第二十二章

英文

为了完成被委托的这件事，当天晚上皮埃尔便到罗斯托夫家里去了。娜塔莎躺在病榻上，伯爵正在俱乐部，皮埃尔把信件交给索尼娅，然后到玛丽亚·德米特里耶夫娜那里去了，她很想知道安德烈公爵对退婚消息所持的态度。十分钟以后索尼娅走进玛丽亚·德米特里耶夫娜房里，找她去了。

“娜塔莎一定要和彼得·基里洛维奇伯爵见面。”她说。

“怎么，要把他带到她那里去吗？你们那里还没有收拾好啊。”玛丽亚·德米特里耶夫娜说。

“不，她穿好了衣裳，到客厅里去了。”索尼娅说。

玛丽亚·德米特里耶夫娜只得耸耸肩膀罢了。

“伯爵夫人什么时候到这里来，简直把我折磨坏了。你要当心，别把什么话都讲给她听。”她把脸转向皮埃尔说。“那里敢骂她，她这样可怜，这样可怜啊！”

娜塔莎非常消瘦，面色苍白而且严肃（根本不是皮埃尔所预料的那样害羞的样子），她站在客厅正中间。当皮埃尔在门口露面时候，她心里慌张起来，十分明显，她趑趄不前，向他走过去呢，还是等他走过来。

皮埃尔急忙走到她跟前。他心中想道，她会像平常一样向他伸出手来，但是她走近跟前以后停步了，喘不过气来，呆板地垂下一双手，她那姿态俨如走到大厅中间来唱歌一般，但是她脸上流露着完全不同的表情。

“彼得·基里雷奇，”她开始飞快地说，“博尔孔斯基公爵从前是您的朋友，现在他还是您的朋友，”她改正说（她仿佛觉得，这一切只是明日黄花，现在这一切不一样了），“那时他对我说，要我来求您……”

皮埃尔望着她，不作声地用鼻子发出呼哧呼哧的嗤声。他直至如今还在自己心中责备她，尽量藐视她，然而他现在非常怜悯她，致使他心中没有责备她的余地了。

“此刻他还在这里，告诉他……叫他饶恕……饶恕我。”她停住了，开始愈加急促地呼吸，但她并没有哭泣。

“是的……我要对他说，”皮埃尔说，“不过……”他不知道要说什么话。

娜塔莎显然担心皮埃尔头脑中会有那种想法。

“不，我晓得，这一切已经完了，”她连忙说。“不，这决不可能。只不过我做了危害他的恶事，这使我感到痛苦。我只有请您告诉他，我请他原谅、原谅、原谅我的一切……”她浑身颤抖起来，就在椅子上坐下。

皮埃尔从来没有体验过的那种怜悯感已经充满了他的心灵。

“我要对他说，我再一次地把这一切告诉他，”皮埃尔说，“但是……我希望知道一点……”

“要知道什么？”娜塔莎的眼神在发问……

“我希望知道您是否爱过……”皮埃尔不知道怎样称呼阿纳托利，一想到他，就满面通红，“您是否爱过这个坏人？”

“您不要把他叫做坏人吧，”娜塔莎说。“但是我什么，什么都不知道……”她又哭起来。

怜悯、温和与爱慕的感情愈益强烈地支配住皮埃尔。他听见他的眼泪在眼镜下面簌簌地流下，因此他希望不被人发现。

“我们不再讲了，我的朋友。”皮埃尔说。

娜塔莎忽然觉得他这种柔和、温情、诚挚的说话声非常奇怪。

“我们不讲了，我的朋友，我要把这一切说给他听，但是我要求您一件事——认为我是个朋友。如果您需要帮助、忠告，或者只不过是需要向谁倾诉衷肠，不是目前，而是当您心中开朗的时候，您就要想想我吧。”他一把抓住她的手，吻了吻。“如果我能够……我就会感到幸福。”皮埃尔腼腆起来。

“您甭跟我这样说，我配不上！”娜塔莎喊道，她想从房里走出去，但是皮埃尔握着她的手，把她拦住。他知道，他还需要向她说些什么话。但当他说完这句话以后，他对自己说的话感到惊讶。

“不要再讲了，不要再讲了，您前途远大。”他对她说。

“我的前途吗？不远大！我的一切都完了。”她怀着羞怯和妄自菲薄的心情说。

“一切都完了？”他重复地说。“如果我不是我自己，而是世界上的最俊美的最聪明的最优秀的人，而且是无拘无束的，我就会立刻跪下来向您求婚的。”

娜塔莎在许多天以后头一次流出了致谢和感动的眼泪，她向皮埃尔望了一眼，便从房里走出去了。

皮埃尔紧跟在她后面，几乎是跑到接待室，他忍住哽在他喉咙里的、因深受感动和幸福而流出的眼泪，他没有把手伸进袖筒，披上皮袄，坐上了雪橇。

“请问，现在去哪里？”马车夫问道。

“到哪里去呀？”皮埃尔问问自己。“现在究竟到哪里去呀？难道去俱乐部或者去做客？”与他所体验到的深受感动和爱慕的情感相比照，与她最后一次透过眼泪看看他时投射出来的那种和善的、感谢的目光相比照，所有的人都显得如此卑微、如此可怜。

“回家去。”皮埃尔说，尽管气温是零下十度，他仍旧敞开熊皮皮袄，露出他那宽阔的、喜悦地呼吸的胸脯。

天气晴朗，非常寒冷。在那污秽的半明半暗的街道上方，在黑魆魆的屋顶上方，伸展着昏暗的星罗棋布的天空。皮埃尔只是在不停地观看夜空时，才不觉得一切尘世的东西在与他的灵魂所处的高度相比照时，竟然卑微到令人感到受辱的地步。在进入阿尔巴特广场的地方，皮埃尔眼前展现出广袤无垠的昏暗的星空。一八一二年出现的这颗巨大而明亮的彗星正位于圣洁林荫道的上方，差不多悬在这片天空的正中央，它的周围密布着繁星，它与众星不同之处乃在于，它接近地面，放射出一道白光，它的长长的尾巴向上翘起来，据说，正是那颗彗星预示着一切灾难和世界末日的凶兆。但是皮埃尔心中这颗拖着长尾巴的璀璨的彗星并没有引起任何恐怖感。与之相反，皮埃尔兴高采烈地睁开他那双被泪水沾湿的眼睛，凝视着这颗明亮的彗星，它仿佛正以非言语所能形容的速度沿着一条抛物线飞过这辽阔的空间，忽然它像一枝射进土中的利箭，在黑暗的天空楔入它所选定的地方，停止不动，它使尽全力地翘起尾巴，在无数闪烁的星星之间炫耀自己的白光。皮埃尔仿佛觉得，这颗彗星和他那颗生机盎然的、变得温和而且受到鼓舞的心灵完全重合。

CHAPTER I

Chinese

TOWARDS THE END of the year 1811, there began to be greater activity in levying troops and in concentrating the forces of Western Europe, and in 1812 these forces—millions of men, reckoning those engaged in the transport and feeding of the army— moved from the west eastward, towards the frontiers of Russia, where, since 1811, the Russian forces were being in like manner concentrated.

On the 12th of June the forces of Western Europe crossed the frontier, and the war began, that is, an event took place opposed to human reason and all human nature. Millions of men perpetrated against one another so great a mass of crime—fraud, swindling, robbery, forgery, issue of counterfeit money, plunder, incendiarism, and murder—that the annals of all the criminal courts of the world could not muster such a sum of wickedness in whole centuries, though the men who committed those deeds did not at that time look on them as crimes.

What led to this extraordinary event? What were its causes? Historians, with simple-hearted conviction, tell us that the causes of this event were the insult offered to the Duke of Oldenburg, the failure to maintain the continental system, the ambition of Napoleon, the firmness of Alexander, the mistakes of the diplomatists, and so on.

According to them, if only Metternich, Rumyantsev, or Talleyrand had, in the interval between a levée and a court ball, really taken pains and written a more judicious diplomatic note, or if only Napoleon had written to Alexander, “I consent to restore the duchy to the Duke of Oldenburg,” there would have been no war.

We can readily understand that being the conception of the war that presented itself to contemporaries. We can understand Napoleon's supposing the cause of the war to be the intrigues of England (as he said, indeed, in St. Helena); we can understand how to the members of the English House of Commons the cause of the war seemed to be Napoleon's ambition; how to the Duke of Oldenburg the war seemed due to the outrage done him; how to the trading class the war seemed due to the continental system that was ruining Europe; to the old soldiers and generals the chief reason for it seemed their need of active service; to the regiments of the period, the necessity of re-establishing les bons principes; while the diplomatists of the time set it down to the alliance of Russia with Austria in 1809 not having been with sufficient care concealed from Napoleon, and the memorandum, No. 178, having been awkwardly worded. We may well understand contemporaries believing in those causes, and in a countless, endless number more, the multiplicity of which is due to the infinite variety of men's points of view. But to us of a later generation, contemplating in all its vastness the immensity of the accomplished fact, and seeking to penetrate its simple and fearful significance, those explanations must appear insufficient. To us it is inconceivable that millions of Christian men should have killed and tortured each other, because Napoleon was ambitious, Alexander firm, English policy crafty, and the Duke of Oldenburg hardly treated. We cannot grasp the connection between these circumstances and the bare fact of murder and violence, nor why the duke's wrongs should induce thousands of men from the other side of Europe to pillage and murder the inhabitants of the Smolensk and Moscow provinces and to be slaughtered by them.

For us of a later generation, who are not historians led away by the process of research, and so can look at the facts with common-sense unobscured, the causes of this war appear innumerable in their multiplicity. The more deeply we search out the causes the more of them we discover; and every cause, and even a whole class of causes taken separately, strikes us as being equally true in itself, and equally deceptive through its insignificance in comparison with the immensity of the result, and its inability to produce (without all the other causes that concurred with it) the effect that followed. Such a cause, for instance, occurs to us as Napoleon's refusal to withdraw his troops beyond the Vistula, and to restore the duchy of Oldenburg; and then again we remember the readiness or the reluctance of the first chance French corporal to serve on a second campaign; for had he been unwilling to serve, and a second and a third, and thousands of corporals and soldiers had shared that reluctance, Napoleon's army would have been short of so many men, and the war could not have taken place.

If Napoleon had not taken offence at the request to withdraw beyond the Vistula, and had not commanded his troops to advance, there would have been no war. But if all the sergeants had been unwilling to serve on another campaign, there could have been no war either.

And the war would not have been had there been no intrigues on the part of England, no Duke of Oldenburg, no resentment on the part of Alexander; nor had there been no autocracy in Russia, no French Revolution and consequent dictatorship and empire, nor all that led to the French Revolution, and so on further back: without any one of those causes, nothing could have happened. And so all those causes—myriads of causes—coincided to bring about what happened. And consequently nothing was exclusively the cause of the war, and the war was bound to happen, simply because it was bound to happen. Millions of men, repudiating their common-sense and their human feelings, were bound to move from west to east, and to slaughter their fellows, just as some centuries before hordes of men had moved from east to west to slaughter their fellows.

The acts of Napoleon and Alexander, on whose words it seemed to depend whether this should be done or not, were as little voluntary as the act of each soldier, forced to march out by the drawing of a lot or by conscription. This could not be otherwise, for in order that the will of Napoleon and Alexander (on whom the whole decision appeared to rest) should be effective, a combination of innumerable circumstances was essential, without any one of which the effect could not have followed. It was essential that the millions of men in whose hands the real power lay—the soldiers who fired guns and transported provisions and cannons—should consent to carry out the will of those feeble and isolated persons, and that they should have been brought to this acquiescence by an infinite number of varied and complicated causes.

We are forced to fall back upon fatalism in history to explain irrational events (that is those of which we cannot comprehend the reason). The more we try to explain those events in history rationally, the more irrational and incomprehensible they seem to us. Every man lives for himself, making use of his free-will for attainment of his own objects, and feels in his whole being that he can do or not do any action. But as soon as he does anything, that act, committed at a certain moment in time, becomes irrevocable and is the property of history, in which it has a significance, predestined and not subject to free choice.

There are two aspects to the life of every man: the personal life, which is free in proportion as its interests are abstract, and the elemental life of the swarm, in which a man must inevitably follow the laws laid down for him.

Consciously a man lives on his own account in freedom of will, but he serves as an unconscious instrument in bringing about the historical ends of humanity. An act he has once committed is irrevocable, and that act of his, coinciding in time with millions of acts of others, has an historical value. The higher a man's place in the social scale, the more connections he has with others, and the more power he has over them, the more conspicuous is the inevitability and predestination of every act he commits. “The hearts of kings are in the hand of God.” The king is the slave of history.

History—that is the unconscious life of humanity in the swarm, in the community—makes every minute of the life of kings its own, as an instrument for attaining its ends.

Although in that year, 1812, Napoleon believed more than ever that to shed or not to shed the blood of his peoples depended entirely on his will (as Alexander said in his last letter to him), yet then, and more than at any time, he was in bondage to those laws which forced him, while to himself he seemed to be acting freely, to do what was bound to be his share in the common edifice of humanity, in history.

The people of the west moved to the east for men to kill one another. And by the law of the coincidence of causes, thousands of petty causes backed one another up and coincided with that event to bring about that movement and that war: resentment at the non-observance of the continental system, and the Duke of Oldenburg, and the massing of troops in Prussia—a measure undertaken, as Napoleon supposed, with the object of securing armed peace—and the French Emperor's love of war, to which he had grown accustomed, in conjunction with the inclinations of his people, who were carried away by the grandiose scale of the preparations, and the expenditure on those preparations, and the necessity of recouping that expenditure. Then there was the intoxicating effect of the honours paid to the French Emperor in Dresden, and the negotiations too of the diplomatists, who were supposed by contemporaries to be guided by a genuine desire to secure peace, though they only inflamed the amour-propre of both sides; and millions upon millions of other causes, chiming in with the fated event and coincident with it.

When the apple is ripe and falls—why does it fall? Is it because it is drawn by gravitation to the earth, because its stalk is withered, because it is dried by the sun, because it grows heavier, because the wind shakes it, or because the boy standing under the tree wants to eat it?

Not one of those is the cause. All that simply makes up the conjunction of conditions under which every living, organic, elemental event takes place. And the botanist who says that the apple has fallen because the cells are decomposing, and so on, will be just as right as the boy standing under the tree who says the apple has fallen because he wanted to eat it and prayed for it to fall. The historian, who says that Napoleon went to Moscow because he wanted to, and was ruined because Alexander desired his ruin, will be just as right and as wrong as the man who says that the mountain of millions of tons, tottering and undermined, has been felled by the last stroke of the last workingman's pick-axe. In historical events great men—so called—are but the labels that serve to give a name to an event, and like labels, they have the least possible connection with the event itself.

Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own free-will, is in an historical sense not free at all, but in bondage to the whole course of previous history, and predestined from all eternity.

