i PART SECOND
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.
JOS£PHINK (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 raore violently,) 253