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

and so on. Sister republics? I’m not quite sure about sister republics.”
    Some of them knew what he meant, though not Larevelliere.
    “Time to worry about that later,” Barras said.
    S he turned herself into a thing. He was not heavy though he was very active. The guns and fireworks of Turin were now a steady headache, and they flashed through the pitch dark. And the dinner, with Joseph Bonaparte there. The whole family soon, Corsican claws. Oh, the cold greasiness of that main meat dish. The Palazzo Serbelloni, rose and crystal candy granite, nothing too good for her.
    He floods in me like a river, she thought. Like urine.
    “Oh my God oh my. Angel oh my own heart’s. Blood. How I’ve been able to. Sustain this. Long time of waiting only God. And the angels know. And even now, my celestial vision, it is. As it was at the beginning. A snatch of heaven in your arms and then. Back to it.”
    “To what?”
    “The war, Würmser, the Austrians. But we won’t think of the Austrians today or tomorrow, my seraph. We won’t move out of this bedroom.”
    “Do we have to have it so dark? I like the moon and the sun to follow. This is like being blind.”
    “And blind is what I am except for this light in the center of my soul. My fingers must learn your beauty by night. Blasted. Damn that. I won’t have that dog in here, I’m not going to share a bed with a. Damn. Right on the shin.”
    “My precious. Mmmmm. Mother’s brave little pug. Tomorrow,” she said with relief, “is Bastille Day. A gala performance at La Scala and a ball after.”
    “Oh.” And then: “There’ve been a lot of balls in Paris. And you at every one. That was courageous. Take that dog’s nose away.”
    “He can’t see in the dark, can you, angel? Why courageous? Oh, I see what you mean. It was duty, really. They couldn’t have you so they wanted me.”
    “Ah. All that dancing—could it have possibly—”
    “It was a false one. It sometimes happens. But it made me very tired. Oh, Eugène and Hortense send their love.”
    “We must have children of our own. We will .”
    And, straight to the target again, as ever, pushing the snarling bundle away, the reserves pouring in fast and joyful, he was back on to his angel and heart’s blood. She tried to think of Charles, but it was difficult. The one did not fit easily into the other’s body, not even in the dark.
    And then: “Where will you be going, and for how long?”
    “Mantua. We’re besieging the Austrians there. If it looks like being a long business, then, core of my innermost heart of light, I shall send for you.”
    “Oh no.”
    “Is you scared then of the nasty blood and noisywoise, sweetheart?” For a moment she thought he was talking to Fortuné. “But you was so brave in Paris. Besides,” he said, lopping the baby-talk clean off, “you’ll be a long way from the noise of the guns. They’ll be just summer thunder, the cannon. The muskets will go ping ping.” One ping for each nipple.
    “Ow. Oh no.”
    I n her dream her husband was trying to take her naked on the terrace, in the presence of the servants who were clearing the table: she distinctly saw a spot of coffee fall from the lifted pot on to the marble pavimento. Oh no, oh no. But he kept laughing that this was the town of Romeo and Juliet. Then they both saw white specks like ash drifting slowly down the mountains. “Good God, they got through,” he said. Then the Austrians were climbing by vine-ropes on to the terrace itself, and she tried in vain to cover her nakedness.
    Her maid Louise woke her, sleeping in her clothes. “Colonel Junot, madame. And a lot of soldiers.” There were whinnyings and clompings outside on the cobbles. This was Peschi something. Peschiera. She could hear General Guillaume talking in the next room: responsibility patrol boats on the lake advised her strongly strongly insisted responsibility.
    There was bad coffee and yesterday’s bread. “We set up,” said Junot, “a