Napoleon Symphony: A Novel in Four Movements Read Online Free Page A

believe it. We shall be in Milan in a day or so, and she will not be many days after. Murat should be in Paris by now. He will bring her, you will see.”
    “Y ou will be receiving a letter,” Saliceti said. “Meanwhile I am empowered to tell you of the Directory’s intentions.”
    Bells bells bells, but now it was merely angelic noontime in Milan.
    “The Directory would have made no difficulty about preparing a passport for her,” Bonaparte said. “As for a letter, Murat has written—she is a bad letter-writer, God bless the girl. It seems I am to be a father. You must put off that stern look and have some wine. This absconding archduke kept a good cellar. There’s a fine bin of—”
    “I refer to different business altogether.”
    “—Chambertin. Business?”
    “It is the Directory’s intention to split the command. General Kellermann of the Army of the Moselle—”
    Bonaparte sat down on a magnificent uncomfortable chair. He noted a quick irrelevance: mouse-dirt under the escritoire.
    “—to continue the northern campaign against the Austrians. You to fight Austria’s southern allies.”
    “Kellermann is sixty-odd. He lives on his reputation at Valmy. I am, in effect, demoted.” He picked up the keys of Milan, very heavy, very solid. “Set in his ways, thinks he’s God. I’m not having it. I’ll resign first. Where’s their sense, let alone their gratitude? No, forget the gratitude. Nobody has a monopoly of the Revolution. Said that before, didn’t I? All I say now is that joint command ruins everything. You need the single voice. The fools. One bad general is better than two good ones. Tell them that from me. I’ll tell them myself, I’ll be writing a letter.”
    “You mean that about resignation?”
    “That’s my duty to the army, not that anybody in Paris cares much about duty. Or should I say it’s all one-way duty with them. I told the army all about the Directory’s confidence in them through me. They’re simple men, they believe in these things, they need them. Now they’re going to have this stuck-up swine with the Austrian name barking at them.”
    “Alsatian. I see. You’re just threatening resignation.”
    “Dirty politicians. You need the single voice.”
    “That sounds like a threat too.”
    T hey were sitting in an alcove, taking a sorbet. The swish of the ball-gowns and the clink of the medals came through, along with the sweet and lively violins.
    “There was another thing I heard. General Bonaparte has got off the Po and is now busily wiping up .”
    She laughed, taking care to hide her teeth. Bad teeth or not, he was thinking, she has this very rare thing, can’t quite think of the word. Grace? That sounds religious. Hair covered with roses for her real name, the high-waisted silk sheath made to cling with Cologne water to her breasts, the most delicate instep, the delicious pose of languor. Bonaparte sent letters full of extravagant desires (“feed off your throat, bite off your nipples and watch new ones grow like rosebuds, wear out your little cunt with kisses”), but he, Lieutenant Hippolyte Charles, had the pleasure of real fulfillments, neither poetically extravagant nor Corsican coarse. Call it vicarious, a subaltern’s duty to a general. That she would not find funny, she talked too much of love. And money. She needed money for flowers and gowns and shoes. There were so many victory balls these days. He himself was not doing too well for money.
    “How much longer,” he said, “do you think you can put it off?”
    “You live one more day, just like in the Carmes prison. Besides, I’m ill, or pregnant—I’m not sure which.”
    “Not well enough to make the journey. But Junot and Murat are still waiting. And still writing, presumably. There are also the newspapers, which undoubtedly lui sees. Interesting that our poor sick Lady of Victories should be the belle of the Luxembourg ball.”
    She looked at him puzzled. “Do you want me to go?”
    “The