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

THEKLA.

What need of me for that? And is he not

Already link'd to him?

COUNTESS.

He was.

THEKLA.

Should he not be so now—not be so always?

COUNTESS.

He cleaves to the Emperor too.

THEKLA.

And honor may demand of him.

COUNTESS.

Proofs of his love, and not proofs of his honor.

Duty and honor!

Those are ambiguous words with many meanings.

You should interpret them for him: his love

Should be the sole definer of his honor.

THEKLA.

How?

COUNTESS.

The Emperor or you must he renounce.

THEKLA.

He will accompany my father gladly

In his retirement. From himself you heard,

How much he wish'd to lay aside the sword.

COUNTESS.

He must not lay the sword aside, we mean;

He must unsheath it in your father's cause.

THEKLA.

He'll spend with gladness and alacrity

His life, his heart's blood in my father's cause,

If shame or injury be intended him.

COUNTESS.

You will not understand me. Well, hear then:—

Your father has fallen off from the Emperor,

And is about to join the enemy

With the whole soldiery—

THEKLA.

Alas, my mother!

COUNTESS.

There needs a great example to draw on

The army after him. The Piccolomini

Possess the love and reverence of the troops;

They govern all opinions, and wherever

They lead the way none hesitate to follow.

The son secures the father to our interests—

You've much in your hands at this moment.

THEKLA.

Ah!

My miserable mother! what a death-stroke

Awaits thee!—No! she never will survive it.

COUNTESS.

She will accommodate her soul to that

Which is and must be. I do know your mother;

The far-off future weighs upon her heart

With torture of anxiety; but is it

Unalterably, actually present,

She soon resigns herself, and bears it calmly.

THEKLA.

O my foreboding bosom! Even now,

E'en now 'tis here, that icy hand of horror!

And my young hope lies shuddering in its grasp;

I knew it well—no sooner had I enter'd,

An heavy ominous presentiment

Reveal'd to me that spirits of death were hovering

Over my happy fortune. But why think I

First of myself? My mother! O my mother!

COUNTESS.

Calm yourself! Break not out in vain lamenting!

Preserve you for your father the firm friend,

And for yourself the lover, all will yet

Prove good and fortunate.

THEKLA.

Must we not part?—part ne'er to meet again?

COUNTESS.

He parts not from you! He cannot part from you.

THEKLA.

Alas for his sore anguish! It will rend

His heart asunder.

COUNTESS.

His resolution will be speedily taken.

THEKLA.

His resolution will be speedily taken—

O do not doubt of that! A resolution!

Does there remain one to be taken?

COUNTESS.

Collect yourself! I hear your mother coming.

THEKLA.

How shall I bear to see her?

COUNTESS.

Collect yourself.

To them enter the DUCHESS

DUCHESS ( to the COUNTESS ).

Who was here, sister? I heard someone talking,

And passionately too.

COUNTESS.

Nay! there was no one.

DUCHESS.

I am grown so timorous, every trifling noise

Scatters my spirits, and announces to me

The footstep of some messenger of evil.

And you can tell me, sister, what the event is?

Will he agree to do the Emperor's pleasure,

And send the horse-regiments to the Cardinal?

Tell me, has he dismiss'd Von Questenberg

With a favorable answer?

COUNTESS.

No, he has not.

DUCHESS.

Alas! then all is lost! I see it coming,

The worst that can come! Yes, they will depose him;

The accursed business of the Regensburg diet

Will all be acted o'er again!

COUNTESS.

Make your heart easy, sister, as to that.

[THEKLA, in extreme agitation, throws herself upon her mother, and enfolds her in her arms, weeping .]

Yes, my poor child!

Thou too hast lost a most affectionate godmother

In the Empress. O that stern unbending man!

In this unhappy marriage what have I

Not suffer'd, not endured? For even as if

I had been link'd on to some wheel of fire

That restless, ceaseless, whirls impetuous onward,

I have pass'd a life of frights and horrors with him,

And ever to the brink of some abyss

With dizzy headlong violence he bears me.

Nay, do not weep, my child. Let not my sufferings

Presignify unhappiness to thee,

Nor blacken with their shade the fate that waits thee.

There lives no second Friedland: thou, my child,

Hast not to fear thy mother's destiny.

THEKLA.

O let us supplicate him, dearest mother!

Quick! quick! here's no abiding place for us.

Here every coming hour broods into life

Some new affrightful monster.

DUCHESS.

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 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 ).