Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 180
Vamp: In what particular way?
Dump: After the warmth of his body warms it he will explode.
Vamp: How curious. How warm will it have to be?
Dump: About 90 degrees. It will take about a minute for each degree. He will explode in twelve minutes.
Vamp: Is it wise to stay near him?
Dump: No, it is highly imprudent. We had better go. Simp had better gather up your things. We will go together. It is scarcely wise to linger.
Vamp: No, let us hasten.
Slump: Wow! Wow!
The curtain falls, leaving as usual after an Ibsen play a profound problem stated but not solved.
Historical Drama
AFTER ALL THERE is nothing like the Historical Drama! Say what you will about moving pictures or high-speed vaudeville they never have the same air and class to them. For me as soon as I see upon the program “A tucket sounds!” I am all attention, and when it says “Enter Queen Elizabeth to the sound of Hoboes,” I am thrilled. What does it matter if the queen’s attendants seem to speak as if they came from Yonkers? There is dignity about it all the same. When you have, moving in front of you on the stage, people of the class of Louis Quatorze, Henry Quinze, Arthur Cromwell and Mary of Roumania, you feel somehow as if they were distinctly superior to such characters as Big-hearted Jim, and Shifty Pete and Meg of the Bowery and Inspector Corcoran. Perhaps they are!
But of all the characters that walk upon the stage, commend me to Napoleon. What I don’t know about that man’s life, from seeing him on the boards is not worth discussing. I have only to close my eyes and I can see him before me as depicted by our greatest actors, with his one lock of hair and his forehead like a door knob, his melancholy eyes painted black and yellow underneath. And as for his family life, his relations with Josephine, his dealings with the Countess Skandaliska, I could write it all down if it was lost.
There is something about that man, — I don’t mind admitting it, — that holds me. And he exercises the same fascination over all our great actors. About once in every ten years some one of them, intoxicated by success, decides that he wants to be Napoleon. It is a thing that happens to all of them. It is something in their brain that breaks.
Every time that this happens a new Napoleonic play is produced. That is, it is called new but it is really the same old play over again. The title is always entirely new but that is because it is a convention that the title of a Napoleon play is never a straight-out statement of what it means such as “Napoleon, Emperor of France” or “Napoleon and Josephine.” It is called, let us say, “Quinze Pour Cent” or “Mille Fois Non” or “Des Deux Choses L’Une” — that sort of thing. And after it is named it is always strung together in the same way and it is always done in little fits and starts that have no real connection with one another but are meant to show Napoleon at all the familiar angles. In fact, here is how it goes: —
“DES DEUX CHOSES L’UNE”
A DRAMA OF THE FIRST EMPIRE
Adapted from the French of Dumas, Sardou, Hugo, Racine, Corneille, and all others who ever wrote of Napoleon.
The opening part of the play is intended to show the extraordinary fidelity towards the Emperor on the part of the marshals of France whom he had created.
Scene: The ball room of the palace of the Tuileries. Standing around are ladies in directoire dresses, brilliant as rainbows. Up right beside them are the marshals of France. There is music and a buzz of conversation.
Enter Napoleon followed by Talleyrand in black, and two secretaries carrying boxes. There is silence. The Emperor seats himself at a little table. The secretaries place on it two black despatch boxes.
The Emperor speaks: Marshal Junot.
The Marshal steps forward and salutes.
The Emperor: Marshal: I have heard strange rumours and doubts about your fidelity. I wish to test it. I have here, — he opens one of the boxes, — a vial of poison. Here, — Drink it.
Junot: With pleasure, Sire.
Junot drinks the poison and stands to attention.
The Emperor: Go over there and stand beside the Comtesse de la Polissonerie till you die.
Junot (saluting): With pleasure, Sire.
Napoleon (turns to another marshal): Berthier?
Here Sire!
Berthier steps out in front of the Emperor.
The Emperor (rising): Ha! Ha! Is it you, — he reaches up and pinches Berthier’s ear, — Vieux paquet de linge sale!
