murmur and shake their heads.]

BESSIERES

Your pardon, sire,
But we are all convinced that weather, time,
Provisions, roads, equipment, mettle, mood,
Serve not for such a perilous enterprise.

[NAPOLEON remains in gloomy silence. Enter BERTHIER.]

NAPOLEON [apathetically]

Well, Berthier. More misfortunes?

BERTHIER

News is brought,
Sire, of the Russian army's whereabouts.
That fox Kutuzof, after marching east
As if he were conducting his whole force
To Vladimir, when at the Riazan Road
Down-doubled sharply south, and in a curve
Has wheeled round Moscow, making for Kalouga,
To strike into our base, and cut us off.

MURAT

Another reason against Petersburg!
Come what come may, we must defeat that army,
To keep a sure retreat through Smolensk on
To Lithuania.

NAPOLEON [jumping up]

I must act! We'll leave,
Or we shall let this Moscow be our tomb.
May Heaven curse the author of this war--
Ay, him, that Russian minister, self-sold
To England, who fomented it.--'Twas he
Dragged Alexander into it, and me!

[The marshals are silent with looks of incredulity, and Caulaincourt
shrugs his shoulders.]

Now no more words; but hear. Eugene and Ney
With their divisions fall straight back upon
The Petersburg and Zwenigarod Roads;
Those of Davout upon the Smolensk route.
I will retire meanwhile to Petrowskoi.
Come, let us go.

[NAPOLEON and the marshals move to the door. In leaving, the
Emperor pauses and looks back.]

I fear that this event
Marks the beginning of a train of ills....
Moscow was meant to be my rest,
My refuge, and--it vanishes away!

[Exeunt NAPOLEON, marshals, etc. The smoke grows denser and
obscures the scene.]

SCENE IX

THE ROAD FROM SMOLENSKO INTO LITHUANIA

[The season is far advanced towards winter. The point of observation
is high amongst the clouds, which, opening and shutting fitfully to
the wind, reveal the earth as a confused expanse merely.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Where are we? And why are we where we are?

SHADE OF THE EARTH

Above a wild waste garden-plot of mine
Nigh bare in this late age, and now grown chill,
Lithuania called by some. I gather not
Why we haunt here, where I can work no charm
Either upon the ground or over it.