When the review was over, the officers, both the newly arrived and Kutuzov’s, began to gather in groups, and talk sprang up about rewards, about the Austrians and their uniforms, about their front, about Bonaparte and how bad things were going to be for him now, especially when the corps from Essen also arrives and Prussia takes our side.
But most of all, in all circles, they talked about the sovereign Alexander, repeating his every word and movement and admiring him.
They all wished for only one thing: to go quickly against the enemy under the sovereign’s leadership. Under the command of the sovereign himself, it would be impossible not to defeat anyone whatever—so thought Rostov and most of the officers.
After the review, there was greater assurance of victory than there might have been after two victorious battles.
IX
The day after the review, Boris, putting on his best uniform and with parting wishes of success from his comrade Berg, rode to see Bolkonsky in Olmütz, wishing to avail himself of his friendliness and arrange the best position for himself, in particular the position of adjutant to an important person, which seemed to him particularly attractive in the army. “It’s all right for Rostov, whose father sends him ten thousand roubles at a time, to talk about how he doesn’t want to bow to anybody or be anybody’s lackey; but I, who have nothing except my own head, must make my career and not let chances slip, but avail myself of them.”
He did not find Prince Andrei in Olmütz that day. But the sight of Olmütz, where the headquarters and the diplomatic corps were stationed and both emperors lived with their suites of courtiers and attendants, increased still more his desire to belong to that supreme world.
He knew nobody, and, despite his dashing guardsman’s uniform, all these higher people going up and down the streets in dashing carriages, plumes, ribbons and decorations, courtiers and military, seemed to stand so immeasurably higher than he, a little officer of the guards, that they not only did not want to, but even could not recognize his existence. In the quarters of the commander in chief Kutuzov, where he asked for Bolkonsky, all these adjutants and even orderlies looked at him as if wishing to impress upon him that quite a few officers such as he hung around there, and that they were all quite sick of it. Despite that, or rather, because of it, the next day, the fifteenth, after dinner he went to Olmütz again, and, going into the house occupied by Kutuzov, asked for Bolkonsky. Prince Andrei was at home, and Boris was taken to a large hall, which probably had once been used for dancing, and now was filled with five beds and various furnishings: tables, chairs, and a pianoforte. One adjutant, closer to the door, in a Persian dressing gown, was sitting at a table and writing. A second, the red, fat Nesvitsky, was lying on a bed with his hands behind his head and laughing along with another officer who was sitting with him. A third was playing a Viennese waltz on the pianoforte, a fourth was lying on the pianoforte and singing along. Bolkonsky was not there. None of these gentlemen changed his position on noticing Boris. The one who was writing and whom Boris addressed, turned to him vexedly and told him that Bolkonsky was on duty, and that if he wanted to see him, he should go through the door on the left, to the reception room. Boris thanked him and went into the reception room. In the reception room there were some ten officers and generals.
Just as Boris came in, Prince Andrei, narrowing his eyes disdainfully (with that particular air of polite weariness which says clearly that, were it not my duty, I would not talk with you for a minute), was listening to an old Russian general with decorations, who, drawn up almost on tiptoe, with an obsequious soldierly expression on his purple face, was reporting something to him.
“Very well, be so good as to wait,” he said to the general in Russian, with that French pronunciation which he used when he wanted to speak disdainfully, and, noticing Boris and no longer addressing the general (who pleadingly ran after him asking to be heard out), Prince Andrei turned to Boris with a cheerful smile, nodding to him.
Boris clearly understood at that moment what he had foreseen earlier, namely, that in the army, besides the subordination and discipline that were written in the regulations and known to the regiment, and which he knew, there was another more essential subordination, which made this tightly girded, purple-faced general wait deferentially while the captain Prince Andrei, for his own pleasure, found it preferable to talk with the ensign Drubetskoy. Boris resolved more than ever to serve in the future according to this unwritten subordination, not the one written in the regulations. He now felt that, merely as the result of his having been recommended to Prince Andrei, he had at once become higher than the general, who, on other occasions, at the front, could annihilate an ensign of the guards like him. Prince Andrei went up to him and took his hand.
“Very sorry you didn’t find me in yesterday. I spent the whole day fussing about with the Germans. Went to see Weyrother to check the disposition. When Germans start being accurate, there’s no end to it!”
Boris smiled as if he understood what Prince Andrei was hinting at as common knowledge. But it was the first time he had heard the name of Weyrother and even the word disposition.
“Well, what is it, my friend, do you still want to be an adjutant? I’ve been thinking about you meanwhile.”
“Yes,” said Boris, blushing involuntarily for some reason, “I thought of asking the commander in chief; he received a letter about me from Prince Kuragin; I wanted to ask,” he added, as if apologizing, “because I’m afraid the guards won’t see action.”
“Very good, very good! We’ll discuss it all,” said Prince Andrei. “Just let me report about this gentleman, and then I’m yours.”
While Prince Andrei went to report about the purple general, that general, who obviously did not share Boris’s notions about the advantages of the unwritten subordination, so fixed his eyes on the insolent ensign who had prevented him from finishing his talk with the adjutant that Boris felt awkward. He turned away and waited impatiently for Prince Andrei to come back from the commander in chief’s office.
“You see, my friend, I’ve been thinking about you,” said Prince Andrei, when they came to the big room with the pianoforte. “There’s no point in your going to the commander in chief,” said Prince Andrei. “He’ll tell you a heap of nice things, ask you to dinner” (“That wouldn’t be so bad for service by the other subordination,” thought Boris), “but nothing further will come of it. There will soon be a battalion of us adjutants and orderly officers. But here’s what we’ll do: I have a good friend, an adjutant general and a wonderful man, Prince Dolgorukov; and though you couldn’t know this, the thing is that Kutuzov and his staff and all of us mean precisely nothing: everything is now concentrated on the sovereign. So let’s go to Dolgorukov, I have to go to him anyway, and I’ve already spoken to him about you; so we’ll see whether he can’t find it possible to set you up with him or somewhere else closer to the sun.”
Prince Andrei always became especially animated when he had to guide a young man and help him towards worldly success. Under the pretext of this help for another, which out of pride he would never accept for himself, he found himself close to the milieu which conferred success and which attracted him. He took up Boris quite willingly and went with him to Prince Dolgorukov.
It was already late in the evening when they entered the Olmütz palace, which was occupied by the emperors and their retinues.
On that same day there had been a council of war in which all the members of the Hofkriegsrath and both emperors took part. At the council, in opposition to the opinion of the old men—Kutuzov and Prince Schwarzenberg—it was decided to go on the offensive immediately and give general battle to Bonaparte. The council of war had just ended when Prince Andrei, accompanied by Boris, came to the palace to look for Prince Dolgorukov. The headquarters personnel were all still under the charm of that day’s council of war, which had been victorious for the younger party. The voices of the foot-draggers, who advised waiting for something else and not going on the offensive, had been so unanimously stifled and their arguments refuted by the indubitable proofs of the advantages of an offensive, that what was talked about at the council—the future battle and undoubted victory—seemed no longer future but past. All the advantages were on our side. Enormous forces, undoubtedly superior to Napoleon’s, were massed in one place; the troops were inspired by the presence of the emperors and straining for action; the strategic point at which they were to act was known in the smallest detail to the Austrian general Weyrother, who was leading the army (as if by a lucky chance, the Austrian troops had been on maneuvers a year before precisely on the fields where they were now to fight the French); the lay of the land was known and mapped in the smallest detail; and Bonaparte, obviously weakened, was undertaking nothing.