JOSÉPHINE [quivering]
I hardly—can—bear this!—It is—too much
For a poor weak and broken woman’s strength!
But—but I yield!—I am so helpless now:
I give up all—ay, kill me if you will,
I won’t cry out!
NAPOLÉON
And one thing further still,
You’ll help me in my marriage overtures
To win the Duchess—Austrian Marie she,—
Concentrating all your force to forward them.
JOSÉPHINE
It is the—last humiliating blow!—
I cannot—O, I will not!
NAPOLÉON [fiercely]
But you SHALL!
And from your past experience you may know
That what I say I mean!
JOSÉPHINE [breaking into sobs]
O my dear husband—do not make me—don’t!
If you but cared for me—the hundredth part
Of how—I care for you, you could not be
So cruel as to lay this torture on me.
It hurts me so!—it cuts me like a sword.
Don’t make me, dear! Don’t, will you! O,O,O!
[She sinks down in a hysterical fit.]
NAPOLÉON [calling]
Bausset!
[Enter DE BAUSSET, Chamberlain-in-waiting.]
Bausset, come in and shut the door.
Assist me here. The Empress has fallen ill.
Don’t call for help. We two can carry her
By the small private staircase to her rooms.
Here—I will take her feet.
[They lift JOSÉPHINE between them and carry her out. Her moans
die away as they recede towards the stairs. Enter two servants,
who remove coffee-service, readjust chairs, etc.]
FIRST SERVANT
So, poor old girl, she’s wailed her Missere Mei, as Mother Church
says. I knew she was to get the sack ever since he came back.
SECOND SERVANT
Well, there will be a little civil huzzaing, a little crowing and
cackling among the Bonapartes at the downfall of the Beauharnais
family at last, mark me there will! They’ve had their little hour,
as the poets say, and now ’twill be somebody else’s turn. O it is
droll! Well, Father Time is a great philosopher, if you take him
right. Who is to be the new woman?
FIRST SERVANT
She that contains in her own corporation the necessary particular.
SECOND SERVANT
And what may they be?