh! it’s all nonsense. I’ll go and give the letter to the Emperor myself; so much the worse for Drubetskoy who has driven me to it.” And all at once, with a decision he would never have expected of himself, Rostov, fingering the letter in his pocket, went straight into the house where the Emperor was staying.
“No, this time I won’t miss my opportunity as I did after Austerlitz,” he thought, expecting every minute to meet the Emperor, and feeling a rush of blood to the heart at the idea. “I will fall at his feet and will beseech him. He will lift me up, hear me out, and thank me too. ‘I am happy when I can do good, but to cancel injustice is the greatest happiness,’ ” Rostov fancied the Emperor would say to him. And he passed up the stairs regardless of the inquisitive eyes that were turned upon him. The broad staircase led straight upwards from the entry; on the right was a closed door. Below, under the stairs, was a door to the rooms on the ground floor.
“Whom are you looking for?” some one asked him.
“To give a letter, a petition, to his majesty,” said Nikolay, with a quiver in his voice.
“A petition—to the officer on duty, this way; please” (he was motioned to the door below). “Only it won’t receive attention.”
Hearing this indifferent voice, Rostov felt panic-stricken at what he was doing; the idea that he might meet the Emperor at any minute was so fascinating and consequently so terrible, that he was ready to fly; but an attendant meeting him opened the door to the officer’s room for him, and Rostov went in.
A short, stout man of about thirty in white breeches, high boots, and in a batiste shirt, apparently only just put on, was standing in this room. A valet was buttoning behind him some fine-looking, new, silk-embroidered braces, which for some reason attracted Rostov’s notice. The stout man was conversing with some one in the adjoining room.
“A good figure and in her first bloom,” he was saying, but seeing Rostov he broke off and frowned.
“What do you want? A petition? …”
“What is it?” asked some one in the next room.
“Another petition,” answered the man in the braces.
“Tell him to come later. He’ll be coming out directly; we must go.”
“Later, later, to-morrow. It’s too late.…”
Rostov turned away and would have gone out, but the man in the braces stopped him.
“From whom is it? Who are you?”
“From Major Denisov,” answered Rostov.
“Who are you—an officer?”
“A lieutenant, Count Rostov.”
“What audacity! Send it through the proper channel. And go along with you, go.…” And he began putting on the uniform the valet handed him.
Rostov went out into the hall again, and noticed that by this time there were a great many officers and generals in full dress, and he had to pass through their midst.
Cursing his temerity, ready to faint at the thought that he might any minute meet the Emperor and be put to shame before him and placed under arrest, fully aware by now of all the indecorum of his action, and regretting it, Rostov was making his way out of the house with downcast eyes, through the crowd of the gorgeously dressed suite, when a familiar voice called to him, and a hand detained him.
“Well, sir, what are you doing here in a frock coat?” asked the bass voice.
It was a cavalry general who had won the Emperor’s special favour during this campaign, and had formerly been in command of the division in which Rostov was serving.
Rostov began in dismay to try and excuse himself, but seeing the good-naturedly jocose face of the general, he moved on one side, and in an excited voice told him of the whole affair, begging him to intercede for Denisov, whom the general knew.
The general on hearing Rostov’s story shook his head gravely. “I’m sorry, very sorry for the gallant fellow; give me the letter.”
Rostov had scarcely time to give him the letter and tell him all about Denisov’s scrape, when the clank of rapid footsteps with spurs was heard on the stairs, and the general left his side and moved up to the steps. The gentlemen of the Emperor’s suite ran downstairs and went to their horses. The postillion, the same one who had been at Austerlitz, led up the Emperor’s horse, and on the stairs was heard a light footstep which Rostov knew at once. Forgetting the danger of being recognised, Rostov moved right up to the steps together with some curious persons from the town; and again after two years he saw the features he adored: the same face, the same glance, the same walk, the same combination of majesty and mildness.… And the feeling of enthusiasm and devotion to the Emperor rose up again in Rostov’s heart with all its old force. The Emperor wore the uniform of the Preobrazhensky regiment, white elk-skin breeches and high boots, and a star which Rostov did not recognise (it was the star of the Legion of Honour). He came out on the steps, holding his hat under his arm, and putting on his glove. He stopped, looking round and seeming to shed brightness around him with his glance. To some one of the generals he said a few words. He recognised, too, the former commander of Rostov’s division, smiled to him, and summoned him to him.
All the suite stood back, and Rostov saw the general talking at some length to the Emperor.
