The Dynasts: An Epic-Drama of the War with Napoleon Part 73

For wiving with? No thought was given to that, She shapes as vaguely as the Veiled--

JOSEPHINE

No, no; It's Alexander's sister, I'm full sure!-- But why this craze for home-made manikins And lineage mere of flesh? You have said yourself It mattered not. Great Caesar, you declared, Sank sonless to his rest; was greater deemed Even for the isolation. Frederick Saw, too, no heir. It is the fate of such, Often, to be denied the common hope As fine for fulness in the rarer gifts That Nature yields them. O my husband long, Will you not purge your soul to value best That high heredity from brain to brain Which supersedes mere sequence of blood, That often vary more from sire to son Than between furthest strangers!...

Napoleon's offspring in his like must lie; The second of his line be he who shows Napoleon's soul in later bodiment, The household father happening as he may!

NAPOLEON [smilingly wiping her eyes]

Little guessed I my dear would prove her rammed With such a charge of apt philosophy When tutoring me gay arts in earlier times!

She who at home coquetted through the years In which I vainly penned her wishful words To come and comfort me in Italy, Might, faith, have urged it then effectually!

But never would you stir from Paris joys, [With some bitterness.]

And so, when arguments like this could move me, I heard them not; and get them only now When their weight dully falls. But I have said 'Tis not for me, but France--Good-bye an hour. [Kissing her.]

I must dictate some letters. This new move Of England on Madrid may mean some trouble.

Come, dwell not gloomily on this cold need Of waiving private joy for policy.

We are but thistle-globes on Heaven's high gales, And whither blown, or when, or how, or why, Can choose us not at all!...

I'll come to you anon, dear: staunch Roustan Will light me in.

[Exit NAPOLEON. The scene shuts in shadow.]

SCENE VII

VIMIERO

[A village among the hills of Portugal, about fifty miles north of Lisbon. Around it are disclosed, as ten on Sunday morning strikes, a blue army of fourteen thousand men in isolated columns, and red army of eighteen thousand in line formation, drawn up in order of battle. The blue army is a French one under JUNOT; the other an English one under SIR ARTHUR WELLESLEY--portion of that recently landed.

The August sun glares on the shaven faces, white gaiters, and white cross-belts of the English, who are to fight for their lives while sweating under a quarter-hundredweight in knapsack and pouches, and with firelocks heavy as putlogs. They occupy a group of heights, but their position is one of great danger, the land abruptly terminating two miles behind their backs in lofty cliffs overhanging the Atlantic. The French occupy the valleys in the English front, and this distinction between the two forces strikes the eye--the red army is accompanied by scarce any cavalry, while the blue is strong in that area.]

DUMB SHOW

The battle is begun with alternate moves that match each other like those of a chess opening. JUNOT makes an oblique attack by moving a division to his right; WELLESLEY moves several brigades to his left to balance it.

A column of six thousand French then climbs the hill against the English centre, and drives in those who are planted there. The English artillery checks its adversaries, and the infantry recover and charge the baffled French down the slopes. Meanwhile the latter's cavalry and artillery are attacking the village itself, and, rushing on a few squadrons of English dragoons stationed there, cut them to pieces. A dust is raised by this ado, and moans of men and shrieks of horses are heard. Close by the carnage the little Maceira stream continues to trickle unconcernedly to the sea.

On the English left five thousand French infantry, having ascended to the ridge and maintained a stinging musket-fire as sharply returned, are driven down by the bayonets of six English regiments.

Thereafter a brigade of the French, the northernmost, finding that the others have pursued to the bottom and are resting after the effort, surprise them and bayonet them back to their original summit.

The see-saw is continued by the recovery of the English, who again drive their a.s.sailants down.

The French army pauses stultified, till, the columns uniting, they fall back toward the opposite hills. The English, seeing that their chance has come, are about to pursue and settle the fortunes of the day. But a messenger dispatched from a distant group is marked riding up to the large-nosed man with a telescope and an Indian sword who, his staff around him, has been directing the English movements. He seems astonished at the message, appears to resent it, and pauses with a gloomy look. But he sends countermands to his generals, and the pursuit ends abortively.

