And Bilibin relaxed his brow again, confident that this dilemma was irrefutable.
‘This is something I can’t argue about,’ said Prince Andrey coldly, but he thought to himself, ‘I have to go – to save the army.’
‘My dear fellow, you’re a hero,’ said Bilibin.
CHAPTER 13
The same night, after taking leave of the war minister, Bolkonsky was on his way to rejoin the army, not knowing where to find it and worried about being captured by the French on the way to Krems.
At Brno the whole court and everyone attached to it was busy packing, and the heavy baggage was already on the road to Olmütz. Near Etzelsdorf, Prince Andrey came to the road along which the Russian army was moving with maximum speed and in maximum disorder. It was so blocked with wagons that no carriage could possibly get through. Prince Andrey procured a horse and a Cossack from the officer in charge of the Cossacks, and, hungry and weary as he was, he wove in and out between the wagons and rode on in search of the commander-in-chief and his own luggage. The most sinister rumours about the situation of the army reached him along the road, and they were confirmed by the sight of the army fleeing in such disorder.
He recalled the words of Napoleon’s address to his army at the beginning of the campaign: ‘That Russian army which English gold has brought from the ends of the universe is going to suffer at our hands the same fate – the fate of the army of Ulm.’ These words aroused in him simultaneously open-mouthed admiration for the genius of his hero, a feeling of hurt pride and the hope of glory. ‘And what if there’s nothing left but to die?’ he thought. ‘Well if I must – I’ll do it as well as the next man!’
Prince Andrey turned his scornful gaze on the endless, chaotic mass of detachments, wagons, supply vehicles, artillery and more wagons, wagons, wagons of every size and shape, overtaking one another and blocking the muddy road three and four abreast. On all sides, right up front and way behind, as far as the ear could strain in every direction, you could hear wheels rumbling, carts rattling, wagons creaking, gun-carriages groaning, horses trampling, whips cracking, drivers shouting and everybody swearing, soldiers, orderlies and officers. The roadsides were littered everywhere with fallen horses, flayed and unflayed, broken-down wagons with solitary soldiers sitting by them just waiting, other soldiers separated from their units, heading in little groups for the next village or carrying loot from the last one – chickens, sheep, hay, or sackfuls of something or other. When the road went uphill or downhill the crowds squashed together even closer, and there was an endless hubbub of shouts and groans. Soldiers floundering knee-deep in mud heaved guns and wagons along with their bare hands while the whips cracked, hoofs slithered, traces snapped and the air rang with the most heart-rending cries. The transport officers rode up and down, in and out of the wagons, their voices barely audible amid the general uproar and their faces showing all too clearly that they despaired of ever controlling this chaos.
‘And this is our well-loved Holy Russian military machine,’ thought Bolkonsky, recalling Bilibin’s words.
He rode up to a convoy, intending to ask someone where he could find the commander-in-chief. There in front of him trundled a strange one-horse vehicle obviously knocked up by some soldiers out of any everyday bits and pieces they could lay their hands on, part-wagon, part-carriage, part-cab. A soldier was driving, and under a cover behind the leather hood sat a woman swathed in shawls. Prince Andrey rode up and was just beginning to ask the soldier a question when he was distracted by the desperate cries of the woman sitting in this contraption. The transport officer had lashed out at the soldier in the coachman’s seat for trying to overtake, and the whip had cracked against the cover of the vehicle. The woman was screaming. Catching sight of Prince Andrey, she thrust her head out from under the cover, waved at him with her thin little arms sticking out from under the matting shawls, and yelled, ‘Adjutant! Sir! . . . For heaven’s sake . . . give us some protection . . . What’s going to happen to us? . . . I’m a doctor’s wife – in the Seventh Chasseurs13 . . . they won’t let us get past. We’re miles behind. We’ve lost our own people.’
‘I’ll cut you to pieces! Get back!’ shouted the exasperated officer to the soldier. ‘Get back and take that whore with you!’
‘Sir, please protect us. What does he think he’s doing?’ screamed the doctor’s wife.
‘Kindly let this carriage through. Can’t you see there’s a lady in it?’ said Prince Andrey, riding up to the officer.
The officer glanced at him, said nothing and turned back to the soldier. ‘I’ll teach you to shove in . . . Get back!’
‘Let it through, I tell you,’ repeated Prince Andrey, tightening his lips.
