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 no no no no no no. 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 shews 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: youre making me feel hungry again.
Giuseppe, with an apologetic shrug, retires from the conversation.
NAPOLEON [turning to the Lieutenant with sardonic politeness] I hope I have not been making you feel ambitious.
LIEUTENANT. Not at all: I dont 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 wont 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 his job 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. 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 hadnt found the ford and got across and turned old Beaulieu’s flank for you. You know you didnt dare give the order to charge the bridge until you saw 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 dont capture him, General. Remember the if.
NAPOLEON. 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].
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 them with his hand in his breast, his brow lowering, and his toes twitching].
LIEUTENANT [triumphantly, taking the sabre] No such man! eh, General? [To the Lady] I say: wheres 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 [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. Youre my prisoner, you know. Of course I dont believe in any such rubbish; but still its 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, shewing him the despatches] See!
GIUSEPPE [flying to the outer door] No, in heaven’s name! Theyre bewitched.
LADY [turning to the lieutenant] Here, Lieutenant: you are 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. Dont 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! Youre 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. Youd better go first: I dont know the way.
GIUSEPPE. You cant miss it. Besides [imploringly, laying his hand on his sleeve] I am only a poor innkeeper: you are a man of family.
LIEUTENANT. Theres something in that. Here: you neednt be in such a fright. Take my arm. [Giuseppe does so]. Thats 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: Ive beaten you.
NAPOLEON [walking about] You are guilty of indelicacy: of unwomanliness. Is that costume proper?
LADY. It seems to me much the same as yours.
NAPOLEON. Psha! I blush for you.
LADY [naïvely] 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 theyre 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 wont look.
NAPOLEON. I have no curiosity whatever, madam. But since you are evidently burning to read them, I give you leave to do so.
LADY. Oh, Ive 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 whats in them; and you dont.
NAPOLEON. Excuse me: I read them when I was out there in the vineyard ten minutes ago.
LADY. Oh! [Jumping up] Oh, General: Ive not beaten you after all. 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! Dont 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 dont appreciate yourself. Besides, I dont 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. Thats better.
LADY. You didnt 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 hadnt. Thats the meanest thing I ever knew any man do; but it exactly fulfilled your purpose; and so you werent 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 youve beaten me.
LADY. Oh, I havnt 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 possess the thing he wants. Then he becomes irresistible. Like the aristocrat, he does what pleases him and grabs what he covets: 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. Thats 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 theyre 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 e
mboldened 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! Wheres that light, man? [He comes between the table and the sideboard, and moves the second 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 in one hand a branched candlestick with a couple of candles alight, 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. 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 top of the heap. She holds it up and looks at him, saying] About Cæsar’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 Cæsar’s wife be above suspicion if she saw us here together!
Plays Pleasant Page 22