ACT FIRSTSCENE ITHE BANKS OF THE NIEMEN, NEAR KOWNO[The foreground is a hillock on a broken upland, seen in eveningtwilight. On the left, further back, are the dusky forests ofWilkowsky; on the right is the vague shine of a large river.Emerging from the wood below the eminence appears a shadowyamorphous thing in motion, the central or Imperial column ofNAPOLÉON’S Grand Army for the invasion of Russia, comprisingthe corps of OUDINOT, NEY, and DAVOUT, with the Imperial Guard.This, with the right and left columns, makes up the host ofnearly half a million, all starting on their march to Moscow.While the rearmost regiments are arriving, NAPOLÉON rides aheadwith GENERAL HAXEL and one or two others to reconnoitre the river.NAPOLÉON’S horse stumbles and throws him. He picks himself upbefore he can be helped.]SPIRIT OF THE YEARS [to Napoléon]The portent is an ill one, Emperor;An ancient Roman would retire thereat!NAPOLÉONWhose voice was that, jarring upon my thoughtSo insolently?HAXEL AND OTHERSSire, we spoke no word.NAPOLÉONThen, whoso spake, such portents I defy![He remounts. When the reconnoitrers again came back to theforeground of the scene the huge array of columns is standingquite still, in circles of companies, the captain of each inthe middle with a paper in his hand. He reads from it aproclamation. They quiver emotionally, like leaves stirred bythe wind. NAPOLÉON and his staff reascend the hillock, and hisown words as repeated to the ranks reach his ears, while hehimself delivers the same address to those about him.NAPOLÉONSoldiers, wild war is on the board again;The lifetime-long alliance Russia sworeAt Tilsit, for the English realm’s undoing,Is violate beyond refurbishment,And she intractable and unashamed.Russia is forced on by fatality:She cries her destiny must be outwrought,Meaning at our expense. Does she then dreamWe are no more the men of Austerlitz,With nothing left of our old featfulness?She offers us the choice of sword or shame;We have made that choice unhesitatingly!Then let us forthwith stride the Niemen flood,Let us bear war into her great gaunt land,And spread our glory there as otherwhere,So that a stable peace shall stultifyThe evil seed-bearing that Russian wilesHave nourished upon Europe’s choked affairsThese fifty years![The midsummer night darkens. They all make their bivouacsand sleep.]SPIRIT OF THE PITIESSomething is tongued afar.DISTANT VOICE IN THE WINDThe hostile hatchings of Napoléon’s brainAgainst our Empire, long have harassed us,And mangled all our mild amenities.So, since the hunger for embranglementThat gnaws this man, has left us optionless,And haled us recklessly to horrid war,We have promptly mustered our well-hardened hosts,And, counting on our call to the most High,Have forthwith set our puissance face to faceAgainst Napoléon’s.—Ranksmen! officers!You fend your lives, your land, your liberty.I am with you. Heaven frowns on the aggressor.SPIRIT IRONICHa! “Liberty” is quaint, and pleases me,Sounding from such a soil![Midsummer-day breaks, and the sun rises on the right, revealingthe position clearly. The eminence overlooks for miles the riverNiemen, now mirroring the morning rays. Across the river threetemporary bridges have been thrown, and towards them the Frenchmasses streaming out of the forest descend in three columns.They sing, shout, fling their shakos in the air and repeat wordsfrom the proclamation, their steel and brass flashing in the sun.They narrow their columns as they gain the three bridges, and beginto cross—horse, foot, and artillery.NAPOLÉON has come from the tent in which he has passed the nightto the high ground in front, where he stands watching through hisglass the committal of his army to the enterprise. DAVOUT, NEY,MURAT, OUDINOT, Generals HAXEL and EBLE, NARBONNE, and otherssurround him.It is a day of drowsing heat, and the Emperor draws a deep breathas he shifts his weight from one puffed calf to the other. Thelight cavalry, the foot, the artillery having passed, the heavyhorse now crosses, their glitter outshining the ripples on thestream.A messenger enters. NAPOLÉON reads papers that are brought, andfrowns.]NAPOLÉONThe English heads decline to recognizeThe government of Joseph, King of Spain,As that of “the now-ruling dynast”;But only Ferdinand’s!—I’ll get to Moscow,And send thence my rejoinder. France shall wageAnother fifty years of wasting warBefore a Bourbon shall remount the throneOf restless Spain!... [A flash lights his eyes.]But this long journey now just set a-tripIs my choice way to India; and ’tis thereThat I shall next bombard the British rule.With Moscow taken, Russia prone and crushed,To attain the Ganges is simplicity—Auxiliaries from Tiflis backing me.Once ripped by a French sword, the scaffoldingOf English merchant-mastership in IndWill fall a wreck.... Vast, it is true, must bulkAn Eastern scheme so planned; but I could work it....Man has, worse fortune, but scant years for war;I am good for another five!SPIRIT OF THE PITIESWhy doth he go?—I see returning in a chattering flockBleached skeletons, instead of this arrayInvincibly equipped.SPIRIT OF THE YEARSI’ll show you why.[The unnatural light before seen usurps that of the sun, bringinginto view, like breezes made visible, the films or brain-tissues ofthe Immanent Will, that pervade all things, ramifying through thewhole army, NAPOLÉON included, and moving them to Its inexplicableartistries.]NAPOLÉON [with sudden despondency]That which has worked will work!—Since Lodi BridgeThe force I then felt move me moves me onWhether I will or no; and oftentimesAgainst my better mind.... Why am I here?—By laws imposed on me inexorably!History makes use of me to weave her webTo her long while aforetime-figured meshAnd contemplated charactery: no more.Well, war’s my trade; and whencesoever springsThis one in hand, they’ll label it with my name![The natural light returns and the anatomy of the Will disappears.NAPOLÉON mounts his horse and descends in the rear of his host tothe banks of the Niemen. His face puts on a saturnine humour, andhe hums an air.]Malbrough s’en va-t-en guerre,Mironton, mironton, mirontaine;Malbrough s’en va-t-en guerre,Ne sait quand reviendra![Exeunt NAPOLÉON and his staff.]SPIRIT SINISTERIt is kind of his Imperial Majesty to give me a lead. [Sings.]Monsieur d’Malbrough est mort,Mironton, mironton, mirontaine;Monsieur d’Malbrough est mort,Est mort et enterre![Anon the figure of NAPOLÉON, diminished to the aspect of a doll,reappears in front of his suite on the plain below. He ridesacross the swaying bridge. Since the morning the sky has grownovercast, and its blackness seems now to envelope the retreatingarray on the other side of the stream. The storm bursts withthunder and lightning, the river turns leaden, and the scene isblotted out by the torrents of rain.]SCENE IITHE FORD OF SANTA MARTA, SALAMANCA[We are in Spain, on a July night of the same summer, the air beinghot and heavy. In the darkness the ripple of the river Tormes canbe heard over the ford, which is near the foreground of the scene.Against the gloomy north sky to the left, lightnings flashrevealing rugged heights in that quarter. From the heights comesto the ear the tramp of soldiery, broke and irregular, as byobstacles in their descent; as yet they are some distance off.On heights to the right hand, on the other side of the river,glimmer the bivouac fires of the French under MARMONT. Thelightning quickens, with rolls of thunder, and a few large dropsof rain fall.A sentinel stands close to the ford, and beyond him is the ford-house, a shed open towards the roadway and the spectator. It islit by a single lantern, and occupied by some half-dozen Englishdragoons with a sergeant and corporal, who form part of a mountedpatrol, their horses being picketed at the entrance. They areseated on a bench, and appear to be waiting with some deep intent,speaking in murmurs only.The thunderstorm increases till it drowns the noise of the fordand of the descending battalions, making them seem further offthan before. The sentinel is about to retreat to the shed whenhe discerns two female figures in the gloom. Enter MRS. DALBIACand MRS. PRESCOTT, English officers wives.]SENTINELWhere there’s war there’s women, and where there’s women there’strouble! [Aloud] Who goes there?MRS. DALBIACWe must reveal who we are, I fear [to her companion]. Friends![to sentinel].SENTINELAdvance and give the countersign.MRS. DALBIACOh, but we can’t!SENTINELConsequent which, you must retreat. By Lord Wellington’s strictregulations, women of loose character are to be excluded from thelines for moral reasons, namely, that they are often employed bythe enemy as spies.MRS. PRESCOTTDear good soldier, we are English ladies benighted, having mistakenour way back to Salamanca, and we want shelter from the storm.MRS. DALBIACIf it is necessary I will say who we are.—I am Mrs. Dalbiac, wifeof the Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fourth Light Dragoons, and thislady is the wife of Captain Prescott of the Seventh Fusileers. Wewent out to Christoval to look for our husbands, but found the armyhad moved.SENTINEL [incredulously]“Wives!” Oh, not to-day! I have heard such titles of courtesyafore; but they never shake me. “W” begins other female words than“wives!”—You’ll have trouble, good dames, to get into Salamancato-night. You’ll be challenged all the way down, and shot withoutclergy if you can’t give the countersign.MRS. PRESCOTTThen surely you’ll tell us what it is, good kind man!SENTINELWell—have ye earned enough to pay for knowing? Government wage ispoor pickings for watching here in the rain. How much can ye stand?MRS. DALBIACHalf-a-dozen pesetas.SENTINELVery well, my dear. I was always tender-hearted. Come along.[They advance and hand the money.] The pass to-night is “MelchesterSteeple.” That will take you into the town when the weather clears.You won’t have to cross the ford. You can get temporary shelter inthe shed there.[As the ladies move towards the shed the tramp of the infantrydraws near the ford, which the downfall has made to purl moreboisterously. The twain enter the shed, and the dragoons lookup inquiringly.]MRS. DALBIAC [to dragoons]The French are luckier than you are, men. You’ll have a wet advanceacross this ford, but they have a dry retreat by the bridge at Alba.SERGEANT OF PATROL [starting from a doze]The moustachies a dry retreat? Not they, my dear. A Spanishgarrison is in the castle that commands the bridge at Alba.MRS. DALBIACA peasant told us, if we understood rightly, that he saw the Spanishwithdraw, and the enemy place a garrison there themselves.[The sergeant hastily calls up two troopers, who mount and ride offwith the intelligence.]SERGEANTYou’ve done us a good turn, it is true, darlin’. Not that LordWellington will believe it when he gets the news.... Why, if myeyes don’t deceive me, ma’am, that’s Colonel Dalbiac’s lady!MRS. DALBIACYes, sergeant. I am over here with him, as you have heard, no doubt,and lodging in Salamanca. We lost our way, and got caught in thestorm, and want shelter awhile.SERGEANTCertainly, ma’am. I’ll give you an escort back as soon as thedivision has crossed and the weather clears.MRS. PRESCOTT [anxiously]Have you heard, sergeant, if there’s to be a battle to-morrow?SERGEANTYes, ma’am. Everything shows it.MRS. DAlBIAC [to MRS. PRESCOTT]Our news would have passed us in. We have wasted six pesetas.MRS. PRESCOTT [mournfully]I don’t mind that so much as that I have brought the children fromIreland. This coming battle frightens me!SPIRIT OF THE YEARSThis is her prescient pang of widowhood.Ere Salamanca clang to-morrow’s closeShe’ll find her consort stiff among the slain![The infantry regiments now reach the ford. The storm increasesin strength, the stream flows more furiously; yet the columns offoot enter it and begin crossing. The lightning is continuous;the faint lantern in the ford-house is paled by the sheets offire without, which flap round the bayonets of the crossing menand reflect upon the foaming torrent.]CHORUS OF THE PITIES [aerial music]The skies fling flame on this ancient land!And drenched and drowned is the burnt blown sandThat spreads its mantle of yellow-greyRound old Salmantica to-day;While marching men come, band on band,Who read not as a reprimandTo mortal moils that, as ’twere plannedIn mockery of their mimic fray,The skies fling flame.Since sad Coruna’s desperate standHorrors unsummed, with heavy hand,Have smitten such as these! But theyStill headily pursue their way,Though flood and foe confront them, andThe skies fling flame.[The whole of the English division gets across by degrees, andtheir invisible tramp is heard ascending the opposite heights asthe lightnings dwindle and the spectacle disappears.]SCENE IIITHE FIELD OF SALAMANCA[The battlefield—an undulating and sandy expanse—is lyingunder the sultry sun of a July afternoon. In the immediateleft foreground rises boldly a detached dome-like hill knownas the Lesser Arapeile, now held by English troops. Furtherback, and more to the right, rises another and larger hill ofthe kind—the Greater Arapeile; this is crowned with Frenchartillery in loud action, and the French marshal, MARMONT, Dukeof RAGUSA, stands there. Further to the right, in the sameplane, stretch the divisions of the French army. Still furtherto the right, in the distance, on the Ciudad Rodrigo highway, acloud of dust denotes the English baggage-train seeking securityin that direction. The city of Salamanca itself, and the riverTormes on which it stands, are behind the back of the spectator.On the summit of the lesser hill, close at hand, WELLINGTON, glassat eye, watches the French division under THOMIERE, which has becomeseparated from the centre of the French army. Round and near himare aides and other officers, in animated conjecture on MARMONT’Sintent, which appears to be a move on the Ciudad Rodrigo roadaforesaid, under the impression that the English are about toretreat that way.The English commander descends from where he was standing to a nookunder a wall, where a meal is roughly laid out. Some of his staffare already eating there. WELLINGTON takes a few mouthfuls withoutsitting down, walks back again, and looks through his glass at thebattle as before. Balls from the French artillery fall around.Enter his aide-de-camp, FITZROY SOMERSET.]FITZROY SOMERSET [hurriedly]The French make movements of grave consequence—Extending to the left in mass, my lord.WELLINGTONI have just perceived as much; but not the cause.[He regards longer.]Marmont’s good genius is deserting him![Shutting up his glass with a snap, WELLINGTON calls several aidesand despatches them down the hill. He goes back behind the walland takes some more mouthfuls.]By God, Fitzroy, if we shan’t do it now![to SOMERSET].Mon cher Alava, Marmont est perdu![to his SPANISH ATTACHE].FITZROY SOMERSETThinking we mean to attack on him,He schemes to swoop on our retreating-line.WELLINGTONAy; and to cloak it by this cannonade.With that in eye he has bundled leftwardlyThomiere’s division; mindless that therebyHis wing and centre’s mutual maintenanceHas gone, and left a yawning vacancy.So be it. Good. His laxness is our luck![As a result of the orders sent off by the aides, several Britishdivisions advance across the French front on the Greater Arapeileand elsewhere. The French shower bullets into them; but an Englishbrigade under PACK assails the nearer French on the Arapeile, nowbeginning to cannonade the English in the hollows beneath.Light breezes blow toward the French, and they get in their facesthe dust-clouds and smoke from the masses of English in motion, anda powerful sun in their eyes.MARMONT and his staff are sitting on the top of the Greater Arapeileonly half a cannon-shot from WELLINGTON on the Lesser; and, likeWELLINGTON, he is gazing through his glass.SPIRIT OF RUMOURAppearing to behold the full-mapped mindOf his opponent, Marmont arrows forthAide after aide towards the forest’s rim,To spirit on his troops emerging thence,And prop the lone division Thomiere,For whose recall his voice has rung in vain.Wellington mounts and seeks out Pakenham,Who pushes to the arena from the right,And, spurting to the left of Marmont’s line,Shakes Thomiere with lunges leonine.When the manoeuvre’s meaning hits his sense,Marmont hies hotly to the imperilled place,Where see him fall, sore smitten.