Love and Intrigue - Friedrich Schiller (best novels in english .TXT) 📗

while thy guilty eyes are in search only of their mortal idol! And when thou shalt see this perishable god of thine own creation, a worm like thee, writhing at the Almighty's feet; when thou shalt hear him in the awful moment give the lie to thy guilty daring, and blast thy delusive hopes of eternal mercy, which the wretch implores in vain for himself; what then! (Louder and more fervently), What, then, unhappy one? (He clasps her still closer to his bosom, and gazes upon her with wild and piercing looks; then suddenly disengages himself.) I can do no more! (Raising his right hand towards heaven.) Immortal Judge, I can do no more to save this soul from ruin! Louisa, do what thou wilt. Offer up a sacrifice at the altar of this idolized youth that shall make thy evil genius howl for transport and thy good angels forsake thee in despair. Go on! Heap sin upon sin, add to them this, the last, the heaviest, and, if the scale be still too light throw in my curse to complete the measure. Here is a knife; pierce thy own heart, and (weeping aloud and rushing away), and with it, thy father's!

LOUISA (following and detaining him). Stay! stay! Oh! father, father! to think that affection should wound more cruelly than a tyrant's rage! What shall I? I cannot! what must I do?

MILLER. If thy lover's kisses burn hotter than thy father's tears then die!

LOUISA (after a violent internal struggle, firmly). Father! Here is my hand! I will God! God! what am I doing! What would I? father, I swear. Woe is me! Criminal that I am where'er I turn! Father, be it so! Ferdinand. God, look down upon the act! Thus I destroy the last memorial of him. (Tearing the letter.)

MILLER (throwing himself in ecstasy upon her neck). There spoke my daughter! Look up, my child! Thou hast lost a lover, but thou hast made a father happy. (Embracing her, and alternately laughing and crying.) My child! my child! I was not worthy to live so blest a moment! God knows how I, poor miserable sinner, became possessed of such an angel! My Louisa! My paradise! Oh! I know but little of love; but that to rend its bonds must be a bitter grief I can well believe!

LOUISA. But let us hasten from this place, my father! Let us fly from the city, where my companions scoff at me, and my good name is lost forever let us away, far away, from a spot where every object tells of my ruined happiness, let us fly if it be possible!

MILLER. Whither thou wilt, my daughter! The bread of the Lord grows everywhere, and He will grant ears to listen to my music. Yes! we will fly and leave all behind. I will set the story of your sorrows to the lute, and sing of the daughter who rent her own heart to preserve her father's. We will beg with the ballad from door to door, and sweet will be the alms bestowed by the hand of weeping sympathy!


SCENE II.

The former; FERDINAND.

LOUISA (who perceives him first, throws herself shrieking into MILLER'S arms). God! There he is! I am lost!

MILLER. Who? Where?

LOUISA (points, with averted face, to the MAJOR, and presses closer to her father). 'Tis he! 'Tis he! himself! Look round, father, look round! he comes to murder me!

MILLER (perceives him and starts back). How, baron? You here?

FERDINAND (approaches slowly, stands opposite to LOUISA, and fixes a stern and piercing look upon her. After a pause, he says). Stricken conscience, I thank thee! Thy confession is dreadful, but swift and true, and spares me the torment of an explanation! Good evening, Miller!

MILLER. For God's sake! baron, what seek you? What brings you hither? What means this surprise?

FERDINAND. I knew a time when the day was divided into seconds, when eagerness for my presence hung upon the weights of the tardy clock, and when every pulse-throb was counted until the moment of my coming. How is it that I now surprise?

MILLER. Oh, leave us, leave us, baron! If but one spark of humanity still linger in your bosom; if you seek not utterly to destroy her whom you profess to love, fly from this house, stay not one moment longer. The blessing of God deserted us when your foot first crossed its threshold. You have brought misery under a roof where all before was joy and happiness. Are you not yet content? Do you seek to deepen the wound which your fatal passion has planted in the heart of my only child?

FERDINAND. Strange father, I have come to bring joyful tidings to your daughter.

MILLER. Perchance fresh hopes, to add to her despair. Away, away, thou messenger of ill! Thy looks belie thy words.

FERDINAND. At length the goal of my hopes appears in view! Lady Milford, the most fearful obstacle to our love, has this moment fled the land. My father sanctions my choice. Fate grows weary of persecuting us, and our propitious stars now blaze in the ascendant I am come to fulfil my plighted troth, and to lead my bride to the altar.

MILLER. Dost thou hear him, my child? Dost thou hear him mock at thy cheated hopes? Oh, truly, baron! It is so worthy of the deceiver to make a jest of his own crime!

FERDINAND. You think I am jesting? By my honor I am not! My protestations are as true as the love of my Louisa, and I will keep them as sacred as she has kept her oaths. Nothing to me is more sacred. Can you still doubt? Still no joyful blush upon the cheek of my fair bride? 'Tis strange! Falsehood must needs be here the current coin, since truth finds so little credit. You mistrust my words, it seems? Then read this written testimony. (He throws LOUISA her letter to the MARSHAL. She opens it, and sinks upon the floor pale as death.)

