_To them enter the DUCHESS_
DUCHESS (_to the COUNTESS_).
Who was here, sister? I heard someone talking,
And passionately too.
COUNTESS.
Nay! there was no one.
DUCHESS.
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.
DUCHESS.
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_.]
DUCHESS.
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.
Thou wilt share
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, my child!
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.]