They had made it! A great shout of joy went up from every throat. Beyle turned round and Marianne saw that he was as white as a sheet and his lower jaw was quivering uncontrollably, but he was smiling.
'It seems it wasn't to be this time, after all,' he said simply. She smiled back at him.
'It's a miracle! I can't believe it!'
'Perhaps it is. Let's hope we have a few more miracles between here and Smolensk. This time, the enemy can't have thought us worth pursuing.'
Certainly they were not seen again. They went on for two more days and saw nothing of them. But another problem arose, which was the lack of food. They had brought from Moscow only sufficient for a ten days' march, for no one could have imagined that the journey would take so long. In addition, the weather became much worse. Snow began to fall, thickly and continuously, hindering their progress. They had to slaughter some of the horses, partly because there was no fodder for them and partly to feed the men. Every night it was a little harder to find shelter and each morning, when they broke camp, they found a few men missing. Men who had gone looking for food in the unharvested fields or ruined villages about.
One night a few cossacks attacked them. Uttering their shrill war-cries, they charged like thunderbolts at the rearguard, transfixed several men with their lances and then disappeared as quickly as they had come. The dead were buried and fear crept slowly and insidiously into the hearts of the weakening convoy.
Ignoring all Mourier's efforts to persuade her, Marianne steadfastly refused to take a place in one of the wagons reserved for the wounded, although he was much distressed by her pinched cheeks. With Beyle on one side of her and Barbe, as tireless as a machine, on the other, she marched on with blistered feet, gritting her teeth and trying not to listen to the groans and screams of the most severely injured men. And always there was the same lowering, yellowish-grey sky with, now and then, a flight of black birds like a presage of misfortune.
Beyle did his best to cheer her and the men. He was always saying that Smolensk was not far now, that they would be safe there and find everything they needed. The wounded would be fed and cared for. They need only be brave a little longer.
'I may reach Smolensk,' Marianne told him one evening when they had managed to find shelter in a huge barn that was still standing, 'but I shall never see Paris again. I can't. It's too far. There's the cold and the snow – and the country's so vast! I shall never do it.'
'Then you had better spend the winter in Smolensk with me. The Emperor will be at Kaluga, so you will have nothing to fear. In the spring, as soon as it is possible, you can resume your journey.'
Weary and depressed after a painful day's march, in the course of which they had suffered another attack by cossacks, Marianne shrugged.
'How can you be sure the Emperor will stay at Kaluga? You know as well as I do that he wants to be nearer to Poland. If he winters in Russia at all, it will be at Smolensk or Vitebsk. Kaluga is nearly as far from the Niemen as Moscow itself. Sooner or later we shall see him come. So I must go on, and the sooner the better if I want to avoid the worst of the winter.'
'Very well, then, you shall go on. After all, this convoy is bound for Poland. Why should you not stay with it? I'll ask Mourier to take care of you.'
'Upon what pretext? Everyone thinks I'm your secretary – all except Mourier and he thinks I'm your mistress. What would they say if we were to part company?'
'You might be ill, unable to endure the climate, frightened of the snow – or something of that sort. Our gallant general is more than half in love with you already. He'd be delighted to be rid of me.'
'That is precisely what I wish to avoid,' Marianne answered uncommunicatively. She had not been unaware of the alteration in Mourier's feelings towards her and she did not like it, for she was not at all attracted to him. She had found him an annoyance from the beginning but she had come to regret the bluff, soldierly manners and the coarse pleasantries because now he had taken to hovering close to her at every possible opportunity, especially when there was no one else at hand. Consciously or unconsciously, he had begun to treat the supposed secretary with something perilously close to gallantry, stroking her hand furtively whenever it came within reach and trying to slip his arm round her waist when an alarm obliged them to stand close together. His barrack-room jokes had at least had the advantage of making the men laugh and so helping to lull their suspicions. Now, whenever they were together, men followed them with their eyes, wondering…
More than once, already, Marianne had warned him tactfully. He would apologize and promise to take more care but almost at once the glowing look would be back in his eyes and, to an attentive observer, it looked odd to say the least. No, it was quite simply impossible for her to continue the journey under those conditions, and especially without Beyle! Marianne felt that she would a hundred times rather go on alone and on foot than have to defend herself against continual pressure to which, sooner or later, she would be bound to yield.
Barbe had listened to the conversation with Beyle but she said nothing then. That night, however, she watched until she saw Marianne turn away to go to the fire and then came up to her.
'Don't worry,' she whispered. 'I'll think of something else. I don't want to go on like this either.'
'Why not, Barbe? Is something troubling you?'
Barbe's broad shoulders were seen to shrug under her mass of shawls.
'I'm the only woman in this convoy,' she said shortly, 'and I've no intention of going back to my old ways.'
'Then what do you suggest?'
'Nothing for the moment. The first thing is to reach Smolensk. After that, we shall see.'
To reach Smolensk! That had become the unbearable refrain. None of them could ever have dreamed that it could be so far. It seemed to be drawing away from them as they went on, like places in nightmares. Some were even beginning to murmur that they must have taken the wrong road and would never get there. And so it was with a mixture of surprise and incredulity that, on the evening of the second of November, they heard the news that was flying down the convoy.
'We are there! There is Smolensk!'
The army had been there before and the men recognized the place with delight, Beyle most of all.
'Yes,' he said, with a deep sigh of relief, 'there is Smolensk. And not before time!'
They had come to the edge of a deep valley with the quicksilver gleam of the River Dnieper flowing through it and the town was before them. It stood dreaming within its circle of high walls on the right bank of the river, amid a landscape of wooded ravines, firs, pines and birches standing out starkly against the fresh snow. That great fortress town with its thirty-eight towers and great smooth walls which for three hundred years had defied all that time and men could do would have presented a picture both archaic and beautiful, but for the fresh scars of war that were so clearly visible in the form of trees felled and burned by gunfire, ruined and fire-blackened houses there had not been time enough yet to rebuild, and a temporary bridge made of logs. Of the outlying suburbs practically nothing remained.
Above the walls, they could see the domes of the churches and smoking chimneys, waking thoughts of evening meals in well-warmed rooms. A bell began to ring and was followed by the clarion call of a trumpet and a roll of drums, indicating the presence of troops behind those antique walls that gave the place such a secretive air.
The city had such an air of reassurance and refuge that a great shout of joy went up simultaneously from every throat capable of uttering. At last they would be able to rest, eat, warm themselves and sleep under a roof again. It was almost unbelievable.
Beyle, however, only shrugged and muttered: 'Like the crusaders arriving before Jerusalem, isn't it? You can't see from here, because the walls are too high, but half the town is gone. All the same, I daresay we shall all find a lodging – and I hope to see the results of all that frenzied letter-writing I did in Moscow.'
He was making an effort to seem unconcerned but his dark eyes were shining with happiness and Marianne could tell that he was just as excited as the rest of them, for all his supercilious airs.
They covered the distance to the city gates in record time in spite of the snow and the difficulties encountered by the horses – which no one had thought to shoe for icy conditions – on the steep sides of the valley. Moreover they had been seen by the watch inside the city and men came running out with welcoming cries to help to lead the wagons in.
As they passed through the great gate bearing the arms of the city, a cannon supporting the mythical bird Gamayun, symbol of power, Marianne, despite her weariness, could not help smiling at her companion.
'You may think what you like, but I am just like all the others – very happy to be here. I hope you're going to
