The Dynasts: An Epic-Drama of the War with Napoleon Part 25

Never care. Here we stay. In five more days The Russians hail, and we regain our bays.

[Exeunt severally.]

SCENE IV

BEFORE ULM. THE SAME DAY

[A high wind prevails, and rain falls in torrents. An elevated terrace near Elchingen forms the foreground.]

DUMB SHOW

From the terrace BONAPARTE surveys and dictates operations against the entrenched heights of the Michaelsberg that rise in the middle distance on the right above the city. Through the gauze of descending waters the French soldiery can be discerned climbing to the attack under NEY.

They slowly advance, recede, re-advance, halt. A time of suspense follows. Then they are seen in a state of irregular movement, even confusion; but in the end they carry the heights with the bayonet.

Below the spot whereon NAPOLEON and his staff are gathered, glistening wet and plastered with mud, obtrudes on the left the village of Elchingen, now in the hands of the French. Its white- walled monastery, its bridge over the Danube, recently broken by the irresistible NEY, wear a desolated look, and the stream, which is swollen by the rainfall and rasped by the storm, seems wanly to sympathize.

Anon sh.e.l.ls are dropped by the French from the summits they have gained into the city below. A bomb from an Austrian battery falls near NAPOLEON, and in bursting raises a fountain of mud. The Emperor retreats with his officers to a less conspicuous station.

Meanwhile LANNES advances from a position near NAPOLEON till his columns reach the top of the Frauenberg hard by. The united corps of LANNES and NEY descend on the inner slope of the heights towards the city walls, in the rear of the retreating Austrians. One of the French columns scales a bastion, but NAPOLEON orders the a.s.sault to be discontinued, and with the wane of day the spectacle disappears.

SCENE V

THE SAME. THE MICHAELSBERG

[A chilly but rainless noon three days later. At the back of the scene, northward, rise the Michaelsberg heights; below stretches the panorama of the city and the Danube. On a secondary eminence forming a spur of the upper hill, a fire of logs is burning, the foremost group beside it being NAPOLEON and his staff, the former in his shabby greatcoat and plain turned-up hat, walking to and fro with his hands behind him, and occasionally stopping to warm himself. The French infantry are drawn up in a dense array at the back of these.

The whole Austrian garrison of Ulm marches out of the city gate opposite NAPOLEON. GENERAL MACK is at the head, followed by GIULAY, GOTTESHEIM, KLINAU, LICHTENSTEIN, and many other officers, who advance to BONAPARTE and deliver their swords.]

MACK

Behold me, Sire. Mack the unfortunate!

NAPOLEON

War, General, ever has its ups and downs, And you must take the better and the worse As impish chance or destiny ordains.

Come near and warm you here. A glowing fire Is life on the depressing, mired, moist days Of smitten leaves down-dropping clammily, And toadstools like the putrid lungs of men.

[To his Lieutenants.] Cause them so stand to right and left of me.

[The Austrian officers arrange themselves as directed, and the body of the Austrians now file past their Conqueror, laying down their arms as they approach; some with angry gestures and words, others in moody silence.]

Listen, I pray you, Generals gathered her.

I tell you frankly that I know not why Your master wages this wild war with me.

I know not what he seeks by such injustice, Unless to give me practice in my trade-- That of a soldier--whereto I was bred: Deemed he my craft might slip from me, unplied?

Let him now own me still a dab therein!

MACK

Permit me, your Imperial Majesty, To speak one word in answer; which is this, No war was wished for by my Emperor: Russia constrained him to it!

NAPOLEON

If that be, You are no more a European power.-- I would point out to him that my resources Are not confined to these my musters here; My prisoners of war, in route for France, Will see some marks of my resources there!

Two hundred thousand volunteers, right fit, Will join my standards at a single nod, And in six weeks prove soldiers to the bone, Whilst you recruits, compulsion's scavengings, Scarce weld to warriors after toilsome years.

But I want nothing on this Continent: The English only are my enemies.

s.h.i.+ps, colonies, and commerce I desire, Yea, therewith to advantage you as me.

Let me then charge your Emperor, my brother, To turn his feet the shortest way to peace.-- All states must have an end, the weak, the strong; Ay; even may fall the dynasty of Lorraine!

[The filing past and laying down of arms by the Austrian army continues with monotonous regularity, as if it would never end.]

NAPOLEON [in a murmur, after a while]

Well, what cares England! She has won her game; I have unlearnt to threaten her from Boulogne....

Her gold it is that forms the weft of this Fair tapestry of armies marshalled here!

Likewise of Russia's drawing steadily nigh.

But they may see what these see, by and by.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

So let him speak, the while we clearly sight him Moved like a figure on a lantern-slide.

Which, much amazing uninitiate eyes, The all-compelling crystal pane but drags Wither the showman wills.

SPIRIT IRONIC

And yet, my friend, The Will itself might smile at this collapse Of Austria's men-at-arms, so drolly done; Even as, in your phantasmagoric show, The deft manipulator of the slide Might smile at his own art.

CHORUS OF THE YEARS [aerial music]

Ah, no: ah, no!

It is impa.s.sible as glacial snow.-- Within the Great Unshaken These painted shapes awaken A lesser thrill than doth the gentle lave Of yonder bank by Danube's wandering wave Within the Schwarzwald heights that give it flow!

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES