Rapp responded by saying that he had passed on the Emperor’s orders about the rice, but Napoleon shook his head unhappily, as if he could not trust them to have carried out his order. A servant came in with punch. Napoleon called for another glass for Rapp, and stood there sipping at his own in silence. ‘I can’t taste anything or smell anything,’ he said, sniffing at the glass. ‘I’m fed up with this cold. They go on and on about medicine. What good is medicine when they can’t cure a cold? Corvisart gave me these lozenges, but they’re not doing me any good. What can they cure? They can’t cure anything. Our body is a machine for living. That’s the way it’s organized, and that’s its nature. The life inside should be left alone. Let the life inside defend itself. It will get on better like that, instead of paralysing it and clogging it with remedies. Our body is like a perfect watch with only a fixed time to run. The watchmaker has no power to get inside it, he can only fumble with it blindfold. Our body is a machine for living, and that’s all there is to it.’ And once launched into defining things – Napoleon had a weakness for coming out with definitions – he seemed suddenly impelled to produce a new one. ‘Do you know, Rapp, what the military art is?’ he asked. ‘It’s the art of being stronger than the enemy at a given moment. That’s all it is.’
Rapp made no reply.
‘Tomorrow we shall have Kutuzov to deal with,’ said Napoleon. ‘Let’s see what happens! You remember – he was in command at Braunau, and not once in three weeks did he get on a horse and go round his entrenchments! Let’s see what happens!’
He looked at his watch. It was still only four o’clock. He didn’t feel sleepy, the punch was finished, and there was still nothing to do. He got to his feet, paced up and down, put on a warm overcoat and hat and walked out of his tent. The night was dark and clammy; you could almost feel the dampness seeping down from on high. Near by, the French guards’ camp-fires had burned down, but far away you could see the Russian fires burning smokily all down their line. The air was still, but there was a faint stirring and a clear rumble of early-morning movement as the French troops began the business of taking up their positions.
Napoleon paced up and down outside his tent, glanced across at the fires, listened to the sounds of movement, and as he was walking past he stopped in front of a tall guardsman in a shaggy cap on sentry-go outside his tent, who drew himself up like a big black post when he saw the Emperor.
‘Been long in the service?’ he asked, with that mixture of a military man’s straight talk and forced camaraderie that he always affected when talking to soldiers. This soldier gave his answer.
‘Ah! An old campaigner! Has your regiment had any rice?’
‘Yes, your Majesty.’
Napoleon nodded and walked away.
By half-past five Napoleon was on his way over to the village of Shevardino.
It was getting light, and the sky had cleared. A solitary stormcloud lay in the eastern sky. The deserted camp-fires were going out in the pale light of morning.
A single deep cannon-shot roared out on the right. The boom whooshed past and died away in the stillness. Several minutes passed. A second shot rang out, then a third, and the air shook. Then came the solemn boom of the fourth and a fifth, not far away on the right.
The first shots had barely died away when another one came, then another and another, more and more, some blending into a single sound, others bursting in alone.
Napoleon and his entourage continued their way to the Shevardino redoubt, where he got down from his horse. The game had begun.
CHAPTER 30
When he got back to Gorki from visiting Prince Andrey, Pierre told his groom to get the horses ready and call him early the following morning, and then he fell fast asleep behind a screen in a corner made available by Boris.
By the time Pierre was properly awake next morning the hut was empty. The little window-panes were rattling in their frames. His groom was there at his side, giving him a good shake. ‘Your Excellency! Your Excellency! Your Excellency! . . .’ the groom kept repeating over and over again as he shook him by the shoulder without looking at him, with little apparent hope of ever waking him up.
‘Eh? Have they started? Is it time?’ said Pierre, coming round.
‘Hark at the guns, sir,’ said the groom, himself an old soldier. ‘All the gentlemen have gone, and his Serene Highness went past ages ago.’
Pierre threw on some clothes and ran out on to the porch. It was a bright, fresh, dewy, cheerful morning. The sun had just broken through a covering of cloud, and its half-filtered rays poured down through the gaps, streaming over the rooftops opposite to light up the dew-sodden dust on the road, the walls of the houses, the fence-palings and Pierre’s horses standing in front of their hut. Outside, the cannons boomed louder. An adjutant and his Cossack passed by at a sharp trot.
