Marianne m-1

by Жюльетта Бенцони

  He was waiting outside in the pillared walk, wearing a huge, frogged great-coat that made him look almost as broad as he was long, striding up and down so fast that Marianne wondered for a moment whether their walk might not turn out to be more in the nature of a military exercise. But he stopped when he saw her and tucking Marianne's arm beneath his own, said quietly: 'Come, and see how lovely it is.'

  Arm in arm, they strolled across the vast, snow-covered park watched over by a still, sad population of statues. They walked beside frozen lakes where a queen had once skated, and where the bronze tritons and sea gods now turned slowly green in the loneliness of forgotten things, as uncared for as the cupid with the dolphin standing by his pool in the Hôtel d'Asselnat. The farther they went from the Trianon, the more they seemed to be entering an enchanted domain where time itself stood still.

  They walked for a long time in silence, happy simply to be together, but gradually the tragic stillness of this park where everything had been created for the honour and glory of the most brilliant of all the kings of France, seemed to have an effect upon Napoleon. He stopped by the side of a great dead pool in the midst of which Apollo's chariot seemed to be striving uselessly to break free of its icy setting. Before them a long perspective of tall trees ended in the distance in a line of large and noble buildings. Marianne's hand tightened on her companion's arm.

  'What is that?' She asked in a low voice, sensing instinctively that whatever it was, it belonged to the dead.

  'Versailles,' he said.

  Marianne caught her breath. The sun had gone in, as though unwilling to shine on the deserted dwelling of him who had taken it for his empire. The huge, empty palace slept in the grey light of a winter day, lightly shrouded in mist, while nature led the slow assault on its pure line with the relentless advance of moss grown terraces and neglected gardens. The great spectre of departed royalty was so poignant that Marianne turned to the Emperor with eyes filled with tears. But the face she saw might have been carved from the same stone as the statues in the park.

  'I can do nothing for it,' he said at last, gazing with brooding eyes on the huge, hollow monument. 'The people might rise against me if I so much as tried to restore it. The time is not yet. The people could not understand.'

  'A pity. It would suit you so well—'

  He thanked her with a smile and laid his hand over hers as it rested on his arm.

  'I have sometimes dreamed. But one day, I too shall build a palace worthy of my power. On the hill of Chaillot probably. There are plans already. But there are still too many memories attached to this one, too many memories which the people still hate.'

  Marianne said nothing. She dared not say that the imminent arrival of a niece of that martyred queen might well affect the French people more than the employment of a few hundred workmen at Versailles. Besides, she too had her memories. It was in the chapel of this palace, visible from where they stood, in the days when it seemed that Versailles must live forever, that her mother had been married. But she made no attempt to ask him to go nearer so as to see the chapel. She was too much afraid of feeling again the grief that had pierced her heart as she pushed open the door of her own ruined house. Instead, she only pressed a little closer to Napoleon and asked to go back.

  In silence, as they had come, each wrapped up in their own thoughts, they made their way back to the Trianon from which a troop of mounted couriers was at that moment setting out in all directions, carrying the morning's letters. It was also time for the changing of the guard and all this gave to the palace an air of bustling activity.

  But instead of returning to his desk as Constant had predicted, Napoleon led Marianne straight back to their bedroom and shut the door. Without a word, but with a desperate ardour that seemed as though it would never be quenched, he made love to her as he had never done before. It was as though he sought to draw from her young body all its reserves of fresh strength and energy to help him fight the invading shadows of the past. Perhaps he was trying in some way to combat an unacknowledged dread of the unknown Viennese in whose veins ran some of the blood of the Sun King himself.

  Then, with no explanation beyond a long kiss and a brief 'See you later', he vanished, leaving her alone in the untidy room, an island of quiet in the midst of the Palace humming like a hive with military orders, the clatter and the coming and going of servants. But when, a few minutes later Constant entered gravely bearing a laden tray, Marianne had done her hair, restored some order to her clothes, and even made the bed, so embarrassed was she at what the solemn valet might think. She was very far, as yet, from having acquired the traditional shamelessness of a royal favourite.

