The man's attitude relaxed. He was clearly convinced, perhaps less by the title she claimed than by the note of authority in her voice. As an Englishwoman she was entitled to a consideration he would not have granted to a member of any other nation, although he could not find it in him to approve of the passion for travel which seemed to afflict the females of that country. He even managed an apologetic smile as he explained that such few rooms as he had were all taken up with wounded but that if she would be satisfied with a corner of his coffee room he would be delighted to provide her with a fitting meal.
'Tomorrow,' he said, 'I'll see what I can do to find a more suitable lodging for milady but at least you'll be out of the cold for tonight, and out of the way of the troops coming back into Moscow, who won't be at all fit company for a young lady of quality.'
'Are they falling back to defend the city?'
'Why, to be sure they are, milady! Who could ever imagine our little father the Tsar allowing Antichrist to lay his wicked hands on our holy city? I, Ivan Borisovitch, I tell you that great things are going to be happening here and your ladyship will soon see what Russians can do in defence of their sacred soil.' And he added on a note of happy confidence that he had had it from a chasseur that Kutuzov, old Marshal 'Forwards' as they called him, would be in the city before nightfall.
'But then what was the cause of the uprising in the square just now?'
'Uprising? What uprising?'
'I saw it with my own eyes. Just about sunset I was standing outside the governor's palace where a man was being flogged when all at once a crowd of people waving weapons and screaming came rushing this way.'
Ivan Borisovitch laughed. 'That was no uprising, milady. Simply, news came this morning that the accursed French had reached the monastery of Mojaisk, some twenty leagues from here—'
Marianne lifted an eyebrow. "Yet another holy place?' she inquired sardonically. But the good man was equally impervious to French irony and to the English sense of humour. He merely crossed himself earnestly several times.
'Extremely holy, your ladyship! Our good people wanted to go out and meet the enemy and began assembling this morning at the Dorogomilov gate, waiting for the governor to lead them. But they waited all day in vain and then came back to see what could be keeping him. In any case, the arrival of the army would have forced them to turn back.'
Marianne was careful not to give expression to her thoughts, which were that Count Rostopchin had other fish to fry, his unfortunate chef amongst them, than to put himself at the head of a wild, undisciplined band and ride out with it to meet Napoleon's army.
Without further comment she allowed him to lead her to a corner of a large, low room without very much light in it. Ivan Borisovitch piled the settles in a corner between two windows with all the pillows and eiderdowns that he could spare and announced that supper would be served immediately.
The meal, washed down by a wine from the Crimea, was respectable but the night seemed to Marianne the longest she had ever lived through for, despite the cushions, she was unable to get a wink of sleep. Only Shankala, accustomed to lying on the bare ground, slept soundly. Even Jason managed to doze for an hour or two. But Marianne, seated at the window, spent the whole night watching what was happening outside. If she had been in a feather bed she would probably have slept no more because the noise was almost unbearable. All night long, the Russian armies marched past.
They came in two columns, on either side of the river, the uniforms of chasseurs, grenadiers, hussars and troops of the line alternating with the red and blue tunics of the cossacks and the goatskin caps of the Kalmuks, all advancing in the light of torches. Mounted regiments followed those on foot without undue confusion and the rumble of the guns echoed throughout the city.
In the smoky light of the torches that flickered over everything, even over the summit of the red walls of the Kremlin, the men's faces looked haggard and weary. Marianne found herself wondering if they had really come to take up a position in the city or whether they would pass fight through, for they all went on along the river as though making for the eastern gates, the very ones by which the enemy would not come.
All night long, too, Ivan Borisovitch, with his sister and his wife, stood at the door of their house tirelessly offering flasks of wine and mugs of kvass, only as the time went on the fine confidence and eagerness that he had displayed earlier in the evening seemed to crumble and melt away. From time to time he would ask some question of the soldier he was serving and each time the answer left him looking more anxious, with his head sunk a little lower between his shoulders.
At about four o'clock in the morning, just as the sky was growing light, there was a tremendous explosion somewhere down the river, and a flash so bright that it was as if the rising sun itself had blown up. But it was only the great bridge at the south-eastern corner of the Kremlin exploding in a blinding shower of sparks. It was then that Ivan Borisovitch, his face now grey and drawn, came over and shook Jason where he slept, then spoke to Marianne.
'I'm very sorry, milady, I am indeed,' he said awkwardly, 'but I'm afraid you'll have to go.'
'Go?' Jason echoed, once again forgetting his part as the respectable serving man. But the unhappy innkeeper was past the stage of noticing such niceties. He only nodded wretchedly and Marianne could see that there were tears in his eyes.
'Yes, you must go,' he repeated heavily. 'You must quit Moscow within the hour, milady. You are English and the Corsican ogre is coming. You will be in peril if you stay. Go! Go at once! Such a pretty lady as you are, you must not fall into their filthy hands.'
'But – but I thought the soldiers were coming to defend Moscow?'
'No – they are only marching through. They are running away… one of the soldiers told me they are going towards Riazan—' His voice choked suddenly. 'Our army is beaten – beaten! Our city is lost. We are all going, all of us! But you should be gone! We will only put a few things together and be gone also. I've a brother at Kaluga. I shall go to him.'
'You are abandoning your house?' Jason said. 'But what about the wounded men in your bedchambers?'
'They will have to trust in God. It will not help them much if I get myself killed defending them. I've a family to consider.'
It was no use arguing. The three travellers left and found themselves walking along the riverside, where a state of indescribable confusion reigned. The troops were still passing but now, in amongst them, were all those Muscovites who had stayed at home until that moment but were now leaving precipitately. As they passed the doorway to the foundling hospital they caught sight of a group of children about ten years of age, wearing some kind of green uniform, gathered in the porch about a tall fair man dressed like a superior officer but whose round, pleasant face was running with tears and his fists clenched in helpless rage.
The anguish of all these people was so real and poignant that Marianne could not help but be touched by it. However you looked at it and whichever side you were on, war was a dreadful thing, a calamity that people might endure but never really wanted, for even such enthusiasm as patriotism engendered was snuffed out like a light at the first real hardship.
To her awareness of taking part in a tragedy which was not her own was added the anxiety she felt at the thought of her lost friends. If she and Jason went on allowing themselves to be borne along on this flood of humanity they would find themselves outside Moscow, having lost all hope of ever finding Jolival, O'Flaherty and Gracchus again. Possessed by the idea of reaching Red Square and the Rostopchin palace at all costs, they infiltrated a stream of people making for the first bridge across the Moskva in order to be at least on the right side of the river.