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THE ROBBERS.

By Friedrich Schiller

CONTENTS

SCHILLER’S PREFACE.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE ROBBERS.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

THE ROBBERS

ACT I.

SCENE II.—A Tavern on the Frontier of
Saxony.

SCENE III.—MOOR’S Castle.—AMELIA’S
Chamber.

ACT II.

SCENE II.—Old Moor’s Bedchamber.

SCENE III.—THE BOHEMIAN WOODS.

ACT III.

SCENE VIII.

SCENE IX.

SCENE II.—Country near the Danube.

ACT IV.

SCENE II.*—Gallery in the Castle.

SCENE III.—Another Room in the Castle.

SCENE V.

ACT V.

SCENE II.

SCENE VIII.

SCENE IX.

SCHILLER’S PREFACE.

AS PREFIXED TO THE FIRST EDITION OF THE ROBBERS

PUBLISHED IN 1781.

Now first translated into English.

This play is to be regarded merely as a dramatic narrative in which, for
the purpose of tracing out the innermost workings of the soul, advantage
has been taken of the dramatic method, without otherwise conforming to the
stringent rules of theatrical composition, or seeking the dubious
advantage of stage adaptation. It must be admitted as somewhat
inconsistent that three very remarkable people, whose acts are dependent
on perhaps a thousand contingencies, should be completely developed within
three hours, considering that it would scarcely be possible, in the
ordinary course of events, that three such remarkable people should, even
in twenty-four hours, fully reveal their characters to the most
penetrating inquirer. A greater amount of incident is here crowded
together than it was possible for me to confine within the narrow limits
prescribed by Aristotle and Batteux.

It is, however, not so much the bulk of my play as its contents which
banish it from the stage. Its scheme and economy require that several
characters should appear who would offend the finer feelings of virtue and
shock the delicacy of our manners. Every delineator of human character is
placed in the same dilemma if he proposes to give a faithful picture of
the world as it really is, and not an ideal phantasy, a mere creation of
his own. It is the course of mortal things that the good should be
shadowed by the bad, and virtue shine the brightest when contrasted with
vice. Whoever proposes to discourage vice and to vindicate religion,
morality, and social order against their enemies, must unveil crime in all
its deformity, and place it before the eyes of men in its colossal
magnitude; he must diligently explore its dark mazes, and make himself
familiar with sentiments at the wickedness of which his soul revolts.

Vice is here exposed in its innermost workings. In Francis it resolves all
the confused terrors of conscience into wild abstractions, destroys
virtuous sentiments by dissecting them, and holds up the earnest voice of
religion to mockery and scorn. He who has gone so far (a distinction by no
means enviable) as to quicken his understanding at the expense of his soul—to
him the holiest things are no longer holy; to him God and man are alike
indifferent, and both worlds are as nothing. Of such a monster I have
endeavored to sketch a striking and lifelike portrait, to hold up to
abhorrence all the machinery of his scheme of vice, and to test its
strength by contrasting it with truth. How far my narrative is successful
in accomplishing these objects the reader is left to judge. My conviction
is that I have painted nature to the life.

Next to this man (Francis) stands another who would perhaps puzzle not a
few of my readers. A mind for which the greatest crimes have only charms
through the glory which attaches to them, the energy which their
perpetration requires, and the dangers which attend them. A remarkable and
important personage, abundantly endowed with the power of becoming either
a Brutus or a Catiline, according as that power is directed. An unhappy
conjunction of circumstances determines him to choose the latter for, his
example, and it is only after a fearful straying that he is recalled to
emulate the former. Erroneous notions of activity and power, an exuberance
of strength which bursts through all the barriers of law, must of
necessity conflict with the rules of social life. To these enthusiast
dreams of greatness and efficiency it needed but a sarcastic bitterness
against the unpoetic spirit of the age to complete the strange Don Quixote
whom, in the Robber Moor, we at once detest and love, admire and pity. It
is, I hope, unnecessary to remark that I no more hold up this picture as a
warning exclusively to robbers than the greatest Spanish satire was
levelled exclusively at knight-errants.

It is nowadays so much the fashion to be witty at the expense of religion
that a man will hardly pass for a genius if he does not allow his impious
satire to run a tilt at its most sacred truths. The noble simplicity of
holy writ must needs be abused and turned into ridicule at the daily
assemblies of the so-called wits; for what is there so holy and serious
that will not raise a laugh if a false sense be attached to it? Let me
hope that I shall have rendered no inconsiderable service to the cause of
true religion and morality in holding up these wanton misbelievers to the
detestation of society, under the form of the most despicable robbers.

But still more. I have made these said immoral characters to stand out
favorably in particular points, and even in some measure to compensate by
qualities of the head for what they are deficient in those of the heart.
Herein I have done no more than literally copy nature. Every man, even the
most depraved, bears in some degree the impress of the Almighty’s image,
and perhaps the greatest villain is not farther removed from the most
upright man than the petty offender; for the moral forces keep even pace
with the powers of the mind, and the greater the capacity bestowed on man,
the greater and more enormous becomes his misapplication of it; the more
responsible is he for his errors.

The “Adramelech” of Klopstock (in his Messiah) awakens in us a feeling in
which admiration is blended with detestation. We follow Milton’s Satan
with shuddering wonder through the pathless realms of chaos. The Medea of
the old dramatists is, in spite of all her crimes, a great and wondrous
woman, and Shakespeare’s Richard III. is sure to excite the admiration of
the reader, much as he would hate the reality. If it is to be my task to
portray men as they are, I must at the same time include their good
qualities, of which even the most vicious are never totally destitute. If
I would warn mankind against the tiger, I must not omit to describe his
glossy, beautifully-marked skin, lest, owing to this omission, the
ferocious animal should not be recognized till too late. Besides this, a
man who is so utterly depraved as to be without a single redeeming point
is no meet subject for art, and would disgust rather than excite the
interest of the reader; who would turn over with impatience the pages
which concern him. A noble soul can no more endure a succession of moral
discords than the musical ear the grating of knives upon glass.

And for this reason I should have been ill-advised in attempting to bring
my drama on the stage. A certain strength of mind is required both on the
part of the poet and the reader; in the former that he may not disguise
vice, in the latter that he may not suffer brilliant qualities to beguile
him into admiration of what is essentially detestable. Whether the author
has fulfilled his duty he leaves others to judge, that his readers will
perform theirs he by no means feels assured. The vulgar—among whom I
would not be understood to mean merely the rabble—the vulgar I say
(between ourselves) extend their influence far around, and unfortunately—set
the fashion. Too shortsighted to reach my full meaning, too narrow-minded
to comprehend the largeness of my views, too disingenuous to admit my
moral aim—they will, I fear, almost frustrate my good intentions,
and pretend to discover in my work an apology for the very vice which it
has been my object to condemn, and will perhaps make the poor poet, to
whom anything rather than justice is usually accorded, responsible for his
simplicity.

Thus we have a Da capo of the old story of Democritus and the
Abderitans, and our worthy Hippocrates would needs exhaust whole
plantations of hellebore, were it proposed to remedy this mischief by a
healing decoction.

Let as many friends of truth as you will, instruct their fellow-citizens
in the pulpit and on the stage, the vulgar will never cease to be vulgar,
though the sun and moon may change their course, and “heaven and earth wax
old as a garment.” Perhaps, in order to please tender-hearted people, I
might have been less true to nature; but if a certain beetle, of whom we
have all heard, could extract filth even from pearls, if we have examples
that fire has destroyed and water deluged, shall therefore pearls, fire,
and water be condemned. In consequence of the remarkable catastrophe which
ends my play, I may justly claim for it a place among books of morality,
for crime meets at last with the punishment it deserves; the lost one
enters again within the pale of the law, and virtue is triumphant. Whoever
will but be courteous enough towards me to read my work through with a
desire to understand it, from him I may expect—not that he will
admire the poet, but that he will esteem the honest man.
SCHILLER.
EASTER FAIR, 1781.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE ROBBERS.

AS COMMUNICATED BY SCHILLER TO DALBERG IN 1781, AND SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN
USED AS A PROLOGUE.

—This has never before been printed with any of the editions.—

The picture of a great, misguided soul, endowed with every gift of
excellence; yet lost in spite of all its gifts! Unbridled passions and bad
companionship corrupt his heart, urge him on from crime to crime, until at
last he stands at the head of a band of murderers, heaps horror upon
horror, and plunges from precipice to precipice into the lowest depths of
despair. Great and majestic in misfortune, by misfortune reclaimed, and
led back to the paths of virtue. Such a man shall you pity and hate, abhor
yet love, in the Robber Moor. You will likewise see a juggling, fiendish
knave unmasked and blown to atoms in his own mines; a fond, weak, and
over-indulgent father; the sorrows of too enthusiastic love, and the
tortures of ungoverned passion. Here, too, you will witness, not without a
shudder, the interior economy of vice; and from the stage be taught how
all the tinsel of fortune fails to smother the inward worm; and how
terror, anguish, remorse, and despair tread close on the footsteps of
guilt. Let the spectator weep to-day at our exhibition, and tremble, and
learn to bend his passions to the laws of religion and reason; let the
youth behold with alarm the consequences of unbridled excess; nor let the
man depart without imbibing the lesson that the invisible hand of
Providence makes even villains the instruments of its designs and
judgments, and can marvellously unravel the most intricate perplexities of
fate.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

The eight hundred copies of the first edition of my ROBBERS were exhausted
before all the admirers of the piece were supplied. A second was therefore
undertaken, which has been improved by greater care in printing, and by
the omission of those equivocal sentences which were offensive to the more
fastidious part of the public. Such an alteration, however, in the
construction of the play as should satisfy all the wishes of my friends
and critics has not been my object.

In this second edition the several songs have been arranged for the
pianoforte, which will enhance its value to the musical part of the
public. I am indebted for this to an able composer,* who has performed his
task in so masterly a manner that the hearer is not unlikely to forget the
poet in the melody of the musician.

STUTTGART, Jan. 5, 1782.

* Alluding to his friend Zumsteeg.—ED.

THE ROBBERS.

A TRAGEDY.

THE ROBBERS

ACT I.

SCENE I.—Franconia.

Apartment in the Castle of COUNT MOOR.

FRANCIS, OLD MOOR.

FRANCIS. But are you really well, father? You look so pale.

OLD MOOR. Quite well, my son—what have you to tell me?

FRANCIS. The post is arrived—a letter from our correspondent at
Leipsic.

OLD M. (eagerly). Any tidings of my son Charles?

FRANCIS. Hem! Hem!—Why, yes. But I fear—I know not—whether
I dare —your health.—Are you really quite well, father?

OLD M. As a fish in water.* Does he write of my son? What means this
anxiety about my health? You have asked me that question twice.

FRANCIS. If you are unwell—or are the least apprehensive of being so—
permit me to defer—I will speak to you at a fitter season.—(Half
aside.) These are no tidings for a feeble frame.

OLD M. Gracious Heavens? what am I doomed to hear?

FRANCIS. First let me retire and shed a tear of compassion for my lost
brother. Would that my lips might be forever sealed—for he is your
son! Would that I could throw an eternal veil over his shame—for he
is my brother! But to obey you is my first, though painful, duty—forgive
me, therefore.

OLD M. Oh, Charles! Charles! Didst thou but know what thorns thou plantest
in thy father’s bosom! That one gladdening report of thee would add ten
years to my life! yes, bring back my youth! whilst now, alas, each fresh
intelligence but hurries me a step nearer to the grave!

FRANCIS. Is it so, old man, then farewell! for even this very day we might
all have to tear our hair over your coffin.*

OLD M. Stay! There remains but one short step more—let him have his
will! (He sits down.) The sins of the father shall be visited unto the
third and fourth generation—let him fulfil the decree.

FRANCIS (takes the letter out of his pocket). You know our correspondent!
See! I would give a finger of my right hand might I pronounce him a liar—a
base and slanderous liar! Compose yourself! Forgive me if I do not let you
read the letter yourself. You cannot, must not, yet know all.

OLD M. All, all, my son. You will but spare me crutches.*

FRANCIS (reads). “Leipsic, May 1. Were I not bound by an inviolable
promise to conceal nothing from you, not even the smallest particular,
that I am able to collect, respecting your brother’s career, never, my
dearest friend, should my guiltless pen become an instrument of torture to
you. I can gather from a hundred of your letters how tidings such as these
must pierce your fraternal heart. It seems to me as though I saw thee, for
the sake of this worthless, this detestable”—(OLD M. covers his
face). Oh! my father, I am only reading you the mildest passages—
“this detestable man, shedding a thousand tears.” Alas! mine flowed—ay,
gushed in torrents over these pitying cheeks. “I already picture to myself
your aged pious father, pale as death.” Good Heavens! and so you are,
before you have heard anything.

OLD M. Go on! Go on!

FRANCIS. “Pale as death, sinking down on his chair, and cursing the day
when his ear was first greeted with the lisping cry of ‘Father!’ I have
not yet been able to discover all, and of the little I do know I dare tell
you only a part. Your brother now seems to have filled up the measure of
his infamy. I, at least, can imagine nothing beyond what he has already
accomplished; but possibly his genius may soar above my conceptions. After
having contracted debts to the amount of forty thousand ducats,”—a
good round sum for pocket-money, father–“and having dishonored the
daughter of a rich banker, whose affianced lover, a gallant youth of rank,
he mortally wounded in a duel, he yesterday, in the dead of night, took
the desperate resolution of absconding from the arm of justice, with seven
companions whom he had corrupted to his own vicious courses.” Father? for
heaven’s sake, father! How do you feel?

OLD M. Enough. No more, my son, no more!

FRANCIS. I will spare your feelings. “The injured cry aloud for
satisfaction. Warrants have been issued for his apprehension—a price
is set on his head—the name of Moor”—No, these unhappy lips
shall not be guilty of a father’s murder (he tears the letter). Believe it
not, my father, believe not a syllable.

OLD M. (weeps bitterly). My name—my unsullied name!

FRANCIS (throws himself on his neck). Infamous! most infamous Charles! Oh,
had I not my forebodings, when, even as a boy, he would scamper after the
girls, and ramble about over hill and common with ragamuffin boys and all
the vilest rabble; when he shunned the very sight of a church as a
malefactor shuns a gaol, and would throw the pence he had wrung from your
bounty into the hat of the first beggar he met, whilst we at home were
edifying ourselves with devout prayers and pious homilies? Had I not my
misgivings when he gave himself up to reading the adventures of Julius
Caesar, Alexander the Great, and other benighted heathens, in preference
to the history of the penitent Tobias? A hundred times over have I warned
you—for my brotherly affection was ever kept in subjection to filial
duty—that this forward youth would one day bring sorrow and disgrace
on us all. Oh that he bore not the name of Moor! that my heart beat less
warmly for him! This sinful affection, which I can not overcome, will one
day rise up against me before the judgment-seat of heaven.

OLD M. Oh! my prospects! my golden dreams!

FRANCIS. Ay, well I knew it. Exactly what I always feared. That fiery
spirit, you used to say, which is kindling in the boy, and renders him so
susceptible to impressions of the beautiful and grand—the
ingenuousness which reveals his whole soul in his eyes—the
tenderness of feeling which melts him into weeping sympathy at every tale
of sorrow—the manly courage which impels him to the summit of giant
oaks, and urges him over fosse and palisade and foaming torrents—that
youthful thirst of honor—that unconquerable resolution—all
those resplendent virtues which in the father’s darling gave such promise—
would ripen into the warm and sincere friend—the excellent citizen—the
hero—the great, the very great man! Now, mark the result, father;
the fiery spirit has developed itself—expanded—and behold its
precious fruits. Observe this ingenuousness—how nicely it has
changed into effrontery;—this tenderness of soul—how it
displays itself in dalliance with coquettes, in susceptibility to the
blandishments of a courtesan! See this fiery genius, how in six short
years it hath burnt out the oil of life, and reduced his body to a living
skeleton; so that passing scoffers point at him with a sneer and exclaim—”C’est
l’amour qui a fait cela.” Behold this bold, enterprising spirit—how
it conceives and executes plans, compared to which the deeds of a
Cartouche or a Howard sink into insignificance. And presently, when these
precious germs of excellence shall ripen into full maturity, what may not
be expected from the full development of such a boyhood? Perhaps, father,
you may yet live to see him at the head of some gallant band, which
assembles in the silent sanctuary of the forest, and kindly relieves the
weary traveller of his superfluous burden. Perhaps you may yet have the
opportunity, before you go to your own tomb, of making a pilgrimage to the
monument which he may erect for himself, somewhere between earth and
heaven! Perhaps,—oh, father—father, look out for some other
name, or the very peddlers and street boys who have seen the effigy of
your worthy son exhibited in the market-place at Leipsic will point at you
with the finger of scorn!

OLD M. And thou, too, my Francis, thou too? Oh, my children, how
unerringly your shafts are levelled at my heart.

FRANCIS. You see that I too have a spirit; but my spirit bears the sting
of a scorpion. And then it was “the dry commonplace, the cold, the wooden
Francis,” and all the pretty little epithets which the contrast between us
suggested to your fatherly affection, when he was sitting on your knee, or
playfully patting your cheeks? “He would die, forsooth, within the
boundaries of his own domain, moulder away, and soon be forgotten;” while
the fame of this universal genius would spread from pole to pole! Ah! the
cold, dull, wooden Francis thanks thee, heaven, with uplifted hands, that
he bears no resemblance to his brother.

OLD M. Forgive me, my child! Reproach not thy unhappy father, whose
fondest hopes have proved visionary. The merciful God who, through
Charles, has sent these tears, will, through thee, my Francis, wipe them
from my eyes!

FRANCIS. Yes, father, we will wipe them from your eyes. Your Francis will
devote—his life to prolong yours. (Taking his hand with affected
tenderness.) Your life is the oracle which I will especially consult on
every undertaking—the mirror in which I will contemplate everything.
No duty so sacred but I am ready to violate it for the preservation of
your precious days. You believe me?

OLD M. Great are the duties which devolve on thee, my son—Heaven
bless thee for what thou has been, and wilt be to me.

FRANCIS. Now tell me frankly, father. Should you not be a happy man, were
you not obliged to call this son your own?

OLD M. In mercy, spare me! When the nurse first placed him in my arms, I
held him up to Heaven and exclaimed, “Am I not truly blest?”

FRANCIS. So you said then. Now, have you found it so? You may envy the
meanest peasant on your estate in this, that he is not the father of such
a son. So long as you call him yours you are wretched. Your misery will
grow with his years—it will lay you in your grave.

OLD M. Oh! he has already reduced me to the decrepitude of fourscore.

FRANCIS. Well, then—suppose you were to disown this son.

OLD M. (startled). Francis! Francis! what hast thou said!

FRANCIS. Is not your love for him the source of all your grief? Root out
this love, and he concerns you no longer. But for this weak and
reprehensible affection he would be dead to you;—as though he had
never been born. It is not flesh and blood, it is the heart that makes us
sons and fathers! Love him no more, and this monster ceases to be your
son, though he were cut out of your flesh. He has till now been the apple
of your eye; but if thine eye offend you, says Scripture, pluck it out. It
is better to enter heaven with one eye than hell with two! “It is
profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that
thy whole body should be cast into hell.” These are the words of the
Bible!

OLD M. Wouldst thou have me curse my son?

FRANCIS. By no means, father. God forbid! But whom do you call your son?
Him to whom you have given life, and who in return does his utmost to
shorten yours.

OLD M. Oh, it is all too true! it is a judgment upon me. The Lord has
chosen him as his instrument.

FRANCIS. See how filially your bosom child behaves. He destroys you by
your own excess of paternal sympathy; murders you by means of the very
love you bear him—has coiled round a father’s heart to crush it.
When you are laid beneath the turf he becomes lord of your possessions,
and master of his own will. That barrier removed, and the torrent of his
profligacy will rush on without control. Imagine yourself in his place.
How often he must wish his father under ground—and how often, too,
his brother—who so unmercifully impede the free course of his
excesses. But call you this a requital of love? Is this filial gratitude
for a father’s tenderness? to sacrifice ten years of your life to the lewd
pleasures of an hour? in one voluptuous moment to stake the honor of an
ancestry which has stood unspotted through seven centuries? Do you call
this a son? Answer? Do you call this your son?

OLD M. An undutiful son! Alas! but still my child! my child!

FRANCIS. A most amiable and precious child—whose constant study is
to get rid of his father. Oh, that you could learn to see clearly! that
the film might be removed from your eyes! But your indulgence must confirm
him in his vices! your assistance tend to justify them. Doubtless you will
avert the curse of Heaven from his head, but on your own, father—on
yours—will it fall with twofold vengeance.

OLD M. Just! most just! Mine, mine be all the guilt!

FRANCIS. How many thousands who have drained the voluptuous bowl of
pleasure to the dregs have been reclaimed by suffering! And is not the
bodily pain which follows every excess a manifest declaration of the
divine will! And shall man dare to thwart this by an impious exercise of
affection? Shall a father ruin forever the pledge committed to his charge?
Consider, father, if you abandon him for a time to the pressure of want
will not he be obliged to turn from his wickedness and repent? Otherwise,
untaught even in the great school of adversity, he must remain a confirmed
reprobate? And then—woe to the father who by a culpable tenderness
bath frustrated the ordinances of a higher wisdom! Well, father?

OLD M. I will write to him that I withdraw my protection.

FRANCIS. That would be wise and prudent.

OLD M. That he must never come into my sight again

FRANCIS. ‘Twill have a most salutary effect.

OLD M. (tenderly). Until he reforms.

FRANCIS. Right, quite right. But suppose that he comes disguised in the
hypocrite’s mask, implores your compassion with tears, and wheedles from
you a pardon, then quits you again on the morrow, and jests at your
weakness in the arms of his harlot. No, my father! He will return of his
own accord, when his conscience awakens him to repentance.

OLD M. I will write to him, on the spot, to that effect.

FRANCIS. Stop, father, one word more. Your just indignation might prompt
reproaches too severe, words which might break his heart—and then—do
you not think that your deigning to write with your own hand might be
construed into an act of forgiveness? It would be better, I think, that
you should commit the task to me?

OLD M. Do it, my son. Ah! it would, indeed, have broken my heart! Write to
him that—

FRANCIS (quickly). That’s agreed, then?

OLD M. Say that he has caused me a thousand bitter tears—a thousand
sleepless nights—but, oh! do not drive my son to despair!

FRANCIS. Had you not better retire to rest, father? This affects you too
strongly.

OLD M. Write to him that a father’s heart—But I charge you, drive
him not to despair. [Exit in sadness.]

FRANCIS (looking after him with a chuckle). Make thyself easy, old dotard!
thou wilt never more press thy darling to thy bosom—there is a gulf
between thee and him impassable as heaven is from hell. He was torn from
thy arms before even thou couldst have dreamed it possible to decree the
separation. Why, what a sorry bungler should I be had I not skill enough
to pluck a son from a father’s heart; ay, though he were riveted there
with hooks of steel! I have drawn around thee a magic circle of curses
which he cannot overleap. Good speed to thee, Master Francis. Papa’s
darling is disposed of—the course is clear. I must carefully pick up
all the scraps of paper, for how easily might my handwriting be
recognized. (He gathers the fragments of the letter.) And grief will soon
make an end of the old gentleman. And as for her— I must tear this
Charles from her heart, though half her life come with him.

No small cause have I for being dissatisfied with Dame Nature, and, by my
honor, I will have amends! Why did I not crawl the first from my mother’s
womb? why not the only one? why has she heaped on me this burden of
deformity? on me especially? Just as if she had spawned me from her
refuse.* Why to me in particular this snub of the Laplander? these negro
lips? these Hottentot eyes? On my word, the lady seems to have collected
from all the race of mankind whatever was loathsome into a heap, and
kneaded the mass into my particular person. Death and destruction! who
empowered her to deny to me what she accorded to him? Could a man pay his
court to her before he was born? or offend her before he existed? Why went
she to work in such a partial spirit?

No! no! I do her injustice—she bestowed inventive faculty, and set
us naked and helpless on the shore of this great ocean, the world—let
those swim who can—the heavy** may sink. To me she gave naught else,
and how to make the best use of my endowment is my present business. Men’s
natural rights are equal; claim is met by claim, effort by effort, and
force by force—right is with the strongest—the limits of our
power constitute our laws.

It is true there are certain organized conventions, which men have devised
to keep up what is called the social compact. Honor! truly a very
convenient coin, which those who know how to pass it may lay out with
great advantage.*** Conscience! oh yes, a useful scarecrow to frighten
sparrows away from cherry-trees; it is something like a fairly written
bill of exchange with which your bankrupt merchant staves off the evil
day.

Well! these are all most admirable institutions for keeping fools in awe,
and holding the mob underfoot, that the cunning may live the more at their
ease. Rare institutions, doubtless. They are something like the fences my
boors plant so closely to keep out the hares—yes I’ faith, not a
hare can trespass on the enclosure, but my lord claps spurs to his hunter,
and away he gallops over the teeming harvest!

Poor hare! thou playest but a sorry part in this world’s drama, but your
worshipful lords must needs have hares!

Then courage, and onward, Francis. The man who fears nothing is as
powerful as he who is feared by everybody. It is now the mode to wear
buckles on your smallclothes, that you may loosen or tighten them at
pleasure. I will be measured for a conscience after the newest fashion,
one that will stretch handsomely as occasion may require. Am I to blame?
It is the tailor’s affair? I have heard a great deal of twaddle about the
so-called ties of blood—enough to make a sober man beside himself.
He is your brother, they say; which interpreted, means that he was
manufactured in the same mould, and for that reason he must needs be
sacred in your eyes! To what absurd conclusions must this notion of a
sympathy of souls, derived from the propinquity of bodies, inevitably
tend? A common source of being is to produce community of sentiment;
identity of matter, identity of impulse! Then again,—he is thy
father! He gave thee life, thou art his flesh and blood—and
therefore he must be sacred to thee! Again a most inconsequential
deduction! I should like to know why he begot me;** certainly not out of
love for me—for I must first have existed!

Could he know me before I had being, or did he think of me during my
begetting? or did he wish for me at the moment? Did he know what I should
be? If so I would not advise him to acknowledge it or I should pay him off
for his feat. Am I to be thankful to him that I am a man? As little as I
should have had a right to blame him if he had made me a woman. Can I
acknowledge an affection which is not based on any personal regard? Could
personal regard be present before the existence of its object? In what,
then, consists the sacredness of paternity? Is it in the act itself out of
which existence arose? as though this were aught else than an animal
process to appease animal desires. Or does it lie, perhaps, in the result
of this act, which is nothing more after all than one of iron necessity,
and which men would gladly dispense with, were it not at the cost of flesh
and blood? Do I then owe him thanks for his affection? Why, what is it but
a piece of vanity, the besetting sin of the artist who admires his own
works, however hideous they may be? Look you, this is the whole juggle,
wrapped up in a mystic veil to work on our fears. And shall I, too, be
fooled like an infant? Up then! and to thy work manfully. I will root up
from my path whatever obstructs my progress towards becoming the master.
Master I must be, that I may extort by force what I cannot win by
affection.*

[Exit.]

SCENE II.—A Tavern on the Frontier of Saxony.

CHARLES VON M. (lays the book aside). I am disgusted with this age of puny
scribblers when I read of great men in my Plutarch.

SPIEGEL. (places a glass before him, and drinks). Josephus is the book you
should read.