—Bonnet ridesAnd dons the burden of the chief command,Marking dismayed the Thomiere column thereShut up by Pakenham like bellows-foldsAgainst the English Fourth and Fifth hard by;And while thus crushed, Dragoon-Guards and Dragoons,Under Le Marchant’s hands [of Guernsey he],Are launched upon them by Sir Stapleton,And their scathed files are double-scathed anon.Cotton falls wounded. Pakenham’s bayoneteersShape for the charge from column into rank;And Thomiere finds death thereat point-blank!SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES [aerial music]In fogs of dust the cavalries hoof the ground;Their prancing squadrons shake the hills around:Le Marchant’s heavies bear with ominous boundAgainst their opposites!SEMICHORUS IIA bullet crying along the cloven airGouges Le Marchant’s groin and rankles there;In Death’s white sleep he soon joins Thomiere,And all he has fought for, quits![In the meantime the battle has become concentrated in the middlehollow, and WELLINGTON descends thither from the English Arapeile.The fight grows fiercer. COLE and LEITH now fall wounded; thenBERESFORD, who directs the Portuguese, is struck down and borneaway. On the French side fall BONNET who succeeded MARMONT incommand, MANNE, CLAUSEL, and FEREY, the last hit mortally.Their disordered main body retreats into the forest and disappears;and just as darkness sets in, the English stand alone on the crest,the distant plain being lighted only by musket-flashes from thevanquishing enemy. In the close foreground vague figures onhorseback are audible in the gloom.VOICE OF WELLINGTONI thought they looked as they’d be scurrying soon!VOICE OF AN AIDEFoy bears into the wood in middling trim;Maucune strikes out for Alba-Castle bridge.VOICE OF WELLINGTONSpeed the pursuit, then, towards the Huerta ford;Their only scantling of escape lies there;The river coops them semicircle-wise,And we shall have them like a swathe of grassWithin a sickle’s curve!VOICE OF AIDEToo late, my lord.They are crossing by the aforesaid bridge at Alba.VOICE OF WELLINGTONImpossible. The guns of Carlos rake itSheer from the castle walls.VOICE OF AIDETidings have spedJust now therefrom, to this undreamed effect:That Carlos has withdrawn the garrison:The French command the Alba bridge themselves!VOICE OF WELLINGTONBlast him, he’s disobeyed his orders, then!How happened this? How long has it been known?VOICE OF AIDESome ladies some few hours have rumoured it,But unbelieved.VOICE OF WELLINGTONWell, what’s done can’t be undone....By God, though, they’ve just saved themselves therebyFrom capture to a man!VOICE OF A GENERALWe’ve not struck ill,Despite this slip, my lord.... And have you heardThat Colonel Dalbiac’s wife rode in the chargeBehind her spouse to-day?VOICE OF WELLINGTONDid she though: did she!Why that must be Susanna, whom I know—A Wessex woman, blithe, and somewhat fair....Not but great irregularitiesArise from such exploits.—And was it sheI noticed wandering to and fro below here,Just as the French retired?VOICE OF ANOTHER OFFICERAh no, my lord.That was the wife of Prescott of the Seventh,Hoping beneath the heel of hopelessness,As these young women will!—Just about sunsetShe found him lying dead and bloody there,And in the dusk we bore them both away.18VOICE OF WELLINGTONWell, I’m damned sorry for her. Though I wishThe women-folk would keep them to the rear:Much awkwardness attends their pottering round![The talking shapes disappear, and as the features of the fieldgrow undistinguishable the comparative quiet is broken by gaynotes from guitars and castanets in the direction of the city,and other sounds of popular rejoicing at Wellington’s victory.People come dancing out from the town, and the merry-makingcontinues till midnight, when it ceases, and darkness and silenceprevail everywhere.]SEMICHORUS I OF THE YEARS [aerial music]What are Space and Time? A fancy!—Lo, by Vision’s necromancyMuscovy will now unroll;Where for cork and olive-treeStarveling firs and birches be.SEMICHORUS IIThough such features lie afarFrom events Peninsular,These, amid their dust and thunder,Form with those, as scarce asunder,Parts of one compacted whole.CHORUSMarmont’s aide, then, like a swallowLet us follow, follow, follow,Over hill and over hollow,Past the plains of Teute and Pole![There is semblance of a sound in the darkness as of a rushingthrough the air.]SCENE IVTHE FIELD OF BORODINO[Borodino, seventy miles west of Moscow, is revealed in a bird’s-eye view from a point above the position of the French Grand Army,advancing on the Russian capital.We are looking east, towards Moscow and the army of Russia, whichbars the way thither. The sun of latter summer, sinking behindour backs, floods the whole prospect, which is mostly wild,uncultivated land with patches of birch-trees. NAPOLÉON’S armyhas just arrived on the scene, and is making its bivouac for thenight, some of the later regiments not having yet come up. Adropping fire of musketry from skirmishers ahead keeps snappingthrough the air. The Emperor’s tent stands in a ravine in theforeground amid the squares of the Old Guard. Aides and otherofficers are chatting outside.Enter NAPOLÉON, who dismounts, speaks to some of his suite, anddisappears inside his tent. An interval follows, during which thesun dips.Enter COLONEL FABVRIER, aide-de-camp of MARMONT, just arrived fromSpain. An officer-in-waiting goes into NAPOLÉON’S tent to announceFABVRIER, the Colonel meanwhile talking to those outside.]AN AIDEImportant tidings thence, I make no doubt?FABVRIERMarmont repulsed on Salamanca field,And well-nigh slain, is the best tale I bring![A silence. A coughing heard in NAPOLÉON’S tent.]Whose rheumy throat distracts the quiet so?AIDEThe Emperor’s. He is thus the livelong day.[COLONEL FABVRIER is shown into the tent. An interval. Then thehusky accents of NAPOLÉON within, growing louder and louder.]VOICE OF NAPOLÉONIf Marmont—so I gather from these lines—Had let the English and the Spanish be,They would have bent from Salamanca back,Offering no battle, to our profiting!We should have been delivered this disaster,Whose bruit will harm us more than aught besidesThat has befallen in Spain!VOICE OF FABVRIERI fear so, sire.VOICE OF NAPOLÉONHe forced a conflict, to cull laurel crownsBefore King Joseph should arrive to share them!VOICE OF FABVRIERThe army’s ardour for your Majesty,Its courage, its devotion to your cause,Cover a myriad of the Marshal’s sins.VOICE OF NAPOLÉONWhy gave he battle without biddance, pray,From the supreme commander? Here’s the crimeOf insubordination, root of woes!...The time well chosen, and the battle won,The English succours there had sidled off,And their annoy in the PeninsulaEmbarrassed us no more. Behoves it me,Some day, to face this Wellington myself!Marmont too plainly is no match for him....Thus he goes on: “To have preserved commandI would with joy have changed this early woundFor foulest mortal stroke at fall of day.One baleful moment damnified the fruitOf six weeks’ wise strategics, whose resultHad loomed so certain!”—[Satirically] Well, we’ve but his wordAs to their wisdom! To define them thusWould not have struck me but for his good prompting!...No matter: On Moskowa’s banks to-morrowI’ll mend his faults upon the Arapeile.I’ll see how I can treat this Russian hordeWhich English gold has brought together hereFrom the four corners of the universe....Adieu. You’d best go now and take some rest.[FABVRIER reappears from the tent and goes. Enter DE BAUSSET.]DE BAUSSETThe box that came—has it been taken in?AN OFFICERYes, General ’Tis laid behind a screenIn the outer tent. As yet his MajestyHas not been told of it.[DE BAUSSET goes into the tent. After an interval of murmuredtalk an exclamation bursts from the EMPEROR. In a few minutes heappears at the tent door, a valet following him bearing a picture.The EMPEROR’S face shows traces of emotion.]NAPOLÉONBring out a chair for me to poise it on.[Re-enter DE BAUSSET from the tent with a chair.]They all shall see it. Yes, my soldier-sonsMust gaze upon this son of mine own houseIn art’s presentment! It will cheer their hearts.That’s a good light—just so.[He is assisted by DE BAUSSET to set up the picture in the chair.It is a portrait of the young King of Rome playing at cup-and-ballbeing represented as the globe. The officers standing near areattracted round, and then the officers and soldiers further backbegin running up, till there is a great crowd.]Let them walk past,So that they see him all. The Old Guard first.[The Old Guard is summoned, and marches past surveying the picture;then other regiments.]SOLDIERSThe Emperor and the King of Rome for ever![When they have marched past and withdrawn, and DE BAUSSET hastaken away the picture, NAPOLÉON prepares to re-enter his tent.But his attention is attracted to the Russians. He regards themthrough his glass. Enter BESSIERES and RAPP.]NAPOLÉONWhat slow, weird ambulation do I mark,Rippling the Russian host?BESSIERESA progress, sire,Of all their clergy, vestmented, who bearAn image, said to work strange miracles.[NAPOLÉON watches. The Russian ecclesiastics pass through theregiments, which are under arms, bearing the icon and otherreligious insignia. The Russian soldiers kneel before it.]NAPOLÉONAy! Not content to stand on their own strength,They try to hire the enginry of Heaven.I am no theologian, but I laughThat men can be so grossly logicless,When war, defensive or aggressive either,Is in its essence pagan, and opposedTo the whole gist of Christianity!BESSIERES’Tis to fanaticize their courage, sire.NAPOLÉONBetter they’d wake up old Kutúzof.—Rapp,What think you of to-morrow?RAPPVictory;But, sire, a bloody one!NAPOLÉONSo I foresee.[The scene darkens, and the fires of the bivouacs shine up ruddily,those of the French near at hand, those of the Russians in a longline across the mid-distance, and throwing a flapping glare intothe heavens. As the night grows stiller the ballad-singing andlaughter from the French mixes with a slow singing of psalms fromtheir adversaries.The two multitudes lie down to sleep, and all is quiet but forthe sputtering of the green wood fires, which, now that the humantongues are still, seem to hold a conversation of their own.]SCENE VTHE SAME[The prospect lightens with dawn, and the sun rises red. Thespacious field of battle is now distinct, its ruggedness beingbisected by the great road from Smolensk to Moscow, which runscentrally from beneath the spectator to the furthest horizon.The field is also crossed by the stream Kalotcha, flowing fromthe right-centre foreground to the left-centre background, thusforming an “X” with the road aforesaid, intersecting it in mid-distance at the village of Borodino.Behind this village the Russians have taken their stand in closemasses. So stand also the French, who have in their centre theShevardino redoubt beyond the Kalotcha. Here NAPOLÉON, in hisusual glue-grey uniform, white waistcoat, and white leatherbreeches, chooses his position with BERTHIER and other officersof his suite.]DUMB SHOWIt is six o’clock, and the firing of a single cannon on the Frenchside proclaims that the battle is beginning. There is a roll ofdrums, and the right-centre masses, glittering in the level shine,advance under NEY and DAVOUT and throw themselves on the Russians,here defended by redoubts.The French enter the redoubts, whereupon a slim, small man, GENERALBAGRATION, brings across a division from the Russian right and expelsthem resolutely.Semenovskoye is a commanding height opposite the right of the French,and held by the Russians. Cannon and columns, infantry and cavalry,assault it by tens of thousands, but cannot take it.Aides gallop through the screeching shot and haze of smoke and dustbetween NAPOLÉON and his various marshals. The Emperor walks about,looks through his glass, goes to a camp-stool, on which he sits down,and drinks glasses of spirits and hot water to relieve his stillviolent cold, as may be discovered from his red eyes, raw nose,rheumatic manner when he moves, and thick voice in giving orders.SPIRIT OF THE PITIESSo he fulfils the inhuman antickingsHe thinks imposed upon him.... What says he?SPIRIT OF RUMOURHe says it is the sun of Austerlitz!The Russians, so far from being driven out of their redoubts,issue from them towards the French. But they have to retreat,BAGRATION and his Chief of Staff being wounded. NAPOLÉON sipshis grog hopefully, and orders a still stronger attack on thegreat redoubt in the centre.It is carried out. The redoubt becomes the scene of a hugemassacre. In other parts of the field also the action almostceases to be a battle, and takes the form of wholesale butcheryby the thousand, now advantaging one side, now the other.SPIRIT OF THE YEARSThus do the mindless minions of the spellIn mechanized enchantment sway and showA Will that wills above the will of each,Yet but the will of all conjunctively;A fabric of excitement, web of rage,That permeates as one stuff the weltering whole.SPIRIT OF THE PITIESThe ugly horror grossly regnant hereWakes even the drowsed half-drunken DictatorTo all its vain uncouthness!SPIRIT OF RUMOURMurat criesThat on this much-anticipated dayNapoléon’s genius flags inoperative.The firing from the top of the redoubt has ceased. The French havegot inside. The Russians retreat upon their rear, and fortifythemselves on the heights there. PONIATOWSKI furiously attacks them.But the French are worn out, and fall back to their station beforethe battle. So the combat dies resultlessly away. The sun sets, andthe opposed and exhausted hosts sink to lethargic repose. NAPOLÉONenters his tent in the midst of his lieutenants, and night descends.SHADE OF THE EARTHThe fumes of nitre and the reek of goreMake my airs foul and fulsome unto me!SPIRIT IRONICThe natural nausea of a nurse, dear Dame.SPIRIT OF RUMOURStrange: even within that tent no notes of joyThrob as at Austerlitz! [signifying Napoléon’s tent].SPIRIT OF THE PITIESBut mark that roar—A mash of men’s crazed cries entreating matesTo run them through and end their agony;Boys calling on their mothers, veteransBlaspheming God and man. Those shady shapesAre horses, maimed in myriads, tearing roundIn maddening pangs, the harnessings they wearClanking discordant jingles as they tear!SPIRIT OF THE YEARSIt is enough. Let now the scene be closed.The night thickens.SCENE VIMOSCOW[The foreground is an open place amid the ancient irregular streetsof the city, which disclose a jumble of architectural styles, theAsiatic prevailing over the European. A huge triangular white-walled fortress rises above the churches and coloured domes on ahill in the background, the central feature of which is a loftytower with a gilded cupola, the Ivan Tower. Beneath the battlementsof this fortress the Moskva River flows.An