Kitabı oku: «The Robbers», sayfa 7
SCHWEITZER (stamping the ground). And so the fellow got off clear, and you lost your labor?
KOSINSKY. I was arrested, accused, criminally prosecuted, degraded, and – mark this – transported beyond the frontier, as a special favor. My estates were confiscated to the minister, and Amelia remained in the clutches of the tiger, where she weeps and mourns away her life, while my vengeance must keep a fast, and crouch submissively to the yoke of despotism.
SCHWEITZER (rising and whetting his sword). That is grist to our mill, captain! There is something here for the incendiaries!
CHARLES (who has been walking up and down in violent agitation, with a sudden start to the ROBBERS). I must see her. Up! collect your baggage – you'll stay with us, Kosinsky! Quick, pack up!
THE ROBBERS. Where to? What?
CHARLES. Where to? Who asks that question? (Fiercely to SCHWEITZER) Traitor, wouldst thou keep me back? But by the hope for heaven!
SCHWEITZER. I, a traitor? Lead on to hell and I will follow you!
CHARLES (falling on his neck). Dear brother! thou shalt follow me. She weeps, she mourns away her life. Up! quickly! all of you! to Franconia! In a week we must be there.
[Exeunt.]
ACT IV
SCENE I. – Rural scenery in the neighborhood of CHARLES VON MOOR'S castle
CHARLES VON MOOR, KOSINSKY, at a distance.
CHARLES. Go forward, and announce me. You remember what you have to say?
KOSINSKY. You are Count Brand, you come from Mecklenburg. I am your groom. Do not fear, I shall take care to play my part. Farewell!
[Exit.]
CHARLES. Hail to thee, Earth of my Fatherland (kisses the earth.) Heaven of my Fatherland! Sun of my Fatherland! Ye meadows and hills, ye streams and woods! Hail, hail to ye all! How deliciously the breezes are wafted from my native hills? What streams of balmy perfume greet the poor fugitive! Elysium! Realms of poetry! Stay, Moor, thy foot has strayed into a holy temple. (Comes nearer.)
See there! the old swallow-nests in the castle yard! – and the little garden-gate! – and this corner of the fence where I so often watched in ambuscade to teaze old Towzer! – and down there in the green valley, where, as the great Alexander, I led my Macedonians to the battle of Arbela; and the grassy hillock yonder, from which I hurled the Persian satrap – and then waved on high my victorious banner! (He smiles.) The golden age of boyhood lives again in the soul of the outcast. I was then so happy, so wholly, so cloudlessly happy – and now – behold all my prospects a wreck! Here should I have presided, a great, a noble, an honored man – here have – lived over again the years of boyhood in the blooming – children of my Amelia – here! – here have been the idol of my people – but the foul fiend opposed it (Starting.) Why am I here? To feel like the captive when the clanking of his chains awakes him from his dream of liberty. No, let me return to my wretchedness! The captive had forgotten the light of day, but the dream of liberty flashes past his eyes like a blaze of lightning in the night, which leaves it darker than before. Farewell, ye native vales! once ye saw Charles as a boy, and then Charles was happy. Now ye have seen the man his happiness turned to despair! (He moves rapidly towards the most distant point of the landscape, where he suddenly stops and casts a melancholy look across to the castle.) Not to behold her! not even one look? – and only a wall between me and Amelia! No! see her I must! – and him too! – though it crush me! (He turns back.) Father! father! thy son approaches. Away with thee, black, reeking gore! Away with that grim, ghastly look of death! Oh, give me but this one hour free! Amelia! Father! thy Charles approaches! (He goes quickly towards the castle.) Torment me when the morning dawns – give me no rest with the coming night – beset me in frightful dreams! But, oh! poison not this my only hour of bliss!
(He is standing at the gate.) What is it I feel? What means this, Moor?
Be a man! These death-like shudders – foreboding terrors.
[Enters.]
SCENE II.* – Gallery in the Castle
*[In some editions this is the third scene, and there is no second.]
Enter CHARLES VON MOOR, AMELIA.
