The Retreat Read Online Free PDF Page A

night in the suburb, but he was sending members of his household ahead to prepare for his occupation of the Kremlin. Baron Fain, therefore, was dispatching his clerk with the job of setting up a secretariat as close as possible to the Emperor’sapartments, within range of his voice. Several barouches filled up with staff with similar tasks. A detachment of elite gendarmes opened the road for them.
    *
    The Kalitzin mansion, with its colonnade, was modelled on a Greek temple, like the English Club on the Stratsnoi Boulevard. At its magnificent entrance, two vast dogs with spiked iron collars were barking; muscles bulging, they strained at the chains attaching them to wall-rings and threw vicious looks with their yellow eyes, slavering and baring their fangs. D’Herbigny, arm outstretched, was aiming his pistol at the first one’s mouth when one of the double doors opened on a bewigged major-domo. He wore livery and held a whip: ‘No, no! Don’t kill them!’
    â€˜You speak French?’ the captain asked in amazement.
    â€˜As is customary in polite society.’
    â€˜Let us in and get these wild beasts of yours under control !’
    â€˜I have been waiting for you.’
    â€˜You’re joking?’
    â€˜These are not the most conducive circumstances.’
    He cracked his leather strap. The mastiffs sank into sphinx-like poses, but continued growling quietly at the back of their throats. D’Herbigny, Paulin and a group of dragoons mistrustfully followed the major-domo into a stone-flagged hall. His master, Count Kalitzin, had left that morning with the family and servants, entrusting him with the task of handing the house over to an officer to prevent it being looted. The same arrangement existed in most of the large residences that had been abandoned; the owners hoped to recover them unharmed as soon as the twoEmperors came to an agreement. It seemed self-evident that the French and their allies couldn’t stay in the city for ever.
    â€˜Which is why, General, I place myself, wholly and without reserve, at your service,’ the major-domo explained.
    The captain threw out his chest like a bantam, neither correcting the flattery, nor even suspecting a trace of irony in the fulsome declaration. From a glance at the lighter patches of different sizes on the wallpaper, he knew that the paintings had been taken away, along, no doubt, with the main valuables. There wasn’t much to loot in the hall, apart from an unwieldy chandelier and some tapestries. The dragoons were waiting in the gloom for permission to inspect the pantry and cellars, since their throats were as dry as dust, when they heard dogs’ howling and roars of laughter. The captain went back out under the colonnade, the major-domo at his heels. Keeping well back, some chasseurs were goading the mastiffs with a piece of broken glass stuck on the end of a pike; the animals were choking on their chains, snapping, biting on nothing but glass, blood dripping from their lips; they were becoming crazed, pawing the air.
    â€˜Stop those idiots!’ d’Herbigny bellowed at a pock-marked sergeant.
    â€˜They’re as high as uhlans, sir!’
    Shouting, d’Herbigny laid into the guffawing chasseurs with the flat of his sabre to chase them off, but they were very drunk and one of them, still laughing, fell flat on his backside. The major-domo tried to quieten the dogs with his whip, but the pain in their mouths and the general commotion only made them more agitated.
    The avenue was filling with soldiers of the Guardlooking for alcohol, fresh meat, loot and the girl of their fantasies. A drum-major in full uniform gave directions to his musicians who were carrying sofas. Brandy flowed in a stream from the staved-in door of a shop; a squad of gendarmes with their peaked caps were bringing out barrels and rolling them over to a handcart. Another gendarme, whose yellow cross-belt could be seen under a stolen coat