DANIEL (after some reflection). I"ll do it; I will do it to-morrow.
[Exit.]
FRANCIS. The temptation is strong, and I should think he was not born to die a martyr to his faith. Have with you, sir count! According to all ordinary calculations, you will sup to-morrow with old Beelzebub.
In these matters all depends upon one"s view of a thing; and he is a fool who takes any view that is contrary to his own interest. A father quaffs perhaps a bottle of wine more than ordinary--he is in a certain mood--the result is a human being, the last thing that was thought of in the affair. Well, I, too, am in a certain mood,--and the result is that a human being perishes; and surely there is more of reason and purpose in this than there was in his production. If the birth of a man is the result of an animal paroxysm, who should take it into his head to attach any importance to the negation of his birth? A curse upon the folly of our nurses and teachers, who fill our imaginations with frightful tales, and impress fearful images of punishment upon the plastic brain of childhood, so that involuntary shudders shake the limbs of the man with icy fear, arrest his boldest resolutions, and chain his awakening reason in the fetters of superst.i.tious darkness. Murder! What a h.e.l.l full of furies hovers around that word. Yet "tis no more than if nature forgets to bring forth one man more or the doctor makes a mistake--and thus the whole phantasmagoria vanishes. It was something, and it is nothing.
Does not this amount to exactly the same thing as though it had been nothing, and came to nothing; and about nothing it is hardly worth while to waste a word. Man is made of filth, and for a time wades in filth, and produces filth, and sinks back into filth, till at last he fouls the boots of his own posterity.*
*["To what base uses we may return, Horatio! why, may not imagination trace the n.o.ble dust of Alexander, till we find it stopping a bunghole?"--HAMLET, Act v, Sc. 1.]
That is the burden of the song--the filthy cycle of human fate; and with that--a pleasant journey to you, sir brother! Conscience, that splenetic, gouty moralist, may drive shrivelled old drones out of brothels, and torture usurers on their deathbeds--with me it shall never more have audience.
[Exit.]
SCENE III.--Another Room in the Castle.
CHARLES VON MOOR enters from one side, DANIEL from the other.
CHARLES (hastily). Where is Lady Amelia?
DANIEL. Honored sir! permit an old man to ask you a favor.
CHARLES. It is granted. What is it you ask?
DANIEL. Not much, and yet all--but little, and yet a great deal.
Suffer me to kiss your hand!
CHARLES. That I cannot permit, good old man (embraces him), from one whom I should like to call my father.
DANIEL. Your hand, your hand! I beseech you.
CHARLES. That must not be.
DANIEL. It must! (He takes hold of it, surveys it quickly, and falls down before him.) Dear, dearest Charles!
CHARLES (startled; he composes himself, and says in a distant tone).
What mean you, my friend? I don"t understand you.
DANIEL. Yes, you may deny it, you may dissemble as much as you please?
"Tis very well! very well. For all that you are my dearest, my excellent young master. Good Heaven! that I, poor old man, should live to have the joy--what a stupid blockhead was I that I did not at a glance--oh, gracious powers! And you are really come back, and the dear old master is underground, and here you are again! What a purblind dolt I was, to be sure! (striking his forehead) that I did not on the instant--Oh, dear me!---who could have dreamt it--What I have so often prayed for with tears--Oh, mercy me! There he stands again, as large as life, in the old room!
CHARLES. What"s all this oration about? Are you in a fit of delirium, and have escaped from your keepers; or are you rehearsing a stage-player"s part with me
DANIEL. Oh, fie! fie! It is not pretty of you to make game of an old servant. That scar! Eh! do you remember it? Good Heaven! what a fright you put me into--I always loved you so dearly; and what misery you might have brought upon me. You were sitting in my lap--do you remember? there in the round chamber. Has all that quite vanished from your memory--and the cuckoo, too, that you were so fond of listening to?
Only think! the cuckoo is broken, broken all to shivers--old Susan smashed it in sweeping the room--yes, indeed, and there you sat in my lap, and cried, "c.o.c.khorse!" and I ran off to fetch your wooden horse-- mercy on me! what business had I, thoughtless old fool, to leave you alone--and how I felt as if I were in a boiling caldron when I heard you screaming in the pa.s.sage; and, when I rushed in, there was your red blood gushing forth, and you lying on the ground. Oh, by the Blessed Virgin! did I not feel as if a bucket of icy cold water was emptied all over me?--but so it happens, unless one keeps all one"s eyes upon children. Good Heaven! if it had gone into your eye! Unfortunately it happened to be the right hand. "As long as I live," said I, "never again shall any child in my charge get hold of a knife or scissors, or any other edge tool." "Twas lucky for me that both my master and mistress were gone on a journey. "Yes, yes! this shall be a warning to me for the rest of my life," said I--Gemini, Gemini! I might have lost my place, I might--G.o.d forgive you, you naughty boy--but, thank Heaven!
it healed fairly, all but that ugly scar.
