The man gave a crack of laughter and spat out some vile oath, settling the knife more comfortably in his grimy paw.
'But he is armed!' Marianne wailed. 'He will kill you.'
Now it was the Cossack's turn to laugh, his slanting eyes narrowed to gleaming slits as he surveyed his adversary:
'He? His knife will not save him. I have slain bears and tamed wild horses with these bare hands. I shall have throttled him in two minutes, knife or no!'
Then, with a powerful thrust of steely muscles, Chernychev sprang. Caught off-balance, the other man fell heavily, with a choking gasp, striving to tear away the hands that clutched ferociously at his throat, half-throttling him before he could use his weapon. The knife had fallen from his hand and Marianne bent quickly to seize it, but the man was strong for all his gaunt frame and already he had wrenched his neck free and was making a recovery. Both men rolled over and over on the ground, as closely intertwined as a pair of fighting snakes engaged in a savage struggle on the damp grass of a smoothly-shaven lawn.
The Russian was a skilful wrestler and Marianne was not greatly alarmed for him. She was confident that he would emerge victorious. Then, suddenly, she realized to her horror that two more men in working clothes and three-decker caps were creeping up silently on the struggling pair. She guessed that they were associates of the first bully coming to the rescue and knew that it would be no longer a fair fight. It came to her in a flash that Chernychev would need help and she looked round wildly, in time to see a company of soldiers entering the grounds by way of the walls, carrying stretchers and other rescue apparatus. Gathering up the rags of her dress, she ran towards them and seeing a group of men in green uniforms bending over the injured seized one of them by the arm.
'Count Chernychev!' she gasped out. 'He is in danger. Come quickly! They will kill him!'
The man whose arm she held turned and looked at her and so strong was the atmosphere of unreality which haunted that terrible night that Marianne felt almost no surprise to see it was Napoleon himself. Black with soot, his Chasseur uniform charred and torn, he was supervising the removal of an injured woman who lay moaning softly on a stone bench. It must have been he who, on his way back to the stricken embassy, had called out the rescue parties who were already taking control of the grounds. He spoke briefly:
'Who will kill him?'
'Some men… over there, by the bushes! They attacked me and the Count came to my rescue. Hurry, there are three of them, all armed – and he is alone, with nothing but his bare hands—'
'Who are these men?'
'I don't know. Robbers! They came over the wall—'
The Emperor stood up. His grey eyes, set beneath frowning brows, were hard as stone, as he called out: 'Eugene! Duroc! Over here! It seems there is murder being done now.'
With the viceroy of Italy and the Duke of Frioul hard on his heels, the Emperor of the French sped off as fast as his legs would carry him to the assistance of the Russian attaché. Marianne, assured now of Chernychev's safety, wandered back automatically towards the fountains. She did not know what to do now, or where to go. She watched, beyond either surprise or relief, the arrival of the fire brigade at last, or of what passed for the fire brigade, for they numbered only six men in all, and those more than three-parts drunk. She heard Savary's roars of rage:
'Six of you, only! Where are the rest?'
'We – don't know, General.'
'What of your commander, that fool Ledoux? Where is he?'
'I-in the country, General…'
'Six!' Savary was beside himself with rage. 'Six out of two hundred and ninety-three! And where are the pumps?'
'Here – but there's no water. The conduits in the Grand Boulevards are locked fast and we have not the key.'
'And where is the key?'
The fireman's answer was an evasive gesture which served to madden the already infuriated Chief of Police still further. Marianne saw him turn and hurry away, dragging the unfortunate fireman with him, while the wretched man fought desperately to keep his feet, knowing that any moment would surely bring him face-to-face with an anger far more terrible than any Minister's.
Yet help was forthcoming. The Imperial Guard, summoned by Napoleon and reinforced by a regiment of tirailleurs, was now engaged in attempting to save the embassy and those within. The tall ladder had been fetched from the library in the rue de la Loi and the waters of the fountains had been pressed into service. But Marianne soon lost interest in all that was happening around her. Now that the Emperor had taken charge, everything would be all right. She could hear his ringing tones somewhere in the garden…
Her head ached and her mind was a blank. She felt bruised in every inch of her body and yet was unable to summon up the strength to try and get away, to find a carriage to take her home. Something had snapped inside her and she gazed round, with what was almost indifference, at the scene of unbelievable devastation which filled the gardens. The terrible fire which, in a few minutes, had transformed a happy, elegant assembly of people into a scene of carnage was too much like the circumstances of her own life not to have a profound effect on her. This tragic ball had dealt her the final blow, the last, unbearable wound. And she had no one to blame but herself. How could she have been so blind to her real feelings? There had been so many wrong turnings, so much obstinacy in the face of the evidence, of the advice even of her best friends, so many fruitless struggles against nothing, all culminating at last in this cruel ending which resolved itself into a single image, the image of Jason carrying another woman in his arms, and it had taken all this for the truth to break upon her unwilling eyes at last, blindingly but too late: she loved Jason, she had always loved him, even when she believed herself in love with another, even when she thought she hated him. How could she have failed to realize it when, in her bridal chamber at Selton Hall, she had felt herself swooning under his stolen kiss? How could she have failed to understand in the midst of her joy at seeing him in the caverns of Chaillot, her disappointment when he left Paris without seeing her, excitement at finding the camellias in her dressing-room on the night of her one, public concert, the impatience and, at last, the bitter disappointment when she had looked for him in vain, along all the roads of Italy, right up to the last moment before she pledged herself to an insensate marriage? She could still hear Adelaide saying with quiet concern: 'You are quite sure you do not love him?'
Yes, she had been sure then, in her folly and pride at having enslaved the giant of Europe in the burning chains of sensual passion. For in that bitterest moment of all, Marianne looked clearly at last at the real nature of the bond between her and the Emperor. She had loved him with pride and with terror, with a delight that carried with it a faint, delicious sense of danger and forbidden fruit; she had loved him with all the ardour of her youth and her eager flesh which, through him, had come to know the magic spell born of the perfect unison of two bodies. But she knew now that her love had been made of wonder and gratitude. She had fallen victim to the curious power of attraction he possessed over other human beings and, even suffering from his neglect, the jealousy she had felt was a fierce, burning thing that was somehow stimulating. It was not this pain, this rending agony, this uncontrollable quivering of her whole being at the thought of Jason and Pilar together. And now that she had lost, lost for ever the happiness which had lain so long within her grasp, Marianne felt that she had lost also the will to live.
Feeling that her life was ruined through her own fault, she felt again, more strongly than ever, the sense of being nothing but an empty doll which had haunted her on her arrival at the ball. In her blind folly and pride, she had allowed Jason to slip through her fingers and, turning to another woman, join his life with hers. Pilar was the one who would live with him in the land where the cotton grew, where the black men sang, she would share each moment of his life and sleep at night in his arms, and bear his children…