'Indeed?' Vania took her up at once. Tor myself, I feel perfectly at home here. One has only to know the right way to go about it.' And she proceeded to demonstrate how perfectly at ease she found herself in her surroundings by embarking on a spirited rendering of Don Alfonso's aria from Cost fan Tutte:


'Fortunato I'uom che prende

Ogni cosa per buon verso...'


all the while continuing to support Marianne up the length of the monumental staircase.

Louise Fusil, the girl dressed as a page, who had been nicknamed Rossignolette, or Little Nightingale, by her companions, joined her sweet voice to the Italian's for the fun of it and in a moment all the others had been carried away by one of those moods of collective hilarity which beset theatre people sometimes at the gravest moments, almost like a need for reassurance, and were playing away at imaginary instruments to accompany them. Marianne tried to join in but her injured shoulder hurt her too badly and she was forced to give up.

All the same, it was on the whole a gay little procession which made its way up to the attics and the servants' bedrooms. These, naturally, did not compare with the splendour of the rooms below and they found only plain deal furniture, straw mattresses and common earthenware ewers and basins. Even so it was a relief to Marianne to be able to stretch herself on a bed which, although unmade, was at least clean, which was not the case with all of those they found.

Vania remained with her and the others took possession of rooms near by, while Lekain went downstairs again and took it upon himself to explore the cellars of the palace, which he had been unable to do while the caretaker remained in residence, and procure food for the uninvited guests.

He came back bowed down with the weight of two enormous baskets, one of which contained the wherewithal to make a fire and an assortment of kitchen utensils, and the other a supply of food. From this second basket protruded the necks of a number of venerable, dusty bottles boasting some noble waxen seals.

'I have found marvels,' he proclaimed triumphantly. 'Look here! Champagne, caviar, smoked fish, sugar – and coffee!'

The word and its associations were enough to rouse Marianne who, overcome with pain and weariness, had been on the point of falling asleep.

'Coffee?' she cried, raising herself on one elbow. 'Is it true?'

'True? Only smell this, fair dame,' Lekain told her, waving the little canvas bag he had been opening under her nose. 'And I've brought everything we need to roast it and make enough for everyone. You shall have a cup of it upon the instant. Only trust me and you'll see that when it comes to coffee I am something of a genius.'

Marianne smiled, in amusement and gratitude.

'You are certainly a wonderful man. I don't know if this will be my last night on earth but at least I shall have you to thank for being able to face it with a cup of coffee inside me. There's nothing I like better.'

She drank, indeed, a second and even a third cup, for Lekain had not exaggerated his skill, disregarding Vania's not unreasonable warnings that it would keep her from closing her eyes all night. But Marianne had already passed one sleepless night in Ivan Borisovitch's inn and she fell asleep almost as soon as the third cup was empty.

She woke to a sustained noise and a strong sense of danger in the blackest part of the night, with the feeling of terror that comes of waking in a strange place. She could not remember in the least where she was, but then she made out Vania di Lorenzo's figure etched, with its diadem and plumes, against the lighter square of the window.

'What's happening?' she asked, instinctively keeping her voice low.

"We have visitors. It was only to be expected. This is one of the richest and most beautiful houses in the city.'

'What time is it?'

'One o'clock, or a little after.'

Marianne slipped out of bed, finding it less painful than she had feared, and joined the singer at the window but there was little to be seen beyond lights from below shining out over the trees in the garden. The noise, however, was growing louder all the time: shouts, laughter, a good deal of drunken singing and now and then the crash of breaking glass or a heavier thud announcing that some large piece of furniture had been overturned.

'How did they get in?' Marianne asked, for their window looked out over the garden and not towards the main courtyard and she had no means of telling.

'Over the stable roof,' came Lekain's voice from behind her. He sounded worried. 'I saw how they did it. There were two of them with ropes and grapnels and once inside they lifted the bar and let in the rest.'

'What are we going to do?' This from Louise Fusil who had followed him into the room. 'I wonder if we were wise to hide up here. How do we know they won't come up to look at the servants' quarters when they've finished plundering downstairs? We might have done better to hide in the garden—'

'In the garden? Look—'

A fresh mob had appeared on the lawn which lay below the terrace giving on to the main salons. In the light of the torches they carried, the watchers above could make out men with fierce, bearded faces clad in ragged blouses and bits of blankets tied with string. They were armed with pitchforks, knives and guns and they were advancing silently, like hunting cats, upon the palace which must have been shining like a vast lantern in the night.

'They must have climbed over the railings or over a wall somewhere,' Lekain said gloomily. 'That's cut off our retreat.'

"Not necessarily,' Vania answered him. 'There are two sets of back stairs, one at each end of this passage. I will stand by one and you by the other and if either of us hears anyone coming up we will try to escape by the other and out into the garden.'

'Very well. We can only hope that if they do come it won't occur to them to do it by both stairs at once.'

'Always the optimist, I see,' Vania retorted, and she swept off, as regally imperturbable as ever, to take up the post she had assigned to herself.

The four women who were left separated also. Madame Bursay and Mademoiselle Anthony went into one of the rooms facing the front of the building while Marianne and Louise Fusil stayed where they were, listening with thudding hearts.

