THE MAN OF DESTINY

BERNARD SHAW

1898

The twelfth of May, 1796, in north Italy, at Tavazzano, on the 
road from Lodi to Milan. The afternoon sun is blazing serenely 
over the plains of Lombardy, treating the Alps with respect and 
the anthills with indulgence, not incommoded by the basking of 
the swine and oxen in the villages nor hurt by its cool reception 
in the churches, but fiercely disdainful of two hordes of 
mischievous insects which are the French and Austrian armies. Two 
days before, at Lodi, the Austrians tried to prevent the French 
from crossing the river by the narrow bridge there; but the 
French, commanded by a general aged 27, Napoleon Bonaparte, who 
does not understand the art of war, rushed the fireswept bridge, 
supported by a tremendous cannonade in which the young general 
assisted with his own hands. Cannonading is his technical 
specialty; he has been trained in the artillery under the old 
regime, and made perfect in the military arts of shirking his 
duties, swindling the paymaster over travelling expenses, and 
dignifying war with the noise and smoke of cannon, as depicted in 
all military portraits. He is, however, an original observer, and 
has perceived, for the first time since the invention of 
gunpowder, that a cannon ball, if it strikes a man, will kill 
him. To a thorough grasp of this remarkable discovery, he adds a 
highly evolved faculty for physical geography and for the 
calculation of times and distances. He has prodigious powers of 
work, and a clear, realistic knowledge of human nature in public 
affairs, having seen it exhaustively tested in that department 
during the French Revolution. He is imaginative without 
illusions, and creative without religion, loyalty, patriotism or 
any of the common ideals. Not that he is incapable of these 
ideals: on the contrary, he has swallowed them all in his 
boyhood, and now, having a keen dramatic faculty, is extremely 
clever at playing upon them by the arts of the actor and stage 
manager. Withal, he is no spoiled child. Poverty, ill-luck, the 
shifts of impecunious shabby-gentility, repeated failure as a 
would-be author, humiliation as a rebuffed time server, reproof 
and punishment as an incompetent and dishonest officer, an escape 
from dismissal from the service so narrow that if the emigration 
of the nobles had not raised the value of even the most rascally 
lieutenant to the famine price of a general he would have been 
swept contemptuously from the army: these trials have ground the 
conceit out of him, and forced him to be self-sufficient and to 
understand that to such men as he is the world will give nothing 
that he cannot take from it by force. In this the world is not 
free from cowardice and folly; for Napoleon, as a merciless 
cannonader of political rubbish, is making himself useful. 
indeed, it is even now impossible to live in England without 
sometimes feeling how much that country lost in not being 
conquered by him as well as by Julius Caesar.

However, on this May afternoon in 1796, it is early days with 
him. He is only 26, and has but recently become a general, partly 
by using his wife to seduce the Directory (then governing France) 
partly by the scarcity of officers caused by the emigration as 
aforesaid; partly by his faculty of knowing a country, with all 
its roads, rivers, hills and valleys, as he knows the palm of his 
hand; and largely by that new faith of his in the efficacy of 
firing cannons at people. His army is, as to discipline, in a 
state which has so greatly shocked some modern writers before 
whom the following story has been enacted, that they, impressed 
with the later glory of "L'Empereur," have altogether refused to 
credit it. But Napoleon is not "L'Empereur" yet: he has only just 
been dubbed "Le Petit Caporal," and is in the stage of gaining 
influence over his men by displays of pluck. He is not in a 
position to force his will on them, in orthodox military fashion, 
by the cat o' nine tails. The French Revolution, which has 
escaped suppression solely through the monarchy's habit of being 
at least four years in arrear with its soldiers in the matter of 
pay, has substituted for that habit, as far as possible, the 
habit of not paying at all, except in promises and patriotic 
flatteries which are not compatible with martial law of the 
Prussian type. Napoleon has therefore approached the Alps in 
command of men without money, in rags, and consequently 
indisposed to stand much discipline, especially from upstart 
generals. This circumstance, which would have embarrassed an 
idealist soldier, has been worth a thousand cannon to Napoleon. 
He has said to his army, "You have patriotism and courage; but 
you have no money, no clothes, and deplorably indifferent food. 
In Italy there are all these things, and glory as well, to be 
gained by a devoted army led by a general who regards loot as the 
natural right of the soldier. I am such a general. En avant, mes 
enfants!" The result has entirely justified him. The army 
conquers Italy as the locusts conquered Cyprus. They fight all 
day and march all night, covering impossible distances and 
appearing in incredible places, not because every soldier carries 
a field marshal's baton in his knapsack, but because he hopes to 
carry at least half a dozen silver forks there next day.

It must be understood, by the way, that the French army does not 
make war on the Italians. It is there to rescue them from the 
tyranny of their Austrian conquerors, and confer republican 
institutions on them; so that in incidentally looting them, it 
merely makes free with the property of its friends, who ought to 
be grateful to it, and perhaps would be if ingratitude were not 
the proverbial failing of their country. The Austrians, whom it 
fights, are a thoroughly respectable regular army, well 
disciplined, commanded by gentlemen trained and versed in the art 
of war: at the head of them Beaulieu, practising the classic art 
of war under orders from Vienna, and getting horribly beaten by 
Napoleon, who acts on his own responsibility in defiance of 
professional precedents or orders from Paris. Even when the 
Austrians win a battle, all that is necessary is to wait until 
their routine obliges them to return to their quarters for 
afternoon tea, so to speak, and win it back again from them: a 
course pursued later on with brilliant success at Marengo. On the 
whole, with his foe handicapped by Austrian statesmanship, 
classic generalship, and the exigencies of the aristocratic 
social structure of Viennese society, Napoleon finds it possible 
to be irresistible without working heroic miracles. The world, 
however, likes miracles and heroes, and is quite incapable of 
conceiving the action of such forces as academic militarism or 
Viennese drawing-roomism. Hence it has already begun to 
manufacture "L'Empereur," and thus to make it difficult for the 
romanticists of a hundred years later to credit the little scene 
now in question at Tavazzano as aforesaid.

