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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Robbers, by Frederich Schiller
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Robbers
+       A Tragedy
+
+Author: Frederich Schiller
+
+Release Date: October 25, 2006 [EBook #6782]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROBBERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+              THE ROBBERS.
+
+
+            By Frederich Schiller
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+   [This alludes to the fable amusingly recorded by Wieland in his
+   Geschichte der Abderiten. The Abderitans, who were a byword among
+   the ancients for their extreme simplicity, are said to have sent
+   express for Hipocrates to cure their great townsman Democritus,
+   whom they believed to be out of his senses, because his sayings
+   were beyond their comprehension. Hippocrates, on conversing with
+   Democritus, having at once discovered that the cause lay with
+   themselves, assembled the senate and principal inhabitants in the
+   market-place with the promise of instructing them in the cure of
+   Democritus. He then banteringly advised them to import six
+   shiploads of hellebore of the very best quality, and on its arrival
+   to distribute it among the citizens, at least seven pounds per
+   head, but to the senators double that quantity, as they were bound
+   to have an extra supply of sense. By the time these worthies
+   discovered that they had been laughed at, Hippocrates was out of
+   their reach. The story in Wieland is infinitely more amusing than
+   this short quotation from memory enables me to show.  H. G. B.]
+
+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.
+
+                        DR. SCHILLER.
+
+STUTTGART, Jan. 5, 1782.
+
+* Alluding to his friend Zumsteeg.--ED.
+
+
+
+
+                THE ROBBERS.
+
+                A TRAGEDY.
+
+     "Quae medicamenta non sanant, ferrum sanat; quae ferrum non
+     sanat, ignis sanat."--HIPPOCRATES.
+
+DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
+
+MAXIMILIAN, COUNT VON MOOR.
+
+CHARLES,|
+FRANCIS,| his Sons.
+AMELIA VON EDELREICH, his Niece.
+SPIEGELBERG,|
+SCHWEITZER, |
+GRIMM,   |
+RAZMANN,  | Libertines, afterwards Banditti
+SCHUFTERLE, |
+ROLLER,   |
+KOSINSKY,  |
+SCHWARTZ,  |
+HERMANN, the natural son of a Nobleman.
+DANIEL, an old Servant of Count von Moor.
+PASTOR MOSER.
+FATHER DOMINIC, a Monk.
+BAND OF ROBBERS, SERVANTS, ETC.
+
+
+The scene is laid in Germany. Period of action about two years.
+
+
+
+
+               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.
+
+   [*This is equivalent to our English saying "As sound as a roach."]
+
+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.*
+
+   [* This idiom is very common in Germany, and is used to express
+   affliction.]
+
+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.*
+
+   [* _Du ersparst mir die Krucke_; meaning that the contents of the
+   letter can but shorten his declining years, and so spare him the
+   necessity of 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.
+
+   * See Richard III., Act I, Sc. 1, line 17.
+
+   **Heavy is used in a double meaning; the German word is plump,
+   which Means lumpish clumsy awkward.
+
+   ***So Falstaff, Hen. IV., Pt. I., Act V., Sc. 1, "Honor is a mere
+   scutcheon."
+
+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!
+
+   *[This may help to illustrate a passage in Shakespeare which
+   puzzles the commentators--"Cupid is a good hare-finder."--Much ADO,
+   Act I., Sc. 1.
+   The hare, in Germany, is considered an emblem of abject submission
+   and cowardice. The word may also be rendered "Simpleton,"
+   "Sawney," or any other of the numerous epithets which imply a soft
+   condition.]
+
+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!
+
+   **[The reader of Sterne will remember a very similar passage in the
+   first chapter of Tristram Shandy.]
+
+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.*
+
+
+   *[This soliloquy in some parts resembles that of Richard, Duke of
+   Gloster, in Shakespeare's Henry VI., Act V. Sc. 6.]
+
+[Exit.]
+
+
+
+
+       SCENE II.--A Tavern on the Frontier of Saxony.
+
+
+ CHARLES VON MOOR intent on a book; SPIEGELBERG drinking at the table.
+
+
+
+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.**
+
+
+   *[Lycopodium (in German Barlappen-mehl), vulgarly known as the
+   Devil's Puff-ball or Witchmeal, is used on the stage, as well in
+   England as on the continent, to produce flashes of fire. It is
+   made of the pollen of common club moss, or wolf's claw (Lycopodium
+   clavatum), the capsules of which contain a highly inflammable
+   powder. Translators have uniformly failed in rendering this
+   passage.]
+
+   **[This simile brings to mind Shakespeare's:
+                     "We petty men
+         Walk under his huge legs, and peep about."
+                JULIUS CAESAR, Act I., Sc. 2.]
+
+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!
+
+   *[Herman is the German for Armin or Arminius, the celebrated
+   deliverer of Germany from the Roman yoke. See Menzel's History,
+   vol. i., p. 85, etc.]