CHARLES. I do not comprehend one word of all that you are talking about.
DANIEL. Eh? eh? that was the time! was it not? How many a ginger-cake, and biscuit, and macaroon, have I slipped into your bands--I was always so fond of you. And do you recollect what you said to me down in the stable, when I put you upon old master"s hunter, and let you scamper round the great meadow? "Daniel!" said you, "only wait till I am grown a big man, and you shall be my steward, and ride in the coach with me."
"Yes," said I, laughing, "if heaven grants me life and health, and you are not ashamed of the old man," I said, "I shall ask you to let me have the little house down in the village, that has stood empty so long; and then I will lay in a few b.u.t.ts of good wine, and turn publican in my old age." Yes, you may laugh, you may laugh! Eh, young gentleman, have you quite forgotten all that? You do not want to remember the old man, so you carry yourself strange and loftily;--but, you are my jewel of a young master, for all that. You have, it is true, been a little bit wild--don"t be angry!--as young blood is apt to be! All may be well yet in the end.
CHARLES (falls on his neck). Yes! Daniel! I will no longer hide it from you! I am your Charles, your lost Charles! And now tell me, how does my Amelia?
DANIEL (begins to cry). That I, old sinner, should live to have this happiness--and my late blessed master wept so long in vain! Begone, begone, h.o.a.ry old head! Ye weary bones, descend into the grave with joy! My lord and master lives! my own eyes have beheld him!
CHARLES. And he will keep his promise to you. Take that, honest graybeard, for the old hunter (forces a heavy purse upon him). I have not forgotten the old man.
DANIEL. How? What are you doing? Too much! You have made a mistake.
CHARLES. No mistake, Daniel! (DANIEL is about to throw himself on his knees before him.) Rise! Tell me, how does my Amelia?
DANIEL. Heaven reward you! Heaven reward you! O gracious me! Your Amelia will never survive it, she will die for joy?
CHARLES (eagerly). She has not forgotten me then?
DANIEL. Forgotten you? How can you talk thus? Forgotten you, indeed!
You should have been there, you should have seen how she took on, when the news came of your death, which his honor caused to be spread abroad--
CHARLES. What do you say? my brother--
DANIEL. Yes, your brother; his honor, your brother--another day I will tell you more about it, when we have time--and how cleverly she sent him about his business when he came a wooing every blessed day, and offered to make her his countess. Oh, I must go; I must go and tell her; carry her the news (is about to run of).
CHARLES. Stay! stay! she must not know--n.o.body must know, not even my brother!
DANIEL. Your brother? No, on no account; he must not know it!
Certainly not! If he know not already more than he ought to know. Oh, I can tell you, there are wicked men, wicked brothers, wicked masters; but I would not for all my master"s gold be a wicked servant. His honor thought you were dead.
CHARLES. Humph! What are you muttering about?
DANIEL (in a half-suppressed voice). And to be sure when a man rises from the dead thus uninvited--your brother was the sole heir of our late master!
CHARLES. Old man! what is it you are muttering between your teeth, as if some dreadful secret were hovering on your tongue which you fear to utter, and yet ought? Out with it!
DANIEL. But I would rather gnaw my old bones with hunger, and suck my own blood for thirst, than gain a life of luxury by murder.
[Exit hastily.]
CHARLES (starting up, after a terrible pause). Betrayed! Betrayed! It flashes upon my soul like lightning! A, fiendish trick! A murderer and a robber through fiend-like machinations! Calumniated by him! My letters falsified, suppressed! his heart full of love! Oh, what a monstrous fool was I! His fatherly heart full of love! oh, villainy, villainy! It would have cost me but once kneeling at his feet--a tear would have done it--oh blind, blind fool that I was! (running up against the wall). I might have been happy--oh villainy, villainy!
Knavishly, yes, knavishly cheated out of all happiness in this life!
(He runs up and down in a rage.) A murderer, a robber, all through a knavish trick! He was not even angry! Not a thought of cursing ever entered his heart. Oh, miscreant! inconceivable, hypocritical, abominable miscreant!
Enter KOSINSKY.
KOSINSKY. Well, captain, where are you loitering? What is the matter?
You are for staying here some time longer, I perceive?
CHARLES. Up! Saddle the horses! Before sunset we must be over the frontier!