The Dynasts: An Epic-Drama of the War with Napoleon Part 120

Emerging from the wood below the eminence appears a shadowy amorphous thing in motion, the central or Imperial column of NAPOLEON'S Grand Army for the invasion of Russia, comprising the corps of OUDINOT, NEY, and DAVOUT, with the Imperial Guard.

This, with the right and left columns, makes up the host of nearly half a million, all starting on their march to Moscow.

While the rearmost regiments are arriving, NAPOLEON rides ahead with GENERAL HAXEL and one or two others to reconnoitre the river.

NAPOLEON'S horse stumbles and throws him. He picks himself up before he can be helped.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS [to Napoleon]

The portent is an ill one, Emperor; An ancient Roman would retire thereat!

NAPOLEON

Whose voice was that, jarring upon my thought So insolently?

HAXEL AND OTHERS

Sire, we spoke no word.

NAPOLEON

Then, whoso spake, such portents I defy!

[He remounts. When the reconnoitrers again came back to the foreground of the scene the huge array of columns is standing quite still, in circles of companies, the captain of each in the middle with a paper in his hand. He reads from it a proclamation. They quiver emotionally, like leaves stirred by the wind. NAPOLEON and his staff reascend the hillock, and his own words as repeated to the ranks reach his ears, while he himself delivers the same address to those about him.

NAPOLEON

Soldiers, wild war is on the board again; The lifetime-long alliance Russia swore At Tilsit, for the English realm's undoing, Is violate beyond refurbishment, And she intractable and unashamed.

Russia is forced on by fatality: She cries her destiny must be outwrought, Meaning at our expense. Does she then dream We are no more the men of Austerlitz, With nothing left of our old featfulness?

She offers us the choice of sword or shame; We have made that choice unhesitatingly!

Then let us forthwith stride the Niemen flood, Let us bear war into her great gaunt land, And spread our glory there as otherwhere, So that a stable peace shall stultify The evil seed-bearing that Russian wiles Have nourished upon Europe's choked affairs These fifty years!

[The midsummer night darkens. They all make their bivouacs and sleep.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Something is tongued afar.

DISTANT VOICE IN THE WIND

The hostile hatchings of Napoleon's brain Against our Empire, long have hara.s.sed us, And mangled all our mild amenities.

So, since the hunger for embranglement That gnaws this man, has left us optionless, And haled us recklessly to horrid war, We have promptly mustered our well-hardened hosts, And, counting on our call to the most High, Have forthwith set our puissance face to face Against Napoleon's.--Ranksmen! officers!

You fend your lives, your land, your liberty.

I am with you. Heaven frowns on the aggressor.

SPIRIT IRONIC

Ha! "Liberty" is quaint, and pleases me, Sounding from such a soil!

[Midsummer-day breaks, and the sun rises on the right, revealing the position clearly. The eminence overlooks for miles the river Niemen, now mirroring the morning rays. Across the river three temporary bridges have been thrown, and towards them the French ma.s.ses streaming out of the forest descend in three columns.

They sing, shout, fling their shakos in the air and repeat words from the proclamation, their steel and bra.s.s flas.h.i.+ng in the sun.

They narrow their columns as they gain the three bridges, and begin to cross--horse, foot, and artillery.

NAPOLEON has come from the tent in which he has pa.s.sed the night to the high ground in front, where he stands watching through his gla.s.s the committal of his army to the enterprise. DAVOUT, NEY, MURAT, OUDINOT, Generals HAXEL and EBLE, NARBONNE, and others surround him.

It is a day of drowsing heat, and the Emperor draws a deep breath as he s.h.i.+fts his weight from one puffed calf to the other. The light cavalry, the foot, the artillery having pa.s.sed, the heavy horse now crosses, their glitter outs.h.i.+ning the ripples on the stream.

A messenger enters. NAPOLEON reads papers that are brought, and frowns.]

NAPOLEON

The English heads decline to recognize The government of Joseph, King of Spain, As that of "the now-ruling dynast"; But only Ferdinand's!--I'll get to Moscow, And send thence my rejoinder. France shall wage Another fifty years of wasting war Before a Bourbon shall remount the throne Of restless Spain!... [A flash lights his eyes.]

But this long journey now just set a-trip Is my choice way to India; and 'tis there That I shall next bombard the British rule.

With Moscow taken, Russia p.r.o.ne and crushed, To attain the Ganges is simplicity-- Auxiliaries from Tiflis backing me.

Once ripped by a French sword, the scaffolding Of English merchant-masters.h.i.+p in Ind Will fall a wreck.... Vast, it is true, must bulk An Eastern scheme so planned; but I could work it....

Man has, worse fortune, but scant years for war; I am good for another five!

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Why doth he go?-- I see returning in a chattering flock Bleached skeletons, instead of this array Invincibly equipped.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

I'll show you why.

[The unnatural light before seen usurps that of the sun, bringing into view, like breezes made visible, the films or brain-tissues of the Immanent Will, that pervade all things, ramifying through the whole army, NAPOLEON included, and moving them to Its inexplicable artistries.]

NAPOLEON [with sudden despondency]

That which has worked will work!--Since Lodi Bridge The force I then felt move me moves me on Whether I will or no; and oftentimes Against my better mind.... Why am I here?

--By laws imposed on me inexorably!

History makes use of me to weave her web To her long while aforetime-figured mesh And contemplated charactery: no more.

Well, war's my trade; and whencesoever springs This one in hand, they'll label it with my name!

[The natural light returns and the anatomy of the Will disappears.