'What are you reading?' she asked.
'Madame du Deffand's letters,' he said, without taking his eyes from the page. 'She was blind but so intelligent! Far too intelligent ever to interrupt someone else's concentration.'
There was no mistaking his meaning and Marianne subsided indignantly rather than engage in further argument. She flung herself back sulkily into her corner and did her best to sleep.
Progressing at the rate of three or four leagues a day, the journey became depressingly monotonous. The cold set in so bitterly that Beyle and Marianne formed the habit of walking a little way each day to stretch their legs and to ease the horses. The road was broad and quite good, winding in a serpentine fashion through thick forests of dark fires and pale birches. It was all up and down and in the early stages some of the more heavily laden wagons had to be pushed very often. In all this time, they did not see a living soul. Such villages as they came across were deserted and more than half ruined.
They bivouacked at night round huge fires, for which there was never any shortage of wood, and slept as well as they could wrapped in blankets which, by morning, had turned into crackling, icy shells.
At each of these halts, Marianne did her best to keep as far from General Mourier as possible. It was not that he was openly unpleasant, but he seemed to take a mischievous pleasure in teasing the supposed secretary, subjecting him to a spate of humorous pleasantries of a military kind and so broad that for all her self-control Marianne could not help blushing to the roots of her hair, to the great delight of her tormentor. Beyle, meanwhile, was obliged to resort to the most devious methods to enable her to escape by herself from time to time to satisfy the needs of nature. Moreover, however often he repeated that Fabrice, as he called him, did not understand much French, Mourier would still persist in trying to acquaint him with the finer points of military slang, assuring him that this was an excellent way to learn. Having served in Italy, Mourier had some rudiments of Italian, which he could use with fiendish cunning.
One thing that particularly exercised his wit was the fact that Fabrice was never seen to remove his hat. The fur cap had remained firmly pulled down over his ears ever since leaving Moscow, and the general's witticisms rained down on the unfortunate headgear. If he was not hinting that the wretched Fabrice, besides his lack of physical endowments and courage, was also as bald as a coot, he was promising him a fine crop of lice as a result unless he took it off. Poor Marianne could only wish with all her heart that she had listened to Beyle's advice and had her hair cut short before she set out. She had not been able to bring herself to do it, and in this she had been upheld by Barbe's loud indignation at the very idea of parting with her crowning glory. Now she could only suffer in silence, for the sacrifice was no longer possible.
They were almost half-way to Smolensk when the first attack came. It was the evening of the twenty-fourth of October, the cooking fires had been lighted and the meagre daily ration of bacon and dried peas, for food was growing scarce, was stewing over them. The convoy had become a single, great encampment in a clearing in the forest, where the men huddled together, quarrels and bad temper forgotten, seeking only a little warmth and human comfort from one another. The camp was a little patch of France set down in the vast immensity of Russia and the men clung together for company. They had gained a few more leagues that day. It would not be long now before they were safe again behind the thick walls of Smolensk, where supplies of food were pouring in daily – or so Beyle hoped.
Then grey figures loomed up, without warning, under the trees. Simultaneously, there was a crackle of gunfire. A man dropped, headlong, just beside Marianne and was dragged back hastily before his hair caught fire, but he was already dead. She was staring down at him in horrified fascination when she heard General Mourier's voice bellowing: 'To arms! We are attacked! Each man take his weapon and fire at will—'
'Who is it?' Beyle asked, peering into the half-light. The cossacks?'
"No. Cossacks would have rushed up before now. These are on foot – and I've an idea there are peasants among them. I'm almost sure I saw the gleam of a pitchfork.'
With amazing speed, he succeeded in putting the camp in a posture of defence, running up and down the line, bent almost double, handing out ammunition and making sure that everyone had as much cover as possible, especially those of the wounded who could not move from where they lay. He had used his rank to take command automatically, the officer nominally in charge of the convoy being no more than a colonel, and Dutch to boot.