第一章

英文

从一八一一年底起，西欧的军队开始加强军备并集结力量。一八一二年，这些武装力量——数百万人（包括那些运送和保障供应的部队）由西向东朝俄罗斯边境运动。而从一八一一年起俄罗斯的军队也同样向其边境集结。六月十二日，西欧军队越过了俄罗斯的边界，战争开始了。也就是说，一个违反人类理性和全部人类本性的事件发生了。数百万人互相对立，犯下了难以计数的罪恶，欺骗、背叛、盗窃、作伪、生产伪钞、抢劫、纵火、杀人。世界的法庭编年史用几个世纪也搜集不完这些罪行。而对此，当时那些干这些事的人却并未把它作为罪行来看待。

是什么引起了这场不平常的事件呢？其原因有哪些呢？满怀天真的自信的历史学家们说：这个事件的原因是，奥尔登堡公爵所受的欺侮、违反大陆体系、拿破仑的贪权、亚历山大的强硬态度、外交家们的错误等等。

因此，只要在皇帝出朝和招待晚会时，梅特涅·鲁缅采夫好好作一番努力，把公文写得更巧妙些，或者拿破仑给亚历山大写上一封信：Monsieur，mon　frère，je　consens　à　rendre　le　duché　au　due　d'Oldenbourg①，战争就不会发生了。

显然，对那个时代的人来说，就是这样看待此事的；当然，拿破仑认为，英国的阴谋是战争的原因（他在神圣的圣勒拿岛上，就这样说过）；英国议院的议员们认为，战争的原因是拿破仑的野心；奥尔登堡公爵认为对他的暴行是战争的原因；商人们认为，使欧洲毁灭的大陆体系是发生战争的原因；对老兵和将军们来说，使他有事可做是战争的主要原因；那时的正统主义者认为，Les　bons　principes②必须恢复；而对当时的外交官来说，其所以产生这一切，是因为一八○九年的俄罗斯和奥地利同盟未能十分巧妙地瞒过拿破仑，178号备忘录的措词拙劣。显然，那个时代的人都认为除了这些原因，还有许许多多原因都取决于难以计数的不同的观点；但对我们——观察了这一事件的全过程和了解了其简单而又可怕的意义的后代人——来说，这些原因还不够充分。我们不理解的是，数百万基督徒互相残杀和虐待，就因为拿破仑是野心家，亚历山大态度强硬，英国的政策狡猾和奥尔登堡公爵受侮辱。无法理解，这些情况与屠杀和暴行事实本身有何联系；为什么由于公爵受辱，来自欧洲另一边的数以千计的人们就来屠杀和毁灭斯摩棱斯克和莫斯科的人们，反过来又被这些人所杀。

①法语：陛下，我的兄弟，我同意把公国还给奥尔登堡公爵。

②法语：好原则。

对我们——不是史学家，不迷恋于考察探索过程，因而拥有观察事件的清醒健全的思想——来说，战争的原因多不胜数。在探索战争原因时我们愈是深入，发现也愈多，获取的每一孤立原因或是一系列原因就其本身来说都是正确的，但就其与事件的重大比较所显出的微不足道而言，这些原因又同样都是错误的，就这些原因不足以引起事件的发生来说（如果没有其他各种原因巧合的话），也同样是不真实的。如同拿破仑拒绝将自己的军队撤回到维斯拉和归还奥尔登堡公国一样，我们同样可认为一个法国军士愿不愿服第二次兵役是这类原因：因为，如果他不愿服役，第二个，第三个，第一千个军士和士兵都不愿服役，拿破仑的军队就少了一千个人，那么，战争也就不可能发生了。

如果拿破仑不因人们要求他撤回到维斯拉后而感到受侮辱，不命令军队进攻，就不会有战争；但是，如果所有军士不愿服第二次兵役，战争也不能发生，如果英国不玩弄阴谋，如果没有奥尔登堡公爵，如果没有亚历山大受辱的感觉，如果在俄罗斯没有专制政权，如果没有法国革命和随之而来的个人独裁和帝制以及引起法国革命的所有因素等等，也同样不能爆发战争，这些原因中只要缺少任何一个，就什么也不会发生。由此可见，所有这些原因——数十亿个原因——巧合在一起，导致了已发生的事。所以说，没有哪个事件的原因是独一无二的，而事件应该发生只不过是因为它不得不发生。数百万放弃人类感情和自身理智的人们由西向东去屠杀自己的同类，正如几个世纪前，由东向西去屠杀自己同类的成群的人们一样。

事件发生与否，似乎取决于拿破仑和亚历山大的某一句话——而他们二人的行为如同以抽签或者以招募方式出征的每个士兵的行为一样，都是不由自主的。这不能不是这样，因为拿破仑和亚历山大（仿佛他们是决定事件的人）的意志能实现，必须有无数个（缺其一事件就不能发生）事件的巧合。必须有数百万手中握有实力的人，他们是能射击、运输给养和枪炮的士兵们，他们必须同意执行这个别软弱的人的意志，并且无数复杂的、各式各样的原因使他们不得不这样干。

为了解释这些不合理的现象（也就是说，我们不理解其合理性），必然得出历史上的宿命论。我们越是试图合理地解释这些历史现象，它们对我们来说却越是不合理和不可理解。

每个人都为自己而活着，他利用自由以达到其个人的目的，并以全部身心去感受，现在他可以或不可以采取某种行为；但他一旦做出这种事，那么，在某一特定时刻所完成的行为，就成为不可挽回的事了，同时也就成为历史的一部分，在历史中他不是自主的，这是预先注定了的。

每个人都有两种生活：一种是私人生活，这种生活的意义越抽象，它就越自由；另一种生活是天然的群体生活，在这里每个人必然遵守给他规定的各种法则。

人自觉地为自己而生活，但却作为不自觉的工具，以达到历史的、全人类的目的。我们无法去挽回一个已完成的行为，而且一个人的行为在一定时间里与千百万其他人的行为巧合在一起，就具有历史的意义了。一个人在社会的舞台上站得越高，所涉及的人越多，则其每一个行为的注定结局和必然性也越明显。

“国王的心握在上帝手里。”

国王——历史的奴隶。

历史，也就是人类不自觉的共同的集体生活，它把国王们每时每刻的生活都作为达到自己目的的工具。

现在，一八一二年，尽管拿破仑比以往任何时候都更感到Verser或者不Verser　le　sang　de　ses　peuples①取决于他（就像亚历山大写给他的最后一封信中所写的那样），其实拿破仑任何时候也不像现在这样更服从必然的法则，该法则使他不得不为共同的事业、为历史去完成必须完成的事业（而对他自己而言，他却觉得自己是随心所欲行动的）。

①法语：使本国各族人民流血，或者不使本国各族人民流血。

西方的人们向东方进发与东方人撕杀。而按各种原因偶合的法则，千百个细小原因与这次事件合在一起导致了这次进军和战争：对不遵从大陆体系的指责，奥尔登堡公爵，向普鲁士进军（就像拿破仑感觉的那样）仅为通过进军达到和平，法国皇帝对战争的癖好和习惯正好与他的人民的愿望一致，以及他对准备工作宏大场面的迷恋，用于准备工作的开支，要求获取抵偿这些开支的利益、他在德累斯顿的令人陶醉的荣誉；当代人认为是诚心求和却只伤了双方自尊心的外交谈判，以及与现有事件相呼应，并同事件巧合的数以千万计的原因。

当苹果成熟时，就从树上掉下来——它为什么掉下来呢？是因为受地球引力的吸引吗？是因为苹果茎干枯了吗？是因为由于太阳晒或是自身太重，或是风吹了它吗？还是因为站在树下的小孩想吃苹果吗？

什么原因也不是。这一切只是各种条件的巧合，在这些条件下各种与生命有关的、有机地联系、自然的事件得到实现。找到苹果降落是由于诸如细胞组织分解等原因，植物学家是对的、就像那个站在树下面的小孩一样是对的。那小孩说，苹果掉落是因为他想吃苹果并为此做了祈祷。拿破仑去莫斯科是因为他想去，他毁灭是因为亚历山大希望他毁灭。这样说又对又不对，这就像说一座重一百万普特，下面被挖空的山之所以崩塌是因为最后一个工人用十字镐在山下最后的一击一样，又对又不对。在许多历史事件中，那些所谓的伟人只是以事件命名的标签、而同样像这个标签一样，他们很少与事件本身有联系。

他们的每一个行为，他们觉得是自身独断专横所为的，其实从历史的意义来看，他们是不能随心所欲的。他们每一个行动都是与历史的进程相联系的，是预先确定了的。

CHAPTER II

Chinese

ON THE 28TH of May Napoleon left Dresden, where he had been spending three weeks surrounded by a court that included princes, dukes, kings, and even one emperor. Before his departure, Napoleon took a gracious leave of the princes, kings, and emperor deserving of his favour, and sternly upbraided the kings and princes with whom he was displeased. He made a present of his own diamonds and pearls— those, that is, that he had taken from other kings—to the Empress of Austria. He tenderly embraced the Empress Marie Louise—who considered herself his wife, though he had another wife still living in Paris— and left her, so his historian relates, deeply distressed and hardly able to support the separation. Although diplomatists still firmly believed in the possibility of peace, and were zealously working with that object, although the Emperor Napoleon, with his own hand, wrote a letter to the Emperor Alexander calling him “Monsieur mon frère,” and assuring him with sincerity that he had no desire of war, and would always love and honour him, he set off to join the army, and at every station gave fresh commands, hastening the progress of his army from west to east. He drove a travelling carriage, drawn by six horses and surrounded by pages, adjutants, and an armed escort, along the route by Posen, Thorn, Danzig, and Königsberg. In each of these towns he was welcomed with enthusiasm and trepidation by thousands of people.

The army was moving from west to east, and he was driven after it by continual relays of six horses. On the 10th of June he overtook the army and spent the night in the Vilkovik forest, in quarters prepared for him on the property of a Polish count.

The following day Napoleon drove on ahead of the army, reached the Niemen, put on a Polish uniform in order to inspect the crossing of the river, and rode out on the river bank.

When he saw the Cossacks posted on the further bank and the expanse of the steppes—in the midst of which, far away, was the holy city, Moscow, capital of an empire, like the Scythian empire invaded by Alexander of Macedon—Napoleon surprised the diplomatists and contravened all rules of strategy by ordering an immediate advance, and his troops began crossing the Niemen next day.

Early on the morning of the 12th of June he came out of his tent, which had been pitched that day on the steep left bank of the Niemen, and looked through a field-glass at his troops pouring out of the Vilkovik forest, and dividing into three streams at the three bridges across the river. The troops knew of the Emperor's presence, and were on the lookout for him. When they caught sight of his figure in his greatcoat and hat standing apart from his suite in front of his tent on the hill opposite, they threw up their caps and shouted, “Vive l'Empereur!” And one regiment after another, in a continuous stream, flowed out of the immense forest that had concealed them, and split up to cross the river by the three bridges. “We shall make some way this time. Oh, when he takes a hand himself things begin to get warm!…Name of God!… There he is!… Hurrah for the Emperor! So those are the Steppes of Asia! A nasty country it is, though. Good-bye, Beauché; I'll keep the finest palace in Moscow for you. Good-bye! good-luck!… Have you seen the Emperor? Hurrah for the Emperor! If they make me Governor of the Indies, Gérard, I'll make you Minister of Cashmere, that's settled. Hurrah for the Emperor! Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! The rascally Cossacks, how they are running. Hurrah for the Emperor! There he is! Do you see him? I have seen him twice as I am seeing you. The little corporal…I saw him give the cross to one of the veterans.…Hurrah for the emperor!” Such was the talk of old men and young, of the most diverse characters and positions in society. All the faces of those men wore one common expression of joy at the commencement of a long-expected campaign, and enthusiasm and devotion to the man in the grey coat standing on the hill opposite.

On the 13th of June Napoleon mounted a small thoroughbred Arab horse and galloped towards one of the bridges over the Niemen, deafened all the while by shouts of enthusiasm, which he obviously endured simply because they could not be prevented from expressing in such shouts their love for him. But those shouts, invariably accompanying him everywhere, wearied him and hindered his attending to the military problems which beset him from the time he joined the army. He rode over a swaying bridge of boats to the other side of the river, turned sharply to the left, and galloped in the direction of Kovno, preceded by horse guards, who were breathless with delight and enthusiasm, as they cleared the way before him. On reaching the broad river Niemen, he pulled up beside a regiment of Polish Uhlans on the bank.

“Vive l'Empereur!” the Poles shouted with the same enthusiasm, breaking their line and squeezing against each other to get a view of him. Napoleon looked up and down the river, got off his horse, and sat down on a log that lay on the bank. At a mute sign from him, they handed him the field-glass. He propped it on the back of a page who ran up delighted. He began looking at the other side, then, with absorbed attention, scrutinised the map that was unfolded on the logs. Without raising his head he said something, and two of his adjutants galloped off to the Polish Uhlans.

“What? what did he say?” was heard in the ranks of the Polish Uhlans as an adjutant galloped up to them. They were commanded to look for a fording-place and to cross to the other side. The colonel of the Polish Uhlans, a handsome old man, flushing red and stammering from excitement, asked the adjutant whether he would be permitted to swim across the river with his men instead of seeking for a ford. In obvious dread of a refusal, like a boy asking permission to get on a horse, he asked to be allowed to swim across the river before the Emperor's eyes. The adjutant replied that probably the Emperor would not be displeased at this excess of zeal.

No sooner had the adjutant said this than the old whiskered officer, with happy face and sparkling eyes, brandished his sabre in the air shouting “Vive l'Empereur!” and commanding his men to follow him, he set spurs to his horse and galloped down to the river. He gave a vicious thrust to his horse, that floundered under him, and plunged into the water, making for the most rapid part of the current. Hundreds of Uhlans galloped in after him. It was cold and dangerous in the middle in the rapid current. The Uhlans clung to one another, falling off their horses. Some of the horses were drowned, some, too, of the men; the others struggled to swim across, some in the saddle, others clinging to their horse's manes. They tried to swim straight across, and although there was a ford half a verst away they were proud to be swimming and drowning in the river before the eyes of that man sitting on the log and not even looking at what they were doing. When the adjutant, on going back, chose a favourable moment and ventured to call the Emperor's attention to the devotion of the Poles to his person, the little man in the grey overcoat got up, and summoning Berthier, he began walking up and down the bank with him, giving him instructions, and casting now and then a glance of displeasure at the drowning Uhlans who had interrupted his thoughts.

It was no new conviction for him that his presence in any quarter of the earth, from Africa to the steppes of Moscow, was enough to impress men and impel them to senseless acts of self-sacrifice. He sent for his horse and rode back to his bivouac.

Forty Uhlans were drowned in the river in spite of the boats sent to their assistance. The majority struggled back to the bank from which they had started. The colonel, with several of his men, swam across the river and with difficulty clambered up the other bank. But as soon as they clambered out in drenched and streaming clothes they shouted “Vive l'Empereur!” looking ecstatically at the place where Napoleon had stood, though he was no longer there, and at that moment thought themselves happy.

In the evening between giving two orders—one for hastening the arrival of the counterfeit rouble notes that had been prepared for circulation in Russia, and the other for shooting a Saxon who had been caught with a letter containing a report on the disposition of the French army—Napoleon gave a third order for presenting the colonel, who had quite unnecessarily flung himself in the river, the order of the Légion d'Honneur, of which he was himself the head. Quos vult perdere, dementat.

