At night fall, in a field near Genappe, two officers, Bernard and Bertrand, came up with a haggard-eyed man who, having been borne thus far by the tide of defeat, had dismounted and, holding his horse by the bridle, was walking back alone in the direction of Waterloo.It was Napoleon, still trying to go forward, the giant somnambulist of a shattered dream.
Things are over. The battle has been won. The French have been defeated. The rest is just details. Yet here we have painted for us a picture of Napoleon - described as metaphorically sleep-walking - unwilling to accept that with this loss has come the shattering of his dream.
We’ve already said much about Hugo’s framing and insistence that this defeat was an act of God. That comes back again in this chapter but I won’t focus on it. Instead, I want to zoom in on Napoleon in this moment. His dream has been shattered, and with that shattering the outlook for his future has taken on a drastically different tone and direction. It makes sense that in this moment he is in a state of denial. Trying to go back to the scene of the battle, trying to will his way to a victory, trying to turn back time and find his way to a different outcome.
Regardless of whether “God” has a direct role to play in these circumstances or not, the first step forward for anyone in a place where their dream has been shattered by the cold hammer of reality is acceptance. To deny what has happened, regardless of the fairy tales that tell us otherwise, is to choose to remain in this place. It doesn’t require global stakes like this either, it can be incredibly narrow and personal stakes - a dream is a dream, and when it dies and we refuse to accept it, we choose to be stuck.
Disappointment is an understandable emotional response. Continued denial on the other hand is a choice to hamper and impede yourself from making progress. An absurd example of this can be found in the movie Napoleon Dynamite, where we see “Uncle Rico” in a perpetual state of arrested development because he cannot get over the fact that his coach refusing to put him in during a crucial game cost him the future he thought he deserved. This shattering of a dream becomes an excuse for everything, a reason to “stay stuck” and fail to actually engage. Uncle Rico could have picked up the pieces - instead he became a low-level grifter.
Where are you stuck? Are there dreams that collapsed on you? I’ve had a few that did and I’ve spent time in the past stuck on the “could have” and “should have” questions that come with refusing to let it go. I won’t stay there anymore. I won’t be Napoleon. I refuse to play somnambulist to a shattered dream.