The Dynasts: An Epic-Drama of the War with Napoleon Part 138

DIPLOMATIST

Oh, she has not been received in the Royal box by the other members of the Royal Family, and it has offended her, though she was told beforehand that she could not be. Poor devil! n.o.body invited her here. She came unasked, and she has gone unserved.

FIRST ATTACHE

We shall have to go unserved likewise, I fancy. The scramble at the buffets is terrible.

DIPLOMATIST

And the road from here to Marsh Gate is impa.s.sable. Some ladies have been sitting in their coaches for hours outside the hedge there. We shall not get home till noon to-morrow.

A VOICE [from the back]

Take care of your watches! Pickpockets!

FIRST ATTACHE

Good. That relieves the monotony a little.

[Excitement in the throng. When it has subsided the band strikes up a country dance, and stewards with white ribbons and laurel leaves are seen bustling about.]

SECOND ATTACHE

Let us go and look at the dancing. It is "Voulez-vous danser"--no, it is not,--it is "Enrico"--two ladies between two gentlemen.

[They go from the alcove.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

From this phantasmagoria let us roam To the chief wheel and capstan of the show, Distant afar. I pray you closely read What I reveal--wherein each feature bulks In measure with its value humanly.

[The beholder finds himself, as it were, caught up on high, and while the Vauxhall scene still dimly twinkles below, he gazes southward towards Central Europe--the contorted and attenuated ecorche of the Continent appearing as in an earlier scene, but now obscure under the summer stars.]

Three cities loom out large: Vienna there, Dresden, which holds Napoleon, over here, And Leipzig, whither we shall shortly wing, Out yonderwards. 'Twixt Dresden and Vienna What thing do you discern?

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Something broad-faced, Flat-folded, parchment-pale, and in its shape Rectangular; but moving like a cloud The Dresden way.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Yet gaze more closely on it.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

The object takes a letter's lineaments Though swollen to mainsail measure,--magically, I gather from your words; and on its face Are three vast seals, red--signifying blood Must I suppose? It moves on Dresden town, And dwarfs the city as it pa.s.ses by.-- You say Napoleon's there?

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

The doc.u.ment, Sized to its big importance, as I told, Bears in it formal declaration, signed, Of war by Francis with his late-linked son, The Emperor of France. Now let us go To Leipzig city, and await the blow.

[A chaotic gloom ensues, accompanied by a rus.h.i.+ng like that of a mighty wind.]

ACT THIRD

SCENE I

LEIPZIG. NAPOLEON'S QUARTERS IN THE REUDNITZ SUBURB

[The sitting-room of a private mansion. Evening. A large stove- fire and candles burning. The October wind is heard without, and the leaded panes of the old windows shake mournfully.]

SEMICHORUS I OF IRONIC SPIRITS [aerial music]

We come; and learn as Time's disordered dear sands run That Castlereagh's diplomacy has wiled, waxed, won.

The beacons flash the fevered news to eyes keen bent That Austria's formal words of war are shaped, sealed, sent.

SEMICHORUS II

So; Poland's three despoilers primed by Bull's gross pay To stem Napoleon's might, he waits the weird dark day; His proffered peace declined with scorn, in fell force then They front him, with yet ten-score thousand more ma.s.sed men.

[At the back of the room CAULAINCOURT, DUKE OF VICENZA, and JOUANNE, one of Napoleon's confidential secretaries, are unpacking and laying out the Emperor's maps and papers. In the foreground BERTHIER, MURAT, LAURISTON, and several officers of Napoleon's suite, are holding a desultory conversation while they await his entry. Their countenances are overcast.]

MURAT

At least, the scheme of marching on Berlin Is now abandoned.

LAURISTON

Not without high words: He yielded and gave order prompt for Leipzig But coldness and reserve have marked his mood Towards us ever since.