VOICE OF WELLINGTON
Did she though: did she!
Why that must be Susanna, whom I know—
A Wessex woman, blithe, and somewhat fair....
Not but great irregularities
Arise from such exploits.—And was it she
I noticed wandering to and fro below here,
Just as the French retired?
VOICE OF ANOTHER OFFICER
Ah no, my lord.
That was the wife of Prescott of the Seventh,
Hoping beneath the heel of hopelessness,
As these young women will!—Just about sunset
She found him lying dead and bloody there,
And in the dusk we bore them both away.[18]
VOICE OF WELLINGTON
Well, I’m damned sorry for her. Though I wish
The women-folk would keep them to the rear:
Much awkwardness attends their pottering round!
[The talking shapes disappear, and as the features of the field
grow undistinguishable the comparative quiet is broken by gay
notes from guitars and castanets in the direction of the city,
and other sounds of popular rejoicing at Wellington’s victory.
People come dancing out from the town, and the merry-making
continues till midnight, when it ceases, and darkness and silence
prevail everywhere.]
SEMICHORUS I OF THE YEARS [aerial music]
What are Space and Time? A fancy!—
Lo, by Vision’s necromancy
Muscovy will now unroll;
Where for cork and olive-tree
Starveling firs and birches be.
SEMICHORUS II
Though such features lie afar
From events Peninsular,
These, amid their dust and thunder,
Form with those, as scarce asunder,
Parts of one compacted whole.
CHORUS
Marmont’s aide, then, like a swallow
Let us follow, follow, follow,
Over hill and over hollow,
Past the plains of Teute and Pole!
[There is semblance of a sound in the darkness as of a rushing
through the air.]
SCENE IV
THE FIELD OF BORODINO
[Borodino, seventy miles west of Moscow, is revealed in a bird’s-
eye view from a point above the position of the French Grand Army,
advancing on the Russian capital.
We are looking east, towards Moscow and the army of Russia, which
bars the way thither. The sun of latter summer, sinking behind
our backs, floods the whole prospect, which is mostly wild,
uncultivated land with patches of birch-trees. NAPOLÉON’S army
has just arrived on the scene, and is making its bivouac for the
night, some of the later regiments not having yet come up. A
dropping fire of musketry from skirmishers ahead keeps snapping
through the air. The Emperor’s tent stands in a ravine in the
foreground amid the squares of the Old Guard. Aides and other
officers are chatting outside.
Enter NAPOLÉON, who dismounts, speaks to some of his suite, and
disappears inside his tent. An interval follows, during which the
sun dips.
Enter COLONEL FABVRIER, aide-de-camp of MARMONT, just arrived from
Spain. An officer-in-waiting goes into NAPOLÉON’S tent to announce
FABVRIER, the Colonel meanwhile talking to those outside.]
AN AIDE
Important tidings thence, I make no doubt?
FABVRIER
Marmont repulsed on Salamanca field,
And well-nigh slain, is the best tale I bring!
[A silence. A coughing heard in NAPOLÉON’S tent.]
Whose rheumy throat distracts the quiet so?