'Very well. Then I'll walk, but I'm going to leave somehow.'
'Don't talk such rubbish. It makes you sound like an idiot. You are quite mad! Walk, indeed! Six or seven hundred leagues on foot! Why not on your hands while you're about it? Besides, what would you eat? The convoys and the couriers have to take their own food with them at least as far as Smolensk because, thanks to our friends the Russians' pleasant little habit of burning everything behind them, there's not so much as a cabbage stalk to be found. Lastly,' he reminded her, 'the news from outside is alarming. Bands of furious peasants are attacking small groups of travellers. Alone, you would be in danger.'
He was really angry and had quite forgotten his own physical discomforts, but his anger dropped before Marianne's desperate face.
'But what can I do?' she stammered, almost in tears. 'I want to go so much! I'd give ten years of my life to go home!'
'So would I! Now, listen to me, and above all don't cry. When you cry it makes me stupid and feverish again. There may be some hope – if you will only be a little patient.'
'I will be patient, only tell me quickly.'
'Well then, Bonnaire brought me some news as well as this letter. Our situation is becoming worse every day and the Emperor is beginning to realize it. He has heard rumours that the Russians, far from being exhausted as the King of Naples persists in claiming they are, are concentrating not far away in considerable strength. Now, we are in no condition to face an all-out attack, not even if the regiments that have been sent for should arrive in time. Unless I'm very much mistaken, we'll be leaving here before very much longer.'
'You think so?'
'I'd swear to it. What's more, ill or not, I'm going out to get the news tomorrow. Bonnaire is a good fellow but his understanding is not great. I'll find out in the office what's really happening.'
'But you are not well yet, your fever—'
'Is a good deal better. And it's high time I did something a little heroic. I've been pampering myself. And it's time you stopped lamenting, too. You have to stand up to life, by God! Else it will get the better of you.'
'Stand up to life?' Marianne echoed thoughtfully. 'Oh, my poor friend, I seem to have been doing nothing else for years. Life has treated me like a coconut palm. It's given me plenty of nuts – only it's dropped them all right on my head.'
'Because you were standing in the wrong place. You were born to be happy. If you can't be, it's entirely your own fault. Go and rest now. Something tells me you won't have to frowst indoors much longer.'
It almost seemed to Marianne afterwards that her friend must possess the gift of second sight because the very next day he came home with amazing news.
"We're off in three days' time,' he told her simply.
'In three days?' Marianne cried, feeling all at once as if the heavens had opened. 'But how?'
He bowed extravagantly, like an actor in a play. 'You see before you, fair lady, that most important person, the director of Reserve Supplies. General Dumas has just told me of my new appointment. The mission that goes with it is, unfortunately, no very simple one. I am to assemble supplies of food sufficient for two hundred thousand men in the three regions of Smolensk, Mohilev and Vitebsk. The Emperor is beginning to think of leaving Moscow and wintering in Smolensk or Vitebsk, it seems, so as to be nearer to the army on the Dvina. He can wait there in comfort until his reinforcements arrive and then march on Petersburg in the spring.'
'But when?'
'I don't know that. As far as I can make out, before settling down in winter quarters, his Majesty has some idea of going and chivvying old Kutuzov a bit, just to keep him quiet – and to check the truth of what Murat has to say about the cossacks. But that need not concern us. The important thing is that we leave in three days' time for Smolensk and I must ask you to let me have the use of this room because I am expecting several secretaries. I've got any number of letters to dictate. Somehow, I've got to get together something like a hundred thousand quintals of flour, oats and beef cattle – and I've not the faintest notion where I'm going to find them.'
Marianne was already rising to leave the room, when he stopped her.
'By the way, should you have any objection to dressing as a man? You could pass as my secretary.'
'None at all. I used to love doing so – once upon a time.'
'Splendid! Goodnight.'
