'We'll probably be torn to pieces if we refuse,' Jolival whispered. 'It'll be a poor look-out if in all this confusion we can't find a vehicle of some sort to continue our journey! Besides, I must confess these people have surprised me. They show a remarkable example of unity in the face of disaster.'

'Unity?' Craig muttered. 'Yet it seems to me that there is one great difference between those leaving and those staying. For the most part the carriages we've met have been smart and well-upholstered. The rich are going, the poor are left behind.'

'Well, naturally, only those who have some property to go to outside the city can go away. What's more, I think it's chiefly their property that they are trying to protect. The others have nowhere to go. Besides, the Russian soul is essentially fatalistic. They believe that everything happens by God's will.'

'I'm coming to very much the same view of things myself,' Jason said grimly. 'The exercise of free will seems to have become increasingly difficult for some time past.'

However, after some delay and considerable effort on their part, they did manage to pass through the gate and found themselves in a long street, equally jammed with traffic, leading towards the centre of the city. But as they went on they passed the entrances to broad, deserted boulevards and empty streets that showed no sign of life, in vivid contrast to the one they were following. Many of the houses had their shutters up and presented blind faces to the world.

Before long they came to the Moskva and saw men in barges busy sinking casks and boxes in the river. The Kremlin walls towered redder than ever in the setting sun. But the travellers' eyes were already growing accustomed to the almost asiatic splendours of the Holy City and they spared no more than a passing glance for the ancient citadel of the Tsars. What was taking place outside its walls was far more interesting.

There were still crowds of people all along the river and on the bridges across it, and in the huge square outside the Kremlin wall. But these crowds were of a different kind from those outside the city. Young gentlemen in frock coats, armed with swords, were hurrying to meet the convoys of wounded, which seemed to be arriving from all directions, and greeting them with eager cries. Their youth, the elegance of their dress and, in many cases, their extreme good looks formed a striking contrast to the dirt and suffering among which they moved and attempted in a clumsy and often ill-judged fashion to relieve.

Trapped in the bottle-neck of one of the bridges, Marianne and her friends were caught up and carried along almost in spite of themselves in an irresistible tide, so that they had crossed the river almost without noticing and found themselves deposited, with more or less freedom of movement, in the vast square in front of an enormous, glittering church whose vivid colours made it look like some gigantic jewel.

On its eastern side, the square was bounded by a line of large and splendid private palaces which, with their elegant, white stuccoed classical facades and green, spreading gardens formed a barrier between it and Kitaigorod, the chief commercial district of Moscow. And outside of these palaces a crowd had gathered and was roaring with excitement at what, Marianne soon realized with horror, could only be a public execution.

A ladder had been placed upon a platform built against the palace wall and bound to it by his wrists dragged up above his head was a man, naked to the waist, and being beaten with the knout.

The whip, which was made of fine thongs of plaited white leather which it was the habit to steep in milk the night before an execution in order to stiffen them, left a bloody weal across the victim's back at every stroke and drew a groan of agony from him.

Standing on the dais a step or two away from the ladder, observing the proceedings, was a giant of a man with a nagaika, or horsewhip, thrust through his belt. His arms were folded on his chest and he was dressed in a coat of military cut, blue and high-collared, with gilt epaulets. His strong, arrogant features showed traces of Turcoman blood, but it was nevertheless an expressive face, animated by a pair of very large eyes of some indeterminate colour, although at the moment it reflected nothing but a cold cruelty.

The crowd had fallen silent, manifesting neither pleasure nor any other emotion at the torture of a fellow being. Yet as she mingled with them, Marianne was struck by the look on the people's faces. All, without exception, expressed a total, absolute and, as it were, concentrated hatred. The sight of it appalled her.

'What are these people made of?' she muttered under her breath. 'The enemy is at their gates and they stand here watching a poor devil being flogged to death.'

A sharp jab from an elbow in her side silenced her abruptly. Looking round, she saw that it had come, not from one of her companions, but from an elderly man of pleasant and distinguished appearance, dressed in old-fashioned style but with a simplicity that did not preclude a certain elegance. Far from it, for while he wore his hair long, no trace of powder marred the gleaming surface of the black satin ribbon that confined it and showed off its fine, silvery hue.

Seeing Marianne gazing at him in astonishment, he smiled faintly.

'You should be more careful, Madame,' he murmured. 'French is not an unfamiliar language in these parts.'

'I speak no Russian, but if you would rather we conversed in some other tongue – English, for instance, or German—'

This time the old gentleman, for such he clearly was, smiled openly, an action which detracted somewhat from his charm by revealing some regrettable deficiencies in his teeth.

'As to English, it is rare enough to arouse some curiosity. German, on the other hand, is known and, ever since the time of Peter III, cordially detested.'

'Very well then,' Marianne said. 'Let us continue in French. That is, Monsieur, if you will be kind enough to satisfy my curiosity. What has the wretched man done?'

Her new friend shrugged his shoulders.

'His crime is twofold. He is a Frenchman and he dared to rejoice openly at the approach of Bonaparte's armies. Before this he was a man much valued and even respected for his culinary talents, but that was enough to ruin him.'

'Culinary?'

