Leo Tolstoy: War and Peace

BOOK TWO: 1805 10. CHAPTER X (continued)

"This is what I think. Austria has been made a fool of, and she is not used to it. She will retaliate. And she has been fooled in the first place because her provinces have been pillaged- they say the Holy Russian army loots terribly- her army is destroyed, her capital taken, and all this for the beaux yeux* of His Sardinian Majesty. And therefore- this is between ourselves- I instinctively feel that we are being deceived, my instinct tells me of negotiations with France and projects for peace, a secret peace concluded separately."

*Fine eyes.

"Impossible!" cried Prince Andrew. "That would be too base."

"If we live we shall see," replied Bilibin, his face again becoming smooth as a sign that the conversation was at an end.

When Prince Andrew reached the room prepared for him and lay down in a clean shirt on the feather bed with its warmed and fragrant pillows, he felt that the battle of which he had brought tidings was far, far away from him. The alliance with Prussia, Austria's treachery, Bonaparte's new triumph, tomorrow's levee and parade, and the audience with the Emperor Francis occupied his thoughts.

He closed his eyes, and immediately a sound of cannonading, of musketry and the rattling of carriage wheels seemed to fill his ears, and now again drawn out in a thin line the musketeers were descending the hill, the French were firing, and he felt his heart palpitating as he rode forward beside Schmidt with the bullets merrily whistling all around, and he experienced tenfold the joy of living, as he had not done since childhood.

He woke up...

"Yes, that all happened!" he said, and, smiling happily to himself like a child, he fell into a deep, youthful slumber.