CHARLES VON M. The glowing spark of Prometheus is burnt out, and now they
substitute for it the flash of lycopodium,* a stage-fire which will not so
much as light a pipe. The present generation may be compared to rats
crawling about the club of Hercules.**

A French abbe lays it down that Alexander was a poltroon; a phthisicky
professor, holding at every word a bottle of sal volatile to his nose,
lectures on strength. Fellows who faint at the veriest trifle criticise
the tactics of Hannibal; whimpering boys store themselves with phrases out
of the slaughter at Canna; and blubber over the victories of Scipio,
because they are obliged to construe them.

SPIEGEL. Spouted in true Alexandrian style.

CHARLES VON M. A brilliant reward for your sweat in the battle-field truly
to have your existence perpetuated in gymnasiums, and your immortality
laboriously dragged about in a schoolboy’s satchel. A precious recompense
for your lavished blood to be wrapped round gingerbread by some Nuremberg
chandler, or, if you have great luck, to be screwed upon stilts by a
French playwright, and be made to move on wires! Ha, ha, ha!

SPIEGEL. (drinks). Read Josephus, I tell you.

CHARLES VON M. Fie! fie upon this weak, effeminate age, fit for nothing
but to ponder over the deeds of former times, and torture the heroes of
antiquity with commentaries, or mangle them in tragedies. The vigor of its
loins is dried up, and the propagation of the human species has become
dependent on potations of malt liquor.

SPIEGEL. Tea, brother! tea!

CHARLES VON M. They curb honest nature with absurd conventionalities; have
scarcely the heart to charge a glass, because they are tasked to drink a
health in it; fawn upon the lackey that he may put in a word for them with
His Grace, and bully the unfortunate wight from whom they have nothing to
fear. They worship any one for a dinner, and are just as ready to poison
him should he chance to outbid them for a feather-bed at an auction. They
damn the Sadducee who fails to come regularly to church, although their
own devotion consists in reckoning up their usurious gains at the very
altar. They cast themselves on their knees that they may have an
opportunity of displaying their mantles, and hardly take their eyes off
the parson from their anxiety to see how his wig is frizzled. They swoon
at the sight of a bleeding goose, yet clap their hands with joy when they
see their rival driven bankrupt from the Exchange. Warmly as I pressed
their hands,—”Only one more day.” In vain! To prison with the dog!
Entreaties! Vows! Tears! (stamping the ground). Hell and the devil!

SPIEGEL. And all for a few thousand paltry ducats!

CHARLES VON M. No, I hate to think of it. Am I to squeeze my body into
stays, and straight-lace my will in the trammels of law. What might have
risen to an eagle’s flight has been reduced to a snail’s pace by law.
Never yet has law formed a great man; ’tis liberty that breeds giants and
heroes. Oh! that the spirit of Herman* still glowed in his ashes!

Set me at the head of an army of fellows like myself, and out of Germany
shall spring a republic compared to which Rome and Sparta will be but as
nunneries. (Rises and flings his sword upon the table.)

SPIEGEL. (jumping up). Bravo! Bravissimo! you are coming to the right key
now. I have something for your ear, Moor, which has long been on my mind,
and you are the very man for it—drink, brother, drink! What if we
turned Jews and brought the kingdom of Jerusalem again on the tapis? But
tell me is it not a clever scheme? We send forth a manifesto to the four
quarters of the world, and summon to Palestine all that do not eat
Swineflesh. Then I prove by incontestable documents that Herod the
Tetrarch was my direct ancestor, and so forth. There will be a victory, my
fine fellow, when they return and are restored to their lands, and are
able to rebuild Jerusalem. Then make a clean sweep of the Turks out of
Asia while the iron is hot, hew cedars in Lebanon, build ships, and then
the whole nation shall chaffer with old clothes and old lace throughout
the world. Meanwhile—

CHARLES VON M. (smiles and takes him by the hand). Comrade! There must be
an end now of our fooleries.

SPIEGEL. (with surprise). Fie! you are not going to play the prodigal son!—a
fellow like you who with his sword has scratched more hieroglyhics on
other men’s faces than three quill-drivers could inscribe in their
daybooks in a leap-year! Shall I tell you the story of the great dog
funeral? Ha! I must just bring back your own picture to your mind; that
will kindle fire in your veins, if nothing else has power to inspire you.
Do you remember how the heads of the college caused your dog’s leg to be
shot off, and you, by way of revenge, proclaimed a fast through the whole
town? They fumed and fretted at your edict. But you, without losing time,
ordered all the meat to be bought up in Leipsic, so that in the course of
eight hours there was not a bone left to pick all over the place, and even
fish began to rise in price. The magistrates and the town council vowed
vengeance. But we students turned out lustily, seventeen hundred of us,
with you at our head, and butchers and tailors and haberdashers at our
backs, besides publicans, barbers, and rabble of all sorts, swearing that
the town should be sacked if a single hair of a student’s head was
injured. And so the affair went off like the shooting at Hornberg,* and
they were obliged to be off with their tails between their legs.

You sent for doctors—a whole posse of them—and offered three
ducats to any one who would write a prescription for your dog. We were
afraid the gentlemen would stand too much upon honor and refuse, and had
already made up our minds to use force. But this was quite unnecessary;
the doctors got to fisticuffs for the three ducats, and their competition
brought down the price to three groats; in the course of an hour a dozen
prescriptions were written, of which, of course, the poor beast very soon
died.

CHARLES VON M. The vile rascals.

SPIEGEL. The funeral procession was arranged with all due pomp; odes for
the dog were indited by the gross; and at night we all turned out, near a
thousand of us, a lantern in one hand and our rapier in the other, and so
proceeded through the town, the bells chiming and ringing, till the dog
was entombed. Then came a feed which lasted till broad daylight, when you
sent your acknowledgments to the college dons for their kind sympathy, and
ordered the meat to be sold at half-price. Mort de ma vie, if we
had not as great a respect for you as a garrison for the conqueror of a
fortress.

CHARLES VON M. And are you not ashamed to boast of these things? Have you
not shame enough in you to blush even at the recollection of such pranks?

SPIEGEL. Come, come! You are no longer the same Moor. Do you remember how,
a thousand times, bottle in hand, you made game of the miserly old
governor, bidding him by all means rake and scrape together as much as he
could, for that you would swill it all down your throat? Don’t you
remember, eh?—don’t you remember?’ O you good-for-nothing, miserable
braggart! that was speaking like a man, and a gentleman, but—

CHARLES VON M. A curse on you for reminding me of it! A curse on myself
for what I said! But it was done in the fumes of wine, and my heart knew
not what my tongue uttered.

SPIEGEL. (shakes his head). No, no! that cannot be! Impossible, brother!
You are not in earnest! Tell me! most sweet brother, is it not poverty
which has brought you to this mood? Come! let me tell you a little story
of my youthful days. There was a ditch close to my house, eight feet wide
at the least, which we boys were trying to leap over for a wager. But it
was no go. Splash! there you lay sprawling, amidst hisses and roars of
laughter, and a relentless shower of snowballs. By the side of my house a
hunter’s dog was lying chained, a savage beast, which would catch the
girls by their petticoats with the quickness of lightning if they
incautiously passed too near him. Now it was my greatest delight to tease
this brute in every possible way; and it was enough to make one burst with
laughing to see the beast fix his eyes on me with such fierceness that he
seemed ready to tear me to pieces if he could but get at me. Well, what
happened? Once, when I was amusing myself in this manner, I hit him such a
bang in the ribs with a stone that in his fury he broke loose and ran
right upon me. I tore away like lightning, but—devil take it!—that
confounded ditch lay right in my way. What was to be done? The dog was
close at my heels and quite furious; there was no time to deliberate. I
took a spring and cleared the ditch. To that leap I was indebted for life
and limb; the beast would have torn me to atoms.

CHARLES VON M. And to what does all this tend?

SPIEGEL. To this—that you may be taught that strength grows with the
occasion. For which reason I never despair even when things are the worst.
Courage grows with danger. Powers of resistance increase by pressure. It
is evident by the obstacles she strews in my path that fate must have
designed me for a great man.

CHARLES VON M. (angrily). I am not aware of anything for which we still
require courage, and have not already shown it.

SPIEGEL. Indeed! And so you mean to let your gifts go to waste? To bury
your talent? Do you think your paltry achievements at Leipsic amount to
the ne plus ultra of genius? Let us but once get to the great world—Paris
and London! where you get your ears boxed if you salute a man as honest.
It is a real jubilee to practise one’s handicraft there on a grand scale.
How you will stare! How you will open your eyes! to see signatures forged;
dice loaded; locks picked, and strong boxes gutted; all that you shall
learn of Spiegelberg! The rascal deserves to be hanged on the first
gallows that would rather starve than manipulate with his fingers.

CHARLES VON M. (in a fit of absence). How now? I should not wonder if your
proficiency went further still.

SPIEGEL. I begin to think you mistrust me. Only wait till I have grown
warm at it; you shall see wonders; your little brain shall whirl clean
round in your pericranium when my teeming wit is delivered. (He rises
excited.) How it clears up within me! Great thoughts are dawning in on my
soul! Gigantic plans are fermenting in my creative brain. Cursed lethargy
(striking his forehead), which has hitherto enchained my faculties,
cramped and fettered my prospects! I awake; I feel what I am—and
what I am to be!

CHARLES VON M. You are a fool! The wine is swaggering in your brain.

SPIEGEL. (more excited). Spiegelberg, they will say, art thou a magician,
Spiegelberg? ‘Tis a pity, the king will say, that thou wert not made a
general, Spiegelberg, thou wouldst have thrust the Austrians through a
buttonhole. Yes, I hear the doctors lamenting, ’tis a crying shame that he
was not bred to medicine, he would have discovered the elixir vitae.
Ay, and that he did not take to financiering, the Sullys will deplore in
their cabinets,—he would have turned flints into louis-d’ors by his
magic. And Spiegelberg will be the word from east to west; then down into
the dirt with you, ye cowards, ye reptiles, while Spiegelberg soars with
outspread wings to the temple of everlasting fame.

CHARLES VON M. A pleasant journey to you! I leave you to climb to the
summit of glory on the pillars of infamy. In the shade of my ancestral
groves, in the arms of my Amelia, a nobler joy awaits me. I have already,
last week, written to my father to implore his forgiveness, and have not
concealed the least circumstance from him; and where there is sincerity
there is compassion and help. Let us take leave of each other, Moritz.
After this day we shall meet no more. The post has arrived. My father’s
forgiveness must already be within the walls of this town.

ROLLER. Are you aware that they are on our track!

GRIMM. That we are not for a moment safe from being taken?

CHARLES VON M. I don’t wonder at it. It must be as it will! Have none of
you seen Schwarz? Did he say anything about having a letter for me?

ROLLER. He has been long in search of you on some such errand, I suspect.

CHARLES VON M. Where is he? where, where? (is about to rush off in haste).

ROLLER. Stay! we have appointed him to come here. You tremble?

CHARLES VON M. I do not tremble. Why should I tremble? Comrades, this
letter—rejoice with me! I am the happiest man under the sun; why
should I tremble?

CHARLES VON M. (rushes towards him). Brother, brother! the letter, the
letter!

SCHW. (gives him a letter, which he opens hastily). What’s the matter? You
have grown as pale as a whitewashed wall!

CHARLES VON M. My brother’s hand!

SCHW. What the deuce is Spiegelberg about there?

GRIMM. The fellow’s mad. He jumps about as if he had St. Vitus’ dance.

SCHUF. His wits are gone a wool gathering! He’s making verses, I’ll be
sworn!

RAZ. Spiegelberg! Ho! Spiegelberg! The brute does not hear.

GRIMM. (shakes him). Hallo! fellow! are you dreaming? or—

SPIEGEL. (who has all this time been making gestures in a corner of the
room, as if working out some great project, jumps up wildly). Your money
or your life! (He catches SCHWEITZER by the throat, who very coolly flings
him against the wall; Moor drops the letter and rushes out. A general
sensation.)

ROLLER. (calling after him). Moor! where are you going? What’s the matter?

GRIMM. What ails him? What has he been doing? He is as pale as death.

SCHW. He must have got strange news. Just let us see!

ROLLER. (picks up the letter from the ground, and reads). “Unfortunate
brother!”—a pleasant beginning—”I have only briefly to inform
you that you have nothing more to hope for. You may go, your father
directs me to tell you, wherever your own vicious propensities lead. Nor
are you to entertain, he says, any hope of ever gaining pardon by weeping
at his feet, unless you are prepared to fare upon bread and water in the
lowest dungeon of his castle until your hair shall outgrow eagles’
feathers, and your nails the talons of a vulture. These are his very
words. He commands me to close the letter. Farewell forever! I pity you.

SCHW. A most amiable and loving brother, in good truth! And the
scoundrel’s name is Francis.

SPIEGEL. (slinking forward). Bread and water! Is that it? A temperate
diet! But I have made a better provision for you. Did I not say that I
should have to think for you all at last?

SCHWEIT. What does the blockhead say! The jackass is going to think for us
all!

SPIEGEL. Cowards, cripples, lame dogs are ye all if you have not courage
enough to venture upon something great.

ROLLER. Well, of course, so we should be, you are right; but will your
proposed scheme get us out of this devil of a scrape? eh?

SPIEGEL. (with a proud laugh). Poor thing! Get us out of this scrape? Ha,
ha, ha! Get us out of the scrape!—and is that all your thimbleful of
brain can reach? And with that you trot your mare back to the stable?
Spiegelberg would have been a miserable bungler indeed if that were the
extent of his aim. Heroes, I tell you, barons, princes, gods, it will make
of you.

RAZ. That’s pretty well for one bout, truly! But no doubt it is some
neck-breaking piece of business; it will cost a head or so at the least.

SPIEGEL. It wants nothing but courage; as to the headwork, I take that
entirely upon myself. Courage, I say, Schweitzer! Courage, Roller! Grimm!
Razman! Schufterle! Courage!

SCHW. Courage! If that is all, I have courage enough to walk through hell
barefoot.

SCHUFT. And I courage enough to fight the very devil himself under the
open gallows for the rescue of any poor sinner.

SPIEGEL. That’s just what it should be! If ye have courage, let any one of
you step forward and say he has still something to lose, and not
everything to gain?

SCHW. Verily, I should have a good deal to lose, if I were to lose all
that I have yet to win!

PAZ. Yes, by Jove! and I much to win, if I could win all that I have not
got to lose.

SCHUFT. Were I to lose what I carry on my back on trust I should at any
rate have nothing to lose on the morrow.

SPIEGEL. Very well then! (He takes his place in the middle of them, and
says in solemn adjuration)—if but a drop of the heroic blood of the
ancient Germans still flow in your veins—come! We will fix our abode
in the Bohemian forests, draw together a band of robbers, and—What
are you gaping at? Has your slender stock of courage oozed out already?

ROLLER. You are not the first rogue by many that has defied the gallows;—and
yet what other choice have we?

SPIEGEL. Choice? You have no choice. Do you want to lie rotting in the
debtor’s jail and beat hemp till you are bailed by the last trumpet? Would
you toil with pick-axe and spade for a morsel of dry bread? or earn a
pitiful alms by singing doleful ditties under people’s windows? Or will
you be sworn at the drumhead—and then comes the question, whether
anybody would trust your hang-dog visages—and so under the splenetic
humor of some despotic sergeant serve your time of purgatory in advance?
Would you like to run the gauntlet to the beat of the drum? or be doomed
to drag after you, like a galley-slave, the whole iron store of Vulcan?
Behold your choice. You have before you the complete catalogue of all that
you may choose from!

ROLLER. Spiegelberg is not altogether wrong! I, too, have been concocting
plans, but they come much to the same thing. How would it be, thought I,
were we to club our wits together, and dish up a pocketbook, or an
almanac, or something of that sort, and write reviews at a penny a line,
as is now the fashion?

SCHUFT. The devil’s in you! you are pretty nearly hitting on my own
schemes. I have been thinking to myself how would it answer were I to turn
Methodist, and hold weekly prayer-meetings?

GRIMM. Capital! and, if that fails, turn atheist! We might fall foul of
the four Gospels, get our book burned by the hangman, and then it would
sell at a prodigious rate.

RAZ. Or we might take the field to cure a fashionable ailment. I know a
quack doctor who has built himself a house with nothing but mercury, as
the motto over his door implies.

SCHWEIT. (rises and holds out his hand to Spiegelberg). Spiegelberg, thou
art a great man! or else a blind hog has by chance found an acorn.

SCHW. Excellent schemes! Honorable professions! How great minds
sympathize! All that seems wanting to complete the list is that we should
turn pimps and bawds.

SPIEGEL. Pooh! Pooh! Nonsense. And what is to prevent our combining most
of these occupations in one person? My plan will exalt you the most, and
it holds out glory and immortality into the bargain. Remember, too, ye
sorry varlets, and it is a matter worthy of consideration: one’s fame
hereafter—the sweet thought of immortality—

ROLLER. And that at the very head of the muster-roll of honorable names!
You are a master of eloquence, Spiegelberg, when the question is how to
convert an honest man into a scoundrel. But does any one know what has
become of Moor?

SPIEGEL. Honest, say you? Do you think you’ll be less honest then than you
are now? What do you call honest? To relieve rich misers of half of those
cares which only scare golden sleep from their eyelids; to force hoarded
coin into circulation; to restore the equalization of property; in one
word, to bring back the golden age; to relieve Providence of many a
burdensome pensioner, and so save it the trouble of sending war,
pestilence, famine, and above all, doctors—that is what I call
honesty, d’ye see; that’s what I call being a worthy instrument in the
hand of Providence,—and then, at every meal you eat, to have the
sweet reflection: this is what thy own ingenuity, thy lion boldness, thy
night watchings, have procured for thee—to command the respect both
of great and small!

ROLLER. And at last to mount towards heaven in the living body, and in
spite of wind and storm, in spite of the greedy maw of old father Time, to
be hovering beneath the sun and moon and all the stars of the firmament,
where even the unreasoning birds of heaven, attracted by noble instinct,
chant their seraphic music, and angels with tails hold their most holy
councils? Don’t you see? And, while monarchs and potentates become a prey
to moths and worms, to have the honor of receiving visits from the royal
bird of Jove. Moritz, Moritz, Moritz! beware of the three-legged beast.*

SPIEGEL. And does that fright thee, craven-heart? Has not many a universal
genius, who might have reformed the world, rotted upon the gallows? And
does not the renown of such a man live for hundreds and thousands of
years, whereas many a king and elector would be passed over in history,
were not historians obliged to give him a niche to complete the line of
succession, or that the mention of him did not swell the volume a few
octavo pages, for which he counts upon hard cash from the publisher. And
when the wayfarer sees you swinging to and fro in the breeze he will
mutter to himself, “That fellow’s brains had no water in them, I’ll
warrant me,” and then groan over the hardship of the times.

SCHWEIT. (slaps him on the shoulder). Well said, Spiegelberg! Well said!
Why the devil do we stand here hesitating?

SCHW. And suppose it is called disgrace—what then? Cannot one, in
case of need, always carry a small powder about one, which quietly smooths
the weary traveller’s passage across the Styx, where no cock-crowing will
disturb his rest? No, brother Moritz! Your scheme is good; so at least
says my creed.

SCHUFT. Zounds! and mine too! Spiegelberg, I am your recruit.

RAZ. Like a second Orpheus, Spiegelberg, you have charmed to sleep that
howling beast, conscience! Take me as I stand, I am yours entirely!

GRIMMM. Si omnes consentiunt ego non dissentio;* mind, without a
comma. There is an auction going on in my head—methodists—quack
doctors—reviewers—rogues;—the highest bidder has me.
Here is my hand, Moritz!

ROLLER. And you too, Schweitzer? (he gives his right hand to SPIEGELBERG).
Thus I consign my soul to the devil.

SPIEGEL. And your name to the stars! What does it signify where the soul
goes to? If crowds of avantcouriers give notice of our descent that
the devils may put on their holiday gear, wipe the accumulated soot of a
thousand years from their eyelashes, and myriads of horned heads pop up
from the smoking mouth of their sulphurous chimneys to welcome our
arrival! ‘Up, comrades! (leaping up). Up! What in the world is equal to
this ecstacy of delight? Come along, comrades!

ROLLER. Gently, gently! Where are you going? Every beast must have a head,
boys!

SPIEGEL. (With bitterness). What is that incubus preaching about? Was not
the head already there before a single limb began to move? Follow me,
comrades!

ROLLER. Gently, I say! even liberty must have its master. Rome and Sparta
perished for want of a chief.

SPIEGEL. (in a wheedling manner). Yes,—stay—Roller is right.
And he must have an enlightened head. Do you understand? A keen, politic
head. Yes! when I think what you were only an hour ago, and what you are
now, and that it is all owing to one happy thought. Yes, of course, you
must have a chief, and you’ll own that he who struck out this idea may
claim to have an enlightened and politic head?

ROLLER. If one could hope, if one could dream, but I fear he will not
consent.

SPIEGEL. Why not? Speak out boldly, friend! Difficult as it may be to
steer a laboring vessel against wind and tide, oppressive as may be the
weight of a crown, speak your thought without hesitation, Roller! Perhaps
he may be prevailed upon after all!

ROLLER. And if he does not the whole vessel will be crazy enough. Without
Moor we are a “body without a soul.”

SPIEGEL. (turning angrily from him). Dolt! blockhead!

CHARLES VON M. Man—man! false, perfidious crocodile-brood! Your eyes
are all tears, but your hearts steel! Kisses on your lips, but daggers
couched in your bosoms! Even lions and tigers nourish their young. Ravens
feast their brood on carrion, and he—he Malice I have learned to
bear; and I can smile when my fellest enemy drinks to me in my own heart’s
blood; but when kindred turn traitors, when a father’s love becomes a
fury’s hate; oh, then, let manly resignation give place to raging fire!
the gentle lamb become a tiger! and every nerve strain itself to vengeance
and destruction!

ROLLER. Hark ye, Moor! What think ye of it? A robber’s life is pleasanter,
after all, than to lie rotting on bread and water in the lowest dungeon of
the castle?

CHARLES VON M. Why was not this spirit implanted in a tiger which gluts
its raging jaws with human flesh? Is this a father’s tenderness? Is this
love for love? Would I were a bear to rouse all the bears of the north
against this murderous race! Repentance, and no pardon! Oh, that I could
poison the ocean that men might drink death from every spring! Contrition,
implicit reliance, and no pardon!

ROLLER. But listen, Moor,—listen to what I am telling you!

CHARLES VON M. ‘Tis incredible! ’tis a dream—a delusion! Such
earnest entreaty, such a vivid picture of misery and tearful penitence—a
savage beast would have been melted to compassion! stones would have wept,
and yet he—it would be thought a malicious libel upon human nature
were I to proclaim it—and yet, yet—oh, that I could sound the
trumpet of rebellion through all creation, and lead air, and earth, and
sea into battle array against this generation of hyenas!

GRIMM. Hear me, only hear me! You are deaf with raving.

CHARLES VON M. Avaunt, avaunt! Is not thy name man? Art thou not born of
woman? Out of my sight, thou thing with human visage! I loved him so
unutterably!—never son so loved a father; I would have sacrificed a
thousand lives for him (foaming and stamping the ground). Ha! where is he
that will put a sword into my hand that I may strike this generation of
vipers to the quick! Who will teach me how to reach their heart’s core, to
crush, to annihilate the whole race? Such a man shall be my friend, my
angel, my god—him will I worship!

ROLLER. Such friends behold in us; be but advised!

SCHW. Come with us into the Bohemian forests! We will form a band of
robbers there, and you (MOOR stares at him).

SCHWEIT. You shall be our captain! you must be our captain!

SPIEGEL. (throws himself into a chair in a rage). Slaves and cowards!

CHARLES VON M. Who inspired thee with that thought? Hark, fellow!
(grasping ROLLER tightly) that human soul of thine did not produce it; who
suggested it to thee? Yes, by the thousand arms of death! that’s what we
will, and what we must do! the thought’s divine. He who conceived it
deserves to be canonized. Robbers and murderers! As my soul lives, I am
your captain!

ALL (with tumultuous shouts). Hurrah! long live our captain!

SPIEGEL. (starting up, aside). Till I give him his coup de grace!

CHARLES VON M. See, it falls like a film from my eyes! What a fool was I
to think of returning to be caged? My soul’s athirst for deeds, my spirit
pants for freedom. Murderers, robbers! with these words I trample the law
underfoot—mankind threw off humanity when I appealed to it. Away,
then, with human sympathies and mercy! I no longer have a father, no
longer affections; blood and death shall teach me to forget that anything
was ever dear to me! Come! come! Oh, I will recreate myself with some most
fearful vengeance;—’tis resolved, I am your captain! and success to
him who Shall spread fire and slaughter the widest and most savagely—I
pledge myself He shall be right royally rewarded. Stand around me, all of
you, and swear to me fealty and obedience unto death! Swear by this trusty
right hand.

ALL (place their hands in his). We swear to thee fealty and obedience unto
death!

CHARLES VON M. And, by this same trusty right Hand, I here swear to you to
remain your captain, true and faithful unto death! This arm shall make an
instant corpse of him who doubts, or fears, or retreats. And may the same
befall me from your hands if I betray my oath! Are you content?

ALL (throwing up their hats). We are content!

CHARLES VON M. Well, then, let us be gone! Fear neither death nor danger,
for an unalterable destiny rules over us. Every man has his doom, be it to
die on the soft pillow of down, or in the field of blood, or on the
scaffold, or the wheel! One or the other of these must be our lot!
[Exeunt.]

SPIEGEL. (looking after them after a pause). Your catalogue has a hole in
it. You have omitted poison.

[Exit.]

SCENE III.—MOOR’S Castle.—AMELIA’S Chamber.

FRANCIS. Your face is averted from me, Amelia? Am I less worthy than he
who is accursed of his father?

AMELIA. Away! Oh! what a loving, compassionate father, who abandons his
son a prey to wolves and monsters! In his own comfortable home he pampers
himself with delicious wines and stretches his palsied limbs on down,
while his noble son is starving. Shame upon you, inhuman wretches! Shame
upon you, ye souls of dragons, ye blots on humanity!— his only son!

FRANCIS. I thought he had two.

AMELIA. Yes, he deserves to have such sons as you are. On his deathbed he
will in vain stretch out his withered hands for his Charles, and recoil
with a shudder when he feels the ice-cold hand of his Francis. Oh, it is
sweet, deliciously sweet, to be cursed by such a father! Tell me, Francis,
dear brotherly soul—tell me what must one do to be cursed by him?

FRANCIS. You are raving, dearest; you are to be pitied.

AMELIA. Oh! indeed. Do you pity your brother? No, monster, you hate him! I
hope you hate me too.

FRANCIS. I love you as dearly as I love myself, Amelia!

AMELIA. If you love me you will not refuse me one little request.

FRANCIS. None, none! if you ask no more than my life.

AMELIA. Oh, if that is the case! then one request, which you will so
easily, so readily grant. (Loftily.) Hate me! I should perforce blush
crimson if, whilst thinking of Charles, it should for a moment enter my
mind that you do not hate me. You promise me this? Now go, and leave me; I
so love to be alone!

