“C’est trahison peut-être,”*212 said Prince Andrei, vividly imagining gray greatcoats, wounds, gunsmoke, the sounds of shooting, and the glory that awaited him…
“Non plus. Cela met la cour dans de trop mauvais draps,” Bilibin went on. “Ce n’est ni trahison, ni lâcheté, ni bêtise; c’est comme à Ulm…” It was as if he fell to pondering, searching for a phrase: “C’est…c’est du Mack. Nous somme mackés,”†213 he concluded, feeling that he had uttered a mot, and a fresh mot, a mot that would be repeated.
The folds on his forehead, gathered till then, quickly released themselves as a sign of satisfaction, and, smiling slightly, he began to examine his nails.
“Where are you going?” he said suddenly, turning to Prince Andrei, who got up and made for his room.
“I’m leaving.”
“For where?”
“The army.”
“Why, didn’t you want to stay another two days?”
“But now I’m leaving at once.”
And Prince Andrei, having given orders for his departure, left for his room.
“You know what, my dear,” said Bilibin, coming into his room, “I’ve been thinking about you. Why should you go?”
And in proof of the irrefutability of his argument, all the folds fled his face.
Prince Andrei looked at his interlocutor questioningly and said nothing.
“Why should you go? I know, you think it’s your duty to gallop off to the army, now that the army is in danger. I understand that, mon cher, c’est de l’héroisme.”
“Not in the least,” said Prince Andrei.
“But you are un philosophe, so be one fully, look at things from another angle, and you’ll see that your duty is, on the contrary, to protect yourself. Let others, who are good for nothing else, do that…You weren’t told to come back, and you haven’t been dismissed from here; therefore you can stay and come with us wherever our sorry fate takes us. They say they’re going to Olmütz. Now, Olmütz is a very nice town. And you and I can calmly drive there together in my carriage.”
“Stop joking, Bilibin,” said Bolkonsky.
“I’m saying it to you sincerely as a friend. Consider. Where will you go now, and what for, when you can stay here? One of two things awaits you” (he gathered the skin over his left temple): “either peace will be concluded before you reach the army, or it will be defeat and disgrace along with the whole of Kutuzov’s army.”
And Bilibin released the skin, feeling that his dilemma was irrefutable.
“I cannot consider that,” Prince Andrei said coldly, and thought: “I’m going in order to save the army.”
“Mon cher, vous êtes un héros,” said Bilibin.
XIII
That same night, having repectfully taken leave of the minister of war, Bolkonsky rode off to the army, not knowing himself where he would find it and fearing to be intercepted by the French on his way to Krems.
In Brünn all the court population was packing, and the heavy baggage had already been sent to Olmütz. Near Etzelsdorf Prince Andrei came out on the road along which the Russian army was moving with the greatest haste and in the greatest disorder. The road was so choked with wagons that it was impossible to drive in a carriage. Having taken a horse and a Cossack from the chief of the Cossacks, Prince Andrei, hungry and tired, got ahead of the baggage train, going in search of the commander in chief and his own wagon. The most sinister rumors about the army’s situation had reached him on the way, and the sight of the feverishly fleeing army confirmed those rumors.
“Cette armée Russe que l’or de l’Angleterre a transportée des extrémités de l’univers, nous allons lui faire éprouver le même sort (le sort de l’armée d’Ulm)”*214 —he recalled the words of Napoleon’s order to his army before the start of the campaign, and these words aroused in him at once an astonishment at the genius of the hero, a feeling of offended pride, and a hope of glory. “And what if there’s nothing left but to die?” he thought. “Why not, if need be! I’ll do it no worse than others.”
Prince Andrei looked with scorn at these countless mixed-up detachments, wagons, caissons, artillery, and again wagons, wagons of all possible sorts, trying to get ahead of each other and choking the muddy road three or four abreast. On all sides, behind and before, as far as hearing could reach, there was the noise of wheels, the rumbling of flatbeds, carts, and gun carriages, the thud of hooves, the crack of whips, the shouts of drivers, the cursing of soldiers, orderlies, and officers. On the roadsides one constantly saw now dead horses, skinned or unskinned, now broken-down wagons, near which solitary soldiers sat waiting for something, now soldiers who separated from their detachments and went in groups to the neighboring villages or came from the villages dragging chickens, sheep, hay, or sacks filled with something. On the ascents and descents the crowds became thicker, and there was a ceaseless moan of cries. Soldiers, sunk in mud up to their knees, carried cannon and wagons with their hands; whips lashed, hooves slipped, traces snapped, and chests strained with shouting. The officers in charge of the movement rode up and down among the trains. Their voices were faintly heard amidst the general hubbub, and one could see from their faces that they despaired of the possibility of stopping this disorder.
“Voilà le cher Orthodox armed forces,”*215 thought Bolkonsky, recalling Bilibin’s words.
Wishing to ask someone among these people where the commander in chief was, he rode up to the baggage train. Directly in front of him rolled a strange one-horse vehicle, evidently constructed by soldiers using homegrown means, something between a cart, a cabriolet, and a carriage. The driver of the vehicle was a soldier, and in it, under a leather top and apron, sat a woman all wrapped in shawls. Prince Andrei rode up and was about to address the soldier with his question when his attention was attracted by the desperate cries of the woman sitting in the little kibitka. The officer in charge of the baggage train was beating the soldier who sat on the box of this little carriage for trying to get ahead of the others, and his lash struck the apron of the vehicle. The woman cried out piercingly. Seeing Prince Andrei, she thrust her head out from under the apron and, waving her thin arms freed from the ruglike shawl, cried: