“Because you are awake.”

“She’s going to have an audience with the Queen. Maybe we can slip in with her. Meet some royalty.”

“Why will she help you? If she is married to Alvin, she must know your reputation.”

“What reputation?” Calvin didn’t like the direction Honoré’s comments were tending. “What do you know about my reputation? I don’t even have a reputation.”

“I have been with you continuously for months, my friend. It is impossible you do not have a reputation with your family and your neighbors. This is the reputation that your brother’s wife would know.”

“My reputation is that I was a cute little kid when anybody bothered to notice that I existed.”

“Oh no, Calvin. I am quite sure your reputation is that you are envious, spiteful, prone to outbursts of rage, and incapable of admitting an error. Your family and neighbors could not have missed these traits.”

After all these months, to discover that Honoré had such an opinion of him was unbearable. Calvin felt fury rise up inside him, and he would have lashed out at Honoré had the little Frenchman not looked so utterly cheerful and open-faced. Was it possible he had not meant to offend?

“You see what I mean?” said Honoré. “You are angry even now, and you resent me. But why? I mean no harm by these observations. I am a novelist. I study life. You are alive, so I study you. I find you endlessly fascinating. A man with both the ambition and the ability to be great, who is so little in control of his impulses that he pisses away his greatness. You are a tiger studying to be a mouse. This is how the world is kept safe from you. This is why you will never be a Napoleon.”

Calvin roared in fury, but could not bring himself to strike Honoré himself, who was, after all, the only friend he had ever had. So he smashed the flat of his hand against the wall.

“But look,” said Honoré. “It is the wall you hit, and not my face. So I was not entirely right. You do have some self-control. You are able to respect another man’s opinion.”

“I am not a mouse,” said Calvin.

“No no, you did not understand. I said you are studying to be a mouse, not that you have passed your examinations and are now living on cheese. When I hear you go, squeak squeak squeak, I think, What an odd noise to come from a tiger. I have known few tigers in my life. Many mice, but few tigers. So you are precious to me, my friend. I am sad to hear this squeaking. And your sister-in-law, I think all she knows of you is the squeak, that is what I was saying before. That is why I doubt that she will be glad to see you.”

“I can roar if I need to,” said Calvin.

“Look at how angry you are. What would you do, hit me? That, my dear friend, would be a squeak.” Honoré looked at his own naked body. “I am filthy like a wallowing pig. I will order up a bath. You may use the water when I’m done.”