CHAPTER XIX

Having returned to the regiment and told the commander the state of
Denísov’s affairs, Rostóv rode to Tilsit with the letter to the Emperor.

On the thirteenth of June the French and Russian Emperors arrived in
Tilsit. Borís Drubetskóy had asked the important personage on whom he was
in attendance, to include him in the suite appointed for the stay at
Tilsit.

“I should like to see the great man,” he said, alluding to Napoleon, whom
hitherto he, like everyone else, had always called Buonaparte.

“You are speaking of Buonaparte?” asked the general, smiling.

Borís looked at his general inquiringly and immediately saw that he was
being tested.

“I am speaking, Prince, of the Emperor Napoleon,” he replied. The general
patted him on the shoulder, with a smile.

“You will go far,” he said, and took him to Tilsit with him.

Borís was among the few present at the Niemen on the day the two Emperors
met. He saw the raft, decorated with monograms, saw Napoleon pass before
the French Guards on the farther bank of the river, saw the pensive face
of the Emperor Alexander as he sat in silence in a tavern on the bank of
the Niemen awaiting Napoleon’s arrival, saw both Emperors get into boats,
and saw how Napoleon—reaching the raft first—stepped quickly
forward to meet Alexander and held out his hand to him, and how they both
retired into the pavilion. Since he had begun to move in the highest
circles Borís had made it his habit to watch attentively all that went on
around him and to note it down. At the time of the meeting at Tilsit he
asked the names of those who had come with Napoleon and about the uniforms
they wore, and listened attentively to words spoken by important
personages. At the moment the Emperors went into the pavilion he looked at
his watch, and did not forget to look at it again when Alexander came out.
The interview had lasted an hour and fifty-three minutes. He noted this
down that same evening, among other facts he felt to be of historic
importance. As the Emperor’s suite was a very small one, it was a matter
of great importance, for a man who valued his success in the service, to
be at Tilsit on the occasion of this interview between the two Emperors,
and having succeeded in this, Borís felt that henceforth his position was
fully assured. He had not only become known, but people had grown
accustomed to him and accepted him. Twice he had executed commissions to
the Emperor himself, so that the latter knew his face, and all those at
court, far from cold-shouldering him as at first when they considered him
a newcomer, would now have been surprised had he been absent.

Borís lodged with another adjutant, the Polish Count Zhilínski. Zhilínski,
a Pole brought up in Paris, was rich, and passionately fond of the French,
and almost every day of the stay at Tilsit, French officers of the Guard
and from French headquarters were dining and lunching with him and Borís.

On the evening of the twenty-fourth of June, Count Zhilínski arranged a
supper for his French friends. The guest of honor was an aide-de-camp of
Napoleon’s, there were also several French officers of the Guard, and a
page of Napoleon’s, a young lad of an old aristocratic French family. That
same day, Rostóv, profiting by the darkness to avoid being recognized in
civilian dress, came to Tilsit and went to the lodging occupied by Borís
and Zhilínski.

Rostóv, in common with the whole army from which he came, was far from
having experienced the change of feeling toward Napoleon and the French—who
from being foes had suddenly become friends—that had taken place at
headquarters and in Borís. In the army, Bonaparte and the French were
still regarded with mingled feelings of anger, contempt, and fear. Only
recently, talking with one of Plátov’s Cossack officers, Rostóv had argued
that if Napoleon were taken prisoner he would be treated not as a
sovereign, but as a criminal. Quite lately, happening to meet a wounded
French colonel on the road, Rostóv had maintained with heat that peace was
impossible between a legitimate sovereign and the criminal Bonaparte.
Rostóv was therefore unpleasantly struck by the presence of French
officers in Borís’ lodging, dressed in uniforms he had been accustomed to
see from quite a different point of view from the outposts of the flank.
As soon as he noticed a French officer, who thrust his head out of the
door, that warlike feeling of hostility which he always experienced at the
sight of the enemy suddenly seized him. He stopped at the threshold and
asked in Russian whether Drubetskóy lived there. Borís, hearing a strange
voice in the anteroom, came out to meet him. An expression of annoyance
showed itself for a moment on his face on first recognizing Rostóv.

“Ah, it’s you? Very glad, very glad to see you,” he said, however, coming
toward him with a smile. But Rostóv had noticed his first impulse.

“I’ve come at a bad time I think. I should not have come, but I have
business,” he said coldly.

“No, I only wonder how you managed to get away from your regiment. Dans un
moment je suis à vous,” * he said, answering someone who called him.

* “In a minute I shall be at your disposal.”

“I see I’m intruding,” Rostóv repeated.

The look of annoyance had already disappeared from Borís’ face: having
evidently reflected and decided how to act, he very quietly took both
Rostóv’s hands and led him into the next room. His eyes, looking serenely
and steadily at Rostóv, seemed to be veiled by something, as if screened
by blue spectacles of conventionality. So it seemed to Rostóv.

“Oh, come now! As if you could come at a wrong time!” said Borís, and he
led him into the room where the supper table was laid and introduced him
to his guests, explaining that he was not a civilian, but an hussar
officer, and an old friend of his.

“Count Zhilínski—le Comte N. N.—le Capitaine S.
S.,” said he, naming his guests. Rostóv looked frowningly at the Frenchmen,
bowed reluctantly, and remained silent.

Zhilínski evidently did not receive this new Russian person very willingly
into his circle and did not speak to Rostóv. Borís did not appear to
notice the constraint the newcomer produced and, with the same pleasant
composure and the same veiled look in his eyes with which he had met
Rostóv, tried to enliven the conversation. One of the Frenchmen, with the
politeness characteristic of his countrymen, addressed the obstinately
taciturn Rostóv, saying that the latter had probably come to Tilsit to see
the Emperor.

“No, I came on business,” replied Rostóv, briefly.

Rostóv had been out of humor from the moment he noticed the look of
dissatisfaction on Borís’ face, and as always happens to those in a bad
humor, it seemed to him that everyone regarded him with aversion and that
he was in everybody’s way. He really was in their way, for he alone took
no part in the conversation which again became general. The looks the
visitors cast on him seemed to say: “And what is he sitting here for?” He
rose and went up to Borís.

“Anyhow, I’m in your way,” he said in a low tone. “Come and talk over my
business and I’ll go away.”

“Oh, no, not at all,” said Borís. “But if you are tired, come and lie down
in my room and have a rest.”

“Yes, really…”

They went into the little room where Borís slept. Rostóv, without sitting
down, began at once, irritably (as if Borís were to blame in some way)
telling him about Denísov’s affair, asking him whether, through his
general, he could and would intercede with the Emperor on Denísov’s behalf
and get Denísov’s petition handed in. When he and Borís were alone, Rostóv
felt for the first time that he could not look Borís in the face without a
sense of awkwardness. Borís, with one leg crossed over the other and
stroking his left hand with the slender fingers of his right, listened to
Rostóv as a general listens to the report of a subordinate, now looking
aside and now gazing straight into Rostóv’s eyes with the same veiled
look. Each time this happened Rostóv felt uncomfortable and cast down his
eyes.

“I have heard of such cases and know that His Majesty is very severe in
such affairs. I think it would be best not to bring it before the Emperor,
but to apply to the commander of the corps…. But in general, I think…”

“So you don’t want to do anything? Well then, say so!” Rostóv almost
shouted, not looking Borís in the face.

Borís smiled.

“On the contrary, I will do what I can. Only I thought…”

At that moment Zhilínski’s voice was heard calling Borís.

“Well then, go, go, go…” said Rostóv, and refusing supper and remaining
alone in the little room, he walked up and down for a long time, hearing
the lighthearted French conversation from the next room.