FRANCIS. Lovely enthusiast! how greatly I admire your gentle, affectionate
heart. Here, here, Charles reigned sole monarch, like a god within his
temple; he stood before thee waking, he filled your imaination dreaming;
the whole creation seemed to thee to centre in Charles, and to reflect him
alone; it gave thee no other echo but of him.

AMELIA (with emotion). Yes, verily, I own it. Despite of you all,
barbarians as you are, I will own it before all the world. I love him!

FRANCIS. Inhuman, cruel! So to requite a love like this! To forget her—

AMELIA (starting). What! forget me?

FRANCIS. Did you not place a ring on his finger?—a diamond ring, the
pledge of your love? To be sure how is it possible for youth to resist the
fascinations of a wanton? Who can blame him for it, since he had nothing
else left to give away? and of course she repaid him with interest by her
caresses and embraces.

AMELIA (with indignation). My ring to a wanton?

FRANCIS. Fie, fie! it is disgraceful. ‘Twould not be much, however, if
that were all. A ring, be it ever so costly, is, after all, a thing which
one may always buy of a Jew. Perhaps the fashion of it did not please him,
perhaps he exchanged it for one more beautiful.

AMELIA (with violence). But my ring, I say, my ring?

FRANCIS. Even yours, Amelia. Ha! such a brilliant, and on my finger; and
from Amelia! Death itself should not have plucked it hence. It is not the
costliness of the diamond, not the cunning of the pattern—it is love
which constitutes its value. Is it not so, Amelia? Dearest child, you are
weeping. Woe be to him who causes such precious drops to flow from those
heavenly eyes; ah, and if you knew all, if you could but see him yourself,
see him under that form?

AMELIA. Monster! what do you mean? What form do you speak of?

FRANCIS. Hush, hush, gentle soul, press me no further (as if
soliloquizing, yet aloud). If it had only some veil, that horrid vice,
under which it might shroud itself from the eye of the world! But there it
is, glaring horribly through the sallow, leaden eye; proclaiming itself in
the sunken, deathlike look; ghastly protruding bones; the faltering,
hollow voice; preaching audibly from the shattered, shaking skeleton;
piercing to the most vital marrow of the bones, and sapping the manly
strength of youth—faugh! the idea sickens me. Nose, eyes, ears
shrink from it. You saw that miserable wretch, Amelia, in our hospital,
who was heavily breathing out his spirit; modesty seemed to cast down her
abashed eye as she passed him; you cried woe upon him. Recall that hideous
image to your mind, and your Charles stands before you. His kisses are
pestilence, his lips poison.

AMELIA (strikes him). Shameless liar!

FRANCIS. Does such a Charles inspire you with horror? Does the mere
picture fill you with disgust? Go, then! gaze upon him yourself, your
handsome, your angelic, your divine Charles! Go, drink his balmy breath,
and revel in the ambrosial fumes which ascend from his throat! The very
exhalations of his body will plunge you into that dark and deathlike
dizziness which follows the smell of a bursting carcase, or the sight of a
corpse-strewn battle-field. (AMELIA turns away her face.) What sensations
of love! What rapture in those embraces! But is it not unjust to condemn a
man because of his diseased exterior? Even in the most wretched lump of
deformity a soul great and worthy of love may beam forth brightly like a
pearl on a dunghill. ( With a malignant smile.) Even from lips of
corruption love may——. To be sure if vice should undermine the
very foundations of character, if with chastity virtue too should take her
flight as the fragrance departs from the faded rose—if with the body
the soul too should be tainted and corrupted.

AMELIA (rising joyfully). Ha! Charles! now I recognize thee again! Thou
art whole, whole! It was all a lie! Dost thou not know, miscreant, that it
would be impossible for Charles to be the being you describe? (FRANCIS
remains standing for some time, lost in thought, then suddenly turns round
to go away.) Whither are you going in such haste? Are you flying from your
own infamy?

FRANCIS (hiding his face). Let me go, let me go! to give free vent to my
tears! tyrannical father, thus to abandon the best of your sons to misery
and disgrace on every side! Let me go, Amelia! I will throw myself at his
feet, on my knees I will conjure him to transfer to me the curse that he
has pronounced, to disinherit me, to hate me, my blood, my life, my all——.

AMELIA (falls on his neck). Brother of my Charles! Dearest, most excellent
Francis!

FRANCIS. Oh, Amelia! how I love you for this unshaken constancy to my
brother. Forgive me for venturing to subject your love to so severe a
trial! How nobly you have realized my wishes! By those tears, those sighs,
that divine indignation—and for me too, for me—our souls did
so truly harmonize.

AMELIA. Oh, no! that they never did!

FRANCIS. Alas! they harmonized so truly that I always thought we must be
twins. And were it not for that unfortunate difference in person, to be
twin-like, which, it must be admitted, would be to the disadvantage of
Charles, we should again and again be mistaken for each other. Thou art, I
often said to myself, thou art the very Charles, his echo, his
counterpart.

AMELIA (shakes her head). No, no! by that chaste light of heaven! not an
atom of him, not the least spark of his soul.

FRANCIS. So entirely the same in our dispositions; the rose was his
favorite flower, and what flower do I esteem above the rose? He loved
music beyond expression; and ye are witnesses, ye stars! how often you
have listened to me playing on the harpsichord in the dead silence of
night, when all around lay buried in darkness and slumber; and how is it
possible for you, Amelia, still to doubt? if our love meets in one
perfection, and if it is the self-same love, how can its fruits
degenerate? (AMELIA looks at him with astonishment.) It was a calm, serene
evening, the last before his departure for Leipzic, when he took me with
him to the bower where you so often sat together in dreams of love,—we
were long speechless; at last he seized my hand, and said, in a low voice,
and with tears in his eyes, “I am leaving Amelia; I know not, but I have a
sad presentiment that it is forever; forsake her not, brother; be her
friend, her Charles—if Charles—should never—never
return.” (He throws himself down before her, and kisses her hand with
fervor.) Never, never, never will he return; and I stand pledged by a
sacred oath to fulfil his behest!

AMELIA (starting back). Traitor! Now thou art unmasked! In that very bower
he conjured me, if he died, to admit no other love. Dost thou see how
impious, how execrable——. Quit my sight!

FRANCIS. You know me not, Amelia; you do not know me in the least!

AMELIA. Oh, yes, I know you; from henceforth I know you; and you pretend
to be like him? You mean to say that he wept for me in your presence?
Yours? He would sooner have inscribed my name on the pillory? Begone—this
instant!

FRANCIS. You insult me.

AMELIA. Go—I say. You have robbed me of a precious hour; may it be
deducted from your life.

FRANCIS. You hate me then!

AMELIA. I despise you—away!

ACT II.

SCENE I.—FRANCIS VON MOOR in his chamber—in meditation.

FRANCIS. It lasts too long-and the doctor even says is recovering—an
old man’s life is a very eternity! The course would be free and plain
before me, but for this troublesome, tough lump of flesh, which, like the
infernal demon-hound in ghost stories, bars the way to my treasures.

Must, then, my projects bend to the iron yoke of a mechanical system? Is
my soaring spirit to be chained down to the snail’s pace of matter? To
blow out a wick which is already flickering upon its last drop of oil—’tis
nothing more. And yet I would rather not do it myself, on account of what
the world would say. I should not wish him to be killed, but merely
disposed of. I should like to do what your clever physician does, only the
reverse way—not stop Nature’s course by running a bar across her
path, but only help her to speed a little faster. Are we not able to
prolong the conditions of life? Why, then, should we not also be able to
shorten them? Philosophers and physiologists teach us how close is the
sympathy between the emotions of the mind and the movements of the bodily
machine. Convulsive sensations are always accompanied by a disturbance of
the mechanical vibrations— passions injure the vital powers—an
overburdened spirit bursts its shell. Well, then—what if one knew
how to smooth this unbeaten path, for the easier entrance of death into
the citadel of life?—to work the body’s destruction through the mind—ha!
an original device!—who can accomplish this?—a device without
a parallel! Think upon it, Moor! That were an art worthy of thee for its
inventor. Has not poisoning been raised almost to the rank of a regular
science, and Nature compelled, by the force of experiments, to define her
limits, so that one may now calculate the heart’s throbbings for years in
advance, and say to the beating pulse, “So far, and no farther”? Why
should not one try one’s skill in this line?*

And how, then, must I, too, go to work to dissever that sweet and peaceful
union of soul and body? What species of sensations should I seek to
produce? Which would most fiercely assail the condition of life? Anger?—that
ravenous wolf is too quickly satiated. Care? that worm gnaws far too
slowly. Grief?—that viper creeps too lazily for me. Fear?—hope
destroys its power. What! and are these the only executioners of man? is
the armory of death so soon exhausted? (In deep thought.) How now! what!
ho! I have it! (Starting up.) Terror! What is proof against terror? What
powers have religion and reason under that giant’s icy grasp! And yet—if
he should withstand even this assault? If he should! Oh, then, come
Anguish to my aid! and thou, gnawing Repentance!—furies of hell,
burrowing snakes who regorge your food, and feed upon your own excrements;
ye that are forever destroying, and forever reproducing your poison! And
thou, howling Remorse, that desolatest thine own habitation, and feedest
upon thy mother. And come ye, too, gentle Graces, to my aid; even you,
sweet smiling Memory, goddess of the past—and thou, with thy
overflowing horn of plenty, blooming Futurity; show him in your mirror the
joys of Paradise, while with fleeting foot you elude his eager grasp. Thus
will I work my battery of death, stroke after stroke, upon his fragile
body, until the troop of furies close upon him with Despair! Triumph!
triumph!—the plan is complete—difficult and masterly beyond
compare—sure—safe; for then (with a sneer) the dissecting
knife can find no trace of wound or of corrosive poison.

(Resolutely.) Be it so! (Enter HERMANN.) Ha! Deus ex machina!
Hermann!

HERMANN. At your service, gracious sir!

FRANCIS (shakes him by the hand). You will not find it that of an
ungrateful master.

HERMANN. I have proofs of this.

FRANCIS. And you shall have more soon—very soon, Hermann!—I
have something to say to thee, Hermann.

HERMANN. I am all attention.

FRANCIS. I know thee—thou art a resolute fellow—a man of
mettle.—To call thee smooth-tongued! My father has greatly belied
thee, Hermann.

HERMANN. The devil take me if I forget it!

FRANCIS. Spoken like a man! Vengeance becomes a manly heart! Thou art to
my mind, Hermann. Take this purse, Hermann. It should be heavier were I
master here.

HERMANN. That is my unceasing wish, most gracious sir. I thank you.

FRANCIS. Really, Hermann! dost thou wish that I were master? But my father
has the marrow of a lion in his bones, and I am but a younger son.

HERMANN. I wish you were the eldest son, and that your father were as
marrowless as a girl sinking in a consumption.

FRANCIS. Ha! how that elder son would recompense thee! How he would raise
thee from this grovelling condition, so ill suited to thy spirit and noble
birth, to be a light of the age!—Then shouldst thou be covered with
gold from head to foot, and dash through the streets four in hand—verily
thou shouldst!—But I am losing sight of what I meant to say.—Have
you already forgotten the Lady Amelia, Hermann?

HERMANN. A curse upon it! Why do you remind me of her?

FRANCIS. My brother has filched her away from you.

HERMANN. He shall rue it.

FRANCIS. She gave you the sack. And, if I remember right, he kicked you
down stairs.

HERMANN. For which I will kick him into hell.

FRANCIS. He used to say, it was whispered abroad, that your father could
never look upon you without smiting his breast and sighing, “God be
merciful to me, a sinner!”

HERMANN (wildly). Thunder and lightning! No more of this!

FRANCIS. He advised you to sell your patent of nobility by auction, and to
get your stockings mended with the proceeds.

HERMANN. By all the devils in hell, I’ll scratch out his eyes with my own
nails!

FRANCIS. What? you are growing angry? What signifies your anger? What harm
can you do him? What can a mouse like you do to such a lion? Your rage
only makes his triumph the sweeter. You can do nothing more than gnash
your teeth, and vent your rage upon a dry crust.

HERMANN (stamping). I will grind him to powder!

FRANCIS (slapping his shoulder). Fie, Hermann! You are a gentleman. You
must not put up with the affront. You must not give up the lady, no, not
for all the world, Hermann! By my soul, I would move heaven and earth were
I in your place.

HERMANN. I will not rest till I have him, and him, too, under ground.

FRANCIS. Not so violent, Hermann! Come nearer—you shall have Amelia.

HERMANN. That I must; despite the devil himself, I will have her.

FRANCIS. You shall have her, I tell you; and that from my hand. Come
closer, I say.—You don’t know, perhaps, that Charles is as good as
disinherited.

HERMANN (going closer to him). Incredible! The first I have heard of it.

FRANCIS. Be patient, and listen! Another time you shall hear more.—
Yes, I tell you, as good as banished these eleven months. But the old man
already begins to lament the hasty step, which, however, I flatter myself
(with a smile) is not entirely his own. Amelia, too, is incessantly
pursuing him with her tears and reproaches. Presently he will be having
him searched for in every quarter of the world; and if he finds him—then
it’s all over with you, Hermann. You may perhaps have the honor of most
obsequiously holding the coach-door while he alights with the lady to get
married.

HERMANN. I’ll strangle him at the altar first.

FRANCIS. His father will soon give up his estates to him, and live in
retirement in his castle. Then the proud roysterer will have the reins in
his own hands, and laugh his enemies to scorn;—and I, who wished to
make a great man of you—a man of consequence—I myself,
Hermann, shall have to make my humble obeisance at his threshold.

HERMANN (with fire). No, as sure as my name is Hermann, that shall never
be! If but the smallest spark of wit glimmer in this brain of mine, that
shall never be!

FRANCIS. Will you be able to prevent it? You, too, my good Hermann, will
be made to feel his lash. He will spit in your face when he meets you in
the streets; and woe be to you should you venture to shrug your shoulders
or to make a wry mouth. Look, my friend! this is all that your lovesuit,
your prospects, and your mighty plans amount to.

HERMANN. Tell me, what am I to do?

FRANCIS. Well, then, listen, Hermann! You see how I enter into your
feelings, like a true friend. Go—disguise yourself, so that no one
may recognize you; obtain audience of the old man; pretend to come
straight from Bohemia, to have been at the battle of Prague along with my
brother—to have seen him breathe his last on the field of battle!

HERMANN. Will he believe me?

FRANCIS. Ho! ho! let that be my care! Take this packet. There you will
find your commission set forth at large; and documents, to boot, which
shall convince the most incredulous. Only make haste to get away
unobserved. Slip through the back gate into the yard, and then scale the
garden wall.—The denouement of this tragicomedy you may leave to me!

HERMANN. That, I suppose, will be, “Long live our new baron, Francis von
Moor!”

FRANCIS (patting his cheeks). How cunning you are! By this means, you see,
we attain all our aims at once and quickly. Amelia relinquishes all hope
of him,—the old man reproaches himself for the death of his son, and—he
sickens—a tottering edifice needs no earthquake to bring it down—he
will not survive the intelligence—then am I his only son, —Amelia
loses every support, and becomes the plaything of my will, and you may
easily guess—in short, all will go as we wish—but you must not
flinch from your word.

HERMANN. What do you say? (Exultingly.) Sooner shall the ball turn back in
its course, and bury itself in the entrails of the marksman. Depend upon
me! Only let me to the work. Adieu!

FRANCIS (calling after him). The harvest is thine, dear Hermann! (Alone.)
When the ox has drawn the corn into the barn, he must put up with hay. A
dairy maid for thee, and no Amelia!

SCENE II.—Old Moor’s Bedchamber.

AMELIA (approaching him on tip-toe). Softly! Softly! He slumbers. (She
places herself before him.) How beautiful! how venerable!— venerable
as the picture of a saint. No, I cannot be angry with thee, thou head with
the silver locks; I cannot be angry with thee! Slumber on gently, wake up
cheerfully—I alone will be the sufferer.

OLD M. (dreaming). My son! my son! my son!

AMELIA (seizes his hand). Hark!—hark! his son is in his dreams.

OLD M. Are you there? Are you really there! Alas! how miserable you seem!
Fix not on me that mournful look! I am wretched enough.

AMELIA (awakens him abruptly). Look up, dear old man! ‘Twas but a dream.
Collect yourself!

OLD M. (half awake). Was he not there? Did I not press his hands? Cruel
Francis! wilt thou tear him even from my dreams?

AMELIA (aside). Ha! mark that, Amelia!

OLD M. (rousing himself). Where is he? Where? Where am I? You here,
Amelia?

AMELIA. How do you find yourself? You have had a refreshing slumber.

OLD M. I was dreaming about my son. Why did I not dream on? Perhaps I
might have obtained forgiveness from his lips.

AMELIA. Angels bear no resentment—he forgives you. (Seizes his hand
sorrowfully.) Father of my Charles! I, too, forgive you.

OLD M. No, no, my child! That death-like paleness of thy cheek is the
father’s condemnation. Poor girl! I have robbed thee of the happiness of
thy youth. Oh, do not curse me!

AMELIA (affectionately kissing his hand). I curse you?

OLD M. Dost thou know this portrait, my daughter?

AMELIA. Charles!

OLD M. Such was he in his sixteenth year. But now, alas! how changed. Oh,
it is raging within me. That gentleness is now indignation; that smile
despair. It was his birthday, was it not, Amelia—in the jessamine
bower—when you drew this picture of him? Oh, my daughter! How happy
was I in your loves.

AMELIA (with her eye still riveted upon the picture). No, no, it is not
he! By Heaven, that is not Charles! Here (pointing to her head and her
heart), here he is perfect; and how different. The feeble pencil avails
not to express that heavenly spirit which reigned in his fiery eye. Away
with it! This is a poor image, an ordinary man! I was a mere dauber.

OLD M. That kind, that cheering look! Had that been at my bedside, I
should have lived in the midst of death. Never, never should I have died!

AMELIA. No, you would never, never have died. It would have been but a
leap, as we leap from one thought to another and a better. That look would
have lighted you across the tomb—that look would have lifted you
beyond the stars!

OLD M. It is hard! it is sad! I am dying, and my son Charles is not here—I
am borne to my tomb, and he weeps not over my grave. How sweet it is to be
lulled into the sleep of death by a son’s prayer—that is the true
requiem.

AMELIA (with enthusiasm). Yes, sweet it is, heavenly sweet, to be lulled
into the sleep of death by the song of the beloved. Perhaps our dreams
continue in the grave—a long, eternal, never-ending dream of Charles—till
the trumpet of resurrection sounds—(rising in ecstasy) —and
thenceforth and forever in his arms! (A pause; she goes to the piano and
plays.)

OLD M. A beautiful song, my daughter. You must play that to me before I
die.

AMELIA. It is the parting of Hector and Andromache. Charles and I used
often to sing it together to the guitar. (She continues.)

Enter DANIEL.

DANIEL. There is a man without, who craves to be admitted to your
presence, and says he brings tidings of importance.

OLD M. To me there is but one thing in this world of importance; thou
knowest it, Amelia. Perhaps it is some unfortunate creature who seeks
assistance? He shall not go hence in sorrow.

AMELIA.—If it is a beggar, let him come up quickly.

OLD M. Amelia, Amelia! spare me!

AMELIA (continues to play and sing.)

FRANCIS. Here is the man. He says that he brings terrible news. Can you
bear the recital!

OLD M. I know but one thing terrible to hear. Come hither, friend, and
spare me not! Hand him a cup of wine!

HERMANN (in a feigned voice). Most gracious Sir? Let not a poor man be
visited with your displeasure, if against his will he lacerates your
heart. I am a stranger in these parts, but I know you well; you are the
father of Charles von Moor.

OLD M. How know you that?

HERMANN. I knew your son

AMELIA (starting up). He lives then? He lives! You know him? Where is he?
Where? (About to rush out.)

OLD M. What know you about my son?

HERMANN. He was a student at the university of Leipzic. From thence he
travelled about, I know not how far. He wandered all over Germany, and, as
he told me himself, barefoot and bareheaded, begging his bread from door
to door. After five months, the fatal war between Prussia and Austria
broke out afresh, and as he had no hopes left in this world, the fame of
Friedrich’s victorious banner drew him to Bohemia. Permit me, said he to
the great Schwerin, to die on the bed of heroes, for I have no longer a
father!—

OLD M. O! Amelia! Look not on me!

HERMANN. They gave him a pair of colors. With the Prussians he flew on the
wings of victory. We chanced to lie together, in the same tent. He talked
much of his old father, and of happy days that were past—and of
disappointed hopes—it brought the tears into our eyes.

OLD M. (buries his face in his pillow).—No more! Oh, no more!

HERMANN. A week after, the fierce battle of Prague was fought—I can
assure you your son behaved like a brave soldier. He performed prodigies
that day in sight of the whole army. Five regiments were successively cut
down by his side, and still he kept his ground. Fiery shells fell right
and left, and still your son kept his ground. A ball shattered his right
hand: he seized the colors with his left, and still he kept his ground!

AMELIA (in transport). Hector, Hector! do you hear? He kept his ground!

HERMANN. On the evening of the battle I found him on the same spot. He had
sunk down, amidst a shower of hissing balls: with his left hand he was
staunching the blood that flowed from a fearful wound; his right he had
buried in the earth. “Comrade!” cried he when he saw me, “there has been a
report through the ranks that the general fell an hour ago—” “He is
fallen,” I replied, “and thou?” “Well, then,” he cried, withdrawing his
left hand from the wound, “let every brave soldier follow his general!”
Soon after he breathed out his noble soul, to join his heroic leader.

FRANCIS (feigning to rush wildly on HERMANN). May death seal thy accursed
lips! Art thou come here to give the death-blow to our father? Father!
Amelia! father!

HERMANN. It was the last wish of my expiring comrade. “Take this sword,”
faltered he, with his dying breath, “deliver it to my aged father; his
son’s blood is upon it—he is avenged—let him rejoice. Tell him
that his curse drove me into battle and into death; that I fell in
despair.” His last sigh was “Amelia.”

AMELIA (like one aroused from lethargy). His last sigh—Amelia!

OLD M. (screaming horribly, and tearing his hair). My curse drove him into
death! He fell in despair!

FRANCIS (pacing up and down the room). Oh! what have you done, father? My
Charles! my brother!

HERMANN. Here is the sword; and here, too, is a picture which he drew from
his breast at the same time. It is the very image of this young lady.
“This for my brother Francis,” he said; I know not what he meant by it.

FRANCIS (feigning astonishment). For me? Amelia’s picture? For me—
Charles—Amelia? For me?

AMELIA (rushing violently upon HERMANN). Thou venal, bribed impostor!
(Lays hold of him.)

HERMANN. I am no impostor, noble lady. See yourself if it is not your
picture. It may be that you yourself gave it to him.

FRANCIS. By heaven, Amelia! your picture! It is, indeed.

AMELIA (returns him the picture) My picture, mine! Oh! heavens and earth!

OLD M. (screaming and tearing his face.) Woe, woe! my curse drove him into
death! He fell in despair!

FRANCIS. And he thought of me in the last and parting hour—of me.
Angelic soul! When the black banner of death already waved over him he
thought of me!

OLD M. (stammering like an idiot.) My curse drove him into death. In
despair my son perished.

AMELIA (rises and rushes after him). Stay! stay! What were his last words?

AMELIA. His last sigh was Amelia! No, thou art no impostor. It is too true—true—he
is dead—dead! (staggering to and fro till she sinks down)—dead—Charles
is dead!

FRANCIS. What do I see? What is this line on the sword?—written with
blood—Amelia!

AMELIA. By him?

FRANCIS. Do I see clearly, or am I dreaming? Behold, in characters of
blood, “Francis, forsake not my Amelia.” And on the other side, “Amelia,
all-powerful death has released thee from thy oath.” Now do you see—do
you see? With hand stiffening in death he wrote it, with his warm life’s
blood he wrote it—wrote it on the solemn brink of eternity. His
spirit lingered in his flight to unite Francis and Amelia.

FRANCIS (stamping the ground). Confusion! her stubborn heart foils all my
cunning!

OLD MOOR. Woe, woe! forsake me not, my daughter! Francis, Francis! give me
back my son!

FRANCIS. Who was it that cursed him? Who was it that drove his son into
battle, and death, and despair? Oh, he was an angel, a jewel of heaven! A
curse on his destroyers! A curse, a curse upon yourself!

OLD MOOR (strikes his breast and forehead with his clenched fist). He was
an angel, a jewel of heaven! A curse, a curse, perdition, a curse on
myself! I am the father who slew his noble son! He loved me even to death!
To expiate my vengeance he rushed into battle and into death! Monster,
monster that I am! (He rages against himself.)

FRANCIS. He is gone. What avail these tardy lamentations? (with a satanic
sneer.) It is easier to murder than to restore to life. You will never
bring him back from his grave.

OLD Moon. Never, never, never bring him back from the grave! Gone! lost
for ever! And you it was that beguiled my heart to curse him.— you—you—Give
me back my son!

FRANCIS. Rouse not my fury, lest I forsake you even in the hour of death!

OLD MOOR. Monster! inhuman monster! Restore my son to me. (Starts from the
chair and attempts to catch FRANCIS by the throat, who flings him back.)

OLD MOOR. May the thunder of a thousand curses light upon thee! thou hast
robbed me of my son. (Throwing himself about in his chair full of
despair). Alas! alas! to despair and yet not die. They fly, they forsake
me in death; my guardian angels fly from me; all the saints withdraw from
the hoary murderer. Oh, misery! will no one support this head, no one
release this struggling soul? No son, no daughter, no friend, not one
human being—will no one? Alone—forsaken. Woe, woe! To despair,
yet not to die!

OLD MOOR. Amelia! messenger of heaven! Art thou come to release my soul?

AMELIA (in a gentle tone). You have lost a noble son.

OLD MOOR. Murdered him, you mean. With the weight of this impeachment I
shall present myself before the judgment-seat of God.

AMELIA. Not so, old man! Our heavenly Father has taken him to himself. We
should have been too happy in this world. Above, above, beyond the stars,
we shall meet again.

OLD MOOR. Meet again! Meet again! Oh! it will pierce my soul like a Sword—should
I, a saint, meet him among the saints. In the midst of heaven the horrors
of hell will strike through me! The remembrance of that deed will crush me
in the presence of the Eternal: I have murdered my son!

AMELIA. Oh, his smiles will chase away the bitter remembrance from your
soul! Cheer up, dear father! I am quite cheerful. Has he not already sung
the name of Amelia to listening angels on seraphic harps, and has not
heaven’s choir sweetly echoed it? Was not his last sigh, Amelia? And will
not Amelia be his first accent of joy?

OLD MOOR. Heavenly consolation flows from your lips! He will smile upon
me, you say? He will forgive me? You must stay with my beloved of my
Charles, when I die.

AMELIA. To die is to fly to his arms. Oh, how happy and enviable is your
lot! Would that my bones were decayed!—that my hairs were gray! Woe
upon the vigor of youth! Welcome, decrepid age, nearer to heaven and my
Charles!

OLD MOOR. Come near, my son! Forgive me if I spoke too harshly to you just
now! I forgive you all. I wish to yield up my spirit in peace.

FRANCIS. Have you done weeping for your son? For aught that I see you had
but one.

OLD MOOR. Jacob had twelve sons, but for his Joseph he wept tears of
blood.

FRANCIS. Hum!

OLD MOOR. Bring the Bible, my daughter, and read to me the story of Jacob
and Joseph! It always appeared to me so touching, even before I myself
became a Jacob.