第二章

英文

五月二十九日，拿破仑离开逗留了三个星期的德累斯顿，在那里，亲王、公爵、国王，甚至还有一个皇帝在他周围组成了一个宫廷。临走之前，拿破仑亲切抚慰那些值得关怀的亲王、国王和皇帝，对那些他不满意的国王和亲王予以申斥，他把自己私有的，也就是从其他的国王那里拿来的珍珠和钻石送给奥国皇后并温柔地拥抱玛丽亚·路易莎皇后。正如他的历史学家所说，他留给她伤心的别离生活，她——这个叫玛丽亚·路易莎的女人，他把她当作妻子，尽管他在巴黎另有妻室——好像不能忍受。虽然外交家们仍坚信和平的可能性并为达到此目的而孜改不倦地努力工作，虽然拿破仑皇帝亲自给亚历山大皇帝写信，称他为Mon－sieur　mon　frère①并诚恳地保证他不希望战争，他永远爱他，尊敬他——可他仍动身追赶军队，每到一站都发出新的命令，催促军队由西向东快速挺进。他坐着套着六匹马的四轮旅行轿式马车，在一群少年侍从、副官和卫队的簇拥下，沿着通往波森、托仑、但泽和肯尼斯堡的大道向前进发。每到一个城市都有成千上万的人怀着激动欣喜的心情迎接他。

军队由西向东推进，而他也乘坐着替换的六套马车由西向东奔驰。六月十日，他赶上了军队，在维尔科维斯基森林——一座以波兰伯爵命名的庄园中人们为他准备的住处里过夜。

第二天，拿破仑乘坐四轮马车，越过军队，抵达涅曼河，为了察看渡河地点，他换上波兰制服，来到河岸上。

看到河对岸的哥萨克（Les　Cosaques）和广阔的草原（Lessteppes），就在那片草原的中央是Moscou　la　ville　sainte②就像斯基夫斯基一样，那是亚历山大·马其顿去过的那个国家的首都——拿破仑下令进攻。无论从战略上还是外交上考虑，这都事与愿违，出人意料之外，第二天，他的军队开始横渡涅曼河。

①法语：陛下，我的兄弟（仁兄大人）。

②法语：莫斯科圣城。

十二日一大早，他走出那天搭在涅曼河左岸陡崖上的帐篷，用望远镜眺望从维尔科维森林涌出的由自己的军队组成的洪流，注入到架设在涅曼河上的三座浮桥上。部队官兵知道皇帝来了，他们用眼睛寻找他，而当发现山上帐篷前面一个远离随从们的身穿常礼服的戴着帽子的人影时，都把自己的帽子抛向空中，高呼：“Vive　I'Empereur！”①于是，一个接一个，川流不息地从一直隐蔽他们的大森林里涌出来，散开，沿着三座浮桥穿越到河对岸。

①法语：皇帝万岁！

“是皇帝吗？哦！他亲自出马，事情可来劲了。现在我们出发了！真的……那就是他……皇帝万岁！噍，亚细亚草原……可那是一个讨厌的国家。再见，波塞。我会在莫斯科留一个最好的宫殿，如果人们选我作印度总督，我将封你作克什米尔大臣……万岁！那就是皇帝！你看见他了吗？我见过他两次，就像现在看见你一样。一个小军士……我见过他给一个老兵戴十字勋章……皇帝万岁！”年老人和年轻人的声音交谈着，他们的性格各异，社会地位极不相同。在所有这些人的脸上都有一种共同的表情，那就是对久已期待的征战终于开始的喜悦和对那个站在山头、身穿灰色常礼服的人的狂热和忠诚。

六月十三日，人们为拿破仑牵来一匹不大的阿拉伯纯种马。他骑上马就奔向一座横架在涅曼河上的浮桥，河畔不断响起狂热的欢呼声，显然，他之所以能忍受这些欢呼只是因为他无法禁止人们用这种呼声来表达对他的爱戴；但这些到处伴随他的欢呼声使他苦恼，使他不能专心考虑自他来到军队就萦绕心头的军事问题。他驰过一座用小船搭成的浮桥，到达河对岸，然后急转弯向左，朝着科夫诺方向飞奔，他的那些兴高采烈、乐得透不过气来的近卫猎骑兵疾驰在他前面为他在部队中开出一条通道。奔到宽阔的维利亚河，他在波兰枪骑兵团附近停下来。

“万岁！”波兰人也热烈地呼喊起来，他们乱了队形，你拥我挤地想要看见他。拿破仑仔细观察那条河，然后下了马，在河岸上一根圆木上坐下来。他默默地一挥手，有人递上一副望远镜，他把望远镜放在一个欢欢喜喜跑过来的少年侍从的背上，开始察看河对岸。然后他埋头细看摊在几根圆木之间的地图。他头也不抬地说了句什么，他的两个副官就向波兰枪骑兵驰去。“什么？他说什么？”当一个副官驰到波兰枪骑兵跟前，在队伍里可以听到这些声音。

命令寻觅一个过河的浅滩，波兰枪骑兵上校，涨红着脸，激动得语无伦次。一位相貌堂堂的老人，向副官请求是否允许他不用找浅滩就带领自己的枪骑兵泅水过河。他像一个请求允许骑马的小孩似的，生怕遭到拒绝，期望当着皇帝的面游过河去。副官说，皇帝大概反感这种过分的忠诚。

副官语音一落，这位胡髭浓密的老军官喜形于色，两眼发亮，高举军刀，大呼“万岁！”于是命令枪骑兵跟他走。他用马刺刺了一个马，就朝河边驰去。他凶狠地猛撞坐下踌躇不前的马，扑通一声跳入水中，游向急流深处。几百名枪骑兵都随后跳进水里，河中央和急流又冷又可怕。枪骑兵们互相抓挠，纷纷从马上掉入水中。一些马淹死了，而人也淹死了。余下的奋力向前游向河对岸，虽然半（俄）里外就有一个渡口，他们仍以在那个人的注视下泅水过河和淹死在这条河里为骄傲，而那个坐在圆木上的人甚至连看也没有看他们做了些什么。当那个副官回来后，找了一个适当的时机提请皇帝注意波兰人对皇帝的忠心，这位身着灰色常礼服的小个子站起来，把贝尔蒂埃叫到身边，与他一起在河岸漫步，给他下达指示，偶尔也不满意地望望那些分散他注意力的淹死的枪骑兵。

对他来说早已有一种信念：他发现他在世界所有地方，从非洲到莫斯科维亚草原，都同样会令人大大吃惊，使人们陷入忘我的疯狂状态。他招来自己的座骑，骑上马驰回自己的驻地去了。

虽然派去了救助的船，仍有约四十名枪骑兵淹死了。大多数人被河水冲回到原来的岸边。上校和几个人游过了河，艰难地爬上对岸。但他们刚一上岸，湿透的军服还滴着晶晶的水流，就高呼：“万岁！”神情激动地望着那个拿破仑站过而现在已经离开的地方，那时他们认为自己很幸福。

傍晚，拿破仑发布了两道命令：一是命令尽快把已准备好的伪造的俄罗斯纸币送来以便输入俄罗斯，一是命令枪毙一个撒克逊人，因为在截获的他的一封信里有关于向法国军队发布的命令的情报，而后又发布了第三道命令——把那个毫不必要游过河的波兰上校编入拿破仑自任团长的荣誉团（Légion　d'honneur）。

Quos　vult　perdere——dementat．①

①法语：要谁毁灭——先使其失去理智。

CHAPTER III

Chinese

THE RUSSIAN EMPEROR had meanwhile been spending more than a month in Vilna, holding reviews and inspecting manœuvres. Nothing was in readiness for the war, which all were expecting, though it was to prepare for it that the Tsar had come from Petersburg. There was no general plan of action. The vacillation between all the plans that were proposed and the inability to fix on any one of them, was more marked than ever after the Tsar had been for a month at headquarters. There was a separate commander-in-chief at the head of each of the three armies; but there was no commander with authority over all of them, and the Tsar did not undertake the duties of such a commander-in-chief himself.

The longer the Tsar stayed at Vilna, the less ready was the Russian army for the war, which it had grown weary of expecting. Every effort of the men who surrounded the Tsar seemed to be devoted to making their sovereign spend his time pleasantly and forget the impending war.

Many balls and fêtes were given by the Polish magnates, by members of the court, and by the Tsar himself; and in the month of June it occurred to one of the Polish generals attached to the Tsar's staff that all the generals on the staff should give a dinner and a ball to the Tsar. The suggestion was eagerly taken up. The Tsar gave his consent. The generals on the staff subscribed the necessary funds. The lady who was most likely to please the Tsar's taste was selected as hostess for the ball. Count Bennigsen, who had land in the Vilna province, offered his house in the outskirts for this fête, and the 13th of June was the day fixed for a ball, a dinner, with a regatta and fireworks at Zakreta, Count Bennigsen's suburban house.

On the very day on which Napoleon gave the order to cross the Niemen, and the vanguard of his army crossed the Russian frontier, driving back the Cossacks, Alexander was at the ball given by the generals on his staff at Count Bennigsen's house.

It was a brilliant and festive entertainment. Connoisseurs declared that rarely had so many beauties been gathered together at one place. Countess Bezuhov, who had been among the Russian ladies who had followed the Tsar from Petersburg to Vilna, was at that ball, her heavy, Russian style of beauty—as it is called—overshadowing the more refined Polish ladies. She was much noticed, and the Tsar had deigned to bestow a dance upon her.

Boris Drubetskoy, who had left his wife at Moscow, and was living “en garçon,” as he said, at Vilna, was also at that ball; and although he was not a general on the staff, he had subscribed a large sum to the ball. Boris was now a wealthy man who had risen to high honours. He no longer sought patronage, but was on an equal footing with the most distinguished men of his age. At Vilna he met Ellen, whom he had not seen for a long while. As Ellen was enjoying the good graces of a very important personage indeed, and Boris had so recently been married, they made no allusion to the past, but met as good-natured, old friends.

At midnight dancing was still going on. Ellen happening to have no suitable partner had herself proposed a mazurka to Boris. They were the third couple. Boris was looking coldly at Ellen's splendid bare shoulders, which rose out of her dress of dark gauze and gold, and was talking to her of old acquaintances, and yet though others and himself too were unaware of it, he never for a second ceased observing the Tsar who was in the same room. The Tsar was not dancing; he was standing in the doorway, stopping one person after the other with the gracious words he alone knew how to utter.

At the beginning of the mazurka, Boris saw that a general of the staff, Balashov, one of the persons in closest attendance on the Tsar, went up to him, and, regardless of court etiquette, stopped close to him, while he conversed with a Polish lady. After saying a few words to the lady, the Tsar glanced inquiringly at Balashov, and apparently seeing that he was behaving like this only because he had weighty reasons for doing so, he gave the lady a slight nod and turned to Balashov. The Tsar's countenance betrayed amazement, as soon as Balashov had begun to speak. He took Balashov's arm and walked across the room with him, unconsciously clearing a space of three yards on each side of him as people hastily drew back. Boris noticed the excited face of Araktcheev as the Tsar walked up the room with Balashov. Araktcheev, looking from under his brows at the Tsar, and sniffing with his red nose, moved forward out of the crowd as though expecting the Tsar to apply to him. (Boris saw that Araktcheev envied Balashov and was displeased at any important news having reached the Tsar not through him.) But the Tsar and Balashov walked out by the door into the lighted garden, without noticing Araktcheev. Araktcheev, holding his sword and looking wrathfully about him, followed twenty paces behind them.

Boris went on performing the figures of the mazurka, but he was all the while fretted by wondering what the news could be that Balashov had brought, and in what way he could find it out before other people. In the figure in which he had to choose a lady, he whispered to Ellen that he wanted to choose Countess Pototsky, who had, he thought, gone out on to the balcony, and gliding over the parquet, he flew to the door that opened into the garden, and seeing the Tsar and Balashov coming into the verandah, he stood still there. The Tsar and Balashov moved towards the door. Boris, with a show of haste, as though he had not time to move away, squeezed respectfully up to the doorpost and bowed his head. The Tsar in the tone of a man resenting a personal insult was saying:

“To enter Russia with no declaration of war! I will consent to conciliation only when not a single enemy under arms is left in my country,” he said.

It seemed to Boris that the Tsar liked uttering these words: he was pleased with the form in which he had expressed his feelings, but displeased at Boris overhearing them.

“Let nobody know of it!” the Tsar added, frowning.

Boris saw that this was aimed at him, and closing his eyes, inclined his head a little. The Tsar went back to the ballroom, and remained there another half hour.

Boris was the first person to learn the news that the French troops had crossed the Niemen; and, thanks to that fact, was enabled to prove to various persons of great consequence, that much that was hidden from others was commonly known to him, and was thereby enabled to rise even higher than before in the opinion of those persons.

The astounding news of the French having crossed the Niemen seemed particularly unexpected from coming after a month's uninterrupted expectation of it, and arriving at a ball! At the first moment of amazement and resentment on getting the news, Alexander hit on the declaration that has since become famous—a declaration which pleased him and fully expressed his feelings. On returning home after the ball at two o'clock in the night, the Tsar sent for his secretary, Shishkov, and told him to write a decree to the army and a rescript to Field-Marshal Prince Saltykov; and he insisted on the words being inserted that he would never make peace as long as one Frenchman under arms remained in Russia.

The next day the following letter was written to Napoleon:

MONSIEUR MON FRÈRE,—I learnt yesterday that in spite of the loyalty with which I have kept my engagements with your Majesty, your troops have crossed the frontiers of Russia, and I have this moment received from Petersburg the note in which Count Lauriston informs me as cause of this invasion that your majesty considers us to be in hostile relations ever since Prince Kurakin asked for his passport. The causes on which the Duc de Bassano based his refusal to give these passports would never have led me to suppose that the action of my ambassador could serve as a ground for invasion. And, indeed, he received no authorisation from me in his action, as has been made known by him; and as soon as I heard of it I immediately expressed my displeasure to Prince Kurakin, commanding him to perform the duties entrusted to him as before. If your majesty is not inclined to shed the blood of your subjects for such a misunderstanding, and if you consent to withdraw your troops from Russian territory, I will pass over the whole incident unnoticed, and agreement between us will be possible. In the opposite case, I shall be forced to repel an invasion which has been in no way provoked on my side. Your Majesty has it in your power to preserve humanity from the disasters of another war.—I am, etc.,

(Signed) ALEXANDER.

第三章

英文

俄罗斯皇帝此时已住在维尔纳，一个多月都在视察和检阅军队大演习。这场战争人人都预料到，皇帝也专为此从彼得堡来，对于战争却什么也没有准备，没有确定一个总体行动计划。被提出的所有计划中应选定哪一个本就举棋不定，在皇帝光临大本营一个月后还更加犹豫不决。三支军队中每支各有自己的总司令，但可统帅所有军队的总指挥官却没有，而皇帝自己也没有担任这个官衔。

皇帝在维尔纳住得越久，人们对应付等待得厌烦的战争的准备却越少。原来，皇帝周围的人所作的一切只是要皇帝过得快活，使他忘掉面临的战争。

波兰的达官贵人、朝臣以及皇帝本人举行了许多大型舞会和庆祝活动后，六月里，皇帝的一位波兰侍从武官想起要代表皇帝的侍从武官（以侍从武官的名义）为皇帝举办宴会和舞会。这个提议被大家愉快地采纳了，皇帝也表示同意。侍从武官们按认捐名单筹集所需经费。一位最受皇帝青睐的女人被邀请来做舞会的女主持人。伯尼格森伯爵，一位维尔纳省的地主，为这次庆祝会提供了他自己郊外的别墅，这样，六月十三日，在伯尼格森伯爵的郊外别野扎克列特举行舞会、宴会、划船赛和焰火晚会的事被定下来。

就在同一天，拿破仑发出横渡涅曼河的命令，他的先头部队逼退哥萨克，越过俄罗斯边界，而亚历山大却在伯尼格森的别野他的侍从武官为他举行的大型舞会上欢度那个夜晚。

那真是一个快乐而辉煌的节日；内行们说在一个地方这么多美人聚在一起是少见的。别祖霍娃伯爵夫人是随皇帝从彼得堡到维尔纳来的俄罗斯贵妇之一，她也参加了这个舞会，她以自己被誉为俄罗斯美的庞大身躯使体态轻盈的波兰夫人们黯然失色，她很出众，连皇帝也与她跳了一曲。

鲍里斯·德鲁别茨科伊，一位把妻子丢在莫斯科而自称单身汉（en　garcon）的人，也参加了这次舞会，他虽然不是侍从武官，却也为舞会认捐了一大笔钱。现在鲍里斯早已成为一位显赫的富翁，他已用不着寻求庇护，而是与那些高贵的同辈们平起平坐了。

午夜十二时，人们还在跳舞。海伦没有合适的舞伴，就自己邀请鲍里斯跳了一曲玛祖尔卡舞。他们选第三对舞伴。鲍里斯冷漠地望着海伦那从绣金黑沙长衫露出的明艳的裸肩，议论着往日的熟人，同时，无论是他自己还是别人都没留意到，他没有一秒钟不在观察同一大厅里的皇帝。皇帝没有跳舞，他站在门边，不时叫住一些跳舞的人，对他们谈只有他一个人才会讲的亲切的话语。

玛祖尔卡舞刚开始时，鲍里斯看见皇帝的亲信之一，侍从武官巴拉瑟夫走向皇帝，他违背宫廷规矩，在正与一位波兰贵妇人谈话的皇帝近旁停下来。皇帝与那位贵妇人说了几句话，疑惑地看了他一眼，看来他明白巴拉瑟夫那样做只可能是有重要原因。他轻轻地向那贵妇人点点头，便转向巴拉瑟夫。巴拉瑟夫刚开始说话，皇帝脸上就露出吃惊的神情。他挽起巴拉瑟夫的手，与他一起穿过大厅，两旁的人不由地为他们让出一条约三俄丈宽的路来。鲍里斯发现，当皇帝同巴拉瑟夫经过时，阿拉克切耶夫脸上露出不安的神情。阿拉克切耶夫皱着眉望着皇帝，酒糟鼻子不时发出呼哧声，从人群中挤出来，仿佛料到皇帝会注意到他。鲍里斯明白了，阿拉克切耶夫嫉妒巴拉瑟夫，不满意那个虽然很重要的消息不经过他就奏知了皇帝。

但是皇帝挽着巴拉瑟夫没有注意阿拉克切耶夫，他们穿过大厅出口走进了灯火辉煌的花园。阿拉克切耶夫手扶佩刀，忿忿地张望着自己的周围，在他们身后跟着走了二十多步。而鲍里斯却继续跳了几轮玛祖尔卡舞，但心里却不住苦苦思索巴拉瑟夫带来的是什么消息，他是用什么方式比别人先探听到这消息的。

