Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1063 page)

breeches, chooses his position with BERTHIER and other officers

of his suite.]

DUMB SHOW

It is six o'clock, and the firing of a single cannon on the French

side proclaims that the battle is beginning.  There is a roll of

drums, and the right-centre masses, glittering in the level shine,

advance under NEY and DAVOUT and throw themselves on the Russians,

here defended by redoubts.

The French enter the redoubts, whereupon a slim, small man, GENERAL

BAGRATION, brings across a division from the Russian right and expels

them resolutely.

Semenovskoye is a commanding height opposite the right of the French,

and held by the Russians.  Cannon and columns, infantry and cavalry,

assault it by tens of thousands, but cannot take it.

Aides gallop through the screeching shot and haze of smoke and dust

between NAPOLEON and his various marshals.  The Emperor walks about,

looks through his glass, goes to a camp-stool, on which he sits down,

and drinks glasses of spirits and hot water to relieve his still

violent cold, as may be discovered from his red eyes, raw nose,

rheumatic manner when he moves, and thick voice in giving orders.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

So he fulfils the inhuman antickings

He thinks imposed upon him.... What says he?

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

He says it is the sun of Austerlitz!

The Russians, so far from being driven out of their redoubts,

issue from them towards the French.  But they have to retreat,

BAGRATION and his Chief of Staff being wounded.  NAPOLEON sips

his grog hopefully, and orders a still stronger attack on the

great redoubt in the centre.

It is carried out.  The redoubt becomes the scene of a huge

massacre.  In other parts of the field also the action almost

ceases to be a battle, and takes the form of wholesale butchery

by the thousand, now advantaging one side, now the other.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Thus do the mindless minions of the spell

In mechanized enchantment sway and show

A Will that wills above the will of each,

Yet but the will of all conjunctively;

A fabric of excitement, web of rage,

That permeates as one stuff the weltering whole.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

The ugly horror grossly regnant here

Wakes even the drowsed half-drunken Dictator

To all its vain uncouthness!

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

     Murat cries

That on this much-anticipated day

Napoleon's genius flags inoperative.

The firing from the top of the redoubt has ceased.  The French have

got inside.  The Russians retreat upon their rear, and fortify

themselves on the heights there.  PONIATOWSKI furiously attacks them.

But the French are worn out, and fall back to their station before

the battle.  So the combat dies resultlessly away.  The sun sets, and

the opposed and exhausted hosts sink to lethargic repose.  NAPOLEON

enters his tent in the midst of his lieutenants, and night descends.

SHADE OF THE EARTH

The fumes of nitre and the reek of gore

Make my airs foul and fulsome unto me!

SPIRIT IRONIC

The natural nausea of a nurse, dear Dame.

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

Strange: even within that tent no notes of joy

Throb as at Austerlitz!
[signifying Napoleon's tent]
.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

     But mark that roar—

A mash of men's crazed cries entreating mates

To run them through and end their agony;

Boys calling on their mothers, veterans

Blaspheming God and man.  Those shady shapes

Are horses, maimed in myriads, tearing round

In maddening pangs, the harnessings they wear

Clanking discordant jingles as they tear!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

It is enough.  Let now the scene be closed.

The night thickens.

SCENE VI

MOSCOW

[The foreground is an open place amid the ancient irregular streets

of the city, which disclose a jumble of architectural styles, the

Asiatic prevailing over the European.  A huge triangular white-

walled fortress rises above the churches and coloured domes on a

hill in the background, the central feature of which is a lofty

tower with a gilded cupola, the Ivan Tower.  Beneath the battlements

of this fortress the Moskva River flows.

An unwonted rumbling of wheels proceeds from the cobble-stoned

streets, accompanied by an incessant cracking of whips.]

DUMB SHOW

Travelling carriages, teams, and waggons, laden with pictures,

carpets, glass, silver, china, and fashionable attire, are rolling

out of the city, followed by foot-passengers in streams, who carry

their most precious possessions on their shoulders.  Others bear

their sick relatives, caring nothing for their goods, and mothers

go laden with their infants.  Others drive their cows, sheep, and

goats, causing much obstruction.  Some of the populace, however,

appear apathetic and bewildered, and stand in groups asking questions.

A thin man with piercing eyes gallops about and gives stern orders.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Whose is the form seen ramping restlessly,

Geared as a general, keen-eyed as a kite,

Mid this mad current of close-filed confusion;

High-ordering, smartening progress in the slow,

And goading those by their own thoughts o'er-goaded;

Whose emissaries knock at every door

In rhythmal rote, and groan the great events

The hour is pregnant with?

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

          Rostopchin he,

The city governor, whose name will ring

Far down the forward years uncannily!

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

His arts are strange, and strangely do they move him:—

To store the stews with stuffs inflammable,

To bid that pumps be wrecked, captives enlarged

And primed with brands for burning, are the intents

His warnings to the citizens outshade!

When the bulk of the populace has passed out eastwardly the Russian

army retreating from Borodino also passes through the city into the

country beyond without a halt.  They mostly move in solemn silence,

though many soldiers rush from their ranks and load themselves with

spoil.