AMELIA. And are you sure that you should know his portrait among these pictures?
CHARLES. Oh, most certainly! his image has always been fresh in my memory. (Passing along thee pictures.) This is not it.
AMELIA. You are right! He was the first count, and received his patent of nobility from Frederic Barbarossa, to whom he rendered some service against the corsairs.
CHARLES (still reviewing the pictures). Neither is it this – nor this – nor that – it is not among these at all.
AMELIA. Nay! look more attentively! I thought you knew him.
CHARLES. As well as my own father! This picture wants the sweet expression around the mouth, which distinguished him from among a thousand. It is not he.
AMELIA. You surprise me. What! not seen him for eighteen years, and still —
CHARLES (quickly, with a hectic blush). Yes, this is he! (He stands as if struck by lightning.)
AMELIA. An excellent man!
CHARLES (absorbed in the contemplation of the picture). Father! father! forgive me! Yes, an excellent man! (He wipes his eyes.) A godlike man!
AMELIA. You seem to take a deep interest in him.
CHARLES. Oh, an excellent man! And he is gone, you say!
AMELIA. Gone! as our best joys perish. (Gently taking him by the hand.) Dear Sir, no happiness ripens in this world.
CHARLES. Most true, most true! And have you already proved this truth by sad experience? You, who can scarcely yet have seen your twenty-third year?
AMELIA. Yes, alas, I have proved it. Whatever lives, lives to die in sorrow. We engage our hearts, and grasp after the things of this world, only to undergo the pang of losing them.
CHARLES. What can you have lost, and yet so young?
AMELIA. Nothing – everything – nothing. Shall we go on, count?*
*[In the acting edition is added —
"MOOR. And would you learn forgetfulness in that holy garb there?
(Pointing to a nun's habit.)
"AMELIA. To-morrow I hope to do so. Shall we continue our walk, sir?"]
CHARLES. In such haste? Whose portrait is that on the right? There is an unhappy look about that countenance, methinks.
AMELIA. That portrait on the left is the son of the count, the present count. Come, let us pass on!
CHARLES. But this portrait on the right?
AMELIA. Will you not continue your walk, Sir?
CHARLES. But this portrait on the right hand? You are in tears, Amelia? [Exit AMELIA, in precipitation.]
CHARLES. She loves me, she loves me! Her whole being began to rebel, and the traitor tears rolled down her cheeks. She loves me! Wretch, hast thou deserved this at her hands? Stand I not here like a condemned criminal before the fatal block? Is this the couch on which we so often sat – where I have hung in rapture on her neck? Are these my ancestral halls? (Overcome by the sight of his father's portrait.) Thou – thou – Flames of fire darting from thine eyes – His curse – His curse – He disowns me – Where am I? My sight grows dim – Horrors of the living God – 'Twas I, 'twas I that killed my father! [He rushes off]
Enter FRANCIS VON MOOR, in deep thought.
FRANCIS. Away with that image! Away with it! Craven heart! Why dost thou tremble, and before whom? Have I not felt, during the few hours that the count has been within these walls as if a spy from hell were gliding at my heels. Methinks I should know him! There is something so lofty, so familiar, in his wild, sunburnt features, which makes me tremble. Amelia, too, is not indifferent towards him! Does she not dart eager, languishing looks at the fellow looks of which she is so chary to all the world beside? Did I not see her drop those stealthy tears into the wine, which, behind my back, he quaffed so eagerly that he seemed to swallow the very glass? Yes, I saw it – I saw it in the mirror with my own eyes. Take care, Francis! Look about you! Some destruction-brooding monster is lurking beneath all this! (He stops, with a searching look, before the portrait of CHARLES.)
