The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Iii Part 15

The first step to revolt's already taken.

ILLO.

Believe me, thou wilt find it far more easy To lead them over to the enemy Than to the Spaniard.

WALLENSTEIN.

I will hear, however, What the Swede has to say to me.

ILLO (_eagerly to_ TERZKY).

Go, call him He stands without the door in waiting.

WALLENSTEIN.

Stay!

Stay but a little. It hath taken me All by surprise; it came too quick upon me; 'Tis wholly novel that an accident, With its dark lordship, and blind agency, Should force me on with it.

ILLO.

First hear him only, And after weigh it.

[_Exeunt_ TERZKY _and_ ILLO.]

SCENE IV.

WALLENSTEIN (_in soliloquy_).

Is it possible?

Is't so! I _can_ no longer what I _would_?

No longer draw back at my liking? I Must _do_ the deed, because I _thought_ of it?

And fed this heart here with a dream? Because I did not scowl temptation from my presence, Dallied with thoughts of possible fulfilment, Commenced no movement, left all time uncertain, And only kept the road, the access open?

By the great G.o.d of Heaven! it was not My serious meaning, it was ne'er resolved.

I but amused myself with thinking of it.

The free-will tempted me, the power to do Or not to do it--Was it criminal To make the fancy minister to hope, To fill the air with pretty toys of air, And clutch fantastic sceptres moving t'ward me!

Was not the will kept free? Beheld I not The road of duty close beside me--but One little step, and once more I was in it!

Where am I? Whither have I been transported?

No road, no track behind me, but a wall Impenetrable, insurmountable, Rises obedient to the spells I muttered And meant not--my own doings tower behind me.

[_Pauses and remains in deep thought._]

A punishable man I seem; the guilt, Try what I will, I cannot roll off from me; The equivocal demeanor of my life Bears witness on my prosecutor's party.

And even my purest acts from purest motives Suspicion poisons with malicious gloss.

Were I that thing for which I pa.s.s, that traitor, A goodly outside I had sure reserved, Had drawn the coverings thick and double round me, Been calm and chary of my utterance; But being conscious of the innocence Of my intent, my uncorrupted will, I gave way to my humors, to my pa.s.sion: Bold were my words, because my deeds were _not_.

Now every planless measure, chance event, The threat of rage, the vaunt of joy and triumph, And all the May-games of a heart o'erflowing, Will they connect, and weave them all together Into one web of treason; all will be plain, My eye ne'er absent from the far-off mark, Step tracing step, each step a politic progress; And out of all they'll fabricate a charge So specious that I must myself stand dumb.

I am caught in my own net, and only force, Nought but a sudden rent, can liberate me.

[_Pauses again._]

How else! since that the heart's unbias'd instinct Impell'd me to the daring deed, which now Necessity, self-preservation, _orders_.

Stern is the on-look of Necessity, Not without shudder may a human hand Grasp the mysterious urn of destiny.

My deed was mine, remaining in my bosom: Once suffer'd to escape from its safe corner Within the heart, its nursery and birth-place, Sent forth into the Foreign, it belongs Forever to those sly malicious powers Whom never art of man conciliated.

[_Paces in agitation through the chamber, then pauses, and after the pause breaks out again into audible soliloquy._]

What is thy enterprise? thy aim? thy object?

Hast honestly confess'd it to thyself?

Power seated on a quiet throne thou'dst shake, Power on an ancient consecrated throne, Strong in possession, founded in all custom; Power by a thousand tough and stringy roots Fix'd to the people's pious nursery-faith.

This, this will be no strife of strength with strength.

That fear'd I not. I brave each combatant, Whom I can look on, fixing eye to eye, Who, full himself of courage, kindles courage In me too. 'Tis a foe invisible The which I fear--a fearful enemy, Which in the human heart opposes me, By its coward fear alone made fearful to me.

Not that, which full of life, instinct with power, Makes known its present being; that is not The true, the perilously formidable.

O no! it is the common, the quite common, The thing of an eternal yesterday.

What ever was, and evermore returns, Sterling tomorrow, for today 'twas sterling!

For of the wholly common is man made, And custom is his nurse! Woe then to them Who lay irreverent hands upon his old House furniture, the dear inheritance From his forefathers! For time consecrates; And what is gray with age becomes religion.

Be in possession, and thou hast the right, And sacred will the many guard it for thee!

[_To the_ PAGE _who here enters_.]

The Swedish officer?--Well, let him enter.

[_The_ PAGE _exit_, WALLENSTEIN _fixes his eye in deep thought on the door_.]

Yet is it pure--as yet!--the crime has come Not o'er this threshold yet--so slender is The boundary that divideth life's two paths.

SCENE V

WALLENSTEIN _and_ WRANGEL

WALLENSTEIN (_after having fixed a searching look on him_).

Your name is Wrangel?

WRANGEL.

Gustave Wrangel, General Of the Sudermanian Blues.

WALLENSTEIN.

It was a Wrangel Who injured me materially at Stralsund, And by his brave resistance was the cause Of the opposition which that sea-port made.

WRANGEL.

It was the doing of the element With which you fought, my Lord! and not my merit.

The Baltic Neptune did a.s.sert his freedom: The sea and land, it seem'd, were not to serve One and the same.