Joseph Roth - The Hundred Days

“I’ve known you for a long time, Mademoiselle Angelina, and I know of your life.” He paused briefly, breathed deeply, and continued softly: “I also know the father of your child, Monsieur Levadour. And I told your aunt that you were right not to marry him.”

“Do you know if my son is still alive? Where he is?” asked Angelina.

“I don’t know,” said Wokurka. “But I will head out early in the morning to look for him. I have good friends in practically all the barracks of Paris.” He was lying, but was glad she trusted him.

“I thank you,” Angelina said. In fact she felt immeasurable gratitude mounting within her heart, as if she had returned home after wandering about for so long, home to her father’s house. Her eyes closed and she fell asleep where she was. Wokurka lifted her out of the chair, laid her down on the bed, drew the curtain closed and, content for the first time since he had lost his leg and homesickness had begun to torture him, sat down in the narrow armchair next to the curtain. The candles in his lantern died out, one after another, with a peaceful flickering. From far-away streets he heard the shouts of the tireless loyalists, who were cheering the King and cursing the Emperor. The cobbler Wokurka, however, found himself on a happy island, disconnected from the changing fortunes of the world. What did the Emperor matter to him? What difference did it make to him that the King had returned? Why should he concern himself with the people causing a tumult outside? He was dreaming that he would soon be returning home, with the woman who was sleeping on the other side of the curtain. It mattered no more about round sums. Any sum was quite enough. He could hear Angelina’s soft breathing from behind the curtain. She had come to him of her own volition! With that, he fell asleep where he sat, joyfully determined to find Angelina’s son early the next morning.

It took Wokurka two weeks to find the boy. During this time, he hobbled around the city for a few hours each day and visited every barracks he could reach. When he at last found the boy he limped home quickly, his wooden leg practically flying along. “We can see him tomorrow!” he said, looking down, for he was embarrassed to see Angelina’s happiness.

A long time passed before she spoke. It was already growing dark by the time she began to talk, as though she had been ashamed to do so in full daylight.

“Where and when will we see him?”

“At seven o’clock,” he said, “in the evening, after report. The sergeant on duty happens to be my friend.”

The next evening, Angelina saw her son again. His regiment was living in different barracks now, having returned home from the drubbing decimated, defeated, and humiliated. Two non-commissioned officers from the old days were still there. They recognized Angelina and she felt she was meeting familiar and beloved ghosts. They no longer bore the Emperor’s eagle, but the King’s lilies. They were no more the Emperor’s soldiers, but the King’s subjects. Little Pascal too seemed to be filled with gloom and shame. At first he stretched his arms out, but then he let them fall again. And when Angelina began to cry, he seized her hand and kissed it. With his shako on, he was already as tall as she was. But then, in a sudden fit of tenderness and nostalgia, he removed the shako and was only as high as her shoulders. She saw his thick red hair, revealed as if to demonstrate to his mother that he was her son and no other’s. Her tears began to fall even more intensely. She thought of her childhood, of foolishly and senselessly giving away her body, of the odious Sosthène, of the random meeting with the corporal, of the shameful fright of the night in the surreal chamber, of the thick waves of the portière, of her father’s premature death, of her childless and shameless stripping before mirrors — and everything, everything appeared infinitely sorrowful, and worse yet, hopeless and empty. All at once she understood that all the pointless and foolish things that had happened to her had transpired, so to speak, in the Emperor’s gracious shadow. His shadow had gilded her entire aimless fate; now it had gone, his merciful shadow! Only now did she recognize her foolishness as such, and her misfortune became ordinary. She was no longer weeping with emotion at having found her son again, but over an entire dead world, one that she had believed was lost forever. Since the Emperor’s departure, there was nothing left. She knew at once that her love for him was greater and mightier than mere ordinary love. She was not weeping over her son, but over the King’s lilies, the white Bourbon banners that hung at the barracks entrance and over the fall of the Emperor. Yet she could hear and understand what the boy was explaining: his father, Sergeant-Major Sosthène Levadour of the Thirteenth Dragoons, had come to look for his son. He had also asked about Angelina and had said he would come back soon. All this was of no interest to her. She said only: “Yes, he is your father! But I don’t love him! I will visit you again. I love you, my child!” She kissed his red hair, his freckled cheeks, and his small blue eyes.

In the street she took the cobbler Wokurka’s arm. She was still crying. She matched her stride with his limping steps. At times she felt like she should be ashamed at having two whole legs while he had only the one. But she also felt weaker on her healthy legs than this man at her side was on his solitary one and she clutched his arm for support. They walked in this way, arm in arm through the streets, for a very long time. Neither one spoke the whole way. Only upon reaching the door did she realize that he wanted to say something. He was holding her arm firmly. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. The poor light of a forlorn lantern, the only one in the lane, fell on Wokurka’s hollow, worried face. She felt she was seeing him for the first time. The gloomy, oily, and unsteady light of the lantern seemed to clarify his features and all the sorrow residing in his face. In a single moment it became clear to her that he was no longer a threatening stranger but rather a quiet, familiar companion; that he must love her as she had never loved anyone; and that even with his infirmity, he stayed awake long into the night for her sake in the narrow armchair. She lowered her head.

“I have something to say to you,” began Wokurka softly. He waited. She said nothing. “Will you hear me out?” he asked, looking at her. She nodded. “Well,” he began again, “well, I thought I could ask you — ask you — whether you wish to stay with me?”

“Yes!” she said so clearly that she surprised herself.

“Perhaps you didn’t understand me,” he continued, “I asked whether you wish to stay with me. With me?”

“Yes!” she repeated with the same clear voice.

They went inside the house. She lit the candles in the lantern herself, for the first time since she had been living with Wokurka. She busied herself with some pots at the hearth. She felt the man’s steady gaze upon her and avoided looking his way. She thought with fear of the coming night and the love it would bring. She was gripped with sudden horror over the man’s wooden leg as if the thought had just occurred to her that it was not a natural part of his body.

They ate in embarrassed silence, as on all previous evenings, the milk soup with potatoes that Wokurka loved and that eased his homesickness. Then they drank and she noticed that Wokurka poured the wine not from an ordinary bottle, as on previous evenings, but from a crystal carafe. On its front under the curved beak, in the center of its grandiose bulge, this carafe too had a small smooth oval and in this oval was the Emperor Napoleon in his traditional costume, a glass Emperor colored and infused with red wine, a crystalline Napoleon of glass and blood. As the carafe was emptied, the Emperor grew pallid and more remote, truly glass. Angelina felt she was watching his body die bit by bit, his head first, then his shoulders, his torso, legs, and finally his feet. She was transfixed by the oval. She shivered. She wanted to see the carafe filled again.