Prince Andrey was one of those rare staff-officers whose interests were concentrated on the general progress of the war. On seeing Mack and learning the details of his overthrow, he grasped the fact that half the campaign was lost; he perceived all the difficulty of the position of the Russian troops, and vividly pictured to himself what lay before the Army, and the part he would have to play in the work in store for them. He could not help feeling a rush of joyful emotion at the thought of the humiliation of self-confident Austria, and the prospect within a week, perhaps, of seeing and taking part in the meeting of the Russians with the French, the first since Suvorov’s day. But he was afraid of the genius of Bonaparte, which might turn out to be more powerful than all the bravery of the Russian troops; and at the same time he could not bear to entertain the idea of the disgrace of his favourite hero.
Excited and irritated by these ideas, Prince Andrey went towards his own room to write to his father, to whom he wrote every day. In the corridor he met Nesvitsky, the comrade with whom he shared a room, and the comic man, Zherkov. They were, as usual, laughing at some joke.
“What are you looking so dismal about？” asked Nesvitsky, noticing Prince Andrey’s pale face and gleaming eyes.
“There’s nothing to be gay about,” answered Bolkonsky.
Just as Prince Andrey met Nesvitsky and Zherkov, there came towards them from the other end of the corridor Strauch, an Austrian general, who was on Kutuzov’s staff in charge of the provisioning of the Russian army, and the member of the Hofkriegsrath, who had arrived the previous evening. There was plenty of room in the wide corridor for the generals to pass the three officers easily. But Zherkov, pulling Nesvitsky back by the arm, cried in a breathless voice：
“They are coming！ … they are coming！ … move aside, make way！ please, make way.”
The generals advanced with an air of wishing to avoid burdensome honours. The face of the comic man, Zherkov, suddenly wore a stupid smile of glee, which he seemed unable to suppress.
“Your Excellency,” he said in German, moving forward and addressing the Austrian general, “I have the honour to congratulate you.” He bowed, and awkwardly, as children do at dancing-lessons, he began scraping first with one leg and then with the other. The member of the Hofkriegsrath looked severely at him, but seeing the seriousness of his stupid smile, he could not refuse him a moment’s attention. He screwed up his eyes and showed that he was listening.
“I have the honour to congratulate you. General Mack has arrived, quite well, only slightly wounded here,” he added, pointing with a beaming smile to his head.
The general frowned, turned away and went on.
“Gott, wie na？v！” he said angrily, when he was a few steps away.
Nesvitsky with a chuckle threw his arms round Prince Andrey, but Bolkonsky, turning even paler, pushed him away with a furious expression, and turned to Zherkov. The nervous irritability, into which he had been thrown by the sight of Mack, the news of his defeat and the thought of what lay before the Russian army, found a vent in anger at the misplaced jest of Zherkov.
“If you, sir,” he began cuttingly, with a slight trembling in his lower jaw, “like to be a clown, I can’t prevent your being so, but if you dare to play the fool another time in my presence, I’ll teach you how to behave.”
Nesvitsky and Zherkov were so astounded at this outburst that they gazed at Bolkonsky with open eyes.
“Why, I only congratulated them,” said Zherkov.
“I am not jesting with you; be silent, please！” shouted Bolkonsky, and taking Nesvitsky’s arm, he walked away from Zherkov, who could not find any reply.
“Come, what is the matter, my dear boy？” said Nesvitsky, trying to soothe him.
“What’s the matter？” said Prince Andrey, standing still from excitement. “Why, you ought to understand that we’re either officers, who serve their Tsar and their country and rejoice in the success, and grieve at the defeat of the common cause, or we’re hirelings, who have no interest in our master’s business. Forty thousand men massacred and the army of our allies destroyed, and you find something in that to laugh at,” he said, as though by this French phrase he were strengthening his view. “It is all very well for a worthless fellow like that individual of whom you have made a friend, but not for you, not for you. None but schoolboys can find amusement in such jokes,” Prince Andrey added in Russian, uttering the word with a French accent. He noticed that Zherkov could still hear him, and waited to see whether the cornet would not reply. But the cornet turned and went out of the corridor.