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Produced by Eve Sobol. HTML version by Al Haines. | |
THE MAN OF DESTINY | |
BERNARD SHAW | |
1898 | |
The twelfth of May, 1796, in north Italy, at Tavazzano, on the road | |
from Lodi to Milan. The afternoon sun is blazing serenely over the | |
plains of Lombardy, treating the Alps with respect and the anthills | |
with indulgence, not incommoded by the basking of the swine and oxen in | |
the villages nor hurt by its cool reception in the churches, but | |
fiercely disdainful of two hordes of mischievous insects which are the | |
French and Austrian armies. Two days before, at Lodi, the Austrians | |
tried to prevent the French from crossing the river by the narrow | |
bridge there; but the French, commanded by a general aged 27, Napoleon | |
Bonaparte, who does not understand the art of war, rushed the fireswept | |
bridge, supported by a tremendous cannonade in which the young general | |
assisted with his own hands. Cannonading is his technical specialty; he | |
has been trained in the artillery under the old regime, and made | |
perfect in the military arts of shirking his duties, swindling the | |
paymaster over travelling expenses, and dignifying war with the noise | |
and smoke of cannon, as depicted in all military portraits. He is, | |
however, an original observer, and has perceived, for the first time | |
since the invention of gunpowder, that a cannon ball, if it strikes a | |
man, will kill him. To a thorough grasp of this remarkable discovery, | |
he adds a highly evolved faculty for physical geography and for the | |
calculation of times and distances. He has prodigious powers of work, | |
and a clear, realistic knowledge of human nature in public affairs, | |
having seen it exhaustively tested in that department during the French | |
Revolution. He is imaginative without illusions, and creative without | |
religion, loyalty, patriotism or any of the common ideals. Not that he | |
is incapable of these ideals: on the contrary, he has swallowed them | |
all in his boyhood, and now, having a keen dramatic faculty, is | |
extremely clever at playing upon them by the arts of the actor and | |
stage manager. Withal, he is no spoiled child. Poverty, ill-luck, the | |
shifts of impecunious shabby-gentility, repeated failure as a would-be | |
author, humiliation as a rebuffed time server, reproof and punishment | |
as an incompetent and dishonest officer, an escape from dismissal from | |
the service so narrow that if the emigration of the nobles had not | |
raised the value of even the most rascally lieutenant to the famine | |
price of a general he would have been swept contemptuously from the | |
army: these trials have ground the conceit out of him, and forced him | |
to be self-sufficient and to understand that to such men as he is the | |
world will give nothing that he cannot take from it by force. In this | |
the world is not free from cowardice and folly; for Napoleon, as a | |
merciless cannonader of political rubbish, is making himself useful. | |
indeed, it is even now impossible to live in England without sometimes | |
feeling how much that country lost in not being conquered by him as | |
well as by Julius Caesar. | |
However, on this May afternoon in 1796, it is early days with him. He | |
is only 26, and has but recently become a general, partly by using his | |
wife to seduce the Directory (then governing France) partly by the | |
scarcity of officers caused by the emigration as aforesaid; partly by | |
his faculty of knowing a country, with all its roads, rivers, hills and | |
valleys, as he knows the palm of his hand; and largely by that new | |
faith of his in the efficacy of firing cannons at people. His army is, | |
as to discipline, in a state which has so greatly shocked some modern | |
writers before whom the following story has been enacted, that they, | |
impressed with the later glory of "L'Empereur," have altogether refused | |
to credit it. But Napoleon is not "L'Empereur" yet: he has only just | |
been dubbed "Le Petit Caporal," and is in the stage of gaining | |
influence over his men by displays of pluck. He is not in a position to | |
force his will on them, in orthodox military fashion, by the cat o' | |
nine tails. The French Revolution, which has escaped suppression solely | |
through the monarchy's habit of being at least four years in arrear | |
with its soldiers in the matter of pay, has substituted for that habit, | |
as far as possible, the habit of not paying at all, except in promises | |
and patriotic flatteries which are not compatible with martial law of | |
the Prussian type. Napoleon has therefore approached the Alps in | |
command of men without money, in rags, and consequently indisposed to | |
stand much discipline, especially from upstart generals. This | |
circumstance, which would have embarrassed an idealist soldier, has | |
been worth a thousand cannon to Napoleon. He has said to his army, "You | |
have patriotism and courage; but you have no money, no clothes, and | |
deplorably indifferent food. In Italy there are all these things, and | |
glory as well, to be gained by a devoted army led by a general who | |
regards loot as the natural right of the soldier. I am such a general. | |
En avant, mes enfants!" The result has entirely justified him. The army | |
conquers Italy as the locusts conquered Cyprus. They fight all day and | |
march all night, covering impossible distances and appearing in | |
incredible places, not because every soldier carries a field marshal's | |
baton in his knapsack, but because he hopes to carry at least half a | |
dozen silver forks there next day. | |
It must be understood, by the way, that the French army does not make | |
war on the Italians. It is there to rescue them from the tyranny of | |
their Austrian conquerors, and confer republican institutions on them; | |
so that in incidentally looting them, it merely makes free with the | |
property of its friends, who ought to be grateful to it, and perhaps | |
would be if ingratitude were not the proverbial failing of their | |
country. The Austrians, whom it fights, are a thoroughly respectable | |
regular army, well disciplined, commanded by gentlemen trained and | |
versed in the art of war: at the head of them Beaulieu, practising the | |
classic art of war under orders from Vienna, and getting horribly | |
beaten by Napoleon, who acts on his own responsibility in defiance of | |
professional precedents or orders from Paris. Even when the Austrians | |
win a battle, all that is necessary is to wait until their routine | |
obliges them to return to their quarters for afternoon tea, so to | |
speak, and win it back again from them: a course pursued later on with | |
brilliant success at Marengo. On the whole, with his foe handicapped by | |
Austrian statesmanship, classic generalship, and the exigencies of the | |
aristocratic social structure of Viennese society, Napoleon finds it | |
possible to be irresistible without working heroic miracles. The world, | |
however, likes miracles and heroes, and is quite incapable of | |
conceiving the action of such forces as academic militarism or Viennese | |
drawing-roomism. Hence it has already begun to manufacture | |
"L'Empereur," and thus to make it difficult for the romanticists of a | |
hundred years later to credit the little scene now in question at | |
Tavazzano as aforesaid. | |
The best quarters at Tavazzano are at a little inn, the first house | |
reached by travellers passing through the place from Milan to Lodi. It | |
stands in a vineyard; and its principal room, a pleasant refuge from | |
the summer heat, is open so widely at the back to this vineyard that it | |
is almost a large veranda. The bolder children, much excited by the | |
alarums and excursions of the past few days, and by an irruption of | |
French troops at six o'clock, know that the French commander has | |
quartered himself in this room, and are divided between a craving to | |
peep in at the front windows and a mortal terror of the sentinel, a | |
young gentleman-soldier, who, having no natural moustache, has had a | |
most ferocious one painted on his face with boot blacking by his | |
sergeant. As his heavy uniform, like all the uniforms of that day, is | |
designed for parade without the least reference to his health or | |
comfort, he perspires profusely in the sun; and his painted moustache | |
has run in little streaks down his chin and round his neck except where | |
it has dried in stiff japanned flakes, and had its sweeping outline | |
chipped off in grotesque little bays and headlands, making him | |
unspeakably ridiculous in the eye of History a hundred years later, but | |
monstrous and horrible to the contemporary north Italian infant, to | |
whom nothing would seem more natural than that he should relieve the | |
monotony of his guard by pitchforking a stray child up on his bayonet, | |
and eating it uncooked. Nevertheless one girl of bad character, in whom | |
an instinct of privilege with soldiers is already dawning, does peep in | |
at the safest window for a moment, before a glance and a clink from the | |
sentinel sends her flying. Most of what she sees she has seen before: | |
the vineyard at the back, with the old winepress and a cart among the | |
vines; the door close down on her right leading to the inn entry; the | |
landlord's best sideboard, now in full action for dinner, further back | |
on the same side; the fireplace on the other side, with a couch near | |
it, and another door, leading to the inner rooms, between it and the | |
vineyard; and the table in the middle with its repast of Milanese | |
risotto, cheese, grapes, bread, olives, and a big wickered flask of red | |
wine. | |
The landlord, Giuseppe Grandi, is also no novelty. He is a swarthy, | |
vivacious, shrewdly cheerful, black-curled, bullet headed, grinning | |
little man of 40. Naturally an excellent host, he is in quite special | |
spirits this evening at his good fortune in having the French commander | |
as his guest to protect him against the license of the troops, and | |
actually sports a pair of gold earrings which he would otherwise have | |
hidden carefully under the winepress with his little equipment of | |
silver plate. | |
Napoleon, sitting facing her on the further side of the table, and | |
Napoleon's hat, sword and riding whip lying on the couch, she sees for | |
the first time. He is working hard, partly at his meal, which he has | |
discovered how to dispatch, by attacking all the courses | |
simultaneously, in ten minutes (this practice is the beginning of his | |
downfall), and partly at a map which he is correcting from memory, | |
occasionally marking the position of the forces by taking a grapeskin | |
from his mouth and planting it on the map with his thumb like a wafer. | |
He has a supply of writing materials before him mixed up in disorder | |
with the dishes and cruets; and his long hair gets sometimes into the | |
risotto gravy and sometimes into the ink. | |
GIUSEPPE. Will your excellency-- | |
NAPOLEON (intent on his map, but cramming himself mechanically with his | |
left hand). Don't talk. I'm busy. | |
GIUSEPPE (with perfect goodhumor). Excellency: I obey. | |
NAPOLEON. Some red ink. | |
GIUSEPPE. Alas! excellency, there is none. | |
NAPOLEON (with Corsican facetiousness). Kill something and bring me its | |
blood. | |
GIUSEPPE (grinning). There is nothing but your excellency's horse, the | |
sentinel, the lady upstairs, and my wife. | |
NAPOLEON. Kill your wife. | |
GIUSEPPE. Willingly, your excellency; but unhappily I am not strong | |
enough. She would kill me. | |
NAPOLEON. That will do equally well. | |
GIUSEPPE. Your excellency does me too much honor. (Stretching his hand | |
toward the flask.) Perhaps some wine will answer your excellency's | |
purpose. | |
NAPOLEON (hastily protecting the flask, and becoming quite serious). | |
Wine! No: that would be waste. You are all the same: waste! waste! | |
waste! (He marks the map with gravy, using his fork as a pen.) Clear | |
