ANGEL I
Harassed, it treads the trail by which it came,
To Borodino, field of bloodshot fame,
Whence stare unburied horrors beyond name!
ANGEL II
And so and thus it nears Smolensko’s walls,
And, stayed its hunger, starts anew its crawls,
Till floats down one white morsel, which appals.
[What has floated down from the sky upon the Army is a flake of
snow. Then come another and another, till natural features,
hitherto varied with the tints of autumn, are confounded, and all
is phantasmal grey and white.
The caterpillar shape still creeps laboriously nearer, but instead,
increasing in size by the rules of perspective, it gets more
attenuated, and there are left upon the ground behind it minute
parts of itself, which are speedily flaked over, and remain as
white pimples by the wayside.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
These atoms that drop off are snuffed-out souls
Who are enghosted by the caressing snow.
[Pines rise mournfully on each side of the nearing object; ravens
in flocks advance with it overhead, waiting to pick out the eyes
of strays who fall. The snowstorm increases, descending in tufts
which can hardly be shaken off. The sky seems to join itself to
the land. The marching figures drop rapidly, and almost immediately
become white grave-mounds.
Endowed with enlarged powers of audition as of vision, we are struck
by the mournful taciturnity that prevails. Nature is mute. Save
for the incessant flogging of the wind-broken and lacerated horses
there are no sounds.
With growing nearness more is revealed. In the glades of the forest,
parallel to the French columns, columns of Russians are seen to be
moving. And when the French presently reach Krasnoye they are
surrounded by packs of cloaked Cossacks, bearing lances like huge
needles a dozen feet long. The fore-part of the French army gets
through the town; the rear is assaulted by infantry and artillery.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
The strange, one-eyed, white-shakoed, scarred old man,
Ruthlessly heading every onset made,
I seem to recognize.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Kutúzof he:
The ceaselessly-attacked one, Michael Ney;
A pair as stout as thou, Earth, ever hast twinned!
Kutúzof, ten years younger, would extirp
The invaders, and our drama finish here,
With Bonaparte a captive or a corpse.
But he is old; death even has beckoned him;
And thus the so near-seeming happens not.
[NAPOLÉON himself can be discerned amid the rest, marching on foot
through the snowflakes, in a fur coat and with a stout staff in his
hand. Further back NEY is visible with the remains of the rear.
There is something behind the regular columns like an articulated
tail, and as they draw on, it shows itself to be a disorderly rabble
of followers of both sexes. So the whole miscellany arrives at the
foreground, where it is checked by a large river across the track.
The soldiers themselves, like the rabble, are in motley raiment,
some wearing rugs for warmth, some quilts and curtains, some even
petticoats and other women’s clothing. Many are delirious from
hunger and cold.
But they set about doing what is a necessity for the least hope of
salvation, and throw a bridge across the stream.
The point of vision descends to earth, close to the scene of action.]
SCENE X
THE BRIDGE OF THE BERESINA
[The bridge is over the Beresina at Studzianka. On each side of
the river are swampy meadows, now hard with frost, while further
back are dense forests. Ice floats down the deep black stream in
large cakes.]
DUMB SHOW
The French sappers are working up to their shoulders in the water at
the building of the bridge. Those so immersed work till, stiffened
with ice to immobility, they die from the chill, when others succeed
them.
Cavalry meanwhile attempt to swim their horses across, and some
infantry try to wade through the stream.
Another bridge is begun hard by, the construction of which advances
with greater speed; and it becomes fit for the passage of carriages
and artillery.
NAPOLÉON is seen to come across to the homeward bank, which is the
foreground of the scene. A good portion of the army also, under
DAVOUT, NEY, and OUDINOT, lands by degrees on this side. But
VICTOR’S corps is yet on the left or Moscow side of the stream,
moving toward the bridge, and PARTONNEAUX with the rear-guard, who
has not yet crossed, is at Borissow, some way below, where there is
an old permanent bridge partly broken.
Enter with speed from the distance the Russians under TCHAPLITZ.
More under TCHICHAGOFF enter the scene down the river on the left
or further bank, and cross by the old bridge of Borissow. But they
are too far from the new crossing to intercept the French as yet.
PLATOFF with his Cossacks next appears on the stage which is to be
such a tragic one. He comes from the forest and approaches the left
bank likewise. So also does WITTGENSTEIN, who strikes in between
the uncrossed VICTOR and PARTONNEAUX. PLATOFF thereupon descends
on the latter, who surrenders with the rear-guard; and thus seven
thousand more are cut off from the already emaciated Grand Army.
TCHAPLITZ, of TCHICHAGOFF’S division, has meanwhile got round by the
old bridge at Borissow to the French side of the new one, and attacks
OUDINOT; but he is repulsed with the strength of despair. The French
lose a further five thousand in this.
We now look across the river at VICTOR, and his division, not yet
over, and still defending the new bridges. WITTGENSTEIN descends
upon him; but he holds his ground.
The determined Russians set up a battery of twelve cannon, so as to
command the two new bridges, with the confused crowd of soldiers,
carriages, and baggage, pressing to cross. The battery discharges
into the surging multitude. More Russians come up, and, forming a
semicircle round the bridges and the mass of French, fire yet more
hotly on them with round shot and canister. As it gets dark the
flashes light up the strained faces of the fugitives. Under the
discharge and the weight of traffic, the bridge for the artillery
gives way, and the throngs upon it roll shrieking into the stream
and are drowned.
SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES [aerial music]
So loudly swell their shrieks as to be heard above the roar of guns
and the wailful wind,
Giving in one brief cry their last wild word on that mock life
through which they have harlequined!
SEMICHORUS II
To the other bridge the living heap betakes itself, the weak pushed
over by the strong;
They loop together by their clutch like snakes; in knots they
are submerged and borne along.