Wallenstein/The Death of Wallenstein/A1S03

by Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

SCENE III.

To them enter the Duchess.

DUCHESS. (to the Countess.)
Who was here, sister? I heard some one talking,
And passionately too.

COUNTESS.
Nay! there was no one.

DUCHESS.
I am grown so timorous, every trifling noise
Scatters my spirits, and announces to me
The footstep of some messenger of evil.
And you can tell me, sister, what the event is?
Will he agree to do the Emperor's pleasure,
And send th' horse-regiments to the Cardinal?
Tell me, has he dismiss'd Von Questenberg
With a favorable answer?

COUNTESS.
No, he has not.

DUCHESS.
Alas! then all is lost! I see it coming,
The worst that can come! Yes, they will depose him;
The accursed business of the Regenspurg diet
Will all be acted o'er again!

COUNTESS.
No! never!
Make your heart easy, sister, as to that.
(Thekla, in extreme agitation, throws herself upon
 her mother, and enfolds her in her arms, weeping.)

DUCHESS.
Yes, my poor child!
Thou too hast lost a most affectionate godmother
In th' empress. O that stern unbending man!
In this unhappy marriage what have I
Not suffer'd, not endur'd? For ev'n as if
I had been link'd on to some wheel of fire
That restless, ceaseless, whirls impetuous onward,
I have past a life of frights and horrors with him,
And ever to the brink of some Abyss
With dizzy headlong violence he whirls me.
Nay, do not weep, my child! Let not my suff'rings
Presignify unhappiness to thee,
Nor blacken with their shade, the fate that waits thee.
There lives no second Friedland: thou, my child,
Hast not to fear thy mother's destiny.

THEKLA.
O let us supplicate him, dearest mother!
Quick! quick! here's no abiding-place for us.
Here every coming hour broods into life
Some new affrightful monster.

DUCHESS.
Thou wilt share
An easier, calmer lot, my child! We, too,
I and thy father, witness'd happy days.
Still think I with delight of those first years,
When he was making progress with glad effort,
When his ambition was a genial fire,
Not that consuming flame which now it is.
The emperor lov'd him, trusted him; and all
He undertook, could not but be successful.
But since that ill-starr'd day at Regenspurg,
Which plung'd him headlong from his dignity,
A gloomy uncompanionable spirit,
Unsteady and suspicious, has possess'd him.
His quiet mind forsook him, and no longer
Did he yield up himself in joy and faith
To his old luck, and individual power;
But thenceforth turn'd his heart and best affections
All to those cloudy sciences, which never
Have yet made happy him who followed them.

COUNTESS.
You see it, sister! as your eyes permit you.
But surely this is not the conversation
To pass the time in which we are waiting for him.
You know he will be soon here. Would you have him
Find her in this condition?

DUCHESS.
Come, my child!
Come wipe away thy tears, and shew thy father
A cheerful countenance. See, the tie-knot here
Is off—this hair must not hang so dishevell'd.
Come, dearest! dry thy tears up. They deform
Thy gentle eye—well now—what was I saying?
Yes, in good truth, this Piccolomini
Is a most noble and deserving gentleman.

COUNTESS.
That is he, sister!

THEKLA.
(to the Countess, with marks of great oppression of spirits).
Aunt, you will excuse me? (is going)

COUNTESS.
But whither? See, your father comes.

THEKLA.
I cannot see him now.

COUNTESS.
Nay, but bethink you.

THEKLA.
Believe me, I cannot sustain his presence.

COUNTESS.
But he will miss you, will ask after you.

DUCHESS.
What now? Why is she going?

COUNTESS.
She's not well.

DUCHESS (anxiously.)
What ails, then, my beloved child?
(both follow the Princess, and endeavour to detain
 her. During this Wallenstein appears, engaged
 in conversation with Illo.)

 

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