+
+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.
+
+   *[The "shooting at Hornberg" is a proverbial expression in Germany
+   for any expedition from which, through lack of courage, the parties
+   retire without firing a shot.]
+
+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.
+
+
+     Enter SCHWEITZER, GRIMM, ROLLER, SCHUFTERLE, and RAZMAN.
+
+
+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?
+
+
+               Enter SCHWARZ.
+
+
+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.
+
+                         "FRANCIS VON MOOR"
+
+
+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.*
+
+   *[The gallows, which in Germany is formed of three posts.]
+
+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!
+
+   *[The joke is explained by placing a comma after non.]
+
+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!
+
+
+   (Enter CHARLES VON MOOR in violent agitation, stalking backwards
+   and forwards, and speaking to himself.)
+
+
+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?
+
+
+   [SPIEGELBERG runs up and down in a furious rage.]
+
+
+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, AMELIA.
+
+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!
+
+FRANCIS (stamping with fury). Only wait! you shall learn to tremble
+before me!--To sacrifice me for a beggar!
+                      [Exit in anger.]
+
+AMELIA. Go, thou base villain! Now, Charles, am I again thine own.
+Beggar, did he say! then is the world turned upside down, beggars are
+kings, and kings are beggars! I would not change the rags he wears for
+the imperial purple. The look with which he begs must, indeed, be a
+noble, a royal look, a look that withers into naught the glory, the
+pomp, the triumphs of the rich and great! Into the dust with thee,
+glittering baubles! (She tears her pearls from her neck.) Let the rich
+and the proud be condemned to bear the burden of gold, and silver, and
+jewels! Be they condemned to carouse at the tables of the voluptuous!
+To pamper their limbs on the downy couch of luxury! Charles! Charles!
+Thus am I worthy of thee!
+                      [Exit.]
+
+
+
+
+                 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?*
+
+   *[A woman in Paris, by means of a regularly performed series of
+   experiments, carried the art of poisoning to such perfection that
+   she could predict almost to a certainty the day of death, however
+   remote. Fie upon our physicians, who should blush to be outdone by
+   a woman in their own province. Beckmann, in his article on secret
+   poisoning, has given a particular account of this woman, the
+   Marchioness de Brinvilliers.--See "History of Inventions," Standard
+   Library Edition, vol. i, pp. 47-63.]
+
+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.
+
+         OLD MOOR asleep in an arm-chair; AMELIA.
+
+
+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.)
+
+                ANDROMACHE.
+
+        Oh, Hector, wilt thou go for evermore,
+        When fierce Achilles, on the blood-stained shore,
+         Heaps countless victims o'er Patroclus' grave?
+        When then thy hapless orphan boy will rear,
+        Teach him to praise the gods and hurl the spear,
+         When thou art swallow'd up in Xanthus' wave?
+
+
+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.)
+
+
+                 HECTOR.
+
+        Beloved wife! stern duty calls to arms--
+        Go, fetch my lance! and cease those vain alarms!
+         On me is cast the destiny of Troy!
+        Astyanax, my child, the Gods will shield,
+        Should Hector fall upon the battle-field;
+         And in Elysium we shall meet with joy!
+
+
+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.)
+
+
+                ANDROMACHE.
+
+        Thy martial tread no more will grace my hall--
+        Thine arms shall hang sad relics on the wall--
+        And Priam's race of godlike heroes fade!
+        Oh, thou wilt go where Phoebus sheds no light--
+        Where black Cocytus wails in endless night
+         Thy love will die in Lethe's gloomy shade.
+
+
+                 HECTOR.
+
+        Though I in Lethe's darksome wave should sink,
+        And cease on other mortal ties to think,
+         Yet thy true love shall never be forgot!
+        Hark! on the walls I hear the battle roar--
+        Gird on my armor--and, oh, weep no more.
+        Thy Hector's love in Lethe dieth not!
+
+
+       (Enter FRANCIS, HERMANN in disguise, DANIEL.)
+
+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 Frederick'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.
+
+HERMANN. This is more than I can bear! Farewell, old gentleman!
+(Aside to FRANCIS.) How could you have the heart to do this?
+                         [Exit in haste.]
+
+AMELIA (rises and rushes after him). Stay! stay! What were his last
+words?
+
+HERMANN (calling back). His last sigh was "Amelia."
+                         [Exit.]
+
+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.
+
+AMELIA. Gracious heaven! it is his own hand. He never loved me.
+                         [Rushes off]
+
+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.)
+
+FRANCIS. Feeble old dotard I would you dare? Die! despair!
+                            [Exit.]
+
+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!
+
+
+         Enter AMELIA, her eyes red with weeping.
+
+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!
+
+
+               Enter FRANCIS.
+
+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--
+
+AMELIA (with a sudden cry). Dead! both dead!
+                         [Exit in despair.]
