Simon Leys: The Death of Napoleon

He kept his promise. At every visit, he merely came into the bedroom for a moment, looked at the patient, who was still delirious, nodded his head thoughtfully without speaking, fumbled about among ironmongery in the bottom of his leather bag, took out one of two small bottles, handed over pills of various colors to the Ostrich, and, to keep her amused for a moment, taught her a new variation on the poultice recipe.

For five days and five nights, Napoleon’s fever continued unabated. His naturally delicate constitution, weakened by what he had already gone through, could not fight this terrible fire.

On the morning of the sixth day, his temperature dropped and he regained consciousness for a moment. The Ostrich’s hopes soared, but the doctor who had arrived on his daily visit immediately disillusioned her. Like the flames of a forest fire that die down only when everything has been reduced to ashes, the illness had wrought its havoc and now had nothing more to feed on.

… And so he is lucid again, but only enough to realize the extent of his weakness. He finds himself in the big mahogany bed, placed in the position that the doctor had recommended to the Ostrich, half sitting, propped up against a pile of pillows to prevent his throat being blocked. He is aware of the brightness of daylight through his closed eyelids and the weave of the sheet under his still fingers.

He would like to open his eyes; he has been planning it for quite a while, like someone getting ready for a journey, for it is a huge effort which requires a great work of preparation throughout his pitifully weak body. To this end, he calls on what scattered reserves of energy he can still muster.

He has succeeded, he has managed to open his eyes for an instant. And now, diving down again behind his eyelids, which have closed once more, he sinks with his booty: in his mind, he goes over what he has just been able to snatch from the bright world of the living: the table in front of the window and on the table the open dossiers he had brought home on that last evening when he had returned home through the cold and rainy night. He is not cold anymore. Perhaps today there is even a little sunshine. Is it sunny today? But now he brings his thoughts back to the table. The Ostrich is sitting at the table, with her back toward him.

The shadows deepen over his eyelids. He feels a desperate need to tear himself free from the depths that are slowly sucking him down, and to rise to the surface once more.

He has had to make a brutal effort to open his eyes this second time, and again, the scrap of light he can only dimly make out is immediately snatched away from him. And while he is sinking down once more, through the distant roar from the depths that starts humming again in his ears, he can still hear, with crystalline clarity, the Ostrich as she cries softly, like the murmuring of a spring, and then from time to time the sound of a page being turned.

Like a diver in the gloom of the deep, he feels an urgent need to come up for air, but in his exhaustion he can no longer battle against the current that carries him ever faster, ever farther from the daylight. He struggles and tires himself out with superhuman efforts, the fever returns, and he topples into the abyss. The Ostrich rushes to his bedside. He can see nothing, but clings to her hand.

He clings, and yet keeps plunging down, spinning around in a great whirl of fleeting lights and images.

And then suddenly, as his thoughts flee in chaos, an agonizing revelation pierces his mind: he has just been informed that if he wants to pass through to THE OTHER SIDE, he will have to undergo a test, and he will be asked one question only: What is the Ostrich’s first name? Terror-stricken, he realizes in a blinding flash that he has forgotten, that he does not know, that HE HAS NEVER KNOWN THE OSTRICH’S FIRST NAME! A spasm shakes his entire body, he arches his back against the bed, he struggles, he makes wild, desperate efforts — quickly, quickly, do anything to find her name, it’s the last chance — if he cannot fill this dreadful yawning gap in his soul before he has to appear in front of Them, his ship will be turned away from port forever, sent to the north; they will put him off at Copenhagen, where he will lead a flock of penguins on desolate icefields, exiled for all time with no hope of return. He chokes, his throat rattles, his body jerks uncontrollably, his teeth chatter.

There is a cool hand on his forehead. The Ostrich bends over him with infinite tenderness. His tense, knotted brain relaxes a little and his tongue loosens: “… Name?… Name?…”

He is appalled to hear himself saying at last, “What is MY name?” but it is too late to try again. Where would he find the strength to correct his mistake, to rephrase it, to link the heavy words together one after the other like a train, what-is-your-name, and send the convoy off again toward the light that has now vanished?

The Ostrich bends down to his pillow and whispers, “Eugène, your name is Eugène…” When he hears these words he gives a sudden desperate start, which she misinterprets, for she immediately adds even more softly and closer to his ear, as if it were a secret, “Napoleon, you are my Napoleon.” The sweetness of these last words cuts him to the heart, it is the finish, he falls backwards. As he sinks even farther, he is still holding her hand, and for a moment longer he can feel her cool soft hand in his. Then soon this last link slips from his grasp.

After whirling down through dull blue-green depths, at last he begins to fall more slowly, and now he is floating, almost still. The night is nearly over and a gray dawn is breaking beneath his eyelids. Far away, and muffled by distance, drums are rolling and fifes are playing their shrill notes. The regiments are marching to the front line; the din of men and stamping horses increases. The sound of the fifes is as sharp as early-morning air — and all the while, those drums keep beating. From time to time, quite close, can be heard the snorting of a restive horse, the tinkling of a harness, brief commands reverberating over the serried ranks.

And now a huge red sun emerges out of the mist, the sun that shines on victory mornings. It rises in the sky, a sky bright with rainbow-colored clouds.

How vast the plain is! It is vaster than all the plains on earth, pale and shifting; it is the boundless sea, the sea without memory! And with his arm extended in a broad sweeping gesture, pointing to the day-star as it rises, Nigger-Nicholas exults in his innocent triumph.