Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1033 page)

And—can it be a messenger for me!

WILTSHIRE

I hope no ugly European news

To stop the honour of this visit, sir!

[They listen.  The gallop of the horse grows louder, and is

checked at the door of the house.  There is a hasty knocking,

and a courier, splashed with mud from hard riding, is shown

into the gallery.  He presents a dispatch to PITT, who sits

down and hurriedly opens it.]

PITT
[to himself]

O heavy news indeed!... Disastrous; dire!

[He appears overcome as he sits, and covers his forehead with

his hand.]

WILTSHIRE

I trust you are not ill, sir?

PITT
[after some moments]

     Could I have

A little brandy, sir, quick brought to me?

WILTSHIRE

In one brief minute.

[Brandy is brought in, and PITT takes it.]

PITT

Now leave me, please, alone.  I'll call anon.

Is there a map of Europe handy here?

[WILTSHIRE fetches a map from the library, and spreads it before

the minister.  WILTSHIRE, courier, and servant go out.]

O God that I should live to see this day!

[He remains awhile in a profound reverie; then resumes the reading

of the dispatch.]

"Defeated—the Allies—quite overthrown

At Austerlitz—last week."—Where's Austerlitz?

—But what avails it where the place is now;

What corpse is curious on the longitude

And situation of his cemetery!...

The Austrians and the Russians overcome,

That vast adventuring army is set free

To bend unhindered strength against our strand....

So do my plans through all these plodding years

Announce them built in vain!

His heel on Europe, monarchies in chains

To France, I am as though I had never been!

[He gloomily ponders the dispatch and the map some minutes longer.

At last he rises with difficulty, and rings the bell.  A servant

enters.]

Call up my carriage, please you, now at once;

And tell your master I return to Bath

This moment—I may want a little help

In getting to the door here.

SERVANT

     Sir, I will,

And summon you my master instantly.

[He goes out and re-enters with WILTSHIRE.  PITT is assisted from

the room.]

PITT

Roll up that map.  'Twill not be needed now

These ten years!  Realms, laws, peoples, dynasties,

Are churning to a pulp within the maw

Of empire-making Lust and personal Gain!

[Exeunt PITT, WILTSHIRE, and the servant; and in a few minutes the

carriage is heard driving off, and the scene closes.]

SCENE VII

PARIS.  A STREET LEADING TO THE TUILERIES

[It is night, and the dim oil lamps reveal a vast concourse of

citizens of both sexes around the Palace gates and in the

neighbouring thoroughfares.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS 
[to the Spirit of Rumour]

Thou may'st descend and join this crowd awhile,

And speak what things shall come into they mouth.

SPIRIT SINISTER

I'll harken!  I wouldn't miss it for the groans on another

Austerlitz!

[The Spirit of Rumour enters on the scene in the disguise of a

young foreigner.]

SPIRIT
[to a street-woman]

Lady, a late hour this to be afoot!

WOMAN

Poor profit, then, to me from my true trade,

Wherein hot competition is so rife

Already, since these victories brought to town

So many foreign jobbers in my line,

That I'd best hold my tongue from praise of fame!

However, one is caught by popular zeal,

And though five midnights have not brought a sou,

I, too, chant
Jubilate
like the rest.—

In courtesies have haughty monarchs vied

Towards the Conqueror! who, with men-at-arms

One quarter theirs, has vanquished by his nerve

Vast mustering four-hundred-thousand strong,

And given new tactics to the art of war

Unparalleled in Europe's history!

SPIRIT

What man is this, whose might thou blazonest so—

Who makes the earth to tremble, shakes old thrones,

And turns the plains to wilderness?

WOMAN

     Dost ask

As ignorant, yet asking can define?

What mean you, traveller?

SPIRIT

          I am a stranger here,

A wandering wight, whose life has not been spent

This side the globe, though I can speak the tongue.

WOMAN

Your air has truth in't; but your state is strange!

Had I a husband he should tackle thee.

SPIRIT

Dozens thou hast had—batches more than she

Samaria knew, if now thou hast not one!

WOMAN

Wilt take the situation from this hour?

SPIRIT

Thou know'st not what thy frailty asks, good dame!

WOMAN

Well, learn in small the Emperor's chronicle,

As gleaned from what my soldier-husbands say:—

some five-and-forty standards of his foes

Are brought to Paris, borne triumphantly

In proud procession through the surging streets,

Ever as brands of fame to shine aloft

In dim-lit senate-halls and city aisles.

SPIRIT

Fair Munich sparkled with festivity

As there awhile he tarried, and was met

By the gay Josephine your Empress here.—

There, too, Eugene—

WOMAN

     Napoleon's stepson he—-

SPIRIT

Received for gift the hand of fair Princess

Augusta
[daughter of Bavaria's crown,

Forced from her plighted troth to Baden's heir]
,

And, to complete his honouring, was hailed

Successor to the throne of Italy.

WOMAN

How know you, ere this news has got abroad?

SPIRIT

Channels have I the common people lack.—

There, on the nonce, the forenamed Baden prince

Was joined to Stephanie Beauharnais, her

Who stands as daughter to the man we wait,

Some say as more.

WOMAN

     They do?  Then such not I.

Can revolution's dregs so soil thy soul

That thou shouldst doubt the eldest son thereof?

'Tis dangerous to insinuate nowadays!

SPIRIT

Right!  Lady many-spoused, more charity

Upbrims in thee than in some loftier ones

Who would not name thee with their white-washed tongues.—

Enough.  I am one whom, didst thou know my name,

Thou would'st not grudge a claim to speak his mind.

