SCENE II.—Country near the Danube.
THE ROBBERS (encamped on a rising ground, under trees, their horses are grazing below.)
CHARLES. Here must I lie (throwing himself upon the ground). I feel as if my limbs were all shattered. My tongue is as dry as a potsherd (SCHWEITZER disappears unperceived.) I would ask one of you to bring me a handful of water from that stream, but you are all tired to death.
SCHWARZ. Our wine-flasks too are all empty.
CHARLES. See how beautiful the harvest looks! The trees are breaking with the weight of their fruit. The vines are full of promise.
GRIMM. It is a fruitful year.
CHARLES. Do you think so? Then at least one toil in the world will be repaid. One? Yet in the night a hailstorm may come and destroy it all.
SCHWARZ. That is very possible. It all may be destroyed an hour before the reaping.
CHARLES. Just what I say. All will be destroyed. Why should man prosper in that which he has in common with the ant, while he fails in that which places him on a level with the gods. Or is this the aim and limit of his destiny?
SCHWARZ. I know not.
CHARLES. Thou hast said well; and wilt have done better, if thou never seekest to know. Brother, I have looked on men, their insect cares and their giant projects,—their god-like plans and mouse-like occupations, their intensely eager race after happiness—one trusting to the fleetness of his horse,—another to the nose of his ass,—a third to his own legs; this checkered lottery of life, in which so many stake their innocence and their leaven to snatch a prize, and,—blanks are all they draw—for they find, too late, that there was no prize in the wheel. It is a drama, brother, enough to bring tears into your eyes, while it shakes your sides with laughter.
SCHWARZ. How gloriously the sun is setting yonder!
CHARLES (absorbed in the scene). So dies a hero! Worthy of adoration!
SCHWARZ. You seem deeply moved.
CHARLES. When I, was but a boy—it was my darling thought to live like him, like him to die—(with suppressed grief.) It was a boyish thought!
GRIMM. It was, indeed.
CHARLES. There was a time—(pressing his hat down upon his face).
I would be alone, comrades.
SCHWARZ. Moor! Moor! Why, what the deuce! How his color changes.
GRIMM. By all the devils! What ails him? Is he ill?
CHARLES. There was a time when I could not have slept had I forgotten my evening prayers.
GRIMM. Are you beside yourself? Would you let the remembrances of your boyish years school you now?
CHARLES (lays his head upon the breast of GRIMM). Brother! Brother!
GRIMM. Come! Don't play the child—I pray you
CHARLES. Oh that I were-that I were again a child!
GRIMM. Fie! fie!
SCHWARZ. Cheer up! Behold this smiling landscape—this delicious evening!
CHARLES. Yes, friends, this world is very lovely—
SCHWARZ. Come, now, that was well said.
CHARLES. This earth so glorious!—
GRIMM. Right—right—I love to hear you talk thus.
CHARLES. (sinking back). And I so hideous in' this lovely world— a monster on this glorious earth!
GRIMM. Oh dear! oh dear!
CHARLES. My innocence! give me back my innocence! Behold, every living thing is gone forth to bask in the cheering rays of the vernal sun—why must I alone inhale the torments of hell out of the joys of heaven? All are so happy, all so united in brotherly love, by the spirit of peace! The whole world one family, and one Father above—but He not my father! I alone the outcast, I alone rejected from the ranks of the blessed—the sweet name of child is not for me—never for me the soul-thrilling glance of her I love—never, never the bosom friend's embrace—(starting back wildly)—surrounded by murderers—hemmed in by hissing vipers— riveted to vice with iron fetters—whirling headlong on the frail reed of sin to the gulf of perdition—amid the blooming flowers of a glad world, a howling Abaddon!
SCHWARZ (to the others). How strange! I never saw him thus before.
CHARLES (with melancholy). Oh, that I might return again to my mother's womb. That I might be born a beggar! I should desire no more,—no more, oh heaven!—but that I might be like one of those poor laborers! Oh, I would toil till the blood streamed down my temples—to buy myself the luxury of one guiltless slumber—the blessedness of a single tear.
GRIMM (to the others). A little patience—the paroxysm is nearly over.
CHARLES. There was a time when my tears flowed so freely. Oh, those days of peace! Dear home of my fathers—ye verdant halcyon vales! O all ye Elysian scenes of my childhood!—will you never return?—will your delicious breezes never cool my burning bosom? Mourn with me, Nature, mourn! They will never return! never will their delicious breezes cool my burning bosom! They are gone! gone! irrevocably gone!
Enter SCHWEITZER with water in his hat.
SCHWEITZER (offering him water in his hat). Drink, captain; here is plenty of water, and cold as ice.
SCHWARZ. You are bleeding! What have you been doing?
SCHWEITZER. A bit of a freak, you fool, which had well-nigh cost me two legs and a neck. As I was frolicking along the steep sandbanks of the river, plump, in a moment, the whole concern slid from under me, and I after it, some ten fathoms deep;—there I lay, and, as I was recovering my five senses, lo and behold, the most sparkling water in the gravel! Not so much amiss this time, said I to myself, for the caper I have cut. The captain will be sure to relish a drink.
CHARLES (returns him the hat and wipes his face). But you are covered with mud, Schweitzer, and we can't see the scar which the Bohemian horseman marked on your forehead—your water was good, Schweitzer—and those scars become you well.
SCHWEITZER. Bah! There's room for a score or two more yet.
CHARLES. Yes, boys—it was a hot day's work—and only one man lost. Poor Roller! he died a noble death. A marble monument would be erected to his memory had he died in any other cause than mine. Let this suffice. (He wipes the tears from his eyes.) How many, did you say, of the enemy were left on the field?
SCHWEITZER. A hundred and sixty huzzars, ninety-three dragoons, some forty chasseurs—in all about three hundred.
CHARLES. Three hundred for one! Every one of you has a claim upon this head. (He bares his head.) By this uplifted dagger! As my Soul liveth, I will never forsake you!
SCHWEITZER. Swear not! You do not know but you may yet be happy, and repent your oath.
CHARLES. By the ashes of my Roller! I will never forsake you.
Enter KOSINSKY.
KOSINSKY (aside). Hereabouts, they say, I shall find him. Ha! What faces are these? Should they be—if these—they must be the men! Yes, 'tis they,'tis they! I will accost them.
SCHWARZ. Take heed! Who goes there?
KOSINSKY. Pardon, sirs. I know not whether I am going right or wrong.
CHARLES. Suppose right, whom do you take us to be?
KOSINSKY. Men!
SCHWEITZER. I wonder, captain, whether we have given any proof of that?
KOSINSKY. I am in search of men who can look death in the face, and let danger play around then like a tamed snake; who prize liberty above life or honor; whose very names, hailed by the poor and the oppressed, appal the boldest, and make tyrants tremble.
SCHWEITZER (to the Captain). I like that fellow. Hark ye, friend! You have found your men.
KOSINSKY. So I should think, and I hope soon to find them brothers. You can direct me to the man I am looking for. 'Tis your captain, the great Count von Moor.
