No More Learning

SCENE VI.

LOUISA with a glass of lemonade; the former.

LOUISA (her eyes swelled with weeping, and trembling voice, while she
presents the glass to FERDINAND). Tell me, if it be not to your taste.

FERDINAND (takes the glass, places it on the table, and turns to MILLER).
Oh! I had almost forgotten! Good Miller, I have a request to make. Will
you do me a little favor?

MILLER. A thousand with pleasure! What are your commands?

FERDINAND. My father will expect me at table. Unfortunately I am in
very ill humor. 'Twould be insupportable to me just now to mix in
society. Will you go to my father and excuse my absence?

LOUISA (terrified, interrupts him hastily). Oh, let me go!

MILLER. Am I to see the president himself?

FERDINAND. Not himself. Give your message to one of the servants in the
ante-chamber. Here is my watch as a credential that I sent you. I shall
be here when you return. You will wait for an answer.

LOUISA (very anxiously). Cannot I be the bearer of your message?

FERDINAND (to MILLER, who is going). Stay--one thing more! Here is a
letter to my father, which I received this evening enclosed in one to
myself. Perhaps on business of importance. You may as well deliver it
at the same time.

MILLER (going). Very well, baron!

LOUISA (stopping him, and speaking in a tone of the most exquisite
terror). But, dear father, I could do all this very well! Pray let
me go!

MILLER. It is night, my child! and you must not venture out alone!

[Exit.

FERDINAND. Light your father down, Louisa. (LOUISA takes a candle and
follows MILLER. FERDINAND in the meantime approaches the table and
throws poison into the lemonade). Yes! she must die! The higher powers
look down, and nod their terrible assent. The vengeance of heaven
subscribes to my decree. Her good angels forsake her, and leave her to
her fate!



SCENE VII.

FERDINAND and LOUISA.

LOUISA re-enters slowly with the light, places it on the table,
and stops on the opposite side of the room, her eyes fixed on
the ground, except when she raises them to him with timid, stolen
glances. He stands opposite, looking steadfastly on the earth--a
long and deep silence.

LOUISA. If you will accompany me, Baron von Walter, I will try a piece
on the harpsichord! (She opens the instrument. FERDINAND makes no
answer. A pause. )

LOUISA. You owe me a revenge at chess. Will you play a game with me,
Baron von Walter? (Another pause. )

LOUISA. I have begun the pocketbook, baron, which I promised to
embroider for you. Will you look at the design? (Still a pause. )

LOUISA. Oh! I am very wretched!

FERDINAND (without changing his attitude). That may well be!

LOUISA. It is not my fault, Baron von Walter, that you are so badly
entertained!

FERDINAND (with an insulting laugh). You are not to blame for my bashful
modesty----

LOUISA. I am quite aware that we are no longer fit companions. I
confess that I was terrified when you sent away my father. I believe,
Baron von Walter, that this moment is equally insupportable to us both.
Permit me to ask some of my acquaintances to join us.

FERDINAND. Yes, pray do so! And I too will go and invite some of mine.

LOUISA (looking at him with surprise). Baron von Walter!

FERDINAND (very spitefully). By my honor, the most fortunate idea that
in our situation could ever enter mortal brain? Let us change this
wearisome duet into sport and merriment, and by the aid of certain
gallantries, revenge ourselves on the caprices of love.

LOUISA. You are merry, Baron von Walter!

FERDINAND. Oh! wonderfully so! The very street-boys would hunt me
through the market-place for a merry-andrew! In fact, Louisa, your
example has inspired me--you shall be my teacher. They are fools who
prate of endless affection--never-ending sameness grows flat and insipid
--variety alone gives zest to pleasure. Have with you, Louisa, we are
now of one mind. We will skip from amour to amour, whirl from vice to
vice; you in one direction, I in another. Perhaps I may recover my lost
tranquillity in some brothel. Perhaps, when our merry race is run, and
we become two mouldering skeletons, chance again may bring us together
with the most pleasing surprise, and we may, as in a melodrama, recognize
each other by a common feature of disease--that mother whom her children
can never disavow. Then, perhaps, disgust and shame may create that
union between us which could not be effected by the most tender love.

LOUISA. Oh, Walter! Walter! Thou art already unhappy--wilt thou
deserve to be so?

