Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1066 page)

in-waiting goes out.]

NAPOLEON

     I have said it, dear!

All the disasters summed in the bulletin

Shall be repaired.

MARIE LOUISE

And are they terrible?

NAPOLEON

Have you not read the last-sent bulletin,

Dear friend?

MARIE LOUISE

No recent bulletin has come.

NAPOLEON

Ah—I must have outstripped it on the way!

MARIE LOUISE

And where is the Grand Army?

NAPOLEON

Oh—that's gone.

MARIE LOUISE

Gone?  But—gone where?

NAPOLEON

Gone all to nothing, dear.

MARIE LOUISE
[incredulously]

But some six hundred thousand I saw pass

Through Dresden Russia-wards?

NAPOLEON
[flinging himself into a chair]

     Well, those men lie—

Or most of them—in layers of bleaching bones

'Twixt here and Moscow.... I have been subdued;

But by the elements; and them alone.

Not Russia, but God's sky has conquered me!

            
[With an appalled look she sits beside him.]

From the sublime to the ridiculous

There's but a step!—I have been saying it

All through the leagues of my long journey home—

And that step has been passed in this affair!...

Yes, briefly, it is quite ridiculous,

Whichever way you look at it.—Ha, ha!

MARIE LOUISE
[simply]

But those six hundred thousand throbbing throats

That cheered me deaf at Dresden, marching east

So full of youth and spirits—all bleached bones—

Ridiculous?  Can it be so, dear, to—

Their mothers say?

NAPOLEON
[with a twitch of displeasure]

     You scarcely understand.

I meant the enterprise, and not its stuff....

I had no wish to fight, nor Alexander,

But circumstance impaled us each on each;

The Genius who outshapes my destinies

Did all the rest!  Had I but hit success,

Imperial splendour would have worn a crown

Unmatched in long-scrolled Time!... Well, leave that now.—

What do they know about all this in Paris?

MARIE LOUSE

I cannot say.  Black rumours fly and croak

Like ravens through the streets, but come to me

Thinned to the vague!—Occurrences in Spain

Breed much disquiet with these other things.

Marmont's defeat at Salamanca field

Ploughed deep into men's brows.  The cafes say

Your troops must clear from Spain.

NAPOLEON

     We'll see to that!

I'll find a way to do a better thing;

Though I must have another army first—

Three hundred thousand quite.  Fishes as good

Swim in the sea as have come out of it.

But to begin, we must make sure of France,

Disclose ourselves to the good folk of Paris

In daily outing as a family group,

The type and model of domestic bliss

[Which, by the way, we are]
.  And I intend,

Also, to gild the dome of the Invalides

In best gold leaf, and on a novel pattern.

MARIE LOUISE

To gild the dome, dear?  Why?

NAPOLEON

     To give them something

To think about.  They'll take to it like children,

And argue in the cafes right and left

On its artistic points.—So they'll forget

The woes of Moscow.

[A chamberlain-in-waiting announces supper.  MARIE LOUISE and

NAPOLEON go out.  The room darkens and the scene closes.]

ACT SECOND

SCENE I

THE PLAIN OF VITORIA

[It is the eve of the longest day of the year; also the eve of the

battle of Vitoria.  The English army in the Peninsula, and their

Spanish and Portuguese allies, are bivouacking on the western side

of the Plain, about six miles from the town.

On some high ground in the left mid-distance may be discerned the

MARQUIS OF WELLINGTON'S tent, with GENERALS HILL, PICTON, PONSONBY,

GRAHAM, and others of his staff, going in and out in consultation

on the momentous event impending.  Near the foreground are some

hussars sitting round a fire, the evening being damp; their horses

are picketed behind.  In the immediate front of the scene are some

troop-officers talking.]

FIRST OFFICER

This grateful rest of four-and-twenty hours

Is priceless for our jaded soldiery;

And we have reconnoitred largely, too;

So the slow day will not have slipped in vain.

SECOND OFFICER
[looking towards the headquarter tent]

By this time they must nearly have dotted down

The methods of our master-stroke to-morrow:

I have no clear conception of its plan,

Even in its leading lines.  What is decided?

FIRST OFFICER

There are outshaping three supreme attacks,

As I decipher.  Graham's on the left,

To compass which he crosses the Zadorra,

And turns the enemy's right.  On our right, Hill

Will start at once to storm the Puebla crests.

The Chief himself, with us here in the centre,

Will lead on by the bridges Tres-Puentes

Over the ridge there, and the Mendoza bridge

A little further up.—That's roughly it;

But much and wide discretionary power

Is left the generals all.

[The officers walk away, and the stillness increases, so the

conversation at the hussars' bivouac, a few yards further back,

becomes noticeable.]

SERGEANT YOUNG

I wonder, I wonder how Stourcastle is looking this summer night, and

all the old folks there!

SECOND HUSSAR

You was born there, I think I've heard ye say, Sergeant?

SERGEANT YOUNG

I was.  And though I ought not to say it, as father and mother are

living there still, 'tis a dull place at times.  Now Budmouth-Regis

was exactly to my taste when we were there with the Court that

summer, and the King and Queen a-wambling about among us like the

most everyday old man and woman you ever see.  Yes, there was plenty

going on, and only a pretty step from home.  Altogether we had a

fine time!

THIRD HUSSAR

You walked with a girl there for some weeks, Sergeant, if  my memory

serves?

SERGEANT YOUNG

I did.  And a pretty girl 'a was.  But nothing came on't.  A month

afore we struck camp she married a tallow-chandler's dipper of Little

Nicholas Lane.  I was a good deal upset about it at the time.  But

one gets over things!

