The Dynasts: An Epic-Drama of the War with Napoleon Part 40

[He flaps out with his hand all the candles but one or two, slowly walks outside the house, and listens. On the high ground in the direction of the French lines are heard shouts, and a wide illumination grows and strengthens; but the hollows are still mantled in fog.]

Are these the signs of regiments out of heart, And beating backward from an enemy!

[He remains pondering. On the Pratzen heights immediately in front there begins a movement among the Russians, signifying that the plan which involves desertion of that vantage-ground is about to be put in force. Noises of drunken singing arise from the Russian lines at various points elsewhere.

The night shades involve the whole.]

SCENE III

THE SAME. THE FRENCH POSITION

[Shortly before dawn on the morning of the 2nd of December. A white frost and fog still prevail in the low-lying areas; but overhead the sky is clear. A dead silence reigns.

NAPOLEON, on a grey horse, closely attended by BERTHIER, and surrounded by MARSHALS SOULT, LANNES, MURAT, and their aides-de camp, all cloaked, is discernible in the gloom riding down from the high ground before Bellowitz, on which they have bivouacked, to the village of Puntowitz on the Goldbach stream, quite near the front of the Russian position of the day before on the Pratzen crest. The Emperor and his companions come to a pause, look around and upward to the hills, and listen.]

NAPOLEON

Their bivouac fires, that lit the top last night, Are all extinct.

LANNES

And hark you, Sire; I catch A sound which, if I err not, means the thing We have hoped, and hoping, feared fate would not yield!

NAPOLEON

My G.o.d, it surely is the tramp of horse And jolt of cannon downward from the hill Toward our right here, by the swampy lakes That face Davout? Thus, as I sketched, they work!

MURAT

Yes! They already move upon Tilnitz.

NAPOLEON

Leave them alone! Nor stick nor stone we'll stir To interrupt them. Nought that we can scheme Will help us like their own stark sightlessness!-- Let them get down to those white lowlands there, And so far plunge in the level that no skill, When sudden vision flashes on their fault, Can help them, though despair-stung, to regain The key to mastery held at yestereve!

Meantime move onward these divisions here Under the fog's kind shroud; descend the slope, And cross the stream below the Russian lines: There halt concealed, till I send down the word.

[NAPOLEON and his staff retire to the hill south-east of Bellowitz and the day dawns pallidly.]

'Tis good to get above that rimy cloak And into cleaner air. It chilled me through.

[When they reach the summit they are over the fog: and suddenly the sun breaks forth to the left of Pratzen, illuminating the ash-hued face of NAPOLEON and the faces of those around him.

All eyes are turned first to the sun, and thence to look for the dense ma.s.ses of men that had occupied the upland the night before.]

MURAT

I see them not. The plateau seems deserted!

NAPOLEON

Gone; verily!--Ah, how much will you bid, An hour hence, for the coign abandoned now!

The battle's ours.--It was, then, their rash march Downwards to Tilnitz and the Goldbach swamps Before dawn, that we heard.--No hurry, Lannes!

Enjoy this sun, that rests its chubby jowl Upon the plain, and thrusts its bristling beard Across the lowlands' fleecy counterpane, Peering beneath our broadest hat-brims' shade....

Soult, how long hence to win the Pratzen top?

SOULT

Some twenty minutes or less, your Majesty: Our troops down there, still mantled by the mist, Are half upon the way.

NAPOLEON

Good! Set forthwith Vandamme and Saint Hilaire to mount the slopes---

[Firing begins in the marsh to the right by Tilnitz and the pools, though the thick air yet hides the operations.]

O, there you are, blind boozy Buxhovden!

Achieve your worst. Davout will hold you firm.

[The head of and aide-de-camp rises through the fog on that side, and he hastens up to NAPOLEON and his companions, to whom the officer announces what has happened. DAVOUT rides off, disappearing legs first into the white stratum that covers the attack.]

Lannes and Murat, you have concern enough Here on the left, with Prince Bagration And all the Austro-Russian cavalry.

Haste off. The victory promising to-day Will, like a thunder-clap, conclude the war!

[The Marshals with their aides gallop away towards their respective divisions. Soon the two divisions under SOULT are seen ascending in close column the inclines of the Pratzen height. Thereupon the heads of the Russian centre columns disclose themselves, breaking the sky-line of the summit from the other side, in a desperate attempt to regain the position vacated by the Russian left. A fierce struggle develops there between SOULT'S divisions and these, who, despite their tardy attempt to recover the lost post of dominance, are pressed by the French off the slopes into the lowland.]

SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES [aerial music]

O Great Necessitator, heed us now!

If it indeed must be That this day Austria smoke with slaughtery, Quicken the issue as Thou knowest how; And dull their lodgment in a flesh that galls!

SEMICHORUS II

If it be in the future human story To lift this man to yet intenser glory, Let the exploit be done With the least sting, or none, To those, his kind, at whose expense such pitch is won!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS