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.]

  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.  NAPOLÉON’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 NAPOLÉON, 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 NAPOLÉON’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 NAPOLÉON’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 NAPOLÉON within, growing louder and louder.]

  VOICE OF NAPOLÉON

  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 NAPOLÉON

  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 NAPOLÉON

  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.]

  NAPOLÉON

  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, NAPOLÉON prepares to re-enter his tent.
    But his attention is attracted to the Russians.  He regards them
    through his glass.  Enter BESSIERES and RAPP.]

  NAPOLÉON

  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.

    [NAPOLÉON 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.]

  NAPOLÉON

  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.

  NAPOLÉON

  Better they’d wake up old Kutúzof.—Rapp,
  What think you of to-morrow?

  RAPP

            Victory;
  But, sire, a bloody one!

  NAPOLÉON

       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.]

  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 NAPOLÉON, in his
    usual glue-grey uniform, white waistcoat, and white leather
    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 NAPOLÉON 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.  NAPOLÉON 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
       Napoléon’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.  NAPOLÉON
  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 Napoléon’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.

  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 KUTÚZOF, 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, DOKHTÓROF, 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.

  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 NAPOLÉON, MURAT, EUGÈNE, 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.]

  NAPOLÉON

  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!

  NAPOLÉON

            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.  Eugène 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 NAPOLÉON 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 Napoléon’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.

    [NAPOLÉON, 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.]

  THE SAME.  THE INTERIOR OF THE KREMLIN

    [A chamber containing a bed on which NAPOLÉON has been lying.  It
    is not yet daybreak, and the flapping light of the conflagration
    without shines in at the narrow windows.

    NAPOLÉON is discovered dressed, but in disorder and unshaven.  He
    is walking up and down the room in agitation.  There are present
    CAULAINCOURT, BESSIERES, and many of the marshals of his guard,
    who stand in silent perplexity.]

  NAPOLÉON [sitting down on the bed]

  No: I’ll not go!  It is themselves who have done it.
  My God, they are Scythians and barbarians still!

    [Enter MORTIER [just made Governor].]

  MORTIER

  Sire, there’s no means of fencing with the flames.
  My creed is that these scurvy Muscovites
  Knowing our men’s repute for recklessness,
  Have fired the town, as if ’twere we had done it,
  As by our own crazed act!

    [GENERAL LARIBOISIERE, and aged man, enters and approaches
    NAPOLÉON.]

  LARIBOISIERE

            The wind swells higher!
  Will you permit one so high-summed in years,
  One so devoted, sire, to speak his mind?
  It is that your long lingering here entails
  Much risk for you, your army, and ourselves,
  In the embarrassment it throws on us
  While taking steps to seek security,
  By hindering venturous means.

    [Enter MURAT, PRINCE EUGÈNE, and the PRINCE OF NEUFCHÂTEL.]

  MURAT

            There is no choice
  But leaving, sire.  Enormous bulks of powder
  Lie housed beneath us; and outside these panes
  A park of our artillery stands unscreened.

  NAPOLÉON [saturninely]

  What have I won I disincline to cede!

  VOICE OF A GUARD [without]

  The Kremlin is aflame!

    [The look at each other.  Two officers of NAPOLÉON’S guard and an
    interpreter enter, with one of the Russian military police as a
    prisoner.]

  FIRST OFFICER

            We have caught this man
  Firing the Kremlin: yea, in the very act!
  It is extinguished temporarily,
  We know not for how long.

  NAPOLÉON

            Inquire of him
  What devil set him on.  [They inquire.]

  SECOND OFFICER

            The governor,
  He says; the Count Rostopchin, sire.

  NAPOLÉON

  So!  Even the ancient Kremlin is not sanct
  From their infernal scheme!  Go, take him out;
  Make him a quick example to the rest.

    [Exeunt guard with their prisoner to the court below, whence a
    musket-volley resounds in a few minutes.  Meanwhile the flames
    pop and spit more loudly, and the window-panes of the room they
    stand in crack and fall in fragments.]

  Incendiarism afoot, and we unware
  Of what foul tricks may follow, I will go.
  Outwitted here, we’ll march on Petersburg,
  The Devil if we won’t!

    [The marshals murmur and shake their heads.]

  BESSIERES

            Your pardon, sire,
  But we are all convinced that weather, time,
  Provisions, roads, equipment, mettle, mood,
  Serve not for such a perilous enterprise.

    [NAPOLÉON remains in gloomy silence.  Enter BERTHIER.]

  NAPOLÉON [apathetically]

  Well, Berthier.  More misfortunes?

  BERTHIER

            News is brought,
  Sire, of the Russian army’s whereabouts.
  That fox Kutúzof, after marching east
  As if he were conducting his whole force
  To Vladimir, when at the Riazan Road
  Down-doubled sharply south, and in a curve
  Has wheeled round Moscow, making for Kalouga,
  To strike into our base, and cut us off.

