Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1020 page)

fabric and fashion, waits in breathless expectation.]

DUMB SHOW

From a private corridor leading to a door in the aisle the EMPRESS

JOSEPHINE enters, in a shining costume, and diamonds that collect

rainbow-colours from the sunlight piercing the clerestory windows.

She is preceded by PRINCESS ELIZA, and surrounded by her ladies.

A pause follows, and then comes the procession of the EMPEROR,

consisting of hussars, heralds, pages, aides-de-camp, presidents

of institutions, officers of the state bearing the insignia of the

Empire and of Italy, and seven ladies with offerings.  The Emperor

himself in royal robes, wearing the Imperial crown, and carrying the

sceptre.  He is followed my ministers and officials of the household.

His gait is rather defiant than dignified, and a bluish pallor

overspreads his face.

He is met by the Cardinal Archbishop of CAPRARA and the clergy, who

burn incense before him as he proceeds towards  the throne.  Rolling

notes of music burn forth, and loud applause from the congregation.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

What is the creed that these rich rites disclose?

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

A local cult, called Christianity,

Which the wild dramas of the wheeling spheres

Include, with divers other such, in dim

Pathetical and brief parentheses,

Beyond whose span, uninfluenced, unconcerned,

The systems of the suns go sweeping on

With all their many-mortaled planet train

In mathematic roll unceasingly.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

I did not recognize it here, forsooth;

Though in its early, lovingkindly days

Of gracious purpose it was much to me.

ARCHBISHOP
[addressing Bonaparte]

Sire, with that clemency and right goodwill

Which beautify Imperial Majesty,

You deigned acceptance of the homages

That we the clergy and the Milanese

Were proud to offer when your entrance here

Streamed radiance on our ancient capital.

Please, then, to consummate the boon to-day

Beneath this holy roof, so soon to thrill

With solemn strains and lifting harmonies

Befitting such a coronation hour;

And bend a tender fatherly regard

On this assembly, now at one with me

To supplicate the Author of All Good

That He endow your most Imperial person

With every Heavenly gift.

[The procession advances, and the EMPEROR seats himself on the

throne, with the banners and regalia of the Empire on his right,

and those of Italy on his left hand.  Shouts and triumphal music

accompany the proceedings, after which Divine service commences.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Thus are the self-styled servants of the Highest

Constrained by earthly duress to embrace

Mighty imperiousness as it were choice,

And hand the Italian sceptre unto one

Who, with a saturnine, sour-humoured grin,

Professed at first to flout antiquity,

Scorn limp conventions, smile at mouldy thrones,

And level dynasts down to journeymen!—

Yet he, advancing swiftly on that track

Whereby his active soul, fair Freedom's child

Makes strange decline, now labours to achieve

The thing it overthrew.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Thou reasonest ever thuswise—even if

A self-formed force had urged his loud career.

SPIRIT SINISTER

Do not the prelate's accents falter thin,

His lips with inheld laughter grow deformed,

While blessing one whose aim is but to win

The golden seats that other b—-s have warmed?

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Soft, jester; scorn not puppetry so skilled,

Even made to feel by one men call the Dame.

SHADE OF THE EARTH

Yea; that they feel, and puppetry remain,

Is an owned flaw in her consistency

Men love to dub Dame Nature—that lay-shape

They use to hang phenomena upon—

Whose deftest mothering in fairest sphere

Is girt about by terms inexorable!

SPIRIT SINISTER

The lady's remark is apposite, and reminds me that I may as well

hold my tongue as desired.  For if my casual scorn, Father Years,

should set thee trying to prove that there is any right or reason

in the Universe, thou wilt not accomplish it by Doomsday!  Small

blame to her, however; she must cut her coat according to her

cloth, as they would say below there.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

O would that I could move It to enchain thee,

And shut thee up a thousand years!—
[to cite

A grim terrestrial tale of one thy like]

Thou Iago of the Incorporeal World,

"As they would say below there."

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

          Would thou couldst!

But move That scoped above percipience, Sire,

It cannot be!

SHADE OF THE EARTH

The spectacle proceeds.

SPIRIT SINISTER

And we may as well give all attention thereto, for the evils at

work in other continents are not worth eyesight by comparison.

[The ceremonial in the Cathedral continues.  NAPOLEON goes to

the front of the altar, ascends the steps, and, taking up the

crown of Lombardy, places it on his head.]

NAPOLEON

'Tis God has given it to me.  So be it.

Let any who shall touch it now beware! 
[Reverberations of applause.]

[The Sacrament of the Mass.  NAPOLEON reads the Coronation Oath in

a loud voice.]

HERALDS

Give ear!  Napoleon, Emperor of the French

And King of Italy, is crowned and throned!

CONGREGATION

Long live the Emperor and King.  Huzza!

[Music.  The Te Deum.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

That vulgar stroke of vauntery he displayed

In planting on his brow the Lombard crown,

Means sheer erasure of the Luneville pacts,

And lets confusion loose on Europe's peace

For many an undawned year!  From this rash hour

Austria but waits her opportunity

By secret swellings of her armaments

To link her to his foes.—I'll speak to him.

[He throws a whisper into NAPOLEON'S ear.]

          Lieutenant Bonaparte,

Would it not seemlier be to shut thy heart

To these unhealthy splendours?—helmet thee

For her thou swar'st-to first, fair Liberty?

NAPOLEON

Who spoke to me?