His long, crane-like neck – his black, fire-sparkling eyes – hem! hem! – his dark, overhanging, bushy eyebrows. (Suddenly starting back.) Malicious hell! dost thou send me this suspicion? It is Charles! Yes, all his features are reviving before me. It is he! despite his mask! it is he! Death and damnation! (Goes up and down with agitated steps.) Is it for this that I have sacrificed my nights – that I have mowed down mountains and filled up chasms? For this that I have turned rebel against all the instincts of humanity? To have this vagabond outcast blunder in at last, and destroy all my cunningly devised fabric. But gently! gently! What remains to be done is but child's play. Have I not already waded up to my very ears in mortal sin? Seeing how far the shore lies behind me, it would be madness to attempt to swim back. To return is now out of the question. Grace itself would be beggared, and infinite mercy become bankrupt, were they to be responsible for all my liabilities. Then onward like a man. (He rings the bell.) Let him be gathered to the spirit of his father, and now come on! For the dead I care not! Daniel! Ho! Daniel! I'd wager a trifle they have already inveigled him too into the plot against me! He looks so full of mystery!
Enter DANIEL.
DANIEL. What is your pleasure, my master?
FRANCIS. Nothing. Go, fill this goblet with wine, and quickly! (Exit DANIEL.) Wait a little, old man! I shall find you out! I will fix my eye upon you so keenly that your stricken conscience shall betray itself through your mask! He shall die! He is but a sorry bungler who leaves his work half finished, and then looks on idly, trusting to chance for what may come of it.
Enter DANIEL, with the wine.
Bring it here! Look me steadfastly in the face! How your knees knock together! How you tremble! Confess, old man! what have you been doing?
DANIEL. Nothing, my honored master, by heaven and my poor soul!
FRANCIS. Drink this wine! What? you hesitate? Out with it quickly! What have you put into the wine?
DANIEL. Heaven help me! What! I in the wine?
FRANCIS. You have poisoned it! Are you not as white as snow? Confess, confess! Who gave it you? The count? Is it not so? The count gave it you?
DANIEL. The count? Jesu Maria! The count has not given me anything.
FRANCIS (grasping him tight). I will throttle you till you are black in the face, you hoary-headed liar! Nothing? Why, then, are you so often closeted together? He, and you, and Amelia? And what are you always whispering about? Out with it! What secrets, eh? What secrets has he confided to you?
DANIEL. I call the Almighty to witness that he has not confided any secrets to me.
FRANCIS. Do you mean to deny it? What schemes have you been hatching to get rid of me? Am I to be smothered in my sleep? or is my throat to be cut in shaving? or am I to be poisoned in wine or chocolate? Eh? Out with it, out with it! Or am I to have my quietus administered in my soup? Out with it! I know it all!
DANIEL. May heaven so help me in the hour of need as I now tell you the truth, and nothing but the pure, unvarnished truth!
FRANCIS. Well, this time I will forgive you. But the money! he most certainly put money into your purse? And he pressed your hand more warmly than is customary? something in the manner of an old acquaintance?
DANIEL. Never, indeed, Sir.
FRANCIS. He told you, for instance, that he had known you before? that you ought to know him? that the scales would some day fall from your eyes? that – what? Do you mean to say that he never spoke thus to you?
DANIEL. Not a word of the kind.
FRANCIS. That certain circumstances restrained him – that one must sometimes wear a mask in order to get at one's enemies – that he would be revenged, most terribly revenged?
DANIEL. Not a syllable of all this.
FRANCIS. What? Nothing at all? Recollect yourself. That he knew the old count well – most intimately – that he loved him – loved him exceedingly – loved him like a son!
DANIEL. Something of that sort I remember to have heard him say.
FRANCIS (turning pale). Did he say so? did he really? How? let me hear! He said he was my brother?
DANIEL (astonished). What, my master? He did not say that. But as Lady Amelia was conducting him through the gallery – I was just dusting the picture frames – he suddenly stood still before the portrait of my late master, and seemed thunderstruck. Lady Amelia pointed it out, and said, "An excellent man!" "Yes, a most excellent man!" he replied, wiping a tear from his eye.
FRANCIS. Hark, Daniel! You know I have ever been a kind master to you; I have given you food and raiment, and have spared you labor in consideration of your advanced age.
DANIEL. For which may heaven reward you! and I, on my part, have always served you faithfully.
FRANCIS. That is just what I was going to say. You have never in all your life contradicted me; for you know much too well that you owe me obedience in all things, whatever I may require of you.
