《War And Peace》Book9 CHAPTER III

《War And Peace》　Book9 　CHAPTER III
　　　　by Leo Tolstoy

THE RUSSIAN EMPEROR had meanwhile been spending more than a month in Vilna,
holding reviews and inspecting manœuvres. Nothing was in readiness for the war,
which all were expecting, though it was to prepare for it that the Tsar had come
from Petersburg. There was no general plan of action. The vacillation between
all the plans that were proposed and the inability to fix on any one of them,
was more marked than ever after the Tsar had been for a month at headquarters.
There was a separate commander-in-chief at the head of each of the three armies;
but there was no commander with authority over all of them, and the Tsar did not
undertake the duties of such a commander-in-chief himself.

The longer the Tsar stayed at Vilna, the less ready was the Russian army for
the war, which it had grown weary of expecting. Every effort of the men who
surrounded the Tsar seemed to be devoted to making their sovereign spend his
time pleasantly and forget the impending war.

Many balls and fêtes were given by the Polish magnates, by members of the
court, and by the Tsar himself; and in the month of June it occurred to one of
the Polish generals attached to the Tsar's staff that all the generals on the
staff should give a dinner and a ball to the Tsar. The suggestion was eagerly
taken up. The Tsar gave his consent. The generals on the staff subscribed the
necessary funds. The lady who was most likely to please the Tsar's taste was
selected as hostess for the ball. Count Bennigsen, who had land in the Vilna
province, offered his house in the outskirts for this fête, and the 13th of June
was the day fixed for a ball, a dinner, with a regatta and fireworks at Zakreta,
Count Bennigsen's suburban house.

On the very day on which Napoleon gave the order to cross the Niemen, and the
vanguard of his army crossed the Russian frontier, driving back the Cossacks,
Alexander was at the ball given by the generals on his staff at Count
Bennigsen's house.

It was a brilliant and festive entertainment. Connoisseurs declared that
rarely had so many beauties been gathered together at one place. Countess
Bezuhov, who had been among the Russian ladies who had followed the Tsar from
Petersburg to Vilna, was at that ball, her heavy, Russian style of beauty—as it
is called—overshadowing the more refined Polish ladies. She was much noticed,
and the Tsar had deigned to bestow a dance upon her.

Boris Drubetskoy, who had left his wife at Moscow, and was living “en
garçon,” as he said, at Vilna, was also at that ball; and although he was
not a general on the staff, he had subscribed a large sum to the ball. Boris was
now a wealthy man who had risen to high honours. He no longer sought patronage,
but was on an equal footing with the most distinguished men of his age. At Vilna
he met Ellen, whom he had not seen for a long while. As Ellen was enjoying the
good graces of a very important personage indeed, and Boris had so recently been
married, they made no allusion to the past, but met as good-natured, old
friends.

At midnight dancing was still going on. Ellen happening to have no suitable
partner had herself proposed a mazurka to Boris. They were the third couple.
Boris was looking coldly at Ellen's splendid bare shoulders, which rose out of
her dress of dark gauze and gold, and was talking to her of old acquaintances,
and yet though others and himself too were unaware of it, he never for a second
ceased observing the Tsar who was in the same room. The Tsar was not dancing; he
was standing in the doorway, stopping one person after the other with the
gracious words he alone knew how to utter.

At the beginning of the mazurka, Boris saw that a general of the staff,
Balashov, one of the persons in closest attendance on the Tsar, went up to him,
and, regardless of court etiquette, stopped close to him, while he conversed
with a Polish lady. After saying a few words to the lady, the Tsar glanced
inquiringly at Balashov, and apparently seeing that he was behaving like this
only because he had weighty reasons for doing so, he gave the lady a slight nod
and turned to Balashov. The Tsar's countenance betrayed amazement, as soon as
Balashov had begun to speak. He took Balashov's arm and walked across the room
with him, unconsciously clearing a space of three yards on each side of him as
people hastily drew back. Boris noticed the excited face of Araktcheev as the
Tsar walked up the room with Balashov. Araktcheev, looking from under his brows
at the Tsar, and sniffing with his red nose, moved forward out of the crowd as
though expecting the Tsar to apply to him. (Boris saw that Araktcheev envied
Balashov and was displeased at any important news having reached the Tsar not
through him.) But the Tsar and Balashov walked out by the door into the lighted
garden, without noticing Araktcheev. Araktcheev, holding his sword and looking
wrathfully about him, followed twenty paces behind them.

Boris went on performing the figures of the mazurka, but he was all the while
fretted by wondering what the news could be that Balashov had brought, and in
what way he could find it out before other people. In the figure in which he had
to choose a lady, he whispered to Ellen that he wanted to choose Countess
Pototsky, who had, he thought, gone out on to the balcony, and gliding over the
parquet, he flew to the door that opened into the garden, and seeing the Tsar
and Balashov coming into the verandah, he stood still there. The Tsar and
Balashov moved towards the door. Boris, with a show of haste, as though he had
not time to move away, squeezed respectfully up to the doorpost and bowed his
head. The Tsar in the tone of a man resenting a personal insult was
saying:

“To enter Russia with no declaration of war! I will consent to conciliation
only when not a single enemy under arms is left in my country,” he said.

It seemed to Boris that the Tsar liked uttering these words: he was pleased
with the form in which he had expressed his feelings, but displeased at Boris
overhearing them.

“Let nobody know of it!” the Tsar added, frowning.

Boris saw that this was aimed at him, and closing his eyes, inclined his head
a little. The Tsar went back to the ballroom, and remained there another half
hour.

Boris was the first person to learn the news that the French troops had
crossed the Niemen; and, thanks to that fact, was enabled to prove to various
persons of GREat consequence, that much that was hidden from others was commonly
known to him, and was thereby enabled to rise even higher than before in the
opinion of those persons.

The astounding news of the French having crossed the Niemen seemed
particularly unexpected from coming after a month's uninterrupted expectation of
it, and arriving at a ball! At the first moment of amazement and resentment on
getting the news, Alexander hit on the declaration that has since become
famous—a declaration which pleased him and fully expressed his feelings. On
returning home after the ball at two o'clock in the night, the Tsar sent for his
secretary, Shishkov, and told him to write a decree to the army and a rescript
to Field-Marshal Prince Saltykov; and he insisted on the words being inserted
that he would never make peace as long as one Frenchman under arms remained in
Russia.

The next day the following letter was written to Napoleon: