The Man of Destiny Part 5

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 n.o.body will believe.

NAPOLEON (with coa.r.s.e 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 a.s.sumption 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 amus.e.m.e.nt, 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 s.e.x 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! coa.r.s.e, 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.