  MURAT

  Another reason against Petersburg!
  Come what come may, we must defeat that army,
  To keep a sure retreat through Smolensk on
  To Lithuania.

  NAPOLÉON [jumping up]

            I must act!  We’ll leave,
  Or we shall let this Moscow be our tomb.
  May Heaven curse the author of this war—
  Ay, him, that Russian minister, self-sold
  To England, who fomented it.—’Twas he
  Dragged Alexander into it, and me!

    [The marshals are silent with looks of incredulity, and Caulaincourt
    shrugs his shoulders.]

  Now no more words; but hear.  Eugène and Ney
  With their divisions fall straight back upon
  The Petersburg and Zwenigarod Roads;
  Those of Davout upon the Smolensk route.
  I will retire meanwhile to Petrowskoi.
  Come, let us go.

    [NAPOLÉON and the marshals move to the door.  In leaving, the
    Emperor pauses and looks back.]

            I fear that this event
  Marks the beginning of a train of ills....
  Moscow was meant to be my rest,
  My refuge, and—it vanishes away!

    [Exeunt NAPOLÉON, marshals, etc.  The smoke grows denser and
    obscures the scene.]

  THE ROAD FROM SMOLENSKO INTO LITHUANIA

    [The season is far advanced towards winter.  The point of observation
    is high amongst the clouds, which, opening and shutting fitfully to
    the wind, reveal the earth as a confused expanse merely.]

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       Where are we?  And why are we where we are?

  SHADE OF THE EARTH

       Above a wild waste garden-plot of mine
       Nigh bare in this late age, and now grown chill,
       Lithuania called by some.  I gather not
       Why we haunt here, where I can work no charm
       Either upon the ground or over it.

  SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       The wherefore will unfold.  The rolling brume
       That parts, and joins, and parts again below us
       In ragged restlessness, unscreens by fits
       The quality of the scene.

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

                 I notice now
       Primeval woods, pine, birch—the skinny growths
       That can sustain life well where earth affords
       But sustenance elsewhere yclept starvation.

  SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       And what see you on the far land-verge there,
       Labouring from eastward towards our longitude?

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       An object like a dun-piled caterpillar,
       Shuffling its length in painful heaves along,
       Hitherward.... Yea, what is this Thing we see
       Which, moving as a single monster might,
       Is yet not one but many?

  SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

                 Even the Army
       Which once was called the Grand; now in retreat
       From Moscow’s muteness, urged by That within it;
       Together with its train of followers—
       Men, matrons, babes, in brabbling multitudes.

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

            And why such flight?

  SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

            Recording Angels, say.

  RECORDING ANGEL I [in minor plain-song]

       The host has turned from Moscow where it lay,
       And Israel-like, moved by some master-sway,
       Is made to wander on and waste away!

  ANGEL II

       By track of Tarutino first it flits;
       Thence swerving, strikes at old Jaroslawitz;
       The which, accurst by slaughtering swords, it quits.

  ANGEL I

       Harassed, it treads the trail by which it came,
       To Borodino, field of bloodshot fame,
       Whence stare unburied horrors beyond name!

  ANGEL II

       And so and thus it nears Smolensko’s walls,
       And, stayed its hunger, starts anew its crawls,
       Till floats down one white morsel, which appals.

    [What has floated down from the sky upon the Army is a flake of
    snow.  Then come another and another, till natural features,
    hitherto varied with the tints of autumn, are confounded, and all
    is phantasmal grey and white.

    The caterpillar shape still creeps laboriously nearer, but instead,
    increasing in size by the rules of perspective, it gets more
    attenuated, and there are left upon the ground behind it minute
    parts of itself, which are speedily flaked over, and remain as
    white pimples by the wayside.]

  SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       These atoms that drop off are snuffed-out souls
       Who are enghosted by the caressing snow.

    [Pines rise mournfully on each side of the nearing object; ravens
    in flocks advance with it overhead, waiting to pick out the eyes
    of strays who fall.  The snowstorm increases, descending in tufts
    which can hardly be shaken off.  The sky seems to join itself to
    the land.  The marching figures drop rapidly, and almost immediately
    become white grave-mounds.

    Endowed with enlarged powers of audition as of vision, we are struck
    by the mournful taciturnity that prevails.  Nature is mute.  Save
    for the incessant flogging of the wind-broken and lacerated horses
    there are no sounds.

    With growing nearness more is revealed.  In the glades of the forest,
    parallel to the French columns, columns of Russians are seen to be
    moving.  And when the French presently reach Krasnoye they are
    surrounded by packs of cloaked Cossacks, bearing lances like huge
    needles a dozen feet long.  The fore-part of the French army gets
    through the town; the rear is assaulted by infantry and artillery.]

