CHAPTER XIX. BONAPARTE AND JOSEPHINE.
Bonaparte had scarcely deigned to glance at the French ambassadors and their ladies, who had received him at the foot of the staircase. All his thoughts centred in Josephine. And bowing slightly to the ladies and gentlemen, he had impetuously rushed upstairs and opened the door, satisfied that she would be there and receive him with open arms. When he did not see her, he passed on, pale, with a gloomy face, and resembling an angry lion.
Thus he now rushed into the front room where he found Josephine. Without saluting her, and merely fixing his flashing eyes upon her, he asked in a subdued, angry voice: “Madame, you do not even deem it worth the trouble to salute me! You do not come to meet me!”
“But, Bonaparte, you have given me no time for it,” said Josephine, with a charming smile. “While I thought you were just about to alight from your carriage, you burst already into this room like a thunder-bolt from heaven.”
“Oh, and that has dazzled your eyes so much that you are even unable to salute me?” he asked angrily.
“And you, Bonaparte?” she asked, tenderly. “You do not open your arms to me! You do not welcome me! Instead of pressing me to your heart, you scold me! Oh, come, my friend, let us not pass this first hour in so unpleasant a manner! We have not seen each other for almost two months, and—”
“Ah, madame, then you know that at least,” exclaimed Bonaparte; “then you have not entirely forgotten that you took leave of me two months ago, and that you swore to me at that time eternal love and fidelity, and promised most sacredly to write to me every day. You have not kept your oaths and pledges, madame!”
“But, my friend, I have written to you whenever I was told that a courier would set out for your headquarters.”
“You ought to have sent every day a courier of your own for the purpose of transmitting your letters to me,” exclaimed Bonaparte, wildly stamping his foot, so that the jars and vials on the table rattled violently, while Zephyr jumped down from his arm-chair and commenced snarling. Josephine looked anxiously at him and tried to calm him by her gestures.
Bonaparte continued: “Letters! But those scraps I received from time to time were not even letters. Official bulletins of your health they were, and as cold as ice. Madame, how could you write such letters to me, and moreover only every fourth day? If you really loved me, you would have written every day. But you do not love me any longer; I know it. Your love was but a passing whim. You feel now how ridiculous it would be for you to love a poor man who is nothing but a soldier, and who has to offer nothing to you but a little glory and his love. But I shall banish this love from my heart, should I have to tear my heart with my own teeth.” [Footnote: Bonaparte’s own words.—Vide “Lettres a Josephine. Memoires d’une Contemporaine,” vol. i., p. 853.]