AMELIA. What part shall I read to you? (Takes the Bible and turns over the
leaves.)

OLD MOOR. Read to me the grief of the bereaved father, when he found his
Joseph no more among his children;—when he sought him in vain amidst
his eleven sons;—and his lamentation when he heard that he was taken
from him forever.

AMELIA (reads). “And they took Joseph’s coat, and killed a kid of the
goats, and dipped the coat in the blood; and they sent the coat of many
colors, and they brought it to their father, and said, ‘This have we
found: know now whether it be thy son’s coat or no.’ (Exit FRANCIS
suddenly.) And he knew it and said, ‘It is my son’s coat; an evil beast
hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.'”

OLD MOOR (falls back upon the pillow). An evil beast hath devoured Joseph!

AMELIA (continues reading). “And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth
upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days. And all his sons and
all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted,
and he said, ‘For I will go down into the grave–‘”

OLD MOOR. Leave off! leave off. I feel very ill.

AMELIA (running towards him, lets fall the book). Heaven help us! What is
this?

OLD MOOR. It is death—darkness—is waving—before my eyes—I
pray thee—send for the minister—that he may—give me—the
Holy Communion. Where is—my son Francis?

AMELIA. He is fled. God have mercy upon us!

OLD MOOR. Fled—fled from his father’s deathbed? And is that all—all
—of two children full of promise—thou hast given—thou
hast—taken away—thy name be—

SCENE III.—THE BOHEMIAN WOODS.

RAZ. Are you come? Is it really you? Oh, let me squeeze thee into a jelly,
my dear heart’s brother! Welcome to the Bohemian forests! Why, you are
grown quite stout and jolly! You have brought us recruits in right
earnest, a little army of them; you are the very prince of crimps.

SPIEGEL. Eh, brother? Eli? And proper fellows they are! You must confess
the blessing of heaven is visibly upon me; I was a poor, hungry wretch,
and had nothing but this staff when I went over the Jordan, and now there
are eight-and-seventy of us, mostly ruined shopkeepers, rejected masters
of arts, and law-clerks from the Swabian provinces. They are a rare set of
fellows, brother, capital fellows, I promise you; they will steal you the
very buttons off each other’s trousers in perfect security, although in
the teeth of a loaded musket,* and they live in clover and enjoy a
reputation for forty miles round, which is quite astonishing.

There is not a newspaper in which you will not find some little feat or
other of that cunning fellow, Spiegelberg; I take in the papers for
nothing else; they have described me from head to foot; you would think
you saw me; they have not forgotten even my coat-buttons. But we lead them
gloriously by the nose. The other day I went to the printing-office and
pretended that I had seen the famous Spiegelberg, dictated to a
penny-a-liner who was sitting there the exact image of a quack doctor in
the town; the matter gets wind, the fellow is arrested, put to the rack,
and in his anguish and stupidity he confesses the devil take me if he does
not—confesses that he is Spiegelberg. Fire and fury! I was on the
point of giving myself up to a magistrate rather than have my fair fame
marred by such a poltroon; however, within three months he was hanged. I
was obliged to stuff a right good pinch of snuff into my nose as some time
afterwards I was passing the gibbet and saw the pseudo-Spiegelberg
parading there in all his glory; and, while Spiegelberg’s representative
is dangling by the neck, the real Spiegelberg very quietly slips himself
out of the noose, and makes jolly long noses behind the backs of these
sagacious wiseacres of the law.

RAZ. (laughing). You are still the same fellow you always were.

SPIEGEL. Ay, sure! body and soul. But I must tell you a bit of fun, my
boy, which I had the other day in the nunnery of St. Austin. We fell in
with the convent just about sunset; and as I had not fired a single
cartridge all day,—you know I hate the diem perdidi as I hate
death itself,—I was determined to immortalize the night by some
glorious exploit, even though it should cost the devil one of his ears! We
kept quite quiet till late in the night. At last all is as still as a
mouse —the lights are extinguished. We fancy the nuns must be
comfortably tucked up. So I take brother Grimm along with me, and order
the others to wait at the gate till they hear my whistle—I secure
the watchman, take the keys from him, creep into the maid-servants’
dormitory, take. away all their clothes, and whisk the bundle out at the
window. We go on from cell to cell, take away the clothes of one sister
after another, and lastly those of the lady-abbess herself. Then I sound
my whistle, and my fellows outside begin to storm and halloo as if
doomsday was at hand, and away they rush with the devil’s own uproar into
the cells of the sisters! Ha, ha, ha! You should have seen the game—how
the poor creatures were groping about in the dark for their petticoats,
and how they took on when they found they were gone; and we, in the
meantime, at ’em like very devils; and now, terrified and amazed, they
wriggled under their bedclothes, or cowered together like cats behind the
stoves. There was such shrieking and lamentation; and then the old beldame
of an abbess—you know, brother, there is nothing in the world I hate
so much as a spider and an old woman—so you may just fancy that
wrinkled old hag standing naked before me, conjuring me by her maiden
modesty forsooth! Well, I was determined to make short work of it; either,
said I, out with your plate and your convent jewels and all your shining
dollars, or—my fellows knew what I meant. The end of it was I
brought away more than a thousand dollars’ worth out of the convent, to
say nothing of the fun, which will tell its own story in due time.

RAZ. (stamping on the ground). Hang it, that I should be absent on such an
occasion.

SPIEGEL. Do you see? Now tell me, is not that life? ‘Tis that which keeps
one fresh and hale, and braces the body so that it swells hourly like an
abbot’s paunch; I don’t know, but I think I must be endowed with some
magnetic property, which attracts all the vagabonds on the face of the
earth towards me like steel and iron.

RAZ. A precious magnet, indeed. But I should like to know, I’ll be hanged
if I shouldn’t, what witchcraft you use?

SPIEGEL. Witchcraft? No need of witchcraft. All it wants is a head—a
certain practical capacity which, of course, is not taken in with every
spoonful of barley meal; for you know I have always said that an honest
man may be carved out of any willow stump, but to make a rogue you must
have brains; besides which it requires a national genius—a certain
rascal-climate—so to speak.*

RAZ. Brother, I have heard Italy celebrated for its artists.

SPIEGEL. Yes, yes! Give the devil his due. Italy makes a very noble
figure; and if Germany goes on as it has begun, and if the Bible gets
fairly kicked out, of which there is every prospect, Germany, too, may in
time arrive at something respectable; but I should tell you that climate
does not, after all, do such a wonderful deal; genius thrives everywhere;
and as for the rest, brother, a crab, you know, will never become a
pineapple, not even in Paradise. But to pursue our subject, where did I
leave off?

RAZ. You were going to tell me about your stratagems.

SPIEGEL. Ah, yes! my stratagems. Well, when you get into a town, the first
thing is to fish out from the beadles, watchmen, and turnkeys, who are
their best customers, and for these, accordingly, you must look out; then
ensconce yourself snugly in coffee-houses, brothels, and beer-shops, and
observe who cry out most against the cheapness of the times, the reduced
five per cents., and the increasing nuisance of police regulations; who
rail the loudest against government, or decry physiognomical science, and
such like? These are the right sort of fellows, brother. Their honesty is
as loose as a hollow tooth; you have only to apply your pincers. Or a
shorter and even better plan is to drop a full purse in the public
highway, conceal yourself somewhere near, and mark who finds it. Presently
after you come running up, search, proclaim your loss aloud, and ask him,
as it were casually, “Have you perchance picked up a purse, sir?” If he
says “Yes,” why then the devil fails you. But if he denies it, with a
“pardon me, sir, I remember, I am sorry, sir,” (he jumps up), then,
brother, you’ve done the trick. Extinguish your lantern, cunning Diogenes,
you have found your match.

RAZ. You are an accomplished practitioner.

SPIEGEL. My God! As if that had ever been doubted. Well, then, when you
have got your man into the net, you must take great care to land him
cleverly. You see, my son, the way I have managed is thus: as soon as I
was on the scent I stuck to my candidate like a leech; I drank brotherhood
with him, and, nota bene, you must always pay the score. That costs
a pretty penny, it is true, but never mind that. You must go further;
introduce him to gaming-houses and brothels; entangle him in broils and
rogueries till he becomes bankrupt in health and strength, in purse,
conscience, and reputation; for I must tell you, by the way, that you will
make nothing of it unless you ruin both body and soul. Believe me,
brother, and I have experienced it more than fifty times in my extensive
practice, that when the honest man is once ousted from his stronghold, the
devil has it all his own way—the transition is then as easy as from
a whore to a devotee. But hark! What bang was that?

RAZ. It was thunder; go on.

SPIEGEL. Or, there is a yet shorter and still better way. You strip your
man of all he has, even to his very shirt, and then he will come to you of
his own accord; you won’t teach me to suck eggs, brother; ask that
copper-faced fellow there. My eyes, how neatly I got him into my meshes. I
showed him forty ducats, which I promised to give him if he would bring me
an impression in wax of his master’s keys. Only think, the stupid brute
not only does this, but actually brings me—I’ll be hanged if he did
not—the keys themselves; and then thinks to get the money. “Sirrah,”
said I, “are you aware that I am going to carry these keys straight to the
lieutenant of police, and to bespeak a place for you on the gibbet?” By
the powers! you should have seen how the simpleton opened his eyes, and
began to shake from head to foot like a dripping poodle. “For heaven’s
sake, sir, do but consider. I will— will—” “What will you?
Will you at once cut your stick and go to the devil with me?” “Oh, with
all my heart, with great pleasure.” Ha! ha! ha! my fine fellow; toasted
cheese is the thing to catch mice with; do have a good laugh at him,
Razman; ha! ha! ha!

RAZ. Yes, yes, I must confess. I shall inscribe that lesson in letters of
gold upon the tablet of my brain. Satan must know his people right well to
have chosen you for his factor.

SPIEGEL. Eh, brother? Eli? And if I help him to half a score of fellows he
will, of course, let me off scot-free—publishers, you know, always
give one copy in ten gratis to those who collect subscribers for them; why
should the devil be more of a Jew? Razman, I smell powder.

RAZ. Zounds! I smelt it long ago. You may depend upon it there has being
something going forward hereabouts. Yes, yes! I can tell you, Spiegelberg,
you will be welcome to our captain with your recruits; he, too, has got
hold of some brave fellows.

SPIEGEL. But look at mine! at mine here, bah!

RAZ. Well, well! they may be tolerably expert in the finger department,
but, I tell you, the fame of our captain has tempted even some honorable
men to join his staff.

SPIEGEL. So much the worse.

RAZ. Without joking. And they are not ashamed to serve under such a
leader. He does not commit murder as we do for the sake of plunder; and as
to money, as soon as he had plenty of it at command, he did not seem to
care a straw for it; and his third of the booty, which belongs to him of
right, he gives away to orphans, or supports promising young men with it
at college. But should he happen to get a country squire into his clutches
who grinds down his peasants like cattle, or some gold-laced villain, who
warps the law to his own purposes, and hoodwinks the eyes of justice with
his gold, or any chap of that kidney; then, my boy, he is in his element,
and rages like a very devil, as if every fibre in his body were a fury.

SPIEGEL. Humph!

RAZ. The other day we were told at a tavern that a rich count from
Ratisbon was about to pass through, who had gained the day in a suit worth
a million of money by the craftiness of his lawyer. The captain was just
sitting down to a game of backgammon. “How many of us are there?” said he
to me, rising in haste. I saw him bite his nether lip, which he never does
except when he is very determined. “Not more than five,” I replied.
“That’s enough,” he said; threw his score on the table, left the wine he
had ordered untouched, and off we went. The whole time he did not utter a
syllable, but walked aloof and alone, only asking us from time to time
whether we heard anything, and now and then desiring us to lay our ears to
the ground. At last the count came in sight, his carriage heavily laden,
the lawyer, seated by his side, an outrider in advance, and two horsemen
riding behind. Then you should have seen the man. With a pistol in each
hand he ran before us to the carriage,—and the voice with which he
thundered, “Halt!” The coachman, who would not halt, was soon toppled from
his box; the count fired out of the carriage and missed—the horseman
fled. “Your money, rascal!” cried Moor, with his stentorian voice. The
count lay like a bullock under the axe: “And are you the rogue who turns
justice into a venal prostitute?” The lawyer shook till his teeth
chattered again; and a dagger soon stuck in his body, like a stake in a
vineyard. “I have done my part,” cried the captain, turning proudly away;
“the plunder is your affair.” And with this he vanished into the forest.

SPIEGEL. Hum! hum! Brother, what I told you just now remains between
ourselves; there is no occasion for his knowing it. You understand me?

RAZ. Yes, yes, I understand!

SPIEGEL. You know the man! He has his own notions! You understand me?

RAZ. Oh, I quite understand.

Who’s there? What is the matter? Any travellers in the forest?

SCHWARZ. Quick, quick! Where are the others? Zounds! there you stand
gossiping! Don’t you know—do you know nothing of it?—that poor
Roller—

PAZ. What of him? What of him?

SCHWARZ. He’s hanged, that’s all, and four others with him—

RAz. Roller hanged? S’death! when? How do you know?

SCHWARZ. He has been in limbo more than three weeks, and we knew nothing
of it. He was brought up for examination three several days, and still we
heard nothing. They put him to the rack to make him tell where the captain
was to be found—but the brave fellow would not slip. Yesterday he
got his sentence, and this morning was dispatched express to the devil!

RAZ. Confound it! Does the captain know?

SCHWARZ. He heard of it only yesterday. He foamed like a wild boar. You
know that Roller was always an especial favorite; and then the rack! Ropes
and scaling-ladders were conveyed to the prison, but in vain. Moor himself
got access to him disguised as a Capuchin monk, and proposed to change
clothes with him; but Roller absolutely refused; whereupon the captain
swore an oath that made our very flesh creep. He vowed that he would light
a funeral pile for him, such as had never yet graced the bier of royalty,
one that should burn them all to cinders. I fear for the city. He has long
owed it a grudge for its intolerable bigotry; and you know, when he says,
“I’ll do it,” the thing is as good as done.

RAZ. That is true! I know the captain. If he had pledged his word to the
devil to go to hell he never would pray again, though half a pater-noster
would take him to heaven. Alas! poor Roller!—poor Roller!

SPIEGEL. Memento mori! But it does not concern me. (Hums a tune).

RAZ. (Jumping up). Hark! a shot! (Firing and noise is heard behind the
scenes).

SPIEGEL. Another!

RAZ. And another! The captain!

SCHWEITZER and ROLLER (behind the scenes). Holla, ho! Holla, ho!

RAZ. Roller! by all the devils! Roller!

SCHWEITZER and ROLLER (still behind the scenes). Razman! Schwarz!
Spiegelberg! Razman!

RAZ. Roller! Schweitzer! Thunder and lightning! Fire and fury! (They run
towards him.)

Enter CHARLES VON MOOR (on horseback), SCHWEITZER, ROLLER, GRIMM,
SCHUFTERLE, and a troop of ROBBERS covered with dust and mud.

CHARLES (leaping from his horse) Liberty! Liberty!—Thou art on terra
firma, Roller! Take my horse, Schweitzer, and wash him with wine. (Throws
himself on the ground.) That was hot work!

RAZ. (to ROLLER). Well, by the fires of Pluto! Art thou risen from the
wheel?

SCHWARZ. Art thou his ghost? or am I a fool? or art thou really the man?

ROLLER (still breathless). The identical—alive—whole.—Where
do you think I come from?

SCHWARZ. It would puzzle a witch to tell! The staff was already broken
over you.

ROLLER. Ay, that it was, and more than that! I come straightway from the
gallows. Only let me get my breath. Schweitzer will tell you all. Give me
a glass of brandy! You there too, Spiegelberg! I thought we should have
met again in another place. But give me a glass of brandy! my bones are
tumbling to pieces. Oh, my captain! Where is my captain?

SCHWARZ. Have patience, man, have patience. Just tell me—say—come,
let’s hear—how did you escape? In the name of wonder how came we to
get you back again? My brain is bewildered. From the gallows, you say?

ROLLER (swallows a flask of brandy). Ah, that is capital! that warms the
inside! Straight from the gallows, I tell you. You stand there amid stare
as if that was impossible. I can assure you, I was not more than three
paces from that blessed ladder, on which I was to mount to Abraham’s bosom—so
near, so very near, that I was sold, skin and all, to the dissecting-room!
The fee-simple of my life was not worth a pinch of snuff. To the captain I
am indebted for breath, and liberty, and life.

SCHWEITZER. It was a trick worth the telling. We had heard the day before,
through our spies, that Roller was in the devil’s own pickle; and unless
the vault of heaven fell in suddenly he would, on the morrow —that
is, to-day—go the way of all flesh. Up! says the captain, and follow
me—what is not a friend worth? Whether we save him or not, we will
at least light him up a funeral pile such as never yet honored royalty;
one which shall burn them black and blue. The whole troop was summoned. We
sent Roller a trusty messenger, who conveyed the notice to him in a little
billet, which he slipped into his porridge.

ROLLER. I had but small hope of success.

SCHWEITZER. We waited till the thoroughfares were clear. The whole town
was out after the sight; equestrians, pedestrians, carriages, all
pell-mell; the noise and the gibbet-psalm sounded far and wide. Now, says
the captain, light up, light up! We all flew like darts; they set fire to
the city in three-and-thirty places at once; threw burning firebrands on
the powder-magazine, and into the churches and granaries. Morbleu! in less
than a quarter of an hour a northeaster, which, like us, must have owed a
grudge to the city, came seasonably to our aid, and helped to lift the
flames up to the highest gables. Meanwhile we ran up and down the streets
like furies, crying, fire! ho! fire! ho! in every direction. There was
such howling—screaming-tumult—fire-bells tolling. And
presently the powder-magazine blew up into the air with a crash as if the
earth were rent in twain, heaven burst to shivers, and hell sunk ten
thousand fathoms deeper.

ROLLER. Now my guards looked behind them—there lay the city, like
Sodom and Gomorrah—the whole horizon was one mass of fire,
brimstone, and smoke; and forty hills echoed and reflected the infernal
prank far and wide. A panic seized them all—I take advantage of the
moment, and, quick as lightning—my fetters had been taken off, so
nearly was my time come—while my guards were looking away petrified,
like Lot’s wife, I shot off—tore through the crowd—and away!
After running some sixty paces I throw off my clothes, plunge into the
river, and swim along under water till I think they have lost sight of me.
My captain stood ready, with horses and clothes—and here I am. Moor!
Moor! I only wish that you may soon get into just such another scrape that
I may requite you in like manner.

RAZ. A brutal wish, for which you deserve to be hanged. It was a glorious
prank, though.

ROLLER. It was help in need; you cannot judge of it. You should have
marched, like me, with a rope round your neck, travelling to your grave in
the living body, and seen their horrid sacramental forms and hangman’s
ceremonies—and then, at every reluctant step, as the struggling feet
were thrust forward, to see the infernal machine, on which I was to be
elevated, glaring more and more hideously in the blaze of a noonday sun—and
the hangman’s rapscallions watching for their prey —and the horrible
psalm-singing—the cursed twang still rings in my ears—and the
screeching hungry ravens, a whole flight of them, who were hovering over
the half-rotten carcass of my predecessor. To see all this—ay, more,
to have a foretaste of the blessedness which was in store for me! Brother,
brother! And then, all of a sudden, the signal of deliverance. It was an
explosion as if the vault of heaven were rent in twain. Hark ye, fellows!
I tell you, if a man were to leap out of a fiery furnace into a freezing
lake he could not feel the contrast half so strongly as I did when I
gained the opposite shore.

SPIEGEL. (Laughs.) Poor wretch! Well, you have got over it. (Pledges him).
Here’s to a happy regeneration!

ROLLER (flings away his glass). No, by all the treasures of Mammon, I
should not like to go through it a second time. Death is something more
than a harlequin’s leap, and its terrors are even worse than death itself.

SPIEGEL. And the powder-magazine leaping into the air! Don’t you see it
now, Razman? That was the reason the air stunk so, for miles round, of
brimstone, as if the whole wardrobe of Moloch was being aired under the
open firmament. It was a master-stroke, captain! I envy you for it.

SCHWEITZER. If the town makes it a holiday-treat to see our comrade killed
by a baited hog, why the devil should we scruple to sacrifice the city for
the rescue of our comrade? And, by the way, our fellows had the extra
treat of being able to plunder worse than the old emperor. Tell me, what
have you sacked?

ONE OF THE TROOP. I crept into St. Stephen’s church during the hubbub, and
tore the gold lace from the altarcloth. The patron saint, thought I to
myself, can make gold lace out of packthread.

SCHWEITZER. ‘Twas well done. What is the use of such rubbish in a church?
They offer it to the Creator, who despises such trumpery, while they leave
his creatures to die of hunger. And you, Sprazeler—where did you
throw your net?

A SECOND. I and Brizal broke into a merchant’s store, and have brought
stuffs enough with us to serve fifty men.

A THIRD. I have filched two gold watches and a dozen silver spoons.

SCHWEITZER. Well done, well done! And we have lighted them a bonfire that
will take a fortnight to put out again. And, to get rid of the fire, they
must ruin the city with water. Do you know, Schufterle, how many lives
have been lost?

SCHUF. Eighty-three, they say. The powder-magazine alone blew threescore
to atoms.

CHARLES (very seriously). Roller, thou art dearly bought.

SCHUF. Bah! bah! What of that? If they had but been men it would have been
another matter—but they were babes in swaddling clothes, and
shrivelled old nurses that kept the flies from them, and dried-up
stove-squatters who could not crawl to the door—patients whining for
the doctor, who, with his stately gravity, was marching to the sport. All
that had the use of their legs had gone forth in the sight, and nothing
remained at home but the dregs of the city.

CHARLES. Alas for the poor creatures! Sick people, sayest thou, old men
and infants?

SCHUF. Ay, the devil go with them! And lying-in-women into the bargain;
and women far gone with child, who were afraid of miscarrying under the
gibbet; and young mothers, who thought the sight might do them a mischief,
and mark the gallows upon the foreheads of their unborn babes—poor
poets, without a shoe, because their only pair had been sent to the
cobbler to mend—and other such vermin, not worth the trouble of
mentioning. As I chanced to pass by a cottage I heard a great squalling
inside. I looked in; and, when I came to examine, what do you think it
was? Why, an infant—a plump and ruddy urchin—lying on the
floor under a table which was just beginning to burn. Poor little wretch!
said I, you will be cold there, and with that I threw it into the flames!

CHARLES (alone, walking up and down in great agitation). Hear them not,
thou avenger in heaven! How can I avert it? Art thou to blame, great God,
if thy engines, pestilence, and famine, and floods, overwhelm the just
with the unjust? Who can stay the flame, which is kindled to destroy the
hornet’s nest, from extending to the blessed harvest? Oh! fie on the
slaughter of women, and children, and the sick! How this deed weighs me
down! It has poisoned my fairest achievements! There he stands, poor fool,
abashed and disgraced in the sight of heaven; the boy that presumed to
wield Jove’s thunder, and overthrew pigmies when he should have crushed
Titans. Go, go! ’tis not for thee, puny son of clay, to wield the avenging
sword of sovereign justice! Thou didst fail at thy first essay. Here,
then, I renounce the audacious scheme. I go to hide myself in some deep
cleft of the earth, where no daylight will be witness of my shame. (He is
about to fly.)

ROBBER. Look out, captain! There is mischief in the wind! Whole
detachments of Bohemian cavalry are scouring the forests. That infernal
bailiff must have betrayed us.

2D ROBBER. Captain! captain! they have tracked us! Some thousands of them
are forming a cordon round the middle forest.

SCHWEITZER. Ha! Have we routed them out of their feather-beds at last?
Come, be jolly, Roller! I have long wished to have a bout with those
knights of the bread-basket. Where is the captain? Is the whole troop
assembled? I hope we have powder enough?

RAZ. Powder, I believe you; but we are only eighty in all and therefore
scarcely one to twenty.

SCHWEITZER. So much the better! And though there were fifty against my
great toe-nail—fellows who have waited till we lit the straw under
their very seats. Brother, brother, there is nothing to fear. They sell
their lives for tenpence; and are we not fighting for our necks? We will
pour into them like a deluge, and fire volleys upon their heads like
crashes of thunder. But where the devil is the captain.

SPIEGEL. He forsakes us in this extremity. Is there no hope of escape?

SCHWEITZER. Escape?

SPIEGEL. Oh, that I had tarried in Jerusalem!

SCHWEITZER. I wish you were choked in a cesspool, you paltry coward! With
defenceless nuns you are a mighty man; but at sight of a pair of fists a
confirmed sneak! Now show your courage or you shall be sewn up alive in an
ass’s hide and baited to death with dogs.

RAZ. The captain! the captain!

CHARLES. I have allowed them to be hemmed in on every side. Now they must
fight with the energy of despair. (Aloud.) Now my boys! now for it! We
must fight like wounded boars, or we are utterly lost!

SCHWEITZER. Ha! I’ll rip them open with my tusks, till their entrails
protrude by the yard! Lead on, captain! we will follow you into the very
jaws of death.

CHARLES. Charge all your arms! You’ve plenty of powder, I hope?

SCHWEITZER (with energy). Powder? ay, enough to blow the earth up to the
moon.

RAZ. Every one of us has five brace of pistols, ready loaded, and three
carbines to boot.

CHARLES. Good! good! Now some of you must climb up the trees, or conceal
yourselves in the thickets, and some fire upon them in ambush—

SCHWEITZER. That part will suit you, Spiegelberg.

CHARLES. The rest will follow me, and fall upon their flanks like furies.

SCHWEITZER. There will I be!

CHARLES. At the same time let every man make his whistle ring through the
forest, and gallop about in every direction, so that our numbers may
appear the more formidable. And let all the dogs be unchained, and set on
upon their ranks, that they may be broken and dispersed and run in the way
of our fire. We three, Roller, Schweitzer, and myself, will fight wherever
the fray is hottest.

SCHWEITZER. Masterly! excellent! We will so bewilder them with balls that
they shall not know whence the salutes are coming. I have more than once
shot away a cherry from the mouth. Only let them come on (SCHUFTERLE is
pulling SCHWEITZER; the latter takes the captain aside, and entreats him
in a low voice.)

CHARLES. Silence!

SCHWEITZER. I entreat you—

CHARLES. Away! Let him have the benefit of his disgrace; it has saved him.
He shall not die on the same field with myself, my Schweitzer, and my
Roller. Let him change his apparel, and I will say he is a traveller whom
I have plundered. Make yourself easy, Schweitzer. Take my word for it he
will be hanged yet.

FATHER DOM. (to himself, starts). Is this the dragon’s nest? With your
leave, sirs! I am a servant of the church; and yonder are seventeen
hundred men who guard every hair of my head.

SCHWEITZER. Bravo! bravo! Well spoken to keep his courage warm.

CHARLES. Silence, comrade! Will you tell us briefly, good father, what is
your errand here?

FATHER Dom. I am delegated by the high justices, on whose sentence hangs
life or death—ye thieves—ye incendiaries—ye villains—ye
venomous generation of vipers, crawling about in the dark, and stinging in
secret—ye refuse of humanity—brood of hell—food for
ravens and worms—colonists for the gallows and the wheel—

SCHWEITZER. Dog! a truce with your foul tongue! or ———
(He holds the butt-end of his gun before FATHER DOMINIC’S face.)