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       The strange, one-eyed, white-shakoed, scarred old man,
       Ruthlessly heading every onset made,
       I seem to recognize.

  SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

                 Kutúzof he:
       The ceaselessly-attacked one, Michael Ney;
       A pair as stout as thou, Earth, ever hast twinned!
       Kutúzof, ten years younger, would extirp
       The invaders, and our drama finish here,
       With Bonaparte a captive or a corpse.
       But he is old; death even has beckoned him;
       And thus the so near-seeming happens not.

    [NAPOLÉON himself can be discerned amid the rest, marching on foot
    through the snowflakes, in a fur coat and with a stout staff in his
    hand.  Further back NEY is visible with the remains of the rear.

    There is something behind the regular columns like an articulated
    tail, and as they draw on, it shows itself to be a disorderly rabble
    of followers of both sexes.  So the whole miscellany arrives at the
    foreground, where it is checked by a large river across the track.
    The soldiers themselves, like the rabble, are in motley raiment,
    some wearing rugs for warmth, some quilts and curtains, some even
    petticoats and other women’s clothing.  Many are delirious from
    hunger and cold.

    But they set about doing what is a necessity for the least hope of
    salvation, and throw a bridge across the stream.

    The point of vision descends to earth, close to the scene of action.]

  THE BRIDGE OF THE BERESINA

    [The bridge is over the Beresina at Studzianka.  On each side of
    the river are swampy meadows, now hard with frost, while further
    back are dense forests.  Ice floats down the deep black stream in
    large cakes.]

  DUMB SHOW

  The French sappers are working up to their shoulders in the water at
  the building of the bridge.  Those so immersed work till, stiffened
  with ice to immobility, they die from the chill, when others succeed
  them.

  Cavalry meanwhile attempt to swim their horses across, and some
  infantry try to wade through the stream.

  Another bridge is begun hard by, the construction of which advances
  with greater speed; and it becomes fit for the passage of carriages
  and artillery.

  NAPOLÉON is seen to come across to the homeward bank, which is the
  foreground of the scene.  A good portion of the army also, under
  DAVOUT, NEY, and OUDINOT, lands by degrees on this side.  But
  VICTOR’S corps is yet on the left or Moscow side of the stream,
  moving toward the bridge, and PARTONNEAUX with the rear-guard, who
  has not yet crossed, is at Borissow, some way below, where there is
  an old permanent bridge partly broken.

  Enter with speed from the distance the Russians under TCHAPLITZ.
  More under TCHICHAGOFF enter the scene down the river on the left
  or further bank, and cross by the old bridge of Borissow.  But they
  are too far from the new crossing to intercept the French as yet.

  PLATOFF with his Cossacks next appears on the stage which is to be
  such a tragic one.  He comes from the forest and approaches the left
  bank likewise.  So also does WITTGENSTEIN, who strikes in between
  the uncrossed VICTOR and PARTONNEAUX.  PLATOFF thereupon descends
  on the latter, who surrenders with the rear-guard; and thus seven
  thousand more are cut off from the already emaciated Grand Army.

  TCHAPLITZ, of TCHICHAGOFF’S division, has meanwhile got round by the
  old bridge at Borissow to the French side of the new one, and attacks
  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.

  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 KUTÚZOF 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.

  KUTÚZOF

  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.

  KUTÚZOF [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.

  KUTÚZOF

  ’Tis well.  So perish Russia’s enemies!

    [Exeunt KUTÚZOF, 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.]

  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 NAPOLÉON [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.  NAPOLÉON 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!

    [NAPOLÉON embraces her.]

  NAPOLÉON

  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!

  NAPOLÉON

            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 NAPOLÉON.]

  NAPOLÉON

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

  MARIE LOUISE

  I’ll come with you.

    [NAPOLÉON 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 NAPOLÉON and MARIE LOUISE.  The lady-
    in-waiting goes out.]

  NAPOLÉON

            I have said it, dear!
  All the disasters summed in the bulletin
  Shall be repaired.

  MARIE LOUISE

       And are they terrible?

  NAPOLÉON

  Have you not read the last-sent bulletin,
  Dear friend?

  MARIE LOUISE

       No recent bulletin has come.

  NAPOLÉON

  Ah—I must have outstripped it on the way!

  MARIE LOUISE

  And where is the Grand Army?

  NAPOLÉON

       Oh—that’s gone.

  MARIE LOUISE

  Gone?  But—gone where?

  NAPOLÉON

       Gone all to nothing, dear.

  MARIE LOUISE [incredulously]

  But some six hundred thousand I saw pass
  Through Dresden Russia-wards?

  NAPOLÉON [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?

  NAPOLÉON [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.

  NAPOLÉON

            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?

  NAPOLÉON

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