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 
be 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 be 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.)