Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1062 page)

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That Carlos has withdrawn the garrison: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.

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