Désirée (18 page)

"Marie and little George will always be well provided for," I said. He didn't hear me. "I promise," I repeated. His eyes glittered at nothing, his lips were contorted.

I jumped up and ran to the door. At that moment he sighed. His long sigh trembled through the room and was gone. "Come at once, doctor," I heard myself calling.

"It's all over," the little Italian answered, after bending
casually over the sofa. I went to the window and drew back the curtains. The morning crept grey and leaden into the room. I put out the low-burning candles.

In the next room they still sat at the table. The lackeys had brought fresh candles; the whole room, so bright and festive, seemed like another world.

"You must call off the ball, Joseph," I said.

Joseph sat up, startled. He had apparently been asleep, his chin resting on his chest. "What—what did you say? Oh, I see it's you, Désirée."

"You must call off the ball, Joseph," I said again.

"That's impossible. I have particularly ordered . . ."

"But there is a dead man in your house," I explained.

He stared at me, frowning. Then he rose quickly. "I'll consider the matter," he murmured, going toward the door.

Julie and the others followed him. In front of their bedroom Julie stopped. "Désirée, may I lie down in your room. I'm afraid to be alone!"

I said, "But, of course. You can use my bed, I'll be writing in my diary—"

"You don't still keep your diary! How funny—" She smiled a tired smile.

"Why funny?"

"Because everything is so different. So very different." She sighed and lay down, fully dressed, on my bed.

Julie slept until noon and I didn't awaken her. In the course of the morning I heard hammering, went down and saw that they were building a platform in the great hall. Joseph stood in one corner and gave the workmen directions in Italian. At last he had a chance to use his mother tongue, when he saw me he stepped over to me quickly. "That's the Platform for the ball. Julie and I will stand on it and watch the dancing."

For the ball?" I asked astonished. "But you can't go on with the ball!"

No, you are right, not with a dead man in the house; so we
have removed—the body of—the late Duphot."

Joseph continued zealously, "I have given orders that
Duphot is to be laid out in state in a mortuary chapel, It's to be done as beautifully as possible, because he was a general in the French Army. But the ball is absolutely essential; it's more important than ever to have this ball, because we must prove to everyone that peace and quiet prevail in Rome. If I were to postpone it, people would say that we are not masters of the situation; and, after all, the whole affair was merely an insignificant though regrettable incident. You understand that, don't you?"

I nodded. General Duphot had deserted his mistress and his son to marry me; the General had rashly exposed himself to an infuriated mob in order to impress me; the General had been shot—an insignificant though regrettable incident. "It is most urgent that I talk to your brother, Joseph," I said.

"Which one? Lucien?"

"No, your famous brother. The General. To Napoleon—
"

Joseph tried to conceal his astonishment. The family knows that heretofore I have always avoided meeting Napoleon. "It concerns General Duphot's survivors," I said brusquely and left the hall. The workmen were hammering like mad.

When I got back to my room I found a tearful Julie in my bed. I sat down beside her, and she put her arms around my neck and sobbed like a child. "I want to go home," she sobbed. "I—don't want to live in these strange palaces— I want to have a home like everyone else. What are we doing in this foreign country where people want to shoot us? And in these draughty palaces—with great high ceilings like a church. . . . We don't belong here. I want to go home—
"

I held her close. General Duphot's death had made Julie realize how unhappy she is here.

A little later a letter came from Mama in Marseilles. We sat together on my bed and read the news Mama had written in her neat slanting handwriting. Etienne and Suzanne had decided to move to Genoa, where he was opening a branch of the Clary firm. French businessmen have splendid opportunities in Genoa now and Italy is the centre of the silk trade. And as Mama does not wish to remain alone in Marseilles, she is moving to Genoa with Etienne and Suzanne.
She assumes that for the present I shall be staying with Julie. And she prays to God that soon I shall find a dear, kind husband; but, for heaven's sake, I must never be rushed into anything! Yes—and Etienne wants to sell our house in Marseilles.