DANIEL. In all things with all my heart, so it be not against God and my conscience.
FRANCIS. Stuff! nonsense! Are you not ashamed of yourself? An old man, and believe that Christmas tale! Go, Daniel! that was a stupid remark. You know that I am your master. It is on me that God and conscience will be avenged, if, indeed, there be a God and a conscience.
DANIEL (clasping his hands together). Merciful Heaven!
FRANCIS. By your obedience! Do you understand that word? By your obedience, I command you. With to-morrow's dawn the count must no longer be found among the living.
DANIEL. Merciful Heaven! and wherefore?
FRANCIS. By your blind obedience! I shall rely upon you implicitly.
DANIEL. On me? May the Blessed Virgin have mercy on me! On me? What evil, then, have I, an old man, done!
FRANCIS. There is no time now for reflection; your fate is in my hands. Would you rather pine away the remainder of your days in the deepest of my dungeons, where hunger shall compel you to gnaw your own bones, and burning thirst make you suck your own blood? Or would you rather eat your bread in peace, and have rest in your old age?
DANIEL. What, my lord! Peace and rest in my old age? And I a murderer?
FRANCIS. Answer my question!
DANIEL. My gray hairs! my gray hairs!
FRANCIS. Yes or no!
DANIEL. No! God have mercy upon me!
FRANCIS (in the act of going). Very well! you shall have need of it. (DANIEL detains him and falls on his knees before him.)
DANIEL. Mercy, master! mercy!
FRANCIS. Yes or no!
DANIEL. Most gracious master! I am this day seventy-one years of age! and have honored my father and my mother, and, to the best of my knowledge, have never in the whole course of my life defrauded any one to the value of a farthing, – and I have adhered to my creed truly and honestly, and have served in your house four-and-forty years, and am now calmly awaiting a quiet, happy end. Oh, master! master! (violently clasping his knees) and would you deprive me of my only solace in death, that the gnawing worm of an evil conscience may cheat me of my last prayer? that I may go to my long home an abomination in the sight of God and man? No, no! my dearest, best, most excellent, most gracious master! you do not ask that of an old man turned threescore and ten!
FRANCIS. Yes or no! What is the use of all this palaver?
DANIEL. I will serve you from this day forward more diligently than ever; I will wear out my old bones in your service like a common day-laborer; I will rise earlier and lie down later. Oh, and I will remember you in my prayers night and morning; and God will not reject the prayer of an old man.
FRANCIS. Obedience is better than sacrifice. Did you ever hear of the hangman standing upon ceremony when he was told to execute a sentence?
DANIEL. That is very true? but to murder an innocent man – one —
FRANCIS. Am I responsible to you? Is the axe to question the hangman why he strikes this way and not that? But see how forbearing I am. I offer you a reward for performing what you owe me in virtue of your allegiance.
DANIEL. But, when I swore allegiance to you, I at least hoped that I should be allowed to remain a Christian.
FRANCIS. No contradiction! Look you! I give you the whole day to think about it! Ponder well on it. Happiness or misery. Do you hear – do you understand? The extreme of happiness or the extreme of misery! I can do wonders in the way of torture.
DANIEL (after some reflection). I'll do it; I will do it to-morrow.
[Exit.]
FRANCIS. The temptation is strong, and I should think he was not born to die a martyr to his faith. Have with you, sir count! According to all ordinary calculations, you will sup to-morrow with old Beelzebub. In these matters all depends upon one's view of a thing; and he is a fool who takes any view that is contrary to his own interest. A father quaffs perhaps a bottle of wine more than ordinary – he is in a certain mood – the result is a human being, the last thing that was thought of in the affair. Well, I, too, am in a certain mood, – and the result is that a human being perishes; and surely there is more of reason and purpose in this than there was in his production. If the birth of a man is the result of an animal paroxysm, who should take it into his head to attach any importance to the negation of his birth? A curse upon the folly of our nurses and teachers, who fill our imaginations with frightful tales, and impress fearful images of punishment upon the plastic brain of childhood, so that involuntary shudders shake the limbs of the man with icy fear, arrest his boldest resolutions, and chain his awakening reason in the fetters of superstitious darkness. Murder! What a hell full of furies hovers around that word. Yet 'tis no more than if nature forgets to bring forth one man more or the doctor makes a mistake – and thus the whole phantasmagoria vanishes. It was something, and it is nothing. Does not this amount to exactly the same thing as though it had been nothing, and came to nothing; and about nothing it is hardly worth while to waste a word. Man is made of filth, and for a time wades in filth, and produces filth, and sinks back into filth, till at last he fouls the boots of his own posterity.*
*["To what base uses we may return, Horatio! why, may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till we find it stopping a bunghole?"
