[Marianne 6] - Marianne and the Crown of Fire

by Juliette Benzoni

  Then, without warning, they saw the Emperor's party flash past. His black hat emerged briefly from the smoke, hung there for a moment in the gloom and then vanished, borne on a wave of white plumes, down a street in which the houses, one after another, were bursting into flames.

  'Our turn next,' Beyle said. 'It's time to go.'

  Seeing that his own driver seemed likewise to have passed the interval in drinking, he grasped the lead-horse's bridle and, swearing like a trooper, set about guiding the vehicle into the Tver road. The wind had changed again and was now blowing as fiercely as ever from the south-west. Before long the procession of refugees, buffeted by the gale and blinded by the ash that filled the air and clung to skin and clothes, had almost reached a standstill. The heat grew every moment more intense, exciting the horses until it was all they could do to prevent them bolting. Buildings collapsed with a noise like thunder while others were already reduced to smoking ruin, from which a few charred timbers stuck up desolately.

  They were passing a large mansion in the course of construction when Marianne uttered a cry of horror. From the unfinished window sockets of the house, never to be completed now for already it was beginning to burn, hung the bodies of some dozen men who there awaited the last judgement day. They were barefoot, clad only in their shirts and had been shot before being suspended in bloodstained clusters with 'I burned Moscow' written on placards round their necks, flapping dismally in the wind about the bullet-riddled corpses.

  'It's horrible!' she choked, almost sobbing. 'Horrible! Have we all gone mad?'

  'Perhaps we have,' Beyle said quietly. 'Who is the more mad, he who came here seeking death, or he who seeks to wipe out his defeat in a bath of blood? Either way we are all mad! Look about you! This is a very carnival of madmen!'

  A frenzy seemed to have overtaken the long stream of vehicles, all laden with booty and compelled by the pressure all around them to proceed only by fits and starts. The drivers, terrified of being trapped by the flames, were shrieking hideously and belabouring their horses. On both sides of the street a mass of armed men were breaking down the doors of every undamaged house as they went along. Such was their fear of leaving anything behind that they would plunge inside and emerge laden with booty. Some covered themselves with stuffs richly worked in gold; some were enveloped in beautiful and costly furs, while yet others dressed themselves in women's clothes and precious cashmere shawls worn round their waists like sashes. Any who fell were lost, for at once a dozen eager hands reached out, not to help him to rise but to plunder what he had. Everywhere, against the roaring of the flames, were faces distorted by fear, cruelty and lust. The Emperor had gone, he had abandoned Moscow, and now there was nothing to restrain the hundreds of men for whom, all through that endless journey, the great Russian capital had gleamed like the promised land, the cornucopia which was to make them rich.

  Marianne buried her head in her hands and tried not to look. She no longer knew which was uppermost in her mind, fear or shame: she only knew that at that moment she was in hell.

  When at last they passed outside the walls of Moscow it was black night and a huge, round white moon was rising. The long line of close-packed vehicles burst out and scattered, like the contents of a bottle of champagne when the cork is popped. One highroad and a number of smaller ones led out into the countryside.

  Beyle halted the carriage on a little ridge and mopped his brow with his sleeve. He looked exhausted.

  'Well, here we are outside,' he murmured. 'I think we owe some thanks to Providence for getting us out of that death-trap.'

  'What are we going to do now?' Marianne asked wearily, wiping away the tears the smoke had brought to her eyes.

  'Find somewhere to sleep if we can. We are still too close. The heat is like an oven. We could get no rest.' He broke off, interrupted by a fit of coughing, and took a generous draught of brandy to cure it.

  Marianne scarcely seemed to notice. Although practically asleep on her feet, she was fascinated by the spectacle, even in spite of the accumulated fatigues of the past three days.

  The city looked like a volcano in the course of eruption. It was a titanic crucible, melting down all the riches of the world, bubbling and throwing up great sheets of flame, showers of sparks, with the occasional brilliant flash of an explosion. It was like some monstrous firework display for a mad god, blazing away in the darkness. It was the triumph of a demon whose fiery breath could burn even at a distance and whose long, red arms, reaching out over the walls, were still seeking, like the tentacles of a giant squid, to claw back those that had escaped.

