Vienna knew him and valued him. He was not one of those
many diplomats who are esteemed because they have certain negative qualities, avoid doing certain things, and speak
French. He was one of those, who, liking work, knew how
to do it, and despite his indolence would sometimes spend
a whole night at his writing table. He worked well whatever
the import of his work. It was not the question ‘What for?’
but the question ‘How?’ that interested him. What the diplomatic matter might be he did not care, but it gave him great
pleasure to prepare a circular, memorandum, or report, skillfully, pointedly, and elegantly. Bilibin’s services were valued
not only for what he wrote, but also for his skill in dealing
and conversing with those in the highest spheres.
Bilibin liked conversation as he liked work, only when it
could be made elegantly witty. In society he always awaited
an opportunity to say something striking and took part in a
conversation only when that was possible. His conversation
was always sprinkled with wittily original, finished phrases
of general interest. These sayings were prepared in the inner
laboratory of his mind in a portable form as if intentionally,
so that insignificant society people might carry them from
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drawing room to drawing room. And, in fact, Bilibin’s witticisms were hawked about in the Viennese drawing rooms
and often had an influence on matters considered important.
His thin, worn, sallow face was covered with deep wrinkles, which always looked as clean and well washed as the
tips of one’s fingers after a Russian bath. The movement of
these wrinkles formed the principal play of expression on
his face. Now his forehead would pucker into deep folds and
his eyebrows were lifted, then his eyebrows would descend
and deep wrinkles would crease his cheeks. His small, deepset eyes always twinkled and looked out straight.
‘Well, now tell me about your exploits,’ said he.
Bolkonski, very modestly without once mentioning himself, described the engagement and his reception by the
Minister of War.
‘They received me and my news as one receives a dog in a
game of skittles,’ said he in conclusion.
Bilibin smiled and the wrinkles on his face disappeared.
‘Cependant, mon cher,’ he remarked, examining his nails
from a distance and puckering the skin above his left eye,
‘malgre la haute estime que je professe pour the Orthodox
Russian army, j’avoue que votre victoire n’est pas des plus
victorieuses.’*
*”But my dear fellow, with all my respect for the Orthodox Russian army, I must say that your victory was not
particularly victorious.’
He went on talking in this way in French, uttering only
those words in Russian on which he wished to put a con
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temptuous emphasis.
‘Come now! You with all your forces fall on the unfortunate Mortier and his one division, and even then Mortier
slips through your fingers! Where’s the victory?’
‘But seriously,’ said Prince Andrew, ‘we can at any rate say
without boasting that it was a little better than at Ulm..’
‘Why didn’t you capture one, just one, marshal for us?’
‘Because not everything happens as one expects or with
the smoothness of a parade. We had expected, as I told you,
to get at their rear by seven in the morning but had not
reached it by five in the afternoon.’
‘And why didn’t you do it at seven in the morning? You
ought to have been there at seven in the morning,’ returned
Bilibin with a smile. ‘You ought to have been there at seven
in the morning.’
‘Why did you not succeed in impressing on Bonaparte by
diplomatic methods that he had better leave Genoa alone?’
retorted Prince Andrew in the same tone.
‘I know,’ interrupted Bilibin, ‘you’re thinking it’s very easy
to take marshals, sitting on a sofa by the fire! That is true, but
still why didn’t you capture him? So don’t be surprised if not
only the Minister of War but also his Most August Majesty
the Emperor and King Francis is not much delighted by your
victory. Even I, a poor secretary of the Russian Embassy, do
not feel any need in token of my joy to give my Franz a thaler,
or let him go with his Liebchen to the Prater… True, we have
no Prater here..’
He looked straight at Prince Andrew and suddenly unwrinkled his forehead.
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‘It is now my turn to ask you ‘why?’ mon cher,’ said
Bolkonski. ‘I confess I do not understand: perhaps there are
diplomatic subtleties here beyond my feeble intelligence, but
I can’t make it out. Mack loses a whole army, the Archduke
Ferdinand and the Archduke Karl give no signs of life and
make blunder after blunder. Kutuzov alone at last gains a
real victory, destroying the spell of the invincibility of the
French, and the Minister of War does not even care to hear
the details.’
