The Dynasts

Act First

I. PHANTOM INTELLIGENCES

THE ANCIENT SPIRIT OF THE YEARS/CHORUS OF THE YEARS.

THE SPIRIT OF THE PITIES/CHORUS OF THE PITIES.

SPIRITS SINISTER AND IRONIC/CHORUSES OF SINISTER AND IRONIC SPIRITS.

THE SPIRIT OF RUMOUR/CHORUS OF RUMOURS.

THE SHADE OF THE EARTH.

SPIRIT MESSENGERS.

RECORDING ANGELS.

II. PERSONS

MEN (The names in lower case are mute figures.)

THE PRINCE REGENT.

The Royal Dukes.

THE DUKE OF RICHMOND.

The Duke of Beaufort.

CASTLEREAGH, Prime Minister.

Palmerston, War Secretary.

PONSONBY, of the Opposition.

BURDETT, of the Opposition.

WHITBREAD, of the Opposition.

Tierney, Romilly, of the Opposition

Other Members of Parliament.

TWO ATTACHES.

A DIPLOMATIST.

Ambassadors, Ministers, Peers, and other persons of Quality

and Office.

. . . . . . . . . .

WELLINGTON.

UXBRIDGE.

PICTON.

HILL.

CLINTON.

Colville.

COLE.

BERESFORD.

Pack and Kempt.

Byng.

Vivian.

W. Ponsonby, Vandeleur, Colquhoun-Grant, Maitland, Adam, and

C. Halkett.

Graham, Le Marchant, Pakenham, and Sir Stapleton Cotton.

SIR W. DE LANCEY.

FITZROY SOMERSET.

COLONELS FRASER, H. HALKETT, COLBORNE, Cameron, Hepburn, LORD

SALTOUN, C. Campbell.

SIR NEIL CAMPBELL.

Sir Alexander Gordon, BRIGDEMAN, TYLER, and other AIDES.

CAPTAIN MERCER.

Other Generals, Colonels, and Military Officers.

Couriers.

A SERGEANT OF DRAGOONS.

Another SERGEANT.

A SERGEANT of the 15th HUSSARS.

A SENTINEL. Batmen.

AN OFFICER'S SERVANT.

Other non-Commissioned Officers and Privates of the British Army.

English Forces.

. . . . . . . . . .

SIR W. GELL, Chamberlain to the Princess of Wales.

MR. LEGH, a Wessex Gentleman.

Another GENTLEMAN.

THE VICAR OF DURNOVER.

Signor Tramezzini and other members of the Opera Company.

M. Rozier, a dancer.

LONDON CITIZENS.

A RUSTIC and a YEOMAN.

A MAIL-GUARD.

TOWNSPEOPLE, Musicians, Villagers, etc.

. . . . . . . . . .

THE DUKE OF BRUNSWICK.

THE PRINCE OF ORANGE.

Count Alten.

Von Ompteda, Baring, Duplat, and other Officers of the King's-

German Legion.

Perponcher, Best, Kielmansegge, Wincke, and other Hanoverian

Officers.

Bylandt and other Officers of the Dutch-Belgian troops.

SOME HUSSARS.

King's-German, Hanoverian, Brunswick, and Dutch-Belgian Forces.

. . . . . . . . . .

BARON VAN CAPELLEN, Belgian Secretary of State.

The Dukes of Arenberg and d'Ursel.

THE MAYOR OF BRUSSELS.

CITIZENS AND IDLERS of Brussels.

. . . . . . . . . .

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

JOSEPH BONAPARTE.

Jerome Bonaparte.

THE KING OF ROME.

Eugene de Beauharnais.

Cambaceres, Arch-Chancellor to Napoleon.

TALLEYRAND.

CAULAINCOURT.

DE BAUSSET.

. . . . . . . . . .

MURAT, King of Naples.

SOULT, Napoleon's Chief of Staff.

NEY.

DAVOUT.

MARMONT.

BERTHIER.

BERTRAND.

BESSIERES.

AUGEREAU, MACDONALD, LAURISTON, CAMBRONNE.

Oudinot, Friant, Reille, d'Erlon, Drouot, Victor, Poniatowski,

Jourdan, and other Marshals, and General and Regimental

Officers of Napoleon's Army.

RAPP, MORTIER, LARIBOISIERE.

Kellermann and Milhaud.

COLONELS FABVRIER, MARBOT, MALLET, HEYMES, and others.

French AIDES and COURIERS.

DE CANISY, Equerry to the King of Rome.

COMMANDANT LESSARD.

Another COMMANDANT.

BUSSY, an Orderly Officer.

SOLDIERS of the Imperial Guard and others.

STRAGGLERS; A MAD SOLDIER.

French Forces.

. . . . . . . . . .

HOUREAU, BOURDOIS, and Ivan, physicians.

MENEVAL, Private Secretary to Napoleon.

DE MONTROND, an emissary of Napoleon's.

Other Secretaries to Napoleon.

CONSTANT, Napoleon's Valet.

ROUSTAN, Napoleon's Mameluke.

TWO POSTILLIONS.

A TRAVELLER.

CHAMBERLAINS and Attendants.

SERVANTS at the Tuileries.

FRENCH CITIZENS and Townspeople.

. . . . . . . . . .

THE KING OF PRUSSIA.

BLUCHER.

MUFFLING, Wellington's Prussian Attache.

GNEISENAU.

Zieten.

Bulow.

Kleist, Steinmetz, Thielemann, Falkenhausen.

Other Prussian General and Regimental Officers.

A PRUSSIAN PRISONER of the French.

Prussian Forces.

. . . . . . . . . .

FRANCIS, Emperor of Austria.

METTERNICH, Chancellor and Foreign Minister.

Hardenberg.

NEIPPERG

Schwarzenberg, Kleinau, Hesse-Homburg, and other Austrian Generals.

Viennese Personages of rank and fashion.

Austrian Forces.

. . . . . . . . . .

THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER of Russia.

Nesselrode.

KUTUZOF.

Bennigsen.

Barclay de Tolly, Dokhtorof, Bagration, Platoff, Tchichagoff,

Miloradovitch, and other Russian Generals.

Rostopchin, Governor of Moscow.

SCHUVALOFF, a Commissioner.

A RUSSIAN OFFICER under Kutuzof.

Russian Forces.

Moscow Citizens.

. . . . . . . . . .

Alava, Wellington's Spanish Attache.

Spanish and Portuguese Officers.

Spanish and Portuguese Forces.

Spanish Citizens.

. . . . . . . . . .

Minor Sovereigns and Princes of Europe.

LEIPZIG CITIZENS.

WOMEN

CAROLINE, PRINCESS OF WALES.

The Duchess of York.

THE DUCHESS OF RICHMOND.

The Duchess of Beaufort.

LADY H. DARYMPLE

Lady de Lancey.

