by Thomas Hardy
and Pitt, who looks emaciated and walks feebly.]
WILTSHIRE [pointing to a portrait]
Now here you have the lady we discussed:
A fine example of his manner, sir?
PITT
It is a fine example, sir, indeed,—
With that transparency amid the shades,
And those thin blue-green-grayish leafages
Behind the pillar in the background there,
Which seem the leaves themselves.—Ah, this is Quin.
[Moving to another picture.]
WILTSHIRE
Yes, Quin. A man of varied parts, though rough
And choleric at times. Yet, at his best,
As Falstaff, never matched, they say. But I
Had not the fate to see him in the flesh.
PITT
Churchill well carves him in his "Character":—
"His eyes, in gloomy socket taught to roll,
Proclaimed the sullen habit of his soul.
In fancied scenes, as in Life's real plan,
He could not for a moment sink the man:
Nature, in spite of all his skill, crept in;
Horatio, Dorax, Falstaff—stile 'twas Quin."
—He was at Bath when Gainsborough settled there
In that house in the Circus which we know.—
I like the portrait much.—The brilliancy
Of Gainsborough lies in this his double sway:
Sovereign of landscape he; of portraiture
Joint monarch with Sir Joshua.... Ah?—that's—hark!
Is that the patter of horses's hoofs
Along the road?
WILTSHIRE
I notice nothing, sir.
PITT
It is a gallop, growing quite distinct.
And—can it be a messenger for me!
WILTSHIRE
I hope no ugly European news
To stop the honour of this visit, sir!
[They listen. The gallop of the horse grows louder, and is
checked at the door of the house. There is a hasty knocking,
and a courier, splashed with mud from hard riding, is shown
into the gallery. He presents a dispatch to PITT, who sits
down and hurriedly opens it.]
PITT [to himself]
O heavy news indeed!... Disastrous; dire!
[He appears overcome as he sits, and covers his forehead with
his hand.]
WILTSHIRE
I trust you are not ill, sir?
PITT [after some moments]
Could I have
A little brandy, sir, quick brought to me?
WILTSHIRE
In one brief minute.
[Brandy is brought in, and PITT takes it.]
PITT
Now leave me, please, alone. I'll call anon.
Is there a map of Europe handy here?
[WILTSHIRE fetches a map from the library, and spreads it before
the minister. WILTSHIRE, courier, and servant go out.]
O God that I should live to see this day!
[He remains awhile in a profound reverie; then resumes the reading
of the dispatch.]
"Defeated—the Allies—quite overthrown
At Austerlitz—last week."—Where's Austerlitz?
—But what avails it where the place is now;
What corpse is curious on the longitude
And situation of his cemetery!...
The Austrians and the Russians overcome,
That vast adventuring army is set free
To bend unhindered strength against our strand....
So do my plans through all these plodding years
Announce them built in vain!
His heel on Europe, monarchies in chains
To France, I am as though I had never been!
[He gloomily ponders the dispatch and the map some minutes longer.
At last he rises with difficulty, and rings the bell. A servant
enters.]
Call up my carriage, please you, now at once;
And tell your master I return to Bath
This moment—I may want a little help
In getting to the door here.
SERVANT
Sir, I will,
And summon you my master instantly.
[He goes out and re-enters with WILTSHIRE. PITT is assisted from
the room.]
PITT
Roll up that map. 'Twill not be needed now
These ten years! Realms, laws, peoples, dynasties,
Are churning to a pulp within the maw
Of empire-making Lust and personal Gain!
[Exeunt PITT, WILTSHIRE, and the servant; and in a few minutes the
carriage is heard driving off, and the scene closes.]
SCENE VII
PARIS. A STREET LEADING TO THE TUILERIES
[It is night, and the dim oil lamps reveal a vast concourse of
citizens of both sexes around the Palace gates and in the
neighbouring thoroughfares.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS [to the Spirit of Rumour]
Thou may'st descend and join this crowd awhile,
And speak what things shall come into they mouth.
SPIRIT SINISTER
I'll harken! I wouldn't miss it for the groans on another
Austerlitz!
[The Spirit of Rumour enters on the scene in the disguise of a
young foreigner.]
SPIRIT [to a street-woman]
Lady, a late hour this to be afoot!
WOMAN
Poor profit, then, to me from my true trade,
Wherein hot competition is so rife
Already, since these victories brought to town
So many foreign jobbers in my line,
That I'd best hold my tongue from praise of fame!
However, one is caught by popular zeal,
And though five midnights have not brought a sou,
I, too, chant Jubilate like the rest.—
In courtesies have haughty monarchs vied
Towards the Conqueror! who, with men-at-arms
One quarter theirs, has vanquished by his nerve
Vast mustering four-hundred-thousand strong,
And given new tactics to the art of war
Unparalleled in Europe's history!
