Part 2 / Act 5 — SCENE VII

PETERSBURG. THE PALACE OF THE EMPRESS-MOTHER [One of the private apartments is disclosed, in which the Empress- mother and Alexander are seated.]

EMPRESS-MOTHER So one of Austrian blood his pomp selects To be his bride and bulwark—not our own. Thus are you coolly shelved!

ALEXANDER Me, mother dear? You, faith, if I may say it dutifully! Had all been left to me, some time ere now He would have wedded Kate.

EMPRESS-MOTHER How so, my son? Catharine was plighted, and it could not be.

ALEXANDER Rather you swiftly pledged and married her, To let Napoléon have no chance that way. But Anne remained.

EMPRESS-MOTHER How Anne?—so young a girl! Sane Nature would have cried indecency At such a troth.

ALEXANDER Time would have tinkered that, And he was well-disposed to wait awhile; But the one test he had no temper for Was the apparent slight of unresponse Accorded his impatient overtures By our suspensive poise of policy.

EMPRESS-MOTHER A backward answer is our country’s card— The special style and mode of Muscovy. We have grown great upon it, my dear son, And may such practice rule our centuries through! The necks of those who rate themselves our peers Are cured of stiffness by its potency.

ALEXANDER The principle in this case, anyhow, Is shattered by the facts: since none can doubt Your policy was counted an affront, And drove my long ally to Austria’s arms, With what result to us must yet be seen!

EMPRESS-MOTHER May Austria win much joy of the alliance! Marrying Napoléon is a midnight leap For any Court in Europe, credit me, If ever such there were! What he may carve Upon the coming years, what murderous bolt Hurl at the rocking Constitutions round, On what dark planet he may land himself In his career through space, no sage can say.

ALEXANDER Well—possibly!... And maybe all is best That he engrafts his lineage not on us.— But, honestly, Napoléon none the less Has been my friend, and I regret the dream And fleeting fancy of a closer tie!

EMPRESS-MOTHER Ay; your regrets are sentimental ever. That he’ll be writ no son-in-law of mine Is no regret to me! But an affront There is, no less, in his evasion on’t, Wherein the bourgeois quality of him Veraciously peeps out. I would be sworn He set his minions parleying with the twain— Yourself and Francis—simultaneously, Else no betrothal could have speeded so!

ALEXANDER Despite the hazard of offence to one?

EMPRESS-MOTHER More than the hazard; the necessity.

ALEXANDER There’s no offence to me.

EMPRESS-MOTHER There should be, then. I am a Romanoff by marriage merely, But I do feel a rare belittlement And loud laconic brow-beating herein!

ALEXANDER No, mother, no! I am the Tsar—not you, And I am only piqued in moderateness. Marriage with France was near my heart—I own it— What then? It has been otherwise ordained. [A silence.]

EMPRESS-MOTHER Here comes dear Anne Speak not of it before her. [Enter the GRAND-DUCHESS, a girl of sixteen.]

ANNE Alas! the news is that poor Prussia’s queen, Spirited Queen Louisa, once so fair, Is slowly dying, mother! Did you know?

ALEXANDER [betraying emotion] Ah!—such I dreaded from the earlier hints. Poor soul—her heart was slain some time ago.

ANNE What do you mean by that, my brother dear?

EMPRESS-MOTHER He means, my child, that he as usual spends Much sentiment upon the foreign fair, And hence leaves little for his folk at home.

ALEXANDER I mean, Anne, that her country’s overthrow Let death into her heart. The Tilsit days Taught me to know her well, and honour her. She was a lovely woman even then!... Strangely, the present English Prince of Wales Was wished to husband her. Had wishes won, They might have varied Europe’s history.

ANNE Napoléon, I have heard, admired her once; How he must grieve that soon she’ll be no more!

EMPRESS-MOTHER Napoléon and your brother loved her both. [Alexander shows embarrassment.] But whatsoever grief be Alexander’s, His will be none who feels but for himself.

ANNE O mother, how can you mistake him so! He worships her who is to be his wife, The fair Archduchess Marie.

EMPRESS-MOTHER Simple child, As yet he has never seen her, or but barely. That is a tactic suit, with love to match!

ALEXANDER [with vainly veiled tenderness] High-souled Louisa;—when shall I forget Those Tilsit gatherings in the long-sunned June! Napoléon’s gallantries deceived her quite, Who fondly felt her pleas for Magdeburg Had won him to its cause; the while, alas! His cynic sense but posed in cruel play!

EMPRESS-MOTHER Bitterly mourned she her civilities When time unlocked the truth, that she had choked Her indignation at his former slights And slanderous sayings for a baseless hope, And wrought no tittle for her country’s gain. I marvel why you mourn a frustrate tie With one whose wiles could wring a woman so!

ALEXANDER [uneasily] I marvel also, when I think of it!

EMPRESS-MOTHER Don’t listen to us longer, dearest Anne. [Exit Anne.] —You will uphold my judging by and by, That as a suitor we are quit of him, And that blind Austria will rue the hour Wherein she plucks for him her fairest flower! [The scene shuts.]