The best quarters at Tavazzano are at a little inn, the first 
house reached by travellers passing through the place from Milan 
to Lodi. It stands in a vineyard; and its principal room, a 
pleasant refuge from the summer heat, is open so widely at the 
back to this vineyard that it is almost a large veranda. The 
bolder children, much excited by the alarums and excursions of 
the past few days, and by an irruption of French troops at six 
o'clock, know that the French commander has quartered himself in 
this room, and are divided between a craving to peep in at the 
front windows and a mortal terror of the sentinel, a young 
gentleman-soldier, who, having no natural moustache, has had a 
most ferocious one painted on his face with boot blacking by his 
sergeant. As his heavy uniform, like all the uniforms of that 
day, is designed for parade without the least reference to his 
health or comfort, he perspires profusely in the sun; and his 
painted moustache has run in little streaks down his chin and 
round his neck except where it has dried in stiff japanned 
flakes, and had its sweeping outline chipped off in grotesque 
little bays and headlands, making him unspeakably ridiculous in 
the eye of History a hundred years later, but monstrous and 
horrible to the contemporary north Italian infant, to whom 
nothing would seem more natural than that he should relieve the 
monotony of his guard by pitchforking a stray child up on his 
bayonet, and eating it uncooked. Nevertheless one girl of bad 
character, in whom an instinct of privilege with soldiers is 
already dawning, does peep in at the safest window for a moment, 
before a glance and a clink from the sentinel sends her flying. 
Most of what she sees she has seen before: the vineyard at the 
back, with the old winepress and a cart among the vines; the door 
close down on her right leading to the inn entry; the landlord's 
best sideboard, now in full action for dinner, further back on 
the same side; the fireplace on the other side, with a couch near 
it, and another door, leading to the inner rooms, between it and 
the vineyard; and the table in the middle with its repast of 
Milanese risotto, cheese, grapes, bread, olives, and a big 
wickered flask of red wine.

The landlord, Giuseppe Grandi, is also no novelty. He is a 
swarthy, vivacious, shrewdly cheerful, black-curled, bullet 
headed, grinning little man of 40. Naturally an excellent host, 
he is in quite special spirits this evening at his good fortune 
in having the French commander as his guest to protect him 
against the license of the troops, and actually sports a pair of 
gold earrings which he would otherwise have hidden carefully 
under the winepress with his little equipment of silver plate.

Napoleon, sitting facing her on the further side of the table, 
and Napoleon's hat, sword and riding whip lying on the couch, she 
sees for the first time. He is working hard, partly at his meal, 
which he has discovered how to dispatch, by attacking all the 
courses simultaneously, in ten minutes (this practice is the 
beginning of his downfall), and partly at a map which he is 
correcting from memory, occasionally marking the position of the 
forces by taking a grapeskin from his mouth and planting it on 
the map with his thumb like a wafer. He has a supply of writing 
materials before him mixed up in disorder with the dishes and 
cruets; and his long hair gets sometimes into the risotto gravy 
and sometimes into the ink.

GIUSEPPE. Will your excellency--

NAPOLEON (intent on his map, but cramming himself mechanically 
with his left hand). Don't talk. I'm busy.

GIUSEPPE (with perfect goodhumor). Excellency: I obey. 

NAPOLEON. Some red ink.

GIUSEPPE. Alas! excellency, there is none.

NAPOLEON (with Corsican facetiousness). Kill something and bring 
me its blood.

GIUSEPPE (grinning). There is nothing but your excellency's 
horse, the sentinel, the lady upstairs, and my wife. 

NAPOLEON. Kill your wife.

GIUSEPPE. Willingly, your excellency; but unhappily I am not 
strong enough. She would kill me. 

NAPOLEON. That will do equally well.

GIUSEPPE. Your excellency does me too much honor. (Stretching his 
hand toward the flask.) Perhaps some wine will answer your 
excellency's purpose.

NAPOLEON (hastily protecting the flask, and becoming quite 
serious). Wine! No: that would be waste. You are all the same: 
waste! waste! waste! (He marks the map with gravy, using his fork 
as a pen.) Clear away. (He finishes his wine; pushes back his 
chair; and uses his napkin, stretching his legs and leaning back, 
but still frowning and thinking.)

GIUSEPPE (clearing the table and removing the things to a tray on 
the sideboard). Every man to his trade, excellency. We innkeepers 
have plenty of cheap wine: we think nothing of spilling it. You 
great generals have plenty of cheap blood: you think nothing of 
spilling it. Is it not so, excellency?

NAPOLEON. Blood costs nothing: wine costs money. (He rises and 
goes to the fireplace. )

GIUSEPPE. They say you are careful of everything except human 
life, excellency.

NAPOLEON. Human life, my friend, is the only thing that takes 
care of itself. (He throws himself at his ease on the couch.)

GIUSEPPE (admiring him). Ah, excellency, what fools we all are 
beside you! If I could only find out the secret of your success!

NAPOLEON. You would make yourself Emperor of Italy, eh? 

GIUSEPPE. Too troublesome, excellency: I leave all that to you. 
Besides, what would become of my inn if I were Emperor? See how 
you enjoy looking on at me whilst I keep the inn for you and wait 
on you! Well, I shall enjoy looking on at you whilst you become 
Emperor of Europe, and govern the country for me. (Whilst he 
chatters, he takes the cloth off without removing the map and 
inkstand, and takes the corners in his hands and the middle of 
the edge in his mouth, to fold it up.)

NAPOLEON. Emperor of Europe, eh? Why only Europe? 

GIUSEPPE. Why, indeed? Emperor of the world, excellency! Why not? 
(He folds and rolls up the cloth, emphasizing his phrases by the 
steps of the process.) One man is like another (fold): one 
country is like another (fold): one battle is like another. (At 
the last fold, he slaps the cloth on the table and deftly rolls 
it up, adding, by way of peroration) Conquer one: conquer all. 
(He takes the cloth to the sideboard, and puts it in a drawer.)