在应该他挑选舞伴的那一局，他低声对海伦说，他想请波托茨卡娅小姐跳一曲，这位小姐好像去了阳台，而后他的脚滑过镶木地板，向通往花园的门口跑去，他看见皇帝和巴拉瑟夫走向露台，就站了一会儿。皇帝和巴拉瑟夫一起向门口来。鲍里斯仿佛来不及躲避似的，慌忙恭恭敬敬地紧靠门框低下头来。

皇帝怀着一个身受侮辱的人的激动不安的心情，说出下面的话：

“不宣而战就进入俄罗斯！只要还有一个武装的敌人留在我的国土上，我就决不讲和。”他说。正如鲍里斯所感觉的那样，皇帝说出这些话很痛快：他很满意自己表达思想的方式，但是却不满意鲍里斯听到他的话。

“不要让任何人知道！”皇帝皱着眉头补充道。鲍里斯明白这是对他说的，于是，就闭上眼睛，微微低下头。皇帝又走进大厅，在舞会上又逗留了近半小时。

鲍里斯第一个了解到法国军队渡过涅曼河的消息，这样，他就有机会向一些要人炫耀别人不知道而他常知道的许多事情，也正如此，他有机会在这些人的心目中抬高自己。

法国军队横渡涅曼河的意外消息在人们原来预期的时间一个月后传来，且是在舞会上听到就更让人感到意外了！最初，接到消息的皇帝由于气愤和屈辱说出了后来成为名言的那句话，这句话他自己也很喜欢，它充分表达了他的感情。从舞会上回去后，皇帝在凌晨两点钟召见秘书希什科夫，吩咐他给军队写了一道命令，并给大元帅萨尔特科夫下了一道圣谕，他要求在命令中一定要加入“只要还有一个武装的法国人还留在俄罗斯土地上，他就决不讲和”这句话。

第二天，他给拿破仑写了下面这封信。

（法文：略）①

①皇帝仁兄大人！虽然对陛下所负的义务，我信守不渝，但昨天我得悉您的军队越过了俄国边境，直到现时我才收到从彼得堡送来的通牒，洛里斯东伯爵在谈到这次进犯，引用通牒的话对我说，自从库拉金公爵申请自己的护照时起，陛下就认为您和我彼此都怀有恶感。巴萨那公爵拒发护照所持的种种理由使我万万想不到，我国大使申请护照这一行动竟成为入侵的借口。实际上，正如那位大使所声明的，我并未授权他提出那个申请；我一得悉这个消息，就立即对库拉金公爵表示了我的不满，命令他照旧履行他的职务。如果陛下不愿为这类误会而让两国人民流血，同意从俄罗斯领土撤出贵国军队，我一定不介意过去所发生的一切，我们之间还是可以和解。否则，对于完全不由我方挑起的进攻，我方将被迫奋起反击。陛下，您仍有可能使人类避免新的战争灾难。

CHAPTER IV

Chinese

AT TWO O'CLOCK in the night of the 13th of June, the Tsar sent for Balashov, and, reading him his letter to Napoleon, commanded him to go in person and give the letter to the French Emperor. As he dismissed Balashov, he repeated to him his declaration that he would never make peace as long as a single enemy under arms remained on Russian soil, and told him to be sure to repeat those words to Napoleon. The Tsar had not inserted them in his letter to Napoleon, because, with his characteristic tact, he felt those words would be inappropriate at the moment when the last efforts were being made for conciliation; but he expressly charged Balashov to repeat that message by word of mouth to Napoleon.

Balashov rode out on the night between the 13th and the 14th, accompanied by a trumpeter and two Cossacks; and at dawn he reached the French outposts at the village of Rykonty on the Russian side of the Niemen. He was stopped by the sentinels of the French cavalry.

A French subaltern of hussars, in a crimson uniform and a fur cap, shouted to Balashov to stop. Balashov did not immediately obey, but went on advancing along the road at a walking pace.

The subaltern, with scowls and muttered abuse, swooped down upon Balashov, drew his sword, and shouted rudely to the Russian general: “Was he deaf that he did not hear when he was spoken to?” Balashov gave him his name. The subaltern sent a soldier to his superior officer.

Paying no further attention to Balashov, the subaltern began talking with his comrades about regimental matters, without looking at the Russian general. It was an exceedingly strange sensation for Balashov, who was used at all times to the dignities of his position, was always in contact with the highest power and authority, and only three hours before had been conversing with the Tsar, to be brought here on Russian soil into collision with this hostile, and still more, disrespectful display of brute force.

The sun was only beginning to rise behind storm-clouds, the air was fresh and dewy. A herd of cattle was being driven along the road from the village. Larks sprang up trilling one after another in the fields, like bubbles rising to the surface of water.

Balashov looked about him, awaiting the arrival of the officer from the village. The Russian Cossacks and trumpeter and the French hussars looked at one another now and then in silence.

A French colonel of hussars, evidently only just out of bed, came riding out of the village on a handsome, sleek, grey horse, accompanied by two hussars. The officers, the soldiers, and the horses all looked smart and well satisfied.

In this early stage of the campaign the troops were well in a state of good discipline, in good, almost parade, order, and engaged in peaceful pursuits, with a shade of martial swagger in their dress, and a shade of gaiety and spirit of adventure in their temper that always accompanies the commencement of a war.

The French colonel had much ado to suppress his yawns, but was courteous in his manner, and evidently understood all the importance of Balashov's position. He led him past the line of outposts, and informed him that his desire to be presented to the Emperor would in all probability immediately be satisfied, as the Emperor's quarters were, he believed, not far off.

They rode through the village of Rykonty, past French picket ropes, sentinels, and soldiers, who saluted their colonel and stared with curiosity at the Russian uniform. They came out on the other side of the village, and the colonel told Balashov that they were only two kilometres from the commander of the division, who would receive him and conduct him to his destination.

The sun had by now fully risen and was shining cheerfully on the bright green fields.

They had just passed an inn and were riding uphill when a party of horsemen came riding downhill towards them. The foremost figure was a tall man, in a hat with plumes, mounted on a raven horse, with trappings glittering in the sun. He had a scarlet cloak, and curly black hair, that floated on his shoulders, and he rode in the French fashion, with his long legs thrust out in front. This personage galloped towards Balashov, with his jewels and gold lace and feathers all fluttering and glittering in the bright June sun.

Balashov was some ten yards from this majestically theatrical figure in bracelets, feathers, necklaces, and gold, when Julner, the French colonel, whispered to him reverentially, “The King of Naples!” It was in fact Murat, who was now styled the “King of Naples.” Though it was utterly incomprehensible that he should be the King of Naples, he was addressed by that title, and was himself persuaded of his royal position, and consequently behaved with an air of greater solemnity and dignity than heretofore. So firmly did he believe that he really was the King of Naples, that when, just before leaving Naples, he was greeted by some Italians with shouts of “Long live the King!” when walking in the streets with his wife, he turned to her with a pensive smile and said, “Poor fellows, they don't know I am quitting them to-morrow.”

But though he believed so implicitly that he was King of Naples, and sympathised with his subjects' grief at losing him, after he had been commanded to return to the service, and especially after his interview with Napoleon at Danzig, when his most august brother-in-law had said, “I have made you king that you may rule in my way, and not in your own,” he had cheerfully resumed his familiar duties; and, like a well-fed, but not over-fed stallion feeling himself in harness, prancing in the shafts, and decked out in all possible motley magnificence, he went galloping along the roads of Poland, with no notion where or why he was going.

On seeing the Russian general he made a royal, majestic motion of his head with his floating curls, and looked inquiringly at the French colonel. The colonel deferentially informed his majesty of the mission of Balashov, whose name he could not pronounce. “De Bal-macheve!” said the King, resolutely attacking and vanquishing the colonel's difficulty. “Charmed to make your acquaintance, general,” he added, with a gesture of royal condescension. As soon as the King spoke loudly and rapidly, all his royal dignity instantly deserted him, and, without himself being aware of it, he passed into the tone of good-humoured familiarity natural to him. He laid his hand on the forelock of Balashov's horse. “Well, general, everything looks like war,” he said, as it were regretting a circumstance on which he could not offer an opinion. “Your majesty,” answered Balashov, “the Emperor, my master, does not desire war, and as your majesty sees.” Balashov declined “your majesty” in all its cases, using the title with an affectation inevitable in addressing a personage for whom such a title was a novelty.

Murat's face beamed with foolish satisfaction as he listened to “Monsieur de Balacheff.” But royalty has its obligations. He felt it incumbent on him to converse with Alexander's envoy on affairs of state as a king and an ally. He dismounted, and taking Balashov's arm, and moving a little away from the suite, who remained respectfully waiting, he began walking up and down with him, trying to speak with grave significance. He mentioned that the Emperor Napoleon had been offended at the demand that his troops should evacuate Prussia, especially because that demand had been made public, and was so derogatory to the dignity of France. Balashov said that there was nothing derogatory in that demand, seeing that…Murat interrupted him.

“So you consider that the Emperor Alexander is not responsible for the commencement of hostilities?” he said suddenly, with a foolish and good-humoured smile.

Balashov began to explain why he did consider that Napoleon was responsible for the war.

“Ah, my dear general,” Murat interrupted him again, “with all my heart I wish that the Emperors would settle the matter between themselves; and that the war, which has been begun by no desire of mine, may be concluded as quickly as possible,” he said in the tone in which servants speak who are anxious to remain on friendly terms though their masters have quarrelled. And he changed the subject; inquiring after the health of the Grand Duke, and recalling the agreeable time he had spent with him in Naples. Then suddenly, as though recollecting his royal dignity, Murat drew himself up majestically, threw himself into the pose in which he had stood at his coronation, and waving his right arm, said: “I will detain you no longer, general; I wish you success in your mission.” And, with a flutter of his scarlet cloak and his feathers, and a flash of his precious stones, he rejoined the suite, who were respectfully awaiting him.

Balashov rode on further, expecting from Murat's words that he would be very shortly brought before Napoleon himself. But at the next village he was detained by the sentinels of Davoust's infantry corps, just as he had been at the outposts. An adjutant of the commander of that corps was sent for to conduct him to the village to see Marshal Davoust.

第四章

英文

六月十三日深夜二点钟，皇帝召来巴拉瑟夫，向他读了自己写给拿破仑的信后，命令将此信亲手送交法国皇帝。在派遣巴拉瑟夫时，皇帝又一次给他重述那句话，只要还有一个武装的敌人还留在俄罗斯土地上，他就不讲和，命令巴拉瑟夫一定要向拿破仑转达这句话。皇帝在给拿破仑的信中没有写这句话，是因为他以其处事态度，觉得在进行和解尝试时，讲这些话是不合适的；但他命令巴拉瑟夫一定要亲自向拿破仑转达这句话。

十三日夜里，巴拉瑟夫带一名号手和两名哥萨克出发了，拂晓前到达涅曼河右岸法军前哨阵地雷孔特村，他被法军骑哨拦住了。

一位身穿深红色制服，头戴毛茸茸的帽子的骠骑兵士官（军士）喝令走近的巴拉瑟夫站住。巴拉瑟夫并没有马上停下来，而是继续沿着道路缓步行进。

军士皱着眉头，嘟嘟囔囔地骂了一句，提马将巴拉瑟夫挡住，他手握军刀，粗暴地喝斥俄罗斯将军，问他：是不是聋子，听不见对他说的话。巴拉瑟夫通报了自己的身份。军士派了一名士兵去找军官。

士官再也不理巴拉瑟夫，开始与同事们谈论自己团队的事，看也不看俄罗斯将军。

巴拉瑟夫一向接近最高权势，三小时前还与皇帝谈过话，由于自己所处地位，已经习惯于受人尊敬。而现在在俄罗斯领土上，遇到这种敌对的态度，主要的是对他如此粗暴无礼，这使他不胜惊奇。

太阳刚一从乌云后升起，空气清新，满含湿露。人们已把畜群从村里赶到大路上。云雀唱着嘹亮的歌，像泉水的泡珠似的一个接一个，扑棱棱地从田野里腾空而起。

巴拉瑟夫一边等候着从村里来的军官，一边环顾自己周围。俄罗斯哥萨克和号手与法国骠骑兵也不时默默地互相打量着对方。

一位法国骠骑兵上校，看样子刚起床，骑着一匹漂亮的肥壮的大灰马，带着两位骠骑兵从村里出来了。无论是那军官，还是士兵，或是他们的坐骑，都是得意洋洋和炫耀阔绰的样子。

军队还有和平时期的整齐的军容，几乎像和平时期准备检阅似的，只是服装上带有耀武扬威和开战之初常有的那种兴奋和精明强干的神情。这便是战争初期。

法国上校竭力忍住打哈欠，但却很有礼貌，看来，他明白巴拉瑟夫的全部意思在那里。他领着巴拉瑟夫绕过自己的士兵到散兵线后方，并告知他说，他要得见皇帝的愿望大概马上就会实现，因为，据他所知，皇帝的住处就在不远处。

他们从法国骠骑兵的拴马地经过，从向自己的上校敬礼并且好奇地打量俄国军装的哨兵和士兵们旁边穿过雷孔特村庄，走到村子的另一边。据上校说，师长就在两公里远的地方，他会接待巴拉瑟夫，并送他到他要去的地方。

太阳已经升高了，欢乐地照耀着鲜绿的草木。

他们走到一家小酒馆后面刚要上山时，正好山脚下迎面出现一群骑马的人，为首的是一匹乌黑的马，马具在阳光下闪闪发亮，马上骑者身材高大，帽上插着羽毛，黑发垂肩，身穿红色斗篷状的礼服，像法国人骑马一样向前伸出两条长腿。这人策马疾驰，迎向巴拉瑟夫，帽上的羽毛、宝石、金色的衣饰在六月的阳光下闪亮和飘动。

当法国上校尤里涅尔恭恭敬敬地低声说：“Le　roi　de　Naples。”①时，巴拉瑟夫离那位向他奔来的骑马者只有约两马的距离了。那人有一副庄重的舞台面孔，带着手镯，项链，满身珠光宝气。果然，这就是那个称作那不勒斯王的缪拉。虽然为什么他是那不勒斯王完全是一件莫名其妙的事，但人们那样称呼他，而他本人也确信这一点，因此显出一副比以前更庄严和了不起的派头。他相信他真的是那不勒斯王，当他从那不勒斯出发的前一天，他与妻子在街上散步，几个意大利人向他叫喊：“Viva　il　re！”②他含着伤感的微笑转脸对妻子说：“Les　malheureux，il　ne　savent　pas　que　je　les　quitte　demain！”③

①法语：那不勒斯王。

②法语：国王万岁！

③法语：可怜的人们，他们不知道明天我就要离开他们了。

尽管他坚信他是那不勒斯王，对即将与之离别的臣民的悲伤觉得抱歉，但最近，在他奉命又回军队之后，特别是在丹泽（OHISUT）见到拿破仑之后，当至尊的舅子对他说：“je　vous　ai　fait　roi　pour　régner　à　ma　manière，mais　pas　à　la　voAtre”①，他愉快地从事起他熟悉的事业，像一匹上了膘，但却长得不太肥的马，感到自己被套起来，在车辕中撒欢，并打扮得尽可能的华贵，欢欢喜喜，得意洋洋地沿着波兰的大道奔跑，而自己却不知道何处去和为什么。

一看见俄罗斯将军，他摆出国王的派头，威严地昂起垂肩黑发的头，疑问地看了看那位法国上校。上校毕恭毕敬地向他的陛下转达了巴拉瑟夫的使命，他对巴拉瑟夫的姓氏说不出来。

“巴里玛瑟夫！”国王说，用自己的坚决果断克服了上校的困难，“Charmé　de　faire　votre　connaissance，général，”②他又以王者宽厚仁慈的姿态补充道。国王刚一开始很快地大声讲话，他那王者的尊严霎时间消失得无影无踪，他不自觉地换用他固有的亲热的随和的腔调。他把自己的手放在巴拉瑟夫坐骑的鬣毛上。

