Kitabı oku: «Love and Intrigue», sayfa 8

SCENE III

FERDINAND and MILLER.

They both pace up and down without speaking, on opposite sides

of the room, for some minutes.

MILLER (standing still at length, and regarding the MAJOR with a sorrowful air). Dear baron, perhaps it may alleviate your distress to say that I feel for you most deeply.

FERDINAND. Enough of this, Miller. (Silence again for some moments.) Miller, I forget what first brought me to your house. What was the occasion of it?

MILLER. How, baron? Don't you remember? You came to take lessons on the flute.

FERDINAND (suddenly). And I beheld his daughter! (Another pause.) You have not kept your faith with me, friend! You were to provide me with repose for my leisure hours; but you betrayed me and sold me scorpions. (Observing MILLER'S agitation.) Tremble not, good old man! (falling deeply affected on his neck) – the fault was none of thine!

MILLER (wiping his eyes). Heaven knows, it was not!

FERDINAND (traversing the room, plunged in the most gloomy meditation). Strange! Oh! beyond conception strange, are the Almighty's dealings with us! How often do terrific weights hang upon slender, almost invisible threads! Did man but know that he should eat death in a particular apple! Hem! Could he but know that! (He walks a few more turns; then stops suddenly, and grasps MILLER'S hand with strong emotion.) Friend, I have paid dearly for thy lessons – and thou, too, hast been no gainer – perhaps mayst even lose thy all. (Quitting him dejectedly.) Unhappy flute-playing, would that it never entered my brain!

MILLER (striving to repress his feelings). The lemonade is long in coming. I will inquire after it, if you will excuse me.

FERDINAND. No hurry, dear Miller! (Muttering to himself.) At least to her father there is none. Stay here a moment. What was I about to ask you? Ay, I remember! Is Louisa your only daughter? Have you no other child?

MILLER (warmly). I have no other, baron, and I wish for no other. That child is my only solace in this world, and on her have I embarked my whole stock of affection.

FERDINAND (much agitated). Ha! Pray see for the drink, good Miller!

[Exit MILLER.

SCENE IV

FERDINAND alone.

FERDINAND. His only child! Dost thou feel that, murderer? His only one! Murderer, didst thou hear, his only one? The man has nothing in God's wide world but his instrument and that only daughter! And wilt thou rob him of her?

Rob him? Rob a beggar of his last pittance? Break the lame man's crutch, and cast the fragments at his feet? How? Have I the heart to do this? And when he hastens home, impatient to reckon in his daughter's smiles the whole sum of his happiness; and when he enters the chamber, and there lies the rose – withered – dead – crushed – his last, his only, his sustaining hope. Ha! And when he stands before her, and all nature looks on in breathless horror, while his vacant eye wanders hopelessly through the gloom of futurity, and seeks God, but finds him nowhere, and then returns disappointed and despairing! Great God! and has not my father, too, an only son? an only child, but not his only treasure. (After a pause.) Yet stay! What will the old man lose? She who could wantonly jest with the most sacred feelings of love, will she make a father happy? She cannot! She will not! And I deserve thanks for crushing this viper ere the parent feels its sting.

SCENE V

MILLER returning, and FERDINAND.

MILLER. You shall be served instantly, baron! The poor thing is sitting without, weeping as though her heart would break! Your drink will be mingled with her tears.

FERDINAND. 'Twere well for her were it only with tears! We were speaking of my lessons, Miller. (Taking out a purse.) I remember that I am still in your debt.

MILLER. How? What? Go along with you, baron! What do you take me for? There is time enough for payment. Do not put such an affront on me; we are not together for the last time, please God.

FERDINAND. Who can tell? Take your money. It is for life or death.

MILLER (laughing). Oh! for the matter of that, baron! As regards that I don't think I should run much risk with you!

FERDINAND. You would run the greatest. Have you never heard that youths have died. That damsels and youths have died, the children of hope, the airy castles of their disappointed parents? What is safe from age and worms has often perished by a thunderbolt. Even your Louisa is not immortal.

MILLER. God gave her to me.

FERDINAND. Hear me! I say to you your Louisa is not immortal. That daughter is the apple of your eye; you hang upon her with your whole heart and soul. Be prudent, Miller! None but a desperate gamester stakes his all upon a single cast. The merchant would be called a madman who embarked his whole fortune in one ship. Think upon this, and remember that I warned you. But why do you not take your money?