Berthier looks delighted. It is amazing what a French marshal will do for you if you pinch his ear. At least it is a tradition of the stage. In these scenes Napoleon always pinched the Marshals’ ears and called them, — Vieux paquet de linge sale, etc.
The Emperor turns stern in a moment.
Marshal Berthier!
Sire!
Are you devoted to my person?
Sire, you have but to put me to the test.
Very well. Here, Marshal Berthier (Napoleon reaches into the box) is a poisoned dog biscuit. Eat it.
Berthier (saluting): With pleasure, Sire. It is excellent.
Napoleon: Very good, Mon Vieux trait d’union. Now go and talk to the Duchesse de la Rotisserie till you die.
Berthier bows low.
The Emperor: Marshal Lannes! You look pale. Here is a veal chop. It is full of arsenic. Eat it.
Marshal Lannes bows in silence and swallows the chop in one bite.
The Emperor then gives a paquet of prussic acid to Marshal Soult, one pill each to Marshals Ney and Augereau, then suddenly he rises and stamps his foot.
No Talleyrand, no! The farce is finished! I can play it no longer. Look, les braves enfants! They have eaten poison for me. Ah non, mes amis, mon vieux. Reassure yourselves. You are not to die. See the poison was in the other box.
Talleyrand (shrugging his shoulders): If your Majesty insists upon spoiling everything.
Napoleon: Yes, yes, those brave fellows could not betray me. Come Berthier. Come Junot, come and let us cry together —
The Emperor and his marshals all gather in a group, sobbing convulsively and pulling one another’s ears.
But one must not think that the Imperial Court was all sentiment. Ah. No! The great brain of the Emperor could be turned in a moment to other concerns and focused into a single point of concentrated efficiency. As witness: —
Scene Two
Showing how Napoleon used to dictate a letter, carry on a battle, and Reveal Business Efficiency at the Acme.
Napoleon in a room in a chateau, announced to be somewhere near a battle, striding up and down, dictating a letter with his hat on. On the stage the great Emperor always dictates through his hat. A secretary sitting at a table is vainly trying to keep pace with the rush of words.
Now are you ready, de Meneval. Have you written that last sentence?
De Meneval (writing desperately): In a moment, Sire, in a moment.
Imbecile, write this then, “The Prefect of Lyons is ordered to gather all possible cannon for the defense of Toulon . . . He is reminded that there are six cannon on the ramparts of Lyons which he has apparently forgotten. The Emperor orders him to pass them forward at once,” — Have you written that, imbecile?
In a moment, Sire, in a moment.
To have them forwarded to Toulon. He is reminded that there are six more in the back garden of the ministry of the Marine, and two put away in the basement of the Methodist Church.
The Secretary collapses. Napoleon stamps his foot. A terrible looking Turkish attendant, Marmalade the Mameluke comes in and drags him out by the collar, and then drags in another secretary and props him up in a chair where he at once commences to write furiously.
Napoleon never stops dictating, —
“There are two more cannons in the garage of the Prefect of Police. One has a little piece knocked out of the breech—”
The Secretary (pausing in surprise): Mon Dieu!
The Emperor: Eh, what, mon enfant. What surprises you?
The Secretary: Ah, Sire, it is too wonderful. How can you tell that a piece is out of the breeches?
Napoleon (pinching his ear): Ha! You think me wonderful!
The Secretary: I do.
Napoleon (pulling his hair): I am. And my cannon! I know them all. That one with the piece knocked out of the breech shall I tell you how I know it?
The Secretary: Ah, Sire!
Marmalade, the Mameluke comes in and salaams to the ground.
The Emperor: Well, what is it? Vieux fromage de cuir!
The Mameluke gurgles about a pint of Turkish.
The Emperor: Ha! Bring her in (to the secretary) You may go. You, Marmalade, after she enters, stand behind that curtain, so, — your scimitar so, — if I stamp my left foot — you understand.
Marmalade (with a salaam): Zakouski, Anchovi.
Emperor: Good. Show her in.
There enters with a rush the beautiful half Polish Countess Skandaliska. She throws herself at the Emperor’s feet.
