Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1065 page)

OUDINOT; but he is repulsed with the strength of despair.  The French

lose a further five thousand in this.

We now look across the river at VICTOR, and his division, not yet

over, and still defending the new bridges.  WITTGENSTEIN descends

upon him; but he holds his ground.

The determined Russians set up a battery of twelve cannon, so as to

command the two new bridges, with the confused crowd of soldiers,

carriages, and baggage, pressing to cross.  The battery discharges

into the surging multitude.  More Russians come up, and, forming a

semicircle round the bridges and the mass of French, fire yet more

hotly on them with round shot and canister.  As it gets dark the

flashes light up the strained faces of the fugitives.  Under the

discharge and the weight of traffic, the bridge for the artillery

gives way, and the throngs upon it roll shrieking into the stream

and are drowned.

SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES
[aerial music]

So loudly swell their shrieks as to be heard above the roar of guns

and the wailful wind,

Giving in one brief cry their last wild word on that mock life

through which they have harlequined!

SEMICHORUS II

To the other bridge the living heap betakes itself, the weak pushed

over by the strong;

They loop together by their clutch like snakes; in knots they

are submerged and borne along.

CHORUS

Then women are seen in the waterflow—limply bearing their

infants between wizened white arms stretching above;

Yea, motherhood, sheerly sublime in her last despairing, and

lighting her darkest declension with limitless love.

Meanwhile, TCHICHAGOFF has come up with his twenty-seven thousand men,

and falls on OUDINOT, NEY, and the "Sacred Squadron."  Altogether we

see forty or fifty thousand assailing eighteen thousand half-naked,

badly armed wretches, emaciated with hunger and encumbered with

several thousands of sick, wounded, and stragglers.

VICTOR and his rear-guard, who have protected the bridges all day,

come over themselves at last.  No sooner have they done so than the

final bridge is set on fire.  Those who are upon it burn or drown;

those who are on the further side have lost their last chance, and

perish either in attempting to wade the stream or at the hands of

the Russians.

SEMICHORUS OF THE PITIES
[aerial music]

What will be seen in the morning light?

What will be learnt when the spring breaks bright,

And the frost unlocks to the sun's soft sight?

SEMICHORUS II

Death in a thousand motley forms;

Charred corpses hooking each other's arms

In the sleep that defies all war's alarms!

CHORUS

Pale cysts of souls in every stage,

Still bent to embraces of love or rage,—

Souls passed to where History pens no page.

The flames of the burning bridge go out as it consumes to the water's

edge, and darkness mantles all, nothing continuing but the purl of

the river and the clickings of floating ice.

SCENE XI

THE OPEN COUNTRY BETWEEN SMORGONI AND WILNA

[The winter is more merciless, and snow continues to fall upon a

deserted expanse of unenclosed land in Lithuania.  Some scattered

birch bushes merge in a forest in the background.

It is growing dark, though nothing distinguishes where the sun

sets.  There is no sound except that of a shuffling of feet in

the direction of a bivouac.  Here are gathered tattered men like

skeletons.  Their noses and ears are frost-bitten, and pus is

oozing from their eyes.

These stricken shades in a limbo of gloom are among the last

survivors of the French army.  Few of them carry arms.  One squad,

ploughing through snow above their knees, and with icicles dangling

from their hair that clink like glass-lustres as they walk, go

into the birch wood, and are heard chopping.  They bring back

boughs, with which they make a screen on the windward side, and

contrive to light a fire.  With their swords they cut rashers from

a dead horse, and grill them in the flames, using gunpowder for

salt to eat them with.  Two others return from a search, with a

dead rat and some candle-ends.  Their meal shared, some try to

repair their gaping shoes and to tie up their feet, that are

chilblained to the bone.

A straggler enters, who whispers to one or two soldiers of the

group.  A shudder runs through them at his words.]

FIRST SOLDIER
[dazed]

What—gone, do you say?  Gone?

STRAGGLER

     Yes, I say gone!

He left us at Smorgoni hours ago.

The Sacred Squadron even he has left behind.

By this time he's at Warsaw or beyond,

Full pace for Paris.

SECOND SOLDIER
[jumping up wildly]

     Gone?  How did he go?

No, surely!  He could not desert us so!

STRAGGLER

He started in a carriage, with Roustan

The Mameluke on the box: Caulaincourt, too,

Was inside with him.  Monton and Duroc

Rode on a sledge behind.—The order bade

That we should not be told it for a while.

[Other soldiers spring up as they realize the news, and stamp

hither and thither, impotent with rage, grief, and despair, many

in their physical weakness sobbing like children.]

SPIRIT SINISTER

Good.  It is the selfish and unconscionable characters who are so much

regretted.

STRAGGLER

He felt, or feigned, he ought to leave no longer

A land like Prussia 'twixt himself and home.

There was great need for him to go, he said,

To quiet France, and raise another army

That shall replace our bones.

SEVERAL
[distractedly]

     Deserted us!

Deserted us!—O, after all our pangs

We shall see France no more!

[Some become insane, and go dancing round.  One of them sings.]

MAD SOLDIER'S SONG

I

     Ha, for the snow and hoar!

     Ho, for our fortune's made!

We can shape our bed without sheets to spread,

     And our graves without a spade.

     So foolish Life adieu,

     And ingrate Leader too.

     —Ah, but we loved you true!

Yet—he-he-he! and ho-ho-ho-!—

     We'll never return to you.