MILLER. How, baron, how? All that enormous purse? What can you be thinking of?

FERDINAND. Upon my debt! There! (Throws a heavy purse on the table; some gold drops out.) I cannot hold the dross to eternity.

MILLER (astonished). Mercy on us! what is this? The sound was not of silver! (Goes to the table and cries out in astonishment.) In heaven's name, baron, what means this? What are you about? You must be out of your mind! (Clasping his hands.) There it lies! or I am bewitched. 'Tis damnable! I feel it now; the beauteous, shining, glorious heap of gold! No, Satan, thou shalt not catch my soul with this!

FERDINAND. Have you drunk old wine, or new, Miller?

MILLER (violently). Death and furies! Look yourself, then. It is gold!

FERDINAND. And what of that?

MILLER. Let me implore you, baron! In the name of all the saints in heaven, I entreat you! It is gold!

FERDINAND. An extraordinary thing, it must be admitted.

MILLER (after a pause; addressing him with emotion). Noble sir, I am a plain, straightforward man – do you wish to tempt me to some piece of knavery? – for, heaven knows, that so much gold cannot be got honestly!

FERDINAND (moved). Make yourself quite easy, dear Miller! You have well earned the money. God forbid that I should use it to the corruption of your conscience!

MILLER (jumping about like a madman). It is mine, then! Mine indeed! Mine with the knowledge and consent of God! (Hastening to the door.) Daughter, wife, hurrah, come hither! (Returning.) But, for heaven's sake, how have I all at once deserved this awful treasure? How am I to earn it? How repay it, eh?

FERDINAND. Not by your music lessons, Miller! With this gold do I pay you for (stops suddenly, and shudders) – I pay you – (after a pause, with emotion) – for my three months' unhappy dream of your daughter!

MILLER (taking his hand and pressing it affectionately). Most gracious sir! were you some poor and low-born citizen, and my daughter refused your love, I would pierce her heart with my own hands. (Returning to the gold in a sorrowful tone.) But then I shall have all, and you nothing – and I should have to give up all this glorious heap again, eh?

FERDINAND. Let not that thought distress you, friend. I am about to quit this country, and in that to which I am journeying such coin is not current.

MILLER (still fixing his eyes in transport on the money). Mine, then, it remains? Mine? Yet it grieves me that you are going to leave us. Only just wait a little and you shall see how I'll come out! I'll hold up my head with the best of them. (Puts on his hat with an air, and struts up and down the room.) I'll give my lessons in the great concert-room, and won't I smoke away at the best puyke varinas – and, when you catch me again fiddling at the penny-hop, may the devil take me!

FERDINAND. Stay, Miller! Be silent, and gather up your gold. (Mysteriously.) Keep silence only for this one evening, and do me the favor henceforward to give no more music lessons.

MILLER (still more vehemently grasping his hand, full of inward joy). And my daughter, baron! my daughter! (Letting go.) No, no! Money does not make the man – whether I feed on vegetables or on partridges, enough is enough, and this coat will do very well as long as the sunbeams don't peep in at the elbows. To me money is mere dross. But my girl shall benefit by the blessing; whatever wish I can read in her eyes shall be gratified.

FERDINAND (suddenly interrupting him). Oh! silence! silence!

MILLER (still more warmly). And she shall learn to speak French like a born native, and to dance minuets, and to sing, so that people shall read of her in the newspapers; and she shall wear a cap like the judge's daughter, and a kidebarri [meaning, no doubt, Cul de Paris, a bustle], as they call it; and the fiddler's daughter shall be talked of for twenty miles round.

FERDINAND. (seizing his hand in extreme agitation). No more! no more! For God's sake be silent! Be silent but for this one night; 'tis the only favor I ask of you.

SCENE VI

LOUISA with a glass of lemonade; the former.

LOUISA (her eyes swelled with weeping, and trembling voice, while she presents the glass to FERDINAND). Tell me, if it be not to your taste.

FERDINAND (takes the glass, places it on the table, and turns to MILLER). Oh! I had almost forgotten! Good Miller, I have a request to make. Will you do me a little favor?

MILLER. A thousand with pleasure! What are your commands?

FERDINAND. My father will expect me at table. Unfortunately I am in very ill humor. 'Twould be insupportable to me just now to mix in society. Will you go to my father and excuse my absence?

