Bernard Shaw

“ Oh, why will not you brave people do the brave things? Why do you leave them to us, who have no courage at all? I'm not brave: I shrink from violence: danger makes me miserable.
NAPOLEON (interested) . Then why have you thrust yourself into danger?
LADY. Because there is no other way: I can trust nobody else. And now it is all useless—all because of you, who have no fear, because you have no heart, no feeling, no— (She breaks off, and throws herself on her knees.) Ah, General, let me go: let me go without asking any questions. You shall have your despatches and letters: I swear it. ”

“ GIUSEPPE (promptly) . Make him a general, excellency; and then everything he says will be right.
LIEUTENANT (crowing) . Haw-aw! (He throws himself ecstatically on the couch to enjoy the joke.)
NAPOLEON (laughing and pinching Giuseppe's ear) . You are thrown away in this inn, Giuseppe. (He sits down and places Giuseppe before him like a schoolmaster with a pupil.) Shall I take you away with me and make a man of you?
GIUSEPPE (shaking his head rapidly and repeatedly) . No, thank you, General. All my life long people have wanted to make a man of me. ”

“ NAPOLEON (laughing grimly and pinching her cheek) . That is the one question you must never ask a soldier. The sergeant asks after the recruit's height, his age, his wind, his limb, but never after his courage. (He gets up and walks about with his hands behind him and his head bowed, chuckling to himself.)
LADY (as if she had found it no laughing matter) . Ah, you can laugh at fear. Then you don't know what fear is.
NAPOLEON (coming behind the couch) . Tell me this. Suppose you could have got that letter by coming to me over the bridge at Lodi the day before yesterday! ”

“ 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. ”

“ GIUSEPPE (clearing the table and removing the things to a tray on the sideboard) . Every man to his trade, excellency. We innkeepers have plenty of cheap wine: we think nothing of spilling it. You great generals have plenty of cheap blood: you think nothing of spilling it. Is it not so, excellency?
NAPOLEON. Blood costs nothing: wine costs money. (He rises and goes to the fireplace. )
GIUSEPPE. They say you are careful of everything except human life, excellency.
NAPOLEON. Human life, my friend, is the only thing that takes care of itself. (He throws himself at his ease on the couch.) ”

“ I once saw a regiment of good Swiss soldiers massacred by a mob in Paris because I was afraid to interfere: I felt myself a coward to the tips of my toes as I looked on at it. Seven months ago I revenged my shame by pounding that mob to death with cannon balls. Well, what of that? Has fear ever held a man back from anything he really wanted—or a woman either? Never. Come with me; and I will show you twenty thousand cowards who will risk death every day for the price of a glass of brandy. And do you think there are no women in the army, braver than the men, because their lives are worth less? ”

“ I am only the servant of the French republic, following humbly in the footsteps of the heroes of classical antiquity. I win battles for humanity—for my country, not for myself.
LADY (disappointed) . Oh, then you are only a womanish hero, after all. (She sits down again, all her enthusiasm gone, her elbow on the end of the couch, and her cheek propped on her hand.)
NAPOLEON (greatly astonished) . Womanish!
LADY (listlessly) . Yes, like me. (With deep melancholy.) Do you think that if I only wanted those despatches for myself, I dare venture into a battle for them? ”

“ LADY. She runs no risk now: she does not quite understand her husband.
NAPOLEON. I am to read the letter, then? (He stretches out his hand as if to take up the packet again, with his eye on her.)
LADY. I do not see how you can very well avoid doing so now. (He instantly withdraws his hand.) Oh, don't be afraid. You will find many interesting things in it.
NAPOLEON. For instance?
LADY. For instance, a duel—with Barras, a domestic scene, a broken household, a public scandal, a checked career, all sorts of things. ”

“ LADY. Safe at Borghetto, waiting for you, Lieutenant.
NAPOLEON (turning on them) . Where are the despatches?
LADY. You would never guess. They are in the most unlikely place in the world. Did you meet my sister here, any of you?
LIEUTENANT. Yes. Very nice woman. She's wonderfully like you; but of course she's better looking.
LADY (mysteriously) . Well, do you know that she is a witch?
GIUSEPPE (running down to them in terror, crossing himself) . Oh, no, no, no. It is not safe to jest about such things. I cannot have it in my house, excellency.
LIEUTENANT. Yes, drop it. ”

“ GIUSEPPE. Instantly, Lieutenant, instantly. (He disappears in the vineyard, where the light is now reddening with the sunset.)
LIEUTENANT (looking about him on his way to the inner door) . By the way, General, did I give you my sword or did I not? Oh, I remember now. (Fretfully.) It's all that nonsense about putting a man under arrest: one never knows where to find— (Talks himself out of the room.)
LADY (still at the sideboard) . What does all this mean, General?
NAPOLEON. He will not find your brother.
LADY. Of course not. There's no such person. ”

“ GIUSEPPE. I cannot see with your excellency's eyes: every man must judge that for himself. In my 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 (quickly) . Irish! (Thoughtfully.) Yes: I forgot the Irish. An English army led by an Irish general: that might be a match for a French army led by an Italian general. (He pauses, and adds, half jestingly, half moodily) At all events, YOU have beaten me; and what beats a man first will beat him last. (He goes meditatively into the moonlit vineyard and looks up. She steals out after him. She ventures to rest her hand on his shoulder, overcome by the beauty of the night and emboldened by its obscurity.) ”

