He needed provisions. So all the bakers in the land began with triple zeal to bake loaves that would keep fresh; all the butchers in the land began to salt their meats in order to make them last longer; all the distillers brewed ten times more liquor than usual — liquor, the drink of warriors, making cowards brave and brave men still braver.

He ordered and ordered. The submission of his people filled him with lustful delight, and this lust for power made him place still more new orders.

 

XIII

It was pouring rain when the Emperor moved into the other palace, the Elysée, outside the city. Nothing could be heard except the powerful, uniform drubbing of the rain on the dense treetops in the park. One could no longer hear the voices of the city or the loyal, dogged cheers of the people: “Long live the Emperor!” It was a good, warm early summer’s rain. The fields needed it, the peasants blessed it, and the earth absorbed it willingly, greedily. The Emperor, however, was thinking of rain’s negative effects. Rain softens the ground, so that soldiers cannot easily march, and soaks a soldier’s uniform. The rain could also make the enemy practically invisible under certain conditions. Rain makes a soldier weak and sick. One needs the sun to plan a campaign. The sun fosters acceptance and serenity. The sun makes soldiers drunk and generals sober. Rain is not useful to the enemy who is attacking, but rather to the one waiting to be attacked. Rain turns day practically into night. When it rains the peasant-soldiers think about their fields back home, then about their children, and then about their wives. Rain was an enemy of the Emperor.

For an hour he stood at the open window and listened to the unrelenting downpour with devoted and weary concentration. He saw the whole land, the entire country, whose Emperor and supreme lord he was, divided into fields, gardens and forests, into villages and towns. He saw thousands of ploughs, heard the deliberate swishing of scythes and the more rapid shorter strokes of whirring sickles. He saw the men in the barns, in the stables, among the sheaves, in the mills, each one devoting himself to a peaceful love of industry, anticipating the evening soup after a full day and then to a night of lustful sleep in his wife’s arms. Sun and rain, wind and daylight, night and fog, warm and cold, these were things familiar to the peasant, the pleasant or unpleasant gifts of the heavens. At times an old longing rose up from deep within the Emperor’s soul, one that he had not felt during the confused years of his victories and defeats — nostalgia for the earth. Alas! His ancestors had also been peasants!

The Emperor, his face turned to the window, remained alone in the dusk. The bitter fragrance of the earth and the leaves mixed with the sweetness of the chestnut flowers and lilacs, the moist breath of the rain which smelled of decay and faraway seaweed wafted into the room. The rain, the evening, and the trees in the park conversed peacefully with an intimate rustling in the pleasant dusk.

So, as he was, bareheaded, the Emperor left the room. He wanted to go to the park, to feel the soft rain. All around the house, lights were already burning. The Emperor walked quickly, almost angrily. He strode through the harsh brightness of the halls, head lowered as he passed the guards. He entered the park, walked up and down, hands behind his back, to and fro along the same short and wide avenue, listening to the busy conversation between the rain and the leaves.

Suddenly, to his right, from amid the dense darkness of the trees, he heard a strange and suspicious sound. He knew that there were men who wished to kill him.