COLONEL KOTTWITZ _and_ COLONEL HENNINGS, COUNT TRUCHSZ, COUNTS
HOHENZOLLERN _and_ SPARREN, COUNT REUSS, CAPTAIN VON DER GOLZ, STRANZ
_and other officers enter. The others as before_.
KOTTWITZ (_bearing the petition_).
Permit me, my exalted sovereign,
Here in the name of all your soldiery
Most humbly to submit this document.
ELECTOR. Kottwitz, before I take it, tell me now
Who was it called you to this city here?
KOTTWITZ (_regarding him_).
With the dragoons?
ELECTOR. Ay, with your regiment!
I nominated Arnstein as your station.
KOTTWITZ. Sir! It was your behest that brought me
hither.
ELECTOR. Eh? Let me see the order!
KOTTWITZ. Here, my liege.
ELECTOR (_reading_).
Signed: "Natalie." And dated: "Fehrbellin,
By order of my liege, my uncle Frederick."
KOTTWITZ. By God, my prince and lord, I will not hope
The order's news to you?
ELECTOR. No--understand--Who
was it who conveyed the order thither?
KOTTWITZ. Count Reuss!
ELECTOR (_after a momentary pause_).
What's more, you're welcome, very welcome!
You have been chosen with your squadrons twelve
To pay Prince Homburg, sentenced by the law,
The final honors of the morrow.
KOTTWITZ (_taken aback_). What, My sovereign?
ELECTOR (_handing back the order_).
The regiment stands yet,
Benighted and befogged, outside the Castle?
KOTTWITZ. Pardon, the night--
ELECTOR. Why don't they go to quarters?
KOTTWITZ. My sovereign, they have gone. As you directed
They have found quarters in the city here.
ELECTOR (_with a turn toward the window_).
What? But a moment since--Well, by the gods!
You've found them stables speedily enough.
So much the better! Welcome, then, once more!
Come, say, what brings you here? What is your news?
KOTTWITZ. Sir, this petition from your loyal men.
ELECTOR. Come.
KOTTWITZ. But the words your lips have spoken strike
All my anticipations down to earth.
ELECTOR. Well, then, a word can lift them up again!
[_He reads_.]
"Petition, begging royal clemency
For our commandant, vitally accused,
The General, Prince Frederick Hessen-Homburg."
[_To the officers._]
A noble name, my lords! And not unworthy
Your coming in such numbers to its aid.
[_He looks into the document again._]
By whom is the petition?
KOTTWITZ. By myself.
ELECTOR. The Prince has been apprized of what it holds?
KOTTWITZ. Not in the very faintest. In our midst
The matter was conceived and given birth.
ELECTOR. Grant me a moment's patience, if you please.
[_He steps to the table and glances over the paper. Long pause._]
Hm! Curious! You ancient war-horse, you,
You plead the Prince's cause? You justify
His charging Wrangel ere I gave command?
KOTTWITZ. My sovereign, yes. That's what old Kottwitz does.
ELECTOR. You did not hold that notion on the field!
KOTTWITZ. I'd weighed the thing but ill, my sovereign.
I should have calmly yielded to the Prince
Who is most wonderfully versed in war.
The Swedes' left wing was wavering; on their right
Came reinforcements; had he been content
To bide your order, they'd have made a stand
With new intrenchments in the gullies there,
And never had you gained your victory.
ELECTOR. That's what it pleases you to presuppose!
I sent out Colonel Hennings, as you know,
To pounce upon and seize the knot of bridges
Held by the Swedes to cover Wrangel's rear.
If you'd not disobeyed my order, look,
Hennings had carried out the stroke as planned--
In two hours' time had set afire the bridges,
Planted his forces firmly on the Rhyn,
And Wrangel had been crushed with stump and stem
In ditches and morasses, utterly.
KOTTWITZ. It is the tyro's business, not yours,
To hunger after fate's supremest crown.
Until this hour you took what gift she gave.
