Part 18
A vast army is encamped here, and in the open spaces are infantry on parade--skeletoned men, some flushed, some shivering, who are kept moving because it is dangerous to stay still. Every now and then one falls down, and is carried away to a hospital with no roof, where he is laid, bedless, on the ground.
In the distance soldiers are digging graves for the funerals which are to take place after dark, delayed till then that the sight of so many may not drive the living melancholy-mad. Faint noises are heard in the air.
SHADE OF THE EARTH
What storm is this of souls dissolved in sighs, And what the dingy doom it signifies?
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
We catch a lamentation shaped thuswise:
CHORUS OF THE PITIES [aerial music]
“We who withstood the blasting blaze of war When marshalled by the gallant Moore awhile, Beheld the grazing death-bolt with a smile, Closed combat edge to edge and bore to bore, Now rot upon this Isle!
“The ever wan morass, the dune, the blear Sandweed, and tepid pool, and putrid smell, Emaciate purpose to a fractious fear, Beckon the body to its last low cell-- A chink no chart will tell.
“O ancient Delta, where the fen-lights flit! Ignoble sediment of loftier lands, Thy humour clings about our hearts and hands And solves us to its softness, till we sit As we were part of it.
“Such force as fever leaves maddened now, With tidings trickling in from day to day Of others' differing fortunes, wording how They yield their lives to baulk a tyrant's sway-- Yield them not vainly, they!
“In champaigns green and purple, far and near, In town and thorpe where quiet spire-cocks turn, Through vales, by rocks, beside the brooding burn Echoes the aggressor's arrogant career; And we pent pithless here!
“Here, where each creeping day the creeping file Draws past with shouldered comrades score on score, Bearing them to their lightless last asile, Where weary wave-wails from the clammy shore Will reach their ears no more.
“We might have fought, and had we died, died well, Even if in dynasts' discords not our own; Our death-spot some sad haunter might have shown, Some tongue have asked our sires or sons to tell The tale of how we fell;
“But such be chanced not. Like the mist we fade, No lustrous lines engrave in story we, Our country's chiefs, for their own fames afraid, Will leave our names and fates by this pale sea, To perish silently!”
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Why must ye echo as mechanic mimes These mortal minion's bootless cadences, Played on the stops of their anatomy As is the mewling music on the strings Of yonder ship-masts by the unweeting wind, Or the frail tune upon this withering sedge That holds its papery blades against the gale? --Men pass to dark corruption, at the best, Ere I can count five score: these why not now?-- The Immanent Shaper builds Its beings so Whether ye sigh their sighs with them or no!
The night fog enwraps the isle and the dying English army.
ACT FIFTH
## SCENE I
PARIS. A BALLROOM IN THE HOUSE OF CAMBACERES
[The many-candled saloon at the ARCH-CHANCELLOR'S is visible through a draped opening, and a crowd of masked dancers in fantastic costumes revolve, sway, and intermingle to the music that proceeds from an alcove at the further end of the same apartment. The front of the scene is a withdrawing-room of smaller size, now vacant, save for the presence of one sombre figure, that of NAPOLEON, seated and apparently watching the moving masquerade.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Napoleon even now embraces not From stress of state affairs, which hold him grave Through revels that might win the King of Spleen To toe a measure! I would speak with him.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Speak if thou wilt whose speech nor mars nor mends!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES [into Napoleon's ear]
Why thus and thus Napoleon? Can it be That Wagram with its glories, shocks, and shames, Still leaves athirst the palate of thy pride?
NAPOLEON [answering as in soliloquy]
The trustless, timorous lease of human life Warns me to hedge in my diplomacy. The sooner, then, the safer! Ay, this eve, This very night, will I take steps to rid My morrows of the weird contingencies That vision round and make one hollow-eyed.... The unexpected, lurid death of Lannes-- Rigid as iron, reaped down like a straw-- Tiptoed Assassination haunting round In unthought thoroughfares, the near success Of Staps the madman, argue to forbid The riskful blood of my previsioned line And potence for dynastic empery To linger vialled in my veins alone. Perhaps within this very house and hour, Under an innocent mask of Love or Hope, Some enemy queues my ways to coffin me.... When at the first clash of the late campaign, A bold belief in Austria's star prevailed, There pulsed quick pants of expectation round Among the cowering kings, that too well told What would have fared had I been overthrown! So; I must send down shoots to future time Who'll plant my standard and my story there; And a way opens.--Better I had not Bespoke a wife from Alexander's house. Not there now lies my look. But done is done!
[The dance ends and masks enter, BERTHIER among them. NAPOLEON beckons to him, and he comes forward.]
God send you find amid this motley crew Frivolities enough, friend Berthier--eh? My thoughts have worn oppressive shades despite such! What scandals of me do they bandy here? These close disguises render women bold-- Their shames being of the light, not of the thing-- And your sagacity has garnered much, I make no doubt, of ill and good report, That marked our absence from the capital?
BERTHIER
Methinks, your Majesty, the enormous tale Of your campaign, like Aaron's serpent-rod, Has swallowed up the smaller of its kind. Some speak, 'tis true, in counterpoise thereto, Of English deeds by Talavera town, Though blurred by their exploit at Walcheren, And all its crazy, crass futilities.
NAPOLEON
Yet was the exploit well featured in design, Large in idea, and imaginative; I had not deemed the blinkered English folk So capable of view. Their fate contrived To place an idiot at the helm of it, Who marred its working, else it had been hard If things had not gone seriously for us. --But see, a lady saunters hitherward Whose gait proclaims her Madame Metternich, One that I fain would speak with.
[NAPOLEON rises and crosses the room toward a lady-masker who has just appeared in the opening. BERTHIER draws off, and the EMPEROR, unceremoniously taking the lady's arm, brings her forward to a chair, and sits down beside her as dancing is resumed.]
MADAME METTERNICH
In a flash I recognized you, sire; as who would not The bearer of such deep-delved charactery?
NAPOLEON
The devil, madame, take your piercing eyes! It's hard I cannot prosper in a game That every coxcomb plays successfully. --So here you are still, though your loving lord Disports him at Vienna?
MADAME METTERNICH
Paris, true, Still holds me; though in quiet, save to-night, When I have been expressly prayed come hither, Or I had not left home.
NAPOLEON
I sped that Prayer!-- I have a wish to put a case to you, Wherein a woman's judgment, such as yours, May be of signal service. [He lapses into reverie.]
MADAME METTERNICH
Well? The case--
NAPOLEON
Is marriage--mine.
MADAME METTERNICH
It is beyond me, sire!
NAPOLEON
You glean that I have decided to dissolve [Pursuant to monitions murmured long] My union with the present Empress--formed Without the Church's due authority?
MADAME METTERNICH
Vaguely. And that light tentatives have winged Betwixt your Majesty and Russia's court, To moot that one of their Grand Duchesses Should be your Empress-wife. Nought else I know.
NAPOLEON
There have been such approachings; more, worse luck. Last week Champagny wrote to Alexander Asking him for his sister--yes or no.
MADAME METTERNICH
What “worse luck” lies in that, your Majesty, If severance from the Empress Josephine Be fixed unalterably?
NAPOLEON
This worse luck lies there: If your Archduchess, Marie Louise the fair, Would straight accept my hand, I'd offer it, And throw the other over. Faith, the Tsar Has shown such backwardness in answering me, Time meanwhile trotting, that I have ample ground For such withdrawal.--Madame, now, again, Will your Archduchess marry me of no?
MADAME METTERNICH
Your sudden questions quite confound my sense! It is impossible to answer them.
NAPOLEON
Well, madame, now I'll put it to you thus: Were you in the Archduchess Marie's place Would you accept my hand--and heart therewith?
MADAME METTERNICH
I should refuse you--most assuredly![17]
NAPOLEON [laughing roughly]
Ha-ha! That's frank. And devilish cruel too! --Well, write to your husband. Ask him what he thinks, And let me know.
MADAME METTERNICH
Indeed, sire, why should I? There goes the Ambassador, Prince Schwarzenberg, Successor to my spouse. He's now the groove And proper conduit of diplomacy Through whom to broach this matter to his Court.
NAPOLEON
Do you, then, broach it through him, madame, pray; Now, here, to-night.
MADAME METTERNICH
I will, informally, To humour you, on this recognizance, That you leave not the business in my hands, But clothe your project in official guise Through him to-morrow; so safeguarding me From foolish seeming, as the babbler forth Of a fantastic and unheard of dream.
NAPOLEON
I'll send Eugene to him, as you suggest. Meanwhile prepare him. Make your stand-point this: Children are needful to my dynasty, And if one woman cannot mould them for me, Why, then, another must.