‘That’s just it, my dear fellow. You see it’s hurrah for the
Tsar, for Russia, for the Orthodox Greek faith! All that is
beautiful, but what do we, I mean the Austrian court, care
for your victories? Bring us nice news of a victory by the
Archduke Karl or Ferdinand (one archduke’s as good as another, as you know) and even if it is only over a fire brigade
of Bonaparte’s, that will be another story and we’ll fire off
some cannon! But this sort of thing seems done on purpose
to vex us. The Archduke Karl does nothing, the Archduke
Ferdinand disgraces himself. You abandon Vienna, give up
its defenseas much as to say: ‘Heaven is with us, but heaven help you and your capital!’ The one general whom we all
loved, Schmidt, you expose to a bullet, and then you congratulate us on the victory! Admit that more irritating news
than yours could not have been conceived. It’s as if it had
been done on purpose, on purpose. Besides, suppose you did
gain a brilliant victory, if even the Archduke Karl gained a
victory, what effect would that have on the general course
of events? It’s too late now when Vienna is occupied by the
French army!’
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‘What? Occupied? Vienna occupied?’
‘Not only occupied, but Bonaparte is at Schonbrunn, and
the count, our dear Count Vrbna, goes to him for orders.’
After the fatigues and impressions of the journey, his reception, and especially after having dined, Bolkonski felt
that he could not take in the full significance of the words
he heard.
‘Count Lichtenfels was here this morning,’ Bilibin continued, ‘and showed me a letter in which the parade of the
French in Vienna was fully described: Prince Murat et tout
le tremblement… You see that your victory is not a matter for
great rejoicing and that you can’t be received as a savior.’
‘Really I don’t care about that, I don’t care at all,’ said
Prince Andrew, beginning to understand that his news of
the battle before Krems was really of small importance in
view of such events as the fall of Austria’s capital. ‘How is
it Vienna was taken? What of the bridge and its celebrated
bridgehead and Prince Auersperg? We heard reports that
Prince Auersperg was defending Vienna?’ he said.
‘Prince Auersperg is on this, on our side of the river, and
is defending usdoing it very badly, I think, but still he is defending us. But Vienna is on the other side. No, the bridge
has not yet been taken and I hope it will not be, for it is
mined and orders have been given to blow it up. Otherwise
we should long ago have been in the mountains of Bohemia,
and you and your army would have spent a bad quarter of an
hour between two fires.’
‘But still this does not mean that the campaign is over,’
said Prince Andrew.
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‘Well, I think it is. The bigwigs here think so too, but
they daren’t say so. It will be as I said at the beginning of
the campaign, it won’t be your skirmishing at Durrenstein,
or gunpowder at all, that will decide the matter, but those
who devised it,’ said Bilibin quoting one of his own mots, releasing the wrinkles on his forehead, and pausing. ‘The only
question is what will come of the meeting between the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia in Berlin? If Prussia
joins the Allies, Austria’s hand will be forced and there will
be war. If not it is merely a question of settling where the preliminaries of the new Campo Formio are to be drawn up.’
‘What an extraordinary genius!’ Prince Andrew suddenly exclaimed, clenching his small hand and striking the table
with it, ‘and what luck the man has!’
‘Buonaparte?’ said Bilibin inquiringly, puckering up his
forehead to indicate that he was about to say something witty. ‘Buonaparte?’ he repeated, accentuating the u: ‘I think,
however, now that he lays down laws for Austria at Schonbrunn, il faut lui faire grace de l’u!* I shall certainly adopt an
innovation and call him simply Bonaparte!’
”We must let him off the u!’ ‘But joking apart,’ said Prince Andrew, ‘do you really think the campaign is over?’ ‘This is what I think. Austria has been made a fool of, and she is not used to it. She will retaliate. And she has been fooled in the first place because her provinces have been pillagedthey say the Holy Russian army loots terriblyher army is destroyed, her capital taken, and all this for the beaux yeux of His Sardinian Majesty. And thereforethis is
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between ourselvesI instinctively feel that we are being deceived, my instinct tells me of negotiations with France and
projects for peace, a secret peace concluded separately.’
*Fine eyes.
‘Impossible!’ cried Prince Andrew. ‘That would be too
base.’
‘If we live we shall see,’ replied Bilibin, his face again becoming smooth as a sign that the conversation was at an
end.
When Prince Andrew reached the room prepared for
him and lay down in a clean shirt on the feather bed with its
warmed and fragrant pillows, he felt that the battle of which
he had brought tidings was far, far away from him. The alliance with Prussia, Austria’s treachery, Bonaparte’s new
triumph, tomorrow’s levee and parade, and the audience
with the Emperor Francis occupied his thoughts.
He closed his eyes, and immediately a sound of cannonading, of musketry and the rattling of carriage wheels seemed
to fill his ears,
