Love and Intrigue by Friedrich Schiller (free e novels .txt) 📖

a beggar

WORM. Oh! Not so! Despair not, dear girl! You inspire me with the most heartfelt pity! Perhaps who knows? I might even now overlook certain parts of your conduct yes! Heaven is my witness, how deeply I compassionate your sorrows!

LOUISA (giving him a piercing look). Do not explain yourself! You are on the point of asking something more terrible than all.

WORM (attempting to kiss her hand). What if I asked this little hand? Would that be terrible, Louisa?

LOUISA (with great indignation). Yes! for I should strangle you on the bridal night: and for such a deed I would joyfully yield my body to be torn on the rack! (She is going, but comes hurriedly back.) Is all settled between us, sir? May the dove be released?

WORM. A trifle yet remains, maiden! You must swear, by the holy sacrament, to acknowledge this letter for your free and voluntary act.

LOUISA. Oh God! Oh God! And wilt thou grant thine own seal to confirm the works of hell? (WORM leads her away.)


ACT IV.

SCENE I. Saloon in the PRESIDENT'S House.

FERDINAND VON WALTER enters in great excitement with an open letter
in his hand, and is met by a SERVANT.

FERDINAND. Is the marshal here?

SERVANT. My lord, his highness the president is inquiring for you.

FERDINAND. Fire and fury! I ask is the marshal here?

SERVANT. His honor is engaged at the faro-table, above stairs.

FERDINAND. Tell his honor, in the name of all the devils in hell, to make his appearance this instant!

[Exit SERVANT.


SCENE II.

FERDINAND (hastily reading the letter, at one moment seeming petrified with astonishment, at the next pacing the room with fury). Impossible! quite impossible! A form so heavenly cannot hide so devilish a heart. And yet! and yet! Though all the angels of heaven should descend on earth and proclaim her innocence though heaven and earth, the Creator and the created, should, with one accord, vouch for her innocence it is her hand, her own hand! Treachery, monstrous, infernal treachery, such as humanity never before witnessed! This, then, was the reason she so resolutely opposed our flight! This it was Oh, God! Now I awake from my dream! Now the veil is lifted! This, then, is why she surrendered with so much seeming heroism her claims on my affection, and all but cheated me with her saint-like demeanor! (He traverses the chamber rapidly, and then remains for some moments in deep thought.) To fathom my heart to its very core! To reciprocate every lofty sentiment, every gentle emotion, every fiery ebullition! To sympathize with every secret breathing of my soul! To study me even in her tears! To mount with me to the sublimest heights of passion to brave with me, undaunted, each fearful precipice! God of heaven! And was all this deceit? mere grimace? Oh, if falsehood can assume so lovely an appearance of truth why has no devil yet lied himself back into heaven?

When I unfolded to her the dangers which threatened our affection, with what convincing artifice did the false one turn pale! With what overpowering dignity did she repulse my father's licentious scoffs! yet at that very moment the deceiver was conscious of her guilt! Nay, did she not even undergo the fiery ordeal of truth? Forsooth, the hypocrite fainted! What must now be thy language, sensibility, since coquettes faint? How wilt thou vindicate thyself, innocence? for even strumpets faint?

She knows her power over me she has seen through my very heart! My soul shone conspicuous in my eyes at the blush of her first kiss. And that she should have felt nothing! or perhaps felt only the triumph of her art; whilst my happy delirium fancied that in her I embraced a whole heaven, my wildest wishes were hushed! No thought but of her and eternity was present to my mind. Oh, God! and yet she felt nothing? Nothing? but that her artifice had triumphed! That her charms were flattered! Death and vengeance! Nothing, but that I was betrayed!


SCENE III.

FERDINAND, the MARSHAL.

MARSHAL (tripping into the room). I am told, my dear baron, that you have expressed a wish

FERDINAND (muttering to himself). To break your rascally neck. (Aloud.) Marshal, this letter must have dropped out of your pocket on parade. (With a malicious smile.) And I have been the fortunate finder.

MARSHAL. You?

FERDINAND. By a singular coincidence! Now, balance thy account with heaven!

MARSHAL. You quite alarm me, baron!

FERDINAND. Read it, sir, read it! (Turning from him.) If I am not good enough for a lover perhaps I may do for a pimp. (While the MARSHAL reads, FERDINAND goes to the wall and takes down the pistols.)

KALB (throws the letter upon the table, and rushes off). Confusion!

FERDINAND (leads him back by the arm). Wait a little, my dear marshal! The intelligence contained in that letter appears to be agreeable! The finder must have his reward. (Showing him the pistols.)

MARSHAL (starts back in alarm). Have you lost your senses, baron?

FERDINAND (in a terrible voice). I have more than enough left to rid the world of such a scoundrel as you! Choose one of these instantly! (He forces a pistol into the MARSHAL'S hand, and then draws out his handkerchief.) And now take the other end of this handkerchief! It was given me by the strumpet herself!

MARSHAL. What, shoot over the handkerchief? Baron, are you mad? What can you be thinking of?

