That was fine for daydreaming, but Calvin wasn't no fool. He could do that agony trick once, and get one day's worth of teaching, but then before he next fell asleep, he'd better be long gone from Paris, from France, and from anywhere on God's green Earth where Napoleon's agents might find him. No, he couldn't force Napoleon. He had to stay and put up with the excruciatingly slow pace of the lessons, the sheer repetitiveness. In the meantime, he observed carefully, trying to see what it was Napoleon was doing that Calvin didn't understand. He never saw a thing that made sense.
What was left for him, then, but to try out the things Napoleon had taught him about manipulating other people, and see if he could figure out more by pure experimentation? That was what finally, brought him into contact with other people– the desire to learn how to control them.
Trouble was, the only people around were the staff, and they were all busy. What's worse, they were also under Napoleon's direct control, and it wouldn't do to let the Emperor see that somebody else was trying to win control of his toadies. He might get the wrong idea. He might think Calvin was trying to undermine his power, which wasn't true– Calvin didn't care a hoot about taking Napoleon's place. What was a mere Emperor when there was a Maker in the world?
Two Makers, that is. Two.
Who could Calvin try out his new-learned powers on? After a little wandering around the palace and the government buildings, he began to realize that there was another class of person altogether. Idle and frustrated, they were Calvin's natural subjects: the sons of Napoleon's clerks and courtiers.
They all had roughly the same biography: As their fathers rose to positions of influence, they got sent away to steadily better boarding schools, then emerged at sixteen or seventeen with education, ambition, and no social prestige whatsoever, which meant that most doors were closed to them except to follow in their fathers' footsteps and become completely dependent upon the Emperor. For some of them, this was perfectly all right; Calvin left those hardworking, contented souls alone.
The ones he found interesting were the desultory law students, the enthusiastically untalented poets and dramatists, the gossiping seducers looking around for women rich enough to be desirable and stupid enough to be taken in by such pretenders. Calvin's French improved greatly the more he conversed with them, and even as he followed Napoleon's lessons and learned to find what vices drove these young men, so he could flatter and exploit and control them, he also discovered that he enjoyed their company. Even the fools among them were entertaining, with their lassitude and cynicism, and now and then he found some truly clever and fascinating companions.
Those were the most difficult to win control of, and Calvin told himself that it was the challenge rather than the pleasure of their company that kept him coming back to them again and again. One of them most of alclass="underline" Honor‚. A skinny, short man with prematurely rotten teeth, he was a year older than Calvin's brother Alvin. Honor‚ was without manners; Calvin soon learned that it wasn't because he didn't know how to behave, but rather because he wished to shock people, to show his contempt for their stale forms, and most of all because he wished to command their attention, and being faintly repulsive all the time had the desired effect. He might start with their contempt or disgust, but within fifteen minutes he always had them laughing at his wit, nodding at his insights, their eyes shining with the dazzlement of his conversation.
Calvin even allowed himself to think that Honor‚ had some of the same gift Napoleon had been born with, that by studying him Calvin might learn a few of the secrets the Emperor still withheld.
At first Honor‚ ignored Calvin, not in particular but in the general way that he ignored everyone who had nothing to offer him. Then he must have heard from someone that Calvin saw the Emperor every day, that in fact the Emperor used him as his personal healer. At once Calvin became acceptable, so much so that Honor‚ began inviting him along on his nighttime jaunts.
«I am studying Paris,» said Honor‚. «No, let me correct myself– I am studying humankind, and Paris has a large enough sampling of that species to keep me occupied for many years. I study all people who depart from the norm, for their very abnormalities teach me about human nature: If the actions of this man surprise me, it is because I must have learned, over the years, to expect men to behave in a different way. Thus I learn not only the oddity of the one, but also the normality of the many.»
“And how am I odd?” asked Calvin.
“You are odd because you actually listen to my ideas instead of my wit. You are an eager student of genius, and I half suspect that you may have genius yourself.”
“Genius?” asked Calvin.
“The extraordinary spirit that makes great men great. It is perfect piety that turns men into saints or angels, but what about men who are indifferently pious but perfectly intelligent or wise or perceptive? What do they become? Geniuses. Patron saints of the mind, of the eye, of the mind's eye! I intend, when I die, to have my name invoked by those who pray for wisdom. Let the saints have the prayers of those who need miracles.” He cocked his head and looked up at Calvin. “You're too tall to be honest. Tall men always tell lies, since they assume short men like me will never see clearly enough to contradict them.”
“Can't help being tall,” said Calvin.
“Such a lie,” said Honord. “You wanted to be tall when you were young, just as I wanted to be closer to the earth, where my eye could see the details large men miss. Though I do hope to be fat someday, since fatness would mean I had more than enough to eat, and that, my dear Yankee, would be a delicious change. It's a commonplace idea that geniuses are never understood and therefore never become popular or make money from their brilliance. I think this is pure foolishness. A true genius will not only be smarter than everyone else, but will be so clever that he'll know how to appeal to the masses without compromising his brilliance. Hence: I write novels.”
Calvin almost laughed. “Those silly stories women read!”
“The very ones. Fainting heiresses. Dullard husbands. Dangerous lovers. Earthquakes, revolutions, fires, and interfering aunts. I write under several noms de plume, but my secret is that even as I master the art of being popular and therefore rich, I am also using the novel to explore the true state of humankind in this vast experimental tank known as Paris, this hive with an imperial queen who surrounds himself with drones like my poor stingless unflying father, the seventh secretary of the morning rotation– you gave him a hotfoot once, you miserable prankster, he wept that night at the humiliation of it and I vowed to kill you someday, though I think I probably won't– I have never kept a promise yet.”
“When do you write? You're here all the time.” Calvin gestured to include the environs of the government buildings.
«How would you know, when you aren't here all the time? By night I pass back and forth between the grand salons of the cream of society and the finest brothels ever created by the scum of the earth. And in the mornings, when you're taking emperor lessons from M. Bonaparte, I hole up in my miserable poet's garret– where my mother's housekeeper brings me fresh bread every day, so don't weep for me yet, not until I get syphilis or tuberculosis– and I write furiously, filling page after page with scintillating prose. I tried my hand at poetry once, a long play, but I discovered that by imitating Racine, one learns primarily to become as tedious as Racine, and by studying MoliЉre, one learns that MoliЉre was a lofty genius not to be trifled with by pathetic young imitators.»