The Piccolomini | Page 5

forget that yet ere noon we meet?The noble envoy at the general's palace.
[Exeunt all but QUESTENBERG and OCTAVIO.
SCENE III.
QUESTENBERG and OCTAVIO.
QUESTENBERG (with signs of aversion and astonishment).?What have I not been forced to hear, Octavio!?What sentiments! what fierce, uncurbed defiance!?And were this spirit universal----
OCTAVIO.
Hm!?You're now acquainted with three-fourths of the army.
QUESTENBERG.?Where must we seek, then, for a second host?To have the custody of this? That Illo?Thinks worse, I fear me, than he speaks. And then?This Butler, too--he cannot even conceal?The passionate workings of his ill intentions.
OCTAVIO.?Quickness of temper--irritated pride;?'Twas nothing more. I cannot give up Butler.?I know a spell that will soon dispossess?The evil spirit in him.
QUESTENBERG (walking up and down in evident disquiet).
Friend, friend!?O! this is worse, far worse, than we had suffered?Ourselves to dream of at Vienna. There?We saw it only with a courtier's eyes,?Eyes dazzled by the splendor of the throne.?We had not seen the war-chief, the commander,?The man all-powerful in his camp. Here, here,?'Tis quite another thing.?Here is no emperor more--the duke is emperor.?Alas, my friend! alas, my noble friend!?This walk which you have ta'en me through the camp?Strikes my hopes prostrate.
OCTAVIO.
Now you see yourself?Of what a perilous kind the office is,?Which you deliver to me from the court.?The least suspicion of the general?Costs me my freedom and my life, and would?But hasten his most desperate enterprise.
QUESTENBERG.?Where was our reason sleeping when we trusted?This madman with the sword, and placed such power?In such a hand? I tell you, he'll refuse,?Flatly refuse to obey the imperial orders.?Friend, he can do it, and what he can, he will.?And then the impunity of his defiance--?Oh! what a proclamation of our weakness!
OCTAVIO.?D'ye think, too, he has brought his wife and daughter?Without a purpose hither? Here in camp!?And at the very point of time in which?We're arming for the war? That he has taken?These, the last pledges of his loyalty,?Away from out the emperor's dominions--?This is no doubtful token of the nearness?Of some eruption.
QUESTENBERG.
How shall we hold footing?Beneath this tempest, which collects itself?And threats us from all quarters? The enemy?Of the empire on our borders, now already?The master of the Danube, and still farther,?And farther still, extending every hour!?In our interior the alarum-bells?Of insurrection--peasantry in arms--?All orders discontented--and the army,?Just in the moment of our expectation?Of aidance from it--lo! this very army?Seduced, run wild, lost to all discipline,?Loosened, and rent asunder from the state?And from their sovereign, the blind instrument?Of the most daring of mankind, a weapon?Of fearful power, which at his will he wields.
OCTAVIO.?Nay, nay, friend! let us not despair too soon?Men's words are even bolder than their deeds;?And many a resolute, who now appears?Made up to all extremes, will, on a sudden,?Find in his breast a heart he wot not of,?Let but a single honest man speak out?The true name of his crime! Remember, too,?We stand not yet so wholly unprotected.?Counts Altringer and Gallas have maintained?Their little army faithful to its duty,?And daily it becomes more numerous.?Nor can he take us by surprise; you know?I hold him all encompassed by my listeners.?What'er he does, is mine, even while 'tis doing--?No step so small, but instantly I hear it;?Yea, his own mouth discloses it.
QUESTENBERG.
'Tis quite?Incomprehensible, that he detects not?The foe so near!
OCTAVIO.
Beware, you do not think,?That I, by lying arts, and complaisant?Hypocrisy, have sulked into his graces,?Or with the substance of smooth professions?Nourish his all-confiding friendship! No--?Compelled alike by prudence, and that duty?Which we all owe our country and our sovereign,?To hide my genuine feelings from him, yet?Ne'er have I duped him with base counterfeits!
QUESTENBERG.?It is the visible ordinance of heaven.
OCTAVIO.?I know not what it is that so attracts?And links him both to me and to my son.?Comrades and friends we always were--long habit,?Adventurous deeds performed in company,?And all those many and various incidents?Which stores a soldier's memory with affections,?Had bound us long and early to each other--?Yet I can name the day, when all at once?His heart rose on me, and his confidence?Shot out into sudden growth. It was the morning?Before the memorable fight at Luetzen.?Urged by an ugly dream, I sought him out,?To press him to accept another charger.?At a distance from the tents, beneath a tree,?I found him in a sleep. When I had waked him?And had related all my bodings to him,?Long time he stared upon me, like a man?Astounded: thereon fell upon my neck,?And manifested to me an emotion?That far outstripped the worth of that small service.?Since then his confidence has followed me?With the same pace that mine has fled from him.
QUESTENBERG.?You lead your son into the secret?
OCTAVIO.
No!
QUESTENBERG.?What! and not warn him either, what bad hands?His lot has placed him in?
OCTAVIO.
I must perforce?Leave him in wardship to his innocence.?His young and open soul--dissimulation?Is foreign to its habits! Ignorance?Alone can keep alive the cheerful air,?The unembarrassed sense and light free spirit,?That makes the duke secure.
QUESTENBERG (anxiously).?My