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ACT 3 SCENE 1

A house in Ghjat
Napoleon is in his camp bed / Enter Caulaincourt

Caulaincourt
Your majesty, it is late, are you well

Napoleon
It is early, the day just beginning
See to it that the door is firmly closed,
& come and sit bedside me for a while

Caulaincourt
Yes sire, this is not your normal habit

Napoleon
But this is not a normal episode
My army’s disintegrating daily
& why have I not seen an estafette
For eighteen days, how is my young empress
My son, & my empire’s vast diffusion

Caulaincourt
One will arrive for certain sire, & soon

Napoleon
Let us be frank in the discussive purse
Of lips released by two long loyal friends
A pagan pox upon these toxic times
Of how they try sensations on all sides,
Still the army, my beautiful army,
Entertaining cheerful dispositions,
Countering each looming maleficence
With admirable aplomb.

Caulaincourt
Have you not
Seen the extreme disorganization
Of your soldiers, & the condition
Of army corps each phantom forces made
The fatal consequences of our stay
In Moscow a corrosive consequence;
A widespread insubordinate spirit
Infects the army; disobedience
Depression, discouragement, discontent
& are many miseries are yet to come
To come caused by the cold severity
We shall mourn the army in its ashes
Remember the report of the reply
Made by the Tsar to your peace proposal,

Napoleon
He said his campaign was just beginning

Caulaincourt
Yes sire, take his reply literally
With each day fresh of the season’s passing
Fate favors Russia more

Napoleon
But your prophet,
Has been an error-maker more than once
I find your forecast a stray chicken bone
Stuck in the throat of sensible thinking
In one’s week’s time his buckish host shall be
No better of a fettle for battle
Than ours, they too need rest, moiety
Of masses from statehead spreads in motion
When buried in the moment’s gravity
Unexpert anarchs lead for doom their flock
As for the coming cold let me predict
Our troops’ superior intelligence
Shall forge them precautionary safeguards
Against the frost, & probably improve
On Russian methods.

Caulaincourt
We are to master
In days where the Russians had centuries

Napoleon
We shall, without doubt

Caulaincourt pauses a moment digesting Napoleon’s high-mindedness

Caulaincourt
Have you given thought
As to the Winter quarters & the line
Once this tawdry retreat has stabilis’d

Napoleon
Retreat! This is not a retreat, never
Can this be call’d as such, a technical
Withdrawal only, & why, Caulaincourt
We cannot leave cannons to be captured
However the drain upon the horses
& I must not lose face in any way

Napoleon
It is vital we turn this thing round
Allow not the news of setbacks to spread
When reinforced we will not need to stand
Stock-still on stiffen’d ankles until spring
There shall be motion & mobility

Caulaincourt
But will we last as long, the rendezvous
With all reinforcing battalions
Must be beyond the Berezinan flow
Which will be guarded, sire, could the army
Reach as far as there, lamentable chance,
Weapons abandoned, food is running short;
When horses fall exhausted in their tracks
Meat hack’d & carved from bones while mouths still breathe
Horseflesh with moldy flour paste made normal
Among the wretched men you claim so strong,

Napoleon
They shall survive this trial, we all shall,
& in the spring rhimotacles shall ride
From Anthony to our Augustan fate
It is probable I’ll go to Paris
The moment that the army is secure,
To organize re-energization
Of our ever prosp’rous state – with the French
As with women, one should not stay away
Too long, but Caulaincourt, what say you…

Caulaincourt
Sire?

Napoleon
…on all these thoughts, would it inflict a mean
Impression of me in the minds of men

Caulaincourt
It is useful what you think of doing
Sire, to offset this retreat’s impression
By personal appearance in Paris,
For as man’s nature the mutable cloud
Our plight seems to me more precarious
Than you see or can believe, the question
Is truly what the devil might attempt
In Europe thro’ your absence, you should leave,
For emperors flogging the fields too long
Return in the dead waste of middle night
To find his power skating on a swamp
Marshier than by Sevres-Niortaise

Napoleon
Agreed, peregrinating pavonine
The French are all female, we must not stay
Away from them long, else schemers surface
From grates & gutters, gremlins filling thoughts
With fateful fancies, faking grave events
With conniving & conversible speech
Estranging faith with a pale-hearted fear
It is certain my presence in Paris
Would end all dreams of treason, melding hearts
To hasten contrudation of forces
Which armies raise in just eleven weeks

Caulaincourt
Another army & another war?