[Exit NAPOLEON abruptly. Dancing continues. MADAME METTERNICH sits on, musing. Enter SCHWARZENBERG.]
MADAME METTERNICH
The Emperor has just left me. We have tapped This theme and that; his empress and--his next. Ay, so! Now, guess you anything?
SCHWARZENBERG
Of her? No more than that the stock of Romanoff Will not supply the spruce commodity.
MADAME METTERNICH
And that the would-be customer turns toe To our shop in Vienna.
SCHWARZENBERG
Marvellous; And comprehensible but as the dream Of Delaborde, of which I have lately heard. It will not work!--What think you, madame, on't?
MADAME METTERNICH
That it will work, and is as good as wrought!-- I break it to you thus, at his request. In brief time Prince Eugene will wait on you, And make the formal offer in his name.
SCHWARZENBERG
Which I can but receive _ad referendum_, And shall initially make clear as much, Disclosing not a glimpse of my own mind! Meanwhile you make good Metternich aware?
MADAME METTERNICH
I write this midnight, that amaze may pitch To coolness ere your messenger arrives.
SCHWARZENBERG
This radiant revelation flicks a gleam On many circling things!--the courtesies Which graced his bearing toward our officer Amid the tumults of the late campaign, His wish for peace with England, his affront At Alexander's tedious-timed reply... Well, it will thrust a thorn in Russia's side, If I err not, whatever else betide!
[Exeunt. The maskers surge into the foreground of the scene, and their motions become more and more fantastic. A strange gloom begins and intensifies, until only the high lights of their grinning figures are visible. These also, with the whole ball- room, gradually darken, and the music softens to silence.]
## SCENE II
PARIS. THE TUILERIES
[The evening of the next day. A saloon of the Palace, with folding-doors communicating with a dining-room. The doors are flung open, revealing on the dining-table an untouched dinner, NAPOLEON and JOSEPHINE rising from it, and DE BAUSSET, chamberlain- in-waiting, pacing up and down. The EMPEROR and EMPRESS come forward into the saloon, the latter pale and distressed, and patting her eyes with her handkerchief.
The doors are closed behind them; a page brings in coffee; NAPOLEON signals to him to leave. JOSEPHINE goes to pour out the coffee, but NAPOLEON pushes her aside and pours it out himself, looking at her in a way which causes her to sink cowering into a chair like a frightened animal.]
JOSEPHINE
I see my doom, my friend, upon your face!
NAPOLEON
You see me bored by Cambaceres' ball.
JOSEPHINE
It means divorce!--a thing more terrible Than carrying elsewhere the dalliances That formerly were mine. I kicked at that; But now agree, as I for long have done, To any infidelities of act May I be yours in name!
NAPOLEON
My mind must bend To other things than our domestic petting: The Empire orbs above our happiness, And 'tis the Empire dictates this divorce. I reckon on your courage and calm sense To breast with me the law's formalities, And get it through before the year has flown.
JOSEPHINE
But are you REALLY going to part from me? O no, no, my dear husband; no, in truth, It cannot be my Love will serve me so!
NAPOLEON
I mean but mere divorcement, as I said, On simple grounds of sapient sovereignty.
JOSEPHINE
But nothing have I done save good to you:-- Since the fond day we wedded into one I never even have THOUGHT you jot of harm! Many the happy junctures when you have said I stood as guardian-angel over you, As your Dame Fortune, too, and endless things Of such-like pretty tenour--yes, you have! Then how can you so gird against me now? You had not pricked upon it much of late, And so I hoped and hoped the ugly spectre Had been laid dead and still.
NAPOLEON [impatiently]
I tell you, dear, The thing's decreed, and even the princess chosen.
JOSEPHINE
Ah--so--the princess chosen!... I surmise It is none else than the Grand-Duchess Anne: Gossip was right--though I would not believe. She's young; but no great beauty!--Yes, I see Her silly, soulless eyes and horrid hair; In which new gauderies you'll forget sad me!
NAPOLEON
Upon my soul you are childish, Josephine: A woman of your years to pout it so!-- I say it's not the Tsar's Grand-Duchess Anne.
JOSEPHINE
Some other Fair, then. You whose name can nod The flower of all the world's virginity Into your bed, will well take care of that! [Spitefully.] She may not have a child, friend, after all.
