Chapter 9 Chapter nine

At this time, Bilibin was staying in the army's base camp as a diplomat. Although his letter was written in French and contained French jokes and special expressions, it was self-condemning and self-deprecating. On the other hand, he described the whole campaign with an air of fearlessness inherent in Russia.Bilibin wrote that the discretion of the diplomat made him miserable, and he was extremely happy to have at his side such a faithful and reliable correspondent as Prince Andrew.He could pour out to him the accumulated feelings of his life from what he had witnessed in the army.This letter was written before the battle of Prussia-Eylau, and is now an old letter.

-------- ①French: humble. Bilibin wrote: "Since our brilliant victory at Austerlitz, my dear prince, you know, I have never left my headquarters. War has undoubtedly fascinated me, and I am deeply satisfied with it. For three months The look is unbelievable. "I alovo (Latin: from the beginning) speak. Human beings as you know The public enemy of the United States attacked the Prussians, our true allies, who only deceived us three times in three years.We all shelter them.But the public hostility of man, man, paid no heed to the charismatic words against us, did not allow the Prussians to end the parade they had begun, stormed the Prussians with savage insolence, and crushed them, And stationed in Potsdam Palace.

"The King of Prussia wrote in his letter to Bonaparte, I sincerely hope that your Majesty will be pleasingly received at my palace, and it is with special concern that I issue various corresponding messages as circumstances permit. Orders. Ah, I only wish it could be achieved! The Prussian generals are proud of their flattery before the French. Surrender to the enemy as soon as they ask. Thousands of people asked the king of Prussia what he should do. It was all true. In short, we only wanted to scare them with our military posture, but we were finally drawn into war, fighting on our frontiers , chiefly, we fight for the King of Prussia, and we fight with him. We have more than enough, we only lack one trickster, that is, a commander-in-chief.

If the commander-in-chief had not been so young, the victory at the Battle of Austerlitz might have been more decisive, so we judged the eighty-year-old generals one by one, and between Prozorovsky and Kamensky chose the latter.The general, pretending to be Suvorov, drove towards us in a covered carriage, and was greeted by cheers and solemn ceremony. " "On the 4th the first courier came here from Petersburg. He took the letter-box into the Marshal's office, and the Marshal likes to do everything himself. I was asked to help sort out the mail and get all the letters for us. The Marshal called We did the work, looking at us, waiting for a letter for him. We searched and found, but there was no letter from him. The marshal was in a hurry, and he did the work himself. He found the king and sent it to Earl T. Letters with Earl B. and others. He was so pissed off, he took a few letters addressed to others, opened them, and read, 'Ah, treat me like this, don't trust me! Tell them to watch me. Well, Go away!' And he wrote Count Bennigsen a famous order.

"'I was wounded and unable to ride, so I could not command an army. You took your defeated regiment to Putusk, and exposed yourself there, having neither firewood nor fodder, and had to be supplemented, You sent an official letter to Earl Buxgevden yesterday, so you should have thought about retreating to our borders, and you must fulfill your mission today.' "'Because of running about,'ecritilal' Empereur,' I have scraped the saddle, and a few old wounds, which completely prevent me from riding and commanding this large army, so I deprive myself of command Pass it on to a general who is slightly lower than me—the Earl of Buxgevden, and hand over the duty of the headquarters and everything it belongs to this general, and give advice. Withdrew because there was only one day's food left, as reported by Commanders Osterman and Shedmoretsky, several regiments were left without a grain of food. The peasants were running out of food; I was hospitalized in the Ostrolenka field hospital while the bruises were not healed. I submit this report with great trepidation and report that if the army stays in the present camp for fifteen more days, even one healthy soldier will be able to come spring. No one left.'

-------- ① French: He wrote in a letter to the king. "'Remove me, an old man, and send me to the country, disgraced from the great and honorable mission to which I was chosen. I await your most merciful approval in the field hospital, Lest I play the role of a recorder instead of a commander in the army. I leave the army as a blind man leaving the army without causing the slightest sensation, I There are thousands of such people in Russia.' "It is perfectly logical that the marshal is angry with the king and punishes us all! "That was the first act of the comedy. Needless to say, the subsequent acts became more and more amusing and ridiculous. After the field marshal left, the enemy appeared before us and had to fight. Buxgevden was commander-in-chief, But General Bennigsen disagreed, and he and one of his men were within sight of the enemy, and he wanted to take the opportunity to fight a battle. So he fought a battle. This is what is considered a win Great victorious Battle of Putusk, but in my opinion, that is not the case at all. You know, we civil servants have a bad habit of solving problems of victory and defeat. Whoever retreats after the battle is the one who has lost the battle , that's what we're going to say, according to which we lost the battle of Putusk. In a word, we retreated after the battle, but at the same time we sent messengers to Petersburg to win, and Penny General Gessen, who did not cede authority in the command of the army to General Buxgevden, counted on taking the title of Commander-in-Chief from Petersburg, for which the Russian Court thanked him for the victories he had achieved. During the vacancy of leadership we launched a The series is very interesting maneuver warfare. Our plan is no longer what it seems to be - avoid or attack the enemy, but just avoid General Buxgevden, who by rank should be ours Commander, we are concentrating all our energies on this purpose, even burning bridges when we cross the river without fords, in order to rid ourselves of the enemy, and at this moment our enemy is not Bonaparte, but Buxgevden .

