The Works of Frederick Schiller Part 66

Bring it here! Look me steadfastly in the face! How your knees knock together! How you tremble! Confess, old man! what have you been doing?

DANIEL. Nothing, my honored master, by heaven and my poor soul!

FRANCIS. Drink this wine! What? you hesitate? Out with it quickly!

What have you put into the wine?

DANIEL. Heaven help me! What! I in the wine?

FRANCIS. You have poisoned it! Are you not as white as snow? Confess, confess! Who gave it you? The count? Is it not so? The count gave it you?

DANIEL. The count? Jesu Maria! The count has not given me anything.

FRANCIS (grasping him tight). I will throttle you till you are black in the face, you h.o.a.ry-headed liar! Nothing? Why, then, are you so often closeted together? He, and you, and Amelia? And what are you always whispering about? Out with it! What secrets, eh? What secrets has he confided to you?

DANIEL. I call the Almighty to witness that he has not confided any secrets to me.

FRANCIS. Do you mean to deny it? What schemes have you been hatching to get rid of me? Am I to be smothered in my sleep? or is my throat to be cut in shaving? or am I to be poisoned in wine or chocolate? Eh?

Out with it, out with it! Or am I to have my quietus administered in my soup? Out with it! I know it all!

DANIEL. May heaven so help me in the hour of need as I now tell you the truth, and nothing but the pure, unvarnished truth!

FRANCIS. Well, this time I will forgive you. But the money! he most certainly put money into your purse? And he pressed your hand more warmly than is customary? something in the manner of an old acquaintance?

DANIEL. Never, indeed, Sir.

FRANCIS. He told you, for instance, that he had known you before? that you ought to know him? that the scales would some day fall from your eyes? that--what? Do you mean to say that he never spoke thus to you?

DANIEL. Not a word of the kind.

FRANCIS. That certain circ.u.mstances restrained him--that one must sometimes wear a mask in order to get at one's enemies--that he would be revenged, most terribly revenged?

DANIEL. Not a syllable of all this.

FRANCIS. What? Nothing at all? Recollect yourself. That he knew the old count well--most intimately--that he loved him--loved him exceedingly--loved him like a son!

DANIEL. Something of that sort I remember to have heard him say.

FRANCIS (turning pale). Did he say so? did he really? How? let me hear! He said he was my brother?

DANIEL (astonished). What, my master? He did not say that. But as Lady Amelia was conducting him through the gallery--I was just dusting the picture frames--he suddenly stood still before the portrait of my late master, and seemed thunderstruck. Lady Amelia pointed it out, and said, "An excellent man!" "Yes, a most excellent man!" he replied, wiping a tear from his eye.

FRANCIS. Hark, Daniel! You know I have ever been a kind master to you; I have given you food and raiment, and have spared you labor in consideration of your advanced age.

DANIEL. For which may heaven reward you! and I, on my part, have always served you faithfully.

FRANCIS. That is just what I was going to say. You have never in all your life contradicted me; for you know much too well that you owe me obedience in all things, whatever I may require of you.

DANIEL. In all things with all my heart, so it be not against G.o.d and my conscience.

FRANCIS. Stuff! nonsense! Are you not ashamed of yourself? An old man, and believe that Christmas tale! Go, Daniel! that was a stupid remark. You know that I am your master. It is on me that G.o.d and conscience will be avenged, if, indeed, there be a G.o.d and a conscience.

DANIEL (clasping his hands together). Merciful Heaven!

FRANCIS. By your obedience! Do you understand that word? By your obedience, I command you. With to-morrow's dawn the count must no longer be found among the living.

DANIEL. Merciful Heaven! and wherefore?

FRANCIS. By your blind obedience! I shall rely upon you implicitly.

DANIEL. On me? May the Blessed Virgin have mercy on me! On me? What evil, then, have I, an old man, done!

FRANCIS. There is no time now for reflection; your fate is in my hands.

Would you rather pine away the remainder of your days in the deepest of my dungeons, where hunger shall compel you to gnaw your own bones, and burning thirst make you suck your own blood? Or would you rather eat your bread in peace, and have rest in your old age?

DANIEL. What, my lord! Peace and rest in my old age? And I a murderer?

FRANCIS. Answer my question!

DANIEL. My gray hairs! my gray hairs!

FRANCIS. Yes or no!

DANIEL. No! G.o.d have mercy upon me!

FRANCIS (in the act of going). Very well! you shall have need of it.

(DANIEL detains him and falls on his knees before him.)

DANIEL. Mercy, master! mercy!

FRANCIS. Yes or no!

DANIEL. Most gracious master! I am this day seventy-one years of age!

and have honored my father and my mother, and, to the best of my knowledge, have never in the whole course of my life defrauded any one to the value of a farthing,--and I have adhered to my creed truly and honestly, and have served in your house four-and-forty years, and am now calmly awaiting a quiet, happy end. Oh, master! master! (violently clasping his knees) and would you deprive me of my only solace in death, that the gnawing worm of an evil conscience may cheat me of my last prayer? that I may go to my long home an abomination in the sight of G.o.d and man? No, no! my dearest, best, most excellent, most gracious master! you do not ask that of an old man turned threescore and ten!

FRANCIS. Yes or no! What is the use of all this palaver?

DANIEL. I will serve you from this day forward more diligently than ever; I will wear out my old bones in your service like a common day-laborer; I will rise earlier and lie down later. Oh, and I will remember you in my prayers night and morning; and G.o.d will not reject the prayer of an old man.

FRANCIS. Obedience is better than sacrifice. Did you ever hear of the hangman standing upon ceremony when he was told to execute a sentence?

DANIEL. That is very true? but to murder an innocent man--one--

FRANCIS. Am I responsible to you? Is the axe to question the hangman why he strikes this way and not that? But see how forbearing I am. I offer you a reward for performing what you owe me in virtue of your allegiance.

DANIEL. But, when I swore allegiance to you, I at least hoped that I should be allowed to remain a Christian.

FRANCIS. No contradiction! Look you! I give you the whole day to think about it! Ponder well on it. Happiness or misery. Do you hear-- do you understand? The extreme of happiness or the extreme of misery!

I can do wonders in the way of torture.