To them enter the DUCHESS.
Duchess (to the Countess). Who was here, sister? I heard some one
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. 5
And can you 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 dismissed Von Questenberg
With a favourable answer?
Countess. No, he has not. 10
Duchess. Alas! then all is lost! I see it coming,
The worst that can come! Yes, they will depose him;
The accurséd business of the Regenspurg diet
Will all be acted o’er again!
Countess. No! never!
Make your heart easy, sister, as to that. 15
[THEKLA throws herself upon her mother, and enfolds her
in her arms, weeping.
Duchess. 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 suffered, not endured. For ev’n as if 20
I had been linked on to some wheel of fire
That restless, ceaseless, whirls impetuous onward,
I have passed a life of frights and horrors with him,
And ever to the brink of some abyss
With dizzy headlong violence he whirls me. 25
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. 30
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. Thou wilt share
An easier, calmer lot, my child! We too, 35
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. 40
The Emperor loved him, trusted him: and all
He undertook could not but be successful.
But since that ill-starred day at Regenspurg,
Which plunged him headlong from his dignity,
A gloomy uncompanionable spirit, 45
Unsteady and suspicious, has possessed 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 turned his heart and best affections 50
All to those cloudy sciences, which never
Have yet made happy him who followed 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. 55
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 shew thy father
A cheerful countenance. See, the tie-knot here
Is off — this hair must not hang so dishevelled. 60
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). Aunt, you will excuse me? 65
[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? 70
Countess. She’s not well.
Duchess. What ails then my beloved child?
[Both follow the PRINCESS, and endeavour to detain her.
During this WALLENSTEIN appears, engaged in
conversation with ILLO.
[Between 14, 15] [THEKLA, in extreme agitation, throws herself, &c.
1800, 1828, 1829.
spirits). 1800, 1828, 1829.
[Before 72] Duchess (anxiously). 1800, 1828, 1829.
SCENE IV
WALLENSTEIN, ILLO, COUNTESS, DUCHESS, THEKLA.
Wallenstein. All quiet in the camp?
Illo. It is all quiet.
Wallenstein. 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 5
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 10
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, 15
He came to offer you himself and regiment.
Wallenstein. I find we must not give implicit