Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1042 page)

point for the same course; and the fourth, much further up Channel,

is obviously to follow on considerably in the rear of the two

preceding.  A south-east wind is blowing strong, and, according to

the part of their course reached, they either sail direct with the

wind on their larboard quarter, or labour forward by tacking in

zigzags.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

What are these fleets that cross the sea

     From British ports and bays

To coasts that glister southwardly

     Behind the dog-day haze?

RUMOURS
[chanting]

SEMICHORUS I

They are the shipped battalions sent

To bar the bold Belligerent

     Who stalks the Dancers' Land.

Within these hulls, like sheep a-pen,

Are packed in thousands fighting-men

     And colonels in command.

SEMICHORUS II

The fleet that leans each aery fin

Far south, where Mondego mouths in,

Bears Wellesley and his aides therein,

     And Hill, and Crauford too;

With Torrens, Ferguson, and Fane,

And majors, captains, clerks, in train,

And those grim needs that appertain—

     The surgeons—not a few!

To them add twelve thousand souls

In linesmen that the list enrolls,

Borne onward by those sheeted poles

     As war's red retinue!

SEMICHORUS I

The fleet that clears St. Helen's shore

Holds Burrard, Hope, ill-omened Moore,

     Clinton and Paget; while

The transports that pertain to those

Count six-score sail, whose planks enclose

     Ten thousand rank and file.

SEMICHORUS II

The third-sent ships, from Plymouth Sound,

With Acland, Anstruther, impound

     Souls to six thousand strong.

While those, the fourth fleet, that we see

Far back, are lined with cavalry,

And guns of girth, wheeled heavily

     To roll the routes along.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Enough, and more, of inventories and names!

Many will fail; many earn doubtful fames.

Await the fruitage of their acts and aims.

DUMB SHOW
[continuing]

In the spacious scene visible the far-separated groups of

transports, convoyed by battleships, float on before the wind

almost imperceptibly, like preened duck-feathers across a pond.

The southernmost expedition, under SIR ARTHUR WELLESLEY, soon

comes to anchor within the Bay of Mondego aforesaid, and the

soldiery are indefinitely discernible landing upon the beach

from boats.  Simultaneously the division commanded by MOORE, as

yet in the Chops of the channel, is seen to be beaten back by

contrary winds.  It gallantly puts to sea again, and being joined

by the division under ANSTRUTHER that has set out from Plymouth,

labours round Ushant, and stands to the south in the track of

WELLESLEY.  The rearward transports do the same.

A moving stratum of summer cloud beneath the point of view covers

up the spectacle like an awning.

SCENE VI

ST. CLOUD.  THE BOUDOIR OF JOSEPHINE

[It is the dusk of evening in the latter summer of this year,

and from the windows at the back of the stage, which are still

uncurtained, can be seen the EMPRESS with NAPOLEON and some

ladies and officers of the Court playing Catch-me-if-you-can by

torchlight on the lawn.  The moving torches throw bizarre lights

and shadows into the apartment, where only a remote candle or two

are burning.

Enter JOSEPHINE and NAPOLEON together, somewhat out of breath.

With careless suppleness she slides down on a couch and fans

herself.  Now that the candle-rays reach her they show her mellow

complexion, her velvety eyes with long lashes, mouth with pointed

corners and excessive mobility beneath its duvet, and curls of

dark hair pressed down upon the temples by a gold band.

The EMPEROR drops into a seat near her, and they remain in silence

till he jumps up, knocks over some nicknacks with his elbow, and

begins walking about the boudoir.]

NAPOLEON
[with sudden gloom]

These mindless games are very well, my friend;

But ours to-night marks, not improbably,

The last we play together.

JOSEPHINE
[starting]

     Can you say it!

Why raise that ghastly nightmare on me now,

When, for a moment, my poor brain had dreams

Denied it all the earlier anxious day?

NAPOLEON

Things that verge nigh, my simple Josephine,

Are not shoved off by wilful winking at.

Better quiz evils with too strained an eye

Than have them leap from disregarded lairs.

JOSEPHINE

Maybe 'tis true, and you shall have it so!—

Yet there's no joy save sorrow waived awhile.

NAPOLEON

Ha, ha!  That's like you.  Well, each day by day

I get sour news.  Each hour since we returned

From this queer Spanish business at Bayonne,

I have had nothing else; and hence by brooding.

JOSEPHINE

But all went well throughout our touring-time?

NAPOLEON

Not so—behind the scenes.  Our arms a Baylen

Have been smirched badly.  Twenty thousand shamed

All through Dupont's ill-luck!  The selfsame day

My brother Joseph's progress to Madrid

Was glorious as a sodden rocket's fizz!

Since when his letters creak with querulousness.

"Napoleon el chico" 'tis they call him—

"Napoleon the Little," so he says.

Then notice Austria.  Much looks louring there,

And her sly new regard for England grows.

The English, next, have shipped an army down

To Mondego, under one Wellesley,

A man from India, and his march is south

To Lisbon, by Vimiero.  On he'll go

And do the devil's mischief ere he is met

By unaware Junot, and chevyed back

To English fogs and fumes!

JOSEPHINE

     My dearest one,

You have mused on worse reports with better grace

Full many and many a time.  Ah—there is more!...

I know; I know!

NAPOLEON
[kicking away a stool]

     There is, of course; that worm

Time ever keeps in hand for gnawing me!—

The question of my dynasty—which bites

Closer and closer as the years wheel on.

