God writes straight on crooked lines.
Charles, having given his letter to the sentry with the order to take it
to its immediate destination, turned towards the stairs again. In those
days an order was given in a different tone to that which servitude
demands in later times.
He returned to his room on the first floor without even waiting to make
sure that he would be obeyed. He had scarcely seated himself when, after
a fumbling knock, the sentry opened the door and followed him into the
room, still holding the letter in his hand.
“Mon capitaine,” he said with a certain calmness of manner as from
an old soldier to a young one, “a word--that is all. This letter,”
he turned it in his hand as he spoke, and looking at Charles beneath
scowling brows, awaited an explanation. “Did you pick it up?”
“No--I wrote it.”
“Good. I...” he paused, and tapped himself on the chest so that there
could be no mistake; there was a rattling sound behind him suggestive of
ironware. Indeed, he was hung about with other things than clocks, and
seemed to be of opinion that if a soldier sets value upon any object he
must attach it to his person. “I, Barlasch of the Guard--Marengo, the
Danube, Egypt--picked up after Borodino a letter like it. I cannot read
very quickly--indeed--Bah! the old Guard needs no pens and paper--but
that letter I picked up was just like this.”
“Was it addressed like that to Madame Desiree Darragon?”
“So a comrade told me. It is you, her husband?”
“Yes,” answered Charles, “since you ask; I am her husband.”
“Ah!” replied Barlasch darkly, and his limbs and features settled
themselves into a patient waiting.
“Well,” asked Charles, “what are you waiting for?”
“Whatever you may think proper, mon capitaine, for I gave the letter to
the surgeon who promised that it should be forwarded to its address.”
Charles laughingly sought his purse. But there was nothing in it, so he
looked round the room.
“Here, add this to your collection,” and he took a small French clock
from the writing-table, a pretty, gilded toy from Paris.
“Thank you, mon capitaine.”
Barlasch, with shaking fingers, unknotted the rope around his shoulders.
As he was doing so one of the clocks on his back began to strike. He
paused, and stood looking gravely at his superior officer. Another clock
took up the tale and a third, while Barlasch sternly stood at attention.
“Four o'clock,” he said to himself, “and I, who have not yet
breakfasted--”
With a grunt and a salute he turned towards the door which stood open.
Some one was coming up the stairs rather slowly, his spurs clinking,
his scabbard clashing against the gilded banisters. Papa Barlasch stood
aside at attention, and Colonel de Casimir came into the room with a gay
word of greeting. Barlasch went out, but he did not close the door. It
is to be presumed that he stood without, where he might have overheard
all that they said to each other for quite a long time, until it was
almost the half-hour when the clocks would strike again. But de Casimir,
perceiving that the door was open, closed it quietly from within, and
Barlasch, shut out on the wide landing, made a grimace at the massive
woodwork before turning to descend the stairs.
It was the middle of September, and the days were shortening. The dusk
of evening had already closed over the city when de Casimir and Charles
at length came downstairs. No one had troubled to open the shutters of
such rooms as were not required; and these were many. For Moscow was
even at that day a great city, though less spacious and more fantastic
than it is to-day. There was plenty of room for the whole army in the
houses left empty by their owners, so that many lodged as they had never
lodged before and would never lodge again.
The stairs were almost dark when Charles and his companion descended
them. The rusted musket poised against the doorpost still indicated the
supposed presence of a sentry.
“Listen,” said Charles, “I found him burrowing like a rat at a
cellar-door in the courtyard. Perhaps he has got in.”
They listened, but could hear nothing. Charles led the way towards the
courtyard. A glimmer of light guided him to the door he sought. It stood
open. Barlasch had succeeded in effecting an entry to the cellar, where
his experience taught him to seek the best that an abandoned house
contains.
Charles and de Casimir peered down the narrow stairs. By the light of
a candle Barlasch was working vigorously amid a confused pile of cases,
and furniture, and roughly tied bundles of clothing. He had laid
aside nothing, and his movements were attended by the usual rattle of
hollow-ware. They could see the perspiration gleaming on his face. Even
in this cellar there lingered the faint smell of sour smoke that filled
the air of Moscow.
De Casimir caught the gleam of jewellery, and went hurriedly downstairs.