NAPOLEON [drily]
You hope she won't, I know!--But don't forget Madame Walewska did, and had she shown Such cleverness as yours, poor little fool, Her withered husband might have been displaced, And her boy made my heir.--Well, let that be. The severing parchments will be signed by us Upon the fifteenth, prompt.
JOSEPHINE
What--I have to sign My putting away upon the fifteenth next?
NAPOLEON
Ay--both of us.
JOSEPHINE [falling on her knees]
So far advanced--so far! Fixed?--for the fifteenth? O I do implore you, My very dear one, by our old, old love, By my devotion, don't cast me off Now, after these long years!
NAPOLEON
Heavens, how you jade me! Must I repeat that I don't cast you off; We merely formally arrange divorce-- We live and love, but call ourselves divided.
[A silence.]
JOSEPHINE [with sudden calm]
Very well. Let it be. I must submit! [Rises.]
NAPOLEON
And this much likewise you must promise me, To act in the formalities thereof As if you shaped them of your own free will.
JOSEPHINE
How can I--when no freewill's left in me?
NAPOLEON
You are a willing party--do you hear?
JOSEPHINE [quivering]
I hardly--can--bear this!--It is--too much For a poor weak and broken woman's strength! But--but I yield!--I am so helpless now: I give up all--ay, kill me if you will, I won't cry out!
NAPOLEON
And one thing further still, You'll help me in my marriage overtures To win the Duchess--Austrian Marie she,-- Concentrating all your force to forward them.
JOSEPHINE
It is the--last humiliating blow!-- I cannot--O, I will not!
NAPOLEON [fiercely]
But you SHALL! And from your past experience you may know That what I say I mean!
JOSEPHINE [breaking into sobs]
O my dear husband--do not make me--don't! If you but cared for me--the hundredth part Of how--I care for you, you could not be So cruel as to lay this torture on me. It hurts me so!--it cuts me like a sword. Don't make me, dear! Don't, will you! O,O,O! [She sinks down in a hysterical fit.]
NAPOLEON [calling]
Bausset!
[Enter DE BAUSSET, Chamberlain-in-waiting.]
Bausset, come in and shut the door. Assist me here. The Empress has fallen ill. Don't call for help. We two can carry her By the small private staircase to her rooms. Here--I will take her feet.
[They lift JOSEPHINE between them and carry her out. Her moans die away as they recede towards the stairs. Enter two servants, who remove coffee-service, readjust chairs, etc.]
FIRST SERVANT
So, poor old girl, she's wailed her _Missere Mei_, as Mother Church says. I knew she was to get the sack ever since he came back.
SECOND SERVANT
Well, there will be a little civil huzzaing, a little crowing and cackling among the Bonapartes at the downfall of the Beauharnais family at last, mark me there will! They've had their little hour, as the poets say, and now 'twill be somebody else's turn. O it is droll! Well, Father Time is a great philosopher, if you take him right. Who is to be the new woman?
FIRST SERVANT
She that contains in her own corporation the necessary particular.
SECOND SERVANT
And what may they be?
FIRST SERVANT
She must be young.
SECOND SERVANT
Good. She must. The country must see to that.
FIRST SERVANT
And she must be strong.
SECOND SERVANT
Good again. She must be strong. The doctors will see to that.
FIRST SERVANT And she must be fruitful as the vine.
SECOND SERVANT
Ay, by God. She must be fruitful as the vine. That, Heaven help him, he must see to himself, like the meanest multiplying man in Paris.
[Exeunt servant. Re-enter NAPOLEON with his stepdaughter, Queen Hortense.]
NAPOLEON Your mother is too rash and reasonless-- Wailing and fainting over statesmanship Which is no personal caprice of mine, But policy most painful--forced on me By the necessities of this country's charge. Go to her; see if she be saner now; Explain it to her once and once again, And bring me word what impress you may make.
[HORTENSE goes out. CHAMPAGNY is shown in.]
Champagny, I have something clear to say Now, on our process after the divorce. The question of the Russian Duchess Anne Was quite inept for further toying with. The years rush on, and I grow nothing younger. So I have made up my mind--committed me To Austria and the Hapsburgs--good or ill! It was the best, most practicable plunge, And I have plunged it.
CHAMPAGNY
Austria say you, sire? I reckoned that but a scurrying dream!