JOSEPHINE

Of course it's that!  For nothing else could hang

My lord on tenterhooks through nights and days;—

Or rather, not the question, but the tongues

That keep the question stirring.  Nought recked you

Of throne-succession or dynastic lines

When gloriously engaged in Italy!

I was your fairy then: they labelled me

Your Lady of Victories; and much I joyed,

Till dangerous ones drew near and daily sowed

These choking tares within your fecund brain,—

Making me tremble if a panel crack,

Or mouse but cheep, or silent leaf sail down,

And murdering my melodious hours with dreads

That my late happiness, and my late hope,

Will oversoon be knelled!

NAPOLEON
[genially nearing her]

But years have passed since first we talked of it,

And now, with loss of dear Hortense's son

Who won me as my own, it looms forth more.

And selfish 'tis in my good Josephine

To blind her vision to the weal of France,

And this great Empire's solidarity.

The grandeur of your sacrifice would gild

Your life's whole shape.

JOSEPHINE

     Were I as coarse a wife

As I am limned in English caricature—

[Those cruel effigies they draw of me!]
—

You could not speak more aridly.

NAPOLEON

     Nay, nay!

You know, my comrade, how I love you still

Were there a long-notorious dislike

Betwixt us, reason might be in your dreads

But all earth knows our conjugality.

There's not a bourgeois couple in the land

Who, should dire duty rule their severance,

Could part with scanter scandal than could we.

JOSEPHINE
[pouting]

Nevertheless there's one.

NAPOLEON

A scandal?  What?

JOSEPHINE

Madame Walewska!  How could you pretend

When, after Jena, I'd have come to you,

"The weather was so wild, the roads so rough,

That no one of my sex and delicate nerve

Could hope to face the dangers and fatigues."

Yes—so you wrote me, dear.  They hurt not her!

NAPOLEON
[blandly]

She was a week's adventure—not worth words!

I say 'tis France.—I have held out for years

Against the constant pressure brought on me

To null this sterile marriage.

JOSEPHINE
[bursting into sobs]

     Me you blame!

But how know you that you are not the culprit?

NAPOLEON

I have reason so to know—if I must say.

The Polish lady you have chosen to name

Has proved the fault not mine. 
[JOSEPHINE sobs more violently.]

Don't cry, my cherished;

It is not really amiable of you,

Or prudent, my good little Josephine,

With so much in the balance.

JOSEPHINE

     How—know you—

What may not happen!  Wait a—little longer!

NAPOLEON
[playfully pinching her arm]

O come, now, my adored!  Haven't I already!

Nature's a dial whose shade no hand puts back,

Trick as we may!  My friend, you are forty-three

This very year in the world— 
[JOSEPHINE breaks out sobbing again.]

And in vain it is

To think of waiting longer; pitiful

To dream of coaxing shy fecundity

To an unlikely freak by physicking

With superstitious drugs and quackeries

That work you harm, not good.   The fact being so,

I have looked it squarely down—against my heart!

Solicitations voiced repeatedly

At length have shown the soundness of their shape,

And left me no denial.  You, at times,

My dear one, have been used to handle it.

My brother Joseph, years back, frankly gave

His honest view that something should be done;

And he, you well know, shows no ill tinct

In his regard of you.

JOSEPHINE

And what princess?

NAPOLEON

For wiving with?  No thought was given to that,

She shapes as vaguely as the Veiled—

JOSEPHINE

     No, no;

It's Alexander's sister, I'm full sure!—

But why this craze for home-made manikins

And lineage mere of flesh?  You have said yourself

It mattered not.  Great Caesar, you declared,

Sank sonless to his rest; was greater deemed

Even for the isolation.  Frederick

Saw, too, no heir.  It is the fate of such,

Often, to be denied the common hope

As fine for fulness in the rarer gifts

That Nature yields them.  O my husband long,

Will you not purge your soul to value best

That high heredity from brain to brain

Which supersedes mere sequence of blood,

That often vary more from sire to son

Than between furthest strangers!...

Napoleon's offspring in his like must lie;

The second of his line be he who shows

Napoleon's soul in later bodiment,

The household father happening as he may!

NAPOLEON
[smilingly wiping her eyes]

Little guessed I my dear would prove her rammed

With such a charge of apt philosophy

When tutoring me gay arts in earlier times!

She who at home coquetted through the years

In which I vainly penned her wishful words

To come and comfort me in Italy,

Might, faith, have urged it then effectually!

But never would you stir from Paris joys, 
[With some bitterness.]

And so, when arguments like this could move me,

I heard them not; and get them only now

When their weight dully falls.  But I have said

'Tis not for me, but France—Good-bye an hour. 
[Kissing her.]

I must dictate some letters.  This new move

Of England on Madrid may mean some trouble.

Come, dwell not gloomily on this cold need

Of waiving private joy for policy.

We are but thistle-globes on Heaven's high gales,

And whither blown, or when, or how, or why,

Can choose us not at all!...

I'll come to you anon, dear: staunch Roustan

Will light me in.

[Exit NAPOLEON.  The scene shuts in shadow.]

SCENE VII

VIMIERO

[A village among the hills of Portugal, about fifty miles north

of Lisbon.  Around it are disclosed, as ten on Sunday morning

strikes, a blue army of fourteen thousand men in isolated columns,

and red army of eighteen thousand in line formation, drawn up in

order of battle.  The blue army is a French one under JUNOT; the

other an English one under SIR ARTHUR WELLESLEY—portion of that

recently landed.