The Works of Frederick Schiller Part 65

SCHWEITZER. I, a traitor? Lead on to h.e.l.l and I will follow you!

CHARLES (falling on his neck). Dear brother! thou shalt follow me. She weeps, she mourns away her life. Up! quickly! all of you! to Franconia! In a week we must be there.

[Exeunt.]

ACT IV.

SCENE I.--Rural scenery in the neighborhood of CHARLES VON MOOR'S castle.

CHARLES VON MOOR, KOSINSKY, at a distance.

CHARLES. Go forward, and announce me. You remember what you have to say?

KOSINSKY. You are Count Brand, you come from Mecklenburg. I am your groom. Do not fear, I shall take care to play my part. Farewell!

[Exit.]

CHARLES. Hail to thee, Earth of my Fatherland (kisses the earth.) Heaven of my Fatherland! Sun of my Fatherland! Ye meadows and hills, ye streams and woods! Hail, hail to ye all! How deliciously the breezes are wafted from my native hills? What streams of balmy perfume greet the poor fugitive! Elysium! Realms of poetry! Stay, Moor, thy foot has strayed into a holy temple. (Comes nearer.)

See there! the old swallow-nests in the castle yard!---and the little garden-gate!--and this corner of the fence where I so often watched in ambuscade to teaze old Towzer!--and down there in the green valley, where, as the great Alexander, I led my Macedonians to the battle of Arbela; and the gra.s.sy hillock yonder, from which I hurled the Persian satrap--and then waved on high my victorious banner! (He smiles.) The golden age of boyhood lives again in the soul of the outcast. I was then so happy, so wholly, so cloudlessly happy--and now--behold all my prospects a wreck! Here should I have presided, a great, a n.o.ble, an honored man--here have--lived over again the years of boyhood in the blooming--children of my Amelia--here!--here have been the idol of my people--but the foul fiend opposed it (Starting.) Why am I here? To feel like the captive when the clanking of his chains awakes him from his dream of liberty. No, let me return to my wretchedness! The captive had forgotten the light of day, but the dream of liberty flashes past his eyes like a blaze of lightning in the night, which leaves it darker than before. Farewell, ye native vales! once ye saw Charles as a boy, and then Charles was happy. Now ye have seen the man his happiness turned to despair! (He moves rapidly towards the most distant point of the landscape, where he suddenly stops and casts a melancholy look across to the castle.) Not to behold her! not even one look?--and only a wall between me and Amelia! No! see her I must!--and him too!--though it crush me! (He turns back.) Father! father! thy son approaches. Away with thee, black, reeking gore! Away with that grim, ghastly look of death! Oh, give me but this one hour free! Amelia! Father! thy Charles approaches! (He goes quickly towards the castle.) Torment me when the morning dawns--give me no rest with the coming night--beset me in frightful dreams! But, oh! poison not this my only hour of bliss!

(He is standing at the gate.) What is it I feel? What means this, Moor?

Be a man! These death-like shudders--foreboding terrors.

[Enters.]

SCENE II.*--Gallery in the Castle.

*[In some editions this is the third scene, and there is no second.]

Enter CHARLES VON MOOR, AMELIA.

AMELIA. And are you sure that you should know his portrait among these pictures?

CHARLES. Oh, most certainly! his image has always been fresh in my memory. (Pa.s.sing along thee pictures.) This is not it.

AMELIA. You are right! He was the first count, and received his patent of n.o.bility from Frederic Barbarossa, to whom he rendered some service against the corsairs.

CHARLES (still reviewing the pictures). Neither is it this--nor this-- nor that--it is not among these at all.

AMELIA. Nay! look more attentively! I thought you knew him.

CHARLES. As well as my own father! This picture wants the sweet expression around the mouth, which distinguished him from among a thousand. It is not he.

AMELIA. You surprise me. What! not seen him for eighteen years, and still--

CHARLES (quickly, with a hectic blush). Yes, this is he! (He stands as if struck by lightning.)

AMELIA. An excellent man!

CHARLES (absorbed in the contemplation of the picture). Father!

father! forgive me! Yes, an excellent man! (He wipes his eyes.) A G.o.dlike man!

AMELIA. You seem to take a deep interest in him.

CHARLES. Oh, an excellent man! And he is gone, you say!