LADY CHARLOTTE CAMPBELL.

Lady Anne Hamilton.

A YOUNG LADY AND HER MOTHER.

MRS. DALBIAC, a Colonel's wife.

MRS. PRESCOTT, a Captain's wife.

Other English ladies of note and rank.

Madame Grassini and other Ladies of the Opera.

Madame Angiolini, a dancer.

VILLAGE WOMEN.

SOLDIERS' WIVES AND SWEETHEARTS.

A SOLDIER'S DAUGHTER.

. . . . . . . . . .

THE EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE.

The Empress of Austria.

MARIA CAROLINA of Naples.

Queen Hortense.

Laetitia, Madame Bonaparte.

The Princess Pauline.

THE DUCHESS OF MONTEBELLO.

THE COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU.

THE COUNTESS OF BRIGNOLE.

Other Ladies-in-Waiting on Marie Louise.

THE EX-EMPRESS JOSEPHINE.

LADIES-IN-WAITING on Josephine.

Another French Lady.

FRENCH MARKET-WOMEN.

A SPANISH LADY.

French and Spanish Women of pleasure.

Continental Citizens' Wives.

Camp-followers.

--

ACT FIRST

SCENE I

THE BANKS OF THE NIEMEN, NEAR KOWNO

[The foreground is a hillock on a broken upland, seen in evening

twilight. On the left, further back, are the dusky forests of

Wilkowsky; on the right is the vague shine of a large river.

Emerging from the wood below the eminence appears a shadowy

amorphous thing in motion, the central or Imperial column of

NAPOLEON'S Grand Army for the invasion of Russia, comprising

the corps of OUDINOT, NEY, and DAVOUT, with the Imperial Guard.

This, with the right and left columns, makes up the host of

nearly half a million, all starting on their march to Moscow.

While the rearmost regiments are arriving, NAPOLEON rides ahead

with GENERAL HAXEL and one or two others to reconnoitre the river.

NAPOLEON'S horse stumbles and throws him. He picks himself up

before he can be helped.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS (to Napoleon)

The portent is an ill one, Emperor;

An ancient Roman would retire thereat!

NAPOLEON

Whose voice was that, jarring upon my thought

So insolently?

HAXEL AND OTHERS

Sire, we spoke no word.

NAPOLEON

Then, whoso spake, such portents I defy!

[He remounts. When the reconnoitrers again came back to the

foreground of the scene the huge array of columns is standing

quite still, in circles of companies, the captain of each in

the middle with a paper in his hand. He reads from it a

proclamation. They quiver emotionally, like leaves stirred by

the wind. NAPOLEON and his staff reascend the hillock, and his

own words as repeated to the ranks reach his ears, while he

himself delivers the same address to those about him.

NAPOLEON

Soldiers, wild war is on the board again;

The lifetime-long alliance Russia swore

At 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 dream

We 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 stultify

The evil seed-bearing that Russian wiles

Have nourished upon Europe's choked affairs

These fifty years!

[The midsummer night darkens. They all make their bivouacs

and sleep.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Something is tongued afar.

DISTANT VOICE IN THE WIND

The hostile hatchings of Napoleon's brain

Against our Empire, long have harassed us,

And mangled all our mild amenities.

So, since the hunger for embranglement

That 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 face

Against Napoleon's.--Ranksmen! officers!

You fend your lives, your land, your liberty.

I am with you. Heaven frowns on the aggressor.

SPIRIT IRONIC

Ha! "Liberty" is quaint, and pleases me,

Sounding from such a soil!

[Midsummer-day breaks, and the sun rises on the right, revealing

the position clearly. The eminence overlooks for miles the river

Niemen, now mirroring the morning rays. Across the river three

temporary bridges have been thrown, and towards them the French

masses streaming out of the forest descend in three columns.

They sing, shout, fling their shakos in the air and repeat words

from the proclamation, their steel and brass flashing in the sun.

They narrow their columns as they gain the three bridges, and begin

to cross--horse, foot, and artillery.

NAPOLEON has come from the tent in which he has passed the night

to the high ground in front, where he stands watching through his

glass the committal of his army to the enterprise. DAVOUT, NEY,

MURAT, OUDINOT, Generals HAXEL and EBLE, NARBONNE, and others

surround him.

It is a day of drowsing heat, and the Emperor draws a deep breath

as he shifts his weight from one puffed calf to the other. The

light cavalry, the foot, the artillery having passed, the heavy

horse now crosses, their glitter outshining the ripples on the

stream.

A messenger enters. NAPOLEON reads papers that are brought, and

frowns.]

NAPOLEON

The English heads decline to recognize

The 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 wage

Another fifty years of wasting war

Before a Bourbon shall remount the throne

Of restless Spain! . . . (A flash lights his eyes.)

But this long journey now just set a-trip

Is my choice way to India; and 'tis there

That 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 scaffolding

Of English merchant-mastership in Ind

Will fall a wreck. . . . Vast, it is true, must bulk

An 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 PITIES

Why doth he go?--

I see returning in a chattering flock

Bleached skeletons, instead of this array

Invincibly equipped.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

I'll show you why.

[The unnatural light before seen usurps that of the sun, bringing

into view, like breezes made visible, the films or brain-tissues of

the Immanent Will, that pervade all things, ramifying through the

whole army, NAPOLEON included, and moving them to Its inexplicable

artistries.]

NAPOLEON (with sudden despondency)

That which has worked will work!--Since Lodi Bridge

The force I then felt move me moves me on

Whether I will or no; and oftentimes

Against my better mind. . . . Why am I here?

--By laws imposed on me inexorably!

History makes use of me to weave her web

To her long while aforetime-figured mesh

And contemplated charactery: no more.

Well, war's my trade; and whencesoever springs

This one in hand, they'll label it with my name!

[The natural light returns and the anatomy of the Will disappears.

NAPOLEON mounts his horse and descends in the rear of his host to

the banks of the Niemen. His face puts on a saturnine humour, and

he 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 NAPOLEON and his staff.]

SPIRIT SINISTER

It 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 NAPOLEON, diminished to the aspect of a doll,

reappears in front of his suite on the plain below. He rides

across the swaying bridge. Since the morning the sky has grown

overcast, and its blackness seems now to envelope the retreating

array on the other side of the stream. The storm bursts with

thunder and lightning, the river turns leaden, and the scene is

blotted out by the torrents of rain.]

SCENE II

THE FORD OF SANTA MARTA, SALAMANCA

[We are in Spain, on a July night of the same summer, the air being

hot and heavy. In the darkness the ripple of the river Tormes can

be heard over the ford, which is near the foreground of the scene.

