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.

d.u.c.h.eSS.

Thou wilt share An easier, calmer lot, my child! We too, I and thy father, witnessed 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 loved him, trusted him: and all He undertook could not but be successful.

But since that ill-starr'd day at Regensburg, Which plunged 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 follow'd them.

COUNTESS.

You see it, sister, as your eyes permit you, But surely this is not the conversation To pa.s.s 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?

d.u.c.h.eSS.

Come, my child!

Come wipe away thy tears, and show 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 n.o.ble 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.

d.u.c.h.eSS.

What now? Why is she going?

COUNTESS.

She's not well.

d.u.c.h.eSS (_anxiously_).

What ails then my beloved child?

[_Both follow the_ PRINCESS, _and endeavor to detain her.

During this_ WALLENSTEIN _appears, engaged in conversation with_ ILLO.]

SCENE IV

WALLENSTEIN, ILLO, COUNTESS, d.u.c.h.eSS, THEKLA

WALLENST.

All quiet in the camp?

ILLO.

It is all quiet.

WALLENST.

In a few hours may couriers come from Prague With tidings that this capital is ours.

Then we may drop the mask, and to the troops a.s.sembled in this town make known the measure And its result together. In such cases Example does the whole. Whoever is foremost Still leads the herd. An imitative creature Is man. The troops at Prague conceive no other Than that the Pilsen army has gone through The forms of homage to us; and in Pilsen They shall swear fealty to us, because The example has been given them by Prague.

Butler, you tell me, has declared himself?

ILLO.

At his own bidding, unsolicited, He came to offer you himself and regiment.

WALLENST.

I find we must not give implicit credence To every warning voice that makes itself Be listen'd to in the heart. To hold us back, Oft does the lying Spirit counterfeit The voice of Truth and inward Revelation, Scattering false oracles. And thus have I To entreat forgiveness, for that secretly I've wrong'd this honorable, gallant man, This Butler: for a feeling, of the which I am not master (_fear_ I would not call it), Creeps o'er me instantly, with sense of shuddering At his approach, and stops love's joyous motion.

And this same man, against whom I am warn'd, This honest man is he, who reaches to me The first pledge of my fortune.