Julie had stopped crying. We stared at each other, horrified. "That means that we have no home," she whispered.

I swallowed hard. "But in any case you would never have gone back to our villa in Marseilles," I said.

Julie stared out the window. "I don't know. No, of course not," she said, "but it was lovely to think about the house and the garden and the little summer house. You know, in all these months while we've been moving from palace to palace, and I've been so dreadfully unhappy, I've always thought about them; never about Joseph's little house in Paris, but always about Papa's villa in Marseilles . . ."

At that moment there was a knock at the door. Joseph came in and brought the tears back again. "I want to go home—" Julie cried. He sat down beside us on the bed and took her in his arms. "And so you shall," he said tenderly. "Tonight there is the big ball, and tomorrow we leave. Back to Paris. I've had enough of Rome."

He pressed his lips together and settled his chin down onto his neck, where it became two chins—however, he thought this pose gave him an extremely distinguished appearance. I shall request the Government to give me a new and perhaps more important post. Are you glad to be returning to our home in the rue du Rocher, Julie?" If Désirée comes with us—" Julie sobbed. I'm coming with you," I said. "Where else could I go?"

Julie raised a tear-stained face to mine. "We'll have a very good time in Paris, we three—you and Joseph and I. And you have no idea, Désirée, how wonderful Paris is. Such a huge city. And the lovely parks—and so many lights . . . . But, of course, you have never been there and can't possibly imagine it."

Julie and Joseph left my room to make arrangements for tomorrow's journey, and I sank down on my bed. My eyes stung from lack of sleep. I imagined the conversation I would
have with Napoleon and tried to remember his face. But when I closed my eyes all I could see was the unreal, supercilious features which nowadays smile out from so many coffeecups, flower vases, or snuffboxes. Soon these porcelain faces vanished, and I remembered the lights that dance at night on the ripples of the Seine—and which I can never forget.

Paris, end of Germinal, Year VI
(Except in our Republic, where everyone calls it
April, 1798)

I have seen him again.

We were invited by him to a farewell reception; he is practically immediately sailing with his armies for Egypt. He told his mother that with the pyramids as a base, he intends to unite the East and the West, and to turn our Republic into a world empire. Mme Letizia listened quietly, but later she asked Joseph whether Napoleon ever suffered from feverish attacks of malaria and whether this illness was being kept secret from her. Her poor boy did not seem quite right in the head. Joseph explained to her, and to Julie and me exactly how Napoleon plans to destroy the British. He will smash their colonial empire.

Napoleon and Josephine live in a small house in the rue de la Victoire. The house formerly belonged to Talma, the actor; and Josephine bought it from his widow in the Barras days when she glittered in the salon of Thérèse Tallien. At that time the street was called rue Chântereine After Napoleon's Italian victories, the Paris Town Council decided to change the name in his honour and now it is called the rue de la Victoire.

It is unbelievable how many people crowded into this small
and rather insignificant house yesterday. It has only two tiny drawing rooms and a dining room. I still feel dizzy when I think of all those faces and voices! During the morning, Julie made me sick with her affectionate anxiety. "Are you excited? Do you feel anything for him?" I was excited but I didn't know whether I felt anything for him. When he smiles he can do what he likes with me, I thought. I clung to the hope that he and Josephine would still be furious because of the scene I had made that day at the Tallien's. He would, I thought, dislike me and would not smile at me, and I almost hoped that he would hate me.

I had a new dress and naturally I wore it. It was a gold dress with a rose petticoat, and I used a bronze chain I had bought in an antique shop in Rome for a belt. The day before yesterday I had my hair cut. Josephine was the first Parisienne with short hair, but now other fashionable women are imitating her childish curls brushed up high on the head. My hair is so thick and heavy that it will take time to train properly. Meanwhile, I brush up my short hair and tie it up on my head with a silk ribbon. Whatever I wore, I'll look, I thought, like a country bumpkin compared to Josephine. My new dress is cut very low in the neck, but for a long time I've not needed to put in handkerchiefs; on the contrary, I've decided to eat fewer sweets or I shall be too fat. My nose is still turned up and will be, I suppose, until the end of my days. This is particularly unfortunate because since the conquest of Italy "classical profiles" are the rage.