away. (He finishes his wine; pushes back his chair; and uses his | |
napkin, stretching his legs and leaning back, but still frowning and | |
thinking.) | |
GIUSEPPE (clearing the table and removing the things to a tray on the | |
sideboard). Every man to his trade, excellency. We innkeepers have | |
plenty of cheap wine: we think nothing of spilling it. You great | |
generals have plenty of cheap blood: you think nothing of spilling it. | |
Is it not so, excellency? | |
NAPOLEON. Blood costs nothing: wine costs money. (He rises and goes to | |
the fireplace. ) | |
GIUSEPPE. They say you are careful of everything except human life, | |
excellency. | |
NAPOLEON. Human life, my friend, is the only thing that takes care of | |
itself. (He throws himself at his ease on the couch.) | |
GIUSEPPE (admiring him). Ah, excellency, what fools we all are beside | |
you! If I could only find out the secret of your success! | |
NAPOLEON. You would make yourself Emperor of Italy, eh? | |
GIUSEPPE. Too troublesome, excellency: I leave all that to you. | |
Besides, what would become of my inn if I were Emperor? See how you | |
enjoy looking on at me whilst I keep the inn for you and wait on you! | |
Well, I shall enjoy looking on at you whilst you become Emperor of | |
Europe, and govern the country for me. (Whilst he chatters, he takes | |
the cloth off without removing the map and inkstand, and takes the | |
corners in his hands and the middle of the edge in his mouth, to fold | |
it up.) | |
NAPOLEON. Emperor of Europe, eh? Why only Europe? | |
GIUSEPPE. Why, indeed? Emperor of the world, excellency! Why not? (He | |
folds and rolls up the cloth, emphasizing his phrases by the steps of | |
the process.) One man is like another (fold): one country is like | |
another (fold): one battle is like another. (At the last fold, he slaps | |
the cloth on the table and deftly rolls it up, adding, by way of | |
peroration) Conquer one: conquer all. (He takes the cloth to the | |
sideboard, and puts it in a drawer.) | |
NAPOLEON. And govern for all; fight for all; be everybody's servant | |
under cover of being everybody's master: Giuseppe. | |
GIUSEPPE (at the sideboard). Excellency. | |
NAPOLEON. I forbid you to talk to me about myself. | |
GIUSEPPE (coming to the foot of the couch). Pardon. Your excellency is | |
so unlike other great men. It is the subject they like best. | |
NAPOLEON. Well, talk to me about the subject they like next best, | |
whatever that may be. | |
GIUSEPPE (unabashed). Willingly, your excellency. Has your excellency | |
by any chance caught a glimpse of the lady upstairs? | |
(Napoleon promptly sits up and looks at him with an interest which | |
entirely justifies the implied epigram.) | |
NAPOLEON. How old is she? | |
GIUSEPPE. The right age, excellency. | |
NAPOLEON. Do you mean seventeen or thirty? | |
GIUSEPPE. Thirty, excellency. | |
NAPOLEON. Goodlooking? | |
GIUSEPPE. I cannot see with your excellency's eyes: every man must | |
judge that for himself. In my opinion, excellency, a fine figure of a | |
lady. (Slyly.) Shall I lay the table for her collation here? | |
NAPOLEON (brusquely, rising). No: lay nothing here until the officer | |
for whom I am waiting comes back. (He looks at his watch, and takes to | |
walking to and fro between the fireplace and the vineyard.) | |
GIUSEPPE (with conviction). Excellency: believe me, he has been | |
captured by the accursed Austrians. He dare not keep you waiting if he | |
were at liberty. | |
NAPOLEON (turning at the edge of the shadow of the veranda). Giuseppe: | |
if that turns out to be true, it will put me into such a temper that | |
nothing short of hanging you and your whole household, including the | |
lady upstairs, will satisfy me. | |
GIUSEPPE. We are all cheerfully at your excellency's disposal, except | |
the lady. I cannot answer for her; but no lady could resist you, | |
General. | |
NAPOLEON (sourly, resuming his march). Hm! You will never be hanged. | |
There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it. | |
GIUSEPPE (sympathetically). Not the least in the world, excellency: is | |
there? (Napoleon again looks at his watch, evidently growing anxious.) | |
Ah, one can see that you are a great man, General: you know how to | |
wait. If it were a corporal now, or a sub-lieutenant, at the end of | |
three minutes he would be swearing, fuming, threatening, pulling the | |
house about our ears. | |
NAPOLEON. Giuseppe: your flatteries are insufferable. Go and talk | |
outside. (He sits down again at the table, with his jaws in his hands, | |
and his elbows propped on the map, poring over it with a troubled | |
expression.) | |
GIUSEPPE. Willingly, your excellency. You shall not be disturbed. (He | |
takes up the tray and prepares to withdraw.) | |
NAPOLEON. The moment he comes back, send him to me. | |
GIUSEPPE. Instantaneously, your excellency. | |
A LADY'S VOICE (calling from some distant part of the inn). Giusep-pe! | |
(The voice is very musical, and the two final notes make an ascending | |
interval.) | |
NAPOLEON (startled). What's that? What's that? | |
GIUSEPPE (resting the end of his tray on the table and leaning over to | |
speak the more confidentially). The lady, excellency. | |
NAPOLEON (absently). Yes. What lady? Whose lady? | |
GIUSEPPE. The strange lady, excellency. | |
NAPOLEON. What strange lady? | |
GIUSEPPE (with a shrug). Who knows? She arrived here half an hour | |
before you in a hired carriage belonging to the Golden Eagle at | |
Borghetto. Actually by herself, excellency. No servants. A dressing bag | |
and a trunk: that is all. The postillion says she left a horse--a | |
charger, with military trappings, at the Golden Eagle. | |
NAPOLEON. A woman with a charger! That's extraordinary. | |
THE LADY'S VOICE (the two final notes now making a peremptory | |
descending interval). Giuseppe! | |
NAPOLEON (rising to listen). That's an interesting voice. | |
GIUSEPPE. She is an interesting lady, excellency. (Calling.) Coming, | |
lady, coming. (He makes for the inner door.) | |
NAPOLEON (arresting him with a strong hand on his shoulder). Stop. Let | |
her come. | |
VOICE. Giuseppe!! (Impatiently.) | |
GIUSEPPE (pleadingly). Let me go, excellency. It is my point of honor | |
as an innkeeper to come when I am called. I appeal to you as a soldier. | |
A MAN's VOICE (outside, at the inn door, shouting). Here, someone. | |
Hello! Landlord. Where are you? (Somebody raps vigorously with a whip | |
handle on a bench in the passage.) | |
NAPOLEON (suddenly becoming the commanding officer again and throwing | |
Giuseppe off). There he is at last. (Pointing to the inner door.) Go. | |
Attend to your business: the lady is calling you. (He goes to the | |
fireplace and stands with his back to it with a determined military | |
air.) | |
GIUSEPPE (with bated breath, snatching up his tray). Certainly, | |
excellency. (He hurries out by the inner door.) | |
THE MAN's VOICE (impatiently). Are you all asleep here? (The door | |
opposite the fireplace is kicked rudely open; and a dusty | |
sub-lieutenant bursts into the room. He is a chuckle-headed young man | |
of 24, with the fair, delicate, clear skin of a man of rank, and a | |
self-assurance on that ground which the French Revolution has failed to | |
shake in the smallest degree. He has a thick silly lip, an eager | |
credulous eye, an obstinate nose, and a loud confident voice. A young | |
man without fear, without reverence, without imagination, without | |
sense, hopelessly insusceptible to the Napoleonic or any other idea, | |
stupendously egotistical, eminently qualified to rush in where angels | |
fear to tread, yet of a vigorous babbling vitality which bustles him | |
into the thick of things. He is just now boiling with vexation, | |
attributable by a superficial observer to his impatience at not being | |
promptly attended to by the staff of the inn, but in which a more | |
discerning eye can perceive a certain moral depth, indicating a more | |
permanent and momentous grievance. On seeing Napoleon, he is | |
sufficiently taken aback to check himself and salute; but he does not | |
betray by his manner any of that prophetic consciousness of Marengo and | |
Austerlitz, Waterloo and St. Helena, or the Napoleonic pictures of | |
Delaroche and Meissonier, which modern culture will instinctively | |
expect from him.) | |
NAPOLEON (sharply). Well, sir, here you are at last. Your instructions | |
were that I should arrive here at six, and that I was to find you | |
waiting for me with my mail from Paris and with despatches. It is now | |
twenty minutes to eight. You were sent on this service as a hard rider | |
with the fastest horse in the camp. You arrive a hundred minutes late, | |
on foot. Where is your horse! | |
THE LIEUTENANT (moodily pulling off his gloves and dashing them with | |
his cap and whip on the table). Ah! where indeed? That's just what I | |
should like to know, General. (With emotion.) You don't know how fond I | |
was of that horse. | |
NAPOLEON (angrily sarcastic). Indeed! (With sudden misgiving.) Where | |
are the letters and despatches? | |
THE LIEUTENANT (importantly, rather pleased than otherwise at having | |
some remarkable news). I don't know. | |
NAPOLEON (unable to believe his ears). You don't know! | |
LIEUTENANT. No more than you do, General. Now I suppose I shall be | |
court-martialled. Well, I don't mind being court-martialled; but (with | |
solemn determination) I tell you, General, if ever I catch that | |
innocent looking youth, I'll spoil his beauty, the slimy little liar! | |
I'll make a picture of him. I'll-- | |
NAPOLEON (advancing from the hearth to the table). What innocent | |
looking youth? Pull yourself together, sir, will you; and give an | |
account of yourself. | |
LIEUTENANT (facing him at the opposite side of the table, leaning on it | |
with his fists). Oh, I'm all right, General: I'm perfectly ready to | |
give an account of myself. I shall make the court-martial thoroughly | |
understand that the fault was not mine. Advantage has been taken of the | |
better side of my nature; and I'm not ashamed of it. But with all | |
respect to you as my commanding officer, General, I say again that if | |
ever I set eyes on that son of Satan, I'll-- | |
NAPOLEON (angrily). So you said before. | |
LIEUTENANT (drawing himself upright). I say it again, just wait until I | |
catch him. Just wait: that's all. (He folds his arms resolutely, and | |
breathes hard, with compressed lips.) | |
NAPOLEON. I AM waiting, sir--for your explanation. | |
LIEUTENANT (confidently). You'll change your tone, General, when you | |
hear what has happened to me. | |
NAPOLEON. Nothing has happened to you, sir: you are alive and not | |
disabled. Where are the papers entrusted to you? | |
LIEUTENANT. Nothing! Nothing!! Oho! Well, we'll see. (Posing himself to | |
overwhelm Napoleon with his news.) He swore eternal brotherhood with | |
me. Was that nothing? He said my eyes reminded him of his sister's | |
eyes. Was that nothing? He cried--actually cried--over the story of my | |
separation from Angelica. Was that nothing? He paid for both bottles of | |
wine, though he only ate bread and grapes himself. Perhaps you call | |
that nothing! He gave me his pistols and his horse and his | |
despatches--most important despatches--and let me go away with them. | |
(Triumphantly, seeing that he has reduced Napoleon to blank | |
stupefaction.) Was THAT nothing? | |
NAPOLEON (enfeebled by astonishment). What did he do that for? | |
LIEUTENANT (as if the reason were obvious). To show his confidence in | |
me. (Napoleon's jaw does not exactly drop; but its hinges become | |
nerveless. The Lieutenant proceeds with honest indignation.) And I was | |
worthy of his confidence: I brought them all back honorably. But would | |
you believe it?--when I trusted him with MY pistols, and MY horse, and | |
MY despatches-- | |
NAPOLEON (enraged). What the devil did you do that for? | |
LIEUTENANT. Why, to show my confidence in him, of course. And he | |