II

     What can we wish for more?

     Thanks to the frost and flood

We are grinning crones—thin bags of bones

     Who once were flesh and blood.

     So foolish Life adieu,

     And ingrate Leader too.

     —Ah, but we loved you true!

Yet—he-he-he! and ho-ho-ho!—

     We'll never return to you.

[Exhausted, they again crouch round the fire.  Officers and

privates press together for warmth.  Other stragglers arrive, and

sit at the backs of the first.  With the progress of the night the

stars come out in unusual brilliancy, Sirius and those in Orion

flashing like stilettos; and the frost stiffens.

The fire sinks and goes out; but the Frenchmen do not move.  The

day dawns, and still they sit on.

In the background enter some light horse of the Russian army,

followed by KUTUZOF himself and a few of his staff.  He presents

a terrible appearance now—bravely serving though slowly dying,

his face puffed with the intense cold, his one eye staring out as

he sits in a heap in the saddle, his head sunk into his shoulders.

The whole detachment pauses at the sight of the French asleep.

They shout; but the bivouackers give no sign.

KUTUZOF

Go, stir them up!  We slay not sleeping men.

[The Russians advance and prod the French with their lances.]

RUSSIAN OFFICER

Prince, here's a curious picture.  They are dead.

KUTUZOF
[with indifference]

Oh, naturally.  After the snow was down

I marked a sharpening of the air last night.

We shall be stumbling on such frost-baked meat

Most of the way to Wilna.

OFFICER
[examining the bodies]

     They all sit

As they were living still, but stiff as horns;

And even the colour has not left their cheeks,

Whereon the tears remain in strings of ice.—

It was a marvel they were not consumed:

Their clothes are cindered by the fire in front,

While at their back the frost has caked them hard.

KUTUZOF

'Tis well.  So perish Russia's enemies!

[Exeunt KUTUZOF, his staff, and the detachment of horse in the

direction of Wilna; and with the advance of day the snow resumes

its fall, slowly burying the dead bivouackers.]

SCENE XII

PARIS.  THE TUILERIES

[An antechamber to the EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE'S bedroom, at half-past

eleven on a December night.  The DUCHESS OF MONTEBELLO and another

lady-in-waiting are discovered talking to the Empress.]

MARIE LOUISE

I have felt unapt for anything to-night,

And I will now retire.

[She goes into her child's room adjoining.]

DUCHESS OF MONTEBELLO

     For some long while

There has come no letter from the Emperor,

And Paris brims with ghastly rumourings

About the far campaign.  Not being beloved,

The town is over dull for her alone.

[Re-enter MARIE LOUISE.]

MARIE LOUISE

The King of Rome is sleeping in his cot

Sweetly and safe.  Now, ladies, I am going.

[She withdraws.  Her tiring-women pass through into her chamber.

They presently return and go out.  A manservant enters, and bars

the window-shutters with numerous bolts.  Exit manservant.  The

Duchess retires.  The other lady-in-waiting rises to go into her

bedroom, which adjoins that of the Empress.

Men's voices are suddenly heard in the corridor without.  The lady-

in-waiting pauses with parted lips.  The voices grow louder.  The

lady-in-waiting screams.

MARIE LOUISE hastily re-enters in a dressing-gown thrown over her

night-clothes.]

MARIE LOUISE

Great God, what altercation can that be?

I had just verged on sleep when it aroused me!

[A thumping is heard at the door.]

VOICE OF NAPOLEON
[without]

Hola!  Pray let me in!  Unlock the door!

LADY-IN-WAITING

Heaven's mercy on us!  What man may it be

At such and hour as this?

MARIE LOUISE

O it is he!

[The lady-in-waiting unlocks the door.  NAPOLEON enters, scarcely

recognizable, in a fur cloak and hood over his ears.  He throws

off the cloak and discloses himself to be in the shabbiest and

muddiest attire.  Marie Louise is agitated almost to fainting.]

SPIRIT IRONIC

Is it with fright or joy?

MARIE LOUISE

     I scarce believe

What my sight tells me!  Home, and in such garb!

[NAPOLEON embraces her.]

NAPOLEON

I have had great work in getting in, my dear!

They failed to recognize me at the gates,

Being sceptical at my poor hackney-coach

And poorer baggage.  I had to show my face

In a fierce light ere they would let me pass,

And even then they doubted till I spoke.—

What think you, dear, of such a tramp-like spouse?

 
[He warms his hands at the fire.]

Ha—it is much more comfortable here

Than on the Russian plains!

MARIE LOUISE
[timidly]

     You have suffered there?—

Your face is thinner, and has line in it;

No marvel that they did not know you!

NAPOLEON

     Yes:

Disasters many and swift have swooped on me!—

Since crossing—ugh!—the Beresina River

I have been compelled to come incognito;

Ay—as a fugitive and outlaw quite.

MARIE LOUISE

We'll thank Heaven, anyhow, that you are safe.

I had gone to bed, and everybody almost!

what, now, do require?  Some food of course?

[The child in the adjoining chamber begins to cry, awakened by the

loud tones of NAPOLEON.]

NAPOLEON

Ah—that's his little voice!  I'll in and see him.

MARIE LOUISE

I'll come with you.

[NAPOLEON and the EMPRESS pass into the other room.  The lady-in-

waiting calls up yawning servants and gives orders.  The servants

go to execute them.  Re-enter NAPOLEON and MARIE LOUISE.  The lady-