SCHWEITZER (taking him warmly by the hand). There's a good lad. You and I must be chums.
CHARLES (coming nearer). Do you know the captain?
KOSINSKY. Thou art he!—in those features—that air—who can look at thee, and doubt it? (Looks earnestly at him for some time). I have always wished to see the man with the annihilating look, as he sat on the ruins of Carthage.* That wish is realized.
*[Alluding to Caius Marius. See Plutarch's Lives.]
SCHWEITZER. A mettlesome fellow!—
CHARLES. And what brings you to me?
KOSINSKY. Oh, captain! my more than cruel fate. I have suffered shipwrecked on the stormy ocean of the world; I have seen all my fondest hopes perish; and nought remains to me but a remembrance of the bitter past, which would drive me to madness, were I not to drown it by directing my energies to new objects.
CHARLES. Another arraignment of the ways of Providence! Proceed.
KOSINSKY. I became a soldier. Misfortune still followed me in the army. I made a venture to the Indies, and my ship was shivered on the rocks—nothing but frustrated hopes! At last, I heard tell far and wide of your valiant deeds, incendiarisms, as they called them, and I came straightway hither, a distance of thirty leagues, firmly resolved to serve under you, if you will deign to accept my services. I entreat thee, noble captain, refuse me not!
SCHWEITZER (with a leap into the air). Hurrah! Hurrah! Our Roller replaced ten hundred-fold! An out-and-out brother cut-throat for our troop.
CHARLES. What is your name?
KOSINSKY. Kosinsky.
CHARLES. What? Kosinsky! And do you know that you are but a thoughtless boy, and are embarking on the most weighty passage of your life as heedlessly as a giddy girl? You will find no playing at bowls or ninepins here, as you probably imagine.
KOSINSKY. I understand you, sir. I am,'tis true, but four-and-twenty years old, but I have seen swords glittering, and have heard balls whistling around me.
CHARLES. Indeed, young gentleman? And was it for this that you took fencing lessons, to run poor travellers through the body for the sake of a dollar, or stab women in the back? Go! go! You have played truant to your nurse because she shook the rod at you.
SCHWEITZER. Why, what the devil, captain! what are you about? Do you mean to turn away such a Hercules? Does he not look as if he could baste Marechal Saxe across the Ganges with a ladle?
CHARLES. Because your silly schemes miscarry, you come here to turn rogue and assassin! Murder, boy, do you know the meaning of that word? You may have slumbered in peace after cropping a few poppy-heads, but to have a murder on your soul—
KOSINSKY. All the murders you bid me commit be upon my head!
CHARLES. What! Are you so nimble-witted? Do you take measure of a man to catch him by flattery? How do you know that I am not haunted by terrific dreams, or that I shall not tremble on my death-bed?—How much have you already done of which you have considered the responsibility?
KOSINSKY. Very little, I must confess; excepting this long journey to you, noble count—
CHARLES. Has your tutor let the story of Robin Hood—get into your hands? Such careless rascals ought to be sent to the galleys. And has it heated your childish fancy, and infected you with the mania of becoming a hero? Are you thirsting for honor and fame? Would you buy immortality by deeds of incendiarism? Mark me, ambitious youth! No laurel blooms for the incendiary. No triumph awaits the victories of the bandit—nothing but curses, danger, death, disgrace. Do you see the gibbet yonder on the hill?
SPIEGEL (going up and down indignantly). Oh, how stupid! How abominably, unpardonably stupid! That's not the way. I went to work in a very different manner.
KOSINSKY. What should he fear, who fears not death?
CHARLES. Bravo! Capital! You have made good use of your time at school; you have got your Seneca cleverly by heart. But, my good friend, you will not be able with these fine phrases to cajole nature in the hour of suffering; they will never blunt the biting tooth of remorse. Ponder on it well, my son! (Takes him by the hand.) I advise you as a father. First learn the depth of the abyss before you plunge headlong into it. If in this world you can catch a single glimpse of happiness—moments may come when you-awake,—and then—it may be too late. Here you step out as it were beyond the pale of humanity—you must either be more than human or a demon. Once more, my son! if but a single spark of hope glimmer for you elsewhere, fly this fearful compact, where nought but despair enters, unless a higher wisdom has so ordained it. You may deceive yourself—believe me, it is possible to mistake that for strength of mind which in reality is nothing more than despair. Take my counsel! mine! and depart quickly.
KOSINSKY. No! I will not stir. If my entreaties fail to move you, hear but the story of my misfortunes. And then you will force the dagger into my hand as eagerly as you now seek to withhold it. Seat yourselves awhile on the grass and listen.
CHARLES. I will hear your story.
KOSINSKY. Know, then, that I am a Bohemian nobleman. By the early death of my father I became master of large possessions. The scene of my domain was a paradise; for it contained an angel—a maid adorned with all the charms of blooming youth, and chaste as the light of heaven. But to whom do I talk of this? It falls unheeded on your cars—ye never loved, ye were never beloved—
SCHWEITZER. Gently, gently! The captain grows red as fire.
CHARLES. No more! I'll hear you some other time—to-morrow,—or by-and-by, or—after I have seen blood.
KOSINSKY. Blood, blood! Only hear on! Blood will fill your whole soul. She was of citizen birth, a German—but her look dissolved all the prejudices of aristocracy. With blushing modesty she received the bridal ring from my hand, and on the morrow I was to have led my AMELIA to the altar. (CHARLES rises suddenly.) In the midst of my intoxicating dream of happiness, and while our nuptials were preparing, an express summoned me to court. I obeyed the summons. Letters were shown me which I was said to have written, full of treasonable matter. I grew scarlet with indignation at such malice; they deprived me of my sword, thrust me into prison, and all my senses forsook me.
SCHWEITZER. And in the meantime—go on! I already scent the game.
KOSINSKY. There I lay a whole month, and knew not what was taking place. I was full of anxiety for my Amelia, who I was sure would suffer the pangs of death every moment in apprehension of my fate. At last the prime minister makes his appearance,—congratulates me in honey-sweet words on the establishment of my innocence,—reads to me a warrant of discharge,—and returns me my sword. I flew in triumph to my castle, to the arms of my Amelia, but she had disappeared! She had been carried off, it was said, at midnight, no one knew whither, and no eye had beheld her since. A suspicion instantly flashed across my mind. I rushed to the capital—I made inquiries at court—all eyes were upon me,—no one would give me information. At last I discovered her through a grated window of the palace—she threw me a small billet.
SCHWEITZER. Did I not say so?
KOSINSKY. Death and destruction! The contents were these! They had given her the choice between seeing me put to death, and becoming the mistress of the prince. In the struggle between honor and love she chose the latter, and (with a bitter smile) I was saved.
SCHWEITZER. And what did you do then?