betrayed it--abused it--never came back. The thief! the swindler! the | |
heartless, treacherous little blackguard! You call that nothing, I | |
suppose. But look here, General: (again resorting to the table with his | |
fist for greater emphasis) YOU may put up with this outrage from the | |
Austrians if you like; but speaking for myself personally, I tell you | |
that if ever I catch-- | |
NAPOLEON (turning on his heel in disgust and irritably resuming his | |
march to and fro). Yes: you have said that more than once already. | |
LIEUTENANT (excitedly). More than once! I'll say it fifty times; and | |
what's more, I'll do it. You'll see, General. I'll show my confidence | |
in him, so I will. I'll-- | |
NAPOLEON. Yes, yes, sir: no doubt you will. What kind of man was he? | |
LIEUTENANT. Well, I should think you ought to be able to tell from his | |
conduct the sort of man he was. | |
NAPOLEON. Psh! What was he like? | |
LIEUTENANT. Like! He's like--well, you ought to have just seen the | |
fellow: that will give you a notion of what he was like. He won't be | |
like it five minutes after I catch him; for I tell you that if ever-- | |
NAPOLEON (shouting furiously for the innkeeper). Giuseppe! (To the | |
Lieutenant, out of all patience.) Hold your tongue, sir, if you can. | |
LIEUTENANT. I warn you it's no use to try to put the blame on me. | |
(Plaintively.) How was I to know the sort of fellow he was? (He takes a | |
chair from between the sideboard and the outer door; places it near the | |
table; and sits down.) If you only knew how hungry and tired I am, | |
you'd have more consideration. | |
GIUSEPPE (returning). What is it, excellency? | |
NAPOLEON (struggling with his temper). Take this--this officer. Feed | |
him; and put him to bed, if necessary. When he is in his right mind | |
again, find out what has happened to him and bring me word. (To the | |
Lieutenant.) Consider yourself under arrest, sir. | |
LIEUTENANT (with sulky stiffness). I was prepared for that. It takes a | |
gentleman to understand a gentleman. (He throws his sword on the table. | |
Giuseppe takes it up and politely offers it to Napoleon, who throws it | |
violently on the couch.) | |
GIUSEPPE (with sympathetic concern). Have you been attacked by the | |
Austrians, lieutenant? Dear, dear, dear! | |
LIEUTENANT (contemptuously). Attacked! I could have broken his back | |
between my finger and thumb. I wish I had, now. No: it was by appealing | |
to the better side of my nature: that's what I can't get over. He said | |
he'd never met a man he liked so much as me. He put his handkerchief | |
round my neck because a gnat bit me, and my stock was chafing it. Look! | |
(He pulls a handkerchief from his stock. Giuseppe takes it and examines | |
it.) | |
GIUSEPPE (to Napoleon). A lady's handkerchief, excellency. (He smells | |
it.) Perfumed! | |
NAPOLEON. Eh? (He takes it and looks at it attentively.) Hm! (He smells | |
it.) Ha! (He walks thoughtfully across the room, looking at the | |
handkerchief, which he finally sticks in the breast of his coat.) | |
LIEUTENANT. Good enough for him, anyhow. I noticed that he had a | |
woman's hands when he touched my neck, with his coaxing, fawning ways, | |
the mean, effeminate little hound. (Lowering his voice with thrilling | |
intensity.) But mark my words, General. If ever-- | |
THE LADY'S VOICE (outside, as before). Giuseppe! | |
LIEUTENANT (petrified). What was that? | |
GIUSEPPE. Only a lady upstairs, lieutenant, calling me. | |
LIEUTENANT. Lady! | |
VOICE. Giuseppe, Giuseppe: where ARE you? | |
LIEUTENANT (murderously). Give me that sword. (He strides to the couch; | |
snatches the sword; and draws it.) | |
GIUSEPPE (rushing forward and seizing his right arm.) What are you | |
thinking of, lieutenant? It's a lady: don't you hear that it's a | |
woman's voice? | |
LIEUTENANT. It's HIS voice, I tell you. Let me go. (He breaks away, and | |
rushes to the inner door. It opens in his face; and the Strange Lady | |
steps in. She is a very attractive lady, tall and extraordinarily | |
graceful, with a delicately intelligent, apprehensive, questioning | |
face--perception in the brow, sensitiveness in the nostrils, character | |
in the chin: all keen, refined, and original. She is very feminine, but | |
by no means weak: the lithe, tender figure is hung on a strong frame: | |
the hands and feet, neck and shoulders, are no fragile ornaments, but | |
of full size in proportion to her stature, which considerably exceeds | |
that of Napoleon and the innkeeper, and leaves her at no disadvantage | |
with the lieutenant. Only her elegance and radiant charm keep the | |
secret of her size and strength. She is not, judging by her dress, an | |
admirer of the latest fashions of the Directory; or perhaps she uses up | |
her old dresses for travelling. At all events she wears no jacket with | |
extravagant lappels, no Greco-Tallien sham chiton, nothing, indeed, | |
that the Princesse de Lamballe might not have worn. Her dress of | |
flowered silk is long waisted, with a Watteau pleat behind, but with | |
the paniers reduced to mere rudiments, as she is too tall for them. It | |
is cut low in the neck, where it is eked out by a creamy fichu. She is | |
fair, with golden brown hair and grey eyes.) | |
(She enters with the self-possession of a woman accustomed to the | |
privileges of rank and beauty. The innkeeper, who has excellent natural | |
manners, is highly appreciative of her. Napoleon, on whom her eyes | |
first fall, is instantly smitten self-conscious. His color deepens: he | |
becomes stiffer and less at ease than before. She perceives this | |
instantly, and, not to embarrass him, turns in an infinitely well bred | |
manner to pay the respect of a glance to the other gentleman, who is | |
staring at her dress, as at the earth's final masterpiece of | |
treacherous dissimulation, with feelings altogether inexpressible and | |
indescribable. As she looks at him, she becomes deadly pale. There is | |
no mistaking her expression: a revelation of some fatal error utterly | |
unexpected, has suddenly appalled her in the midst of tranquillity, | |
security and victory. The next moment a wave of color rushes up from | |
beneath the creamy fichu and drowns her whole face. One can see that | |
she is blushing all over her body. Even the lieutenant, ordinarily | |
incapable of observation, and just now lost in the tumult of his wrath, | |
can see a thing when it is painted red for him. Interpreting the blush | |
as the involuntary confession of black deceit confronted with its | |
victim, he points to it with a loud crow of retributive triumph, and | |
then, seizing her by the wrist, pulls her past him into the room as he | |
claps the door to, and plants himself with his back to it.) | |
LIEUTENANT. So I've got you, my lad. So you've disguised yourself, have | |
you? (In a voice of thunder.) Take off that skirt. | |
GIUSEPPE (remonstrating). Oh, lieutenant! | |
LADY (affrighted, but highly indignant at his having dared to touch | |
her). Gentlemen: I appeal to you. Giuseppe. (Making a movement as if to | |
run to Giuseppe.) | |
LIEUTENANT (interposing, sword in hand). No you don't. | |
LADY (taking refuge with Napoleon). Ah, sir, you are an officer--a | |
general. You will protect me, will you not? | |
LIEUTENANT. Never you mind him, General. Leave me to deal with him. | |
NAPOLEON. With him! With whom, sir? Why do you treat this lady in such | |
a fashion? | |
LIEUTENANT. Lady! He's a man! the man I showed my confidence in. | |
(Advancing threateningly.) Here you-- | |
LADY (running behind Napoleon and in her agitation embracing the arm | |
which he instinctively extends before her as a fortification). Oh, | |
thank you, General. Keep him away. | |
NAPOLEON. Nonsense, sir. This is certainly a lady (she suddenly drops | |
his arm and blushes again); and you are under arrest. Put down your | |
sword, sir, instantly. | |
LIEUTENANT. General: I tell you he's an Austrian spy. He passed himself | |
off on me as one of General Massena's staff this afternoon; and now | |
he's passing himself off on you as a woman. Am I to believe my own eyes | |
or not? | |
LADY. General: it must be my brother. He is on General Massena's staff. | |
He is very like me. | |
LIEUTENANT (his mind giving way). Do you mean to say that you're not | |
your brother, but your sister?--the sister who was so like me?--who had | |
my beautiful blue eyes? It was a lie: your eyes are not like mine: | |
they're exactly like your own. What perfidy! | |
NAPOLEON. Lieutenant: will you obey my orders and leave the room, since | |
you are convinced at last that this is no gentleman? | |
LIEUTENANT. Gentleman! I should think not. No gentleman would have | |
abused my confi-- | |
NAPOLEON (out of all patience). Enough, sir, enough. Will you leave the | |
room. I order you to leave the room. | |
LADY. Oh, pray let ME go instead. | |
NAPOLEON (drily). Excuse me, madame. With all respect to your brother, | |
I do not yet understand what an officer on General Massena's staff | |
wants with my letters. I have some questions to put to you. | |
GIUSEPPE (discreetly). Come, lieutenant. (He opens the door.) | |
LIEUTENANT. I'm off. General: take warning by me: be on your guard | |
against the better side of your nature. (To the lady.) Madame: my | |
apologies. I thought you were the same person, only of the opposite | |
sex; and that naturally misled me. | |
LADY (sweetly). It was not your fault, was it? I'm so glad you're not | |
angry with me any longer, lieutenant. (She offers her hand.) | |
LIEUTENANT (bending gallantly to kiss it). Oh, madam, not the lea-- | |
(Checking himself and looking at it.) You have your brother's hand. And | |
the same sort of ring. | |
LADY (sweetly). We are twins. | |
LIEUTENANT. That accounts for it. (He kisses her hand.) A thousand | |
pardons. I didn't mind about the despatches at all: that's more the | |
General's affair than mine: it was the abuse of my confidence through | |
the better side of my nature. (Taking his cap, gloves, and whip from | |
the table and going.) You'll excuse my leaving you, General, I hope. | |
Very sorry, I'm sure. (He talks himself out of the room. Giuseppe | |
follows him and shuts the door.) | |
NAPOLEON (looking after them with concentrated irritation). Idiot! (The | |
Strange Lady smiles sympathetically. He comes frowning down the room | |
between the table and the fireplace, all his awkwardness gone now that | |
he is alone with her.) | |
LADY. How can I thank you, General, for your protection? | |
NAPOLEON (turning on her suddenly). My despatches: come! (He puts out | |
his hand for them.) | |
LADY. General! (She involuntarily puts her hands on her fichu as if to | |
protect something there.) | |
NAPOLEON. You tricked that blockhead out of them. You disguised | |
yourself as a man. I want my despatches. They are there in the bosom of | |
your dress, under your hands. | |
LADY (quickly removing her hands). Oh, how unkindly you are speaking to | |
me! (She takes her handkerchief from her fichu.) You frighten me. (She | |
touches her eyes as if to wipe away a tear.) | |
NAPOLEON. I see you don't know me madam, or you would save yourself the | |
trouble of pretending to cry. | |
LADY (producing an effect of smiling through her tears). Yes, I do know | |
you. You are the famous General Buonaparte. (She gives the name a | |
marked Italian pronunciation Bwaw-na-parr-te.) | |
NAPOLEON (angrily, with the French pronunciation). Bonaparte, madame, | |
Bonaparte. The papers, if you please. | |
LADY. But I assure you-- (He snatches the handkerchief rudely from | |
her.) General! (Indignantly.) | |
NAPOLEON (taking the other handkerchief from his breast). You were good | |
enough to lend one of your handkerchiefs to my lieutenant when you | |
robbed him. (He looks at the two handkerchiefs.) They match one | |
another. (He smells them.) The same scent. (He flings them down on the | |
table.) I am waiting for the despatches. I shall take them, if | |
necessary, with as little ceremony as the handkerchief. (This | |
