Читать книгу The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 03 - Коллектив авторов, Ю. Д. Земенков, Koostaja: Ajakiri New Scientist - Страница 55

WALLENSTEIN, TERZKY

TERZKY.

Max Piccolomini just left you?

WALLENSTEIN.

Where is Wrangel?

TERZKY.

He is already gone.

WALLENSTEIN.

In such a hurry?

TERZKY.

It is as if the earth had swallow'd him.

He had scarce left thee when I went to seek him.

I wish'd some words with him—but he was gone.

How, when, and where, could no one tell me. Nay,

I half believe it was the devil himself;

A human creature could not so at once

Have vanish'd.

ILLO (enters).

Octavio?

TERZKY.

How, Octavio! Whither send him?

WALLENST.

He goes to Frauenburg, and will lead hither

The Spanish and Italian regiments.

ILLO.

Nay, Heaven forbid!

WALLENSTEIN.

And why should Heaven forbid?

ILLO.

Him!—that deceiver! Wouldst thou trust to him

The soldiery? Him wilt thou let slip from thee,

Now in the very instant that decides us—

TERZKY.

Thou wilt not do this—No! I pray thee, no!

WALLENST.

Ye are whimsical.

ILLO.

Yield to our warning! Let him not depart.

WALLENST.

And why should I not trust him only this time,

Who have always trusted him? What, then, has happen'd

That I should lose my good opinion of him?

In complaisance to your whims, not my own,

I must, forsooth, give up a rooted judgment.

Think not I am a woman. Having trusted him

E'en till today, today too will I trust him.

TERZKY.

Must it be he—he only? Send another.

WALLENST.

It must be he whom I myself have chosen;

He is well fitted for the business. Therefore

I gave it him.

ILLO.

Therefore is he well fitted for the business!

WALLENST.

I know you love them not—nor sire nor son—

Because that I esteem them, love them—visibly

Esteem them, love them more than you and others.

E'en as they merit. Therefore are they eye-blights,

Thorns in your foot-path. But your jealousies,

In what affect they me or my concerns?

Are they the worse to me because you hate them?

Love or hate one another as you will,

I leave to each man his own moods and likings;

Yet know the worth of each of you to me.

ILLO.

Von Questenberg, while he was here, was always

Lurking about with this Octavio.

WALLENST.

It happen'd with my knowledge and permission.

ILLO.

I know that secret messengers came to him

From Gallas—

WALLENSTEIN.

That's not true.

ILLO.

With thy deep-seeing eyes!

WALLENSTEIN.

My faith for me—my faith, which founds itself

On the profoundest science. If 'tis false,

Then the whole science of the stars is false;

For know, I have a pledge from Fate itself,

That he is the most faithful of my friends.

ILLO.

Hast thou a pledge, that this pledge is not false?

WALLENST.

There exist moments in the life of man,

When he is nearer the great Soul of the world

Than is man's custom, and possesses freely

The power of questioning his destiny:

And such a moment 'twas, when in the night

Before the action in the plains of Lützen,

Leaning against a tree, thoughts crowding thoughts,

I look'd out far upon the ominous plain.

My whole life, past and future, in this moment

Before my mind's eye glided in procession,

And to the destiny of the next morning

The spirit, fill'd with anxious presentiment,

Did knit the most removed futurity.

Then said I also to myself: "So many

Dost thou command. They follow all thy stars

And as on some great number set their All

Upon thy single head, and only man

The vessel of thy fortune. Yet a day

Will come when Destiny shall once more scatter

All these in many a several direction:

Few be they who will stand out faithful to thee."

I yearn'd to know which one was faithfullest

Of all, this camp included. Great Destiny,

Give me a sign! And he shall be the man,

Who, on the approaching morning, comes the first

To meet me with a token of his love.

And thinking this, I fell into a slumber.

Then midmost in the battle was I led

In spirit. Great the pressure and the tumult!

Then was my horse kil'd under me; I sank;

And over me away, all unconcernedly,

Drove horse and rider—and thus trod to pieces

I lay, and panted like a dying man;

Then seized me suddenly a savior arm;

It was Octavio's—I awoke at once;

'Twas broad day, and Octavio stood before me.

"My brother," said he, "do not ride today

The dapple, as you're wont; but mount the horse

Which I have chosen for thee. Do it, brother!

In love to me. A strong dream warn'd me so."

It was the swiftness of his horse that snatch'd me

From the hot pursuit of Bannier's dragoons.

My cousin rode the dapple on that day,

And never more saw I of horse or rider.

ILLO.

That was a chance.

WALLENSTEIN (significantly).

[And what to us seems merest accident

Springs from the deepest source of destiny.]

In brief, 'tis sign'd and seal'd that this Octavio

Is my good angel—and now no word more.

[He is retiring.]

TERZKY.

This is my comfort—Max remains our hostage.

ILLO.

And he shall never stir from here alive.

WALLENSTEIN (stops and turns himself round).

Are ye not like the women who forever

Only recur to their first word, although

One had been talking reason by the hour!

Know that the human being's thoughts and needs

Are not like ocean billows, blindly moved.

The inner world, his microcosmus, is

The deep shaft out of which they spring eternally.

They grow by certain laws, like the tree's fruit—

No juggling chance can metamorphose them.

Have I the human kernel first examined?

Then I know, too, the future will and action.

[Exeunt.]