‘The auditor wrote a petition for you,’ Tushin went on, ‘and you ought io sign it and despatch it by this gentleman. No doubt he’ (he indicated Rostov) ‘has influence on the staff too. You won’t find a better opportunity.’
‘But I have said I won’t go cringing and fawning,’ Denisov interrupted, and he went on reading his answer.
Rostov did not dare to try and persuade Denisov, though he felt instinctively that the course proposed by Tushin and the other officers was the safest. He would have felt happy if he could have been of assistance to Denisov, but he knew his stubborn will and straightforward hasty temper.
When the reading of Denisov’s biting replies, which lasted over an hour, was over, Rostov'said nothing, and in the most dejected frame of mind spent the rest of the day in the society of Denisov’s companions, who had again gathered about him. He told them what he knew, and listened to the stories told by others. Denisov maintained a gloomy silence the whole evening.
Late in the evening, when Rostov was about to leave, he asked Denisov if he had no commission for him.
‘Yes, wait a bit,’ said Denisov. He looked round at the officers, and taking his papers from under his pillow, he went to the window where there was an inkstand, and sat down to write.
‘It seems it's no good knocking one’s head against a stone wall,’ said he, coming from the window and giving Rostov a large envelope. It was the petition addressed to the Emperor that had been drawn up by the auditor. In it Denisov, making no reference to the shortcoming of the commissariat department, simply begged for mercy. ‘Give it, it seems . . .’ He did not finish, and smiled a forced and sickly smile.
XIX
After going back to the regiment and reporting to the colonel the position of Denisov’s affairs, Rostov rode to Tilsit with the letter to the Emperor.
On the 13th of June the French and Russian Emperors met at Tilsit. Boris Drubetskoy had asked the personage of high rank on whom he was in attendance to include him in the suite destined to be staying at Tilsit.
‘I should like to see the great man,’ he said, meaning Napoleon, whom he had hitherto, like every one else, always spoken of as Bonaparte.
‘You are speaking of Buonaparte?’ the general said to him, smiling.
Boris looked inquiringly at his general, and immediately saw that this was a playful-test.
‘I am speaking, prince, of the Emperor Napoleon,’ he replied. With a smile the general clapped him on the shoulder.
‘You will get on,’ said he, and he took him with him. Boris was among the few present at Niemen on the day of the meeting of the Emperors. He saw the raft with the royal monograms, saw Napoleon’s progress through the French guards along the further bank, saw the pensive face of the Emperor Alexander as he sat silent in the inn on the bank of the Niemen waiting for Napoleon’s arrival. He saw both the Emperors get into boats, and Napoleon reaching the raft first, walked rapidly forward, and meeting Alexander, give him his hand; then both the Emperors disappeared into a pavilion. Ever since he had entered these higher spheres, Boris had made it his habit to keep an attentive watch on what was passing round him, and to note it all down. During the meeting of the Emperors at Tilsit, he asked the names of the persons accompanying Napoleon, inquired about the uniforms they were wearing, and listened carefully to the utterances of persons of consequence. When the Emperors went into the pavilion, he looked at his watch, and did not forget to look at it again when Alexander came out. The interview had lasted an hour and fifty-three minutes; he noted this down that evening among other facts, which he felt were of historical importance. As the Emperors’ suite were few in number, to be present at Tilsit at the meeting of the Emperors was a matter of great consequence for a man who valued success in the service, and Boris, when he succeeded in obtaining this privilege, felt that his position was henceforth perfectly secure. He was not simply known, he had become an observed and familiar figure. On two occasions he had been sent with commissions to the Emperor himself, so that the Emperor knew him personally, and all the court no longer held aloof from him, as they had done at first, considering him a new man, and would even have noticed his absence with surprise if he had been away.
Boris was lodging with another adjutant, the Polish count, Zhilinsky. Zhilinsky, a Pole educated in Paris, was a wealthy man, devotedly attached to the French, and almost every day of their stay in Tilsit, French
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officers of the Guards. ardoi,the French head staff were dining and breakfasting with Zhihnskyv/iiftdJBoris.