FERDINAND. Lay hold of it, I say! or you will be sure to miss your aim, coward! How the coward trembles! You should thank God, you pitiful coward, that you have a chance for once of getting something in your empty brain-box. (The MARSHAL takes to his heels.) Gently, gently! I'll take care of that. (Overtakes him and bolts the door.)

MARSHAL. Surely you will not fight in the chamber?

FERDINAND. As if you were worth the trouble of a walk beyond the boundaries! The report, my dear fellow, will be louder, and, for the first time, you will make some noise in the world. Now, then, take hold!

MARSHAL (wiping his forehead). Yet consider, I entreat. Would you risk your precious life, young and promising as you are, in this desperate manner?

FERDINAND. Take hold, I say! I have nothing more to do in this world!

MARSHAL. But I have much, my dearest, most excellent friend!

FERDINAND. Thou, wretch thou? What hast thou to do, but to play the stop-gap, where honest men keep aloof! To stretch or shrink seven times in an instant, like the butterfly on a pin? To be privy registrar in chief and clerk of the jordan? To be the cap-and-bell buffoon on which your master sharpens his wit? Well, well, let it be so. I will carry you about with me, as I would a marmot of rare training. You shall skip and dance, like a tamed monkey, to the howling of the damned; fetch, carry, and serve; and with your courtly arts enliven the wailings of everlasting despair!

MARSHAL. Anything you please, dear major! Whatever you please! Only take away the pistols!

FERDINAND. How he stands there, poor trembling wretch! There he stands, a blot on the sixth day of creation. He looks as if he were a piratical counterfeit of the Almighty original. Pity, eternal pity! that an atom of brains should lie wasting in so barren a skull! That single atom bestowed upon a baboon might have made him a perfect man, whereas it is now a mere useless fragment. And that she should share her heart with a thing like this! Monstrous! Incredible! A wretch more formed to wean from sin than to excite it!

MARSHAL. Praised be Heaven! he is getting witty.

FERDINAND. I will let him live! That toleration which spares the caterpillar shall be extended to him! Men shall look on him in wonder, and, shrugging their shoulders, admire the wise dispensation of Providence, which can feed its creatures with husks and scourings; which spreads the table for the raven on the gallows, and for the courtier in the slime of majesty. We wonder at the wisdom of Providence, which even in the world of spirits maintains its staff of venomous reptiles for the dissemination of poison. (Relapsing into rage.) But such vermin shall not pollute my rose; sooner will I crush it to atoms (seizing the MARSHAL and shaking him roughly), thus and thus and thus

MARSHAL. Oh! God, that I were away from here! hundreds of miles away in the asylum for maniacs at Paris! Anywhere but near this man!

FERDINAND. Villain! If she be no longer pure! Villain! If thou hast profaned where I worshipped! (with increased fury). If thou hast polluted, where I believed myself the god! (Pausing suddenly; then in a solemn terrible voice.) It were better for thee, villain, to flee to hell, than to encounter my wrath in heaven! Confess! To what extent has your unhallowed love proceeded?

MARSHAL. Let me go! I will confess everything.

FERDINAND. Oh! it must be more rapturous even to be her licentious paramour than to burn with the purest flame for any other! Would she surrender her charms to unlicensed pleasure she might dissolve the soul itself to sin, and make voluptuousness pass for virtue (pressing his pistol against the MARSHAL'S breast). To what extremities have you proceeded? Confess this instant or I fire!

MARSHAL. There is nothing at all in it, I assure you! There is not a syllable of truth in the whole business! Have but a moment's patience! You are deceived, indeed you are!

FERDINAND (furiously). And dare you remind me of that, villain? To what extremities have you proceeded? Confess, or you are a dead man!

MARSHAL. Mon Dieu! My God! You mistake my words! Only listen for a moment. When a father

FERDINAND (still more enraged). No doubt! He threw his daughter into your arms? And how far have you proceeded? Confess, or I will murder you!

MARSHAL. You rave! You will not listen! I never saw her! I don't know her! I know nothing at all about her!

FERDINAND (drawing back). You never saw her? You don't know her? Know nothing at all about her? Louisa is lost to me forever on thy account, and yet in one breath hast thou denied her thrice. Go, wretch, go (he gives him a blow with the pistol, and thrusts him out of the chamber); powder were thrown away on such a miscreant.

[Exit MARSHAL.


SCENE IV.

FERDINAND (after a long silence, during which his countenance declares him to be agitated by some dreadful idea). Forever lost? Yes, false unfortunate, both are lost! Ay, by the Almighty God! if I am lost, thou art so too. Judge of the world, ask her not from me! She is mine. For her sake I renounced the whole world abandoned all thy glorious creation. Leave me the maid, great Judge of the world! Millions of souls pour out their plaints to thee turn on them thine eye of compassion, but leave me, Almighty Judge leave me to myself. (Clasping his hands in agony.) Can the bountiful, the munificent Creator be covetous of one miserable soul, and that soul the worst of his creation? The