unwonted rumbling of wheels proceeds from the cobble-stonedstreets, accompanied by an incessant cracking of whips.]DUMB SHOWTravelling carriages, teams, and waggons, laden with pictures,carpets, glass, silver, china, and fashionable attire, are rollingout of the city, followed by foot-passengers in streams, who carrytheir most precious possessions on their shoulders. Others beartheir sick relatives, caring nothing for their goods, and mothersgo laden with their infants. Others drive their cows, sheep, andgoats, causing much obstruction. Some of the populace, however,appear apathetic and bewildered, and stand in groups asking questions.A thin man with piercing eyes gallops about and gives stern orders.SPIRIT OF THE PITIESWhose is the form seen ramping restlessly,Geared as a general, keen-eyed as a kite,Mid this mad current of close-filed confusion;High-ordering, smartening progress in the slow,And goading those by their own thoughts o’er-goaded;Whose emissaries knock at every doorIn rhythmal rote, and groan the great eventsThe hour is pregnant with?SPIRIT OF THE YEARSRostopchin he,The city governor, whose name will ringFar down the forward years uncannily!SPIRIT OF RUMOURHis arts are strange, and strangely do they move him:—To store the stews with stuffs inflammable,To bid that pumps be wrecked, captives enlargedAnd primed with brands for burning, are the intentsHis warnings to the citizens outshade!When the bulk of the populace has passed out eastwardly the Russianarmy retreating from Borodino also passes through the city into thecountry beyond without a halt. They mostly move in solemn silence,though many soldiers rush from their ranks and load themselves withspoil.When they are got together again and have marched out, there goes byon his horse a strange scarred old man with a foxy look, a swollenneck and head and a hunched figure. He is KUTÚZOF, surrounded byhis lieutenants. Away in the distance by other streets and bridgeswith other divisions pass in like manner GENERALS BENNIGSEN, BARCLAYDE TOLLY, DOKHTÓROF, the mortally wounded BAGRATION in a carriage, andother generals, all in melancholy procession one way, like autumnalbirds of passage. Then the rear-guard passes under MILORADOVITCH.Next comes a procession of another kind.A long string of carts with wounded men is seen, which trails out ofthe city behind the army. Their clothing is soiled with dried blood,and the bandages that enwrap them are caked with it.The greater part of this migrant multitude takes the high road toVladimir.SCENE VIITHE SAME. OUTSIDE THE CITY[A hill forms the foreground, called the Hill of Salutation, nearthe Smolensk road.Herefrom the city appears as a splendid panorama, with its river,its gardens, and its curiously grotesque architecture of domes andspires. It is the peacock of cities to Western eyes, its roofstwinkling in the rays of the September sun, amid which the ancientcitadel of the Tsars—the Kremlin—forms a centre-piece.There enter on the hill at a gallop NAPOLÉON, MURAT, EUGÈNE, NEY,DARU, and the rest of the Imperial staff. The French advance-guard is drawn up in order of battle at the foot of the hill, andthe long columns of the Grand Army stretch far in the rear. TheEmperor and his marshals halt, and gaze at Moscow.]NAPOLÉONHa! There she is at last. And it was time.[He looks round upon his army, its numbers attenuated to one-fourthof those who crossed the Niemen so joyfully.]Yes: it was time.... NOW what says Alexander!DARUThis is a foil to Salamanca, sire!DAVOUTWhat scores of bulbous church-tops gild the sky!Souls must be rotten in this region, sire,To need so much repairing!NAPOLÉONAy—no doubt....Prithee march briskly on, to check disorder,[to Murat].Hold word with the authorities forthwith,[to Durasnel].Tell them that they may swiftly swage their fears,Safe in the mercy I by rule extendTo vanquished ones. I wait the city keys,And will receive the Governor’s submissionWith courtesy due. Eugène will guard the gateTo Petersburg there leftward. You, Davout,The gate to Smolensk in the centre hereWhich we shall enter by.VOICES OF ADVANCE-GUARDMoscow! Moscow!This, this is Moscow city. Rest at last![The words are caught up in the rear by veterans who have enteredevery capital in Europe except London, and are echoed from rank torank. There is a far-extended clapping of hands, like the babbleof waves, and companies of foot run in disorder towards high groundto behold the spectacle, waving their shakos on their bayonets.The army now marches on, and NAPOLÉON and his suite disappearcitywards from the Hill of Salutation.The day wanes ere the host has passed and dusk begins to prevail,when tidings reach the rear-guard that cause dismay. They havebeen sent back lip by lip from the front.]SPIRIT IRONICAn anticlimax to Napoléon’s dream!SPIRIT OF RUMOURThey say no governor attends with keysTo offer his submission gracefully.The streets are solitudes, the houses sealed,And stagnant silence reigns, save where intrudesThe rumbling of their own artillery wheels,And their own soldiers’ measured tramp along.“Moscow deserted? What a monstrous thing!”—He shrugs his shoulders soon, contemptuously;“This, then is how Muscovy fights!” cries he.Meanwhile Murat has reached the Kremlin gates,And finds them closed against him. Battered these,The fort reverberates vacant as the streetsBut for some grinning wretches gaoled there.Enchantment seems to sway from quay to keep,And lock commotion in a century’s sleep.[NAPOLÉON, reappearing in front of the city, follows MURAT, and isagain lost to view. He has entered the Kremlin. An interval.Something becomes visible on the summit of the Ivan Tower.]CHORUS OF RUMOURS [aerial music]Mark you thereon a small lone figure gazingUpon his hard-gained goal? It is He!The startled crows, their broad black pinions raising,Forsake their haunts, and wheel disquietedly.[The scene slowly darkens. Midnight hangs over the city. Inblackness to the north of where the Kremlin stands appears what atfirst seems a lurid, malignant star. It waxes larger. Almostsimultaneously a north-east wind rises, and the light glows andsinks with the gusts, proclaiming a fire, which soon grows largeenough to irradiate the fronts of adjacent buildings, and to showthat it is creeping on towards the Kremlin itself, the walls ofthat fortress which face the flames emerging from their previousshade.The fire can be seen breaking out also in numerous other quarters.All the conflagrations increase, and become, as those at firstdetached group themselves together, one huge furnace, whencestreamers of flame reach up to the sky, brighten the landscapefar around, and show the houses as if it were day. The blazegains the Kremlin, and licks its walls, but does not kindle it.Explosions and hissings are constantly audible, amid which can befancied cries and yells of people caught in the combustion. Largepieces of canvas aflare sail away on the gale like balloons.Cocks crow, thinking it sunrise, ere they are burnt to death.]SCENE VIIITHE SAME. THE INTERIOR OF THE KREMLIN[A chamber containing a bed on which NAPOLÉON has been lying. Itis not yet daybreak, and the flapping light of the conflagrationwithout shines in at the narrow windows.NAPOLÉON is discovered dressed, but in disorder and unshaven. Heis walking up and down the room in agitation. There are presentCAULAINCOURT, BESSIERES, and many of the marshals of his guard,who stand in silent perplexity.]NAPOLÉON [sitting down on the bed]No: I’ll not go! It is themselves who have done it.My God, they are Scythians and barbarians still![Enter MORTIER [just made Governor].]MORTIERSire, there’s no means of fencing with the flames.My creed is that these scurvy MuscovitesKnowing our men’s repute for recklessness,Have fired the town, as if ’twere we had done it,As by our own crazed act![GENERAL LARIBOISIERE, and aged man, enters and approachesNAPOLÉON.]LARIBOISIEREThe wind swells higher!Will you permit one so high-summed in years,One so devoted, sire, to speak his mind?It is that your long lingering here entailsMuch risk for you, your army, and ourselves,In the embarrassment it throws on usWhile taking steps to seek security,By hindering venturous means.[Enter MURAT, PRINCE EUGÈNE, and the PRINCE OF NEUFCHÂTEL.]MURATThere is no choiceBut leaving, sire. Enormous bulks of powderLie housed beneath us; and outside these panesA park of our artillery stands unscreened.NAPOLÉON [saturninely]What have I won I disincline to cede!VOICE OF A GUARD [without]The Kremlin is aflame![The look at each other. Two officers of NAPOLÉON’S guard and aninterpreter enter, with one of the Russian military police as aprisoner.]FIRST OFFICERWe have caught this manFiring the Kremlin: yea, in the very act!It is extinguished temporarily,We know not for how long.NAPOLÉONInquire of himWhat devil set him on. [They inquire.]SECOND OFFICERThe governor,He says; the Count Rostopchin, sire.NAPOLÉONSo! Even the ancient Kremlin is not sanctFrom their infernal scheme! Go, take him out;Make him a quick example to the rest.[Exeunt guard with their prisoner to the court below, whence amusket-volley resounds in a few minutes. Meanwhile the flamespop and spit more loudly, and the window-panes of the room theystand in crack and fall in fragments.]Incendiarism afoot, and we unwareOf what foul tricks may follow, I will go.Outwitted here, we’ll march on Petersburg,The Devil if we won’t![The marshals murmur and shake their heads.]BESSIERESYour pardon, sire,But we are all convinced that weather, time,Provisions, roads, equipment, mettle, mood,Serve not for such a perilous enterprise.[NAPOLÉON remains in gloomy silence. Enter BERTHIER.]NAPOLÉON [apathetically]Well, Berthier. More misfortunes?BERTHIERNews is brought,Sire, of the Russian army’s whereabouts.That fox Kutúzof, after marching eastAs if he were conducting his whole forceTo Vladimir, when at the Riazan RoadDown-doubled sharply south, and in a curveHas wheeled round Moscow, making for Kalouga,To strike into our base, and cut us off.MURATAnother reason against Petersburg!Come what come may, we must defeat that army,To keep a sure retreat through Smolensk onTo Lithuania.NAPOLÉON [jumping up]I must act! We’ll leave,Or we shall let this Moscow be our tomb.May Heaven curse the author of this war—Ay, him, that Russian minister, self-soldTo England, who fomented it.—’Twas heDragged Alexander into it, and me![The marshals are silent with looks of incredulity, and Caulaincourtshrugs his shoulders.]Now no more words; but hear. Eugène and NeyWith their divisions fall straight back uponThe Petersburg and Zwenigarod Roads;Those of Davout upon the Smolensk route.I will retire meanwhile to Petrowskoi.Come, let us go.[NAPOLÉON and the marshals move to the door. In leaving, theEmperor pauses and looks back.]I fear that this eventMarks the beginning of a train of ills....Moscow was meant to be my rest,My refuge, and—it vanishes away![Exeunt NAPOLÉON, marshals, etc. The smoke grows denser andobscures the scene.]SCENE IXTHE ROAD FROM SMOLENSKO INTO LITHUANIA[The season is far advanced towards winter. The point of observationis high amongst the clouds, which, opening and shutting fitfully tothe wind, reveal the earth as a confused expanse merely.]SPIRIT OF THE PITIESWhere are we? And why are we where we are?SHADE OF THE EARTHAbove a wild waste garden-plot of mineNigh bare in this late age, and now grown chill,Lithuania called by some. I gather notWhy we haunt here, where I can work no charmEither upon the ground or over it.SPIRIT OF THE YEARSThe wherefore will unfold. The rolling brumeThat parts, and joins, and parts again below usIn ragged restlessness, unscreens by fitsThe quality of the scene.SPIRIT OF THE PITIESI notice nowPrimeval woods, pine, birch—the skinny growthsThat can sustain life well where earth affordsBut sustenance elsewhere yclept starvation.SPIRIT OF THE YEARSAnd what see you on the far land-verge there,Labouring from eastward towards our longitude?SPIRIT OF THE PITIESAn object like a dun-piled caterpillar,Shuffling its length in painful heaves along,Hitherward.... Yea, what is this Thing we seeWhich, moving as a single monster might,Is yet not one but many?SPIRIT OF THE YEARSEven the ArmyWhich once was called the Grand; now in retreatFrom Moscow’s muteness, urged by That within it;Together with its train of followers—Men, matrons, babes, in brabbling multitudes.SPIRIT OF THE PITIESAnd why such flight?SPIRIT OF THE YEARSRecording Angels, say.RECORDING ANGEL I [in minor plain-song]The host has turned from Moscow where it lay,And Israel-like, moved by some master-sway,Is made to wander on and waste away!ANGEL IIBy track of Tarutino first it flits;Thence swerving, strikes at old Jaroslawitz;The which, accurst by slaughtering swords, it quits.ANGEL IHarassed, it treads the trail by which it came,To Borodino, field of bloodshot fame,Whence stare unburied horrors beyond name!ANGEL IIAnd so and thus it nears Smolensko’s walls,And, stayed its hunger, starts anew its crawls,Till floats down one white morsel, which appals.[What has floated down from the sky upon the Army is a flake ofsnow. Then come another and another, till natural features,hitherto varied with the tints of autumn, are confounded, and allis phantasmal grey and white.The caterpillar shape still creeps laboriously nearer, but instead,increasing in size by the rules of perspective, it gets moreattenuated, and there are left upon the ground behind it minuteparts of itself, which are speedily flaked over, and remain aswhite pimples by the wayside.]SPIRIT OF THE YEARSThese atoms that drop off are snuffed-out soulsWho are enghosted by the caressing snow.[Pines rise mournfully on each side of the nearing object; ravensin flocks advance with it overhead, waiting to pick out the eyesof strays who fall. The snowstorm increases, descending in tuftswhich can hardly be shaken off. The sky seems to join itself tothe land. The marching figures drop rapidly, and almost immediatelybecome white grave-mounds.Endowed with enlarged powers of audition as of vision, we are struckby the mournful taciturnity that prevails. Nature is mute. Savefor the incessant flogging of the wind-broken and lacerated horsesthere are no sounds.With growing nearness more is revealed. In the glades of the forest,parallel to the French columns, columns of Russians are seen to bemoving. And when the French presently reach Krasnoye they aresurrounded by packs of cloaked Cossacks, bearing lances like hugeneedles a dozen feet long. The fore-part of the French army getsthrough the town; the rear is assaulted by infantry and artillery.]SPIRIT OF THE PITIESThe strange, one-eyed, white-shakoed, scarred old man,Ruthlessly heading every onset made,I seem to recognize.SPIRIT OF THE YEARSKutúzof he:The ceaselessly-attacked one, Michael Ney;A pair as stout as thou, Earth, ever hast twinned!Kutúzof, ten years younger, would extirpThe invaders, and our drama finish here,With Bonaparte a captive or a corpse.But he is old; death even has beckoned him;And thus the so near-seeming happens not.