The dragon that made desolate the Mark
Beneath your very nose has been repelled
With gory head! What could one day bring more?
What matters it if, for a fortnight yet,
Spent in the sand, he lies and salves his wounds?
We've learnt the art of conquering him, and now
Are full of zeal to make the most of it.
Give us a chance at Wrangel, like strong men,
Breast against breast once more; we'll make an end
And, down into the Baltic, down he goes!
They did not build Rome in a single day.
ELECTOR. What right have you, you fool, to hope for that,
When every mother's son is privileged
To jerk the battle-chariot's reins I hold?
Think you that fortune will eternally
Award a crown to disobedience?
I do not like a bastard victory,
The gutter-waif of chance; the law, look you,
My crown's progenitor, I will uphold,
For she shall bear a race of victories.
KOTTWITZ. My liege, the law, the highest and the best,
That shall be honored in your leaders' hearts--
Look, that is not the letter of your will!
It is the fatherland, it is the crown,
It is yourself, upon whose head it sits.
I beg you now, what matters it to you
What rule the foe fights by, as long as he
With all his pennons bites the dust once more?
The law that drubs him is the highest law!
Would you transform your fervid soldiery
Into a tool, as lifeless as the blade
That in your golden baldrick hangs inert?
Oh, empty spirit, stranger to the stars,
Who first gave forth such doctrine! Oh, the base,
The purblind statecraft, which because of one
Instance wherein the heart rode on to wrack,
Forgets ten others, in the whirl of life,
Wherein the heart alone has power to save!
Come, in the battle do I spill in dust
My blood for wages, money, say, or fame?
Faith, not a bit! It's all too good for that!
Why! I've my satisfaction and my joy,
Free and apart, in quiet solitude,
Seeing your splendor and your excellence,
The fame and crescence of your mighty name!
That is the wage for which I sold my heart!
Grant that, because of this unplanned success;
You broke the staff across the Prince's head,
And I somewhere twixt hill and dale at dawn
Should, shepherd-wise, steal on a victory
Unplanned as this, with my good squadrons, eh?--
By God, I were a very knave, did I
Not merrily repeat the Prince's act!
And if you spake, the law book in your hand:
"Kottwitz, you've forfeited your head!" I'd say:
I knew it, Sir; there, take it, there it is;
When with an oath I bound me, hide and hair,
Unto your crown, I left not out my head,
And I should give you nought but what was yours!
ELECTOR. You whimsical old gentleman, with you
I get nowhere! You bribe me with your tongue--
Me, with your craftily framed sophistries--
Me--and you know I hold you dear! Wherefore
I call an advocate to bear my side
And end our controversy.
[_He rings a bell. A footman enters._]
Go! I wish
The Prince of Homburg hither brought from prison.
[_Exit footman._]
He will instruct you, be assured of that,
What discipline and what obedience be!
He sent me words, at least, of other pitch
Than this astute idea of liberty
You have rehearsed here like a boy to me.
[_He stands by the table again reading._]
KOTTWITZ (_amazed_).
Fetch whom? Call whom?
HENNINGS. Himself?
TRUCHSZ. Impossible!
[_The officers group themselves, disquieted, and speak with one
another._]
ELECTOR. Who has brought forth this other document?
HOHENZOLL. I, my liege lord!
ELECTOR (_reading_).
"Proof that Elector Frederick
The Prince's act himself--"--Well, now, by heaven,
I call that nerve!
What! You dare say the cause of the misdeed
The Prince committed in the fight, am I!
HOHENZOLL. Yourself, my liege; I say it, Hohenzollern.
ELECTOR. Now then, by God, that beats the fairy-tales!
One man asserts that _he_ is innocent,
The other that the guilty man am _I_!--
How will you demonstrate that thesis now?
HOHENZOLL. My lord, you will recall to mind that night
We found the Prince in slumber deeply sunk
Down in the garden 'neath the plantain trees.
