The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 03. Коллектив авторов

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СКАЧАТЬ doth not all his living faculties

      Put forth in preservation of his life?

      What deed so daring, which necessity

      And desperation will not sanctify?

      WALLENST.

      Once was this Ferdinand so gracious to me;

      He loved me; he esteem'd me; I was placed

      The nearest to his heart. Full many a time

      We like familiar friends, both at one table,

      Have banqueted together. He and I—

      And the young kings themselves held me the basin

      Wherewith to wash me—and is't come to this?

      COUNTESS.

      So faithfully preserves thou each small favor,

      And hast no memory for contumelies?

      Must I remind thee, how at Regensburg

      This man repaid thy faithful services?

      All ranks and all conditions in the empire

      Thou hadst wronged, to make him great,—hadst loaded on thee,

      On thee, the hate, the curse of the whole world.

      No friend existed for thee in all Germany,

      And why? because thou hadst existed only

      For the Emperor. To the Emperor alone

      Clung Friedland in that storm which gather'd round him

      At Regensburg in the Diet—and he dropp'd thee!

      He let thee fall! he let thee fall a victim

      To the Bavarian, to that insolent!

      Deposed, stript bare of all thy dignity

      And power, amid the taunting of thy foes,

      Thou wert let drop into obscurity.—

      Say not the restoration of thy honor

      Has made atonement for that first injustice.

      No honest good-will was it that replaced thee;

      The law of hard necessity replaced thee,

      Which they had fain opposed, but that they could not.

      WALLENST.

      Not to their good wishes, that is certain,

      Nor yet to his affection I'm indebted

      For this high office: and if I abuse it,

      I shall therein abuse no confidence.

      COUNTESS.

      Affection! confidence!—they needed thee.

      Necessity, impetuous remonstrant!

      Who not with empty names, or shows of proxy,

      Is served, who'll have the thing and not the symbol,

      Ever seeks out the greatest and the best,

      And at the rudder places him, e'en though

      She had been forced to take him from the rabble—

      She, this Necessity, it was that placed thee

      In this high office; it was she that gave thee

      Thy letters patent of inauguration.

      For, to the uttermost moment that they can,

      This race still help themselves at cheapest rate

      With slavish souls, with puppets! At the approach

      Of extreme peril, when a hollow image

      Is found a hollow image and no more,

      Then falls the power into the mighty hands

      Of Nature, of the spirit giant-born,

      Who listens only to himself, knows nothing

      Of stipulations, duties, reverences,

      And, like the emancipated force of fire,

      Unmaster'd scorches, ere it reaches them,

      Their fine-spun webs, their artificial policy.

      WALLENST.

      'Tis true! they saw me always as I am—

      Always! I did not cheat them in the bargain.

      I never held it worth my pains to hide

      The bold all-grasping habit of my soul.

      COUNTESS.

      Nay rather—thou hast ever shown thyself

      A formidable man, without restraint;

      Hast exercised the full prerogatives

      Of thy impetuous nature, which had been

      Once granted to thee. Therefore, Duke, not thou

      Who hast still remained consistent with thyself;

      But they are in the wrong, who fearing thee,

      Intrusted such a power in hand they fear'd.

      For, by the laws of Spirit, in the right

      Is every individual character

      That acts in strict consistence with itself.

      Self-contradiction is the only wrong.

      Wert thou another being, then, when thou

      Eight years ago pursuedst thy march with fire,

      And sword, and desolation, through the Circles

      Of Germany, the universal scourge,

      Didst mock all ordinances of the empire,

      The fearful rights of strength alone exertedst,

      Trampledst to earth each rank, each magistracy,

      All to extend thy Sultan's domination?

      Then was the time to break thee in, to curb

      Thy haughty will, to teach thee ordinance.

      But no, the Emperor felt no touch of conscience;

      What СКАЧАТЬ