60 Plays: The George Bernard Shaw Edition (Illustrated). GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

      NAPOLEON (gloating over the papers). Aha! That’s right. That’s right. (Before opening them he looks at her and says) Excuse me. (He sees that she is hiding her face.) Very angry with me, eh? (He unties the packet, the seal of which is already broken, and puts it on the table to examine its contents.)

      LADY (quietly, taking down her hands and showing that she is not crying, but only thinking). No. You were right. But I am sorry for you.

      NAPOLEON (pausing in the act of taking the uppermost paper from the packet). Sorry for me! Why?

      LADY. I am going to see you lose your honor.

      NAPOLEON. Hm! Nothing worse than that? (He takes up the paper.)

      LADY. And your happiness.

      NAPOLEON. Happiness, little woman, is the most tedious thing in the world to me. Should I be what I am if I cared for happiness? Anything else?

      LADY. Nothing — (He interrupts her with an exclamation of satisfaction. She proceeds quietly) except that you will cut a very foolish figure in the eyes of France.

      NAPOLEON (quickly). What? (The hand holding the paper involuntarily drops. The lady looks at him enigmatically in tranquil silence. He throws the letter down and breaks out into a torrent of scolding.) What do you mean? Eh? Are you at your tricks again? Do you think I don’t know what these papers contain? I’ll tell you. First, my information as to Beaulieu’s retreat. There are only two things he can do — leatherbrained idiot that he is! — shut himself up in Mantua or violate the neutrality of Venice by taking Peschiera. You are one of old Leatherbrain’s spies: he has discovered that he has been betrayed, and has sent you to intercept the information at all hazards — as if that could save him from ME, the old fool! The other papers are only my usual correspondence from Paris, of which you know nothing.

      LADY (prompt and businesslike). General: let us make a fair division. Take the information your spies have sent you about the Austrian army; and give me the Paris correspondence. That will content me.

      NAPOLEON (his breath taken away by the coolness of the proposal). A fair di — (He gasps.) It seems to me, madame, that you have come to regard my letters as your own property, of which I am trying to rob you.

      LADY (earnestly). No: on my honor I ask for no letter of yours — not a word that has been written by you or to you. That packet contains a stolen letter: a letter written by a woman to a man — a man not her husband — a letter that means disgrace, infamy —

      NAPOLEON. A love letter?

      LADY (bitter-sweetly). What else but a love letter could stir up so much hate?

      NAPOLEON. Why is it sent to me? To put the husband in my power, eh?

      LADY. No, no: it can be of no use to you: I swear that it will cost you nothing to give it to me. It has been sent to you out of sheer malice — solely to injure the woman who wrote it.

      NAPOLEON. Then why not send it to her husband instead of to me?

      LADY (completely taken aback). Oh! (Sinking back into the chair.) I — I don’t know. (She breaks down.)

      NAPOLEON. СКАЧАТЬ