– HAMLET, Act v, Sc. 1.]
That is the burden of the song – the filthy cycle of human fate; and with that – a pleasant journey to you, sir brother! Conscience, that splenetic, gouty moralist, may drive shrivelled old drones out of brothels, and torture usurers on their deathbeds – with me it shall never more have audience.
[Exit.]
SCENE III. – Another Room in the Castle
CHARLES VON MOOR enters from one side, DANIEL from the other.
CHARLES (hastily). Where is Lady Amelia?
DANIEL. Honored sir! permit an old man to ask you a favor.
CHARLES. It is granted. What is it you ask?
DANIEL. Not much, and yet all – but little, and yet a great deal. Suffer me to kiss your hand!
CHARLES. That I cannot permit, good old man (embraces him), from one whom I should like to call my father.
DANIEL. Your hand, your hand! I beseech you.
CHARLES. That must not be.
DANIEL. It must! (He takes hold of it, surveys it quickly, and falls down before him.) Dear, dearest Charles!
CHARLES (startled; he composes himself, and says in a distant tone). What mean you, my friend? I don't understand you.
DANIEL. Yes, you may deny it, you may dissemble as much as you please? 'Tis very well! very well. For all that you are my dearest, my excellent young master. Good Heaven! that I, poor old man, should live to have the joy – what a stupid blockhead was I that I did not at a glance – oh, gracious powers! And you are really come back, and the dear old master is underground, and here you are again! What a purblind dolt I was, to be sure! (striking his forehead) that I did not on the instant – Oh, dear me! – who could have dreamt it – What I have so often prayed for with tears – Oh, mercy me! There he stands again, as large as life, in the old room!
CHARLES. What's all this oration about? Are you in a fit of delirium, and have escaped from your keepers; or are you rehearsing a stage-player's part with me?
DANIEL. Oh, fie! fie! It is not pretty of you to make game of an old servant. That scar! Eh! do you remember it? Good Heaven! what a fright you put me into – I always loved you so dearly; and what misery you might have brought upon me. You were sitting in my lap – do you remember? there in the round chamber. Has all that quite vanished from your memory – and the cuckoo, too, that you were so fond of listening to? Only think! the cuckoo is broken, broken all to shivers – old Susan smashed it in sweeping the room – yes, indeed, and there you sat in my lap, and cried, "Cockhorse!" and I ran off to fetch your wooden horse – mercy on me! what business had I, thoughtless old fool, to leave you alone – and how I felt as if I were in a boiling caldron when I heard you screaming in the passage; and, when I rushed in, there was your red blood gushing forth, and you lying on the ground. Oh, by the Blessed Virgin! did I not feel as if a bucket of icy cold water was emptied all over me? – but so it happens, unless one keeps all one's eyes upon children. Good Heaven! if it had gone into your eye! Unfortunately it happened to be the right hand. "As long as I live," said I, "never again shall any child in my charge get hold of a knife or scissors, or any other edge tool." 'Twas lucky for me that both my master and mistress were gone on a journey. "Yes, yes! this shall be a warning to me for the rest of my life," said I – Gemini, Gemini! I might have lost my place, I might – God forgive you, you naughty boy – but, thank Heaven! it healed fairly, all but that ugly scar.
CHARLES. I do not comprehend one word of all that you are talking about.