“En　bien，général，tout　est　à　la　guerre，à　ce　pu'il　parait．”③他说，仿佛对他不能判断的局势表示遗憾似的。

①法语：我立你为王是为了让你按我的方式而不是按你自己的方式来统治。

②法语：认识你，非常高兴，将军。

③法语：怎么样，将军，一切都好像要打仗的样子。

“Sire，”巴拉瑟夫答道“I'émpereur　mou　malAtre　ne　désire　point　la　guerre，et　comme　Votre　Majesté　le　voit，”①巴拉瑟夫说，他一口一个“Votre　majesté，②”这个尊号对于那个被称谓的人来说还是一件新鲜事，但如此多的使用这个尊号，就有点矫揉造作了。

听巴拉瑟夫先生讲话时，缪拉的脸上露出愚蠢的得意洋洋的神情。但royauté　oblige③，他觉得作为国王和同盟者有必要与亚历山大的使者谈谈国家大事。他翻身下马，挽着巴拉瑟夫的手臂，走到离恭候他的随从几步远的地方，一边漫步，一边尽可能有意义地谈话。他提到拿破仑皇帝对从普鲁士撤出军队的要求感到受了侮辱，特别是这种要求被搞得天下皆知，因此冒犯了法国的尊严。巴拉瑟夫说，这个要求毫无冒犯的地方，因为……缪拉打断了他的话：“那么，你认为主谋不是亚历山大皇帝吗？”他带着温和而愚蠢的微笑突然说道。

巴拉瑟夫说了为什么他确实认为拿破仑是战争的发动者。“Eh，mon　cher　général（啊，亲爱的将军）。”缪拉又一次打断他的话，“je　désire　de　tout　mon　coeur　que　les　empereurs　s'arrangent　entre　eux，et　que　la　guerre　commencée　malgré　moi　se　termine　le　plus　foAt　possible．”④他说这话用的是各自的主人们在争吵，却愿意友好相处的仆人谈话的腔调。接着他转而问起大公的情况，问起他的健康，并回忆起与他一起在拿不勒斯度过的愉快而开心的时光。随后，仿佛是猛然悟到自己的国王的尊严，缪拉庄重地挺直身子，摆出举行加冕礼时的姿态，挥动右手说道：“Je　ne　vous　retiens　plus，géneral；je　souhaite　le　succés　de　votre　mission．”⑤于是，他招展着他的绣花红斗篷和漂亮的羽毛，闪耀着全身的珠光宝气，到恭候他的随从那儿去了。

①法语：陛下，俄罗斯皇帝并不希望打仗，陛下是知道的。

②法语：陛下。

③法语：为王者，有其应尽的义务。

④法语：啊，亲爱的将军，我衷心希望两国皇帝能够达成协议，尽早结束违反我意志的战争。

⑤法语：我不再耽误您了，将军；祝您顺利完成您的使命。

巴拉瑟夫继续骑马前进，据缪拉所说的话推测，很快就会见到拿破仑本人。但事与愿违，在下一个村子，他遇到拿破仑达乌步兵军团的哨兵，像在前沿散兵线遇到的情况一样，人们又一次截住他，被叫来的一个军长副官把他送到村里去见达乌元帅

CHAPTER V

Chinese

DAVOUST was to the Emperor Napoleon what Araktcheev was to Alexander. Davoust was not like Araktcheev a coward, but he was as exacting and as cruel, and as unable to express his devotion except by cruelty.

In the mechanism of the state organism these men are as necessary as wolves in the organism of nature. And they are always to be found in every government; they always make their appearance and hold their own, incongruous as their presence and their close relations with the head of the state may appear. It is only on the theory of this necessity that one can explain the fact that a man so cruel—capable of pulling out grenadiers' moustaches with his own hand—though unable, from the weakness of his nerves, to face danger, so uncultured, so boorish as Araktcheev, was able to retain such influence with a sovereign of chivalrous tenderness and nobility of character like Alexander.

Balashov found Davoust sitting on a tub in a barn adjoining a peasant's hut. He was occupied in writing, auditing accounts. An adjutant was standing beside him. Better quarters could have been found, but Marshal Davoust was one of these people who purposely put themselves into the most dismal conditions of life in order to have a right to be dismal. For the same reason they always persist in being busy and in a hurry.

“How could one be thinking of the bright side of life when, as you see, I am sitting on a tub in a dirty barn, hard at work?” was what his face expressed.

The great desire and delight of such people on meeting others enjoying life is to throw their own gloomy, dogged activity into their faces. Davoust gave himself that satisfaction when Balashov was brought in. He appeared even more deeply engrossed in his work when the Russian general entered, and glancing through his spectacles at the face of Balashov, who looked cheerful from the brightness of the morning and his talk with Murat, he did not get up, did not stir even, but scowled more than before, and grinned malignantly.

Observing the disagreeable impression made on Balashov by this reception, Davoust raised his head, and asked him frigidly what he wanted.

Assuming that such a reception could only be due to Davoust's being unaware that he was a general on the staff of Alexander, and his representative indeed before Napoleon, Balashov hastened to inform him of his rank and his mission. But, contrary to his expectations, Davoust became even surlier and ruder on hearing Balashov's words.

“Where is your despatch?” he said. “Give it to me. I will send it to the Emperor.”

Balashov said that he was under orders to hand the document to the Emperor in person.

“The commands of your Emperor are obeyed in your army; but here,” said Davoust, “you must do what you are told.”

And, as though to make the Russian general still more sensible of his dependence on brute force, Davoust sent the adjutant for the officer on duty.

Balashov took out the packet that contained the Tsar's letter, and laid it on the table (a table consisting of a door laid across two tubs with the hinges still hanging on it). Davoust took the packet and read the address on it.

“You are perfectly at liberty to show me respect or not, as you please,” said Balashov. “But, permit me to observe that I have the honour to serve as a general on the staff of his majesty…”

Davoust glanced at him without a word, and plainly derived satisfaction from signs of emotion and confusion on Balashov's face.

“You will be shown what is fitting,” he said, and putting the envelope in his pocket he walked out of the barn.

A minute later an adjutant of the marshal's, Monsieur de Castre, came in and conducted Balashov to the quarters that had been assigned him.

He dined that day in the barn with the marshal, sitting down to the door laid across the tubs.

Next day Davoust went out early in the morning, but before starting he sent for Balashov, and told him peremptorily that he begged him to remain there, to move on with the baggage-waggons should the command be given to do so, and to have no conversation with any one but Monsieur de Castre.

After four days spent in solitude and boredom, with a continual sense of dependence and insignificance, particularly galling after the position of power which he had hitherto occupied, after several marches with the marshal's baggage and the French troops, who were in possession of the whole district, Balashov was brought back to Vilna, now occupied by the French, and re-entered the town by the very gate by which he had left it four days earlier.

Next day the Emperor's gentleman-in-waiting, Count de Turenne, came to Balashov with a message that it was the Emperor Napoleon's pleasure to grant him an audience.

Four days before sentinels of the Preobrazhensky regiment had been on guard before the very house to which Balashov was conducted. Now two French grenadiers were on duty before it, wearing fur caps and blue uniforms open over the breast, while an escort of hussars and Uhlans, and a brilliant suite of adjutants, pages, and generals were waiting for Napoleon to come out, forming a group round his saddle-horse at the steps and his Mameluke, Rustan. Napoleon received Balashov in the very house in Vilna from which Alexander had despatched him.

第五章

英文

达乌是拿破仑皇帝手下的阿拉克切耶夫——阿拉克切耶夫不是懦夫（怕死鬼），但却是那种死板残酷，不残酷就无法表达自己的忠诚的人。在国家的组织机构中需要有这类人，正如自然界中需要豺狼一样。尽管他们的存在和接近政府首脑好像很不正常，但这类人常有，总是出现，经常存在。唯有这种必要性才能解释一个亲手扯掉掷弹兵胡子，神经衰弱得经受不住危险的残酷的人，一个没有教养，不是朝廷近臣的阿拉克切耶夫能在具有骑士般高尚和温存性格的亚历山大手下拥有如此大的权力。

巴拉瑟夫在一间农民的棚屋里见到了达乌元帅，达乌坐在木桶上忙于案头工作（他正在查帐）。副官站在他身旁，本来可找到更好的住处，但达乌元帅却是一个那种故意（偏要）置身于最阴暗角落里，以便使其有权成为更阴森的人。为此这种人总是忙忙碌碌，辛苦操劳。“您瞧，在这间肮脏的棚屋里，我坐在木桶上工作，哪有人生幸福的想头呢！”他的脸上就是这么一副表情。这种人的主要乐趣和需要是：面对生命的活力，他更是把这种活力投入令人沉闷的持续不断的工作中去。当巴拉瑟夫被带进来时，达乌获得了这种乐趣。俄国将军进来时，他却更专心一意地作自己的事，他透过眼镜扫了一眼巴拉瑟夫那由于美丽早晨和与缪拉谈话的美好感受而生机勃勃的脸，他没有站起来，甚至动也没动一下，还把眉头皱得更紧，恶毒地冷冷一笑。

达乌发现由于他的这种接待，巴拉瑟夫面上露出不愉快的表情，于是抬起头来，冷冷地问他要干什么。

巴拉瑟夫认为他所以受到这样的接待，只能是因为达乌不知道他是亚历山大皇帝的高级侍从，甚至是皇帝的要面见拿破仑的代表，他连忙通报了自己的身份和使命。与他的期望相反，达乌听完后却更冷淡，更不礼貌了。

“您的公文包呢？”他说，“Donnez－le　moi，Je　l'enverBrai　à　lémpereur．”①

巴拉瑟夫说，他奉命要亲自把公文呈交皇帝本人。

①法语：把它给我，我来送呈皇帝。

“您的皇帝的命令只能在您们的军队里执行，而在这里，”

达乌说，“叫您怎么做，您就应怎么办。”

好像是为了让俄罗斯将军更深地感觉到暴力支配，达乌派副官去找值班军官。

巴拉瑟夫取出装有皇帝信件的公文包，放到桌子上（所谓桌子，是放在两只木桶上的一扇门板，门板上面还竖立着被扯下的门环）。达乌取过公文，读着上面的字。

“您完全有权尊重我或不尊重我，”巴拉瑟夫说，“但是请您让我对您说，我荣任皇帝陛下高级侍从武官之职……”

达乌默默地看了他一眼，显然，巴拉瑟夫脸上表现出的一些激动和不安使达乌心满意足。

“您就会受到应有的尊重。”他说，把公文包放入衣袋中，走出棚屋。

过了一分钟，元帅的副官德·嗄斯特列先生走进来，把巴拉瑟夫领到为他准备的住处。

这天巴拉瑟夫与元帅一起就在棚屋里那张架在木桶上的门板上进餐。

第二天，达乌一大早把巴拉瑟夫请到自己那里，庄严地对他说，他请他留在这里，与行李车同行，如果未经吩咐，除德·嗄斯特列先生外，不准与其他任何人谈话。

在过了四天孤独、寂寞，感到受人支配和卑微的生活之后，特别是在不久前还生活于那种声势显赫的圈子，在跟随元帅的行李车和这个地区的法国占领军行进了几站路后，这种受人支配和卑微的感觉更强烈了。巴拉瑟夫被送到现已被法军占领的维尔纳，进了四天前他走出的那座城门。

第二天，皇帝的高级侍从杜伦冶爵来见巴拉瑟夫，转达他拿破仑皇帝愿意召见他。

四天前，巴拉瑟夫也被领进同一幢房子，那时房门外站着普列奥·布拉任斯基团的岗哨，现在却站着两名身穿敞襟蓝制服，头戴毛茸茸的皮帽的掷弹兵，此外还有恭候拿破仑出来的一队骠骑兵和枪骑兵，一群服饰华美的侍从武官、少年侍从以及将军们，这些人都站在台阶前拿破仑的坐骑和他的马木留克兵鲁斯坦周围。拿破仑就在维尔纳那座亚历山大曾派巴拉瑟夫出使的宅邸里接见巴拉瑟夫。

CHAPTER VI

Chinese

THOUGH BALASHOV was accustomed to the pomp of courts, he was impressed by the splendour and luxury of Napoleon's court.

Count de Turenne led him into the great reception-room, where a number of generals, gentlemen-in-waiting, and Polish magnates were waiting to see the Emperor. Many of them Balashov had seen at the court of the Russian Emperor. Duroc told him that the Emperor Napoleon would receive the Russian general before going out for his ride.

After a delay of several moments, a gentleman-in-waiting came into the great reception-room, and bowing courteously to Balashov, invited him to follow him.

Balashov went into the little reception-room, from which one door led to the study, the room where he had received the Russian Emperor's last charges before setting off. Balashov stood for a couple of minutes waiting. Hurried steps were audible through the door. Both halves of the door were swiftly thrown open, and in the complete stillness that followed other firm and resolute steps could be heard from the study: it was Napoleon. He had only just finished dressing for his ride. He was wearing a blue uniform, open over a white waistcoat, that came low down over his round belly, riding-boots, and white doeskin breeches, fitting tightly over his fat, short legs. His short hair had evidently just been brushed, but one lock hung down in the middle of his broad forehead. His plump, white neck stood out in sharp contrast to the black collar of his uniform; he smelt of eau-de-cologne. His still young-looking, full face, with its prominent chin, wore an expression of imperial graciousness and majestically condescending welcome.

He walked out with a quivering strut, his head thrown a little back. His whole stout, short figure, with his broad, fat shoulders and his prominent stomach and chest, had that imposing air of dignity common in men of forty who live in comfort. It was evident, too, that he happened that day to be in a particularly good humour.

He nodded in acknowledgment of Balashov's low and respectful bow, and going up to him, began to talk at once like a man who values every minute of his time, and will not deign to preface what he is going to say, as he is sure of always speaking well and saying the right thing.

“Good-day, general!” said he. “I have received the Emperor Alexander's letter that you brought, and I am very glad to see you.” He glanced at Balashov's face with his large eyes, and immediately looked past him.

It was obvious that he took no interest in Balashov's personality. It was plain that only what was passing in his soul had for him any interest. All that was outside him had no significance for him, because everything in the world depended, as he fancied, on his will.

“I do not, and did not, desire war,” he said, “but you have forced me to it. Even now” (he threw emphasis on the word) “I am ready to receive any explanations you can give me.” And he began briefly and clearly explaining the grounds of his displeasure with the Russian government.

Judging from the studiously composed and amicable tone of the French Emperor, Balashov was thoroughly persuaded that he was desirous of peace, and intended to enter into negotiations.

“Sire! The Emperor, my sovereign,” Balashov began, meaning to utter the speech he had prepared long before as soon as Napoleon had finished speaking, and looked inquiringly at him. But the look the Emperor turned upon him disconcerted him. “You are embarrassed; recover yourself,” Napoleon seemed to say, as with a hardly perceptible smile he scanned Balashov's sword and uniform. Balashov regained his composure, and began to speak. He said that the Emperor Alexander did not regard Kurakin's asking for his passport a sufficient cause for war; that Kurakin had acted on his own initiative without the Tsar's consent; that the Tsar did not desire war, and that he had no relations with England.

“Not as yet,” Napoleon put in, and as though afraid to abandon himself to his feelings, he frowned and nodded slightly as a sign to Balashov that he might continue.

After saying all he had been instructed to say, Balashov wound up by saying that the Emperor Alexander was desirous of peace, but that he would not enter into negotiations except upon condition that… At that point Balashov hesitated; he recollected words the Emperor Alexander had not written in his letter, but had insisted on inserting in the rescript to Saltykov, and had commanded Balashov to repeat to Napoleon. Balashov remembered those words: “As long as a single enemy under arms remains on Russian soil,” but some complicated feeling checked his utterance of them. He could not utter those words, though he tried to do so. He stammered, and said: “On condition the French troops retreat beyond the Niemen.”

Napoleon observed Balashov's embarrassment in the utterance of those last words: his face quivered, and the calf of his left leg began twitching rhythmically. Not moving from where he stood, he began speaking in a louder and more hurried voice than before. During the speech that followed Balashov could not help staring at the twitching of Napoleon's left leg, which grew more marked as his voice grew louder.

“I am no less desirous of peace than the Emperor Alexander,” he began. “Haven't I been doing everything for the last eighteen months to obtain it? For eighteen months I have been waiting for an explanation, but before opening negotiations, what is it that's required of me?” he said, frowning and making a vigorous gesticulation with his fat, little white hand.