historical incident was used eighty years later, by M. Victorien | |
Sardou, in his drama entitled "Dora.") | |
LADY (in dignified reproof). General: do you threaten women? | |
NAPOLEON (bluntly). Yes. | |
LADY (disconcerted, trying to gain time). But I don't understand. I-- | |
NAPOLEON. You understand perfectly. You came here because your Austrian | |
employers calculated that I was six leagues away. I am always to be | |
found where my enemies don't expect me. You have walked into the lion's | |
den. Come: you are a brave woman. Be a sensible one: I have no time to | |
waste. The papers. (He advances a step ominously). | |
LADY (breaking down in the childish rage of impotence, and throwing | |
herself in tears on the chair left beside the table by the lieutenant). | |
I brave! How little you know! I have spent the day in an agony of fear. | |
I have a pain here from the tightening of my heart at every suspicious | |
look, every threatening movement. Do you think every one is as brave as | |
you? Oh, why will not you brave people do the brave things? Why do you | |
leave them to us, who have no courage at all? I'm not brave: I shrink | |
from violence: danger makes me miserable. | |
NAPOLEON (interested). Then why have you thrust yourself into danger? | |
LADY. Because there is no other way: I can trust nobody else. And now | |
it is all useless--all because of you, who have no fear, because you | |
have no heart, no feeling, no-- (She breaks off, and throws herself on | |
her knees.) Ah, General, let me go: let me go without asking any | |
questions. You shall have your despatches and letters: I swear it. | |
NAPOLEON (holding out his hand). Yes: I am waiting for them. (She | |
gasps, daunted by his ruthless promptitude into despair of moving him | |
by cajolery; but as she looks up perplexedly at him, it is plain that | |
she is racking her brains for some device to outwit him. He meets her | |
regard inflexibly.) | |
LADY (rising at last with a quiet little sigh). I will get them for | |
you. They are in my room. (She turns to the door.) | |
NAPOLEON. I shall accompany you, madame. | |
LADY (drawing herself up with a noble air of offended delicacy).I | |
cannot permit you, General, to enter my chamber. | |
NAPOLEON. Then you shall stay here, madame, whilst I have your chamber | |
searched for my papers. | |
LADY (spitefully, openly giving up her plan). You may save yourself the | |
trouble. They are not there. | |
NAPOLEON. No: I have already told you where they are. (Pointing to her | |
breast.) | |
LADY (with pretty piteousness). General: I only want to keep one little | |
private letter. Only one. Let me have it. | |
NAPOLEON (cold and stern). Is that a reasonable demand, madam? | |
LADY (encouraged by his not refusing point blank). No; but that is why | |
you must grant it. Are your own demands reasonable? thousands of lives | |
for the sake of your victories, your ambitions, your destiny! And what | |
I ask is such a little thing. And I am only a weak woman, and you a | |
brave man. (She looks at him with her eyes full of tender pleading and | |
is about to kneel to him again.) | |
NAPOLEON (brusquely). Get up, get up. (He turns moodily away and takes | |
a turn across the room, pausing for a moment to say, over his shoulder) | |
You're talking nonsense; and you know it. (She gets up and sits down in | |
almost listless despair on the couch. When he turns and sees her there, | |
he feels that his victory is complete, and that he may now indulge in a | |
little play with his victim. He comes back and sits beside her. She | |
looks alarmed and moves a little away from him; but a ray of rallying | |
hope beams from her eye. He begins like a man enjoying some secret | |
joke.) How do you know I am a brave man? | |
LADY (amazed). You! General Buonaparte. (Italian pronunciation.) | |
NAPOLEON. Yes, I, General Bonaparte (emphasizing the French | |
pronunciation). | |
LADY. Oh, how can you ask such a question? you! who stood only two days | |
ago at the bridge at Lodi, with the air full of death, fighting a duel | |
with cannons across the river! (Shuddering.) Oh, you DO brave things. | |
NAPOLEON. So do you. | |
LADY. I! (With a sudden odd thought.) Oh! Are you a coward? | |
NAPOLEON (laughing grimly and pinching her cheek). That is the one | |
question you must never ask a soldier. The sergeant asks after the | |
recruit's height, his age, his wind, his limb, but never after his | |
courage. (He gets up and walks about with his hands behind him and his | |
head bowed, chuckling to himself.) | |
LADY (as if she had found it no laughing matter). Ah, you can laugh at | |
fear. Then you don't know what fear is. | |
NAPOLEON (coming behind the couch). Tell me this. Suppose you could | |
have got that letter by coming to me over the bridge at Lodi the day | |
before yesterday! Suppose there had been no other way, and that this | |
was a sure way--if only you escaped the cannon! (She shudders and | |
covers her eyes for a moment with her hands.) Would you have been | |
afraid? | |
LADY. Oh, horribly afraid, agonizingly afraid. (She presses her hands | |
on her heart.) It hurts only to imagine it. | |
NAPOLEON (inflexibly). Would you have come for the despatches? | |
LADY (overcome by the imagined horror). Don't ask me. I must have come. | |
NAPOLEON. Why? | |
LADY. Because I must. Because there would have been no other way. | |
NAPOLEON (with conviction). Because you would have wanted my letter | |
enough to bear your fear. There is only one universal passion: fear. Of | |
all the thousand qualities a man may have, the only one you will find | |
as certainly in the youngest drummer boy in my army as in me, is fear. | |
It is fear that makes men fight: it is indifference that makes them run | |
away: fear is the mainspring of war. Fear! I know fear well, better | |
than you, better than any woman. I once saw a regiment of good Swiss | |
soldiers massacred by a mob in Paris because I was afraid to interfere: | |
I felt myself a coward to the tips of my toes as I looked on at it. | |
Seven months ago I revenged my shame by pounding that mob to death with | |
cannon balls. Well, what of that? Has fear ever held a man back from | |
anything he really wanted--or a woman either? Never. Come with me; and | |
I will show you twenty thousand cowards who will risk death every day | |
for the price of a glass of brandy. And do you think there are no women | |
in the army, braver than the men, because their lives are worth less? | |
Psha! I think nothing of your fear or your bravery. If you had had to | |
come across to me at Lodi, you would not have been afraid: once on the | |
bridge, every other feeling would have gone down before the | |
necessity--the necessity--for making your way to my side and getting | |
what you wanted. | |
And now, suppose you had done all this--suppose you had come safely out | |
with that letter in your hand, knowing that when the hour came, your | |
fear had tightened, not your heart, but your grip of your own | |
purpose--that it had ceased to be fear, and had become strength, | |
penetration, vigilance, iron resolution--how would you answer then if | |
you were asked whether you were a coward? | |
LADY (rising). Ah, you are a hero, a real hero. | |
NAPOLEON. Pooh! there's no such thing as a real hero. (He strolls down | |
the room, making light of her enthusiasm, but by no means displeased | |
with himself for having evoked it.) | |
LADY. Ah, yes, there is. There is a difference between what you call my | |
bravery and yours. You wanted to win the battle of Lodi for yourself | |
and not for anyone else, didn't you? | |
NAPOLEON. Of course. (Suddenly recollecting himself.) Stop: no. (He | |
pulls himself piously together, and says, like a man conducting a | |
religious service) I am only the servant of the French republic, | |
following humbly in the footsteps of the heroes of classical antiquity. | |
I win battles for humanity--for my country, not for myself. | |
LADY (disappointed). Oh, then you are only a womanish hero, after all. | |
(She sits down again, all her enthusiasm gone, her elbow on the end of | |
the couch, and her cheek propped on her hand.) | |
NAPOLEON (greatly astonished). Womanish! | |
LADY (listlessly). Yes, like me. (With deep melancholy.) Do you think | |
that if I only wanted those despatches for myself, I dare venture into | |
a battle for them? No: if that were all, I should not have the courage | |
to ask to see you at your hotel, even. My courage is mere slavishness: | |
it is of no use to me for my own purposes. It is only through love, | |
through pity, through the instinct to save and protect someone else, | |
that I can do the things that terrify me. | |
NAPOLEON (contemptuously). Pshaw! (He turns slightingly away from her.) | |
LADY. Aha! now you see that I'm not really brave. (Relapsing into | |
petulant listlessness.) But what right have you to despise me if you | |
only win your battles for others? for your country! through patriotism! | |
That is what I call womanish: it is so like a Frenchman! | |
NAPOLEON (furiously). I am no Frenchman. | |
LADY (innocently). I thought you said you won the battle of Lodi for | |
your country, General Bu-- shall I pronounce it in Italian or French? | |
NAPOLEON. You are presuming on my patience, madam. I was born a French | |
subject, but not in France. | |
LADY (folding her arms on the end of the couch, and leaning on them | |
with a marked access of interest in him). You were not born a subject | |
at all, I think. | |
NAPOLEON (greatly pleased, starting on a fresh march). Eh? Eh? You | |
think not. | |
LADY. I am sure of it. | |
NAPOLEON. Well, well, perhaps not. (The self-complacency of his assent | |
catches his own ear. He stops short, reddening. Then, composing himself | |
into a solemn attitude, modelled on the heroes of classical antiquity, | |
he takes a high moral tone.) But we must not live for ourselves alone, | |
little one. Never forget that we should always think of others, and | |
work for others, and lead and govern them for their own good. | |
Self-sacrifice is the foundation of all true nobility of character. | |
LADY (again relaxing her attitude with a sigh). Ah, it is easy to see | |
that you have never tried it, General. | |
NAPOLEON (indignantly, forgetting all about Brutus and Scipio). What do | |
you mean by that speech, madam? | |
LADY. Haven't you noticed that people always exaggerate the value of | |
the things they haven't got? The poor think they only need riches to be | |
quite happy and good. Everybody worships truth, purity, unselfishness, | |
for the same reason--because they have no experience of them. Oh, if | |
they only knew! | |
NAPOLEON (with angry derision). If they only knew! Pray, do you know? | |
LADY (with her arms stretched down and her hands clasped on her knees, | |
looking straight before her). Yes. I had the misfortune to be born | |
good. (Glancing up at him for a moment.) And it is a misfortune, I can | |
tell you, General. I really am truthful and unselfish and all the rest | |
of it; and it's nothing but cowardice; want of character; want of being | |
really, strongly, positively oneself. | |
NAPOLEON. Ha? (Turning to her quickly with a flash of strong interest.) | |
LADY (earnestly, with rising enthusiasm). What is the secret of your | |
power? Only that you believe in yourself. You can fight and conquer for | |
yourself and for nobody else. You are not afraid of your own destiny. | |
You teach us what we all might be if we had the will and courage; and | |
that (suddenly sinking on her knees before him) is why we all begin to | |
worship you. (She kisses his hands.) | |
NAPOLEON (embarrassed). Tut, tut! Pray rise, madam. | |
LADY. Do not refuse my homage: it is your right. You will be emperor of | |
France. | |
NAPOLEON (hurriedly). Take care. Treason! | |
LADY (insisting). Yes, emperor of France; then of Europe; perhaps of | |
the world. I am only the first subject to swear allegiance. (Again | |
kissing his hand.) My Emperor! | |
