The Essential Plays of George Bernard Shaw (Illustrated Edition). GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

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      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. Aha! I thought so: a little romance to get the papers back. (He throws the packet on the table and confronts her with cynical goodhumor.) Per Bacco, little woman, I can’t help admiring you. If I could lie like that, it would save me a great deal of trouble.

      LADY (wringing her hands). Oh, how I wish I really had told you some lie! You would have believed me then. The truth is the one thing that nobody will believe.

      NAPOLEON (with coarse familiarity, treating her as if she were a vivandiere). Capital! Capital! (He puts his hands behind him on the table, and lifts himself on to it, sitting with his arms akimbo and his legs wide apart.) Come: I am a true Corsican in my love for stories. But I could tell them better than you if I set my mind to it. Next time you are asked why a letter compromising a wife should not be sent to her husband, answer simply that the husband would not read it. Do you suppose, little innocent, that a man wants to be compelled by public opinion to make a scene, to fight a duel, to break up his household, to injure his career by a scandal, when he can avoid it all by taking care not to know?

      LADY (revolted). Suppose that packet contained a letter about your own wife?

      NAPOLEON (offended, coming off the table). You are impertinent, madame.

      LADY (humbly). I beg your above suspicion.

      NAPOLEON (with a deliberate assumption of superiority). You have committed an indiscretion. I pardon you. In future, do not permit yourself to introduce real persons in your romances.

      LADY (politely ignoring a speech which is to her only a breach of good manners, and rising to move towards the table). General: there really is a woman’s letter there. (Pointing to the packet.) Give it to me.

      NAPOLEON (with brute conciseness, moving so as to prevent her getting too near the letters). Why?

      LADY. She is an old friend: we were at school together. She has written to me imploring me to prevent the letter falling into your hands.

      NAPOLEON. Why has it been sent to me?

      LADY. Because it compromises the director Barras.

      NAPOLEON (frowning, evidently startled). Barras! (Haughtily.) Take care, madame. The director Barras is my attached personal friend.

      LADY (nodding placidly). Yes. You became friends through your wife.

      NAPOLEON. Again! Have I not forbidden you to speak of my wife? (She keeps looking curiously at him, taking no account of the rebuke. More and more irritated, he drops his haughty manner, of which he is himself somewhat impatient, and says suspiciously, lowering his voice) Who is this woman with whom you sympathize so deeply?

      LADY. Oh, General! How could I tell you that?

      NAPOLEON (illhumoredly, beginning to walk about again in angry perplexity). Ay, ay: stand by one another. You are all the same, you women.

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