War and Peace

ilíbin was now at army headquarters in a diplomatic capacity, and
though he wrote in French and used French jests and French idioms,
he described the whole campaign with a fearless self-censure and
self-derision genuinely Russian. Bilíbin wrote that the obligation of
diplomatic discretion tormented him, and he was happy to have in Prince
Andrew a reliable correspondent to whom he could pour out the bile he
had accumulated at the sight of all that was being done in the army.
The letter was old, having been written before the battle at
Preussisch-Eylau.

“Since the day of our brilliant success at Austerlitz,” wrote
Bilíbin, “as you know, my dear prince, I never leave headquarters. I
have certainly acquired a taste for war, and it is just as well for me;
what I have seen during these last three months is incredible.

“I begin ab ovo. ‘The enemy of the human race,’ as you know,
attacks the Prussians. The Prussians are our faithful allies who have
only betrayed us three times in three years. We take up their cause, but
it turns out that ‘the enemy of the human race’ pays no heed to
our fine speeches and in his rude and savage way throws himself on the
Prussians without giving them time to finish the parade they had begun,
and in two twists of the hand he breaks them to smithereens and installs
himself in the palace at Potsdam.

“‘I most ardently desire,’ writes the King of Prussia to
Bonaparte, ‘that Your Majesty should be received and treated in my
palace in a manner agreeable to yourself, and in so far as circumstances
allowed, I have hastened to take all steps to that end. May I have
succeeded!’ The Prussian generals pride themselves on being polite to
the French and lay down their arms at the first demand.

“The head of the garrison at Glogau, with ten thousand men, asks the
King of Prussia what he is to do if he is summoned to surrender.... All
this is absolutely true.

“In short, hoping to settle matters by taking up a warlike attitude,
it turns out that we have landed ourselves in war, and what is more,
in war on our own frontiers, with and for the King of Prussia. We have
everything in perfect order, only one little thing is lacking, namely,
a commander in chief. As it was considered that the Austerlitz success
might have been more decisive had the commander in chief not been so
young, all our octogenarians were reviewed, and of Prozoróvski
and Kámenski the latter was preferred. The general comes to us,
Suvórov-like, in a kibítka, and is received with acclamations of joy
and triumph.

“On the 4th, the first courier arrives from Petersburg. The mails
are taken to the field marshal’s room, for he likes to do everything
himself. I am called in to help sort the letters and take those meant
for us. The field marshal looks on and waits for letters addressed
to him. We search, but none are to be found. The field marshal grows
impatient and sets to work himself and finds letters from the Emperor
to Count T., Prince V., and others. Then he bursts into one of his wild
furies and rages at everyone and everything, seizes the letters, opens
them, and reads those from the Emperor addressed to others. ‘Ah! So
that’s the way they treat me! No confidence in me! Ah, ordered to keep
an eye on me! Very well then! Get along with you!’ So he writes the
famous order of the day to General Bennigsen:

“‘I am wounded and cannot ride and consequently cannot command the
army. You have brought your army corps to Pultúsk, routed: here it is
exposed, and without fuel or forage, so something must be done, and, as
you yourself reported to Count Buxhöwden yesterday, you must think of
retreating to our frontier—which do today.’

“‘From all my riding,’ he writes to the Emperor, ‘I have got a
saddle sore which, coming after all my previous journeys, quite prevents
my riding and commanding so vast an army, so I have passed on the
command to the general next in seniority, Count Buxhöwden, having sent
him my whole staff and all that belongs to it, advising him if there is
a lack of bread, to move farther into the interior of Prussia, for only
one day’s ration of bread remains, and in some regiments none at all,
as reported by the division commanders, Ostermann and Sedmorétzki, and
all that the peasants had has been eaten up. I myself will remain in
hospital at Ostrolenka till I recover. In regard to which I humbly
submit my report, with the information that if the army remains in its
present bivouac another fortnight there will not be a healthy man left
in it by spring.

“‘Grant leave to retire to his country seat to an old man who is
already in any case dishonored by being unable to fulfill the great and
glorious task for which he was chosen. I shall await your most gracious
permission here in hospital, that I may not have to play the part of a
secretary rather than commander in the army. My removal from the army
does not produce the slightest stir—a blind man has left it. There are
thousands such as I in Russia.’

“The field marshal is angry with the Emperor and he punishes us all,
isn’t it logical?

