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_ PART THIRD. ACT FOURTH. SCENE VII.
[The walls are in white panels, with gilt mouldings, and the furniture is upholstered in white silk with needle-worked flowers. The long windows and the bed are similarly draped, and the toilet service is of gold. Through the panes appears a broad flat lawn adorned with vases and figures on pedestals, and entirely surrounded by trees--just now in their first fresh green under the morning rays of Whitsunday. The notes of an organ are audible from a chapel below, where the Pentecostal Mass is proceeding.
JOSEPHINE lies in the bed in an advanced stage of illness, the ABBE BERTRAND standing beside her. Two ladies-in-waiting are seated near. By the door into the ante-room, which is ajar, HOREAU the physician-in-ordinary and BOURDOIS the consulting physician are engaged in a low conversation.]
HOREAU
Lamoureux says that leeches would have saved her
Had they been used in time, before I came.
In that case, then, why did he wait for me?
BOURDOIS
Such whys are now too late! She is past all hope.
I doubt if aught had helped her. Not disease,
But heart-break and repinings are the blasts
That wither her long bloom. Soon we must tell
The Queen Hortense the worst, and the Viceroy.
HOREAU
Her death was made the easier task for grief
(As I regarded more than probable)
By her rash rising from a sore-sick bed
And donning thin and dainty May attire
To hail King Frederick-William and the Tsar
As banquet-guests, in the old regnant style.
A woman's innocent vanity!--but how dire.
She argued that amenities of State
Compelled the effort, since they had honoured her
By offering to come. I stood against it,
Pleaded and reasoned, but to no account.
Poor woman, what she did or did not do
Was of small moment to the State by then!
The Emperor Alexander has been kind
Throughout his stay in Paris. He came down
But yester-eve, of purpose to inquire.
BOURDOIS
Wellington is in Paris, too, I learn,
After his wasted battle at Toulouse.
HOREAU
Has his Peninsular army come with him?
BOURDOIS
I hear they have shipped it to America,
Where England has another war on hand.
We have armies quite sufficient here already--
Plenty of cooks for Paris broth just now!
--Come, call we Queen Hortense and Prince Eugene.
[Exeunt physicians. The ABBE BERTRAND also goes out. JOSEPHINE murmurs faintly.]
FIRST LADY (going to the bedside)
I think I heard you speak, your Majesty?
JOSEPHINE
I asked what hour it was---if dawn or eve?
FIRST LADY
Ten in the morning, Madame. You forget
You asked the same but a brief while ago.
JOSEPHINE
Did I? I thought it was so long ago! . . .
I wish to go to Elba with him so much,
But the Allies prevented me. And why?
I would not have disgraced him, or themselves!
I would have gone to him at Fontainebleau,
With my eight horses and my household train
In dignity, and quitted him no more. . . .
Although I am his wife no longer now,
I think I should have gone in spite of them,
Had I not feared perversions might be sown
Between him and the woman of his choice
For whom he sacrificed me.
SECOND LADY
It is more
Than she thought fit to do, your Majesty.
JOSEPHINE
Perhaps she was influenced by her father's ire,
Or diplomatic reasons told against her.
And yet I was surprised she should allow
Aught secondary on earth to hold her from
A husband she has outwardly, at least,
Declared attachment to.
FIRST LADY
Especially,
With ever one at hand--his son and hers--
Reminding her of him.
JOSEPHINE
Yes. . . . Glad am I
I saw that child of theirs, though only once.
But--there was not full truth--not quite, I fear--
In what I told the Emperor that day
He led him to me at Bagatelle,
That 'twas the happiest moment of my life.
I ought not to have said it. No! Forsooth
My feeling had too, too much gall in it
To let truth shape like that!--I also said
That when my arms were round him I forgot
That I was not his mother. So spoke I,
But oh me,--I remembered it too well!--
He was a lovely child; in his fond prate
His father's voice was eloquent. One might say
I am well punished for my sins against him!
SECOND LADY
You have harmed no creature, madame; much less him!
JOSEPHINE
O but you don't quite know! . . . My coquetries
In our first married years nigh racked him through.
I cannot think how I could wax so wicked! . . .
He begged me come to him in Italy,
But I liked flirting in fair Paris best,
And would not go. The independent spouse
At that time was myself; but afterwards
I grew to be the captive, he the free.
Always 'tis so: the man wins finally!
My faults I've ransomed to the bottom sou
If ever a woman did! . . . I'll write to him--
I must--again, so that he understands.
Yes, I'll write now. Get me a pen and paper.
FIRST LADY (to Second Lady)
'Tis futile! She is too far gone to write;
But we must humour her.
[They fetch writing materials. On returning to the bed they find her motionless. Enter EUGENE and QUEEN HORTENSE. Seeing the state their mother is in, they fall down on their knees by her bed. JOSEPHINE recognizes them and smiles. Anon she is able to speak again.]
JOSEPHINE (faintly)
I am dying, dears;
And do not mind it--notwithstanding that
I feel I die regretted. You both love me!--
And as for France, I ever have desired
Her welfare, as you know--have wrought all things
A woman's scope could reach to forward it. . . .
And to you now who watch my ebbing here,
Declare I that Napoleon's first-chose wife
Has never caused her land a needless tear.
Tell him--these things I have said--bear him my love--
Tell him--I could not write!
[An interval. She spasmodically flings her arms over her son and daughter, lets them fall, and becomes unconscious. They fetch a looking-glass, and find that her breathing has ceased. The clock of the Chateau strikes noon. The scene is veiled.] _
Read next: Part 3: Act 4: Scene 8. London. The Opera House
Read previous: Part 3: Act 4: Scene 6. A Highway In The Outskirts Of Avignon
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