Sire, Sire, my husband! I crave his life.
Napoleon (taking her by the chin and speaking coldly): You are very beautiful.
Sire! My husband. I ask his life. He is under orders to be shot this morning.
The Emperor (coldly): “Let me feel your ears.”
Ah! Sire. In pity, I beg you for his life.
The Emperor (absently): You have nice fat arms. Let me pinch them.
Sire! My husband. . . .
The Emperor (suddenly changing his tone): Yes your husband. Did you think I did not know. I have it here. (He turns his back on the Countess, picks up a document from the table and reads):
“Scratchitoff Skandaliska, Count of Poland, Baron of Lithuania, Colonel of the Fifth Lancers, reported by the Imperial police as in the pay of the Czar of Russia, — Ha! Did you think I did not know that?—”
His back is still turned. The Countess is standing upright. Her face is as of stone. Slowly she draws from her bodice a long poniard, slowly she raises it above the Emperor’s back.
Napoleon goes on reading.
“ — conspired with seven others, since executed, to take the life of the Emperor, and now this 5th day of September . . .”
The Countess has raised the poniard to its height. As she is about to stab the Emperor, he taps slightly with his foot. Marmalade, the Mameluke, has flung aside the curtain and grasps the Countess from behind by both wrists. The poniard rattles to the floor. The Emperor turns and goes on calmly reading the document.
“This 5th day of September, pardoned by the clemency of the Emperor and restored to his estates.”
The Countess released by Marmalade, falls weeping at the Emperor’s feet.
Ah! Sire, you are indeed noble.
Napoleon: Am I not? Take her out, Marmalade. (The Mameluke bows, takes out the weeping Countess and returns with a renewed salaam.)
The Emperor (dreamily): We know how to treat them, don’t we? old trognan de chou. Let no one disturb that mirror. It may serve us again. And now, bring me a secretary, and I will go on dictating.
In this way did the great Emperor transact more business in a week than most men would get through in a day.
But in this very same play of Des Deux Choses L’Une, we have to remember that while all these other things are happening Napoleon is also fighting a battle.
In fact hardly is the Countess Skandaliska well off the premises before a military aide-de-camp comes rattling into the room. The great Brain is in full operation again in a second.
Ha! Colonel Escargot. What news?
Bad news, Sire. Marshal Masséna reports the battle is lost.
The Emperor (frowning): Bad news. The battle lost? Do you not know Colonel Escargot, that I do not permit a battle to be lost? How long have you been in my service? Let me see, you were at Austerlitz?
I was, Sire.
And you were afterwards in Cantonments at Strasburg?
It is true, Sire.
I saw you there for five minutes on the afternoon of the 3rd of November of 1810.
Sire! It is wonderful.
Tut, tut, it is nothing. You were playing dominoes. I remember you had just thrown a double three when I arrived.
Colonel Escargot: (falling on his knees): Sire, it is too much. You are inspired.
The Emperor (smiling): Perhaps. But realize then, that I do not allow a battle to be lost. Get up, mon vieux bonnet de coton, let me pinch your ear. Now then, this battle, let us see. You, the secretary, give me a map.
The secretary unfolds a vast map on the table. The Emperor stands in deep thought regarding it. Presently he speaks:
Where is Masséna?
Colonel Escargot (indicating a spot): He is here, Sire.
What is his right resting on?
His right, Sire, is extended here. It is endangered. (The Emperor remains a moment in thought.)
How is his centre?
His centre is solid.
And where has he got his rear?
His rear, Sire, is resting on a thorn hedge.
The Emperor: Ha! Ride to Masséna at once. Tell him to haul in his centre and to stick out his rear. The battle will be won in two hours.
Escargot (saluting): Sire. It is wonderful. (He clatters out.)
Napoleon sinks wearily into a chair. His head droops in his hands. “Wonderful!” he broods, “and yet the one thing of all things that I want to do, I can’t do.”
Indeed the man is really up against it. He can remember cannons and win battles and tell Masséna where to put his rear, but when it comes to Josephine, he is no better than the rest of us.
