Part 24
Victory; But, sire, a bloody one!
NAPOLEON
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.]
## SCENE V
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 NAPOLEON, 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 NAPOLEON 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. NAPOLEON 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 Napoleon'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. NAPOLEON 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 Napoleon'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.
## SCENE VI
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 KUTUZOF, 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, DOKHTOROF, 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.
## SCENE VII
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 NAPOLEON, MURAT, EUGENE, 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.]
NAPOLEON
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!
NAPOLEON
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. Eugene 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 NAPOLEON 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 Napoleon'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.
[NAPOLEON, 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.]
## SCENE VIII
THE SAME. THE INTERIOR OF THE KREMLIN
[A chamber containing a bed on which NAPOLEON has been lying. It is not yet daybreak, and the flapping light of the conflagration without shines in at the narrow windows.
NAPOLEON 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.]
NAPOLEON [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 NAPOLEON.]
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 EUGENE, and the PRINCE OF NEUFCHATEL.]
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.
NAPOLEON [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 NAPOLEON'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.
NAPOLEON
Inquire of him What devil set him on. [They inquire.]
SECOND OFFICER
The governor, He says; the Count Rostopchin, sire.
NAPOLEON
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.
[NAPOLEON remains in gloomy silence. Enter BERTHIER.]
NAPOLEON [apathetically]
Well, Berthier. More misfortunes?
BERTHIER
News is brought, Sire, of the Russian army's whereabouts. That fox Kutuzof, 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.
NAPOLEON [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. Eugene 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.
[NAPOLEON 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 NAPOLEON, marshals, etc. The smoke grows denser and obscures the scene.]
## SCENE IX
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
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.