He must not lay the sword aside, we mean;He must unsheath it in your father’s cause.
Thekla. He’ll spend with gladness and alacrity
His life, his heart’s blood in my father’s cause, 40
If shame or injury be intended him.
Countess. You will not understand me. Well, hear then!
Your father has fallen off from the Emperor,
And is about to join the enemy
With the whole soldiery —
Thekla. Alas, my mother! 45
Countess. There needs a great example to draw on
The army after him. The Piccolomini
Possess the love and reverence of the troops;
They govern all opinions, and wherever
They lead the way, none hesitate to follow. 50
The son secures the father to our interests —
You’ve much in your hands at this moment.
Thekla. Ah,
My miserable mother! what a death-stroke
Awaits thee! — No! She never will survive it.
Countess. She will accommodate her soul to that 55
Which is and must be. I do know your mother.
The far-off future weights upon her heart
With torture of anxiety; but is it
Unalterably, actually present,
She soon resigns herself, and bears it calmly. 60
Thekla. O my foreboding bosom! Even now,
E’en now ‘tis here, that icy hand of horror!
And my young hope lies shuddering in its grasp;
I knew it well — no sooner had I entered,
A heavy ominous presentiment 65
Revealed to me, that spirits of death were hovering
Over my happy fortune. But why think I
First of myself? My mother! O my mother!
Countess. Calm yourself! Break not out in vain lamenting!
Preserve you for your father the firm friend, 70
And for yourself the lover, all will yet
Prove good and fortunate.
Thekla. Prove good? What good?
Must we not part? Part ne’er to meet again?
Countess. He parts not from you! He can not part from you.
Thekla. Alas for his sore anguish! It will rend 75
His heart asunder.
Countess. If indeed he loves you,
His resolution will be speedily taken.
Thekla. His resolution will be speedily taken —
O do not doubt of that! A resolution!
Does there remain one to be taken?
Countess. Hush! 80
Collect yourself! I hear your mother coming.
Thekla. How shall I bear to see her?
Countess. Collect yourself.
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. 5
And can you tell me, sister, what the event is?
Will he agree to do the Emperor’s pleasure,
And send the horse-regiments to the Cardinal?
Tell me, has he dismissed Von Questenberg
With a favourable answer?
Countess. No, he has not. 10
Duchess. Alas! then all is lost! I see it coming,
The worst that can come! Yes, they will depose him;
The accurséd business of the Regenspurg diet
Will all be acted o’er again!
Countess. No! never!
Make your heart easy, sister, as to that. 15
[THEKLA 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 the Empress. O that stern unbending man!
In this unhappy marriage what have I
Not suffered, not endured. For ev’n as if 20
I had been linked on to some wheel of fire
That restless, ceaseless, whirls impetuous onward,
I have passed a life of frights and horrors with him,
And ever to the brink of some abyss
With dizzy headlong violence he whirls me. 25
Nay, do not weep, my child! Let not my sufferings
Presignify unhappiness to thee,
Nor blacken with their shade the fate that waits thee.
There lives no second Friedland: thou, my child,