“The withdrawal of the forces beyond the Niemen, sire,” said Balashov.

“Beyond the Niemen?” repeated Napoleon. “So now you want me to retreat beyond the Niemen—only beyond the Niemen?” repeated Napoleon, looking straight at Balashov.

Balashov bowed his head respectfully.

Four months before he had been asked to withdraw from Pomerania; now withdrawal beyond the Niemen was all that was required. Napoleon turned quickly away, and began walking up and down the room.

“You say that I am required to withdraw beyond the Niemen before opening negotiations; but two months ago I was required in the same way to withdraw beyond the Oder and the Vistula, and in spite of that you agree to enter into negotiations.”

He strode in silence from one corner of the room to the other and stopped again, facing Balashov. Balashov noticed that his left leg was twitching more rapidly than ever, and his face looked as though petrified in its stern expression. Napoleon was aware of this twitching. “The vibration of my left calf is a great sign with me,” he said in later days.

“Such demands as to retire beyond the Oder and the Vistula may be made to a prince of Baden, but not to me,” Napoleon almost screamed, quite to his own surprise. “If you were to give me Petersburg and Moscow I wouldn't accept such conditions. You say: I began the war. But who was the first to join his army? The Emperor Alexander, and not I. And you offer me negotiations when I have spent millions, when you are in alliance with England, and when your position is weak—you offer me negotiations! What is the object of your alliance with England? What has it given you?” he asked hurriedly. The motive of his words was obviously now not to enlarge on the benefits of peace and to consider its possibility, but simply to prove his own rectitude, and his own power, and point out the duplicity and the errors of Alexander.

He had plainly intended in entering on this conversation to point out the advantages of his own position, and to signify that in spite of them he would entertain the proposal of negotiations. But he had begun talking, and the more he talked the less able was he to control the tenor of his words.

The whole gist of his words now was obviously to glorify himself and to insult Alexander, precisely what he had least intended doing at the beginning of the interview.

“I am told you have concluded a peace with the Turks?”

Balashov bent his head affirmatively. “Peace has been concluded…” he began. But Napoleon did not allow him to speak. He clearly did not wish any one to speak but himself, and he went on with the unrestrained volubility and irritability to which people spoilt by success are so prone. “Yes, I know you have made peace with the Turks without gaining Moldavia and Wallachia. I would have given your Emperor those provinces just as I gave him Finland. Yes,” he went on, “I promised, and would have given the Emperor Alexander Moldavia and Wallachia, but now he will not possess those fair provinces. He might have united them to his empire, however, and he would have enlarged the frontiers of Russia from the Gulf of Bothnia to the mouth of the Danube. Catherine the Great could have done no more,” Napoleon declared, growing hotter and hotter as he walked up and down the room, and repeated to Balashov almost the words he had used to Alexander himself at Tilsit. “All that he would have owed to my friendship. Ah, what a fine reign! what a fine reign might have been that of the Emperor Alexander. Oh, what a grand reign,” he repeated several times. He stopped, took a gold snuffbox out of his pocket, and greedily put it to his nose.

He turned a commiserating glance on Balashov, and as soon as he would have made some observation, he hurriedly interrupted him again.

“What could he desire and look for that he would not have gained from my friendship?…” said Napoleon, shrugging his shoulders with an air of perplexity. “No, he has thought better to surround himself with my enemies. And with whom?” he went on. “He has gathered round him the Steins, the Armfeldts, the Bennigsens, the Wintzengerodes. Stein is a traitor, driven out of his own country; Armfeldt an intriguing debauchee; Wintzengerode a renegade French subject; Bennigsen is, indeed, rather more of a soldier than the rest, but still he's incompetent; he could do nothing in 1807, and I should have thought he must recall painful memories to the Emperor Alexander.… Even supposing he might make use of them if they were competent,” Napoleon went on, his words hardly able to keep pace with the rush of ideas that proved to him his right or his might (which to his mind meant the same), “but they are not even that! They are no use for war or for peace! Barclay, I'm told, is more capable than all of them, but I shouldn't say so, judging from his first manœuvres. And what are they doing, what are all these courtiers doing? Pfuhl is making propositions, Armfeldt is quarrelling, Bennigsen is considering, while Barclay, who has been sent for to act, can come to no decision, and is wasting time and doing nothing. Bagration is the only one that is a real general. He is stupid, but he has experience, judgment, and determination.… And what part does your young Emperor play in this unseemly crowd? They compromise him and throw upon him the responsibility of all that happens. A sovereign ought not to be with the army except when he is a general,” he said, obviously uttering these words as a direct challenge to the Tsar. Napoleon knew how greatly Alexander desired to be a great general. “It's a week now since the campaign commenced, and you haven't even succeeded in defending Vilna. You have been divided in two and driven out of the Polish provinces. Your army is discontented…”

“On the contrary, your majesty,” said Balashov, who scarcely had time to recollect what had been said to him, and had difficulty in following these verbal fireworks, “the troops are burning with eagerness…”

“I know all that,” Napoleon cut him short; “I know all that, and I know the number of your battalions as exactly as I know my own. You have not two hundred thousand troops, while I have three times as many. I give you my word of honour,” said Napoleon, forgetting that his word of honour could carry no weight—“my word of honour that I have five hundred and thirty thousand men this side of the Vistula. The Turks will be no help to you; they are good for nothing, and have proved it by making peace with you. As for the Swedes, it's their destiny to be governed by mad kings. Their king was mad. They changed him for another, Bernadotte, who promptly went mad; for no one not a madman could, being a Swede, ally himself with Russia.”

Napoleon laughed malignantly, and again put his snuff-box to his nose.

To each of Napoleon's phrases Balashov had a reply ready, and tried to utter it. He was continually making gestures indicative of a desire to speak, but Napoleon always interrupted him. To his remarks on the insanity of the Swedes, Balashov would have replied that Sweden was as good as an island with Russia to back her. But Napoleon shouted angrily to drown his voice. Napoleon was in that state of exasperation when a man wants to go on talking and talking simply to prove to himself that he is right. Balashov began to feel uncomfortable. As an envoy, he was anxious to keep up his dignity, and felt it essential to make some reply. But as a man he felt numb, repelled by the uncontrolled, irrational fury to which Napoleon abandoned himself. He knew that nothing Napoleon might say now had any significance and believed that he would himself on regaining his composure be ashamed of his words. Balashov remained standing, looking with downcast eyes at Napoleon's fat legs as they moved to and fro. He tried to avoid his eyes.

“And what are your allies to me?” said Napoleon. “I have allies too—the Poles. There are eighty thousand of them and they fight like lions. And there will be two hundred thousand.”

He was probably still more exasperated at having told this obvious falsehood and at Balashov's standing mutely before him in that pose of resignation to his fate. He turned sharply round and going right up to Balashov, gesticulating rapidly and vigorously with his white hands close to his face, he almost shouted: “Let me tell you, if you stir Russia up against me, let me tell you, I'll wipe her off the map of Europe,” he said, his face pale and distorted with anger, as he smote one little hand vigorously against the other. “Yes, I'll thrust you beyond the Dwina, beyond the Dnieper, and I'll restore the frontier that Europe was criminal and blind to let you overstep. Yes, that's what's in store for you, that's what you will gain by alienating me,” he said, and he walked in silence several times up and down the room, his thick shoulders twitching. He put the snuff-box in his waistcoat pocket, pulled it out again, held it several times to his nose, and stood still facing Balashov. He paused, looked sarcastically straight into Balashov's face and said in a low voice: “And yet what a fine reign your master might have had.”

Balashov, feeling it incumbent upon him to reply, said Russia did not look at things in such a gloomy light. Napoleon was silent, still looking ironically at him and obviously not listening to him. Balashov said that in Russia the best results were hoped for from the war. Napoleon nodded condescendingly, as though to say, “I know it's your duty to say that, but you don't believe in it yourself; you are convinced by me.” Towards the end of Balashov's speech, Napoleon pulled out his snuff-box again, took a sniff from it and tapped twice with his foot on the ground as a signal. The door opened, a gentleman-in-waiting, threading his way in respectfully, handed the Emperor his hat and gloves, another handed him a pocket-handkerchief. Napoleon, without bestowing a glance upon them, turned to Balashov.

“Assure the Emperor Alexander from me,” he said, taking his hat, “that I am devoted to him as before; I know him thoroughly, and I prize very highly his noble qualities. I detain you no longer, general; you shall receive my letter to the Emperor.” And Napoleon walked rapidly to the door. There was a general stampede from the great reception-room down the staircase.

第六章

英文

虽然巴拉瑟夫已经习惯于宫廷隆重宏伟的场面，但拿破仑行宫的豪华和奢侈仍然使他大吃一惊。

杜伦伯爵把他领到一间大接待室，那里已有许多将军、宫廷高级侍从和波兰大富豪等待着，其中许多人巴拉瑟夫在俄罗斯皇帝的宫廷中见过面。久罗克说，拿破仑皇帝在散步前将接见俄罗斯将军。

等了几分钟后，值班侍从官走进大接待室，恭敬地向巴拉瑟夫鞠躬，请他随自己走。

巴拉瑟夫走进一间小接待室，室内一扇门通往书房，俄罗斯皇帝就在那间书房派他出使的。巴拉瑟夫站着等了约两分钟。门后响起急促的脚步声，两扇门忽地被拉开了，一切归于寂静，这时从书房里响起另一种坚定而果断的脚步声：这就是拿破仑。他刚穿好骑马行进的装束。他身穿蓝色制服，露出垂到滚圆的肚皮上面的白背心，白麂皮裤紧箍着又肥又短的大腿，脚着一双长筒靴。但短短的头发看来刚被梳理过，却还有一绺垂挂在宽阔的脑门中间。从黑色制服的领子里露出白胖的脖颈，身上散发出香水味，下颏突出，显得年轻的脸上，露出皇帝接见臣民时庄严而慈祥的神情。

他走出来了，每走一步都快速地颠一下，微微向后仰着头。他矮胖的身材，配上宽厚的肩膀，不自觉地挺胸腆肚，显示出一个保养很好的四十岁的人所具有的那种堂堂仪表和威风凛凛的样子。此外还可看出，这天他的心情极好。

他点了一下头，算是回答了巴拉瑟夫恭敬的深深的鞠躬，走到巴拉瑟夫面前，立刻说起话来，就像一个珍惜自己每一分钟时间的人，用不着打腹稿，并相信他总会说得好，需要说什么。

“您好？将军！”他说。“您送来的亚历山大皇帝的信，我收到了，很高兴见到您。”他那双大眼睛看了一眼巴拉瑟夫的脸，立即转向旁边了。

显然，对巴拉瑟夫这个人他毫无兴趣。看来，对他来说他感兴趣的只是他心里在想什么。他身外的一切对他来说是没有意义的，因为他觉得世界上的一切都只决定于他的意志。

“我现在和过去都不希望战争，”他说，“但人们迫使我诉诸战争。就是现在（他加重了这个字眼），我也准备接受你们能够给我的解释。”接着他明确而简短地说明自己对俄罗斯政府不满意的原因。

从法国皇帝讲话时温和、平静和友好的声调判断，巴拉瑟夫坚信他希望和平，是愿意谈判的。

“Sire！L'empereur，mon　malAtre，”①当拿破仑结束自己的讲话，疑问地看了一眼俄罗斯使者时，巴拉瑟夫开始说他早已准备好的话；但皇帝凝视他的目光使他局促不安。“您不安啦——定定神吧。”仿佛拿破仑这样对他说，他含着一丝笑意望望巴拉瑟夫的制服和军刀。巴拉瑟夫定下心来，开始讲起话来。他说，亚历山大皇帝不认为发生战争的原因是库拉金申请护照，库拉金那样做是自行其事，并未经皇帝同意。

亚历山大皇帝不希望战争，与英国也没有任何关系。

①陛下，敝国皇帝。

“还没有，”拿破仑插了一句，仿佛是害怕自己被感情左右，紧皱眉头，轻轻地点了点头，让巴拉瑟夫意识到可以继续说下去。

说完他奉命说的话以后，巴拉瑟夫又说亚历山大皇帝希望和平，但要进行谈判，他有一个条件，即……巴拉瑟夫说到这里犹豫起来，他想起了那句亚历山大皇帝在信中没有写，却命令一定要插进给萨尔特科夫的圣谕里的那句话，皇帝命令巴拉瑟夫把这句话转告拿破仑。巴拉瑟夫记得这句话：“只要还有一个武装的敌人还留在俄罗斯土地上，就决不讲和。”但此时却有一种复杂的感觉控制住了他。虽然他想讲这句话，却说不出口。他犹豫了一下又说：条件是法国军队必须撤退到涅曼河后去。

拿破仑看出了巴拉瑟夫在说最后一句话时的慌乱：他的脸抽搐了一下，脚的左腿肚有节奏地颤抖着。拿破仑原地未动，开始用比以前更高更急促的声音讲话，在讲随后的话时，巴拉瑟夫不只一次垂下眼睛，不由自主地观察拿破仑左脚腿肚的颤抖，他声音越高，抖得越厉害。

“我渴望和平并不亚于亚历山大皇帝，”他开始讲，“十八个月来，我做的一切不正是为了赢得和平吗？十八个月来，我等着解释。为了开始谈判，究竟还要求我做什么呢？”他说话时，皱紧眉头，用自己那小巧白胖的手打着有力的疑问手势。

“把军队撤过涅曼河，陛下。”巴拉瑟夫说道。

“撤过涅曼河？”拿破仑重复道，“那么，现在您希望撤过涅曼河？——只是要撤退到涅曼河后面去吗？”拿破仑朝巴拉瑟夫看了一眼，又说。

巴拉瑟夫恭恭敬敬地低下头来。

四个月前要求撤出波美拉尼亚，而现在只要求撤过涅曼河。拿破仑猛地转过身来，在房里踱起步来。

“您说，为了开始谈判，要求我撤过涅曼河；但两月前同样要求我撤过奥德河和维斯纳河，你们就同意进行谈判。”

他默默地从房间的一角踱到另一角，然后又在巴拉瑟夫对面停下来。他面色严峻仿佛一尊石像，左脚比先前抖得更快了。拿破仑自己知道他左腿的这种颤抖。La　vibration　de　mon　monllet　gauche　est　un　grand　signe　chez　mio．①他后来曾说过。

①法语：我的左腿肚的颤抖是一个伟大的征兆。

“像撤过奥德河和维斯纳河之类的建议，可以向巴登斯基亲王提出，而不要向我提出，”拿破仑几乎是大叫一声，完全出乎他自己的意料。“即使你们给我彼得堡和莫斯科，我也不会接受这些条件，您说，是我挑起了这场战争吗？那是谁先到军队去的，是亚历山大皇帝，不是我。你们现在来向我建议举行谈判，当我花了数百万，当你们与英国结盟而形势对你们不利时——你们才要求和我谈判！你们为什么要与英国结盟？它给了你们什么好处？”他匆匆说着，显然，他已转换了主题，不是谈媾和的好处，不讨论媾和的可能性，而是一味去证明他拿破仑如何有理和如何有力量，证明亚历山大怎么无理和错误。

他这段开场白的用意，显然是表明形势对他有利，并且表示，显然如此，他仍然愿意举行谈判。但是他一说开了头，就越说越控制不住自己的舌头了。

他现在所说的话的全部用意，无非是抬高自己，同时侮辱亚历山大，也就是他做了他一开始接见时最不愿做的事。

“据说，你们与土耳其讲和啦？”

巴拉瑟夫肯定地点了点头。

“缔结了和约……”他开始说，但拿破仑不让他说下去。看来他只想一个人说，就像娇纵惯了的人常有的那样，他控制不住暴躁的脾气，滔滔不绝地说个没完没了。

“是的，我知道，你们没得到摩尔达维亚和瓦拉几亚，就与土耳其缔结了和约。而我本可以把这两个省给你们皇帝的，就像我把芬兰给他一样。是的，”他继续道，“我答应过把摩尔达维亚和瓦拉几亚给亚历山大皇帝，而现在他再也得不到这些美丽的省分了。本来，他能把它们并入自己的帝国的版图，仅在他这一朝代，他就可以把俄罗斯从波的尼亚湾扩大到多瑙河口。叶卡捷琳娜大帝来做也不过如此。”拿破仑说，他情绪越来越激动，在房间里走来走去，几乎把他亲口在基尔西特对亚历山大说的话原原本本地对巴拉瑟夫重复了一遍，“Tout　cela　il　l'aurait　du　à　mon　amitie．Ah！quel　beau　règne，quel　beau　règne！”①他重复了几次，而后停下来，从衣袋中掏出了一个金质鼻烟壶，用鼻子贪婪地吸起来。