CHARLES. Fie, fie, Schweitzer! You cut the thread of his discourse. He has
got his sermon so nicely by heart. Pray go on, Sir! “for the gallows and
the wheel?”

FATHER Dom. And thou, their precious captain!—commander-in-chief of
cut-purses!—king of sharpers! Grand Mogul of all the rogues under
the sun!—great prototype of that first hellish ringleader who imbued
a thousand legions of innocent angels with the flame of rebellion, and
drew them down with him into the bottomless pit of damnation! The
agonizing cries of bereaved mothers pursue thy footsteps! Thou drinkest
blood like water! and thy murderous knife holds men cheaper than
air-bubbles!

CHARLES. Very true—exceedingly true! Pray proceed, Sir!

FATHER DOM. What do you mean? Very true—exceedingly true! Is that an
answer?

CHARLES. How, Sir? You were not prepared for that, it seems? Go on—
by all means go on. What more were you going to say?

FATHER DOM. (heated). Abominable wretch! Avaunt! Does not the blood of a
murdered count of the empire cling to thy accursed fingers? Hast thou not,
with sacrilegious hands, dared to break into the Lord’s sanctuary, and
carry off the consecrated vessels of the sanctissimum? Hast thou
not flung firebrands into our godly city, and brought down the
powder-magazine upon the heads of devout Christians? (Clasps his hands).
Horrible, horrible wickedness! that stinketh in the nostrils of Heaven,
and provoketh the day of judgment to burst upon you suddenly! ripe for
retribution—rushing headlong to the last trump!

CHARLES. Masterly guesses thus far! But now, sir, to the point! What is it
that the right worshipful justices wish to convey to me through you?

FATHER Dom. What you are not worthy to receive. Look around you,
incendiary! As far as your eye can reach you are environed by our horsemen—there
is no chance of escape. As surely as cherries grow on these oaks, and
peaches on these firs, so surely shall you turn your backs upon these oaks
and these firs in safety.

CHARLES. Do you hear that, Schweitzer? But go on!

FATHER DOM. Hear, then, what mercy and forbearance justice shows towards
such miscreants. If you instantly prostrate yourselves in submission and
sue for mercy and forgiveness, then severity itself will relent to
compassion, and justice be to thee an indulgent mother. She will shut one
eye upon your horrible crimes, and be satisfied—only think!—to
let you be broken on the wheel.

SCHWEITZER. Did you hear that, captain? Shall I throttle this well-trained
shepherd’s cur till the red blood spurts from every pore?

ROLLER. Captain! Fire and fury! Captain! How he bites his lip! Shall I
topple this fellow upside down like a ninepin?

SCHWEITZER. Mine, mine be the job! Let me kneel to you, captain; let me
implore you! I beseech you to grant me the delight of pounding him to a
jelly! (FATHER DOMINIC screams.)

CHARLES. Touch him not! Let no one lay a finger on him!—(To FATHER
DOMINIC, drawing his sword.) Hark ye, sir father! Here stand
nine-and-seventy men, of whom I am the captain, and not one of them has
been taught to trot at a signal, or learned to dance to the music of
artillery; while yonder stand seventeen hundred men grown gray under the
musket. But now listen! Thus says Moor, the captain of incendiaries. It is
true I have slain a count of the empire, burnt and plundered the church of
St. Dominic, flung firebrands into your bigoted city, and brought down the
powder-magazine upon the heads of devout Christians. But that is not all,—I
have done more. (He holds out his right hand.) Do you observe these four
costly rings, one on each finger? Go and report punctually to their
worships, on whose sentence hangs life or death what you shall hear and
see. This ruby I drew from the finger of a minister, whom I stretched at
the feet of his prince, during the chase. He had fawned himself up from
the lowest dregs, to be the first favorite;—the ruin of his neighbor
was his ladder to greatness—orphans’ tears helped him to mount it.
This diamond I took from a lord treasurer, who sold offices of honor and
trust to the highest bidder, and drove the sorrowing patriot from his
door. This opal I wear in honor of a priest of your cloth, whom I
dispatched with my own hand, after he had publicly deplored in his pulpit
the waning power of the Inquisition. I could tell you more stories about
my rings, but that I repent the words I have already wasted upon you—

FATHER DOM. O Pharaoh! Pharaoh!

CHARLES. Do you hear it? Did you mark that sigh? Does he not stand there
as if he were imploring fire from heaven to descend and destroy this troop
of Korah? He pronounces judgment with a shrug of the shoulders, and
eternal damnation with a Christian “Alas!” Is it possible for humanity to
be so utterly blind? He who has the hundred eyes of Argus to spy out the
faults of his brother—can he be so totally blind to his own? They
thunder forth from their clouds about gentleness and forbearance, while
they sacrifice human victims to the God of love as if he were the fiery
Moloch. They preach the love of one’s neighbor, while they drive the aged
and blind with curses from their door. They rave against covetousness; yet
for the sake of gold they have depopulated Peru, and yoked the natives,
like cattle, to their chariots. They rack their brains in wonder to
account for the creation of a Judas Iscariot, yet the best of them would
betray the whole Trinity for ten shekels. Out upon you, Pharisees! ye
falsifiers of truth! ye apes of Deity! You are not ashamed to kneel before
crucifixes and altars; you lacerate your backs with thongs, and mortify
your flesh with fasting; and with these pitiful mummeries you think, fools
as you are, to veil the eyes of Him whom, with the same breath, you
address as the Omniscient, just as the great are the most bitterly mocked
by those who flatter them while they pretend to hate flatterers. You boast
of your honesty and your exemplary conduct; but the God who sees through
your hearts would be wroth with Him that made you, were He not the same
that had also created the monsters of the Nile. Away with him out of my
sight!

FATHER DOM. That such a miscreant should be so proud!

CHARLES. That’s not all. Now I will speak proudly. Go and tell the right
worshipful justices—who set men’s lives upon the cast of a die—
I am not one of those thieves who conspire with sleep and midnight, and
play the hero and the lordling on a scaling-ladder. What I have done I
shall no doubt hereafter be doomed to read in the register of heaven; but
with his miserable ministers of earth I will waste no more words. Tell
your masters that my trade is retribution—vengeance my occupation!
(He turns his back upon him.)

FATHER DOM. Then you despise mercy and forbearance?—-Be it so, I
have done with you. (Turning to the troop.) Now then, sirs, you shall hear
what the high powers direct me to make known to you!—If you will
instantly deliver up to me this condemned malefactor, bound hand and foot,
you shall receive a full pardon—your enormities shall be entirely
blotted out, even from memory. The holy church will receive you, like lost
sheep, with renewed love, into her maternal bosom, and the road to
honorable employment shall be open to you all. (With a triumphant smile.)
Now sir! how does your majesty relish this? Come on! bind him! and you are
free!

CHARLES. Do you hear that? Do you hear it? What startles you? Why do you
hesitate? They offer you freedom—you that are already their
prisoners. They grant you your lives, and that is no idle pretence, for it
is clear you are already condemned felons. They promise you honor and
emolument; and, on the other hand, what can you hope for, even should you
be victorious to-day, but disgrace, and curses, and persecution? They
ensure you the pardon of Heaven; you that are actually damned. There is
not a single hair on any of you that is not already bespoke in hell. Do
you still hesitate? are you staggered? Is it so difficult, then, to choose
between heaven and hell?—Do put in a word, father!

FATHER DOM. (aside.) Is the fellow crazy? (Aloud.) Perhaps you are afraid
that this is a trap to catch you alive?—Read it yourselves! Here—is
the general pardon fully signed. (He hands a paper to SCHWEITZER.) Can you
still doubt?

CHARLES. Only see! only see! What more can you require? Signed with their
own hands! It is mercy beyond all bounds! Or are you afraid of their
breaking their word, because you have heard it said that no faith need be
kept with traitors? Dismiss that fear! Policy alone would constrain them
to keep their word, even though it should merely have been pledged to old
Nick. Who hereafter would believe them? How could they trade with it a
second time? I would take my oath upon it that they mean it sincerely.
They know that I am the man who has goaded you on and incited you; they
believe you innocent. They look upon your crimes as so many juvenile
errors—exuberances of rashness. It is I alone they want. I must pay
the penalty. Is it not so, father?

FATHER DOM. What devil incarnate is it that speaks out of him? Of course
it is so—of course. The fellow turns my brain.

CHARLES. What! no answer yet? Do you think it possible to cut your way
through yon phalanx? Only look round you! just look round! You surely do
not reckon upon that; that were indeed a childish conceit—Or do you
flatter yourselves that you will fall like heroes, because you saw that I
rejoiced in the prospect of the fight? Oh, do not console yourself with
the thought! You are not MOOR. You are miserable thieves! wretched tools
of my great designs! despicable as the rope in the hand of the hangman!
No! no! Thieves do not fall like heroes. Life must be the hope of thieves,
for something fearful has to follow. Thieves may well be allowed to quake
at the fear of death. Hark! Do you hear their horns echoing through the
forest? See there! how their glittering sabres threaten! What! are you
still irresolute? are you mad? are you insane? It is unpardonable. Do you
imagine I shall thank you for my life? I disdain your sacrifice!

FATHER DOM. (in utter amazement). I shall go mad! I must be gone! Was the
like ever heard of?

CHARLES. Or are you afraid that I shall stab myself, and so by suicide put
an end to the bargain, which only holds good if I am given up alive? No,
comrades! that is a vain fear. Here, I fling away my dagger, and my
pistols, and this phial of poison, which might have been a treasure to me.
I am so wretched that I have lost the power even over my own life. What!
still in suspense? Or do you think, perhaps, that I shall stand on my
defence when you try to seize me? See here! I bind my right hand to this
oak-branch; now I am quite defenceless, a child may overpower me. Who is
the first to desert his captain in the hour of need?

ROLLER (with wild energy). And what though hell encircle us with ninefold
coils! (Brandishing his sword.) Who is the coward that will betray his
captain?

SCHWEITZER (tears the pardon and flings the pieces into FATHER DOMINIC’S
face). Pardon be in our bullets! Away with thee, rascal! Tell your senate
that you could not find a single traitor in all Moor’s camp. Huzza! Huzza!
Save the captain!

ALL (shouting). Huzza! Save the captain! Save him! Save our noble captain!

CHARLES (releasing his hand from the tree, joyfully). Now we are free,
comrades! I feel a host in this single arm! Death or liberty! At the least
they shall not take a man of us alive!

ACT III.

SCENE I.—AMELIA in the garden, playing the guitar.

FRANCIS. Here again already, perverse enthusiast? You stole away from the
festive banquet, and marred the mirthful pleasures of my guests.

AMELIA. ‘Tis pity, truly, to mar such innocent pleasures! Shame on them!
The funeral knell that tolled over your father’s grave must still be
ringing in your ears—

FRANCIS. Wilt thou sorrow, then, forever? Let the dead sleep in peace, and
do thou make the living happy! I come—

AMELIA. And when do you go again?

FRANCIS. Alas! Look not on me thus sorrowfully! You wound me, Amelia. I
come to tell you—

AMELIA. To tell me, I suppose, that Francis von Moor has become lord and
master here.

FRANCIS. Precisely so; that is the very subject on which I wish to
communicate with you. Maximilian von Moor is gone to the tomb of his
ancestors. I am master. But I wish—to be so in the fullest sense,
Amelia. You know what you have been to our house always regarded as Moor’s
daughter, his love for you will survive even death itself; that,
assuredly, you will never forget?

AMELIA. Never, never! Who could be so unfeeling as to drown the memory of
it in festive banqueting?

FRANCIS. It is your duty to repay the love of the father to his sons; and
Charles is dead. Ha! you are struck with amazement; dizzy with the
thought! To be sure ’tis a flattering and an elating prospect which may
well overpower the pride of a woman. Francis tramples under foot the hopes
of the noblest and the richest, and offers his heart, his hand, and with
them all his gold, his castles, and his forests to a poor, and, but for
him, destitute orphan. Francis—the feared—voluntarily declares
himself Amelia’s slave!

AMELIA. Why does not a thunderbolt cleave the impious tongue which utters
the criminal proposal! Thou hast murdered my beloved Charles; and shall
Amelia, his betrothed, call thee husband? Thou?

FRANCIS. Be not so violent, most gracious princess! It is true that
Francis does not come before you like a whining Celadon—’tis true he
has not learned, like a lovesick swain of Arcadia, to sigh forth his
amorous plaints to the echo of caves and rocks. Francis speaks—and,
when not answered, commands!

AMELIA. Commands? thou reptile! Command me? And what if I laughed your
command to scorn?

FRANCIS. That you will hardly do. There are means, too, which I know of,
admirably adapted to humble the pride of a capricious, stubborn girl—cloisters
and walls!

AMELIA. Excellent! delightful! to be forever secure within cloisters and
walls from thy basilisk look, and to have abundant leisure to think and
dream of Charles. Welcome with your cloister! welcome your walls!

FRANCIS. Ha! Is that it? Beware! Now you have taught me the art of
tormenting you. The sight of me shall, like a fiery-haired fury, drive out
of your head these eternal phantasies of Charles. Francis shall be the
dread phantom ever lurking behind the image of your beloved, like the
fiend-dog that guards the subterranean treasure. I will drag you to church
by the hair, and sword in hand wring the nuptial vow from your soul. By
main force will I ascend your virginal couch, and storm your haughty
modesty with still greater haughtiness.

AMELIA (gives him a slap in the face). Then take that first by way of
dowry!

FRANCIS. Ha! I will be tenfold, and twice tenfold revenged for this! My
wife! No, that honor you shall never enjoy. You shall be my mistress, my
strumpet! The honest peasant’s wife shall point her finger at you as she
passes you in the street. Ay, gnash your teeth as fiercely as you please—scatter
fire and destruction from your eyes— the fury of a woman piques my
fancy—it makes you more beautiful, more tempting. Come, this
resistance will garnish my triumph, and your struggles give zest to my
embraces. Come, come to my chamber—I burn with desire. Come this
instant. (Attempts to drag her away).

AMELIA (falls on his neck). Forgive me, Francis! (As he is about to clasp
her in his arms, she suddenly draws the sword at his side, and hastily
disengages herself). Do you see now, miscreant, how I am able to deal with
you? I am only a woman, but a woman enraged. Dare to approach, and this
steel shall strike your lascivious heart to the core —the spirit of
my uncle will guide my hand. Avaunt, this instant! (She drives him away).

Ah! how different I feel! Now I breathe again—I feel strong as the
snorting steed, ferocious as the tigress when she springs upon the
ruthless destroyer of her cubs. To a cloister, did he say? I thank thee
for the happy thought! Now has disappointed love found a place of refuge—the
cloister—the Redeemer’s bosom is the sanctuary of disappointed love.
(She is on the point going).

In the acting edition the following scene occurs between Herman and
Francis, immediately before that with Amelia. As Schiller himself thought
this among the happiest of his additions, and regretted that it was
“entirely and very unfortunately overlooked in the first edition,” it
seems desirable to introduce it here as well as the soliloquy immediately
following, which has acquired some celebrity.

SCENE VIII.

FRANCIS. Ha! Welcome, my Euryalus! My prompt and trusty instrument!

HERMANN (abruptly and peevishly). You sent for me, count—why?

FRANCIS. That you might put the seal to your master-piece.

HERMANN (gruffly). Indeed?

FRANCIS. Give the picture its finishing touch.

HERMANN. Poh! Poh!

FRANCIS (startled). Shall I call the carriage? We’ll arrange the business
during the drive?

HERMANN (scornfully). No ceremony, sir, if you please. For any business we
may have to arrange there is room enough between these four walls. At all
events I’ll just say a few words to you by way of preface, which may save
your lungs some unnecessary exertion.

FRANCIS (reservedly). Hum! And what may those words be?

HERMANN (with bitter irony). “You shall have Amelia—and that from my
hand—”

FRANCIS (with astonishment). Hermann!

HERMANN (as before, with his back turned on FRANCIS). “Amelia will become
the plaything of my will—and you may easily guess the rest-in short
all will go as we wish” (Breaks into an indignant laugh, and then turns
haughtily to FRANCIS.) Now, Count von Moor, what have you to say to me?

FRANCIS (evasively). To thee? Nothing. I had something to say to Hermann.—

HERMANN, No evasion. Why was I sent for hither? Was it to be your dupe a
second time! and to hold the ladder for a thief to mount? to sell my soul
for a hangman s fee? What else did you want with me?

FRANCIS (as if recollecting). Ha! It just occurs to me! We must not forget
the main point. Did not my steward mention it to you? I wanted to talk to
you about the dowry.

HERMANN. This is mere mockery sir; or, if not mockery, something worse.
Moor, take care of yourself-beware how you kindle my fury, Moor. We are
alone! And I have still an unsullied name to stake against yours! Trust
not the devil, although he be of your own raising.

FRANCIS (with dignity). Does this deportment become thee towards thy
sovereign and gracious master? Tremble, slave!

HERMANN (ironically). For fear of your displeasure, I suppose? What
signifies your displeasure to a man who is at war with himself? Fie, Moor.
I already abhor you as a villain; let me not despise you for a fool. I can
open graves, and restore the dead to life! Which of us now is the slave?

FRANCIS (in a conciliating tone). Come, my good friend, be discreet, and
do not prove faithless.

HERMANN. Pshaw! To expose a wretch like you is here the best discretion—to
keep faith with you would be an utter want of sense. Faith? with whom?
Faith with the prince of liars? Oh, I shudder at the thought of such
faith. A very little timely faithlessness would have almost made a saint
of me. But patience! patience! Revenge is cunning in resources.

FRANCIS. Ah, by-the-by, I just remember. You lately lost a purse with a
hundred louis in it, in this apartment. I had almost forgotten it. Here,
my good friend! take back what belongs to you. (Offers him a purse).

HERMANN (throws it scornfully at his feet). A curse on your Judas bribe!
It is the earnest-money of hell. You once before thought to make my
poverty a pander to my conscience—but you were mistaken, count!
egregiously mistaken. That purse of gold came most opportunely—to
maintain certain persons.

FRANCIS (terrified). Hermann! Hermann! Let me not suspect certain things
of you. Should you have done anything contrary to my instructions—you
would be the vilest of traitors!

HERMANN (exultingly). Should I? Should I really? Well then count, let me
give you a little piece of information! (Significantly.) I will fatten up
your infamy, and add fuel to your doom. The book of your misdeeds shall
one day be served up as a banquet, and all the world be invited to partake
of it. (Contemptuously.) Do you understand me now, my most sovereign,
gracious, and excellent master?

FRANCIS (starts up, losing all command of himself). Ha! Devil! Deceitful
impostor! (Striking his forehead.) To think that I should stake my fortune
on the caprice of an idiot! That was madness! (Throws himself, in great
excitement, on a couch.)

HERMANN (whistles through his fingers). Wheugh! the biter bit!—

FRANCIS (biting his lip). But it is true, and ever will be true—that
there is no thread so feebly spun, or which snaps asunder so readily, as
that which weaves the bands of guilt!—

HERMANN. Gently! Gently! Are angels, then, superseded, that devils turn
moralists?

FRANCIS (starts up abruptly; to HERMANN with a malignant laugh). And
certain persons will no doubt acquire much honor by making the discovery?

HERMANN (clapping his hands). Masterly! Inimitable! You play your part to
admiration! First you lure the credulous fool into the slough, and then
chuckle at the success of your malice, and cry “Woe be to you sinner!”
(Laughing and clenching his teeth.) Oh, how cleverly these imps off the
devil manoeuvre. But, count (clapping him on the shoulder) you have not
yet got your lesson quite perfect—by Heavens! You first learn what
the losing gamester will hazard. Set fire to the powder-magazine, says the
pirate, and blow all to hell—both friend and foe!

FRANCIS (runs to the wall, and takes down a pistol). Here is treason! I
must be resolute—

HERMANN (draws a pistol as quickly from his pocket, and presents it at
him). Don’t trouble yourself—one must be prepared for everything
with you.

FRANCIS (lets the pistol fall, and throws himself on the sofa in great
confusion). Only keep my council till—till I have collected my
thoughts.

SCENE IX.

HERMANN. Lady Amelia! Lady Amelia!

AMELIA. Unhappy man! why dost thou disturb me?

HERMANN. I must throw this weight from my soul before it drags it down to
hell. (Falls down before her.) Pardon! pardon! I have grievously injured
you, Lady Amelia!

AMELIA. Arise! depart! I will hear nothing. (Going.)

HERMANN (detaining her). No; stay! In the name of Heaven! In the name of
the Eternal! You must know all!

AMELIA. Not another word. I forgive you. Depart in peace. (In the act of
going.)

HERMANN. Only one word—listen; it will restore all your peace of
mind.

AMELIA (turning back and looking at him with astonishment). How, friend?
Who in heaven or on earth can restore my peace of mind?

HERMANN. One word from my lips can do it. Hear me!

AMELIA (seizing his hand with compassion). Good sir! Can one word from thy
lips burst asunder the portals of eternity?

HERMANN. (rising). Charles lives!

AMELIA (screaming). Wretch!

HERMANN. Even so. And one word more. Your uncle—

AMELIA. (rushing upon him). Thou liest!

HERMANN. Your uncle—

AMELIA. Charles lives?

HERMANN. And your uncle—

AMELIA. Charles lives?

HERMANN. And your uncle too—betray me not!

AMELIA (stands a long while like one petrified; after which she starts up
wildly, and rushes after HERMANN.) Charles lives!

SCENE II.—Country near the Danube.

CHARLES. Here must I lie (throwing himself upon the ground). I feel as if
my limbs were all shattered. My tongue is as dry as a potsherd (SCHWEITZER
disappears unperceived.) I would ask one of you to bring me a handful of
water from that stream, but you are all tired to death.

SCHWARZ. Our wine-flasks too are all empty.

CHARLES. See how beautiful the harvest looks! The trees are breaking with
the weight of their fruit. The vines are full of promise.

GRIMM. It is a fruitful year.

CHARLES. Do you think so? Then at least one toil in the world will be
repaid. One? Yet in the night a hailstorm may come and destroy it all.

SCHWARZ. That is very possible. It all may be destroyed an hour before the
reaping.

CHARLES. Just what I say. All will be destroyed. Why should man prosper in
that which he has in common with the ant, while he fails in that which
places him on a level with the gods. Or is this the aim and limit of his
destiny?

SCHWARZ. I know not.

CHARLES. Thou hast said well; and wilt have done better, if thou never
seekest to know. Brother, I have looked on men, their insect cares and
their giant projects,—their god-like plans and mouse-like
occupations, their intensely eager race after happiness—one trusting
to the fleetness of his horse,—another to the nose of his ass,—a
third to his own legs; this checkered lottery of life, in which so many
stake their innocence and their leaven to snatch a prize, and,—blanks
are all they draw—for they find, too late, that there was no prize
in the wheel. It is a drama, brother, enough to bring tears into your
eyes, while it shakes your sides with laughter.

SCHWARZ. How gloriously the sun is setting yonder!

CHARLES (absorbed in the scene). So dies a hero! Worthy of adoration!

SCHWARZ. You seem deeply moved.

CHARLES. When I, was but a boy—it was my darling thought to live
like him, like him to die—(with suppressed grief.) It was a boyish
thought!

GRIMM. It was, indeed.

CHARLES. There was a time—(pressing his hat down upon his face). I
would be alone, comrades.

SCHWARZ. Moor! Moor! Why, what the deuce! How his color changes.

GRIMM. By all the devils! What ails him? Is he ill?

CHARLES. There was a time when I could not have slept had I forgotten my
evening prayers.

GRIMM. Are you beside yourself? Would you let the remembrances of your
boyish years school you now?

CHARLES (lays his head upon the breast of GRIMM). Brother! Brother!

GRIMM. Come! Don’t play the child—I pray you

CHARLES. Oh that I were-that I were again a child!

GRIMM. Fie! fie!

SCHWARZ. Cheer up! Behold this smiling landscape—this delicious
evening!

CHARLES. Yes, friends, this world is very lovely—

SCHWARZ. Come, now, that was well said.

CHARLES. This earth so glorious!—

GRIMM. Right—right—I love to hear you talk thus.

CHARLES. (sinking back). And I so hideous in’ this lovely world— a
monster on this glorious earth!

GRIMM. Oh dear! oh dear!

CHARLES. My innocence! give me back my innocence! Behold, every living
thing is gone forth to bask in the cheering rays of the vernal sun—why
must I alone inhale the torments of hell out of the joys of heaven? All
are so happy, all so united in brotherly love, by the spirit of peace! The
whole world one family, and one Father above—but He not my father! I
alone the outcast, I alone rejected from the ranks of the blessed—the
sweet name of child is not for me—never for me the soul-thrilling
glance of her I love—never, never the bosom friend’s embrace—(starting
back wildly)—surrounded by murderers—hemmed in by hissing
vipers— riveted to vice with iron fetters—whirling headlong on
the frail reed of sin to the gulf of perdition—amid the blooming
flowers of a glad world, a howling Abaddon!

SCHWARZ (to the others). How strange! I never saw him thus before.

CHARLES (with melancholy). Oh, that I might return again to my mother’s
womb. That I might be born a beggar! I should desire no more,—no
more, oh heaven!—but that I might be like one of those poor
laborers! Oh, I would toil till the blood streamed down my temples—to
buy myself the luxury of one guiltless slumber—the blessedness of a
single tear.

GRIMM (to the others). A little patience—the paroxysm is nearly
over.

CHARLES. There was a time when my tears flowed so freely. Oh, those days
of peace! Dear home of my fathers—ye verdant halcyon vales! O all ye
Elysian scenes of my childhood!—will you never return?—will
your delicious breezes never cool my burning bosom? Mourn with me, Nature,
mourn! They will never return! never will their delicious breezes cool my
burning bosom! They are gone! gone! irrevocably gone!

SCHWEITZER (offering him water in his hat). Drink, captain; here is plenty
of water, and cold as ice.

SCHWARZ. You are bleeding! What have you been doing?

SCHWEITZER. A bit of a freak, you fool, which had well-nigh cost me two
legs and a neck. As I was frolicking along the steep sandbanks of the
river, plump, in a moment, the whole concern slid from under me, and I
after it, some ten fathoms deep;—there I lay, and, as I was
recovering my five senses, lo and behold, the most sparkling water in the
gravel! Not so much amiss this time, said I to myself, for the caper I
have cut. The captain will be sure to relish a drink.

CHARLES (returns him the hat and wipes his face). But you are covered with
mud, Schweitzer, and we can’t see the scar which the Bohemian horseman
marked on your forehead—your water was good, Schweitzer—and
those scars become you well.

SCHWEITZER. Bah! There’s room for a score or two more yet.

CHARLES. Yes, boys—it was a hot day’s work—and only one man
lost. Poor Roller! he died a noble death. A marble monument would be
erected to his memory had he died in any other cause than mine. Let this
suffice. (He wipes the tears from his eyes.) How many, did you say, of the
enemy were left on the field?

SCHWEITZER. A hundred and sixty huzzars, ninety-three dragoons, some forty
chasseurs—in all about three hundred.

CHARLES. Three hundred for one! Every one of you has a claim upon this
head. (He bares his head.) By this uplifted dagger! As my Soul liveth, I
will never forsake you!

SCHWEITZER. Swear not! You do not know but you may yet be happy, and
repent your oath.

