Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1080 page)

Fly round like cockchafers!

[Suddenly there echoes in the ballroom a long-drawn metallic purl

of sound, making all the company start.]

Transcriber's Note: There follows in musical notation five measures

for side-drum.

     Ah—there it is,

Just as I thought!  They are beating the Generale.

[The loud roll of side-drums is taken up by other drums further

and further away, till the hollow noise spreads all over the city.

Dismay is written on the faces of the women.  The Highland non-

commissioned officers and privates march smartly down the ballroom

and disappear.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Discerned you stepping out in front of them

That figure—of a pale drum-major kind,

Or fugleman—who wore a cold grimace?

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

He was my old fiend Death, in rarest trim,

The occasion favouring his husbandry!

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Are those who marched behind him, then, to fall?

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Ay, all well-nigh, ere Time have houred three-score.

PARTNER

Surely this cruel call to instant war

Spares space for one dance more, that memory

May store when you are gone, while I—sad me!—

Wait, wait and weep.... Yes—one there is to be!

SPIRIT IRONIC

Methinks flirtation grows too tender here!

[Country Dance, "The Prime of Life," a favourite figure at this

period.  The sense of looming tragedy carries emotion to its

climax.  All the younger officers stand up with their partners,

forming several figures of fifteen or twenty couples each.  The

air is ecstasizing, and both sexes abandon themselves to the

movement.

Nearly half an hour passes before the figure is danced down.

Smothered kisses follow the conclusion.  The silence is broken

from without by more long hollow rolling notes, so near that

they thrill the window-panes.]

SEVERAL

'Tis the Assemble.  Now, then, we must go!

[The officers bid farewell to their partners and begin leaving

in twos and threes.  When they are gone the women mope and murmur

to each other by the wall, and listen to the tramp of men and

slamming of doors in the streets without.]

LADY HAMILTON DALRYMPLE

The Duke has borne him gaily here to-night.

The youngest spirits scarcely capped his own.

DALRYMPLE

Maybe that, finding himself blade to blade

With Bonaparte at last, his blood gets quick.

French lancers of the Guard were seen at Frasnes

Last midnight; so the clash is not far off.

[They leave.]

DE LANCEY
[to his wife]

I take you to our door, and say good-bye,

And go thence to the Duke's and wait for him.

In a few hours we shall be all in motion

Towards the scene of—what we cannot tell!

You, dear, will haste to Antwerp till it's past,

As we have arranged.

[They leave.]

WELLINGTON
[to Richmond]

     Now I must also go,

And snatch a little snooze ere harnessing.

The Prince and Brunswick have been gone some while.

[RICHMOND  walks to the door with him.  Exit WELLINGTON, RICHMOND

returns.]

DUCHESS
[to Richmond]

Some of these left renew the dance, you see.

I cannot stop them; but with memory hot

Of those late gone, of where they are gone, and why,

It smacks of heartlessness!

RICHMOND

     Let be; let be;

Youth comes not twice to fleet mortality!

[The dancing, however, is fitful and spiritless, few but civilian

partners being left for the ladies.  Many of the latter prefer to

sit in reverie while waiting for their carriages.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

When those stout men-at-arms drew forward there,

I saw a like grimacing shadow march

And pirouette before no few of them.

Some of themselves beheld it; some did not.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Which were so ushered?

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

     Brunswick, who saw and knew;

One also moved before Sir Thomas Picton,

Who coolly conned and drily spoke to it;

Another danced in front of Ponsonby,

Who failed of heeding his.—De Lancey, Hay,

Gordon, and Cameron, and many more

Were footmanned by like phantoms from the ball.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Multiplied shimmerings of my Protean friend,

Who means to couch them shortly.  Thou wilt eye

Many fantastic moulds of him ere long,

Such as, bethink thee, oft hast eyed before.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

I have—too often!

[The attenuated dance dies out, the remaining guests depart, the

musicians leave the gallery and depart also.  RICHMOND goes to

a window and pulls back one of the curtains.  Dawn is barely

visible in the sky, and the lamps indistinctly reveal that long

lines of British infantry have assembled in the street.  In the

irksomeness of waiting for their officers with marching-orders,

they have lain down on the pavements, where many are soundly

sleeping, their heads on their knapsacks and their arms by their

side.]

DUCHESS

Poor men.  Sleep waylays them.  How tired they seem!

RICHMOND

They'll be more tired before the day is done.

A march of eighteen miles beneath the heat,

And then to fight a battle ere they rest,

Is what foreshades.—Well, it is more than bed-time;

But little sleep for us or any one

To-night in Brussels!

[He draws the window-curtain and goes out with the DUCHESS.

Servants enter and extinguish candles.  The scene closes in

darkness.]

SCENE III

CHARLEROI.  NAPOLEON'S QUARTERS

[The same midnight.  NAPOLEON is lying on a bed in his clothes.

In consultation with SOULT, his Chief of Staff, who is sitting

near, he dictates to his Secretary orders for the morrow.  They

are addressed to KELLERMANN, DROUOT, LOBAU, GERARD, and other

of his marshals.  SOULT goes out to dispatch them.

The Secretary resumes the reading of reports.  Presently MARSHAL

NEY is announced  He is heard stumbling up the stairs, and enters.]

NAPOLEON

Ah, Ney; why come you back?  Have you secured

The all-important Crossways?—safely sconced

Yourself at Quatre-Bras?

