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

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.]

WALLENSTEIN, ILLO, COUNTESS, DUCHESS, THEKLA

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 honest man is he, who reaches to me

The first pledge of my fortune.

ILLO.

That his example will win over to you

The best men in the army.

WALLENSTEIN.

Isolani hither. Send him immediately;

He is under recent obligations to me:

With him will I commence the trial. Go.

[ Exit ILLO.]

WALLENSTEIN ( turns himself round to the females

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