The Man of Destiny | Page 7

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