Before long, the uproar had swelled to infernal proportions. The yells and screams reached fever pitch and were punctuated by loud, rumbling crashes that shook the whole solidly built edifice as though the earth had moved beneath it.

'Anyone would think they were tearing down the walls,' Marianne said faintly.

'Perhaps they are. But I think they have started fighting amongst themselves,' Louise Fusil answered quietly.

It was true that the cries from below had altered. The drunken bellowing and the yells of joy and triumph were mingled now with groans and shrieks of pain. Apparently the robbers who had entered by way of the park were endeavouring to persuade their fellows inside to part with a share of the plunder. To the listeners, suspended, as it were, above the tumult, the murderous orgy had something horrible about it, for it told them all too clearly that the moment when these human fiends in their blind fury should discover their refuge, would be their last.

Marianne's heart thudded in her chest. Her hands felt icy cold and she had forgotten the pain in her shoulder. She slipped out quietly into the passage which ran down the centre of the house, illumined at either end by a round window above the stairhead. Vania and Lekain stood motionless beside the stairways, straining their ears to catch the sounds from below.

'Still nothing?' Marianne whispered.

Both shook their heads silently. Then, all at once, there came a sound of running footsteps and the clamour rose and swept outside as though the house had suddenly burst its bounds.

'I think they're going!' It was Mademoiselle Anthony who spoke, struggling to contain the joy that leaped in her voice. 'I can see a crowd of men pouring out into the street.'

'There's no one in the garden that I can see,' echoed Madame Fusil. "They won't bother to climb out by the same way. Come and see.'

The two sentries came running back and everyone crowded into the room where Marianne had slept. The palace was spewing out the ragged, hairy groups of gesticulating demons, dyed red with the wine they had been wallowing in, and probably with blood also, as a draining ulcer casts out pus. But the actors' rejoicings as they watched this dangerous rabble departing were short-lived. Louise Fusil brought them to an end a moment later with a strangled cry:

'Fire! They have set fire to the house!'

It was true. A ruddy glow was spreading out from the downstairs rooms and the clamour of seconds before had given place to an ominous roaring. The last of the looters could even be seen turning as they left and hurling the torches they carried back inside the palace, uttering savage cries.

'Back!' Lekain cried. 'Downstairs, quickly! We must get to the garden—'

They sped towards the staircase which seemed to be farthest from the principal seat of the fire. Vania would have supported Marianne as before but the girl would not have it.

'The coffee and the sleep have done me good. Only give me your arm. But we must hurry—'

They groped their way down the dark stairway, built in the thickness of the wall, bumping against the sides and terrified as they felt the heat increasing moment by moment. By the time they reached the first floor the narrow space was so suffocatingly hot that it was like entering an oven.

'The fire must be very close,' Vania said, coughing. 'Lucky for us – this place – built of stone. If it were wood – like so many of them – we'd be cooked by now—'

'It's only a matter of time,' Lekain answered, swearing like a trooper. 'The stairs are beginning to burn.'

Even as he spoke, there was a red glow in the darkness and they rounded the last corner to see that the bottom steps were already well alight and a dense pall of smoke, almost as deadly, billowing up to meet them.

'We – we'll never get through,' Louise wailed. 'We'll all be killed—'

'Not on your life,' Vania shrieked. 'Hold your dress tight round you and run! We've a second or two yet. If your clothes catch, roll yourselves on the grass or on the gravel as soon as you get outside. Come on! Follow me!'

Giving Marianne no time to think, she caught her round the waist with one arm and clutching her robe around her with the other launched them both at the flames.

Marianne shut her eyes. She felt for a moment as if her lungs were on fire and held her breath. But Vania was half-carrying her forward in an irresistible rush and she scarcely felt the lick of the flames, even when her skirt caught alight. The scream that broke from her was caused more by the pain of her injured shoulder when her companion ran with her down the terrace steps and rolled with her on the grass to extinguish the fire in their clothes.

Seconds later they were joined by the others. Their clothes, too, were smouldering and they flung themselves down on the grass in turn, uttering shrieks of pain but fortunately without suffering any very serious injury. When they realized that they were all there, scorched, breathless and almost overcome by smoke but alive, they sat for a minute or two, staring at one another with a kind of incredulity, unable to believe their luck.

'Well,' Madame Bursay gasped, 'that was a narrow escape! We are all here and in one piece, so it seems.'

'Then let's see if we can stay that way,' Lekain said. 'Which we won't if we stay here. We must move away before the building falls in.'

Prince Dolgorouki's handsome mansion was blazing, now, from top to bottom in a great sheet of flame. The heat was unbearable. The building was like a fierce, roaring cascade of fire and the blinding light of it illumined every corner of the garden.

'Madona!' Vania groaned. 'Are there no fire engines in the city? If nothing is done to stop it, it will set the whole district on fire.'

Her words might have been a signal. Almost as she finished speaking, the heavens opened. Volumes of water poured down on Moscow with an apocalyptic roar, drenching in an instant the Dolgorouki gardens and those within them who fled precipitately to escape the clouds of boiling steam that rose from the burning building. In a short time the blaze had been transformed under the pelting rain to something more resembling a gigantic steam boiler.