NEY

     Not, sire, as yet.

For, marching forwards, I heard gunnery boom,

And, fearing that the Prussians had engaged you,

I stood at pause.  Just then—-

NAPOLEON

     My charge was this:

Make it impossible at any cost

That Wellington and Blucher should unite.

As it's from Brussels that the English come,

And from Namur the Prussians, Quatre-Bras

Lends it alone for their forgathering:

So, why exists it not in your hands/

NEY

My reason, sire, was rolling from my tongue.—

Hard on the boom of guns, dim files of foot

Which read to me like massing Englishry—

The vanguard of all Wellington's array—

I half-discerned.  So, in pure wariness,

I left the Bachelu columns there at Frasnes,

And hastened back to tell you.

NAPOLEON

     Ney; O Ney!

I fear you are not the man that once you were;

Of your so daring, such a faint-heart now!

I have ground to know the foot that flustered you

Were but a few stray groups of Netherlanders;

For my good spies in Brussels send me cue

That up to now the English have not stirred,

But cloy themselves with nightly revel there.

NEY
[bitterly]

Give me another opportunity

Before you speak like that!

NAPOLEON

     You soon will have one!...

But now—no more of this.  I have other glooms

Upon my soul—the much-disquieting news

That Bourmont has deserted to our foes

With his whole staff.

NEY

We can afford to let him.

NAPOLEON

It is what such betokens, not their worth,

That whets it!... Love, respect for me, have waned;

But I will right that.  We've good chances still.

You must return foot-hot to Quatre-Bras;

There Kellermann's cuirassiers will promptly join you

To bear the English backward Brussels way.

I go on towards Fleurus and Ligny now.—

If Blucher's force retreat, and Wellington's

Lie somnolent in Brussels one day more,

I gain that city sans a single shot!...

Now, friend, downstairs you'll find some supper ready,

Which you must tuck in sharply, and then off.

The past day has not ill-advantaged us;

We have stolen upon the two chiefs unawares,

And in such sites that they must fight apart.

Now for a two hours' rest.—Comrade, adieu

Until to-morrow!

NEY

Till to-morrow, sire!

[Exit NEY.  NAPOLEON falls asleep, and the Secretary waits till

dictation shall be resumed.  BUSSY, the orderly officer, comes

to the door.

BUSSY

Letters—arrived from Paris.  [Hands letters.]

SECRETARY

     He shall have them

The moment he awakes.  These eighteen hours

He's been astride; and is not what he was.—

Much news from Paris?

BUSSY

     I can only say

What's not the news.  The courier has just told me

He'd nothing from the Empress at Vienna

To bring his Majesty.  She writes no more.

SECRETARY

And never will again!  In my regard

That bird's forsook the nest for good and all.

BUSSY

All that they hear in Paris from her court

Is through our spies there.  One of them reports

This rumour of her: that the Archduke John,

In taking leave to join our enemies here,

Said, "Oh, my poor Louise; I am grieved for you

And what I hope is, that he'll be run through,

Or shot, or break his neck, for your own good

No less than ours.

NAPOLEON
[waking]

By "he" denoting me?

BUSSY
[starting]

Just so, your Majesty.

NAPOLEON
[peremptorily]

What said the Empress?

BUSSY

She gave no answer, sire, that rumour bears.

NAPOLEON

Count Neipperg, whom they have made her chamberlain,

Interred his wife last spring—is it not so?

BUSSY

He did, your Majesty.

NAPOLEON

H'm....You may go.

[Exit BUSSY.  The Secretary reads letters aloud in succession.

He comes to the last; begins it; reaches a phrase, and stops

abruptly.]

Mind not!  Read on. No doubt the usual threat,

Or prophecy, from some mad scribe?  Who signs it?

SECRETARY

The subscript is "The Duke of Enghien!"

NAPOLEON
[starting up]

Bah, man!  A treacherous trick!  A hoax—no more!

Is that the last?

SECRETARY

The last, your Majesty.

NAPOLEON

Then now I'll sleep.  In two hours have me called.

SECRETARY

I'll give the order, sire.

[The Secretary goes.  The candles are removed, except one, and

NAPOLEON endeavours to compose himself.]

SPIRIT IRONIC

A little moral panorama would do him no harm, after that reminder of

the Duke of Enghien.  Shall it be, young Compassion?

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

What good—if that old Years tells us be true?

But I say naught.  To ordain is not for me!

[Thereupon a vision passes before NAPOLEON as he lies, comprising

hundreds of thousands of skeletons and corpses in various stages

of decay.  They rise from his various battlefields, the flesh

dropping from them, and gaze reproachfully at him.  His intimate

officers who have been slain he recognizes among the crowd.  In

front is the DUKE OF ENGHIEN as showman.]

NAPOLEON
[in his sleep]

Why, why should this reproach be dealt me now?

Why hold me my own master, if I be

Ruled by the pitiless Planet of Destiny?

[He jumps up in a sweat and puts out the last candle; and the

scene is curtained by darkness.]

SCENE IV

A CHAMBER OVERLOOKING A MAIN STREET IN BRUSSELS

[A June sunrise; the beams struggling through the window-curtains.

A canopied bed in a recess on the left.  The quick notes of

"Brighton Camp, or the "Girl I've left behind me," strike sharply