The Piccolomini

Автор

Фридрих Шиллер

Год написания книги

2017

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[They hurry off: SENI follows slowly. A page brings the staff of command on a red cushion, and places it on the table, near the duke's chair. They are announced from without, and the wings of the door fly open.

SCENE II

WALLENSTEIN, DUCHESS.

WALLENSTEIN

You went, then, through Vienna, were presented
To the Queen of Hungary?

DUCHESS

Yes; and to the empress, too,
And by both majesties were we admitted
To kiss the hand.

WALLENSTEIN

And how was it received,
That I had sent for wife and daughter hither
To the camp, in winter-time?

DUCHESS

I did even that
Which you commissioned me to do. I told them
You had determined on our daughter's marriage,
And wished, ere yet you went into the field,
To show the elected husband his betrothed.

WALLENSTEIN

And did they guess the choice which I had made?

DUCHESS

They only hoped and wished it may have fallen
Upon no foreign nor yet Lutheran noble.

WALLENSTEIN

And you – what do you wish, Elizabeth?

DUCHESS

Your will, you know, was always mine.

WALLENSTEIN (after a pause)

Well, then, —
And in all else, of what kind and complexion
Was your reception at the court?

[The DUCHESS casts her eyes on the ground, and remains silent.

Hide nothing from me. How were you received?

DUCHESS

O! my dear lord, all is not what it was.
A canker-worm, my lord, a canker-worm
Has stolen into the bud.

WALLENSTEIN

Ay! is it so?
What, they were lax? they failed of the old respect?

DUCHESS

Not of respect. No honors were omitted,
No outward courtesy; but in the place
Of condescending, confidential kindness,
Familiar and endearing, there were given me
Only these honors and that solemn courtesy.
Ah! and the tenderness which was put on,
It was the guise of pity, not of favor.
No! Albrecht's wife, Duke Albrecht's princely wife,
Count Harrach's noble daughter, should not so —
Not wholly so should she have been received.

WALLENSTEIN

Yes, yes; they have taken offence. My latest conduct
They railed at it, no doubt.

DUCHESS

O that they had!
I have been long accustomed to defend you,
To heal and pacify distempered spirits.
No; no one railed at you. They wrapped them up,
O Heaven! in such oppressive, solemn silence!
Here is no every-day misunderstanding,
No transient pique, no cloud that passes over;
Something most luckless, most unhealable,
Has taken place. The Queen of Hungary
Used formerly to call me her dear aunt,