NAPOLEON. And govern for all; fight for all; be everybody's 
servant under cover of being everybody's master: Giuseppe.

GIUSEPPE (at the sideboard). Excellency. 

NAPOLEON. I forbid you to talk to me about myself. 

GIUSEPPE (coming to the foot of the couch). Pardon. Your 
excellency is so unlike other great men. It is the subject they 
like best.

NAPOLEON. Well, talk to me about the subject they like next best, 
whatever that may be.

GIUSEPPE (unabashed). Willingly, your excellency. Has your 
excellency by any chance caught a glimpse of the lady upstairs?

(Napoleon promptly sits up and looks at him with an interest 
which entirely justifies the implied epigram.)

NAPOLEON. How old is she? 

GIUSEPPE. The right age, excellency. 

NAPOLEON. Do you mean seventeen or thirty? 

GIUSEPPE. Thirty, excellency.

NAPOLEON. Goodlooking?

GIUSEPPE. I cannot see with your excellency's eyes: every man 
must judge that for himself. In my opinion, excellency, a fine 
figure of a lady. (Slyly.) Shall I lay the table for her 
collation here?

NAPOLEON (brusquely, rising). No: lay nothing here until the 
officer for whom I am waiting comes back. (He looks at his watch, 
and takes to walking to and fro between the fireplace and the 
vineyard.)

GIUSEPPE (with conviction). Excellency: believe me, he has been 
captured by the accursed Austrians. He dare not keep you waiting 
if he were at liberty.

NAPOLEON (turning at the edge of the shadow of the veranda). 
Giuseppe: if that turns out to be true, it will put me into such 
a temper that nothing short of hanging you and your whole 
household, including the lady upstairs, will satisfy me.

GIUSEPPE. We are all cheerfully at your excellency's disposal, 
except the lady. I cannot answer for her; but no lady could 
resist you, General.

NAPOLEON (sourly, resuming his march). Hm! You will never be 
hanged. There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not 
object to it.

GIUSEPPE (sympathetically). Not the least in the world, 
excellency: is there? (Napoleon again looks at his watch, 
evidently growing anxious.) Ah, one can see that you are a great 
man, General: you know how to wait. If it were a corporal now, or 
a sub-lieutenant, at the end of three minutes he would be 
swearing, fuming, threatening, pulling the house about our ears.

NAPOLEON. Giuseppe: your flatteries are insufferable. Go and talk 
outside. (He sits down again at the table, with his jaws in his 
hands, and his elbows propped on the map, poring over it with a 
troubled expression.)

GIUSEPPE. Willingly, your excellency. You shall not be disturbed. 
(He takes up the tray and prepares to withdraw.) 

NAPOLEON. The moment he comes back, send him to me. 

GIUSEPPE. Instantaneously, your excellency.

A LADY'S VOICE (calling from some distant part of the inn). 
Giusep-pe! (The voice is very musical, and the two final notes 
make an ascending interval.)

NAPOLEON (startled). What's that? What's that? 

GIUSEPPE (resting the end of his tray on the table and leaning 
over to speak the more confidentially). The lady, excellency. 

NAPOLEON (absently). Yes. What lady? Whose lady? 

GIUSEPPE. The strange lady, excellency.

NAPOLEON. What strange lady?

GIUSEPPE (with a shrug). Who knows? She arrived here half an hour 
before you in a hired carriage belonging to the Golden Eagle at 
Borghetto. Actually by herself, excellency. No servants. A 
dressing bag and a trunk: that is all. The postillion says she 
left a horse--a charger, with military trappings, at the Golden 
Eagle.

NAPOLEON. A woman with a charger! That's extraordinary.

THE LADY'S VOICE (the two final notes now making a peremptory 
descending interval). Giuseppe!

NAPOLEON (rising to listen). That's an interesting voice. 

GIUSEPPE. She is an interesting lady, excellency. (Calling.) 
Coming, lady, coming. (He makes for the inner door.) 

NAPOLEON (arresting him with a strong hand on his shoulder). 
Stop. Let her come.

VOICE. Giuseppe!! (Impatiently.)

GIUSEPPE (pleadingly). Let me go, excellency. It is my point of 
honor as an innkeeper to come when I am called. I appeal to you 
as a soldier.

A MAN's VOICE (outside, at the inn door, shouting). Here, 
someone. Hello! Landlord. Where are you? (Somebody raps 
vigorously with a whip handle on a bench in the passage.)

NAPOLEON (suddenly becoming the commanding officer again and 
throwing Giuseppe off). There he is at last. (Pointing to the 
inner door.) Go. Attend to your business: the lady is calling 
you. (He goes to the fireplace and stands with his back to it 
with a determined military air.) 

GIUSEPPE (with bated breath, snatching up his tray). Certainly, 
excellency. (He hurries out by the inner door.)

THE MAN's VOICE (impatiently). Are you all asleep here? (The door 
opposite the fireplace is kicked rudely open; and a dusty 
sub-lieutenant bursts into the room. He is a chuckle-headed young 
man of 24, with the fair, delicate, clear skin of a man of rank, 
and a self-assurance on that ground which the French Revolution 
has failed to shake in the smallest degree. He has a thick silly 
lip, an eager credulous eye, an obstinate nose, and a loud 
confident voice. A young man without fear, without reverence, 
without imagination, without sense, hopelessly insusceptible to 
the Napoleonic or any other idea, stupendously egotistical, 
eminently qualified to rush in where angels fear to tread, yet of 
a vigorous babbling vitality which bustles him into the thick of 
things. He is just now boiling with vexation, attributable by a 
superficial observer to his impatience at not being promptly 
attended to by the staff of the inn, but in which a more 
discerning eye can perceive a certain moral depth, indicating a 
more permanent and momentous grievance. On seeing Napoleon, he is 
sufficiently taken aback to check himself and salute; but he does 
not betray by his manner any of that prophetic consciousness of 
Marengo and Austerlitz, Waterloo and St. Helena, or the 
Napoleonic pictures of Delaroche and Meissonier, which modern 
culture will instinctively expect from him.)