KOSINSKY. Then I stood like one transfixed with a thunderbolt! Blood was my first thought, blood my last! Foaming at the mouth, I ran to my quarters, armed myself with a two-edged sword, and, with all haste, rushed to the minister's house, for he—he alone—had been the fiendish pander. They must have observed me in the street, for, as I went up, I found all the doors fastened. I searched, I enquired. He was gone, they said, to the prince. I went straight thither, but nobody there would know anything about him. I return, force the doors, find the base wretch, and was on the point when five or six servants suddenly rushed on me from behind, and wrenched the weapon from my hands.
SCHWEITZER (stamping the ground). And so the fellow got off clear, and you lost your labor?
KOSINSKY. I was arrested, accused, criminally prosecuted, degraded, and—mark this—transported beyond the frontier, as a special favor. My estates were confiscated to the minister, and Amelia remained in the clutches of the tiger, where she weeps and mourns away her life, while my vengeance must keep a fast, and crouch submissively to the yoke of despotism.
SCHWEITZER (rising and whetting his sword). That is grist to our mill, captain! There is something here for the incendiaries!
CHARLES (who has been walking up and down in violent agitation, with a sudden start to the ROBBERS). I must see her. Up! collect your baggage—you'll stay with us, Kosinsky! Quick, pack up!
THE ROBBERS. Where to? What?
CHARLES. Where to? Who asks that question? (Fiercely to SCHWEITZER)
Traitor, wouldst thou keep me back? But by the hope for heaven!
SCHWEITZER. I, a traitor? Lead on to hell and I will follow you!
CHARLES (falling on his neck). Dear brother! thou shalt follow me. She
weeps, she mourns away her life. Up! quickly! all of you! to
Franconia! In a week we must be there.
[Exeunt.]
ACT IV.
SCENE I.—Rural scenery in the neighborhood of CHARLES VON MOOR'S castle.
CHARLES VON MOOR, KOSINSKY, at a distance.
CHARLES. Go forward, and announce me. You remember what you have to say?
KOSINSKY. You are Count Brand, you come from Mecklenburg. I am your groom. Do not fear, I shall take care to play my part. Farewell! [Exit.]
CHARLES. Hail to thee, Earth of my Fatherland (kisses the earth.) Heaven of my Fatherland! Sun of my Fatherland! Ye meadows and hills, ye streams and woods! Hail, hail to ye all! How deliciously the breezes are wafted from my native hills? What streams of balmy perfume greet the poor fugitive! Elysium! Realms of poetry! Stay, Moor, thy foot has strayed into a holy temple. (Comes nearer.)
See there! the old swallow-nests in the castle yard!—-and the little garden-gate!—and this corner of the fence where I so often watched in ambuscade to teaze old Towzer!—and down there in the green valley, where, as the great Alexander, I led my Macedonians to the battle of Arbela; and the grassy hillock yonder, from which I hurled the Persian satrap—and then waved on high my victorious banner! (He smiles.) The golden age of boyhood lives again in the soul of the outcast. I was then so happy, so wholly, so cloudlessly happy—and now—behold all my prospects a wreck! Here should I have presided, a great, a noble, an honored man—here have—lived over again the years of boyhood in the blooming—children of my Amelia—here!—here have been the idol of my people—but the foul fiend opposed it (Starting.) Why am I here? To feel like the captive when the clanking of his chains awakes him from his dream of liberty. No, let me return to my wretchedness! The captive had forgotten the light of day, but the dream of liberty flashes past his eyes like a blaze of lightning in the night, which leaves it darker than before. Farewell, ye native vales! once ye saw Charles as a boy, and then Charles was happy. Now ye have seen the man his happiness turned to despair! (He moves rapidly towards the most distant point of the landscape, where he suddenly stops and casts a melancholy look across to the castle.) Not to behold her! not even one look?—and only a wall between me and Amelia! No! see her I must!—and him too!—though it crush me! (He turns back.) Father! father! thy son approaches. Away with thee, black, reeking gore! Away with that grim, ghastly look of death! Oh, give me but this one hour free! Amelia! Father! thy Charles approaches! (He goes quickly towards the castle.) Torment me when the morning dawns—give me no rest with the coming night—beset me in frightful dreams! But, oh! poison not this my only hour of bliss! (He is standing at the gate.) What is it I feel? What means this, Moor? Be a man! These death-like shudders—foreboding terrors. [Enters.]
SCENE II.*—Gallery in the Castle.
*[In some editions this is the third scene, and there is no second.]
Enter CHARLES VON MOOR, AMELIA.
AMELIA. And are you sure that you should know his portrait among these pictures?
CHARLES. Oh, most certainly! his image has always been fresh in my memory. (Passing along thee pictures.) This is not it.
AMELIA. You are right! He was the first count, and received his patent of nobility from Frederic Barbarossa, to whom he rendered some service against the corsairs.
CHARLES (still reviewing the pictures). Neither is it this—nor this— nor that—it is not among these at all.
AMELIA. Nay! look more attentively! I thought you knew him.
CHARLES. As well as my own father! This picture wants the sweet expression around the mouth, which distinguished him from among a thousand. It is not he.
AMELIA. You surprise me. What! not seen him for eighteen years, and still—
CHARLES (quickly, with a hectic blush). Yes, this is he! (He stands as if struck by lightning.)
AMELIA. An excellent man!
CHARLES (absorbed in the contemplation of the picture). Father! father! forgive me! Yes, an excellent man! (He wipes his eyes.) A godlike man!
AMELIA. You seem to take a deep interest in him.
CHARLES. Oh, an excellent man! And he is gone, you say!
AMELIA. Gone! as our best joys perish. (Gently taking him by the hand.) Dear Sir, no happiness ripens in this world.
CHARLES. Most true, most true! And have you already proved this truth by sad experience? You, who can scarcely yet have seen your twenty-third year?
AMELIA. Yes, alas, I have proved it. Whatever lives, lives to die in sorrow. We engage our hearts, and grasp after the things of this world, only to undergo the pang of losing them.
CHARLES. What can you have lost, and yet so young?
AMELIA. Nothing—everything—nothing. Shall we go on, count?*
*[In the acting edition is added—
"MOOR. And would you learn forgetfulness in that holy garb there?
(Pointing to a nun's habit.)
"AMELIA. To-morrow I hope to do so. Shall we continue our walk,
sir?"]
CHARLES. In such haste? Whose portrait is that on the right? There is an unhappy look about that countenance, methinks.
AMELIA. That portrait on the left is the son of the count, the present count. Come, let us pass on!
CHARLES. But this portrait on the right?
AMELIA. Will you not continue your walk, Sir?
CHARLES. But this portrait on the right hand? You are in tears,
Amelia? [Exit AMELIA, in precipitation.]
CHARLES. She loves me, she loves me! Her whole being began to rebel, and the traitor tears rolled down her cheeks. She loves me! Wretch, hast thou deserved this at her hands? Stand I not here like a condemned criminal before the fatal block? Is this the couch on which we so often sat—where I have hung in rapture on her neck? Are these my ancestral halls? (Overcome by the sight of his father's portrait.) Thou—thou— Flames of fire darting from thine eyes—His curse—His curse—He disowns me—Where am I? My sight grows dim—Horrors of the living God—'Twas I, 'twas I that killed my father! [He rushes off]
Enter FRANCIS VON MOOR, in deep thought.
