Charlie Smith -Runcible Napoleon (detail)

                               To Nicholas Lock
                                                                                       

FIRST AMONG CORSICANS
Advancing rapidly along the canal, Napoleon destroys an army of Corsican
homunculi, lashing out at them with exceptional viciousness. The moment
he seizes his objective, his mother weeps. It is then Napoleon conceives
the imperial ambition that will possess him. His occupation of the egg is
characterized by a remarkable degree of organization and adaptability.
He also exhibits, ab ovo, a brutal disregard for movements of independence,
kicking his mother when she attempts to visit friends without him.

A DIFFICULT BIRTH
Napoleon is born. He will later compare the experience to his winter
retreat from Moscow. He vows never again to allow himself to enter into
Being by any but a divine agency. Unwilling to forgive his mother for her
intervention, he refuses her annual birthday greetings. On every other day
of the year, however, Napoleon is amiable toward his mother. It is a sign of
his greatness that he can contain such ambivalent feelings for her.

‘THE SONG OF THE PULLEY’
God initiates Napoleon into the Mystery of Things: the pulley, for example,
and the radiator key. He does not fail to illuminate for Napoleon obscure
subject matter such as celestial mechanics, psychiatry, and the velocity of
money. All afternoon they sing “The Song of the Pulley,” a cappella, while
inventing instant coffee and the runcible spoon.

HIS YOUTH AND INTIMATIONS OF A BRILLIANT FUTURE
Napoleon spends his youth entirely on earth. (The less said about this period
the better!) Later, he will live on Mars and Earth simultaneously and will be
celebrated as a genius on both planets. (See “Red Dust.”)

HIS ELEPHANT REFUSED
Before the siege of Toulon, Napoleon visits Madame Sosostris, clairvoyant.
She tells him that not only will he reduce the town but also become the
most feared man in Europe. Napoleon is pleased and presents her with an
elephant, “in gratitude.” She refuses Napoleon’s elephant, telling him she
has neither use nor accommodations for a pachyderm. Incensed, Napoleon
withdraws his gratitude and his elephant.

NAPOLEON’S HAT
Napoleon visits the asylum near Charenton and speaks earnestly to a dozen
inmates who claim to be Napoleon. He later tells the asylum’s
director that the men suffer from “an intemperance of adoration, producing
a corresponding grandiosity indifferent to ordinary ideas of decorum.”
Napoleon names this distemper the Napoleonic Complex and is delighted by
his visit, seeing himself multiplied as if by a room of mirrors.

THE ALPS
Napoleon orders the building of a one- sixth-scale model
of the Alps, in order to rehearse the invasion of Italy.
His corps of engineers labors long on the project, losing
many men in its dangerous passes, its crevasses, and,
once, inside a Maozagotl Cloud! In the end, they
present Napoleon with a model perfect in every detail.
Napoleon and his engineers celebrate the end of construction with a lavish ball. Napoleon surprises
everyone by dancing both parts of a pas de deux. In
their gaiety, the engineers neglect to cover the Alps with a tarpaulin, and a
violent rain beats the papier-mâché to a pulp. Undiscouraged, Napoleon orders
the building of a new Alps fabricated entirely of India rubber.

ANXIETY AND EROS
Napoleon ascends in a balloon in order to survey the Austrian positions.
While drifting above the Piedmont plain, he hears a voice that tells him
that a puff pastry will be named in his honor. He decides to resign his
commission at once and enter the École du éclair in Paris, so that he may
“become the greatest pastry chef the world has ever known.” On the road
to Paris, however, a second voice promises him that a brandy shall bear his
name, whose excellence will be proclaimed among civilized men. Napoleon
experiences a rare irresolution resulting in anxiety. To assuage it, he orders
the execution of one hundred Austrian prisoners. The relief he experiences
can only be characterized as erotic.

AN ITALIAN SARDINE
Napoleon steps confidently from the bank and walks out onto Lake Garda.
He takes thirty paces, stops, looks a moment at the sky “as if to read his
future there,” then returns “altogether too nonchalantly” to the bank
where Generals Lannes and Victor stand waiting for orders. Infuriated by
Napoleon’s lack of humility, they ignore this newest act of bravado, this
“fatuous stunt.” Napoleon now finds himself in the awkward position of
having performed a superb miracle before unwilling witnesses, who cannot
be relied upon to testify to an act clearly in defiance of all natural law. He
retaliates by pretending not to notice the Generals, who retire to the country
and raise cabbages. Later, during the retreat from Russia, Napoleon will
attempt to feed his starving men with a solitary sardine; but the sardine
defies him, refusing to multiply, and the men remain hungry. Napoleon
blames it on the sardine, which is Italian.

