Moves the light fluids lightly; but no soulWarmeth the inner frame.
Tertsky. Yet, would I rather
Trust the smooth brow than that deep furrowed one. 50
SCENE VIII
WALLENSTEIN, TERTSKY, ILLO.
Illo. Treason and mutiny!
Tertsky. And what further now?
Illo. Tiefenbach’s soldiers, when I gave the orders
To go off guard — Mutinous villains!
Tertsky. Well!
Wallenstein. What followed?
Illo. They refused obedience to them. 5
Tertsky. Fire on them instantly! Give out the order.
Wallenstein. Gently! what cause did they assign?
Illo. No other,
They said, had right to issue orders but
Lieutenant-General Piccolomini.
Wallenstein. What? How is that? 10
Illo. He takes that office on him by commission,
Under sign-manual of the Emperor.
Tertsky. From the Emperor — hear’st thou, Duke?
Illo. At his incitement
The Generals made that stealthy flight —
Tertsky. Duke! hearest thou?
Illo. Caraffa too, and Montecuculi, 15
Are missing, with six other Generals,
All whom he had induced to follow him.
This plot he has long had in writing by him
From the Emperor; but ‘twas finally concluded
With all the detail of the operation 20
Some days ago with the Envoy Questenberg.
[WALLENSTEIN sinks down into a chair and covers
his face.
Tertsky. O hadst thou but believed me!
[Before 1] Illo (who enters agitated with rage). 1800, 1828, 1829.
SCENE IX
To them enter the COUNTESS.
Countess. This suspense,
This horrid fear — I can no longer bear it.
For heaven’s sake, tell me, what has taken place.
Illo. The regiments are all falling off from us.
Tertsky. Octavio Piccolomini is a traitor. 5
Countess. O my foreboding! [Rushes out of the room.
Tertsky. Hadst thou but believed me!
Now seest thou how the stars have lied to thee.
Wallenstein. The stars lie not; but we have here a work
Wrought counter to the stars and destiny.
The science is still honest: this false heart 10
Forces a lie on the truth-telling heaven.
On a divine law divination rests;
Where nature deviates from that law, and stumbles
Out of her limits, there all science errs.
True, I did not suspect! Were it superstition 15
Never by such suspicion t’ have affronted
The human form, O may that time ne’er come
In which I shame me of the infirmity.
The wildest savage drinks not with the victim
Into whose breast he means to plunge the sword. 20
This, this, Octavio, was no hero’s deed:
‘Twas not thy prudence that did conquer mine;
A bad heart triumphed o’er an honest one.
No shield received the assassin stroke; thou plungest
Thy weapon on an unprotected breast — 25
Against such weapons I am but a child.
SCENE X
To these enter BUTLER.
Tertsky (meeting him). O look there! Butler! Here we’ve still a
friend!
Wallenstein (meets him with outspread arms, and embraces him with
warmth). Come to my heart, old comrade! Not the sun
Looks out upon us more revivingly
In the earliest month of spring,
Than a friend’s countenance in such an hour. 5
Butler. My General: I come —
Wallenstein (leaning on Butler’s shoulders). Know’st thou
already?
That old man has betrayed me to the Emperor.
What say’st thou? Thirty years have we together
Lived out, and held out, sharing joy and hardship.
We have slept in one camp-bed, drunk from one glass, 10
One morsel shared! I leaned myself on him,
As now I lean me on thy faithful shoulder.
And now in the very moment, when, all love,
All confidence, my bosom beat to his,