FRANCIS. Away with that image! Away with it! Craven heart! Why dost thou tremble, and before whom? Have I not felt, during the few hours that the count has been within these walls as if a spy from hell were gliding at my heels. Methinks I should know him! There is something so lofty, so familiar, in his wild, sunburnt features, which makes me tremble. Amelia, too, is not indifferent towards him! Does she not dart eager, languishing looks at the fellow looks of which she is so chary to all the world beside? Did I not see her drop those stealthy tears into the wine, which, behind my back, he quaffed so eagerly that he seemed to swallow the very glass? Yes, I saw it—I saw it in the mirror with my own eyes. Take care, Francis! Look about you! Some destruction-brooding monster is lurking beneath all this! (He stops, with a searching look, before the portrait of CHARLES.)
His long, crane-like neck—his black, fire-sparkling eyes—hem! hem!— his dark, overhanging, bushy eyebrows. (Suddenly starting back.) Malicious hell! dost thou send me this suspicion? It is Charles! Yes, all his features are reviving before me. It is he! despite his mask! it is he! Death and damnation! (Goes up and down with agitated steps.) Is it for this that I have sacrificed my nights—that I have mowed down mountains and filled up chasms? For this that I have turned rebel against all the instincts of humanity? To have this vagabond outcast blunder in at last, and destroy all my cunningly devised fabric. But gently! gently! What remains to be done is but child's play. Have I not already waded up to my very ears in mortal sin? Seeing how far the shore lies behind me, it would be madness to attempt to swim back. To return is now out of the question. Grace itself would be beggared, and infinite mercy become bankrupt, were they to be responsible for all my liabilities. Then onward like a man. (He rings the bell.) Let him be gathered to the spirit of his father, and now come on! For the dead I care not! Daniel! Ho! Daniel! I'd wager a trifle they have already inveigled him too into the plot against me! He looks so full of mystery!
Enter DANIEL.
DANIEL. What is your pleasure, my master?
FRANCIS. Nothing. Go, fill this goblet with wine, and quickly! (Exit DANIEL.) Wait a little, old man! I shall find you out! I will fix my eye upon you so keenly that your stricken conscience shall betray itself through your mask! He shall die! He is but a sorry bungler who leaves his work half finished, and then looks on idly, trusting to chance for what may come of it.
Enter DANIEL, with the wine.
Bring it here! Look me steadfastly in the face! How your knees knock together! How you tremble! Confess, old man! what have you been doing?
DANIEL. Nothing, my honored master, by heaven and my poor soul!
FRANCIS. Drink this wine! What? you hesitate? Out with it quickly!
What have you put into the wine?
DANIEL. Heaven help me! What! I in the wine?
FRANCIS. You have poisoned it! Are you not as white as snow? Confess, confess! Who gave it you? The count? Is it not so? The count gave it you?
DANIEL. The count? Jesu Maria! The count has not given me anything.
FRANCIS (grasping him tight). I will throttle you till you are black in the face, you hoary-headed liar! Nothing? Why, then, are you so often closeted together? He, and you, and Amelia? And what are you always whispering about? Out with it! What secrets, eh? What secrets has he confided to you?
DANIEL. I call the Almighty to witness that he has not confided any secrets to me.
FRANCIS. Do you mean to deny it? What schemes have you been hatching to get rid of me? Am I to be smothered in my sleep? or is my throat to be cut in shaving? or am I to be poisoned in wine or chocolate? Eh? Out with it, out with it! Or am I to have my quietus administered in my soup? Out with it! I know it all!
DANIEL. May heaven so help me in the hour of need as I now tell you the truth, and nothing but the pure, unvarnished truth!
FRANCIS. Well, this time I will forgive you. But the money! he most certainly put money into your purse? And he pressed your hand more warmly than is customary? something in the manner of an old acquaintance?
DANIEL. Never, indeed, Sir.
FRANCIS. He told you, for instance, that he had known you before? that you ought to know him? that the scales would some day fall from your eyes? that—what? Do you mean to say that he never spoke thus to you?
DANIEL. Not a word of the kind.
FRANCIS. That certain circumstances restrained him—that one must sometimes wear a mask in order to get at one's enemies—that he would be revenged, most terribly revenged?
DANIEL. Not a syllable of all this.
FRANCIS. What? Nothing at all? Recollect yourself. That he knew the old count well—most intimately—that he loved him—loved him exceedingly—loved him like a son!
DANIEL. Something of that sort I remember to have heard him say.
FRANCIS (turning pale). Did he say so? did he really? How? let me hear! He said he was my brother?
DANIEL (astonished). What, my master? He did not say that. But as Lady Amelia was conducting him through the gallery—I was just dusting the picture frames—he suddenly stood still before the portrait of my late master, and seemed thunderstruck. Lady Amelia pointed it out, and said, "An excellent man!" "Yes, a most excellent man!" he replied, wiping a tear from his eye.
FRANCIS. Hark, Daniel! You know I have ever been a kind master to you; I have given you food and raiment, and have spared you labor in consideration of your advanced age.
DANIEL. For which may heaven reward you! and I, on my part, have always served you faithfully.
FRANCIS. That is just what I was going to say. You have never in all your life contradicted me; for you know much too well that you owe me obedience in all things, whatever I may require of you.
DANIEL. In all things with all my heart, so it be not against God and my conscience.
FRANCIS. Stuff! nonsense! Are you not ashamed of yourself? An old man, and believe that Christmas tale! Go, Daniel! that was a stupid remark. You know that I am your master. It is on me that God and conscience will be avenged, if, indeed, there be a God and a conscience.
DANIEL (clasping his hands together). Merciful Heaven!
FRANCIS. By your obedience! Do you understand that word? By your obedience, I command you. With to-morrow's dawn the count must no longer be found among the living.
DANIEL. Merciful Heaven! and wherefore?
FRANCIS. By your blind obedience! I shall rely upon you implicitly.
DANIEL. On me? May the Blessed Virgin have mercy on me! On me? What evil, then, have I, an old man, done!
FRANCIS. There is no time now for reflection; your fate is in my hands. Would you rather pine away the remainder of your days in the deepest of my dungeons, where hunger shall compel you to gnaw your own bones, and burning thirst make you suck your own blood? Or would you rather eat your bread in peace, and have rest in your old age?
DANIEL. What, my lord! Peace and rest in my old age? And I a murderer?
FRANCIS. Answer my question!
DANIEL. My gray hairs! my gray hairs!
FRANCIS. Yes or no!
DANIEL. No! God have mercy upon me!
FRANCIS (in the act of going). Very well! you shall have need of it.
(DANIEL detains him and falls on his knees before him.)
DANIEL. Mercy, master! mercy!
FRANCIS. Yes or no!
