Of course it's that! For nothing else could hang My lord on tenterhooks through nights and days;-- Or rather, not the question, but the tongues That keep the question stirring. Nought recked you Of throne-succession or dynastic lines When gloriously engaged in Italy! I was your fairy then: they labelled me Your Lady of Victories; and much I joyed, Till dangerous ones drew near and daily sowed These choking tares within your fecund brain,-- Making me tremble if a panel crack, Or mouse but cheep, or silent leaf sail down, And murdering my melodious hours with dreads That my late happiness, and my late hope, Will oversoon be knelled! NAPOLEON [genially nearing her] But years have passed since first we talked of it, And now, with loss of dear Hortense's son Who won me as my own, it looms forth more. And selfish 'tis in my good Josephine To blind her vision to the weal of France, And this great Empire's solidarity. The grandeur of your sacrifice would gild Your life's whole shape. JOSEPHINE Were I as coarse a wife As I am limned in English caricature-- [Those cruel effigies they draw of me!]-- You could not speak more aridly. NAPOLEON Nay, nay! You know, my comrade, how I love you still Were there a long-notorious dislike Betwixt us, reason might be in your dreads But all earth knows our conjugality. There's not a bourgeois couple in the land Who, should dire duty rule their severance, Could part with scanter scandal than could we. JOSEPHINE [pouting] Nevertheless there's one. NAPOLEON A scandal? What? JOSEPHINE Madame Walewska! How could you pretend When, after Jena, I'd have come to you, “The weather was so wild, the roads so rough, That no one of my sex and delicate nerve Could hope to face the dangers and fatigues.” Yes--so you wrote me, dear. They hurt not her! NAPOLEON [blandly] She was a week's adventure--not worth words! I say 'tis France.--I have held out for years Against the constant pressure brought on me To null this sterile marriage. JOSEPHINE [bursting into sobs] Me you blame! But how know you that you are not the culprit? NAPOLEON I have reason so to know--if I must say. The Polish lady you have chosen to name Has proved the fault not mine. [JOSEPHINE sobs more violently.] Don't cry, my cherished; It is not really amiable of you, Or prudent, my good little Josephine, With so much in the balance. JOSEPHINE How--know you-- What may not happen! Wait a--little longer! NAPOLEON [playfully pinching her arm]