+
+
+           Enter FRANCIS, dancing with joy.
+
+FRANCIS. Dead, they cry, dead! Now am I master. Through the whole
+castle it rings, dead! but stay, perchance he only sleeps? To be sure,
+yes, to be sure! that certainly is a sleep after which no "good-morrow"
+is ever said. Sleep and death are but twin-brothers. We will for once
+change their names! Excellent, welcome sleep! We will call thee death!
+(He closes the eyes of OLD MOOR.) Who now will come forward and dare to
+accuse me at the bar of justice, or tell me to my face, thou art a
+villain? Away, then, with this troublesome mask of humility and virtue!
+Now you shall see Francis as he is, and tremble! My father was
+overgentle in his demands, turned his domain into a family-circle, sat
+blandly smiling at the gate, and saluted his peasants as brethren and
+children. My brows shall lower upon you like thunderclouds; my lordly
+name shall hover over you like a threatening comet over the mountains;
+my forehead shall be your weather-glass! He would caress and fondle
+the child that lifted its stubborn head against him. But fondling and
+caressing is not my mode. I will drive the rowels of the spur into
+their flesh, and give the scourge a trial. Under my rule it shall be
+brought to pass that potatoes and small-beer shall be considered a
+holiday treat; and woe to him who meets my eye with the audacious front
+of health. Haggard want and crouching fear are my insignia; and in this
+livery I will clothe ye.
+                            [Exit.]
+
+
+
+
+          SCENE III.--THE BOHEMIAN WOODS.
+
+         SPIEGELBERG, RAZMAN, A Troop Of ROBBERS.
+
+
+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.
+
+   *[The acting edition reads, "Hang your hat up in the sun, and I'll
+   take you a wager it's gone the next minute, as clean out of sight
+   as if the devil himself had walked off with it."]
+
+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.*
+
+   *[In the first (and suppressed) edition was added, "Go to the
+   Grisons, for instance; that is what I call the thief's Athens."
+   This obnoxious passage has been carefully expunged from all the
+   subsequent editions. It gave mortal offence to the Grison
+   magistrates, who made a formal complaint of the insult and caused
+   Schiller to be severely rebuked by the Grand Duke. This incident
+   forms one of the epochs in our author's history.]
+
+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.
+
+           (Enter SCHWARZ at full speed).
+
+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).
+
+        Should I happen to pass the gallows stone,
+         I shall just take a sight with one eye,
+        And think to myself, you may dangle alone,
+         Who now, sir, 's the fool, you or I?
+
+RAZ. (Jumping up). Hark! a shot! (Firing and noise is heard behind the
+scenes).
+
+SPIEGEL. Another!
+
+RAZ. And another! The captain!
+
+       (Voices behind the scenes are heard singing).
+
+        The Nurnbergers deem it the wisest plan,
+        Never to hang till they've caught their man.
+                         _Da capo_.
+
+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. Indeed, Schufterle? Then may those flames burn in thy bosom
+to all eternity! Avaunt, monster! Never let me see thee again in my
+troop! What! Do you murmur? Do you hesitate? Who dares hesitate when
+I command? Away with him, I say! And there are others among you ripe
+for my vengeance. I know thee, Spiegelberg. But I will step in among
+you ere long, and hold a fearful muster-roll.
+                       [Exeunt, trembling.]
+
+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.)
+
+            Enter a ROBBER hurriedly.
+
+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.
+
+              Enter more ROBBERS.
+
+2D ROBBER. Captain! captain! they have tracked us! Some thousands of
+them are forming a cordon round the middle forest.
+
+            Enter more ROBBERS again.
+
+3D ROBBER. Woe, woe, woe! we are all taken, hanged drawn, and
+quartered. Thousands of hussars, dragoons, and chasseurs are mustering
+on the heights, and guard all the passes.
+                     [Exit CHARLES VON MOOR.]
+
+     Enter SCHWEITZER, GRIMM, ROLLER, SCHWARZ, SCHUFTERLE,
+        SPIEGELBERG, RAZMAN, and the whole troop.
+
+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!
+
+        Enter CHARLES (speaking slowly to himself).
+
+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.
+
+             Enter FATHER DOMINIC.
+
+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!
+
+      [They sound the signal for attack; noise and tumult.
+            Exeunt with drawn swords.]
+
+
+
+
+                 ACT III.
+
+      SCENE I.--AMELIA in the garden, playing the guitar.
+
+     Bright as an angel from Walhalla's hall,
+      More beautiful than aught of earth was he!
+     Heaven-mild his look, as sunbeams when they fall,
+      Reflected from a calm cerulean sea.
+
+     His warm embrace--oh, ravishing delight!
+      With heart to heart the fiery pulses danced--
+     Our every sense wrap'd in ecstatic night--
+      Our souls in blissful harmony entranced.
+
+     His kisses--oh, what paradise of feeling!
