No More Learning

Then onward like a man. (He rings the bell. ) Let him be
gathered to the spirit of his father, and now come on! For the dead I
care not! Daniel! Ho! Daniel! I'd wager a trifle they have already
inveigled him too into the plot against me! He looks so full of
mystery!

Enter DANIEL.

DANIEL. What is your pleasure, my master?

FRANCIS. Nothing. Go, fill this goblet with wine, and quickly! (Exit
DANIEL. ) Wait a little, old man! I shall find you out! I will fix my
eye upon you so keenly that your stricken conscience shall betray itself
through your mask! He shall die! He is but a sorry bungler who leaves
his work half finished, and then looks on idly, trusting to chance for
what may come of it.

Enter DANIEL, with the wine.

Bring it here! Look me steadfastly in the face! How your knees knock
together! How you tremble! Confess, old man! what have you been
doing?

DANIEL. Nothing, my honored master, by heaven and my poor soul!

FRANCIS. Drink this wine! What? you hesitate? Out with it quickly!
What have you put into the wine?

DANIEL. Heaven help me! What! I in the wine?

FRANCIS. You have poisoned it! Are you not as white as snow? Confess,
confess! Who gave it you? The count? Is it not so? The count gave it
you?

DANIEL. The count? Jesu Maria! The count has not given me anything.

FRANCIS (grasping him tight). I will throttle you till you are black in
the face, you hoary-headed liar! Nothing? Why, then, are you so often
closeted together? He, and you, and Amelia? And what are you always
whispering about? Out with it! What secrets, eh? What secrets has he
confided to you?

DANIEL. I call the Almighty to witness that he has not confided any
secrets to me.

FRANCIS. Do you mean to deny it? What schemes have you been hatching
to get rid of me? Am I to be smothered in my sleep? or is my throat to
be cut in shaving? or am I to be poisoned in wine or chocolate? Eh?
Out with it, out with it! Or am I to have my quietus administered in my
soup? Out with it! I know it all!

DANIEL. May heaven so help me in the hour of need as I now tell you the
truth, and nothing but the pure, unvarnished truth!

FRANCIS. Well, this time I will forgive you. But the money! he most
certainly put money into your purse? And he pressed your hand more
warmly than is customary? something in the manner of an old
acquaintance?

DANIEL. Never, indeed, Sir.

FRANCIS. He told you, for instance, that he had known you before? that
you ought to know him? that the scales would some day fall from your
eyes? that--what? Do you mean to say that he never spoke thus to you?

DANIEL. Not a word of the kind.

FRANCIS. That certain circumstances restrained him--that one must
sometimes wear a mask in order to get at one's enemies--that he would be
revenged, most terribly revenged?

DANIEL. Not a syllable of all this.

FRANCIS. What? Nothing at all? Recollect yourself. That he knew the
old count well--most intimately--that he loved him--loved him
exceedingly--loved him like a son!

DANIEL. Something of that sort I remember to have heard him say.

FRANCIS (turning pale). Did he say so? did he really? How? let me
hear! He said he was my brother?

DANIEL (astonished). What, my master? He did not say that. But as
Lady Amelia was conducting him through the gallery--I was just dusting
the picture frames--he suddenly stood still before the portrait of my
late master, and seemed thunderstruck. Lady Amelia pointed it out, and
said, "An excellent man! " "Yes, a most excellent man! " he replied,
wiping a tear from his eye.

FRANCIS. Hark, Daniel! You know I have ever been a kind master to you;
I have given you food and raiment, and have spared you labor in
consideration of your advanced age.

DANIEL. For which may heaven reward you! and I, on my part, have
always served you faithfully.

FRANCIS. That is just what I was going to say. You have never in all
your life contradicted me; for you know much too well that you owe me
obedience in all things, whatever I may require of you.

DANIEL. In all things with all my heart, so it be not against God and
my conscience.

FRANCIS. Stuff! nonsense! Are you not ashamed of yourself? An old
man, and believe that Christmas tale! Go, Daniel! that was a stupid
remark. You know that I am your master. It is on me that God and
conscience will be avenged, if, indeed, there be a God and a conscience.

DANIEL (clasping his hands together). Merciful Heaven!

FRANCIS. By your obedience! Do you understand that word? By your
obedience, I command you. With to-morrow's dawn the count must no
longer be found among the living.

DANIEL. Merciful Heaven! and wherefore?

FRANCIS. By your blind obedience! I shall rely upon you implicitly.

DANIEL. On me? May the Blessed Virgin have mercy on me! On me? What
evil, then, have I, an old man, done!

FRANCIS. There is no time now for reflection; your fate is in my hands.
Would you rather pine away the remainder of your days in the deepest of
my dungeons, where hunger shall compel you to gnaw your own bones, and
burning thirst make you suck your own blood? Or would you rather eat
your bread in peace, and have rest in your old age?

DANIEL. What, my lord! Peace and rest in my old age? And I a
murderer?

FRANCIS. Answer my question!

DANIEL. My gray hairs! my gray hairs!

FRANCIS. Yes or no!

DANIEL. No! God have mercy upon me!

FRANCIS (in the act of going). Very well! you shall have need of it.
(DANIEL detains him and falls on his knees before him. )

DANIEL. Mercy, master! mercy!

FRANCIS. Yes or no!

DANIEL. Most gracious master! I am this day seventy-one years of age!
and have honored my father and my mother, and, to the best of my
knowledge, have never in the whole course of my life defrauded any one
to the value of a farthing,--and I have adhered to my creed truly and
honestly, and have served in your house four-and-forty years, and am now
calmly awaiting a quiet, happy end. Oh, master! master! (violently
clasping his knees) and would you deprive me of my only solace in death,
that the gnawing worm of an evil conscience may cheat me of my last
prayer? that I may go to my long home an abomination in the sight of God
and man? No, no! my dearest, best, most excellent, most gracious
master! you do not ask that of an old man turned threescore and ten!

FRANCIS. Yes or no! What is the use of all this palaver?

DANIEL. I will serve you from this day forward more diligently than
ever; I will wear out my old bones in your service like a common
day-laborer; I will rise earlier and lie down later. Oh, and I will
remember you in my prayers night and morning; and God will not reject
the prayer of an old man.

FRANCIS. Obedience is better than sacrifice.
Did you ever hear of the
hangman standing upon ceremony when he was told to execute a sentence?

DANIEL. That is very true? but to murder an innocent man--one--

FRANCIS. Am I responsible to you? Is the axe to question the hangman
why he strikes this way and not that? But see how forbearing I am. I
offer you a reward for performing what you owe me in virtue of your
allegiance.

DANIEL. But, when I swore allegiance to you, I at least hoped that I
should be allowed to remain a Christian.

FRANCIS. No contradiction! Look you! I give you the whole day to
think about it! Ponder well on it. Happiness or misery. Do you hear--
do you understand? The extreme of happiness or the extreme of misery!
I can do wonders in the way of torture.

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 superstitious darkness. Murder! What a hell 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 noble 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, "Cockhorse! " 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 passage; 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--God 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 butts 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, hoary 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--nobody 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!