AMELIA. Gone! as our best joys perish. (Gently taking him by the hand.) Dear Sir, no happiness ripens in this world.

CHARLES. Most true, most true! And have you already proved this truth by sad experience? You, who can scarcely yet have seen your twenty-third year?

AMELIA. Yes, alas, I have proved it. Whatever lives, lives to die in sorrow. We engage our hearts, and grasp after the things of this world, only to undergo the pang of losing them.

CHARLES. What can you have lost, and yet so young?

AMELIA. Nothing--everything--nothing. Shall we go on, count?*

*[In the acting edition is added-- "MOOR. And would you learn forgetfulness in that holy garb there?

(Pointing to a nun's habit.) "AMELIA. To-morrow I hope to do so. Shall we continue our walk, sir?"]

CHARLES. In such haste? Whose portrait is that on the right? There is an unhappy look about that countenance, methinks.

AMELIA. That portrait on the left is the son of the count, the present count. Come, let us pa.s.s on!

CHARLES. But this portrait on the right?

AMELIA. Will you not continue your walk, Sir?

CHARLES. But this portrait on the right hand? You are in tears, Amelia? [Exit AMELIA, in precipitation.]

CHARLES. She loves me, she loves me! Her whole being began to rebel, and the traitor tears rolled down her cheeks. She loves me! Wretch, hast thou deserved this at her hands? Stand I not here like a condemned criminal before the fatal block? Is this the couch on which we so often sat--where I have hung in rapture on her neck? Are these my ancestral halls? (Overcome by the sight of his father's portrait.) Thou--thou-- Flames of fire darting from thine eyes--His curse--His curse--He disowns me--Where am I? My sight grows dim--Horrors of the living G.o.d--'Twas I, 'twas I that killed my father!

[He rushes off]

Enter FRANCIS VON MOOR, in deep thought.

FRANCIS. Away with that image! Away with it! Craven heart! Why dost thou tremble, and before whom? Have I not felt, during the few hours that the count has been within these walls as if a spy from h.e.l.l were gliding at my heels. Methinks I should know him! There is something so lofty, so familiar, in his wild, sunburnt features, which makes me tremble. Amelia, too, is not indifferent towards him! Does she not dart eager, languishing looks at the fellow looks of which she is so chary to all the world beside? Did I not see her drop those stealthy tears into the wine, which, behind my back, he quaffed so eagerly that he seemed to swallow the very gla.s.s? Yes, I saw it--I saw it in the mirror with my own eyes. Take care, Francis! Look about you! Some destruction-brooding monster is lurking beneath all this! (He stops, with a searching look, before the portrait of CHARLES.)

His long, crane-like neck--his black, fire-sparkling eyes--hem! hem!-- his dark, overhanging, bushy eyebrows. (Suddenly starting back.) Malicious h.e.l.l! dost thou send me this suspicion? It is Charles! Yes, all his features are reviving before me. It is he! despite his mask!

it is he! Death and d.a.m.nation! (Goes up and down with agitated steps.) Is it for this that I have sacrificed my nights--that I have mowed down mountains and filled up chasms? For this that I have turned rebel against all the instincts of humanity? To have this vagabond outcast blunder in at last, and destroy all my cunningly devised fabric. But gently! gently! What remains to be done is but child's play. Have I not already waded up to my very ears in mortal sin? Seeing how far the sh.o.r.e lies behind me, it would be madness to attempt to swim back. To return is now out of the question. Grace itself would be beggared, and infinite mercy become bankrupt, were they to be responsible for all my liabilities. Then onward like a man. (He rings the bell.) Let him be gathered to the spirit of his father, and now come on! For the dead I care not! Daniel! Ho! Daniel! I'd wager a trifle they have already inveigled him too into the plot against me! He looks so full of mystery!

Enter DANIEL.

DANIEL. What is your pleasure, my master?

FRANCIS. Nothing. Go, fill this goblet with wine, and quickly! (Exit DANIEL.) Wait a little, old man! I shall find you out! I will fix my eye upon you so keenly that your stricken conscience shall betray itself through your mask! He shall die! He is but a sorry bungler who leaves his work half finished, and then looks on idly, trusting to chance for what may come of it.

Enter DANIEL, with the wine.