No More Learning

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!

KOSINSKY. You are joking.

CHARLES (in a commanding tone). Quick! quick! delay not! leave every
thing behind! and let no eye see you!
(Exit KOSINSKY. )

I fly from these walls. The least delay might drive me raving road; and
he my father's son! Brother! brother! thou hast made me the most
miserable wretch on earth; I never injured thee; this was not brotherly.
Reap the fruits of thy crime in quiet, my presence shall no longer
embitter thy enjoyment--but, surely, this was not acting like a brother.
May oblivion shroud thy misdeed forever, and death not bring it back to
light.

Enter KOSINSKY.

KOSINSKY. The horses are ready saddled, you can mount as soon as you
please.

CHARLES. Why in such haste? Why so urgent? Shall I see her no more?

KOSINSKY. I will take off the bridles again, if you wish it; you bade
me hasten head over heels.

CHARLES. One more farewell! one more! I must drain this poisoned cup
of happiness to the dregs, and then--Stay, Kosinsky! Ten minutes more--
behind, in the castle yard--and we gallop off.




Scene IV. --In the Garden.

AMELIA. "You are in tears, Amelia! " These were his very words--and
spoken with such expressionsuch a voice! --oh, it summoned up a thousand
dear remembrances! --scenes of past delight, as in my youthful days of
happiness, my golden spring-tide of love. The nightingale sung with the
same sweetness, the flowers breathed the same delicious fragrance, as
when I used to hang enraptured on his neck. *

*[Here, in the acting edition, is added, 'Assuredly, if the spirits
of the departed wander among the living, then must this stranger be
Charles's angel! ']

Ha! false, perfidious heart! And dost thou seek thus artfully to veil
thy perjury? No, no! begone forever from my soul, thou sinful image!
I have not broken my oath, thou only one! Avaunt, from my soul, ye
treacherous impious wishes! In the heart where Charles reigns no son
of earth may dwell. But why, my soul, dost thou thus constantly, thus
obstinately turn towards this stranger? Does he not cling to my heart
in the very image of my only one! Is he not his inseparable companion
in my thoughts? "You are in tears, Amelia? " Ha! let me fly from him! --
--fly! --never more shall my eyes behold this stranger!
[CHARLES opens the garden gate. ]

AMELIA (starting). Hark! hark! did I not hear the gate creak? (She
perceives CHARLES and starts up. ) He? --whither? --what? I am rooted to
the spot,--I can not fly! Forsake me not, good Heaven! No! thou shalt
not tear me from my Charles! My soul has no room for two deities, I am
but a mortal maid! (She draws the picture of CHARLES from her bosom. )
Thou, my Charles! be thou my guardian angel against this stranger, this
invader of our loves! At thee will I look, at thee, nor turn away my
eyes--nor cast one sinful look towards him! (She sits silent, her eyes
fixed upon the picture. )

CHARLES. You here, Lady Amelia? --and so sad? and a tear upon that
picture? (AMELIA gives him no answer. ) And who is the happy man for
whom these silver drops fall from an angel's eyes? May I be permitted
to look at--(He endeavors to look at the picture. )

AMELIA. No--yes--no!

CHARLES (starting back). Ha--and does he deserve to be so idolized?
Does he deserve it?

AMELIA. Had you but known him!

CHARLES. I should have envied him.

AMELIA. Adored, you mean.

CHARLES. Ha!

AMELIA. Oh, you would so have loved him? ---there was so much, so much
in his face--in his eyes--in the tone of his voice,--which was so like
yours--that I love so dearly! (CHARLES casts his eyes down to the
ground. ) Here, where you are standing, he has stood a thousand times--
and by his side, one who, by his side, forgot heaven and earth. Here
his eyes feasted on nature's most glorious panorama,--which, as if
conscious of his approving glance, seemed to increase in beauty under
the approbation of her masterpiece. Here he held the audience of the
air captive with his heavenly music. Here, from this bush, he plucked
roses, and plucked those roses for me. Here, here, he lay on my neck;
here he imprinted burning kisses on my lips, and the flowers hung their
heads with pleasure beneath the foot-tread of the lovers. *

*[In the acting edition the scene changes materially at this point,
and the most sentimental part of the whole drama is transformed
into the most voluptuous. The stage direction here is,--(They give
way to their transports without control, and mingle their kisses.
MOOR hangs in ecstacy on her lips, while she sinks half delirious
on the couch. ) O Charles! now avenge thyself; my vow is broken.

MOOR (tearing himself away from her, as if in frenzy). Can this be
hell that still pursues me! (Gazing on her. ) I felt so happy!

AMELIA (perceiving the ring upon her finger, starts up from the
couch). What! Art thou still there--on that guilty hand? Witness
of my perjury. Away with thee! (She pulls the ring from her
finger and gives it to CHARLES. ) Take it--take it, beloved
seducer! and with it what I hold most sacred--take my all--my
Charles! (She falls back upon the couch. )

MOOR (changes color). O thou Most High! was this thy almighty
will? It is the very ring I gave her in pledge of our mutual
faith. Hell be the grave of love! She has returned my ring.