“What are you doing there, my friend?” he asked, and the words were
scarcely out of his mouth, when Barlasch extinguished his candle. There
followed a dead silence, such as comes when a rodent is disturbed at his
work. The two men on the cellar-stairs were conscious of the gaze of the
bright, rat-like eyes below.
De Casimir turned and followed Charles upstairs again.
“Come up,” he said, “and go to your post.”
There was no movement in response.
“Name of a dog,” cried de Casimir, “is all discipline relaxed? Come up,
I tell you, and obey my orders.”
He emphasized his command with the cocking of a pistol, and a slight
disturbance in the darkness of the cellar heralded the unwilling
approach of Barlasch, who climbed the stairs step by step like a
schoolboy coming to punishment.
“It is I who found the door, mon colonel, behind that pile of firewood.
It is I who opened it. What is down there is mine,” he said, sullenly.
But the only reply that de Casimir made was to seize him by the arm and
jerk him away from the stairs.
“To your post,” he said, “take your arm, and out into the street, in
front of the house. That is your place.”
But while he was still speaking, they were all startled by a sudden
disturbance in the cellar, and in the gloom a man stumbled up the stairs
and ran past them. Barlasch had taken the precaution of bolting the huge
front door, which was large enough to give passage to a carriage. The
man, who exhaled an atmosphere of dust mingled with the disquieting
and all-pervading odour of smoke, rushed at the huge door and tugged
furiously at its handles.
Charles, who was on his heels, grasped his arm, but the man swung round
and threw him off as if he were a child. He had a hatchet in his hand
with which he aimed a blow at Charles, but missed him. Barlasch was
already going towards his musket, which stood in the corner against
the door-post, but the Russian saw his movement, and forestalled him.
Seizing the gun, he presented the bayonet to them, and stood with his
back to the door, facing the three men in a breathless silence. He was
a large man, dishevelled, with long hair tumbled about his head, and
light-coloured eyes, glaring like the eyes of a beast at bay.
In the background de Casimir, quick and calm, had already covered him
with the pistol produced as a persuasive to Barlasch. For a second there
was silence, during which they all could hear the call to arms in the
street outside. The patrol was hurrying down the Petrovka, calling the
assembly.
The report of the pistol rang through the house, shaking the doors and
windows. The man threw up his arms and stood for a moment looking at de
Casimir with an expression of blank amazement. Then his legs seemed to
slip away from beneath him, and he collapsed to the floor. He turned
over with movements singularly suggestive of a child seeking a
comfortable position in bed, and lay quite still, his cheek on the
pavement and his staring eyes turned towards the cellar-door from which
he had emerged.
“He has his affair--that parishioner,” muttered Barlasch, looking at him
with a smile that twisted his mouth to one side. And, as he spoke, the
man's throat rattled. De Casimir was reloading his pistol. So persistent
was the gaze of the dead man's eyes that de Casimir turned on his heel
to look in the same direction.
“Quick!” he exclaimed, pointing to the doorway, from which a lazy white
smoke emerged in thin puffs. “Quick, he has set fire to the house!”
“Quick--with what, mon colonel?” asked Barlasch.
“Why, go and fetch some men with a fire-engine.”
“There are no fire-engines left in Moscow, mon colonel!”
“Then find buckets, and tell me where the well is.”
“There are no buckets left in Moscow, mon colonel. We found that out
last night, when we wanted to water the horses. The citizens have
removed them. And there is not a well of which the rope has not been
cut. They are droll companions, these Russians, I can tell you.”
“Do as I tell you,” repeated de Casimir, angrily, “or I shall put you
under arrest. Go and fetch men to help me to extinguish this fire.”
By way of reply, Barlasch held up one finger in a childlike gesture of
attention to some distant sound.
“No, thank you,” he said, coolly, “not for me. Discipline, mon colonel,
discipline. Listen, you can hear the 'assembly' as well as I. It is the
Emperor that one obeys. One thinks of one's military career.”
With knotted and shaking fingers he drew back the bolts and opened the
door. On the threshold he saluted.
“It is the call to arms, mes officiers,” he said. Then, shouldering his
musket, he turned away, and all his clocks struck six. The bells of the
city churches seemed to greet him as he stepped into the street, for in
Moscow each hour is proclaimed with deafening iteration from a thousand
towers.
He looked down the Petrovka; from half the houses which bordered the
wide roadway--a street of palaces--the smoke was pouring forth in puffs.