“This is the first act. Those that follow are naturally increasingly
interesting and entertaining. After the field marshal’s departure
it appears that we are within sight of the enemy and must give battle.
Buxhöwden is commander in chief by seniority, but General Bennigsen
does not quite see it; more particularly as it is he and his corps who
are within sight of the enemy and he wishes to profit by the opportunity
to fight a battle ‘on his own hand’ as the Germans say. He does so.
This is the battle of Pultúsk, which is considered a great victory but
in my opinion was nothing of the kind. We civilians, as you know, have
a very bad way of deciding whether a battle was won or lost. Those who
retreat after a battle have lost it is what we say; and according to
that it is we who lost the battle of Pultúsk. In short, we retreat
after the battle but send a courier to Petersburg with news of a
victory, and General Bennigsen, hoping to receive from Petersburg the
post of commander in chief as a reward for his victory, does not give up
the command of the army to General Buxhöwden. During this interregnum
we begin a very original and interesting series of maneuvers. Our aim is
no longer, as it should be, to avoid or attack the enemy, but solely to
avoid General Buxhöwden who by right of seniority should be our chief.
So energetically do we pursue this aim that after crossing an unfordable
river we burn the bridges to separate ourselves from our enemy, who at
the moment is not Bonaparte but Buxhöwden. General Buxhöwden was all
but attacked and captured by a superior enemy force as a result of one
of these maneuvers that enabled us to escape him. Buxhöwden pursues
us—we scuttle. He hardly crosses the river to our side before we
recross to the other. At last our enemy, Buxhöwden, catches us and
attacks. Both generals are angry, and the result is a challenge on
Buxhöwden’s part and an epileptic fit on Bennigsen’s. But at the
critical moment the courier who carried the news of our victory at
Pultúsk to Petersburg returns bringing our appointment as commander in
chief, and our first foe, Buxhöwden, is vanquished; we can now turn
our thoughts to the second, Bonaparte. But as it turns out, just at
that moment a third enemy rises before us—namely the Orthodox Russian
soldiers, loudly demanding bread, meat, biscuits, fodder, and whatnot!
The stores are empty, the roads impassable. The Orthodox begin looting,
and in a way of which our last campaign can give you no idea. Half the
regiments form bands and scour the countryside and put everything
to fire and sword. The inhabitants are totally ruined, the hospitals
overflow with sick, and famine is everywhere. Twice the marauders even
attack our headquarters, and the commander in chief has to ask for a
battalion to disperse them. During one of these attacks they carried off
my empty portmanteau and my dressing gown. The Emperor proposes to give
all commanders of divisions the right to shoot marauders, but I much
fear this will oblige one half the army to shoot the other.”

At first Prince Andrew read with his eyes only, but after a while,
in spite of himself (although he knew how far it was safe to trust
Bilíbin), what he had read began to interest him more and more. When he
had read thus far, he crumpled the letter up and threw it away. It was
not what he had read that vexed him, but the fact that the life out
there in which he had now no part could perturb him. He shut his eyes,
rubbed his forehead as if to rid himself of all interest in what he
had read, and listened to what was passing in the nursery. Suddenly he
thought he heard a strange noise through the door. He was seized with
alarm lest something should have happened to the child while he was
reading the letter. He went on tiptoe to the nursery door and opened it.

Just as he went in he saw that the nurse was hiding something from him
with a scared look and that Princess Mary was no longer by the cot.

“My dear,” he heard what seemed to him her despairing whisper behind
him.

As often happens after long sleeplessness and long anxiety, he was
seized by an unreasoning panic—it occurred to him that the child was
dead. All that he saw and heard seemed to confirm this terror.

“All is over,” he thought, and a cold sweat broke out on his
forehead. He went to the cot in confusion, sure that he would find it
empty and that the nurse had been hiding the dead baby. He drew the
curtain aside and for some time his frightened, restless eyes could not
find the baby. At last he saw him: the rosy boy had tossed about till he
lay across the bed with his head lower than the pillow, and was smacking
his lips in his sleep and breathing evenly.

Prince Andrew was as glad to find the boy like that, as if he had
already lost him. He bent over him and, as his sister had taught him,
tried with his lips whether the child was still feverish. The soft
forehead was moist. Prince Andrew touched the head with his hand; even
the hair was wet, so profusely had the child perspired. He was not dead,
but evidently the crisis was over and he was convalescent. Prince Andrew
longed to snatch up, to squeeze, to hold to his heart, this helpless
little creature, but dared not do so. He stood over him, gazing at his
head and at the little arms and legs which showed under the blanket. He
heard a rustle behind him and a shadow appeared under the curtain of
the cot. He did not look round, but still gazing at the infant’s face
listened to his regular breathing. The dark shadow was Princess Mary,
who had come up to the cot with noiseless steps, lifted the curtain,
and dropped it again behind her. Prince Andrew recognized her without
looking and held out his hand to her. She pressed it.

“He has perspired,” said Prince Andrew.

“I was coming to tell you so.”

The child moved slightly in his sleep, smiled, and rubbed his forehead
against the pillow.

Prince Andrew looked at his sister. In the dim shadow of the curtain her
luminous eyes shone more brightly than usual from the tears of joy that
were in them. She leaned over to her brother and kissed him, slightly
catching the curtain of the cot. Each made the other a warning gesture
and stood still in the dim light beneath the curtain as if not wishing
to leave that seclusion where they three were shut off from all the
world. Prince Andrew was the first to move away, ruffling his hair
against the muslin of the curtain.

“Yes, this is the one thing left me now,” he said with a sigh.