WOMAN

A thousand pardons, sir.

SPIRIT

     Resume thy tale

If so thou wishest.

WOMAN

Nay, but you know best—-

SPIRIT

How laurelled progress through applauding crowds

Have marked his journey home.  How Strasburg town,

Stuttgart, Carlsruhe, acclaimed him like the rest:

How pageantry would here have welcomed him,

Had not his speed outstript intelligence

—Now will a glimpse of him repay thee.  Hark!

[Shouts arise and increase in the distance, announcing BONAPARTE'S

approach.]

Well, Buonaparte has revived by land,

But not by sea.  On that thwart element

Never will he incorporate his dream,

And float as master!

WOMAN

What shall hinder him?

SPIRIT

That which has hereto.  England, so to say.

WOMAN

But she's in straits.  She lost her Nelson now,

[A worthy man: he loved a woman well!]

George drools and babbles in a darkened room;

Her heaven-born Minister declines apace;

All smooths the Emperor's sway.

SPIRIT

     Tales have two sides,

Sweet lady.  Vamped-up versions reach thee here.—

That Austerlitz was lustrous none ignores,

But would it shock thy garrulousness to know

That the true measure of this Trafalgar—

Utter defeat, ay, France's naval death—

Your Emperor bade be hid?

WOMAN

     The seer's gift

Has never plenteously endowed me, sir,

As in appearance you.  But to plain sense

Thing's seem as stated.

SPIRIT

     We'll let seemings be.—

But know, these English take to liquid life

Right patly—nursed therefor in infancy

By rimes and rains which creep into their blood,

Till like seeks like.  The sea is their dry land,

And, as on cobbles you, they wayfare there.

WOMAN

Heaven prosper, then, their watery wayfarings

If they'll leave us the land!—
[The Imperial carriage appears.]

The Emperor!—

Long live the Emperor!—He's the best by land.

[BONAPARTE'S carriage arrives, without an escort.  The street

lamps shine in, and reveal the EMPRESS JOSEPHINE seated beside

him.  The plaudits of the people grow boisterous as they hail

him Victor of Austerlitz.  The more active run after the carriage,

which turns in from the Rue St. Honore to the Carrousel, and

thence vanishes into the Court of the Tuileries.]

WOMAN

May all success attend his next exploit!

SPIRIT

Namely: to put the knife in England's trade,

And teach her treaty-manners—if he can!

WOMAN

I like not your queer knowledge, creepy man.

There's weirdness in your air.  I'd call you ghost

Had not the Goddess Reason laid all such

Past Mother Church's cunning to restore.

—Adieu.  I'll not be yours to-night.  I'd starve first!

[She withdraws.  The crowd wastes away, and the Spirit vanishes.]

SCENE VIII

PUTNEY.  BOWLING GREEN HOUSE

[PITT'S bedchamber, from the landing without.  It is afternoon.

At the back of the room as seen through the doorway is a curtained

bed, beside which a woman sits, the LADY HESTER STANHOPE.  Bending

over a table at the front of the room is SIR WALTER FARQUHAR, the

physician.  PARSLOW the footman and another servant are near the

door.  TOMLINE, the Bishop of Lincoln, enters.]

FARQUHAR
[in a subdued voice]

I grieve to call your lordship up again,

But symptoms lately have disclosed themselves

That mean the knell to the frail life in him.

And whatsoever thing of gravity

It may be needful to communicate,

Let them be spoken now.  Time may not serve

If they be much delayed.

TOMLINE

     Ah, stands it this?...

The name of his disease is—Austerlitz!

His brow's inscription has been Austerlitz

From that dire morning in the month just past

When tongues of rumour twanged the word across

From its hid nook on the Moravian plains.

FARQUHAR

And yet he might have borne it, had the weight

Of governmental shackles been unclasped,

Even partly, from his limbs last Lammastide,

When that despairing journey to the King

At Gloucester Lodge by Wessex shore was made

To beg such.  But relief the King refused.

"Why want you Fox?  What—Grenville and his friends?"

He harped.  "You are sufficient without these—

Rather than Fox, why, give me civil war!"

And fibre that would rather snap than shrink

Held out no longer.  Now the upshot nears.

[LADY HESTER STANHOPE turns her head and comes forward.]

LADY HESTER

I am grateful you are here again, good friend!

He's sleeping some light seconds; but once more

Has asked for tidings of Lord Harrowby,

And murmured of his mission to Berlin

As Europe's haggard hope; if, sure, it be

That any hope remain!

TOMLINE

     There's no news yet.—

These several days while I have been sitting by him

He has inquired the quarter of the wind,

And where that moment beaked the stable-cock.

When I said "East," he answered "That is well!

Those are the breezes that will speed him home!"

So cling his heart-strings to his country's cause.

FARQUHAR

I fear that Wellesley's visit here by now

Strung him to tensest strain.  He quite broke down,

And has fast faded since.

LADY HESTER

     Ah! now he wakes.

Please come and speak to him as you would wish
[to TOMLINE]
.

[LADY HESTER, TOMLINE,and FARQUHAR retire behind the bed, where

in a short time voices are heard in prayer.  Afterwards the

Bishop goes to a writing-table, and LADY HESTER comes to the

doorway.  Steps are heard on the stairs, and PITT'S friend ROSE,

the President of the Board of Trade, appears on the landing and

makes inquiries.]

LADY HESTER
[whispering]

He wills the wardenry of his affairs

To his old friend the Bishop.  But his words