Joseph Roth - The Hundred Days

“I will,” proclaimed the Emperor, “make the Church of Christ great and mighty!”

“The greatness and might of the church cannot be guaranteed by the Emperor Napoleon,” replied the old man. “The church has no use for violent emperors. You sent for me, not the other way around! The church is eternal, emperors are ephemeral.”

“I am eternal!” cried the Emperor.

“You are transitory,” said the old man, “like a comet. You shine too brilliantly! Your light consumes itself as it shines! You were born from an earthly mother’s womb!”

Then the old man appeared to morph into his mother. The Emperor fell to his knees and buried his head in her lap. “Nabulio!” she said to him. She wore the flowing red vestments of the Holy Father, and she murmured: “I forgive you everything! I forgive you everything! Nabulio, most beloved of my children!”

He rose, for it was striking midnight from the towers of the sleeping city.

The tower struck midnight with deep, reverberating tones. They were answered by the delicate silver bell of the little mantelpiece clock. “Light!” the Emperor ordered. He rose quickly. He stood before the mirror, fixed his hair and called: “My uniform! My sword! My hat!”

The servant dressed him. The Emperor stood there before the mirror, staring intently at his face, lifting his feet and legs out of habit, almost involuntarily and watching as he was transformed. The reflection of his white breeches, which had been freshly chalked, was quite dazzling, and his boots gleamed, themselves black mirrors. His sash shimmered. The handle of his sword glistened. “Is this coat really blue?” he asked. He had always had difficulty in distinguishing one color from another and at that moment he was not actually talking of the coat or its color but of the fact that he was often incapable of distinguishing red from green. One day in a meadow, and he could no longer remember exactly when or where, he had seen blood flowing from a dead man’s wound on to the green grass, and it had looked like the blood had assumed the color of the grass. It startled him. He had long since forgotten this trivial incident, which only now came back to him as he was putting on the coat.

“Blue?” he asked.

“Your Majesty’s coat is green,” the servant said.

The Emperor looked closely in the mirror. For a few seconds, as he studied himself, he had the feeling he was not actually alive, that everything was make believe, now and always. Often had he watched his friend, the actor Talma, looking in the mirror before one of his great scenes. The real Emperor Napoleon was hidden deep within the most remote corner of his heart. The real Emperor never saw the light of day. Everything in the world was no more than a game. It was meaningless theatre and he himself, the Emperor Napoleon, was now performing the role of the Emperor Napoleon giving himself up to enemy hands. That was why he had rejected his civilian clothes and official uniform: so he could surrender to the enemy looking just like the hundreds of thousands of portraits by which he was known throughout the entire world. “Between green and blue,” said the Emperor, as if speaking to his reflection, “I have never been able to make a precise distinction.” The servant shuddered. He had never heard the Emperor speak in such a manner. “And once,” continued the Emperor, “I even believed that human blood was not actually red.”

“Yes, your Majesty,” said the servant, trembling with embarrassment.

There were loud voices outside, under the window. The baggage of the Emperor and his retinue was being loaded down below. He went to the window and stood motionless, as he looked out. “My friend,” he said after a long while, finally turning around, “this is my last night in France.”

“If that is the case, then it will be my last night too,” stammered the servant.

“Come here!” said the Emperor. “Have a good look at it!” The servant went up to him. They stood next to each other at the window for a long time, silent and still.

The sky grew lighter and a silver haze hovered over the sea. The wind picked up and the windows rattled faintly.

“It’s time!” said the Emperor. “Let’s go!”

They went. The Emperor led the way with a firm stride, head held high, in his dazzling white breeches and bright, shiny boots, his spurs clinking faintly with each step. The island fishermen were already awake, standing quietly in front of their huts, heads bare. The gravel crunched under the steps of the Emperor and his companions. All was still except for the sound of the men’s feet, the answer of the gravel, and the occasional shriek of a gull. The boat was already waiting with swelling sails. The Emperor climbed aboard. He didn’t look back.

There was a light breeze. Up ahead was the Bellerophon .

When the sloop arrived for the Emperor, the sun was emerging from the sea at his right, red and mighty, rising slowly above the clouds. The dense flock of white gulls rose from the jetty and fluttered in squawking, energetic swarms over the boat.

Nothing could be heard save for the shrieking of the seagulls and the faint splash of water upon the hull. Suddenly the sailors cried: “Long live the Emperor!” They tossed their caps into the air and shouted: “Long live the Emperor!” The startled gulls scattered.

This is the last time, thought the Emperor, that I will hear that cry. Until that moment he had still been hoping that he was only acting, as during the night before the mirror; that he was not really the Emperor Napoleon but rather an actor playing him. The sailors, however, who had shouted: “Long live the Emperor!” — they had not been acting. No, this was not a scene! He was the Emperor going to his actual death, and the sailors were truly shouting with full force: “Long live the Emperor!”

As he boarded the Bellerophon he felt that tears were coming. But he had to keep them from being seen. The Emperor Napoleon must not cry. “My field glasses!” he commanded. They were handed to him. Through these glasses he had observed many battlefields, spotted many an enemy, and determined their plans. He brought them quickly to his eyes. His hot tears ran down into the black cavities, instantly clouding the glass, while he pretended to be searching the sea. He turned to the right and the left and all who saw him believed he was scanning the sea or studying the coast. But he could see nothing through the glass, nothing at all — he only felt his hot tears, each of which seemed to him as vast as an ocean. He pressed the glasses tightly against his eye sockets and lowered his head so that his hat shaded his face. He strained mightily to hold back tears. He lowered the glasses. Now he could see the coast of France, which appeared bold and serene in outline, so pleasant and delightful. “Back,” he said very softly — and realized that he could no longer give orders to anyone. The sun’s silver gleam played upon the millions of tiny ripples on the calm surface of the sea. The ocean was wide, wider than all his battlefields. It was even wider than the battlefield at Waterloo. He now envisioned all his battlefields stretching out, one next to another, over the endless mirror of the sea — and many dead also, with blood flowing from their open wounds. The sea was green, like a meadow, a meadow strewn with dead, including a little drummer in the foreground, a boy whose face was covered with a red handkerchief, the same one the Emperor had once given out to all soldiers in his army and on which all his battlefields were noted.

The ship’s captain approached. When he was three steps away from the Emperor, he stopped and saluted.

“I place myself under the protection of your Prince and your laws,” said Napoleon. But as he spoke these words he was thinking of other words: