Prince Pyotr Volkonsky was a kind of acting head of the Tsar's staff. Volkonsky emerged from the study carrying some maps, which he spread out on the table before outlining a series of questions on which he wished to hear the opinions of the gentlemen present. During the night, it seemed, word had been received (falsely, as it turned out) that the French were on the march, threatening the Drissa camp with a pincer movement.
General Armfeldt spoke first, and he came out with a quite unexpected proposal for resolving the present difficulty, a brand-new suggestion, inexplicable except in terms of his eagerness to demonstrate that he too was not without opinions: that the army should form up in a position some distance from the Petersburg and Moscow roads and wait there for the enemy. Clearly, this was a plan that Armfeldt had thought up some time before, and he was putting it forward now not really as a solution to the present problem, because it had lost all relevance, but merely because he had spotted an opportunity for speaking. It was one suggestion among millions, all of them perfectly reasonable as long as no one had any real idea of how the war would work out. His proposal had its detractors and supporters. Young Colonel Toll was the Swedish general's most vociferous detractor, and in the course of the ensuing argument he took a well-filled note-book out of his side pocket and asked permission to read from it. In a rambling discourse Toll put forward yet another plan of campaign - totally different from Armfeldt's and Pfuel's. Paulucci countered with a proposal for immediate advance and attack, which he saw as the only way out of the present uncertainty and the trap that we were now in - his description of the Drissa camp. During these heated discussions not a word came from Pfuel or his interpreter Wolzogen (the bridge between him and the court world). Pfuel limited himself to the occasional contemptuous snort, and then he turned his back on them to indicate that he wasn't going to demean himself by responding to the rubbish he was hearing. But when Prince Volkonsky, who was chairing the debate, called upon him to voice an opinion, all he said was, 'Why me? General Armfeldt has proposed an excellent position with the rear exposed. Or there's this Italian gentleman with his attack - a splendid idea! Or a retreat? Just as good. Why ask me?' he said. 'Oh no, you all know better than I do.'
But when Volkonsky said with a scowl that he was asking his opinion on the Tsar's behalf, Pfuel got to his feet, roused himself and launched forth.
'You've messed it all up and ruined everything. You would have it you knew better than I did, and now you come running back for me to put things right. Well, nothing needs to be put right. All you have to do is carry on exactly according to the principles laid down by me,' he said, rapping on the table with his bony fingers. 'Where's the difficulty? Nonsense - it's child's play!' He went over to the map and began poking at it with a desiccated finger, jabbering away as he demonstrated that the effectiveness of the Drissa camp was immune to all contingencies, every development had been foreseen, and if the enemy did try a pincer movement, the enemy must face inevitable destruction.
Paulucci, who had no German, started asking questions in French. Wolzogen came to the rescue of his leader, who didn't speak much French, and began translating what was said, but he could hardly keep up with Pfuel, who was speeding ahead with his demonstration that everything - not only what was happening now but anything that could possibly happen - was covered by his plan, and if trouble had arisen, this was due entirely to missing out on some of its details. He gave one sardonic laugh after another as he rambled on with his demonstration, and then brought it to an end with the contempt of a mathematician who refuses to use any other methods to establish a proof that has already been conclusively demonstrated. Wolzogen then took over in French, developing his own ideas with the occasional 'Don't you agree, your Excellency?' addressed to Pfuel. But Pfuel was now like a soldier lashing out at his own men in the heat of battle, and he yelled furiously at everybody, including Wolzogen, 'I ask you, what more is there to explain?' Paulucci and Michaud sang in concert as they rounded on Wolzogen in French. Armfeldt was going on at Pfuel in German. Toll was giving Prince Volkonsky a Russian version of events. Prince Andrey held back, watching and listening.
Of all these men it was the fulminating, single-minded and absurdly arrogant Pfuel that Prince Andrey felt most sympathy for. He was clearly the only man there who wanted nothing for himself and knew no personal malevolence; all he wanted was to see his plan carried out, the plan that had cost him years of hard toil as his theory had evolved. He looked ridiculous, his sarcasm was offensive, but you had to admire his boundless devotion to an idea.
