Very soon, the exits, the tall windows in the canvas walls and the passageway by which the Emperor had left, were blocked by the fire. The gallery itself was blazing, carrying the fire straight into the embassy drawing-rooms. Now the only passable way out was by the lofty doorway opening into the gardens and towards this the crowd surged with all the violence of water bursting through a dam. A thick, suffocating black smoke was filling the blazing ballroom, stinging the eyes and lungs.
To escape it, men and women fought their way towards the single exit with a savage fury, thrusting with fists and elbows, trampling one another down, battling for life with no thought for anything beyond the naked, primitive instinct of self-preservation.
The women were the first to fall, trodden down by the more powerful males, by the very man perhaps who, only a moment before, had been bowing with exquisite grace over the very fingers he now crushed beneath his heel, or murmuring sweet nothings into ears he would have torn off ruthlessly if it would help him to escape more quickly and win through into the blessed, breathable fresh air outside.
Carried away in the midst of this desperate scramble for life, bruised, half-stifled with smoke and by the pressure of so many human bodies, the train ripped from her dress, Marianne had a horrified vision of glaring eyes and screaming mouths, of faces contorted with terror. The heat was unbearable and the drifts of smoke that filled the room with a thick, grey fog made her feel as if her lungs would burst. Among the press of heads around her, she caught sight of Savary's, bobbing like some absurd ship on an angry sea. The Minister of Police was looking very nearly as green as his braided uniform but, shrieking incomprehensibly, he was making a vain attempt to bring some order into the panic-stricken crowd.
The opening leading into the garden was not far away now but the hangings with which it was draped were already beginning to burn and the pressure of the crowd was growing ever more frantic as each person fought to get across the threshold before the way was barred by the flames. Such was the press of bodies with everyone trying to escape at once that the crowd became jammed tight in the doorway, like the cork of a bottle. It was impossible to move, either forward or backwards. People struggled wildly. Marianne was hit in the chest by a senator's flailing elbow and felt hands grasping her hair. Fortunately for her, there was, not far behind her in the crowd, a giant of a man, a great, bearded, bear-like creature whose massive shoulders were clad in the brilliant uniform of the Russian guard. This man was fighting like a fury, pushing at the crowd in front of him with his great hands. Sparks from a falling chandelier set light to his hair and, uttering an inhuman cry, he gave such a violent thrust that the human stopper burst out into the open amid billows of smoke. Marianne found herself, horribly bruised about the chest but safe, outside the ballroom, on the steps leading to the gardens. But she had hardly drawn a breath of slightly cooler air into her lungs before an anguished cry broke from her. A woman beside her groaned piteously, then another gave a shriek that ended on a choking sob. The lamps which had twinkled so gaily on the outside of the ballroom were tipping over, spilling hot oil on to the bare shoulders and uncovered breasts below, causing fearful injuries. Marianne stumbled forward towards an ornamental pool whose waters glowed redly. Servants were hurrying towards it with buckets and basins: none too soon, for by now the ballroom doorway was ablaze.
From the steps, Marianne saw a piece of burning timber crash down on old Prince Kurakin. The massive, gouty Russian ambassador collapsed with a grunt like a wounded bear, but a man in the tattered uniform of a French general sprang forward instantly to rescue him.
Leaning her bare back gratefully against the cold stone of one of the statues, Marianne stared, wide-eyed with horror, at the spectacle of desolation and death which, all round her in the gardens, had replaced the magical beauty of so short a time before. She was still gasping for breath and her chest hurt her, and her shoulder where the skin was blistered and cracked from her burns. Even here, the air was almost too thick to breathe. The ballroom was now a blazing inferno, shooting roaring flames up into the dark sky, as if in search of something more to feed on. Vague shapes could still be seen emerging from the furnace within, their garments blazing, and rolling themselves screaming on the ground in their efforts to put out the stinging flames.
The injured and dying were everywhere. People were rushing hither and thither in panic, not knowing what they were doing. Marianne saw Prince Metternich run towards the flames, a bucket of water in his hands. She saw another man, also running, carrying a woman in a silver dress and she recognized Jason, oblivious of everything but the need to bear his wife, Pilar, safely out of danger.