Against the gloomy north sky to the left, lightnings flash

revealing rugged heights in that quarter. From the heights comes

to the ear the tramp of soldiery, broke and irregular, as by

obstacles 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. The

lightning quickens, with rolls of thunder, and a few large drops

of 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 is

lit by a single lantern, and occupied by some half-dozen English

dragoons with a sergeant and corporal, who form part of a mounted

patrol, their horses being picketed at the entrance. They are

seated 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 ford

and of the descending battalions, making them seem further off

than before. The sentinel is about to retreat to the shed when

he discerns two female figures in the gloom. Enter MRS. DALBIAC

and MRS. PRESCOTT, English officers wives.]

SENTINEL

Where there's war there's women, and where there's women there's

trouble! (Aloud) Who goes there?

MRS. DALBIAC

We must reveal who we are, I fear (to her companion). Friends!

(to sentinel).

SENTINEL

Advance and give the countersign.

MRS. DALBIAC

Oh, but we can't!

SENTINEL

Consequent which, you must retreat. By Lord Wellington's strict

regulations, women of loose character are to be excluded from the

lines for moral reasons, namely, that they are often employed by

the enemy as spies.

MRS. PRESCOTT

Dear good soldier, we are English ladies benighted, having mistaken

our way back to Salamanca, and we want shelter from the storm.

MRS. DALBIAC

If it is necessary I will say who we are.--I am Mrs. Dalbiac, wife

of the Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fourth Light Dragoons, and this

lady is the wife of Captain Prescott of the Seventh Fusileers. We

went out to Christoval to look for our husbands, but found the army

had moved.

SENTINEL (incredulously)

"Wives!" Oh, not to-day! I have heard such titles of courtesy

afore; but they never shake me. "W" begins other female words than

"wives!"--You'll have trouble, good dames, to get into Salamanca

to-night. You'll be challenged all the way down, and shot without

clergy if you can't give the countersign.

MRS. PRESCOTT

Then surely you'll tell us what it is, good kind man!

SENTINEL

Well--have ye earned enough to pay for knowing? Government wage is

poor pickings for watching here in the rain. How much can ye stand?

MRS. DALBIAC

Half-a-dozen pesetas.

SENTINEL

Very well, my dear. I was always tender-hearted. Come along.

(They advance and hand the money.) The pass to-night is "Melchester

Steeple." That will take you into the town when the weather clears.

You won't have to cross the ford. You can get temporary shelter in

the shed there.

[As the ladies move towards the shed the tramp of the infantry

draws near the ford, which the downfall has made to purl more

boisterously. The twain enter the shed, and the dragoons look

up inquiringly.]

MRS. DALBIAC (to dragoons)

The French are luckier than you are, men. You'll have a wet advance

across 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 Spanish

garrison is in the castle that commands the bridge at Alba.

MRS. DALBIAC

A peasant told us, if we understood rightly, that he saw the Spanish

withdraw, and the enemy place a garrison there themselves.

[The sergeant hastily calls up two troopers, who mount and ride off

with the intelligence.]

SERGEANT

You've done us a good turn, it is true, darlin'. Not that Lord

Wellington will believe it when he gets the news. . . . Why, if my

eyes don't deceive me, ma'am, that's Colonel Dalbiac's lady!

MRS. DALBIAC

Yes, 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 the

storm, and want shelter awhile.

SERGEANT

Certainly, ma'am. I'll give you an escort back as soon as the

division has crossed and the weather clears.

MRS. PRESCOTT (anxiously)

Have you heard, sergeant, if there's to be a battle to-morrow?

SERGEANT

Yes, 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 from

Ireland. This coming battle frightens me!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

This is her prescient pang of widowhood.

Ere Salamanca clang to-morrow's close

She'll find her consort stiff among the slain!

[The infantry regiments now reach the ford. The storm increases

in strength, the stream flows more furiously; yet the columns of

foot enter it and begin crossing. The lightning is continuous;

the faint lantern in the ford-house is paled by the sheets of

fire without, which flap round the bayonets of the crossing men

and 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 sand

That spreads its mantle of yellow-grey

Round old Salmantica to-day;

While marching men come, band on band,

Who read not as a reprimand

To mortal moils that, as 'twere planned

In mockery of their mimic fray,

The skies fling flame.

Since sad Coruna's desperate stand

Horrors unsummed, with heavy hand,

Have smitten such as these! But they

Still headily pursue their way,

Though flood and foe confront them, and

The skies fling flame.

[The whole of the English division gets across by degrees, and

their invisible tramp is heard ascending the opposite heights as

the lightnings dwindle and the spectacle disappears.]

SCENE III

THE FIELD OF SALAMANCA

[The battlefield--an undulating and sandy expanse--is lying

under the sultry sun of a July afternoon. In the immediate

left foreground rises boldly a detached dome-like hill known

as the Lesser Arapeile, now held by English troops. Further

back, and more to the right, rises another and larger hill of

the kind--the Greater Arapeile; this is crowned with French

artillery in loud action, and the French marshal, MARMONT, Duke

of RAGUSA, stands there. Further to the right, in the same

plane, stretch the divisions of the French army. Still further

to the right, in the distance, on the Ciudad Rodrigo highway, a

cloud of dust denotes the English baggage-train seeking security

in that direction. The city of Salamanca itself, and the river

Tormes on which it stands, are behind the back of the spectator.

On the summit of the lesser hill, close at hand, WELLINGTON, glass

at eye, watches the French division under THOMIERE, which has become

separated from the centre of the French army. Round and near him

are aides and other officers, in animated conjecture on MARMONT'S

intent, which appears to be a move on the Ciudad Rodrigo road

aforesaid, under the impression that the English are about to

retreat that way.

The English commander descends from where he was standing to a nook

under a wall, where a meal is roughly laid out. Some of his staff

are already eating there. WELLINGTON takes a few mouthfuls without

sitting down, walks back again, and looks through his glass at the

battle 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.

WELLINGTON

I 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 aides

and despatches them down the hill. He goes back behind the wall

and 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 SOMERSET

Thinking we mean to attack on him,

He schemes to swoop on our retreating-line.

WELLINGTON

Ay; and to cloak it by this cannonade.

With that in eye he has bundled leftwardly

Thomiere's division; mindless that thereby

His wing and centre's mutual maintenance

Has 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 British

divisions advance across the French front on the Greater Arapeile

and elsewhere. The French shower bullets into them; but an English

brigade under PACK assails the nearer French on the Arapeile, now

beginning to cannonade the English in the hollows beneath.

Light breezes blow toward the French, and they get in their faces

the dust-clouds and smoke from the masses of English in motion, and

a powerful sun in their eyes.

MARMONT and his staff are sitting on the top of the Greater Arapeile

only half a cannon-shot from WELLINGTON on the Lesser; and, like

WELLINGTON, he is gazing through his glass.

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

Appearing to behold the full-mapped mind

Of his opponent, Marmont arrows forth

Aide 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 rides

And dons the burden of the chief command,

Marking dismayed the Thomiere column there

Shut up by Pakenham like bellows-folds

Against 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 bayoneteers

Shape 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 bound

Against their opposites!