Besides that, with the single exception of Pfuel, all the speeches of those present had one thing in common that had been absent from the council of war in 1805 - a mixture of fear and panic at Napoleon's genius, which betrayed itself in every protestation, however much they tried to hide it. Napoleon was assumed to be capable of anything; he was expected from all sides at once, and they were able to destroy one another's proposals by the mere mention of his dreaded name. Pfuel seemed uniquely capable of treating even Napoleon like a barbarian, on a par with everyone else who opposed his theory. And apart from admiration, Pfuel also aroused a feeling of pity in Prince Andrey. The courtiers were beginning to adopt a new tone towards him, Paulucci had spoken out to the Tsar, and, more significantly, a kind of desperation was edging its way on to Pfuel's own features, all of which made it clear that others already knew what he was beginning to feel - his downfall was not far away. And for all his self-assurance and sarcastic German bombast, he looked pathetic with his hair plastered down at the temples and sticking up in tufts at the back. Try as he might to conceal it with a great bluster of irritation and contempt, he was visibly in despair that the one chance of putting his theory to the test on a colossal scale and demonstrating its infallibility to the whole world was slipping away from him.
The debate went on and on, and the longer it went on the more animated it became, with raised voices and name-calling, and the less possible it was to draw any kind of overall conclusion from what was being said. Listening to this polyglot babel of shouted proposals, plans and counter-proposals, Prince Andrey stood back amazed at what they were all saying. Ideas which he had long held and often thought about during his military service - that there was no such thing as a science of warfare, and never could be, and therefore there could be no such a thing as 'military genius' - struck him now as entirely true and self-evident. 'What kind of theory and science can there be when conditions and circumstances are indeterminate and can never be defined, and the active strengths of the warring parties are even more indefinable? No one can, no one ever could, know what the positions of our army and the enemy will be at this time tomorrow, and no one can know the relative strengths of the various detachments. Sometimes, when there is no coward up front to run away shouting, "We've been cut off!", but there is a brave and cheery soul shouting, "Hurrah!", a detachment of five thousand is a match for thirty thousand, as happened at Schongrabern, and on other occasions fifty thousand will run away from eight thousand, as they did at Austerlitz. What kind of science can there be when, as in all practical matters, nothing can be defined, and everything depends on an incalculable range of conditions which come together significantly at a moment that no one can know in advance? Armfeldt says our army has been cut off, but Paulucci says we have the French army caught between two fires; Michaud says the big disadvantage of the Drissa camp is that the river is behind us, while Pfuel says this is its strength. Toll proposes one plan, Armfeldt proposes another; they are all equally good and bad, and the advantages of any one proposition will only become clear after the event. So why all this talk about military genius? Does it take genius to get the biscuits delivered on time or know when to march the troops right or left? People are called geniuses only because of the pomp and power invested in the military, and because there are always plenty of wheedling rogues ready to fawn on power and credit it with the spurious quality of genius. It's the other way round - the best generals I've ever known have been stupid
or absent-minded. Bagration was the best - Napoleon himself admitted that. And as for Bonaparte! I remember his smug look and tight little face on the field at Austerlitz. A good military commander has no need of genius or any outstanding qualities; quite the reverse, he needs to be devoid of the finest and noblest of human attributes - love, poetry, affection, a philosophical spirit of inquiry and scepticism. He needs to be narrow-minded, totally convinced that what he is doing is very important (otherwise he would never have enough staying-power), and only then will he become a valiant military commander. God forbid that he should be like a human being, a prey to love and compassion, hesitating over right and wrong. It is obvious why a theory of genius should have been fabricated for them by people of old - such men and power are the same thing. Credit for any success in battle belongs not to them, but to some soldier in the ranks who shouted "Hurrah!", just as blame for failure belongs to one who shouted, "We've had it!" And it's only there in the ranks that anyone can serve and be absolutely certain he is doing something useful!'
