Читать книгу The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 03 - Коллектив авторов, Ю. Д. Земенков, Koostaja: Ajakiri New Scientist - Страница 61

Yes, my poor child!

Thou too hast lost a most affectionate godmother

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 pass'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.

THEKLA.

O let us supplicate him, dearest mother!

Quick! quick! here's no abiding place for us.

Here every coming hour broods into life

Some new affrightful monster.

DUCHESS.

An easier, calmer lot, my child! We too,

I and thy father, witnessed happy days.

Still think I with delight of those first years,

When he was making progress with glad effort,

When his ambition was a genial fire,

Not that consuming flame which now it is.

The Emperor loved him, trusted him: and all

He undertook could not but be successful.

But since that ill-starr'd day at Regensburg,

Which plunged him headlong from his dignity,

A gloomy uncompanionable spirit,

Unsteady and suspicious, has possess'd him.

His quiet mind forsook him, and no longer

Did he yield up himself in joy and faith

To his old luck and individual power;

But thenceforth turn'd his heart and best affections

All to those cloudy sciences, which never

Have yet made happy him who follow'd them.

COUNTESS.

You see it, sister, as your eyes permit you,

But surely this is not the conversation

To pass the time in which we are waiting for him.

You know he will be soon here. Would you have him

Find her in this condition?

DUCHESS.

Come wipe away thy tears, and show thy father

A cheerful countenance. See, the tie-knot here

Is off—this hair must not hang so dishevell'd.

Come, dearest! dry thy tears up. They deform

Thy gentle eye.—Well now—what was I saying?

Yes, in good truth, this Piccolomini

Is a most noble and deserving gentleman.

COUNTESS.

That is he, sister!

THEKLA (to the COUNTESS, with marks of great oppression of spirits).

Aunt, you will excuse me?

[Is going.]

COUNTESS.

But whither? See, your father comes.

THEKLA.

I cannot see him now.

COUNTESS.

Nay, but bethink you.

THEKLA.

Believe me, I cannot sustain his presence.

COUNTESS.

But he will miss you, will ask after you.

DUCHESS.

What now? Why is she going?

COUNTESS.

She's not well.

DUCHESS (anxiously).

What ails then my beloved child?

[Both follow the PRINCESS, and endeavor to detain her. During this WALLENSTEIN appears, engaged in conversation with ILLO.]

SCENE IV

WALLENSTEIN, ILLO, COUNTESS, DUCHESS, THEKLA