AMELIA (terrified). Heavens! What is the matter? Your eyes roll
wildly, and your lips are pale as death! Ah! woe is me. And are
the pleasures of thy crime so soon forgotten?

MOOR (suppressing his emotion). 'Tis nothing! Nothing! (Raising
his eyes to heaven. ) I am still a man! (He takes of his own ring
and puts it on AMELIA'S finger. ) In return take this! sweet fury of
my heart! And with it what I hold most sacred--take my all--my
Amelia!

AMELIA (starting up). Your Amelia!

MOOR (mournfully). Oh, she was such a lovely maiden, and faithful
as an angel. When we parted we exchanged rings, and vowed eternal
constancy. She heard that I was dead--believed it--yet remained
constant to the dead. She heard again that I was living--yet
became faithless to the living. I flew into her arms--was happy
as--the blest in Paradise. Think what my heart was doomed to feel,
Amelia! She gave me back my ring--she took her own.

AMELIA (her eyes fixed on the earth in amazement). 'Tis strange,
most strange! 'Tis horrible!

MOOR. Ay, strange and horrible! My child, there is much--ay, much
for man to learn ere his poor intellect can fathom the decrees of
Him who smiles at human vows and weeps at human projects. My
Amelia is an unfortunate maiden!

AMELIA. Unfortunate! Because she rejected you?

MOOR. Unfortunate. Because she embraced the man she betrayed.

AMELIA (with melancholy tenderness). Oh, then, she is indeed
unfortunate! From my soul I pity her! She shall be my sister.
But there is another and a better world. "


CHARLES. He is no more?

AMELIA. He sails on troubled seas--Amelia's love sails with him. He
wanders through pathless, sandy deserts--Amelia's love clothes the
burning sand with verdure, and the barren shrubs with flowers.
Southern
suits scorch his bare head, northern snows pinch his feet, tempestuous
hail beats down on his temples, but Amelia's love lulls him to sleep in
the midst of the storm. Seas, and mountains, and skies, divide the
lovers--but their souls rise above this prison-house of clay, and meet
in the paradise of love. You appear sad, count!

CHARLES. These words of love rekindle my love.

AMELIA (pale). What? You love another? Alas! what have I said?

CHARLES. She believed me dead, and in my supposed death she remained
faithful to me--she heard again that I was alive, and she sacrificed for
me the crown of a saint. She knows that I am wandering in deserts, and
roaming about in misery, yet her love follows me on wings through
deserts and through misery. Her name, too, like yours, is Amelia.

AMELIA. How I envy your Amelia!

CHARLES. Oh, she is an unhappy maid. Her love is fixed upon one who is
lost--and it can never--never be rewarded.

AMELIA. Say not so! It will be rewarded in heaven. Is it not agreed
that there is a better world, where mourners rejoice, and where lovers
meet again?

CHARLES. Yes, a world where the veil is lifted--where the phantom love
will make terrible discoveries--Eternity is its name. My Amelia is an
unhappy maid.

AMELIA. Unhappy, and loves you? *

*[In the acting edition the scene closes with a different
denouement. Amelia here says, "Are all unhappy who live with you,
and bear the name of Amelia.
"CHARLES. Yes, all--when they think they embrace an angel, and
find in their arms--a murderer. Alas, for my Amelia! She is
indeed unfortunate.
"AMELIA (with an expression of deep affliction). Oh, I must weep
for her.
"CHARLES (grasping her hand, and pointing to the ring). Weep for
thyself.
"AMELIA (recognizing the ring). Charles! Charles! O heaven and
earth!
(She sinks fainting; the scene closes. )"]


CHARLES. Unhappy, because she loves me! What if I were a murderer?
How, Lady Amelia, if your lover could reckon you up a murder for every
one of your kisses? Woe to my Amelia! She is an unhappy maid.

AMELIA (gayly rising). Ha! What a happy maid am I! My only one is a
reflection of Deity, and Deity is mercy and compassion! He could not
bear to see a fly suffer. His soul is as far from every thought of
blood as the sun is from the moon. (CHARLES suddenly turns away into a
thicket, and looks wildly out into the landscape. AMELIA sings, playing
the guitar. )

Oh! Hector, wilt thou go forevermore,
Where fierce Achilles, on the blood-stained shore,
Heaps countless victims o'er Patroclus' grave?
Who then thy hapless orphan boy will rear,
Teach him to praise the gods and hurl the spear,
When thou art swallowed up in Xanthus' wave?

CHARLES (silently tunes the guitar, and plays).

Beloved wife! --stern duty calls to arms
Go, fetch my lance! and cease those vain alarms!

[He flings the guitar away, and rushes off. ]




SCENE V. --A neighboring forest. Night. An old ruined
castle in the centre of the scene.

The band of ROBBERS encamped on the ground.

The ROBBERS singing.