This is what Prince Andrey was thinking about as he listened to the buzz of chatter, and he came to his senses only when Paulucci called across to him just as the meeting was breaking up.
Next day at the review the Tsar asked Prince Andrey where he wished to serve, and Bolkonsky wrote himself off for ever in court circles by opting for army service when he could have requested a post in attendance on the Tsar's person.
CHAPTER 12
Before the campaign began Nikolay Rostov had received a letter from his parents with a few words about Natasha's illness and the breaking off of her engagement, which they described as a rebuff from her, and another plea for him to retire from the army and come home. On receiving this letter Nikolay made no attempt to apply for leave or retirement; he wrote back to say how very sorry he was that Natasha was ill and had broken off her engagement, and he would make every effort to do what they wanted. To Sonya he wrote separately.
'My beloved, companion of my soul,' he wrote. 'Nothing but honour could keep me from going back to the country. But now, at the outset of a campaign, I would feel a sense of dishonour not only towards my comrades, but also in my own eyes, were I to put my own happiness ahead of my duty and my love for our fatherland. But this is our last separation. Believe me, once this war is over, if I am still alive and still loved by you, I shall cast everything aside and fly to you, to press you for ever to my ardent breast.'
And indeed, it was only the outbreak of war that had detained Rostov and kept him from going back home, as he had promised, to marry Sonya. The autumn and winter at Otradnoye with the hunting, the Christmas celebrations and Sonya's love had opened up the prospect of a nice quiet life as a country gentleman, full of pleasures he had never known before, which now beckoned alluringly. 'A nice wife, children, a decent pack of hounds, a dozen quick borzois, managing the estate, visiting the neighbours, get myself elected to something,' he mused. But now there was a war on, and he had to stay with his regiment. And since he had to, Nikolay Rostov, being what he was, managed to make the most of regimental life and ensure that this life was a pleasant one.
Nikolay had been given a warm welcome by his comrades on his return from leave and had then been sent off to Ukraine on a procurement mission, from where he came back with some splendid horses, which was gratifying for him and the source of much praise from the top brass. While he had been away his promotion to captain had come through, and when the regiment was placed on a war footing with an increased complement he was given his old squadron to command.
With the new campaign under way the regiment was sent to Poland on double pay, with new officers, new men and fresh horses. Best of all, the happy mood of excitement that comes at the beginning of a war permeated everything, and Rostov, conscious of his privileged position in the regiment, gave himself up body and soul to the business and pleasure of soldiering, though he knew that sooner or later he would have to give it all up.
For a variety of complex reasons, administrative, political and tactical, the army was in retreat from Vilna. Every retreating step was taken against a complex interplay of self-interest, argumentation and high passion at headquarters, but for the hussars of the Pavlograd regiment the whole business of retreating, in high summer and with everything in good supply, was the simplest and most agreeable of tasks. Low spirits, worry and intrigue might have been rampant at headquarters, but the army rank and file never gave a thought to where they were going or why. If there were any misgivings about retreating they were focused on moving out of nice familiar quarters and leaving behind a pretty Polish lady. And if it ever occurred to anyone that things were not going too well he would do his best, like a good soldier, to put a brave face on things, ignoring the general course of events and concentrating on personal affairs close at hand. At first they had been very pleasantly ensconced just outside Vilna, where they had got to know the local Polish gentry, and they had prepared for inspections that were then conducted by the Tsar or various members of the high command. Then came the order to retreat to Swienciany and destroy all stores that couldn't be carried away. Swienciany was remembered by the hussars for two reasons only: it was 'the drunken camp', so called by every soldier who stayed there, and it was also the cause of many a complaint against the troops for their over-zealous application of orders to remove all stores, since they took 'all stores' to include horses, carriages and carpets seized from the Polish gentry. Rostov remembered Swienciany as a village in the backwoods where, on his first day, he had sacked his quartermaster and lost control of the men of his squadron, who had drunk themselves stupid on five barrels of old beer brought along without his knowledge. From Swienciany they had fallen back further and further as far as Drissa, and from Drissa the retreat had continued until they were almost back at the Russian frontier.