The Emperor rings the bell.
The secretary comes in.
Listen, I have taken a decision. I am going to divorce Josephine.
The secretary bows.
Go to her at once and tell her that she is divorced.
The secretary bows again.
If she asks why, say that it is the Emperor’s command. You understand.
I do.
If she tries to come here, do not permit it. Stop her, if need be with your own hands. Tell Marmalade she is not to pass. Tell him to choke her. Tell the guard outside to stop her. Tell them to fire a volley at her. Do you understand? She is not to come.
Alas, Sire, it is too late. She is here now. I hear her voice.
One can hear outside the protests of the guards.
The Empress Josephine, beautiful and disheveled and streaming with tears pushes Marmalade aside with an imperious gesture and dashes into the room. She speaks: —
Napoleon, what is this? What does it mean? Tell me it is not true? You could not dare?
Napoleon (timidly): I think there is some mistake. Not dare what?
Josephine: To divorce me? You could not? You would not? Ah! heartless one, you could not do it.
She falls upon Napoleon’s neck weeping convulsively.
The Emperor: Josephine, there has been a delusion, a misunderstanding, of course I would not divorce you. Who dares hint at such a thing?
Josephine: Outside, in the waiting room, in the court they are all saying it.
Napoleon: Ha! Let them dare! They shall answer with their heads.
Josephine: Ah, now, you are my own dear Napoleon. Let me fold you in my arms. Let me kiss you on the top of the head. (She hugs and kisses the Emperor with enthusiasm.)
Napoleon: Ah, Josephine, how much I love you.
A voice is heard without. Colonel Escargot enters rapidly. He is deadly pale but has a triumphant look on his face. He salutes.
Sire, everything is saved.
Napoleon: Ah! So the battle was not lost after all.
No Sire, your orders were sent by semaphore telegraph. Masséna withdrew his rear and thrust out his centre. A panic broke out in the ranks of the enemy.
Ha! The enemy? Who are they?
We are not sure. We think Russians. But at least Sire, they are fleeing in all directions. Masséna is in pursuit. The day is ours.
The Emperor: It is well. But you Colonel Escargot, you are wounded!
The Colonel (faintly): No, Sire, not wounded.
Napoleon: But, yes, —
Colonel Escargot: Not wounded, Sire, killed, I have a bullet through my heart.
He sinks down on the carpet.
The Emperor bends over him.
Escargot (feebly): Vive l’Empereur. (He dies.)
Napoleon (standing for a moment and looking at the body of Colonel Escargot): Alas! Josephine, all my victories cannot give me back the life of one brave man. I might have known it at the start.
He remains in reflection. “I should have chosen at the beginning. Tranquillity or conquest, greatness or happiness, — Des Deux Choses L’Une.”
And as he says that the curtain slowly sinks upon the brooding Emperor. The play is over. In fact there is no need to go on with it. Now that the audience know why it is called Des Deux Choses L’Une, there is no good going any further. All that is now needed is the usual Transfiguration Scene.
Napoleon, dying at St. Helena, seen in a half light with a vast net curtain across the stage and a dim background of storm, thunder, and the armies of the dead, —
That, with a little rumbling of cannon — the distant rolling of a South Atlantic storm, —
— and then, — the pomp has passed, — turn up the lamps and let the matinée audience out into the daylight.
But we must not suppose for a minute that French history has any monopoly of dramatic interest. Oh, dear no. We have recently discovered that right here on the North American continent there is material teeming with dramatic interest. Any quantity of it. In fact it begins right at the start of our history and goes right on. Consider the aboriginal Indian; what a figure for tragedy. Few people perhaps realize that no less than seventeen first-class tragedies, each as good as Shakespeare’s, and all in blank verse, have been written about the Indians. They have to be in blank verse. There was something about the primitive Indian that invited it. It was the real way to express him.
Unfortunately these Indian tragedies cannot be produced on the stage. They are ahead of the age. The managers to whom they have been submitted say that as yet there is no stage suitable for them, and no actors capable of acting them, and no spectators capable of sitting for them. Here is a sample of such a tragedy.
