Bilibin liked conversation, just as he liked work, only when the conversation could be elegantly witty. In society he constantly waited for the opportunity to say something remarkable and entered into conversation not otherwise than on that condition. Bilibin’s conversation was constantly sprinkled with wittily original and well-turned phrases of general interest. These phrases were manufactured in Bilibin’s inner laboratory, as if intentionally of a portable nature, so that society nonentities could readily remember them and pass them on from drawing room to drawing room. And indeed, les mots de Bilibine se colportaient dans les salons de Vienne,*187 as they say, and often had an influence on so-called important affairs.
His thin, drawn, yellowish face was all covered with deep wrinkles, which always looked as neatly and thoroughly washed as one’s fingertips after a bath. The movements of these wrinkles constituted the main play of his physiognomy. Now his forehead would wrinkle into wide folds as his eyebrows rose, then his eyebrows would descend and deep wrinkles would form on his cheeks. His small, deep-set eyes always looked out directly and merrily.
“Well, now tell us about your exploits,” he said.
In a most modest way, not once mentioning himself, Bolkonsky told about the action and his reception by the minister of war.
“Ils m’ont reçu avec ma nouvelle comme un chien dans un jeu de quilles,”†188 he concluded.
Bilibin smiled and released the folds of his skin.
“Cependant, mon cher,” he said, studying his fingernail from a distance and gathering up the skin over his left eye, “malgré la haute estime que je professe pour le Orthodox Russian armed forces,8 j’avoue que votre victoire n’est pas des plus victorieuses.”*189
He went on in the same way, in French, pronouncing in Russian only those words he wanted to underscore contemptuously.
“How, then? With all your mass you fell upon the unfortunate Mortier with his one division, and this Mortier slips between your fingers? Where’s the victory?”
“All the same, seriously speaking,” replied Prince Andrei, “we can still say without boasting that this is a bit better than Ulm…”
“Why didn’t you capture us at least one, at least one marshal?”
“Because not everything goes as it’s supposed to, and with such regularity as on parade. We planned, as I told you, to attack their rear by seven in the morning, but we didn’t even get there by five in the afternoon.”
“But why didn’t you get there at seven in the morning? You had to get there at seven in the morning,” Bilibin said, smiling, “you had to get there at seven in the morning.”
“And why didn’t you convince Bonaparte through diplomatic channels that he’d better leave Genoa?” Prince Andrei said in the same tone.
“I know,” Bilibin interrupted, “you think it’s very easy to capture marshals while sitting on a sofa in front of a fireplace. That’s true, but even so, why didn’t you capture him? And don’t be surprised if not only the minister of war, but the most august emperor and king Franz is not made very happy by your victory; nor do I, a miserable secretary of the Russian embassy, feel any particular joy…”
He looked straight at Prince Andrei and suddenly relaxed all the skin gathered on his forehead.
“Now it’s my turn to ask you ‘why,’ my dear,” said Bolkonsky. “I confess to you that I don’t understand, maybe there are diplomatic subtleties here that are beyond my feeble mind, but I don’t understand: Mack loses a whole army, the archduke Ferdinand and the archduke Karl give no signs of life and make blunder after blunder, Kutuzov alone finally gains a real victory, destroys the charme†190 of the French, and the minister of war isn’t even interested in learning the details!”
“Precisely for that reason, my dear. Voyez-vous, mon cher: hurrah for the tsar, for Rus, for the faith! Tout ça est bel et bon,‡191 but what do we—I mean the Austrian court—care about your victories? Bring us some nice little news about a victory of the archduke Karl or Ferdinand—un archiduc vaut l’autre,§192 as you know—even over a fire brigade of Bonaparte’s, and that will be a different story, we’ll shoot off all our cannons. Whereas this, as if on purpose, can only exasperate us. The archduke Karl does nothing, the archduke Ferdinand covers himself in shame. You abandon Vienna, you no longer protect it, comme si vous disiez:*193 God is with us, and God help you and your capital. There was one general we all loved: Schmidt. You put him in the path of a bullet and congratulate us with your victory!…You must agree that to think up more exasperating news than what you’ve brought would be impossible. C’est comme un fait exprés, comme un fait exprés.†194 Besides that, well, if you were to gain a truly brilliant victory, if the archduke Karl were even to gain a victory, what would it change in the general course of affairs? It’s too late now, since Vienna’s occupied by French troops.”
“Occupied? Vienna occupied?”
“Not only occupied, but Bonaparte is in Schönbrunn, and the count, our dear Count Vrbna, is going to him for orders.”9
After the fatigues and impressions of the journey, the reception, and especially after dinner, Bolkonsky felt that he did not quite understand the full significance of the words he had heard.
“This morning Count Lichtenfels was here,” Bilibin went on, “and he showed me a letter which described in detail the parade of the French in Vienna. Le prince Murat et tout le tremblement…‡195 You see that your victory doesn’t bring much joy and that you can’t be received as a savior…”
“Really, it’s all the same to me, all quite the same!” said Prince Andrei, beginning to realize that his news about the battle at Krems was indeed of little importance in view of such events as the occupation of the capital of Austria. “How is it that Vienna’s been taken? What about the bridge? And the famous tête de pont,§196 and Prince Auersperg? There was a rumor among us that Prince Auersperg was defending Vienna,” he said.
“Prince Auersperg is standing on this side, our side, and defending us; I suppose he’s defending us very poorly, but still he’s defending us. But Vienna is on the other side. No, the bridge has not yet been taken and, I hope, will not be taken, because it’s mined and there’s an order to blow it up. Otherwise we’d have been in the mountains of Bohemia long ago, and you and your army would have spent a bad quarter of an hour between two fires.”
“That still doesn’t mean the campaign is over,” said Prince Andrei.
“But I think it’s over. And the bigwigs here think so, too, though they don’t dare say it. It will turn out as I said at the beginning of the campaign, that the matter won’t be decided by your échauffourée de Dürenstein,*197 nor by gunpowder, but by those who invented gunpowder,” said Bilibin, repeating one of his mots,†198 10 releasing the skin on his forehead, and pausing. “The only question is what the meeting in Berlin between the emperor Alexander and the king of Prussia will tell us. If Prussia enters the alliance, on forcera la main à l’Autriche,‡199 and there will be war. If not, it will only be a matter of arranging where to draw up the preliminary articles for a new Campo Formio.”11