The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Iii Part 33

The son secures the father to our interests-- You've much in your hands at this moment.

THEKLA.

Ah!

My miserable mother! what a death-stroke Awaits thee!--No! she never will survive it.

COUNTESS.

She will accommodate her soul to that Which is and must be. I do know your mother; The far-off future weighs upon her heart With torture of anxiety; but is it Unalterably, actually present, She soon resigns herself, and bears it calmly.

THEKLA.

O my foreboding bosom! Even now, E'en now 'tis here, that icy hand of horror!

And my young hope lies shuddering in its grasp; I knew it well--no sooner had I enter'd, An heavy ominous presentiment Reveal'd to me that spirits of death were hovering Over my happy fortune. But why think I First of myself? My mother! O my mother!

COUNTESS.

Calm yourself! Break not out in vain lamenting!

Preserve you for your father the firm friend, And for yourself the lover, all will yet Prove good and fortunate.

THEKLA.

Prove good! What good?

Must we not part?--part ne'er to meet again?

COUNTESS.

He parts not from you! He cannot part from you.

THEKLA.

Alas for his sore anguis.h.!.+ It will rend His heart asunder.

COUNTESS.

If indeed he loves you, His resolution will be speedily taken.

THEKLA.

His resolution will be speedily taken-- O do not doubt of that! A resolution!

Does there remain one to be taken?

COUNTESS.

Hush, Collect yourself! I hear your mother coming.

THEKLA.

How shall I bear to see her?

COUNTESS.

Collect yourself.

SCENE III

_To them enter the d.u.c.h.eSS_

d.u.c.h.eSS (_to the COUNTESS_).

Who was here, sister? I heard someone talking, And pa.s.sionately too.

COUNTESS.

Nay! there was no one.

d.u.c.h.eSS.

I am grown so timorous, every trifling noise Scatters my spirits, and announces to me The footstep of some messenger of evil.

And you can tell me, sister, what the event is?

Will he agree to do the Emperor's pleasure, And send the horse-regiments to the Cardinal?

Tell me, has he dismiss'd Von Questenberg With a favorable answer?

COUNTESS.

No, he has not.

d.u.c.h.eSS.

Alas! then all is lost! I see it coming, The worst that can come! Yes, they will depose him; The accursed business of the Regensburg diet Will all be acted o'er again!

COUNTESS.

No! never!

Make your heart easy, sister, as to that.

[THEKLA, _in extreme agitation, throws herself upon her mother, and enfolds her in her arms, weeping_.]

d.u.c.h.eSS.

Yes, my poor child!

Thou too hast lost a most affectionate G.o.dmother In the Empress. O that stern unbending man!

In this unhappy marriage what have I Not suffer'd, not endured? For even as if I had been link'd on to some wheel of fire That restless, ceaseless, whirls impetuous onward, I have pa.s.s'd a life of frights and horrors with him, And ever to the brink of some abyss With dizzy headlong violence he bears me.

Nay, do not weep, my child. Let not my sufferings Presignify unhappiness to thee, Nor blacken with their shade the fate that waits thee.

There lives no second Friedland: thou, my child, Hast not to fear thy mother's destiny.