War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [402]
“You are perfectly within your rights to show or not show respect for me,” said Balashov. “But allow me to observe that I have the honor to bear the rank of his majesty’s adjutant general…”
Davout looked at him silently, and the slight trouble and confusion expressed on Balashov’s face clearly afforded him pleasure.
“You’ll be rendered what’s due you,” he said and, putting the envelope in his pocket, he left the shed.
A minute later the marshal’s adjutant, M. de Castries, came in and led Balashov to the lodgings prepared for him.
Balashov had dinner with the marshal that day, in the same shed, on the same board on barrels.
The next day Davout left early in the morning and, summoning Balashov, told him imposingly that he asked him to remain there, to move along with the baggage, if such were the orders, and to speak with no one except M. de Castries.
After four days of solitude, boredom, consciousness of his dependence and insignificance, felt especially sharply after the milieu of power in which he had been so recently, after several marches with the marshal’s baggage and the French troops, who occupied the entire area, Balashov was brought to Vilno, now occupied by the French, through the same gate from which he had ridden out four days earlier.
The next day the emperor’s gentleman-in-waiting, M. de Turenne, came to Balashov and conveyed to him the emperor Napoleon’s wish to honor him with an audience.
Four days earlier, the sentinels of the Preobrazhensky regiment were standing by the house to which Balashov was brought; now two French grenadiers stood there, in blue uniforms open on the chest and shaggy hats. A convoy of hussars and uhlans, and a dazzling suite of adjutants, pages, and generals, expecting Napoleon to come out, waited by the porch near his saddle horse and his Mameluke Rustan.12 Napoleon was to receive Balashov in the same house in Vilno from which Alexander had sent him off.
VI
Accustomed though Balashov was to court solemnity, the luxury and magnificence of the emperor Napoleon’s court struck him.
Count Turenne led him into a large reception room, in which sat many generals, gentlemen-in-waiting, and Polish dignitaries, many of whom Balashov had seen at the court of the Russian emperor. Duroc said that the emperor Napoleon would receive the Russian general before his promenade.
After several minutes of expectation, the gentleman-in-waiting on duty that day came out to the large reception room and, with a courteous bow to Balashov, invited him to follow him.
Balashov went into a small reception room, from which there was one door to the study, the same study from which the Russian emperor had sent him off. Balashov stood alone for a couple of minutes. There was a sound of hurried footsteps behind the door. Both halves of the door opened quickly, the gentleman-in-waiting who opened them stopped respectfully; everything fell silent, and from the study came the sound of other firm, resolute footsteps: this was Napoleon. He had just finished dressing for his ride. He was in a dark blue uniform, open over a white waistcoat which went down over his round stomach, white buckskins stretched tight over the fat haunches of his short legs, and jackboots. His short hair had obviously just been brushed, but one strand hung loose over the middle of his wide forehead. His plump white neck stood out sharply against the black collar of his uniform; he smelled of cologne. His full, youthful face with its protruding chin bore an expression of gracious and majestic imperial greeting.
He came out, springing briskly at every step, his head slightly thrown back. The whole of his stout, short figure, with its broad, fat shoulders and involuntarily thrust-out stomach and chest, had that imposing, stately look which pampered forty-year-old men have. Besides, it was clear that he was in very good spirits that day.
He nodded in response to Balashov’s low and respectful bow and, going up to him, began speaking at once, like a man who values