The Robbers by Friedrich Schiller (large screen ebook reader .TXT) 📖

love, by the spirit of peace! The whole world one family, and one Father above - but He not my father! I alone the outcast, I alone rejected from the ranks of the blessed - the sweet name of child is not for me - never for me the soul-thrilling glance of her I love - never, never the bosom friend's embrace - (starting back wildly) - surrounded by murderers - hemmed in by hissing vipers - riveted to vice with iron fetters - whirling headlong on the frail reed of sin to the gulf of perdition - amid the blooming flowers of a glad world, a howling Abaddon!

SCHWARZ (to the others). How strange! I never saw him thus before.

CHARLES (with melancholy). Oh, that I might return again to my mother's womb. That I might be born a beggar! I should desire no more, - no more, oh heaven! - but that I might be like one of those poor laborers! Oh, I would toil till the blood streamed down my temples - to buy myself the luxury of one guiltless slumber - the blessedness of a single tear.

GRIMM (to the others). A little patience - the paroxysm is nearly over.

CHARLES. There was a time when my tears flowed so freely. Oh, those days of peace! Dear home of my fathers - ye verdant halcyon vales! O all ye Elysian scenes of my childhood! - will you never return? - will your delicious breezes never cool my burning bosom? Mourn with me, Nature, mourn! They will never return! never will their delicious breezes cool my burning bosom! They are gone! gone! irrevocably gone!

Enter SCHWEITZER with water in his hat.

SCHWEITZER (offering him water in his hat). Drink, captain; here is plenty of water, and cold as ice.

SCHWARZ. You are bleeding! What have you been doing?

SCHWEITZER. A bit of a freak, you fool, which had well-nigh cost me two legs and a neck. As I was frolicking along the steep sandbanks of the river, plump, in a moment, the whole concern slid from under me, and I after it, some ten fathoms deep; - there I lay, and, as I was recovering my five senses, lo and behold, the most sparkling water in the gravel! Not so much amiss this time, said I to myself, for the caper I have cut. The captain will be sure to relish a drink.

CHARLES (returns him the hat and wipes his face). But you are covered with mud, Schweitzer, and we can't see the scar which the Bohemian horseman marked on your forehead - your water was good, Schweitzer - and those scars become you well.

SCHWEITZER. Bah! There's room for a score or two more yet.

CHARLES. Yes, boys - it was a hot day's work - and only one man lost. Poor Roller! he died a noble death. A marble monument would be erected to his memory had he died in any other cause than mine. Let this suffice. (He wipes the tears from his eyes.) How many, did you say, of the enemy were left on the field?

SCHWEITZER. A hundred and sixty huzzars, ninety-three dragoons, some forty chasseurs - in all about three hundred.

CHARLES. Three hundred for one! Every one of you has a claim upon this head. (He bares his head.) By this uplifted dagger! As my Soul liveth, I will never forsake you!

SCHWEITZER. Swear not! You do not know but you may yet be happy, and repent your oath.

CHARLES. By the ashes of my Roller! I will never forsake you.

Enter KOSINSKY.

KOSINSKY (aside). Hereabouts, they say, I shall find him. Ha! What faces are these? Should they be - if these - they must be the men! Yes, 'tis they,'tis they! I will accost them.

SCHWARZ. Take heed! Who goes there?

KOSINSKY. Pardon, sirs. I know not whether I am going right or wrong.

CHARLES. Suppose right, whom do you take us to be?

KOSINSKY. Men!

SCHWEITZER. I wonder, captain, whether we have given any proof of that?

KOSINSKY. I am in search of men who can look death in the face, and let danger play around then like a tamed snake; who prize liberty above life or honor; whose very names, hailed by the poor and the oppressed, appal the boldest, and make tyrants tremble.

SCHWEITZER (to the Captain). I like that fellow. Hark ye, friend! You have found your men.

KOSINSKY. So I should think, and I hope soon to find them brothers. You can direct me to the man I am looking for. 'Tis your captain, the great Count von Moor.

SCHWEITZER (taking him warmly by the hand). There's a good lad. You and I must be chums.

CHARLES (coming nearer). Do you know the captain?

KOSINSKY. Thou art he! - in those features - that air - who can look at thee, and doubt it? (Looks earnestly at him for some time). I have always wished to see the man with the annihilating look, as he sat on the ruins of Carthage.* That wish is realized.

*[Alluding to Caius Marius. See Plutarch's Lives.]

SCHWEITZER. A mettlesome fellow! -

CHARLES. And what brings you to me?

KOSINSKY. Oh, captain! my more than cruel fate. I have suffered shipwrecked on the stormy ocean of the world; I have seen all my fondest hopes perish; and nought remains to me but a remembrance of the bitter past, which would drive me to madness, were I not to drown it by directing my energies to new objects.

CHARLES. Another arraignment of the ways of Providence! Proceed.