SEMICHORUS II

A bullet crying along the cloven air

Gouges 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 middle

hollow, and WELLINGTON descends thither from the English Arapeile.

The fight grows fiercer. COLE and LEITH now fall wounded; then

BERESFORD, who directs the Portuguese, is struck down and borne

away. On the French side fall BONNET who succeeded MARMONT in

command, 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 the

vanquishing enemy. In the close foreground vague figures on

horseback are audible in the gloom.

VOICE OF WELLINGTON

I thought they looked as they'd be scurrying soon!

VOICE OF AN AIDE

Foy bears into the wood in middling trim;

Maucune strikes out for Alba-Castle bridge.

VOICE OF WELLINGTON

Speed 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 grass

Within a sickle's curve!

VOICE OF AIDE

Too late, my lord.

They are crossing by the aforesaid bridge at Alba.

VOICE OF WELLINGTON

Impossible. The guns of Carlos rake it

Sheer from the castle walls.

VOICE OF AIDE

Tidings have sped

Just now therefrom, to this undreamed effect:

That Carlos has withdrawn the garrison:

The French command the Alba bridge themselves!

VOICE OF WELLINGTON

Blast him, he's disobeyed his orders, then!

How happened this? How long has it been known?

VOICE OF AIDE

Some ladies some few hours have rumoured it,

But unbelieved.

VOICE OF WELLINGTON

Well, what's done can't be undone. . . .

By God, though, they've just saved themselves thereby

From capture to a man!

VOICE OF A GENERAL

We've not struck ill,

Despite this slip, my lord. . . . And have you heard

That Colonel Dalbiac's wife rode in the charge

Behind her spouse to-day?

VOICE OF WELLINGTON

Did she though: did she!

Why that must be Susanna, whom I know--

A Wessex woman, blithe, and somewhat fair. . . .

Not but great irregularities

Arise from such exploits.--And was it she

I noticed wandering to and fro below here,

Just as the French retired?

VOICE OF ANOTHER OFFICER

Ah 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 sunset

She found him lying dead and bloody there,

And in the dusk we bore them both away.(18)

VOICE OF WELLINGTON

Well, I'm damned sorry for her. Though I wish

The women-folk would keep them to the rear:

Much awkwardness attends their pottering round!

[The talking shapes disappear, and as the features of the field

grow undistinguishable the comparative quiet is broken by gay

notes 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-making

continues till midnight, when it ceases, and darkness and silence

prevail everywhere.]

SEMICHORUS I OF THE YEARS (aerial music)

What are Space and Time? A fancy!--

Lo, by Vision's necromancy

Muscovy will now unroll;

Where for cork and olive-tree

Starveling firs and birches be.

SEMICHORUS II

Though such features lie afar

From events Peninsular,

These, amid their dust and thunder,

Form with those, as scarce asunder,

Parts of one compacted whole.

CHORUS

Marmont's aide, then, like a swallow

Let 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 rushing

through the air.]

SCENE IV

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, which

bars the way thither. The sun of latter summer, sinking behind

our backs, floods the whole prospect, which is mostly wild,

uncultivated land with patches of birch-trees. NAPOLEON'S army

has just arrived on the scene, and is making its bivouac for the

night, some of the later regiments not having yet come up. A

dropping fire of musketry from skirmishers ahead keeps snapping

through the air. The Emperor's tent stands in a ravine in the

foreground amid the squares of the Old Guard. Aides and other

officers are chatting outside.

Enter NAPOLEON, who dismounts, speaks to some of his suite, and

disappears inside his tent. An interval follows, during which the

sun dips.

Enter COLONEL FABVRIER, aide-de-camp of MARMONT, just arrived from

Spain. An officer-in-waiting goes into NAPOLEON'S tent to announce

FABVRIER, the Colonel meanwhile talking to those outside.]

AN AIDE

Important tidings thence, I make no doubt?

FABVRIER

Marmont repulsed on Salamanca field,

And well-nigh slain, is the best tale I bring!

[A silence. A coughing heard in NAPOLEON'S tent.]

Whose rheumy throat distracts the quiet so?

AIDE

The Emperor's. He is thus the livelong day.

[COLONEL FABVRIER is shown into the tent. An interval. Then the

husky accents of NAPOLEON within, growing louder and louder.]

VOICE OF NAPOLEON

If 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 besides

That has befallen in Spain!

VOICE OF FABVRIER

I fear so, sire.

VOICE OF NAPOLEON

He forced a conflict, to cull laurel crowns

Before King Joseph should arrive to share them!

VOICE OF FABVRIER

The army's ardour for your Majesty,

Its courage, its devotion to your cause,

Cover a myriad of the Marshal's sins.

VOICE OF NAPOLEON

Why gave he battle without biddance, pray,

From the supreme commander? Here's the crime

Of insubordination, root of woes! . . .

The time well chosen, and the battle won,

The English succours there had sidled off,

And their annoy in the Peninsula

Embarrassed 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 command

I would with joy have changed this early wound

For foulest mortal stroke at fall of day.

One baleful moment damnified the fruit

Of six weeks' wise strategics, whose result

Had loomed so certain!"--(Satirically) Well, we've but his word

As to their wisdom! To define them thus

Would not have struck me but for his good prompting! . . .

No matter: On Moskowa's banks to-morrow

I'll mend his faults upon the Arapeile.

I'll see how I can treat this Russian horde

Which English gold has brought together here

From 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 BAUSSET

The box that came--has it been taken in?

AN OFFICER

Yes, General 'Tis laid behind a screen

In the outer tent. As yet his Majesty

Has not been told of it.

[DE BAUSSET goes into the tent. After an interval of murmured

talk an exclamation bursts from the EMPEROR. In a few minutes he

appears at the tent door, a valet following him bearing a picture.

The EMPEROR'S face shows traces of emotion.]

NAPOLEON

Bring 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-sons

Must gaze upon this son of mine own house

In 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-ball

being represented as the globe. The officers standing near are

attracted round, and then the officers and soldiers further back

begin 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.]

SOLDIERS

The Emperor and the King of Rome for ever!

[When they have marched past and withdrawn, and DE BAUSSET has

taken away the picture, NAPOLEON prepares to re-enter his tent.

But his attention is attracted to the Russians. He regards them

through his glass. Enter BESSIERES and RAPP.]

NAPOLEON

What slow, weird ambulation do I mark,

Rippling the Russian host?

BESSIERES

A progress, sire,

Of all their clergy, vestmented, who bear

An image, said to work strange miracles.

[NAPOLEON watches. The Russian ecclesiastics pass through the

regiments, which are under arms, bearing the icon and other

religious insignia. The Russian soldiers kneel before it.]