NAPOLEON TELLS A JOKE
Always, Napoleon is serious. Not for him the feuilleton, the bagatelle, the
divertissement, or, when in Rome, the buffoonery of the commedia dell’ arte.
“Humor,” he tells an aide, “is unsuitable for a titan of one’s age.” Once,
however, Napoleon does allow himself a joke: “Josephine,” he tells Marshal
Davout, while the two are sacking the fortified Danube town of Ratison,
“makes my privates stand to attention.” Marshal Davout does not know
how to react and decides to behead an Austrian infantry man with his sword,
as a diversion.

VIRTUOSITY
Napoleon enrolls in the Paris Conservatory and learns to play all the
instruments. While he is a virtuoso on all of them, he dislikes the tuba,
which makes, in his judgment, “a rude noise, unpleasing to the ear.”

PLASTER OF PARIS
Napoleon has his likeness fashioned in wax and a mold made. He
commissions a hundred miniature Napoleons, in plaster, for friends and
admirers. When he learns that not a particle of plaster can be found in all
Paris, he invades Venice and consoles himself by wreaking havoc on the
inhabitants. But he remains apart, refusing to join in the pillage, drinks too
much retsina, and can be seen at twilight in a gondola, “wrapped in gloom.”

INVENTION (1)
Napoleon invents elevator shoes.

EGYPT
Napoleon admires the pyramids. He admires the Sphinx and the obelisks.
He admires the Nile, the papyrus reeds on the shore, and the sail boats on
the water. He admires the cranes and the ibis and the golden carp sacred to
Ra. He admires the women with their dainty, slippered feet, their gossamer,
their golden girdles fashioned after serpents. He admires the camels, the
desert, and the grains of sand, which, like his genius, appear to him infinite.
Sitting outside his tent in the cool Egyptian evening, he translates the Rosetta
Stone and speaks glyphs to an accompaniment of nightingales. With his
lover, he strolls the bank of the Nile and feeds crumbs to the carp, which
rise to his fingers to receive them, like blessings. In his heart, he wants to
be Pharaoh, even now as his ships are set aflame by Nelson in the Bay of
Abukar. He wants to be Pharaoh – even now that Elba and St. Helena are
being prepared to receive him.

MORE CONCERNING HATS
Napoleon invents the bouffant hairdo for men, but immediately renounces it
as unworthy of a French officer. Instead, he enhances his cocked hat with a
block of wood, in which he sticks campaign buttons. Determined to outdo
Napoleon, his marshals enhance their hats. Napoleon and his marshals now
engage in an escalating combat de chapeau. At its conclusion, their hats are so
large and ungainly that they must be worn on the humps of camels brought
from Egypt, in the care of fierce camel drivers.

NAPOLEON DOES THE MEXICAN HAT DANCE
Napoleon is about to crown himself Emperor when a mariachi band
(coronation gift from the Emperor of Mexico) begins to play. All those who
have gathered at Notre Dame are horrified by this act of lese majesty and
expect to see the blood of the mariachi sprawl across the altar. But Napoleon
waves away the soldiers who have charged with swords drawn and begs a
sombrero from one of the mariachi. Receiving it, he enchants the assembly
of notables by performing the Mexican
hat dance with extraordinary dash.
Even Pope Pius cannot conceal his
admiration.

INVENTIONS (2)
Napoleon invents moveable type,
the ice tong, the cotton gin, and
the Gatling Gun. He also invents a
mousetrap, which is better than all
other mousetraps that have ever
existed. The royalties on this
invention alone would make him a wealthy man, no matter what the outcome of his quest for world domination; but Napoleon, altruistically, bestows his mousetrap patent on “the People of France.”

