Widow Truchaut took up again where she had left off, even before she had emerged from the cellar stairs. She must have been starved of conversation for quite a while. “Then, finally, I had to tell him about the situation we were in, but it was too late. He was already very ill — his liver, his stomach, nothing was functioning properly, not to mention the shrapnel wound in his back that still troubled him. But Truchaut was a fighter by nature; his body had given up long ago, but he had great self-control; it was always mind over matter. What spirit! At heart he was a great idealist, as the medical officer, Dr. Lambert-Laruelle, used to say. He was like a man possessed. But he burned the candle at both ends. And then, when his health finally broke down—fftt—it was all over in a few days. One morning he lay down there on the old sofa”—she pointed toward a whitish horizontal outline on the empty wall—“and never got up again. He was still conscious, but didn’t speak again. Or was he really conscious? I couldn’t be certain. His eyes were wide open but lifeless, as if he wasn’t really seeing anything. It was probably just as well, really. He didn’t even seem to notice when the men came to take all our stuff away. Those ruffians would have snatched the sofa from under him if, in the end, I hadn’t kicked them out so that he could at least die in peace before they looted everything!… Ah yes, sir, that’s how he left us, and since then nothing has gone right, but don’t let that stop you from having a drink.”
She took a mug out of the cupboard. As the door opened and shut, Napoleon could see that it was pitifully empty. She filled the mug to the brim with rosé.
The wine was cool and lively on the tongue. Her voice, even when she was describing disasters, still had a kind of cheerfulness. In the midst of ruination, this woman radiated a warmth and vitality which could be felt in the old house itself, in spite of its being so bare.
She talked at great length, pouring out her heart. He found himself listening without any impatience as she described the exploits of the late Second Lieutenant Truchaut, his companions, and their barroom conspiracies. Not that he was at all interested in what she said, but he drew an odd feeling of comfort from her cheerful energy, while the rosé, consumed on an empty stomach after a tiring journey, filled him with unusual benevolence. Sitting close to this simple soul, in the big room with its stone floor polished with age, watching it slowly filling with the soft shadows of evening, he had the feeling that, after drifting for so many months, he was for the first time on solid ground again.
IT WAS NOT UNTIL the room was almost dark that a silence fell at last. The visitor had no desire to take his leave. He could not face the prospect of departing from this unexpected haven and continuing his endless wandering in the cold indifference of unfamiliar streets. But how could he induce Widow Truchaut to offer him a bed for the night?
As he was vainly mulling this question over in his mind, a surprising turn of events suddenly came to his rescue.
All at once the sound of children’s voices was heard in the street. The door was flung open and half a dozen scruffy kids rushed into the room in a state of high excitement.
“You rascals!” screamed Widow Truchaut, full of motherly indignation, her hand raised ready to give them a clout. “Can’t you see I have a visitor? You monkeys!”
“Ostrich, Ostrich! Listen, listen!” the children squealed in their shrill voices, but as they were all shouting at once, it was impossible to understand anything.
Then three men, breathing hard, burst into the room. The last of the three shut the door carefully behind him. Silence. The children, who had been their advance guard, were now huddled together against the wall, all aquiver with the special thrill that children feel at the news that some major catastrophe has occurred in the world of adults.
Napoleon’s eyes were now accustomed to the darkness of the room, and he easily guessed who the newcomers were — their bearing alone betrayed their background. The tall beardless one with the horseman’s rolling gait was probably Sergeant Maurice, whom the widow had mentioned earlier; the bald head and the potbelly no doubt belonged to the medical officer, Dr. Latruelle-Something. As to the last of the trio, he had the swollen features of an absinthe drinker. His face, as worn as an old doormat, had the vacuous look so typical of loyal old soldiers who have never risen above the ranks.
“Ostrich…” The medical officer began to speak in a hoarse, solemn voice. (A moment ago Napoleon had been shocked to hear the children addressing the widow in this manner. Now, however, from the serious way the newcomer used the nickname, he presumed that the bad joke was of such ancient origin that it had lost any humorous connotation.) The medical officer stopped: he had just noticed the presence of a stranger in the room.
“You can speak freely, Major,” the Ostrich said, “he’s one of us.” She introduced Lieutenant Lenormand. The three men shook hands with him silently and very solemnly, as one does at a funeral.
“Ostrich…” the medical officer continued, his voice more husky than ever, “and you, comrade,” he added, turning to Napoleon, “the news that I must… that we have just… Oh, read it for yourselves…” He took from his pocket a sheet of newspaper almost rolled into a ball, which no one could have deciphered in the growing darkness, and collapsed onto a stool, his head bowed, his fingers working the crumpled paper into a rag.
Then, in doleful chorus, the beardless horseman and the nameless drunkard finished for him: “Ladies and gentlemen, alas! The Emperor is dead.”
V. THE CONQUEST OF PARIS
THE NEWS, which had struck Napoleon like a thunderbolt, shocked him even more deeply than his companions — though there were naturally very different reasons for his dismay.
He had no trouble playing the part during the funeral vigil which took place that evening at the Ostrich’s house. The personal fate of his double scarcely affected him (to tell the truth, he felt intense annoyance at this idiot who, entrusted with a unique mission, had carelessly allowed himself to die at a time when he was still needed); but he had only to consider the consequences of that disastrous death to be able with no pretense whatsoever to give an impression of utter consternation to the assembled company. At the same time, he was touched to see the sincere emotion of those who surrounded him. The thought that these humble people could be so overcome by the mere idea that he was dead moved him so much that his tears flowed effortlessly with theirs.
It was a long vigil. They wept, talked, drank. That night, a strange intimacy, forged from their common grief, bound together these old children who found themselves all at once orphans of the same dream. In their helplessness, they clung ever closer together, and when it was finally time to get some rest, they could not reconcile themselves to the idea of sending this brother in arms, whom fate had so recently entrusted to them, off into the profane indifference of the outside world. So it was quite natural that Napoleon should accept the improvised bed which they made for him out of old rags heaped up in a corner of the big room. The medical officer, who boarded with the widow, insisted on giving him his mattress. The lugubrious cavalryman and the nameless drunkard took their leave; they shared a garret somewhere near the cul-de-sac.