War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [44]
Nikolai sat far away from Sonya, next to Julie Karagin, and again was saying something to her with an involuntary smile. Sonya smiled formally, but was clearly suffering from jealousy: she turned pale, then red, and tried as hard as she could to hear what Nikolai and Julie were saying to each other. The governess looked around anxiously, as if preparing to resist, if anyone took it into his head to offend the children. The German tutor tried to memorize all the kinds of dishes, desserts, and wines, in order to describe everything in detail in his letter to his family in Germany, and was quite offended that the butler with the napkin-wrapped bottle bypassed him. The German frowned, trying to show by his look that he did not even wish to have this wine, but was offended because no one wanted to understand that the wine was necessary for him, not in order to quench his thirst, nor out of greed, but out of a conscientious love of knowledge.
XVI
At the men’s end of the table, the conversation was becoming more and more animated. The colonel said that the manifesto with the declaration of war had already been published in Petersburg, and that a copy, which he had seen himself, had been delivered today by messenger to the commander in chief.
“And what the deuce makes us go to war with Bonaparte?” said Shinshin. “Il a déjà rabattu le caquet à l’Autriche. Je crains que cette fois ce ne soit notre tour.”*113
The colonel was a tall, stout, and sanguine German, obviously a seasoned soldier and a patriot. He took offense at Shinshin’s words.
“Pecause, my tear sir,” he said, pronouncing the b as a p and the d as a t, “pecause the emperor knows that. He said in the manifesto that he cannot look mit intifference at the tangers that threaten Russia, and that the security of the empire, its tignity, and the sacretness of its alliances…” he said, for some reason giving special emphasis to the word alliances, as if this was the essence of the matter.
And with that impeccable official memory peculiar to him, he repeated the introductory words of the manifesto: “…and the desire, which constitutes the sole and absolute aim of the sovereign, to establish peace in Europe on firm foundations, led to his present decision to move part of the army abroad and to make further efforts towards the achievement of that intention.”34
“It’s pecause of that, my tear sir,” he concluded didactically, drinking a glass of wine and looking to the count for encouragement.
“Connaissez-vous le proverbe: ‘Jerome, Jerome, stay close to home, keep your shovel in the loam’?” asked Shinshin, wincing and smiling. “Cela nous convient à merveille. Take Suvorov35—even he got beaten à plate couture, and where are our Suvorovs now? Je vous demande un peu,”†114 he said, constantly switching from Russian to French.
“Ve must fight to the last trop of plood,” said the colonel, pounding the table, “und ti-i-ie for our emperor, and then all vill be vell. And reason as little as po-o-ossible” (he especially drew out the word possible), “as little as po-o-ossible,” he concluded, again addressing the count. “So ve old hussars see it, anyvay. And how to you, a young man and a young hussar, see it?” he added, turning to Nikolai, who, hearing that things had got on to the war, had abandoned his interlocutrice and was looking all eyes and listening all ears to the colonel.
“I agree with you completely,” replied Nikolai, blushing all over, turning his plate and rearranging the glasses,