Dump: After the warmth of his body warms it he will explode.
Vamp: How curious. How warm will it have to be?
Dump: About 90 degrees. It will take about a minute for each degree. He will explode in twelve minutes.
Vamp: Is it wise to stay near him?
Dump: No, it is highly imprudent. We had better go. Simp had better gather up your things. We will go together. It is scarcely wise to linger.
Vamp: No, let us hasten.
Slump: Wow! Wow!
The curtain falls, leaving as usual after an Ibsen play a profound problem stated but not solved.
Historical Drama
AFTER ALL THERE is nothing like the Historical Drama! Say what you will about moving pictures or high-speed vaudeville they never have the same air and class to them. For me as soon as I see upon the program “A tucket sounds!” I am all attention, and when it says “Enter Queen Elizabeth to the sound of Hoboes,” I am thrilled. What does it matter if the queen’s attendants seem to speak as if they came from Yonkers? There is dignity about it all the same. When you have, moving in front of you on the stage, people of the class of Louis Quatorze, Henry Quinze, Arthur Cromwell and Mary of Roumania, you feel somehow as if they were distinctly superior to such characters as Big-hearted Jim, and Shifty Pete and Meg of the Bowery and Inspector Corcoran. Perhaps they are!
But of all the characters that walk upon the stage, commend me to Napoleon. What I don’t know about that man’s life, from seeing him on the boards is not worth discussing. I have only to close my eyes and I can see him before me as depicted by our greatest actors, with his one lock of hair and his forehead like a door knob, his melancholy eyes painted black and yellow underneath. And as for his family life, his relations with Josephine, his dealings with the Countess Skandaliska, I could write it all down if it was lost.
There is something about that man, — I don’t mind admitting it, — that holds me. And he exercises the same fascination over all our great actors. About once in every ten years some one of them, intoxicated by success, decides that he wants to be Napoleon. It is a thing that happens to all of them. It is something in their brain that breaks.
Every time that this happens a new Napoleonic play is produced. That is, it is called new but it is really the same old play over again. The title is always entirely new but that is because it is a convention that the title of a Napoleon play is never a straight-out statement of what it means such as “Napoleon, Emperor of France” or “Napoleon and Josephine.” It is called, let us say, “Quinze Pour Cent” or “Mille Fois Non” or “Des Deux Choses L’Une” — that sort of thing. And after it is named it is always strung together in the same way and it is always done in little fits and starts that have no real connection with one another but are meant to show Napoleon at all the familiar angles. In fact, here is how it goes: —
“DES DEUX CHOSES L’UNE”
A DRAMA OF THE FIRST EMPIRE
Adapted from the French of Dumas, Sardou, Hugo, Racine, Corneille, and all others who ever wrote of Napoleon.
The opening part of the play is intended to show the extraordinary fidelity towards the Emperor on the part of the marshals of France whom he had created.
Scene: The ball room of the palace of the Tuileries. Standing around are ladies in directoire dresses, brilliant as rainbows. Up right beside them are the marshals of France. There is music and a buzz of conversation.
Enter Napoleon followed by Talleyrand in black, and two secretaries carrying boxes. There is silence. The Emperor seats himself at a little table. The secretaries place on it two black despatch boxes.
The Emperor speaks: Marshal Junot.
The Marshal steps forward and salutes.
The Emperor: Marshal: I have heard strange rumours and doubts about your fidelity. I wish to test it. I have here, — he opens one of the boxes, — a vial of poison. Here, — Drink it.
Junot: With pleasure, Sire.
Junot drinks the poison and stands to attention.
The Emperor: Go over there and stand beside the Comtesse de la Polissonerie till you die.
Junot (saluting): With pleasure, Sire.
Napoleon (turns to another marshal): Berthier?
Here Sire!
Berthier steps out in front of the Emperor.
The Emperor (rising): Ha! Ha! Is it you, — he reaches up and pinches Berthier’s ear, — Vieux paquet de linge sale!