  'Can't we rest here?' Marianne asked. 'I can't go any farther.'

  It was true enough. Her body, deprived of sleep for too long, would no longer obey her except by an immense effort of will.

  'It's very hot here, but must we really follow all those people?' She pointed to the column of refugees, still moving onward into the night. 'Where do they think they are going?'

  Beyle laughed cynically, his voice already thickening a little from the drink he had taken. Then he shrugged. 'Where they've all been going inexorably for years – where old Panurge's silly sheep went: to look for a shepherd! They've been told the Emperor is going to Petrov-something, so they, too, are going to Petrov-something, without even asking themselves whether they'll find a place to sleep or anything to eat there. Most of them will stay outside in the wind, in the pouring rain if need be, entranced by the place where their god is, like Tibetan lamas before the face of Buddha. But you're right. There's no need for us to follow them. I can see a small lake just ahead, with a little wood beside it. We'll camp there. What's more, I believe I can see the place they were all talking about.'

  At the end of what had now developed into a broad, well-kept avenue, lights had begun to spring up, shining out of the darkness, revealing a large, brick-built mansion of a curious architectural style oscillating between Louis XIV and Louis XV with a touch of the classical added on. Several more substantial dwellings were visible in the vicinity and the host of refugees flowed into them, while some kind of guard system seemed to have been established around Petrovskoi itself, in order to protect the Emperor's rest as much as possible, supposing he were able to get any.

  Beyle, however, drove his carriage, as he had declared his intention of doing, to the edge of a little lake in which was reflected a small, thickly planted wood of birch and fir. The wretched Bonnaire greeted the sight of the wood with immense relief and vanished into it precipitately as soon as the carriage came to a stop.

  With the help of those of his servants who were still on their feet, Beyle set up some kind of a camp. The mountainous clutter of baggage was removed from the carriage so that there was room to lie down and the hood drawn up against the cold night air and the likelihood of insects dropping out of the trees.

  Marianne took no part in any of this activity but sat by the lake, her feet among the reeds and her arms about her knees. She was so tired that every separate fibre of her body ached and yet she could not relax. The thoughts continued to go round and round in her head, like a runaway machine, without getting anywhere and without even any logical connection. She stared at the water stretching at her feet, lit by the reflected glow of the fire, and thought that it might be good to bathe in it and find a little coolness after so much heat. She bent down and scooped up some of the water in her hand and splashed it over her burning hot face and neck. But the water was not really cool. It was as if the fire, penetrating deep down into the earth, had imparted some of its heat to the little pool. All the same, it did her good.

  From behind her, she heard her new friend laugh.

  'Apparently Wittgenstein and his army are not many leagues away from here, guarding the road to St Petersburg. If they only knew that the Emperor was within their grasp, and practically defenceless, they could scarcely resist the temptation.'

  Bonnaire, who had re-emerged from the wood, said something in answer that Marianne could not catch but which the other
greeted with a prolonged bout of sneezing, before adding: 'I hope, for all our sakes, we shan't be obliged to remain here for long. I've no desire to find myself a prisoner of war.'

  But of all that, Marianne's mind had registered only one, small fact: that this broad, well-made highway that stretched so invitingly before her was the road to St Petersburg. This was the road that, ever since she had first entered the Kremlin – was it really only yesterday, or months ago? – she had been consistently renouncing, although it had never been out of her thoughts. Was it fate that had made them camp beside that tempting route? Perhaps even the fire that had driven her out of Moscow had been part of God's will? It was so easy to see the hand of Providence in everything when it seemed to point to what your heart yearned to do.

  'I'm afraid I can't offer you a feast,' said Beyle's voice pleasantly beside her. 'Our provisions are limited to some raw fish that my driver came by somehow or other, a few figs and some wine.'

