Жюльетта Бенцони - Marianne and the Crown of Fire

In the midst of all these, old men, women and children trudged uncomplainingly through the dust, their bundles on their backs and their eyes on the road ahead. The only sounds were the shuffle of feet and the creaking of wheels and this silence was the most impressive thing of all for it was heavy with resignation.

Now and then a priest appeared, accompanied by a deacon or two and sheltering some precious relic under the folds of his black robe, before which the peasants would kneel piously. The gates of the big estates were guarded by karaoulny , old soldiers with white hair who had lost an arm or a leg in Catherine the Great's wars. And all the time, like a knell, the distant menace of the guns.

No one took any notice of the dusty, travel-worn kibitka forcing its way against the current of refugees. Once or twice someone would glance up indifferently for a moment, too preoccupied with their own troubles to betray much curiosity.

But when they came to the end of the village, Jason, who had taken over the reins from Gracchus, brought the vehicle to a standstill beside the impressive entrance to a large monastery whose dull blue domes rose close beside an ancient wooden mansion.

'It's madness to go on,' he said with conviction. "We'll turn back and make a detour round the city to join the road to St Petersburg.'

Marianne had been dozing against Jolival's shoulder but she sat up at once.

'Why should we avoid the city? It's not easy, I grant you, but we are making progress. There's no reason to change direction now and risk losing ourselves.'

'And I'm telling you it's madness,' Jason repeated. 'Can't you see what's happening, all these people running away?'

'What they are running from holds no terrors for me. The very fact that we can hear the guns means that the French are not far off, especially if the exodus from Moscow has already begun.'

'Marianne,' he said wearily, 'we are not going over all that again. I've told you time and again that I don't want to meet Napoleon. I thought we had agreed that if we came within reach of the invading army Jolival should take charge of this mysterious warning you want to send to your Emperor and then catch up with us later on the road.'

'And you thought I'd agree to that?' Marianne cried indignantly. "You talk of sending Jolival to Napoleon as if it were no more than going to post a letter. Well, let me tell you something. Look at all these people round us. The roads must be packed like this in all directions and we have absolutely no idea where to look for the army, or for the Russian army either. If we separate we're lost. Jolival would never find us again. And you know it.'

Arcadius, alarmed at the angry turn the argument was taking, made an effort to intervene but Marianne silenced him with an imperious gesture. Then, as Jason still sat hunched in his seat, remaining obstinately silent, she snatched up her valise and sprang down into the road.

'Come, Arcadius,' she said imperatively to her old friend. 'Captain Beaufort would rather part from us than involve himself in any way with the army of a man he so dislikes. He has done with France.'

'After what I suffered there it would be stranger still if I hadn't. I think I have good cause,' the American said sulkily.

'Oh yes, most certainly. Very well, then, go and join your good friends the Russians, and your old friends the English – but when all this is over, for all wars have an end, you had better forget all about Madame Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin and her champagne, and about the bordeaux wines and chambertins in which you once drove such a thriving contraband trade. And you can forget me, too, while you are at it! Because all these things are France!'

With that Marianne put up her little chin in a gesture of superb defiance and contempt and, still shaking with anger, picked up her valise and tramped off up the dusty road, which here took a slight turn uphill, without looking back. She had thought, after the quarrel at Kiev, that Jason had been finally convinced and she was seething with rage at finding him still fixed in his stubborn resentment. He was nothing but a deceiver, a hypocrite without a heart.

'Let him go to the Devil!' she muttered through clenched teeth.

She heard him behind her, swearing and cursing in the approved manner of the coachman whose role he had adopted. But there was another sound too, the creaking of the kibitka getting under way. For an instant she was horribly tempted to look round and see if he were turning back but that would have been an admission of weakness amounting almost to giving in and she would not allow herself even to slacken her pace. A moment later he had caught up with her.

Tossing the reins to Gracchus, he sprang to the ground and went after her. He caught her by the arm and forced her to stop and face him.

'Not only are we in a scrape you don't appear to have the least idea of,' he raged, 'but now we have to put up with your tantrums as well!'

'My tantrums?' she threw back at him indignantly. 'And what about yours? Who is it who won't listen to a word anyone says? Who won't hear of anything but his own selfish obsessions? I won't let Arcadius sacrifice himself, do you hear? I will not! Is that clear?'

'No one is asking him to sacrifice himself. You have a talent for twisting people's words.'

'Have I indeed? Well, listen to this, Jason Beaufort. One evening at Humayunabad, when I reproached you for wanting to leave me and go back to your own country to fight, you said to me: "I come of a free people and I must fight with them", or something of the kind. Well, I wish you would remember sometimes that I belong to the French people who have done more than any for the sake of freedom, beginning with the freedom of some others I could name.'

'That's not true. You're half English.'

'I can't think why that seems to give you so much pleasure. You must be out of your mind. Whose are the guns that at this very moment may be sending to the bottom any number of ships like your Sea Witch – flying the same flag, at least?'

He glared at her as if he could have struck her. Then, abruptly, he shrugged and turned away, striving to repress a grin of apology.

'Touché!' he growled. 'Very well. You win. We'll go on.'

In an instant all her anger was forgotten. Like a schoolgirl she flung her arms round the American's neck, regardless of what the refugees might think, seeing a woman dressed in such a comparatively ladylike fashion eagerly embracing a bearded moujik. He returned her kiss and they might have remained lost to the world around them if Craig O'Flaherty's jovial voice had not come to their ears.

'Come and see!' he called. 'It's well worth looking at!'

All the others had climbed down from the wagon and walked over to a terrace terminating in a balustraded wall. Marianne and Jason joined them, hand in hand, and saw Moscow lying at their feet.

The view which met their eyes was both grand and romantic, and with something fascinating about it also. It took in the whole extent of the great city, enclosed within its red walls, twelve leagues in extent and very ancient. At their feet the Moskva looped itself in snakelike coils round islands studded with palaces and gardens. Most of the houses were built of wood plastered over. Only the public buildings and the huge mansions of the nobility were constructed of brick of a dark, velvety softness. Numerous parks and gardens could be seen, their greenery forming a harmonious background to the buildings.

The sun shone on a thousand and one church steeples and was reflected brilliantly from their gilded or sky blue domes and from rooftops of metal painted black or green. And in the midst of the city, set upon a raised hillock and ringed about by lofty walls and battlemented towers was a vast citadel, a veritable bouquet of palaces and churches: the Kremlin, the proud symbol of the ancient glory of Holy Russia. While all around it Europe and Asia met and mingled like the warp and weft of some fabulous material.