LOUISA (terrified, interrupts him hastily). Oh, let me go!

MILLER. Am I to see the president himself?

FERDINAND. Not himself. Give your message to one of the servants in the ante-chamber. Here is my watch as a credential that I sent you. I shall be here when you return. You will wait for an answer.

LOUISA (very anxiously). Cannot I be the bearer of your message?

FERDINAND (to MILLER, who is going). Stay – one thing more! Here is a letter to my father, which I received this evening enclosed in one to myself. Perhaps on business of importance. You may as well deliver it at the same time.

MILLER (going). Very well, baron!

LOUISA (stopping him, and speaking in a tone of the most exquisite terror). But, dear father, I could do all this very well! Pray let me go!

MILLER. It is night, my child! and you must not venture out alone!

[Exit.

FERDINAND. Light your father down, Louisa. (LOUISA takes a candle and follows MILLER. FERDINAND in the meantime approaches the table and throws poison into the lemonade). Yes! she must die! The higher powers look down, and nod their terrible assent. The vengeance of heaven subscribes to my decree. Her good angels forsake her, and leave her to her fate!

SCENE VII

FERDINAND and LOUISA.

LOUISA re-enters slowly with the light, places it on the table,

and stops on the opposite side of the room, her eyes fixed on

the ground, except when she raises them to him with timid, stolen

glances. He stands opposite, looking steadfastly on the earth – a

long and deep silence.

LOUISA. If you will accompany me, Baron von Walter, I will try a piece on the harpsichord! (She opens the instrument. FERDINAND makes no answer. A pause.)

LOUISA. You owe me a revenge at chess. Will you play a game with me, Baron von Walter? (Another pause.)

LOUISA. I have begun the pocketbook, baron, which I promised to embroider for you. Will you look at the design? (Still a pause.)

LOUISA. Oh! I am very wretched!

FERDINAND (without changing his attitude). That may well be!

LOUISA. It is not my fault, Baron von Walter, that you are so badly entertained!

FERDINAND (with an insulting laugh). You are not to blame for my bashful modesty —

LOUISA. I am quite aware that we are no longer fit companions. I confess that I was terrified when you sent away my father. I believe, Baron von Walter, that this moment is equally insupportable to us both. Permit me to ask some of my acquaintances to join us.

FERDINAND. Yes, pray do so! And I too will go and invite some of mine.

LOUISA (looking at him with surprise). Baron von Walter!

FERDINAND (very spitefully). By my honor, the most fortunate idea that in our situation could ever enter mortal brain? Let us change this wearisome duet into sport and merriment, and by the aid of certain gallantries, revenge ourselves on the caprices of love.

LOUISA. You are merry, Baron von Walter!

FERDINAND. Oh! wonderfully so! The very street-boys would hunt me through the market-place for a merry-andrew! In fact, Louisa, your example has inspired me – you shall be my teacher. They are fools who prate of endless affection – never-ending sameness grows flat and insipid – variety alone gives zest to pleasure. Have with you, Louisa, we are now of one mind. We will skip from amour to amour, whirl from vice to vice; you in one direction, I in another. Perhaps I may recover my lost tranquillity in some brothel. Perhaps, when our merry race is run, and we become two mouldering skeletons, chance again may bring us together with the most pleasing surprise, and we may, as in a melodrama, recognize each other by a common feature of disease – that mother whom her children can never disavow. Then, perhaps, disgust and shame may create that union between us which could not be effected by the most tender love.

LOUISA. Oh, Walter! Walter! Thou art already unhappy – wilt thou deserve to be so?

FERDINAND (muttering passionately through his teeth). Unhappy? Who told thee so? Woman, thou art too vile to have any feelings of thine own; how, then, canst thou judge of the feelings of others? Unhappy, did she say? – ha! that word would call my anger from the grave! She knew that I must become unhappy. Death and damnation! she knew it, and yet betrayed me! Look to it, serpent! That was thy only chance of forgiveness. This confession has condemned thee. Till now I thought to palliate thy crime with thy simplicity, and in my contempt thou hadst well nigh escaped my vengeance (seizing the glass hastily). Thou wert not thoughtless, then – thou wert not simple – thou wert nor more nor less than a devil! (He drinks.) The drink is bad, like thy soul! Taste it!

