SCENE VI
COURCELLES
[It is now seen to be a quiet roadside village, with a humble
church in its midst, opposite to which stands an inn, the highway
passing between them. Rain is still falling heavily. Not a soul
is visible anywhere.
Enter from the west a plain, lonely carriage, traveling in a
direction to meet the file of coaches that we have watched. It
stops near the inn, and two men muffled in cloaks alight by the
door away from the hostel and towards the church, as if they
wished to avoid observation. Their faces are those of NAPOLÉON
and MURAT, his brother-in-law. Crossing the road through the mud
and rain they stand in the church porch, and watch the descending
drifts.]
NAPOLÉON [stamping an impatient tattoo]
One gets more chilly in a wet March than in a dry, however cold, the
devil if he don’t! What time do you make it now? That clock doesn’t
go.
MURAT [drily, looking at his watch]
Yes, it does; and it is right. If clocks were to go as fast as your
wishes just now it would be awkward for the rest of the world.
NAPOLÉON [chuckling good-humouredly]
How we have dished the Soissons folk, with their pavilions, and
purple and gold hangings for bride and bridegroom to meet in, and
stately ceremonial to match, and their thousands looking on! Here
we are where there’s nobody. Ha, ha!
MURAT
But why should they be dished, sire? The pavilions and ceremonies
were by your own orders.
NAPOLÉON
Well, as the time got nearer I couldn’t stand the idea of dawdling
about there.
MURAT
The Soissons people will be in a deuce of a taking at being made
such fools of!
NAPOLÉON
So let ’em. I’ll make it up with them somehow.—She can’t be far
off now, if we have timed her rightly. [He peers out into the rain
and listens.]