  'Raw fish? Why not cook it?'

  He laughed, with a rather forced heartiness.

  'I don't know how you feel, but for my part I've seen enough of fire for one day. The mere thought of lighting one makes me feel a trifle sick. To say nothing of the fact that the wood is full of pine needles and as dry as a bone. We could easily set it alight. I think I'd prefer to eat my fish raw after all. They say the Japanese eat nothing else.'

  In spite of these encouraging words, Marianne contented herself with a few figs and a little wine. The bottles had not lasted out the journey and they began on the cask. The white wine it contained was far too young and so sharp that it made the tongue contract and left the throat raw but this did not prevent Beyle, Bonnaire and the servants from consuming a good deal of it and by the time Beyle announced that it was time for bed they were all gloriously drunk and inclined to be hilarious.

  Even so, Beyle, as a man of the world and able to hold his liquor, retained just enough lucidity to escort Marianne to the carriage and install her on the back seat. She, however, was reluctant to lie down at once.

  'I'm tired,' she said, 'but my nerves are still on edge. I'll just sit under the trees for a while. You go to sleep and don't worry about me. I'll rest later.'

  He did not insist but wished her a good night and then, while the unhappy Bonnaire, by this time reduced to a mere shell, took the forward seat, he settled himself on the box, rolled in his coat, and was asleep almost at once. The servants, heavy with wine, were already snoring here and there about the lake.

  In an incredibly short time, Marianne found herself alone amid a concert of noisy breathing. The men sprawled about her in the moonlight looked like bodies left lying on a battlefield. Away in the darkness, Petrovskoi blazed with light now from every window.

  It was chilly under the trees and Marianne went automatically to collect the horse blanket which Beyle had left on the carriage seat for her. But as she threw it round her shoulders some awkwardness in her movements reawakened the pain in her shoulder. Her forehead, too, felt burning hot. She shivered and drew the rough, heavy, horse-smelling rug more closely round her.

  The road running near by fascinated her. It drew her like a magnet. Her feet hurt, her legs ached and her whole body was trembling with weariness and with the slow onset of fever, yet she went towards the road, reached it and began to walk along it steadily, step by step as though in a dream.

  Behind her was the burning city but it meant nothing to her. It was merely a flaming barrier set between her and the road back to Paris. While there, before her, the road lay clear ahead to Petersburg.

  'Jason,' she murmured, the tears welling into her eyes. 'Jason! Wait for me – wait for me!'

  The last phrase had been a cry, uttered aloud, and, weak as she was, she had begun to run straight ahead, carried by some unknown force she was powerless to oppose. She had to get to the end of the road, the end of the night – to the blue sea and the sun and the fresh, salt breezes.

  Something bumped into her, causing her to fall to her knees, something that then clung to her, with heartbroken sobs, crying: 'Mama! Mama! Where are you, Mama?'

  Holding it at arms' length, she perceived that it was a small boy with dark curls clustered thickly round a chubby face. He stared back at her with big, frightened eyes and tried to burrow against her.

  A flash like lightning went through Marianne's brain and there was a tearing pain in her heart. Her spirit broke free of the hideous present and from all the events of that dreadful day, to reach out after a deeper need. She held the unknown child in her arms and hugged him to her.

  'Oh, my darling! Don't be afraid, my darling! I am here. We'll go home together, you and I. We won't go to Petersburg…'

  Carrying the strange child in her arms, his little arms clasped round her neck, her body burning with fever, Marianne made her way like a sleepwalker back to the carriage to await the dawn.

  'We'll go home,' she said, over and over again. 'We'll go home very soon.'

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Take Hold of Life –

  Next day, while Moscow continued to burn like a devastated coalmine and Napoleon sat in Petrovskoi and contemplated the inferno with what patience he could muster, Marianne lay beside the lake, delirious and in a high fever, much to the alarms of her companions in misfortune.