That night, Beyle's voice droned on endlessly in the next room, dictating a host of letters to three weary secretaries whom he had to nudge awake from time to time. Marianne fell asleep at last and slept the tranquil sleep that came with a heart at ease and a mind freed from all her most pressing anxieties. She was not out of the wood yet but she was beginning to relax a little. All her fears and torments had crystallized into that one, obsessive longing to leave Moscow.
There would be time to think of other things when the road to freedom lay open before her. Only, she had to find Gracchus and Jolival as soon as possible, because she had to face the fact that, even when she reached the end of the journey, Paris was likely to prove as dangerous for her as Moscow as soon as the Emperor returned – the Emperor who was now her implacable enemy.
But even that disturbing thought must wait until another day.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Merchant of Smolensk
They left Moscow on the sixteenth of October, in weather that, while still dry, was beginning to turn cold. The exceptionally mild autumn which had lulled Napoleon into a sense of false security for so long was reverting to more normal temperatures.
As she followed Beyle into the carriage, which had been made more comfortable and weatherproof by the addition of leather aprons, Marianne paid tribute to her friend's talent for organization. Nothing had been left out, from the luncheon basket to extra supplies of warm clothing.
She herself, now dressed as a man and entered into her new career as secretary to the director of Reserve Supplies, had been thoughtfully provided by him with a full, dark green polonaise with silken frogs which reminded her a little of one she had worn in Paris, only that it was much bigger all round. It was trimmed and lined with grey fox and with it went a hat of the same fur, worn crammed down low over her ears to hide the hair which Barbe had plaited tightly round her head.
Barbe was up on the box beside François. She was bundled up in several layers of shawls and wore a thick scarf tied under her chin. Between them they had collected far too many rugs for the mere hundred leagues or so from Moscow to Smolensk but if Beyle's journey officially ended there, it was only a stage in Marianne's. For the auditor of the Council of State believed, with some reason, that in Smolensk he would be sufficiently his own master to be able to arrange for her to travel on quite comfortably to France.
If Marianne had expected that first stage to be accomplished very swiftly, she was singularly disappointed, and that even before they left Moscow. Instead of taking the most direct way over the Marshals' Bridge and through the ruins of the suburb of Dorogomilov to join the Smolensk road, the carriage turned in the direction of Red Square and took its place in the long convoy that was getting ready to leave: several hundred sick and wounded men and an escort of three hundred more.
Beyle shrugged as he saw Marianne's eyes turn to him questioningly and he said gruffly: "You were so happy to be going. I didn't want to spoil your pleasure by telling you General Dumas had ordered me to travel with the convoy. The roads are so unsafe that, travelling alone in a European carriage, neither it nor we would probably have got there at all.'
'All the same, I wish you had told me straight out. You'd have done better not to hide it. I learned long ago, you know, not to fight against the inevitable. It's true the journey will take longer but nothing can spoil my happiness in leaving this city!'
All the same, she could not help a shudder of retrospective fear as she saw the Kremlin walls again. The old fortress was still standing amid the ruins that lay all about it, looking redder than ever in the rising sun, as though its very bricks were s
weating blood. Marianne felt the bitterness swelling in her again as she recalled how eager she had been to get inside and see Napoleon. Because he had been her lover and she still felt affection and loyalty towards him, she had sacrificed everything, her love and almost her life, for his sake. And her reward had been a nasty bill pasted up on all the walls of Moscow.
'Don't lean out,' Beyle warned her suddenly. 'You could still be recognized, in spite of all our precautions.'
This was true. There were a number of brilliant uniforms to be seen here and there among the incredible collection of spring carts and private carriages that made up the convoy. Eugene de Beauharnais popped up without warning only a few yards away from them. With characteristic kindness, the Viceroy of Italy was personally seeing an old soldier, bundled in blankets and with a face as grey as his beard, put into his wagon.