'Try to hold your fire unless you're sure of a hit,' he counselled them. 'Better not waste your powder. We're not at Smolensk yet.'
'If we ever get there at all,' Beyle muttered, drawing a long pistol from one of his valises. 'If the Russians attack in force, we'll never hold them.'
'Don't be so defeatist,' Marianne retorted sharply. 'You must have known we were likely to meet some of them. Or have you forgotten what you were always saying in Moscow, that we were practically surrounded?'
He mumbled something indistinct in answer and then devoted himself earnestly to the business of loading his pistol. Everything was very quiet now but Marianne, crouching behind the carriage and peering out into the gathering dusk, was able to make out stealthy figures creeping nearer. The grey-clad Russians melted into the twilight and it was not easy to distinguish them from the trees they were using as cover. They advanced in short dashes from one trunk to the next but the girl's sharp eyes soon learned to pick them out. All at once, without quite knowing why, she found herself eager to take part in the deadly game.
In the old days, when she was growing up at Selton, Dobs had seen to it that his 'tomboy pupil', as he called her, had acquired a pretty skill with firearms as well as with the foils. Consequently, when Mourier came back to take up a position behind his own carriage, she spoke to him outright, but still remembering to do it in Italian.
'Give me a pistol!'
He did not understand at first and said something coarse in answer. Then Beyle intervened.
'The boy is asking you for a weapon, a pistol,' he translated coldly, but the general only gave a shout of laughter.
'A pistol? What for? Those dainty hands of his could never hold it steady. Oh no, my friend, just you tell your young fire-eater that guns are for men. This is no time to be playing games. I don't know what the Russians are waiting for, but it won't be long now. I think they're coming. When they're close enough, every shot must go home.'
Some odd impulse of bravado made Beyle hand his own weapon to Marianne.
'Here you are, then,' he said, shrugging. 'It can't make a difference anyhow – we'll all die in the end.'
She took the gun without a word and studied it briefly. It was a duelling pistol and a magnificent piece of work.
'It's loaded,' Beyle said. Lowering his voice, he whispered a little anxiously: 'Are you sure you know how to use it? I don't want to make a fool of myself.'
Marianne's only answer was to draw herself up a little. As confidently as any experienced duellist, she laid the barrel on her forearm, took aim at one of the grey figures and fired. The grey shape dropped among the fallen leaves. The second shot followed almost instantaneously, with the same result.
There was a silence while Marianne returned the weapon coolly to its owner, conscious of the respect mingled with the startled amusement in his eyes.
'Good God! I'll think twice before I send my friends to wait upon you, my dear Fabrice.'
Marianne was turning away with a smile when another weapon was thrust at her. The hand that held it ended in a braided sleeve and the general's voice, sounding oddly hoarse, muttered in her ear: 'I apologize. I think I have been much mistaken in you.'
Then, before Marianne could stop him, he had expressed his contrition by grasping her impulsively by the shoulders and kissing her soundly on both cheeks. Marianne was conscious first of a strong smell of tobacco and then that his sudden action had been the ruin of her disguise. Under Mourier's b
rusque assault, the fur hat had tilted wildly and then fallen to the ground, revealing the plait of long hair wound about her head.
For an instant, Marianne and the general stared at one another, still half-kneeling on the muddy ground. She saw his eyes widen in amazement as they took in the head before him, but only for a moment, for he made a swift recovery. Quickly scooping up the hat, he placed it on her head again, as carefully as Barbe could have done, then glanced hurriedly round them, but every man was at his post and watching the wood beyond the camp.
'No one saw you,' he said softly. 'And no one shall know. Oh, you, translate, can't you?' he added impatiently, speaking to Beyle who was still too stunned by what had happened to open his mouth. Marianne laughed.
'It's not necessary now that you know my secret. You have found out so much that I may as well tell you the whole. I do speak French.'