+      E'en as two flames which round each other twine--
+     Or flood of seraph harp-tones gently stealing
+      In one soft swell, away to realms divine!
+
+     They rushed, commingled, melted, soul in soul!
+      Lips glued to lips, with burning tremor bound!
+     Cold earth dissolved, and love without control
+      Absorbed all sense of worldly things around!
+
+     He's gone!--forever gone! Alas! in vain
+      My bleeding heart in bitter anguish sighs;
+     To me is left alone this world of pain,
+      And mortal life in hopeless sorrow dies.
+
+
+               Enter FRANCIS.
+
+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.
+
+               Enter HERMANN.
+
+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.
+
+HERMANN. I suppose till you have hired a dozen assassins to silence my
+tongue forever! Is it not so! But (in his ear) the secret is committed
+to paper, which my heirs will publish.
+                            [Exit.]
+
+
+
+
+                SCENE IX.
+
+               FRANCIS, solus.
+
+Francis! Francis! Francis! What is all this? Where was thy courage?
+where thy once so fertile wit? Woe! Woe! And to be betrayed by thy
+own instruments! The pillars of my good fortune are tottering to their
+fall, the fences are broken down, and the raging enemy is already
+bursting in upon me. Well! this calls for some bold and sudden resolve!
+What if I went in person--and secretly plunged this sword in his body?
+A wounded man is but a child. Quick! I'll do it. (He walks with a
+resolute step to the end of the stage, but stops suddenly as if overcome
+by sensations of horror). Who are these gliding behind me? (Rolling
+his eyes fearfully) Faces such as I have never yet beheld. What
+hideous yells do I hear! I feel that I have courage--courage! oh yes to
+overflowing! But if a mirror should betray me? or my shadow! or the
+whistling of the murderous stroke! Ugh! Ugh! How my hair bristles! A
+shudder creeps through my frame. (He lets a poigniard fall from under
+his clothes.) I am no coward--perhaps somewhat too tenderhearted. Yes!
+that is it! These are the last struggles of expiring virtue. I revere
+them. I should indeed be a monster were I to become the murderer of my
+own brother. No! no! no! That thought be far from me! Let me cherish
+this vestige of humanity. I will not murder. Nature, thou hast
+conquered. I still feel something here that seems like--affection. He
+shall live.
+                            [Exit.]
+
+             Enter HERMANN, timidly.
+
+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!
+
+              (HERMANN runs off)
+
+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.
+
+     THE ROBBERS (encamped on a rising ground, under trees,
+           their horses are grazing below.)
+
+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!
+
+         Enter SCHWEITZER with water in his hat.
+
+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.
+
+               Enter KOSINSKY.
+
+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.
+
+   *[Alluding to Caius Marius. See Plutarch's Lives.]
+
+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!
+
+CHARLES (falling on his neck). Dear brother! thou shalt follow me. She
+weeps, she mourns away her life. Up! quickly! all of you! to
+Franconia! In a week we must be there.
+                         [Exeunt.]
+
+
+
+
+                 ACT IV.
+
+       SCENE I.--Rural scenery in the neighborhood of
+            CHARLES VON MOOR'S castle.
+
+        CHARLES VON MOOR, KOSINSKY, at a distance.
+
+CHARLES. Go forward, and announce me. You remember what you have to
+say?
+
+KOSINSKY. You are Count Brand, you come from Mecklenburg. I am your
+groom. Do not fear, I shall take care to play my part. Farewell!
+                         [Exit.]
+
+CHARLES. Hail to thee, Earth of my Fatherland (kisses the earth.)
+Heaven of my Fatherland! Sun of my Fatherland! Ye meadows and hills,
+ye streams and woods! Hail, hail to ye all! How deliciously the
+breezes are wafted from my native hills? What streams of balmy perfume
+greet the poor fugitive! Elysium! Realms of poetry! Stay, Moor, thy
+foot has strayed into a holy temple. (Comes nearer.)
+
+See there! the old swallow-nests in the castle yard!---and the little
+garden-gate!--and this corner of the fence where I so often watched in
+ambuscade to teaze old Towzer!--and down there in the green valley,
+where, as the great Alexander, I led my Macedonians to the battle of
+Arbela; and the grassy hillock yonder, from which I hurled the Persian
+satrap--and then waved on high my victorious banner! (He smiles.) The
+golden age of boyhood lives again in the soul of the outcast. I was
+then so happy, so wholly, so cloudlessly happy--and now--behold all my
+prospects a wreck! Here should I have presided, a great, a noble, an
+honored man--here have--lived over again the years of boyhood in the
+blooming--children of my Amelia--here!--here have been the idol of my
+people--but the foul fiend opposed it (Starting.) Why am I here? To
+feel like the captive when the clanking of his chains awakes him from
+his dream of liberty. No, let me return to my wretchedness! The
+captive had forgotten the light of day, but the dream of liberty flashes
+past his eyes like a blaze of lightning in the night, which leaves it
+darker than before. Farewell, ye native vales! once ye saw Charles as a
+boy, and then Charles was happy. Now ye have seen the man his happiness
+turned to despair! (He moves rapidly towards the most distant point of
+the landscape, where he suddenly stops and casts a melancholy look
+across to the castle.) Not to behold her! not even one look?--and only
+a wall between me and Amelia! No! see her I must!--and him too!--though
+it crush me! (He turns back.) Father! father! thy son approaches. Away
+with thee, black, reeking gore! Away with that grim, ghastly look of
+death! Oh, give me but this one hour free! Amelia! Father! thy
+Charles approaches! (He goes quickly towards the castle.) Torment me
+when the morning dawns--give me no rest with the coming night--beset me
+in frightful dreams! But, oh! poison not this my only hour of bliss!
