Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated)
Page 844
Ought I to stop the ball? It hardly seems right to let it continue
if all be true.
RICHMOND
I have put that very question to Wellington, my dear. He says that
we need not hurry off the guests. The men have to assemble some
time before the officers, who can stay on here a little longer
without inconvenience; and he would prefer that they should, not to
create a panic in the city, where the friends and spies of Napoleon
are all agog for some such thing, which they would instantly
communicate to him to take advantage of.
DUCHESS
Is it safe to stay on? Should we not be thinking about getting the
children away?
RICHMOND
There's no hurry at all, even if Bonaparte were really sure to
enter. But he's never going to set foot in Brussels—don't you
imagine it for a moment.
DUCHESS [anxiously]
I hope not. But I wish we had never brought them here!
RICHMOND
It is too late, my dear, to wish that now. Don't be flurried; make
the people go on dancing.
[The DUCHESS returns to her guests. The DUKE rejoins WELLINGTON,
BRUNSWICK, MUFFLING, and the PRINCE OF ORANGE in the alcove.]
WELLINGTON
We need not be astride till five o'clock
If all the men are marshalled well ahead.
The Brussels citizens must not suppose
They stand in serious peril... He, I think,
Directs his main attack mistakenly;
It should gave been through Mons, not Charleroi.
MUFFLING
The Austrian armies, and the Russian too,
Will show nowhere in this. The thing that's done,
Be it a historied feat or nine days' fizz,
Will be done long before they join us here.
WELLINGTON
Yes, faith; and 'tis pity. But, by God,
Blucher, I think, and I can make a shift
To do the business without troubling 'em!
Though I've an infamous army, that's the truth,—
Weak, and but ill-equipped,—and what's as bad,
A damned unpractised staff!
MUFFLING
We'll hope for luck.
Blucher concentrates certainly by now
Near Ligny, as he says in his dispatch.
Your Grace, I glean, will mass at Quatre-Bras?
WELLINGTON
Ay, now we are sure this move on Charleroi
Is no mere feint. Though I had meant Nivelles.
Have ye a good map, Richmond, near at hand?
RICHMOND
In the next room there's one. [Exit RICHMOND.]
[WELLINGTON calls up various general officers and aides from
other parts of the room. PICTON, UXBRIDGE, HILL, CLINTON, VIVIAN,
MAITLAND, PONSONBY, SOMERSET, and others join him in succession,
receive orders, and go out severally.]
PRINCE OF ORANGE
As my divisions seem to lie around
The probable point of impact, it behoves me
To start at once, Duke, for Genappe, I deem?
Being in Brussels, all for this damned ball,
The dispositions out there have, so far,
Been made by young Saxe Weimar and Perponcher,
On their own judgment quite. I go, your Grace?
WELLINGTON
Yes, certainly. 'Tis now desirable.
Farewell! Good luck, until we meet again,
The battle won!
[Exit PRINCE OF ORANGE, and shortly after, MUFFLING. RICHMOND
returns with a map, which he spreads out on the table. WELLINGTON
scans it closely.]
Napoleon has befooled me,
By God he has,—gained four-and-twenty hours'
Good march upon me!
RICHMOND
What do you mean to do?
WELLINGTON
I have bidden the army concentrate in strength
At Quatre-Bras. But we shan't stop him there;
So I must fight him HERE. [He marks Waterloo with his thumbnail.]
Well, now I have sped,
All necessary orders I may sup,
And then must say good-bye. [To Brunswick.] This very day
There will be fighting, Duke. You are fit to start?
BRUNSWICK [coming forward]
I leave almost this moment.—Yes, your Grace—
And I sheath not my sword till I have avenged
My father's death. I have sworn it!
WELLINGTON
My good friend,
Something too solemn knells beneath your words.
Take cheerful views of the affair in hand,
And fall to't with sang froid!
BRUNSWICK
But I have sworn!
Adieu. The rendezvous is Quatre-Bras?
WELLINGTON
Just so. The order is unchanged. Adieu;
But only till a later hour to-day;
I see it is one o'clock.
[WELLINGTON and RICHMOND go out of the alcove and join the
hostess, BRUNSWICK'S black figure being left there alone. He
bends over the map for a few seconds.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
O Brunswick, Duke of Deathwounds! Even as he
For whom thou wear'st that filial weedery
Was waylaid by my tipstaff nine years since,
So thou this day shalt feel his fendless tap,
And join thy sire!
BRUNSWICK [starting up]
I am stirred by inner words,
As 'twere my father's angel calling me,—
That prelude to our death my lineage know!
[He stands in a reverie for a moment; then, bidding adieu to the
DUCHESS OF RICHMOND and her daughter, goes slowly out of the
ballroom by a side-door.]