I no longer exist for him, Marianne thought bewilderedly. He is thinking only of her. He has not tried to find out if I am even alive…
She felt suddenly very weak, and very much alone. Among all these people, there was not one who was her friend, not one whose thoughts were only for her. She felt so desolate that she put her arms round the statue, a little figure of Ceres in white marble, and started to cry bitterly, clinging to the stone which was already growing warm from the fire.
'Antonia! Antonia!'
The piercing shriek close beside her roused Marianne from her agony of self-pity. Looking up, she saw a woman clearly far advanced in pregnancy running desperately towards the blaze. Her tangled hair fell about her shoulders, over the shreds of a white muslin gown, and her arms were stretched out before her. To her horror, Marianne recognized the ambassador's sister-in-law, Princess Schwarzenburg, and darted swiftly in pursuit:
'Madame! Madame!… Where are you going? For pity's sake—'
The eyes the young woman turned on her were so dilated with horror and anguish that it was doubtful if they even saw her.
'My daughter!' she said. 'Antonia! She is in there!'
With a sudden movement, she wrenched herself free from Marianne's grasp, leaving her holding nothing but a few strips of tattered muslin, and resumed her blind race. Still shrieking and calling, she had reached the fire when, with a mighty crash, the floor of the ballroom collapsed into the empty pool above which it was built and Marianne saw the wretched woman vanish into the fiery pit below.
Sick with horror, her stomach heaving, Marianne could only double up and vomit. Her head was hammering and she was sweating heavily. When she lifted her eyes it was to see with disgust that the musicians, who had escaped with the rest into the gardens, were busy among the injured, robbing them of their jewels. And they, unhappily, were not the only ones. The people who had swarmed up on to the walls of the embassy garden to watch the fireworks with shouts of delight, had come in for their share of the spoils. Groups of ill-favoured rascals were slipping over the walls into the gardens, eyes gleaming like a pack of hungry wolves, and were going silently about their grisly work.
The efforts of the embassy staff to keep the evil tide at bay were worse than useless. A few men attempted to defend the women victims, but they were too few to offer any effective resistance.
But, Marianne thought, with mounting horror, the firemen should be here, soldiers… Where is the Emperor's escort?
But the Emperor had gone and his escort with him. How long would it be before a regiment of troops could be brought in to restore order and drive off the looters? A hand fell on her suddenly, snatching the tiara from her head, and a handful of hair with it, then tugging at the emerald necklace, trying to break the clasp. Marianne screamed in terror:
'Help! Thieves!'
A second hand, rough and evil-smelling, stopped her mouth. Instinctively, she struggled with her attacker, seeing a long, pallid face and cruel eyes, a man dressed in dirty overalls, reeking of sweat. Biting and scratching, she managed to wriggle from his grasp and started to run, her hands gripping her necklace, but he was before her, hurling himself forward to jerk her back. She felt a steel blade pricking her throat.
'Give me those!' said a hoarse voice, 'or I'll cut yer throat!'
He pressed lightly, so that the blade nicked
the soft flesh. Petrified with fear, Marianne put up trembling hands to unfasten the necklace and saw the man slip it into his sleeve. Then she took the sparkling drops from her ears. The knife was removed and Marianne thought that now he would let her go, but he did not. Instead, he bent over her, chuckling evilly. She felt his breath on her face, foul with the reek of cheap wine, and gave a choking scream; but moist, cold lips were clamped hard on hers, stifling the cry with a kiss that made her retch. At the same time, the man holding her was thrusting her roughly in the direction of a bed of huge peonies guarding the entrance to a shrubbery.
'This way, my beauty! It's not every day I gets me 'ands on a swell mort like you!'