[NAPOLÉON himself can be discerned amid the rest, marching on footthrough the snowflakes, in a fur coat and with a stout staff in hishand. Further back NEY is visible with the remains of the rear.There is something behind the regular columns like an articulatedtail, and as they draw on, it shows itself to be a disorderly rabbleof followers of both sexes. So the whole miscellany arrives at theforeground, where it is checked by a large river across the track.The soldiers themselves, like the rabble, are in motley raiment,some wearing rugs for warmth, some quilts and curtains, some evenpetticoats and other women’s clothing. Many are delirious fromhunger and cold.But they set about doing what is a necessity for the least hope ofsalvation, and throw a bridge across the stream.The point of vision descends to earth, close to the scene of action.]SCENE XTHE BRIDGE OF THE BERESINA[The bridge is over the Beresina at Studzianka. On each side ofthe river are swampy meadows, now hard with frost, while furtherback are dense forests. Ice floats down the deep black stream inlarge cakes.]DUMB SHOWThe French sappers are working up to their shoulders in the water atthe building of the bridge. Those so immersed work till, stiffenedwith ice to immobility, they die from the chill, when others succeedthem.Cavalry meanwhile attempt to swim their horses across, and someinfantry try to wade through the stream.Another bridge is begun hard by, the construction of which advanceswith greater speed; and it becomes fit for the passage of carriagesand artillery.NAPOLÉON is seen to come across to the homeward bank, which is theforeground of the scene. A good portion of the army also, underDAVOUT, NEY, and OUDINOT, lands by degrees on this side. ButVICTOR’S corps is yet on the left or Moscow side of the stream,moving toward the bridge, and PARTONNEAUX with the rear-guard, whohas not yet crossed, is at Borissow, some way below, where there isan old permanent bridge partly broken.Enter with speed from the distance the Russians under TCHAPLITZ.More under TCHICHAGOFF enter the scene down the river on the leftor further bank, and cross by the old bridge of Borissow. But theyare too far from the new crossing to intercept the French as yet.PLATOFF with his Cossacks next appears on the stage which is to besuch a tragic one. He comes from the forest and approaches the leftbank likewise. So also does WITTGENSTEIN, who strikes in betweenthe uncrossed VICTOR and PARTONNEAUX. PLATOFF thereupon descendson the latter, who surrenders with the rear-guard; and thus seventhousand more are cut off from the already emaciated Grand Army.TCHAPLITZ, of TCHICHAGOFF’S division, has meanwhile got round by theold bridge at Borissow to the French side of the new one, and attacksOUDINOT; but he is repulsed with the strength of despair. The Frenchlose a further five thousand in this.We now look across the river at VICTOR, and his division, not yetover, and still defending the new bridges. WITTGENSTEIN descendsupon him; but he holds his ground.The determined Russians set up a battery of twelve cannon, so as tocommand the two new bridges, with the confused crowd of soldiers,carriages, and baggage, pressing to cross. The battery dischargesinto the surging multitude. More Russians come up, and, forming asemicircle round the bridges and the mass of French, fire yet morehotly on them with round shot and canister. As it gets dark theflashes light up the strained faces of the fugitives. Under thedischarge and the weight of traffic, the bridge for the artillerygives way, and the throngs upon it roll shrieking into the streamand are drowned.SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES [aerial music]So loudly swell their shrieks as to be heard above the roar of gunsand the wailful wind,Giving in one brief cry their last wild word on that mock lifethrough which they have harlequined!SEMICHORUS IITo the other bridge the living heap betakes itself, the weak pushedover by the strong;They loop together by their clutch like snakes; in knots theyare submerged and borne along.CHORUSThen women are seen in the waterflow—limply bearing theirinfants between wizened white arms stretching above;Yea, motherhood, sheerly sublime in her last despairing, andlighting her darkest declension with limitless love.Meanwhile, TCHICHAGOFF has come up with his twenty-seven thousand men,and falls on OUDINOT, NEY, and the “Sacred Squadron.” Altogether wesee forty or fifty thousand assailing eighteen thousand half-naked,badly armed wretches, emaciated with hunger and encumbered withseveral thousands of sick, wounded, and stragglers.VICTOR and his rear-guard, who have protected the bridges all day,come over themselves at last. No sooner have they done so than thefinal bridge is set on fire. Those who are upon it burn or drown;those who are on the further side have lost their last chance, andperish either in attempting to wade the stream or at the hands ofthe Russians.SEMICHORUS OF THE PITIES [aerial music]What will be seen in the morning light?What will be learnt when the spring breaks bright,And the frost unlocks to the sun’s soft sight?SEMICHORUS IIDeath in a thousand motley forms;Charred corpses hooking each other’s armsIn the sleep that defies all war’s alarms!CHORUSPale cysts of souls in every stage,Still bent to embraces of love or rage,—Souls passed to where History pens no page.The flames of the burning bridge go out as it consumes to the water’sedge, and darkness mantles all, nothing continuing but the purl ofthe river and the clickings of floating ice.SCENE XITHE OPEN COUNTRY BETWEEN SMORGONI AND WILNA[The winter is more merciless, and snow continues to fall upon adeserted expanse of unenclosed land in Lithuania. Some scatteredbirch bushes merge in a forest in the background.It is growing dark, though nothing distinguishes where the sunsets. There is no sound except that of a shuffling of feet inthe direction of a bivouac. Here are gathered tattered men likeskeletons. Their noses and ears are frost-bitten, and pus isoozing from their eyes.These stricken shades in a limbo of gloom are among the lastsurvivors of the French army. Few of them carry arms. One squad,ploughing through snow above their knees, and with icicles danglingfrom their hair that clink like glass-lustres as they walk, gointo the birch wood, and are heard chopping. They bring backboughs, with which they make a screen on the windward side, andcontrive to light a fire. With their swords they cut rashers froma dead horse, and grill them in the flames, using gunpowder forsalt to eat them with. Two others return from a search, with adead rat and some candle-ends. Their meal shared, some try torepair their gaping shoes and to tie up their feet, that arechilblained to the bone.A straggler enters, who whispers to one or two soldiers of thegroup. A shudder runs through them at his words.]FIRST SOLDIER [dazed]What—gone, do you say? Gone?STRAGGLERYes, I say gone!He left us at Smorgoni hours ago.The Sacred Squadron even he has left behind.By this time he’s at Warsaw or beyond,Full pace for Paris.SECOND SOLDIER [jumping up wildly]Gone? How did he go?No, surely! He could not desert us so!STRAGGLERHe started in a carriage, with RoustanThe Mameluke on the box: Caulaincourt, too,Was inside with him. Monton and DurocRode on a sledge behind.—The order badeThat we should not be told it for a while.[Other soldiers spring up as they realize the news, and stamphither and thither, impotent with rage, grief, and despair, manyin their physical weakness sobbing like children.]SPIRIT SINISTERGood. It is the selfish and unconscionable characters who are so muchregretted.STRAGGLERHe felt, or feigned, he ought to leave no longerA land like Prussia ’twixt himself and home.There was great need for him to go, he said,To quiet France, and raise another armyThat shall replace our bones.SEVERAL [distractedly]Deserted us!Deserted us!—O, after all our pangsWe shall see France no more![Some become insane, and go dancing round. One of them sings.]MAD SOLDIER’S SONGIHa, for the snow and hoar!Ho, for our fortune’s made!We can shape our bed without sheets to spread,And our graves without a spade.So foolish Life adieu,And ingrate Leader too.—Ah, but we loved you true!Yet—he-he-he! and ho-ho-ho-!—We’ll never return to you.IIWhat can we wish for more?Thanks to the frost and floodWe are grinning crones—thin bags of bonesWho once were flesh and blood.So foolish Life adieu,And ingrate Leader too.—Ah, but we loved you true!Yet—he-he-he! and ho-ho-ho!—We’ll never return to you.[Exhausted, they again crouch round the fire. Officers andprivates press together for warmth. Other stragglers arrive, andsit at the backs of the first. With the progress of the night thestars come out in unusual brilliancy, Sirius and those in Orionflashing like stilettos; and the frost stiffens.The fire sinks and goes out; but the Frenchmen do not move. Theday dawns, and still they sit on.In the background enter some light horse of the Russian army,followed by KUTÚZOF himself and a few of his staff. He presentsa terrible appearance now—bravely serving though slowly dying,his face puffed with the intense cold, his one eye staring out ashe sits in a heap in the saddle, his head sunk into his shoulders.The whole detachment pauses at the sight of the French asleep.They shout; but the bivouackers give no sign.KUTÚZOFGo, stir them up! We slay not sleeping men.[The Russians advance and prod the French with their lances.]RUSSIAN OFFICERPrince, here’s a curious picture. They are dead.KUTÚZOF [with indifference]Oh, naturally. After the snow was downI marked a sharpening of the air last night.We shall be stumbling on such frost-baked meatMost of the way to Wilna.OFFICER [examining the bodies]They all sitAs they were living still, but stiff as horns;And even the colour has not left their cheeks,Whereon the tears remain in strings of ice.—It was a marvel they were not consumed:Their clothes are cindered by the fire in front,While at their back the frost has caked them hard.KUTÚZOF’Tis well. So perish Russia’s enemies![Exeunt KUTÚZOF, his staff, and the detachment of horse in thedirection of Wilna; and with the advance of day the snow resumesits fall, slowly burying the dead bivouackers.]SCENE XIIPARIS. THE TUILERIES[An antechamber to the EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE’S bedroom, at half-pasteleven on a December night. The DUCHESS OF MONTEBELLO and anotherlady-in-waiting are discovered talking to the Empress.]MARIE LOUISEI have felt unapt for anything to-night,And I will now retire.[She goes into her child’s room adjoining.]DUCHESS OF MONTEBELLOFor some long whileThere has come no letter from the Emperor,And Paris brims with ghastly rumouringsAbout the far campaign. Not being beloved,The town is over dull for her alone.[Re-enter MARIE LOUISE.]MARIE LOUISEThe King of Rome is sleeping in his cotSweetly and safe. Now, ladies, I am going.[She withdraws. Her tiring-women pass through into her chamber.They presently return and go out. A manservant enters, and barsthe window-shutters with numerous bolts. Exit manservant. TheDuchess retires. The other lady-in-waiting rises to go into herbedroom, which adjoins that of the Empress.Men’s voices are suddenly heard in the corridor without. The lady-in-waiting pauses with parted lips. The voices grow louder. Thelady-in-waiting screams.MARIE LOUISE hastily re-enters in a dressing-gown thrown over hernight-clothes.]MARIE LOUISEGreat God, what altercation can that be?I had just verged on sleep when it aroused me![A thumping is heard at the door.]VOICE OF NAPOLÉON [without]Hola! Pray let me in! Unlock the door!LADY-IN-WAITINGHeaven’s mercy on us! What man may it beAt such and hour as this?MARIE LOUISEO it is he![The lady-in-waiting unlocks the door. NAPOLÉON enters, scarcelyrecognizable, in a fur cloak and hood over his ears. He throwsoff the cloak and discloses himself to be in the shabbiest andmuddiest attire. Marie Louise is agitated almost to fainting.]SPIRIT IRONICIs it with fright or joy?MARIE LOUISEI scarce believeWhat my sight tells me! Home, and in such garb![NAPOLÉON embraces her.]NAPOLÉONI have had great work in getting in, my dear!They failed to recognize me at the gates,Being sceptical at my poor hackney-coachAnd poorer baggage. I had to show my faceIn a fierce light ere they would let me pass,And even then they doubted till I spoke.—What think you, dear, of such a tramp-like spouse?[He warms his hands at the fire.]Ha—it is much more comfortable hereThan on the Russian plains!MARIE LOUISE [timidly]You have suffered there?—Your face is thinner, and has line in it;No marvel that they did not know you!NAPOLÉONYes:Disasters many and swift have swooped on me!—Since crossing—ugh!—the Beresina RiverI have been compelled to come incognito;Ay—as a fugitive and outlaw quite.MARIE LOUISEWe’ll thank Heaven, anyhow, that you are safe.I had gone to bed, and everybody almost!what, now, do require? Some food of course?[The child in the adjoining chamber begins to cry, awakened by theloud tones of NAPOLÉON.]NAPOLÉONAh—that’s his little voice! I’ll in and see him.MARIE LOUISEI’ll come with you.[NAPOLÉON and the EMPRESS pass into the other room. The lady-in-waiting calls up yawning servants and gives orders. The servantsgo to execute them. Re-enter NAPOLÉON and MARIE LOUISE. The lady-in-waiting goes out.]NAPOLÉONI have said it, dear!All the disasters summed in the bulletinShall be repaired.MARIE LOUISEAnd are they terrible?NAPOLÉONHave you not read the last-sent bulletin,Dear friend?MARIE LOUISENo recent bulletin has come.NAPOLÉONAh—I must have outstripped it on the way!MARIE LOUISEAnd where is the Grand Army?NAPOLÉONOh—that’s gone.MARIE LOUISEGone? But—gone where?NAPOLÉONGone all to nothing, dear.MARIE LOUISE [incredulously]But some six hundred thousand I saw passThrough Dresden Russia-wards?NAPOLÉON [flinging himself into a chair]Well, those men lie—Or most of them—in layers of bleaching bones’Twixt here and Moscow.... I have been subdued;But by the elements; and them alone.Not Russia, but God’s sky has conquered me![With an appalled look she sits beside him.]From the sublime to the ridiculousThere’s but a step!—I have been saying itAll through the leagues of my long journey home—And that step has been passed in this affair!...Yes, briefly, it is quite ridiculous,Whichever way you look at it.—Ha, ha!MARIE LOUISE [simply]But those six hundred thousand throbbing throatsThat cheered me deaf at Dresden, marching eastSo full of youth and spirits—all bleached bones—Ridiculous? Can it be so, dear, to—Their mothers say?NAPOLÉON [with a twitch of displeasure]You scarcely understand.I meant the enterprise, and not its stuff....I had no wish to fight, nor Alexander,But circumstance impaled us each on each;The Genius who outshapes my destiniesDid all the rest! Had I but hit success,Imperial splendour would have worn a crownUnmatched in long-scrolled Time!... Well, leave that now.—What do they know about all this in Paris?MARIE LOUSEI cannot say. Black rumours fly and croakLike ravens through the streets, but come to meThinned to the vague!—Occurrences in SpainBreed much disquiet with these other things.Marmont’s defeat at Salamanca fieldPloughed deep into men’s brows. The cafes sayYour troops must clear from Spain.NAPOLÉONWe’ll see to that!I’ll find a way to do a better thing;Though I must have another army first—Three hundred thousand quite. Fishes as goodSwim in the sea as have come out of it.But to begin, we must make sure of France,Disclose ourselves to the good folk of ParisIn daily outing as a family group,The type and model of domestic bliss[Which, by the way, we are]. And I intend,Also, to gild the dome of the InvalidesIn best gold leaf, and on a novel pattern.MARIE LOUISETo gild the dome, dear? Why?NAPOLÉONTo give them somethingTo think about. They’ll take to it like children,And argue in the cafes right and leftOn its artistic points.—So they’ll forgetThe woes of Moscow.[A chamberlain-in-waiting announces supper. MARIE LOUISE andNAPOLÉON go out. The room darkens and the scene closes.]
