‘You’ll go far,’ he said, and took him with him. Boris was one of the few people present at the Niemen on the day the two Emperors met. He saw the rafts decorated with royal monograms, watched Napoleon drive past the French guards on the far bank, saw the Emperor Alexander looking very pensive as he sat silent in the inn on the bank of the Niemen waiting for Napoleon’s arrival. He watched as both Emperors got into boats, and saw Napoleon reach the raft first and walk forward rapidly to meet Alexander and shake him by the hand, whereupon both Emperors disappeared into a pavilion. Ever since he had begun to move in the highest circles, Boris had formed the habit of keenly observing everything that went on around him and writing it all down. During the meeting of the Emperors at Tilsit, he asked the names of the persons accompanying Napoleon, inquired about the uniforms they were wearing, and listened carefully to every word uttered by any person of consequence. At the precise moment the Emperors went into the pavilion he looked at his watch, and he didn’t forget to look at it again the moment Alexander came out. The meeting had lasted one hour and fifty-three minutes, and he made a note of this that evening along with other details that he considered to be of historical importance. Since the imperial entourage was not very large, just to be present at Tilsit at the meeting of the two Emperors was a matter of real significance for a man who set so much store by succeeding in the service, and now that he had managed to get himself there Boris felt that henceforth his position was totally secure. He had not simply made himself known, he was now getting noticed and becoming a familiar figure. On two occasions he had been on assignments to the Emperor himself, so that the Emperor knew him by sight, and the people at court no longer kept him at arm’s length, as they had done at first when they saw him as an upstart. Now, if he wasn’t there people would be surprised.
Boris was lodging with another adjutant, a Polish count by the name of Zhilinsky. Educated in Paris, he was a wealthy man and a devoted Francophile, and while they were in Tilsit French guards officers and members of the French General Staff came round to lunch or dinner with Zhilinsky and Boris almost every day.
On the 24th of June Zhilinsky arranged a supper for his French acquaintances. Among the diners were one of Napoleon’s aides – he was the guest of honour – several French guards officers, and a young boy of an old and aristocratic French line, a page of Napoleon’s. That same evening Rostov took advantage of the darkness to avoid being recognized, came to Tilsit in civilian clothing and turned up at the quarters of Zhilinsky and Boris.
In one respect Rostov was like the whole army that he had just left behind – he was a long way from accepting the volte-face which had taken place at headquarters and in Boris concerning Napoleon and the French, suddenly transforming them from enemies into friends. In the army everyone still felt the same mixture of malevolence, fear and contempt for Bonaparte and the French. Only recently Rostov had been in an argument with one of Platov’s Cossack officers over how Napoleon should be treated if ever he were taken prisoner – as an emperor or a criminal? And again quite recently Rostov had met a wounded French colonel on the road and had told him in no uncertain terms that peace could never be concluded between a legitimate emperor and a criminal like Bonaparte. So it seemed very odd to Rostov that there should be French officers in Boris’s quarters wearing uniforms that he was used to looking at from a very different perspective on patrol out on the flank. He took one look at a French officer who happened to stick his head out of the door and was immediately seized by the feeling of warlike hostility that always came over him at the sight of the enemy. He stood there at the door and asked in Russian whether Boris Drubetskoy was a lodger here. Boris was in the ante-room and when he heard a strange voice he came out to see who it was. When he recognized Rostov, his face fell.
‘Oh, it’s you. Nice to see you, very nice,’ he managed to say, and he smiled as he made a movement towards him. But Rostov had seen his first reaction.
‘I seem to have come at a bad time,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have come at all, but it’s something important,’ he said coldly.
‘No, I was just a bit surprised to see you away from the regiment . . . I’ll be with you in a minute!’ he added in French for the benefit of someone who had called to him.
‘I can see I’ve come at a bad time,’ repeated Rostov.
