‘Oh no!’ answered Pierre, gazing with eyes full of scared sympathy at Prince Andrey.
‘You must be off; before a battle one needs to get a good sleep,’ re
W A R A N D P E A C E 733
peated Prince Andrey. He went quickly up to Pierre, embraced and kissed him. ‘Good-bye, be off,’ he cried, ‘whether we see each other again or not . . .’ and turning hurriedly, he went off into the barn.
It was already dark, and Pierre could not distinguish whether the expression of his face was exasperated or affectionate.
Pierre stood for some time in silence, hesitating whether to go after him or to return to Gorky. ‘No; he does not want me!’ Pierre made up his mind, ‘and I know this is our last meeting!’ He heaved a deep sigh and rode back to Gorky.
Prince Andrey lay down on a rug in the barn, but he could not sleep.
He closed his eyes. One set of images followed another in his mind. On one mental picture he dwelt long and joyfully. He vividly recalled one evening in Petersburg. Natasha with an eager, excited face had been telling him how in looking for mushrooms the previous summer she had lost her way in a great forest. She described incoherently the dark depths pf the forest, and her feelings, and her talk with a bee-keeper she met, ind every minute she broke off in her story, saying: ‘No, I can’t, I’m lot describing it properly; no, you won’t understand me,’ although Prince Andrey tried to assure her that he understood and did really understand ill she wanted to convey to him. Natasha was dissatisfied with her own words; she felt that they did not convey the passionately poetical feeling ;he had known that day and tried to give expression to. ‘It was all so exquisite, that old man, and it was so dark in the forest . . . and such a find look in his . . . no, I can’t describe it,’ she had said, flushed and •noved.
Prince Andrey smiled now the same happy smile he had smiled then, gazing into her eyes. ‘I understood her,’ thought Prince Andrey, ‘and more ban understood her: that spiritual force, that sincerity, that openness of loul, the very soul of her, which seemed bound up with her body, the ■ery soul it was I loved in her . . . loved so intensely, so passionately .. .’ ,nd all at once he thought how his love had ended. ‘He cared nothing or all that. He saw nothing of it, had no notion of it. He saw in her a pretty and fresh young girl with whom he did not deign to unite his life ermanently. And I? . . . And he is still alive and happy.’Prince Andrey imped up as though suddenly scalded, and began walking to and fro efore the barn again.
XXVI
:>N the 25th of August, on the eve of the battle of Borodino, the prefect f the French Emperor’s palace, M. de Beausset, and Colonel Fabvier, rrived, the former from Paris, and the latter from Madrid, at Napoleon’s incampment at Valuev.
After changing into a court uniform M. de Beausset ordered the package |e had brought for the Emperor to be carried before him, and walked ito the first compartment of Napoleon's tent, where he busied himself hile conversing with the aides-de-camp in unpacking the box.
Fabvier stood talking with generals of his acquaintance in the entrance of the tent.
The Emperor Napoleon had not yet left his bedroom, he was finishing his toilet. With snorts and grunts of satisfaction, he was turning first his stout back and then his plump, hirsute chest towards the flesh-brush with which a valet was rubbing him down. Another valet, holding a bottle with one finger on it, was sprinkling eau de cologne on the Emperor’s pampered person with an expression which seemed to say that he alone knew where and how much eau de cologne must be sprinkled. Napoleon’s short hair was wet and matted on his brow. But his face, though puffy and yellow, expressed physical satisfaction.
‘Go on, hard, go on . . .’ he said, shrugging and clearing his throat, to the valet brushing him. An adjutant, who had come into the bedroom to report to the Emperor the number of prisoners taken in the last engagement, was standing at the door, after giving his message, awaiting permission to withdraw. Napoleon, frowning, glanced up from under his brows at the adjutant. ‘No prisoners,’ he repeated the adjutant’s words ‘They are working their own destruction. So much the worse for the Russian army,’ said he. ‘Harder, brush harder,’ he said, hunching his fat shoulders before the valet. ‘Good. Let Beausset come in and Fabviei too,’ he said to the adjutant, nodding.
‘I obey, sire,’ and the adjutant disappeared.
The two valets rapidly dressed his majesty, and in the blue uniform of the guards he walked into the reception-room with firm, rapid steps
Beausset meanwhile was in great haste setting up the present he hac brought from the Empress on two chairs just before the Emperor as he entered. But the Emperor had been so unaccountably rapid over getting dressed and coming in that he had not time to have the surprise ready for him.