The Emperor said a few words to him, and took a step towards his horse. Again the crowd of the suite and the street gazers, among whom was Rostov, moved up closer to the Emperor. Standing still with his hand on the saddle, the Emperor turned to the cavalry general and said aloud with the obvious intention of being heard by all: “I cannot, general, and I cannot because the law is mightier than I am,” and he put his foot in the stirrup. The general bent his head respectfully; the Emperor took his seat and galloped up the street. Rostov, wild with enthusiasm, ran after him with the crowd. IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE towards which the Tsar rode there stood, facing each other, the battalion of the Preobrazhensky regiment on the right, and the battalion of the French guards in bearskin caps on the left.
While the Emperor was riding up to one flank of the battalions, who presented arms, another crowd of horsemen was galloping up to the opposite flank, and at the head of them Rostov recognised Napoleon. That figure could be no one else. He galloped up, wearing a little hat, the ribbon of St. Andrey across his shoulder, and a blue uniform open over a white vest. He was riding a grey Arab horse of extremely fine breed, with a crimson, gold-embroidered saddle-cloth. Riding up to Alexander, he raised his hat, and at that moment Rostov, with his cavalryman’s eye, could not help noticing that Napoleon had a bad and uncertain seat on horseback. The battalions shouted hurrah, and vive l’Empereur! Napoleon said something to Alexander. Both Emperors dismounted from their horses and took each other by the hands. Napoleon’s face wore an unpleasantly hypocritical smile. Alexander was saying something to him with a cordial expression.
In spite of the kicking of the horses of the French gendarmes, who were keeping back the crowd, Rostov watched every movement of the Emperor Alexander and of Bonaparte, and never took his eyes off them. What struck him as something unexpected and strange was that Alexander behaved as though Bonaparte were his equal,skechers mens and that Bonaparte in his manner to the Russian Tsar seemed perfectly at ease, as though this equal and intimate relation with a monarch were something natural and customary with him.
Alexander and Napoleon, with a long tail of suite, moved towards the right flank of the Preobrazhensky battalion, close up to the crowd which was standing there. The crowd found itself unexpectedly so close to the Emperors, that Rostov, who stood in the front part of it, began to be afraid he might be recognised.
“Sire, I ask your permission to give the Legion of Honour to the bravest of your soldiers,” said a harsh, precise voice, fully articulating every letter.
It was little Bonaparte speaking, looking up straight into Alexander’s eyes. Alexander listened attentively to what was said to him, and bending his head smiled amiably.
“To him who bore himself most valiantly in this last war,” added Napoleon, emphasising each syllable, and with an assurance and composure, revolting to Rostov, scanning the rows of Russian soldiers drawn up before him, all presenting arms, and all gazing immovably at the face of their own Emperor.
“Will your majesty allow me to ask the opinion of the colonel?” said Alexander, and he took a few hurried steps towards Prince Kozlovsky, the commander of the battalion. Bonaparte was meanwhile taking the glove off his little white hand, and, tearing it, he threw it away. An adjutant, rushing hurriedly forward from behind, picked it up. “Give it to whom?” the Emperor Alexander asked of Kozlovsky in Russian, in a low voice.
“As your majesty commands.”
The Emperor frowned, with a look of displeasure, and, looking round, said: “Well, we must give him an answer.”
Kozlovsky scanned the ranks with a resolute air, taking in Rostov too, in that glance.
“Won’t it be me!” thought Rostov.
“Lazarev!” the colonel called with a scowling face; and Lazarev, the soldier who was the best shot in firing at the range, stepped smartly forward.
“Where are you off to? Stand still!” voices whispered to Lazarev, who did not know where he was to go. Lazarev stopped short, with a sidelong scared look at his colonel, and his face quivered, as one so often sees in soldiers called up in front of the ranks.
Napoleon gave a slight backward turn of his head, and a slight motion of his little fat hand, as though seeking something with it. The members of his suite, who guessed the same second what was wanted, were all in a bustle; they whispered together, passing something from one to another, and a page—the same one Rostov had seen the previous evening at Boris’s quarters—ran forward, and respectfully bowing over the outstretched hand and not keeping it one instant waiting, put in it an order on a red ribbon. Napoleon, without looking at it, pressed two fingers together; the order was between them. Napoleon approached Lazarev, who stood rolling his eyes, and still gazing obstinately at his own Emperor only. Napoleon looked round at the Emperor Alexander, as though to show that what he was doing now he was doing for the sake of his ally. The little white hand, with the order in it, just touched the button of the soldier Lazarev. It was as though Napoleon knew that it was enough for his, Napoleon’s, hand to deign to touch the soldier’s breast, for that soldier to be happy, rewarded, and distinguished from every one in the world. Napoleon merely laid the cross on Lazarev’s breast, and, dropping his hand, turned to Alexander, as though he knew that cross would be sure to stick on Lazarev’s breast. The cross did, in fact, stick on.
Officious hands, Russian and French, were instantaneously ready to support it, to fasten it to his uniform.