THE BANKS OF THE NIEMEN, NEAR KOWNO[The foreground is a hillock on a broken upland, seen in eveningtwilight. On the left, further back, are the dusky forests ofWilkowsky; on the right is the vague shine of a large river.Emerging from the wood below the eminence appears a shadowyamorphous thing in motion, the central or Imperial column ofNAPOLÉON’S Grand Army for the invasion of Russia, comprisingthe corps of OUDINOT, NEY, and DAVOUT, with the Imperial Guard.This, with the right and left columns, makes up the host ofnearly half a million, all starting on their march to Moscow.While the rearmost regiments are arriving, NAPOLÉON rides aheadwith GENERAL HAXEL and one or two others to reconnoitre the river.NAPOLÉON’S horse stumbles and throws him. He picks himself upbefore he can be helped.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS [to Napoléon]The portent is an ill one, Emperor;An ancient Roman would retire thereat!
NAPOLÉONWhose voice was that, jarring upon my thoughtSo insolently?
HAXEL AND OTHERSSire, we spoke no word.
NAPOLÉONThen, whoso spake, such portents I defy![He remounts. When the reconnoitrers again came back to theforeground of the scene the huge array of columns is standingquite still, in circles of companies, the captain of each inthe middle with a paper in his hand. He reads from it aproclamation. They quiver emotionally, like leaves stirred bythe wind. NAPOLÉON and his staff reascend the hillock, and hisown words as repeated to the ranks reach his ears, while hehimself delivers the same address to those about him.
NAPOLÉONSoldiers, wild war is on the board again;The lifetime-long alliance Russia sworeAt Tilsit, for the English realm’s undoing,Is violate beyond refurbishment,And she intractable and unashamed.Russia is forced on by fatality:She cries her destiny must be outwrought,Meaning at our expense. Does she then dreamWe are no more the men of Austerlitz,With nothing left of our old featfulness?She offers us the choice of sword or shame;We have made that choice unhesitatingly!Then let us forthwith stride the Niemen flood,Let us bear war into her great gaunt land,And spread our glory there as otherwhere,So that a stable peace shall stultifyThe evil seed-bearing that Russian wilesHave nourished upon Europe’s choked affairsThese fifty years![The midsummer night darkens. They all make their bivouacsand sleep.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESSomething is tongued afar.
DISTANT VOICE IN THE WINDThe hostile hatchings of Napoléon’s brainAgainst our Empire, long have harassed us,And mangled all our mild amenities.So, since the hunger for embranglementThat gnaws this man, has left us optionless,And haled us recklessly to horrid war,We have promptly mustered our well-hardened hosts,And, counting on our call to the most High,Have forthwith set our puissance face to faceAgainst Napoléon’s.—Ranksmen! officers!You fend your lives, your land, your liberty.I am with you. Heaven frowns on the aggressor.
SPIRIT IRONICHa! “Liberty” is quaint, and pleases me,Sounding from such a soil![Midsummer-day breaks, and the sun rises on the right, revealingthe position clearly. The eminence overlooks for miles the riverNiemen, now mirroring the morning rays. Across the river threetemporary bridges have been thrown, and towards them the Frenchmasses streaming out of the forest descend in three columns.They sing, shout, fling their shakos in the air and repeat wordsfrom the proclamation, their steel and brass flashing in the sun.They narrow their columns as they gain the three bridges, and beginto cross—horse, foot, and artillery.NAPOLÉON has come from the tent in which he has passed the nightto the high ground in front, where he stands watching through hisglass the committal of his army to the enterprise. DAVOUT, NEY,MURAT, OUDINOT, Generals HAXEL and EBLE, NARBONNE, and otherssurround him.It is a day of drowsing heat, and the Emperor draws a deep breathas he shifts his weight from one puffed calf to the other. Thelight cavalry, the foot, the artillery having passed, the heavyhorse now crosses, their glitter outshining the ripples on thestream.A messenger enters. NAPOLÉON reads papers that are brought, andfrowns.]
NAPOLÉONThe English heads decline to recognizeThe government of Joseph, King of Spain,As that of “the now-ruling dynast”;But only Ferdinand’s!—I’ll get to Moscow,And send thence my rejoinder. France shall wageAnother fifty years of wasting warBefore a Bourbon shall remount the throneOf restless Spain!... [A flash lights his eyes.]But this long journey now just set a-tripIs my choice way to India; and ’tis thereThat I shall next bombard the British rule.With Moscow taken, Russia prone and crushed,To attain the Ganges is simplicity—Auxiliaries from Tiflis backing me.Once ripped by a French sword, the scaffoldingOf English merchant-mastership in IndWill fall a wreck.... Vast, it is true, must bulkAn Eastern scheme so planned; but I could work it....Man has, worse fortune, but scant years for war;I am good for another five!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESWhy doth he go?—I see returning in a chattering flockBleached skeletons, instead of this arrayInvincibly equipped.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSI’ll show you why.[The unnatural light before seen usurps that of the sun, bringinginto view, like breezes made visible, the films or brain-tissues ofthe Immanent Will, that pervade all things, ramifying through thewhole army, NAPOLÉON included, and moving them to Its inexplicableartistries.]
NAPOLÉON [with sudden despondency]That which has worked will work!—Since Lodi BridgeThe force I then felt move me moves me onWhether I will or no; and oftentimesAgainst my better mind.... Why am I here?—By laws imposed on me inexorably!History makes use of me to weave her webTo her long while aforetime-figured meshAnd contemplated charactery: no more.Well, war’s my trade; and whencesoever springsThis one in hand, they’ll label it with my name![The natural light returns and the anatomy of the Will disappears.NAPOLÉON mounts his horse and descends in the rear of his host tothe banks of the Niemen. His face puts on a saturnine humour, andhe hums an air.]Malbrough s’en va-t-en guerre,Mironton, mironton, mirontaine;Malbrough s’en va-t-en guerre,Ne sait quand reviendra![Exeunt NAPOLÉON and his staff.]
SPIRIT SINISTERIt is kind of his Imperial Majesty to give me a lead. [Sings.]Monsieur d’Malbrough est mort,Mironton, mironton, mirontaine;Monsieur d’Malbrough est mort,Est mort et enterre![Anon the figure of NAPOLÉON, diminished to the aspect of a doll,reappears in front of his suite on the plain below. He ridesacross the swaying bridge. Since the morning the sky has grownovercast, and its blackness seems now to envelope the retreatingarray on the other side of the stream. The storm bursts withthunder and lightning, the river turns leaden, and the scene isblotted out by the torrents of rain.]
THE FORD OF SANTA MARTA, SALAMANCA[We are in Spain, on a July night of the same summer, the air beinghot and heavy. In the darkness the ripple of the river Tormes canbe heard over the ford, which is near the foreground of the scene.Against the gloomy north sky to the left, lightnings flashrevealing rugged heights in that quarter. From the heights comesto the ear the tramp of soldiery, broke and irregular, as byobstacles in their descent; as yet they are some distance off.On heights to the right hand, on the other side of the river,glimmer the bivouac fires of the French under MARMONT. Thelightning quickens, with rolls of thunder, and a few large dropsof rain fall.A sentinel stands close to the ford, and beyond him is the ford-house, a shed open towards the roadway and the spectator. It islit by a single lantern, and occupied by some half-dozen Englishdragoons with a sergeant and corporal, who form part of a mountedpatrol, their horses being picketed at the entrance. They areseated on a bench, and appear to be waiting with some deep intent,speaking in murmurs only.The thunderstorm increases till it drowns the noise of the fordand of the descending battalions, making them seem further offthan before. The sentinel is about to retreat to the shed whenhe discerns two female figures in the gloom. Enter MRS. DALBIACand MRS. PRESCOTT, English officers wives.]
SENTINELWhere there’s war there’s women, and where there’s women there’strouble! [Aloud] Who goes there?
MRS. DALBIACWe must reveal who we are, I fear [to her companion]. Friends![to sentinel].
SENTINELAdvance and give the countersign.
MRS. DALBIACOh, but we can’t!
SENTINELConsequent which, you must retreat. By Lord Wellington’s strictregulations, women of loose character are to be excluded from thelines for moral reasons, namely, that they are often employed bythe enemy as spies.
MRS. PRESCOTTDear good soldier, we are English ladies benighted, having mistakenour way back to Salamanca, and we want shelter from the storm.
MRS. DALBIACIf it is necessary I will say who we are.—I am Mrs. Dalbiac, wifeof the Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fourth Light Dragoons, and thislady is the wife of Captain Prescott of the Seventh Fusileers. Wewent out to Christoval to look for our husbands, but found the armyhad moved.
SENTINEL [incredulously]“Wives!” Oh, not to-day! I have heard such titles of courtesyafore; but they never shake me. “W” begins other female words than“wives!”—You’ll have trouble, good dames, to get into Salamancato-night. You’ll be challenged all the way down, and shot withoutclergy if you can’t give the countersign.
MRS. PRESCOTTThen surely you’ll tell us what it is, good kind man!
SENTINELWell—have ye earned enough to pay for knowing? Government wage ispoor pickings for watching here in the rain. How much can ye stand?
MRS. DALBIACHalf-a-dozen pesetas.
SENTINELVery well, my dear. I was always tender-hearted. Come along.[They advance and hand the money.] The pass to-night is “MelchesterSteeple.” That will take you into the town when the weather clears.You won’t have to cross the ford. You can get temporary shelter inthe shed there.[As the ladies move towards the shed the tramp of the infantrydraws near the ford, which the downfall has made to purl moreboisterously. The twain enter the shed, and the dragoons lookup inquiringly.]
MRS. DALBIAC [to dragoons]The French are luckier than you are, men. You’ll have a wet advanceacross this ford, but they have a dry retreat by the bridge at Alba.
SERGEANT OF PATROL [starting from a doze]The moustachies a dry retreat? Not they, my dear. A Spanishgarrison is in the castle that commands the bridge at Alba.
MRS. DALBIACA peasant told us, if we understood rightly, that he saw the Spanishwithdraw, and the enemy place a garrison there themselves.[The sergeant hastily calls up two troopers, who mount and ride offwith the intelligence.]
SERGEANTYou’ve done us a good turn, it is true, darlin’. Not that LordWellington will believe it when he gets the news.... Why, if myeyes don’t deceive me, ma’am, that’s Colonel Dalbiac’s lady!
MRS. DALBIACYes, sergeant. I am over here with him, as you have heard, no doubt,and lodging in Salamanca. We lost our way, and got caught in thestorm, and want shelter awhile.
SERGEANTCertainly, ma’am. I’ll give you an escort back as soon as thedivision has crossed and the weather clears.
MRS. PRESCOTT [anxiously]Have you heard, sergeant, if there’s to be a battle to-morrow?
SERGEANTYes, ma’am. Everything shows it.
MRS. DAlBIAC [to MRS. PRESCOTT]Our news would have passed us in. We have wasted six pesetas.
MRS. PRESCOTT [mournfully]I don’t mind that so much as that I have brought the children fromIreland. This coming battle frightens me!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSThis is her prescient pang of widowhood.Ere Salamanca clang to-morrow’s closeShe’ll find her consort stiff among the slain![The infantry regiments now reach the ford. The storm increasesin strength, the stream flows more furiously; yet the columns offoot enter it and begin crossing. The lightning is continuous;the faint lantern in the ford-house is paled by the sheets offire without, which flap round the bayonets of the crossing menand reflect upon the foaming torrent.]
CHORUS OF THE PITIES [aerial music]The skies fling flame on this ancient land!And drenched and drowned is the burnt blown sandThat spreads its mantle of yellow-greyRound old Salmantica to-day;While marching men come, band on band,Who read not as a reprimandTo mortal moils that, as ’twere plannedIn mockery of their mimic fray,The skies fling flame.Since sad Coruna’s desperate standHorrors unsummed, with heavy hand,Have smitten such as these! But theyStill headily pursue their way,Though flood and foe confront them, andThe skies fling flame.[The whole of the English division gets across by degrees, andtheir invisible tramp is heard ascending the opposite heights asthe lightnings dwindle and the spectacle disappears.]
THE FIELD OF SALAMANCA[The battlefield—an undulating and sandy expanse—is lyingunder the sultry sun of a July afternoon. In the immediateleft foreground rises boldly a detached dome-like hill knownas the Lesser Arapeile, now held by English troops. Furtherback, and more to the right, rises another and larger hill ofthe kind—the Greater Arapeile; this is crowned with Frenchartillery in loud action, and the French marshal, MARMONT, Dukeof RAGUSA, stands there. Further to the right, in the sameplane, stretch the divisions of the French army. Still furtherto the right, in the distance, on the Ciudad Rodrigo highway, acloud of dust denotes the English baggage-train seeking securityin that direction. The city of Salamanca itself, and the riverTormes on which it stands, are behind the back of the spectator.On the summit of the lesser hill, close at hand, WELLINGTON, glassat eye, watches the French division under THOMIERE, which has becomeseparated from the centre of the French army. Round and near himare aides and other officers, in animated conjecture on MARMONT’Sintent, which appears to be a move on the Ciudad Rodrigo roadaforesaid, under the impression that the English are about toretreat that way.The English commander descends from where he was standing to a nookunder a wall, where a meal is roughly laid out. Some of his staffare already eating there. WELLINGTON takes a few mouthfuls withoutsitting down, walks back again, and looks through his glass at thebattle as before. Balls from the French artillery fall around.Enter his aide-de-camp, FITZROY SOMERSET.]
FITZROY SOMERSET [hurriedly]The French make movements of grave consequence—Extending to the left in mass, my lord.
WELLINGTONI have just perceived as much; but not the cause.[He regards longer.]Marmont’s good genius is deserting him![Shutting up his glass with a snap, WELLINGTON calls several aidesand despatches them down the hill. He goes back behind the walland takes some more mouthfuls.]By God, Fitzroy, if we shan’t do it now![to SOMERSET].Mon cher Alava, Marmont est perdu![to his SPANISH ATTACHE].
FITZROY SOMERSETThinking we mean to attack on him,He schemes to swoop on our retreating-line.
WELLINGTONAy; and to cloak it by this cannonade.With that in eye he has bundled leftwardlyThomiere’s division; mindless that therebyHis wing and centre’s mutual maintenanceHas gone, and left a yawning vacancy.So be it. Good. His laxness is our luck![As a result of the orders sent off by the aides, several Britishdivisions advance across the French front on the Greater Arapeileand elsewhere. The French shower bullets into them; but an Englishbrigade under PACK assails the nearer French on the Arapeile, nowbeginning to cannonade the English in the hollows beneath.Light breezes blow toward the French, and they get in their facesthe dust-clouds and smoke from the masses of English in motion, anda powerful sun in their eyes.MARMONT and his staff are sitting on the top of the Greater Arapeileonly half a cannon-shot from WELLINGTON on the Lesser; and, likeWELLINGTON, he is gazing through his glass.
