Жюльетта Бенцони: Marianne and the Privateer

The young couple disappeared into the crowd and Marianne sighed as they passed from her view. She turned to greet her host and hostess, who were standing to receive their guests in the doorway of the large drawing-room from which the covered way led into the ballroom.

The ambassador, Prince Carl Philipp von Schwarzenburg, was a man of about forty, dark and stocky, his white uniform strained to bursting-point over powerful muscles. The impression he conveyed was one of strength and obstinacy. Beside him, his sister-in-law Princess Pauline seemed a picture of graceful fragility in spite of being pregnant and very near her time, a fact which she concealed most artistically beneath a muslin peplum and flowing, gold-threaded draperies. Marianne stared with amazement and considerable respect at this mother of eight children who looked like a young girl and whose whole being breathed total enjoyment of life. Then she found herself greeting this charming creature's husband, Prince Joseph, and reflected, not for the first time, that love was a very strange thing.

She collected her thoughts sufficiently to respond with grace to the Austrians' eager welcome and then allowed Talleyrand to lead her in the direction of the ballroom, still striving to throw off the odd feeling of unreality, the torpor that was enveloping her mind. At all costs, she must find something to interest her, she must try at least to look as if she was enjoying the party, if only to please her friend Talleyrand, now pointing out to her in an undertone those foreign dignitaries who came within his vision. But what did she care for any of these people?

At last, a ringing voice did manage to pierce through the dangerous fog which had wrapped itself around Marianne. In a strong Russian accent, it declared: 'My dear Prince, I claim the first waltz! It is mine by right, for I have paid for it with my blood, and would pay as much again twice over!'

The voice was a gravelly baritone, stony as the Urals themselves, but it did at least bring Marianne back to earth. She saw that the owner of the voice was none other than her impudent pursuer from the Bois de Boulogne, the man she had already privately christened the Cossack. It was that odious Chernychev.

He stood, adroitly blocking their path, and though his words were for Talleyrand, his slanting Mongol eyes were staring boldly at Marianne. She gave a faint, scarcely perceptible shrug, not bothering to hide the contempt in her smile:

'It is yours by right? I do not even know you, Sir.'

'Then why, if you do not know me, did you frown so when you saw me? Say you dislike me, Madame… but do not say you do not know me.'

Two green sparks of anger showed briefly beneath Marianne's lowered eyelids:

'You were importunate, Sir. You become impertinent. You are making progress. Must I make myself plainer?'

'You might try, but I should warn you that we are an obstinate race and I am noted for my persistence, even among my own people.'

'Much good may it do you! I am no less determined, I assure you.'

She was about to pass on, fanning herself irritably, when Talleyrand, who had observed this encounter with a smile of silent amusement, restrained her gently.

'Perhaps I should intervene before we have a diplomatic incident on our hands, eh?' he remarked cheerfully. 'I set too much store by my friends to leave them floundering in misunderstandings.'

Marianne regarded him with a look of astonishment that was a masterpiece of gracious arrogance.

'This gentleman is a friend of yours? Oh, Prince – I knew you to be acquainted with all the world, but I had thought you more selective in your friendships.'

Talleyrand laughed. 'Lower your sword, my dear Princess, as a favour to me. I grant that Count Chernychev's manners may smack too much of the camp to satisfy the taste of a pretty woman, but what would you? He is both a brave man and something of a noble savage.'

'And proud of it!' the Russian exclaimed, with an unmistakable glance at Marianne. 'Only savages can speak the truth and are not ashamed of their desires. It is my most ardent desire to obtain a dance with the most beautiful lady I ever beheld and, if I may, a smile! I am ready to beg for them on my knees, here and now if need be.'

This time, Marianne's anger was touched with surprise. She had no doubt that this strange man would do precisely what he said and kneel at her feet right there in the middle of the ballroom, without a thought for the scandal it would cause. She knew that his was one of those wild, fantastic and unpredictable natures of which her instinct had always told her to beware. Talleyrand must have been thinking something similar because he intervened quickly, smiling as ever, but holding a little more firmly to Marianne's arm.

'You shall have your dance, my dear Count – or so I hope, if Princess Sant'Anna will forgive you your Tartar manners, but do not be in such a hurry. Leave her to me for a while longer. There are a host of people here wishing to meet her before she will be free to indulge in dancing.'

Chernychev stepped aside at once and bowed in a way that Marianne could not help but find a trifle menacing.

'I yield,' he said briefly. 'But I shall be back. Until then, Madame.'

As they resumed their way to the ballroom, Marianne permitted herself a faint sigh of relief and the smile she turned on her escort was full of gratitude:

'Thank you, Prince, for rescuing me. That Russian is quite inescapable!'

'So most women appear to think. True, they usually say it rather more languishingly, but who knows, perhaps you too may sigh one day? He has great charm, eh?'

'Don't count on it. I am afraid I prefer people to be civilized.'

There was no mistaking the surprise in the look he directed at her. However, he said merely: 'Hmm… I should not have thought it.'

The much talked-of ballroom which had been erected for this one night was a miracle of beauty and elegance. The blue canvas which formed its fragile walls was hung with shining gauze and swathed in garlands of many-coloured flowers made of fine silk and tulle. A profusion of gilded candelabra carried innumerable candles, lighting up the room like fairyland. The passage leading into it was decorated in the same style. A tall aperture provided a view of the lighted gardens and the ballroom, which had been built over a large, dry pool, was illumined outside by oil lamps in sockets.

When Marianne entered on Talleyrand's arm, the floor was already filled with couples dancing to the strains of a Viennese orchestra: glittering dresses and uniforms whirling delightfully in the waltz which had been sweeping Europe for some years now.

'I shall not offer to dance with you,' Talleyrand said. 'It is not an exercise I am fitted for. But I am sure you will not lack for partners.'

This was true. A crowd of young officers was already forming about Marianne, jostling one another in their eagerness to lead her away in time to that seductive music. She refused them all kindly, fearful of the scene which the Russian was quite capable of enacting, for she could feel his eyes still fixed on her. She had just seen her friend Dorothée de Périgord talking to Countess Zichy and the Duchess of Dalberg and was about to join them when she was prevented by the arrival of Their Majesties, the Emperor and Empress. The orchestra stopped dead and the dancers ranged themselves obediently at either side of the room.

'We were just in time,' Talleyrand observed, smiling. 'A little later and the Emperor would have been before us. I can't imagine he would have been pleased.'

But Marianne was not listening to him. Her attention was riveted suddenly on a man whose head rose above those of most of the crowd of guests standing on the far side of the space left for royalty to pass. For a moment she thought she must be seeing things, suffering from a delusion brought about by some wish of her own, so deeply buried in her heart that not even she was aware of it. But those keen features, that thin, fine-boned face, the taut, bronzed skin, dark almost as an Arab's, with the deepset, twinkling blue eyes and firm lips crooked into a half-smile that was both gay and impudent, the thick, unruly black hair that always looked slightly windblown, the careless set of the dark coat across those broad shoulders… surely there could not be another man like that in all the world. And suddenly, quite inexplicably, Marianne's heart gave a joyful leap and cried out his name with certainty long before her lips could bring themselves to frame the word: 'Jason!'