Pagina 456 van 3800

"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."