NAPOLEON (sharply). Well, sir, here you are at last. Your 
instructions were that I should arrive here at six, and that I 
was to find you waiting for me with my mail from Paris and with 
despatches. It is now twenty minutes to eight. You were sent on 
this service as a hard rider with the fastest horse in the camp. 
You arrive a hundred minutes late, on foot. Where is your horse!

THE LIEUTENANT (moodily pulling off his gloves and dashing them 
with his cap and whip on the table). Ah! where indeed? That's 
just what I should like to know, General. (With emotion.) You 
don't know how fond I was of that horse.

NAPOLEON (angrily sarcastic). Indeed! (With sudden misgiving.) 
Where are the letters and despatches?

THE LIEUTENANT (importantly, rather pleased than otherwise at 
having some remarkable news). I don't know. 

NAPOLEON (unable to believe his ears). You don't know!

LIEUTENANT. No more than you do, General. Now I suppose I shall 
be court-martialled. Well, I don't mind being court-martialled; 
but (with solemn determination) I tell you, General, if ever I 
catch that innocent looking youth, I'll spoil his beauty, the 
slimy little liar! I'll make a picture of him. I'll--

NAPOLEON (advancing from the hearth to the table). What innocent 
looking youth? Pull yourself together, sir, will you; and give an 
account of yourself.

LIEUTENANT (facing him at the opposite side of the table, leaning 
on it with his fists). Oh, I'm all right, General: I'm perfectly 
ready to give an account of myself. I shall make the 
court-martial thoroughly understand that the fault was not mine. 
Advantage has been taken of the better side of my nature; and I'm 
not ashamed of it. But with all respect to you as my commanding 
officer, General, I say again that if ever I set eyes on that son 
of Satan, I'll--

NAPOLEON (angrily). So you said before.

LIEUTENANT (drawing himself upright). I say it again. just wait 
until I catch him. Just wait: that's all. (He folds his arms 
resolutely, and breathes hard, with compressed lips.) 

NAPOLEON. I AM waiting, sir--for your explanation.

LIEUTENANT (confidently). You'll change your tone, General, when 
you hear what has happened to me.

NAPOLEON. Nothing has happened to you, sir: you are alive and not 
disabled. Where are the papers entrusted to you?

LIEUTENANT. Nothing! Nothing!! Oho! Well, we'll see. (Posing 
himself to overwhelm Napoleon with his news.) He swore eternal 
brotherhood with me. Was that nothing? He said my eyes reminded 
him of his sister's eyes. Was that nothing? He cried--actually 
cried--over the story of my separation from Angelica. Was that 
nothing? He paid for both bottles of wine, though he only ate 
bread and grapes himself. Perhaps you call that nothing! He gave 
me his pistols and his horse and his despatches--most important 
despatches--and let me go away with them. (Triumphantly, seeing 
that he has reduced Napoleon to blank stupefaction.) Was THAT 
nothing?

NAPOLEON (enfeebled by astonishment). What did he do that for?

LIEUTENANT (as if the reason were obvious). To show his 
confidence in me. (Napoleon's jaw does not exactly drop; but its 
hinges become nerveless. The Lieutenant proceeds with honest 
indignation.) And I was worthy of his confidence: I brought them 
all back honorably. But would you believe it?--when I trusted him 
with MY pistols, and MY horse, and MY despatches--

NAPOLEON (enraged). What the devil did you do that for?

LIEUTENANT. Why, to show my confidence in him, of course. And he 
betrayed it--abused it--never came back. The thief! the swindler! 
the heartless, treacherous little blackguard! You call that 
nothing, I suppose. But look here, General: (again resorting to 
the table with his fist for greater emphasis) YOU may put up with 
this outrage from the Austrians if you like; but speaking for 
myself personally, I tell you that if ever I catch--

NAPOLEON (turning on his heel in disgust and irritably resuming 
his march to and fro). Yes: you have said that more than once 
already.

LIEUTENANT (excitedly). More than once! I'll say it fifty times; 
and what's more, I'll do it. You'll see, General. I'll show my 
confidence in him, so I will. I'll--

NAPOLEON. Yes, yes, sir: no doubt you will. What kind of man was 
he?

LIEUTENANT. Well, I should think you ought to be able to tell 
from his conduct the sort of man he was.

NAPOLEON. Psh! What was he like?

LIEUTENANT. Like! He's like--well, you ought to have just seen 
the fellow: that will give you a notion of what he was like. He 
won't be like it five minutes after I catch him; for I tell you 
that if ever--

NAPOLEON (shouting furiously for the innkeeper). Giuseppe! (To 
the Lieutenant, out of all patience.) Hold your tongue, sir, if 
you can.

LIEUTENANT. I warn you it's no use to try to put the blame on me. 
(Plaintively.) How was I to know the sort of fellow he was? (He 
takes a chair from between the sideboard and the outer door; 
places it near the table; and sits down.) If you only knew how 
hungry and tired I am, you'd have more consideration.

GIUSEPPE (returning). What is it, excellency?

NAPOLEON (struggling with his temper). Take this--this officer. 
Feed him; and put him to bed, if necessary. When he is in his 
right mind again, find out what has happened to him and bring me 
word. (To the Lieutenant.) Consider yourself under arrest, sir.

LIEUTENANT (with sulky stiffness). I was prepared for that. It 
takes a gentleman to understand a gentleman. (He throws his sword 
on the table. Giuieppe takes it up and politely offers it to 
Napoleon, who throws it violently on the couch.)

GIUSEPPE (with sympathetic concern). Have you been attacked by 
the Austrians, lieutenant? Dear, dear, dear! 