SPIRIT
What man is this, whose might thou blazonest so—
Who makes the earth to tremble, shakes old thrones,
And turns the plains to wilderness?
WOMAN
Dost ask
As ignorant, yet asking can define?
What mean you, traveller?
SPIRIT
I am a stranger here,
A wandering wight, whose life has not been spent
This side the globe, though I can speak the tongue.
WOMAN
Your air has truth in't; but your state is strange!
Had I a husband he should tackle thee.
SPIRIT
Dozens thou hast had—batches more than she
Samaria knew, if now thou hast not one!
WOMAN
Wilt take the situation from this hour?
SPIRIT
Thou know'st not what thy frailty asks, good dame!
WOMAN
Well, learn in small the Emperor's chronicle,
As gleaned from what my soldier-husbands say:—
some five-and-forty standards of his foes
Are brought to Paris, borne triumphantly
In proud procession through the surging streets,
Ever as brands of fame to shine aloft
In dim-lit senate-halls and city aisles.
SPIRIT
Fair Munich sparkled with festivity
As there awhile he tarried, and was met
By the gay Josephine your Empress here.—
There, too, Eugene—
WOMAN
Napoleon's step
son he—-
SPIRIT
Received for gift the hand of fair Princess
Augusta [daughter of Bavaria's crown,
Forced from her plighted troth to Baden's heir],
And, to complete his honouring, was hailed
Successor to the throne of Italy.
WOMAN
How know you, ere this news has got abroad?
SPIRIT
Channels have I the common people lack.—
There, on the nonce, the forenamed Baden prince
Was joined to Stephanie Beauharnais, her
Who stands as daughter to the man we wait,
Some say as more.
WOMAN
They do? Then such not I.
Can revolution's dregs so soil thy soul
That thou shouldst doubt the eldest son thereof?
'Tis dangerous to insinuate nowadays!
SPIRIT
Right! Lady many-spoused, more charity
Upbrims in thee than in some loftier ones
Who would not name thee with their white-washed tongues.—
Enough. I am one whom, didst thou know my name,
Thou would'st not grudge a claim to speak his mind.
WOMAN
A thousand pardons, sir.
SPIRIT
Resume thy tale
If so thou wishest.
WOMAN
Nay, but you know best—-
SPIRIT
How laurelled progress through applauding crowds
Have marked his journey home. How Strasburg town,
Stuttgart, Carlsruhe, acclaimed him like the rest:
How pageantry would here have welcomed him,
Had not his speed outstript intelligence
—Now will a glimpse of him repay thee. Hark!
[Shouts arise and increase in the distance, announcing BONAPARTE'S
approach.]
Well, Buonaparte has revived by land,
But not by sea. On that thwart element
Never will he incorporate his dream,
And float as master!
WOMAN
What shall hinder him?
SPIRIT
That which has hereto. England, so to say.
WOMAN
But she's in straits. She lost her Nelson now,
[A worthy man: he loved a woman well!]
George drools and babbles in a darkened room;
Her heaven-born Minister declines apace;
All smooths the Emperor's sway.
SPIRIT
Tales have two sides,
Sweet lady. Vamped-up versions reach thee here.—
That Austerlitz was lustrous none ignores,
But would it shock thy garrulousness to know
That the true measure of this Trafalgar—
Utter defeat, ay, France's naval death—
Your Emperor bade be hid?
WOMAN
The seer's gift
Has never plenteously endowed me, sir,
As in appearance you. But to plain sense
Thing's seem as stated.
SPIRIT
We'll let seemings be.—
But know, these English take to liquid life
Right patly—nursed therefor in infancy
By rimes and rains which creep into their blood,
Till like seeks like. The sea is their dry land,
And, as on cobbles you, they wayfare there.
WOMAN
Heaven prosper, then, their watery wayfarings
If they'll leave us the land!—[The Imperial carriage appears.]
The Emperor!—
Long live the Emperor!—He's the best by land.
[BONAPARTE'S carriage arrives, without an escort. The street
lamps shine in, and reveal the EMPRESS JOSEPHINE seated beside
him. The plaudits of the people grow boisterous as they hail
him Victor of Austerlitz. The more active run after the carriage,
which turns in from the Rue St. Honore to the Carrousel, and
thence vanishes into the Court of the Tuileries.]
WOMAN
May all success attend his next exploit!
SPIRIT
Namely: to put the knife in England's trade,
And teach her treaty-manners—if he can!
WOMAN
I like not your queer knowledge, creepy man.
There's weirdness in your air. I'd call you ghost
Had not the Goddess Reason laid all such
Past Mother Church's cunning to restore.
—Adieu. I'll not be yours to-night. I'd starve first!