Lazarev looked darkly at the little man with white hands who was doing something to him, and still standing rigidly, presenting arms, he looked again straight into Alexander’s face, as though he were asking him: “Was he to go on standing there, or was it his pleasure for him to go now, or perhaps to do something else?” But no order was given him, and he remained for a good while still in the same rigid position.
The Emperors mounted their horses and rode away. The Preobrazhensky battalion broke up, and, mingling with the French guards, sat down to the tables prepared for them.
Lazarev was put in the place of honour. French and Russian officers embraced him, congratulated him, and shook hands with him. Crowds of officers and common people flocked up simply to look at Lazarev. There was a continual hum of laughter and French and Russian chatter round the tables in the square. Two officers with flushed faces passed by Rostov, looking cheerful and happy.
“What do you say to the banquet, my boy? All served on silver,” one was saying. “Seen Lazarev?”
“Yes.”
“They say the Preobrazhenskies are to give them a dinner tomorrow.”
“I say, what luck for Lazarev! Twelve hundred francs pension for life.”
“Here’s a cap, lads!” cried a Preobrazhensky soldier, putting on a French soldier’s fur cap.
“It’s awfully nice, first-rate!”
“Have you heard the watchword?” said an officer of the guards to another. “The day before yesterday it was ‘Napoléon, France, bravoure’; to-day it’s ‘Alexandre, Russie, grandeur.” One day our Emperor gives it, and next day Napoleon. To-morrow the Emperor is to send the St. George to the bravest of the French guards. Can’t be helped! Must respond in the same way.”
Boris, with his comrade Zhilinsky, had come too to look at the banquet. On his way back Boris noticed Rostov, who was standing at the corner of a house. “Rostov! good day; we haven’t seen each other,” he said, and could not refrain from asking him what was the matter, so strangely gloomy and troubled was the face of Rostov.
“Nothing, nothing,” answered Rostov.
“Are you coming in?”
“Yes.”
Rostov stood a long while in the corner, looking at the fête from a distance. His brain was seething in an agonising confusion, which he could not work out to any conclusion. Horrible doubts were stirring in his soul. He thought of Denisov with his changed expression, his submission, and all the hospital with torn-off legs and arms, with the filth and disease. So vividly he recalled that hospital smell of corpse that he looked round to ascertain where the stench came from. Then he thought of that self-satisfied Bonaparte, with his white hands—treated now with cordiality and respect by the Emperor Alexander. For what, then, had those legs and arms been torn off, those men been killed? Then he thought of Lazarev rewarded, and Denisov punished and unpardoned. He caught himself in such strange reflections that he was terrified at them.
Hunger and the savoury smell of the Preobrazhensky dinner roused him from this mood; he must get something to eat before going away. He went to an hotel which he had seen in the morning. In the hotel he found such a crowd of people, and of officers who had come, as he had, in civilian dress, that he had difficulty in getting dinner. Two officers of his own division joined him at table. The conversation naturally turned on the peace. The two officers, Rostov’s comrades, like the greater part of the army, were not satisfied with the peace concluded after Friedland. They said that had they kept on a little longer it would have meant Napoleon’s downfall; that his troops had neither provisions nor ammunition. Nikolay ate in silence and drank heavily. He finished two bottles of wine by himself. The inward ferment working within him still fretted him, and found no solution. He dreaded giving himself up to his thoughts, and could not get away from them. All of a sudden, on one of the officers saying that it was humiliating to look at the French, Rostov began shouting with a violence that was quite unprovoked, and consequently greatly astounded the officers.
“And how can you judge what would be best!” he shouted, with his face suddenly suffused with a rush of blood. “How can you judge of the action of the Emperor? What right have we to criticise him? We cannot comprehend the aims or the actions of the Emperor!”
“But I didn’t say a word about the Emperor,” the officer said in justification of himself, unable to put any other interpretation on Rostov’s violence than that he was drunk.
But Rostov did not heed him.
“We are not diplomatic clerks, we are soldiers, and nothing more,” he went on. “Command us to die—then we die. And if we are punished, it follows we’re in fault; it’s not for us to judge. If it’s his majesty the Emperor’s pleasure to recognise Bonaparte as emperor, and to conclude an alliance with him, then it must be the right thing. If we were once to begin criticising and reasoning about everything, nothing would be left holy to us. In that way we shall be saying there is no God, nothing,” cried Nikolay, bringing his fist down on the table. His remarks seemed utterly irrelevant to his companions, but followed quite consistently from the train of his own ideas. “It’s our business to do our duty, to hack them to pieces, and not to think; skechers mens shoes that’s all about it,” he shouted.
“And to drink,” put in one of the officers, who had no desire to quarrel.
“Yes, and to drink,” assented Nikolay. “Hi, you there! Another bottle!” he roared