CROSSING THE FRONTIER
Napoleon says hurtful things to Marshal Ney. He disparages his marshaling
abilities. Humiliated, Marshal Ney goes into the trees to be alone with his
shame. Napoleon puts on his big hat, which he doffed in order to batter
Marshal Nye; he puts his favorite hand inside his coat; and walks, peevishly,
up and down, in front of the tents of the grande armèe. The grande armèe
hides, in its tents. Finally, Napoleon shows that greatness of spirit, which
brings all who approach him near to swooning. He decides to forgive
Marshal Nye and hurries into the trees after him. After a
time, Napoleon and Marshal Nye come out from the
trees, holding hands and singing.

INVENTIONS (3)
Napoleon invents the steam engine, the mangle, the
I-beam, the Eiffel Tower, and photography. His
photographs of French fille de joie were enormously
popular during La Belle Époque.

STILL MORE CONCERNING HATS
Napoleon complains that his hat has once again gone missing. The hat wagon is brought up from the rear. Napoleon selects another from the hundred or so he has brought with him from Paris, as gifts for his admirers. Taking inventory, he notes with dismay that the supply of imperial headgear has been decimated. He worries about the security of his appurtenances. He worries about the dignity of France, explaining to an aide that he once saw his hat “perched impertinently” on the head of a courtesan, who wore nothing else. Mistrustful of those around him, Napoleon decides never to remove his hat; not even in sleep will he do so.

MATHEMATICS
Napoleon enrolls in mathematics at the University of Paris. “Numbers
bend to the will of Napoleon,” he tells his teachers. When they do not bend,
Napoleon abolishes mathematics, replacing it with an ingenious system of
his own, based on dried peas, which every citizen is required to carry in a
little leather sack.

POETRY
Napoleon writes a sonnet in praise of a woman’s bosom. Her husband,
a literary critic of the ancien régime who escaped the Terror, criticizes
Napoleon’s sonnet as “lacking that perfection of form, without which
it cannot hope to equal the beauty of the original, of which it is only an
imperfect copy.” Napoleon orders the bosom
into exile. “And now my sonnet occupies that
place in the life of France once occupied by the
bosom,” he says. “Now it is my sonnet which is
without equal.” While in the field, Napoleon
takes the sonnet to bed and has great joy of it.

HIS ‘ENGLISH’ DISAPPOINTMENT
Napoleon disguises himself and travels to the Lake
Country in search of Wordsworth. He wishes to question the poet on a matter of prosody. Seeing a short man on the horizon, whose hand is kept out of sight inside his coat, Wordsworth guesses that it is Napoleon, who is striding imperiously toward him, and hides behind a tree. Disappointed at not finding the poet, Napoleon returns to France, “trailing clouds of glory” &etc.

INVENTIONS (4)
Napoleon is prolific in innovations that begin, in English, with the letter “S,”
such as sliced bread, string, and the submarine.

TREATY OF TILSIT
Napoleon leaves the nineteenth century on a von Stockum band and enters
1968. He offers himself to the sexual revolution; but the sexual revolution
refuses him, denouncing him as a “tyrant” and a “tight ass.” Napoleon goes
back to July 9, 1807 on a time-loop, and concludes the Treaty of Tilsit, after
having treated Alexander I to an inglorious defeat.

BUST OF NAPOLEON
In order to “enlarge his consciousness,” Napoleon decides to wear women’s
undergarments and sends his army in search of dainty specimens. He is
especially pleased with a brassiere captured in the Loire, which flatters him.
So pleased is he, in fact, that Napoleon orders his bust displayed throughout
the Empire.

INVENTIONS (5)
Napoleon invents the whistling tea pot, the gramophone, and the rollerskate.
He also reinvents the wheel, which becomes rounder by the cunning
addition of a degree of circumference.

DEPORTMENT
Napoleon studies deportment under the Comtesse de Castiglione. In vain,
she attempts to persuade him to remove his hand from inside his coat. But
Napoleon is uncomfortable with his hand outside, in plein air, and his former
social diffidence returns. An astute woman, she gives him permission to
keep his hand where he will feel most comfortable. Under her tutelage,
Napoleon learns to walk superbly and also becomes an excellent dancer,
mastering the polka-mazurka in a single afternoon.

