He awakens in a canopy bed, dressed in white culottes, riding boots, a green frockcoat with golden buttons. His right hand is partly hidden beneath the left lapel of the frockcoat, his index finger protruding. It seems to him that his body has swollen, his chest wants to send the frockcoat’s buttons flying. In his head, contradictory thoughts occur at great velocity. He feels an anxious urgency to do things, to order others to do things, to make events happen at his word, and for them to happen now, right away. For time to stop, or, on the contrary, for it to accelerate in ways never seen. At the same time, another apprehension, one that is little inclined to action, sends him messages from far-off lands, messages that confuse and disquiet him.
Surrounding him are faces he doesn’t recognise. But, if he focuses his gaze, he understands that he does know them. That’s Bertrand, and the other is Drouot, the one over there Marchand. He tries to sit up, but his limbs won’t respond as they should. He feels he is struggling against a ferocious hangover, he who has never been inebriated, despite what his enemies say.
‘You should rest now,’ Doctor Hubert gently presses his imperial shoulder.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ he is heard to say in a high-pitched, authoritarian voice, a voice that must be his own, with the accent of an illustrious corsair.
That voice fortifies everyone. He gives clear, categorical orders. Something about a dispatch from Vienna, from Princess Charming, in code. Yes, it must have come from Russia. He hears it said that someone is working on that dispatch, deciphering it, although for the moment it doesn’t seem like a life-or-death task. Then he hears talk of Pasolini as if he were another, distinct from him. Yes, they tell him, we have taken care of this, of the beekeeper from Capoliveri.
‘When would Your Majesty like to visit the beehives?’
‘What do you mean, when? As soon as possible. There’s no time to lose. You’re all asleep on your feet!’
He likes that they maintain a guilty silence, like schoolchildren who haven’t done their homework.
Bertrand speaks.
‘With Your Majesty’s consent, right now it is two in the afternoon. Outside, the heat is suffocating. I have taken the liberty of postponing that visit until tomorrow…’
‘Tomorrow! The world might have ended tomorrow. Why didn’t you wake me at five in the morning?’
It was only natural to ask that rhetorical question, as if the answer weren’t as clear and vivid as the Elba light. He still likes ambiguity. Still likes that they hide from him the things that everyone knows, he included, out of delicacy.
The earth shakes again, but the others don’t seem to notice. Hubert draws closer, a hypodermic syringe in hand.
When the quaking has passed, they help him get up. Once on his somewhat unsteady feet, he shoots a derogatory look at the three doctors, who offer frowns of disapproval in unison. Drouot makes as if to speak, but he stops him with a wave.
He rides towards the beehives. He knows the way: you must head downhill, then up. When does one cease being oneself on the path to becoming another?