War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [399]
Je suis etc.
(signé) Alexandre.
IV
On the fourteenth of June, at two o’clock in the morning, the sovereign, having summoned Balashov and read him his letter to Napoleon, ordered him to carry this letter and hand it personally to the French emperor. Sending Balashov on his way, the sovereign again repeated to him the words that he would not make peace so long as even one armed enemy remained on Russian soil, and ordered him to convey these words to Napoleon without fail. The sovereign did not include them in the letter, because he felt, with his innate tact, that it would be inappropriate to convey these words at the moment when a last attempt at reconciliation was being made; but he told Balashov to convey them without fail to Napoleon in person.
Having set out that same night, accompanied by a bugler and two Cossacks, Balashov reached the French outposts at the village of Rykonty, on the Russian side of the Niemen, at dawn. He was stopped by French cavalry sentinels.
A French hussar under-officer in a raspberry-colored uniform and shaggy hat shouted to the approaching Balashov, ordering him to stop. Balashov did not stop at once, but went on moving slowly down the road.
The under-officer, frowning and muttering some abuse, thrust his horse’s breast towards Balashov, took hold of his saber, and shouted rudely at the Russian general, asking him if he was deaf and had not heard what he was told. Balashov gave his name. The under-officer sent a soldier for an officer.
Paying no attention to Balashov, the under-officer started talking with his comrades about regimental matters and did not glance at the Russian general.
It was extremely strange for Balashov, after his closeness to the highest power and might, after his conversation three hours earlier with the sovereign, and generally in the habit of being honored in his service, to see here, on Russian soil, this hostile, and above all disrespectful, treatment of him by brute force.
The sun was just beginning to rise behind the clouds; the air was fresh and dewy. A herd of cattle was being driven down the road from the village. From the fields, one by one, trilling larks sprayed up like bubbles in water.
Balashov looked around him, awaiting the arrival of the officer from the village. The Russian Cossacks, and the bugler, and the French hussars silently glanced at each other now and then.
A French hussar colonel, obviously just out of bed, came riding from the village on a handsome, well-fed gray horse, accompanied by two hussars. The officer, the soldiers, and their horses had a contented and foppish look.
This was that initial period of a campaign when the troops still find themselves in good order, almost on the level of a peacetime review of maneuvers, only with a tinge of warlike showiness in their dress, and with a moral tinge of that gaiety and enthusiasm that always accompany the beginning of a campaign.
The French colonel had a hard time stifling his yawns, but was courteous, and evidently realized the full significance of Balashov. He led him past his soldiers behind the line and informed him that his wish to be presented to the emperor would probably be fulfilled at once, because, as far as he knew, the emperor’s quarters were close by.
They rode through the village of Rykonty, past French hussar tethering posts, sentinels, and soldiers, who saluted their colonel and looked with curiosity at the Russian uniform, and came out on the other side of the village. According to the colonel, they were a mile and a half from the commander of the division, who would receive Balashov and take him to his destination.