General Buxgevden was almost attacked and captured by the superior force of the enemy because we made a maneuver designed to save us and repel Buxgevden.Buxgevden came after us and we ran away.He just crossed the river to this side of the river, and we crossed the river to the other side of the river.At last our enemy Buxgevden would not let us go, and made an attack.At this time, the two sides had a dialogue to clear up the misunderstanding.The two generals were furious, almost to the point of a duel between the two commanders-in-chief.Fortunately, at this critical juncture, the courier who brought the news of the Putusk victory to Petersburg has returned and brought us the commission of the Commander-in-Chief, and the number one enemy Buxgevden has been defeated.We can now consider enemy No. 2—Bonaparte.But at this very moment Enemy No. 3—the Orthodox soldiers—appeared before us, clamoring for bread, beef, rusk, hay, oats—whatever!

The shops are empty and the roads are impassable.Orthodox soldiers began to plunder to such a degree that not even the last campaign could have given you the slightest idea of ​​the same.Half of the corps formed the Freedom Guild, with their footprints all over the place, doing their best to burn and kill.The population has been reduced to abject poverty, the hospitals are flooded with the sick, and famine is everywhere.Those looters even attacked the base camp twice, and the commander-in-chief had to lead a group of soldiers to drive them away.In one such raid they took from me an empty cage and a long smock.The king intends to authorize the commanders of the divisions to shoot the marauders on the spot, but I am very afraid that this will force half the army to shoot the other half.

Team. "① -------- ①This letter is written in French. At first Prince Andrei read the letter only with his naked eyes, but then he couldn't help but be more and more interested in what he read (even though he knew that Bilibin's words were only somewhat credible).He read this, crumpled the letter, and threw it away.What made him angry was not what he read in the letter, but that life in a place he felt strange might make him anxious.He closed his eyes, wiped his forehead with his hand, as if to dispel any interest in what he was reading, and listened to what was going on in the nursery.Suddenly he seemed to feel a strange sound behind the door.He felt very scared, and he was afraid of what would happen to the baby while he was reading the letter.He went on tiptoe to the nursery door and opened it.

When he came in, he saw that the nurse was hiding something from him with a frightened air, and that Princess Marya was no longer by the cot. "My darling," he seemed to hear Princess Mary's desperate whisper behind him.This is often the case after long periods of insomnia and restlessness, and he felt an unaccountable dread overtake him, and it occurred to him that the baby was dead.He felt as though what he had seen confirmed that his fears were justified. "Everything is over." He thought for a while, and a burst of cold sweat broke out on his forehead.He approached the cot in a panic, confident that he would find it an empty cot where the nurse had hidden the dead baby.He opened the curtain, and his frightened astigmatism eyes did not find the child for a long time.He finally saw him. The red-faced boy was lying sprawled on the small bed. He put his head low under the pillow, clicked in his dream, moved his lips one by one, and breathed evenly.

Prince Andrew was very happy to see the boy, and it seemed to him that he had lost him.Just as his sister had taught him, he leaned over and tested the baby with his lips to see if the baby was still feverish.The delicate forehead was wet, he touched his head with his hand, even the hair was wet, the child was sweating profusely.Not only was he not dead, but it was evident that the extreme phase of his illness was over and he was recovering.Prince Andrew would have liked to pick up the helpless little creature, rub it, and hug him tightly, but he dared not do so.He stood before him, looking at his head and the little hands and feet that were outlined under the quilt.There was a rustling sound from beside him, and he felt a shadow appearing under the curtain of the small bed.He didn't look around, just looked at the baby's face, still listening to his even breathing.That shadow was Princess Marya. She walked quietly to the crib, raised the curtain, and put it down again casually.Prince Andrew knew it was her without looking back, and held out his hand to her.She held his hand tightly. "He's sweating," said Prince Andrew. "I came to you to say this to you." The baby moved a little in the dream, smiled, and wiped the pillow with its forehead. Prince Andrew looked at his sister.The sparkling eyes of Princess Marya, brimming with tears of happiness, seemed extraordinarily bright in the dimly lit canopy.Princess Marya leaned over to her brother, kissed him, and touched the curtain of the cot a little.They threatened each other, and stood for a while in the dimly lit tent, as if unwilling to leave this small world, where the three of them seemed to be cut off from the whole world.Prince Andrew, whose hair was disheveled by the muslin curtain, was the first to walk away from the bed. "Yes, that's the only thing left for me now," he said with a sigh.