"Well, you certainly look as if you'd seen a ghost," Marianne said, laughing. "Don't worry about it. It will come back to you. Now, shall we go and see our rooms? After so many days cooped up on board ship, I can't wait to find myself in a real bedchamber again."
The room to which she was shown looked out over the sea and the confused bustle of the harbor, with its amazing variety of men and nations. There in a dense huddle of huts, tents and houses, each of which bore something of the national characteristics belonging to its owner, dwelt Jews, Armenians, Greeks, Tatars, Turks, Moldavians, Bulgars and Gypsies. Lights were springing up and fragments of song drifted with a strange scent of wormwood on the salty air.
Marianne stood for some time leaning out of the window and forgetting even to take off her hat, fascinated by the fantastic spectacle presented by the bay in the magic of a glorious sunset. The sea was on fire, reflecting the fading beams in great pools of purple and gold, shot with gleams of amethyst that turned to an incredible dark green in the shadow of the great mole. Drums and whistles sounded on board the ships. From every masthead the colors were being slowly hauled down as they were every night at this hour, all together as though in a well-rehearsed ballet. But even from this point of vantage, Marianne was no more able to make out the vessel she sought than she had been from the harbor. Where could the Sea Witch be? And where was Jason? In the citadel, perhaps, or else in some other prison she could not see? This town was like no other she had ever seen. It was disturbing and yet strangely attractive in its intense vitality. Standing there at the window, she felt as if she were on the borders of an unknown world which drew her and yet troubled her at the same time.
"I've asked our good Monsieur Ducroux to have supper sent up to your room for us." Jolival's familiar voice spoke behind her. "I didn't think you'd want to go down to the dining room, seeing that the hotel seems to be so full of men. I should say the best thing for us tonight would be to eat our supper and then get a good night's rest. The beds seem comfortable enough."
She swung around to face him.
"I want to see the governor as soon as possible, Jolival. Can't we go to his house this evening and see if they will let us in?"
Jolival looked deeply shocked.
"My dear, you are a lady of quality. You cannot possibly go to the governor's palace yourself and demand admittance, any more than I can. But don't be alarmed. One of the hotel servants is on his way there at this very moment carrying a very proper note composed entirely by your humble servant, expressing in the most formal terms your earnest wish to call on your father's old friend."
Marianne sighed. "You are quite right, as usual," she said, warming his heart with a contrite little smile. "Then there is nothing for us to do except, as you say, to have our supper and go to bed. I hope word will come from the duke for us to visit him tomorrow."
They spent a quiet, peaceful evening. Seated comfortably in the small sitting room attached to Marianne's bedchamber, the two friends did ample justice to the Hotel Ducroux's admirable cooking. The cuisine throughout was French and recalled to Marianne the delicacies with which the great Carême had been wont to furnish Talleyrand's table.
As for Jolival, in his delight at this temporary respite from eastern cooking he tackled carp à la Chambord, a salmis of duckling and tartelettes aux fraises as though he had not seen food for weeks, breaking off only to savor with the air of a connoisseur the excellent champagne, product of Epernay, which Ducroux was able to procure through the good offices of his former employer and a whole fleet of smugglers.
"You may say what you like," he confided to Marianne as he finished his second bottle, "but there is nothing like champagne for making you see things in a quite different light. I respect the emperor's taste for Chambertin, but to my mind he's a good deal too exclusive. There is simply nothing like champagne."
"I think he knows that," she said, smiling at the candle flame seen through the airy bubbles rising in her glass. "In fact, it was he who introduced me to it."
There was a flicker in her green eyes as she remembered that first night. Was it only yesterday, or hundreds of years ago, that Talleyrand, the old fox, had driven her out through the snow to the pavilion of Le Butard, a young girl in a dress of rose-colored satin, to charm away with her voice the melancholy humors of a certain Monsieur Denis who was said to be suffering from some unexplained misfortune? She saw again the charming, intimate little music room, Duroc's broad face, a trifle uneasy in the role of go-between, the fragrance of flowers everywhere, the bright fire blazing in the hearth, the frozen lake outside the windows. And then the little man in the black coat who had listened to her singing without a word, yet with such a look of kindness in his steel blue eyes… She saw it all and even felt something of the emotion which had stirred her then as the heady fumes of the champagne had cast her all too willingly into the stranger's arms. And yet, at the same time, she found herself wondering if that pleasant interlude had really happened to her, or if it were not just a story she had heard, a fairy tale in the manner of Voltaire or La Fontaine.
She shut her eyes and took a sip of the cold wine as though trying to recapture the taste of that night.
"France is a long way away," she said. "Who knows what awaits us here?"
Jolival cocked an eyebrow and smiled into his empty glass and then at the flower-decked table, still loaded with the remains of their meal.
"Just at this moment it doesn't seem to me so very far. Besides, we are treading the same soil as His Majesty the emperor, you know."
Marianne's eyes opened wide and she gave a little shiver.
"The same soil? What do you mean?"
"Only what Ducroux told me when I was talking to him before dinner. According to the latest information, the emperor is at Vilna. That is why we have seen so much military activity here. The regiments of Tatars and Circassians are mustering to join the tsar's army—and it's said the Duc de Richelieu thinks of marching at their head."
"A Frenchman at their head? Jolival, you can't mean it!"
"Why not? Have you forgotten that the Marquis de Langeron fought under the Russian eagle at Austerlitz? Richelieu is like him, an irreconcilable enemy of France as she is today. All he wants is to see Bonaparte defeated in the hope of putting those broken-winded Bourbons back on the throne."
Jolival seized the slender crystal flute from which he had been drinking and in a sudden spurt of anger sent it smashing violently against the white marble chimneypiece.
"Then I wonder," Marianne observed, "what we are doing sitting here drinking champagne and philosophizing instead of trying to see this man and make him listen to reason."
Jolival gave a shrug, then rose and, taking his young friend's hand in his, carried it to his lips with an affectionate gallantry.
"Sufficient unto the day, Marianne. The Duc de Richelieu won't be leaving tonight. And, may I remind you, we have a favor to ask and so are not precisely in the best position to start preaching him sermons. Forget what I have just told you and my display of bad temper. I think I'm turning into an old fool, God forgive me."
"No, you're not. It's just that you see red as soon as anyone mentions the subject of émigrés or princes. Good night, old friend. And you, too, try to forget…"
He was just leaving the room when she called him back. "Arcadius," she said, "that woman we passed coming in, Madame de Gachet, have you remembered where you met her before? She looked like an émigrée. Perhaps she was a friend of your wife?"