NAPOLÉON [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 NAPOLÉON. 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 assailants 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 basement 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 encumbered 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, passing 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.]