'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.