KOSINSKY. I became a soldier. Misfortune still followed me in the army. I made a venture to the Indies, and my ship was shivered on the rocks - nothing but frustrated hopes! At last, I heard tell far and wide of your valiant deeds, incendiarisms, as they called them, and I came straightway hither, a distance of thirty leagues, firmly resolved to serve under you, if you will deign to accept my services. I entreat thee, noble captain, refuse me not!

SCHWEITZER (with a leap into the air). Hurrah! Hurrah! Our Roller replaced ten hundred-fold! An out-and-out brother cut-throat for our troop.

CHARLES. What is your name?

KOSINSKY. Kosinsky.

CHARLES. What? Kosinsky! And do you know that you are but a thoughtless boy, and are embarking on the most weighty passage of your life as heedlessly as a giddy girl? You will find no playing at bowls or ninepins here, as you probably imagine.

KOSINSKY. I understand you, sir. I am,'tis true, but four-and-twenty years old, but I have seen swords glittering, and have heard balls whistling around me.

CHARLES. Indeed, young gentleman? And was it for this that you took fencing lessons, to run poor travellers through the body for the sake of a dollar, or stab women in the back? Go! go! You have played truant to your nurse because she shook the rod at you.

SCHWEITZER. Why, what the devil, captain! what are you about? Do you mean to turn away such a Hercules? Does he not look as if he could baste Marechal Saxe across the Ganges with a ladle?

CHARLES. Because your silly schemes miscarry, you come here to turn rogue and assassin! Murder, boy, do you know the meaning of that word? You may have slumbered in peace after cropping a few poppy-heads, but to have a murder on your soul -

KOSINSKY. All the murders you bid me commit be upon my head!

CHARLES. What! Are you so nimble-witted? Do you take measure of a man to catch him by flattery? How do you know that I am not haunted by terrific dreams, or that I shall not tremble on my death-bed? - How much have you already done of which you have considered the responsibility?

KOSINSKY. Very little, I must confess; excepting this long journey to you, noble count -

CHARLES. Has your tutor let the story of Robin Hood - get into your hands? Such careless rascals ought to be sent to the galleys. And has it heated your childish fancy, and infected you with the mania of becoming a hero? Are you thirsting for honor and fame? Would you buy immortality by deeds of incendiarism? Mark me, ambitious youth! No laurel blooms for the incendiary. No triumph awaits the victories of the bandit - nothing but curses, danger, death, disgrace. Do you see the gibbet yonder on the hill?

SPIEGEL (going up and down indignantly). Oh, how stupid! How abominably, unpardonably stupid! That's not the way. I went to work in a very different manner.

KOSINSKY. What should he fear, who fears not death?

CHARLES. Bravo! Capital! You have made good use of your time at school; you have got your Seneca cleverly by heart. But, my good friend, you will not be able with these fine phrases to cajole nature in the hour of suffering; they will never blunt the biting tooth of remorse. Ponder on it well, my son! (Takes him by the hand.) I advise you as a father. First learn the depth of the abyss before you plunge headlong into it. If in this world you can catch a single glimpse of happiness - moments may come when you-awake, - and then - it may be too late. Here you step out as it were beyond the pale of humanity - you must either be more than human or a demon. Once more, my son! if but a single spark of hope glimmer for you elsewhere, fly this fearful compact, where nought but despair enters, unless a higher wisdom has so ordained it. You may deceive yourself - believe me, it is possible to mistake that for strength of mind which in reality is nothing more than despair. Take my counsel! mine! and depart quickly.

KOSINSKY. No! I will not stir. If my entreaties fail to move you, hear but the story of my misfortunes. And then you will force the dagger into my hand as eagerly as you now seek to withhold it. Seat yourselves awhile on the grass and listen.

CHARLES. I will hear your story.

KOSINSKY. Know, then, that I am a Bohemian nobleman. By the early death of my father I became master of large possessions. The scene of my domain was a paradise; for it contained an angel - a maid adorned with all the charms of blooming youth, and chaste as the light of heaven. But to whom do I talk of this? It falls unheeded on your cars - ye never loved, ye were never beloved -

SCHWEITZER. Gently, gently! The captain grows red as fire.

CHARLES. No more! I'll hear you some other time - to-morrow, - or by-and-by, or - after I have seen blood.

KOSINSKY. Blood, blood! Only hear on! Blood will fill your whole soul. She was of citizen birth, a German - but her look dissolved all the prejudices of aristocracy. With blushing modesty she received the bridal ring from my hand, and on the morrow I was to have led my AMELIA to the altar. (CHARLES rises suddenly.) In the midst of my intoxicating dream of happiness, and while our nuptials were preparing, an express summoned me to court. I obeyed the summons. Letters were shown me which I was said to have written, full of treasonable matter. I grew scarlet with indignation at such malice; they deprived me of my sword,