Just as Prince Andrew was a young man who gave promise of rising high in the military profession, so to an even greater extent Bilíbin gave promise of rising in his diplomatic career. He was still a young man but no longer a young diplomat, as he had entered the service at the age of sixteen, had been in Paris and Copenhagen, and now held a rather important post in Vienna. Both the foreign minister and our ambassador in Vienna knew him and valued him. He was not one of those many diplomats who are esteemed because they have certain negative qualities, avoid doing certain things, and speak French. He was one of those, who, liking work, knew how to do it, and despite his indolence would sometimes spend a whole night at his writing table. He worked equally well whatever the import of his work. It was not the question “What for?” but the question “How?” that interested him. What the diplomatic matter might be he did not care, but it gave him great pleasure to prepare a circular, memorandum, or report, skillfully, pointedly, and elegantly. Bilíbin’s services were valued not only for what he wrote, but also for his skill in dealing and conversing with those in the highest spheres.
Bilíbin liked conversation as he liked work, only when it could be made elegantly witty. In society he always awaited an opportunity to say something striking and took part in a conversation only when that was possible. His conversation was always sprinkled with wittily original, finished phrases of general interest. These sayings were prepared in the inner laboratory of his mind in a portable form as if intentionally, so that insignificant society people might carry them from drawing room to drawing room. And, in fact, Bilíbin’s witticisms were hawked about in the Viennese drawing rooms and often had an influence on matters considered important.
His thin, worn, sallow face was covered with deep wrinkles, which always looked as clean and well washed as the tips of one’s fingers after a Russian bath. The movement of these wrinkles formed the principal play of expression on his face. Now his forehead would pucker into deep folds and his eyebrows were lifted, then his eyebrows would descend and deep wrinkles would crease his cheeks. His small, deep-set eyes always twinkled and looked out straight.
“Well, now tell me about your exploits,” said he.
Bolkónski, very modestly without once mentioning himself, described the engagement and his reception by the Minister of War.
“They received me and my news as one receives a dog in a game of skittles,” said he in conclusion.
Bilíbin smiled and the wrinkles on his face disappeared.
“Cependant, mon cher,” he remarked, examining his nails from a distance and puckering the skin above his left eye, “malgré la haute estime que je professe pour the Orthodox Russian army, j’avoue que votre victoire n’est pas des plus victorieuses.”[1]
He went on talking in this way in French, uttering only those words in Russian on which he wished to put a contemptuous emphasis.
“Come now! You with all your forces fall on the unfortunate Mortier and his one division, and even then Mortier slips through your fingers! Where’s the victory?”
“But seriously,” said Prince Andrew, “we can at any rate say without boasting that it was a little better than at Ulm…”
“Why didn’t you capture one, just one, marshal for us?”
“Because not everything happens as one expects or with the smoothness of a parade. We had expected, as I told you, to get at their rear by seven in the morning but had not reached it by five in the afternoon.”
“And why didn’t you do it at seven in the morning? You ought to have been there at seven in the morning,” returned Bilíbin with a smile. “You ought to have been there at seven in the morning.”
“Why did you not succeed in impressing on Bonaparte by diplomatic methods that he had better leave Genoa alone?” retorted Prince Andrew in the same tone.
“I know,” interrupted Bilíbin, “you’re thinking it’s very easy to take marshals, sitting on a sofa by the fire! That is true, but still why didn’t you capture him? So don’t be surprised if not only the Minister of War but also his Most August Majesty the Emperor and King Francis is not much delighted by your victory. Even I, a poor secretary of the Russian Embassy, do not feel any need in token of my joy to give my Franz a thaler, or let him go with his Liebchen to the Prater…. True, we have no Prater here…”
He looked straight at Prince Andrew and suddenly unwrinkled his forehead.
“It is now my turn to ask you ‘why?’ mon
- ↑ “But, my dear fellow, with all my respect for the Orthodox Russian army, I must say that your victory was not particularly victorious.”