She broke off then because a volley of musket fire rang out from the other side of the camp. Absorbed by the general's discovery, she had temporarily forgotten the danger they were in. Fortunately the Russians, shocked by the sudden death of two of their number, seemed to have halted their advance. Possibly they meant to withdraw now that they had lost the advantage of surprise.
All the same, as he knelt down at his post again, next to Marianne, Mourier could not help demanding, in an agonized whisper that made Marianne's lips twitch: 'Did you really understand all the time?'
For a moment, her better nature prompted her to say no, but the idea of that small vengeance at least was too seductive. She let her face break into a sudden, dazzling smile which completely rolled him up.
'Oh, everything,' she assured him. 'It was most amusing.'
The Russians attacked just then and saved Mourier from the necessity of a reply. For a few seconds, the sound of musket fire dominated everything. Then, almost as suddenly, it died away. The engagement had been short-lived, probably owing to the energetic defence put up by the convoy, unless, as Beyle suggested, the Russians had found their numbers insufficient. Mourier, however, was still uneasy. He did not like this sudden withdrawal, or the young auditor's hypothesis. When the last of the moving figures had vanished into the undergrowth, he got up and slipped off his greatcoat and his hat.
'I'm going to have a look round. We had better know what we're in for tomorrow. Tell the colonel in command of the escort. I'll be back in a moment.'
'Take care,' Marianne whispered. 'If anything were to happen to you, I think we should all panic. You are the only one able to keep order amongst us.'
'Don't worry. I can take care of myself.'
He vanished as silently as a shadow while the commander of the escort party was placing sentries and arranging watches. When he returned they could all see that he was looking very grim.
'Have they gone?' Marianne asked, without much hope.
'No. They have made camp some distance away. The forest ends a little farther north.'
The escort commander came up to them. He was a Dutchman, a Colonel Van Caulaert who, until the previous September, had belonged to the 2nd Hussars. He had been wounded, not seriously but enough to send him home, and had been given charge of the convoy on the way.
'Are there many of them?' he asked.
Mourier shrugged. 'Hard to say. The mist has got up. I saw several parties of infantry and round one of the fires was a group of peasants armed with scythes and pitchforks. I think they have us surrounded.'
While he went on to describe as well as he could what he had been able to discover of the enemy's position, Marianne felt a shiver run down her spine. There was something terrifying about the thought of those primitive weapons, especially the scythe, that emblem of death. They were so much more frightening than guns. They filled her imagination with horrible visions of hamstrung horses and men dying in pools of blood. It crossed her mind that her own hour might come, either that night or at dawn and she was suddenly afraid, afraid of dying there, in that enemy forest, among so many people who were strangers to her and far from all she loved.
It was impossible, surely it must be impossible! Her whole being rebelled against the horrible idea that all her youth and love of life could—Instinctively, she moved closer to the one-armed general who, until that moment, had seemed so detestable to her but whom she now thought of as the only man able to save them in this present peril. What he had to say, however, was not reassuring.
'I don't think we've very much to fear tonight. Even so, we must keep a strict watch. Tomorrow, at first light, we'll form a square with the wounded – and the weakest—' this with a flickering glance at the girl devouring him with her eyes, 'in the middle in the wagons. Then we'll try to make a breakthrough. If, as I fear is the case, we are surrounded, our one chance is to attack first.
'And – if we don't get through?' the Dutchman said.
'Then we'll have to consider abandoning the wagons and forming a smaller square – and so on until some of us do get through or we are all killed in the attempt.'
'All—?' Marianne said faintly.
'Yes, my – er – my young friend. All. Believe me, it's a deal better to die fighting than to wait to have your throat cut by the peasants – or worse.'
'I'm with you there,' Beyle sighed, checking the charge in his pistol with a frown. 'Trust me to see to it that neither I nor this young man here fall into their hands alive.'
