‘Well, you know best . . . I, er . . . whatever you think,’ said Princess Marya, all bashful and embarrassed that her opinion should prevail. She pointed to the maid, who was beckoning to him and whispering something.
This was their second sleepless night together watching over the feverish baby. Having no faith in the local doctor they had sent for another one in town, and as they waited for him they spent the long hours trying one remedy after another. Worried sick and weary from lack of sleep, they were taking out their anxiety on each other, finding fault and quarrelling.
‘Petrusha has brought some papers from your papa,’ whispered the maid. Prince Andrey went out.
‘Damned papers!’ he growled, but he listened to some verbal instructions from his father, received one or two envelopes and his father’s letter, and then went straight back to the nursery.
‘Any change?’ he asked.
‘No. Be patient, for heaven’s sake. Karl Ivanych always says sleep is the best thing,’ Princess Marya whispered with a sigh. Prince Andrey went over to the baby and felt him. He was burning hot. ‘Damn you and your Karl Ivanych!’ He took the wine-glass with the medicine drops in it and went back to the cot.
‘Andrey, please don’t!’ said Princess Marya. But he scowled and glared with a mixture of anger and anguish, and bent over the baby with the glass.
‘This is what I want,’ he said. ‘Come on, please, give him some.’
Princess Marya shrugged, but obediently took hold of the glass, beckoned the nurse over and started to give the baby his medicine. He wailed and wheezed. Prince Andrey winced, clutched at his head and went out of the room to sit down on a sofa in the next one.
He was still holding the letters. He opened them automatically and began to read. The old prince wrote as follows on blue paper in his large, looping hand, with the odd abbreviation here and there:
Have this moment received by special messenger most joyful news. If can be trusted, Bennigsen gained evidently complete victory over Bonaparte near Preussisch-Eylau. In Petersburg all jubilant and rewards galore sent to army. He’s German, but must congratulate him. Commander in Korchevo, man called Khandrikov, can’t make out what he’s doing; reinforcements and stores not yet provided. Get over there at once and tell him I’ll have his head off if it’s not all here within the week. Have also had letter from Petya about Preussisch-Eylau battle in which he took part – it’s all true. If people don’t stick their nose in where it’s not wanted, even a German has the beating of Napoleone Buonaparte. He’s off, so they say, tail between legs. Get yourself over to Korchevo and carry out instructions – now!
Prince Andrey sighed and broke open the seal on the next letter. It was from Bilibin, two closely written pages. He folded it up without reading it, and reread his father’s letter with the final injunction, ‘Get yourself over to Korchevo and carry out instructions – now!’
‘Oh no, I’m sorry, I’m not going anywhere until the baby’s better,’ he thought as he went over to the door and glanced into the nursery. Princess Marya was still standing by the cot, gently rocking the baby. ‘Yes, what was that other nasty thing he said?’ wondered Prince Andrey, harking back to his father’s letter. ‘Oh yes. Our troops have won a victory over Bonaparte, and I wasn’t there. Yes, yes, he likes his little joke at my expense . . . Oh well, let him . . .’, and he began to read Bilibin’s letter, which was written in French. He read it through without taking half of it in, just to distract himself for a while from dwelling on certain obsessive and tormenting thoughts that had too long lingered in his mind.
CHAPTER 9
Bilibin was now on the diplomatic staff at military headquarters, and though he wrote in French, using little French witticisms and French turns of speech, he described the whole campaign with peculiarly Russian objectivity, which means not without self-criticism and self-mockery. Bilibin wrote that the need for tact and diplomacy was a torment to him, and he was happy to have in Prince Andrey a reliable correspondent to whom he could vent all the spleen that had been building up in him at the sight of what was going on in the army. It was an old letter, written in French and dating back to before the battle of Preussisch-Eylau.
Since our great successes at Austerlitz, my dear prince [wrote Bilibin], as you know, I have not left headquarters. I have acquired a real taste for warfare and I am much taken with it. What I have seen in these three months beggars belief.
