Go! I am ready, and shall be happy to see the boy. It is
not HER child, but HIS that I am to embrace." And greeting Constant
with that inimitable smile of grace and kindness peculiar to her,
she walked toward the reception-room. "How my heart throbs!" she
murmured; "it is as if my limbs were failing me--as if I should
die." Nearly fainting, she slowly glided through the adjoining
apartment, and entered the reception-room. "Courage, my heart! for
it is HIS child that I am to greet." Sitting down on an easy-chair
near the window, she looked in anxiety and suspense toward the large
folding doors.
At length the emperor appeared. Josephine had not seen him for
nearly a year, and at first her eyes beheld only him. She read in
his pallid and furrowed face the secret history of his sorrows,
which he had not, perhaps, communicated to any one, but which he
could not conceal from the eye of love. Unutterable sympathy and
tender compassion for him filled her soul. And now she almost
timidly looked upon the child that Napoleon led by the hand.
How charming was this child! How proud of him was his father!
Josephine felt this, and she said almost exultingly to herself "I
have not, been sacrificed in vain! This child is an ample indemnity
for my tears. I am the boy's real mother, for I have suffered,
sorrowed, and prayed for him!" Rejoicing in this sentiment, which
seemed to restore the beauty of former days, Josephine stretched out
her arms toward the child.
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