[She withdraws. The crowd wastes away, and the Spirit vanishes.]
SCENE VIII
PUTNEY. BOWLING GREEN HOUSE
[PITT'S bedchamber, from the landing without. It is afternoon.
At the back of the room as seen through the doorway is a curtained
bed, beside which a woman sits, the LADY HESTER STANHOPE. Bending
over a table at the front of the room is SIR WALTER FARQUHAR, the
physician. PARSLOW the footman and another servant are near the
door. TOMLINE, the Bishop of Lincoln, enters.]
FARQUHAR [in a subdued voice]
I grieve to call your lordship up again,
But symptoms lately have disclosed themselves
That mean the knell to the frail life in him.
And whatsoever thing of gravity
It may be needful to communicate,
Let them be spoken now. Time may not serve
If they be much delayed.
TOMLINE
Ah, stands it this?...
The name of his disease is—Austerlitz!
His brow's inscription has been Austerlitz
From that dire morning in the month just past
When tongues of rumour twanged the word across
From its hid nook on the Moravian plains.
FARQUHAR
And yet he might have borne it, had the weight
Of governmental shackles been unclasped,
Even partly, from his limbs last Lammastide,
When that despairing journey to the King
At Gloucester Lodge by Wessex shore was made
To beg such. But relief the King refused.
"Why want you Fox? What—Grenville and his friends?"
He harped. "You are sufficient without these—
Rather than Fox, why, give me civil war!"
And fibre that would rather snap than shrink
Held out no longer. Now the upshot nears.
[LADY HESTER STANHOPE turns her head and comes forward.]
LADY HESTER
I am grateful you are here again, good friend!
He's sleeping some light seconds; but once more
Has asked for tidings of Lord Harrowby,
And murmured of his mission to Berlin
As Europe's haggard hope; if, sure, it be
That any hope remain!
TOMLINE
There's no news yet.—
These several days while I have been sitting by him
He has inquired the quarter of the wind,
And where that moment beaked the stable-cock.
When I said "East," he answered "That is well!
Those are the breezes that will speed him home!"
So cling his heart-strings to his country's cause.
FARQUHAR
I fear that Wellesley's visit here by now
Strung him to tensest strain. He quite broke down,
And has fast faded since.
LADY HESTER
Ah! now he wakes.
Please come and speak to him as you would wish [to TOMLINE].
[LADY HESTER, TOMLINE,and FARQUHAR retire behind the bed, where
in a short time voices are heard in prayer. Afterwards the
Bishop goes to a writing-table, and LADY HESTER comes to the
doorway. Steps are heard on the stairs
, and PITT'S friend ROSE,
the President of the Board of Trade, appears on the landing and
makes inquiries.]
LADY HESTER [whispering]
He wills the wardenry of his affairs
To his old friend the Bishop. But his words
Bespeak too much anxiety for me,
And underrate his services so far
That he has doubts if his high deeds deserve
Such size of recognition by the State
As would award slim pensions to his kin.
He had been fain to write down his intents,
But the quill dropped from his unmuscled hand.—
Now his friend Tomline pens what he dictates
And gleans the lippings of his last desires.
[ROSE and LADY HESTER turn. They see the Bishop bending over
the bed with a sheet of paper on which he has previously been
writing. A little later he dips a quill and holds it within
the bed-curtain, spreading the paper beneath. A thin white
hand emerges from behind the curtain and signs the paper. The
Bishop beckons forward the two servants, who also sign.
FARQUHAR on one side of the bed, and TOMLINE on the other, are
spoken to by the dying man. The Bishop afterwards withdraws
from the bed and comes to the landing where the others are.]
TOMLINE
A list of his directions has been drawn,
And feeling somewhat more at mental ease
He asks Sir Walter if he has long to live.
Farquhar just answered, in a soothing tone,
That hope still frailly breathed recovery.
At this my dear friend smiled and shook his head,
As if to say: "I can translate your words,
But I reproach not friendship's lullabies."
ROSE
Rest he required; and rest was not for him.
[FARQUHAR comes forward as they wait.]
FARQUHAR
His spell of concentration on these things,
Determined now, that long have wasted him,
Have left him in a numbing lethargy,
From which I fear he may not rouse to strength
For speech with earth again.
ROSE
But hark. He does.
[The listen.]
PITT
My country! How I leave my country!...
TOMLINE
Ah,—
Immense the matter those poor words contain!
ROSE
Still does his soul stay wrestling with that theme,
And still it will, even semi-consciously,
Until the drama's done.
[They continue to converse by the doorway in whispers. PITT
sinks slowly into a stupor, from which he never awakens.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES [to Spirit of the Years]
Do you intend to speak to him ere the close?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Nay, I have spoke too often! Time and time,