NAPOLEON (overcome, raising her). Pray, pray. No, no, little one: this | |
is folly. Come: be calm, be calm. (Petting her.) There, there, my girl. | |
LADY (struggling with happy tears). Yes, I know it is an impertinence | |
in me to tell you what you must know far better than I do. But you are | |
not angry with me, are you? | |
NAPOLEON. Angry! No, no: not a bit, not a bit. Come: you are a very | |
clever and sensible and interesting little woman. (He pats her on the | |
cheek.) Shall we be friends? | |
LADY (enraptured). Your friend! You will let me be your friend! Oh! | |
(She offers him both her hands with a radiant smile.) You see: I show | |
my confidence in you. | |
NAPOLEON (with a yell of rage, his eyes flashing). What! | |
LADY. What's the matter? | |
NAPOLEON. Show your confidence in me! So that I may show my confidence | |
in you in return by letting you give me the slip with the despatches, | |
eh? Ah, Dalila, Dalila, you have been trying your tricks on me; and I | |
have been as great a gull as my jackass of a lieutenant. (He advances | |
threateningly on her.) Come: the despatches. Quick: I am not to be | |
trifled with now. | |
LADY (flying round the couch). General-- | |
NAPOLEON. Quick, I tell you. (He passes swiftly up the middle of the | |
room and intercepts her as she makes for the vineyard.) | |
LADY (at bay, confronting him). You dare address me in that tone. | |
NAPOLEON. Dare! | |
LADY. Yes, dare. Who are you that you should presume to speak to me in | |
that coarse way? Oh, the vile, vulgar Corsican adventurer comes out in | |
you very easily. | |
NAPOLEON (beside himself). You she devil! (Savagely.) Once more, and | |
only once, will you give me those papers or shall I tear them from | |
you--by force? | |
LADY (letting her hands fall ). Tear them from me--by force! (As he | |
glares at her like a tiger about to spring, she crosses her arms on her | |
breast in the attitude of a martyr. The gesture and pose instantly | |
awaken his theatrical instinct: he forgets his rage in the desire to | |
show her that in acting, too, she has met her match. He keeps her a | |
moment in suspense; then suddenly clears up his countenance; puts his | |
hands behind him with provoking coolness; looks at her up and down a | |
couple of times; takes a pinch of snuff; wipes his fingers carefully | |
and puts up his handkerchief, her heroic pose becoming more and more | |
ridiculous all the time.) | |
NAPOLEON (at last). Well? | |
LADY (disconcerted, but with her arms still crossed devotedly). Well: | |
what are you going to do? | |
NAPOLEON. Spoil your attitude. | |
LADY. You brute! (abandoning the attitude, she comes to the end of the | |
couch, where she turns with her back to it, leaning against it and | |
facing him with her hands behind her.) | |
NAPOLEON. Ah, that's better. Now listen to me. I like you. What's | |
more, I value your respect. | |
LADY. You value what you have not got, then. | |
NAPOLEON. I shall have it presently. Now attend to me. Suppose I were | |
to allow myself to be abashed by the respect due to your sex, your | |
beauty, your heroism and all the rest of it? Suppose I, with nothing | |
but such sentimental stuff to stand between these muscles of mine and | |
those papers which you have about you, and which I want and mean to | |
have: suppose I, with the prize within my grasp, were to falter and | |
sneak away with my hands empty; or, what would be worse, cover up my | |
weakness by playing the magnanimous hero, and sparing you the violence | |
I dared not use, would you not despise me from the depths of your | |
woman's soul? Would any woman be such a fool? Well, Bonaparte can rise | |
to the situation and act like a woman when it is necessary. Do you | |
understand? | |
The lady, without speaking, stands upright, and takes a packet of | |
papers from her bosom. For a moment she has an intense impulse to dash | |
them in his face. But her good breeding cuts her off from any vulgar | |
method of relief. She hands them to him politely, only averting her | |
head. The moment he takes them, she hurries across to the other side of | |
the room; covers her face with her hands; and sits down, with her body | |
turned away to the back of the chair. | |
NAPOLEON (gloating over the papers). Aha! That's right. That's right. | |
(Before opening them he looks at her and says) Excuse me. (He sees that | |
she is hiding her face.) Very angry with me, eh? (He unties the packet, | |
the seal of which is already broken, and puts it on the table to | |
examine its contents.) | |
LADY (quietly, taking down her hands and showing that she is not | |
crying, but only thinking). No. You were right. But I am sorry for you. | |
NAPOLEON (pausing in the act of taking the uppermost paper from the | |
packet). Sorry for me! Why? | |
LADY. I am going to see you lose your honor. | |
NAPOLEON. Hm! Nothing worse than that? (He takes up the paper.) | |
LADY. And your happiness. | |
NAPOLEON. Happiness, little woman, is the most tedious thing in the | |
world to me. Should I be what I am if I cared for happiness? Anything | |
else? | |
LADY. Nothing-- (He interrupts her with an exclamation of satisfaction. | |
She proceeds quietly) except that you will cut a very foolish figure in | |
the eyes of France. | |
NAPOLEON (quickly). What? (The hand holding the paper involuntarily | |
drops. The lady looks at him enigmatically in tranquil silence. He | |
throws the letter down and breaks out into a torrent of scolding.) What | |
do you mean? Eh? Are you at your tricks again? Do you think I don't | |
know what these papers contain? I'll tell you. First, my information as | |
to Beaulieu's retreat. There are only two things he can | |
do--leatherbrained idiot that he is!--shut himself up in Mantua or | |
violate the neutrality of Venice by taking Peschiera. You are one of | |
old Leatherbrain's spies: he has discovered that he has been betrayed, | |
and has sent you to intercept the information at all hazards--as if | |
that could save him from ME, the old fool! The other papers are only my | |
usual correspondence from Paris, of which you know nothing. | |
LADY (prompt and businesslike). General: let us make a fair division. | |
Take the information your spies have sent you about the Austrian army; | |
and give me the Paris correspondence. That will content me. | |
NAPOLEON (his breath taken away by the coolness of the proposal). A | |
fair di-- (He gasps.) It seems to me, madame, that you have come to | |
regard my letters as your own property, of which I am trying to rob you. | |
LADY (earnestly). No: on my honor I ask for no letter of yours--not a | |
word that has been written by you or to you. That packet contains a | |
stolen letter: a letter written by a woman to a man--a man not her | |
husband--a letter that means disgrace, infamy-- | |
NAPOLEON. A love letter? | |
LADY (bitter-sweetly). What else but a love letter could stir up so | |
much hate? | |
NAPOLEON. Why is it sent to me? To put the husband in my power, eh? | |
LADY. No, no: it can be of no use to you: I swear that it will cost you | |
nothing to give it to me. It has been sent to you out of sheer | |
malice--solely to injure the woman who wrote it. | |
NAPOLEON. Then why not send it to her husband instead of to me? | |
LADY (completely taken aback). Oh! (Sinking back into the chair.) I--I | |
don't know. (She breaks down.) | |
NAPOLEON. Aha! I thought so: a little romance to get the papers back. | |
(He throws the packet on the table and confronts her with cynical | |
goodhumor.) Per Bacco, little woman, I can't help admiring you. If I | |
could lie like that, it would save me a great deal of trouble. | |
LADY (wringing her hands). Oh, how I wish I really had told you some | |
lie! You would have believed me then. The truth is the one thing that | |
nobody will believe. | |
NAPOLEON (with coarse familiarity, treating her as if she were a | |
vivandiere). Capital! Capital! (He puts his hands behind him on the | |
table, and lifts himself on to it, sitting with his arms akimbo and his | |
legs wide apart.) Come: I am a true Corsican in my love for stories. | |
But I could tell them better than you if I set my mind to it. Next time | |
you are asked why a letter compromising a wife should not be sent to | |
her husband, answer simply that the husband would not read it. Do you | |
suppose, little innocent, that a man wants to be compelled by public | |
opinion to make a scene, to fight a duel, to break up his household, to | |
injure his career by a scandal, when he can avoid it all by taking care | |
not to know? | |
LADY (revolted). Suppose that packet contained a letter about your own | |
wife? | |
NAPOLEON (offended, coming off the table). You are impertinent, madame. | |
LADY (humbly). I beg your above suspicion. | |
NAPOLEON (with a deliberate assumption of superiority). You have | |
committed an indiscretion. I pardon you. In future, do not permit | |
yourself to introduce real persons in your romances. | |
LADY (politely ignoring a speech which is to her only a breach of good | |
manners, and rising to move towards the table). General: there really | |
is a woman's letter there. (Pointing to the packet.) Give it to me. | |
NAPOLEON (with brute conciseness, moving so as to prevent her getting | |
too near the letters). Why? | |
LADY. She is an old friend: we were at school together. She has written | |
to me imploring me to prevent the letter falling into your hands. | |
NAPOLEON. Why has it been sent to me? | |
LADY. Because it compromises the director Barras. | |
NAPOLEON (frowning, evidently startled). Barras! (Haughtily.) Take | |
care, madame. The director Barras is my attached personal friend. | |
LADY (nodding placidly). Yes. You became friends through your wife. | |
NAPOLEON. Again! Have I not forbidden you to speak of my wife? (She | |
keeps looking curiously at him, taking no account of the rebuke. More | |
and more irritated, he drops his haughty manner, of which he is himself | |
somewhat impatient, and says suspiciously, lowering his voice) Who is | |
this woman with whom you sympathize so deeply? | |
LADY. Oh, General! How could I tell you that? | |
NAPOLEON (ill-humoredly, beginning to walk about again in angry | |
perplexity). Ay, ay: stand by one another. You are all the same, you | |
women. | |
LADY (indignantly). We are not all the same, any more than you are. Do | |
you think that if _I_ loved another man, I should pretend to go on | |
loving my husband, or be afraid to tell him or all the world? But this | |
woman is not made that way. She governs men by cheating them; and (with | |
disdain) they like it, and let her govern them. (She sits down again, | |
with her back to him.) | |
NAPOLEON (not attending to her). Barras, Barras I-- (Turning very | |
threateningly to her, his face darkening.) Take care, take care: do you | |
hear? You may go too far. | |
LADY (innocently turning her face to him). What's the matter? | |
NAPOLEON. What are you hinting at? Who is this woman? | |
LADY (meeting his angry searching gaze with tranquil indifference as | |
she sits looking up at him with her right arm resting lightly along the | |
back of her chair, and one knee crossed over the other). A vain, silly, | |
extravagant creature, with a very able and ambitious husband who knows | |
her through and through--knows that she has lied to him about her age, | |
her income, her social position, about everything that silly women lie | |
about--knows that she is incapable of fidelity to any principle or any | |
person; and yet could not help loving her--could not help his man's | |
instinct to make use of her for his own advancement with Barras. | |
NAPOLEON (in a stealthy, coldly furious whisper). This is your revenge, | |
you she cat, for having had to give me the letters. | |
LADY. Nonsense! Or do you mean that YOU are that sort of man? | |
NAPOLEON (exasperated, clasps his hands behind him, his fingers | |
twitching, and says, as he walks irritably away from her to the | |
fireplace). This woman will drive me out of my senses. (To her.) Begone. | |
