Page 737 - the-idiot

I could not take my eyes off his face—my heart beat loudly
and painfully.
‘I’m off,’ said Davoust. ‘Where to?’ asked Napoleon.
‘To salt horse-flesh,’ said Davoust. Napoleon shuddered—
his fate was being decided.
‘Child,’ he addressed me suddenly, ‘what do you think of
our plan?’ Of course he only applied to me as a sort of toss-
up, you know. I turned to Davoust and addressed my reply
to him. I said, as though inspired:
‘Escape, general! Go home!—‘
‘The project was abandoned; Davoust shrugged his shoul-
ders and went out, whispering to himself—‘Bah, il devient
superstitieux!’ Next morning the order to retreat was giv-
en.’
‘All this is most interesting,’ said the prince, very softly,
‘if it really was so—that is, I mean—‘ he hastened to correct
himself.
‘Oh, my dear prince,’ cried the general, who was now so
intoxicated with his own narrative that he probably could
not have pulled up at the most patent indiscretion.
‘You say, if it really was so!’ There was more—much more,
I assure you! These are merely a few little political acts. I tell
you I was the eye-witness of the nightly sorrow and groan-
ings of the great man, and of that no one can speak but
myself. Towards the end he wept no more, though he con-
tinued to emit an occasional groan; but his face grew more
overcast day by day, as though Eternity were wrapping its
gloomy mantle about him. Occasionally we passed whole
hours of silence together at night, Roustan snoring in the

The Idiot