War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [163]
Just as Boris came in, Prince Andrei, narrowing his eyes disdainfully (with that particular air of polite weariness which says clearly that, were it not my duty, I would not talk with you for a minute), was listening to an old Russian general with decorations, who, drawn up almost on tiptoe, with an obsequious soldierly expression on his purple face, was reporting something to him.
“Very well, be so good as to wait,” he said to the general in Russian, with that French pronunciation which he used when he wanted to speak disdainfully, and, noticing Boris and no longer addressing the general (who pleadingly ran after him asking to be heard out), Prince Andrei turned to Boris with a cheerful smile, nodding to him.
Boris clearly understood at that moment what he had foreseen earlier, namely, that in the army, besides the subordination and discipline that were written in the regulations and known to the regiment, and which he knew, there was another more essential subordination, which made this tightly girded, purple-faced general wait deferentially while the captain Prince Andrei, for his own pleasure, found it preferable to talk with the ensign Drubetskoy. Boris resolved more than ever to serve in the future according to this unwritten subordination, not the one written in the regulations. He now felt that, merely as the result of his having been recommended to Prince Andrei, he had at once become higher than the general, who, on other occasions, at the front, could annihilate an ensign of the guards like him. Prince Andrei went up to him and took his hand.
“Very sorry you didn’t find me in yesterday. I spent the whole day fussing about with the Germans. Went to see Weyrother to check the disposition. When Germans start being accurate, there’s no end to it!”
Boris smiled as if he understood what Prince Andrei was hinting at as common knowledge. But it was the first time he had heard the name of Weyrother and even the word disposition.
“Well, what is it, my friend, do you still want to be an adjutant? I’ve been thinking about you meanwhile.”
“Yes,” said Boris, blushing involuntarily for some reason, “I thought of asking the commander in chief; he received a letter about me from Prince Kuragin; I wanted to ask,” he added, as if apologizing, “because I’m afraid the guards won’t see action.”
“Very good, very good! We’ll discuss it all,” said Prince Andrei. “Just let me report about this gentleman, and then I’m yours.”
While Prince Andrei went to report about the purple general, that general, who obviously did not share Boris’s notions about the advantages of the unwritten subordination, so fixed his eyes on the insolent ensign who had prevented him from finishing his talk with the adjutant that Boris felt awkward. He turned away and waited impatiently for Prince Andrei to come back from the commander in chief’s office.
“You see, my friend, I’ve been thinking about you,” said Prince Andrei, when they came to the big room with the pianoforte. “There’s no point in your going to the commander in chief,” said Prince Andrei. “He’ll tell you a heap of nice things, ask you to dinner” (“That wouldn’t be so bad for service by the other subordination,” thought Boris), “but nothing further will come of it. There will soon be a battalion of us adjutants and orderly officers. But here’s what we’ll do: I have a good friend, an adjutant general and a wonderful man, Prince Dolgorukov; and though you couldn’t know this, the thing is that Kutuzov and his staff and all of us mean precisely nothing: everything is now concentrated on the sovereign. So let’s go to Dolgorukov, I have to go to him anyway, and I’ve already spoken to him about you; so we’ll see whether he can’t find it possible to set you up with him or somewhere else closer to the sun.”
Prince Andrei always became especially animated when he had to guide a young man and help him towards worldly success. Under the pretext of this help for another, which out of pride he would never accept for himself, he found himself