LADY (seated immovably). Not without that letter. | |
NAPOLEON. Begone, I tell you. (Walking from the fireplace to the | |
vineyard and back to the table.) You shall have no letter. I don't like | |
you. You're a detestable woman, and as ugly as Satan. I don't choose to | |
be pestered by strange women. Be off. (He turns his back on her. In | |
quiet amusement, she leans her cheek on her hand and laughs at him. He | |
turns again, angrily mocking her.) Ha! ha! ha! What are you laughing at? | |
LADY. At you, General. I have often seen persons of your sex getting | |
into a pet and behaving like children; but I never saw a really great | |
man do it before. | |
NAPOLEON (brutally, flinging the words in her face). Pooh: flattery! | |
flattery! coarse, impudent flattery! | |
LADY (springing up with a bright flush in her cheeks). Oh, you are too | |
bad. Keep your letters. Read the story of your own dishonor in them; | |
and much good may they do you. Good-bye. (She goes indignantly towards | |
the inner door.) | |
NAPOLEON. My own--! Stop. Come back. Come back, I order you. (She | |
proudly disregards his savagely peremptory tone and continues on her | |
way to the door. He rushes at her; seizes her by the wrist; and drags | |
her back.) Now, what do you mean? Explain. Explain, I tell you, | |
or--(Threatening her. She looks at him with unflinching defiance.) | |
Rrrr! you obstinate devil, you. Why can't you answer a civil question? | |
LADY (deeply offended by his violence). Why do you ask me? You have the | |
explanation. | |
NAPOLEON. Where? | |
LADY (pointing to the letters on the table). There. You have only to | |
read it. (He snatches the packet up, hesitates; looks at her | |
suspiciously; and throws it down again.) | |
NAPOLEON. You seem to have forgotten your solicitude for the honor of | |
your old friend. | |
LADY. She runs no risk now: she does not quite understand her husband. | |
NAPOLEON. I am to read the letter, then? (He stretches out his hand as | |
if to take up the packet again, with his eye on her.) | |
LADY. I do not see how you can very well avoid doing so now. (He | |
instantly withdraws his hand.) Oh, don't be afraid. You will find many | |
interesting things in it. | |
NAPOLEON. For instance? | |
LADY. For instance, a duel--with Barras, a domestic scene, a broken | |
household, a public scandal, a checked career, all sorts of things. | |
NAPOLEON. Hm! (He looks at her, takes up the packet and looks at it, | |
pursing his lips and balancing it in his hand; looks at her again; | |
passes the packet into his left hand and puts it behind his back, | |
raising his right to scratch the back of his head as he turns and goes | |
up to the edge of the vineyard, where he stands for a moment looking | |
out into the vines, deep in thought. The Lady watches him in silence, | |
somewhat slightingly. Suddenly he turns and comes back again, full of | |
force and decision.) I grant your request, madame. Your courage and | |
resolution deserve to succeed. Take the letters for which you have | |
fought so well; and remember henceforth that you found the vile, vulgar | |
Corsican adventurer as generous to the vanquished after the battle as | |
he was resolute in the face of the enemy before it. (He offers her the | |
packet.) | |
LADY (without taking it, looking hard at him). What are you at now, I | |
wonder? (He dashes the packet furiously to the floor.) Aha! I've | |
spoiled that attitude, I think. (She makes him a pretty mocking | |
curtsey.) | |
NAPOLEON (snatching it up again). Will you take the letters and begone | |
(advancing and thrusting them upon her)? | |
LADY (escaping round the table). No: I don't want letters. | |
NAPOLEON. Ten minutes ago, nothing else would satisfy you. | |
LADY (keeping the table carefully between them). Ten minutes ago you | |
had not insulted me past all bearing. | |
NAPOLEON. I-- (swallowing his spleen) I apologize. | |
LADY (coolly). Thanks. (With forced politeness he offers her the packet | |
across the table. She retreats a step out of its reach and says) But | |
don't you want to know whether the Austrians are at Mantua or Peschiera? | |
NAPOLEON. I have already told you that I can conquer my enemies without | |
the aid of spies, madame. | |
LADY. And the letter! don't you want to read that? | |
NAPOLEON. You have said that it is not addressed to me. I am not in the | |
habit of reading other people's letters. (He again offers the packet.) | |
LADY. In that case there can be no objection to your keeping it. All I | |
wanted was to prevent your reading it. (Cheerfully.) Good afternoon, | |
General. (She turns coolly towards the inner door.) | |
NAPOLEON (furiously flinging the packet on the couch). Heaven grant me | |
patience! (He goes up determinedly and places himself before the door.) | |
Have you any sense of personal danger? Or are you one of those women | |
who like to be beaten black and blue? | |
LADY. Thank you, General: I have no doubt the sensation is very | |
voluptuous; but I had rather not. I simply want to go home: that's all. | |
I was wicked enough to steal your despatches; but you have got them | |
back; and you have forgiven me, because (delicately reproducing his | |
rhetorical cadence) you are as generous to the vanquished after the | |
battle as you are resolute in the face of the enemy before it. Won't | |
you say good-bye to me? (She offers her hand sweetly.) | |
NAPOLEON (repulsing the advance with a gesture of concentrated rage, | |
and opening the door to call fiercely). Giuseppe! (Louder.) Giuseppe! | |
(He bangs the door to, and comes to the middle of the room. The lady | |
goes a little way into the vineyard to avoid him.) | |
GIUSEPPE (appearing at the door). Excellency? | |
NAPOLEON. Where is that fool? | |
GIUSEPPE. He has had a good dinner, according to your instructions, | |
excellency, and is now doing me the honor to gamble with me to pass the | |
time. | |
NAPOLEON. Send him here. Bring him here. Come with him. (Giuseppe, with | |
unruffled readiness, hurries off. Napoleon turns curtly to the lady, | |
saying) I must trouble you to remain some moments longer, madame. (He | |
comes to the couch. She comes from the vineyard down the opposite side | |
of the room to the sideboard, and posts herself there, leaning against | |
it, watching him. He takes the packet from the couch and deliberately | |
buttons it carefully into his breast pocket, looking at her meanwhile | |
with an expression which suggests that she will soon find out the | |
meaning of his proceedings, and will not like it. Nothing more is said | |
until the lieutenant arrives followed by Giuseppe, who stands modestly | |
in attendance at the table. The lieutenant, without cap, sword or | |
gloves, and much improved in temper and spirits by his meal, chooses | |
the Lady's side of the room, and waits, much at his ease, for Napoleon | |
to begin.) | |
NAPOLEON. Lieutenant. | |
LIEUTENANT (encouragingly). General. | |
NAPOLEON. I cannot persuade this lady to give me much information; but | |
there can be no doubt that the man who tricked you out of your charge | |
was, as she admitted to you, her brother. | |
LIEUTENANT (triumphantly). What did I tell you, General! What did I | |
tell you! | |
NAPOLEON. You must find that man. Your honor is at stake; and the fate | |
of the campaign, the destiny of France, of Europe, of humanity, | |
perhaps, may depend on the information those despatches contain. | |
LIEUTENANT. Yes, I suppose they really are rather serious (as if this | |
had hardly occurred to him before). | |
NAPOLEON (energetically). They are so serious, sir, that if you do not | |
recover them, you will be degraded in the presence of your regiment. | |
LIEUTENANT. Whew! The regiment won't like that, I can tell you. | |
NAPOLEON. Personally, I am sorry for you. I would willingly conceal the | |
affair if it were possible. But I shall be called to account for not | |
acting on the despatches. I shall have to prove to all the world that I | |
never received them, no matter what the consequences may be to you. I | |
am sorry; but you see that I cannot help myself. | |
LIEUTENANT (goodnaturedly). Oh, don't take it to heart, General: it's | |
really very good of you. Never mind what happens to me: I shall scrape | |
through somehow; and we'll beat the Austrians for you, despatches or no | |
despatches. I hope you won't insist on my starting off on a wild goose | |
chase after the fellow now. I haven't a notion where to look for him. | |
GIUSEPPE (deferentially). You forget, Lieutenant: he has your horse. | |
LIEUTENANT (starting). I forgot that. (Resolutely.) I'll go after him, | |
General: I'll find that horse if it's alive anywhere in Italy. And I | |
shan't forget the despatches: never fear. Giuseppe: go and saddle one | |
of those mangy old posthorses of yours, while I get my cap and sword | |
and things. Quick march. Off with you (bustling him). | |
GIUSEPPE. Instantly, Lieutenant, instantly. (He disappears in the | |
vineyard, where the light is now reddening with the sunset.) | |
LIEUTENANT (looking about him on his way to the inner door). By the | |
way, General, did I give you my sword or did I not? Oh, I remember now. | |
(Fretfully.) It's all that nonsense about putting a man under arrest: | |
one never knows where to find-- (Talks himself out of the room.) | |
LADY (still at the sideboard). What does all this mean, General? | |
NAPOLEON. He will not find your brother. | |
LADY. Of course not. There's no such person. | |
NAPOLEON. The despatches will be irrecoverably lost. | |
LADY. Nonsense! They are inside your coat. | |
NAPOLEON. You will find it hard, I think, to prove that wild statement. | |
(The Lady starts. He adds, with clinching emphasis) Those papers are | |
lost. | |
LADY (anxiously, advancing to the corner of the table). And that | |
unfortunate young man's career will be sacrificed. | |
NAPOLEON. HIS career! The fellow is not worth the gunpowder it would | |
cost to have him shot. (He turns contemptuously and goes to the hearth, | |
where he stands with his back to her.) | |
LADY (wistfully). You are very hard. Men and women are nothing to you | |
but things to be used, even if they are broken in the use. | |
NAPOLEON (turning on her). Which of us has broken this fellow--I or | |
you? Who tricked him out of the despatches? Did you think of his career | |
then? | |
LADY (naively concerned about him). Oh, I never thought of that. It was | |
brutal of me; but I couldn't help it, could I? How else could I have | |
got the papers? (Supplicating.) General: you will save him from | |
disgrace. | |
NAPOLEON (laughing sourly). Save him yourself, since you are so clever: | |
it was you who ruined him. (With savage intensity.) I HATE a bad | |
soldier. | |
He goes out determinedly through the vineyard. She follows him a few | |
steps with an appealing gesture, but is interrupted by the return of | |
the lieutenant, gloved and capped, with his sword on, ready for the | |
road. He is crossing to the outer door when she intercepts him. | |
LADY. Lieutenant. | |
LIEUTENANT (importantly). You mustn't delay me, you know. Duty, madame, | |
duty. | |
LADY (imploringly). Oh, sir, what are you going to do to my poor | |
brother? | |
LIEUTENANT. Are you very fond of him? | |
LADY. I should die if anything happened to him. You must spare him. | |
(The lieutenant shakes his head gloomily.) Yes, yes: you must: you | |
shall: he is not fit to die. Listen to me. If I tell you where to find | |
him--if I undertake to place him in your hands a prisoner, to be | |
delivered up by you to General Bonaparte--will you promise me on your | |
honor as an officer and a gentleman not to fight with him or treat him | |
unkindly in any way? | |
LIEUTENANT. But suppose he attacks me. He has my pistols. | |
LADY. He is too great a coward. | |
LIEUTENANT. I don't feel so sure about that. He's capable of anything. | |
LADY. If he attacks you, or resists you in any way, I release you from | |
your promise. | |
LIEUTENANT. My promise! I didn't mean to promise. Look here: you're as | |