We left at one o'clock to drive to the rue de la Victoire, where the small drawing room was already swarming with Bonapartes. Mme Letizia and her daughters now live in Paris. All the members of the family see each other constantly; b
ut whenever the Bonapartes meet, everyone kisses everyone else.
First I was pressed to Mme Letizia's bosom, and then madly embraced by Mme Leclerc. Mme Leclerc is little P
aulette, who said before her marriage, "Leclerc is the only officer we know with whom I'm not the tiniest bit in love." But
Napoleon decided that her many love affairs were bad for the Bonaparte family's reputation, and he insisted on the
marriage. Leclerc has short legs, he is fat and very energetic and never laughs, and he looks much older than Paulette. Elisa—still painted like a tin soldier—with her Bacciochi husband was at the reception, too, and boasted about the wonderful position Napoleon had got for her musical husband in one of the ministries. Caroline, and Josephine's daughter, the square, blonde Hortense, had been allowed to leave their fancy boarding school for one day so that they could wish their brother and stepfather a successful journey to the pyramids. Now they sat on a small delicate chair and giggled about Mme Letizia's new brocade dress, which reminded them of the curtains in the dining room.

Among the loud and forward Bonapartes I noticed a slender, blond and very young officer with an adjutant's sash, whose blue eyes stared helplessly at Paulette. I asked Caroline who he was, and she nearly died laughing before she was able to say, "Napoleon's son!"

The young man sensed what I had asked; he came over to me and presented himself, shyly: "Eugéne de Beauharnais," he said, "Personal Adjutant of General Bonaparte."

The only members of the family who had not appeared were our host and hostess, Napoleon and Josephine.

At last a door opened and Josephine called, "Sorry, my dears, excuse us—we just got home! Joseph, come here a minute; Napoleon wants to talk to you. Make yourselves comfortable, all of you. I'll be right out."

She disappeared. Joseph followed her, and Mme Letizia shrugged, petulantly. We all began to talk again, but were suddenly silenced—someone had apparently gone crazy in the next room. Something crashed on the top of a table or a chimney tile and a lot of glass broke. At this moment Josephine came in.

"How nice that the whole family is here," she said, and smiled and then went over to Mme Letizia. Her white dress clung to her slender figure, a shawl of red velvet edge in ermine was draped around her shoulders; and when the shawl slipped—just so—her neck looked unbelievably white, We could hear Joseph saying something in the next room.

"Lucien—have you a son called Lucien, madame?" Josephine asked Mme Letizia.

"My third eldest son—what about him?" Mme Letizia glared at Josephine. This daughter-in-law—who didn't take the trouble to learn by heart the names of her brothers and sisters-in-law!

"He has written Napoleon that he is married," Josephine said.

"I know he has." Mme Letizia's eyes narrowed. "Is my second eldest son by any chance dissatisfied with his brother's choice?"

Josephine shrugged her slender shoulders and smiled. "It seems he is—listen to him!"

The raving in the next room seemed to amuse her. The door flew open, and there was Napoleon. His thin face was red with fury. "Mother, did you know that Lucien has married an innkeeper's daughter?"

Mme Letizia looked Napoleon up and down; her look travelled from his tangled reddish-brown hair, hanging untidily down to his shoulders, to his impeccable uniform made by the best military tailor in Paris, and at his highly polished and elegant small boots. "What don't you like about your sister-in-law, Christine Boyer from St. Maximin, Napoleone?"

"You don't understand! The daughter of an innkeeper, a village lout who every evening serves the local peasants in his tavern? Mother, I can't comprehend you!"