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

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      An easier, calmer lot, my child! We too,

      I and thy father, witnessed happy days.

      Still think I with delight of those first years,

      When he was making progress with glad effort,

      When his ambition was a genial fire,

      Not that consuming flame which now it is.

      The Emperor loved him, trusted him: and all

      He undertook could not but be successful.

      But since that ill-starr'd day at Regensburg,

      Which plunged him headlong from his dignity,

      A gloomy uncompanionable spirit,

      Unsteady and suspicious, has possess'd him.

      His quiet mind forsook him, and no longer

      Did he yield up himself in joy and faith

      To his old luck and individual power;

      But thenceforth turn'd his heart and best affections

      All to those cloudy sciences, which never

      Have yet made happy him who follow'd them.

      COUNTESS.

      You see it, sister, as your eyes permit you,

      But surely this is not the conversation

      To pass the time in which we are waiting for him.

      You know he will be soon here. Would you have him

      Find her in this condition?

      DUCHESS.

                          Come, my child!

      Come wipe away thy tears, and show thy father

      A cheerful countenance. See, the tie-knot here

      Is off—this hair must not hang so dishevell'd.

      Come, dearest! dry thy tears up. They deform

      Thy gentle eye.—Well now—what was I saying?

      Yes, in good truth, this Piccolomini

      Is a most noble and deserving gentleman.

      COUNTESS.

      That is he, sister!

      THEKLA (to the COUNTESS, with marks of great oppression of spirits).

      Aunt, you will excuse me?

      [Is going.]

      COUNTESS.

      But whither? See, your father comes.

      THEKLA.

      I cannot see him now.

      COUNTESS.

      Nay, but bethink you.

      THEKLA.

      Believe me, I cannot sustain his presence.

      COUNTESS.

      But he will miss you, will ask after you.

      DUCHESS.

      What now? Why is she going?

      COUNTESS.

      She's not well.

      DUCHESS (anxiously).

      What ails then my beloved child?

      [Both follow the PRINCESS, and endeavor to detain her. During this WALLENSTEIN appears, engaged in conversation with ILLO.]

      SCENE IV

      WALLENSTEIN, ILLO, COUNTESS, DUCHESS, THEKLA

      WALLENST

      All quiet in the camp?

      ILLO.

      It is all quiet.

      WALLENST.

      In a few hours may couriers come from Prague

      With tidings that this capital is ours.

      Then we may drop the mask, and to the troops

      Assembled in this town make known the measure

      And its result together. In such cases

      Example does the whole. Whoever is foremost

      Still leads the herd. An imitative creature

      Is man. The troops at Prague conceive no other

      Than that the Pilsen army has gone through

      The forms of homage to us; and in Pilsen

      They shall swear fealty to us, because

      The example has been given them by Prague.

      Butler, you tell me, has declared himself?

      ILLO.

      At his own bidding, unsolicited,

      He came to offer you himself and regiment.

      WALLENST.

      I find we must not give implicit credence

      To every warning voice that makes itself

      Be listen'd to in the heart. To hold us back,

      Oft does the lying Spirit counterfeit

      The voice of Truth and inward Revelation,

      Scattering false oracles. And thus have I

      To entreat forgiveness, for that secretly

      I've wrong'd this honorable, gallant man,

      This Butler: for a feeling, of the which

      I am not master (fear I would not call it),

      Creeps o'er me instantly, with sense of shuddering

      At his approach, and stops love's joyous motion.

      And this same man, against whom I am warn'd,

      This СКАЧАТЬ