NAPOLEON
Well, so it was. But such a pretty dream That its own charm transfixed it to a notion, That showed itself in time a sanity, Which hardened in its turn to a resolve As firm as any built by mortal mind.-- The Emperor's consent must needs be won; But I foresee no difficulty there. The young Archduchess is a bright blond thing By general story; and considering, too, That her good mother childed seventeen times, It will be hard if she can not produce The modest one or two that I require.
[Enter DE BAUSSET with dispatches.]
DE BAUSSET
The courier, sire, from Petersburg is here, And brings these letters for your Majesty.
[Exit DE BAUSSET.]
NAPOLEON [after silently reading]
Ha-ha! It never rains unless it pours: Now I can have the other readily. The proverb hits me aptly: “Well they do Who doff the old love ere they don the new!” [He glances again over the letter.] Yes, Caulaincourt now writes he has every hope Of quick success in settling the alliance! The Tsar is willing--even anxious for it, His sister's youth the single obstacle. The Empress-mother, hitherto against me, Ambition-fired, verges on suave consent, Likewise the whole Imperial family. What irony is all this to me now! Time lately was when I had leapt thereat.
CHAMPAGNY
You might, of course, sire, give th' Archduchess up, Seeing she looms uncertainly as yet, While this does so no longer.
NAPOLEON
No--not I. My sense of my own dignity forbids My watching the slow clocks of Muscovy! Why have they dallied with my tentatives In pompous silence since the Erfurt day? --And Austria, too, affords a safer hope. The young Archduchess is much less a child Than is the other, who, Caulaincourt says, Will be incapable of motherhood For six months yet or more--a grave delay.
CHAMPAGNY
Your Majesty appears to have trimmed your sail For Austria; and no more is to be said!
NAPOLEON
Except that there's the house of Saxony If Austria fail.--then, very well, Champagny, Write you to Caulaincourt accordingly.
CHAMPAGNY
I will, your Majesty.
[Exit CHAMPAGNY. Re-enter QUEEN HORTENSE.]
NAPOLEON
Ah, dear Hortense, How is your mother now?
HORTENSE
Calm; quite calm, sire. I pledge me you need have no further fret From her entreating tears. She bids me say That now, as always, she submits herself With chastened dignity to circumstance, And will descend, at notice, from your throne-- As in days earlier she ascended it-- In questionless obedience to your will. It was your hand that crowned her; let it be Likewise your hand that takes her crown away. As for her children, we shall be but glad To follow and withdraw ourselves with her, The tenderest mother children ever knew, From grandeurs that have brought no happiness!
NAPOLEON [taking her hand]
But, Hortense, dear, it is not to be so! You must stay with me, as I said before. Your mother, too, must keep her royal state, Since no repudiation stains this need. Equal magnificence will orb her round In aftertime as now. A palace here, A palace in the country, wealth to match, A rank in order next my future wife's, And conference with me as my truest friend. Now we will seek her--Eugene, you, and I-- And make the project clear.
[Exeunt NAPOLEON and HORTENSE. The scene darkens and shuts.]
## SCENE III
VIENNA. A PRIVATE APARTMENT IN THE IMPERIAL PALACE
[The EMPEROR FRANCIS discovered, paler than usual, and somewhat flurried. Enter METTERNICH the Prime Minister--a thin-lipped, long-nosed man with inquisitive eyes.]
FRANCIS
I have been expecting you some minutes here, The thing that fronts us brooking brief delay.-- Well, what say you by now on this strange offer?
METTERNICH
My views remain the same, your Majesty: The policy of peace that I have upheld, Both while in Paris and of late time here, Points to this step as heralding sweet balm And bandaged veins for our late crimsoned realm.
FRANCIS
Agreed. As monarch I perceive therein A happy doorway for my purposings. It seems to guarantee the Hapsburg crown A quittance of distractions such as those That leave their shade on many a backward year!-- There is, forsooth, a suddenness about it, And it would aid us had we clearly keyed The cryptologues of which the world has heard Between Napoleon and the Russian Court-- Begun there with the selfsame motiving.
METTERNICH
I would not, sire, one second ponder it. It was an obvious first crude cast-about In the important reckoning of means For his great end, a strong monarchic line. The more advanced the more it profits us; For sharper, then, the quashing of such views, And wreck of that conjunction in the aims Of France and Russia, marked so much of late As jeopardizing quiet neighbours' thrones.
FRANCIS
If that be so, on the domestic side There seems no bar. Speaking as father solely, I see secured to her the proudest fate That woman can daydream. And I could hope That private bliss would not be wanting her!
METTERNICH