DUCHESS
The Duke of Brunswick bore him gravely here.
His sable shape has stuck me all the eve
As one of those romantic presences
We hear of—seldom see.
WELLINGTON [phlegmatically]
Romantic,—well,
It may be so. Times often, ever since
The Late Duke's death, his mood has tinged him thus.
He is of those brave men who danger see,
And seeing front it,—not of those, less brave
But counted more, who face it sightlessly.
YOUNG OFFICER [to partner]
The Generals slip away! I, Love, must take
The cobbled highway soon. Some hours ago
The French seized Charleroi; so they loom nigh.
PARTNER [uneasily]
Which tells me that the hour you draw your sword
Looms nigh us likewise!
YOUNG OFFICER
Some are saying here
We fight this very day. Rumours all-shaped
Fly round like cockchafers!
[Suddenly there echoes in the ballroom a long-drawn metallic purl
of sound, making all the company start.]
Transcriber's Note: There follows in musical notation five measures
for side-drum.
Ah—there it is,
Just as I thought! They are beating the Generale.
[The loud roll of side-drums is taken up by other drums further
and further away, till the hollow noise spreads all over the city.
Dismay is written on the faces of the women. The Highland non-
commissioned officers and privates march smartly down the ballroom
and disappear.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Discerned you stepping out in front of them
That figure—of a pale drum-major kind,
Or fugleman—who wore a cold grimace?
SPIRIT OF THE
YEARS
He was my old fiend Death, in rarest trim,
The occasion favouring his husbandry!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Are those who marched behind him, then, to fall?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Ay, all well-nigh, ere Time have houred three-score.
PARTNER
Surely this cruel call to instant war
Spares space for one dance more, that memory
May store when you are gone, while I—sad me!—
Wait, wait and weep.... Yes—one there is to be!
SPIRIT IRONIC
Methinks flirtation grows too tender here!
[Country Dance, "The Prime of Life," a favourite figure at this
period. The sense of looming tragedy carries emotion to its
climax. All the younger officers stand up with their partners,
forming several figures of fifteen or twenty couples each. The
air is ecstasizing, and both sexes abandon themselves to the
movement.
Nearly half an hour passes before the figure is danced down.
Smothered kisses follow the conclusion. The silence is broken
from without by more long hollow rolling notes, so near that
they thrill the window-panes.]
SEVERAL
'Tis the Assemble. Now, then, we must go!
[The officers bid farewell to their partners and begin leaving
in twos and threes. When they are gone the women mope and murmur
to each other by the wall, and listen to the tramp of men and
slamming of doors in the streets without.]
LADY HAMILTON DALRYMPLE
The Duke has borne him gaily here to-night.
The youngest spirits scarcely capped his own.
DALRYMPLE
Maybe that, finding himself blade to blade
With Bonaparte at last, his blood gets quick.
French lancers of the Guard were seen at Frasnes
Last midnight; so the clash is not far off.
[They leave.]
DE LANCEY [to his wife]
I take you to our door, and say good-bye,
And go thence to the Duke's and wait for him.
In a few hours we shall be all in motion
Towards the scene of—what we cannot tell!
You, dear, will haste to Antwerp till it's past,
As we have arranged.
[They leave.]
WELLINGTON [to Richmond]
Now I must also go,
And snatch a little snooze ere harnessing.
The Prince and Brunswick have been gone some while.
[RICHMOND walks to the door with him. Exit WELLINGTON, RICHMOND
returns.]
DUCHESS [to Richmond]
Some of these left renew the dance, you see.
I cannot stop them; but with memory hot
Of those late gone, of where they are gone, and why,
It smacks of heartlessness!
RICHMOND
Let be; let be;
Youth comes not twice to fleet mortality!
[The dancing, however, is fitful and spiritless, few but civilian
partners being left for the ladies. Many of the latter prefer to
sit in reverie while waiting for their carriages.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
When those stout men-at-arms drew forward there,
I saw a like grimacing shadow march
And pirouette before no few of them.
Some of themselves beheld it; some did not.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Which were so ushered?
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Brunswick, who saw and knew;
One also moved before Sir Thomas Picton,
Who coolly conned and drily spoke to it;
Another danced in front of Ponsonby,
Who failed of heeding his.—De Lancey, Hay,
Gordon, and Cameron, and many more
Were footmanned by like phantoms from the ball.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Multiplied shimmerings of my Protean friend,
Who means to couch them shortly. Thou wilt eye
Many fantastic moulds of him ere long,
Such as, bethink thee, oft hast eyed before.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
I have—too often!
[The attenuated dance dies out, the remaining guests depart, the
musicians leave the gallery and depart also. RICHMOND goes to
a window and pulls back one of the curtains. Dawn is barely
visible in the sky, and the lamps indistinctly reveal that long
lines of British infantry have assembled in the street. In the
irksomeness of waiting for their officers with marching-orders,
they have lain down on the pavements, where many are soundly
sleeping, their heads on their knapsacks and their arms by their
side.]
