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 NAPOLÉON, 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 NAPOLÉON 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. NAPOLÉON 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
Napoléon’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. NAPOLÉON
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 Napoléon’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.