ARCHBISHOP

Not I, Sire.  Not a soul.

NAPOLEON

Dear Josephine, my queen, didst call my name?

JOSEPHINE

I spoke not, Sire.

NAPOLEON

     Thou didst not, tender spouse;

I know it.  Such harsh utterance was not thine.

It was aggressive Fancy, working spells

Upon a mind o'erwrought!

[The service closes.  The clergy advance with the canopy to the

foot of the throne, and the procession forms to return to the

Palace.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

          Officious sprite,

Thou art young, and dost not heed the Cause of things

Which some of us have inkled to thee here;

Else wouldst thou not have hailed the Emperor,

Whose acts do but outshape Its governing.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

I feel, Sire, as I must!  This tale of Will

And Life's impulsion by Incognizance

I cannot take!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

          Let me then once again

Show to thy sceptic eye the very streams

And currents of this all-inhering Power,

And bring conclusion to thy unbelief.

[The scene assumes the preternatural transparency before mentioned,

and there is again beheld as it were the interior of a brain which

seems to manifest the volitions of a Universal Will, of whose

tissues the personages of the action form portion.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Enough.  And yet for very sorriness

I cannot own the weird phantasma real!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Affection ever was illogical.

SPIRIT IRONIC
[aside]

How should the Sprite own to such logic—a mere juvenile— who only

came into being in what the earthlings call their Tertiary Age!

[The scene changes.  The exterior of the Cathedral takes the place

of the interior, and the point of view recedes, the whole fabric

smalling into distance and becoming like a rare, delicately carved

alabaster ornament.  The city itself sinks to miniature, the Alps

show afar as a white corrugation, the Adriatic and the Gulf of

Genoa appear on this and on that hand, with Italy between them,

till clouds cover the panorama.]

ACT SECOND

SCENE I

THE DOCKYARD, GIBRALTAR

[The Rock is seen rising behind the town and the Alameda Gardens,

and the English fleet rides at anchor in the Bay, across which the

Spanish shore from Algeciras to Carnero Point shuts in the West.

Southward over the Strait is the African coast.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Our migratory Proskenion now presents

An outlook on the storied Kalpe Rock,

As preface to the vision of the Fleets

Spanish and French, linked for fell purposings.

RECORDING ANGEL
[reciting]

Their motions and manoeuvres, since the fame

Of Bonaparte's enthronment at Milan

Swept swift through Europe's dumbed communities,

Have stretched the English mind to wide surmise.

Many well-based alarms
[which strange report

Much aggravates]
as to the pondered blow,

Flutter the public pulse; all points in turn—

Malta, Brazil, Wales, Ireland, British Ind—

Being held as feasible for force like theirs,

Of lavish numbers and unrecking aim.

"Where, where is Nelson?" questions every tongue;—

"How views he so unparalleled a scheme?"

Their slow uncertain apprehensions ask.

"When Villeneuve puts to sea with all his force,

What may he not achieve, if swift his course!"

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

I'll call in Nelson, who has stepped ashore

For the first time these thrice twelvemonths and more,

And with him one whose insight has alone

Pierced the real project of Napoleon.

[Enter NELSON and COLLINGWOOD, who pace up and down.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Note Nelson's worn-out features.  Much has he

Suffered from ghoulish ghast anxiety!

NELSON

In short, dear Coll, the letter which you wrote me

Had so much pith that I was fain to see you;

For I am sure that you indeed divine

The true intent and compass of a plot

Which I have spelled in vain.

COLLINGWOOD

     I weighed it thus:

Their flight to the Indies being to draw us off,

That and no more, and clear these coasts of us—

The standing obstacle to his device—

He cared not what was done at Martinique,

Or where, provided that the general end

Should not be jeopardized—that is to say,

The full-united squadron's quick return.—

Gravina and Villeneuve, once back to Europe,

Can straight make Ferrol, raise there the blockade,

Then haste to Brest, there to relieve Ganteaume,

And next with four-or five-and fifty sail

Bear down upon our coast as they see fit.—

I read they aim to strike at Ireland still,

As formerly, and as I wrote to you.

NELSON

So far your thoughtful and sagacious words

Have hit the facts.  But 'tis no Irish bay

The villains aim to drop their anchors in;

My word for it: they make the Wessex shore,

And this vast squadron handled by Villeneuve

Is meant to cloak the passage of their strength,

Massed on those transports—we being kept elsewhere

By feigning forces.—Good God, Collingwood,

I must be gone!  Yet two more days remain

Ere I can get away.—I must be gone!

COLLINGWOOD

Wherever you may go to, my dear lord,

You carry victory with you.  Let them launch,

Your name will blow them back, as sou'west gales

The gulls that beat against them from the shore.

NELSON

Good Collingwood, I know you trust in me;

But ships are ships, and do not kindly come

Out of the slow docks of the Admiralty

Like wharfside pigeons when they are whistled for:—

And there's a damned disparity of force,

Which means tough work awhile for you and me!

[The Spirit of the Years whispers to NELSON.]

And I have warnings, warnings, Collingwood,

That my effective hours are shortening here;

Strange warnings now and then, as 'twere within me,

Which, though I fear them not, I recognize!...

However, by God's help, I'll live to meet

These foreign boasters; yea, I'll finish them;

And then—well, Gunner Death may finish me!

COLLINGWOOD

View not your life so gloomily, my lord: