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Volume I, Part Three, Chapter VIII

The day after the review, Boris, having put on his best uniform and accompanied by the wishes of success from his comrade Berg, rode to Olmütz to see Bolkonsky, wishing to take advantage of his goodwill and arrange for himself the best possible position, in particular the position of an adjutant to an important personage, which seemed to him especially attractive in the army. "It is all very well for Rostov, to whom his father sends ten thousand at a time, to talk about how he will not bow to anyone and will not be anyone's lackey; but I, who have nothing but my own head, must make my career and not let opportunities slip, but make use of them."

In Olmütz he did not find Prince Andrei at home that day. But the sight of Olmütz, where the main headquarters and the diplomatic corps were stationed, and where both Emperors lived with their suites of courtiers and intimates, only further strengthened his desire to belong to this exalted world.

He knew no one, and despite his smart Guards uniform, all these exalted individuals, scurrying through the streets in smart carriages, with plumes, ribbons, and orders, courtiers and military men alike, seemed to stand so immeasurably higher than him, a mere Guards subaltern, that they not only did not want to, but could not, acknowledge his existence. In the quarters of the commander-in-chief Kutuzov, where he asked for Bolkonsky, all these adjutants and even the orderlies looked at him as though they wished to impress upon him that a great many officers like him were loitering about here and that they were all very tiresome. Despite this, or rather because of it, the next day, the 15th, he rode to Olmütz again after dinner and, entering the house occupied by Kutuzov, asked for Bolkonsky. Prince Andrei was at home, and Boris was shown into a large hall, in which they had probably formerly danced, but where there now stood five beds and a miscellany of furniture: a table, chairs, and a clavichord. One adjutant, near the door, in a Persian dressing gown, sat at the table and wrote. Another, the stout, red-faced Nesvitsky, lay on a bed with his hands 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 lay on the clavichord and sang along. Bolkonsky was not there. None of these gentlemen, noticing Boris, changed his position. The one who was writing, and to whom Boris applied, turned round in annoyance and told him that Bolkonsky was on duty, and that he should go to the left, through the door into the reception room, if he needed to see him. Boris thanked him and went into the reception room. In the reception room were some ten officers and generals.

At the moment Boris entered, Prince Andrei, with a contemptuous squint (with that peculiar look of polite fatigue which says plainly that, were it not for my duty, I would not talk with you for a minute), was listening to an old Russian general with orders on his breast, who, standing almost on tiptoe at attention, with a soldierly, obsequious expression on his purple face, was reporting something to Prince Andrei.

— Very well, please wait, — he said to the general in Russian, with that French accent which he used when he wished to speak contemptuously, and, noticing Boris, without turning again to the general (who imploringly ran after him, begging him to hear something more), Prince Andrei, with a cheerful smile and a nod, turned to Boris.

At this moment Boris already clearly understood what he had foreseen earlier, namely, that in the army, apart from that subordination and discipline which was written in the regulations, and which they knew in the regiment, and which he knew, there was another, more essential subordination, that which forced this tightly laced general with the purple face to wait respectfully, while Captain Prince Andrei found it more convenient for his own pleasure to talk with Ensign Drubetskoy. More than ever Boris resolved to serve in future not according to that subordination written in the regulations, but according to this unwritten subordination. He felt now that simply because he had been recommended to Prince Andrei, he had at once risen above the general, who in other circumstances, at the front, could have annihilated him, a Guards ensign. Prince Andrei went up to him and took his hand.

— It is a great pity that you did not find me in yesterday. I was busy all day with the Germans. We rode out with Weyrother to check the disposition. When the Germans take up exactitude, there is no end to it!

Boris smiled as if he understood what Prince Andrei was hinting at as something commonly known. But he was hearing the name Weyrother and even the word disposition for the first time.

— Well now, my dear fellow, so you still want to be an adjutant? I have been thinking about you in the meantime.

— Yes, I was thinking, — said Boris, involuntarily blushing for some reason, — of asking the commander-in-chief; there was a letter about me to him from Prince Kuragin; I only wanted to ask, — he added, as if apologizing, — because I am afraid the Guards will not be in the action.

— Good! good! we will talk it all over, — said Prince Andrei, — only let me report on this gentleman, and then I am yours.

While Prince Andrei went to report on the purple-faced general, this general, who evidently did not share Boris's notions about the advantages of the unwritten subordination, fixed his eyes so hard upon the impudent ensign who had prevented him from finishing his conversation with the adjutant, that Boris felt uncomfortable. He turned away and impatiently waited for Prince Andrei to return from the commander-in-chief's office.

— Here is what I was thinking about you, my dear fellow, — said Prince Andrei, when they had gone into the large hall with the clavichord. — It is no use your going to the commander-in-chief, — said Prince Andrei, — he will tell you a heap of pleasantries, ask you to come and dine with him ("that would not be so bad for the service according to that subordination," thought Boris), but nothing more will come of it; there will soon be a battalion of us adjutants and orderlies. But here is what we will 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 absolutely nothing: everything is now centered on the Emperor; so let us go to Dolgorukov, I have to go to him anyway, and I have already spoken to him about you; so we shall see whether he might find it possible to attach you to himself, or somewhere there, closer to the sun.

Prince Andrei always grew particularly animated when he had to guide a young man and help him in worldly success. Under the pretext of this help to another, which he would have been too proud to accept for himself, he kept near that milieu which conferred success and which attracted him to itself. He took up Boris's case very willingly and went with him to Prince Dolgorukov.

It was already late in the evening when they entered the Olmütz palace, occupied by the Emperors and their suites.

