Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1026 page)

opposite NAPOLEON.  GENERAL MACK is at the head, followed by

GIULAY, GOTTESHEIM, KLINAU, LICHTENSTEIN, and many other officers,

who advance to BONAPARTE and deliver their swords.]

MACK

Behold me, Sire.  Mack the unfortunate!

NAPOLEON

War, General, ever has its ups and downs,

And you must take the better and the worse

As impish chance or destiny ordains.

Come near and warm you here.  A glowing fire

Is life on the depressing, mired, moist days

Of smitten leaves down-dropping clammily,

And toadstools like the putrid lungs of men.

[To his Lieutenants.]
  Cause them so stand to right and left of me.

[The Austrian officers arrange themselves as directed, and the

body of the Austrians now file past their Conqueror, laying down

their arms as they approach; some with angry gestures and words,

others in moody silence.]

Listen, I pray you, Generals gathered her.

I tell you frankly that I know not why

Your master wages this wild war with me.

I know not what he seeks by such injustice,

Unless to give me practice in my trade—

That of a soldier—whereto I was bred:

Deemed he my craft might slip from me, unplied?

Let him now own me still a dab therein!

MACK

Permit me, your Imperial Majesty,

To speak one word in answer; which is this,

No war was wished for by my Emperor:

Russia constrained him to it!

NAPOLEON

     If that be,

You are no more a European power.—

I would point out to him that my resources

Are not confined to these my musters here;

My prisoners of war, in route for France,

Will see some marks of my resources there!

Two hundred thousand volunteers, right fit,

Will join my standards at a single nod,

And in six weeks prove soldiers to the bone,

Whilst you recruits, compulsion's scavengings,

Scarce weld to warriors after toilsome years.

But I want nothing on this Continent:

The English only are my enemies.

Ships, colonies, and commerce I desire,

Yea, therewith to advantage you as me.

Let me then charge your Emperor, my brother,

To turn his feet the shortest way to peace.—

All states must have an end, the weak, the strong;

Ay; even may fall the dynasty of Lorraine!

[The filing past and laying down of arms by the Austrian army

continues with monotonous regularity, as if it would never end.]

NAPOLEON
[in a murmur, after a while]

Well, what cares England!  She has won her game;

I have unlearnt to threaten her from Boulogne....

Her gold it is that forms the weft of this

Fair tapestry of armies marshalled here!

Likewise of Russia's drawing steadily nigh.

But they may see what these see, by and by.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

So let him speak, the while we clearly sight him

Moved like a figure on a lantern-slide.

Which, much amazing uninitiate eyes,

The all-compelling crystal pane but drags

Wither the showman wills.

SPIRIT IRONIC

     And yet, my friend,

The Will itself might smile at this collapse

Of Austria's men-at-arms, so drolly done;

Even as, in your phantasmagoric show,

The deft manipulator of the slide

Might smile at his own art.

CHORUS OF THE YEARS
[aerial music]

     Ah, no: ah, no!

It is impassible as glacial snow.—

     Within the Great Unshaken

     These painted shapes awaken

A lesser thrill than doth the gentle lave

Of yonder bank by Danube's wandering wave

Within the Schwarzwald heights that give it flow!

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

But O, the intolerable antilogy

Of making figments feel!

SPIRIT IRONIC

     Logic's in that.

It does not, I must own, quite play the game.

CHORUS OF IRONIC SPIRITS
[aerial music]

And this day wins for Ulm a dingy fame,

Which centuries shall not bleach from her name!

[The procession of Austrians continues till the scene is hidden

by haze.]

SCENE VI

LONDON.  SPRING GARDENS

[Before LORD MALMESBURY'S house, on a Sunday morning in the

same autumn.  Idlers pause and gather in the background.

PITT enters, and meets LORD MULGRAVE.]

MULGRAVE

Good day, Pitt.  Ay, these leaves that skim the ground

With withered voices, hint that sunshine-time

Is well-nigh past.—And so the game's begun

Between him and the Austro-Russian force,

As second movement in the faceabout

From Boulogne shore, with which he has hocussed us?—

What has been heard on't?  Have they clashed as yet?

PITT

The Emperor Francis, partly at my instance,

Has thrown the chief command on General Mack,

A man most capable and far of sight.

He centres by the Danube-bank at Ulm,

A town well-walled, and firm for leaning on

To intercept the French in their advance

From the Black Forest toward the Russian troops

Approaching from the east.  If Bonaparte

Sustain his marches at the break-neck speed

That all report, they must have met ere now.

—There is a rumour... quite impossible!...

MULGRAVE

You still have faith in Mack as strategist?

There have been doubts of his far-sightedness.

PITT
[hastily]

I know, I know.—I am calling here at Malmesbury's

At somewhat an unceremonious time

To ask his help to translate this Dutch print

The post has brought.  Malmesbury is great at Dutch,

Learning it long at Leyden, years ago.

[He draws a newspaper from his pocket, unfolds it, and glances

it down.]

There's news here unintelligible to me

Upon the very matter!  You'll come in?

[They call at LORD MAMESBURY'S.  He meets them in the hall, and

welcomes them with an apprehensive look of foreknowledge.]

PITT

Pardon this early call.  The packet's in,

And wings me this unreadable Dutch paper,

So, as the offices are closed to-day,

I have brought it round to you.

[Handling the paper.]

     What does it say?

For God's sake, read it out.  You know the tongue.

MALMESBURY
[with hesitation]

I have glanced it through already—more than once—

A copy having reached me, too, by now...