On the 13th of July the Pavlograd hussars saw serious action for the first time.
On the 12th of July, the night before the action, there had been a thunderstorm with torrential rain. The summer of 1812 was a bad one for thunderstorms.
The two Pavlograd squadrons were encamped in the middle of a rye-field which had been standing in full ear but was now thoroughly trampled by cattle and horses. The rain came down in torrents, and Rostov was sitting with one of his proteges, a young officer by the name of Ilyin, in a little shelter that had been knocked up for them. A fellow-officer with mutton-chop whiskers, delayed by the rain on his way back from headquarters, dropped in on Rostov.
'Hello, Count. I'm on my way back from headquarters. Have you heard about Rayevsky's amazing feat?' And the officer launched into a detailed account of the battle of Saltanov that he had picked up at headquarters.
Rostov went on smoking his pipe, wriggling his neck where the rainwater was trickling down, listening with half an ear and glancing from time to time at the young Ilyin who was squeezed up close by. Ilyin, a boy of sixteen new to the regiment, looked up to Nikolay just as Nikolay had looked up to Denisov seven years before. Ilyin tried to imitate everything Rostov did, and adored him like a girl.
The officer with mutton-chop whiskers, Zdrzhinsky, was going on about the dam at Saltanov, portentously described by him as the Russian Thermopylae,9 and the heroic deed performed there by General Rayevsky, a deed worthy of the ancients. Zdrzhinsky told how Rayevsky had gone out on to the dam with his two sons under a terrible hail of fire and charged forward with them at his side. Rostov listened but, far from encouraging Zdrzhinsky in his transports with a sympathetic word or two, he assumed the air of a man who was embarrassed by what he was hearing but had no intention of raising any objections. With Austerlitz and the campaign of 1807 behind him, Rostov knew from personal experience that everybody lies, as he had done, when it comes to describing deeds of war. Secondly, he was too experienced not to be aware that everything happens on a battlefield in a way that totally transcends our imagination and powers of description. For these reasons he didn't like Zdrzhinsky's story, and didn't like Zdrzhinsky himself, with
his way of bending right down and thrusting his moustaches straight in the face of the person he was talking to. It was a tight squeeze in the little shelter and he was squeezing them more. Rostov watched him and said not a word. 'In the first place, the dam they were charging must have been so crowded and chaotic that if Rayevsky really had gone forward with his sons it couldn't have had any effect on anybody beyond the ten or twelve men closest to him,' thought Rostov. 'Nobody else could have seen Rayevsky on the dam or who was with him. But even the ones who did see him couldn't have got much of a boost from it - why should they bother about Rayevsky's warm fatherly feelings when their own skins were at stake? Anyway, the fate of Mother Russia didn't depend on the Saltanov dam being taken or not taken, as was the case at Thermopylae, so they say. So why make a sacrifice like that? What's the point in getting your own children mixed up in a battle? I wouldn't expose my brother, Petya, to any danger, or even Ilyin, and he's nothing to me, though he's a nice boy - I'd do what I could to keep them somewhere safe and sheltered.' These were the thoughts that ran through Rostov's mind as he listened to Zdrzhinsky. But he didn't say a word about them, being too experienced even for that. He knew that stories like this redounded to the glory of our war effort, so it was best to pretend not to doubt them. This is what he did.
'Well, that's it. I've had enough,' said Ilyin, noticing that Rostov didn't like Zdrzhinsky's talk. 'Stockings, shirt, the lot - I'm soaked. I'm off to find somewhere else to shelter. I think the rain may have eased off.'
Ilyin walked out and Zdrzhinsky rode away.
Five minutes later Ilyin was back, splashing through the mud as he ran towards the shelter.
'Hurrah! Rostov, let's get going. Guess what I've found - an inn, a couple of hundred yards away, and our boys are there already. It's a chance to dry out, and Marya Genrikhovna's there too.'