DANIEL. Eh? eh? that was the time! was it not? How many a ginger-cake, and biscuit, and macaroon, have I slipped into your hands – I was always so fond of you. And do you recollect what you said to me down in the stable, when I put you upon old master's hunter, and let you scamper round the great meadow? "Daniel!" said you, "only wait till I am grown a big man, and you shall be my steward, and ride in the coach with me." "Yes," said I, laughing, "if heaven grants me life and health, and you are not ashamed of the old man," I said, "I shall ask you to let me have the little house down in the village, that has stood empty so long; and then I will lay in a few butts of good wine, and turn publican in my old age." Yes, you may laugh, you may laugh! Eh, young gentleman, have you quite forgotten all that? You do not want to remember the old man, so you carry yourself strange and loftily; – but, you are my jewel of a young master, for all that. You have, it is true, been a little bit wild – don't be angry! – as young blood is apt to be! All may be well yet in the end.
CHARLES (falls on his neck). Yes! Daniel! I will no longer hide it from you! I am your Charles, your lost Charles! And now tell me, how does my Amelia?
DANIEL (begins to cry). That I, old sinner, should live to have this happiness – and my late blessed master wept so long in vain! Begone, begone, hoary old head! Ye weary bones, descend into the grave with joy! My lord and master lives! my own eyes have beheld him!
CHARLES. And he will keep his promise to you. Take that, honest graybeard, for the old hunter (forces a heavy purse upon him). I have not forgotten the old man.
DANIEL. How? What are you doing? Too much! You have made a mistake.
CHARLES. No mistake, Daniel! (DANIEL is about to throw himself on his knees before him.) Rise! Tell me, how does my Amelia?
DANIEL. Heaven reward you! Heaven reward you! O gracious me! Your Amelia will never survive it, she will die for joy?
CHARLES (eagerly). She has not forgotten me then?
DANIEL. Forgotten you? How can you talk thus? Forgotten you, indeed! You should have been there, you should have seen how she took on, when the news came of your death, which his honor caused to be spread abroad —
CHARLES. What do you say? my brother —
DANIEL. Yes, your brother; his honor, your brother – another day I will tell you more about it, when we have time – and how cleverly she sent him about his business when he came a wooing every blessed day, and offered to make her his countess. Oh, I must go; I must go and tell her; carry her the news (is about to run of).
CHARLES. Stay! stay! she must not know – nobody must know, not even my brother!
DANIEL. Your brother? No, on no account; he must not know it! Certainly not! If he know not already more than he ought to know. Oh, I can tell you, there are wicked men, wicked brothers, wicked masters; but I would not for all my master's gold be a wicked servant. His honor thought you were dead.
CHARLES. Humph! What are you muttering about?
DANIEL (in a half-suppressed voice). And to be sure when a man rises from the dead thus uninvited – your brother was the sole heir of our late master!
CHARLES. Old man! what is it you are muttering between your teeth, as if some dreadful secret were hovering on your tongue which you fear to utter, and yet ought? Out with it!
DANIEL. But I would rather gnaw my old bones with hunger, and suck my own blood for thirst, than gain a life of luxury by murder.
[Exit hastily.]
CHARLES (starting up, after a terrible pause). Betrayed! Betrayed! It flashes upon my soul like lightning! A fiendish trick! A murderer and a robber through fiend-like machinations! Calumniated by him! My letters falsified, suppressed! his heart full of love! Oh, what a monstrous fool was I! His fatherly heart full of love! oh, villainy, villainy! It would have cost me but once kneeling at his feet – a tear would have done it – oh blind, blind fool that I was! (running up against the wall). I might have been happy – oh villainy, villainy!
Knavishly, yes, knavishly cheated out of all happiness in this life! (He runs up and down in a rage.) A murderer, a robber, all through a knavish trick! He was not even angry! Not a thought of cursing ever entered his heart. Oh, miscreant! inconceivable, hypocritical, abominable miscreant!
Enter KOSINSKY.
KOSINSKY. Well, captain, where are you loitering? What is the matter? You are for staying here some time longer, I perceive?