LOUISA. Oh, heavens! 'Twas not without reason that I dreaded this meeting.

FERDINAND (imperiously). Drink! I say.

[LOUISA, offended, takes the glass and drinks. The moment she

raises the cup to her lips, FERDINAND turns away with a sudden

paleness, and recedes to the further corner of the chamber.]

LOUISA. The lemonade is good.

FERDINAND (his face averted and shuddering.) Much good may it do thee!

LOUISA (sets down the glass). Oh! could you but know, Walter, how cruelly you wrong me!

FERDINAND. Indeed!

LOUISA. A time will come, Walter —

FERDINAND (advancing). Oh! we have done with time.

LOUISA. When the remembrance of this evening will lie heavy on your heart!

FERDINAND (begins to walk to and fro more vehemently, and to become more agitated; he throws away his sash and sword.) Farewell the prince's service!

LOUISA. My God! what mean you!

FERDINAND. I am hot, and oppressed. I would be more at ease.

LOUISA. Drink! drink! it will cool you.

FERDINAND. That it will, most effectually. The strumpet, though, is kind-hearted! Ay, ay, so are they all!

LOUISA (rushing into his arms with the deepest expression of love). That to thy Louisa, Ferdinand?

FERDINAND (thrusting her from him). Away! away! Hence with those soft and melting eyes! they subdue me. Come to me, snake, in all thy monstrous terrors! Spring upon me, scorpion! Display thy hideous folds, and rear thy proud coils to heaven! Stand before my eyes, hateful as the abyss of hell e'er saw thee! but not in that angel form! Take any shape but that! 'Tis too late. I must crush thee like a viper, or despair! Mercy on thy soul!

LOUISA. Oh! that it should come to this!

FERDINAND (gazing on her). So fair a work of the heavenly artist! Who would believe it? Who can believe it? (Taking her hand and elevating it.) I will not arraign thy ordinations, oh! incomprehensible Creator! Yet wherefore didst thou pour thy poison into such beauteous vessels? Can crime inhabit so fair a region? Oh! 'tis strange! 'tis passing strange!

LOUISA. To hear this, and yet be compelled to silence!

FERDINAND. And that soft, melodious voice! How can broken chords discourse such harmony? (Gazing rapturously upon her figure.) All so lovely! so full of symmetry! so divinely perfect! Throughout the whole such signs that 'twas the favorite work of God! By heaven, as though all mankind had been created but to practise the Creator, ere he modelled this his masterpiece! And that the Almighty should have failed in the soul alone? Is it possible that this monstrous abortion of nature should have escaped as perfect? (Quitting her hastily.) Or did God see an angel's form rising beneath his chisel, and balance the error by giving her a heart wicked in proportion?

LOUISA. Alas for this criminal wilfulness! Rather than confess his own rashness, he accuses the wisdom of heaven!

FERDINAND (falls upon her neck, weeping bitterly). Yet once more, my Louisa! Yet once again, as on the day of our first kiss, when you faltered forth the name of Ferdinand, and the first endearing "Thou!" trembled on thy burning lips. Oh! a harvest of endless and unutterable joys seemed to me at that moment to be budding forth. There lay eternity like a bright May-day before our eyes; thousands of golden years, fair as brides, danced around our souls. Then was I so happy! Oh! Louisa! Louisa! Louisa! Why hast thou used me thus?

LOUISA. Weep, Walter, weep! Your compassion will be more just towards me than your wrath.

FERDINAND. You deceive yourself. These are not nature's tears! not that warm delicious dew which flows like balsam on the wounded soul, and drives the chilled current of feeling swiftly along its course. They are solitary ice-cold drops! the awful, eternal farewell of my love! (With fearful solemnity, laying his hand on her head.) They are tears for thy soul, Louisa! tears for the Deity, whose inexhaustible beneficence has here missed its aim, and whose noblest work is cast away thus wantonly. Oh methinks the whole universe should clothe itself in black, and weep at the fearful example now passing in its centre. 'Tis but a common sorrow when mortals fall and Paradise is lost; but, when the plague extends its ravages to angels, then should there be wailing throughout the whole creation!

LOUISA. Drive me not to extremities, Walter. I have fortitude equal to most, but it must not be tried by a more than human test. Walter! one word, and then – we part forever. A dreadful fatality has deranged the language of our hearts. Dared I unclose these lips, Walter, I could tell thee things! I could – But cruel fate has alike fettered my tongue and my heart, and I must endure in silence, even though you revile me as a common strumpet.

