War And Peace полностью

‘All right, dear boy. Now it’s my turn to ask you a few questions,’ said Bolkonsky. ‘There’s something here I don’t understand. Maybe there are some diplomatic subtleties beyond my feeble intellect, but I still don’t understand. Mack loses a whole army, Archduke Ferdinand and Archduke Karl give no sign of life and make one blunder after another, Kutuzov is the only one to win a proper battle, thus destroying all the mystique of the French – and the minister of war shows not the slightest interest in any of the details!’

‘My dear fellow, that’s the whole point! Listen. Three cheers for the Tsar, for Russia and the faith! All very nice, but why should we – the Austrian court – get excited about your victories? Bring us some news of a victory by Archduke Karl or Ferdinand – one archduke’s much the same as another, as you well know. I don’t care if they’ve beaten Napoleon’s fire brigade – it will be something different, and we’ll fire a big-gun salute. Otherwise this can only tantalize us, and it seems almost deliberate. Archduke Karl does nothing, Archduke Ferdinand covers himself with disgrace and you walk out on Vienna. No more defence. You might as well say it straight out: “God’s with us, and you and your capital can go to the devil.” You take one of our generals, Schmidt, loved by all and sundry, you stick him in the way of a bullet, and then congratulate us on a great victory! . . . You must admit – anything more infuriating than the news you brought would be hard to imagine. You seem to have done it on purpose. That’s what it looks like. And setting that aside, if you really were to win a brilliant victory, even if Archduke Karl did, what difference would it make to the general course of events? It’s too late now. Vienna has been occupied by the French forces.’

‘What do you mean occupied? Vienna hasn’t been occupied, has it?’

‘Yes, and that’s not all. Bonaparte is at Schönbrunn, and the count – our dear Count Vrbna – is going to see him to receive his orders.’

After the tiring demands and all the varied impressions of his journey and then his reception, and even more after the dinner he’d just eaten, Bolkonsky felt unable to take in the full significance of what he had just heard.

‘Count Lichtenfels was here this morning,’ Bilibin continued, ‘and he showed me a letter containing every last detail of a French parade through Vienna. Prince Murat and all the rest of them . . . So you see – your victory is no great cause for rejoicing, and you can hardly expect to be received as a saviour!’

‘But honestly, I’m not bothered about that – I really am not!’ said Prince Andrey, as it dawned on him that his news about the battle at Krems paled into insignificance in the light of events like the occupation of Austria’s capital city. ‘How was Vienna taken? What about the bridge and those famous fortifications, and Prince Auersperg? We heard it said that Prince Auersperg was defending Vienna.’

‘Prince Auersperg is stationed on this side – our side. He’s defending us, not very effectively it seems, but he is defending us. Vienna’s across the river. No, the bridge has not been taken, and I hope it won’t be, because it’s been mined and orders have been given to blow it up. Otherwise, we’d have been up in the mountains of Bohemia ages ago, and you and your army would have had a bad time of it between two fires.’

‘That still doesn’t mean that the campaign is finished,’ said Prince Andrey.

‘I think it is. So do all the bigwigs here, though they don’t dare admit it. I said when the campaign started that it wouldn’t be settled by gunpowder – not by your little squabble at Dürrenstein – but only by those who invented it,’ said Bilibin – this was one of his bons mots – relaxing the wrinkles on his forehead and pausing for a moment. ‘The only question now is what will come out of the meeting between Emperor Alexander and the Prussian king. If Prussia enters the alliance, that will force Austria’s hand and there’ll be war. If she doesn’t, all we have to do is agree on a place where the articles of a new Campo Formio⁹ can be drawn up.’

‘What an amazing genius that man is!’ Prince Andrey burst out, clenching his small fist and banging it on the table. ‘And amazingly lucky too!’

‘Who is, Buonaparte?’ queried Bilibin, puckering up his forehead – a clear sign that a bon mot was on its way. ‘Bu-onaparte?’ he repeated, stressing the u. ‘Still, I think we might let him off the “u” now; after all, he is dictating Austria’s laws from Schönbrunn. That’s it, I’ve decided once and for all to accept the innovation and just call him Bonaparte.’

‘No listen, joking apart,’ said Prince Andrey, ‘do you really think the campaign is finished?’