The Hundred Days

The Hundred Days

Joseph Roth

Translated by Richard Panchyk

A NEW DIRECTIONS BOOK

Contents

THE HUNDRED DAYS

Translator’s Afterword

 

The Hundred Days

BOOK ONE

The Return of the Great Emperor

 

I

The sun emerged from the clouds, bloody-red, tiny, and irritable, but was quickly swallowed up again into the cold gray of the morning. A sullen day was breaking. It was March 20, a mere day before the start of spring. One could see no sign of this. It rained and stormed across the whole land, and the people shivered.

The weather in Paris had been stormy since the previous night. The birds fell silent after a quick morning greeting. Cold and spiteful wisps of mist rose insidiously from the cracks between the cobbles, moistening anew the stones that had just been blown dry by the morning wind. The mist lingered about the willows and chestnuts in the parks and hovered along the edges of the avenues, causing the nascent tree buds to tremble, chasing clearly visible shivers along the damp backs of the patient livery horses and forcing down to ground level the industrious morning smoke that was here and there attempting to rise from chimneys. The streets smelled of fire, mist, and rain, of damp clothes, of lurking snow clouds and temporarily averted hail, of unfriendly winds, soaked leather, and foul sewers.

Despite this, the citizens of Paris did not remain in their homes. They began to gather in the streets at an early hour. They assembled themselves before the walls onto which broadsides had been affixed. These papers carried the farewell message of the King of France. Barely legible, they looked tear-soaked, for the night’s rain had smeared the freshly inked letters and in places also dissolved the glue with which they were adhered to the stone. From time to time, a stormy gust of wind would blow a sheet completely off the wall and deposit it into the black mud of the street. These farewell words of the King of France met an ignoble fate, being ground into the muck of the road under the wheels of wagons, under the hooves of horses, and under the indifferent feet of pedestrians.

Many of the loyalists regarded these sheets with a wistful devotion. The heavens themselves seemed unfavorably disposed to him. Gales and rains zealously endeavored to obliterate his farewell message. Amid wind and rain, he had departed his palace and residence on the previous evening. “Do not make my heart heavy, my children!” he had said when they got on their knees and begged him to stay. He could not stay; the heavens were against him . . . everyone could see this.

He was a good king. Few loved him, but many in the country liked him. He did not have a kind heart, but he was royal. He was old, portly, slow, peaceable, and proud. He had known the misfortune of homelessness, for he had grown old in exile. Like every unfortunate, he did not trust anyone. He loved moderation, peace, and quiet.