FERDINAND (muttering passionately through his teeth). Unhappy? Who told
thee so? Woman, thou art too vile to have any feelings of thine own;
how, then, canst thou judge of the feelings of others? Unhappy, did she
say? --ha! that word would call my anger from the grave! She knew that I
must become unhappy. Death and damnation! she knew it, and yet betrayed
me! Look to it, serpent! That was thy only chance of forgiveness. This
confession has condemned thee. Till now I thought to palliate thy crime
with thy simplicity, and in my contempt thou hadst well nigh escaped my
vengeance (seizing the glass hastily). Thou wert not thoughtless, then--
thou wert not simple--thou wert nor more nor less than a devil! (He
drinks. ) The drink is bad, like thy soul! Taste it!

LOUISA. Oh, heavens! 'Twas not without reason that I dreaded this
meeting.

FERDINAND (imperiously). Drink! I say.

[LOUISA, offended, takes the glass and drinks. The moment she
raises the cup to her lips, FERDINAND turns away with a sudden
paleness, and recedes to the further corner of the chamber. ]

LOUISA. The lemonade is good.

FERDINAND (his face averted and shuddering. ) Much good may it do thee!

LOUISA (sets down the glass). Oh! could you but know, Walter, how
cruelly you wrong me!

FERDINAND. Indeed!

LOUISA. A time will come, Walter----

FERDINAND (advancing). Oh! we have done with time.

LOUISA. When the remembrance of this evening will lie heavy on your
heart!

FERDINAND (begins to walk to and fro more vehemently, and to become more
agitated; he throws away his sash and sword. ) Farewell the prince's
service!

LOUISA. My God! what mean you!

FERDINAND. I am hot, and oppressed. I would be more at ease.

LOUISA. Drink! drink! it will cool you.

FERDINAND. That it will, most effectually. The strumpet, though, is
kind-hearted! Ay, ay, so are they all!

LOUISA (rushing into his arms with the deepest expression of love). That
to thy Louisa, Ferdinand?

FERDINAND (thrusting her from him). Away! away! Hence with those soft
and melting eyes! they subdue me. Come to me, snake, in all thy
monstrous terrors! Spring upon me, scorpion! Display thy hideous folds,
and rear thy proud coils to heaven! Stand before my eyes, hateful as the
abyss of hell e'er saw thee! but not in that angel form! Take any shape
but that! 'Tis too late. I must crush thee like a viper, or despair!
Mercy on thy soul!

LOUISA. Oh! that it should come to this!

FERDINAND (gazing on her). So fair a work of the heavenly artist! Who
would believe it? Who can believe it? (Taking her hand and elevating
it. ) I will not arraign thy ordinations, oh! incomprehensible Creator!
Yet wherefore didst thou pour thy poison into such beauteous vessels?
Can crime inhabit so fair a region? Oh! 'tis strange! 'tis passing
strange!

LOUISA. To hear this, and yet be compelled to silence!

FERDINAND. And that soft, melodious voice! How can broken chords
discourse such harmony?
(Gazing rapturously upon her figure. ) All so
lovely! so full of symmetry! so divinely perfect! Throughout the whole
such signs that 'twas the favorite work of God! By heaven, as though all
mankind had been created but to practise the Creator, ere he modelled
this his masterpiece! And that the Almighty should have failed in the
soul alone? Is it possible that this monstrous abortion of nature should
have escaped as perfect? (Quitting her hastily. ) Or did God see an
angel's form rising beneath his chisel, and balance the error by giving
her a heart wicked in proportion?

LOUISA. Alas for this criminal wilfulness! Rather than confess his own
rashness, he accuses the wisdom of heaven!

FERDINAND (falls upon her neck, weeping bitterly). Yet once more, my
Louisa! Yet once again, as on the day of our first kiss, when you
faltered forth the name of Ferdinand, and the first endearing "Thou! "
trembled on thy burning lips. Oh! a harvest of endless and unutterable
joys seemed to me at that moment to be budding forth. There lay eternity
like a bright May-day before our eyes; thousands of golden years, fair as
brides, danced around our souls. Then was I so happy! Oh! Louisa!
Louisa! Louisa! Why hast thou used me thus?

LOUISA. Weep, Walter, weep! Your compassion will be more just towards
me than your wrath.

FERDINAND. You deceive yourself. These are not nature's tears! not that
warm delicious dew which flows like balsam on the wounded soul, and
drives the chilled current of feeling swiftly along its course. They are
solitary ice-cold drops! the awful, eternal farewell of my love! (With
fearful solemnity, laying his hand on her head. ) They are tears for thy
soul, Louisa! tears for the Deity, whose inexhaustible beneficence has
here missed its aim, and whose noblest work is cast away thus wantonly.
Oh methinks the whole universe should clothe itself in black, and weep at
the fearful example now passing in its centre. 'Tis but a common sorrow
when mortals fall and Paradise is lost; but, when the plague extends its
ravages to angels, then should there be wailing throughout the whole
creation!

