The Death of Wallenstein | Page 7

is as others, A fire-new noble, whom the war hath raised To price and currency, a Jonah's gourd, An over-night creation of court-favor, Which, with an undistinguishable ease, Makes baron or makes prince.
WALLENSTEIN (in extreme agitation). Take her away. Let in the young Count Piccolomini.
COUNTESS. Art thou in earnest? I entreat thee! Canst thou consent to bear thyself to thy own grave, So ignominiously to be dried up? Thy life, that arrogated such an height To end in such a nothing! To be nothing, When one was always nothing, is an evil That asks no stretch of patience, a light evil; But to become a nothing, having been----
WALLENSTEIN (starts up in violent agitation). Show me a way out of this stifling crowd, Ye powers of aidance! Show me such a way As I am capable of going. I Am no tongue-hero, no fine virtue-prattler; I cannot warm by thinking; cannot say To the good luck that turns her back upon me Magnanimously: "Go; I need thee not." Cease I to work, I am annihilated. Dangers nor sacrifices will I shun, If so I may avoid the last extreme; But ere I sink down into nothingness, Leave off so little, who began so great, Ere that the world confuses me with those Poor wretches, whom a day creates and crumbles, This age and after ages [2] speak my name With hate and dread; and Friedland be redemption For each accursed deed.
COUNTESS. What is there here, then, So against nature? Help me to perceive it! Oh, let not superstition's nightly goblins Subdue thy clear, bright spirit! Art thou bid To murder? with abhorred, accursed poniard, To violate the breasts that nourished thee? That were against our nature, that might aptly Make thy flesh shudder, and thy whole heart sicken. [3] Yet not a few, and for a meaner object, Have ventured even this, ay, and performed it. What is there in thy case so black and monstrous? Thou art accused of treason--whether with Or without justice is not now the question-- Thou art lost if thou dost not avail thee quickly Of the power which thou possessest--Friedland! Duke! Tell me where lives that thing so meek and tame, That doth not all his living faculties Put forth in preservation of his life? What deed so daring, which necessity And desperation will not sanctify?
WALLENSTEIN. Once was this Ferdinand so gracious to me; He loved me; he esteemed me; I was placed The nearest to his heart. Full many a time We like familiar friends, both at one table, Have banqueted together--he and I; And the young kings themselves held me the basin Wherewith to wash me--and is't come to this?
COUNTESS. So faithfully preservest thou each small favor, And hast no memory for contumelies? Must I remind thee, how at Regensburg This man repaid thy faithful services? All ranks and all conditions in the empire Thou hadst wronged to make him great,--hadst loaded on thee, On thee, the hate, the curse of the whole world. No friend existed for thee in all Germany, And why? because thou hadst existed only For the emperor. To the emperor alone Clung Friedland in that storm which gathered round him At Regensburg in the Diet--and he dropped thee! He let thee fall! he let thee fall a victim To the Bavarian, to that insolent! Deposed, stripped bare of all thy dignity And power, amid the taunting of thy foe Thou wert let drop into obscurity. Say not, the restoration of thy honor Has made atonement for that first injustice. No honest good-will was it that replaced thee; The law of hard necessity replaced thee, Which they had fain opposed, but that they could not.
WALLENSTEIN. Not to their good wishes, that is certain, Nor yet to his affection I'm indebted For this high office; and if I abuse it, I shall therein abuse no confidence.
COUNTESS. Affection! confidence!--they needed thee. Necessity, impetuous remonstrant! Who not with empty names, or shows of proxy, Is served, who'll have the thing and not the symbol, Ever seeks out the greatest and the best, And at the rudder places him, e'en though She had been forced to take him from the rabble-- She, this necessity, it was that placed thee In this high office; it was she that gave thee Thy letters-patent of inauguration. For, to the uttermost moment that they can, This race still help themselves at cheapest rate With slavish souls, with puppets! At the approach Of extreme peril, when a hollow image Is found a hollow image and no more, Then falls the power into the mighty hands Of nature, of the spirit-giant born, Who listens only to himself, knows nothing Of stipulations, duties, reverences, And, like the emancipated force of fire, Unmastered scorches, ere it reaches them, Their fine-spun webs,