'Yes indeed. His name is Tournais and he was head cook to the Governor of Moscow, Count Rostopchin whom you see there, personally overseeing his punishment. Unfortunately for his back, Tournais allowed his tongue to run away with him.'

Marianne clenched her fists, feeling herself overcome with helpless rage. Must she stand there in the sunset watching a fellow-countryman flayed alive for nothing more than loyalty to his emperor? Fortunately, she had not long to wonder for the beating was coming to an end.

At an order from Rostopchin, the unfortunate chef was cut down, unconscious and covered in blood, and carried inside the palace.

"What will become of him?' asked Jolival, who had joined Marianne and overheard her conversation.

'The governor has given out that tomorrow he is to be sent to Orenburg to work in the mines.'

'But he has no right to do that!' Marianne burst out, once more forgetting all caution. 'The man is not a Russian. It's horrible to treat him like a guilty moujik!'

'So he is also being treated as a spy. Ultimately, poor Tournais, for whom I am sincerely sorry, for he is a true artist, is merely a scapegoat. Now that the great battle is over, Rostopchin is not sorry to show the people that he means to have no mercy on all who have the slightest connection with Bonaparte.'

It was the second time the old gentleman had used that name and it gave Marianne the clue she needed. Evidently he was one of those unyielding émigrés who were sworn never to return to France as long as the scourge of God, Napoleon, reigned there. A little circumspection would therefore be wise. Nevertheless, Marianne could not resist her thirst for information.

'A great battle, did you say?'

The old gentleman stared and, reaching for the lorgnettes suspended on a velvet ribbon round his neck, set them on his nose and considered the young woman with astonishment.

'Well, well! My dear young lady, where have you been, if I may make so bold?'

'In the south, Monsieur, more precisely at Odessa, where I had the privilege of meeting his grace the Duc de Richelieu.' She added a few more vague words of explanation but her new friend was no longer listening. The name of Richelieu had quite won him to her and now that he felt sure that this young woman was one of his own kind he heartily approved of her. From then on there was no stopping him and once Jolival also had been introduced, the others being relegated to the obscurity of servants, he seemed prepared to hold forth endlessly.

And so it was in the pleasant, educated tones of the man they learned to call Monsieur de Beauchamp that the travellers heard of what had taken place five days earlier on the plain of Borodino, on the right bank of the river Kologha, a tributary of the Moskva, and some thirty-five leagues from Moscow itself. The Russian army, which up to that point had seemed to melt into the landscape as the French advanced had decided to make a stand and attempt to bar the way to the capital. The fighting for the redoubts on the road was fierce and the casualties on both sides appalling,[1] if the reports of the wounded who were even now being brought into the city were to be believed.

'But who won?' Jolival demanded, beside himself with impatience.

The old gentleman gave a sad little smile.

'We were told it was the Russians. The Tsar had replaced Barclay de Tolly with old Kutuzov, the darling child of victory, and no one ever imagined it could be otherwise. There was even a Te Deum sung in this very place. But the wounded tell a different story. They say that the army is retreating hard on their heels and that Bonaparte is marching on Moscow. Tomorrow or the day after, he will be here. As soon as that became known, all those who could began to leave Moscow. Hence the dreadful confusion throughout the city. Even Rostopchin is going, he has just said so, but for the present he is staying to await Kutuzov whose army must pass through the city to fall back on Kazan.'

With Jason's stern eye upon her, Marianne succeeded in maintaining her supposed character and remained calm in the face of news which filled her with joy. Jolival, meanwhile, was thanking the old gentleman with exquisite, courtly politeness for his recital and begging him to set the seal on his kindness by recommending an inn, that was, if there were any left open, which would provide them with a roof. This request produced an immediate protest from Jason.

"There's no call for us to stay here, least of all if Bonaparte is coming! We'd better be gone before nightfall and find ourselves a hostelry of some kind on the road to Petersburg.'

Monsieur de Beauchamp directed his lorgnette at him and stared for a moment with a mixture of outrage and astonishment at this bearded moujik, evidently a servant, who had the impertinence not merely to venture an opinion but actually to do so in French. Then, apparently considering it beneath his dignity to give the fellow a set-down, the old gentleman merely shrugged his shoulders and, turning his back on him, addressed himself to Jolival.

'You will never get out of the city tonight. Every street is packed solid with carts and carriages, with the exception of those leading westwards. But there is a chance that you will still find a lodging in Kitaigorod, the walls of which you see before you over there, even if only with—'

But Marianne was fated never to hear the name of the innkeeper who might have offered them a bed because at that moment something like a huge tidal wave swept into the square and drove like a bullet from a gun straight for the dais on which the governor was still standing, engaged in giving orders to a number of underlings. Several thousand men and women armed with picks and axes and pitchforks and shrieking like famished wolves bore down on the Rostopchin palace. The massive wave broke against its walls with a shuddering impact that swept apart the little group gathered round the old gentleman.

In an instant Marianne found herself torn from her friends, half submerged in a welter of waving arms, and borne irresistibly back towards the river. Convinced that she had been caught up in a revolt and believing that her last hour had come, she uttered a shrill scream: 'Jason! Help!'