War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [101]
Bilibin liked conversation, just as he liked work, only when the conversation could be elegantly witty. In society he constantly waited for the opportunity to say something remarkable and entered into conversation not otherwise than on that condition. Bilibin’s conversation was constantly sprinkled with wittily original and well-turned phrases of general interest. These phrases were manufactured in Bilibin’s inner laboratory, as if intentionally of a portable nature, so that society nonentities could readily remember them and pass them on from drawing room to drawing room. And indeed, les mots de Bilibine se colportaient dans les salons de Vienne,*187 as they say, and often had an influence on so-called important affairs.
His thin, drawn, yellowish face was all covered with deep wrinkles, which always looked as neatly and thoroughly washed as one’s fingertips after a bath. The movements of these wrinkles constituted the main play of his physiognomy. Now his forehead would wrinkle into wide folds as his eyebrows rose, then his eyebrows would descend and deep wrinkles would form on his cheeks. His small, deep-set eyes always looked out directly and merrily.
“Well, now tell us about your exploits,” he said.
In a most modest way, not once mentioning himself, Bolkonsky told about the action and his reception by the minister of war.
“Ils m’ont reçu avec ma nouvelle comme un chien dans un jeu de quilles,”†188 he concluded.
Bilibin smiled and released the folds of his skin.
“Cependant, mon cher,” he said, studying his fingernail from a distance and gathering up the skin over his left eye, “malgré la haute estime que je professe pour le Orthodox Russian armed forces,8 j’avoue que votre victoire n’est pas des plus victorieuses.”*189
He went on in the same way, in French, pronouncing in Russian only those words he wanted to underscore contemptuously.
“How, then? With all your mass you fell upon the unfortunate Mortier with his one division, and this Mortier slips between your fingers? Where’s the victory?”
“All the same, seriously speaking,” replied Prince Andrei, “we can still say without boasting that this is a bit better than Ulm…”
“Why didn’t you capture us at least one, at least one marshal?”
“Because not everything goes as it’s supposed to, and with such regularity as on parade. We planned, as I told you, to attack their rear by seven in the morning, but we didn’t even get there by five in the afternoon.”
“But why didn’t you get there at seven in the morning? You had to get there at seven in the morning,” Bilibin said, smiling, “you had to get there at seven in the morning.”
“And why didn’t you convince Bonaparte through diplomatic channels that he’d better leave Genoa?” Prince Andrei said in the same tone.
“I know,” Bilibin interrupted, “you think it’s very easy to capture marshals while sitting on a sofa in front of a fireplace. That’s true, but even so, why didn’t you capture him? And don’t be surprised if not only the minister of war, but the most august emperor and king Franz is not made very happy by your victory; nor do I, a miserable secretary of the Russian embassy, feel any particular joy…”
He looked straight at Prince Andrei and suddenly relaxed all the skin gathered on his forehead.
“Now it’s my turn to ask you ‘why,’ my dear,” said Bolkonsky. “I confess to you that I don’t understand, maybe there are diplomatic subtleties here that are beyond my feeble mind, but I don’t understand: Mack loses a whole army, the archduke Ferdinand and the archduke Karl give no signs of life and make blunder after blunder, Kutuzov alone finally gains a real victory, destroys the charme†190 of the French, and the minister of war isn’t even interested in learning