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The Emperor rode to the square where, facing one another,
a battalion of the Preobrazhensk regiment stood on the right and
a battalion of the French Guards in their bearskin caps on the
left.
As the Tsar rode up to one flank of the battalions, which
presented arms, another group of horsemen galloped up to the opposite
flank, and at the head of them Rostov recognized Napoleon. It
could be no one else. He came at a gallop, wearing a small hat,
a blue uniform open over a white vest, and the St. Andrew ribbon
over his shoulder. He was riding a very fine thoroughbred gray
Arab horse with a crimson gold-embroidered saddlecloth. On approaching
Alexander he raised his hat, and as he did so, Rostov, with his
cavalryman's eye, could not help noticing that Napoleon did not
sit well or firmly in the saddle. The battalions shouted "Hurrah!"
and "Vive l'Empereur!" Napoleon said something to Alexander,
and both Emperors dismounted and took each other's hands. Napoleon's
face wore an unpleasant and artificial smile. Alexander was saying
something affable to him.
In spite of the trampling of the French gendarmes' horses,
which were pushing back the crowd, Rostov kept his eyes on every
movement of Alexander and Bonaparte. It struck him as a surprise
that Alexander treated Bonaparte as an equal and that the latter
was quite at ease with the Tsar, as if such relations with an
Emperor were an everyday matter to him.
Alexander and Napoleon, with the long train of their suites,
approached the right flank of the Preobrazhensk battalion and
came straight up to the crowd standing there. The crowd unexpectedly
found itself so close to the Emperors that Rostov, standing in
the front row, was afraid he might be recognized.
"Sire, I ask your permission to present the Legion of
Honor to the bravest of your soldiers," said a sharp, precise
voice, articulating every letter.
This was said by the undersized Napoleon, looking up straight
into Alexander's eyes. Alexander listened attentively to what
was said to him and, bending his head, smiled pleasantly.
"To him who has borne himself most bravely in this last
war," added Napoleon, accentuating each syllable, as with
a composure and assurance exasperating to Rostov, he ran his eyes
over the Russian ranks drawn up before him, who all presented
arms with their eyes fixed on their Emperor.
"Will Your Majesty allow me to consult the colonel?"
said Alexander and took a few hasty steps toward Prince Kozlovski,
the commander of the battalion.
Bonaparte meanwhile began taking the glove off his small white
hand, tore it in doing so, and threw it away. An aide-de-camp
behind him rushed forward and picked it up.
"To whom shall it be given?" the Emperor Alexander
asked Koslovski, in Russian in a low voice.
"To whomever Your Majesty commands."
The Emperor knit his brows with dissatisfaction and, glancing
back, remarked:
"But we must give him an answer."
Kozlovski scanned the ranks resolutely and included Rostov
in his scrutiny.
"Can it be me?" thought Rostov.
"Lazarev!" the colonel called, with a frown, and
Lazarev, the first soldier in the rank, stepped briskly forward.
"Where are you off to? Stop here!" voices whispered
to Lazarev who did not know where to go. Lazarev stopped, casting
a sidelong look at his colonel in alarm. His face twitched, as
often happens to soldiers called before the ranks.
Napoleon slightly turned his head, and put his plump little
hand out behind him as if to take something. The members of his
suite, guessing at once what he wanted, moved about and whispered
as they passed something from one to another, and a page- the
same one Rostov had seen the previous evening at Boris'- ran forward
and, bowing respectfully over the outstretched hand and not keeping
it waiting a moment, laid in it an Order on a red ribbon. Napoleon,
without looking, pressed two fingers together and the badge was
between them. Then he approached Lazarev (who rolled his eyes
and persistently gazed at his own monarch), looked round at the
Emperor Alexander to imply that what he was now doing was done
for the sake of his ally, and the small white hand holding the
Order touched one of Lazarev's buttons. It was as if Napoleon
knew that it was only necessary for his hand to deign to touch
that soldier's breast for the soldier to be forever happy, rewarded,
and distinguished from everyone else in the world. Napoleon merely
laid the cross on Lazarev's breast and, dropping his hand, turned
toward Alexander as though sure that the cross would adhere there.
And it really did.
Officious hands, Russian and French, immediately seized the
cross and fastened it to the uniform. Lazarev glanced morosely
at the little man with white hands who was doing something to
him and, still standing motionless presenting arms, looked again
straight into Alexander's eyes, as if asking whether he should
stand there, or go away, or do something else. But receiving no
orders, he remained for some time in that rigid position.