He dreamed, it seemed, of victories on the morrow,
And in his hand he held a laurel-twig,
As if to test his heart's sincerity.
You took the wreath away, and smilingly
Twined round the leaves the necklace that you wore,
And to the lady, to your noble niece,
Both wreath and necklace, intertwining, gave.
At such a wondrous sight, the Prince, aflush,
Leaps to his feet; such precious things held forth
By such a precious hand he needs must clasp.
But you withdraw from him in haste, withdrawing
The Princess as you pass; the door receives you.
Lady and chain and laurel disappear,
And, solitary, holding in his hand
A glove he ravished from he knows not whom--
Lapped in the midnight he remains behind.
ELECTOR. What glove was that?
HOHENZOLLERN. My sovereign, hear me through!
The matter was a jest; and yet, of what
Deep consequence to him I learned erelong.
For when I slip the garden's postern through,
Coming upon him as it were by chance,
And wake him, and he calls his senses home,
The memory flooded him with keen delight.
A sight more touching scarce the mind could paint.
The whole occurrence, to the least detail,
He recapitulated, like a dream;
So vividly, he thought, he ne'er had dreamed,
And in his heart the firm assurance grew
That heaven had granted him a sign; that when
Once more came battle, God would grant him all
His inward eye had seen, the laurel-wreath,
The lady fair, and honor's linked badge.
ELECTOR. Hm! Curious! And then the glove?
HOHENZOLLERN. Indeed!
This fragment of his dream, made manifest,
At once dispels and makes more firm his faith.
At first, with large, round eye he looks at it:
The color's white, in mode and shape it seems
A lady's glove, but, as he spoke with none
By night within the garden whom, by chance,
He might have robbed of it--confused thereto
In his reflections by myself, who calls him
Up to the council in the palace, he
Forgets the thing he cannot comprehend,
And off-hand in his collar thrusts the glove.
ELECTOR. Thereupon?
HOHENZOLLERN. Thereupon with pen and tablet
He seeks the Castle, with devout attention
To take the orders from the Marshal's lips.
The Electress and the Princess, journey-bound,
By chance are likewise in the hall; but who
Shall gauge the uttermost bewilderment
That takes him, when the Princess turns to find
The very glove he thrust into his collar!
The Marshal calls again and yet again
'The Prince of Homburg!' 'Marshal, to command!'
He cries, endeavoring to collect his thoughts;
But he, ringed round by marvels--why, the thunders
Of heaven might have fallen in our midst--
[_He pauses._]
ELECTOR. It was the Princess' glove?
HOHENZOLLERN. It was, indeed!
[_The_ ELECTOR _sinks into a brown study._]
A stone is he; the pencil's in his hand,
And he stands there, and seems a living man;
But consciousness, as by a magic wand,
Is quenched within him; not until the morrow,
As down the lines the loud artillery
Already roars, does he return to life,
Asking me: Say, what was it Dörfling said
Last night in council, that applied to me?
MARSHAL. Truly, my liege, that tale I can indorse.
The Prince, I call to mind, took in no word
Of what I said; distraught I've seen him oft,
But never yet in such degree removed
From blood and bone, never, as on that night.
ELECTOR. Now then, if I make out your reasoning,
You pile your climax on my shoulders thus:
Had I not dangerously made a jest
Of this young dreamer's state, he had remained
Guiltless, in council had not roamed the clouds,
Nor disobedient proved upon the field.
Eh? Eh? Is that the logic?
HOHENZOLLERN. My liege lord,
I trust the filling of the gaps to you.
ELECTOR. Fool that you are, you addlepate! Had you
Not called me to the garden, I had not,
Following a whim of curiosity,
Made harmless fun of this somnambulist.
Wherefore, and quite with equal right, I hold
The cause of his delinquency were you!--
The delphic wisdom of my officers!
HOHENZOLL. Enough, my sovereign! I am assured,
My words fell weightily upon your heart.