When they are got together again and have marched out, there goes by

on his horse a strange scarred old man with a foxy look, a swollen

neck and head and a hunched figure.  He is KUTUZOF, surrounded by

his lieutenants.  Away in the distance by other streets and bridges

with other divisions pass in like manner GENERALS BENNIGSEN, BARCLAY

DE TOLLY, DOKHTOROF, the mortally wounded BAGRATION in a carriage, and

other generals, all in melancholy procession one way, like autumnal

birds of passage.  Then the rear-guard passes under MILORADOVITCH.

Next comes a procession of another kind.

A long string of carts with wounded men is seen, which trails out of

the city behind the army.  Their clothing is soiled with dried blood,

and the bandages that enwrap them are caked with it.

The greater part of this migrant multitude takes the high road to

Vladimir.

SCENE VII

THE SAME.  OUTSIDE THE CITY

[A hill forms the foreground, called the Hill of Salutation, near

the Smolensk road.

Herefrom the city appears as a splendid panorama, with its river,

its gardens, and its curiously grotesque architecture of domes and

spires.  It is the peacock of cities to Western eyes, its roofs

twinkling in the rays of the September sun, amid which the ancient

citadel of the Tsars—the Kremlin—forms a centre-piece.

There enter on the hill at a gallop NAPOLEON, MURAT, EUGENE, NEY,

DARU, and the rest of the Imperial staff.  The French advance-

guard is drawn up in order of battle at the foot of the hill, and

the long columns of the Grand Army stretch far in the rear.  The

Emperor and his marshals halt, and gaze at Moscow.]

NAPOLEON

Ha!  There she is at last.  And it was time.

[He looks round upon his army, its numbers attenuated to one-fourth

of those who crossed the Niemen so joyfully.]

Yes: it was time.... NOW what says Alexander!

DARU

This is a foil to Salamanca, sire!

DAVOUT

What scores of bulbous church-tops gild the sky!

Souls must be rotten in this region, sire,

To need so much repairing!

NAPOLEON

     Ay—no doubt....

Prithee march briskly on, to check disorder,

         
[to Murat]
.

Hold word with the authorities forthwith,

      
[to Durasnel]
.

Tell them that they may swiftly swage their fears,

Safe in the mercy I by rule extend

To vanquished ones.  I wait the city keys,

And will receive the Governor's submission

With courtesy due.  Eugene will guard the gate

To Petersburg there leftward.  You, Davout,

The gate to Smolensk in the centre here

Which we shall enter by.

VOICES OF ADVANCE-GUARD

     Moscow!  Moscow!

This, this is Moscow city.  Rest at last!

[The words are caught up in the rear by veterans who have entered

every capital in Europe except London, and are echoed from rank to

rank.  There is a far-extended clapping of hands, like the babble

of waves, and companies of foot run in disorder towards high ground

to behold the spectacle, waving their shakos on their bayonets.

The army now marches on, and NAPOLEON and his suite disappear

citywards from the Hill of Salutation.

The day wanes ere the host has passed and dusk begins to prevail,

when tidings reach the rear-guard that cause dismay.  They have

been sent back lip by lip from the front.]

SPIRIT IRONIC

An anticlimax to Napoleon's dream!

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

They say no governor attends with keys

To offer his submission gracefully.

The streets are solitudes, the houses sealed,

And stagnant silence reigns, save where intrudes

The rumbling of their own artillery wheels,

And their own soldiers' measured tramp along.

"Moscow deserted?  What a monstrous thing!"—

He shrugs his shoulders soon, contemptuously;

"This, then is how Muscovy fights!" cries he.

Meanwhile Murat has reached the Kremlin gates,

And finds them closed against him.  Battered these,

The fort reverberates vacant as the streets

But for some grinning wretches gaoled there.

Enchantment seems to sway from quay to keep,

And lock commotion in a century's sleep.

[NAPOLEON, reappearing in front of the city, follows MURAT, and is

again lost to view.  He has entered the Kremlin.  An interval.

Something becomes visible on the summit of the Ivan Tower.]

CHORUS OF RUMOURS
[aerial music]

Mark you thereon a small lone figure gazing

Upon his hard-gained goal?  It is He!

The startled crows, their broad black pinions raising,

Forsake their haunts, and wheel disquietedly.

[The scene slowly darkens.  Midnight hangs over the city.  In

blackness to the north of where the Kremlin stands appears what at

first seems a lurid, malignant star.  It waxes larger.  Almost

simultaneously a north-east wind rises, and the light glows and

sinks with the gusts, proclaiming a fire, which soon grows large

enough to irradiate the fronts of adjacent buildings, and to show

that it is creeping on towards the Kremlin itself, the walls of

that fortress which face the flames emerging from their previous

shade.

The fire can be seen breaking out also in numerous other quarters.

All the conflagrations increase, and become, as those at first

detached group themselves together, one huge furnace, whence

streamers of flame reach up to the sky, brighten the landscape

far around, and show the houses as if it were day.  The blaze

gains the Kremlin, and licks its walls, but does not kindle it.

Explosions and hissings are constantly audible, amid which can be

fancied cries and yells of people caught in the combustion.  Large

pieces of canvas aflare sail away on the gale like balloons.

Cocks crow, thinking it sunrise, ere they are burnt to death.]

SCENE VIII

THE SAME.  THE INTERIOR OF THE KREMLIN

[A chamber containing a bed on which NAPOLEON has been lying.  It

is not yet daybreak, and the flapping light of the conflagration