u 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]

O come, now, my adored! Haven't I already!
Nature's a dial whose shade no hand puts back,
Trick as we may! My friend, you are forty-three
This very year in the world-- [JOSEPHINE breaks out sobbing again.]
And in vain it is
To think of waiting longer; pitiful
To dream of coaxing shy fecundity
To an unlikely freak by physicking
With superstitious drugs and quackeries
That work you harm, not good. The fact being so,
I have looked it squarely down--against my heart!
Solicitations voiced repeatedly
At length have shown the soundness of their shape,
And left me no denial. You, at times,
My dear one, have been used to handle it.
My brother Joseph, years back, frankly gave
His honest view that something should be done;
And he, you well know, shows no ill tinct
In his regard of you.

JOSEPHINE

And what princess?

NAPOLEON

For wiving with? No thought was given to that,
She shapes as vaguely as the Veiled--

JOSEPHINE

No, no;
It's Alexander's sister, I'm full sure!--
But why this craze for home-made manikins
And lineage mere of flesh? You have said yourself
It mattered not. Great Caesar, you declared,
Sank sonless to his rest; was greater deemed
Even for the isolation. Frederick
Saw, too, no heir. It is the fate of such,
Often, to be denied the common hope
As fine for fulness in the rarer gifts
That Nature y