style="font-size:15px;"> Ha! can you indeed still wish to live?
Ha! ask the spirits of your fathers why, when living, they were guilty of such continuous oppression, and why they ruled with so much cruelty!—(To a Count.) Why have you, count, oppressed your serfs?—(To another.) Why have you passed your youth in cards and dice, and your life in the land of the stranger?—(To another.) Why have you crept before the great, and scorned the lowly?-(To one of the women.) Why did you not bring up your sons to defend you? As knights and soldiers, they might then have served you now; but you have preferred dealings with Jews and lawyers: call upon them, then, for life and safety.—(He rises and extends his arms toward them.) Why hasten ye thus to shame? why wrap your last hours in shrouds of infamy?
On with me, ye knights and nobles! On, where bayonets glitter, swift balls whistle!
Oh seek not the accursed gallows prepared for you by the New Men; believe me, the masked and silent hangman stands waiting to throw the rope of shame around your high-born throats!
A Voice. He speaks the truth—to our bayonets!
Another Voice. We die of hunger; there is no more food!
Voices of Women. Our children! Your children! Mercy!
Godfather. I promise you safety—safety of life and limb....
The Man (approaching the Godfather, and seizing him y the shoulder). Sacred person of the herald, go! Go, and hide thy gray hairs in the tents of Jews and low mechanics, that I may not dye them in thine own base blood!
Jacob enters with a division of armed men.
Take aim at this brow, furrowed with the folds of idle learning! Aim at this liberty cap, which trembles on the brainless head before every breath from the lips of a man!
The Godfather escapes.
All cry, with one breath: Bind Count Henry! Deliver him up to Pancratius!
The Man. Wait but a single moment, lords! (He goes from one soldier to another.) Do you remember when we climbed a mountain's rocky slope, a savage wild beast closely tracked our steps, and when you, frightened, fell into a yawning chasm, I rescued you, and saved your life? You were most grateful then. Have you forgotten it?—Jerome, we once were cast away upon the Danube's craggy shore; we braved the waves, and saved our lives; we were bold swimmers, and we helped each other well!—Christophe, Hieronymus, you sailed with me upon the wild Black Sea; we were young sailors then!—(To others.) When the fire destroyed your homes, who built your cottages anew?—(To others.) You fled to me from cruel lords, and I redressed your wrongs.—(Addressing himself to the men generally.) Reflect, and choose!… Speak! will you arm with me to battle for our rights, or will you leave me here to die alone—with haughty smiles upon my stiffening lips, because, among so many men, I found no single man?
The Men. Long live Count Henry! we desert him not—vivat!
The Man. Let the remaining meat and brandy be shared among them; then upon the walls!
Soldiers. Meat and brandy, and then upon the walls!
The Man. Go with them, Jacob, and in an hour be ready to renew the fight!
Jacob. So help me God the Lord.
Women. We curse thee, Count Henry, in the name of our innocent children!
Other Voices. We, for our fathers!
Other Voices. We, for our wives!
The Man. And I breathe curses on all craven souls!
The wall of the fortress of the Holy Trinity. Troops are lying scattered about. Broken rocks and stones strew the ground, mingled with pikes and guns; soldiers are running to and fro; the Man leans against a bulwark, and Jacob stands beside him.
The Man (putting his sword into its sheath). There can be no greater pleasure than to play at danger when we always win; and when the time comes to lose, one cast of the die, and all is over!
Jacob. Our last broadside has driven them back for the moment, but I see them below there, gathering to renew the storm; however, all is vain, for since the world a world was, no one has ever escaped his destiny!
The Man. Are there any cartridges left?
Jacob. Neither balls nor grapeshot: everything has its end!
The Man. Bring then my son to me; I would embrace him once more!
Exit Jacob.
The smoke from the powder has dimmed my eyes; it seems to me as if the valley were swelling up to my feet, and again sinking back to its place; the socks crack, and cross each other at a thousand angles, and my thoughts wander, flicker, quiver in the most fantastic forms. (Seats himself upon a wall.) It is not worth the trouble to be a man—nor even an angel; the highest archangel must feel, after some centuries of existence, as we do after a few years of our fleeting life, utter weariness in his soul, and long, as we do, for mightier powers! Either one must be God—or nothing....
Enter Jacob with George.
Take some of the men with you, go through the castle, and drive all before you upon the walls!
Jacob. Counts, princes, bankers?
Exit Jacob.
The Man. Come to me, my dearest son! place thy thin hands in mine, while I press my lips upon thy pure forehead; thy mother's brow was once as white and smooth!
George. Before thy men took up their arms to-day, I heard mamma's voice; her words came floating to me as soft and sweet as perfumed air; she said to me: 'George, thou wilt come to me this very evening, and sit down beside me.'
The Man. Did she name me to thee?
George. She said: 'This very evening I expect my son.'
The Man (aside). Is my strength to fail me, when I have almost reached the end of the weary way? No, God will not permit it! For one moment's fiery madness, I will be thy prisoner to all eternity!—(Aloud). Oh, my son! forgive—forgive the fatal gift of life! We part; and knowest thou for how long a time?
George. Take me with thee, father, and leave me not! I love thee; oh, leave me not, my father—and I will draw thee on with me!
The Man. Our paths are widely sundered. Amid the choirs of happy angels thou wilt forget thy father—thou wilt bring me down no drop of cooling dew. O George! George! my son! my son!
George. What dreadful cries! I tremble, father. Louder and louder, nearer and nearer comes the thunder of the cannon; the last hour—the prophesied—draws near!
The Man. Jacob! quick—quick—here!
A band of counts and