SECOND HUSSAR

'Twas a low taste in the hussy, come to that.—Howsomever, I agree

about Budmouth.  I never had pleasanter times than when we lay there.

You had a song on it, Sergeant, in them days, if I don't mistake?

SERGEANT YOUNG

I had; and have still. 'Twas made up when we left by our bandmaster

that used to conduct in front of Gloucester Lodge at the King's Mess

every afternoon.

[The Sergeant is silent for a minute, then suddenly bursts into

melody.]

SONG "BUDMOUTH DEARS"

I

When we lay where Budmouth Beach is,

O, the girls were fresh as peaches,

With their tall and tossing figures and their eyes of blue

       and brown!

     And our hearts would ache with longing

     As we paced from our sing-songing,

With a smart CLINK! CLINK! up the Esplanade and down

II

     They distracted and delayed us

     By the pleasant pranks they played us,

And what marvel, then, if troopers, even of regiments of renown,

     On whom flashed those eyes divine, O,

     Should forget the countersign, O,

As we tore CLINK! CLINK! back to camp above the town.

III

     Do they miss us much, I wonder,

     Now that war has swept us sunder,

And we roam from where the faces smile to where the faces frown?

     And no more behold the features

     Of the fair fantastic creatures,

And no more CLINK! CLINK! past the parlours of the town?

IV

     Shall we once again there meet them?

     Falter fond attempts to greet them?

Will the gay sling-jacket glow again beside the muslin gown?—

     Will they archly quiz and con us

     With a sideways glance upon us,

While our spurs CLINK! CLINK! up the Esplanade and down?

[Applause from the other hussars.  More songs are sung, the night

gets darker, the fires go out, and the camp sleeps.]

SCENE II

THE SAME, FROM THE PUEBLA HEIGHTS

[It is now day; but a summer fog pervades the prospect.  Behind

the fog is heard the roll of bass and tenor drums and the clash

of cymbals, with notes of the popular march "The Downfall of Paris."

By degrees the fog lifts, and the Plain is disclosed.  From this

elevation, gazing north, the expanse looks like the palm of a

monstrous right hand, a little hollowed, some half-dozen miles

across, wherein the ball of the thumb is roughly represented by

heights to the east, on which the French centre has gathered; the

"Mount of Mars" and the "Moon" [the opposite side of the palm]
by

the position of the English on the left or west of the plain;

and the "Line of Life" by the Zadorra, an unfordable river running

from the town down the plain, and dropping out of it through a

pass in the Puebla Heights to the south, just beneath our point

of observation—that is to say, toward the wrist of the supposed

hand.  The left of the English army under GRAHAM would occupy the

"mounts" at the base of the fingers; while the bent finger-tips

might represent the Cantabrian Hills beyond the plain to the north

or back of the scene.

From the aforesaid stony crests of Puebla the white town and

church towers of Vitoria can be descried on a slope to the right-

rear of the field of battle.  A warm rain succeeds the fog for a

short while, bringing up the fragrant scents from fields, vineyards,

and gardens, now in the full leafage of June.]

DUMB SHOW

All the English forces converge forward—that is, eastwardly—the

centre over the ridges, the right through the Pass to the south, the

left down the Bilbao road on the north-west, the bands of the divers

regiments striking up the same quick march, "The Downfall of Paris."

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

You see the scene.  And yet you see it not.

What do you notice now?

There immediately is shown visually the electric state of mind that

animates WELLINGTON, GRAHAM, HILL, KEMPT, PICTON, COLVILLE, and other

responsible ones on the British side; and on the French KING JOSEPH

stationary on the hill overlooking his own centre, and surrounded by

a numerous staff that includes his adviser MARSHAL JOURDAN, with,

far away in the field, GAZAN, D'ERLON, REILLE, and other marshals.

This vision, resembling as a whole the interior of a beating brain

lit by phosphorescence, in an instant fades back to normal.

Anon we see the English hussars with their flying pelisses galloping

across the Zadorra on one of the Tres-Puentes in the midst of the

field, as had been planned, the English lines in the foreground under

HILL pushing the enemy up the slopes; and far in the distance, to the

left of Vitoria, whiffs of grey smoke followed by low rumbles show

that the left of the English army under GRAHAM is pushing on there.

Bridge after bridge of the half-dozen over the Zadorra is crossed by

the British; and WELLINGTON, in the centre with PICTON, seeing the

hill and village of Arinez in front of him
[eastward]
to be weakly

held, carries the regiments of the seventh and third divisions in a

quick run towards it.  Supported by the hussars, they ultimately

fight their way to the top, in a chaos of smoke, flame, and booming

echoes, loud-voiced PICTON, in an old blue coat and round hat,

swearing as he goes.

Meanwhile the French who are opposed to the English right, in the

foreground, have been turned by HILL; the heights are all abandoned,

and the columns fall back in a confused throng by the road to

Vitoria, hard pressed by the British, who capture abandoned guns

amid indescribable tumult, till the French make a stand in front

of the town.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

What's toward in the distance?—say!

SEMICHORUS I OF RUMOURS
[aerial music]

     Fitfully flash strange sights there; yea,

Unwonted spectacles of sweat and scare

     Behind the French, that make a stand

     With eighty cannon, match in hand.—

Upon the highway from the town to rear

     An eddy of distraction reigns,

     Where lumbering treasure, baggage-trains,

Padding pedestrians, haze the atmosphere.