  However, this did not prevent her from devouring everything Constant set before her with the utmost enjoyment. The keen morning air and the lovemaking which followed had sharpened an already considerable appetite. When she had finished, she glanced at the valet gratefully.

  'Thank you,' she said. 'That was lovely – though I doubt I shall be able to eat a mouthful at dinner.'

  'I should not be so sure of that. In theory, dinner is at six, but if the Emperor takes it into his head to work later, he may well dine three or four hours after that.'

  'It can't be fit to eat.'

  'Not at all. The cooks have orders to keep something always ready, even if only a roast chicken. They put a fresh one on the spit every quarter of an hour, so that one is always ready when his majesty wishes to sit down.'

  'And – do they get through a great many that way?'

  'On one occasion, mademoiselle, we attained the figure of twenty-three,' he told her with pride. 'So mademoiselle has plenty of time in which to recover her appetite. I might add that most of those honoured with an invitation to the Imperial table are accustomed to take some precautions beforehand. If not, they are unlikely to satisfy themselves in ten minutes, especially as they are generally obliged to answer the Emperor, who talks incessantly without missing a mouthful.'

  Marianne laughed. She enjoyed discovering Napoleon's little oddities, but, however surprising, she was much more inclined to find them funny than shocking. She loved him too well for that.

  'Never mind, Constant,' she said. 'One does not need food when one is with the Emperor. That is enough in itself.'

  The valet's broad, pale face was suddenly serious. He nodded.

  'Mademoiselle says so because she truly loves the Emperor. But not everyone thinks as she does.'

  'Are there really people who do not love him? Truly, I can't imagine it.'

  'How could it be otherwise? He is so great, so powerful, so far above the common run of men! But he was not born to a throne and there are those who would a hundred times rather see the crown on the head of some half-witted scion of a royal house than worn by a man of genius who frightens them and makes them see themselves for what they are. Inferiority is never an agreeable sensation. There are some who avenge themselves by jealousy, hatred and ambition – he can trust no-one. His marshals are envious and think for the most part that they would have made better sovereigns than he, his family plague him constantly, his friends, or those who claim to be his friends, are for the most part only thinking of what they can get out of him – only his soldiers give him a simple, honest love. And that poor, sweet Empress who loved him and cared for him like a child she was never able to give him.'

  Constant was speaking now without looking at Marianne and she realized that this was probably the first time he had spoken his thoughts aloud for a very long time. And he was doing it because he had sensed that Marianne truly loved the master he revered. When she spoke, it was so softly as to be almost a whisper.

  'I know all that. The Grand Marshal said something of the kind yesterday and I have met the Empress. But what do you think of the one who is to come?'

  Constant seemed to come back again to the real world. He shook his head, picked up the tray and moved a few steps towards the door as though unwilling to reply. But before opening it, he turned to Marianne and smiled rat
her sadly.

  'What do I think, mademoiselle? Saving the respect I owe him, exactly what the grumblers of his Old Guard think as they sit round their fire. "The Tondu ought not to have sent his old woman packing! She brought him luck – and us too!'"

  'The Tondu?'

  'That's what they call him, and sometimes the Little Corporal, or Puss in Boots, or Père la Violette. I told you they worshipped him! They're old devils who fought their way through a good many campaigns and they are not often wrong! I'm afraid they may be right again. It wasn't an Empress from the Danube that he needed.'

  That night, just as she was dropping off to sleep, her body overwhelmed by a delicious weariness, Marianne was surprised to see Napoleon leap out of bed, stark naked, as though the building were on fire. He put on his white flannel dressing gown and slippers, wound a white silk scarf about his head and, picking up a candlestick, was already making for his office when Marianne sat up amid the pillows and asked, like any young bride: 'Where are you going?'

  'To work. Go to sleep!'

  'Again? But what time is it?'

  'Half past twelve. Go to sleep I tell you.'