Berthier looks delighted. It is amazing what a French marshal will do for you if you pinch his ear. At least it is a tradition of the stage. In these scenes Napoleon always pinched the Marshals’ ears and called them, — Vieux paquet de linge sale, etc.
The Emperor turns stern in a moment.
Marshal Berthier!
Sire!
Are you devoted to my person?
Sire, you have but to put me to the test.
Very well. Here, Marshal Berthier (Napoleon reaches into the box) is a poisoned dog biscuit. Eat it.
Berthier (saluting): With pleasure, Sire. It is excellent.
Napoleon: Very good, Mon Vieux trait d’union. Now go and talk to the Duchesse de la Rotisserie till you die.
Berthier bows low.
The Emperor: Marshal Lannes! You look pale. Here is a veal chop. It is full of arsenic. Eat it.
Marshal Lannes bows in silence and swallows the chop in one bite.
The Emperor then gives a paquet of prussic acid to Marshal Soult, one pill each to Marshals Ney and Augereau, then suddenly he rises and stamps his foot.
No Talleyrand, no! The farce is finished! I can play it no longer. Look, les braves enfants! They have eaten poison for me. Ah non, mes amis, mon vieux. Reassure yourselves. You are not to die. See the poison was in the other box.
Talleyrand (shrugging his shoulders): If your Majesty insists upon spoiling everything.
Napoleon: Yes, yes, those brave fellows could not betray me. Come Berthier. Come Junot, come and let us cry together —
The Emperor and his marshals all gather in a group, sobbing convulsively and pulling one another’s ears.
But one must not think that the Imperial Court was all sentiment. Ah. No! The great brain of the Emperor could be turned in a moment to other concerns and focused into a single point of concentrated efficiency. As witness: —
Scene Two
Showing how Napoleon used to dictate a letter, carry on a battle, and Reveal Business Efficiency at the Acme.
Napoleon in a room in a chateau, announced to be somewhere near a battle, striding up and down, dictating a letter with his hat on. On the stage the great Emperor always dictates through his hat. A secretary sitting at a table is vainly trying to keep pace with the rush of words.
Now are you ready, de Meneval. Have you written that last sentence?
De Meneval (writing desperately): In a moment, Sire, in a moment.
Imbecile, write this then, “The Prefect of Lyons is ordered to gather all possible cannon for the defense of Toulon . . . He is reminded that there are six cannon on the ramparts of Lyons which he has apparently forgotten. The Emperor orders him to pass them forward at once,” — Have you written that, imbecile?
In a moment, Sire, in a moment.
To have them forwarded to Toulon. He is reminded that there are six more in the back garden of the ministry of the Marine, and two put away in the basement of the Methodist Church.
The Secretary collapses. Napoleon stamps his foot. A terrible looking Turkish attendant, Marmalade the Mameluke comes in and drags him out by the collar, and then drags in another secretary and props him up in a chair where he at once commences to write furiously.
Napoleon never stops dictating, —
“There are two more cannons in the garage of the Prefect of Police. One has a little piece knocked out of the breech—”
The Secretary (pausing in surprise): Mon Dieu!
The Emperor: Eh, what, mon enfant. What surprises you?
The Secretary: Ah, Sire, it is too wonderful. How can you tell that a piece is out of the breeches?
Napoleon (pinching his ear): Ha! You think me wonderful!
The Secretary: I do.
Napoleon (pulling his hair): I am. And my cannon! I know them all. That one with the piece knocked out of the breech shall I tell you how I know it?
The Secretary: Ah, Sire!
Marmalade, the Mameluke comes in and salaams to the ground.
The Emperor: Well, what is it? Vieux fromage de cuir!
The Mameluke gurgles about a pint of Turkish.
The Emperor: Ha! Bring her in (to the secretary) You may go. You, Marmalade, after she enters, stand behind that curtain, so, — your scimitar so, — if I stamp my left foot — you understand.
Marmalade (with a salaam): Zakouski, Anchovi.
Emperor: Good. Show her in.
There enters with a rush the beautiful half Polish Countess Skandaliska. She throws herself at the Emperor’s feet.
Sire, Sire, my husband! I crave his life.