  The child she had found slept peacefully against her breast and this unexpected addition only increased the two auditors' perturbation. Nor were they themselves in the best of health. Bonnaire's dysentery, not at all improved by a period of heavy, drunken slumber, was as bad as ever. Beyle's cold was worse and he was liverish into the bargain.

  'It's that filthy white wine. We drank too much of it last night, I must confess,' was all he would say about it and then set about doing what he could to improve their present position. Underneath his nonchalant pose he was, in fact, a man of considerable energy and quite capable of decisive action when it was required of him.

  He proved this in the first instance by kicking his servants awake and obliging them, with the assistance of several buckets of water drawn from the lake, to sit up and take notice. Meanwhile the little boy had woken up and started crying and Bonnaire was feeding him with figs. Only Marianne was still in no condition to take any part in what was happening. She lay moaning softly under the horse blanket in which Beyle had hastened to wrap her as soon as he realized that she was ill.

  'The two most important things we have to do,' Beyle declared, 'are to try and find this child's mother, who may not be very far away, and to discover some form of shelter for ourselves. It doesn't matter what, as long as it has a bed for this poor girl.'

  'A doctor would be no bad thing either,' Bonnaire remarked. 'We could all three do with one.'

  'My dear fellow, we must make do with what we have. Trying to find a doctor and medicines in our present situation would be like looking for poppies in a snowfield in midwinter. But good God!' he broke out, aiming some perfectly useless but very satisfying kicks at the carriage wheels. 'Why in heaven's name did I ever come to this cursed country! If the devil were to appear to me now and offer to transport me to Italy, to Milan, say, or those exquisite lakes, in exchange for my soul, I'd not simply accept, I'd feel as if I were robbing the poor chap. François!' he yelled at the top of his voice. 'François! Take that child and carry him to the house there and see if anyone claims him. And see if you can't dig up a bed somewhere while you're about it.'

  Leaving Bonnaire to take care of Marianne, he set out himself on a tour of exploration, riding one of the horses taken from the carriage. François was the first to return and he was alone. He had found the child's mother without much difficulty. She was the wife of a French confectioner and had been hunting for her little boy all night after losing him in the stampede out of the city. But there was not an empty bed to be had for miles around. All he was able to bring back was some food, biscuits, dried fruit, cheese and smoked ham, given him by the grateful mother.

  Beyle was away a long time and in the meanwhile Bonnair
e and the driver, François, did what they could for Marianne. François found a spring and brought some water and the fat man did his best to make her swallow a little food, but with no great success. She was shivering violently and muttering incoherent phrases through chattering teeth, echoes of the nightmare phantasms that haunted her mind which threw poor Bonnaire into a dreadful state of agitation. Hearing her rave of the Emperor and a host of other things; conspiracy, Kuskovo, a cardinal, a masked prince, a man called Jason, the Duc de Richelieu, the King of Sweden and the war in America, the poor man began to wonder whether Beyle had not taken up with a notorious female spy. Consequently it was with profound relief that he greeted his superior's return.

  'You can't think how glad I am to see you back. What's the position?'

  The younger man shrugged eloquently and sighed. Then he turned to his driver.

  'Did you find anything, François?'

  'Not a thing, Sir, except for the child's mother. All the places round about the big house are full right up and so jam-packed that an invalid would get no peace at all. Here, at least it's quiet.'

  'You've windmills in your head, my friend,' Bonnaire protested. The lady is burning hot. I'm sure her fever is worse than it was. We can't possibly stay here – though as to knowing where we can go—'

  'Oh, as to that, there's no difficulty,' Beyle said calmly. We'll go back to Moscow.'

  A chorus of protest greeted this apparently nonsensical suggestion, so he went on to explain. It was true, he said, that the town had been two-thirds destroyed but the fire had ceased to spread. In fact it was beginning to die out. The troops left behind by Napoleon had worked miracles in their fight against the conflagration and Beyle had been able to pick his way fairly easily through the smoking ruins until he came to the French quarter. At St Louis, he had found the Abbé Surugue, as cool as ever, saying mass before a large congregation, urging them to keep calm and blessing them energetically.