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The Dynasts

T >> Thomas Hardy >> The Dynasts




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

Kutuzof he:
The ceaselessly-attacked one, Michael Ney;
A pair as stout as thou, Earth, ever hast twinned!
Kutuzof, 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.

[NAPOLEON 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.]



SCENE X

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.

NAPOLEON 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.



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-
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(19)

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?

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