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By Root 3952 0

do, and knows that everything he does as an Englishman is unquestionably good. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and others. A Russian is self-assured precisely because he does not know anything and does not want to know anything, because he does not believe it possible to know anything fully. A German is self-assured worst of all, and most firmly of all, and most disgustingly of all, because he imagines that he knows the truth, science, which he has invented himself, but which for him is the absolute truth. Such, obviously, was Pfuel. He had science—the theory of the oblique movement, which he deduced from the history of the wars of Frederick the Great—and everything he came across in contemporary military history seemed to him senselessness, barbarism, grotesque clashes in which so many mistakes were made on both sides that these wars could not be called wars: they did not fit the theory and could not serve as material for science.

In 1806 Pfuel had been one of the architects of the plan of war that had ended with Jena and Auerstädt;22 but he did not see in the outcome of that war the least proof of the incorrectness of his theory. On the contrary, to his mind, the departures from his theory were the only cause of the whole failure, and he, with a gleeful irony all his own, used to say: “Ich sagte ja, dass die ganze Geschichte zum Teufel gehen wird.”*420 Pfuel was one of those theorists who so love their theory that they forget the purpose of the theory—its application in practice; in his love for theory, he hated everything practical and did not want to know about it. He was even glad of failure, because failure, proceeding from departures from theory in practice, only proved to him the correctness of his theory.

He exchanged a few words with Prince Andrei and Chernyshov about the present war, with the expression of a man who knows beforehand that it will all go badly and who is not even displeased by that. The unbrushed tufts of hair on his nape and his hastily slicked down side-whiskers were the most eloquent confirmation of it.

He went into the other room, and at once from there came the grumbling sounds of his bass voice.

XI

Prince Andrei was still following Pfuel with his eyes when Count Bennigsen hurriedly came into the room and, nodding to Bolkonsky without pausing, went to the study, giving some orders to his adjutant. The sovereign was coming behind him, and Bennigsen had hurried ahead, so as to prepare things and have time to meet the sovereign. Chernyshov and Prince Andrei went out to the porch. The sovereign, with a weary look, was getting off his horse. Marquis Paulucci was telling him something. The sovereign, his head inclined to the left, listened with a displeased air to Paulucci, who was speaking with particular vehemence. The sovereign started on, apparently wishing to finish the conversation, but the flushed, excited Italian, forgetting propriety, walked after him, still speaking.

“Quant à celui qui a conseillé ce camp, le camp de Drissa,” Paulucci was saying at the moment when the sovereign, going up the steps and noticing Prince Andrei, began peering at the unfamiliar face.

“Quant à celui, Sire,” Paulucci went on desperately, as if unable to restrain himself, “qui à conseillé le camp de Drissa, je ne vois pas d’autre alternative que la maison jaune ou le gibet.”*421 Not hearing out and as if not listening to the Italian’s words, the sovereign, having recognized Bolkonsky, graciously addressed him:

“Very glad to see you. Go in where they’ve assembled, and wait for me.” The sovereign went to the study. He was followed by Prince Pyotr Mikhailovich Volkonsky and Baron Stein, and the doors closed behind them. Prince Andrei, taking advantage of the sovereign’s permission, went, along with Paulucci, whom he had known in Turkey, into the drawing room where the council was assembled.

Prince Pyotr Mikhailovich Volkonsky occupied a post as something like the sovereign’s chief of staff. Volkonsky came out of the study and, bringing maps to the drawing room