Marianne was no sooner released from the stinking embrace than she began to scream and struggle again, thin, piercing screams uttered on a high note of hysteria. Failing to muffle them, the man drew back his arm and struck her with such force that she fell to the ground. But even as he bent to drag her in among the bushes, a man's figure sprang from the shadows and grappled with him, flinging him down a yard or two from Marianne. The ruddy glow of the fire enabled her to recognize Chernychev. He was bleeding from a cut across his temple and his uniform was badly charred, but he seemed otherwise unhurt.
'Run!' he snarled. 'By St Vladimir, I mean to gut this moujik like a herring!'
He did not look at Marianne. In the unnatural, flickering half-light, she could see his green eyes shining with savage joy at the prospect of a fight. He stood with his hands held low and open, ready to grip, his body tense and perfectly controlled, unarmed and wholly forgetful of his recently-healed wound, confronting the villain with the butcher's knife.
'He stole my jewels,' Marianne whispered, holding her hand to her bruised throat and feeling the raw wound on her neck where the necklace had bitten into it as the man pulled.
'That is all? He did not rape you?'
'He had no time, he—'
'Get yourself to safety. I will recover your jewels. As for this gallows-bird, he may thank Our Lady of Kazan he was not born in Russia! There he would have died under the knout for daring to so much as touch you.'
The man gave a crack of laughter and spat out some vile oath, settling the knife more comfortably in his grimy paw.
'But he is armed!' Marianne wailed. 'He will kill you.'
Now it was the Cossack's turn to laugh, his slanting eyes narrowed to gleaming slits as he surveyed his adversary:
'He? His knife will not save him. I have slain bears and tamed wild horses with these bare hands. I shall have throttled him in two minutes, knife or no!'
Then, with a powerful thrust of steely muscles, Chernychev sprang. Caught off-balance, the other man fell heavily, with a choking gasp, striving to tear away the hands that clutched ferociously at his throat, half-throttling him before he could use his weapon. The knife had fallen from his hand and Marianne bent quickly to seize it, but the man was strong for all his gaunt frame and already he had wrenched his neck free and was making a recovery. Both men rolled over and over on the ground, as closely intertwined as a pair of fighting snakes engaged in a savage struggle on the damp grass of a smoothly-shaven lawn.
The Russian was a skilful wrestler and Marianne was not greatly alarmed for him. She was confident that he would emerge victorious. Then, suddenly, she realized to her horror that two more men in working clothes and three-decker caps were creeping up silently on the struggling pair. She guessed that they were associates of the first bully coming to the rescue and knew that it would be no longer a fair fight. It came to her in a flash that Chernychev would need help and she looked round wildly, in time to see a company of soldiers entering the grounds by way of the walls, carrying stretchers and other rescue apparatus. Gathering up the rags of her dress, she ran towards them and seeing a group of men in green uniforms bending over the injured seized one of them by the arm.
'Count Chernychev!' she gasped out. 'He is in danger. Come quickly! They will kill him!'
The man whose arm she held turned and looked at her and so strong was the atmosphere of unreality which haunted that terrible night that Marianne felt almost no surprise to see it was Napoleon himself. Black with soot, his Chasseur uniform charred and torn, he was supervising the removal of an injured woman who lay moaning softly on a stone bench. It must have been he who, on his way back to the stricken embassy, had called out the rescue parties who were already taking control of the grounds. He spoke briefly:
'Who will kill him?'
'Some men… over there, by the bushes! They attacked me and the Count came to my rescue. Hurry, there are three of them, all armed – and he is alone, with nothing but his bare hands—'
'Who are these men?'
'I don't know. Robbers! They came over the wall—'
The Emperor stood up. His grey eyes, set beneath frowning brows, were hard as stone, as he called out: 'Eugene! Duroc! Over here! It seems there is murder being done now.'
With the viceroy of Italy and the Duke of Frioul hard on his heels, the Emperor of the French sped off as fast as his legs would carry him to the assistance of the Russian attaché. Marianne, assured now of Chernychev's safety, wandered back automatically towards the fountains. She did not know what to do now, or where to go. She watched, beyond either surprise or relief, the arrival of the fire brigade at last, or of what passed for the fire brigade, for they numbered only six men in all, and those more than three-parts drunk. She heard Savary's roars of rage:
'Six of you, only! Where are the rest?'