NAPOLEON

Ay! Not content to stand on their own strength,

They try to hire the enginry of Heaven.

I am no theologian, but I laugh

That men can be so grossly logicless,

When war, defensive or aggressive either,

Is in its essence pagan, and opposed

To the whole gist of Christianity!

BESSIERES

'Tis to fanaticize their courage, sire.

NAPOLEON

Better they'd wake up old Kutuzof.--Rapp,

What think you of to-morrow?

RAPP

Victory;

But, sire, a bloody one!

NAPOLEON

So 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 long

line across the mid-distance, and throwing a flapping glare into

the heavens. As the night grows stiller the ballad-singing and

laughter from the French mixes with a slow singing of psalms from

their adversaries.

The two multitudes lie down to sleep, and all is quiet but for

the sputtering of the green wood fires, which, now that the human

tongues are still, seem to hold a conversation of their own.]

SCENE V

THE SAME

[The prospect lightens with dawn, and the sun rises red. The

spacious field of battle is now distinct, its ruggedness being

bisected by the great road from Smolensk to Moscow, which runs

centrally from beneath the spectator to the furthest horizon.

The field is also crossed by the stream Kalotcha, flowing from

the right-centre foreground to the left-centre background, thus

forming 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 close

masses. So stand also the French, who have in their centre the

Shevardino redoubt beyond the Kalotcha. Here NAPOLEON, in his

usual glue-grey uniform, white waistcoat, and white leather

breeches, chooses his position with BERTHIER and other officers

of his suite.]

DUMB SHOW

It is six o'clock, and the firing of a single cannon on the French

side proclaims that the battle is beginning. There is a roll of

drums, 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, GENERAL

BAGRATION, brings across a division from the Russian right and expels

them 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 dust

between NAPOLEON 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 still

violent 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 PITIES

So he fulfils the inhuman antickings

He thinks imposed upon him. . . . What says he?

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

He 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. NAPOLEON sips

his grog hopefully, and orders a still stronger attack on the

great redoubt in the centre.

It is carried out. The redoubt becomes the scene of a huge

massacre. In other parts of the field also the action almost

ceases to be a battle, and takes the form of wholesale butchery

by the thousand, now advantaging one side, now the other.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Thus do the mindless minions of the spell

In mechanized enchantment sway and show

A 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 PITIES

The ugly horror grossly regnant here

Wakes even the drowsed half-drunken Dictator

To all its vain uncouthness!

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

Murat cries

That on this much-anticipated day

Napoleon's genius flags inoperative.

The firing from the top of the redoubt has ceased. The French have

got inside. The Russians retreat upon their rear, and fortify

themselves on the heights there. PONIATOWSKI furiously attacks them.

But the French are worn out, and fall back to their station before

the battle. So the combat dies resultlessly away. The sun sets, and

the opposed and exhausted hosts sink to lethargic repose. NAPOLEON

enters his tent in the midst of his lieutenants, and night descends.

SHADE OF THE EARTH

The fumes of nitre and the reek of gore

Make my airs foul and fulsome unto me!

SPIRIT IRONIC

The natural nausea of a nurse, dear Dame.

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

Strange: even within that tent no notes of joy

Throb as at Austerlitz! (signifying Napoleon's tent).

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

But mark that roar--

A mash of men's crazed cries entreating mates

To run them through and end their agony;

Boys calling on their mothers, veterans

Blaspheming God and man. Those shady shapes

Are horses, maimed in myriads, tearing round

In maddening pangs, the harnessings they wear

Clanking discordant jingles as they tear!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

It is enough. Let now the scene be closed.

The night thickens.

SCENE VI

MOSCOW

[The foreground is an open place amid the ancient irregular streets

of the city, which disclose a jumble of architectural styles, the

Asiatic prevailing over the European. A huge triangular white-

walled fortress rises above the churches and coloured domes on a

hill in the background, the central feature of which is a lofty

tower with a gilded cupola, the Ivan Tower. Beneath the battlements

of this fortress the Moskva River flows.

An unwonted rumbling of wheels proceeds from the cobble-stoned

streets, accompanied by an incessant cracking of whips.]

DUMB SHOW

Travelling carriages, teams, and waggons, laden with pictures,

carpets, glass, silver, china, and fashionable attire, are rolling

out of the city, followed by foot-passengers in streams, who carry

their most precious possessions on their shoulders. Others bear

their sick relatives, caring nothing for their goods, and mothers

go laden with their infants. Others drive their cows, sheep, and

goats, 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 PITIES

Whose 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 door

In rhythmal rote, and groan the great events

The hour is pregnant with?

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Rostopchin he,

The city governor, whose name will ring

Far down the forward years uncannily!

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

His arts are strange, and strangely do they move him:--

To store the stews with stuffs inflammable,

To bid that pumps be wrecked, captives enlarged

And primed with brands for burning, are the intents

His warnings to the citizens outshade!

When the bulk of the populace has passed out eastwardly the Russian

army retreating from Borodino also passes through the city into the

country beyond without a halt. They mostly move in solemn silence,

though many soldiers rush from their ranks and load themselves with

spoil.

When they are got together again and have marched out, there goes by

on his horse a strange scarred old man with a foxy look, a swollen

neck and head and a hunched figure. He is KUTUZOF, surrounded by

his lieutenants. Away in the distance by other streets and bridges

with other divisions pass in like manner GENERALS BENNIGSEN, BARCLAY

DE TOLLY, DOKHTOROF, the mortally wounded BAGRATION in a carriage, and

other generals, all in melancholy procession one way, like autumnal

birds 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 of

the 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 to

Vladimir.

SCENE VII

THE SAME. OUTSIDE THE CITY

[A hill forms the foreground, called the Hill of Salutation, near

the Smolensk road.

Herefrom the city appears as a splendid panorama, with its river,

its gardens, and its curiously grotesque architecture of domes and

spires. It is the peacock of cities to Western eyes, its roofs

twinkling in the rays of the September sun, amid which the ancient

citadel of the Tsars--the Kremlin--forms a centre-piece.

There enter on the hill at a gallop NAPOLEON, MURAT, EUGENE, 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, and

the long columns of the Grand Army stretch far in the rear. The

Emperor and his marshals halt, and gaze at Moscow.]

NAPOLEON

Ha! There she is at last. And it was time.

[He looks round upon his army, its numbers attenuated to one-fourth

of those who crossed the Niemen so joyfully.]

Yes: it was time. . . . NOW what says Alexander!

DARU

This is a foil to Salamanca, sire!

DAVOUT

What scores of bulbous church-tops gild the sky!

Souls must be rotten in this region, sire,

To need so much repairing!

NAPOLEON

Ay--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 extend

To vanquished ones. I wait the city keys,

And will receive the Governor's submission

With courtesy due. Eugene will guard the gate

To Petersburg there leftward. You, Davout,

The gate to Smolensk in the centre here

Which we shall enter by.

