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Bilibin 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. Bilibin 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 Bilibin, "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 Prozorovski and Kamenski the latter was
preferred. The general comes to us, Suvorov-like, in a kibitka,
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 Pultusk, routed:
here it is exposed, and without fuel or forage, so something must
be done, and, as you yourself reported to Count Buxhowden 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
Buxhowden, 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 Sedmoretzki, 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. Buxhowden 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
Pultusk, 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 Pultusk. 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 Buxhowden.
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 Buxhowden
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 Buxhowden. General Buxhowden
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.
Buxhowden pursues us- we scuttle. He hardly crosses the river
to our side before we recross to the other. At last our enemy.
Buxhowden, catches us and attacks. Both generals are angry, and
the result is a challenge on Buxhowden's part and an epileptic
fit on Bennigsen's. But at the critical moment the courier who
carried the news of our victory at Pultusk to Petersburg returns
bringing our appointment as commander in chief, and our first
foe, Buxhowden, 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 Bilibin), 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.
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