CHARLES. Up! Saddle the horses! Before sunset we must be over the frontier!
KOSINSKY. You are joking.
CHARLES (in a commanding tone). Quick! quick! delay not! leave every thing behind! and let no eye see you!
(Exit KOSINSKY.)
I fly from these walls. The least delay might drive me raving mad; and he my father's son! Brother! brother! thou hast made me the most miserable wretch on earth; I never injured thee; this was not brotherly. Reap the fruits of thy crime in quiet, my presence shall no longer embitter thy enjoyment – but, surely, this was not acting like a brother. May oblivion shroud thy misdeed forever, and death not bring it back to light.
Enter KOSINSKY.
KOSINSKY. The horses are ready saddled, you can mount as soon as you please.
CHARLES. Why in such haste? Why so urgent? Shall I see her no more?
KOSINSKY. I will take off the bridles again, if you wish it; you bade me hasten head over heels.
CHARLES. One more farewell! one more! I must drain this poisoned cup of happiness to the dregs, and then – Stay, Kosinsky! Ten minutes more – behind, in the castle yard – and we gallop off.
Scene IV. – In the Garden.
AMELIA. "You are in tears, Amelia!" These were his very words – and spoken with such expressionsuch a voice! – oh, it summoned up a thousand dear remembrances! – scenes of past delight, as in my youthful days of happiness, my golden spring-tide of love. The nightingale sung with the same sweetness, the flowers breathed the same delicious fragrance, as when I used to hang enraptured on his neck.*
*[Here, in the acting edition, is added, 'Assuredly, if the spirits of the departed wander among the living, then must this stranger be Charles's angel!']
Ha! false, perfidious heart! And dost thou seek thus artfully to veil thy perjury? No, no! begone forever from my soul, thou sinful image!
I have not broken my oath, thou only one! Avaunt, from my soul, ye treacherous impious wishes! In the heart where Charles reigns no son of earth may dwell. But why, my soul, dost thou thus constantly, thus obstinately turn towards this stranger? Does he not cling to my heart in the very image of my only one! Is he not his inseparable companion in my thoughts? "You are in tears, Amelia?" Ha! let me fly from him! – fly! – never more shall my eyes behold this stranger!
[CHARLES opens the garden gate.]
AMELIA (starting). Hark! hark! did I not hear the gate creak? (She perceives CHARLES and starts up.) He? – whither? – what? I am rooted to the spot, – I can not fly! Forsake me not, good Heaven! No! thou shalt not tear me from my Charles! My soul has no room for two deities, I am but a mortal maid! (She draws the picture of CHARLES from her bosom.) Thou, my Charles! be thou my guardian angel against this stranger, this invader of our loves! At thee will I look, at thee, nor turn away my eyes – nor cast one sinful look towards him! (She sits silent, her eyes fixed upon the picture.)
CHARLES. You here, Lady Amelia? – and so sad? and a tear upon that picture? (AMELIA gives him no answer.) And who is the happy man for whom these silver drops fall from an angel's eyes? May I be permitted to look at – (He endeavors to look at the picture.)
AMELIA. No – yes – no!
CHARLES (starting back). Ha – and does he deserve to be so idolized? Does he deserve it?
AMELIA. Had you but known him!
CHARLES. I should have envied him.
AMELIA. Adored, you mean.
CHARLES. Ha!
AMELIA. Oh, you would so have loved him? – there was so much, so much in his face – in his eyes – in the tone of his voice, – which was so like yours – that I love so dearly! (CHARLES casts his eyes down to the ground.) Here, where you are standing, he has stood a thousand times – and by his side, one who, by his side, forgot heaven and earth. Here his eyes feasted on nature's most glorious panorama, – which, as if conscious of his approving glance, seemed to increase in beauty under the approbation of her masterpiece. Here he held the audience of the air captive with his heavenly music. Here, from this bush, he plucked roses, and plucked those roses for me. Here, here, he lay on my neck; here he imprinted burning kisses on my lips, and the flowers hung their heads with pleasure beneath the foot-tread of the lovers.*