VOICES OF ADVANCE-GUARD

Moscow! Moscow!

This, this is Moscow city. Rest at last!

[The words are caught up in the rear by veterans who have entered

every capital in Europe except London, and are echoed from rank to

rank. There is a far-extended clapping of hands, like the babble

of waves, and companies of foot run in disorder towards high ground

to behold the spectacle, waving their shakos on their bayonets.

The army now marches on, and NAPOLEON and his suite disappear

citywards 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 have

been sent back lip by lip from the front.]

SPIRIT IRONIC

An anticlimax to Napoleon's dream!

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

They say no governor attends with keys

To offer his submission gracefully.

The streets are solitudes, the houses sealed,

And stagnant silence reigns, save where intrudes

The 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 streets

But for some grinning wretches gaoled there.

Enchantment seems to sway from quay to keep,

And lock commotion in a century's sleep.

[NAPOLEON, reappearing in front of the city, follows MURAT, and is

again 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 gazing

Upon 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. In

blackness to the north of where the Kremlin stands appears what at

first seems a lurid, malignant star. It waxes larger. Almost

simultaneously a north-east wind rises, and the light glows and

sinks with the gusts, proclaiming a fire, which soon grows large

enough to irradiate the fronts of adjacent buildings, and to show

that it is creeping on towards the Kremlin itself, the walls of

that fortress which face the flames emerging from their previous

shade.

The fire can be seen breaking out also in numerous other quarters.

All the conflagrations increase, and become, as those at first

detached group themselves together, one huge furnace, whence

streamers of flame reach up to the sky, brighten the landscape

far around, and show the houses as if it were day. The blaze

gains the Kremlin, and licks its walls, but does not k****e it.

Explosions and hissings are constantly audible, amid which can be

fancied cries and yells of people caught in the combustion. Large

pieces of canvas aflare sail away on the gale like balloons.

Cocks crow, thinking it sunrise, ere they are burnt to death.]

SCENE VIII

THE SAME. THE INTERIOR OF THE KREMLIN

[A chamber containing a bed on which NAPOLEON has been lying. It

is not yet daybreak, and the flapping light of the conflagration

without shines in at the narrow windows.

NAPOLEON is discovered dressed, but in disorder and unshaven. He

is walking up and down the room in agitation. There are present

CAULAINCOURT, BESSIERES, and many of the marshals of his guard,

who stand in silent perplexity.]

NAPOLEON (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).]

MORTIER

Sire, there's no means of fencing with the flames.

My creed is that these scurvy Muscovites

Knowing 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 approaches

NAPOLEON.]

LARIBOISIERE

The 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 entails

Much risk for you, your army, and ourselves,

In the embarrassment it throws on us

While taking steps to seek security,

By hindering venturous means.

[Enter MURAT, PRINCE EUGENE, and the PRINCE OF NEUFCHATEL.]

MURAT

There is no choice

But leaving, sire. Enormous bulks of powder

Lie housed beneath us; and outside these panes

A park of our artillery stands unscreened.

NAPOLEON (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 NAPOLEON'S guard and an

interpreter enter, with one of the Russian military police as a

prisoner.]

FIRST OFFICER

We have caught this man

Firing the Kremlin: yea, in the very act!

It is extinguished temporarily,

We know not for how long.

NAPOLEON

Inquire of him

What devil set him on. (They inquire.)

SECOND OFFICER

The governor,

He says; the Count Rostopchin, sire.

NAPOLEON

So! Even the ancient Kremlin is not sanct

From 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 a

musket-volley resounds in a few minutes. Meanwhile the flames

pop and spit more loudly, and the window-panes of the room they

stand in crack and fall in fragments.]

Incendiarism afoot, and we unware

Of 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.]

BESSIERES

Your pardon, sire,

But we are all convinced that weather, time,

Provisions, roads, equipment, mettle, mood,

Serve not for such a perilous enterprise.

[NAPOLEON remains in gloomy silence. Enter BERTHIER.]

NAPOLEON (apathetically)

Well, Berthier. More misfortunes?

BERTHIER

News is brought,

Sire, of the Russian army's whereabouts.

That fox Kutuzof, after marching east

As if he were conducting his whole force

To Vladimir, when at the Riazan Road

Down-doubled sharply south, and in a curve

Has wheeled round Moscow, making for Kalouga,

To strike into our base, and cut us off.

MURAT

Another reason against Petersburg!

Come what come may, we must defeat that army,

To keep a sure retreat through Smolensk on

To Lithuania.

NAPOLEON (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-sold

To England, who fomented it.--'Twas he

Dragged Alexander into it, and me!

[The marshals are silent with looks of incredulity, and Caulaincourt

shrugs his shoulders.]

Now no more words; but hear. Eugene and Ney

With their divisions fall straight back upon

The Petersburg and Zwenigarod Roads;

Those of Davout upon the Smolensk route.

I will retire meanwhile to Petrowskoi.

Come, let us go.

[NAPOLEON and the marshals move to the door. In leaving, the

Emperor pauses and looks back.]

I fear that this event

Marks the beginning of a train of ills. . . .

Moscow was meant to be my rest,

My refuge, and--it vanishes away!

[Exeunt NAPOLEON, marshals, etc. The smoke grows denser and

obscures the scene.]

SCENE IX

THE ROAD FROM SMOLENSKO INTO LITHUANIA

[The season is far advanced towards winter. The point of observation

is high amongst the clouds, which, opening and shutting fitfully to

the wind, reveal the earth as a confused expanse merely.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Where are we? And why are we where we are?

SHADE OF THE EARTH

Above a wild waste garden-plot of mine

Nigh bare in this late age, and now grown chill,

Lithuania called by some. I gather not

Why we haunt here, where I can work no charm

Either upon the ground or over it.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

The wherefore will unfold. The rolling brume

That parts, and joins, and parts again below us

In ragged restlessness, unscreens by fits

The quality of the scene.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

I notice now

Primeval woods, pine, birch--the skinny growths

That can sustain life well where earth affords

But sustenance elsewhere yclept starvation.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

And what see you on the far land-verge there,

Labouring from eastward towards our longitude?

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

An object like a dun-piled caterpillar,

Shuffling its length in painful heaves along,

Hitherward. . . . Yea, what is this Thing we see

Which, moving as a single monster might,

Is yet not one but many?

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Even the Army

Which once was called the Grand; now in retreat

From Moscow's muteness, urged by That within it;

Together with its train of followers--

Men, matrons, babes, in brabbling multitudes.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

And why such flight?

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Recording 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 II

By track of Tarutino first it flits;

Thence swerving, strikes at old Jaroslawitz;

The which, accurst by slaughtering swords, it quits.

ANGEL I

Harassed, it treads the trail by which it came,

To Borodino, field of bloodshot fame,

Whence stare unburied horrors beyond name!