DANIEL. Most gracious master! I am this day seventy-one years of age! and have honored my father and my mother, and, to the best of my knowledge, have never in the whole course of my life defrauded any one to the value of a farthing,—and I have adhered to my creed truly and honestly, and have served in your house four-and-forty years, and am now calmly awaiting a quiet, happy end. Oh, master! master! (violently clasping his knees) and would you deprive me of my only solace in death, that the gnawing worm of an evil conscience may cheat me of my last prayer? that I may go to my long home an abomination in the sight of God and man? No, no! my dearest, best, most excellent, most gracious master! you do not ask that of an old man turned threescore and ten!
FRANCIS. Yes or no! What is the use of all this palaver?
DANIEL. I will serve you from this day forward more diligently than ever; I will wear out my old bones in your service like a common day-laborer; I will rise earlier and lie down later. Oh, and I will remember you in my prayers night and morning; and God will not reject the prayer of an old man.
FRANCIS. Obedience is better than sacrifice. Did you ever hear of the hangman standing upon ceremony when he was told to execute a sentence?
DANIEL. That is very true? but to murder an innocent man—one—
FRANCIS. Am I responsible to you? Is the axe to question the hangman why he strikes this way and not that? But see how forbearing I am. I offer you a reward for performing what you owe me in virtue of your allegiance.
DANIEL. But, when I swore allegiance to you, I at least hoped that I should be allowed to remain a Christian.
FRANCIS. No contradiction! Look you! I give you the whole day to think about it! Ponder well on it. Happiness or misery. Do you hear— do you understand? The extreme of happiness or the extreme of misery! I can do wonders in the way of torture.
DANIEL (after some reflection). I'll do it; I will do it to-morrow.
[Exit.]
FRANCIS. The temptation is strong, and I should think he was not born to die a martyr to his faith. Have with you, sir count! According to all ordinary calculations, you will sup to-morrow with old Beelzebub. In these matters all depends upon one's view of a thing; and he is a fool who takes any view that is contrary to his own interest. A father quaffs perhaps a bottle of wine more than ordinary—he is in a certain mood—the result is a human being, the last thing that was thought of in the affair. Well, I, too, am in a certain mood,—and the result is that a human being perishes; and surely there is more of reason and purpose in this than there was in his production. If the birth of a man is the result of an animal paroxysm, who should take it into his head to attach any importance to the negation of his birth? A curse upon the folly of our nurses and teachers, who fill our imaginations with frightful tales, and impress fearful images of punishment upon the plastic brain of childhood, so that involuntary shudders shake the limbs of the man with icy fear, arrest his boldest resolutions, and chain his awakening reason in the fetters of superstitious darkness. Murder! What a hell full of furies hovers around that word. Yet 'tis no more than if nature forgets to bring forth one man more or the doctor makes a mistake—and thus the whole phantasmagoria vanishes. It was something, and it is nothing. Does not this amount to exactly the same thing as though it had been nothing, and came to nothing; and about nothing it is hardly worth while to waste a word. Man is made of filth, and for a time wades in filth, and produces filth, and sinks back into filth, till at last he fouls the boots of his own posterity.*
*["To what base uses we may return, Horatio! why, may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till we find it stopping a bunghole?"—HAMLET, Act v, Sc. 1.]
That is the burden of the song—the filthy cycle of human fate; and with that—a pleasant journey to you, sir brother! Conscience, that splenetic, gouty moralist, may drive shrivelled old drones out of brothels, and torture usurers on their deathbeds—with me it shall never more have audience. [Exit.]
SCENE III.—Another Room in the Castle.
CHARLES VON MOOR enters from one side, DANIEL from the other.
CHARLES (hastily). Where is Lady Amelia?
DANIEL. Honored sir! permit an old man to ask you a favor.
CHARLES. It is granted. What is it you ask?
DANIEL. Not much, and yet all—but little, and yet a great deal.
Suffer me to kiss your hand!
CHARLES. That I cannot permit, good old man (embraces him), from one whom I should like to call my father.
DANIEL. Your hand, your hand! I beseech you.
CHARLES. That must not be.
DANIEL. It must! (He takes hold of it, surveys it quickly, and falls down before him.) Dear, dearest Charles!
CHARLES (startled; he composes himself, and says in a distant tone).
What mean you, my friend? I don't understand you.
DANIEL. Yes, you may deny it, you may dissemble as much as you please? 'Tis very well! very well. For all that you are my dearest, my excellent young master. Good Heaven! that I, poor old man, should live to have the joy—what a stupid blockhead was I that I did not at a glance—oh, gracious powers! And you are really come back, and the dear old master is underground, and here you are again! What a purblind dolt I was, to be sure! (striking his forehead) that I did not on the instant—Oh, dear me!—-who could have dreamt it—What I have so often prayed for with tears—Oh, mercy me! There he stands again, as large as life, in the old room!
CHARLES. What's all this oration about? Are you in a fit of delirium, and have escaped from your keepers; or are you rehearsing a stage-player's part with me
DANIEL. Oh, fie! fie! It is not pretty of you to make game of an old servant. That scar! Eh! do you remember it? Good Heaven! what a fright you put me into—I always loved you so dearly; and what misery you might have brought upon me. You were sitting in my lap—do you remember? there in the round chamber. Has all that quite vanished from your memory—and the cuckoo, too, that you were so fond of listening to? Only think! the cuckoo is broken, broken all to shivers—old Susan smashed it in sweeping the room—yes, indeed, and there you sat in my lap, and cried, "Cockhorse!" and I ran off to fetch your wooden horse— mercy on me! what business had I, thoughtless old fool, to leave you alone—and how I felt as if I were in a boiling caldron when I heard you screaming in the passage; and, when I rushed in, there was your red blood gushing forth, and you lying on the ground. Oh, by the Blessed Virgin! did I not feel as if a bucket of icy cold water was emptied all over me?—but so it happens, unless one keeps all one's eyes upon children. Good Heaven! if it had gone into your eye! Unfortunately it happened to be the right hand. "As long as I live," said I, "never again shall any child in my charge get hold of a knife or scissors, or any other edge tool." 'Twas lucky for me that both my master and mistress were gone on a journey. "Yes, yes! this shall be a warning to me for the rest of my life," said I—Gemini, Gemini! I might have lost my place, I might—God forgive you, you naughty boy—but, thank Heaven! it healed fairly, all but that ugly scar.
CHARLES. I do not comprehend one word of all that you are talking about.
DANIEL. Eh? eh? that was the time! was it not? How many a ginger-cake, and biscuit, and macaroon, have I slipped into your bands—I was always so fond of you. And do you recollect what you said to me down in the stable, when I put you upon old master's hunter, and let you scamper round the great meadow? "Daniel!" said you, "only wait till I am grown a big man, and you shall be my steward, and ride in the coach with me." "Yes," said I, laughing, "if heaven grants me life and health, and you are not ashamed of the old man," I said, "I shall ask you to let me have the little house down in the village, that has stood empty so long; and then I will lay in a few butts of good wine, and turn publican in my old age." Yes, you may laugh, you may laugh! Eh, young gentleman, have you quite forgotten all that? You do not want to remember the old man, so you carry yourself strange and loftily;—but, you are my jewel of a young master, for all that. You have, it is true, been a little bit wild—don't be angry!—as young blood is apt to be! All may be well yet in the end.
