War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [267]
“I’ve heard about cases of that sort, and I know that the sovereign is very severe on such occasions. I think it should not get as far as his majesty. In my opinion, it would be better to ask the corps commander directly…But generally I think…”
“If you don’t want to do anything, just say so!” Rostov nearly shouted, not looking into Boris’s eyes.
Boris smiled.
“On the contrary, I’ll do what I can, only I thought…”
Just then Zhilinsky’s voice was heard at the door, calling Boris.
“Well, go, go,” said Rostov, and, declining supper and remaining alone in the little room, he paced up and down for a long time and listened to the merry French talk in the next room.
XX
Rostov had come to Tilsit on the day least suitable of all for interceding on Denisov’s behalf. He could not go to the general on duty himself, because he was wearing a tailcoat and had come to Tilsit without permission of the authorities, while Boris, even if he wanted to, could not do it on the day after Rostov’s arrival. On that day, the twenty-seventh of June, the preliminary conditions for peace were signed. The emperors exchanged decorations: Alexander received the Legion of Honor, and Napoleon the St. Andrew of the first degree, and on that day a dinner was arranged for the Preobrazhensky battalion, given by the battalion of the French guards.26 Both sovereigns were to be present at this banquet.
For Rostov it was so awkward and unpleasant to be with Boris that, when Boris looked in on him after supper, he pretended to be asleep, and the next day he left the house early in the morning, trying not to see him. Nikolai wandered around town in a tailcoat and a round hat, gazing at the French and their uniforms, and at the streets and houses where the Russian and French emperors lived. In the square he saw tables being set up and preparations being made for the dinner; in the streets he saw draperies hung across with flags in the Russian and French colors and huge monograms of A and N. In the windows of the houses there were also flags and monograms.
“Boris doesn’t want to help me, and I don’t want to turn to him. That’s settled,” thought Nikolai, “it’s all over between us, but I won’t leave here without doing all I can for Denisov and, above all, without delivering the letter to the sovereign. To the sovereign?! He’s here!” thought Rostov, involuntarily coming up again to the house occupied by Alexander.
Saddle horses stood by this house, and the suite was gathering, evidently preparing for the sovereign’s levee.
“I may see him any moment,” thought Rostov. “If only I could deliver the letter to him directly and tell him everything…Would they really arrest me for my tailcoat? It can’t be! He would understand whose side justice is on. He understands everything, knows everything. Who can be more just and magnanimous than he? Well, and if they arrest me for being here, what’s so bad about that?” he thought, looking at an officer going into the house occupied by the sovereign. “People do go in. Eh! it’s all nonsense! I’ll go and deliver the letter to the sovereign myself: so much the worse for Drubetskoy, who drove me to it.” And suddenly, with a resoluteness which he did not expect of himself, Rostov felt for the letter in his pocket and went straight to the house occupied by the sovereign.
“No, I’m not going to let the chance slip now as I did after Austerlitz,” he thought, expecting to meet the sovereign any moment and feeling the blood rush to his heart at the thought of it. “I’ll fall at his feet and