SPIRIT OF RUMOURAppearing to behold the full-mapped mindOf his opponent, Marmont arrows forthAide after aide towards the forest’s rim,To spirit on his troops emerging thence,And prop the lone division Thomiere,For whose recall his voice has rung in vain.Wellington mounts and seeks out Pakenham,Who pushes to the arena from the right,And, spurting to the left of Marmont’s line,Shakes Thomiere with lunges leonine.When the manoeuvre’s meaning hits his sense,Marmont hies hotly to the imperilled place,Where see him fall, sore smitten.—Bonnet ridesAnd dons the burden of the chief command,Marking dismayed the Thomiere column thereShut up by Pakenham like bellows-foldsAgainst the English Fourth and Fifth hard by;And while thus crushed, Dragoon-Guards and Dragoons,Under Le Marchant’s hands [of Guernsey he],Are launched upon them by Sir Stapleton,And their scathed files are double-scathed anon.Cotton falls wounded. Pakenham’s bayoneteersShape for the charge from column into rank;And Thomiere finds death thereat point-blank!
SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES [aerial music]In fogs of dust the cavalries hoof the ground;Their prancing squadrons shake the hills around:Le Marchant’s heavies bear with ominous boundAgainst their opposites!SEMICHORUS IIA bullet crying along the cloven airGouges Le Marchant’s groin and rankles there;In Death’s white sleep he soon joins Thomiere,And all he has fought for, quits![In the meantime the battle has become concentrated in the middlehollow, and WELLINGTON descends thither from the English Arapeile.The fight grows fiercer. COLE and LEITH now fall wounded; thenBERESFORD, who directs the Portuguese, is struck down and borneaway. On the French side fall BONNET who succeeded MARMONT incommand, MANNE, CLAUSEL, and FEREY, the last hit mortally.Their disordered main body retreats into the forest and disappears;and just as darkness sets in, the English stand alone on the crest,the distant plain being lighted only by musket-flashes from thevanquishing enemy. In the close foreground vague figures onhorseback are audible in the gloom.
VOICE OF WELLINGTONI thought they looked as they’d be scurrying soon!
VOICE OF AN AIDEFoy bears into the wood in middling trim;Maucune strikes out for Alba-Castle bridge.
VOICE OF WELLINGTONSpeed the pursuit, then, towards the Huerta ford;Their only scantling of escape lies there;The river coops them semicircle-wise,And we shall have them like a swathe of grassWithin a sickle’s curve!
VOICE OF AIDEToo late, my lord.They are crossing by the aforesaid bridge at Alba.
VOICE OF WELLINGTONImpossible. The guns of Carlos rake itSheer from the castle walls.
VOICE OF AIDETidings have spedJust now therefrom, to this undreamed effect:That Carlos has withdrawn the garrison:The French command the Alba bridge themselves!
VOICE OF WELLINGTONBlast him, he’s disobeyed his orders, then!How happened this? How long has it been known?
VOICE OF AIDESome ladies some few hours have rumoured it,But unbelieved.
VOICE OF WELLINGTONWell, what’s done can’t be undone....By God, though, they’ve just saved themselves therebyFrom capture to a man!
VOICE OF A GENERALWe’ve not struck ill,Despite this slip, my lord.... And have you heardThat Colonel Dalbiac’s wife rode in the chargeBehind her spouse to-day?
VOICE OF WELLINGTONDid she though: did she!Why that must be Susanna, whom I know—A Wessex woman, blithe, and somewhat fair....Not but great irregularitiesArise from such exploits.—And was it sheI noticed wandering to and fro below here,Just as the French retired?
VOICE OF ANOTHER OFFICERAh no, my lord.That was the wife of Prescott of the Seventh,Hoping beneath the heel of hopelessness,As these young women will!—Just about sunsetShe found him lying dead and bloody there,And in the dusk we bore them both away.18
VOICE OF WELLINGTONWell, I’m damned sorry for her. Though I wishThe women-folk would keep them to the rear:Much awkwardness attends their pottering round![The talking shapes disappear, and as the features of the fieldgrow undistinguishable the comparative quiet is broken by gaynotes from guitars and castanets in the direction of the city,and other sounds of popular rejoicing at Wellington’s victory.People come dancing out from the town, and the merry-makingcontinues till midnight, when it ceases, and darkness and silenceprevail everywhere.]
SEMICHORUS I OF THE YEARS [aerial music]What are Space and Time? A fancy!—Lo, by Vision’s necromancyMuscovy will now unroll;Where for cork and olive-treeStarveling firs and birches be.
SEMICHORUS IIThough such features lie afarFrom events Peninsular,These, amid their dust and thunder,Form with those, as scarce asunder,Parts of one compacted whole.
CHORUSMarmont’s aide, then, like a swallowLet us follow, follow, follow,Over hill and over hollow,Past the plains of Teute and Pole![There is semblance of a sound in the darkness as of a rushingthrough the air.]
THE FIELD OF BORODINO[Borodino, seventy miles west of Moscow, is revealed in a bird’s-eye view from a point above the position of the French Grand Army,advancing on the Russian capital.We are looking east, towards Moscow and the army of Russia, whichbars the way thither. The sun of latter summer, sinking behindour backs, floods the whole prospect, which is mostly wild,uncultivated land with patches of birch-trees. NAPOLÉON’S armyhas just arrived on the scene, and is making its bivouac for thenight, some of the later regiments not having yet come up. Adropping fire of musketry from skirmishers ahead keeps snappingthrough the air. The Emperor’s tent stands in a ravine in theforeground amid the squares of the Old Guard. Aides and otherofficers are chatting outside.Enter NAPOLÉON, who dismounts, speaks to some of his suite, anddisappears inside his tent. An interval follows, during which thesun dips.Enter COLONEL FABVRIER, aide-de-camp of MARMONT, just arrived fromSpain. An officer-in-waiting goes into NAPOLÉON’S tent to announceFABVRIER, the Colonel meanwhile talking to those outside.]
AN AIDEImportant tidings thence, I make no doubt?
FABVRIERMarmont repulsed on Salamanca field,And well-nigh slain, is the best tale I bring![A silence. A coughing heard in NAPOLÉON’S tent.]Whose rheumy throat distracts the quiet so?
AIDEThe Emperor’s. He is thus the livelong day.[COLONEL FABVRIER is shown into the tent. An interval. Then thehusky accents of NAPOLÉON within, growing louder and louder.]
VOICE OF NAPOLÉONIf Marmont—so I gather from these lines—Had let the English and the Spanish be,They would have bent from Salamanca back,Offering no battle, to our profiting!We should have been delivered this disaster,Whose bruit will harm us more than aught besidesThat has befallen in Spain!
VOICE OF FABVRIERI fear so, sire.
VOICE OF NAPOLÉONHe forced a conflict, to cull laurel crownsBefore King Joseph should arrive to share them!
VOICE OF FABVRIERThe army’s ardour for your Majesty,Its courage, its devotion to your cause,Cover a myriad of the Marshal’s sins.
VOICE OF NAPOLÉONWhy gave he battle without biddance, pray,From the supreme commander? Here’s the crimeOf insubordination, root of woes!...The time well chosen, and the battle won,The English succours there had sidled off,And their annoy in the PeninsulaEmbarrassed us no more. Behoves it me,Some day, to face this Wellington myself!Marmont too plainly is no match for him....Thus he goes on: “To have preserved commandI would with joy have changed this early woundFor foulest mortal stroke at fall of day.One baleful moment damnified the fruitOf six weeks’ wise strategics, whose resultHad loomed so certain!”—[Satirically] Well, we’ve but his wordAs to their wisdom! To define them thusWould not have struck me but for his good prompting!...No matter: On Moskowa’s banks to-morrowI’ll mend his faults upon the Arapeile.I’ll see how I can treat this Russian hordeWhich English gold has brought together hereFrom the four corners of the universe....Adieu. You’d best go now and take some rest.[FABVRIER reappears from the tent and goes. Enter DE BAUSSET.]
DE BAUSSETThe box that came—has it been taken in?
AN OFFICERYes, General ’Tis laid behind a screenIn the outer tent. As yet his MajestyHas not been told of it.[DE BAUSSET goes into the tent. After an interval of murmuredtalk an exclamation bursts from the EMPEROR. In a few minutes heappears at the tent door, a valet following him bearing a picture.The EMPEROR’S face shows traces of emotion.]
NAPOLÉONBring out a chair for me to poise it on.[Re-enter DE BAUSSET from the tent with a chair.]They all shall see it. Yes, my soldier-sonsMust gaze upon this son of mine own houseIn art’s presentment! It will cheer their hearts.That’s a good light—just so.[He is assisted by DE BAUSSET to set up the picture in the chair.It is a portrait of the young King of Rome playing at cup-and-ballbeing represented as the globe. The officers standing near areattracted round, and then the officers and soldiers further backbegin running up, till there is a great crowd.]Let them walk past,So that they see him all. The Old Guard first.[The Old Guard is summoned, and marches past surveying the picture;then other regiments.]
SOLDIERSThe Emperor and the King of Rome for ever![When they have marched past and withdrawn, and DE BAUSSET hastaken away the picture, NAPOLÉON prepares to re-enter his tent.But his attention is attracted to the Russians. He regards themthrough his glass. Enter BESSIERES and RAPP.]
NAPOLÉONWhat slow, weird ambulation do I mark,Rippling the Russian host?
BESSIERESA progress, sire,Of all their clergy, vestmented, who bearAn image, said to work strange miracles.[NAPOLÉON watches. The Russian ecclesiastics pass through theregiments, which are under arms, bearing the icon and otherreligious insignia. The Russian soldiers kneel before it.]
NAPOLÉONAy! Not content to stand on their own strength,They try to hire the enginry of Heaven.I am no theologian, but I laughThat men can be so grossly logicless,When war, defensive or aggressive either,Is in its essence pagan, and opposedTo the whole gist of Christianity!
BESSIERES’Tis to fanaticize their courage, sire.
NAPOLÉONBetter they’d wake up old Kutúzof.—Rapp,What think you of to-morrow?
RAPPVictory;But, sire, a bloody one!
NAPOLÉONSo I foresee.[The scene darkens, and the fires of the bivouacs shine up ruddily,those of the French near at hand, those of the Russians in a longline across the mid-distance, and throwing a flapping glare intothe heavens. As the night grows stiller the ballad-singing andlaughter from the French mixes with a slow singing of psalms fromtheir adversaries.The two multitudes lie down to sleep, and all is quiet but forthe sputtering of the green wood fires, which, now that the humantongues are still, seem to hold a conversation of their own.]
THE SAME[The prospect lightens with dawn, and the sun rises red. Thespacious field of battle is now distinct, its ruggedness beingbisected by the great road from Smolensk to Moscow, which runscentrally from beneath the spectator to the furthest horizon.The field is also crossed by the stream Kalotcha, flowing fromthe right-centre foreground to the left-centre background, thusforming an “X” with the road aforesaid, intersecting it in mid-distance at the village of Borodino.Behind this village the Russians have taken their stand in closemasses. So stand also the French, who have in their centre theShevardino redoubt beyond the Kalotcha. Here NAPOLÉON, in hisusual glue-grey uniform, white waistcoat, and white leatherbreeches, chooses his position with BERTHIER and other officersof his suite.]
DUMB SHOWIt is six o’clock, and the firing of a single cannon on the Frenchside proclaims that the battle is beginning. There is a roll ofdrums, and the right-centre masses, glittering in the level shine,advance under NEY and DAVOUT and throw themselves on the Russians,here defended by redoubts.The French enter the redoubts, whereupon a slim, small man, GENERALBAGRATION, brings across a division from the Russian right and expelsthem resolutely.Semenovskoye is a commanding height opposite the right of the French,and held by the Russians. Cannon and columns, infantry and cavalry,assault it by tens of thousands, but cannot take it.Aides gallop through the screeching shot and haze of smoke and dustbetween NAPOLÉON and his various marshals. The Emperor walks about,looks through his glass, goes to a camp-stool, on which he sits down,and drinks glasses of spirits and hot water to relieve his stillviolent cold, as may be discovered from his red eyes, raw nose,rheumatic manner when he moves, and thick voice in giving orders.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESSo he fulfils the inhuman antickingsHe thinks imposed upon him.... What says he?
SPIRIT OF RUMOURHe says it is the sun of Austerlitz!
The Russians, so far from being driven out of their redoubts,issue from them towards the French. But they have to retreat,BAGRATION and his Chief of Staff being wounded. NAPOLÉON sipshis grog hopefully, and orders a still stronger attack on thegreat redoubt in the centre.It is carried out. The redoubt becomes the scene of a hugemassacre. In other parts of the field also the action almostceases to be a battle, and takes the form of wholesale butcheryby the thousand, now advantaging one side, now the other.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSThus do the mindless minions of the spellIn mechanized enchantment sway and showA Will that wills above the will of each,Yet but the will of all conjunctively;A fabric of excitement, web of rage,That permeates as one stuff the weltering whole.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESThe ugly horror grossly regnant hereWakes even the drowsed half-drunken DictatorTo all its vain uncouthness!
SPIRIT OF RUMOURMurat criesThat on this much-anticipated dayNapoléon’s genius flags inoperative.
The firing from the top of the redoubt has ceased. The French havegot inside. The Russians retreat upon their rear, and fortifythemselves on the heights there. PONIATOWSKI furiously attacks them.But the French are worn out, and fall back to their station beforethe battle. So the combat dies resultlessly away. The sun sets, andthe opposed and exhausted hosts sink to lethargic repose. NAPOLÉONenters his tent in the midst of his lieutenants, and night descends.
SHADE OF THE EARTHThe fumes of nitre and the reek of goreMake my airs foul and fulsome unto me!
SPIRIT IRONICThe natural nausea of a nurse, dear Dame.
SPIRIT OF RUMOURStrange: even within that tent no notes of joyThrob as at Austerlitz! [signifying Napoléon’s tent].
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESBut mark that roar—A mash of men’s crazed cries entreating matesTo run them through and end their agony;Boys calling on their mothers, veteransBlaspheming God and man. Those shady shapesAre horses, maimed in myriads, tearing roundIn maddening pangs, the harnessings they wearClanking discordant jingles as they tear!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSIt is enough. Let now the scene be closed.
The night thickens.
MOSCOW[The foreground is an open place amid the ancient irregular streetsof the city, which disclose a jumble of architectural styles, theAsiatic prevailing over the European. A huge triangular white-walled fortress rises above the churches and coloured domes on ahill in the background, the central feature of which is a loftytower with a gilded cupola, the Ivan Tower. Beneath the battlementsof this fortress the Moskva River flows.An unwonted rumbling of wheels proceeds from the cobble-stonedstreets, accompanied by an incessant cracking of whips.]