On this very day there had been a council of war, in which all the members of the Hofkriegsrath and both Emperors had taken part. At the council, contrary to the opinion of the old men — Kutuzov and Prince Schwarzenberg — it was decided to advance immediately and give Bonaparte a general battle. The council of war had only just ended when Prince Andrei, accompanied by Boris, came to the palace to find Prince Dolgorukov. All the persons at headquarters were still under the spell of today's council of war, which had been victorious for the party of the young men. The voices of the delayers, who advised waiting for something more without advancing, had been so unanimously drowned out and their arguments refuted by such indisputable proofs of the advantages of an advance, that what was discussed at the council — the future battle and, without doubt, the victory — seemed no longer the future, but the past. All the advantages were on our side. Enormous forces, undoubtedly exceeding Napoleon's forces, were massed in one place; the troops were animated by the presence of the Emperors and were eager for action; the strategic point on which they had to act was known down to the minutest details to the Austrian general Weyrother, who was directing the troops (by what seemed a happy accident, the Austrian troops had been on maneuvers the previous year precisely on the fields where they were now to fight the French); the surrounding terrain was known to the minutest details and laid out on maps, and Bonaparte, evidently weakened, was undertaking nothing.

Dolgorukov, one of the most ardent supporters of the advance, had just returned from the council, tired, exhausted, but animated and proud of the victory won. Prince Andrei presented the officer he was patronizing, but Prince Dolgorukov, politely and firmly shaking his hand, said nothing to Boris, and, evidently unable to restrain himself from expressing the thoughts that occupied him most strongly at that moment, addressed Prince Andrei in French.

— Well, my dear fellow, what a battle we have won! God grant only that the one which will be its consequence may be equally victorious. However, my dear fellow, — he said jerkily and animatedly, — I must confess my fault before the Austrians and especially before Weyrother. What exactness, what detail, what knowledge of the terrain, what foresight of all possibilities, of all conditions, of all the minutest details! No, my dear fellow, one could not purposely invent conditions more advantageous than those in which we now find ourselves. A combination of Austrian precision with Russian bravery — what more do you want?

— So the advance is finally decided? — said Bolkonsky.

— And do you know, my dear fellow, it seems to me that Buonaparte has definitely lost his Latin. You know that a letter was received from him today to the Emperor. — Dolgorukov smiled meaningfully.

— Is that so! What does he write? — asked Bolkonsky.

— What can he write? Tralali-tralalera and so on, all simply with the aim of gaining time. I tell you, he is in our hands; it is certain! But what is most amusing of all, — he said, suddenly laughing good-naturedly, — is that they could not for the life of them think how to address the reply to him. If not to the consul, and self-evidently not to the emperor, then to General Buonaparte, as it seemed to me.

— But between not acknowledging him as emperor and calling him General Buonaparte, there is a difference, — said Bolkonsky.

— That is just the point, — Dolgorukov spoke quickly, laughing and interrupting. — You know Bilibin, he is a very clever man, he proposed addressing it: "to the usurper and enemy of the human race."

Dolgorukov laughed merrily.

— Nothing more than that? — observed Bolkonsky.

— But all the same Bilibin found a serious title for the address. He is a witty and clever man...

— What was it?

— To the head of the French government, au chef du gouvernement français, — said Prince Dolgorukov seriously and with pleasure. — Is it not good?

— Good, but it will displease him very much, — observed Bolkonsky.

— Oh, very much! My brother knows him; he has dined with him more than once, with the present emperor, in Paris, and told me that he had never seen a more refined and cunning diplomat: you know, a combination of French adroitness and Italian play-acting! You know his anecdotes with Count Markov? Count Markov alone 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 Andrei, told how Bonaparte, wishing to test Markov, our envoy, purposely dropped a handkerchief before him and stopped, looking at him, expecting, probably, a service from Markov, and how Markov immediately dropped his own handkerchief beside it and picked up his own, without picking up Bonaparte's handkerchief.

— Charmant, — said Bolkonsky, — but look here, Prince, I have come to you as a petitioner for this young man. Do you see...

But Prince Andrei did not have time to finish before an adjutant entered the room, summoning Prince Dolgorukov to the Emperor.

— Ah, what a nuisance! — said Dolgorukov, hastily getting up and shaking the hands of Prince Andrei and Boris. — You know I am very glad to do all that depends on me, both for you and for this dear young man. — He shook Boris's hand once more with an expression of good-natured, sincere, and animated frivolity. — But you see... until another time!

Boris was thrilled by the thought of that proximity to the highest power in which he felt himself at this moment. He was conscious that here he was in contact with those springs which directed all those enormous movements of masses, of which in his regiment he felt himself to be but a small, submissive, and insignificant part. They went out into the corridor following Prince Dolgorukov and met a short man in civilian dress, with a clever face and a sharply protruding jaw, coming out (from that door of the Emperor's room into which Dolgorukov had gone), a feature which, without spoiling him, gave him a peculiar liveliness and resourcefulness of expression. This short man nodded, as to one of his own, to Dolgorukov, and with a fixedly cold gaze began to peer at Prince Andrei, walking straight at him and evidently expecting Prince Andrei to bow to him or make way. Prince Andrei did neither; an expression of malice appeared on his face, and the young man, turning away, walked down the side of the corridor.

— Who is that? — asked Boris.

— This is one of the most remarkable, but to me most unpleasant of men. This is the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prince Adam Czartoryski.

— It is these men, — said Bolkonsky with a sigh that he could not suppress, as they were leaving the palace, — it is these men who decide the fates of nations.

The next day the troops marched out on campaign, and Boris had no time before the battle of Austerlitz to visit either Bolkonsky or Dolgorukov, and remained for the time being in the Izmailovsky regiment.