LIEUTENANT (contemptuously). Attacked! I could have broken his 
back between my finger and thumb. I wish I had, now. No: it was 
by appealing to the better side of my nature: that's what I can't 
get over. He said he'd never met a man he liked so much as me. He 
put his handkerchief round my neck because a gnat bit me, and my 
stock was chafing it. Look! (He pulls a handkerchief from his 
stock. Giuseppe takes it and examines it.)

GIUSEPPE (to Napoleon). A lady's handkerchief, excellency. (He 
smells it.) Perfumed!

NAPOLEON. Eh? (He takes it and looks at it attentively.) Hm! (He 
smells it.) Ha! (He walks thoughtfully across the room, looking 
at the handkerchief, which he finally sticks in the breast of his 
coat.)

LIEUTENANT. Good enough for him, anyhow. I noticed that he had a 
woman's hands when he touched my neck, with his coaxing, fawning 
ways, the mean, effeminate little hound. (Lowering his voice with 
thrilling intensity.) But mark my words, General. If ever--

THE LADY'S VOICE (outside, as before). Giuseppe! 

LIEUTENANT (petrified). What was that?

GIUSEPPE. Only a lady upstairs, lieutenant, calling me.
 
LIEUTENANT. Lady!

VOICE. Giuseppe, Giuseppe: where ARE you? 

LIEUTENANT (murderously). Give me that sword. (He strides to the 
couch; snatches the sword; and draws it.) 

GIUSEPPE (rushing forward and seizing his right arm.) What are 
you thinking of, lieutenant? It's a lady: don't you hear that 
it's a woman's voice?

LIEUTENANT. It's HIS voice, I tell you. Let me go. (He breaks 
away, and rushes to the inner door. It opens in his face; and the 
Strange Lady steps in. She is a very attractive lady, tall and 
extraordinarily graceful, with a delicately intelligent, 
apprehensive, questioning face--perception in the brow, 
sensitiveness in the nostrils, character in the chin: all keen, 
refined, and original. She is very feminine, but by no means 
weak: the lithe, tender figure is hung on a strong frame: the 
hands and feet, neck and shoulders, are no fragile ornaments, but 
of full size in proportion to her stature, which considerably 
exceeds that of Napoleon and the innkeeper, and leaves her at no 
disadvantage with the lieutenant. Only her elegance and radiant 
charm keep the secret of her size and strength. She is not, 
judging by her dress, an admirer of the latest fashions of the 
Directory; or perhaps she uses up her old dresses for travelling. 
At all events she wears no jacket with extravagant lappels, no 
Greco-Tallien sham chiton, nothing, indeed, that the Princesse de 
Lamballe might not have worn. Her dress of flowered silk is long 
waisted, with a Watteau pleat behind, but with the paniers 
reduced to mere rudiments, as she is too tall for them. It is cut 
low in the neck, where it is eked out by a creamy fichu. She is 
fair, with golden brown hair and grey eyes. 

She enters with the self-possession of a woman accustomed to the 
privileges of rank and beauty. The innkeeper, who has excellent 
natural manners, is highly appreciative of her. Napoleon, on whom 
her eyes first fall, is instantly smitten self-conscious. His 
color deepens: he becomes stiffer and less at ease than before. 
She perceives this instantly, and, not to embarrass him, turns in 
an infinitely well bred manner to pay the respect of a glance to 
the other gentleman, who is staring at her dress, as at the 
earth's final masterpiece of treacherous dissimulation, with 
feelings altogether inexpressible and indescribable. As she looks 
at him, she becomes deadly pale. There is no mistaking her 
expression: a revelation of some fatal error utterly unexpected, 
has suddenly appalled her in the midst of tranquillity, security 
and victory. The next moment a wave of color rushes up from 
beneath the creamy fichu and drowns her whole face. One can see 
that she is blushing all over her body. Even the lieutenant, 
ordinarily incapable of observation, and just now lost in the 
tumult of his wrath, can see a thing when it is painted red for 
him. Interpreting the blush as the involuntary confession of 
black deceit confronted with its victim, he points to it with a 
loud crow of retributive triumph, and then, seizing her by the 
wrist, pulls her past him into the room as he claps the door to, 
and plants himself with his back to it.)

LIEUTENANT. So I've got you, my lad. So you've disguised 
yourself, have you? (In a voice of thunder.) Take off that skirt.

GIUSEPPE (remonstrating). Oh, lieutenant!

LADY (affrighted, but highly indignant at his having dared to 
touch her). Gentlemen: I appeal to you. Giuseppe. (Making a 
movement as if to run to Giuseppe.)

LIEUTENANT (interposing, sword in hand). No you don't. 

LADY (taking refuge with Napoleon). Ah, sir, you are an officer--
a general. You will protect me, will you not?

LIEUTENANT. Never you mind him, General. Leave me to deal with 
him.

NAPOLEON. With him! With whom, sir? Why do you treat this lady in 
such a fashion?

LIEUTENANT. Lady! He's a man! the man I showed my confidence in. 
(Advancing threateningly.) Here you--

LADY (running behind Napoleon and in her agitation embracing the 
arm which he instinctively extends before her as a 
fortification). Oh, thank you, General. Keep him away.

NAPOLEON. Nonsense, sir. This is certainly a lady (she suddenly 
drops his arm and blushes again); and you are under arrest. Put 
down your sword, sir, instantly.

LIEUTENANT. General: I tell you he's an Austrian spy. He passed 
himself off on me as one of General Massena's staff this 
afternoon; and now he's passing himself off on you as a woman. Am 
I to believe my own eyes or not?

LADY. General: it must be my brother. He is on General Massena's 
staff. He is very like me.

LIEUTENANT (his mind giving way). Do you mean to say that you're 
not your brother, but your sister?--the sister who was so like 
me?--who had my beautiful blue eyes? It was a lie: your eyes are 
not like mine: they're exactly like your own. What perfidy!

NAPOLEON. Lieutenant: will you obey my orders and leave the room, 
since you are convinced at last that this is no gentleman?

