She dozed off. He sat beside her, not letting go of her hand. The room slowly darkened. The sun went behind the cape, and the lagoon turned imperceptibly from blue to gray, and then to black. The ships dissolved into the dusk; only the lights on the masts remained. He counted them again: one, two, three, four, five, six. Six.
She woke with a start.
“Someone was here.”
“No one.”
“I heard footsteps. There, in the corridor.”
The door did not open at once — first there was a pause, long as the intake of breath before a scream. Then a man came in. Powdered. In a jabot whiter than white. But the powder lay unevenly — in clumps, as if applied in haste. A bluish pallor showed through it. He breathed through his mouth — the jaw hung loose, shattered, and every breath cost him effort. He held out a hand, the fingers trembling. He took the pencil from the side table and tried to write something in the margin of the contract — the lead crumbled, the letters broke apart. “The Incorruptible.” And crossed it out at once. Set down the pencil. Went out. The smell of powder hung in the room until morning.
“Robespierre,” she said. “The Incorruptible. He could not speak after they broke his jaw.”
“I understood.”
She dozed off again. He sat. The smell of powder slowly faded from the air. The door opened again — sharply, without a pause.
He came in swiftly — the way he always entered, as if the room were his headquarters and they were adjutants late with a dispatch. One hand tucked behind the lapel of his coat. But the coat was worn now. There were patches at the elbows, and a button was missing. He stopped at the window and looked at the ships for a long time.
“Six,” he said in a hoarse voice, thick with cold. “At Waterloo I did not have them.”
She opened her eyes.
“Napoleon.”
He turned. His eyes, red with age, burned with fire.
“From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. I have taken it. You have not yet. But you will.”
The broken pencil was in his hands now. He turned it over and said:
“A pity. It was a good empire.”
He set down the pencil. Went out. And the room smelled of wet wool — like a greatcoat drying by a campfire.
“He held on to the end,” she said.
The chapter goes on in the book.