‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about your wife. What can be done will be done. Now, keep listening. Give this letter to General Kutuzov. I’ve written to ask him to use you properly and not leave you long as an adjutant – ghastly job! Tell him I remember him with affection. And let me know how he receives you. If he’s all right, serve him well. No son of Nikolay Bolkonsky needs to serve out of charity. Now, come here.’
He was gabbling so much that half his words never got finished, but his son was used to understanding him. He took Prince Andrey over to the bureau, opened the top and pulled out a drawer, taking from it a note-book filled from cover to cover with his big, bold, closely written handwriting.
‘I’m sure to die before you do. See, these are my notes, to be given to the Emperor after my death. Now see here, this is a State Lottery Bond and there’s a letter with it. It’s a prize for the first person to write a history of Suvorov’s wars. Send it to the Academy. Here are my notes. They’re for you to read when I’m gone. Should be of some use to you.’
Andrey didn’t tell his father he probably still had many years to live. He knew it went without saying.
‘I shall do what you say, Father,’ he said.
‘Well, goodbye then!’ He gave his son his hand to kiss and then embraced him. ‘Remember this, Prince Andrey, if you get killed, it will be a great sadness to me in my old age . . .’ He broke off sharply, and then bawled at him, ‘but if I hear that you have not behaved like the son of Nikolay Bolkonsky, I shall be . . .
‘You needn’t have told me that, Father,’ said his son with a smile.
The old man now said nothing.
‘There’s just one more thing I wanted to ask you,’ went on Prince Andrey. ‘If I do get killed, and if I have a son, don’t let them take him away from you. As I said yesterday, let him grow up with you . . . please.’
‘Don’t give him up to your wife?’ said the old man with a laugh.
They stood there in silence facing each other. The old man’s sharp eyes were fixed firmly on his son’s. A kind of tremor ran over the lower part of the old prince’s face.
‘We’ve said goodbye . . . Just go!’ he said suddenly. ‘Go!’ he cried in a loud angry voice, opening the study door.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ asked the two princesses when they saw Prince Andrey, and caught a glimpse of the old prince without his wig, wearing his white dressing-gown and his old-age spectacles, and heard him shouting angrily.
Prince Andrey sighed and made no reply.
‘Come on, then,’ he said, turning to his wife, and his ‘Come on, then’ sounded like a cold rebuke, as if he had said, ‘Let’s see you put on your little act.’
‘Andrey, it can’t be time to go!’ cried the little princess, turning pale and looking fearfully at her husband. He embraced her. She gave a little cry and fell in a faint on his shoulder.
He eased her away from his shoulder, looked her in the face and carefully sat her down in a chair.
‘Goodbye, Masha,’ he said softly to his sister, and they kissed hands. Then he strode briskly out of the room.
The little princess flopped back, sprawling across the armchair, and Mademoiselle Bourienne began to massage her temples, while Princess Marya also offered support, but with her tearful eyes still glued to the door through which Prince Andrey had disappeared.
She made the sign of the cross. From the study came the angry sounds of an old man blowing his nose, like one pistol shot after another. The moment Prince Andrey left the room, his study door was flung open and out peered the forbidding figure of the old man in his white dressing-gown.
‘Has he gone? Good thing too!’ he said, glaring at the swooning princess. He shook his head in disapproval and slammed the door.
PART II
CHAPTER 1
In October 1805 Russian troops were busy occupying towns and villages in the Archduchy of Austria, with new regiments arriving all the time from Russia and settling near the fortress of Braunau, making life hard for the inhabitants on whom they were billeted. Braunau was the headquarters of the commander-in-chief, General Kutuzov.
On the 11th of October 18051 one of the newly arrived infantry regiments had halted half a mile from Braunau, awaiting inspection by the commander-in-chief. The countryside and the general situation may have looked foreign with all those orchards, stone walls, tiled roofs, mountains in the distance and foreign peasants gawking at the Russian soldiers, but the regiment looked just like any Russian regiment getting ready for inspection anywhere in the depths of Russia.