We are in the presence of a great disaster!

See here.  It says that Mack, enjailed in Ulm

By Bonaparte—from four side shutting round—

Capitulated, and with all his force

Laid down his arms before his conqueror!

[PITT's face changes.  A silence.]

MULGRAVE

Outrageous!  Ignominy unparalleled!

PITT

By God, my lord, these statement must be false!

These foreign prints are trustless as Cheap Jack

Dumfounding yokels at a country fair.

I heed no word of it.—Impossible.

What!  Eighty thousand Austrians, nigh in touch

With Russia's levies that Kutuzof leads,

To lay down arms before the war's begun?

'Tis too much!

MALMESBURY

     But I fear it is too true!

Note the assevered source of the report—

One beyond thought of minters of mock tales.

The writer adds that military wits

Cry that the little Corporal now makes war

In a new way, using his soldiers' legs

And not their arms, to bring him victory.

Ha-ha!  The quip must sting the Corporal's foes.

PITT
[after a pause]

O vacillating Prussia!  Had she moved,

Had she but planted one foot firmly down,

All this had been averted.—I must go.

'Tis sure, 'tis sure, I labour but in vain!

[MALMESBURY accompanies him to the door, and PITT walks away

disquietedly towards Whitehall, the other two regarding him

as he goes.]

MULGRAVE

Too swiftly he declines to feebleness,

And these things well might shake a stouter frame!

MALMESBURY

Of late the burden of all Europe's cares,

Of hiring and maintaining half her troops,

His single pair of shoulders has upborne,

Thanks to the obstinacy of the King.—

His thin, strained face, his ready irritation,

Are ominous signs.  He may not be for long.

MULGRAVE

He alters fast, indeed,—as do events.

MALMESBURY

His labour's lost; and all our money gone!

It looks as if this doughty coalition

On which we have lavished so much pay and pains

Would end in wreck.

MULGRAVE

     All is not over yet;

The gathering Russian forces are unbroke.

MALMESBURY

Well; we shall see.  Should Boney vanquish these,

And silence all resistance on that side,

His move will then be backward to Boulogne,

And so upon us.

MULGRAVE

Nelson to our defence!

MALMESBURY

Ay; where is Nelson?  Faith, by this time

He may be sodden; churned in Biscay swirls;

Or blown to polar bears by boreal gales;

Or sleeping amorously in some calm cave

On the Canaries' or Atlantis' shore

Upon the bosom of his Dido dear,

For all that we know!  Never a sound of him

Since passing Portland one September day—

To make for Cadiz; so 'twas then believed.

MULGRAVE

He's staunch.  He's watching, or I am much deceived.

[MULGRAVE departs.  MALMESBURY goes within.  The scene shuts.]

ACT FIFTH

SCENE I

OFF CAPE TRAFALGAR

[A bird's eye view of the sea discloses itself.  It is daybreak,

and the broad face of the ocean is fringed on its eastern edge

by the Cape and the Spanish shore.  On the rolling surface

immediately beneath the eye, ranged more or less in two parallel

lines running north and south, one group from the twain standing

off somewhat, are the vessels of the combined French and Spanish

navies, whose canvases, as the sun edges upward, shine in its

rays like satin.

On the western horizon two columns of ships appear in full sail,

small as moths to the aerial vision.  They are bearing down

towards the combined squadrons.]

RECORDING ANGEL I
[intoning from his book]

At last Villeneuve accepts the sea and fate,

Despite the Cadiz council called of late,

Whereat his stoutest captains—men the first

          To do all mortals durst—

Willing to sail, and bleed, and bear the worst,

Short of cold suicide, did yet opine

That plunging mid those teeth of treble line

          In jaws of oaken wood

Held open by the English navarchy

With suasive breadth and artful modesty,

Would smack of purposeless foolhardihood.

RECORDING ANGEL II

But word came, writ in mandatory mood,

To put from Cadiz, gain Toulon, and straight

At a said sign on Italy operate.

Moreover that Villeneuve, arrived as planned,

Would find Rosily in supreme command.—

Gloomy Villeneuve grows rash, and, darkly brave,

Leaps to meet war, storm, Nelson—even the grave.

SEMICHORUS I OF THE YEARS
[aerial music]

Ere the concussion hurtle, draw abreast

          Of the sea.

SEMICHORUS II

Where Nelson's hulls are rising from the west,

          Silently.

SEMICHORUS I

Each linen wing outspread, each man and lad

          Sworn to be

SEMICHORUS II

Amid the vanmost, or for Death, or glad

          Victory!

[The point of sight descends till it is near the deck of the

"Bucentaure," the flag-ship of VILLENEUVE.  Present thereupon

are the ADMIRAL, his FLAG-CAPTAIN MAGENDIE, LIEUTENANT

DAUDIGNON, other naval officers and seamen.]

MAGENDIE

All night we have read their signals in the air,

Whereby the peering frigates of their van

Have told them of our trend.

VILLENEUVE

     The enemy

Makes threat as though to throw him on our stern:

Signal the fleet to wear; bid Gravina

To come in from manoeuvring with his twelve,

And range himself in line.

[Officers murmur.]

     I say again

Bid Gravina draw hither with his twelve,

And signal all to wear!—and come upon

The larboard tack with every bow anorth!—

So we make Cadiz in the worst event.

And patch our rags up there.  As we head now

Our only practicable thoroughfare

Is through Gibraltar Strait—a fatal door!

Signal to close the line and leave no gaps.