+(He is standing at the gate.) What is it I feel? What means this, Moor?
+Be a man! These death-like shudders--foreboding terrors.
+                            [Enters.]
+
+
+
+          SCENE II.*--Gallery in the Castle.
+
+       *[In some editions this is the third scene,
+       and there is no second.]
+
+           Enter CHARLES VON MOOR, AMELIA.
+
+AMELIA. And are you sure that you should know his portrait among these
+pictures?
+
+CHARLES. Oh, most certainly! his image has always been fresh in my
+memory. (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?*
+
+   *[In the acting edition is added--
+   "MOOR. And would you learn forgetfulness in that holy garb there?
+   (Pointing to a nun's habit.)
+   "AMELIA. To-morrow I hope to do so. Shall we continue our walk,
+   sir?"]
+
+CHARLES. In such haste? Whose portrait is that on the right? There is
+an unhappy look about that countenance, methinks.
+
+AMELIA. That portrait on the left is the son of the count, the present
+count. Come, let us 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.]
+
+CHARLES. She loves me, she loves me! Her whole being began to rebel,
+and the traitor tears rolled down her cheeks. She loves me! Wretch,
+hast thou deserved this at her hands? Stand I not here like a condemned
+criminal before the fatal block? Is this the couch on which we so often
+sat--where I have hung in rapture on her neck? Are these my ancestral
+halls? (Overcome by the sight of his father's portrait.) Thou--thou--
+Flames of fire darting from thine eyes--His curse--His curse--He disowns
+me--Where am I? My sight grows dim--Horrors of the living God--'Twas I,
+'twas I that killed my father!
+                        [He rushes off]
+
+         Enter FRANCIS VON MOOR, in deep thought.
+
+FRANCIS. Away with that image! Away with it! Craven heart! Why dost
+thou tremble, and before whom? Have I not felt, during the few hours
+that the count has been within these walls as if a spy from 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!
+
+               Enter DANIEL.
+
+DANIEL. What is your pleasure, my master?
+
+FRANCIS. Nothing. Go, fill this goblet with wine, and quickly! (Exit
+DANIEL.) Wait a little, old man! I shall find you out! I will fix my
+eye upon you so keenly that your stricken conscience shall betray itself
+through your mask! He shall die! He is but a sorry bungler who leaves
+his work half finished, and then looks on idly, trusting to chance for
+what may come of it.
+
+            Enter DANIEL, with the wine.
+
+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.
+
+DANIEL (after some reflection). I'll do it; I will do it to-morrow.
+                            [Exit.]
+
+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.*
+
+   *["To what base uses we may return, Horatio! why, may not
+   imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till we find it
+   stopping a bunghole?"--HAMLET, Act v, Sc. 1.]
+
+That is the burden of the song--the filthy cycle of human fate; and with
+that--a pleasant journey to you, sir brother! Conscience, that
+splenetic, gouty moralist, may drive shrivelled old drones out of
+brothels, and torture usurers on their deathbeds--with me it shall never
+more have audience.
+                            [Exit.]
+
+
+
+
+         SCENE III.--Another Room in the Castle.
+
+   CHARLES VON MOOR enters from one side, DANIEL from the other.
+
+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!
+
+DANIEL. But I would rather gnaw my old bones with hunger, and suck my
+own blood for thirst, than gain a life of luxury by murder.
+                          [Exit hastily.]
+
+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!
+
+               Enter KOSINSKY.
+
+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.
+
+CHARLES (in a commanding tone). Quick! quick! delay not! leave every
+thing behind! and let no eye see you!
+                         (Exit KOSINSKY.)
+
+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.
+
+               Enter KOSINSKY.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+            Scene IV.--In the Garden.
+
+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.*
+
+   *[Here, in the acting edition, is added, 'Assuredly, if the spirits
+   of the departed wander among the living, then must this stranger be
+   Charles's angel!']
+
+Ha! false, perfidious heart! And dost thou seek thus artfully to veil
+thy perjury? No, no! begone forever from my soul, thou sinful image!
