The Retreat by Patrick Rambaud Page B

shining above the canopy of smoke. Bivouacs began to proliferate in the plain; they were approaching Petrovsky. The troops grew denser. Massed in the middle of fields, soon they formed a vast camp around a column of sofas and pianos looked from palaces that rose up like a pathetic obelisk. There was no way of carrying on through that horde of soldiers at rest. D’Herbigny and the others had to abandon their carriages at Prince Eugene’s Italian cantonments, which surrounded the chateau. The dragoons went off to find their brigade, so they said, but in fact they were looking for a good spot to eat their ham and sleep off their wine. Sebastian fetched his bag and gave Bonet his horse back; when he dismounted, his boots sank into a thick mire, which explained why the soldiers had spread straw on the cold, wet ground, laid planks on the straw and covered the planks with furs and material. They were feeding their fires with window sashes, gilt-handled doors and billets of mahogany as they sprawled, with exaggerated languor, in armchairs upholstered with tapestry. Resting on their knees were silver dishes of black mush baked inthe ash, which they pushed around with their fingers, rolled into balls and tossed into their mouths between bites of bloody, half-cooked chunks of horsemeat. Sebastian’s stomach heaved.
    â€˜Not hungry any more, Monsieur le secrétaire?’ joked Henri Beyle.
    â€˜These people spoil my appetite.’
    â€˜I have some figs, some raw fish and a poor white wine from the cellars of the English Club. For someone from supplies, this seems pretty pitiful, I know, but do let’s share it, if you fancy, and let’s not wake Bonnaire up, for pity’s sake.’
    Sebastian accepted the invitation. They took a chest out of the berline to sit on and a basket of the aforementioned provisions and started to eat, looking pensively back at the city. Sebastian chewed the sticky, tasteless flesh of a freshwater fish, and found himself involuntarily thinking of Ornella. It exasperated him, but how could he get her out of his mind? He saw her in the Kremlin’s cellars, in the barouche, he heard her saying ‘It’s the saltfish-sellers’ street, Monsieur Sebastian …’ He sighed, his mouth full. He would have liked to talk about his anxieties, but with whom? This Henri Beyle? He spat some bones onto the ground.
    â€˜What are you thinking about, Monsieur le secrétaire?’
    â€˜The burning of Rome,’ lied the young man.
    â€˜Let’s hope Moscow’s won’t last nine days! When I think people have blamed Nero for starting it!’
    â€˜There’s no doubt Rostopchin organized Moscow’s fire, Monsieur Beyle.’
    â€˜This Rostopchin will either be a scoundrel or a hero. We’ll have to see how his plan turns out.’
    â€˜The Russian historians will accuse Napoleon, the way the Latin historians accused Nero.’
    â€˜Suetonius? Tacitus? Those aristocrats who hated an Emperor who was too well liked by the people? Add the slanders of the victorious Christians and you have an odious reputation to last for centuries.’
    The two Imperial functionaries drank their lukewarm white wine out of Chinese porcelain cups, and spoke about the destruction of Rome as they gazed on that of Moscow. That night they needed to escape into the past in order to feel they belonged to history.
    â€˜Did Nero really have nothing to do with it?’ asked Sebastian.
    â€˜Listen … The fire caught at the foot of the Palatine in some sheds which were used to store oil. The wind was blowing from the south. The conflagration, like today, spread quickly through a town made up of little woodframe houses jammed up against one another. Nero returns from Antium, where he has been resting, sees his capital devastated, its treasures from all over the world in flames – his library, the former Temple of the Moon, Romulus’s sanctuary, the great