LIEUTENANT. Gentleman! I should think not. No gentleman would 
have abused my confi--

NAPOLEON (out of all patience). Enough, sir, enough. Will you 
leave the room. I order you to leave the room. 

LADY. Oh, pray let ME go instead.

NAPOLEON (drily). Excuse me, madame. With all respect to your 
brother, I do not yet understand what an officer on General 
Massena's staff wants with my letters. I have some questions to 
put to you.

GIUSEPPE (discreetly). Come, lieutenant. (He opens the door.)

LIEUTENANT. I'm off. General: take warning by me: be on your 
guard against the better side of your nature. (To the lady.) 
Madame: my apologies. I thought you were the same person, only of 
the opposite sex; and that naturally misled me. 

LADY (sweetly). It was not your fault, was it? I'm so glad 
you're not angry with me any longer, lieutenant. (She offers her 
hand.) 

LIEUTENANT (bending gallantly to kiss it). Oh, madam, not the 
lea-- (Checking himself and looking at it.) You have your 
brother's hand. And the same sort of ring.

LADY (sweetly). We are twins.

LIEUTENANT. That accounts for it. (He kisses her hand.) A 
thousand pardons. I didn't mind about the despatches at all: 
that's more the General's affair than mine: it was the abuse of 
my confidence through the better side of my nature. (Taking his 
cap, gloves, and whip from the table and going.) You'll excuse my 
leaving you, General, I hope. Very sorry, I'm sure. (He talks 
himself out of the room. Giuseppe follows him and shuts the 
door.)

NAPOLEON (looking after them with concentrated irritation). 
Idiot! (The Strange Lady smiles sympathetically. He comes 
frowning down the room between the table and the fireplace, all 
his awkwardness gone now that he is alone with her.)

LADY. How can I thank you, General, for your protection? 

NAPOLEON (turning on her suddenly). My despatches: come! (He puts 
out his hand for them.)

LADY. General! (She involuntarily puts her hands on her fichu as 
if to protect something there.)

NAPOLEON. You tricked that blockhead out of them. You disguised 
yourself as a man. I want my despatches. They are there in the 
bosom of your dress, under your hands.

LADY (quickly removing her hands). Oh, how unkindly you are 
speaking to me! (She takes her handkerchief from her fichu.) You 
frighten me. (She touches her eyes as if to wipe away a tear.)

NAPOLEON. I see you don't know me madam, or you would save 
yourself the trouble of pretending to cry.

LADY (producing an effect of smiling through her tears). Yes, I 
do know you. You are the famous General Buonaparte. (She gives 
the name a marked Italian pronunciation Bwaw-na-parr-te.)

NAPOLEON (angrily, with the French pronunciation). Bonaparte, 
madame, Bonaparte. The papers, if you please. 

LADY. But I assure you-- (He snatches the handkerchief rudely 
from her.) General! (Indignantly.)

NAPOLEON (taking the other handkerchief from his breast). You 
were good enough to lend one of your handkerchiefs to my 
lieutenant when you robbed him. (He looks at the two
handkerchiefs.) They match one another. (He smells them.) The 
same scent. (He flings them down on the table.) I am waiting for 
the despatches. I shall take them, if necessary, with as little 
ceremony as the handkerchief. (This historical incident was used 
eighty years later, by M. Victorien Sardou, in his drama entitled 
"Dora.")

LADY (in dignified reproof). General: do you threaten women?

NAPOLEON (bluntly). Yes.

LADY (disconcerted, trying to gain time). But I don't understand. 
I--

NAPOLEON. You understand perfectly. You came here because your 
Austrian employers calculated that I was six leagues away. I am 
always to be found where my enemies don't expect me. You have 
walked into the lion's den. Come: you are a brave woman. Be a 
sensible one: I have no time to waste. The papers. (He advances a 
step ominously).

LADY (breaking down in the childish rage of impotence, and 
throwing herself in tears on the chair left beside the table by 
the lieutenant). I brave! How little you know! I have spent the 
day in an agony of fear. I have a pain here from the tightening 
of my heart at every suspicious look, every threatening movement. 
Do you think every one is as brave as you? Oh, why will not you 
brave people do the brave things? Why do you leave them to us, 
who have no courage at all? I'm not brave: I shrink from 
violence: danger makes me miserable.

NAPOLEON (interested). Then why have you thrust yourself into 
danger?

LADY. Because there is no other way: I can trust nobody else. And 
now it is all useless--all because of you, who have no fear, 
because you have no heart, no feeling, no-- (She breaks off, and 
throws herself on her knees.) Ah, General, let me go: let me go 
without asking any questions. You shall have your despatches and 
letters: I swear it. 

NAPOLEON (holding out his hand). Yes: I am waiting for them.
(She gasps, daunted by his ruthless promptitude into despair of 
moving him by cajolery; but as she looks up perplexedly at him, 
it is plain that she is racking her brains for some device to 
outwit him. He meets her regard inflexibly.)

LADY (rising at last with a quiet little sigh). I will get them 
for you. They are in my room. (She turns to the door.)

NAPOLEON. I shall accompany you, madame.

LADY (drawing herself up with a noble air of offended delicacy).I 
cannot permit you, General, to enter my chamber.

NAPOLEON. Then you shall stay here, madame, whilst I have your 
chamber searched for my papers.

LADY (spitefully, openly giving up her plan). You may save 
yourself the trouble. They are not there.

NAPOLEON. No: I have already told you where they are. (Pointing 
to her breast.)

LADY (with pretty piteousness). General: I only want to keep one 
little private letter. Only one. Let me have it.

NAPOLEON (cold and stern). Is that a reasonable demand, madam?

LADY (encouraged by his not refusing point blank). No; but that 
is why you must grant it. Are your own demands reasonable? 
thousands of lives for the sake of your victories, your 
ambitions, your destiny! And what I ask is such a little thing. 
And I am only a weak woman, and you a brave man. (She looks at 
him with her eyes full of tender pleading and is about to kneel 
to him again.)

