It was a glittering, happy occasion. According to the connoisseurs rarely had so many beautiful women been gathered together in one place. Countess Bezukhov, one of the Russian ladies who had followed the Tsar from Petersburg to Vilna, was there, and her massive charms – what people liked to call her Russian beauty – put the more dainty Polish ladies in the shade. She got herself noticed, and the Tsar favoured her with an invitation to dance.
Boris Drubetskoy (‘one of the boys again’, as he liked to put it), having left his wife behind in Moscow, was also there; although not a staff general himself, he had subscribed a large sum towards the ball. Boris was now rich in money and honours, and had no further need of patronage, being on equal terms with the most distinguished men of his generation.
They were still dancing at midnight. Finding herself without a suitable partner for the mazurka, Hélène herself offered to dance with Boris. They made up the third couple. Boris allowed his cool gaze to stray towards Hélène’s naked shoulders, emerging so splendidly from a dark-coloured, gold-embroidered gauze dress, as he chatted about old acquaintances, but, although no one was aware of it, least of all Boris himself, he never took his eyes off the Tsar while he was there in the same room. The Tsar was not dancing; he was standing in the doorway, stopping people at random with the kind of gracious remark that only he could utter.
At the beginning of the mazurka, Boris watched as a staff general, Balashev, one of the Tsar’s closest confidants, went over and defied court etiquette by stopping near by while his Majesty was still in conversation with a Polish lady. After saying a few more words to the lady, the Tsar glanced quizzically at Balashev, and then, suddenly aware there must be a good reason for him to behave like this, he nodded gently to the lady and gave Balashev his full attention. The first words were hardly out of Balashev’s mouth when a look of astonishment came over the Tsar’s face. He took Balashev by the arm and walked across the room with him, unconsciously clearing a swathe several yards wide as people drew back on either side. Boris could see that Arakcheyev’s face displayed the same excitement as the Tsar walked away with Balashev. Arakcheyev glanced rather furtively at the Tsar, sniffing with his red nose, and edged forward out of the crowd as if he was expecting the Tsar to turn in his direction. (Boris observed that Arakcheyev, already jealous of Balashev, was annoyed to see any piece of news, let alone something of obvious importance, reach the Tsar without going through him.) But the Tsar and Balashev walked straight past Arakcheyev without noticing him and went out through the door into the illuminated garden. Arakcheyev, grasping his sword and staring around balefully, followed on twenty paces behind.
Boris worked his way through the figures of the mazurka in a state of anguish, wondering what news Balashev could possibly have brought, and how he could find out before anyone else did. When they came to the figure in which he had to choose his ladies, he whispered to Hélène that he wanted to choose Countess Potocka, who seemed to have gone out on to the balcony, and gliding over the dance-floor he flew across to the doorway into the garden, from where he could see the Tsar and Balashev coming back on to the terrace, and this stopped him in his tracks. The Tsar and Balashev were heading for the doorway. Boris bustled about as if he couldn’t quite get out of the way, squeezing back respectfully against the door-post with his head bowed. The Tsar was coming to the end of an outburst that made him sound like someone who had been personally offended. ‘Entering Russia without declaring war!’ he was saying. ‘I shall not make peace until every last enemy under arms has left my country.’
Boris had the impression that the Tsar had enjoyed saying these words, and was happy with the way his thoughts had come out, but not at all happy that Boris had overheard them.
‘Nobody must know about this!’ the Tsar added, with a scowl.
Boris could tell this was directed at him, so he closed his eyes and bowed his head slightly again. The Tsar went back into the ballroom and stayed there for another half-hour or so. Boris had become the first person to hear the news that French troops had crossed the Niemen, which now gave him a golden opportunity to demonstrate for the benefit of certain very important people that he had access to many things that were hidden from others, and thus an opportunity to rise even higher in the esteem of these persons.
