ST. CLOUD. THE BOUDOIR OF JOSÉPHINE [It is the dusk of evening in the latter summer of this year, and from the windows at the back of the stage, which are still uncurtained, can be seen the EMPRESS with NAPOLÉON and some ladies and officers of the Court playing Catch-me-if-you-can by torchlight on the lawn. The moving torches throw bizarre lights and shadows into the apartment, where only a remote candle or two are burning. Enter JOSÉPHINE and NAPOLÉON together, somewhat out of breath. With careless suppleness she slides down on a couch and fans herself. Now that the candle-rays reach her they show her mellow complexion, her velvety eyes with long lashes, mouth with pointed corners and excessive mobility beneath its duvet, and curls of dark hair pressed down upon the temples by a gold band. The EMPEROR drops into a seat near her, and they remain in silence till he jumps up, knocks over some nicknacks with his elbow, and begins walking about the boudoir.]

NAPOLÉON [with sudden gloom] These mindless games are very well, my friend; But ours to-night marks, not improbably, The last we play together.

JOSÉPHINE [starting] Can you say it! Why raise that ghastly nightmare on me now, When, for a moment, my poor brain had dreams Denied it all the earlier anxious day?

NAPOLÉON Things that verge nigh, my simple Joséphine, Are not shoved off by wilful winking at. Better quiz evils with too strained an eye Than have them leap from disregarded lairs.

JOSÉPHINE Maybe ’tis true, and you shall have it so!— Yet there’s no joy save sorrow waived awhile.

NAPOLÉON Ha, ha! That’s like you. Well, each day by day I get sour news. Each hour since we returned From this queer Spanish business at Bayonne, I have had nothing else; and hence by brooding.

JOSÉPHINE But all went well throughout our touring-time?

NAPOLÉON Not so—behind the scenes. Our arms a Baylen Have been smirched badly. Twenty thousand shamed All through Dupont’s ill-luck! The selfsame day My brother Joseph’s progress to Madrid Was glorious as a sodden rocket’s fizz! Since when his letters creak with querulousness. “Napoléon el chico” ’tis they call him— “Napoléon the Little,” so he says. Then notice Austria. Much looks louring there, And her sly new regard for England grows. The English, next, have shipped an army down To Mondego, under one Wellesley, A man from India, and his march is south To Lisbon, by Vimiero. On he’ll go And do the devil’s mischief ere he is met By unaware Junot, and chevyed back To English fogs and fumes!

JOSÉPHINE My dearest one, You have mused on worse reports with better grace Full many and many a time. Ah—there is more!... I know; I know!

NAPOLÉON [kicking away a stool] There is, of course; that worm Time ever keeps in hand for gnawing me!— The question of my dynasty—which bites Closer and closer as the years wheel on.

JOSÉPHINE Of course it’s that! For nothing else could hang My lord on tenterhooks through nights and days;— Or rather, not the question, but the tongues That keep the question stirring. Nought recked you Of throne-succession or dynastic lines When gloriously engaged in Italy! I was your fairy then: they labelled me Your Lady of Victories; and much I joyed, Till dangerous ones drew near and daily sowed These choking tares within your fecund brain,— Making me tremble if a panel crack, Or mouse but cheep, or silent leaf sail down, And murdering my melodious hours with dreads That my late happiness, and my late hope, Will oversoon be knelled!

NAPOLÉON [genially nearing her] But years have passed since first we talked of it, And now, with loss of dear Hortense’s son Who won me as my own, it looms forth more. And selfish ’tis in my good Joséphine To blind her vision to the weal of France, And this great Empire’s solidarity. The grandeur of your sacrifice would gild Your life’s whole shape.

JOSÉPHINE Were I as coarse a wife As I am limned in English caricature— [Those cruel effigies they draw of me!]— You could not speak more aridly.

NAPOLÉON Nay, nay! You know, my comrade, how I love you still Were there a long-notorious dislike Betwixt us, reason might be in your dreads But all earth knows our conjugality. There’s not a bourgeois couple in the land Who, should dire duty rule their severance, Could part with scanter scandal than could we.

JOSÉPHINE [pouting] Nevertheless there’s one.

NAPOLÉON A scandal? What?

JOSÉPHINE Madame Walewska! How could you pretend When, after Jena, I’d have come to you, “The weather was so wild, the roads so rough, That no one of my sex and delicate nerve Could hope to face the dangers and fatigues.” Yes—so you wrote me, dear. They hurt not her!

NAPOLÉON [blandly] She was a week’s adventure—not worth words! I say ’tis France.—I have held out for years Against the constant pressure brought on me To null this sterile marriage.

JOSÉPHINE [bursting into sobs] Me you blame! But how know you that you are not the culprit?

NAPOLÉON I have reason so to know—if I must say. The Polish lady you have chosen to name Has proved the fault not mine. [JOSÉPHINE sobs more violently.] Don’t cry, my cherished; It is not really amiable of you, Or prudent, my good little Joséphine, With so much in the balance.

JOSÉPHINE How—know you— What may not happen! Wait a—little longer!

NAPOLÉON [playfully pinching her arm] O come, now, my adored! Haven’t I already! Nature’s a dial whose shade no hand puts back, Trick as we may! My friend, you are forty-three This very year in the world— [JOSÉPHINE breaks out sobbing again.] And in vain it is To think of waiting longer; pitiful To dream of coaxing shy fecundity To an unlikely freak by physicking With superstitious drugs and quackeries That work you harm, not good. The fact being so, I have looked it squarely down—against my heart! Solicitations voiced repeatedly At length have shown the soundness of their shape, And left me no denial. You, at times, My dear one, have been used to handle it. My brother Joseph, years back, frankly gave His honest view that something should be done; And he, you well know, shows no ill tinct In his regard of you.

JOSÉPHINE And what princess?

NAPOLÉON For wiving with? No thought was given to that, She shapes as vaguely as the Veiled—

JOSÉPHINE No, no; It’s Alexander’s sister, I’m full sure!— But why this craze for home-made manikins And lineage mere of flesh? You have said yourself It mattered not. Great Caesar, you declared, Sank sonless to his rest; was greater deemed Even for the isolation. Frederick Saw, too, no heir. It is the fate of such, Often, to be denied the common hope As fine for fulness in the rarer gifts That Nature yields them. O my husband long, Will you not purge your soul to value best That high heredity from brain to brain Which supersedes mere sequence of blood, That often vary more from sire to son Than between furthest strangers!... Napoléon’s offspring in his like must lie; The second of his line be he who shows Napoléon’s soul in later bodiment, The household father happening as he may!

NAPOLÉON [smilingly wiping her eyes] Little guessed I my dear would prove her rammed With such a charge of apt philosophy When tutoring me gay arts in earlier times! She who at home coquetted through the years In which I vainly penned her wishful words To come and comfort me in Italy, Might, faith, have urged it then effectually! But never would you stir from Paris joys, [With some bitterness.] And so, when arguments like this could move me, I heard them not; and get them only now When their weight dully falls. But I have said ’Tis not for me, but France—Good-bye an hour. [Kissing her.] I must dictate some letters. This new move Of England on Madrid may mean some trouble. Come, dwell not gloomily on this cold need Of waiving private joy for policy. We are but thistle-globes on Heaven’s high gales, And whither blown, or when, or how, or why, Can choose us not at all!... I’ll come to you anon, dear: staunch Roustan Will light me in. [Exit NAPOLÉON. The scene shuts in shadow.]