The Robbers | Page 4

me to defer--I will speak to you at a fitter season.--(Half aside.) These are no tidings for a feeble frame.
OLD M. Gracious Heavens? what am I doomed to hear?
FRANCIS. First let me retire and shed a tear of compassion for my lost brother. Would that my lips might be forever sealed--for he is your son! Would that I could throw an eternal veil over his shame--for he is my brother! But to obey you is my first, though painful, duty--forgive me, therefore.
OLD M. Oh, Charles! Charles! Didst thou but know what thorns thou plantest in thy father's bosom! That one gladdening report of thee would add ten years to my life! yes, bring back my youth! whilst now, alas, each fresh intelligence but hurries me a step nearer to the grave!
FRANCIS. Is it so, old man, then farewell! for even this very day we might all have to tear our hair over your coffin.*
[* This idiom is very common in Germany, and is used to express affliction.]
OLD M. Stay! There remains but one short step more--let him have his will! (He sits down.) The sins of the father shall be visited unto the third and fourth generation--let him fulfil the decree.
FRANCIS (takes the letter out of his pocket). You know our correspondent! See! I would give a finger of my right hand might I pronounce him a liar--a base and slanderous liar! Compose yourself! Forgive me if I do not let you read the letter yourself. You cannot, must not, yet know all.
OLD M. All, all, my son. You will but spare me crutches.*
[* Du ersparst mir die Krucke; meaning that the contents of the letter can but shorten his declining years, and so spare him the necessity of crutches.]
FRANCIS (reads). "Leipsic, May 1. Were I not bound by an inviolable promise to conceal nothing from you, not even the smallest particular, that I am able to collect, respecting your brother's career, never, my dearest friend, should my guiltless pen become an instrument of torture to you. I can gather from a hundred of your letters how tidings such as these must pierce your fraternal heart. It seems to me as though I saw thee, for the sake of this worthless, this detestable"--(OLD M. covers his face). Oh! my father, I am only reading you the mildest passages-- "this detestable man, shedding a thousand tears." Alas! mine flowed--ay, gushed in torrents over these pitying cheeks. "I already picture to myself your aged pious father, pale as death." Good Heavens! and so you are, before you have heard anything.
OLD M. Go on! Go on!
FRANCIS. "Pale as death, sinking down on his chair, and cursing the day when his ear was first greeted with the lisping cry of 'Father!' I have not yet been able to discover all, and of the little I do know I dare tell you only a part. Your brother now seems to have filled up the measure of his infamy. I, at least, can imagine nothing beyond what he has already accomplished; but possibly his genius may soar above my conceptions. After having contracted debts to the amount of forty thousand ducats, "--a good round sum for pocket-money, father" and having dishonored the daughter of a rich banker, whose affianced lover, a gallant youth of rank, he mortally wounded in a duel, he yesterday, in the dead of night, took the desperate resolution of absconding from the arm of justice, with seven companions whom he had corrupted to his own vicious courses." Father? for heaven's sake, father! How do you feel?
OLD M. Enough. No more, my son, no more!
FRANCIS. I will spare your feelings. "The injured cry aloud for satisfaction. Warrants have been issued for his apprehension--a price is set on his head--the name of Moor"--No, these unhappy lips shall not be guilty of a father's murder (he tears the letter). Believe it not, my father, believe not a syllable.
OLD M. (weeps bitterly). My name--my unsullied name!
FRANCIS (throws himself on his neck). Infamous! most infamous Charles! Oh, had I not my forebodings, when, even as a boy, he would scamper after the girls, and ramble about over hill and common with ragamuffin boys and all the vilest rabble; when he shunned the very sight of a church as a malefactor shuns a gaol, and would throw the pence he had wrung from your bounty into the hat of the first beggar he met, whilst we at home were edifying ourselves with devout prayers and pious homilies? Had I not my misgivings when he gave himself up to reading the adventures of Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, and other benighted heathens, in preference to the history of the penitent Tobias? A hundred times over have I warned you--for my brotherly affection was ever kept in subjection to filial