CHARLES (falls on his neck). Yes! Daniel! I will no longer hide it from you! I am your Charles, your lost Charles! And now tell me, how does my Amelia?
DANIEL (begins to cry). That I, old sinner, should live to have this happiness—and my late blessed master wept so long in vain! Begone, begone, hoary old head! Ye weary bones, descend into the grave with joy! My lord and master lives! my own eyes have beheld him!
CHARLES. And he will keep his promise to you. Take that, honest graybeard, for the old hunter (forces a heavy purse upon him). I have not forgotten the old man.
DANIEL. How? What are you doing? Too much! You have made a mistake.
CHARLES. No mistake, Daniel! (DANIEL is about to throw himself on his knees before him.) Rise! Tell me, how does my Amelia?
DANIEL. Heaven reward you! Heaven reward you! O gracious me! Your
Amelia will never survive it, she will die for joy?
CHARLES (eagerly). She has not forgotten me then?
DANIEL. Forgotten you? How can you talk thus? Forgotten you, indeed! You should have been there, you should have seen how she took on, when the news came of your death, which his honor caused to be spread abroad—
CHARLES. What do you say? my brother—
DANIEL. Yes, your brother; his honor, your brother—another day I will tell you more about it, when we have time—and how cleverly she sent him about his business when he came a wooing every blessed day, and offered to make her his countess. Oh, I must go; I must go and tell her; carry her the news (is about to run of).
CHARLES. Stay! stay! she must not know—nobody must know, not even my brother!
DANIEL. Your brother? No, on no account; he must not know it! Certainly not! If he know not already more than he ought to know. Oh, I can tell you, there are wicked men, wicked brothers, wicked masters; but I would not for all my master's gold be a wicked servant. His honor thought you were dead.
CHARLES. Humph! What are you muttering about?
DANIEL (in a half-suppressed voice). And to be sure when a man rises from the dead thus uninvited—your brother was the sole heir of our late master!
CHARLES. Old man! what is it you are muttering between your teeth, as if some dreadful secret were hovering on your tongue which you fear to utter, and yet ought? Out with it!
DANIEL. But I would rather gnaw my old bones with hunger, and suck my own blood for thirst, than gain a life of luxury by murder. [Exit hastily.]
CHARLES (starting up, after a terrible pause). Betrayed! Betrayed! It flashes upon my soul like lightning! A, fiendish trick! A murderer and a robber through fiend-like machinations! Calumniated by him! My letters falsified, suppressed! his heart full of love! Oh, what a monstrous fool was I! His fatherly heart full of love! oh, villainy, villainy! It would have cost me but once kneeling at his feet—a tear would have done it—oh blind, blind fool that I was! (running up against the wall). I might have been happy—oh villainy, villainy!
Knavishly, yes, knavishly cheated out of all happiness in this life! (He runs up and down in a rage.) A murderer, a robber, all through a knavish trick! He was not even angry! Not a thought of cursing ever entered his heart. Oh, miscreant! inconceivable, hypocritical, abominable miscreant!
Enter KOSINSKY.
KOSINSKY. Well, captain, where are you loitering? What is the matter?
You are for staying here some time longer, I perceive?
CHARLES. Up! Saddle the horses! Before sunset we must be over the frontier!
KOSINSKY. You are joking.
CHARLES (in a commanding tone). Quick! quick! delay not! leave every thing behind! and let no eye see you! (Exit KOSINSKY.)
I fly from these walls. The least delay might drive me raving road; and he my father's son! Brother! brother! thou hast made me the most miserable wretch on earth; I never injured thee; this was not brotherly. Reap the fruits of thy crime in quiet, my presence shall no longer embitter thy enjoyment—but, surely, this was not acting like a brother. May oblivion shroud thy misdeed forever, and death not bring it back to light.
Enter KOSINSKY.
KOSINSKY. The horses are ready saddled, you can mount as soon as you please.
CHARLES. Why in such haste? Why so urgent? Shall I see her no more?
KOSINSKY. I will take off the bridles again, if you wish it; you bade me hasten head over heels.
CHARLES. One more farewell! one more! I must drain this poisoned cup of happiness to the dregs, and then—Stay, Kosinsky! Ten minutes more— behind, in the castle yard—and we gallop off.
Scene IV.—In the Garden.
AMELIA. "You are in tears, Amelia!" These were his very words—and spoken with such expressionsuch a voice!—oh, it summoned up a thousand dear remembrances!—scenes of past delight, as in my youthful days of happiness, my golden spring-tide of love. The nightingale sung with the same sweetness, the flowers breathed the same delicious fragrance, as when I used to hang enraptured on his neck.*
*[Here, in the acting edition, is added, 'Assuredly, if the spirits of the departed wander among the living, then must this stranger be Charles's angel!']
Ha! false, perfidious heart! And dost thou seek thus artfully to veil thy perjury? No, no! begone forever from my soul, thou sinful image! I have not broken my oath, thou only one! Avaunt, from my soul, ye treacherous impious wishes! In the heart where Charles reigns no son of earth may dwell. But why, my soul, dost thou thus constantly, thus obstinately turn towards this stranger? Does he not cling to my heart in the very image of my only one! Is he not his inseparable companion in my thoughts? "You are in tears, Amelia?" Ha! let me fly from him!— —fly!—never more shall my eyes behold this stranger! [CHARLES opens the garden gate.]
AMELIA (starting). Hark! hark! did I not hear the gate creak? (She perceives CHARLES and starts up.) He?—whither?—what? I am rooted to the spot,—I can not fly! Forsake me not, good Heaven! No! thou shalt not tear me from my Charles! My soul has no room for two deities, I am but a mortal maid! (She draws the picture of CHARLES from her bosom.) Thou, my Charles! be thou my guardian angel against this stranger, this invader of our loves! At thee will I look, at thee, nor turn away my eyes—nor cast one sinful look towards him! (She sits silent, her eyes fixed upon the picture.)
CHARLES. You here, Lady Amelia?—and so sad? and a tear upon that picture? (AMELIA gives him no answer.) And who is the happy man for whom these silver drops fall from an angel's eyes? May I be permitted to look at—(He endeavors to look at the picture.)
AMELIA. No—yes—no!
CHARLES (starting back). Ha—and does he deserve to be so idolized?
Does he deserve it?
AMELIA. Had you but known him!
CHARLES. I should have envied him.
AMELIA. Adored, you mean.
CHARLES. Ha!