MILLER (not observing this). What can this mean, baron? I do not understand you.

FERDINAND. (leads him to LOUISA). But your daughter has understood me well.

MILLER (throws himself on his knees beside her). Oh, God! my child!

FERDINAND. Pale as a corpse! 'Tis thus your daughter pleases me the best. Your demure and virtuous daughter was never half so lovely as with that deathlike paleness. The blast of the day of judgment, which strips the varnish from every lie, has wafted the painted colors from her cheek, or the juggler might have cheated even the angels of light. This is her fairest countenance. Now for the first time do I see it in its truth. Let me kiss it. (He approaches her.)

MILLER. Back! Away, boy! Trifle not with a father's feelings. I could not defend her from your caresses, but I can from your insults.

FERDINAND. What wouldst thou, old man? With thee I have naught to do. Engage not in a game so irrevocably lost. Or hast thou, too, been wiser than I thought? Hast thou employed the wisdom of thy sixty years in pandering to thy daughter's amours, and disgraced those hoary locks with the office of a pimp? Oh! if it be not so, wretched old man, then lay thyself down and die. There is still time. Thou mayest breathe by last in the sweet delusion, "I was a happy father!" Wait but a moment longer and thine own hand will dash to her infernal home this poisonous viper; thou wilt curse the gift, and him who gave it, and sink to the grave in blasphemy and despair. (To LOUISA.) Speak, wretched one, speak! Didst thou write this letter?

MILLER (to LOUISA, impressively). For God's sake, daughter, forget not! forget not!

LOUISA. Oh, father that letter!

FERDINAND. Oh! that it should have fallen into the wrong hands. Now blessed be the accident! It has effected more than the most consummate prudence, and will at the day of judgment avail more than the united wisdom of sages. Accident, did I say? Oh! Providence directs, when a sparrow falls, why not when a devil is unmasked? But I will be answered! Didst thou write that letter?

MILLER (to LOUISA, in a tone of entreaty). Be firm, my child, be firm! But a single "Yes," and all will be over.

FERDINAND. Excellent! excellent! The father, too, is deceived! All, all are deceived by her! Look, how the perfidious one stands there; even her tongue refuses participation in her last lie. I adjure thee by that God so terrible and true didst thou write that letter?

LOUISA (after a painful struggle, with firmness and decision). I did!

FERDINAND (stands aghast). No! As my soul liveth, thou hast lied. Even innocence itself, when extended on the rack, confesses crime which it never committed I ask too passionately. Is it not so, Louisa? Thou didst but confess, because I asked passionately?

LOUISA. I confessed the truth!

FERDINAND. No, I tell thee! No! no! Thou didst not write that letter! It is not like thy hand! And, even though it were, why should it be more difficult to counterfeit a writing than to undo a heart? Tell me truly, Louisa! Yet no, no, do not! Thou mightest say yes again, and then I were lost forever. A lie, Louisa! A lie! Oh! if thou didst but know one now if thou wouldst utter it with that open angelic mien if thou wouldst but persuade mine ear and eye, though it should deceive my heart ever so monstrously! Oh, Louisa! Then might truth depart in the same breath depart from our creation, and the sacred cause itself henceforth bow her stiff neck to the courtly arts of deception.

LOUISA. By the Almighty God! by Him who is so terrible and true! I did!

FERDINAND (after a pause, with the expression of the most heartfelt sorrow). Woman! Woman! With what a face thou standest now before me! Offer Paradise with that look, and even in the regions of the damned thou wilt find no purchaser. Didst thou know what thou wert to me, Louisa? Impossible! No! thou knewest not that thou wert my all all! 'Tis a poor insignificant word! but eternity itself can scarcely circumscribe it. Within it systems of worlds can roll their mighty orbs. All! and to sport with it so wickedly. Oh, 'tis horrible.

LOUISA. Baron von Walter, you have heard my confession! I have pronounced my own condemnation! Now go! Fly from a house where you have been so unhappy.

FERDINAND. 'Tis well! 'tis well! You see I am calm; calm, too, they say, is the shuddering land through which the plague has swept. I am calm. Yet ere I go, Louisa, one more request! It shall be my last. My brain burns with fever! I need refreshment! Will you make me some lemonade?

[Exit LOUISA.


SCENE III.

FERDINAND and MILLER.

They both pace up and down without speaking, on opposite sides
of the room, for some minutes.

MILLER (standing still at length, and regarding the MAJOR with a sorrowful air). Dear baron, perhaps it may alleviate your distress to say that I feel for you most deeply.

FERDINAND. Enough of this, Miller. (Silence again for some moments.) Miller, I forget what first brought me to your house. What was the occasion of it?

MILLER. How, baron? Don't you remember?