CHARLES. By the ashes of my Roller! I will never forsake you.

KOSINSKY (aside). Hereabouts, they say, I shall find him. Ha! What faces
are these? Should they be—if these—they must be the men! Yes,
’tis they,’tis they! I will accost them.

SCHWARZ. Take heed! Who goes there?

KOSINSKY. Pardon, sirs. I know not whether I am going right or wrong.

CHARLES. Suppose right, whom do you take us to be?

KOSINSKY. Men!

SCHWEITZER. I wonder, captain, whether we have given any proof of that?

KOSINSKY. I am in search of men who can look death in the face, and let
danger play around then like a tamed snake; who prize liberty above life
or honor; whose very names, hailed by the poor and the oppressed, appal
the boldest, and make tyrants tremble.

SCHWEITZER (to the Captain). I like that fellow. Hark ye, friend! You have
found your men.

KOSINSKY. So I should think, and I hope soon to find them brothers. You
can direct me to the man I am looking for. ‘Tis your captain, the great
Count von Moor.

SCHWEITZER (taking him warmly by the hand). There’s a good lad. You and I
must be chums.

CHARLES (coming nearer). Do you know the captain?

KOSINSKY. Thou art he!—in those features—that air—who
can look at thee, and doubt it? (Looks earnestly at him for some time). I
have always wished to see the man with the annihilating look, as he sat on
the ruins of Carthage.* That wish is realized.

SCHWEITZER. A mettlesome fellow!—

CHARLES. And what brings you to me?

KOSINSKY. Oh, captain! my more than cruel fate. I have suffered
shipwrecked on the stormy ocean of the world; I have seen all my fondest
hopes perish; and nought remains to me but a remembrance of the bitter
past, which would drive me to madness, were I not to drown it by directing
my energies to new objects.

CHARLES. Another arraignment of the ways of Providence! Proceed.

KOSINSKY. I became a soldier. Misfortune still followed me in the army. I
made a venture to the Indies, and my ship was shivered on the rocks—nothing
but frustrated hopes! At last, I heard tell far and wide of your valiant
deeds, incendiarisms, as they called them, and I came straightway hither,
a distance of thirty leagues, firmly resolved to serve under you, if you
will deign to accept my services. I entreat thee, noble captain, refuse me
not!

SCHWEITZER (with a leap into the air). Hurrah! Hurrah! Our Roller replaced
ten hundred-fold! An out-and-out brother cut-throat for our troop.

CHARLES. What is your name?

KOSINSKY. Kosinsky.

CHARLES. What? Kosinsky! And do you know that you are but a thoughtless
boy, and are embarking on the most weighty passage of your life as
heedlessly as a giddy girl? You will find no playing at bowls or ninepins
here, as you probably imagine.

KOSINSKY. I understand you, sir. I am,’tis true, but four-and-twenty years
old, but I have seen swords glittering, and have heard balls whistling
around me.

CHARLES. Indeed, young gentleman? And was it for this that you took
fencing lessons, to run poor travellers through the body for the sake of a
dollar, or stab women in the back? Go! go! You have played truant to your
nurse because she shook the rod at you.

SCHWEITZER. Why, what the devil, captain! what are you about? Do you mean
to turn away such a Hercules? Does he not look as if he could baste
Marechal Saxe across the Ganges with a ladle?

CHARLES. Because your silly schemes miscarry, you come here to turn rogue
and assassin! Murder, boy, do you know the meaning of that word? You may
have slumbered in peace after cropping a few poppy-heads, but to have a
murder on your soul—

KOSINSKY. All the murders you bid me commit be upon my head!

CHARLES. What! Are you so nimble-witted? Do you take measure of a man to
catch him by flattery? How do you know that I am not haunted by terrific
dreams, or that I shall not tremble on my death-bed?—How much have
you already done of which you have considered the responsibility?

KOSINSKY. Very little, I must confess; excepting this long journey to you,
noble count—

CHARLES. Has your tutor let the story of Robin Hood—get into your
hands? Such careless rascals ought to be sent to the galleys. And has it
heated your childish fancy, and infected you with the mania of becoming a
hero? Are you thirsting for honor and fame? Would you buy immortality by
deeds of incendiarism? Mark me, ambitious youth! No laurel blooms for the
incendiary. No triumph awaits the victories of the bandit—nothing
but curses, danger, death, disgrace. Do you see the gibbet yonder on the
hill?

SPIEGEL (going up and down indignantly). Oh, how stupid! How abominably,
unpardonably stupid! That’s not the way. I went to work in a very
different manner.

KOSINSKY. What should he fear, who fears not death?

CHARLES. Bravo! Capital! You have made good use of your time at school;
you have got your Seneca cleverly by heart. But, my good friend, you will
not be able with these fine phrases to cajole nature in the hour of
suffering; they will never blunt the biting tooth of remorse. Ponder on it
well, my son! (Takes him by the hand.) I advise you as a father. First
learn the depth of the abyss before you plunge headlong into it. If in
this world you can catch a single glimpse of happiness—moments may
come when you-awake,—and then—it may be too late. Here you
step out as it were beyond the pale of humanity—you must either be
more than human or a demon. Once more, my son! if but a single spark of
hope glimmer for you elsewhere, fly this fearful compact, where nought but
despair enters, unless a higher wisdom has so ordained it. You may deceive
yourself—believe me, it is possible to mistake that for strength of
mind which in reality is nothing more than despair. Take my counsel! mine!
and depart quickly.

KOSINSKY. No! I will not stir. If my entreaties fail to move you, hear but
the story of my misfortunes. And then you will force the dagger into my
hand as eagerly as you now seek to withhold it. Seat yourselves awhile on
the grass and listen.

CHARLES. I will hear your story.

KOSINSKY. Know, then, that I am a Bohemian nobleman. By the early death of
my father I became master of large possessions. The scene of my domain was
a paradise; for it contained an angel—a maid adorned with all the
charms of blooming youth, and chaste as the light of heaven. But to whom
do I talk of this? It falls unheeded on your cars—ye never loved, ye
were never beloved—

SCHWEITZER. Gently, gently! The captain grows red as fire.

CHARLES. No more! I’ll hear you some other time—to-morrow,—or
by-and-by, or—after I have seen blood.

KOSINSKY. Blood, blood! Only hear on! Blood will fill your whole soul. She
was of citizen birth, a German—but her look dissolved all the
prejudices of aristocracy. With blushing modesty she received the bridal
ring from my hand, and on the morrow I was to have led my AMELIA to the
altar. (CHARLES rises suddenly.) In the midst of my intoxicating dream of
happiness, and while our nuptials were preparing, an express summoned me
to court. I obeyed the summons. Letters were shown me which I was said to
have written, full of treasonable matter. I grew scarlet with indignation
at such malice; they deprived me of my sword, thrust me into prison, and
all my senses forsook me.

SCHWEITZER. And in the meantime—go on! I already scent the game.

KOSINSKY. There I lay a whole month, and knew not what was taking place. I
was full of anxiety for my Amelia, who I was sure would suffer the pangs
of death every moment in apprehension of my fate. At last the prime
minister makes his appearance,—congratulates me in honey-sweet words
on the establishment of my innocence,—reads to me a warrant of
discharge,—and returns me my sword. I flew in triumph to my castle,
to the arms of my Amelia, but she had disappeared! She had been carried
off, it was said, at midnight, no one knew whither, and no eye had beheld
her since. A suspicion instantly flashed across my mind. I rushed to the
capital—I made inquiries at court—all eyes were upon me,—no
one would give me information. At last I discovered her through a grated
window of the palace—she threw me a small billet.

SCHWEITZER. Did I not say so?

KOSINSKY. Death and destruction! The contents were these! They had given
her the choice between seeing me put to death, and becoming the mistress
of the prince. In the struggle between honor and love she chose the
latter, and (with a bitter smile) I was saved.

SCHWEITZER. And what did you do then?

KOSINSKY. Then I stood like one transfixed with a thunderbolt! Blood was
my first thought, blood my last! Foaming at the mouth, I ran to my
quarters, armed myself with a two-edged sword, and, with all haste, rushed
to the minister’s house, for he—he alone—had been the fiendish
pander. They must have observed me in the street, for, as I went up, I
found all the doors fastened. I searched, I enquired. He was gone, they
said, to the prince. I went straight thither, but nobody there would know
anything about him. I return, force the doors, find the base wretch, and
was on the point when five or six servants suddenly rushed on me from
behind, and wrenched the weapon from my hands.

SCHWEITZER (stamping the ground). And so the fellow got off clear, and you
lost your labor?

KOSINSKY. I was arrested, accused, criminally prosecuted, degraded, and—mark
this—transported beyond the frontier, as a special favor. My estates
were confiscated to the minister, and Amelia remained in the clutches of
the tiger, where she weeps and mourns away her life, while my vengeance
must keep a fast, and crouch submissively to the yoke of despotism.

SCHWEITZER (rising and whetting his sword). That is grist to our mill,
captain! There is something here for the incendiaries!

CHARLES (who has been walking up and down in violent agitation, with a
sudden start to the ROBBERS). I must see her. Up! collect your baggage—you’ll
stay with us, Kosinsky! Quick, pack up!

THE ROBBERS. Where to? What?

CHARLES. Where to? Who asks that question? (Fiercely to SCHWEITZER)
Traitor, wouldst thou keep me back? But by the hope for heaven!

SCHWEITZER. I, a traitor? Lead on to hell and I will follow you!

ACT IV.

SCENE I.—Rural scenery in the neighborhood of CHARLES VON MOOR’S
castle.

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

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.)

SCENE II.*—Gallery in the Castle.

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.
(Passing along thee pictures.) This is not it.

AMELIA. You are right! He was the first count, and received his patent of
nobility 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 godlike 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?*

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 pass 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.]

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 hell 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
glass? 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 hell! 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 damnation! (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 shore 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!

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.

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 hoary-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 circumstances 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 God 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 God and conscience will be
avenged, if, indeed, there be a God 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! God 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 God 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 God 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.

FRANCIS. The temptation is strong, and I should think he was not born to
die a martyr to his faith. Have with you, sir count! According to all
ordinary calculations, you will sup to-morrow with old Beelzebub. In these
matters all depends upon one’s view of a thing; and he is a fool who takes
any view that is contrary to his own interest. A father quaffs perhaps a
bottle of wine more than ordinary—he is in a certain mood—the
result is a human being, the last thing that was thought of in the affair.
Well, I, too, am in a certain mood,—and the result is that a human
being perishes; and surely there is more of reason and purpose in this
than there was in his production. If the birth of a man is the result of
an animal paroxysm, who should take it into his head to attach any
importance to the negation of his birth? A curse upon the folly of our
nurses and teachers, who fill our imaginations with frightful tales, and
impress fearful images of punishment upon the plastic brain of childhood,
so that involuntary shudders shake the limbs of the man with icy fear,
arrest his boldest resolutions, and chain his awakening reason in the
fetters of superstitious darkness. Murder! What a hell full of furies
hovers around that word. Yet ’tis no more than if nature forgets to bring
forth one man more or the doctor makes a mistake—and thus the whole
phantasmagoria vanishes. It was something, and it is nothing. Does not
this amount to exactly the same thing as though it had been nothing, and
came to nothing; and about nothing it is hardly worth while to waste a
word. Man is made of filth, and for a time wades in filth, and produces
filth, and sinks back into filth, till at last he fouls the boots of his
own posterity.*

SCENE III.—Another Room in the Castle.

CHARLES (hastily). Where is Lady Amelia?

DANIEL. Honored sir! permit an old man to ask you a favor.

CHARLES. It is granted. What is it you ask?

DANIEL. Not much, and yet all—but little, and yet a great deal.
Suffer me to kiss your hand!

CHARLES. That I cannot permit, good old man (embraces him), from one whom
I should like to call my father.

DANIEL. Your hand, your hand! I beseech you.

CHARLES. That must not be.

DANIEL. It must! (He takes hold of it, surveys it quickly, and falls down
before him.) Dear, dearest Charles!

CHARLES (startled; he composes himself, and says in a distant tone). What
mean you, my friend? I don’t understand you.

DANIEL. Yes, you may deny it, you may dissemble as much as you please?
‘Tis very well! very well. For all that you are my dearest, my excellent
young master. Good Heaven! that I, poor old man, should live to have the
joy—what a stupid blockhead was I that I did not at a glance—oh,
gracious powers! And you are really come back, and the dear old master is
underground, and here you are again! What a purblind dolt I was, to be
sure! (striking his forehead) that I did not on the instant—Oh, dear
me!—-who could have dreamt it—What I have so often prayed for
with tears—Oh, mercy me! There he stands again, as large as life, in
the old room!

CHARLES. What’s all this oration about? Are you in a fit of delirium, and
have escaped from your keepers; or are you rehearsing a stage-player’s
part with me?

DANIEL. Oh, fie! fie! It is not pretty of you to make game of an old
servant. That scar! Eh! do you remember it? Good Heaven! what a fright you
put me into—I always loved you so dearly; and what misery you might
have brought upon me. You were sitting in my lap—do you remember?
there in the round chamber. Has all that quite vanished from your memory—and
the cuckoo, too, that you were so fond of listening to? Only think! the
cuckoo is broken, broken all to shivers—old Susan smashed it in
sweeping the room—yes, indeed, and there you sat in my lap, and
cried, “Cockhorse!” and I ran off to fetch your wooden horse— mercy
on me! what business had I, thoughtless old fool, to leave you alone—and
how I felt as if I were in a boiling caldron when I heard you screaming in
the passage; and, when I rushed in, there was your red blood gushing
forth, and you lying on the ground. Oh, by the Blessed Virgin! did I not
feel as if a bucket of icy cold water was emptied all over me?—but
so it happens, unless one keeps all one’s eyes upon children. Good Heaven!
if it had gone into your eye! Unfortunately it happened to be the right
hand. “As long as I live,” said I, “never again shall any child in my
charge get hold of a knife or scissors, or any other edge tool.” ‘Twas
lucky for me that both my master and mistress were gone on a journey.
“Yes, yes! this shall be a warning to me for the rest of my life,” said I—Gemini,
Gemini! I might have lost my place, I might—God forgive you, you
naughty boy—but, thank Heaven! it healed fairly, all but that ugly
scar.

CHARLES. I do not comprehend one word of all that you are talking about.

DANIEL. Eh? eh? that was the time! was it not? How many a ginger-cake, and
biscuit, and macaroon, have I slipped into your hands—I was always
so fond of you. And do you recollect what you said to me down in the
stable, when I put you upon old master’s hunter, and let you scamper round
the great meadow? “Daniel!” said you, “only wait till I am grown a big
man, and you shall be my steward, and ride in the coach with me.” “Yes,”
said I, laughing, “if heaven grants me life and health, and you are not
ashamed of the old man,” I said, “I shall ask you to let me have the
little house down in the village, that has stood empty so long; and then I
will lay in a few butts of good wine, and turn publican in my old age.”
Yes, you may laugh, you may laugh! Eh, young gentleman, have you quite
forgotten all that? You do not want to remember the old man, so you carry
yourself strange and loftily;—but, you are my jewel of a young
master, for all that. You have, it is true, been a little bit wild—don’t
be angry!—as young blood is apt to be! All may be well yet in the
end.

CHARLES (falls on his neck). Yes! Daniel! I will no longer hide it from
you! I am your Charles, your lost Charles! And now tell me, how does my
Amelia?

DANIEL (begins to cry). That I, old sinner, should live to have this
happiness—and my late blessed master wept so long in vain! Begone,
begone, hoary old head! Ye weary bones, descend into the grave with joy!
My lord and master lives! my own eyes have beheld him!

CHARLES. And he will keep his promise to you. Take that, honest graybeard,
for the old hunter (forces a heavy purse upon him). I have not forgotten
the old man.

DANIEL. How? What are you doing? Too much! You have made a mistake.

CHARLES. No mistake, Daniel! (DANIEL is about to throw himself on his
knees before him.) Rise! Tell me, how does my Amelia?

DANIEL. Heaven reward you! Heaven reward you! O gracious me! Your Amelia
will never survive it, she will die for joy?

CHARLES (eagerly). She has not forgotten me then?

DANIEL. Forgotten you? How can you talk thus? Forgotten you, indeed! You
should have been there, you should have seen how she took on, when the
news came of your death, which his honor caused to be spread abroad—

CHARLES. What do you say? my brother—

DANIEL. Yes, your brother; his honor, your brother—another day I
will tell you more about it, when we have time—and how cleverly she
sent him about his business when he came a wooing every blessed day, and
offered to make her his countess. Oh, I must go; I must go and tell her;
carry her the news (is about to run of).

CHARLES. Stay! stay! she must not know—nobody must know, not even my
brother!

DANIEL. Your brother? No, on no account; he must not know it! Certainly
not! If he know not already more than he ought to know. Oh, I can tell
you, there are wicked men, wicked brothers, wicked masters; but I would
not for all my master’s gold be a wicked servant. His honor thought you
were dead.

CHARLES. Humph! What are you muttering about?

DANIEL (in a half-suppressed voice). And to be sure when a man rises from
the dead thus uninvited—your brother was the sole heir of our late
master!

CHARLES. Old man! what is it you are muttering between your teeth, as if
some dreadful secret were hovering on your tongue which you fear to utter,
and yet ought? Out with it!

CHARLES (starting up, after a terrible pause). Betrayed! Betrayed! It
flashes upon my soul like lightning! A fiendish trick! A murderer and a
robber through fiend-like machinations! Calumniated by him! My letters
falsified, suppressed! his heart full of love! Oh, what a monstrous fool
was I! His fatherly heart full of love! oh, villainy, villainy! It would
have cost me but once kneeling at his feet—a tear would have done it—oh
blind, blind fool that I was! (running up against the wall). I might have
been happy—oh villainy, villainy!

Knavishly, yes, knavishly cheated out of all happiness in this life! (He
runs up and down in a rage.) A murderer, a robber, all through a knavish
trick! He was not even angry! Not a thought of cursing ever entered his
heart. Oh, miscreant! inconceivable, hypocritical, abominable miscreant!

KOSINSKY. Well, captain, where are you loitering? What is the matter? You
are for staying here some time longer, I perceive?

CHARLES. Up! Saddle the horses! Before sunset we must be over the
frontier!

KOSINSKY. You are joking.

I fly from these walls. The least delay might drive me raving mad; and he
my father’s son! Brother! brother! thou hast made me the most miserable
wretch on earth; I never injured thee; this was not brotherly. Reap the
fruits of thy crime in quiet, my presence shall no longer embitter thy
enjoyment—but, surely, this was not acting like a brother. May
oblivion shroud thy misdeed forever, and death not bring it back to light.

KOSINSKY. The horses are ready saddled, you can mount as soon as you
please.

CHARLES. Why in such haste? Why so urgent? Shall I see her no more?

KOSINSKY. I will take off the bridles again, if you wish it; you bade me
hasten head over heels.

CHARLES. One more farewell! one more! I must drain this poisoned cup of
happiness to the dregs, and then—Stay, Kosinsky! Ten minutes more—
behind, in the castle yard—and we gallop off.

AMELIA. “You are in tears, Amelia!” These were his very words—and
spoken with such expressionsuch a voice!—oh, it summoned up a
thousand dear remembrances!—scenes of past delight, as in my
youthful days of happiness, my golden spring-tide of love. The nightingale
sung with the same sweetness, the flowers breathed the same delicious
fragrance, as when I used to hang enraptured on his neck.*

AMELIA (starting). Hark! hark! did I not hear the gate creak? (She
perceives CHARLES and starts up.) He?—whither?—what? I am
rooted to the spot,—I can not fly! Forsake me not, good Heaven! No!
thou shalt not tear me from my Charles! My soul has no room for two
deities, I am but a mortal maid! (She draws the picture of CHARLES from
her bosom.) Thou, my Charles! be thou my guardian angel against this
stranger, this invader of our loves! At thee will I look, at thee, nor
turn away my eyes—nor cast one sinful look towards him! (She sits
silent, her eyes fixed upon the picture.)

CHARLES. You here, Lady Amelia?—and so sad? and a tear upon that
picture? (AMELIA gives him no answer.) And who is the happy man for whom
these silver drops fall from an angel’s eyes? May I be permitted to look
at—(He endeavors to look at the picture.)

AMELIA. No—yes—no!

CHARLES (starting back). Ha—and does he deserve to be so idolized?
Does he deserve it?

AMELIA. Had you but known him!

CHARLES. I should have envied him.

AMELIA. Adored, you mean.

CHARLES. Ha!

AMELIA. Oh, you would so have loved him?—-there was so much, so much
in his face—in his eyes—in the tone of his voice,—which
was so like yours—that I love so dearly! (CHARLES casts his eyes
down to the ground.) Here, where you are standing, he has stood a thousand
times— and by his side, one who, by his side, forgot heaven and
earth. Here his eyes feasted on nature’s most glorious panorama,—which,
as if conscious of his approving glance, seemed to increase in beauty
under the approbation of her masterpiece. Here he held the audience of the
air captive with his heavenly music. Here, from this bush, he plucked
roses, and plucked those roses for me. Here, here, he lay on my neck; here
he imprinted burning kisses on my lips, and the flowers hung their heads
with pleasure beneath the foot-tread of the lovers.*

CHARLES. He is no more?

AMELIA. He sails on troubled seas—Amelia’s love sails with him. He
wanders through pathless, sandy deserts—Amelia’s love clothes the
burning sand with verdure, and the barren shrubs with flowers. Southern
suits scorch his bare head, northern snows pinch his feet, tempestuous
hail beats down on his temples, but Amelia’s love lulls him to sleep in
the midst of the storm. Seas, and mountains, and skies, divide the lovers—but
their souls rise above this prison-house of clay, and meet in the paradise
of love. You appear sad, count!

CHARLES. These words of love rekindle my love.

AMELIA (pale). What? You love another? Alas! what have I said?

CHARLES. She believed me dead, and in my supposed death she remained
faithful to me—she heard again that I was alive, and she sacrificed
for me the crown of a saint. She knows that I am wandering in deserts, and
roaming about in misery, yet her love follows me on wings through deserts
and through misery. Her name, too, like yours, is Amelia.

AMELIA. How I envy your Amelia!

CHARLES. Oh, she is an unhappy maid. Her love is fixed upon one who is
lost—and it can never—never be rewarded.

AMELIA. Say not so! It will be rewarded in heaven. Is it not agreed that
there is a better world, where mourners rejoice, and where lovers meet
again?

CHARLES. Yes, a world where the veil is lifted—where the phantom
love will make terrible discoveries—Eternity is its name. My Amelia
is an unhappy maid.

AMELIA. Unhappy, and loves you?*

CHARLES. Unhappy, because she loves me! What if I were a murderer? How,
Lady Amelia, if your lover could reckon you up a murder for every one of
your kisses? Woe to my Amelia! She is an unhappy maid.

AMELIA (gayly rising). Ha! What a happy maid am I! My only one is a
reflection of Deity, and Deity is mercy and compassion! He could not bear
to see a fly suffer. His soul is as far from every thought of blood as the
sun is from the moon. (CHARLES suddenly turns away into a thicket, and
looks wildly out into the landscape. AMELIA sings, playing the guitar.)

CHARLES (silently tunes the guitar, and plays).

SCENE V.

—A neighboring forest. Night. An old ruined castle in the centre of
the scene.

SCHWEITZER. The night is far advanced, and the captain has not yet
returned.

RAZ. And yet he promised to be back before the clock struck eight.

SCHWEITZER. Should any harm have befallen him, comrades, wouldn’t we
kindle fires! ay, and murder sucking babes?

SPIEGEL. (takes RAZMANN aside). A word in your ear, Razmann!

SCHWARZ (to GRIMM). Should we not send out scouts?

GRIMM. Let him alone. He no doubt has some feat in hand that will put us
to shame.

SCHWEITZER. Then you are out, by old Harry! He did not part from us like
one that had any masterpiece of roguery in view. Have you forgotten what
he said as he marched us across the heath? “The fellow that takes so much
as a turnip out of a field, if I know it, leaves his head behind him, as
true as my name is Moor.” We dare not plunder.

RAZ. (aside to SPIEGELBERG). What are you driving at? Speak plainer.

SPIEGEL. Hush! hush! I know not what sort of a notion you and I have of
liberty, that we should toil under the yoke like bullocks, while we are
making such wonderful fine speeches about independence. I like it not.

SCHWEITZER (to GRIMM). What crotchet has that swaggering booby got in his
numskull, I wonder?

RAZ. (aside to SPIEGELBERG). Is it the captain you mean?—

SPIEGEL. Hush! I tell you; hush! He has got his eavesdroppers all around
us. Captain, did you say? Who made him captain over us? Has he not, in
fact, usurped that title, which by right belongs to me? What? Is it for
this that we stake our lives—that we endure all the splenetic
caprices of fortunes—that we may in the end congratulate ourselves
upon being the serfs of a slave? Serfs! When we might be princes? By
heaven! Razmann, I could never brook it.

SCHWEITZER (overhearing him—to the others). Yes—there’s a hero
for you! He is just the man to do mighty execution upon frogs with stones.
The very breath of his nostrils, when he sneezes, would blow you through
the eye of a needle.

SPIEGEL. (to RAZMANN). Yes—and for years I have been intent upon it.
There must be an alteration, Razmann. If you are the man I always took you
for—Razmann! He is missing—he is almost given up—Razmann—
methinks his hour is come. What? does not the color so much as mount to
your cheek when you hear the chimes of liberty ringing in your ears? Have
you not courage enough to take the hint?

RAZ. Ha! Satan! What bait art thou spreading for my soul?

SPIEGEL. Does it take? Good! then follow me! I have marked in what
direction he slunk off. Come along! a brace of pistols seldom fail; and
then—we shall be the first to strangle sucking babes. (He endeavors
to draw him of.)

SCHWEITZER (enraged, draws his sword). Ha! caitiff! I have overheard you!
You remind me, at the right moment, of the Bohemian forest! Were not you
the coward that began to quail when the cry arose, “the enemy is coming!”
I then swore by my soul—(They fight, SPIEGELBERG is killed.) To the
devil with thee, assassin!

ROBBERS (in agitation). Murder! murder!—Schweitzer!—Spiegelberg!—
Part them!

SCHWEITZER (throwing the sword on the body). There let him rot! Be still,
my comrades! Don’t let such a trifle disturb you. The brute has always
been inveterate against the captain and has not a single scar on his whole
body. Once more, be still. Ha, the scoundrel! He would stab a man behind
his back—skulk and murder! Is it for this that the hot sweat has
poured down us in streams? that we may sneak out of the world at last like
contemptible wretches? The brute! Is it for this that we have lived in
fire and brimstone? To perish at last like rats?

GRIMM. But what the devil, comrade, were you after? What were you
quarreling about? The captain will be furious.

SCHWEITZER. Be that on my head. And you, wretch (to RAZMANN) you were his
accomplice, you! Get out of my sight! Schufterle was another of your
kidney, but he has met his deserts in Switzerland—has been hanged,
as the captain prophesied. (A shot is heard.)

SCHWARZ (jumping up). Hark! a pistol shot! (Another shot is heard.)
Another! Hallo! the captain!

GRIMM. Patience! If it be he, there will be a third. (The third shot is
heard.)

SCHWARZ. ‘Tis he! ‘Tis the captain! Absent yourself awhile, Schweitzer—till
we explain to him! (They fire.)

