Читаем War And Peace полностью

Bilibin was a bachelor in his mid-thirties from the same background as Prince Andrey. They had known each other in Petersburg, but had become closer during Prince Andrey’s last stay in Vienna with Kutuzov. If Prince Andrey was a young man with a promising military career ahead of him, Bilibin promised even more in the diplomatic field. Still young in years, he was not young in diplomacy. Joining the service at the age of sixteen, he had been posted to Paris and Copenhagen, and now occupied a responsible position in Vienna. Both the chancellor and our ambassador in Vienna knew him and thought highly of him. He was not one of that vast army of diplomats required to display negative qualities, those men who rise to the top by speaking French and not doing certain things. He was a diplomat who liked his work and understood it, and for all his natural indolence he would sometimes spend whole nights at his desk. He was equally adept at every aspect of his work, and more interested in the question how than the question why. He didn’t mind what kind of diplomatic assignment came his way; it was always an exquisite pleasure for him to work with subtle conciseness and a touch of elegance in composing any circular, memorandum or report. But apart from his written work, Bilibin was also valued for his easy manner when moving and talking in the highest circles.

Bilibin enjoyed talking as much as working, as long as the conversation was stylish and clever. In society he always hung back, waiting for a chance to say something very striking, and would not enter any conversation unless he could do so. His speech was invariably salted with polished phrases, original, witty but of general application. They were fabricated in some inner laboratory of Bilibin’s mind, portable and ready-made for social nonentities to commit to memory and take around the other drawing-rooms. Bilibin’s bons mots, widely peddled in every Viennese salon, often went on to influence what people thought of as important matters.

His thin, lean, sallow face was covered all over with deep wrinkles, but they always looked as wholesome and scrupulously cleansed as fingertips fresh from a bath. All the variations of his facial expression were played out in the manipulation of these wrinkles. One moment his brow would furrow up in thick folds as his eyebrows rose, the next his eyebrows would plunge, leaving deep lines all down his cheeks. His small, deep-set eyes looked out openly and shone with good humour.

‘Well, come on then, tell us about your deeds of valour,’ he said.

With exemplary modesty and without any reference to himself, Bolkonsky described the engagement and his subsequent reception by the war minister.

‘They welcomed me and my news like a dog in a skittle-alley,’ he concluded. Bilibin grinned, relaxing all his wrinkles.

‘All the same, my dear fellow,’ he said, taking a long view of his fingernails and bunching up the skin over his left eye, ‘for all my admiration of Holy Russia’s military machine, I must say your victory was not very victorious.’

He carried on speaking French, using Russian only for words which he wanted to invest with particular derision.

‘Just think. You and your massed ranks fell on the miserable Mortier with his single division, and Mortier slipped through your fingers! Is that victory?’

‘No, but seriously,’ answered Prince Andrey, ‘at least we can claim without boasting that it’s an improvement on Ulm . . .’

‘You might have caught us a marshal, just one!’

‘Well, things don’t always turn out the way you plan them. It’s not like being all neat and tidy on the parade ground. As I said, we had expected to attack the enemy in the rear at seven in the morning, but we didn’t even get there till five in the afternoon.’

‘But why didn’t you arrive at seven in the morning? You should have arrived at seven in the morning,’ said Bilibin with a smile. ‘You should have arrived at seven in the morning.’

‘Why didn’t you manage to persuade Napoleon through diplomatic channels that he had better leave Genoa alone?’ said Prince Andrey, adopting the same tone.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ broke in Bilibin. ‘It’s not difficult to capture a marshal sitting on a sofa by the fireside. That’s fine, but the question remains – why didn’t you capture him? You shouldn’t be too surprised if the most august Emperor and King Francis, like the war minister, is not too delighted by your victory. I’m not all that jubilant, and I’m just a poor secretary in the Russian embassy . . .’

He looked directly at Prince Andrey and suddenly relaxed the bunched-up folds on his forehead.