“ NAPOLEON. Begone, I tell you. (Walking from the fireplace to the vineyard and back to the table.) You shall have no letter. I don't like you. You're a detestable woman, and as ugly as Satan. I don't choose to be pestered by strange women. Be off. (He turns his back on her. In quiet amusement, she leans her cheek on her hand and laughs at him. He turns again, angrily mocking her.) Ha! ha! ha! What are you laughing at?
LADY. At you, General. I have often seen persons of your sex getting into a pet and behaving like children; but I never saw a really great man do it before. ”

“ NAPOLEON. There are three sorts of people in the world, the low people, the middle people, and the high people. The low people and the high people are alike in one thing: they have no scruples, no morality. The low are beneath morality, the high above it. ”

“ The bolder children, much excited by the alarums and excursions of the past few days, and by an irruption of French troops at six o'clock, know that the French commander has quartered himself in this room, and are divided between a craving to peep in at the front windows and a mortal terror of the sentinel, a young gentleman-soldier, who, having no natural moustache, has had a most ferocious one painted on his face with boot blacking by his sergeant. ”

“ LADY (again relaxing her attitude with a sigh) . Ah, it is easy to see that you have never tried it, General.
NAPOLEON (indignantly, forgetting all about Brutus and Scipio) . What do you mean by that speech, madam?
LADY. Haven't you noticed that people always exaggerate the value of the things they haven't got? The poor think they only need riches to be quite happy and good. Everybody worships truth, purity, unselfishness, for the same reason—because they have no experience of them. ”

“ NAPOLEON. Well, well, perhaps not. (The self-complacency of his assent catches his own ear. He stops short, reddening. Then, composing himself into a solemn attitude, modelled on the heroes of classical antiquity, he takes a high moral tone.) But we must not live for ourselves alone, little one. Never forget that we should always think of others, and work for others, and lead and govern them for their own good. Self-sacrifice is the foundation of all true nobility of character. ”

“ Even when the Austrians win a battle, all that is necessary is to wait until their routine obliges them to return to their quarters for afternoon tea, so to speak, and win it back again from them: a course pursued later on with brilliant success at Marengo. On the whole, with his foe handicapped by Austrian statesmanship, classic generalship, and the exigencies of the aristocratic social structure of Viennese society, Napoleon finds it possible to be irresistible without working heroic miracles. ”

“ Napoleon has therefore approached the Alps in command of men without money, in rags, and consequently indisposed to stand much discipline, especially from upstart generals. This circumstance, which would have embarrassed an idealist soldier, has been worth a thousand cannon to Napoleon. He has said to his army, "You have patriotism and courage; but you have no money, no clothes, and deplorably indifferent food. In Italy there are all these things, and glory as well, to be gained by a devoted army led by a general who regards loot as the natural right of the soldier. I am such a general. ”

“ His color deepens: he becomes stiffer and less at ease than before. She perceives this instantly, and, not to embarrass him, turns in an infinitely well bred manner to pay the respect of a glance to the other gentleman, who is staring at her dress, as at the earth's final masterpiece of treacherous dissimulation, with feelings altogether inexpressible and indescribable. As she looks at him, she becomes deadly pale. ”

“ I think nothing of your fear or your bravery. If you had had to come across to me at Lodi, you would not have been afraid: once on the bridge, every other feeling would have gone down before the necessity—the necessity—for making your way to my side and getting what you wanted. ”

“ The Strange Lady puts the letter down alight on the snuffers tray, and sits down beside Napoleon, in the same attitude, elbows on table, cheeks on hands, watching it burn. When it is burnt, they simultaneously turn their eyes and look at one another. ”

“ The Austrians, whom it fights, are a thoroughly respectable regular army, well disciplined, commanded by gentlemen trained and versed in the art of war: at the head of them Beaulieu, practising the classic art of war under orders from Vienna, and getting horribly beaten by Napoleon, who acts on his own responsibility in defiance of professional precedents or orders from Paris. ”

“ He boasts that a slave is free the moment his foot touches British soil; and he sells the children of his poor at six years of age to work under the lash in his factories for sixteen hours a day. He makes two revolutions, and then declares war on our one in the name of law and order. There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find Englishmen doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. ”

“ One man is like another (fold) : one country is like another (fold) : one battle is like another. (At the last fold, he slaps the cloth on the table and deftly rolls it up, adding, by way of peroration) Conquer one: conquer all. (He takes the cloth to the sideboard, and puts it in a drawer.)
NAPOLEON. And govern for all; fight for all; be everybody's servant under cover of being everybody's master: Giuseppe.
GIUSEPPE (at the sideboard) . Excellency.
NAPOLEON. I forbid you to talk to me about myself.
GIUSEPPE (coming to the foot of the couch) . ”

“ I am not afraid of either of them: for the low are unscrupulous without knowledge, so that they make an idol of me; whilst the high are unscrupulous without purpose, so that they go down before my will. ”

“ He is, however, an original observer, and has perceived, for the first time since the invention of gunpowder, that a cannon ball, if it strikes a man, will kill him. To a thorough grasp of this remarkable discovery, he adds a highly evolved faculty for physical geography and for the calculation of times and distances. He has prodigious powers of work, and a clear, realistic knowledge of human nature in public affairs, having seen it exhaustively tested in that department during the French Revolution. ”

“ IF I don't capture him, General. Remember the if.
NAPOLEON. If! If!! Ass: there is no such man.
THE OFFICER (suddenly stepping between them and speaking in the unmistakable voice of the Strange Lady) . Lieutenant: I am your prisoner. (She offers him her sabre. They are amazed. Napoleon gazes at her for a moment thunderstruck; then seizes her by the wrist and drags her roughly to him, looking closely and fiercely at her to satisfy himself as to her identity; for it now begins to darken rapidly into night, the red glow over the vineyard giving way to clear starlight.) ”