SCHWEITZER (running to meet them). Welcome, captain. I have been somewhat
choleric in your absence. (He conducts him to the corpse.) Be you judge
between him and me. He meant to waylay and assassinate you.

ROBBERS (in consternation). What; the captain?

CHARLES (after fixing his eyes for some time upon the corpse, with a
sudden burst of feeling). Oh, incomprehensible finger of the avenging
Nemesis! Was it not he whose siren song seduced me to be what I am? Let
this sword be consecrated to the dark goddess of retribution! That was not
thy deed, Schweitzer.

SCHWEITZER. By heaven, it was mine, though! and, as the devil lives, it is
not the worst deed I have done in my time. (Turns away moodily.)

CHARLES (absorbed in thought). I comprehend—Great Ruler in heaven—
I comprehend. The leaves fall from the trees, and my autumn is come.
Remove this object from my sight! (The corpse of SPIEGELBERG is carried
out.)

GRIMM. Give us your orders, captain! What shall we do next?

CHARLES. Soon—very soon—all will be accomplished. Hand me my
lute; I have lost myself since I have been there. My lute, I say—I
must nurse up my strength again. Leave me!

ROBBERS. ‘Tis midnight, captain.

CHARLES. They were only stage tears after all. Let me bring to memory the
song of the old Roman, that my slumbering genius may wake up again. Hand
me my lute. Midnight, say you?

SCHWARZ. Yes, and past, too! Our eyes are as heavy as lead. For three days
we have not slept a wink.

CHARLES. What? does balmy sleep visit the eyes of murderers? Why doth it
flee mine? I never was a coward, nor a villain. Lay yourselves to rest. At
day-break we march.

ROBBERS. Good night, captain. (They stretch them selves on the ground and
fall asleep.)

BRUTUS. Oh, be ye welcome, realms of peace and rest! Receive the last of
all the sons of Rome! From dread Philippi’s field, where all the best Fell
bleeding in her cause, I wearied come. Cassius, no more! And Rome now
prostrate laid! My brethren all lie weltering in their gore! No refuge
left but Hades’ gloomy shade; No hope remains!—No world for Brutus
more!

CAESAR. Who’s he that, with a hero’s lofty bearing, Comes striding o’er
yon mountain’s rocky bed? Unless my eyes deceive, that noble daring
Bespeaks the Roman warrior’s fearless tread. Whence, son of Tiber, do thy
footsteps bend! Say, stands the seven-hilled city firmly yet? No Caesar
there, to be the soldiers friend! Full oft has he that orphaned city wept.

BRUTUS. Ha! thou of three-and-twenty wounds! Avaunt! Thou unblest shade,
what calls thee back to light? Down with thee, down, to Pluto’s deepest
haunt, And shroud thy form in black, eternal night, Proud mourner! triumph
not to learn our fall! Phillippi’s altars reek with freedom’s blood? The
bier of Brutus is Rome’s funeral pall; He Minos seeks. Hence to thy
Stygian flood!

CAESAR. That death-stroke, Brutus, which thy weapon hurled! Thou, too,
Brutus?—that thou shouldst be my foe! Oh, son! It was thy father!
Son! The world Was thine by heritage! Now proudly go, Well mayst thou
claim to be the chief in glory, ‘Twas thy fell sword that pierced thy
father’s heart! Now go—and at yon gates relate thy story— Say
Brutus claims to be the chief in glory, ‘Twas his fell sword that pierced
his father’s heart! Go—Now thou’rt told what staid me on this shore,
Grim ferryman, push off, and swiftly ply thine oar.

BRUTUS. Stay, father, stay! Within the whole bright round Of Sol’s diurnal
course I knew but one Who to compare with Caesar could be found; And that
one, Caesar, thou didst call thy son! ‘Twas only Caesar could destroy a
Rome; Brutus alone that Caesar could withstand— Where Brutus lives,
must Caesar die! Thy home Be far from mine. I’ll seek another land.

Who will give me certainty! All is so dark—a confused labyrinth—no
outlet—no guiding star. Were but all to end with this last gasp of
breath. To end, like an empty puppet-show. But why then this burning
thirst after happiness? Wherefore this ideal of unattained perfection?
This looking to an hereafter for the fulfilment of our hopes? If the
paltry pressure of this paltry thing (putting a pistol to his head) makes
the wise man and the fool—the coward and the brave—the noble
and the villain equal?—the harmony which pervades the inanimate
world is so divinely perfect—why, then, should there be such discord
in the intellectual? No! no! there must be something beyond, for I have
not yet attained to happiness.

Think ye that I will tremble, spirits of my slaughtered victims? No, I
will not tremble. (Trembling violently.) The shrieks of your dying agonies—your
black, convulsive features—your ghastly bleeding wounds— what
are they all but links of one indissoluble chain of destiny, which hung
upon the temperament of my father, the life’s blood of my mother, the
humors of my nurses and tutors, and even upon the holiday pastimes of my
childhood! (Shaking with horror.) Why has my Perillus made of me a brazen
bull, whose burning entrails yearn after human flesh? (He lifts the pistol
again to his head.)

Time and Eternity!—linked together by a single instant! Fearful key,
which locks behind me the prisonhouse of life, and opens before me the
habitations of eternal night—tell me—oh, tell me—whither—whither
wilt thou lead me? Strange, unexplored land! Humanity is unnerved at the
fearful thought, the elasticity of our finite nature is paralyzed, and
fancy, that wanton ape of the senses, juggles our credulity with appalling
phantoms. No! no! a man must be firm. Be what thou wilt, thou undefined
futurity, so I remain but true to myself. Be what thou wilt, so I but take
this inward self hence with me. External forms are but the trappings of
the man. My heaven and my hell is within.

What if Thou shouldst doom me to be sole inhabitant of some burnt-out
world which thou hast banished from thy sight, where darkness and
never-ending desolation were all my prospect; then would my creative brain
people the silent waste with its own images, and I should have eternity
for leisure to unravel the complicated picture of universal wretchedness.
Or wilt thou make me pass through ever-repeated births and ever-changing
scenes of misery, stage by stage*—to annihilation?

Can I not burst asunder the life-threads woven for me in another world as
easily as I do these? Thou mayest reduce me into nothing; but Thou canst
not take from me this power. (He loads the pistol, and then suddenly
pauses.) And shall I then rush into death from a coward fear of the ills
of life? Shall I yield to misery the palm of victory over myself? No! I
will endure it! (He flings the pistol away.) Misery shall blunt its edge
against my pride! Be my destiny fulfilled! (It grows darker and darker.)

HERMANN (coming through the forest). Hark! hark! the owl screeches
horribly—the village clock strikes twelve. Well, well—villainy
is asleep—no listeners in these wilds. (He goes to the castle and
knocks.) Come forth, thou man of sorrow! tenant of the miserable dungeon!
thy meal awaits thee.

CHARLES (stepping gently back, unperceived). What means this?

VOICE (from within the castle). Who knocks? Is it you, Hermann, my raven?

HERMANN. Yes, ’tis Hermann, your raven. Come to the grating and eat. (Owls
are screeching.) Your night companions make a horrid noise, old man! Do
you relish your repast?

VOICE. Yes—I was very hungry. Thanks to thee, thou merciful sender
of ravens, for this thy bread in the wilderness! And how is my dear child,
Hermann?

HERMANN. Hush!—hark!—A noise like snoring! Don’t you hear
something?

VOICE. What? Do you hear anything?

HERMANN. ‘Tis the whistling of the wind through the crannies of the tower—a
serenading which makes one’s teeth chatter, and one’s nails turn blue.
Hark! tis there again. I still fancy I hear snoring. You have company, old
man. Ugh! ugh! ugh!

VOICE. Do you see anything?

HERMANN. Farewell! farewell! this is a fearful place. Go down into your
bole,—thy deliverer, thy avenger is above. Oh! accursed son! (Is
about to fly.)

CHARLES (stepping forth with horror). Stand!

HERMANN (screaming). Oh, me!*

CHARLES. Stand! I say.

HERMANN. Woe! woe! woe! now all is discovered!

CHARLES. Speak! Who art thou? What brought thee here? Speak!

HERMANN. Mercy, mercy! gracious sir! Hear but one word before you kill me.

CHARLES (drawing his sword). What am I to hear?

HERMANN. ‘Tis true, he forbade me at the peril of my life—but I
could not help it—I dare not do otherwise—a God in heaven—your
own venerable father there—pity for him overcame me. Kill me, if you
will!

CHARLES. There’s some mystery here—Out with it! Speak! I must know
all.

VOICE (from the castle). Woe! woe! Is it you, Hermann, that are speaking?
To whom are you speaking, Hermann?

CHARLES. Some one else down there? What is the meaning of all this? (Runs
towards the castle.) It is some prisoner whom mankind have cast off! I
will loosen his chains. Voice! Speak! Where is the door?

HERMANN. Oh, have mercy, sir—seek no further, I entreat—for
mercy’s sake desist! (He stops his way.)

CHARLES. Locks, bolts, and bars, away! It must come out. Now, for the
first time, come to my aid, thief-craft! (He opens the grated iron door
with, housebreaking tools. An OLD MAN, reduced to a skeleton, comes up
from below.)

THE OLD MAN. Mercy on a poor wretch! Mercy!

CHARLES (starts back in terror). That is my father’s voice!

OLD MOOR. I thank thee, merciful Heaven! The hour of deliverance has
arrived.

CHARLES. Shade of the aged Moor! what has disturbed thee in thy grave? Has
thy soul left this earth charged with some foul crime that bars the gates
of Paradise against thee? Say?—I will have masses read, to send thy
wandering spirit to its home. Hast thou buried in the earth the gold of
widows and orphans, that thou art driven to wander howling through the
midnight hour? I will snatch the hidden treasure from the clutches of the
infernal dragon, though he should vomit a thousand redhot flames upon me,
and gnash his sharp teeth against my sword. Or comest thou, at my request,
to reveal to me the mysteries of eternity? Speak, thou! speak! I am not
the man to blanch with fear!

OLD MOOR. I am not a spirit. Touch me—I live but oh! a life indeed
of misery!

CHARLES. What! hast thou not been buried?

OLD MOOR. I was buried—that is to say, a dead dog lies in the vault
of my ancestors, and I have been pining for three long moons in this dark
and loathsome dungeon, where no sunbeam shines, no warm breeze penetrates,
where no friend is seen, where the hoarse raven croaks and owls screech
their midnight concert.

CHARLES. Heaven and earth! Who has done this?

OLD MOOR. Curse him not! ‘Tis my son, Francis, who did this.

CHARLES. Francis? Francis? Oh, eternal chaos!

OLD MOOR. If thou art a man, and hast a human heart—oh! my unknown
deliverer—then listen to a father’s miseries which his own sons have
heaped upon him. For three long moons I have moaned my pitiful tale to
these flinty walls—but all my answer was an empty echo, that seemed
to mock my wailings. Therefore, if thou art a man, and hast a human heart—

CHARLES. That appeal might move even wild beasts to pity.

OLD MOOR. I lay upon a sick bed, and had scarcely begun to recover a
little strength, after a dangerous illness, when a man was brought to me,
who pretended that my first-born had fallen in battle. He brought a sword
stained with his blood, and his last farewell—and said that my curse
had driven him into battle, and death, and despair.

CHARLES (turning away in violent agitation). The light breaks in upon me!

OLD MOOR. Hear me on! I fainted at the dreadful news. They must have
thought me dead; for, when I recovered my senses, I was already in my
coffin, shrouded like a corpse. I scratched against the lid. It was opened—’twas
in the dead of night—my son Francis stood before me— “What!”
said he, with a tremendous voice, “wilt thou then live forever?” —and
with this he slammed-to the lid of the coffin. The thunder of these words
bereft me of my senses; when I awoke again, I felt that the coffin was in
motion, and being borne on wheels. At last it was opened —I found
myself at the entrance of this dungeon—my son stood before me, and
the man, too, who had brought me the bloody sword from Charles. I fell at
my son’s feet, and ten times I embraced his knees, and wept, and conjured,
and supplicated, but the supplications of a father reached not his flinty
heart. “Down with the old carcass!” said he, with a voice of thunder, “he
has lived too long;”—and I was thrust down without mercy, and my son
Francis closed the door upon Me.

CHARLES. Impossible!—impossible! Your memory or senses deceive you.

OLD MOOR. Oh, that it were so! But hear me on, and restrain your rage!
There I lay for twenty hours, and not a soul cared for my misery. No human
footstep treads this solitary wild, for ’tis commonly believed that the
ghosts of my ancestors drag clanking chains through these ruins, and chant
their funeral dirge at the hour of midnight. At last I heard the door
creak again on its hinges; this man opened it, and brought me bread and
water. He told me that I had been condemned to die of hunger, and that his
life was in danger should it be discovered that he fed me. Thus has my
miserable existence been till now sustained—but the unceasing cold—the
foul air of my filthy dungeon—my incurable grief—have
exhausted my strength, and reduced my body to a skeleton. A thousand times
have I implored heaven, with tears, to put an end to my sufferings—but
doubtless the measure of my punishment is not fulfilled,—or some
happiness must be yet in store for me, for which he deigns thus
miraculously to preserve me. But I suffer justly—my Charles! my
Charles!—and before there was even a gray hair on his Head!

CHARLES. Enough! Rise! ye stocks, ye lumps of ice! ye lazy unfeeling
sleepers! Up! will none of you awake? (He fires a pistol over their
heads.)

THE ROBBERS (starting up). Ho! hallo! hallo! what is the matter?

CHARLES. Has not that tale shaken you out of your sleep? ‘Tis enough to
break the sleep eternal! See here, see here! The laws of the world have
become mere dice-play; the bonds of nature are burst asunder; the Demon of
Discord has broken loose, and stalks abroad triumphant! the Son has slain
his Father!

THE ROBBERS. What does the captain say?

CHARLES. Slain! did I say? No, that is too mild a term! A son has a
thousand-fold broken his own father on the wheel,—impaled, racked,
flayed him alive!—but all these words are too feeble to express what
would make sin itself blush and cannibals shudder. For ages, no devil ever
conceived a deed so horrible. His own father!—but see, see him! he
has fainted away! His own father—the son—into this dungeon—cold—
naked—hungry—athirst—Oh! see, I pray you, see!—’tis
my own father, in very truth it is.

THE ROBBERS (come running and surround the old man). Your father? Yours?

SCHWEITZER (approaches him reverently, and falls on his knees before him).
Father of my captain! let me kiss thy feet! My dagger is at thy command.

CHARLES. Revenge, revenge, revenge! thou horribly injured, profaned old
man! Thus, from this moment, and forever, I rend in twain all ties of
fraternity. (He rends his garment from top to bottom.) Here, in the face
of heaven, I curse him—curse every drop of blood which flows in his
veins! Hear me, O moon and stars! and thou black canopy of night, that
lookest down upon this horror! Hear me, thrice terrible avenger. Thou who
reignest above yon pallid orb, who sittest an avenger and a judge above
the stars, and dartest thy fiery bolts through darkness on the head of
guilt! Behold me on my knees behold me raise this hand aloft in the gloom
of night—and hear my oath—and may nature vomit me forth as
some horrible abortion from out the circle of her works if I break that
oath! Here I swear that I will never more greet the light of day, till the
blood of that foul parricide, spilt upon this stone, reeks in misty vapor
towards heaven. (He rises.)

ROBBERS. ‘Tis a deed of hell! After this, who shall call us villains? No!
by all the dragons of darkness we never have done anything half so
horrible.

CHARLES. True! and by all the fearful groans of those whom your daggers
have despatched—of those who on that terrible day were consumed by
fire, or crushed by the falling tower—no thought of murder or rapine
shall be harbored in your breast, till every man among you has dyed his
garments scarlet in this monster’s blood. It never, I should think,
entered your dreams, that it would fall to your lot to execute the great
decrees of heaven? The tangled web of our destiny is unravelled! To-day,
to-day, an invisible power has ennobled our craft! Worship Him who has
called you to this high destiny, who has conducted you hither, and deemed
ye worthy to be the terrible angels of his inscrutable judgments! Uncover
your heads! Bow down and kiss the dust, and rise up sanctified. (They
kneel.)

SCHWEITZER. Now, captain, issue your commands! What shall we do?

CHARLES. Rise, Schweitzer! and touch these sacred locks! (Leading him to
his father, and putting a lock of hair in his hand.) Do you remember
still, how you, cleft the skull of that Bohemian trooper, at the moment
his sabre was descending on my head, and I had sunk down on my knees,
breathless and exhausted? ‘Twas then I promised thee a reward that should
be right royal. But to this hour I have never been able to discharge that
debt.

SCHWEITZER. You swore that much to me, ’tis true; but let me call you my
debtor forever!

CHARLES. No; now will I repay thee, Schweitzer! No mortal has yet been
honored as thou shalt be. I appoint thee avenger of my father’s wrongs!
(SCHWEITZER rises.)

SCHWEITZER. Mighty captain! this day you have, for the first time, made me
truly proud! Say, when, where, how shall I smite him?

CHARLES. The minutes are sacred. You must hasten to the work. Choose the
best of the band, and lead them straight to the count’s castle! Drag him
from his bed, though he sleep, or he folded in the arms of pleasure! Drag
him from the table, though he be drunk! Tear him from the crucifix, though
he lie on his knees before it! But mark my words— I charge thee,
deliver him into my hands alive! I will hew that man to pieces, and feed
the hungry vultures with his flesh, who dares but graze his skin, or
injure a single hair of his head! I must have him whole. Bring him to me
whole and alive, and a million shall be thy reward. I’ll plunder kings at
the risk of my life, but thou shalt have it, and go free as air. Thou hast
my purpose—see it done!

SCHWEITZER. Enough, captain! here is my hand upon it. You shall see both
of us, or neither. Come, Schweitzer’s destroying angels, follow me! (Exit
with a troop.)

CHARLES. The rest of you disperse in the forest—I remain here.

ACT V.

SCENE I. A vista of rooms. Dark night.

DANIEL. Farewell, dear home! How many happy days have I enjoyed within
these walls, while my old master lived. Tears to thy memory, thou whom the
grave has long since devoured! He deserves this tribute from an old
servant. His roof was the asylum of orphans, the refuge of the destitute,
but this son has made it a den of murderers. Farewell, thou dear floor!
How often has old Daniel scrubbed thee! Farewell, dear stove, old Daniel
takes a heavy leave of thee. All things had grown so familiar to thee,—thou
wilt feel it sorely, old Eleazar. But heaven preserve me through grace
from the wiles and assault of the tempter. Empty I came hither—empty
I will depart,—but my soul is saved! (He is in the act of going out,
when he is met by FRANCIS, rushing in, in his dressing-gown.) Heaven help
me! Master! (He puts out his lantern.)

FRANCIS. Betrayed! betrayed! The spirit of the dead are vomited from their
graves. The realm of death, shaken out of its eternal slumber, roars at
me, “Murderer, murderer!” Who moves there?

DANIEL (frightened). Help, holy Virgin! help! Is it you, my gracious
master, whose shrieks echo so terribly through the castle that every one
is aroused out of his sleep?

FRANCIS. Sleep? And who gave thee leave to sleep? Go, get lights! (Exit
DANIEL. Enter another servant.) No one shall sleep at this hour. Do you
hear? All shall be awake—in arms—let the guns be loaded! Did
you not see them rushing through yon vaulted passages?

SERVANT. See whom, my lord?

FRANCIS. Whom? you dolt, slave! And do you, with a cold and vacant stare,
ask me whom? Have they not beset me almost to madness? Whom? blockhead!
whom? Ghosts and demons! How far is the night advanced?

SERVANT. The watch has just called two.

FRANCIS. What? will this eternal night last till doomsday? Did you hear no
tumult near? no shout of victory? no trampling of horses? Where is Char—the
Count, I would say?

SERVANT. I know not, my lord.

FRANCIS. You know not? And are you too one of his gang? I’ll tread your
villain’s heart out through your ribs for that infernal “I know not!”
Begone, fetch the minister!

SERVANT. My lord!

FRANCIS. What! Do you grumble? Do you demur? (Exit servant hastily.) Do my
very slaves conspire against me? Heaven, earth, and hell—all
conspire against me!

DANIEL (returns with a lighted candle). My lord!

FRANCIS. Who said I trembled? No!—’twas but a dream. The dead still
rest in their graves! Tremble! or pale? No, no! I am calm—quite
tranquil.

DANIEL. You are as pale as death, my lord; your voice is weak and
faltering.

FRANCIS. I am somewhat feverish. When the minister comes be sure you say I
am in a fever. Say that I intend to be bled in the morning.

DANIEL. Shall I give you some drops of the balsam of life on sugar?

FRANCIS. Yes, balsam of life on sugar! The minister will not be here just
yet. My voice is weak and faltering. Give me of the balsam of life on
sugar!

DANIEL. Let me have the keys, I will go down to the closet and get it.

FRANCIS. No! no! no! Stay!—or I will go with you. You see I must not
be left alone! How easily I might, you see—faint—if I should
be left alone. Never mind, never mind! It will pass off—you must not
leave me.

DANIEL. Indeed, Sir, you are ill, very ill.

FRANCIS. Yes, just so, just so, nothing more. And illness, you know,
bewilders the brain, and breeds strange and maddening dreams. What signify
dreams? Dreams come from the stomach and cannot signify anything. Is it
not so, Daniel? I had a very comical dream just now. (He sinks down
fainting.)

DANIEL. Oh, merciful heaven! what is this? George!—Conrad!
Sebastian! Martin! Give but some sign of life! (Shaking him.) Oh, the
Blessed Virgin! Oh, Joseph! Keep but your reason! They will say I have
murdered him! Lord have mercy upon me!

FRANCIS (confused). Avaunt!—avaunt!—why dost thou glare upon
me thus, thou horrible spectre? The time for the resurrection of the dead
is not yet come.

DANIEL. Merciful heavens! he has lost his senses.

FRANCIS (recovering himself gradually). Where am I? You here, Daniel? What
have I said? Heed it not. I have told a lie, whatever I said. Come, help
me up! ‘T was only a fit of delirium—because—because—I
have not finished my night’s rest.

DANIEL. If John were but here! I’ll call for help—I’ll send for the
physician.

FRANCIS. Stay! Seat yourself by my side on this sofa! There. You are a
sensible man, a good man. Listen to my dream!

DANIEL. Not now; another time! Let me lead you to bed; you have great need
of rest.

FRANCIS. No, no; I prythee, listen, Daniel, and have a good laugh at me.
You must know I fancied that I held a princely banquet, my heart was
merry, and I lay stretched on the turf in the castle garden; and all on a
sudden—it was at midday—and all on a sudden—but mind you
have a good laugh at me!

DANIEL. All on a sudden.

FRANCIS. All on a sudden a tremendous peal of thunder struck upon my
slumbering ear; I started up staggering and trembling; and lo, it seemed
as if the whole hemisphere had burst forth in one flaming sheet of fire,
and mountains, and cities, and forests melted away like wax in the
furnace; and then rose a howling whirlwind, which swept before it the
earth, and the sea, and heaven; then came a sound, as from brazen
trumpets, “Earth, give up thy dead: sea, give up thy dead!” and the open
plains began to heave, and to cast up skulls, and ribs, and jawbones, and
legs, which drew together into human bodies, and then came sweeping along
in dense, interminable masses—a living deluge. Then I looked up, and
lo! I stood at the foot of the thundering Sinai, and above me was a
multitude, and below me a multitude; and on the summit of the mountain, on
three smoking thrones, sat three men, before whose gaze all creation
trembled.

DANIEL. Why, this is a living picture of the day of judgment.

FRANCIS. Did I not tell you? Is it not ridiculous stuff? And one stepped
forth who, to look upon, was like a starlight night; he had in his hand a
signet ring of iron, which he held up between the east and the west, and
said, “Eternal, holy, just, immutable! There is but one truth; there is
but one virtue! Woe, woe, woe! to the doubting sinner!” Then stepped forth
a second, who had in his hand a flashing mirror, which he held up between
the east and west, and said, “This is the mirror of truth; hypocrisy and
deceit cannot look on it.” Then was I terrified, and so were all, for we
saw the forms of snakes, and tigers, and leopards reflected from that
fearful mirror. Then stepped forth a third, who had in his hand a brazen
balance, which he held up between the east and the west, and said,
“Approach, ye sons of Adam! I weigh your thoughts in the balance of my
wrath! and your deeds with the weight of my fury!”

DANIEL. The Lord have mercy upon me!

FRANCIS. They all stood pale and trembling, and every heart was panting
with fearful expectation. Then it seemed to me as if I heard my name
called the first from out the thunders of the mountain, and the innermost
marrow froze within my bones, and my teeth chattered loudly. Presently the
clang of the balance was heard, the rocks sent forth thunders, and the
hours glided by, one after the other, towards the left scale, and each
threw into it a mortal sin!

DANIEL. Oh, may God forgive you!

FRANCIS. He forgave me not! The left scale grew mountains high, but the
other, filled with the blood of atonement, still outweighed it. At last
came an old man, heavily bowed down with grief, his arm gnawed through
with raging hunger. Every eye turned away in horror from the sight. I knew
the man—he cut off a lock of his silver hair, and cast it into the
scale of my sins, when to! in an instant, it sank down to the abyss, and
the scale of atonement flew up on high. Then heard I a voice, issuing like
thunder from the bowels *[Some editions of the original read Rauch
(smoke), some Bauch, as translated.] of the mountain, “Pardon, pardon to
every sinner of the earth and of the deep! Thou alone art rejected!” (A
profound pause.) Well, why don’t you laugh?

DANIEL. Can I laugh while my flesh creeps? Dreams come from above.

FRANCIS. Pshaw! pshaw! Say not so! Call me a fool, an idiot, an absurd
fool! Do, there’s a good Daniel, I entreat of you; have a hearty laugh at
me!

DANIEL. Dreams come from God. I will pray for you.

FRANCIS. Thou liest, I tell thee. Go, this instant, run! be quick! see
where the minister tarries all this time; tell him to come quickly,
instantly! But, I tell thee, thou liest!

FRANCIS. Vulgar prejudice! mere superstition! It has not yet been proved
that the past is not past and forgotten, or that there is an eye above
this earth to take account of what passes on it. Humph! Humph! But whence,
then, this fearful whisper to my soul? Is there really an avenging judge
above the stars? No, no! Yes, yes! A fearful monitor within bears witness
that there is One above the stars who judgeth! What! meet the avenger
above the stars this very night? No, no! I say. All is empty, lonely,
desolate, beyond the stars. Miserable subterfuge, beneath which thy
cowardice seeks to hide itself. And if there should be something in it
after all? No! no! it cannot be. I insist that it cannot be! But yet, if
there should be! Woe to thee if thy sins should all have been registered
above!—if they should be counted over to thee this very night! Why
creeps this shudder through my frame? To die! Why does that word frighten
me thus? To give an account to the Avenger, there, above the stars! and if
he should be just—the wails of orphans and widows, of the oppressed,
the tormented, ascending to his ears, and he be just? Why have they been
afflicted? And why have I been permitted to trample upon them?

MOSER. Your lordship sent for me! I am surprised! The first time in my
life! Is it to scoff at religion, or does it begin to make you tremble?

