War and Peace (Signet Classics) by Leo Tolstoy

Author:Leo Tolstoy [Tolstoy, Leo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101003831
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

3

The Emperor of Russia meanwhile had been in Vilna for more than a month, reviewing troops and holding maneuvers. Nothing was in readiness for the war that everyone expected and to prepare for which the Emperor had come from Petersburg. There was no general plan of operation. The vacillation between all the various plans that were proposed had even increased after the Tsar had been at headquarters for a month. Each of the three armies had its Commander in Chief, but there was no supreme commander of all the forces, and the Emperor did not assume this responsibility himself.

The longer the Emperor remained at Vilna the less was done—everyone having grown tired of waiting—to prepare for war. All the efforts of those surrounding the Sovereign seemed directed only to making him spend his time pleasantly and to forget the impending war.

In June, after many balls and fetes given by the Polish magnates, by the members of the Court, and by the Tsar himself, it occurred to one of the Polish generals attached to the Tsar’s staff that a dinner and ball should be given for the Tsar by his aides-de-camp. The idea was accepted with alacrity. The Tsar gave his consent; the aides-de-camp collected money by subscription; the lady who was thought to be most pleasing to the Tsar was invited to act as hostess. Count Bennigsen, being a landowner in the Vilna province, offered his villa for the fete, and the thirteenth of June was fixed for a banquet, ball, regatta, and fireworks at Zakreto, Count Bennigsen’s country seat.

The very day on which Napoleon gave the order to cross the Niemen, and his vanguard, driving back the Cossacks, crossed the Russian border, Aleksandr spent the evening at the ball given by his aides-de-camp at Bennigsen’s villa.

It was a gay and brilliant fete; connoisseurs of such matters declared that rarely had so many beautiful women been assembled in one place. Countess Bezukhova, among other Russian ladies who had followed the Sovereign from Petersburg to Vilna, was at the ball, her massive, so-called Russian type of beauty overshadowing the more delicate Polish ladies. She was noticed by the Tsar, who honored her with a dance.

Boris Drubetskoy, having left his wife in Moscow and being en garçon, as he said, was there also, and though not an aide-de-camp, had subscribed a large sum toward the expenses. Boris was now a rich man who had risen to high honors, and no longer sought patronage but was on an equal footing with the most distinguished men of his generation.

At midnight the dancing was still going on. Ellen, lacking a suitable partner, had herself offered to dance the mazurka with Boris. They were the third couple. Glancing with cool indifference at her dazzling bare shoulders that emerged from a dark, gold-embroidered gauze gown, Boris talked to her of old acquaintances and at the same time, though unaware of it himself and unnoticed by others, never for an instant ceased to observe the Tsar, who was in the same room.

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