L'Aiglon Part 4

Where does the money go?

GENTZ.

[_Smelling at a scent-bottle he has taken out of his pocket._]

In riotous living.

METTERNICH.

 

Good Heavens! And you're considered my right hand!

GENTZ.

Let not your left know what your right receives.

METTERNICH.

Sweetmeats and perfumes! Oh!

GENTZ.

Why, yes, of course.

I've money; I love sweets and perfumes. Yes, I'm a depraved old baby.

METTERNICH.

Affectation!

Mere pose of self-contempt.

[_Suddenly._] And f.a.n.n.y?

GENTZ.

Elssler? Won't love me. I'm ridiculous From every point of view. She loves the Duke.

I'm but a screen; but I'm content to suffer When I remember how it serves the state If he's amused. And so I play the fool, And dance attendance on the little dancer.

She bade me bring her here this very night, Just to surprise the Duke.

METTERNICH.

You scandalize me.

GENTZ.

His mother's going out. There's dancing.

[_He hands_ METTERNICH _a letter which he has taken out of a pocket-book_.]

Read-- From Fouche's son.

METTERNICH.

[_Reading the letter._] August the twentieth, Eighteen hundred and thirty--

GENTZ.

He'd transform--

METTERNICH.

Good Viscount of Otranto!

GENTZ.

Our Duke of Reichstadt to Napoleon Two.

METTERNICH.

[_Handing back the letter._]

A list of partisans?

GENTZ.

Yes.

METTERNICH.

Make a note.

GENTZ.

Do we refuse?

METTERNICH.

Without destroying hope.

Ah, but my little Colonel serves me well To keep these Frenchmen straight. When they forget Their Metternich, and lean too much to the left, I let him show his nose out of his box, and--crack!-- When they come right, I pop him in again!

GENTZ.

When can one see the springs work?

METTERNICH.

Now.

[_Enter the French_ ATTACHe.

METTERNICH.