Napoleon (taking her by the chin and speaking coldly): You are very beautiful.
Sire! My husband. I ask his life. He is under orders to be shot this morning.
The Emperor (coldly): “Let me feel your ears.”
Ah! Sire. In pity, I beg you for his life.
The Emperor (absently): You have nice fat arms. Let me pinch them.
Sire! My husband. . . .
The Emperor (suddenly changing his tone): Yes your husband. Did you think I did not know. I have it here. (He turns his back on the Countess, picks up a document from the table and reads):
“Scratchitoff Skandaliska, Count of Poland, Baron of Lithuania, Colonel of the Fifth Lancers, reported by the Imperial police as in the pay of the Czar of Russia, — Ha! Did you think I did not know that?—”
His back is still turned. The Countess is standing upright. Her face is as of stone. Slowly she draws from her bodice a long poniard, slowly she raises it above the Emperor’s back.
Napoleon goes on reading.
“ — conspired with seven others, since executed, to take the life of the Emperor, and now this 5th day of September . . .”
The Countess has raised the poniard to its height. As she is about to stab the Emperor, he taps slightly with his foot. Marmalade, the Mameluke, has flung aside the curtain and grasps the Countess from behind by both wrists. The poniard rattles to the floor. The Emperor turns and goes on calmly reading the document.
“This 5th day of September, pardoned by the clemency of the Emperor and restored to his estates.”
The Countess released by Marmalade, falls weeping at the Emperor’s feet.
Ah! Sire, you are indeed noble.
Napoleon: Am I not? Take her out, Marmalade. (The Mameluke bows, takes out the weeping Countess and returns with a renewed salaam.)
The Emperor (dreamily): We know how to treat them, don’t we? old trognan de chou. Let no one disturb that mirror. It may serve us again. And now, bring me a secretary, and I will go on dictating.
In this way did the great Emperor transact more business in a week than most men would get through in a day.
But in this very same play of Des Deux Choses L’Une, we have to remember that while all these other things are happening Napoleon is also fighting a battle.
In fact hardly is the Countess Skandaliska well off the premises before a military aide-de-camp comes rattling into the room. The great Brain is in full operation again in a second.
Ha! Colonel Escargot. What news?
Bad news, Sire. Marshal Masséna reports the battle is lost.
The Emperor (frowning): Bad news. The battle lost? Do you not know Colonel Escargot, that I do not permit a battle to be lost? How long have you been in my service? Let me see, you were at Austerlitz?
I was, Sire.
And you were afterwards in Cantonments at Strasburg?
It is true, Sire.
I saw you there for five minutes on the afternoon of the 3rd of November of 1810.
Sire! It is wonderful.
Tut, tut, it is nothing. You were playing dominoes. I remember you had just thrown a double three when I arrived.
Colonel Escargot: (falling on his knees): Sire, it is too much. You are inspired.
The Emperor (smiling): Perhaps. But realize then, that I do not allow a battle to be lost. Get up, mon vieux bonnet de coton, let me pinch your ear. Now then, this battle, let us see. You, the secretary, give me a map.
The secretary unfolds a vast map on the table. The Emperor stands in deep thought regarding it. Presently he speaks:
Where is Masséna?
Colonel Escargot (indicating a spot): He is here, Sire.
What is his right resting on?
His right, Sire, is extended here. It is endangered. (The Emperor remains a moment in thought.)
How is his centre?
His centre is solid.
And where has he got his rear?
His rear, Sire, is resting on a thorn hedge.
The Emperor: Ha! Ride to Masséna at once. Tell him to haul in his centre and to stick out his rear. The battle will be won in two hours.
Escargot (saluting): Sire. It is wonderful. (He clatters out.)
Napoleon sinks wearily into a chair. His head droops in his hands. “Wonderful!” he broods, “and yet the one thing of all things that I want to do, I can’t do.”
Indeed the man is really up against it. He can remember cannons and win battles and tell Masséna where to put his rear, but when it comes to Josephine, he is no better than the rest of us.
The Emperor rings the bell.
