“Who says so? Who says so?” she cried through the chaos of voices.
“It can’t be helped,” one man said. “The great ones have made their decision.”
The little room was jammed. They stood crowded together or crouched on crates they had brought, or on chairs, stools, and Wokurka’s bed, as thick gray clouds of smoke wafted from their pipes; it looked as if there were even more guests than there actually were, all with the same faces. One of them — an old Polish legionnaire, with the Legion of Honor upon his tattered, heavily stained uniform, a gray black beard, and bright red cheeks — took a bottle from his coat pocket, raised it, took a big gulp and said: “Ah!” so loudly and so severely that it could not be mistaken for satisfaction but sounded like resentment and annoyance; and it was true that resentment and ill humor has long been smoldering within his heart and the drink was stoking the flames. He took another swig, for he felt he would very soon need to say something extraordinary. Quite simply his honor demanded it. He was good-hearted, excitable, and boisterous. Wokurka knew him well. Together they had marched, together they had fought, together they had drunk and eaten — even sharing the same plate and the same pipe. Although amid the thick smoke all the faces were cloudy and distorted, Wokurka could recognize in the eyes of his friend — Jan Zyzurak was his name and he had once been a blacksmith — that old flickering flame that meant this Zyzurak was in a state of extreme agitation. Wokurka was afraid of what Zyzurak would do; there were women present. The midwife Pocci, Angelina, and Véronique Casimir sat silently on the bed where a spot had been cleared for them. They were scared, uncertain what would happen next. The men and the spirits they were consuming — each of them carried a flask in his threadbare pocket — their desperate faces and their grim talk instilled a great fear in the women. Yet they did not dare get up.
As for Zyzurak, his second long gulp made him see the guests not double but tenfold. He believed himself to be standing outside before a vast crowd of people, and spirits came over him, the spirit of his ill-fated Polish fatherland, and also the spirit of the Emperor. Both of these spirits commanded him to speak and he felt he had numerous and important things to say. He raised both hands imploringly and in a loud voice requested silence and light (“for it is already evening,” he said, “and I need to see you when I speak to you”). Someone lit the three candles in the lantern. The light was immediately lost within the grayish-blue smoke, not bright enough for the blacksmith to see his friends. Nevertheless, he believed he could see his audience of thousands perfectly. He was standing under open sky on a warm summer’s night, and eight lanterns were shining as brightly as eight moons. “People of Paris!” he began. “Yes, people of France! I have received a secret message that right now the Emperor Napoleon is being dragged to England, to the Prince Regent’s fortress in London. They are already sharpening the hatchet that will behead him. Can you hear the blade being honed? Are we girls or men? The Emperor did not leave the country willingly, as the newspapers would have us believe. Those whom he thought were his closest friends betrayed him and forced him onto a ship. A general — you all know who, and I would be ashamed to speak his name — betrayed his plans to the enemy three hours before the battle. Treachery! Betrayal! Everywhere treachery!” He paused and stretched out his hand.
“Treachery! Treachery!” cried the others. “He’s right! He’s right!”
The blacksmith continued on in this vein for some time, but the others were no longer listening. They were only a small group of twelve men, but each of them had drunk too much and eaten too little. They were all seeing double and triple, and Zyzurak’s salutation still rang in their ears — “People of Paris!” — and every one of them felt the words were addressed to him specifically. They did not even notice when eventually their comrade stopped speaking. He had broken off in the midst of his speech. One of them, a sergeant of the Thirteenth Chasseurs, was convinced that the only thing left to do was raise a cheer, the old cheer that he had so often voiced. “Long live the Emperor!” All answered with the same cry. They removed their pipes from their mouths and set their bottles upon their lips once again. Suddenly someone began to sing that old tune whose melody had been ever present as they were transformed into men and soldiers. They sang, hoarsely and with drunken hearts, the “Marseillaise,” the song of the French people, the song of the Emperor and his battles. The lantern rocked violently over Zyzurak’s head and the windows rattled. Those who were seated stood up and sang. They kept the beat by tapping their feet. Although they remained in their seats they all felt they were marching along the great roads of the world, roads along which the Emperor had once led them. Only when the song was over did they look upon each other helplessly and foolishly. The magic had vanished. Gone were the broad highways of their army days. They realized they were still in Wokurka’s room.
It was quiet for some time. The men all stood there, with numb arms, while the women looked on, faces hot, red, and embarrassed. “Let’s go!” cried someone amid the silence. “Let’s go!” others repeated. “Where to?” asked Wokurka.
“Where? Don’t listen to him!” cried the chasseur. “I’ll lead you! What is life to us? Who among you is afraid to lose it?”
They were inspired by the sound of their own voices, weak from the hunger raging within them for days, intoxicated by the liquor that had alone fueled them, light-headed from the smoke, and crushed by their misfortune. They saw their potential actions not as futile but easy and natural; not as foolish but useful. Yet still they hesitated, indecisive and tentative. Suddenly Angelina shouted, as if someone else were speaking through her, some unknown being crying out of her — “Let’s go!” She yelled it with such a piercing voice she shocked herself, and she actually looked around trying to determine from whom the cry had actually issued. She stepped forward, toward the door, and the astonished men made way almost as if her sharp cry had forged ahead and cleared a path for her. She was bareheaded, her red hair flamed and her poor little freckled face was hard, spiteful, grief-stricken, and suddenly quite old. She had no idea what was motivating her but after standing at the door briefly she went out and the men followed her. Into the street and under the silvery blue evening sky this ragtag little group marched, silent at first except for the sound of Wokurka’s wooden leg pounding against the stones. Suddenly, the chasseur began to sing the “Marseillaise.” The rest of them sang along. They filled the lane with their hoarse singing. Windows flew open. People looked out. Some waved. Others cried: “Long live the Emperor!” They were not far from the royal palace, and this realization awoke within them a fervent but senseless desire to head there. They were a small party, a ridiculously tiny party! But as they howled so loudly, cheers flying at them from numerous windows, it seemed to them they numbered in the hundreds, in the thousands, the entire population of France. A moment later, however, they heard from the bank of the Seine, the direction in which they were heading, a hostile song and an empowering cry from a thousand actual throats, a cry of: “Long live the King!”
So the ragged little band headed straight into the midst of a tremendous parade of royalists. At this point they stopped for a moment, but then turned around and scattered. Only Wokurka, who was at the tail end, tried to reach Angelina. He saw as she too hesitated at first. But then she ran forward straight into the flank of the crowd. Her red hair looked to be ablaze, truly on fire. She had raised her arms, her dress fluttered, and she seemed to be flying, her head crowned by a flaming torch. With a shrill scream, which to Wokurka sounded inhuman, savagely animal, and yet at the same time boomed with heavenly authority, she launched herself straight into the dense, dark throng. “Long live the Emperor!” she screeched. And once more: “Long live the Emperor!” Wokurka watched as they seized her. Part of the surging crowd paused for a second — no longer than that. Then Angelina was whirling about in the air above their heads. Her dark chest puffed out and hands were raised to catch. Once more she was tossed up high but this time she was not caught. She fell to the ground somewhere and the crowd marched endlessly onward.