AMELIA. Oh, you would so have loved him?—-there was so much, so much in his face—in his eyes—in the tone of his voice,—which was so like yours—that I love so dearly! (CHARLES casts his eyes down to the ground.) Here, where you are standing, he has stood a thousand times— and by his side, one who, by his side, forgot heaven and earth. Here his eyes feasted on nature's most glorious panorama,—which, as if conscious of his approving glance, seemed to increase in beauty under the approbation of her masterpiece. Here he held the audience of the air captive with his heavenly music. Here, from this bush, he plucked roses, and plucked those roses for me. Here, here, he lay on my neck; here he imprinted burning kisses on my lips, and the flowers hung their heads with pleasure beneath the foot-tread of the lovers.*
*[In the acting edition the scene changes materially at this point, and the most sentimental part of the whole drama is transformed into the most voluptuous. The stage direction here is,—(They give way to their transports without control, and mingle their kisses. MOOR hangs in ecstacy on her lips, while she sinks half delirious on the couch.) O Charles! now avenge thyself; my vow is broken.
MOOR (tearing himself away from her, as if in frenzy). Can this be hell that still pursues me! (Gazing on her.) I felt so happy!
AMELIA (perceiving the ring upon her finger, starts up from the couch). What! Art thou still there—on that guilty hand? Witness of my perjury. Away with thee! (She pulls the ring from her finger and gives it to CHARLES.) Take it—take it, beloved seducer! and with it what I hold most sacred—take my all—my Charles! (She falls back upon the couch.)
MOOR (changes color). O thou Most High! was this thy almighty will? It is the very ring I gave her in pledge of our mutual faith. Hell be the grave of love! She has returned my ring.
AMELIA (terrified). Heavens! What is the matter? Your eyes roll wildly, and your lips are pale as death! Ah! woe is me. And are the pleasures of thy crime so soon forgotten?
MOOR (suppressing his emotion). 'Tis nothing! Nothing! (Raising his eyes to heaven.) I am still a man! (He takes of his own ring and puts it on AMELIA'S finger.) In return take this! sweet fury of my heart! And with it what I hold most sacred—take my all—my Amelia!
AMELIA (starting up). Your Amelia!
MOOR (mournfully). Oh, she was such a lovely maiden, and faithful as an angel. When we parted we exchanged rings, and vowed eternal constancy. She heard that I was dead—believed it—yet remained constant to the dead. She heard again that I was living—yet became faithless to the living. I flew into her arms—was happy as—the blest in Paradise. Think what my heart was doomed to feel, Amelia! She gave me back my ring—she took her own.
AMELIA (her eyes fixed on the earth in amazement). 'Tis strange,
most strange! 'Tis horrible!
MOOR. Ay, strange and horrible! My child, there is much—ay, much
for man to learn ere his poor intellect can fathom the decrees of
Him who smiles at human vows and weeps at human projects. My
Amelia is an unfortunate maiden!
AMELIA. Unfortunate! Because she rejected you?
MOOR. Unfortunate. Because she embraced the man she betrayed.
AMELIA (with melancholy tenderness). Oh, then, she is indeed unfortunate! From my soul I pity her! She shall be my sister. But there is another and a better world."
CHARLES. He is no more?
AMELIA. He sails on troubled seas—Amelia's love sails with him. He wanders through pathless, sandy deserts—Amelia's love clothes the burning sand with verdure, and the barren shrubs with flowers. Southern suits scorch his bare head, northern snows pinch his feet, tempestuous hail beats down on his temples, but Amelia's love lulls him to sleep in the midst of the storm. Seas, and mountains, and skies, divide the lovers—but their souls rise above this prison-house of clay, and meet in the paradise of love. You appear sad, count!
CHARLES. These words of love rekindle my love.
AMELIA (pale). What? You love another? Alas! what have I said?
CHARLES. She believed me dead, and in my supposed death she remained faithful to me—she heard again that I was alive, and she sacrificed for me the crown of a saint. She knows that I am wandering in deserts, and roaming about in misery, yet her love follows me on wings through deserts and through misery. Her name, too, like yours, is Amelia.
AMELIA. How I envy your Amelia!
CHARLES. Oh, she is an unhappy maid. Her love is fixed upon one who is lost—and it can never—never be rewarded.
AMELIA. Say not so! It will be rewarded in heaven. Is it not agreed that there is a better world, where mourners rejoice, and where lovers meet again?
CHARLES. Yes, a world where the veil is lifted—where the phantom love will make terrible discoveries—Eternity is its name. My Amelia is an unhappy maid.
AMELIA. Unhappy, and loves you?*
*[In the acting edition the scene closes with a different
denouement. Amelia here says, "Are all unhappy who live with you,
and bear the name of Amelia.
"CHARLES. Yes, all—when they think they embrace an angel, and
find in their arms—a murderer. Alas, for my Amelia! She is
indeed unfortunate.
"AMELIA (with an expression of deep affliction). Oh, I must weep
for her.
"CHARLES (grasping her hand, and pointing to the ring). Weep for
thyself.
"AMELIA (recognizing the ring). Charles! Charles! O heaven and
earth!
(She sinks fainting; the scene closes.)"]
CHARLES. Unhappy, because she loves me! What if I were a murderer? How, Lady Amelia, if your lover could reckon you up a murder for every one of your kisses? Woe to my Amelia! She is an unhappy maid.
AMELIA (gayly rising). Ha! What a happy maid am I! My only one is a reflection of Deity, and Deity is mercy and compassion! He could not bear to see a fly suffer. His soul is as far from every thought of blood as the sun is from the moon. (CHARLES suddenly turns away into a thicket, and looks wildly out into the landscape. AMELIA sings, playing the guitar.)
Oh! Hector, wilt thou go forevermore,
Where fierce Achilles, on the blood-stained shore,
Heaps countless victims o'er Patroclus' grave?
Who then thy hapless orphan boy will rear,
Teach him to praise the gods and hurl the spear,
When thou art swallowed up in Xanthus' wave?
CHARLES (silently tunes the guitar, and plays).
Beloved wife!—stern duty calls to arms
Go, fetch my lance! and cease those vain alarms!
[He flings the guitar away, and rushes off.]
SCENE V.—A neighboring forest. Night. An old ruined castle in the centre of the scene.
The band of ROBBERS encamped on the ground.
The ROBBERS singing.
To rob, to kill, to wench, to fight,
Our pastime is, and daily sport;
The gibbet claims us morn and night,
So let's be jolly, time is short.
A merry life we lead, and free,
A life of endless fun;
Our couch is 'neath the greenwood tree,
Through wind and storm we gain our fee,
The moon we make our sun.
Old Mercury is our patron true,
And a capital chap for helping us through.
To-day we make the abbot our host,
The farmer rich to-morrow;
And where we shall get our next day's roast,
Gives us nor care nor sorrow.
And, when with Rhenish and rare Moselle
Our throats we have been oiling,
Our courage burns with a fiercer swell,
And we're hand and glove with the Lord of Hell,
Who down in his flames is broiling.
For fathers slain the orphans' cries,
The widowed mothers' moan and wail,
Of brides bereaved the whimpering sighs,
Like music sweet, our ears regale.