FRANCIS. I may scoff or I may tremble, according as you shall answer me.
Listen to me, Moser, I will prove that you are a fool, or wish to make
fools of others, and you shall answer me. Do you hear? At the peril of
your life you shall answer me.

MOSER. ‘Tis a higher Being whom you summon before your tribunal. He will
answer you hereafter.

FRANCIS. I will be answered now, this instant, that I may not commit the
contemptible folly of calling upon the idol of the vulgar under the
pressure of suffering. I have often, in bumpers of Burgundy, tauntingly
pledged you in the toast, “There is no God!” Now I address myself to you
in earnest, and I tell you there is none? You shall oppose me with all the
weapons in your power; but with the breath of my lips I will blow them
away.

MOSER. ‘Twere well that you could also blow away the thunder which will
alight upon your proud soul with ten thousand times ten thousand tons’
weight! That omniscient God, whom you—fool and miscreant—are
denying in the midst of his creation, needeth not to justify himself by
the mouth of dust. He is as great in your tyrannies as in the sweetest
smile of triumphant virtue.

FRANCIS. Uncommonly well said, parson. Thus I like you.

MOSER. I stand here as steward of a greater Master, and am addressing one
who, like myself, is a sinner—one whom I care not to please. I must
indeed be able to work miracles, to extort the acknowledgment from your
obdurate wickedness—but if your conviction is so firm, why have you
sent for me in the middle of the night?

FRANCIS. Because time hangs heavy on my hands, and the chess-board has
ceased to have any attraction. I wish to amuse myself in a tilt with the
parson. Your empty terrors will not unman my courage. I am well aware that
those who have come off short in this world look forward to eternity; but
they will be sadly disappointed. I have always read that our whole body is
nothing more than a blood-spring, and that, with its last drop, mind and
thought dissolve into nothing. They share all the infirmities of the body;
why, then, should they not cease with its dissolution? Why not evaporate
in its decomposition? Let a drop of water stray into your brain, and life
makes a sudden pause, which borders on non-existence, and this pause
continued is death. Sensation is the vibration of a few chords, which,
when the instrument is broken, cease to sound. If I raze my seven castles—if
I dash this Venus to pieces—there is an end of their symmetry and
beauty. Behold! thus is it with your immortal soul!

MOSER. So says the philosophy of your despair. But your own heart, which
knocks against your ribs with terror even while you thus argue, gives your
tongue the lie. These cobwebs of systems are swept away by the single word—”Thou
must die!” I challenge you, and be this the test: If you maintain your
firmness in the hour of death; if your principles do not then miserably
desert you, you shall be admitted to have the best of the argument. But
if, in that dread hour, the least shudder creeps over you, then woe be to
you! you have deceived yourself.

FRANCIS (disturbed). If in the hour of death a shudder creeps over me?

MOSER. I have seen many such wretches before now, who set truth at
defiance up to that point; but at the approach of death the illusion
vanished. I will stand at your bedside when you are dying—I should
much like to see a tyrant die. I will stand by, and look you steadfastly
in the face when the physician takes your cold, clammy hand, and is
scarcely able to detect your expiring pulse; and when he looks up, and,
with a fearful shake of the head, says to you, “All human aid is in vain!”
Beware, at that moment, beware, lest you look like Richard and Nero!

FRANCIS. No! no!

MOSER. Even that very “No” will then be turned to a howling “Yea!” An
inward tribunal, which you can no longer cheat with sceptical delusions,
will then wake up and pass judgment upon you. But the waking up will be
like that of one buried alive in the bowels of the churchyard; there will
come remorse like that of the suicide who has committed the fatal act and
repents it;—’twill be a flash of lightning suddenly breaking in upon
the midnight darkness of your life! There will be one look, and, if you
can sustain that, I will admit that you have won!

FRANCIS (walking up and down restlessly). Cant! Priestly cant!

MOSER. Then, for the first time, will the sword of eternity pass through
your soul;—and then, for the first time, too late, the thought of
God will wake up a terrible monitor, whose name is Judge. Mark this, Moor;
a thousand lives hang upon your beck; and of those thousand every nine
hundred and ninety-nine have been rendered miserable by you. You wanted
but the Roman empire to be a Nero, the kingdom of Peru to be a Pizarro.
Now do you really think that the Almighty will suffer a worm like you to
play the tyrant in His world and to reverse all his ordinances? Do you
think the nine hundred and ninety-nine were created only to be destroyed,
only to serve as puppets in your diabolical game? Think it not! He will
call you to account for every minute of which you have robbed them, every
joy that you have poisoned, every perfection that you have intercepted.
Then, if you can answer Him—then, Moor, I will admit that you have
won.

FRANCIS. No more, not another word! Am I to be at the mercy of thy
drivelling fancies?

MOSER. Beware! The different destinies of mankind are balanced with
terrible nicety. The scale of life which sinks here will rise there, and
that which rises here will sink there. What was here temporary affliction
will there be eternal triumph; and what here was temporary triumph will
there be eternal despair.

FRANCIS (rushing savagely upon him.) May the thunder of heaven strike thee
dumb, thou lying spirit! I will tear thy venomed tongue out of thy mouth!

MOSER. Do you so soon feel the weight of truth? Before I have brought
forward one single word of evidence? Let me first proceed to the proofs—

FRANCIS. Silence! To hell with thee and thy proofs! The soul is
annihilated, I tell thee, and I will not be gainsaid!

MOSER. That is what the spirits of the bottomless pit are hourly moaning
for; but heaven denies the boon. Do you hope to escape from the Avenger’s
arm even in the solitary waste of nothingness? If you climb up into
heaven, he is there! if you make your bed in hell, behold he is there
also! If you say to the night, “Hide me!” and to the darkness, “Cover me!”
even the night shall be light about you, and darkness blaze upon your
damned soul like a noonday sun.

FRANCIS. But I do not wish to be immortal—let them be so that like;
I have no desire to hinder them. I will force him to annihilate me; I will
so provoke his fury that he may utterly destroy me. Tell me which are the
greatest sins—which excite him to the most terrible wrath?

MOSER. I know but two. But men do not commit these, nor do men even dream
of them.

FRANCIS. What are they?

MOSER (very significantly). Parricide is the name of the one; fratricide
of the other. Why do you turn so suddenly pale?

FRANCIS. What, old man? Art thou in league with heaven or with hell? Who
told thee that?

MOSER. Woe to him that hath them both upon his soul! It were better for
that man that he had never been born! But be at peace; you have no longer
either a father or a brother!

FRANCIS. Ha! what! Do you know no greater sin? Think again! Death, heaven,
eternity, damnation, hang upon thy lips. Not one greater?

MOSER. No, not one

FRANCIS (falling back in a chair). Annihilation! annihilation!

MOSER. Rejoice, then, rejoice! Congratulate yourself! With all your
abominations you are yet a saint in comparison with a parricide. The curse
that falls upon you is a love ditty in comparison with the curse that lies
upon him. Retribution—

FRANCIS (starting up). Away with thee! May the graves open and swallow
thee ten thousand fathoms deep, thou bird of ill omen! Who bade thee come
here? Away, I tell thee, or I will run thee through and through!

SERVANT. The Lady Amelia has fled. The count has suddenly disappeared.

DANIEL. My lord, a troop of furious horsemen are galloping down the hill,
shouting “murder! murder!” The whole village is in alarm.

FRANCIS. Quick! let all the bells be tolled—summon everyone to the
chapel—let all fall on their knees—pray for me. All prisoners
shall be released and forgiven—I will make two and threefold
restitution to the poor—I will—why don’t you run? Do call in
the father confessor, that he may give me absolution for my sins. What!
are you not gone yet? (The uproar becomes more audible.)

DANIEL. Heaven have mercy upon me, poor sinner! Can I believe you in
earnest, sir? You, who always made a jest of religion? How many a Bible
and prayer-book have you flung at my head when by chance you caught me at
my devotions?

FRANCIS. No more of this. To die! think of it! to die! It will be too
late! (The voice of SCHWEITZER is heard, loud and furious.) Pray for me,
Daniel! Pray, I entreat you!

DANIEL. I always told you,—”you hold prayer in such contempt; but
take heed! take heed! when the fatal hour comes, when the waters are
flowing in upon your soul, you will be ready to give all the treasures of
the world for one little Christian prayer.” Do you see it now? What abuse
you used to heap on me! Now you feel it! Is it not so!

FRANCIS (embracing him violently). Forgive me! my dear precious jewel of a
Daniel, forgive me! I will clothe you from head to foot—do but pray.
I will make quite a bridegroom of you—I will—only do pray—
I entreat you—on my knees, I conjure you. In the devil’s name, pray!
why don’t you pray? (Tumult in the streets, shouts and noises.)

SCHWEIT. (in the street). Storm the place! Kill all before you! Force the
gates! I see lights! He must be there!

FRANCIS (on his knees). Listen to my prayer, O God in heaven! It is the
first time—it shall never happen again. Hear me, God in heaven!

DANIEL. Mercy on me! What are you saying? What a wicked prayer!

PEOPLE. Robbers! murderers! Who makes such a dreadful noise at this
midnight hour!

SCHWEIT (still in the street). Beat them back, comrades! ‘Tis the devil,
come to fetch your master. Where is Schwarz with his troop? Surround the
castle, Grimm! Scale the walls!

GRIMM. Bring the firebrands. Either we must up or he must down. I will
throw fire into his halls.

FRANCIS (praying). Oh Lord! I have been no common murderer—I have
been guilty of no petty crimes, gracious Lord—

DANIEL. Heaven be merciful to us! His very prayers are turned to sins.
(Stones and firebrands are hurled up from below; the windows fall in with
a crash; the castle takes fire.)

FRANCIS. I cannot pray. Here! and here! (striking his breast and his
forehead) All is so void—so barren! (Rises from his knees.) No, I
will not pray. Heaven shall not have that triumph, nor hell that pastime.

DANIEL. O holy Virgin! Help! save! The whole castle is in flames!

FRANCIS. There, take this sword! Quick! Run it right through my body, that
these fiends may not be in time to make holiday sport of me. (The fire
increases.)

DANIEL. Heaven forbid? Heaven forbid! I would send no one before his time
to heaven, much less to—(He runs away).

FRANCIS (following him with a ghastly stare, after a pause). To hell, thou
wouldst say. Indeed! I scent something of the kind. (In delirium.) Are
these their triumphant yells? Do I hear you hissing, ye serpents of the
abyss? They force their way up—they besiege the door! Why do I
shrink from this biting steel? The door cracks—it yields—there
is no escape! Ha! then do thou have mercy upon me! (He tears away the
golden cord from his hat, and strangles himself.)*

SCHWEITZER. Murderous wretch, where art thou? Did you see how they fled?
Has he so few friends? Where has the beast crawled to?

GRIMM (stumbles over the corpse). Stay! what is this lying in the way?
Lights here.

SCHWARZ. He has been beforehand with us. Put up your swords. There he lies
sprawling like a dead dog.

SCHWEITZER. Dead! What! dead? Dead without me? ‘Tis a lie, I say. Mark how
quickly he will spring upon his feet! (Shakes him). Hollo! up with you?
There is a father to be murdered.

GRIMM. Spare your pains. He is as dead as a log.

SCHWEITZER (steps aside from him). Yes, his game is up! He is dead! dead!
Go back and tell my captain he is as dead as a log. He will not see me
again. (Blows his brains out.)

SCENE II.—The scene the same as the last scene of the preceding Act.

CHARLES. He does not come! (Strikes his dagger against a stone till the
sparks fly.)

OLD MOOR. Let pardon be his punishment—redoubled love my vengeance.

CHARLES. No! by my enraged soul that shall not be! I will not permit it.
He shall bear that enormous load of crime with him into eternity!—
what else should I kill him for?

OLD MOOR (bursting into tears). Oh my child!

CHARLES. What! you weep for him? In sight of this dungeon?

OLD MOOR. Mercy! oh mercy! (Wringing his hands violently.) Now—now
my son is brought to judgment!

CHARLES (starting). Which son?

OLD MOOR. Ha! what means that question?

CHARLES. Nothing! nothing!

OLD MOOR. Art thou come to make a mockery of my grief?

CHARLES. Treacherous conscience! Take no heed of my words!

OLD MOOR. Yes, I persecuted a son, and a son persecutes me in return. It
is the finger of God. Oh my Charles! my Charles! If thou dost hover around
me in the realms of peace, forgive me! oh forgive me!

CHARLES (hastily). He forgives you! (Checking himself.) If he is worthy to
be called your son, he must forgive you!

OLD MOOR. Ha! he was too noble a son for me. But I will go to him with my
tears, my sleepless nights, my racking dreams. I will embrace his knees,
and cry—cry aloud—”I have sinned against heaven and before
thee; I am no longer worthy to be called thy father!”

CHARLES (in deep emotion). Was he very dear to you—that other son?

OLD MOOR. Heaven is my witness, how much I loved him. Oh, why did I suffer
myself to be beguiled by the arts of a wicked son? I was an envied father
among the fathers of the world—my children full of promise, blooming
by my side! But—oh that fatal hour!—the demon of envy entered
into the heart of my younger son—I listened to the serpent—and—lost
both my children! (Hides his countenance.)

CHARLES (removes to a distance from him). Lost forever!

OLD MOOR. Oh, deeply do I feel the words of Amelia. The spirit of
vengeance spoke from her lips. “In vain wilt thou stretch forth thy dying
hands after a son, in vain fancy thou art grasping the warm hands of thy
Charles,—he will never more stand by thy bedside.”

Oh, that this were the hand of my Charles! But he is laid far away in the
narrow house—he is sleeping the iron sleep—he hears not the
voice of my lamentation. Woe is me! to die in the arms of a stranger? No
son left—no son left to close my eyes!

CHARLES (in violent emotion). It must be so—the moment has arrived.
Leave me—(to the ROBBERS.) And yet—can I restore his son to
him? Alas! No! I cannot restore him that son! No! I will not think of it.

OLD MOOR. Friend! what is that you were muttering?

CHARLES. Your son—yes, old man—(faltering) your son—is—lost
forever!

OLD MOOR. Forever?

CHARLES (looking up to heaven in bitter anguish). Oh this once—keep
my soul from sinking—sustain me but this once!

OLD MOOR. Forever, did you say.

CHARLES. Ask no more! I said forever!

OLD MOOR. Stranger, stranger! why didst thou drag me forth from the
dungeon to remind me of my sorrows?

CHARLES. And what if I were now to snatch his blessing?—snatch it
like a thief, and steal away with the precious prize? A father’s blessing,
they say, is never lost.

OLD MOOR. And is my Francis too lost?

CHARLES (falling on his knees before him). ‘Twas I who burst the bars of
your dungeon. I crave thy blessing!

OLD MOOR (sorrowfully). Oh that thou shouldst destroy the son!—thou,
the father’s deliverer! Behold! Heaven’s mercy is untiring, and we pitiful
worms let the sun go down upon our wrath. (Lays his hand upon the head of
CHARLES.) Be thou happy, even as thou shalt be merciful!

CHARLES (rising much affected). Oh!—where is my manhood? My sinews
are unstrung—the sword drops from my hand.

OLD MOOR. How lovely a thing it is when brethren dwell together in unity;
as the dewdrops of heaven that fall upon the mountains of Zion. Learn to
deserve that happiness, young man, and the angels of heaven will sun
themselves in thy glory. Let thy wisdom be the wisdom of gray hairs, but
let thy heart be the heart of innocent childhood.

CHARLES. Oh, for a foretaste of that happiness! Kiss me, divine old man!

OLD MOOR (kissing him). Think it thy father’s kiss; and I will think I am
kissing my son. Canst thou too weep?

CHARLES. I felt as if it were my father’s kiss! Woe unto me, were they to
bring him now!

CHARLES. Good heaven! (Retreats horror-struck, and seeks to hide himself.
They pass by him his face is averted. Profound silence. They halt.)

GRIMM (in a subdued tone). My captain!

SCHWARZ. Dear captain!

GRIMM. ‘Tis not our fault, captain!

CHARLES (without looking at them). Who are ye?

GRIMM. You do not look at us! Your faithful followers.

CHARLES. Woe to ye, if ye are faithful to me!

GRIMM. The last farewell from your servant Schweitzer!—

CHARLES (starting). Then ye have not found him?

SCHWARZ. Found him dead.

CHARLES (leaping up with joy). Thanks, O Sovereign Ruler of all things!
—Embrace me, my children!—Mercy be henceforward our watchword!—Now,
were that too surmounted,—all would be surmounted.

ROBBERS. Hurrah! hurrah! A prize, a splendid prize!

AMELIA (with hair dishevelled). The dead, they cry, have arisen at his
voice—My uncle alive—in this wood—Where is he? Charles?
Uncle!—Ha? (She rushes into the arms, of OLD MOOR.)

OLD MOOR. Amelia! my daughter! Amelia! (Holds her tightly grasped in his
arms.)

CHARLES (starting back). Who brings this image before my eyes.

AMELIA (tearing herself away from the old man, rushes upon CHARLES, and
embraces him in an ecstasy of delight). I have him, O ye stars! I have
him!

CHARLES (tearing himself away, to the ROBBERS). Let us be gone, comrades!
The arch fiend has betrayed me!

AMELIA. My bridegroom, my bridegroom! thou art raving! Ha! ‘Tis with
delight! Why, then, am I so cold, so unfeeling, in the midst of this
tumult of happiness?

OLD MOOR (rousing himself). Bridegroom? Daughter! my daughter! Thy
bridegroom?*

AMELIA. His forever! He forever, ever, mine! Oh! ye heavenly powers!
support me in this ecstasy of bliss, lest I sink beneath its weight!

CHARLES. Tear her from my neck! Kill her! Kill him! Kill me—
yourselves—everybody! Let the whole world perish! (About to rush
of.)

AMELIA. Whither? what? Love! eternity! happiness! never-ending joys! and
thou wouldst fly?

CHARLES. Away, away! most unfortunate of brides! See with thine own eyes;
ask, and hear it with thine own ears! Most miserable of fathers! Let me
escape hence forever!

AMELIA. Support me! for heaven’s sake support me! It is growing dark
before my eyes! He flies!

CHARLES. Too late! In vain! Your curse, father! Ask me no more! I am—I
have—your curse—your supposed curse! Who enticed me hither?
(Rushing upon the ROBBERS with drawn sword.) Which of you enticed me
hither, ye demons of the abyss? Perish, then, Amelia! Die, father! Die,
for the third time, through me! These, thy deliverers, are Robbers and
Murderers! Thy Charles is their Captain! (OLD MOOR expires.)

CHARLES (rushing against an oak). The souls of those I have strangled in
the intoxication of love—of those whom I crushed to atoms in the
sacredness of sleep—of those whom—Ha! ha! ha! do you hear the
powder-magazine bursting over the heads of women in travail? Do you see
the flames creeping round the cradles of sucklings? That is our nuptial
torch; those shrieks our wedding music! Oh! he forgetteth none of these
things!—he knoweth how to connect the—links in the chain of
life. Therefore do love’s delights elude my grasp; therefore is love given
me for a torment! This is retribution!

AMELIA. ‘Tis all true! Thou Ruler in heaven! ‘Tis all true! What have I
done, poor innocent lamb? I have loved this man!

CHARLES. This is more than a man can endure. Have I not heard death
hissing at me from more thousands of barrels, and never yet moved a hair’s
breadth out of its way. And shall I now be taught to tremble like a woman?
tremble before a woman! No! a woman shall not conquer my manly courage!
Blood! blood! ’tis but a fit of womanish feeling. I must glut myself with
blood; and this will pass away. (He is about to fly.)

AMELIA (sinking into his arms). Murderer! devil! I cannot—angel—
leave thee!

CHARLES (thrusting her from him). Away! insidious serpent! Thou wouldst
make a mockery of my frenzy; but I will bid defiance to my tyrant destiny.
What! art thou weeping? O ye relentless, malicious stars! She pretends to
weep, as if any soul could weep for me! (AMELIA falls on his neck.) Ha!
what means this? She shuns me not—she spurns me not. Amelia! hast
thou then forgotten? Dost thou remember whom thou art embracing, Amelia?

AMELIA. My only one, mine, mine forever!

CHARLES (recovering himself in an ecstasy of joy). She forgives me, she
loves me! Then am I pure as the ether of heaven, for she loves me! With
tears I thank thee, all-merciful Father! (He falls on his knees, and
bursts into a violent fit of weeping.) The peace of my soul is restored;
my sufferings are at an end. Hell is no more! Behold! oh behold! the child
of light weeps on the neck of a repentant demon! (Rising and turning to
the ROBBERS). Why are ye not weeping also? Weep, weep, ye are all so
happy. O Amelia! Amelia! Amelia! (He hangs on her neck, they remain locked
in a silent embrace.)

A ROBBER (stepping forward enraged). Hold, traitor! This instant come from
her arms! or I will speak a word that shall make thy ears tingle, and thy
teeth chatter with horror! (He holds his sword between them.)

AN AGED ROBBER. Remember the Bohemian forests! Dost thou hear? dost thou
tremble? Remember the Bohemian forests, I tell thee! Faithless man! where
are thy oaths? Are wounds so soon forgotten? Who staked fortune, honor,
life itself for thee? Who stood by thee like walls, and like shields
caught the blows which were aimed at thy life? Didst not thou then lift up
thy hand and swear an iron oath never to forsake us, even as we forsook
not thee? Base, perfidious wretch! and wouldst thou now desert us at the
whining of a harlot?

A THIRD ROBBER. Shame on thy perjury! The spirit of the immolated Roller,
whom thou didst summon from the realms of death to attest thy oath, will
blush at thy cowardice, and rise from his grave full armed to chastise
thee.

THE ROBBERS (all in disorder, tearing open their garments). See here! and
here! Dost thou know these scars? Thou art ours! With our heart’s blood we
have bought thee, and thou art ours bodily, even though the Archangel
Michael should seek to wrest thee out of the grasp of the fiery Moloch!
Now! March with us! Sacrifice for sacrifice, Amelia for the band!

CHARLES (releasing her hand). It is past! I would arise and return to my
father; but heaven has said, “It shall not be!” (Coldly.) Blind fool that
I was! why should I wish it? Is it possible for a great sinner to return?
A great sinner never can return. That ought I long since to have known. Be
still! I pray thee be still! ‘Tis all as it should be. When He sought me I
would not; now that I seek him, He will not. What can be more just? Do not
roll about thine eyes so wildly. He—has no need of me. Has He not
creatures in abundance? One he can easily spare, and that one am I. Come
along, comrades!

AMELIA (pulling him back). Stay, I beseech you! One blow! one deadly blow!
Again forsaken! Draw thy sword, and have mercy upon me!

CHARLES. Mercy has taken refuge among bears. I will not kill thee!

AMELIA (embracing his knees). Oh, for heaven’s sake! by all that is
merciful! I ask no longer for love. I know that our stars fly from each
other in opposition. Death is all I ask. Forsaken, forsaken! Take that
word in all its dreadful import! Forsaken! I cannot survive it! Thou
knowest well that no woman can survive that. All I ask is death. See, my
hand trembles! I have not courage to strike the blow. I shrink from the
gleaming blade! To thee it is so easy, so very easy; thou art a master in
murder—draw thy sword, and make me happy!

CHARLES. Wouldst thou alone be happy? Away with thee! I will kill no
woman!

AMELIA. Ha! destroyer! thou canst only kill the happy; they who are weary
of existence thou sparest! (She glides towards the robbers.) Then do ye
have mercy on me, disciples of murder! There lurks a bloodthirsty pity in
your looks that is consoling to the wretched. Your master is a boaster and
a coward.

CHARLES. Woman, what dost thou say? (The ROBBERS turn away.)

AMELIA. No friend? No; not even among these a friend? (She rises.) Well,
then, let Dido teach me how to die! (She is going; a ROBBER takes aim at
her.)

CHARLES. Hold! dare it! Moor’s Amelia shall die by no other hand than
Moor’s. (He strikes her dead.)

THE ROBBERS. Captain! captain! what hast thou done? Art thou raving?

CHARLES (with his eyes fixed on the body). One more pang and all will be
over. She is immolated! Now, look on! have you any farther demand? Ye
staked a life for me, a life which has ceased to be your own—a life
full of infamy and shame! I have sacrificed an angel for you. Now! look
upon her! Are you content?

GRIMM. You have repaid your debt with usury. You have done all that man
could do for his honor, and more. Now let’s away.

CHARLES. What say you? Is not the life of a saint for the life of a felon
more than an equal exchange? Oh! I say unto you if every one of you were
to—mount the scaffold, and to have his flesh torn from his bones
piecemeal with red-hot pincers, through eleven long summer days of
torture, yet would it not counterbalance these tears! (With a bitter
laugh.) The scars! the Bohemian forests! Yes, yes! they must be repaid, of
course!

SCHWARZ. Compose yourself, captain! Come along with us! this is no sight
for you. Lead us elsewhere!

CHARLES. Stay! one word more before we proceed elsewhere. Mark me, ye
malicious executioners of my barbarous nod! from this moment I cease to be
your captain.*

With shame and horror I here lay down the bloody staff, under which you
thought yourselves licensed to perpetrate your crimes and to defile the
fair light of heaven with deeds of darkness. Depart to the right and to
the left. We shall never more have aught in common.

THE ROBBERS. Ha! coward! where are thy lofty schemes? were they but
soap-bubbles, which disperse at the breath of a woman?*

SCENE VIII.

SCENE IX.

CHARLES. Oh! fool that I was, to fancy that I could amend the world by
misdeeds and maintain law by lawlessness! I called it vengeance and
equity. I presumed, O Providence! upon whetting out the notches of thy
sword and repairing thy partialities. But, oh, vain trifling! here I stand
on the brink of a fearful life, and learn, with wailing and gnashing of
teeth, that two men like myself could ruin the whole edifice of the moral
world. Pardon—pardon the boy who thought to forestall Thee; to Thee
alone belongeth vengeance; Thou needest not the hand of man! But it is not
in my power to recall the past; that which is ruined remains ruined; what
I have thrown down will never more rise up again. Yet one thing is left me
whereby I may atone to the offended majesty of the law and restore the
order which I have violated. A victim is required—a victim to
declare before all mankind how inviolable that majesty is—that
victim shall be myself. I will be the death-offering!

ROBBERS. Take his sword from him—he will kill himself.

CHARLES. Fools that ye are! doomed to eternal blindness! Think ye that one
mortal sin will expiate other mortal sins? Do you suppose that the harmony
of the world would be promoted by such an impious discord? (Throwing his
arms at their feet.) He shall have me alive. I go to deliver myself into
the hands of justice.

ROBBERS. Put him in chains! he has lost his senses!

CHARLES. Not that I have any doubt but that justice would find me speedily
enough if the powers above so ordained it. But she might surprise me in
sleep, or overtake me in flight, or seize me with violence and the sword,
and then I should have lost the only merit left me, that of making my
death a free-will atonement. Why should I, like a thief, any longer
conceal a life, which in the counsels of the heavenly ministry has long
been forfeited?

ROBBERS. Let him go. He is infected with the great-man-mania; he means to
offer up his life for empty admiration.

CHARLES. I might, ’tis true, be admired for it. (After a moment’s
reflection.) I remember, on my way hither, talking to a poor creature, a
day-laborer, with eleven living children. A reward has been offered of a
thousand louis-d’ors to any one who shall deliver up the great robber
alive. That man shall be served.
[Exit.]