The Russian soldiers kneel before it.]

NAPOLEON

Ay! Not content to stand on their own strength,
They try to hire the enginry of Heaven.
I am no theologian, but I laugh
That men can be so grossly logicless,
When war, defensive or aggressive either,
Is in its essence pagan, and opposed
To the whole gist of Christianity!

BESSIERES

'Tis to fanaticize their courage, sire.

NAPOLEON

Better they'd wake up old Kutuzof.--Rapp,
What think you of to-morrow?

RAPP

Victory;
But, sire, a bloody one!

NAPOLEON

So I foresee.

[The scene darkens, and the fires of the bivouacs shine up ruddily,
those of the French near at hand, those of the Russians in a long
line across the mid-distance, and throwing a flapping glare into
the heavens. As the night grows stiller the ballad-singing and
laughter from the French mixes with a slow singing of psalms from
their adversaries.

The two multitudes lie down to sleep, and all is quiet but for
the sputtering of the green wood fires, which, now that the human
tongues are still, seem to hold a conversation of their own.]

SCENE V

THE SAME

[The prospect lightens with dawn, and the sun rises red. The
spacious field of battle is now distinct, its ruggedness being
bisected by the great road from Smolensk to Moscow, which runs
centrally from beneath the spectator to the furthest horizon.
The field is also crossed by the stream Kalotcha, flowing from
the right-centre foreground to the left-centre background, thus
forming an "X" with the road aforesaid, intersecting it in mid-
distance at the village of Borodino.

Behind this village the Russians have taken their stand in close
masses. So stand also the French, who have in their centre the
Shevardino redoubt beyond the Kalotcha. Here NAPOLEON, in his
usual glue-grey uniform, white waistcoat, and white leather
breeches, chooses his position with BERTHIER and other officers
of his suite.]

DUMB SHOW

It is six o'clock, and the firing of a single cannon on the French
side proclaims that the battle is beginning. There is a roll of
drums, and the right-centre masses, glittering in the level shine,
advance under NEY and DAVOUT and throw themselves on the Russians,
here defended by redoubts.

The French enter the redoubts, whereupon a slim, sma