NAPOLEON (brusquely). Get up, get up. (He turns moodily away and 
takes a turn across the room, pausing for a moment to say, over 
his shoulder) You're talking nonsense; and you know it. (She gets 
up and sits down in almost listless despair on the couch. When he 
turns and sees her there, he feels that his victory is complete, 
and that he may now indulge in a little play with his victim. He 
comes back and sits beside her. She looks alarmed and moves a 
little away from him; but a ray of rallying hope beams from her 
eye. He begins like a man enjoying some secret joke.) How do you 
know I am a brave man?

LADY (amazed). You! General Buonaparte. (Italian pronunciation.)

NAPOLEON. Yes, I, General Bonaparte (emphasizing the French 
pronunciation).

LADY. Oh, how can you ask such a question? you! who stood only 
two days ago at the bridge at Lodi, with the air full of death, 
fighting a duel with cannons across the river! (Shuddering.) Oh, 
you DO brave things.

NAPOLEON. So do you.

LADY. I! (With a sudden odd thought.) Oh! Are you a coward?

NAPOLEON (laughing grimly and pinching her cheek). That is the 
one question you must never ask a soldier. The sergeant asks 
after the recruit's height, his age, his wind, his limb, but 
never after his courage. (He gets up and walks about with his 
hands behind him and his head bowed, chuckling to himself.)

LADY (as if she had found it no laughing matter). Ah, you can 
laugh at fear. Then you don't know what fear is. 

NAPOLEON (coming behind the couch). Tell me this. Suppose you 
could have got that letter by coming to me over the bridge at 
Lodi the day before yesterday! Suppose there had been no other 
way, and that this was a sure way--if only you escaped the 
cannon! (She shudders and covers her eyes for a moment with her 
hands.) Would you have been afraid?

LADY. Oh, horribly afraid, agonizingly afraid. (She presses her 
hands on her heart.) It hurts only to imagine it. 

NAPOLEON (inflexibly). Would you have come for the despatches?

LADY (overcome by the imagined horror). Don't ask me. I must have 
come.

NAPOLEON. Why?

LADY. Because I must. Because there would have been no other way.

NAPOLEON (with conviction). Because you would have wanted my 
letter enough to bear your fear. There is only one universal 
passion: fear. Of all the thousand qualities a man may have, the 
only one you will find as certainly in the youngest drummer boy 
in my army as in me, is fear. It is fear that makes men fight: it 
is indifference that makes them run away: fear is the mainspring 
of war. Fear! I know fear well, better than you, better than any 
woman. I once saw a regiment of good Swiss soldiers massacred by 
a mob in Paris because I was afraid to interfere: I felt myself a 
coward to the tips of my toes as I looked on at it. Seven months 
ago I revenged my shame by pounding that mob to death with cannon 
balls. Well, what of that? Has fear ever held a man back from 
anything he really wanted--or a woman either? Never. Come with 
me; and I will show you twenty thousand cowards who will risk 
death every day for the price of a glass of brandy. And do you 
think there are no women in the army, braver than the men, 
because their lives are worth less? Psha! I think nothing of your 
fear or your bravery. If you had had to come across to me at 
Lodi, you would not have been afraid: once on the bridge, every 
other feeling would have gone down before the necessity--the 
necessity--for making your way to my side and getting what you 
wanted.

And now, suppose you had done all this--suppose you had come 
safely out with that letter in your hand, knowing that when the 
hour came, your fear had tightened, not your heart, but your grip 
of your own purpose--that it had ceased to be fear, and had 
become strength, penetration, vigilance, iron resolution--how 
would you answer then if you were asked whether you were a 
coward?

LADY (rising). Ah, you are a hero, a real hero. 

NAPOLEON. Pooh! there's no such thing as a real hero. (He strolls 
down the room, making light of her enthusiasm, but by no means 
displeased with himself for having evoked it.)

LADY. Ah, yes, there is. There is a difference between what you 
call my bravery and yours. You wanted to win the battle of Lodi 
for yourself and not for anyone else, didn't you?

NAPOLEON. Of course. (Suddenly recollecting himself.) Stop: no. 
(He pulls himself piously together, and says, like a man 
conducting a religious service) I am only the servant of the 
French republic, following humbly in the footsteps of the heroes 
of classical antiquity. I win battles for humanity--for my 
country, not for myself.

LADY (disappointed). Oh, then you are only a womanish hero, after 
all. (She sits down again, all her enthusiasm gone, her elbow on 
the end of the couch, and her cheek propped on her hand.)

NAPOLEON (greatly astonished). Womanish!

LADY (listlessly). Yes, like me. (With deep melancholy.) Do you 
think that if I only wanted those despatches for myself, I dare 
venture into a battle for them? No: if that were all, I should 
not have the courage to ask to see you at your hotel, even. My 
courage is mere slavishness: it is of no use to me for my own 
purposes. It is only through love, through pity, through the 
instinct to save and protect someone else, that I can do the 
things that terrify me.

NAPOLEON (contemptuously). Pshaw! (He turns slightingly away from 
her.)

LADY. Aha! now you see that I'm not really brave. (Relapsing into 
petulant listlessness.) But what right have you to despise me if 
you only win your battles for others? for your country! through 
patriotism! That is what I call womanish: it is so like a 
Frenchman!

NAPOLEON (furiously). I am no Frenchman.

LADY (innocently). I thought you said you won the battle of Lodi 
for your country, General Bu-- shall I pronounce it in Italian or 
French?

NAPOLEON. You are presuming on my patience, madam. I was born a 
French subject, but not in France.

LADY (folding her arms on the end of the couch, and leaning on 
them with a marked access of interest in him). You were not born 
a subject at all, I think.

NAPOLEON (greatly pleased, starting on a fresh march). Eh? Eh? 
You think not.

LADY. I am sure of it.