He went uphill towards the Red Square and the Kremlin, where the Emperor
had his head-quarters. It was to this centre that the patrols had
converged. Looking back, Barlasch saw, not one house on fire, but a
hundred. The smoke arose from every quarter of the city at once. He
hurried on, but was stopped by a crowd of soldiers, all laden with
booty, gesticulating, shouting, abusing one another. It was Babel
over again. The riff-raff of sixteen nations had followed Napoleon to
Moscow--to rob. Half a dozen different tongues were spoken in one army
corps. There remained no national pride to act as a deterrent. No man
cared what he did. The blame would be laid upon France.
The crowd was collected in front of a high, many-windowed building in
flames.
“What is it?” Barlasch asked first one and then another. But no one
spoke his tongue. At last he found a Frenchman.
“It is the hospital.”
“And what is that smell? What is burning there?”
“Twelve thousand wounded,” answered the man, with a sickening laugh.
And even as he spoke one or two of the wounded dragged themselves, half
burnt, down the wide steps. No one dared to approach them, for the walls
of the building were already bulging outwards. One man was half covered
with a sheet which was black, and his bare limbs were black with smoke.
All the hair was burnt from his head and face. He stood for a moment in
the doorway--a sight never to be forgotten--and then fell headlong down
the steps, where he lay motionless. Some one in the crowd laughed--a
high cackle which was heard above the roar of the fire and the deafening
chorus of burning timbers.
Barlasch passed on, following some officers who were leading their
horses towards the Kremlin. The streets were full of soldiers carrying
burdens, and staggering beneath the weight of their spoil. Many were
wearing priceless fur cloaks, and others walked in women's wraps of
sable and ermine. Some wore jewellery, such as necklaces, on their rough
uniforms, and bracelets round their sunburnt wrists. No one laughed
at them, but only glanced enviously at the pillage. All were in
deadly earnest, and none graver than those who had found drink and now
regretted that they had given way to the temptation; for their sober
comrades had outwitted them in finding treasure.
One man gravely wore a gilt coronet crammed over the crown of his shako.
He joined Barlasch, staggering along beside him.
“I come from the Cathedral,” he explained, confidentially. “St. Michael
they call it. They said there was great treasure there hidden in the
cellars, but I only found a company of old kings in their coffins. We
stirred them up. They were quiet enough when we found them, under their
counterpanes of red velvet. We stirred them up with the bayonet, and the
dust got into our throats and choked us. Name of God, I am thirsty. You
have nothing in your bottle, comrade?”
“No.”
Barlasch trudged on, all his possessions swinging and clanking together.
The confidential man turned towards him and lifted his water-bottle,
weighed it, and found it wanting.
“Name of a name, of a name, of a name,” he muttered, walking on. “Yes,
there was nothing there. Even the silver plates on the coffins with the
names of those gentlemen were no thicker than a sword. But I found a
crown in the church itself. I borrowed it from St. Michael. He had a
sword in his hand, but he did not strike. No. And there was only tinsel
on the hilt. No jewels.”
He walked on in silence for a few minutes, coughing out the smoke and
dust from his lungs. It was almost dark, but the whole city was blazing
now, and the sky glowed with a red light that mingled with the remnants
of a lurid sunset. A strong wind blew the smoke and the flying sparks
across the roofs.
“Then I went into the sacristy,” continued the man, stumbling over the
dead body of a young girl and turning to curse her. Barlasch looked
at him sideways and cursed him for doing it, with a sudden fierce
eloquence. For Papa Barlasch was a man of unclean lips.
“There was an old man in there, a sacristan. I asked him where he kept
the dishes, and he said he could not speak French. I jerked my bayonet
into him--name of a name! he soon spoke French.”
Barlasch broke off these delicate confidences by a quick word of
command, and himself stood rigid in the roadway before the Imperial
Palace of the Kremlin, presenting arms. A man passed close by them on
his way towards a waiting carriage. He was stout and heavy-shouldered,
peculiarly square, with a thick neck and head set low in the shoulders.
On the step of the carriage he turned and surveyed the lurid sky and
the burning city to the east with an indifferent air. Into his deep
bloodshot eyes there flashed a sudden gleam of life and power, as he
glanced along the row of watching faces to read what was written there.
It was Napoleon, at the summit of his dream, hurriedly quitting the
Kremlin, the boasted goal of his ambition, after having passed but one
night under that proud roof.