Beneath the axe to see them writhe,
Bellow like calves, fall dead like flies;
Such bonny sights, and sounds so blithe,
With rapture fill our eats and eyes.
And when at last our death-knell rings—
The devil take that hour!
Payment in full the hangman brings,
And off the stage we scour.
On the road a glass of good liquor or so,
Then hip! hip! hip! and away we go!
SCHWEITZER. The night is far advanced, and the captain has not yet returned.
RAZ. And yet he promised to be back before the clock struck eight.
SCHWEITZER. Should any harm have befallen him, comrades, wouldn't we kindle fires! ay, and murder sucking babes?
SPIEGEL. (takes RAZMANN aside). A word in your ear, Razmann!
SCHWARZ (to GRIMM). Should we not send out scouts?
GRIMM. Let him alone. He no doubt has some feat in hand that will put us to shame.
SCHWEITZER. Then you are out, by old Harry! He did not part from us like one that had any masterpiece of roguery in view. Have you forgotten what he said as he marched us across the heath? "The fellow that takes so much as a turnip out of a field, if I know it, leaves his head behind him, as true as my name is Moor." We dare not plunder.
RAZ. (aside to SPIEGELBERG). What are you driving at? Speak plainer.
SPIEGEL. Hush! hush! I know not what sort of a notion you and I have of liberty, that we should toil under the yoke like bullocks, while we are making such wonderful fine speeches about independence. I like it not.
SCHWEITZER (to GRIMM). What crotchet has that swaggering booby got in his numskull, I wonder?
RAZ. (aside to SPIEGELBERG). Is it the captain you mean?—
SPIEGEL. Hush! I tell you; hush! He has got his eavesdroppers all around us. Captain, did you say? Who made him captain over us? Has he not, in fact, usurped that title, which by right belongs to me? What? Is it for this that we stake our lives—that we endure all the splenetic caprices of fortunes—that we may in the end congratulate ourselves upon being the serfs of a slave? Serfs! When we might be princes? By heaven! Razmann, I could never brook it.
SCHWEITZER (overhearing him—to the others). Yes—there's a hero for you! He is just the man to do mighty execution upon frogs with stones. The very breath of his nostrils, when he sneezes, would blow you through the eye of a needle.
SPIEGEL. (to RAZMANN). Yes—and for years I have been intent upon it. There must be an alteration, Razmann. If you are the man I always took you for—Razmann! He is missing—he is almost given up—Razmann— methinks his hour is come. What? does not the color so much as mount to your cheek when you hear the chimes of liberty ringing in your ears? Have you not courage enough to take the hint?
RAZ. Ha! Satan! What bait art thou spreading for my soul?
SPIEGEL. Does it take? Good! then follow me! I have marked in what direction he slunk off. Come along! a brace of pistols seldom fail; and then—we shall be the first to strangle sucking babes. (He endeavors to draw him of.)
SCHWEITZER (enraged, draws his sword). Ha! caitiff! I have overheard you! You remind me, at the right moment, of the Bohemian forest! Were not you the coward that began to quail when the cry arose, "the enemy is coming!" I then swore by my soul—(They fight, SPIEGELBERG is killed.) To the devil with thee, assassin!
ROBBERS (in agitation). Murder! murder!—Schweitzer!—Spiegelberg!—
Part them!
SCHWEITZER (throwing the sword on the body). There let him rot! Be still, my comrades! Don't let such a trifle disturb you. The brute has always been inveterate against the captain and has not a single scar on his whole body. Once more, be still. Ha, the scoundrel! He would stab a man behind his back—skulk and murder! Is it for this that the hot sweat has poured down us in streams? that we may sneak out of the world at last like contemptible wretches? The brute! Is it for this that we have lived in fire and brimstone? To perish at last like rats?
GRIMM. But what the devil, comrade, were you after? What were you quarreling about? The captain will be furious.
SCHWEITZER. Be that on my head. And you, wretch (to RAZMANN) you were his accomplice, you! Get out of my sight! Schufterle was another of your kidney, but he has met his deserts in Switzerland—has been hanged, as the captain prophesied. (A shot is heard.)
SCHWARZ (jumping up). Hark! a pistol shot! (Another shot is heard.)
Another! Hallo! the captain!
GRIMM. Patience! If it be he, there will be a third. (The third shot is heard.)
SCHWARZ. 'Tis he! 'Tis the captain! Absent yourself awhile,
Schweitzer—till we explain to him! (They fire.)
Enter CHARLES VON MOOR and KOSINSKY.
SCHWEITZER (running to meet them). Welcome, captain. I have been somewhat choleric in your absence. (He conducts him to the corpse.) Be you judge between him and me. He meant to waylay and assassinate you.
ROBBERS (in consternation). What; the captain?
CHARLES (after fixing his eyes for some time upon the corpse, with a sudden burst of feeling). Oh, incomprehensible finger of the avenging Nemesis! Was it not he whose siren song seduced me to be what I am? Let this sword be consecrated to the dark goddess of retribution! That was not thy deed, Schweitzer.
SCHWEITZER. By heaven, it was mine, though! and, as the devil lives, it is not the worst deed I have done in my time. (Turns away moodily.)
CHARLES (absorbed in thought). I comprehend—Great Ruler in heaven—
I comprehend. The leaves fall from the trees, and my autumn is come.
Remove this object from my sight! (The corpse of SPIEGELBERG is carried
out.)
GRIMM. Give us your orders, captain! What shall we do next?
CHARLES. Soon—very soon—all will be accomplished. Hand me my lute; I have lost myself since I have been there. My lute, I say—I must nurse up my strength again. Leave me!
ROBBERS. 'Tis midnight, captain.
CHARLES. They were only stage tears after all. Let me bring to memory the song of the old Roman, that my slumbering genius may wake up again. Hand me my lute. Midnight, say you?
SCHWARZ. Yes, and past, too! Our eyes are as heavy as lead. For three days we have not slept a wink.
CHARLES. What? does balmy sleep visit the eyes of murderers? Why doth it flee mine? I never was a coward, nor a villain. Lay yourselves to rest. At day-break we march.
ROBBERS. Good night, captain. (They stretch them selves on the ground and fall asleep.)
Profound silence. CHARLES VON MOOR takes up his
guitar, and plays.
BRUTUS.
Oh, be ye welcome, realms of peace and rest!
Receive the last of all the sons of Rome!
From dread Philippi's field, where all the best
Fell bleeding in her cause, I wearied come.
Cassius, no more! And Rome now prostrate laid!
My brethren all lie weltering in their gore!
No refuge left but Hades' gloomy shade;
No hope remains!—No world for Brutus more!
CAESAR.
Who's he that, with a hero's lofty bearing,
Comes striding o'er yon mountain's rocky bed?
Unless my eyes deceive, that noble daring
Bespeaks the Roman warrior's fearless tread.
Whence, son of Tiber, do thy footsteps bend!
Say, stands the seven-billed city firmly yet?
No Caesar there, to be the soldiers friend!
Full oft has he that orphaned city wept.