Egmont. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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      [Exeunt Mother and DAUGHTER.

      Brackenburg (alone). I had resolved to go away again at once; and yet, when she takes me at my word, and lets me leave her, I feel as if I could go mad, – Wretched man! Does the fate of thy fatherland, does the growing disturbance fail to move thee? – Are countryman and Spaniard the same to thee? and carest thou not who rules, and who is in the right? I wad a different sort of fellow as a schoolboy! – Then, when an exercise in oratory was given; "Brutus' Speech for Liberty," for instance, Fritz was ever the first, and the rector would say: "If it were only spoken more deliberately, the words not all huddled together." – Then my blood boiled, and longed for action. – Now I drag along, bound by the eyes of a maiden. I cannot leave her! yet she, alas, cannot love me! – ah – no – she – she cannot have entirely rejected me – not entirely – yet half love is no love! – I will endure it no longer! – Can it be true what a friend lately whispered in my ear, that she secretly admits a man into the house by night, when she always sends me away modestly before evening? No, it cannot be true! It is a lie! A base, slanderous lie! Clara is as innocent as I am wretched. – She has rejected me, has thrust me from her heart – and shall I live on thus? I cannot, I will not endure it. Already my native land is convulsed by internal strife, and do I perish abjectly amid the tumult? I will not endure it! When the trumpet sounds, when a shot falls, it thrills through my bone and marrow! But, alas, it does not rouse me! It does not summon me to join the onslaught, to rescue, to dare. – Wretched, degrading position! Better end it at once! Not long ago, I threw myself into the water; I sank – but nature in her agony was too strong for me; I felt that I could swim, and saved myself against my will. Could I but forget the time when she loved me, seemed to love me! – Why has this happiness penetrated my very bone and marrow? Why have these hopes, while disclosing to me a distant paradise, consumed all the enjoyment of life? – And that first, that only kiss! – Here (laying his hand upon the table), here we were alone, – she had always been kind and friendly towards me, – then she seemed to soften, – she looked at me, – my brain reeled, – I felt her lips on mine, – and – and now? – Die, wretch! Why dost thou hesitate? (He draws a phial from his pocket.) Thou healing poison, it shall not have been in vain that I stole thee from my brother's medicine chest! From this anxious fear, this dizziness, this death-agony, thou shalt deliver me at once.

      ACT II

      SCENE I. – Square in Brussels

      Jetter and a Master Carpenter (meeting)

      Carpenter. Did I not tell you beforehand? Eight days ago, at the guild, I said there would be serious disturbances?

      Jetter. Is it, then, true that they have plundered the churches in Flanders?

      Carpenter. They have utterly destroyed both churches and chapels. They have left nothing standing but the four bare walls. The lowest rabble! And this it is that damages our good cause. We ought rather to have laid our claims before the Regent, formally and decidedly, and then have stood by them. If we speak now, if we assemble now, it will be said that we are joining the insurgents.

      Jetter. Ay, so every one thinks at first. Why should you thrust your nose into the mess? The neck is closely connected with it.

      Carpenter. I am always uneasy when tumults arise among the mob – among people who have nothing to lose. They use as a pretext that to which we also must appeal, and plunge the country in misery.

      [Enter Soest.

      Soest. Good day, sirs! What news? Is it true that the image-breakers are coming straight in this direction?

      Carpenter. Here they shall touch nothing, at any rate.

      Soest. A soldier came into my shop just now to buy tobacco; I questioned him about the matter. The Regent, though so brave and prudent a lady, has for once lost her presence of mind. Things must be bad indeed when she thus takes refuge behind her guards. The castle is strongly garrisoned. It is even rumoured that she means to fly from the town.