In this way, they learned that the couriers were having more trouble than ever in getting through, and that Prince Schwarzenberg, in East Prussia, was complaining that his position was already awkward and threatening to become worse. The Prince of Neufchatel had tried once again to persuade Napoleon to leave Moscow and fall back towards Poland in order to avoid being cut off from his army. He had earned himself an acid rejoinder.
'You want to go to Grosbois, do you, to see the Visconti?'
When he heard that, the invalid was beside himself with fury.
'Mad! He's run mad! He'll get us all killed! It only needs Marshal Victor, Oudinot and Gouvion-Saint-Cyr to suffer a reverse on the Dvina and we are trapped without a hope of getting out alive. The Russians are getting bolder every day.'
The situation in Moscow certainly seemed to be deteriorating. Count Daru, the Minister in charge of Supplies, came one evening to call on his young relative – obliging Marianne to make herself scarce – and made no secret of his fears.
'The Russians have got to the stage of picking off men and horses foraging for food in the outskirts of the city itself. We have to give them massive escorts. The mails are getting worse every day. Half the couriers never arrive.'
Every night there seemed to be another piece of bad news to listen to, another stone added to the burden that lay on Marianne's heart. She was almost physically aware of the trap that was closing on her and those with her, so that when, one morning, she saw the Emperor himself ride past beneath her window, it was all she could do not to fling herself at his feet, crying to him to go and leave his insane obstinacy before he condemned them all to a lingering death from fear and the endless northern night that would soon descend. But he seemed to be wholly indifferent to his surroundings. He rode on calmly on Turcoman, one of his favourite mounts, one hand thrust into his waistcoat, smiling at the unusual autumnal sunshine that seemed to follow him and justify him in his stubborn determination.
'We'll never get out of here,' Marianne thought desperately. And now her sleep began to be troubled by nightmares.
On the twelfth of October, however, a somewhat better piece of news arrived. It took the form of a letter, addressed to Beyle from the Quartermaster's office and brought by the indefatigable Bonnaire.
Beyle read it and then handed the unfolded sheet to Marianne.
'Here, this concerns you.'
The letter was unsigned but there was no doubt who it came from. It was from Constant.
'There is now thought to be no hope of recovering the vanished lady,' he wrote. 'Consequently, certain persons are no longer useful. They were instructed to join the train of wounded leaving Moscow the day before yesterday, under the command of General Nansouty, although they will not be released until they reach France.'
Marianne screwed the letter into a ball and dropped it into the brick stove which took up a good half of the end wall of the room. Then she came back to where Beyle lay in bed, clasping her hands tightly together to keep them from trembling with excitement.
'Then my mind, too, is made up,' she said. 'There is no need for me to be a burden to you any longer, my friend, or to go on staying here. My friends have left and I must go too. With good horses, I should be able to catch them up. No convoy can travel fast if there are wounded.'
The sick man uttered a croak of laughter that ended in a fit of nervous coughing and a whole series of moans. He wiped his lips with his handkerchief and lay with his chin in his hands for a moment before he explained.
'Without a signed order from the Kremlin it is absolutely impossible to obtain so much as a donkey. The army has barely enough for its own needs, not counting remounts. Moreover, such animals as we have got are virtually on their last legs, however much we nurse them. And you need not tell me we have only to steal a pair because that, too, is impossible – unless you're tired of life!'
'Very well. Then I'll walk, but I'm going to leave somehow.'
'Don't talk such rubbish. It makes you sound like an idiot. You are quite mad! Walk, indeed! Six or seven hundred leagues on foot! Why not on your hands while you're about it? Besides, what would you eat? The convoys and the couriers have to take their own food with them at least as far as Smolensk because, thanks to our friends the Russians' pleasant little habit of burning everything behind them, there's not so much as a cabbage stalk to be found. Lastly,' he reminded her, 'the news from outside is alarming. Bands of furious peasants are attacking small groups of travellers. Alone, you would be in danger.'
He was really angry and had quite forgotten his own physical discomforts, but his anger dropped before Marianne's desperate face.
'But what can I do?' she stammered, almost in tears. 'I want to go so much! I'd give ten years of my life to go home!'
'So would I! Now, listen to me, and above all don't cry. When you cry it makes me stupid and feverish again. There may be some hope – if you will only be a little patient.'
'I will be patient, only tell me quickly.'
'Well then, Bonnaire brought me some news as well as this letter. Our situation is becoming worse every day and the Emperor is beginning to realize it. He has heard rumours that the Russians, far from being exhausted as the King of Naples persists in claiming they are, are concentrating not far away in considerable strength. Now, we are in no condition to face an all-out attack, not even if the regiments that have been sent for should arrive in time. Unless I'm very much mistaken, we'll be leaving here before very much longer.'
'You think so?'
'I'd swear to it. What's more, ill or not, I'm going out to get the news tomorrow. Bonnaire is a good fellow but his understanding is not great. I'll find out in the office what's really happening.'
'But you are not well yet, your fever—'
'Is a good deal better. And it's high time I did something a little heroic. I've been pampering myself. And it's time you stopped lamenting, too. You have to stand up to life, by God! Else it will get the better of you.'
'Stand up to life?' Marianne echoed thoughtfully. 'Oh, my poor friend, I seem to have been doing nothing else for years. Life has treated me like a coconut palm. It's given me plenty of nuts – only it's dropped them all right on my head.'
'Because you were standing in the wrong place. You were born to be happy. If you can't be, it's entirely your own fault. Go and rest now. Something tells me you won't have to frowst indoors much longer.'
It almost seemed to Marianne afterwards that her friend must possess the gift of second sight because the very next day he came home with amazing news.
"We're off in three days' time,' he told her simply.
'In three days?' Marianne cried, feeling all at once as if the heavens had opened. 'But how?'
He bowed extravagantly, like an actor in a play. 'You see before you, fair lady, that most important person, the director of Reserve Supplies. General Dumas has just told me of my new appointment. The mission that goes with it is, unfortunately, no very simple one. I am to assemble supplies of food sufficient for two hundred thousand men in the three regions of Smolensk, Mohilev and Vitebsk. The Emperor is beginning to think of leaving Moscow and wintering in Smolensk or Vitebsk, it seems, so as to be nearer to the army on the Dvina. He can wait there in comfort until his reinforcements arrive and then march on Petersburg in the spring.'
'But when?'
'I don't know that. As far as I can make out, before settling down in winter quarters, his Majesty has some idea of going and chivvying old Kutuzov a bit, just to keep him quiet – and to check the truth of what Murat has to say about the cossacks. But that need not concern us. The important thing is that we leave in three days' time for Smolensk and I must ask you to let me have the use of this room because I am expecting several secretaries. I've got any number of letters to dictate. Somehow, I've got to get together something like a hundred thousand quintals of flour, oats and beef cattle – and I've not the faintest notion where I'm going to find them.'