DUMB SHOWTravelling carriages, teams, and waggons, laden with pictures,carpets, glass, silver, china, and fashionable attire, are rollingout of the city, followed by foot-passengers in streams, who carrytheir most precious possessions on their shoulders. Others beartheir sick relatives, caring nothing for their goods, and mothersgo laden with their infants. Others drive their cows, sheep, andgoats, causing much obstruction. Some of the populace, however,appear apathetic and bewildered, and stand in groups asking questions.A thin man with piercing eyes gallops about and gives stern orders.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESWhose is the form seen ramping restlessly,Geared as a general, keen-eyed as a kite,Mid this mad current of close-filed confusion;High-ordering, smartening progress in the slow,And goading those by their own thoughts o’er-goaded;Whose emissaries knock at every doorIn rhythmal rote, and groan the great eventsThe hour is pregnant with?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSRostopchin he,The city governor, whose name will ringFar down the forward years uncannily!
SPIRIT OF RUMOURHis arts are strange, and strangely do they move him:—To store the stews with stuffs inflammable,To bid that pumps be wrecked, captives enlargedAnd primed with brands for burning, are the intentsHis warnings to the citizens outshade!
When the bulk of the populace has passed out eastwardly the Russianarmy retreating from Borodino also passes through the city into thecountry beyond without a halt. They mostly move in solemn silence,though many soldiers rush from their ranks and load themselves withspoil.When they are got together again and have marched out, there goes byon his horse a strange scarred old man with a foxy look, a swollenneck and head and a hunched figure. He is KUTÚZOF, surrounded byhis lieutenants. Away in the distance by other streets and bridgeswith other divisions pass in like manner GENERALS BENNIGSEN, BARCLAYDE TOLLY, DOKHTÓROF, the mortally wounded BAGRATION in a carriage, andother generals, all in melancholy procession one way, like autumnalbirds of passage. Then the rear-guard passes under MILORADOVITCH.Next comes a procession of another kind.A long string of carts with wounded men is seen, which trails out ofthe city behind the army. Their clothing is soiled with dried blood,and the bandages that enwrap them are caked with it.The greater part of this migrant multitude takes the high road toVladimir.
THE SAME. OUTSIDE THE CITY[A hill forms the foreground, called the Hill of Salutation, nearthe Smolensk road.Herefrom the city appears as a splendid panorama, with its river,its gardens, and its curiously grotesque architecture of domes andspires. It is the peacock of cities to Western eyes, its roofstwinkling in the rays of the September sun, amid which the ancientcitadel of the Tsars—the Kremlin—forms a centre-piece.There enter on the hill at a gallop NAPOLÉON, MURAT, EUGÈNE, NEY,DARU, and the rest of the Imperial staff. The French advance-guard is drawn up in order of battle at the foot of the hill, andthe long columns of the Grand Army stretch far in the rear. TheEmperor and his marshals halt, and gaze at Moscow.]
NAPOLÉONHa! There she is at last. And it was time.[He looks round upon his army, its numbers attenuated to one-fourthof those who crossed the Niemen so joyfully.]Yes: it was time.... NOW what says Alexander!
DARUThis is a foil to Salamanca, sire!
DAVOUTWhat scores of bulbous church-tops gild the sky!Souls must be rotten in this region, sire,To need so much repairing!
NAPOLÉONAy—no doubt....Prithee march briskly on, to check disorder,[to Murat].Hold word with the authorities forthwith,[to Durasnel].Tell them that they may swiftly swage their fears,Safe in the mercy I by rule extendTo vanquished ones. I wait the city keys,And will receive the Governor’s submissionWith courtesy due. Eugène will guard the gateTo Petersburg there leftward. You, Davout,The gate to Smolensk in the centre hereWhich we shall enter by.
VOICES OF ADVANCE-GUARDMoscow! Moscow!This, this is Moscow city. Rest at last![The words are caught up in the rear by veterans who have enteredevery capital in Europe except London, and are echoed from rank torank. There is a far-extended clapping of hands, like the babbleof waves, and companies of foot run in disorder towards high groundto behold the spectacle, waving their shakos on their bayonets.The army now marches on, and NAPOLÉON and his suite disappearcitywards from the Hill of Salutation.The day wanes ere the host has passed and dusk begins to prevail,when tidings reach the rear-guard that cause dismay. They havebeen sent back lip by lip from the front.]
SPIRIT IRONICAn anticlimax to Napoléon’s dream!
SPIRIT OF RUMOURThey say no governor attends with keysTo offer his submission gracefully.The streets are solitudes, the houses sealed,And stagnant silence reigns, save where intrudesThe rumbling of their own artillery wheels,And their own soldiers’ measured tramp along.“Moscow deserted? What a monstrous thing!”—He shrugs his shoulders soon, contemptuously;“This, then is how Muscovy fights!” cries he.Meanwhile Murat has reached the Kremlin gates,And finds them closed against him. Battered these,The fort reverberates vacant as the streetsBut for some grinning wretches gaoled there.Enchantment seems to sway from quay to keep,And lock commotion in a century’s sleep.[NAPOLÉON, reappearing in front of the city, follows MURAT, and isagain lost to view. He has entered the Kremlin. An interval.Something becomes visible on the summit of the Ivan Tower.]
CHORUS OF RUMOURS [aerial music]Mark you thereon a small lone figure gazingUpon his hard-gained goal? It is He!The startled crows, their broad black pinions raising,Forsake their haunts, and wheel disquietedly.[The scene slowly darkens. Midnight hangs over the city. Inblackness to the north of where the Kremlin stands appears what atfirst seems a lurid, malignant star. It waxes larger. Almostsimultaneously a north-east wind rises, and the light glows andsinks with the gusts, proclaiming a fire, which soon grows largeenough to irradiate the fronts of adjacent buildings, and to showthat it is creeping on towards the Kremlin itself, the walls ofthat fortress which face the flames emerging from their previousshade.The fire can be seen breaking out also in numerous other quarters.All the conflagrations increase, and become, as those at firstdetached group themselves together, one huge furnace, whencestreamers of flame reach up to the sky, brighten the landscapefar around, and show the houses as if it were day. The blazegains the Kremlin, and licks its walls, but does not kindle it.Explosions and hissings are constantly audible, amid which can befancied cries and yells of people caught in the combustion. Largepieces of canvas aflare sail away on the gale like balloons.Cocks crow, thinking it sunrise, ere they are burnt to death.]
THE SAME. THE INTERIOR OF THE KREMLIN[A chamber containing a bed on which NAPOLÉON has been lying. Itis not yet daybreak, and the flapping light of the conflagrationwithout shines in at the narrow windows.NAPOLÉON is discovered dressed, but in disorder and unshaven. Heis walking up and down the room in agitation. There are presentCAULAINCOURT, BESSIERES, and many of the marshals of his guard,who stand in silent perplexity.]
NAPOLÉON [sitting down on the bed]No: I’ll not go! It is themselves who have done it.My God, they are Scythians and barbarians still![Enter MORTIER [just made Governor].]
MORTIERSire, there’s no means of fencing with the flames.My creed is that these scurvy MuscovitesKnowing our men’s repute for recklessness,Have fired the town, as if ’twere we had done it,As by our own crazed act![GENERAL LARIBOISIERE, and aged man, enters and approachesNAPOLÉON.]
LARIBOISIEREThe wind swells higher!Will you permit one so high-summed in years,One so devoted, sire, to speak his mind?It is that your long lingering here entailsMuch risk for you, your army, and ourselves,In the embarrassment it throws on usWhile taking steps to seek security,By hindering venturous means.[Enter MURAT, PRINCE EUGÈNE, and the PRINCE OF NEUFCHÂTEL.]
MURATThere is no choiceBut leaving, sire. Enormous bulks of powderLie housed beneath us; and outside these panesA park of our artillery stands unscreened.
NAPOLÉON [saturninely]What have I won I disincline to cede!
VOICE OF A GUARD [without]The Kremlin is aflame![The look at each other. Two officers of NAPOLÉON’S guard and aninterpreter enter, with one of the Russian military police as aprisoner.]
FIRST OFFICERWe have caught this manFiring the Kremlin: yea, in the very act!It is extinguished temporarily,We know not for how long.
NAPOLÉONInquire of himWhat devil set him on. [They inquire.]
SECOND OFFICERThe governor,He says; the Count Rostopchin, sire.
NAPOLÉONSo! Even the ancient Kremlin is not sanctFrom their infernal scheme! Go, take him out;Make him a quick example to the rest.[Exeunt guard with their prisoner to the court below, whence amusket-volley resounds in a few minutes. Meanwhile the flamespop and spit more loudly, and the window-panes of the room theystand in crack and fall in fragments.]Incendiarism afoot, and we unwareOf what foul tricks may follow, I will go.Outwitted here, we’ll march on Petersburg,The Devil if we won’t![The marshals murmur and shake their heads.]
BESSIERESYour pardon, sire,But we are all convinced that weather, time,Provisions, roads, equipment, mettle, mood,Serve not for such a perilous enterprise.[NAPOLÉON remains in gloomy silence. Enter BERTHIER.]
NAPOLÉON [apathetically]Well, Berthier. More misfortunes?
BERTHIERNews is brought,Sire, of the Russian army’s whereabouts.That fox Kutúzof, after marching eastAs if he were conducting his whole forceTo Vladimir, when at the Riazan RoadDown-doubled sharply south, and in a curveHas wheeled round Moscow, making for Kalouga,To strike into our base, and cut us off.
MURATAnother reason against Petersburg!Come what come may, we must defeat that army,To keep a sure retreat through Smolensk onTo Lithuania.
NAPOLÉON [jumping up]I must act! We’ll leave,Or we shall let this Moscow be our tomb.May Heaven curse the author of this war—Ay, him, that Russian minister, self-soldTo England, who fomented it.—’Twas heDragged Alexander into it, and me![The marshals are silent with looks of incredulity, and Caulaincourtshrugs his shoulders.]Now no more words; but hear. Eugène and NeyWith their divisions fall straight back uponThe Petersburg and Zwenigarod Roads;Those of Davout upon the Smolensk route.I will retire meanwhile to Petrowskoi.Come, let us go.[NAPOLÉON and the marshals move to the door. In leaving, theEmperor pauses and looks back.]I fear that this eventMarks the beginning of a train of ills....Moscow was meant to be my rest,My refuge, and—it vanishes away![Exeunt NAPOLÉON, marshals, etc. The smoke grows denser andobscures the scene.]
THE ROAD FROM SMOLENSKO INTO LITHUANIA[The season is far advanced towards winter. The point of observationis high amongst the clouds, which, opening and shutting fitfully tothe wind, reveal the earth as a confused expanse merely.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESWhere are we? And why are we where we are?
SHADE OF THE EARTHAbove a wild waste garden-plot of mineNigh bare in this late age, and now grown chill,Lithuania called by some. I gather notWhy we haunt here, where I can work no charmEither upon the ground or over it.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSThe wherefore will unfold. The rolling brumeThat parts, and joins, and parts again below usIn ragged restlessness, unscreens by fitsThe quality of the scene.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESI notice nowPrimeval woods, pine, birch—the skinny growthsThat can sustain life well where earth affordsBut sustenance elsewhere yclept starvation.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSAnd what see you on the far land-verge there,Labouring from eastward towards our longitude?
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESAn object like a dun-piled caterpillar,Shuffling its length in painful heaves along,Hitherward.... Yea, what is this Thing we seeWhich, moving as a single monster might,Is yet not one but many?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSEven the ArmyWhich once was called the Grand; now in retreatFrom Moscow’s muteness, urged by That within it;Together with its train of followers—Men, matrons, babes, in brabbling multitudes.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESAnd why such flight?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSRecording Angels, say.
RECORDING ANGEL I [in minor plain-song]The host has turned from Moscow where it lay,And Israel-like, moved by some master-sway,Is made to wander on and waste away!
ANGEL IIBy track of Tarutino first it flits;Thence swerving, strikes at old Jaroslawitz;The which, accurst by slaughtering swords, it quits.
ANGEL IHarassed, it treads the trail by which it came,To Borodino, field of bloodshot fame,Whence stare unburied horrors beyond name!
ANGEL IIAnd so and thus it nears Smolensko’s walls,And, stayed its hunger, starts anew its crawls,Till floats down one white morsel, which appals.[What has floated down from the sky upon the Army is a flake ofsnow. Then come another and another, till natural features,hitherto varied with the tints of autumn, are confounded, and allis phantasmal grey and white.The caterpillar shape still creeps laboriously nearer, but instead,increasing in size by the rules of perspective, it gets moreattenuated, and there are left upon the ground behind it minuteparts of itself, which are speedily flaked over, and remain aswhite pimples by the wayside.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSThese atoms that drop off are snuffed-out soulsWho are enghosted by the caressing snow.[Pines rise mournfully on each side of the nearing object; ravensin flocks advance with it overhead, waiting to pick out the eyesof strays who fall. The snowstorm increases, descending in tuftswhich can hardly be shaken off. The sky seems to join itself tothe land. The marching figures drop rapidly, and almost immediatelybecome white grave-mounds.Endowed with enlarged powers of audition as of vision, we are struckby the mournful taciturnity that prevails. Nature is mute. Savefor the incessant flogging of the wind-broken and lacerated horsesthere are no sounds.With growing nearness more is revealed. In the glades of the forest,parallel to the French columns, columns of Russians are seen to bemoving. And when the French presently reach Krasnoye they aresurrounded by packs of cloaked Cossacks, bearing lances like hugeneedles a dozen feet long. The fore-part of the French army getsthrough the town; the rear is assaulted by infantry and artillery.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESThe strange, one-eyed, white-shakoed, scarred old man,Ruthlessly heading every onset made,I seem to recognize.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSKutúzof he:The ceaselessly-attacked one, Michael Ney;A pair as stout as thou, Earth, ever hast twinned!Kutúzof, ten years younger, would extirpThe invaders, and our drama finish here,With Bonaparte a captive or a corpse.But he is old; death even has beckoned him;And thus the so near-seeming happens not.[NAPOLÉON himself can be discerned amid the rest, marching on footthrough the snowflakes, in a fur coat and with a stout staff in hishand. Further back NEY is visible with the remains of the rear.There is something behind the regular columns like an articulatedtail, and as they draw on, it shows itself to be a disorderly rabbleof followers of both sexes. So the whole miscellany arrives at theforeground, where it is checked by a large river across the track.The soldiers themselves, like the rabble, are in motley raiment,some wearing rugs for warmth, some quilts and curtains, some evenpetticoats and other women’s clothing. Many are delirious fromhunger and cold.But they set about doing what is a necessity for the least hope ofsalvation, and throw a bridge across the stream.The point of vision descends to earth, close to the scene of action.]
