THE SAME. THE FRENCH POSITION
[Shortly before dawn on the morning of the 2nd of December. A
white frost and fog still prevail in the low-lying areas; but
overhead the sky is clear. A dead silence reigns.
NAPOLÉON, on a grey horse, closely attended by BERTHIER, and
surrounded by MARSHALS SOULT, LANNES, MURAT, and their aides-de
camp, all cloaked, is discernible in the gloom riding down
from the high ground before Bellowitz, on which they have
bivouacked, to the village of Puntowitz on the Goldbach stream,
quite near the front of the Russian position of the day before
on the Pratzen crest. The Emperor and his companions come to
a pause, look around and upward to the hills, and listen.]
NAPOLÉON
Their bivouac fires, that lit the top last night,
Are all extinct.
LANNES
And hark you, Sire; I catch
A sound which, if I err not, means the thing
We have hoped, and hoping, feared fate would not yield!
NAPOLÉON
My God, it surely is the tramp of horse
And jolt of cannon downward from the hill
Toward our right here, by the swampy lakes
That face Davout? Thus, as I sketched, they work!
MURAT
Yes! They already move upon Tilnitz.
NAPOLÉON
Leave them alone! Nor stick nor stone we’ll stir
To interrupt them. Nought that we can scheme
Will help us like their own stark sightlessness!—
Let them get down to those white lowlands there,
And so far plunge in the level that no skill,
When sudden vision flashes on their fault,
Can help them, though despair-stung, to regain
The key to mastery held at yestereve!
Meantime move onward these divisions here
Under the fog’s kind shroud; descend the slope,
And cross the stream below the Russian lines:
There halt concealed, till I send down the word.
[NAPOLÉON and his staff retire to the hill south-east of Bellowitz
and the day dawns pallidly.]
’Tis good to get above that rimy cloak
And into cleaner air. It chilled me through.
[When they reach the summit they are over the fog: and suddenly
the sun breaks forth to the left of Pratzen, illuminating the
ash-hued face of NAPOLÉON and the faces of those around him.
All eyes are turned first to the sun, and thence to look for
the dense masses of men that had occupied the upland the night
before.]
MURAT
I see them not. The plateau seems deserted!
NAPOLÉON
Gone; verily!—Ah, how much will you bid,
An hour hence, for the coign abandoned now!
The battle’s ours.—It was, then, their rash march
Downwards to Tilnitz and the Goldbach swamps
Before dawn, that we heard.—No hurry, Lannes!
Enjoy this sun, that rests its chubby jowl
Upon the plain, and thrusts its bristling beard
Across the lowlands’ fleecy counterpane,
Peering beneath our broadest hat-brims’ shade....
Soult, how long hence to win the Pratzen top?
SOULT
Some twenty minutes or less, your Majesty:
Our troops down there, still mantled by the mist,
Are half upon the way.
NAPOLÉON
Good! Set forthwith
Vandamme and Saint Hilaire to mount the slopes—-
[Firing begins in the marsh to the right by Tilnitz and the pools,
though the thick air yet hides the operations.]
O, there you are, blind boozy Buxhövden!
Achieve your worst. Davout will hold you firm.
[The head of and aide-de-camp rises through the fog on that
side, and he hastens up to NAPOLÉON and his companions, to whom
the officer announces what has happened. DAVOUT rides off,
disappearing legs first into the white stratum that covers the
attack.]
Lannes and Murat, you have concern enough
Here on the left, with Prince Bagration
And all the Austro-Russian cavalry.
Haste off. The victory promising to-day
Will, like a thunder-clap, conclude the war!
[The Marshals with their aides gallop away towards their respective
divisions. Soon the two divisions under SOULT are seen ascending
in close column the inclines of the Pratzen height. Thereupon the
heads of the Russian centre columns disclose themselves, breaking
the sky-line of the summit from the other side, in a desperate
attempt to regain the position vacated by the Russian left. A
fierce struggle develops there between SOULT’S divisions and these,
who, despite their tardy attempt to recover the lost post of
dominance, are pressed by the French off the slopes into the
lowland.]
SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES [aerial music]
O Great Necessitator, heed us now!
If it indeed must be
That this day Austria smoke with slaughtery,
Quicken the issue as Thou knowest how;
And dull their lodgment in a flesh that galls!