g ago have been in the mountains of
Bohemia, and you and your army would have spent a bad quarter of an hour
between two fires."

"But still this does not mean that the campaign is over," said Prince
Andrew.

"Well, I think it is. The bigwigs here think so too, but they daren't
say so. It will be as I said at the beginning of the campaign, it won't
be your skirmishing at Durrenstein, or gunpowder at all, that will
decide the matter, but those who devised it," said Bilibin quoting one
of his own mots, releasing the wrinkles on his forehead, and pausing.
"The only question is what will come of the meeting between the Emperor
Alexander and the King of Prussia in Berlin? If Prussia joins the
Allies, Austria's hand will be forced and there will be war. If not
it is merely a question of settling where the preliminaries of the new
Campo Formio are to be drawn up."

"What an extraordinary genius!" Prince Andrew suddenly exclaimed,
clenching his small hand and striking the table with it, "and what luck
the man has!"

"Buonaparte?" said Bilibin inquiringly, puckering up his forehead to
indicate that he was about to say something witty. "Buonaparte?" he
repeated, accentuating the u: "I think, however, now that he lays down
laws for Austria at Schonbrunn, il faut lui faire grace de l'u! * I
shall certainly adopt an innovation and call him simply Bonaparte!"

* "We must let him off the u!"

"But joking apart," said Prince Andrew, "do you really think the
campaign is over?"

"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