Napoleon Symphony: A Novel in Four Movements Read Free Page A

navel of Nice and the genitals of Genoa. Right? Put it to the troops that way, humanize your geography. Beaulieu, dodderer that he is, will think we intend the march through Genoa. He’ll bring his lot down from Alessandria, which is the sort of inner recesses of the genitals, Italy being a woman. Right?”
    He’s soaked in it, they should have given him a longer honeymoon.
    “Scherer tttook that ffforce to Vvvoltri before you before you—”
    “We’ll give Beaulieu something substantial to play with at Voltri. Play on, rather. La Harpe, ha ha.”
    “Not a ddd—”
    “Not a division, no. But enough to give Beaulieu confidence. He’ll move too far south from his Piedmontese, we can crack his right wing up in the hills there. There—Carcare. The top of the pubic hairs.”
    Has the whole thing worked out.
    “Close that gap. Massena’s division there, Augereau’s there. Very foul-mouthed, Augereau, by the way. Risen from the ranks, it shows.”
    “His dddiscipline’s all right.”
    “Sold watches in Constantinople, didn’t he? Must ask him about Constantinople, have to look ahead. Used to give dancing lessons. Let’s see if he can use a watch as well as sell one. I want all divisional commanders to put the hour on their messages as well as the date. Speed. Timing. No more minuets. Augereau knows all about the waltz. We’ll waltz them back to Vienna. But first knock Piedmont off the dance-floor. They’ll welcome a little liberation.”
    “Ccc—”
    “ The French Army has come to break your chains. I must work something out. In Italian as well.”
    C itizens Carné, Thiriet, Blondy, Tireux, Hubert, Fossard, Teis-seire, Carrère (Jacques), Carrère (Alexandre), Trauner, Barsacq, Gabutti, Mayo, Bonin, Borderie, Verne, Chaillot, Barrault, Brasseur, Dupont, Salou, sixteen thousand others, went forward in their washed-out blue rags and old revolutionary caps or rotting shakos, but boots boots, mark that, boots most of them, to engage. Easier, lads, if you remember what it’s all about. Those Austrian bastards can’t forgive us because we’re free and they’re in chains and we claimed the right of free men to whiz the head off that bitch of a queen we had that was an Austrian herself, and now they want to bring stinking kings and unholy bishops back and more, wanting their revenge as you can understand. Who we’re attacking is Argenteau, Austrian in spite of his name or says he is, there must be some French traitor’s blood there somewhere, who’s pounding away at our thousand men specially set up for him in the fort over there and we’ll get him in the flank and rear while General La Harpe’s lot goes for him in the front. Any questions? Yes, when do we get some fucking leave, how about our back pay, I’ve got this pain in the balls citizen sergeant.
    Drizzle fell coldly on Montenotte, then thickened to proper rain.
    Bonaparte watched from a thousand feet up. It is in some way, my own heart’s darling, an emblem of love, this engaging of armies. My ADC Marmont says it is to do with atomies of electricity crackling between the male and female poles, or some such thing, but I feel it is the quality of the beating of the heart, which is the same for both love and war. The priests in Ajaccio used to say that the Song of Solomon in the Bible was a metaphor of the marriage of Christ and his church, but now we know better: it is plain or not so plain love between a king and his chosen handmaiden, and I am struck by the phrase which makes this love terrible as an army with banners. I take out your image and rain weeps on the crystal. I kiss the rain away and look down to see the interlocking of the blue and white ants. Three blue to two white, hand to hand, mostly bayonet-fighting, we have no problem. Your slim white back, I must imagine, is turned against the musket-puffs and the thin noises that rise from below. I lock you again in the warmth of my breast, out of the rain and slaughter. This is our first