Napoleon
If we are forced to fight then fight we must

Caulaincourt
But surely such ambitions have been tamed

Napoleon
O Caulaincourt, you blockhead simpleton
You accuse me of being ambitious
That my ambition led us to this war
No! this war’s a matter of politics
What have I got to gain from being here
This climate, this country, this wretchedness
The whole of it not worth the meanest piece
Of France, but might the Tsar now acquiesce
To overtures of peace while the army
Evacuates his provinces each day

Caulaincourt
No more than when we waited at Moscow,
Especially now, they’ll sling exultance
Across the paths to Poland

Napoleon
Enough
It seems I’ve made my generals too rich
Think only of their pleasures, of hunting,
Of rolling through Paris in brilliant
Carriages! They have become sick of war!”
Remember the Italian campaigns
When we gain’d immense superiority
By habituation to privation
& contempt for superfluous fluff
But all of my generals now cozy
With palaces & mistresses & lands
& titles that I gave them, they’ve grown soft
From fighting men to perfum’d sybarites
Scorning the rigors of the bivouac
Prefer dancing pumps to boots…Caulaincourt
Sire

Caulaincourt
Sire

Napoleon
{yawning}
It feels late, perhaps I’ll sleep awhile

Napoleon dozes off, exit Caulaincourt

ACT 3 SCENE 2

The Field of Borodino

Enter Bourgogne, Legrand, Boquet, Graingier, Leboude, Foucart, Rossi, Captain Vachain / on a ridge over Borodino the company halts in horror

Vachain
This is a Stygian sight, hide your eyes
Refrain from gazing on this trampl’d plain
Upon the blood-dyed standards & the drums
That mark the tombs of fifty generals
Thro’ thirty thousand corpses half-devour’d
Death fixes here his conquest, let us wait
Until the set of eve before we weave
Passages thro’ melancholic tatters
Of our beloved in forces in their prime

Graingier
Who could have thought that those heroes who fought
The famous battle of the Moskowa
Would tread again its soil in full retreat

Legrand
We have pickl’d in such juices before
Remember how we dash’d against the gates
of Asia, back in ninety eight, back then
We presented ourselves as conquerors
Before retreating with bleeding noses

Boquet
But we triumphed under the Pyramids
Rode horses thro the Kremlin’s corridors
They whom serve not shall never understand
The spirit of a soldier, they who drift
Safe in commodious habitations –
But what are pleasures & advantages
Against the great work, glorious begun,
When thirsty of that fame insatiable
Victory’s intoxicating fever
Impels men forth with powerful instinct
To seek out death & immortality!

Rossi
Lets build a fire, it is damn near freezing
There is fuel aplenty, we should rest
& burn the butts of rifles, frames of carts

Bourgogne
A good plan quartermaster, I’ll collect
Some water while the boys brake the wood
Leboude

Leboude
Yes sergeant

Bourgogne
Come & help

Leboude
Yes sir

Exit Bourgogne & Leboude

Captain Vachain
What fight titanic forever inscribed
On history’s memorial pages
The Russian bear fought very brave all day
We laugh’d at the striplings of Austerlitz
But they have come of age upon this field
Manifesting exhaustless persistence
It was a deadly grave for cavalry
When more than half our horsemen ne’er shall mount
The broad backs of their kindred beasts again

Foucart
When was the battle fought

Legrand
Fifty-two days
Ago by my account

Foucart
What ghastly scene
It was & is still

Graingier
We waded in blood
The earth refused to swallow – heads, arms, legs
Strewn everywhere still

Rossi
Russians in the main
Ours lain to rest as far as possible
Beneath this sorry turf

Foucart
Done hastily
As rain uncovers the debris of death
The lowest degree of humanity
Reveal’d, with barely a mortal semblance

Boquet
Whose is this lance Graingier, well you know
Our foes’ uniforms & insignia

Graingier
That weapon was wielded by an Uhlan
This Tartar word light cavalry defines
Look, there’s the square-topp’d hat its owner wore

Legrand
In eighteen-o-six, eighteen-o-seven
In all the many actions & battles
I fought in, I’d often seen soldiers fall
But never in all my experience
So many felled by a single salvo,
Weltering in their own blood, lacking both
Arms or legs…

Rossi
How the artillery roar’d
To such an extent from dawn ‘til middle
Of day, could not even hear musket fire
Cannonade of constant cacophony
I thought that entire sky was on fire
& once got a mouthful of blown out brains

Enter Bourgogne & Leboude carrying Martin, whose legs are shattered

Bourgogne
We found a stream where the water flows rank
Wriggling its course thro’ putrefying flesh
Beside its stench we found this grenadier
Alive

Martin
I am alive, if this no dream

Vachain
Methinks it would be us who were adream
How could you have surviv’d this long in hell
With both your legs blown off

