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Page 23
"If you're interested in Napoleon things--" said the officious clerk,
and Bean went cold. He wondered if the fellow suspected something.
"Not at all, not at all!" he protested, and refused to look at any more
books.
He took his print of the coronation, securely wrapped, and went to
another store several blocks away. He could get a Napoleon book there,
where they wouldn't be suspicious. He found one that looked promising,
"Napoleon, Man and Lover," and still another entitled "The Hundred
Days." The latter had illustrations of the tomb, which he noted was in
Paris. Its architecture impressed him, and his hands trembled as he held
the book open. He had been buried with pomp, even with flamboyance.
Robber and killer he might have been, but the picture showed a throng of
admiring spectators looking down to where the dead colossus was chested,
and on the summit of the dome that rounded above that kingly
sarcophagus, a discriminating nation had put the cross of Christ in
gold.
Let people say what they would! With all this glory of sepulchre there
must be something in the man not to be wholly ashamed of.
And yet "Napoleon, Man and Lover," which he read that night, confirmed
his first impression that this strangely uncovered incident in his
Karmic past was, on the whole, scandalous; not a thing he would like to
have "get about." He sympathized with the poor boy driven from his
Corsican home, with the charity student of Brienne, with the young
artillery officer, dreaming impossible dreams. But as lover--he blushed
for that ruthless dead self of his; the Polish woman, the little
actress, sending for them as if they were merchandise. It seemed to him
that even the not too-fastidious Bulger would have been offended by such
direct brutality.
Well, he was paying dearly for it now; afraid to venture into the
presence of a couple of swell dames not invincibly austere, lacking the
touch-and-go gallantry of a mere Bulger who had probably never been
anybody worth mentioning.
And there was the poor pathetic Louise of Prussia. Bean had already
fallen in love with her face, observed in advertisements of the Queen
Quality Shoe. He recalled the womanly dignity of the figure descending
the shallow steps, the arch accost of the soft eyes, the dimple in the
round check. She had been sent to sue him, the invader, to soften him
with blandishments. He had kept her waiting like a lackey, then had
sought cynically to discover how far her devotion to her country's
safety would carry her. And when her pitiful little basket of tricks had
been emptied, her little traps sprung, he had sent her back to her
husband with a message that crushed her woman's pride and shattered the
hopes of her people. He had heard the word "bounder." It seemed to him
that Napoleon had shown himself to be just that--a fearful and
impossible bounder. He tingled with shame. He wished he might speak to
that Queen now as a gentleman would.
And yet he could not read the book without a certain evil quickening.
Brutal though his method of approach had been, the man had conquered
more than mere force may ever conquer. The Polish woman had come to love
him; the little actress would have followed him to his lonely island.
Others, too many others, had confessed his power.
He was ashamed of such a past, yet read it with a guilty relish. He
recalled the flapper who had so boldly met his glance. He thought she
would have been less bold if she could have known the man she looked at.
He placed "Napoleon, Man and Lover" at the bottom of his trunk beside
the scarlet cravat he had feared to wear. It was not a book to "leave
around."
"The Hundred Days," which he read the following night, was a much less
discouraging work. It told of defeat, but of how glorious a defeat! The
escape from Elba, the landing in France and the march to Paris,
conquering, where he passed, by the sheer magnetism of his personality!
His spirit bounded as he read of this and of the frightened exit of that
puny usurper before the mere rumour of his approach. Then that audacious
staking of all on a throw of the dice--Waterloo and a deathless
ignominy. He heard the sob-choked voices of the Old Guard as they bade
their leader farewell--felt the despairing clasp of their hands!
Alone in his little room, high above the flaring night streets, the
timid boy read of the Hundred Days, and thrilled to a fancied memory of
them. The breath that checked on his lips, the blood that ran faster in
his veins at the recital, went to nourish a body that contained the
essential part of that hero--he was reading about himself! He forgot his
mean surroundings--and the timidities of spirit that had brought him
thus far through life almost with the feelings of a fugitive.
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