DUCHESS
Poor men. Sleep waylays them. How tired they seem!
RICHMOND
They'll be more tired before the day is done.
A march of eighteen miles beneath the heat,
And then to fight a battle ere they rest,
Is what foreshades.—Well, it is more than bed-time;
But little sleep for us or any one
To-night in Brussels!
[He draws the window-curtain and goes out with the DUCHESS.
Servants enter and extinguish candles. The scene closes in
darkness.]
SCENE III
CHARLEROI. NAPOLEON'S QUARTERS
[The same midnight. NAPOLEON is lying on a bed in his clothes.
In consultation with SOULT, his Chief of Staff, who is sitting
near, he dictates to his Secretary orders for the morrow. They
are addressed to KELLERMANN, DROUOT, LOBAU, GERARD, and other
of his marshals. SOULT goes out to dispatch them.
The Secretary resumes the reading of reports. Presently MARSHAL
NEY is announced He is heard stumbling up the stairs, and enters.]
NAPOLEON
Ah, Ney; why come you back? Have you secured
The all-important Crossways?—safely sconced
Yourself at Quatre-Bras?
NEY
Not, sire, as yet.
For, marching forwards, I heard gunnery boom,
And, fearing that the Prussians had engaged you,
I stood at pause. Just then—-
NAPOLEON
My charge was this:
Make it impossible at any cost
That Wellington and Blucher should unite.
As it's from Brussels that the English come,
And from Namur the Prussians, Quatre-Bras
Lends it alone for their forgathering:
So, why exists it not in your hands/
NEY
My reason, sire, was rolling from my tongue.—
Hard on the boom of guns, dim files of foot
Which read to me like massing Englishry—
The vanguard of all Wellington's array—
I half-discerned. So, in pure wariness,
I left the Bachelu columns there at Frasnes,
And hastened back to tell you.
NAPOLEON
Ney; O Ney!
I fear you are not the man that once you were;
Of your so daring, such a faint-heart now!
I have ground to know the foot that flustered you
Were but a few stray groups of Netherlanders;
For my good spies in Brussels send me cue
That up to now the English have not stirred,
But cloy themselves with nightly revel there.
NEY [bitterly]
Give me another opportunity
Before you speak like that!
NAPOLEON
You soon will have one!...
But now—no more of this. I hav
e other glooms
Upon my soul—the much-disquieting news
That Bourmont has deserted to our foes
With his whole staff.
NEY
We can afford to let him.
NAPOLEON
It is what such betokens, not their worth,
That whets it!... Love, respect for me, have waned;
But I will right that. We've good chances still.
You must return foot-hot to Quatre-Bras;
There Kellermann's cuirassiers will promptly join you
To bear the English backward Brussels way.
I go on towards Fleurus and Ligny now.—
If Blucher's force retreat, and Wellington's
Lie somnolent in Brussels one day more,
I gain that city sans a single shot!...
Now, friend, downstairs you'll find some supper ready,
Which you must tuck in sharply, and then off.
The past day has not ill-advantaged us;
We have stolen upon the two chiefs unawares,
And in such sites that they must fight apart.
Now for a two hours' rest.—Comrade, adieu
Until to-morrow!
NEY
Till to-morrow, sire!
[Exit NEY. NAPOLEON falls asleep, and the Secretary waits till
dictation shall be resumed. BUSSY, the orderly officer, comes
to the door.
BUSSY
Letters—arrived from Paris. [Hands letters.]
SECRETARY
He shall have them
The moment he awakes. These eighteen hours
He's been astride; and is not what he was.—
Much news from Paris?
BUSSY
I can only say
What's not the news. The courier has just told me
He'd nothing from the Empress at Vienna
To bring his Majesty. She writes no more.
SECRETARY
And never will again! In my regard
That bird's forsook the nest for good and all.
BUSSY
All that they hear in Paris from her court
Is through our spies there. One of them reports
This rumour of her: that the Archduke John,
In taking leave to join our enemies here,
Said, "Oh, my poor Louise; I am grieved for you
And what I hope is, that he'll be run through,
Or shot, or break his neck, for your own good
No less than ours.
NAPOLEON [waking]
By "he" denoting me?
BUSSY [starting]
Just so, your Majesty.
NAPOLEON [peremptorily]
What said the Empress?
BUSSY
She gave no answer, sire, that rumour bears.
NAPOLEON
Count Neipperg, whom they have made her chamberlain,
Interred his wife last spring—is it not so?
BUSSY
He did, your Majesty.
NAPOLEON
H'm....You may go.