ANGEL II

And 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 of

snow. Then come another and another, till natural features,

hitherto varied with the tints of autumn, are confounded, and all

is phantasmal grey and white.

The caterpillar shape still creeps laboriously nearer, but instead,

increasing in size by the rules of perspective, it gets more

attenuated, and there are left upon the ground behind it minute

parts of itself, which are speedily flaked over, and remain as

white pimples by the wayside.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

These atoms that drop off are snuffed-out souls

Who are enghosted by the caressing snow.

[Pines rise mournfully on each side of the nearing object; ravens

in flocks advance with it overhead, waiting to pick out the eyes

of strays who fall. The snowstorm increases, descending in tufts

which can hardly be shaken off. The sky seems to join itself to

the land. The marching figures drop rapidly, and almost immediately

become white grave-mounds.

Endowed with enlarged powers of audition as of vision, we are struck

by the mournful taciturnity that prevails. Nature is mute. Save

for the incessant flogging of the wind-broken and lacerated horses

there 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 be

moving. And when the French presently reach Krasnoye they are

surrounded by packs of cloaked Cossacks, bearing lances like huge

needles a dozen feet long. The fore-part of the French army gets

through the town; the rear is assaulted by infantry and artillery.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

The strange, one-eyed, white-shakoed, scarred old man,

Ruthlessly heading every onset made,

I seem to recognize.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Kutuzof he:

The ceaselessly-attacked one, Michael Ney;

A pair as stout as thou, Earth, ever hast twinned!

Kutuzof, ten years younger, would extirp

The 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.

[NAPOLEON himself can be discerned amid the rest, marching on foot

through the snowflakes, in a fur coat and with a stout staff in his

hand. Further back NEY is visible with the remains of the rear.

There is something behind the regular columns like an articulated

tail, and as they draw on, it shows itself to be a disorderly rabble

of followers of both sexes. So the whole miscellany arrives at the

foreground, 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 even

petticoats and other women's clothing. Many are delirious from

hunger and cold.

But they set about doing what is a necessity for the least hope of

salvation, and throw a bridge across the stream.

The point of vision descends to earth, close to the scene of action.]

SCENE X

THE BRIDGE OF THE BERESINA

[The bridge is over the Beresina at Studzianka. On each side of

the river are swampy meadows, now hard with frost, while further

back are dense forests. Ice floats down the deep black stream in

large cakes.]

DUMB SHOW

The French sappers are working up to their shoulders in the water at

the building of the bridge. Those so immersed work till, stiffened

with ice to immobility, they die from the chill, when others succeed

them.

Cavalry meanwhile attempt to swim their horses across, and some

infantry try to wade through the stream.

Another bridge is begun hard by, the construction of which advances

with greater speed; and it becomes fit for the passage of carriages

and artillery.

NAPOLEON is seen to come across to the homeward bank, which is the

foreground of the scene. A good portion of the army also, under

DAVOUT, NEY, and OUDINOT, lands by degrees on this side. But

VICTOR'S corps is yet on the left or Moscow side of the stream,

moving toward the bridge, and PARTONNEAUX with the rear-guard, who

has not yet crossed, is at Borissow, some way below, where there is

an 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 left

or further bank, and cross by the old bridge of Borissow. But they

are too far from the new crossing to intercept the French as yet.

PLATOFF with his Cossacks next appears on the stage which is to be

such a tragic one. He comes from the forest and approaches the left

bank likewise. So also does WITTGENSTEIN, who strikes in between

the uncrossed VICTOR and PARTONNEAUX. PLATOFF thereupon descends

on the latter, who surrenders with the rear-guard; and thus seven

thousand more are cut off from the already emaciated Grand Army.

TCHAPLITZ, of TCHICHAGOFF'S division, has meanwhile got round by the

old bridge at Borissow to the French side of the new one, and attacks

OUDINOT; but he is repulsed with the strength of despair. The French

lose a further five thousand in this.

We now look across the river at VICTOR, and his division, not yet

over, and still defending the new bridges. WITTGENSTEIN descends

upon him; but he holds his ground.

The determined Russians set up a battery of twelve cannon, so as to

command the two new bridges, with the confused crowd of soldiers,

carriages, and baggage, pressing to cross. The battery discharges

into the surging multitude. More Russians come up, and, forming a

semicircle round the bridges and the mass of French, fire yet more

hotly on them with round shot and canister. As it gets dark the

flashes light up the strained faces of the fugitives. Under the

discharge and the weight of traffic, the bridge for the artillery

gives way, and the throngs upon it roll shrieking into the stream

and are drowned.

SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES (aerial music)

So loudly swell their shrieks as to be heard above the roar of guns

and the wailful wind,

Giving in one brief cry their last wild word on that mock life

through which they have harlequined!

SEMICHORUS II

To the other bridge the living heap betakes itself, the weak pushed

over by the strong;

They loop together by their clutch like snakes; in knots they

are submerged and borne along.

CHORUS

Then women are seen in the waterflow--limply bearing their

infants between wizened white arms stretching above;

Yea, motherhood, sheerly sublime in her last despairing, and

lighting 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 we

see forty or fifty thousand assailing eighteen thousand half-naked,

badly armed wretches, emaciated with hunger and encumbered with

several 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 the

final 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, and

perish either in attempting to wade the stream or at the hands of

the 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 II

Death in a thousand motley forms;

Charred corpses hooking each other's arms

In the sleep that defies all war's alarms!

CHORUS

Pale 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's

edge, and darkness mantles all, nothing continuing but the purl of

the river and the clickings of floating ice.

SCENE XI

THE OPEN COUNTRY BETWEEN SMORGONI AND WILNA

[The winter is more merciless, and snow continues to fall upon a

deserted expanse of unenclosed land in Lithuania. Some scattered

birch bushes merge in a forest in the background.

It is growing dark, though nothing distinguishes where the sun

sets. There is no sound except that of a shuffling of feet in

the direction of a bivouac. Here are gathered tattered men like

skeletons. Their noses and ears are frost-bitten, and pus is

oozing from their eyes.

These stricken shades in a limbo of gloom are among the last

survivors of the French army. Few of them carry arms. One squad,

ploughing through snow above their knees, and with icicles dangling

from their hair that clink like glass-lustres as they walk, go

into the birch wood, and are heard chopping. They bring back

boughs, with which they make a screen on the windward side, and

contrive to light a fire. With their swords they cut rashers from

a dead horse, and grill them in the flames, using gunpowder for

salt to eat them with. Two others return from a search, with a

dead rat and some candle-ends. Their meal shared, some try to

repair their gaping shoes and to tie up their feet, that are

chilblained to the bone.

A straggler enters, who whispers to one or two soldiers of the

group. A shudder runs through them at his words.]

FIRST SOLDIER (dazed)

What--gone, do you say? Gone?