  'Not without you! Come here—'

  She held out her arms, confident in the power her beauty had over his awakened senses. But he frowned and made as if to go. Then he seemed change his mind, put down the candle and came back to the bed. Marianne closed her eyes, but instead of kissing her parted lips he merely tweaked her ear hard.

  'I have already told you you are a dreadful siren, mio dolce amore, but don't abuse your power. I have just sent the comte de Narbonne back to Munich as Ambassador with the King of Bavaria and I have important despatches to send him. Besides that, some rogues have been circulating counterfeit coins among the soldiers of one of my Irish regiments stationed at Limoges and I forgot to deal with it—'

  'State affairs, never anything but state affairs!' Marianne complained, tears starting to her eyes. 'I have so little of you to myself – and for so little time! You promised me a week.'

  'And you have it. If you were the Empress, you would not have me for more than a few minutes a day, or not much more at least. I have cleared a space around us so as to be able to love you. Do not ask for more—'

  'I wish I could help you – I mean, be useful to you in some way. I am nothing but an instrument of pleasure, a kind of odalisque for a busy sultan!'

  He was not smiling now. Taking Marianne's head in his two hands he forced it gently back on to the pillow and then bent over her until all he could see were her wide eyes, ringed now with a faint bluish shade.

  'Do you really mean that?'

  'With all my heart – don't you know I am all yours?'

  He kissed her, a long, passionate kiss, then muttered rapidly: 'One day, I shall remind you of those words. When I need you I will tell you as frankly as today I tell you that I love you. But just at present, what I need is your love, your being here, your wonderful voice – and your body, of which I can never tire. Sleep now – but not too deeply. I shall wake you when I come back—'

  Later, Marianne would often look back on those days at the Trianon. It was broken by the meals taken helter-skelter in the pretty room looking out over the bare, winter woods, by the long excursions on foot or on horseback in the course of which Marianne had been able to note that Napoleon was nowhere near as good a rider as herself, by long fireside talks and by the sudden bursts of passion which hurled them into one another's arms at the most unexpected moments and then left them panting and exhausted, like ship-wrecked mariners washed up on some strange shore.

  During the hours Napoleon devoted to his exhausting work, Marianne also worked. On the second day, the Emperor had taken her into the music room and reminded her that before very long she would have to face the public in Paris. She had flung herself into her work with a new ardour, perhaps because she was conscious of him there, close by, and because sometimes he would slip quietly into the room to listen to her for a moment.

  It was true, she had to do her studying alone, but she soon discovered in her lover an expert capable of appreciating the most obscure musical points. He was astonishingly versatile. He might have been as good a teacher as Gossec, just as he could have been a talented writer or a remarkable actor. As time went on, the admiration he inspired in his young mistress became stronger than ever. She longed desperately to be worthy of him, one day perhaps to reach those arid, inaccessible regions where he moved.

  Yet perhaps conscious of the extent to which his bewitching Marianne had given herself to him, Napoleon gradually began to confide in her a little more. He would talk about certain problems, small ones perhaps, but which gave her an insight into the vastness and complexity of his task.

  Each morning, she saw Fouché, her old tormentor now become the most gallant and attentive of her admirers, appear in person to give the Emperor his daily report on all that was going on in his vast Empire. Whether in Bordeaux, in Anvers, in Spain, Italy or the smallest villages of Poland or the Palatinate, the Duke of Otranto's fantastic organization seemed, like some gigantic Hydra, to have an eye hidden everywhere. Let a grenadier be killed in a duel, an English prisoner escape from Auxonne, a ship from America dock in Morlaix with despatches or cargo from the Colonies, a new book appear or a vagabond commit suicide, Napoleon would know it all the next day.

  In this way Marianne learned, incidentally, that the chevalier de Bruslart was still at large and the baron de St Hubert had managed to make his way to the island of Hoedic, where he had boarded an English cutter, but she felt no great interest in the news. The only thing she wished to talk about was the one subject that no-one mentioned in her presence, that of the future Empress.