FERDINAND. Dost thou feel well, Louisa?

LOUISA. Why that question?

FERDINAND. It would grieve me shouldst thou be called hence with a lie upon thy lips.

LOUISA. I implore you, Walter —

FERDINAND (in violent agitation). No! no! That revenge were too satanic! No! God forbid! I will not extend my anger beyond the grave! Louisa, didst thou love the marshal? Thou wilt leave this room no more!

LOUISA (sitting down). Ask what you will. I shall give no answer.

FERDINAND (in a solemn voice). Take heed for thy immortal soul! Louisa! Didst thou love the marshal? Thou wilt leave this room no more!

LOUISA. I shall give no answer.

FERDINAND (throwing himself on his knees before her in the deepest emotion). Louisa! Didst thou love the marshal? Before this light burns out – thou wilt stand – before the throne of God!

LOUISA (starting from her seat in terror). Merciful Jesus! what was that? And I feel so ill! (She falls back into her chair.)

FERDINAND. Already? Oh, woman, thou eternal paradox! thy delicate nerves can sport with crimes at which manhood trembles; yet one poor grain of arsenic destroys them utterly!

LOUISA. Poison! poison! Oh! Almighty God!

FERDINAND. I fear it is so! Thy lemonade was seasoned in hell! Thou hast pledged death in the draught!

LOUISA. To die! To die! All-merciful God! Poison in my drink! And to die! Oh! have mercy on my soul, thou Father in heaven!

FERDINAND. Ay, be that thy chief concern: I will join thee in that prayer.

LOUISA. And my mother! My father, too! Saviour of the world! My poor forlorn father! Is there then no hope? And I so young, and yet no hope? And must I die so soon?

FERDINAND. There is no hope! None! – you are already doomed! But be calm. We shall journey together.

LOUISA. Thou too, Ferdinand? Poison, Ferdinand! From thee! Oh! God forgive him! God of mercy, lay not this crime on him!

FERDINAND. Look to your own account. I fear it stands but ill.

LOUISA. Ferdinand! Ferdinand! Oh! I can be no longer silent. Death – death absolves all oaths. Ferdinand! Heaven and earth contain nothing more unfortunate than thou! I die innocent, Ferdinand!

FERDINAND (terrified). Ah! What do I hear? Would she rush into the presence of her Maker with a lie on her lips?

LOUISA. I lie not! I do not lie! In my whole life I never lied but once! Ugh! what an icy shivering creeps through my veins! When I wrote that letter to the marshal.

FERDINAND. Ha! That letter! Blessed be to God! Now I am myself again!

LOUISA (her voice every moment becomes more indistinct. Her fingers tremble with a convulsive motion). That letter. Prepare yourself for a terrible disclosure! My hand wrote what my heart abhorred. It was dictated by your father! (Ferdinand stands like a statue petrified with horror. After a long silence, he falls upon the floor as if struck by lightning.) Oh! that sorrowful act! – Ferdinand – I was compelled – forgive me – thy Louisa would have preferred death – but my father – his life in danger! They were so crafty in their villany.

FERDINAND (starting furiously from the ground). God be thanked! The poison spares me yet! (He seizes his sword.)

LOUISA (growing weaker by degrees). Alas! what would you? He is thy father!

FERDINAND (in the most ungovernable fury). A murderer – the murderer of his son; he must along with us that the Judge of the world may pour his wrath on the guilty alone. (Hastening away).

LOUISA. My dying Redeemer pardoned his murderers, – may God pardon thee and thy father! (She dies.)

FERDINAND (turns quickly round, and perceives her in the convulsions of death, throws himself distractedly on the body). Stay! stay! Fly not from me, angel of light! (Takes her hand, but lets it fall again instantly.) Cold! cold and damp! her soul has flown! (Starting up suddenly.) God of my Louisa! Mercy! Mercy for the most accursed of murderers! Such was her dying prayer! How fair, how lovely even in death! The pitying destroyer has touched gently on those heavenly features. That sweetness was no mask – the hand of death even has not removed it! (After a pause.) But how is this? why do I feel nothing. Will the vigor of my youth save me? Thankless care! That shall it not. (He seizes the glass.)