Napoleon Symphony: A Novel in Four Movements by Anthony Burgess

Author:Anthony Burgess [Burgess, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2014-10-13T05:00:00+00:00

Dumdy DUM

dee dum dee dumdy

DUM

DUM

DUM did dum did dum

DUM

DUM

He stopped his pacing and tuneless dumming as they began to troop into his quarters at Smorgoni. Murat, Eugène, Lefebvre, Bessières, Mortier, bravest of the brave Ney (but he had made a shambles at Tarragona), Davout. Berthier was already there, grinning as though good news was coming, getting fat. He said, amazingly without stuttering, life was always full of surprises, “Do please be seated, gentlemen.” N said, while they were looking for chairs:

“I have dictated what in effect are the final orders of the campaign. I have also written this—” He waved it at them, what looked like the manuscript of a sizeable book. “The Twenty-ninth Bulletin of the Great Army, gentlemen.” How the hell did he find the time? “This sets out, for the benefit of Paris, the present situation of the Great Army in the closing phases of what, as must freely be admitted, has not been the most successful of the various campaigns in which you and I have sought and found glory together.” Lefebvre grinned at that humor but then saw, in the great gray lamps that turned on him, freezingly burning, that no humor was really intended. “Paris, gentlemen,” N said. “Civilians, flighty, tremulous, panicky, disposed to believe the worst.” And right too, Davout thought, right to believe the. “Alarmism,” N said. “I trust none here have been sending alarmist letters.” Not sending any letters at all, Lefebvre replied silently. No time for letters. “No time for letters, eh?” N said, looking straight at Lefebvre. “Quite right, too. They’d be censored anyway, be quite sure of that.”

He paced, belched tinily though sourly, then said: “I tell the truth, naturally. One must always tell the truth. Some of it. Truth is a heady and dangerous brew for the common sort, but we have a duty to the truth. I speak frankly here of incompetence among the marshalate, for instance.” He double-gunned them grayly. “Lack of initiative where initiative is called for, too much initiative where unquestioning execution of orders is, ah, in order. You know the sort of thing.” He waved at them in a dismissive manner, as if they all accepted the necessity of being occasionally traduced. “But chiefly I blame the weather, gentlemen. The weather.”

“Sire,” Eugène said. N looked at him, sadly, fondly, his mother’s eyes, poor bitch. “The bad weather only really began after the crossing of the Berezina.” They could all hear the bad weather howling outside the commandeered nondescript dacha. N nodded kindly and said:

“You are brave, Eugène, it is altogether like you to wish to diminish the reality of hardship. Ah, listen to that gale, that blizzard. It is moving west, gentlemen.” He looked at them frowning; they knew what he meant. “Bad weather all over Europe. Chimneys toppling, windows breaking, slates dislodged. The master of the house must see that all is in order within. The bulletin ends with these words: His Majesty’s health has never been better.” He agitated his body minimally and thinly smiled, as in a charade depicting good health.

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