  There seemed to be a conspiracy of silence on the subject of the arch-duchess. And yet, as time passed, her shadow seemed to loom ever larger over Marianne's happiness. The days were so short and passed so swiftly. But every time she tried to bring the conversation round to the arch-duchess, Napoleon side-stepped the issue with depressing skill. She sensed that he did not want to talk about his future wife to her and feared to see, in his silence, a greater interest than he cared to admit. And meanwhile, the hours flew by ever more swiftly, the wonderful hours that she so longed to hold back.

  However, on the fifth day of her stay at the Trianon, something occurred which came as an unpleasant shock to Marianne and very nearly spoiled the end of her stay.

  Their walk that day had been a short one. Marianne and the Emperor had intended originally to go as far as the village where Marie-Antoinette had once played at being a shepherdess, but a sudden fall of snow had forced them to turn back half-way. Soon the flakes were falling so thick and fast that in no time at all they were up to their ankles.

  'Wet feet,' Napoleon said with finality, 'are the worst thing possible for the voice. You can visit the Queen's village another day. But instead – ' a gleam of mischief danced in his eyes, ' – instead, I'll promise you a first-rate snowball fight tomorrow!'

  'A snowball fight?'

  'Don't tell me you never played at snowballs? Or doesn't it snow in England nowadays?'

  Marianne laughed. 'Indeed it does! And snowballs might be thought a proper pastime for ordinary mortals – but for an emperor…'

  'I have not always been an emperor, carissima mia, and my earliest battles were fought with snowballs. I got through a prodigious number of them when I was at college in Brienne. I'm a devil of a hand, you wait and see!'

  Then he had slipped his arm about her waist and half-leading, half-carrying her, had set off at a gallop back to the rose-coloured palace where the lamps were already bright against the darkening sky. There, since the time set aside for 'recreation' was not yet over, the two of them had retired to the music room, where Constant brought them an English tea with buttered toast and jam which they ate in front of the fire, as Napoleon said, 'like an old married couple'. Afterwards, he asked Marianne to sit at the great gilded harp and play to him.

  Napoleon was passionately f
ond of music. It calmed and soothed him and in his frequent periods of abstraction he liked to have it as a murmurous background to lend wings to his thoughts. Besides, the sight of Marianne seated behind the graceful instrument, her slender white arms etched against the strings, was to him an exquisite enchantment. And today, in a gown of watered silk the same green as her eyes that rippled to the light with every inclination of her body, her dark curls clustered high on her head and bound with narrow ribbons of the same subtle shade, pearl drops in her ears and more pearls, round and milky, like a huge cabochon between her breasts and joining the high waist, she was irresistible. She knew it, too, for while her hands played without effort the slight air by Cherubini, she could see dawning in her lover's eyes a look which she had learned to know. In a little while, when the last, vibrating notes had died away, he would rise without a word and take her hand to lead her to their room. A little while – and once more she would know those moments of blinding joy which only he could give her. But meanwhile the present, filled with sweet anticipation, had its own charm.

  Unfortunately for Marianne, she was not allowed to enjoy it to the end. Right in the middle of her sonata, there came a timid scratching on the door which opened to make room for the furiously blushing face of a youthful page.

  'What is it now?' Napoleon spoke curtly. 'Am I not to have an instant's peace? I thought I said we were not to be disturbed?'

  'I – I know, sire,' stammered the wretched boy. It had obviously taken more courage on his part to enter the forbidden room than to storm an enemy redoubt. 'But – there is a courier from Madrid! With urgent despatches!'

  'Despatches from Madrid invariably are,' the Emperor commented dryly. 'Oh, very well, let him come in.'

  Marianne had ceased playing at the first words and now she rose hurriedly, preparing to withdraw, but Napoleon signed to her briefly to be seated. She obeyed, divining his annoyance at being disturbed and his reluctance to leave his comfortable fireside for the draughty corridors leading to his office.