Marianne sat back hurriedly, making sure the spectacles which Beyle had advised her to wear until they had put several versts between themselves and the Kremlin were firmly settled on her nose. She was praying that they might start soon, for she had just caught sight of Duroc, also going the rounds of the wagons dealing out encouragements and good wishes for the journey. Her heart was beating wildly and to calm it she tried to interest herself in what she could see from underneath the hood. High above them, on the gilded dome of the largest of the Kremlin towers, sappers of the guard were perched on makeshift scaffolding, engaged, at some risk to their lives, in taking down the great gold cross of St Ivan. A flock of black birds, crows or rooks, wheeled thickly round them, squawking so dismally that Marianne shivered, seeing an evil omen in their sinister cries.
She touched her companion lightly on the arm. 'Why are they doing that?' she asked.
'Oh, on his Majesty's orders. It's his idea that the great golden cross will make a handsome ornament for the dome of the Invalides.2 As a prize of war, it will remind old soldiers of the miseries they endured and of the laurels they won on the banks of the Moskva.'
'I should have said they'd have been better allowed to forget them,' Marianne murmured. Then, remembering what Constant had said to her, she added: 'Their laurels are crowns of fire and when they are burned out nothing will be left but a little grey ash.'
The convoy moved off at last, to the accompaniment of cries of goodwill from those left behind. Men ran along on either side of the line of vehicles, waving hats and arms and shouting out: 'Goodbye! We'll be catching you up soon!' and 'Watch out for the cossacks!' They all sounded cheerful enough.
'Is it known how soon the Emperor means to leave Moscow?' Marianne asked.
'Very soon. In two or three days. He intends to march on Kuluga first.'
By this time the carriage had crossed the bridge and Beyle leaned out and looked back across the Moskva. He stayed hanging out of the door for so long that Marianne inquired whether he had forgotten something, or was really so sorry to be leaving Moscow.
'Neither,' he told her. 'I simply wanted to have one last look to take away with me, because that is a sight I shall never see again, even if I come back ten times over. The Emperor has determined that when he quits Moscow, the Kremlin is to be blown up. I suppose it's one way to be revenged.'
Marianne said nothing. The behaviour of men in general and of Napoleon in particular was becoming increasingly alien and incomprehensible to her. Hadn't he told her that he was not a man to leave ruins behind him? Apparently he had changed his mind again. Those changes of mind were happening more and more often, and with less and less reason. But after all, who could say what his feelings towards herself might be when, if God willed it so, they met again in Paris?
The journey dragged on for eighteen long days and very rapidly became a nightmare. The weather turned wet and freezing cold and this had its effect on the tempers of the sick men. All day long it was nothing but quarrelling, cursing and abuse; flying back and forth between the wagons which were continually having to be manhandled out of ruts or across streams, with or without fords, where the bridges had been broken down. Each time it meant another three or even four hours' wasted time.
A little way short of Mojaisk, they passed a camp of Russian prisoners. Hideous yells came from it, with a stench of rotting cabbage and other decaying matter. Marianne was appalled and shut her eyes tightly so as not to see the bearded, demoniacal faces pressed to the fence, pouring out a stream of filth which she, mercifully, could not understand but which had Barbe crossing herself almost continuously.
At Mojaisk itself, where the Westphalian troops of the Eighth Corps, under the Duke of Abrantes, were encamped, they found the main ambulance unit and took on a fresh batch of wounded, many of them with amputated limbs. Junot had succeeded in getting together a number of vehicles, peasant carts for the most part, but they were not nearly enough and the wagons that had come from Moscow were more crowded even than before. The sky was grey and the men's spirits no brighter.
The crossing of the battlefield of Borodino and its village was another ordeal. Even Beyle's habitual pose of elegant, slightly cynical scepticism deserted him at the sight that met the travellers' eyes and he sat staring speechlessly. For all the dead of that great battle were still lying where they fell. No effort had been made to bury them. The field was thick with them. Only the frost, covering them with a thin coat of rime, had arrested the processes of decomposition sufficiently to make them still recognizable. Everywhere lay the bodies of horses, half-eaten by dogs and carrion birds, and all round them the remains of drums, helmets, breastplates and weapons, while the fat, black crows were all about. In spite of the cold, the smell was abominable.