The Emperors remounted and rode away. The Preobrazhensk battalion,
breaking rank, mingled with the French Guards and sat down at
the tables prepared for them.
Lazarev sat in the place of honor. Russian and French officers
embraced him, congratulated him, and pressed his hands. Crowds
of officers and civilians drew near merely to see him. A rumble
of Russian and French voices and laughter filled the air round
the tables in the square. Two officers with flushed faces, looking
cheerful and happy, passed by Rostov.
"What d'you think of the treat? All on silver plate,"
one of them was saying. "Have you seen Lazarev?"
"I have."
"Tomorrow, I hear, the Preobrazhenskis will give them
a dinner."
"Yes, but what luck for Lazarev! Twelve hundred francs'
pension for life."
"Here's a cap, lads!" shouted a Preobrazhensk soldier,
donning a shaggy French cap.
"It's a fine thing! First-rate!"
"Have you heard the password?" asked one Guards'
officer of another. "The day before yesterday it was 'Napoleon,
France, bravoure'; yesterday, 'Alexandre, Russie, grandeur.' One
day our Emperor gives it and next day Napoleon. Tomorrow our Emperor
will send a St. George's Cross to the bravest of the French Guards.
It has to be done. He must respond in kind."
Boris, too, with his friend Zhilinski, came to see the Preobrazhensk
banquet. On his way back, he noticed Rostov standing by the corner
of a house.
"Rostov! How d'you do? We missed one another," he
said, and could not refrain from asking what was the matter, so
strangely dismal and troubled was Rostov's face.
"Nothing, nothing," replied Rostov.
"You'll call round?"
"Yes, I will."
Rostov stood at that corner for a long time, watching the
feast from a distance. a distance. In his mind, a painful process
was going on which he could not bring to a conclusion. Terrible
doubts rose in his soul. Now he remembered Denisov with his changed
expression, his submission, and the whole hospital, with arms
and legs torn off and its dirt and disease. So vividly did he
recall that hospital stench of dead flesh that he looked round
to see where the smell came from. Next he thought of that self-satisfied
Bonaparte, with his small white hand, who was now an Emperor,
liked and respected by Alexander. Then why those severed arms
and legs and those dead men?... Then again he thought of Lazarev
rewarded and Denisov punished and unpardoned. He caught himself
harboring such strange thoughts that he was frightened.
The smell of the food the Preobrazhenskis were eating and
a sense of hunger recalled him from these reflections; he had
to get something to eat before going away. He went to a hotel
he had noticed that morning. There he found so many people, among
them officers who, like himself, had come in civilian clothes,
that he had difficulty in getting a dinner. Two officers of his
own division joined him. The conversation naturally turned on
the peace. The officers, his comrades, like most of the army,
were dissatisfied with the peace concluded after the battle of
Friedland. They said that had we held out a little longer Napoleon
would have been done for, as his troops had neither provisions
nor ammunition. Nicholas ate and drank (chiefly the latter) in
silence. He finished a couple of bottles of wine by himself. The
process in his mind went on tormenting him without reaching a
conclusion. He feared to give way to his thoughts, yet could not
get rid of them. Suddenly, on one of the officers' saying that
it was humiliating to look at the French, Rostov began shouting
with uncalled-for wrath, and therefore much to the surprise of
the officers:
"How can you judge what's best?" he cried, the blood
suddenly rushing to his face. "How can you judge the Emperor's
actions? What right have we to argue? We cannot comprehend either
the Emperor's or his actions!"
"But I never said a word about the Emperor!" said
the officer, justifying himself, and unable to understand Rostov's
outburst, except on the supposition that he was drunk.
But Rostov did not listen to him.
"We are not diplomatic officials, we are soldiers and
nothing more," he went on. "If we are ordered to die,
we must die. If we're punished, it means that we have deserved
it, it's not for us to judge. If the Emperor pleases to recognize
Bonaparte as Emperor and to conclude an alliance with him, it
means that that is the right thing to do. If once we begin judging
and arguing about everything, nothing sacred will be left! That
way we shall be saying there is no God- nothing!" shouted
Nicholas, banging the table- very little to the point as it seemed
to his listeners, but quite relevantly to the course of his own
thoughts.
"Our business is to do our duty, to fight and not to
think! That's all...." said he.
"And to drink," said one of the officers, not wishing
to quarrel.
"Yes, and to drink," assented Nicholas. "Hullo
there! Another bottle!" he shouted.
In 1808 the Emperor Alexander went to Erfurt for a fresh interview
with the Emperor Napoleon, and in the upper circles of Petersburg
there was much talk of the grandeur of this important meeting.
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