+I have not broken my oath, thou only one! Avaunt, from my soul, ye
+treacherous impious wishes! In the heart where Charles reigns no son
+of earth may dwell. But why, my soul, dost thou thus constantly, thus
+obstinately turn towards this stranger? Does he not cling to my heart
+in the very image of my only one! Is he not his inseparable companion
+in my thoughts? "You are in tears, Amelia?" Ha! let me fly from him!--
+--fly!--never more shall my eyes behold this stranger!
+                   [CHARLES opens the garden gate.]
+
+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.*
+
+   *[In the acting edition the scene changes materially at this point,
+   and the most sentimental part of the whole drama is transformed
+   into the most voluptuous. The stage direction here is,--(They give
+   way to their transports without control, and mingle their kisses.
+   MOOR hangs in ecstacy on her lips, while she sinks half delirious
+   on the couch.) O Charles! now avenge thyself; my vow is broken.
+
+   MOOR (tearing himself away from her, as if in frenzy). Can this be
+   hell that still pursues me! (Gazing on her.) I felt so happy!
+
+   AMELIA (perceiving the ring upon her finger, starts up from the
+   couch). What! Art thou still there--on that guilty hand? Witness
+   of my perjury. Away with thee! (She pulls the ring from her
+   finger and gives it to CHARLES.) Take it--take it, beloved
+   seducer! and with it what I hold most sacred--take my all--my
+   Charles! (She falls back upon the couch.)
+
+   MOOR (changes color). O thou Most High! was this thy almighty
+   will? It is the very ring I gave her in pledge of our mutual
+   faith. Hell be the grave of love! She has returned my ring.
+
+   AMELIA (terrified). Heavens! What is the matter? Your eyes roll
+   wildly, and your lips are pale as death! Ah! woe is me. And are
+   the pleasures of thy crime so soon forgotten?
+
+   MOOR (suppressing his emotion). 'Tis nothing! Nothing! (Raising
+   his eyes to heaven.) I am still a man! (He takes of his own ring
+   and puts it on AMELIA'S finger.) In return take this! sweet fury of
+   my heart! And with it what I hold most sacred--take my all--my
+   Amelia!
+
+   AMELIA (starting up). Your Amelia!
+
+   MOOR (mournfully). Oh, she was such a lovely maiden, and faithful
+   as an angel. When we parted we exchanged rings, and vowed eternal
+   constancy. She heard that I was dead--believed it--yet remained
+   constant to the dead. She heard again that I was living--yet
+   became faithless to the living. I flew into her arms--was happy
+   as--the blest in Paradise. Think what my heart was doomed to feel,
+   Amelia! She gave me back my ring--she took her own.
+
+   AMELIA (her eyes fixed on the earth in amazement). 'Tis strange,
+   most strange! 'Tis horrible!
+
+   MOOR. Ay, strange and horrible! My child, there is much--ay, much
+   for man to learn ere his poor intellect can fathom the decrees of
+   Him who smiles at human vows and weeps at human projects. My
+   Amelia is an unfortunate maiden!
+
+   AMELIA. Unfortunate! Because she rejected you?
+
+   MOOR. Unfortunate. Because she embraced the man she betrayed.
+
+   AMELIA (with melancholy tenderness). Oh, then, she is indeed
+   unfortunate! From my soul I pity her! She shall be my sister.
+   But there is another and a better world."]
+
+
+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?*
+
+   *[In the acting edition the scene closes with a different
+   denouement. Amelia here says, "Are all unhappy who live with you,
+   and bear the name of Amelia.
+   "CHARLES. Yes, all--when they think they embrace an angel, and
+   find in their arms--a murderer. Alas, for my Amelia! She is
+   indeed unfortunate.
+   "AMELIA (with an expression of deep affliction). Oh, I must weep
+   for her.
+   "CHARLES (grasping her hand, and pointing to the ring). Weep for
+   thyself.
+   "AMELIA (recognizing the ring). Charles! Charles! O heaven and
+   earth!
+   (She sinks fainting; the scene closes.)"]
+
+
+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.)
+
+     Oh! Hector, wilt thou go forevermore,
+     Where fierce Achilles, on the blood-stained shore,
+      Heaps countless victims o'er Patroclus' grave?
+     Who then thy hapless orphan boy will rear,
+     Teach him to praise the gods and hurl the spear,
+      When thou art swallowed up in Xanthus' wave?
+
+CHARLES (silently tunes the guitar, and plays).
+
+     Beloved wife!--stern duty calls to arms
+     Go, fetch my lance! and cease those vain alarms!
+
+             [He flings the guitar away, and rushes off.]
+
+
+
+
+     SCENE V.--A neighboring forest. Night. An old ruined
+          castle in the centre of the scene.
+
+       The band of ROBBERS encamped on the ground.
+
+              The ROBBERS singing.