“Quel　beau　règne　aurait　pu　eAtre　celui　de　l'

empereur　Alexandre．”②

①法语：他本来可凭我的友谊得到这一切的。啊多美好的朝代多美好的朝代。

②法语：亚历山大皇帝的朝代本来可是一个多么美好的朝代啊！

他遗憾地盯了一眼巴拉瑟夫，巴拉瑟夫刚要说点什么，他又急忙打断了他。

“凭着我的友谊他都没有找到的东西，他还能指望得到和寻求得到吗？……”拿破仑说着，困惑莫解地耸耸肩膀，“不可能，他宁愿被我的敌人包围，而那都是些什么人呢？”他继续说。“他把诸如施泰因、阿姆菲尔德、贝尼格森、温岑格罗德之流的人招到自己身边。施泰因——一个被驱逐出祖国的叛徒，阿姆菲尔德——一个好色之徒和阴谋家，温岑格罗德——一个法国的亡命之徒，贝尼格森倒是比其他人更像一个军人，不过仍是个草包，在1807年什么也不会做，他只会唤起亚历山大皇帝可怕的回忆……假如他们还有点用，我们还可以使用他们。”拿破仑继续说，他的话几乎跟不上那不断涌出的也想要表达的思想，他问他表明这些思想就是正义和力量（在他的概念中，正义和力量是同一回事）。“可是他们无论在战争中还是和平时，却都不中用！据说，巴尔克雷比所有人都能干；从他初步行动看，我却不那样认为。他们正在干什么，这些朝臣们都在干什么啊！普弗里在不断提建议，阿姆菲尔德争吵不休，贝尼格森在观察，而被要求采取行动的巴尔克雷却不知道该做何决定，时间就这样打发了。只有一个巴格拉季翁——算是一个军人。他虽愚蠢，但他有经验，有眼光，做事果断……你们那年轻的皇帝在这群无用之才中扮演着什么样的角色呢？他们败坏他的名誉，把所有责任都推卸到他身上。Un　souverain　ne　doit，eAtre　à　l'armée　que　quand　il　est　gener－al．①”他说，显然这是直接向亚历山大皇帝公开挑衅。拿破仑知道，亚历山大皇帝希望自己成为一个军事家。

①法语：一个皇帝只有在他是一个军事家时才应呆在军队里。

“战争已开始一个星期了，而你们没能保住维尔纳，你们被切成两半，你们被从波兰各省赶出来，你们的军队正怨声载道。”

“正相反，陛下，”巴拉瑟夫说，他几乎记不住他讲的话，费力地说出连珠的话语，“我们的军队正热血沸腾。”

“我都知道，”拿破仑打断了他的话，“我全知道，我知道你们的营的人数就像了解我自己营的人数一样。你们没有二十万军队，而我却有比你们两倍多的军队，给您说句实说，”拿破仑说，却忘了这些实话没有任何意义，“我对您ma　paBrole　d'honneur　que　j'di　cinq　cent　trente　mille　hommes　de　ce　coté　de　la　Vistule．①土尔其帮不了您们什么忙，他们是草包，同你们讲和就是证明。瑞典人——他们注定要受疯狂的国王的统治，他们的国王曾是一个疯子，他们就把他换了，另立一个——伯尔纳多特为王；可是他为王之后，立刻发疯了，因为作为瑞典人，只有疯狂才会与俄罗斯结盟。”拿破仑恶意地笑了笑，又把鼻烟壶凑到了鼻子跟前。

①法语：说实话，我在维斯杜拉河这边有五十三万人。

对拿破仑的每一句漂亮话，巴拉瑟夫都想且也有理由反驳，他不断做出要讲话的姿态，却老被拿破仑打断。他想说他反对讲瑞典人不明智，当俄国支持瑞典时，它是一个孤岛；可是拿破仑怒吼一声，把他的声音压了下去。拿破仑处于兴奋状态，此时他需要说话，说了又说，其目的仅仅是为了向他自己证明他是正确的。巴拉瑟夫觉得很尴尬：作为一个使者，他害怕失去自己的尊严，感到必须反驳；但作为一个人，在拿破仑显然处于无缘无故气得发昏的时候，他精神上畏缩了。他知道，拿破仑现在说的所有的话都没有意义，他自己清醒时也会为此而羞愧。巴拉瑟夫垂下眼帘站在那儿，看着拿破仑那两条不停动着的粗腿，尽可能避开他的目光。

“你们的同盟者与我何干？”拿破仑说，“我也有同盟者——这就是波兰人：他们有八万人，他们像狮子一样勇猛作战，而且他们将达到二十万人。”

可能是因为他说了这句明显的谎言，巴拉瑟夫却还是那副听天由命的神态，站在他面前一言不发，这使他更气忿了，他猛地转过身来，走到巴拉瑟夫面前，用两只雪白的手快速有力地打着手势，几乎是大喊起来：

“请您明白，如果您们挑拨普鲁士来反对我，给您说吧，我就把它从欧洲版图上抹掉。”他说，脸色苍白，表情恶狠狠的，用一只小手使劲拍着另一只。“是的，我一定把你们赶过德维纳河，赶过第聂伯河，恢复那个反对你们的障碍物，欧洲允许这个障碍遭到破坏，这虽欧洲的罪过和无知。是的，这就是你们将来的命运，这就是你们要同我们疏远赢得的报应。”他说，然后默默地在房间里来回走了几次，自己肥胖的双肩抽搐着，他把鼻烟壶放进西装背心口袋内，而后又掏出来，几次举到鼻子前；最后在巴拉瑟夫面前停了下来。他沉默了一会儿，嘲讽地盯着巴拉瑟夫的眼睛，轻声说：“Et　cependent　quel　beau　régne　aurait　pu　avoir　votre　malAtre．”①

①法语：然而你们的皇帝本应有一个多么美好的朝代啊！

巴拉瑟夫觉得必须反驳，他说，在俄罗斯看来，事情并没有那么暗淡。拿破仑默不作声，继续带着嘲笑的神情盯着他，显然他没听巴拉瑟夫说话。巴拉瑟夫说，俄罗斯对战争结局抱乐观态度。拿破仑故作宽宏大量地点点头，好像在说：“我知道，您这样说是您的责任，但愿自己也不相信自己所说的，您被我说服了。”

在巴拉瑟夫的说话完时，拿破仑又掏出鼻烟壶闻了闻，同时用脚在地板上敲了两下作为信号。门开了；一名宫廷高级侍从恭恭敬敬躬着腰为皇帝递上帽子和手套，另一名侍从递上手帕，拿破仑看也未看他们，就转向巴拉瑟夫：

“请以我的名义向亚历山大皇帝保证，”他取过帽子说，“我一如既往地对他忠诚：我十分了解他，我高度评价他崇高的品格，Je　ne　vous　retiens　plus，général，vous　reBcevrez　ma　lettre　à　l'empereur．①”拿破仑匆匆向门口走去。人们都从接待室里跑过去，跟着下了楼梯。

①法语：我不多耽搁您了，将军，您会接到我给你们皇帝的回信。

CHAPTER VII

Chinese

AFTER ALL NAPOLEON had said to him, after those outbursts of wrath, and after the last frigidly uttered words, “I will not detain you, general; you shall receive my letter,” Balashov felt certain that Napoleon would not care to see him again, would avoid indeed seeing again the envoy who had been treated by him with contumely, and had been the eyewitness of his undignified outburst of fury. But to his surprise Balashov received through Duroc an invitation to dine that day at the Emperor's table.

There were present at dinner, Bessières, Caulaincourt, and Berthier.

Napoleon met Balashov with a good-humoured and friendly air. He had not the slightest appearance of embarrassment or regret for his outbreak in the morning. On the contrary he seemed trying to encourage Balashov. It was evident that it had long been Napoleon's conviction that no possibility existed of his making mistakes. To his mind all he did was good, not because it was in harmony with any preconceived notion of good or bad, but simply because it was he who did it.

The Emperor was in excellent spirits after his ride about Vilna, greeted and followed with acclamations by crowds of the inhabitants. From every window in the streets through which he had passed draperies and flags with his monogram had been hanging, and Polish ladies had been waving handkerchiefs to welcome him.

At dinner he sat Balashov beside him, and addressed him affably. He addressed him indeed as though he regarded Balashov as one of his own courtiers, as one of the people, who would sympathise with his plans and be sure to rejoice at his successes. He talked, among other things, of Moscow, and began asking Balashov questions about the ancient Russian capital, not simply as a traveller of inquiring mind asks about a new place he intends to visit, but apparently with the conviction that Balashov as a Russian must be flattered at his interest in it.

“How many inhabitants are there in Moscow, how many horses? Is it true that Moscow is called the holy city? How many churches are there in Moscow?” he asked.

And when he was told there were over two hundred churches, he said: “Why is there such a great number of churches?”

“The Russians are very religious,” replied Balashov.

“A great number, however, of monasteries and churches is always a sign of the backwardness of a people,” said Napoleon, looking at Caulaincourt for appreciation of this remark.

Balashov ventured respectfully to differ from the opinion of the French Emperor.

“Every country has its customs,” he observed.

“But there's nothing like that anywhere else in Europe,” said Napoleon.

“I beg your majesty's pardon,” said Balashov; “besides Russia, there is Spain, where there is also a great number of churches and monasteries.”

This reply of Balashov's, which suggested a covert allusion to the recent discomfiture of the French in Spain, was highly appreciated when Balashov repeated it at the court of the Emperor Alexander, though at the time at Napoleon's dinner-table it was very little appreciated and passed indeed unnoticed.

From the indifferent and perplexed faces of the marshals present it was obvious that they were puzzled to discover wherein lay the point of the retort, suggested by Balashov's intonation. “If there were a point, we fail to catch it, or the remark was perhaps really pointless,” their expression seemed to say. So little effect had this retort that Napoleon indeed certainly saw nothing in it; and he naïvely asked Balashov through what towns the direct road from Vilna to Moscow passed. Balashov, who had been all dinner-time on his guard, replied that as, according to the proverb, every road leads to Rome, every road leads to Moscow; that there were very many roads, and among them was the road to Poltava, the one selected by Charles XII. Balashov could not help flushing with delight at the felicity of this reply. Balashov had hardly uttered the last word “Poltava” when Caulaincourt began talking of the badness of the road from Petersburg to Moscow and his own Petersburg reminiscences.

After dinner they went to drink coffee in Napoleon's study, which had four days before been the study of the Emperor Alexander. Napoleon sat down, stirring his coffee in a Sèvres cup, and motioned Balashov to a seat beside him.

There is a well-known after-dinner mood which is more potent than any rational consideration in making a man satisfied with himself and disposed to regard every one as a friend. Napoleon was under the influence of this mood. He fancied himself surrounded by persons who adored him. He felt no doubt that Balashov too after his dinner was his friend and his worshipper. Napoleon addressed him with an amicable and rather ironical smile.

“This is the very room, I am told, in which the Emperor Alexander used to sit. Strange, isn't it, general?” he said, obviously without the slightest misgiving that this remark could be other than agreeable to the Russian, since it afforded a proof of his, Napoleon's, superiority over Alexander.

Balashov could make no reply to this, and he bowed in silence.

“Yes, four days ago, Wintzengerode and Stein were deliberating in this very room,” Napoleon continued, with the same confident and ironical smile. “What I can't understand,” he said, “is the Emperor Alexander's gathering round him all my personal enemies. That I do not understand. Didn't he consider that I might do the same?” he asked Balashov; and obviously the question brought him back to a reminiscence of the morning's anger, which was still fresh in him. “And let him know that I will do so,” Napoleon said, getting up and pushing away his cup. “I'll drive all his kith and kin out of Germany—the Würtembergs and Badens and Weimars…Yes, I'll drive them out. Let him get a refuge ready for them in Russia.”

Balashov bowed his head, with an air that indicated that he would be glad to withdraw, and was simply listening because he had no alternative but to listen to what was said to him. Napoleon did not notice this expression. He was addressing Balashov now, not as the envoy of his enemy, but as a man now quite devoted to him and certain to rejoice at the humiliation of his former master.

“And why has the Emperor Alexander taken the command of his troops? What's that for? War is my profession, but his work is to reign and not to command armies. What has induced him to take such a responsibility on himself?”

Napoleon again took his snuff-box, walked several times in silence up and down the room, and all at once surprised Balashov by coming close up to him. And with a faint smile, as confidently, rapidly, and swiftly, as though he were doing something that Balashov could not but regard as an honour and a pleasure, he put his hand up to the face of the Russian general of forty, and gave him a little pinch on the ear with a smile on his lips.

To have the ear pulled by the Emperor was regarded as the greatest honour and mark of favour at the French court.

“Well, you say nothing, admirer and courtier of the Emperor Alexander,” he said, as though it were comic that there should be in his presence a courtier and worshipper of any man other than him, Napoleon. “Are the horses ready for the general?” he added, with a slight nod in acknowledgment of Balashov's bow. “Give him mine; he has a long way to go.…”

The letter taken back by Balashov was Napoleon's last letter to Alexander. Every detail of the conversation was transmitted to the Russian Emperor, and the war began.

第七章

英文

在拿破仑对他说了那一切之后，在那一阵愤怒的发泄并在最后冷冷地说了如下几句话之后：“Je　ne　vous　retiens　plus，général，vous　recevrez　ma　lettre”（我不多耽搁您了，将军，您会接到我给您们皇帝的回信——译者），巴拉瑟夫相信，拿破仑不仅不愿再看见他，而且还会尽力回避他——一个受侮辱的使者，更主要的是，他是拿破仑有失体面的冲动行为的见证人。但使他吃惊的却是，就在当天他就从久罗克那里收到皇帝的宴会邀请书。

出席宴会的还有贝歇尔、科兰库尔和贝尔蒂埃。

拿破仑带着愉快而温和的面容迎接了巴拉瑟夫。他不唯没有羞涩的表情，或者因为早晨的大发雷霆而内疚，反而尽力鼓励巴拉瑟夫。显然，拿破仑早就认为，他根本不会出错，在他的观念中，他所做的一切都是好的，其所以好，并不是因为它符合是非好坏的概念，而仅因为那是他做的。

皇帝骑马游览了维尔纳城，心里觉得挺愉快，这个城的人群异常高兴地迎送皇帝。他所走过的各条街道，家家户户的窗口都悬挂着毛毯、旗帜和皇帝姓名的花字，波兰妇女们都向他挥动手绢，表示尊敬。

筵席间，他让巴拉瑟夫坐在他身旁，对待他不仅亲热，而且把他看作赞许他的计划并为他的成就而欣喜的朝臣之一。他在谈话时提到莫斯科，于是向他询问俄都的情况，他不仅像个旅行家那样，在求知欲的驱使下打听一个他要前去的新地方，并且带有坚信不疑的口吻，认为巴拉瑟夫身为俄国人，必然会以他这种求知欲为荣。

“莫斯科的居民共有多少，住宅共有多少？莫斯科称为Moseou　la　sainte①，是真的么？莫斯科的教堂共有多少呢？”他问。

①法语：法语：圣莫斯科。

他听到那儿共有两百多所教堂的回答后，说道。

“干嘛要这么多教堂？”

“俄国人信仰上帝。”巴拉瑟夫答道。

“但是许多修道院和教堂向来就是俄国人民落后的特征。”拿破仑说，他转过脸来看看科兰库尔，希望他对这个观点表示赞赏。

巴拉瑟夫毕恭毕敬地表示，他不能赞同法国皇帝的意见。

“每个国家都有它自己的习俗。”他说。

“但是在欧洲倒没有这种情形。”拿破仑说。

“请陛下原宥。”巴拉瑟夫说，“除俄国而外，还有西班牙也有大量的教堂和修道院。”

巴拉瑟夫这句暗示法国军队不久前在西班牙遭到失败的回答，根据巴拉瑟夫以后的叙述，在亚历山大朝廷中获得颇高的评价，可是目前在拿破仑举办的宴会上却不太受赞扬，并未产生任何反应就过去了。