bad as he is: you've taken an advantage of me through the better side | |
of my nature. What about my horse? | |
LADY. It is part of the bargain that you are to have your horse and | |
pistols back. | |
LIEUTENANT. Honor bright? | |
LADY. Honor bright. (She offers her hand.) | |
LIEUTENANT (taking it and holding it). All right: I'll be as gentle as | |
a lamb with him. His sister's a very pretty woman. (He attempts to kiss | |
her.) | |
LADY (slipping away from him). Oh, Lieutenant! You forget: your career | |
is at stake--the destiny of Europe--of humanity. | |
LIEUTENANT. Oh, bother the destiny of humanity (Making for her.) Only a | |
kiss. | |
LADY (retreating round the table). Not until you have regained your | |
honor as an officer. Remember: you have not captured my brother yet. | |
LIEUTENANT (seductively). You'll tell me where he is, won't you? | |
LADY. I have only to send him a certain signal; and he will be here in | |
quarter of an hour. | |
LIEUTENANT. He's not far off, then. | |
LADY. No: quite close. Wait here for him: when he gets my message he | |
will come here at once and surrender himself to you. You understand? | |
LIEUTENANT (intellectually overtaxed). Well, it's a little complicated; | |
but I daresay it will be all right. | |
LADY. And now, whilst you're waiting, don't you think you had better | |
make terms with the General? | |
LIEUTENANT. Oh, look here, this is getting frightfully complicated. | |
What terms? | |
LADY. Make him promise that if you catch my brother he will consider | |
that you have cleared your character as a soldier. He will promise | |
anything you ask on that condition. | |
LIEUTENANT. That's not a bad idea. Thank you: I think I'll try it. | |
LADY. Do. And mind, above all things, don't let him see how clever you | |
are. | |
LIEUTENANT. I understand. He'd be jealous. | |
LADY. Don't tell him anything except that you are resolved to capture | |
my brother or perish in the attempt. He won't believe you. Then you | |
will produce my brother-- | |
LIEUTENANT (interrupting as he masters the plot). And have the laugh at | |
him! I say: what a clever little woman you are! (Shouting.) Giuseppe! | |
LADY. Sh! Not a word to Giuseppe about me. (She puts her finger on her | |
lips. He does the same. They look at one another warningly. Then, with | |
a ravishing smile, she changes the gesture into wafting him a kiss, and | |
runs out through the inner door. Electrified, he bursts into a volley | |
of chuckles. Giuseppe comes back by the outer door.) | |
GIUSEPPE. The horse is ready, Lieutenant. | |
LIEUTENANT. I'm not going just yet. Go and find the General, and tell | |
him I want to speak to him. | |
GIUSEPPE (shaking his head). That will never do, Lieutenant. | |
LIEUTENANT. Why not? | |
GIUSEPPE. In this wicked world a general may send for a lieutenant; but | |
a lieutenant must not send for a general. | |
LIEUTENANT. Oh, you think he wouldn't like it. Well, perhaps you're | |
right: one has to be awfully particular about that sort of thing now | |
we've got a republic. | |
Napoleon reappears, advancing from the vineyard, buttoning the breast | |
of his coat, pale and full of gnawing thoughts. | |
GIUSEPPE (unconscious of Napoleon's approach). Quite true, Lieutenant, | |
quite true. You are all like innkeepers now in France: you have to be | |
polite to everybody. | |
NAPOLEON (putting his hand on Giuseppe's shoulder). And that destroys | |
the whole value of politeness, eh? | |
LIEUTENANT. The very man I wanted! See here, General: suppose I catch | |
that fellow for you! | |
NAPOLEON (with ironical gravity). You will not catch him, my friend. | |
LIEUTENANT. Aha! you think so; but you'll see. Just wait. Only, if I do | |
catch him and hand him over to you, will you cry quits? Will you drop | |
all this about degrading me in the presence of my regiment? Not that I | |
mind, you know; but still no regiment likes to have all the other | |
regiments laughing at it. | |
NAPOLEON. (a cold ray of humor striking pallidly across his gloom). | |
What shall we do with this officer, Giuseppe? Everything he says is | |
wrong. | |
GIUSEPPE (promptly). Make him a general, excellency; and then | |
everything he says will be right. | |
LIEUTENANT (crowing). Haw-aw! (He throws himself ecstatically on the | |
couch to enjoy the joke.) | |
NAPOLEON (laughing and pinching Giuseppe's ear). You are thrown away in | |
this inn, Giuseppe. (He sits down and places Giuseppe before him like a | |
schoolmaster with a pupil.) Shall I take you away with me and make a | |
man of you? | |
GIUSEPPE (shaking his head rapidly and repeatedly). No, thank you, | |
General. All my life long people have wanted to make a man of me. When | |
I was a boy, our good priest wanted to make a man of me by teaching me | |
to read and write. Then the organist at Melegnano wanted to make a man | |
of me by teaching me to read music. The recruiting sergeant would have | |
made a man of me if I had been a few inches taller. But it always meant | |
making me work; and I am too lazy for that, thank Heaven! So I taught | |
myself to cook and became an innkeeper; and now I keep servants to do | |
the work, and have nothing to do myself except talk, which suits me | |
perfectly. | |
NAPOLEON (looking at him thoughtfully). You are satisfied? | |
GIUSEPPE (with cheerful conviction). Quite, excellency. | |
NAPOLEON. And you have no devouring devil inside you who must be fed | |
with action and victory--gorged with them night and day--who makes you | |
pay, with the sweat of your brain and body, weeks of Herculean toil for | |
ten minutes of enjoyment--who is at once your slave and your tyrant, | |
your genius and your doom--who brings you a crown in one hand and the | |
oar of a galley slave in the other--who shows you all the kingdoms of | |
the earth and offers to make you their master on condition that you | |
become their servant!--have you nothing of that in you? | |
GIUSEPPE. Nothing of it! Oh, I assure you, excellency, MY devouring | |
devil is far worse than that. He offers me no crowns and kingdoms: he | |
expects to get everything for nothing--sausages, omelettes, grapes, | |
cheese, polenta, wine--three times a day, excellency: nothing less will | |
content him. | |
LIEUTENANT. Come, drop it, Giuseppe: you're making me feel hungry again. | |
(Giuseppe, with an apologetic shrug, retires from the conversation, and | |
busies himself at the table, dusting it, setting the map straight, and | |
replacing Napoleon's chair, which the lady has pushed back.) | |
NAPOLEON (turning to the lieutenant with sardonic ceremony). I hope _I_ | |
have not been making you feel ambitious. | |
LIEUTENANT. Not at all: I don't fly so high. Besides: I'm better as I | |
am: men like me are wanted in the army just now. The fact is, the | |
Revolution was all very well for civilians; but it won't work in the | |
army. You know what soldiers are, General: they WILL have men of family | |
for their officers. A subaltern must be a gentleman, because he's so | |
much in contact with the men. But a general, or even a colonel, may be | |
any sort of riff-raff if he understands the shop well enough. A | |
lieutenant is a gentleman: all the rest is chance. Why, who do you | |
suppose won the battle of Lodi? I'll tell you. My horse did. | |
NAPOLEON (rising) Your folly is carrying you too far, sir. Take care. | |
LIEUTENANT. Not a bit of it. You remember all that red-hot cannonade | |
across the river: the Austrians blazing away at you to keep you from | |
crossing, and you blazing away at them to keep them from setting the | |
bridge on fire? Did you notice where I was then? | |
NAPOLEON (with menacing politeness). I am sorry. I am afraid I was | |
rather occupied at the moment. | |
GIUSEPPE (with eager admiration). They say you jumped off your horse | |
and worked the big guns with your own hands, General. | |
LIEUTENANT. That was a mistake: an officer should never let himself | |
down to the level of his men. (Napoleon looks at him dangerously, and | |
begins to walk tigerishly to and fro.) But you might have been firing | |
away at the Austrians still, if we cavalry fellows hadn't found the | |
ford and got across and turned old Beaulieu's flank for you. You know | |
you daren't have given the order to charge the bridge if you hadn't | |
seen us on the other side. Consequently, I say that whoever found that | |
ford won the battle of Lodi. Well, who found it? I was the first man to | |
cross: and I know. It was my horse that found it. (With conviction, as | |
he rises from the couch.) That horse is the true conqueror of the | |
Austrians. | |
NAPOLEON (passionately). You idiot: I'll have you shot for losing those | |
despatches: I'll have you blown from the mouth of a cannon: nothing | |
less could make any impression on you. (Baying at him.) Do you hear? Do | |
you understand? | |
A French officer enters unobserved, carrying his sheathed sabre in his | |
hand. | |
LIEUTENANT (unabashed). IF I don't capture him, General. Remember the | |
if. | |
NAPOLEON. If! If!! Ass: there is no such man. | |
THE OFFICER (suddenly stepping between them and speaking in the | |
unmistakable voice of the Strange Lady). Lieutenant: I am your | |
prisoner. (She offers him her sabre. They are amazed. Napoleon gazes at | |
her for a moment thunderstruck; then seizes her by the wrist and drags | |
her roughly to him, looking closely and fiercely at her to satisfy | |
himself as to her identity; for it now begins to darken rapidly into | |
night, the red glow over the vineyard giving way to clear starlight.) | |
NAPOLEON. Pah! (He flings her hand away with an exclamation of disgust, | |
and turns his back on her with his hand in his breast and his brow | |
lowering.) | |
LIEUTENANT (triumphantly, taking the sabre). No such man: eh, General? | |
(To the Lady.) I say: where's my horse? | |
LADY. Safe at Borghetto, waiting for you, Lieutenant. | |
NAPOLEON (turning on them). Where are the despatches? | |
LADY. You would never guess. They are in the most unlikely place in the | |
world. Did you meet my sister here, any of you? | |
LIEUTENANT. Yes. Very nice woman. She's wonderfully like you; but of | |
course she's better looking. | |
LADY (mysteriously). Well, do you know that she is a witch? | |
GIUSEPPE (running down to them in terror, crossing himself). Oh, no, | |
no, no. It is not safe to jest about such things. I cannot have it in | |
my house, excellency. | |
LIEUTENANT. Yes, drop it. You're my prisoner, you know. Of course I | |
don't believe in any such rubbish; but still it's not a proper subject | |
for joking. | |
LADY. But this is very serious. My sister has bewitched the General. | |
(Giuseppe and the Lieutenant recoil from Napoleon.) General: open your | |
coat: you will find the despatches in the breast of it. (She puts her | |
hand quickly on his breast.) Yes: there they are: I can feel them. Eh? | |
(She looks up into his face half coaxingly, half mockingly.) Will you | |
allow me, General? (She takes a button as if to unbutton his coat, and | |
pauses for permission.) | |
NAPOLEON (inscrutably). If you dare. | |
LADY. Thank you. (She opens his coat and takes out the despatches.) | |
There! (To Giuseppe, showing him the despatches.) See! | |
GIUSEPPE (flying to the outer door). No, in heaven's name! They're | |
bewitched. | |
LADY (turning to the Lieutenant). Here, Lieutenant: YOU'RE not afraid | |
of them. | |
LIEUTENANT (retreating). Keep off. (Seizing the hilt of the sabre.) | |
Keep off, I tell you. | |
LADY (to Napoleon). They belong to you, General. Take them. | |
GIUSEPPE. Don't touch them, excellency. Have nothing to do with them. | |
LIEUTENANT. Be careful, General: be careful. | |
GIUSEPPE. Burn them. And burn the witch, too. | |
LADY (to Napoleon). Shall I burn them? | |
NAPOLEON (thoughtfully). Yes, burn them. Giuseppe: go and fetch a light. | |
GIUSEPPE (trembling and stammering). Do you mean go alone--in the | |
dark--with a witch in the house? | |
NAPOLEON. Psha! You're a poltroon. (To the Lieutenant.) Oblige me by | |
going, Lieutenant. | |