+
+        To rob, to kill, to wench, to fight,
+         Our pastime is, and daily sport;
+        The gibbet claims us morn and night,
+         So let's be jolly, time is short.
+
+        A merry life we lead, and free,
+         A life of endless fun;
+        Our couch is 'neath the greenwood tree,
+        Through wind and storm we gain our fee,
+         The moon we make our sun.
+        Old Mercury is our patron true,
+        And a capital chap for helping us through.
+
+        To-day we make the abbot our host,
+         The farmer rich to-morrow;
+        And where we shall get our next day's roast,
+         Gives us nor care nor sorrow.
+
+        And, when with Rhenish and rare Moselle
+         Our throats we have been oiling,
+        Our courage burns with a fiercer swell,
+        And we're hand and glove with the Lord of Hell,
+         Who down in his flames is broiling.
+
+        For fathers slain the orphans' cries,
+         The widowed mothers' moan and wail,
+        Of brides bereaved the whimpering sighs,
+         Like music sweet, our ears regale.
+
+        Beneath the axe to see them writhe,
+         Bellow like calves, fall dead like flies;
+        Such bonny sights, and sounds so blithe,
+         With rapture fill our ears and eyes.
+
+        And when at last our death-knell rings--
+         The devil take that hour!
+        Payment in full the hangman brings,
+         And off the stage we scour.
+        On the road a glass of good liquor or so,
+        Then hip! hip! hip! and away we go!
+
+
+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.)
+
+          Enter CHARLES VON MOOR and KOSINSKY.
+
+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.)
+
+
+       Profound silence. CHARLES VON MOOR takes up his
+              guitar, and plays.
+
+
+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.
+
+        [He lays down his guitar, and walks to and
+        fro in deep meditation.]
+
+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?
+
+   [This and other passages will remind the reader of Cato's soliloquy
+   "It must be so, Plato; thou reasonest well." But the whole bears a
+   strong resemblance to Hamlet's "To be or not to be;" and some
+   passages in Measure for Measure, Act iii, Sc. 1.]
+
+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!*
+
+   *[In the acting edition Hermann, instead of this, says,--
+   'Tis one of his spies for certain, I have lost all fear (draws his
+   sword). Villain, defend yourself! You have a man before you.]
+
+   MOOR. I'll have an answer (strikes the sword out of his hand).
+   What boots this childish sword-play? Didst thou not speak of
+   vengeance? Vengeance belongs especially to me--of all men on
+   earth. Who dares interfere with my vocation?
+
+   HERMANN (starts back in affright). By heaven! That man was not
+   born of woman. His touch withers like the stroke of death.
+
+   VOICE. Alas, Hermann! to whom are you speaking?
+
+   MOOR. What! still those sounds? What is going on there? (Runs
+   towards the tower.) Some horrible mystery, no doubt, lies concealed
+   in that tower. This sword shall bring it to light.
+
+   HERMANN (comes forward trembling). Terrible stranger! art thou
+   the demon of this fearful desert--or perhaps 'one of the ministers
+   of that unfathonable retribution who make their circuit in this
+   lower world, and take account of all the deeds of darkness? Oh!
+   if thou art, be welcome to this tower of horrors!
+
+   MOOR. Well guessed, wanderer of the night! You have divined my
+   function. Exterminating Angel is my name; but I am flesh and blood
+   like thee. Is this some miserable wretch, cast out of men, and
+   buried in this dungeon? I will loosen his chains. Once more,
+   speak! thou voice of terror Where is the door?
+
+   HERMANN. As soon could Satan force the gates of heaven as thou
+   that door. Retire, thou man of might! The genius of the wicked is
+   beyond the ordinary powers of man.
+
+   MOOR. But not the craft of robbers. (He takes some pass-keys from
+   his pocket.) For once I thank heaven I've learned that craft!
+   These keys would mock hell's foresight. (He takes a key, and opens
+   the gate of the tower. An old man comes from below emaciated like
+   a skeleton. MOOR springs back with of right.) Horrible spectre!
+   my father!
+
+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.
+
+        Enter DANIEL, with a lantern and a bundle.
+
+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!
+
+DANIEL. Heaven have mercy upon you!
+                             [Exit.]
+
+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?
+
+              Enter PASTOR MOSER.
+
+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!
+
+MOSER. Can mere "priestly cant" excite a philosopher to such a pitch of
+frenzy? Why not blow it away with a breath of your lips?
+                             (Exit.)
+
+       [FRANCIS throws himself about in his chair in
+        terrible agitation. Profound stillness.]
+
+             Enter a SERVANT, hastily
+
+SERVANT. The Lady Amelia has fled. The count has suddenly disappeared.
+
+           Enter DANIEL, in great alarm.
+
+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!
+
+          Uproar of the PEOPLE, rushing in.
+
+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.)*
+
+   *[In the acting edition, Francis attempts to throw himself into the
+   flames, but is prevented by the robbers, and taken alive. He is
+   then brought before his brother, in chains, for sentence.