THE BRIDGE OF THE BERESINA[The bridge is over the Beresina at Studzianka. On each side ofthe river are swampy meadows, now hard with frost, while furtherback are dense forests. Ice floats down the deep black stream inlarge cakes.]
DUMB SHOWThe French sappers are working up to their shoulders in the water atthe building of the bridge. Those so immersed work till, stiffenedwith ice to immobility, they die from the chill, when others succeedthem.Cavalry meanwhile attempt to swim their horses across, and someinfantry try to wade through the stream.Another bridge is begun hard by, the construction of which advanceswith greater speed; and it becomes fit for the passage of carriagesand artillery.NAPOLÉON is seen to come across to the homeward bank, which is theforeground of the scene. A good portion of the army also, underDAVOUT, NEY, and OUDINOT, lands by degrees on this side. ButVICTOR’S corps is yet on the left or Moscow side of the stream,moving toward the bridge, and PARTONNEAUX with the rear-guard, whohas not yet crossed, is at Borissow, some way below, where there isan old permanent bridge partly broken.Enter with speed from the distance the Russians under TCHAPLITZ.More under TCHICHAGOFF enter the scene down the river on the leftor further bank, and cross by the old bridge of Borissow. But theyare too far from the new crossing to intercept the French as yet.PLATOFF with his Cossacks next appears on the stage which is to besuch a tragic one. He comes from the forest and approaches the leftbank likewise. So also does WITTGENSTEIN, who strikes in betweenthe uncrossed VICTOR and PARTONNEAUX. PLATOFF thereupon descendson the latter, who surrenders with the rear-guard; and thus seventhousand more are cut off from the already emaciated Grand Army.TCHAPLITZ, of TCHICHAGOFF’S division, has meanwhile got round by theold bridge at Borissow to the French side of the new one, and attacksOUDINOT; but he is repulsed with the strength of despair. The Frenchlose a further five thousand in this.We now look across the river at VICTOR, and his division, not yetover, and still defending the new bridges. WITTGENSTEIN descendsupon him; but he holds his ground.The determined Russians set up a battery of twelve cannon, so as tocommand the two new bridges, with the confused crowd of soldiers,carriages, and baggage, pressing to cross. The battery dischargesinto the surging multitude. More Russians come up, and, forming asemicircle round the bridges and the mass of French, fire yet morehotly on them with round shot and canister. As it gets dark theflashes light up the strained faces of the fugitives. Under thedischarge and the weight of traffic, the bridge for the artillerygives way, and the throngs upon it roll shrieking into the streamand are drowned.
SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES [aerial music]So loudly swell their shrieks as to be heard above the roar of gunsand the wailful wind,Giving in one brief cry their last wild word on that mock lifethrough which they have harlequined!
SEMICHORUS IITo the other bridge the living heap betakes itself, the weak pushedover by the strong;They loop together by their clutch like snakes; in knots theyare submerged and borne along.
CHORUSThen women are seen in the waterflow—limply bearing theirinfants between wizened white arms stretching above;Yea, motherhood, sheerly sublime in her last despairing, andlighting her darkest declension with limitless love.
Meanwhile, TCHICHAGOFF has come up with his twenty-seven thousand men,and falls on OUDINOT, NEY, and the “Sacred Squadron.” Altogether wesee forty or fifty thousand assailing eighteen thousand half-naked,badly armed wretches, emaciated with hunger and encumbered withseveral thousands of sick, wounded, and stragglers.VICTOR and his rear-guard, who have protected the bridges all day,come over themselves at last. No sooner have they done so than thefinal bridge is set on fire. Those who are upon it burn or drown;those who are on the further side have lost their last chance, andperish either in attempting to wade the stream or at the hands ofthe Russians.
SEMICHORUS OF THE PITIES [aerial music]What will be seen in the morning light?What will be learnt when the spring breaks bright,And the frost unlocks to the sun’s soft sight?
SEMICHORUS IIDeath in a thousand motley forms;Charred corpses hooking each other’s armsIn the sleep that defies all war’s alarms!
CHORUSPale cysts of souls in every stage,Still bent to embraces of love or rage,—Souls passed to where History pens no page.
The flames of the burning bridge go out as it consumes to the water’sedge, and darkness mantles all, nothing continuing but the purl ofthe river and the clickings of floating ice.
THE OPEN COUNTRY BETWEEN SMORGONI AND WILNA[The winter is more merciless, and snow continues to fall upon adeserted expanse of unenclosed land in Lithuania. Some scatteredbirch bushes merge in a forest in the background.It is growing dark, though nothing distinguishes where the sunsets. There is no sound except that of a shuffling of feet inthe direction of a bivouac. Here are gathered tattered men likeskeletons. Their noses and ears are frost-bitten, and pus isoozing from their eyes.These stricken shades in a limbo of gloom are among the lastsurvivors of the French army. Few of them carry arms. One squad,ploughing through snow above their knees, and with icicles danglingfrom their hair that clink like glass-lustres as they walk, gointo the birch wood, and are heard chopping. They bring backboughs, with which they make a screen on the windward side, andcontrive to light a fire. With their swords they cut rashers froma dead horse, and grill them in the flames, using gunpowder forsalt to eat them with. Two others return from a search, with adead rat and some candle-ends. Their meal shared, some try torepair their gaping shoes and to tie up their feet, that arechilblained to the bone.A straggler enters, who whispers to one or two soldiers of thegroup. A shudder runs through them at his words.]
FIRST SOLDIER [dazed]What—gone, do you say? Gone?
STRAGGLERYes, I say gone!He left us at Smorgoni hours ago.The Sacred Squadron even he has left behind.By this time he’s at Warsaw or beyond,Full pace for Paris.
SECOND SOLDIER [jumping up wildly]Gone? How did he go?No, surely! He could not desert us so!
STRAGGLERHe started in a carriage, with RoustanThe Mameluke on the box: Caulaincourt, too,Was inside with him. Monton and DurocRode on a sledge behind.—The order badeThat we should not be told it for a while.[Other soldiers spring up as they realize the news, and stamphither and thither, impotent with rage, grief, and despair, manyin their physical weakness sobbing like children.]
SPIRIT SINISTERGood. It is the selfish and unconscionable characters who are so muchregretted.
STRAGGLERHe felt, or feigned, he ought to leave no longerA land like Prussia ’twixt himself and home.There was great need for him to go, he said,To quiet France, and raise another armyThat shall replace our bones.
SEVERAL [distractedly]Deserted us!Deserted us!—O, after all our pangsWe shall see France no more![Some become insane, and go dancing round. One of them sings.]
MAD SOLDIER’S SONGIHa, for the snow and hoar!Ho, for our fortune’s made!We can shape our bed without sheets to spread,And our graves without a spade.So foolish Life adieu,And ingrate Leader too.—Ah, but we loved you true!Yet—he-he-he! and ho-ho-ho-!—We’ll never return to you.IIWhat can we wish for more?Thanks to the frost and floodWe are grinning crones—thin bags of bonesWho once were flesh and blood.So foolish Life adieu,And ingrate Leader too.—Ah, but we loved you true!Yet—he-he-he! and ho-ho-ho!—We’ll never return to you.[Exhausted, they again crouch round the fire. Officers andprivates press together for warmth. Other stragglers arrive, andsit at the backs of the first. With the progress of the night thestars come out in unusual brilliancy, Sirius and those in Orionflashing like stilettos; and the frost stiffens.The fire sinks and goes out; but the Frenchmen do not move. Theday dawns, and still they sit on.In the background enter some light horse of the Russian army,followed by KUTÚZOF himself and a few of his staff. He presentsa terrible appearance now—bravely serving though slowly dying,his face puffed with the intense cold, his one eye staring out ashe sits in a heap in the saddle, his head sunk into his shoulders.The whole detachment pauses at the sight of the French asleep.They shout; but the bivouackers give no sign.
KUTÚZOFGo, stir them up! We slay not sleeping men.[The Russians advance and prod the French with their lances.]
RUSSIAN OFFICERPrince, here’s a curious picture. They are dead.
KUTÚZOF [with indifference]Oh, naturally. After the snow was downI marked a sharpening of the air last night.We shall be stumbling on such frost-baked meatMost of the way to Wilna.
OFFICER [examining the bodies]They all sitAs they were living still, but stiff as horns;And even the colour has not left their cheeks,Whereon the tears remain in strings of ice.—It was a marvel they were not consumed:Their clothes are cindered by the fire in front,While at their back the frost has caked them hard.
KUTÚZOF’Tis well. So perish Russia’s enemies![Exeunt KUTÚZOF, his staff, and the detachment of horse in thedirection of Wilna; and with the advance of day the snow resumesits fall, slowly burying the dead bivouackers.]
PARIS. THE TUILERIES[An antechamber to the EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE’S bedroom, at half-pasteleven on a December night. The DUCHESS OF MONTEBELLO and anotherlady-in-waiting are discovered talking to the Empress.]
MARIE LOUISEI have felt unapt for anything to-night,And I will now retire.[She goes into her child’s room adjoining.]
DUCHESS OF MONTEBELLOFor some long whileThere has come no letter from the Emperor,And Paris brims with ghastly rumouringsAbout the far campaign. Not being beloved,The town is over dull for her alone.[Re-enter MARIE LOUISE.]
MARIE LOUISEThe King of Rome is sleeping in his cotSweetly and safe. Now, ladies, I am going.[She withdraws. Her tiring-women pass through into her chamber.They presently return and go out. A manservant enters, and barsthe window-shutters with numerous bolts. Exit manservant. TheDuchess retires. The other lady-in-waiting rises to go into herbedroom, which adjoins that of the Empress.Men’s voices are suddenly heard in the corridor without. The lady-in-waiting pauses with parted lips. The voices grow louder. Thelady-in-waiting screams.MARIE LOUISE hastily re-enters in a dressing-gown thrown over hernight-clothes.]
MARIE LOUISEGreat God, what altercation can that be?I had just verged on sleep when it aroused me![A thumping is heard at the door.]
VOICE OF NAPOLÉON [without]Hola! Pray let me in! Unlock the door!
LADY-IN-WAITINGHeaven’s mercy on us! What man may it beAt such and hour as this?
MARIE LOUISEO it is he!
[The lady-in-waiting unlocks the door. NAPOLÉON enters, scarcelyrecognizable, in a fur cloak and hood over his ears. He throwsoff the cloak and discloses himself to be in the shabbiest andmuddiest attire. Marie Louise is agitated almost to fainting.]
SPIRIT IRONICIs it with fright or joy?
MARIE LOUISEI scarce believeWhat my sight tells me! Home, and in such garb![NAPOLÉON embraces her.]
NAPOLÉONI have had great work in getting in, my dear!They failed to recognize me at the gates,Being sceptical at my poor hackney-coachAnd poorer baggage. I had to show my faceIn a fierce light ere they would let me pass,And even then they doubted till I spoke.—What think you, dear, of such a tramp-like spouse?[He warms his hands at the fire.]Ha—it is much more comfortable hereThan on the Russian plains!
MARIE LOUISE [timidly]You have suffered there?—Your face is thinner, and has line in it;No marvel that they did not know you!
NAPOLÉONYes:Disasters many and swift have swooped on me!—Since crossing—ugh!—the Beresina RiverI have been compelled to come incognito;Ay—as a fugitive and outlaw quite.
MARIE LOUISEWe’ll thank Heaven, anyhow, that you are safe.I had gone to bed, and everybody almost!what, now, do require? Some food of course?[The child in the adjoining chamber begins to cry, awakened by theloud tones of NAPOLÉON.]
NAPOLÉONAh—that’s his little voice! I’ll in and see him.
MARIE LOUISEI’ll come with you.[NAPOLÉON and the EMPRESS pass into the other room. The lady-in-waiting calls up yawning servants and gives orders. The servantsgo to execute them. Re-enter NAPOLÉON and MARIE LOUISE. The lady-in-waiting goes out.]
NAPOLÉONI have said it, dear!All the disasters summed in the bulletinShall be repaired.
MARIE LOUISEAnd are they terrible?
NAPOLÉONHave you not read the last-sent bulletin,Dear friend?
MARIE LOUISENo recent bulletin has come.
NAPOLÉONAh—I must have outstripped it on the way!
MARIE LOUISEAnd where is the Grand Army?
NAPOLÉONOh—that’s gone.
MARIE LOUISEGone? But—gone where?
NAPOLÉONGone all to nothing, dear.
MARIE LOUISE [incredulously]But some six hundred thousand I saw passThrough Dresden Russia-wards?
NAPOLÉON [flinging himself into a chair]Well, those men lie—Or most of them—in layers of bleaching bones’Twixt here and Moscow.... I have been subdued;But by the elements; and them alone.Not Russia, but God’s sky has conquered me![With an appalled look she sits beside him.]From the sublime to the ridiculousThere’s but a step!—I have been saying itAll through the leagues of my long journey home—And that step has been passed in this affair!...Yes, briefly, it is quite ridiculous,Whichever way you look at it.—Ha, ha!
MARIE LOUISE [simply]But those six hundred thousand throbbing throatsThat cheered me deaf at Dresden, marching eastSo full of youth and spirits—all bleached bones—Ridiculous? Can it be so, dear, to—Their mothers say?
NAPOLÉON [with a twitch of displeasure]You scarcely understand.I meant the enterprise, and not its stuff....I had no wish to fight, nor Alexander,But circumstance impaled us each on each;The Genius who outshapes my destiniesDid all the rest! Had I but hit success,Imperial splendour would have worn a crownUnmatched in long-scrolled Time!... Well, leave that now.—What do they know about all this in Paris?
MARIE LOUSEI cannot say. Black rumours fly and croakLike ravens through the streets, but come to meThinned to the vague!—Occurrences in SpainBreed much disquiet with these other things.Marmont’s defeat at Salamanca fieldPloughed deep into men’s brows. The cafes sayYour troops must clear from Spain.
NAPOLÉONWe’ll see to that!I’ll find a way to do a better thing;Though I must have another army first—Three hundred thousand quite. Fishes as goodSwim in the sea as have come out of it.But to begin, we must make sure of France,Disclose ourselves to the good folk of ParisIn daily outing as a family group,The type and model of domestic bliss[Which, by the way, we are]. And I intend,Also, to gild the dome of the InvalidesIn best gold leaf, and on a novel pattern.
MARIE LOUISETo gild the dome, dear? Why?
NAPOLÉONTo give them somethingTo think about. They’ll take to it like children,And argue in the cafes right and leftOn its artistic points.—So they’ll forgetThe woes of Moscow.[A chamberlain-in-waiting announces supper. MARIE LOUISE andNAPOLÉON go out. The room darkens and the scene closes.]