从各位元帅茫然不解的神态可以看出，他们都不明白，那句从巴拉瑟夫的语气得知有所讥讽的俏皮话究竟含有什么意义。“即使那是一种俏皮的说法，可是我们听了也不明白，或许它毫无俏皮二字可言。”各位元帅的面部表情这样说。这一回答竟这么不受称赞，甚至拿破仑索兴不理会它，但稚气地向巴拉瑟夫询问，从这里到莫斯科最近的路途须经过哪些城市。于席间一直保持警惕的巴拉瑟夫这样回答：Comme　tout　chemin　mène　à　Rome，tout　chemin　mène　à　Moscou，①路有许多条，在条条不同的路中间，都有一条查理十二所选择的通往波尔塔瓦的大道，巴拉瑟夫说，这句俏皮的回答，使他不禁喜形于色，满面通红了。巴拉瑟夫还未把“波尔塔瓦”这最后几个字说出口，科兰库尔就谈到从彼得堡到莫斯科的那条道路怎样难走，并且想起了他在彼得堡经历的情景。

①法语：正如条条大道直通罗马，条条大道也直通莫斯科。

午餐完毕后，大家都到拿破仑的书斋里去饮咖啡茶，四天前这里是亚历山大皇帝的书斋。拿破仑坐下来，用手抚摸塞弗尔咖啡茶杯，让巴拉瑟夫坐在他身旁的椅子上。

人们有一种众所周知的饭后的心绪，这种心绪比任何合乎情理的缘由都更能使人怡然自处，并且把一切人都看成自己的朋友。拿破仑就是怀有此种心绪的。他似乎觉得他周围的人个个都是崇拜他的人。他坚信、午餐之后巴拉瑟夫也成为他的朋友和崇拜者了。拿破仑脸上流露着欢愉和有几分讥讽的微笑，向他转过头来。

“听说亚历山大皇帝在这个房间里住过。真奇怪，确有其事吗？将军？”他说道，看来他不怀疑他说的话不能取悦对方，因为他说的话能够证明他拿破仑比亚历山大更高明。

巴拉瑟夫默默地垂下头来，没有回答他。

“是的，四天前温岑格罗德和施泰因在这个房间里开过会，”拿破仑脸上仍然流露着讥讽的自信的微笑，继续说下去。

“使我无法明了的是，为什么亚历山大皇帝硬要把我个人的敌人都搜罗到他身边来，这一点……我不明白。他岂未料到我也会如法泡制？”他现出疑惑的神态把脸转向巴拉瑟夫，这种回忆显然又引起他那仍未消失的早上的愠怒。

“让他知道我怎么干吧。”拿破仑说道，他站立起来，用手推开那只咖啡茶杯，“我准要把他的亲属，符腾堡的亲属、巴顿的亲属，魏玛的亲属全部从德国驱逐出境……是的，我准要把他们驱逐出境。让他在俄国替他们准备一个避难所吧！”

巴拉瑟夫低下头，他那副模样在表示，他很想向拿破仑告辞，他听别人对他讲话，也只不过是非听不可罢了。他的表情拿破仑没有看出来，他对巴拉瑟夫讲话，并不像对敌国使臣那样，而像对一个完全忠于他的、并且为故主蒙受耻辱而深感喜悦的人说话那样。

“为什么亚历山大皇帝要统率军队？这究竟有啥用处？打仗是我的职业，而他的职责则是当皇帝，而不是统领军队。干嘛他要承担这个责任？”

拿破仑又拿出他的鼻烟壶，沉默不言地走来走去，走了好几次，然后忽然出乎意料地走到巴拉瑟夫跟前，露出一点笑容，他仍然是那样充满自信、敏捷而朴实，好像他在做一件不仅重要而且使巴拉瑟夫觉得愉快的事情，他把一只手伸到这个四十岁的俄国将领脸上，揪住他的耳朵，轻轻拉了一下，撇撇他的嘴唇，微微一笑。

法国朝廷中，anoir，l'oreille　tirèe　par　l'emBpereur①，认为是无上光荣的宠爱。

“Eh　bien，Vous　ne　dites　rien，admirateur　et　courtisan　de　l'empeur　Alexandre？”②他说，好像在他面前只能当他的courtisan和admirateur③，除此之外当任何其他人的崇拜者和廷臣都是荒唐可笑的。

①法语：被皇上揪耳朵。

②法语：喂，您怎么沉默不言，亚历山大皇帝的崇身者和廷臣。

③法语：崇拜者和廷臣。

“给这位将军备好了马么？”他又说，微微点头以酬答巴拉瑟夫的鞠躬。

“把我的那几匹马给他好了，他要跑很远的路哩……”

巴拉瑟夫捎回来的那封信是拿破仑写给亚历山大皇帝的最后一封信。他把所有谈话的详细情形转告了俄皇，于是乎战争开始了。

CHAPTER VIII

Chinese

AFTER HIS INTERVIEW with Pierre in Moscow, Prince Andrey went away to Petersburg, telling his family that he had business there. In reality his object was to meet Anatole Kuragin there. He thought it necessary to meet him, but on inquiring for him when he reached Petersburg, he found he was no longer there. Pierre had let his brother-in-law know that Prince Andrey was on his track. Anatole Kuragin had promptly obtained a commission from the minister of war, and had gone to join the army in Moldavia. While in Petersburg Prince Andrey met Kutuzov, his old general, who was always friendly to him, and Kutuzov proposed that he should accompany him to Moldavia, where the old general was being sent to take command of the army. Prince Andrey received an appointment on the staff of the commander, and went to Turkey.

Prince Andrey did not think it proper to write to Kuragin to challenge him to a duel. He thought that a challenge coming from him, without any new pretext for a duel, would be compromising for the young Countess Rostov, and therefore he was seeking to encounter Kuragin in person in order to pick a quarrel with him that would serve as a pretext for a duel. But in the Turkish army too Prince Andrey failed to come across Kuragin. The latter had returned to Russia shortly after Prince Andrey reached the Turkish army. In a new country, amid new surroundings, Prince Andrey found life easier to bear. After his betrothed's betrayal of him, which he felt the more keenly, the more studiously he strove to conceal its effect on him from others, he found it hard to bear the conditions of life in which he had been happy, and felt still more irksome the freedom and independence he had once prized so highly. He could not now think the thoughts that had come to him for the first time on the field of Austerlitz, that he had loved to develop with Pierre, and that had enriched his solitude at Bogutcharovo, and later on in Switzerland and in Rome. Now he dreaded indeed those ideas that had then opened to him boundless vistas of light. Now he was occupied only with the most practical interests lying close at hand, and in no way associated with those old ideals. He clutched at these new interests the more eagerly the more the old ideals were hidden from him. It was as though the infinite, fathomless arch of heaven that had once stood over him had been suddenly transformed into a low, limited vault weighing upon him, with everything in it clear, but nothing eternal and mysterious.

Of the pursuits that presented themselves, military service was the simplest and the most familiar to him. He performed the duties of a general on duty on Kutuzov's staff with zeal and perseverance, surprising Kutuzov by his eagerness for work and his conscientiousness. When he missed Kuragin in Turkey, Prince Andrey did not feel it necessary to gallop back to Russia in search of him. Yet in spite of all his contempt for Kuragin, in spite of all the arguments by which he sought to persuade himself that Kuragin was not worth his stooping to quarrel with him, he knew that whatever length of time might elapse, when he did meet him, he would be unable to help challenging him as a starving man cannot help rushing upon food. And the consciousness that the insult was not yet avenged, that his wrath had not been expended, but was still stored up in his heart, poisoned the artificial composure, which Prince Andrey succeeded in obtaining in Turkey in the guise of studiously busy and somewhat ambitious and vain energy.

In 1812, when the news of the war with Napoleon reached Bucharest (where Kutuzov had been fourteen months, spending days and nights together with his Wallachian mistress), Prince Andrey asked to be transferred to the western army. Kutuzov, who was by now sick of Bolkonsky's energy, and felt it a standing reproach to his sloth, was very ready to let him go, and gave him a commission for Barclay de Tolly.

Before joining the army of the west, which was in May encamped at Drissa, Prince Andrey went to Bleak Hills, which was directly in his road, only three versts from the Smolensk high-road. The last three years of Prince Andrey's life had been so full of vicissitudes, he had passed through such changes of thought and feeling, and seen such varied life (he had travelled both in the east and the west), that it struck him as strange and amazing to find at Bleak Hills life going on in precisely the same routine as ever. He rode up the avenue to the stone gates of the house, feeling as though it were the enchanted, sleeping castle. The same sedateness, the same cleanliness, the same silence reigned in the house; there was the same furniture, the same walls, the same sounds, the same smell, and the same timid faces, only a little older. Princess Marya was just the same timid, plain girl, no longer in her first youth, wasting the best years of her life in continual dread and suffering, and getting no benefit or happiness out of her existence. Mademoiselle Bourienne was just the same self-satisfied, coquettish girl, enjoying every moment of her life, and filled with the most joyous hopes for the future. She seemed only to have gained boldness, so Prince Andrey thought. The tutor he had brought back from Switzerland, Dessalle, was wearing a coat of Russian cut, and talked broken Russian to the servants, but he was just the same narrow-minded, cultivated, conscientious, pedantic preceptor. The only physical change apparent in the old prince was the loss of a tooth, that left a gap at the side of his mouth. In character he was the same as ever, only showing even more irritability and scepticism as to everything that happened in the world. Nikolushka was the only one who had changed: he had grown taller, and rosy, and had curly dark hair. When he was merry and laughing, he unconsciously lifted the upper lip of his pretty little mouth, just as his dead mother, the little princess, used to do. He was the only one not in bondage to the law of sameness that reigned in that spellbound sleeping castle. But though externally all was exactly as of old, the inner relations of all the persons concerned had changed since Prince Andrey had seen them last. The household was split up into two hostile camps, which held aloof from one another, and only now came together in his presence, abandoning their ordinary habits on his account. To one camp belonged the old prince, Mademoiselle Bourienne, and the architect; to the other—Princess Marya, Dessalle, Nikolushka, and all the nurses.

During his stay at Bleak Hills all the family dined together, but every one was ill at ease, and Prince Andrey felt that he was being treated as a guest for whom an exception was being made, and that his presence made all of them feel awkward. The first day Prince Andrey could not help being aware of this at dinner, and sat in silence. The old prince noticed his unnatural dumbness, and he, too, preserved a sullen silence, and immediately after dinner withdrew to his own room. Later in the evening when Prince Andrey went in to him, and began telling him about the campaign of the young Prince Kamensky to try and rouse him, the old prince, to his surprise, began talking about Princess Marya, grumbling at her superstitiousness, and her dislike of Mademoiselle Bourienne, who was, he said, the only person really attached to him.

The old prince declared that it was all Princess Marya's doing if he were ill; that she plagued and worried him on purpose, and that she was spoiling little Prince Nikolay by the way she petted him, and the silly tales she told him. The old prince knew very well that he tormented his daughter, and that her life was a very hard one. But he knew, too, that he could not help tormenting her, and considered that she deserved it. “Why is it Andrey, who sees it, says nothing about his sister?” the old prince wondered. “Why, does he suppose I'm a scoundrel or an old fool to be alienated from my daughter and friendly with this Frenchwoman for no good reason? He doesn't understand, and so I must explain it to him; he must hear what I have to say about it,” thought the old prince, and so he began to explain the reason why he could not put up with his daughter's unreasonable character.

“If you ask me,” said Prince Andrey, not looking at his father (it was the first time in his life that he had blamed his father), “I did not wish to speak of it—but, if you ask me, I'll tell you my opinion frankly in regard to the whole matter. If there is any misunderstanding and estrangement between you and Masha, I can't blame her for it—I know how she loves and respects you. If you ask me,” Prince Andrey continued, losing his temper, as he very readily did in these latter days, “I can only say one thing; if there are misunderstandings, the cause of them is that worthless woman, who is not fit to be my sister's companion.”

The old man stared for a moment at his son, and a forced smile revealed the loss of a tooth, to which Prince Andrey could not get accustomed, in his face.

“What companion, my dear fellow? Eh! So you've talked it over already! Eh?”

“Father, I had no wish to judge you,” said Prince Andrey, in a hard and spiteful tone, “but you have provoked me, and I have said, and shall always say, that Marie is not to blame, but the people to blame—the person to blame—is that Frenchwoman …”

“Ah, he has passed judgment! … he has passed judgment!” said the old man, in a low voice, and Prince Andrey fancied, with embarrassment. But immediately after he leapt up and screamed, “Go away, go away! Let me never set eyes on you again! …”

Prince Andrey would have set off at once, but Princess Marya begged him to stay one day more. During that day Prince Andrey did not see his father, who never left his room, and admitted no one to see him but Mademoiselle Bourienne and Tihon, from which he inquired several times whether his son had gone. The following day before starting, Prince Andrey went to the part of the house where his son was to be found. The sturdy little boy, with curls like his mother's, sat on his knee. Prince Andrey began telling him the story of Bluebeard, but he sank into dreamy meditation before he had finished the story. He was not thinking of the pretty boy, his child, even while he held him on his knee; he was thinking of himself. He sought and was horrified not to find in himself either remorse for having provoked his father's anger, or regret at leaving home (for the first time in his life) on bad terms with him. What meant still more to him was that he could not detect in himself a trace of the tender affection he had once felt for his boy, and had hoped to revive in his heart, when he petted the child and put him on his knee.

“Come, tell me the rest,” said the boy. Prince Andrey took him off his knee without answering, and went out of the room.

As soon as Prince Andrey gave up his daily pursuits, especially to return to the old surroundings in which he had been when he was happy, weariness of life seized upon him as intensely as ever, and he made haste to escape from these memories, and to find some work to do as quickly as possible.

“Are you really going, Andrey?” his sister said to him.

“Thank God that I can go,” said Prince Andrey. “I am very sorry you can't too.”

“What makes you say that?” said Princess Marya. “How can you say that when you are going to this awful war, and he is so old? Mademoiselle Bourienne told me he keeps asking about you.…” As soon as she spoke of that, her lips quivered, and tears began to fall. Prince Andrey turned away and began walking up and down the room.

“Ah, my God! my God!” he said. “And to think what and who—what scum can be the cause of misery to people!” he said with a malignance that terrified Princess Marya.

She felt that when he uttered the word “scum,” he was thinking not only of Mademoiselle Bourienne, who was the cause of her misery, but also of the man who had ruined his own happiness. “Andrey, one thing I beg, I beseech of you,” she said, touching his elbow and looking at him with eyes that shone through her tears. “I understand you.” (Princess Marya dropped her eyes.) “Don't imagine that sorrow is the work of men. Men are His instruments.” She glanced upwards a little above Prince Andrey's head with the confident, accustomed glance with which one looks towards a familiar portrait. “Sorrow is sent by Him, and not by men. Men are the instrument of His will, they are not to blame. If it seems to you that some one has wronged you—forget it, and forgive. We have no right to punish. And you will know the happiness of forgiveness.”

“If I were a woman, I would, Marie. That's woman's virtue. But a man must not, and cannot, forgive and forget,” he said, and though till that minute he had not been thinking of Kuragin, all his unsatisfied revenge rose up again in his heart. “If Marie is beginning to persuade me to forgive, it means that I ought long ago to have punished him,” he thought.

And making no further reply to Princess Marya, he began dreaming now of the happy moment of satisfied hate when he would meet Kuragin. He knew he was with the army.

Princess Marya besought her brother to stay another day, telling him how wretched her father would be, she knew, if Andrey went away without being reconciled to him. But Prince Andrey answered that he would probably soon be back from the army, that he would certainly write to his father, and that their quarrel would only be more embittered by his staying longer now. “Remember that misfortunes come from God, and that men are never to blame,” were the last words he heard from his sister, as he said good-bye to her.

“So it must be so!” thought Prince Andrey, as he drove out of the avenue. “She, poor innocent creature, is left to be victimised by an old man, who has outlived his wits. The old man feels he is wrong, but he can't help himself. My boy is growing up and enjoying life in which he will be deceived or deceiving like every one else. I am going to the army—what for? I don't know myself; and I want to meet that man whom I despise, so as to give him a chance to kill me and sneer at me!” All the conditions of life had been the same before, but before they had all seemed to him coherent, and now they had all fallen apart. Life seemed to Prince Andrey a series of senseless phenomena following one another without any connection.