'We – don't know, General.'
'What of your commander, that fool Ledoux? Where is he?'
'I-in the country, General…'
'Six!' Savary was beside himself with rage. 'Six out of two hundred and ninety-three! And where are the pumps?'
'Here – but there's no water. The conduits in the Grand Boulevards are locked fast and we have not the key.'
'And where is the key?'
The fireman's answer was an evasive gesture which served to madden the already infuriated Chief of Police still further. Marianne saw him turn and hurry away, dragging the unfortunate fireman with him, while the wretched man fought desperately to keep his feet, knowing that any moment would surely bring him face-to-face with an anger far more terrible than any Minister's.
Yet help was forthcoming. The Imperial Guard, summoned by Napoleon and reinforced by a regiment of tirailleurs, was now engaged in attempting to save the embassy and those within. The tall ladder had been fetched from the library in the rue de la Loi and the waters of the fountains had been pressed into service. But Marianne soon lost interest in all that was happening around her. Now that the Emperor had taken charge, everything would be all right. She could hear his ringing tones somewhere in the garden…
Her head ached and her mind was a blank. She felt bruised in every inch of her body and yet was unable to summon up the strength to try and get away, to find a carriage to take her home. Something had snapped inside her and she gazed round, with what was almost indifference, at the scene of unbelievable devastation which filled the gardens. The terrible fire which, in a few minutes, had transformed a happy, elegant assembly of people into a scene of carnage was too much like the circumstances of her own life not to have a profound effect on her. This tragic ball had dealt her the final blow, the last, unbearable wound. And she had no one to blame but herself. How could she have been so blind to her real feelings? There had been so many wrong turnings, so much obstinacy in the face of the evidence, of the advice even of her best friends, so many fruitless struggles against nothing, all culminating at last in this cruel ending which resolved itself into a single image, the image of Jason carrying another woman in his arms, and it had taken all this for the truth to break upon her unwilling eyes at last, blindingly but too late: she loved Jason, she had always loved him, even when she believed herself in love with another, even when she thought she hated him. How could she have failed to realize it when, in her bridal chamber at Selton Hall, she had felt herself sw
ooning under his stolen kiss? How could she have failed to understand in the midst of her joy at seeing him in the caverns of Chaillot, her disappointment when he left Paris without seeing her, excitement at finding the camellias in her dressing-room on the night of her one, public concert, the impatience and, at last, the bitter disappointment when she had looked for him in vain, along all the roads of Italy, right up to the last moment before she pledged herself to an insensate marriage? She could still hear Adelaide saying with quiet concern: 'You are quite sure you do not love him?'
Yes, she had been sure then, in her folly and pride at having enslaved the giant of Europe in the burning chains of sensual passion. For in that bitterest moment of all, Marianne looked clearly at last at the real nature of the bond between her and the Emperor. She had loved him with pride and with terror, with a delight that carried with it a faint, delicious sense of danger and forbidden fruit; she had loved him with all the ardour of her youth and her eager flesh which, through him, had come to know the magic spell born of the perfect unison of two bodies. But she knew now that her love had been made of wonder and gratitude. She had fallen victim to the curious power of attraction he possessed over other human beings and, even suffering from his neglect, the jealousy she had felt was a fierce, burning thing that was somehow stimulating. It was not this pain, this rending agony, this uncontrollable quivering of her whole being at the thought of Jason and Pilar together. And now that she had lost, lost for ever the happiness which had lain so long within her grasp, Marianne felt that she had lost also the will to live.
Feeling that her life was ruined through her own fault, she felt again, more strongly than ever, the sense of being nothing but an empty doll which had haunted her on her arrival at the ball. In her blind folly and pride, she had allowed Jason to slip through her fingers and, turning to another woman, join his life with hers. Pilar was the one who would live with him in the land where the cotton grew, where the black men sang, she would share each moment of his life and sleep at night in his arms, and bear his children…
Marianne and the Privateer Page 3
