Instead of Napoleon, I turn to Davout and say, as if inspired:
'You'd better go back where you came from, General!'
The plan was destroyed.
Davout shrugged and whispered on his way out:
'Bah!
Il devient superstitieux!'* And the next day the retreat was announced."
"All that is extremely interesting," the prince said terribly quietly, "if that's how it all was . . . that is, I mean to say . . ." he hastened to correct himself.
"Oh, Prince!" cried the general, so intoxicated by his story that he might not have been able to stop now even before the greatest imprudence, "you say: 'It all was!'
But there was more, I assure you, there was much more!
These are merely facts, small, political facts.
But I repeat to you, I was witness to the nightly tears and groans of this great man, and no one saw it except me!
Towards the end, true, he no longer wept, there were no tears, only an occasional groan; but his face seemed more and more veiled in gloom.
As if eternity were already overshadowing him with its dark wing.
Sometimes, at night, we spent whole hours together alone, silent—the mameluke Rustan would be snoring in the next room; the man was a very sound sleeper.
'But he is faithful to me and my dynasty,' Napoleon used to say of him.
Once I felt terribly grieved, and he suddenly noticed tears in my eyes; he looked at me with tenderness:
'You pity me!' he cried. 'You, little one, and perhaps yet another child pities me, my son, le roi de Rome;+19 the rest all hate me, all of them, and my brothers will be the first to sell me in my misfortune!'
I burst into sobs and rushed to him; here he, too, could not restrain himself; we embraced each other and our tears mingled.
'Write, write a letter to the empress Josephine!' I said through my sobs.
Napoleon gave a start, reflected, and said to me:
'You have reminded me of the third heart that loves me; thank you, my friend!'
He sat down at once and wrote that letter to Josephine which was sent off with Constant the next morning."
"You did a beautiful thing," said the prince. "Amidst his wicked thoughts you prompted him to a kind feeling."
"Precisely, Prince, and how beautifully you explain it, in conformity with your own heart!" the general cried rapturously, and, * Bah! He's becoming superstitious! + The king of Rome. strangely enough, real tears glistened in his eyes.
"Yes, Prince, that was a great spectacle!
And, you know, I nearly followed him to Paris and, of course, would have shared with him 'the torrid prison isle,'20 but, alas! our fates were separated!
We parted ways: he went to the torrid isle, where once at least, in a moment of terrible sorrow, he may have remembered the tears of the poor boy who embraced and forgave him in Moscow; while I was sent to the cadet corps, where I found nothing but drill, the coarseness of my comrades, and . . . Alas!
Everything went to wrack and ruin!
'I do not want to part you from your mother and will not take you with me!' he said to me on the day of the retreat, 'but I would like to do something for you.'
He was about to mount his horse.
'Write something in my sister's album as a souvenir,' I said timidly, because he was very upset and gloomy.
He went back, asked for a pen, took the album.
'How old is your sister?' he asked me, pen in hand.
'Three,' I replied.
'Petite fille alors.'* And he scribbled in the album:
'Ne mentez jamais!
Napoleon, votre ami sincere.'+
"Such advice and at such a moment, you must agree, Prince!"
"Yes, it is portentous."
"That page, in a gilded frame, under glass, hung in my sister's drawing room all her life, in the most conspicuous place, right up to her death—she died in childbirth. Where it is now, I don't know . . . but . . . ah, my God!
It's already two o'clock!
I've kept you so long, Prince!
It's unforgivable!"
The general got up from his chair.
"Oh, on the contrary!" the prince mumbled. "You've diverted me and . . . finally . . . it's so interesting; I'm so grateful to you!"
"Prince!" said the general, again pressing his hand painfully and looking at him intently, with flashing eyes, as if suddenly recollecting himself and stunned by some unexpected thought, "Prince!
You are so kind, so simple-hearted, that I sometimes even feel sorry for you.
I look upon you with tenderness; oh, God bless you!
May your life begin and blossom ... in love.
Mine is over!