NAPOLEON. Well, well, perhaps not. (The self-complacency of his 
assent catches his own ear. He stops short, reddening. Then, 
composing himself into a solemn attitude, modelled on the heroes 
of classical antiquity, he takes a high moral tone.) But we must 
not live for ourselves alone, little one. Never forget that we 
should always think of others, and work for others, and lead and 
govern them for their own good. Self-sacrifice is the foundation 
of all true nobility of character.

LADY (again relaxing her attitude with a sigh). Ah, it is easy to 
see that you have never tried it, General.

NAPOLEON (indignantly, forgetting all about Brutus and Scipio). 
What do you mean by that speech, madam? 

LADY. Haven't you noticed that people always exaggerate the value 
of the things they haven't got? The poor think they only need 
riches to be quite happy and good. Everybody worships truth, 
purity, unselfishness, for the same reason--because they have no 
experience of them. Oh, if they only knew!

NAPOLEON (with angry derision). If they only knew! Pray, do you 
know?

LADY (with her arms stretched down and her hands clasped on her 
knees, looking straight before her). Yes. I had the misfortune to 
be born good. (Glancing up at him for a moment.) And it is a 
misfortune, I can tell you, General. I really am truthful and 
unselfish and all the rest of it; and it's nothing but cowardice; 
want of character; want of being really, strongly, positively 
oneself.

NAPOLEON. Ha? (Turning to her quickly with a flash of strong 
interest.)

LADY (earnestly, with rising enthusiasm). What is the secret of 
your power? Only that you believe in yourself. You can fight and 
conquer for yourself and for nobody else. You are not afraid of 
your own destiny. You teach us what we all might be if we had the 
will and courage; and that (suddenly sinking on her knees before 
him) is why we all begin to worship you. (She kisses his hands.)

NAPOLEON (embarrassed). Tut, tut! Pray rise, madam.

LADY. Do not refuse my homage: it is your right. You will be 
emperor of France

NAPOLEON (hurriedly). Take care. Treason!

LADY (insisting). Yes, emperor of France; then of Europe; perhaps 
of the world. I am only the first subject to swear allegiance. 
(Again kissing his hand.) My Emperor! 

NAPOLEON (overcome, raising her). Pray, pray. No, no, 
little one: this is folly. Come: be calm, be calm. (Petting her.) 
There, there, my girl.

LADY (struggling with happy tears). Yes, I know it is an 
impertinence in me to tell you what you must know far better than 
I do. But you are not angry with me, are you?

NAPOLEON. Angry! No, no: not a bit, not a bit. Come: you are a 
very clever and sensible and interesting little woman. (He pats 
her on the cheek.) Shall we be friends?

LADY (enraptured). Your friend! You will let me be your friend! 
Oh! (She offers him both her hands with a radiant smile.) You 
see: I show my confidence in you. 

NAPOLEON (with a yell of rage, his eyes flashing). What! 

LADY. What's the matter?

NAPOLEON. Show your confidence in me! So that I may show my 
confidence in you in return by letting you give me the slip with 
the despatches, eh? Ah, Dalila, Dalila, you have been trying your 
tricks on me; and I have been as great a gull as my jackass of a 
lieutenant. (He advances threateningly on her.) Come: the 
despatches. Quick: I am not to be trifled with now.

LADY (flying round the couch). General--

NAPOLEON. Quick, I tell you. (He passes swiftly up the middle of 
the room and intercepts her as she makes for the vineyard.)

LADY (at bay, confronting him). You dare address me in that tone.

NAPOLEON. Dare!

LADY. Yes, dare. Who are you that you should presume to speak to 
me in that coarse way? Oh, the vile, vulgar Corsican adventurer 
comes out in you very easily.

NAPOLEON (beside himself). You she devil! (Savagely.) Once more, 
and only once, will you give me those papers or shall I tear them 
from you--by force?

LADY (letting her hands fall ). Tear them from me--by force! (As 
he glares at her like a tiger about to spring, she crosses her 
arms on her breast in the attitude of a martyr. The gesture and 
pose instantly awaken his theatrical instinct: he forgets his 
rage in the desire to show her that in acting, too, she has met 
her match. He keeps her a moment in suspense; then suddenly 
clears up his countenance; puts his hands behind him with 
provoking coolness; looks at her up and down a couple of times; 
takes a pinch of snuff; wipes his fingers carefully and puts up 
his handkerchief, her heroic pose becoming more and more 
ridiculous all the time.)

NAPOLEON (at last). Well?

LADY (disconcerted, but with her arms still crossed devotedly). 
Well: what are you going to do?

NAPOLEON. Spoil your attitude.
 
LADY. You brute! (abandoning the attitude, she comes to the end 
of the couch, where she turns with her back to it, leaning 
against it and facing him with her hands behind her.) 

NAPOLEON. Ah, that's better.  Now listen to me. I like you. 
What's more, I value your respect. 

LADY. You value what you have not got, then. 

NAPOLEON. I shall have it presently. Now attend to me. Suppose I 
were to allow myself to be abashed by the respect due to your 
sex, your beauty, your heroism and all the rest of it? Suppose I, 
with nothing but such sentimental stuff to stand between these 
muscles of mine and those papers which you have about you, and 
which I want and mean to have: suppose I, with the prize within 
my grasp, were to falter and sneak away with my hands empty; or, 
what would be worse, cover up my weakness by playing the 
magnanimous hero, and sparing you the violence I dared not use, 
would you not despise me from the depths of your woman's soul? 
Would any woman be such a fool? Well, Bonaparte can rise to the 
situation and act like a woman when it is necessary. Do you 
understand?

The lady, without speaking, stands upright, and takes a packet of 
papers from her bosom. For a moment she has an intense impulse to 
dash them in his face. But her good breeding cuts her off from 
any vulgar method of relief. She hands them to him politely, only 
averting her head. The moment he takes them, she hurries across 
to the other side of the room; covers her face with her hands; 
and sits down, with her body turned away to the back of the 
chair.