LOUISA. Drive me not to extremities, Walter. I have fortitude equal to
most, but it must not be tried by a more than human test. Walter! one
word, and then--we part forever. A dreadful fatality has deranged the
language of our hearts. Dared I unclose these lips, Walter, I could tell
thee things! I could----But cruel fate has alike fettered my tongue and
my heart, and I must endure in silence, even though you revile me as a
common strumpet.

FERDINAND. Dost thou feel well, Louisa?

LOUISA. Why that question?

FERDINAND. It would grieve me shouldst thou be called hence with a lie
upon thy lips.

LOUISA. I implore you, Walter----

FERDINAND (in violent agitation). No! no! That revenge were too
satanic! No! God forbid! I will not extend my anger beyond the grave!
Louisa, didst thou love the marshal? Thou wilt leave this room no more!

LOUISA (sitting down). Ask what you will. I shall give no answer.

FERDINAND (in a solemn voice). Take heed for thy immortal soul! Louisa!
Didst thou love the marshal? Thou wilt leave this room no more!

LOUISA. I shall give no answer.

FERDINAND (throwing himself on his knees before her in the deepest
emotion). Louisa! Didst thou love the marshal? Before this light burns
out--thou wilt stand--before the throne of God!

LOUISA (starting from her seat in terror). Merciful Jesus! what was
that? And I feel so ill! (She falls back into her chair. )

FERDINAND. Already? Oh, woman, thou eternal paradox! thy delicate
nerves can sport with crimes at which manhood trembles; yet one poor
grain of arsenic destroys them utterly!

LOUISA. Poison! poison! Oh! Almighty God!

FERDINAND. I fear it is so! Thy lemonade was seasoned in hell! Thou
hast pledged death in the draught!

LOUISA. To die! To die! All-merciful God! Poison in my drink! And to
die! Oh! have mercy on my soul, thou Father in heaven!

FERDINAND. Ay, be that thy chief concern: I will join thee in that
prayer.

LOUISA. And my mother! My father, too! Saviour of the world! My poor
forlorn father! Is there then no hope? And I so young, and yet no hope?
And must I die so soon?

FERDINAND. There is no hope! None! --you are already doomed! But be
calm. We shall journey together.

LOUISA. Thou too, Ferdinand? Poison, Ferdinand! From thee! Oh! God
forgive him! God of mercy, lay not this crime on him!

FERDINAND. Look to your own account. I fear it stands but ill.

LOUISA. Ferdinand! Ferdinand! Oh! I can be no longer silent. Death--
death absolves all oaths. Ferdinand! Heaven and earth contain nothing
more unfortunate than thou! I die innocent, Ferdinand!

FERDINAND (terrified). Ah! What do I hear? Would she rush into the
presence of her Maker with a lie on her lips?

LOUISA. I lie not! I do not lie! In my whole life I never lied but
once! Ugh! what an icy shivering creeps through my veins! When I wrote
that letter to the marshal.

FERDINAND. Ha! That letter! Blessed be to God! Now I am myself again!

LOUISA (her voice every moment becomes more indistinct. Her fingers
tremble with a convulsive motion). That letter. Prepare yourself for a
terrible disclosure! My hand wrote what my heart abhorred. It was
dictated by your father! (Ferdinand stands like a statue petrified with
horror. After a long silence, he falls upon the floor as if struck by
lightning. ) Oh! that sorrowful act! ----Ferdinand--I was compelled--
forgive me--thy Louisa would have preferred death--but my father--his
life in danger! They were so crafty in their villany.

FERDINAND (starting furiously from the ground). God be thanked! The
poison spares me yet! (He seizes his sword. )

LOUISA (growing weaker by degrees). Alas! what would you? He is thy
father!

FERDINAND (in the most ungovernable fury). A murderer--the murderer of
his son; he must along with us that the Judge of the world may pour his
wrath on the guilty alone. (Hastening away).

LOUISA. My dying Redeemer pardoned his murderers,--may God pardon thee
and thy father! (She dies. )

FERDINAND (turns quickly round, and perceives her in the convulsions of
death, throws himself distractedly on the body). Stay! stay! Fly not
from me, angel of light! (Takes her hand, but lets it fall again
instantly. ) Cold! cold and damp! her soul has flown! (Starting up
suddenly. ) God of my Louisa! Mercy! Mercy for the most accursed of
murderers! Such was her dying prayer! How fair, how lovely even in
death! The pitying destroyer has touched gently on those heavenly
features. That sweetness was no mask--the hand of death even has not
removed it! (After a pause. ) But how is this? why do I feel nothing.
Will the vigor of my youth save me?