It was a strange night in which no one was able to sleep very well. They were all, in their own ways, preparing for what lay ahead. Some were busy removing every ounce of unnecessary weight from the wagons and stripping down the ones that were to be left behind to make the convoy more compact. Some were giving each other messages to take back if they should escape. Others again were writing, a letter or a will, although with little hope that it would ever reach its destination. But they did it more to occupy their minds than because they really believed in it. Some, who happened to have money, were sharing it with others who had none. Some of the carts carried wine and that was shared out equally. Beyle had discovered a party of Belgian soldiers among the wounded and was chatting to them about Liege and the countryside around, which he knew well, having numerous friends there. He even went so far as to exchange addresses and messages with them, facing the prospect of death with perfect sang-froid.
Marianne sat by a fire with her back against a tree stump and watched them all with astonishment and envy. The probability of imminent death had produced a curious feeling of equality, had brought them all down to one level. Officers of all ranks, private soldiers and civilians like Beyle, they were all one in a strange brotherhood. Faced with a common end, they realized that they were all equally poor and naked. But they were together, while she was alone, shut out, as it were, from all this warmth.
There was Barbe of course, but the Polish woman had shown herself as brave as any man. A little while before, Beyle had advised her to escape.
'You speak the language and are dressed in the same fashion as the women hereabouts. You could easily slip through their lines, especially in this mist. Why don't you go?'
But Barbe had only shrugged and answered: 'We must all die some day. Like this or in some other way. You shall see that I, too, know how to fire a gun. Besides, didn't I tell you that when you take service with someone you share all their fortunes, good and bad?'
She had said no more but had gone calmly off to roll herself in a blanket and lie down under a tree. She had been sleeping ever since with as much tranquillity as if she expected to have many years before her.
Towards dawn Marianne, exhausted, fell asleep herself for a while. It was Beyle who woke her, shaking her gently.
'Come,' he said. 'We are going now. We must make the most of what God sends us.'
In fact, the forest was enveloped in a thick mist. They were moving in the heart of a damp, white cloud that made the men look like ghosts, the more so as they had orders to move with as little noise as possible. Like a machine, Marianne did as she was told and took her place in the convoy.
The wounded were loaded into as few of the wagons as could possibly hold them. The rest of the vehicles were abandoned, giving them extra horses for a last flight if the worst came to the worst. All the able-bodied men were on the outside, armed to the teeth, and so they set off through the mist.
Marianne, a pistol thrust through her belt, walked behind Beyle, with Barbe at her heels. She was praying with all her heart, convinced that death was going to strike at any moment.
The silence in the forest was oppressive. The wheels of the wagons had been greased during the night and the horses' hooves muffled with cloths. In the thick fog they might indeed have been a procession of spirits moving endlessly through a ghostly world. The mist was so thick that it was impossible to see more than three paces ahead. As Beyle said, it could be a gift from heaven.
Mourier had vanished. He was now at the head of the column with Van Caulaert, guiding them all. The minutes crept by slowly, one by one, and each, to Marianne, seemed like a miracle. Keeping her eyes fixed on Beyle's back, she followed him blindly, her mind concentrating on all those whom she would probably never see again… her beautiful baby boy… Corrado, so noble and generous and yet so sad… her dear Jolival… young Gracchus with his mop of red hair… Adelaide, in Paris, who had probably given her up for dead long ago… The thought of Paris made her smile. Here in the midst of this wild, dangerous forest, in the choking mist, it seemed impossible that there could really be such a place as Paris… Suddenly, she had a desperate longing to see Paris again. She thought of Jason, too, but, oddly, her mind refused to dwell on him. It was as if he had chosen deliberately to leave her and she did not want to mar her last moments with thinking of him. In the end, she made up her mind to give those minutes to Sebastiano and she clung to that with a desperate intensity of love and tenderness that she had never felt before. At least her useless life would have served some purpose if it had produced that fine boy to be the heir of a great name.
[Marianne 6] - Marianne and the Crown of Fire Page 26