But while Marianne, half-fainting, muttered prayers under her breath and Beyle, stiff with revulsion, held a pouch of tobacco to his nose, the wounded with the convoy seemed to revive at the sight. They forgot their troubles, their disputes and bad tempers and pointed out to one another with pride the places where they had fought, recalling great feats of arms and acts of heroism and the fierce scent of victory. Some were pointing out the cottage that had served as General Kutuzov's headquarters, others gazing at the celebrated redoubt which brooded over the tragic landscape like some Aztec temple.
'They must be mad,' Marianne murmured incredulously. 'It's not possible! They must be mad!'
A great roar of laughter answered her.
"No, lad! They're not mad. But what can a green youth like you know of soldiers? All of us here have toiled and suffered on this field. It's true that there are plenty of our own good fellows lying there, but there are many more Russians. It was a great day and a great victory, and it made Ney a prince!'
The man who had spoken was one of the two occupants of the carriage ahead of theirs. He was a big, splendidly bewhiskered fellow, with a general officer's greatcoat slung negligently over an empty sleeve. The legion of honour glowed on his breast and a long scar, still not quite healed, ran down one cheek and vanished under his high, braided collar. He was eyeing Marianne as if he could cheerfully have hacked her in pieces there and then. Beyle deemed it prudent to come to her rescue.
'Come now, General,' he said laughing, 'don't be too hard on my young secretary here! He's Italian and his French is not good. Besides, he's only seventeen.'
'I was already a subaltern at his age! The boy should be capable of sitting a horse and handling a sabre, for all his girlish features and those great staring eyes of his. I'll remind you of what poor Lassalle said, that a hussar who's not dead at thirty isn't worth his salt!'
"That's as may be. Anyone who gave this lad a sabre would be taking a lot on himself. He's as blind as a bat! Put on your spectacles, Fabrice,' he added in Italian. "You know you can't see a thing without them.'
Angry and annoyed, Marianne obeyed. She found herself hating the arrogant officer who was watching her with such open contempt. Indeed, it cost her a considerable effort to refrain from telling him just what she thought of him and his like. To them, a battlefield, even one covered with dead men, was, if not precisely paradise, at least a very spe
cial place. It was the gigantic board on which they played out their favourite game, the heady sport of war. They did not care if they left various portions of their anatomy on the field, what mattered to them was the game itself, its frenzy, its intoxication and its dreadful glory. And to the devil with the cost!
When the convoy moved on again and the general had got back into his own vehicle, Marianne tore off the spectacles, which were making her nose sore, and vented her rage on her companion.
'Who is that bloodthirsty imbecile? Do you know him?'
'Yes, of course. He is General the Baron Pierre Mourier, commanding the 9th brigade of cavalry of the 3rd Corps, which is Ney's own. He was wounded on this very field. Nor, let me add, is he in the least imbecile. He merely said what any experienced soldier would have said at the sight of a good-looking young man with nothing apparently wrong with him and all his limbs intact, sitting comfortably in a well-sprung carriage.'
'Oh. Well, you need not go on about it. It was not my idea to dress as a man.'
'No, it was mine. It was the only way you would be acceptable in a military convoy.'
'What about Barbe, then?'
'She is my servant. I said she was my cook. Come now, Marianne, try to keep your spirits up in spite of everything. You are likely to encounter many more incidents of the same kind. It is simply one of the necessary evils of your disguise. Be patient. And you may tell yourself, if it's any comfort to you, that the general thinks much the same of me. He doesn't think much of an auditor of the Council of State, especially one my age. He'd call me a shirker. Just keep your mind on playing your part properly and we'll be all right.'
Marianne glared at him but he had already ceased to pay much attention to her. He had taken a small book, elegantly bound in brown calf from his pocket and plunged into it with such evident enjoyment that Marianne could not resist the urge to disturb him a little.
[Marianne 6] - Marianne and the Crown of Fire Page 25