LIEUTENANT (remonstrating). Oh, I say, General! No, look here, you | |
know: nobody can say I'm a coward after Lodi. But to ask me to go into | |
the dark by myself without a candle after such an awful conversation is | |
a little too much. How would you like to do it yourself? | |
NAPOLEON (irritably). You refuse to obey my order? | |
LIEUTENANT (resolutely). Yes, I do. It's not reasonable. But I'll tell | |
you what I'll do. If Giuseppe goes, I'll go with him and protect him. | |
NAPOLEON (to Giuseppe). There! will that satisfy you? Be off, both of | |
you. | |
GIUSEPPE (humbly, his lips trembling). W--willingly, your excellency. | |
(He goes reluctantly towards the inner door.) Heaven protect me! (To | |
the lieutenant.) After you, Lieutenant. | |
LIEUTENANT. You'd better go first: I don't know the way. | |
GIUSEPPE. You can't miss it. Besides (imploringly, laying his hand on | |
his sleeve), I am only a poor innkeeper; and you are a man of family. | |
LIEUTENANT. There's something in that. Here: you needn't be in such a | |
fright. Take my arm. (Giuseppe does so.) That's the way.(They go out, | |
arm in arm. It is now starry night. The lady throws the packet on the | |
table and seats herself at her ease on the couch enjoying the sensation | |
of freedom from petticoats.) | |
LADY. Well, General: I've beaten you. | |
NAPOLEON (walking about). You have been guilty of indelicacy--of | |
unwomanliness. Do you consider that costume a proper one to wear? | |
LADY. It seems to me much the same as yours. | |
NAPOLEON. Psha! I blush for you. | |
LADY (naively). Yes: soldiers blush so easily! (He growls and turns | |
away. She looks mischievously at him, balancing the despatches in her | |
hand.) Wouldn't you like to read these before they're burnt, General? | |
You must be dying with curiosity. Take a peep. (She throws the packet | |
on the table, and turns her face away from it.) I won't look. | |
NAPOLEON. I have no curiosity whatever, madame. But since you are | |
evidently burning to read them, I give you leave to do so. | |
LADY. Oh, I've read them already. | |
NAPOLEON (starting). What! | |
LADY. I read them the first thing after I rode away on that poor | |
lieutenant's horse. So you see I know what's in them; and you don't. | |
NAPOLEON. Excuse me: I read them there in the vineyard ten minutes ago. | |
LADY. Oh! (Jumping up.) Oh, General I've not beaten you. I do admire | |
you so. (He laughs and pats her cheek.) This time really and truly | |
without shamming, I do you homage (kissing his hand). | |
NAPOLEON (quickly withdrawing it). Brr! Don't do that. No more | |
witchcraft. | |
LADY. I want to say something to you--only you would misunderstand it. | |
NAPOLEON. Need that stop you? | |
LADY. Well, it is this. I adore a man who is not afraid to be mean and | |
selfish. | |
NAPOLEON (indignantly). I am neither mean nor selfish. | |
LADY. Oh, you don't appreciate yourself. Besides, I don't really mean | |
meanness and selfishness. | |
NAPOLEON. Thank you. I thought perhaps you did. | |
LADY. Well, of course I do. But what I mean is a certain strong | |
simplicity about you. | |
NAPOLEON. That's better. | |
LADY. You didn't want to read the letters; but you were curious about | |
what was in them. So you went into the garden and read them when no one | |
was looking, and then came back and pretended you hadn't. That's the | |
meanest thing I ever knew any man do; but it exactly fulfilled your | |
purpose; and so you weren't a bit afraid or ashamed to do it. | |
NAPOLEON (abruptly). Where did you pick up all these vulgar | |
scruples--this (with contemptuous emphasis) conscience of yours? I took | |
you for a lady--an aristocrat. Was your grandfather a shopkeeper, pray? | |
LADY. No: he was an Englishman. | |
NAPOLEON. That accounts for it. The English are a nation of | |
shopkeepers. Now I understand why you've beaten me. | |
LADY. Oh, I haven't beaten you. And I'm not English. | |
NAPOLEON. Yes, you are--English to the backbone. Listen to me: I will | |
explain the English to you. | |
LADY (eagerly). Do. (With a lively air of anticipating an intellectual | |
treat, she sits down on the couch and composes herself to listen to | |
him. Secure of his audience, he at once nerves himself for a | |
performance. He considers a little before he begins; so as to fix her | |
attention by a moment of suspense. His style is at first modelled on | |
Talma's in Corneille's "Cinna;" but it is somewhat lost in the | |
darkness, and Talma presently gives way to Napoleon, the voice coming | |
through the gloom with startling intensity.) | |
NAPOLEON. There are three sorts of people in the world, the low people, | |
the middle people, and the high people. The low people and the high | |
people are alike in one thing: they have no scruples, no morality. The | |
low are beneath morality, the high above it. I am not afraid of either | |
of them: for the low are unscrupulous without knowledge, so that they | |
make an idol of me; whilst the high are unscrupulous without purpose, | |
so that they go down before my will. Look you: I shall go over all the | |
mobs and all the courts of Europe as a plough goes over a field. It is | |
the middle people who are dangerous: they have both knowledge and | |
purpose. But they, too, have their weak point. They are full of | |
scruples--chained hand and foot by their morality and respectability. | |
LADY. Then you will beat the English; for all shopkeepers are middle | |
people. | |
NAPOLEON. No, because the English are a race apart. No Englishman is | |
too low to have scruples: no Englishman is high enough to be free from | |
their tyranny. But every Englishman is born with a certain miraculous | |
power that makes him master of the world. When he wants a thing, he | |
never tells himself that he wants it. He waits patiently until there | |
comes into his mind, no one knows how, a burning conviction that it is | |
his moral and religious duty to conquer those who have got the thing he | |
wants. Then he becomes irresistible. Like the aristocrat, he does what | |
pleases him and grabs what he wants: like the shopkeeper, he pursues | |
his purpose with the industry and steadfastness that come from strong | |
religious conviction and deep sense of moral responsibility. He is | |
never at a loss for an effective moral attitude. As the great champion | |
of freedom and national independence, he conquers and annexes half the | |
world, and calls it Colonization. When he wants a new market for his | |
adulterated Manchester goods, he sends a missionary to teach the | |
natives the gospel of peace. The natives kill the missionary: he flies | |
to arms in defence of Christianity; fights for it; conquers for it; and | |
takes the market as a reward from heaven. In defence of his island | |
shores, he puts a chaplain on board his ship; nails a flag with a cross | |
on it to his top-gallant mast; and sails to the ends of the earth, | |
sinking, burning and destroying all who dispute the empire of the seas | |
with him. He boasts that a slave is free the moment his foot touches | |
British soil; and he sells the children of his poor at six years of age | |
to work under the lash in his factories for sixteen hours a day. He | |
makes two revolutions, and then declares war on our one in the name of | |
law and order. There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not | |
find Englishmen doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the | |
wrong. He does everything on principle. He fights you on patriotic | |
principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on | |
imperial principles; he bullies you on manly principles; he supports | |
his king on loyal principles, and cuts off his king's head on | |
republican principles. His watchword is always duty; and he never | |
forgets that the nation which lets its duty get on the opposite side to | |
its interest is lost. He-- | |
LADY. W-w-w-w-w-wh! Do stop a moment. I want to know how you make me | |
out to be English at this rate. | |
NAPOLEON (dropping his rhetorical style). It's plain enough. You wanted | |
some letters that belonged to me. You have spent the morning in | |
stealing them--yes, stealing them, by highway robbery. And you have | |
spent the afternoon in putting me in the wrong about them--in assuming | |
that it was I who wanted to steal YOUR letters--in explaining that it | |
all came about through my meanness and selfishness, and your goodness, | |
your devotion, your self-sacrifice. That's English. | |
LADY. Nonsense. I am sure I am not a bit English. The English are a | |
very stupid people. | |
NAPOLEON. Yes, too stupid sometimes to know when they're beaten. But I | |
grant that your brains are not English. You see, though your | |
grandfather was an Englishman, your grandmother was--what? A | |
Frenchwoman? | |
LADY. Oh, no. An Irishwoman. | |
NAPOLEON (quickly). Irish! (Thoughtfully.) Yes: I forgot the Irish. An | |
English army led by an Irish general: that might be a match for a | |
French army led by an Italian general. (He pauses, and adds, half | |
jestingly, half moodily) At all events, YOU have beaten me; and what | |
beats a man first will beat him last. (He goes meditatively into the | |
moonlit vineyard and looks up. She steals out after him. She ventures | |
to rest her hand on his shoulder, overcome by the beauty of the night | |
and emboldened by its obscurity.) | |
LADY (softly). What are you looking at? | |
NAPOLEON (pointing up). My star. | |
LADY. You believe in that? | |
NAPOLEON. I do. (They look at it for a moment, she leaning a little on | |
his shoulder.) | |
LADY. Do you know that the English say that a man's star is not | |
complete without a woman's garter? | |
NAPOLEON (scandalized--abruptly shaking her off and coming back into | |
the room). Pah! The hypocrites! If the French said that, how they would | |
hold up their hands in pious horror! (He goes to the inner door and | |
holds it open, shouting) Hallo! Giuseppe. Where's that light, man. (He | |
comes between the table and the sideboard, and moves the chair to the | |
table, beside his own.) We have still to burn the letter. (He takes up | |
the packet. Giuseppe comes back, pale and still trembling, carrying a | |
branched candlestick with a couple of candles alight, in one hand, and | |
a broad snuffers tray in the other.) | |
GIUSEPPE (piteously, as he places the light on the table). Excellency: | |
what were you looking up at just now--out there? (He points across his | |
shoulder to the vineyard, but is afraid to look round.) | |
NAPOLEON (unfolding the packet). What is that to you? | |
GIUSEPPE (stammering). Because the witch is gone--vanished; and no one | |
saw her go out. | |
LADY (coming behind him from the vineyard). We were watching her riding | |
up to the moon on your broomstick, Giuseppe. You will never see her | |
again. | |
GIUSEPPE. Gesu Maria! (He crosses himself and hurries out.) | |
NAPOLEON (throwing down the letters in a heap on the table). Now. (He | |
sits down at the table in the chair which he has just placed.) | |
LADY. Yes; but you know you have THE letter in your pocket. (He smiles; | |
takes a letter from his pocket; and tosses it on the top of the heap. | |
She holds it up and looks at him, saying) About Caesar's wife. | |
NAPOLEON. Caesar's wife is above suspicion. Burn it. | |
LADY (taking up the snuffers and holding the letter to the candle flame | |
with it). I wonder would Caesar's wife be above suspicion if she saw us | |
here together! | |
NAPOLEON (echoing her, with his elbows on the table and his cheeks on | |
his hands, looking at the letter). I wonder! (The Strange Lady puts the | |
letter down alight on the snuffers tray, and sits down beside Napoleon, | |
in the same attitude, elbows on table, cheeks on hands, watching it | |
burn. When it is burnt, they simultaneously turn their eyes and look at | |
one another. The curtain steals down and hides them.) | |
End of Project Gutenberg's The Man of Destiny, by George Bernard Shaw | |
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