«Nothing,» said Calvin happily. He was especially happy because not five minutes before, Calvin had decided that he wanted Honor‚ to accompany him to America, and so by the tiniest of gestures, by certain looks and signs that Honor‚ was never aware of, he caused the young novelist to like him, to be excited by the work that Calvin had to do, and to want so much to be a part of it that he would come home to America with him. Best of all, Calvin had brought it off so skillfully that Honor‚ obviously had no idea that he had been manipulated into it.
In the meantime, Honor‚'s idea of curing Napoleon's pain once and for all appealed to him. That place in the brain where pain resided still waited for him. Only instead of stimulating it, all he had to do was cauterize it. It would not only cure Napoleon's gout, but would also cure all other pains, he might feel in the future.
So, having thought of it, having decided to do it, that night Calvin acted. And in the morning, when he presented himself to the Emperor, he saw at once that the Emperor knew what he had done.
“I cut myself this morning, sharpening a pen,” said Napoleon. “I only knew it when I saw the blood. I felt no pain at all.”
“Excellent,” said Calvin. “I finally found the way to end your pain from gout once and for all. It involved cutting off all pain for the rest of your life, but it's hard to imagine you'd mind.”
Napoleon looked away. “It was hard for Midas to imagine that he would not want everything he touched to turn to gold. I might have bled to death because I felt no pain.”
“Are you rebuking me?” said Calvin. “I give you a gift that millions of people pray for– to live a life without pain– and you're rebuking me? You're the Emperor– assign a servant to watch you day and night in order to make sure you don't unwittingly bleed to death.”
“This is permanent?” asked Napoleon.
“I can't cure the gout– the disease is too subtle for me. I never pretended to be perfect. But the pain I could cure, and so I did. I cured it now and forever. If I did wrong, I'll restore the pain to you as best I can. It won't be a pleasant operation, but I think I can get the balance back to about what it was before. Intermittent, wasn't it? A month of gout, and then a week without it, and then another month?”
“You've grown saucy.”
“No sir, I merely speak French better, so my native sauciness can emerge more clearly.”
“What's to stop me from throwing you out, then? Or having you killed, now that I don't need you anymore?”
“Nothing has ever stopped you from doing those things,” said,Calvin. “But you don't needlessly kill people, and as for throwing me out– well, why go to the trouble? I'm ready to leave. I'm homesick for America. My family is there.”
Napoleon nodded. “I see. You decided to leave, and then finally cured my pain.”
“My beloved Emperor, you wrong me,” said Calvin. “I found I could cure you, and then decided to leave.”
“I still have much to teach you.”
“And I have much to learn. But I fear I'm not clever enough to learn from you– the last several weeks you have taught me and taught me, and yet I keep feeling as if I have learned nothing new. I'm simply not a clever enough pupil to master your lessons. Why should I stay?”
Napoleon smiled. “Well done. Very well done. If I weren't Napoleon, you would have won me over completely. In fact, I would probably be paying your passage to America.”
“I was hoping you would, anyway, in gratitude for a painfree life.”
“Emperors can't afford to have petty emotions like gratitude. If I pay your passage it's not because I'm grateful to you, it's because I think my purpose will be better served with you gone and alive than with you, say, here and alive or, perhaps, here and dead, or the most difficult possibility, gone and dead.” Napoleon smiled.
Calvin smiled back. They understood each other, the Emperor and the young Maker. They had used each other and now were done with each other and would cast each other aside– but with style.
“I'll take the train to the coast this very day, begging your consent, sir.”
“My consent! You have more than my consent! My servants have already packed your bags and they are doubtless at the station as we speak.” Napoleon grinned, touched his forelock in an imaginary salute, and then watched as Calvin rushed from the room.
Calvin the American Maker and Honor‚ Balzac the annoyingly ambitious young writer, both gone from the country in the same day. And the pain of the gout now gone from him.
I'll have to be careful getting into the bath. I might scald myself to death without knowing it. I'll have to get someone else to climb into the water before me. I think I know just the young servant girl who should do it. I'll have to have her scrubbed first, so she doesn't foul the water for me. It will be interesting to see how much of the pleasure of the bath came from the slight pain of hot water. And was pain a part of sexual pleasure? It would be infuriating if the boy had interfered with that. Napoleon would have to have him hunted down and killed, if the boy had ruined that sport for him.
It didn't take long for the ballots to be counted in Hatrack River– by nine PM Friday, the elections clerk announced a decisive victory countywide for Tippy-Canoe, old Red Hand Harrison. Some had been drinking all through the election day; now the likker began to flow in earnest. Being a county seat, Hatrack drew plenty of farmers from the hinterland and smaller villages, for whom Hatrack was the nearest metropolis, having near a thousand people now; it was swollen to twice that number by ten in the evening. As word came in from each of the neighboring counties and from some across river that Tippy-Canoe was winning there, too, guns were shot off and so were mouths, which led to fisticuffs and a lot of traffic into and out of the jail.
Po Doggly came in about ten-thirty and asked Alvin if he'd mind too much being put on his own parole to go spend the night in the roadhouse– Horace Guester was standing bail for him, and did he give his solemn oath etcetera etcetera because the jail was needed to hold drunken brawlers ten to a cell. Alvin took the oath and Horace and Verily escorted him through back lots to the roadhouse. There was plenty of drinking and dancing downstairs in the common room of the roadhouse, but not the kind of rowdiness that prevailed at rougher places and out in the open, where wagons filled with likker were doing quite a business. Horace's party, as always, was for locals of the more civilized variety. Still, it wouldn't do no good for Alvin to show his face there and get rumors going, especially since there was bound to be some in the crowds infesting Hatrack River as wasn't particular friends of Alvin's– and a few that was particular friends of Makepeace's. Not to mention them as was always a particular friend of any amount of gold that might be obtained by stealth or violence. It was up the back stairs for Alvin, and even then he stooped and had his face covered and said nary a word the whole jaunt.
Up in Horace's own bedroom, where Arthur Stuart and Measure already had cots, Alvin paced the room, touching the walls, the soft bed, the window as if he had never seen such things before. “Even cooped up in here,” said Alvin, “it's better than a cell. I hope never to be back in such a place again.”
“Don't know how you've stood it this far,” said Horace. “I'd go plain bonkers in a week.”
“Who's to say he didn't?” said Measure.
Alvin laughed and agreed with him. “I was crazy not to let Verily go with his plans– I know that,” said Alvin.