War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [524]
“Dites au roi de Naples,” Napoleon said sternly, “qu’il n’est pas midi et que je ne vois pas encore clair sur mon échiquier. Allez…”*493
The handsome boy-adjutant with long hair, not taking his hand from his hat, sighed deeply and galloped back to where people were being killed.
Napoleon stood up and, summoning Caulaincourt and Berthier, began talking with them about matters that did not concern the battle.
In the middle of the conversation, which had begun to interest Napoleon, Berthier’s eyes turned towards a general with a suite, who was galloping towards the barrow on a lathered horse. It was Belliard. He dismounted, stepped quickly up to the emperor, and boldly, in a loud voice, began demonstrating the necessity for reinforcements. He swore on his honor that the Russians would be destroyed if the emperor gave one more division.
Napoleon heaved his shoulders and, saying nothing in reply, continued on his walk. Belliard began talking loudly and animatedly with the generals of the suite who surrounded him.
“You’re all fired up, Belliard,” said Napoleon, coming to the newly arrived general again. “It’s easy to make mistakes in the heat of the fire. Go and have a look, and then come back to me.”
But Belliard had no time to disappear from view before a new messenger from the battlefield came galloping from the other side.
“Eh bien, qu’est-ce qu’il y a?”*494 Napoleon said in the tone of a man vexed at being constantly bothered.
“Sire, le prince…” began the adjutant.
“Asks for reinforcements?” Napoleon said with an angry gesture. The adjutant inclined his head affirmatively and began his report; but the emperor turned away from him, went two steps, stopped, came back, and summoned Berthier. “We must give them the reserves,” he said, spreading his arms slightly. “Who should we send in, what do you think?” he addressed Berthier, that “oison que j’ai fait aigle,”†495 as he referred to him later.
“Shall we send in Claparède’s division, Sire?” asked Berthier, who knew all the divisions, regiments, and battalions by heart.
Napoleon nodded his head affirmatively.
The adjutant galloped to Claparède’s division. And a few minutes later the young guard unit that was stationed behind the barrow started from its place. Napoleon silently looked in that direction.
“No,” he turned suddenly to Berthier, “I can’t send Claparède. Send Friant’s division,” he said.
Though there was no advantage in sending Friant’s division instead of Claparède’s, and there was an obvious inconvenience and delay in stopping Claparède now and sending Friant, the order was carried out with precision. Napoleon did not see that, in relation to his troops, he was playing the role of the doctor whose medications are a hindrance—a role he so correctly understood and disapproved of.
Friant’s division, like all the others, disappeared into the smoke of the battlefield. From all sides adjutants continued to come galloping, and all of them, as if by agreement, said one and the same thing. They all asked for reinforcements, they all said that the Russians were holding their positions and keeping up un feu d’enfer,‡496 before which the French army was melting away.
Napoleon sat on his camp chair deep in thought.
Having grown hungry since morning, M. de Beausset, the lover of travel, came to the emperor and ventured to suggest respectfully that his majesty have lunch.
“I hope that I may already congratulate Your Majesty on a victory?” he said.
Napoleon said nothing and shook his head negatively. Supposing that the negation referred to the victory and not to lunch, M. de Beausset allowed himself to observe with playful respect that there was nothing in the world that could interfere with taking lunch, when it was possible to do so.
“Allez-vous…”*497 Napoleon suddenly said gloomily