Martin
I slept beneath
The body of a horse, gutted by shell
Languishing for weeks I gnaw’d its raw flesh
This strange, insipid, pestiferous fare
Kept me abreathe upon this fatal field
You get used to the water in the end
The most disgusting sight id ever seen
Mangled corpses, severed limb, trailing guts
Horses dragging their straggling intestines
While hobbling in search of a pastur’d patch
Or led on their sides sometimes raising heads
To gaze upon their pain supplying wounds
The Raevsky Redoubt buried in dead
The wounded swimming thro’ thick pools of blood
Begging for death, whose moans & plaintive cries
Broke my heart with every perdendosi,
Until that choir ungodly ceas’d to be
& all alive upon this field was me
Blacken’d by powder, & sullied with mud
From Russian knapsacks made a buck-wheat gruel
But haunted & tortur’d everywhither
By faradaic phantasm repines
My mind said ‘the wind,’ my soul knew better
Reflecting on the day inside this song
Woven in moonlight to ward away wolves

THE BALLAD OF BORODINO

Martin
I have been at the siege of Toulon, gave no quarter
I was caught in the carnage strewn under the Austerlitz sun
In battle I’ve never seen more of a terrible slaughter
Than Borodino by the Russians’ redoubtable guns

Blood, blood, blood
Is the gold of the conqueror
Slay it away (at the altar)
Where a man prays for his day

I was torn from my horse by a Hussar in fury
My saber slash’d swift, form’d a face flailing ribbons of flesh
This was a trial before death without judge even jury
As every next second I had to face dangers afresh

Blood, blood, blood
Is the goal of the warrior
Slay it away at the altar
Where a man prays for his day
Where a man pleads to his de-ity
Not to reach heaven that day

Then out of the clouds came a cannonball falling
It shatter’d my knees as it sank into inches of mud
I cried out for comrades thro agonies more than appalling
Fair price for a man who partakes in these Ballads of Blood

Blood, blood, blood
Is the gold of the conqueror
Slay it away (at the altar)
Where a man prays for his day
Where a man pleads to his de-ity
Not to reach heaven that day

On the conclusion of the song Bourgogne drifts away once more

Vachain
There is a convent but two miles away
Where taken to were most of our wounded
When many yet remain, the Emperor
Has order’d their removal west by cart
We’ll take you there

Not just yet, let me stay
Awhile with healthy soldiers, hear your news
Did you go to Moscow, & the Tsar,
Is he defeated, & with it restored
The Continental System,

Graingier
Have some wine
Let Rossi shall tell all you wish to know,
He is the gossip-merchant of our troupe

Rossi begins to talk to Martin / enter Madame Dubois with Stephanie carrying a cooking pot between them

Dubois
Here you go boys, don’t drink it all at once

Foucart
Madame Dubois! What fills your cooking pot

Dubois
Fresh water from a quarter league away

Graingier
And who is this

Dubois
Her name is Stephanie
Made widow at Maloyaroslavets
& she shall struggle lone at brink of term
No more, her babe & she now in my care

Legrand
Another mouth to feed

Dubois
her mouth is french

Vachain
Where is your cart

Dubois
The axles broke both ends
& all it carried stripp’d in moments mere,
All of our provisions gone; the punch bowl
my beautiful, clear-cut crystal punch bowl
Thefted away by some beak-nosed lombard

Vachain
All you say

Dubois
Yes all

Vachain
This is disastrous

Legrand
No, not disaster, ’tis the devil’s work

Dubois
Whether it be Lombard or the Devil
We’ll all be making do & starting now
I scraped a little flour up from the floor
That is all I have left to make supper
Thick soup of fresh horseflesh will have to do
But before we begin the kitchen, boys,
Come take a glug of acqua for canteens
But leave half for the soup, now who has flour
to spare

Graingier
Here

Dubois
& you, Leboude

Leboude
I have some

Legrand
Madame Dubois alas all mine is spent

Dubois
so soon

Vachain
Have some of mine

Dubois
& you Boquet

Boquet
I put mine at the same pot with Legrand

Dubois
Foucart?
{Foucart shakes his head in silence}
Then this will have to do my boys
Come stephanie, let us slice up the meat

Bourgogne returns with a bearskin

Bourgogne
It fits me rather well, do you not think

Legrand
Well look at the lucky fellow’s fortune

Graingier
Bourgogne, I’ll swap you my mistress in Lille
For that fine coat

Bourgogne
I’ve seen her, keep her please

A busy scene – a snowdrop begins to fall – as Bourgogne is rearranging his bearskin, he stretches out his arms – the first snowflake of winter falls in one of his outstretched hands

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ACT 3 SCENE 3

The Streets of Moscow

Enter Vasalisa, two teenage boys (Vitaly & Vladamir), a woman called Angelina & her teenage daughter Albina – they are wielding scythes, pitchforks, axes & bear spears

Vasalisa
So this the starry city of the Tsars
It has certainly lost its old luster
Find what you can from lead to free lodgings

Exit Albina, Angelina, Vitaly & Vladamir – enter Old Man Borislav shuffling

Vasalisa
Hey, old man… yes you… are you Muscovite
{Old Man nods}
So much destruction, tell me what was lost

Old Man Borislav
Is it true they have gone, that there is not
A single Frenchman left in Moscow

Vasalisa
Yes, God has sent down a precious blessing
On the capital of our Fatherland

Old Man Borislav
It was a very devastating blow,
But we’ll rebuild them all, the Moscow State
University & the Petovsky
Theatre, & Buturlin’s library
Were all destroy’d completely, works of art
Beyond preciousness & divinity
Deceased in the harsh nature of these times
I am a poet-scholar, & bewail
Above all else the ever senseless loss
Of a singular & source manuscript
To flamegrip, ‘The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,’
Houses of bricks may be rebuilt, but art
May only be imitated, the soul
Of our nation has been tainted by France

Vasalisa
The intensity of my enmity
For vile invaders burns in me brighter
Than any blaze that might have burned your books

Enter Vitaly & Vladamir

Vitaly
Mistress Vasalisa

Vasalisa
Yes Vitaly

Vitaly
We have found sacks & sacks of gunpowder
Just sitting in a warehouse in neat rows

Vasalisa
Any guards

Vladamir
None

Vasalisa
Fill the cart with twenty

Vladamir & Vitaly
Yes mistress

Exit Vladamir & Vitaly

Vasalisa
The French seem too forgetful,
We’ll make then wish they’d burn’d that warehouse down

Old Man Borislav
My wish is to be fighting beside you
Good luck & kill as many as you can

Exit Old Man Borislav

Enter Albina & Angelina with Valentina & Natasha

Angelina
Mistress these two were begging us for food

Vasalisa
Are they Russian

Valentina
We are

Vasalisa
Then we have food

Vasalisa
Why are you both here in Moscow

Natasha
This is our home

Valentina
Our dear mother was killed
In the fire, our house destroyed

Natasha
Our father
& brothers all died at Borodino

Vasalisa
A rake’s worth of woes dredging tragedy
Come join us girls, our happy family
Has swell’d with widows & orphans like you –
My kiss-love husband was recently slain
By drunken French pigs, despite his status
As village starosta, an evil tithe
On which I swore revenge

Valentina
Do you have food

Vasalisa
We procure support, plentiful supplies
Whichever village pass’d through for the cause

Natasha
Where are you from

Vasalisa
Sychyovsky of Smolensk

Valentina & Natasha whisper to themselves

Valentina
We wish to make you mistress & to fight

Natasha
Beside you in this partisanic war

Vladamir & Vitaly return

Vasalisa
Vladamir, Vitaly, come here & meet
Our latest recruits to the company
What are you names, I neglected to ask

Valentina
Valentina

Natasha
Natasha

Albina
Albina

Angelina
& I am Angelina

Vasalisa
We must bless Lord God the Tsar forbade peace
When, after unattainted sacrifice,
& retreats insane, as long as there are
Russians alive able to wield a spear
Scythe or pitchfork, their duty sigillates
Upon the soul astrive, to consummate
This death-wish of the French & drive the Poles
Back to their poorer palaces, then toss
The King of Naples yelping yon the Alps.

Angelina
We sense a turning of the tides of strength
We Russians rise spryly in our spirits

Vitaly
& in our numbers, too, no longer trail

Vladamir
Passed to our side superiority!
The French are now afraid of open fields
& race to Paris in a straggleline

Albina
Encrusted by the elements them made
A stray mad dog we worry shall to death
Like agile bees stinging a bleeding bear
Inside desperate fits of exhaustion

Angelina
Our mission is to trap & captivate
Each foolhardy French forager that dares
Abandon lines in search of branch & food
Like fallen leaves wind-toss’d from wither’d tree

Vitaly
How dear and sacred is the native land!
How deep and strong our affection for her!
The graves of the French are dug already
In the sacred soil of Mother Russia
& we shall send Napoleon packing
The monster who makes the world unhappy

Vasalisa
Then we shall need our strength for such a feet
The girls are hungry, I am hungry too

Angelina
There are huge piles of food in the palace

Vasalisa
The tutelary angel of our care
The monarch savior of the dispossessed
The marvelous & immarcescible Tsar
Diving all Frenchmen firmly from this soil
All past humiliations will avenge
But that will pass & this is our sweet now
Tonight we eat & sleep like royalty!

Exeunt