WALLENSTEIN
Talk they?
[Strides across the chamber in vehement agitation.
Oh! they force, they thrust me
With violence, against my own will, onward!
DUCHESS (presses near him in entreaty)
Oh! if there yet be time, my husband, if
By giving way and by submission, this
Can be averted – my dear Lord, give way!
Win down your proud heart to it! Tell the heart,
It is your sovereign lord, your emperor,
Before whom you retreat. Oh! no longer
Low trickling malice blacken your good meaning
With abhorred venomous glosses. Stand you up
Shielded and helmed and weaponed with the truth,
And drive before you into uttermost shame
These slanderous liars! Few firm friends have we —
You know it! The swift growth of our good fortune
It hath but set us up a mark for hatred.
What are we, if the sovereign's grace and favor
Stand not before us!
SCENE III
Enter the Countess TERZKY, leading in her hand the Princess THEKLA, richly adorned with brilliants.
COUNTESS, TEKLA, WALLENSTEIN, DUCHESS.
COUNTESS
How sister? What, already upon business?
[Observing the countenance of the DUCHESS.
And business of no pleasing kind I see,
Ere he has gladdened at his child. The first
Moment belongs to joy. Here, Friedland! father!
This is thy daughter.
[THEKLA approaches with a shy and timid air, and bends herself as about to kiss his hand. He receives her in his arms, and remains standing for some time lost in the feeling of her presence.
WALLENSTEIN
Yes! pure and lovely hath hope risen on me,
I take her as the pledge of greater fortune.
DUCHESS
'Twas but a little child when you departed
To raise up that great army for the emperor
And after, at the close of the campaign,
When you returned home out of Pomerania,
Your daughter was already in the convent,
Wherein she has remained till now.
WALLENSTEIN
The while
We in the field here gave our cares and toils
To make her great, and fight her a free way
To the loftiest earthly good; lo! mother Nature
Within the peaceful, silent convent walls,
Has done her part, and out of her free grace
Hath she bestowed on the beloved child
The god-like; and now leads her thus adorned
To meet her splendid fortune, and my hope.
DUCHESS (to THEKLA)
Thou wouldst not now have recognized thy father,
Wouldst thou, my child? She counted scarce eight years
When last she saw your face.
THEKLA
O yes, yes, mother!
At the first glance! My father has not altered.
The form that stands before me falsifies
No feature of the image that hath lived
So long within me!
WALLENSTEIN
The voice of my child!
[Then after a pause.
I was indignant at my destiny,
That it denied me a man-child, to be
Heir of my name and of my prosperous fortune,
And re-illume my soon-extinguished being
In a proud line of princes.
I wronged my destiny. Here upon this head,
So lovely in its maiden bloom, will I
Let fall the garland of a life of war,