RED DUST
Napoleon is abducted and taken to Mars, to serve as a military adviser to
its sanguinary inhabitants for their invasion of Venus. He is happy on the
red planet, winning fame surpassing even that which had been his on earth
at the time of his abduction. He is rewarded with a villa on one of Mar’s
most desirable canals. He marries a princess, who bears him two redfaced,
fratricidal sons, becomes provost of a military college, and writes his
memoirs in passable Martian. At the conclusion of a long and honored life,
Napoleon dies and is buried, with much ceremony, in the red dust. At the
moment of his death, he takes up his earthly life once more at the instant of
his having left it. During the nineteenth century, thousands of Napoleons
will be incarcerated in Europe’s madhouses. They are, in actuality, Martians
incognito, engaged in prosecuting their imperialist ambition: “to win
dominion over the nearer planets.”

WAR AND PEACE
Napoleon visits Leo Tolstoy. He has guessed that the great novelist will
come eventually to write of him, of Napoleon, and his war against Russia.
Tolstoy’s reception of the Enemy of Civilization is chilly. “I would not
have opened my door to you,” he says in French, “except for the novelist’s
curiosity, which is unquenchable. Why have you come here, at the risk of
outrage at the hands of the kulaks?” Napoleon replies, “I want you to see
me for what I was: a homme like any other, although an emperor nonpareil.
I wish to be treated fairly by history; and it is you, I think, who will write
that of my Russian adventure.” Tolstoy invites Napoleon into the billiard
room. There, Tolstoy takes a pistol from his writing desk and discharges it at
Napoleon. The weapon misfires; the ball drops leadenly at the Russian’s feet.
He sighs: “History is irreversible, and now I will have to spend years, writing
War and Peace! Would you care to see my lathe before I begin?” Napoleon
enjoys the lathe, turning several quite admirable newels, and, in return, tells
Tolstoy how, using peas, he discovered the Law of Genetics, while a prisoner
on Elba. Tolstoy is visibly impressed. That night, he plays the trombone for
Napoleon, who, in spite of the late hour, refuses to yawn, “by an act of iron
will.”

WINTER RETREAT FROM MOSCOW
No sooner uttered than the words of Napoleon’s soldiers freeze in the air,
such is the incomparable cold on that march graphed elegantly by Clauswitz.
Delicate as Fabergé eggs, the words are prized by collectors, who keep them
on ice with summer vegetables, fish, and other equally perishable stuff.

WATERLOO
Napoleon has the flu. He sends his apologies to Wellington, saying that
he is too ill to attend the battle and is under doctor’s orders to keep to his
cot “no matter what cost to the nation.” Wellington is sympathetic, having
once had a flu of his own. Disguising himself as a doxy, Wellington passes
through the French lines and visits Napoleon in his tent. He has brought
the ailing emperor a flask of hot chicken soup and a mustard plaster for his
chest. Napoleon is moved by his adversary’s courtesy and also by the sight
of his décolletage. He strokes Wellington’s boot and murmurs endearments,
which cause in Wellington an unsoldierly blush. The generals then discuss
whether or not it might be better if, instead of a battle, they held a ball. It has
been a long time since either has had an occasion to wear his dress uniform.
Napoleon hesitates but agrees when Wellington offers to send a sedan chair
for him.

ST. HELENA
Now Napoleon makes of himself an incubus composed entirely of words,
and leaves the rainy, gray lava island in order to seize the imaginations of
men. These words it is which are his last and most lasting conquest.

SUCCUBUS
Napoleon visited me in my sleep – my dream – and whispered words in
French, a language I do not know, but nevertheless understood, in my
dream. “You must write,” he said, “my history – the history that so far
has failed to be written, which will please me to be told and known by
posterity.” I complained to Napoleon that I would much rather be visited by
a succubus, who might give me pleasures of a kind seldom experienced, if at
all. Napoleon twisted my nose, causing me pain, in my dream, so that I cried
out: “Stop, Napoleon: you are hurting me!” “Then do as I say and write!” he
commanded. Feeling my nose, gingerly, I agreed. It was then he told me all
that had happened to him during a crowded life. “You must set it down, all of it!”
he said desperately, so great was his desire to have it done. “How one
evening, for example, I stood on a hill outside Rome with my legions ranked
about me in the setting sun and danced a gigue.” I am sorry, Napoleon, that,
on waking, I remembered only a little of what you had told me – my mind
distracted by thoughts of the succubus who did not come.

LAST WORDS
“What is a runcible spoon?”