STRAGGLER

Yes, 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!

STRAGGLER

He started in a carriage, with Roustan

The Mameluke on the box: Caulaincourt, too,

Was inside with him. Monton and Duroc

Rode on a sledge behind.--The order bade

That we should not be told it for a while.

[Other soldiers spring up as they realize the news, and stamp

hither and thither, impotent with rage, grief, and despair, many

in their physical weakness sobbing like children.]

SPIRIT SINISTER

Good. It is the selfish and unconscionable characters who are so much

regretted.

STRAGGLER

He felt, or feigned, he ought to leave no longer

A land like Prussia 'twixt himself and home.

There was great need for him to go, he said,

To quiet France, and raise another army

That shall replace our bones.

SEVERAL (distractedly)

Deserted us!

Deserted us!--O, after all our pangs

We shall see France no more!

[Some become insane, and go dancing round. One of them sings.]

MAD SOLDIER'S SONG

I

Ha, 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.

II

What can we wish for more?

Thanks to the frost and flood

We are grinning crones--thin bags of bones

Who 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 and

privates press together for warmth. Other stragglers arrive, and

sit at the backs of the first. With the progress of the night the

stars come out in unusual brilliancy, Sirius and those in Orion

flashing like stilettos; and the frost stiffens.

The fire sinks and goes out; but the Frenchmen do not move. The

day dawns, and still they sit on.

In the background enter some light horse of the Russian army,

followed by KUTUZOF himself and a few of his staff. He presents

a terrible appearance now--bravely serving though slowly dying,

his face puffed with the intense cold, his one eye staring out as

he 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.

KUTUZOF

Go, stir them up! We slay not sleeping men.

[The Russians advance and prod the French with their lances.]

RUSSIAN OFFICER

Prince, here's a curious picture. They are dead.

KUTUZOF (with indifference)

Oh, naturally. After the snow was down

I marked a sharpening of the air last night.

We shall be stumbling on such frost-baked meat

Most of the way to Wilna.

OFFICER (examining the bodies)

They all sit

As 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.

KUTUZOF

'Tis well. So perish Russia's enemies!

[Exeunt KUTUZOF, his staff, and the detachment of horse in the

direction of Wilna; and with the advance of day the snow resumes

its fall, slowly burying the dead bivouackers.]

SCENE XII

PARIS. THE TUILERIES

[An antechamber to the EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE'S bedroom, at half-past

eleven on a December night. The DUCHESS OF MONTEBELLO and another

lady-in-waiting are discovered talking to the Empress.]

MARIE LOUISE

I have felt unapt for anything to-night,

And I will now retire.

[She goes into her child's room adjoining.]

DUCHESS OF MONTEBELLO

For some long while

There has come no letter from the Emperor,

And Paris brims with ghastly rumourings

About the far campaign. Not being beloved,

The town is over dull for her alone.

[Re-enter MARIE LOUISE.]

MARIE LOUISE

The King of Rome is sleeping in his cot

Sweetly 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 bars

the window-shutters with numerous bolts. Exit manservant. The

Duchess retires. The other lady-in-waiting rises to go into her

bedroom, 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. The

lady-in-waiting screams.

MARIE LOUISE hastily re-enters in a dressing-gown thrown over her

night-clothes.]

MARIE LOUISE

Great 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 NAPOLEON (without)

Hola! Pray let me in! Unlock the door!

LADY-IN-WAITING

Heaven's mercy on us! What man may it be

At such and hour as this?

MARIE LOUISE

O it is he!

[The lady-in-waiting unlocks the door. NAPOLEON enters, scarcely

recognizable, in a fur cloak and hood over his ears. He throws

off the cloak and discloses himself to be in the shabbiest and

muddiest attire. Marie Louise is agitated almost to fainting.]

SPIRIT IRONIC

Is it with fright or joy?

MARIE LOUISE

I scarce believe

What my sight tells me! Home, and in such garb!

[NAPOLEON embraces her.]

NAPOLEON

I have had great work in getting in, my dear!

They failed to recognize me at the gates,

Being sceptical at my poor hackney-coach

And poorer baggage. I had to show my face

In 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 here

Than 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!

NAPOLEON

Yes:

Disasters many and swift have swooped on me!--

Since crossing--ugh!--the Beresina River

I have been compelled to come incognito;

Ay--as a fugitive and outlaw quite.

MARIE LOUISE

We'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 the

loud tones of NAPOLEON.]

NAPOLEON

Ah--that's his little voice! I'll in and see him.

MARIE LOUISE

I'll come with you.

[NAPOLEON and the EMPRESS pass into the other room. The lady-in-

waiting calls up yawning servants and gives orders. The servants

go to execute them. Re-enter NAPOLEON and MARIE LOUISE. The lady-

in-waiting goes out.]

NAPOLEON

I have said it, dear!

All the disasters summed in the bulletin

Shall be repaired.

MARIE LOUISE

And are they terrible?

NAPOLEON

Have you not read the last-sent bulletin,

Dear friend?

MARIE LOUISE

No recent bulletin has come.

NAPOLEON

Ah--I must have outstripped it on the way!

MARIE LOUISE

And where is the Grand Army?

NAPOLEON

Oh--that's gone.

MARIE LOUISE

Gone? But--gone where?

NAPOLEON

Gone all to nothing, dear.

MARIE LOUISE (incredulously)

But some six hundred thousand I saw pass

Through Dresden Russia-wards?

NAPOLEON (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 ridiculous

There's but a step!--I have been saying it

All 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 throats

That cheered me deaf at Dresden, marching east

So full of youth and spirits--all bleached bones--

Ridiculous? Can it be so, dear, to--

Their mothers say?

NAPOLEON (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 destinies

Did all the rest! Had I but hit success,

Imperial splendour would have worn a crown

Unmatched in long-scrolled Time! . . . Well, leave that now.--

What do they know about all this in Paris?

MARIE LOUSE

I cannot say. Black rumours fly and croak

Like ravens through the streets, but come to me

Thinned to the vague!--Occurrences in Spain

Breed much disquiet with these other things.

Marmont's defeat at Salamanca field

Ploughed deep into men's brows. The cafes say

Your troops must clear from Spain.

NAPOLEON

We'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 good

Swim 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 Paris

In 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 Invalides

In best gold leaf, and on a novel pattern.

MARIE LOUISE

To gild the dome, dear? Why?

NAPOLEON

To give them something

To think about. They'll take to it like children,

And argue in the cafes right and left

On its artistic points.--So they'll forget

The woes of Moscow.

[A chamberlain-in-waiting announces supper. MARIE LOUISE and

NAPOLEON go out. The room darkens and the scene closes.]

In the 1600s, Balthasar Gracian, a jesuit priest wrote 300 aphorisms on living life called "The Art of Worldly Wisdom." Join our newsletter below and read them all, one at a time.