+   SCHWEITZER says, "I have fulfilled my word, and brought him alive."
+   GRIMM. "We tore him out of the flames and the castle is in ashes."
+   After confronting Francis with his father, and a reproachful
+   interview between the brothers, Charles delegates the judgment on
+   Francis to Schweitzer and Kosinsky, but for himself forgives him in
+   these words: "Thou hast robbed me of heaven's bliss! Be that sin
+   blotted out! Thy doom is sealed--perdition is thy lot! But I
+   forgive thee, brother." Upon this CHARLES embraces and leaves him;
+   the ROBBERS however, thrust FRANCIS into the dungeon where he had
+   immured his father, laughing in a savage manner. Beyond this the
+   fate of Francis is left undetermined. Schweitzer, instead of
+   killing himself, is made partaker, with Kosinsky, of Moor's
+   estate.]
+
+           Enter SCHWEITZER and his band.
+
+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.
+
+     OLD MOOR seated on a stone; CHARLES VON MOOR opposite;
+          ROBBERS scattered through the wood.
+
+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."
+
+    (CHARLES stretches out his hand to him with averted face.)
+
+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!
+
+   (The companions of SCHWEITZER enter in a silent and mournful
+   procession, hanging down their heads and hiding their faces.)
+
+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!
+
+      [CHARLES does not answer and steps farther back.]
+
+SCHWARZ. Dear captain!
+
+          [CHARLES retreats still farther.]
+
+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.
+
+            Enter ROBBERS with AMELIA.
+
+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?*
+
+   *[Instead of this the stage edition has, "Come my children! Thy
+   hand, Charles--and thine, Amelia. Oh! I never looked for such
+   happiness on this side the grave. Here let me unite you forever."]
+
+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.)
+
+     [AMELIA stands silent and transfixed like a statue.
+        The whole band are mute. A fearful pause.]
+
+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.*
+
+   *[The acting edition reads,--"Banditti! we are quits. This
+   bleeding corpse cancels my bond to you forever. From your own I
+   set you free." ROBBERS. "We are again your slaves till death!"
+   CHARLES. "No, no, no! We have done with each other. My genius
+   whispers me, 'Go no further, Moor. Here is the goal of humanity--
+   and thine!' Take back this bloody plume (throws it at their feet).
+   Let him who seeks to be your captain take it up."]
+
+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?*
+
+
+   *[In lieu of this soliloquy and what follows, to the end, the
+   acting edition has:--
+
+   R. MOOR. Dare not to scrutinize the acts of Moor. That is my last
+   command. Now, draw near--form a circle around me, and receive the
+   last words of your dying captain. (He surveys them attentively for
+   some time.) You have been devotedly faithful to me, faithful
+   beyond example. Had virtue bound you together as firmly as vice,
+   you would have been heroes, and your names recorded by mankind with
+   admiration. Go and offer your services to the state. Dedicate
+   your talents to the cause of a monarch who is waging war in
+   vindication of the rights of man. With this blessing I disband
+   you. Schweitzer and Kosinsky, do you stay. (The others disperse
+   slowly, with signs of emotion.)]
+
+
+
+                SCENE VIII.
+
+
+
+          R. MOOR, SCRWETTZER, and KOSINSKY.
+
+   R. MOOR. Give me thy right hand, Kosinsky--Schweitzer thy left.
+   (He takes their hands, and stands between, them; to KOSINSKY,)
+   Young man, thou art still pure-amongst the guilty thou alone art
+   guiltless! (To SCHWEITZER.) Deeply have I imbrued thy hand in
+   blood. 'Tis I who have done this. With this cordial grasp I take
+   back mine own. Schweitzer! thou art purified! (He raises their
+   hands fervently to heaven.) Father in heaven! here I restore them
+   to thee. They will be more devoted to thy service than those who
+   never fell. Of that I feel assured. (SCHWEITZER and KOSINSKY fall
+   on his neck with fervor.) Not now--not now, dear comrades. Spare
+   my feelings in this trying hour. An earldom has this day fallen to
+   my lot--a rich domain on which no malediction rests. Share it
+   between you, my children; become good citizens; and if for ten
+   human beings that I have destroyed you make but one happy, my soul
+   may yet be saved. Go--no farewell! In another world we may meet
+   again--or perhaps no more. Away! away! ere my fortitude desert me.
+               [Exeunt both, with downcast countenances.]
+
+
+                SCENE IX.
+
+   And I, too, am a good citizen. Do I not fulfil the extremity of
+   the law? Do I not honor the law? Do I not uphold and defend it?
+   I remember speaking to a poor officer on my way hither, who was
+   toiling as a day-laborer, and has eleven living children. A
+   thousand ducats have been offered to whoever shall deliver up the
+   great robber alive. That man shall be served. [Exit.]
+
+
+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.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Robbers, by Frederich Schiller
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