The French retreat without further molestation by a circuitous march into the great road to Torres Vedras by which they came, leaving nearly two thousand dead and wounded on the slopes they have quitted.

Dumb Show ends and the curtain draws.

ACT THIRD

SCENE I

SPAIN. A ROAD NEAR ASTORGA

[The eye of the spectator rakes the road from the interior of a cellar which opens upon it, and forms the bas.e.m.e.nt of a deserted house, the roof doors, and shutters of which have been pulled down and burnt for bivouac fires. The season is the beginning of January, and the country is covered with a sticky snow. The road itself is intermittently enc.u.mbered with heavy traffic, the surface being churned to a yellow mud that lies half knee-deep, and at the numerous holes in the track forming still deeper quagmires.

In the gloom of the cellar are heaps of damp straw, in which ragged figures are lying half-buried, many of the men in the uniform of English regiments, and the women and children in clouts of all descriptions, some being nearly naked. At the back of the cellar is revealed, through a burst door, an inner vault, where are discernible some wooden-hooped wine-casks; in one sticks a gimlet, and the broaching-cork of another has been driven in.

The wine runs into pitchers, washing-basins, shards, chamber- vessels, and other extemporized receptacles. Most of the inmates are drunk; some to insensibility.

So far as the characters are doing anything they are contemplating almost incessant traffic outside, pa.s.sing in one direction. It includes a medley of stragglers from the Marquis of ROMANA'S Spanish forces and the retreating English army under SIR JOHN MOORE--to which the concealed deserters belong.]

FIRST DESERTER

Now he's one of the Eighty-first, and I'd gladly let that poor blade know that we've all that man can wish for here--good wine and buxom women. But if I do, we shan't have room for ourselves--hey?

[He signifies a man limping past with neither fire-lock nor knapsack. Where the discarded knapsack has rubbed for weeks against his shoulder-blades the jacket and shirt are fretted away, leaving his skin exposed.]

SECOND DESERTER

He may be the Eighty-firsht, or th' Eighty-second; but what I say is, without fear of contradiction, I wish to the Lord I was back in old Bristol again. I'd sooner have a nipperkin of our own real "Bristol milk" than a mash-tub full of this barbarian wine!

THIRD DESERTER

'Tis like thee to be ungrateful, after putting away such a skinful on't. I am as much Bristol as thee, but would as soon be here as there. There ain't near such willing women, that are strict respectable too, there as hereabout, and no open cellars.-- As there's many a slip in this country I'll have the rest of my allowance now.

[He crawls on his elbows to one of the barrels, and turning on his back lets the wine run down his throat.]

FORTH DESERTER [to a fifth, who is snoring]

Don't treat us to such a snoaching there, mate. Here's some more coming, and they'll sight us if we don't mind!

[Enter without a straggling flock of military objects, some with fragments of shoes on, others bare-footed, many of the latter's feet bleeding. The arms and waists of some are clutched by women as tattered and bare-footed as themselves. They pa.s.s on.

The Retreat continues. More of ROMANA'S Spanish limp along in disorder; then enters a miscellaneous group of English cavalry soldiers, some on foot, some mounted, the rearmost of the latter bestriding a shoeless foundered creature whose neck is vertebrae and mane only. While pa.s.sing it falls from exhaustion; the trooper extricates himself and pistols the animal through the head. He and the rest pa.s.s on.]

FIRST DESERTER [a new plashing of feet being heard]

Here's something more in order, or I am much mistaken. He cranes out.] Yes, a sergeant of the Forty-third, and what's left of their second battalion. And, by G.o.d, not far behind I see shining helmets.

'Tis a whole squadron of French dragoons!

[Enter the sergeant. He has a racking cough, but endeavours, by stiffening himself up, to hide how it is wasting away his life.