Part 1 - Act 3 - Scene 2. The Frontiers Of Upper Austria And Bavaria

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_ PART FIRST. ACT THIRD. SCENE II.

[A view of the country from mid-air, at a point south of the River Inn, which is seen as a silver thread, winding northward between its junction with the Salza and the Danube, and forming the boundaries of the two countries. The Danube shows itself as a crinkled satin riband, stretching from left to right in the far background of the picture, the Inn discharging its waters into the larger river.]

DUMB SHOW

A vast Austrian army creeps dully along the mid-distance, in the detached masses and columns of a whitish cast. The columns insensibly draw nearer to each other, and are seen to be converging from the east upon the banks of the Inn aforesaid.

A RECORDING ANGEL (in recitative)

This movement as of molluscs on a leaf,
Which from our vantage here we scan afar,
Is one manoeuvred by the famous Mack
To countercheck Napoleon, still believed
To be intent on England from Boulogne,
And heedless of such rallies in his rear.
Mack's enterprise is now to cross Bavaria--
Beneath us stretched in ripening summer peace
As field unwonted for these ugly jars--

Outraged Bavaria, simmering in disquiet
At Munich down behind us, Isar-fringed,
And torn between his fair wife's hate of France
And his own itch to gird at Austrian bluff
For riding roughshod through his territory,
Wavers from this to that. The while Time hastes
The eastward streaming of Napoleon's host,
As soon we see.

The silent insect-creep of the Austrian columns towards the banks of the Inn continues to be seen till the view fades to nebulousness and dissolves. _

Read next: Part 1: Act 3: Scene 3. Boulogne. The St. Omer Road

Read previous: Part 1: Act 3: Scene 1. Boulogne. The Chateau At Pont-De-Briques

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