The secretary comes in.
Listen, I have taken a decision. I am going to divorce Josephine.
The secretary bows.
Go to her at once and tell her that she is divorced.
The secretary bows again.
If she asks why, say that it is the Emperor’s command. You understand.
I do.
If she tries to come here, do not permit it. Stop her, if need be with your own hands. Tell Marmalade she is not to pass. Tell him to choke her. Tell the guard outside to stop her. Tell them to fire a volley at her. Do you understand? She is not to come.
Alas, Sire, it is too late. She is here now. I hear her voice.
One can hear outside the protests of the guards.
The Empress Josephine, beautiful and disheveled and streaming with tears pushes Marmalade aside with an imperious gesture and dashes into the room. She speaks: —
Napoleon, what is this? What does it mean? Tell me it is not true? You could not dare?
Napoleon (timidly): I think there is some mistake. Not dare what?
Josephine: To divorce me? You could not? You would not? Ah! heartless one, you could not do it.
She falls upon Napoleon’s neck weeping convulsively.
The Emperor: Josephine, there has been a delusion, a misunderstanding, of course I would not divorce you. Who dares hint at such a thing?
Josephine: Outside, in the waiting room, in the court they are all saying it.
Napoleon: Ha! Let them dare! They shall answer with their heads.
Josephine: Ah, now, you are my own dear Napoleon. Let me fold you in my arms. Let me kiss you on the top of the head. (She hugs and kisses the Emperor with enthusiasm.)
Napoleon: Ah, Josephine, how much I love you.
A voice is heard without. Colonel Escargot enters rapidly. He is deadly pale but has a triumphant look on his face. He salutes.
Sire, everything is saved.
Napoleon: Ah! So the battle was not lost after all.
No Sire, your orders were sent by semaphore telegraph. Masséna withdrew his rear and thrust out his centre. A panic broke out in the ranks of the enemy.
Ha! The enemy? Who are they?
We are not sure. We think Russians. But at least Sire, they are fleeing in all directions. Masséna is in pursuit. The day is ours.
The Emperor: It is well. But you Colonel Escargot, you are wounded!
The Colonel (faintly): No, Sire, not wounded.
Napoleon: But, yes, —
Colonel Escargot: Not wounded, Sire, killed, I have a bullet through my heart.
He sinks down on the carpet.
The Emperor bends over him.
Escargot (feebly): Vive l’Empereur. (He dies.)
Napoleon (standing for a moment and looking at the body of Colonel Escargot): Alas! Josephine, all my victories cannot give me back the life of one brave man. I might have known it at the start.
He remains in reflection. “I should have chosen at the beginning. Tranquillity or conquest, greatness or happiness, — Des Deux Choses L’Une.”
And as he says that the curtain slowly sinks upon the brooding Emperor. The play is over. In fact there is no need to go on with it. Now that the audience know why it is called Des Deux Choses L’Une, there is no good going any further. All that is now needed is the usual Transfiguration Scene.
Napoleon, dying at St. Helena, seen in a half light with a vast net curtain across the stage and a dim background of storm, thunder, and the armies of the dead, —
That, with a little rumbling of cannon — the distant rolling of a South Atlantic storm, —
— and then, — the pomp has passed, — turn up the lamps and let the matinée audience out into the daylight.
But we must not suppose for a minute that French history has any monopoly of dramatic interest. Oh, dear no. We have recently discovered that right here on the North American continent there is material teeming with dramatic interest. Any quantity of it. In fact it begins right at the start of our history and goes right on. Consider the aboriginal Indian; what a figure for tragedy. Few people perhaps realize that no less than seventeen first-class tragedies, each as good as Shakespeare’s, and all in blank verse, have been written about the Indians. They have to be in blank verse. There was something about the primitive Indian that invited it. It was the real way to express him.
Unfortunately these Indian tragedies cannot be produced on the stage. They are ahead of the age. The managers to whom they have been submitted say that as yet there is no stage suitable for them, and no actors capable of acting them, and no spectators capable of sitting for them. Here is a sample of such a tragedy.