To rob, to kill, to wench, to fight,
Our pastime is, and daily sport;
The gibbet claims us morn and night,
So let's be jolly, time is short.

A merry life we lead, and free,
A life of endless fun;
Our couch is 'neath the greenwood tree,
Through wind and storm we gain our fee,
The moon we make our sun.
Old Mercury is our patron true,
And a capital chap for helping us through.

To-day we make the abbot our host,
The farmer rich to-morrow;
And where we shall get our next day's roast,
Gives us nor care nor sorrow.

And, when with Rhenish and rare Moselle
Our throats we have been oiling,
Our courage burns with a fiercer swell,
And we're hand and glove with the Lord of Hell,
Who down in his flames is broiling.

For fathers slain the orphans' cries,
The widowed mothers' moan and wail,
Of brides bereaved the whimpering sighs,
Like music sweet, our ears regale.

Beneath the axe to see them writhe,
Bellow like calves, fall dead like flies;
Such bonny sights, and sounds so blithe,
With rapture fill our eats and eyes.

And when at last our death-knell rings--
The devil take that hour!
Payment in full the hangman brings,
And off the stage we scour.
On the road a glass of good liquor or so,
Then hip! hip! hip! and away we go!


SCHWEITZER. The night is far advanced, and the captain has not yet
returned.

RAZ. And yet he promised to be back before the clock struck eight.

SCHWEITZER. Should any harm have befallen him, comrades, wouldn't we
kindle fires! ay, and murder sucking babes?

SPIEGEL. (takes RAZMANN aside). A word in your ear, Razmann!

SCHWARZ (to GRIMM). Should we not send out scouts?

GRIMM. Let him alone. He no doubt has some feat in hand that will put
us to shame.

SCHWEITZER. Then you are out, by old Harry! He did not part from us
like one that had any masterpiece of roguery in view. Have you
forgotten what he said as he marched us across the heath? "The fellow
that takes so much as a turnip out of a field, if I know it, leaves his
head behind him, as true as my name is Moor. " We dare not plunder.

RAZ. (aside to SPIEGELBERG). What are you driving at? Speak plainer.

SPIEGEL. Hush! hush! I know not what sort of a notion you and I have of
liberty, that we should toil under the yoke like bullocks, while we are
making such wonderful fine speeches about independence. I like it not.

SCHWEITZER (to GRIMM). What crotchet has that swaggering booby got in
his numskull, I wonder?

RAZ. (aside to SPIEGELBERG). Is it the captain you mean? --

SPIEGEL. Hush! I tell you; hush! He has got his eavesdroppers all
around us. Captain, did you say? Who made him captain over us? Has he
not, in fact, usurped that title, which by right belongs to me? What?
Is it for this that we stake our lives--that we endure all the splenetic
caprices of fortunes--that we may in the end congratulate ourselves upon
being the serfs of a slave? Serfs! When we might be princes? By
heaven! Razmann, I could never brook it.

SCHWEITZER (overhearing him--to the others). Yes--there's a hero for
you! He is just the man to do mighty execution upon frogs with stones.
The very breath of his nostrils, when he sneezes, would blow you through
the eye of a needle.

SPIEGEL. (to RAZMANN). Yes--and for years I have been intent upon it.
There must be an alteration, Razmann. If you are the man I always took
you for--Razmann! He is missing--he is almost given up--Razmann--
methinks his hour is come. What? does not the color so much as mount to
your cheek when you hear the chimes of liberty ringing in your ears?
Have you not courage enough to take the hint?

RAZ. Ha! Satan! What bait art thou spreading for my soul?

SPIEGEL. Does it take? Good! then follow me! I have marked in what
direction he slunk off. Come along! a brace of pistols seldom fail;
and then--we shall be the first to strangle sucking babes. (He
endeavors to draw him of. )

SCHWEITZER (enraged, draws his sword). Ha! caitiff! I have overheard
you! You remind me, at the right moment, of the Bohemian forest! Were
not you the coward that began to quail when the cry arose, "the enemy is
coming! " I then swore by my soul--(They fight, SPIEGELBERG is killed. )
To the devil with thee, assassin!

ROBBERS (in agitation). Murder! murder! --Schweitzer! --Spiegelberg! --
Part them!

SCHWEITZER (throwing the sword on the body). There let him rot! Be
still, my comrades! Don't let such a trifle disturb you. The brute has
always been inveterate against the captain and has not a single scar on
his whole body. Once more, be still. Ha, the scoundrel! He would stab
a man behind his back--skulk and murder! Is it for this that the hot
sweat has poured down us in streams? that we may sneak out of the world
at last like contemptible wretches? The brute! Is it for this that we
have lived in fire and brimstone? To perish at last like rats?

GRIMM. But what the devil, comrade, were you after? What were you
quarreling about? The captain will be furious.

SCHWEITZER. Be that on my head. And you, wretch (to RAZMANN) you were
his accomplice, you! Get out of my sight! Schufterle was another of
your kidney, but he has met his deserts in Switzerland--has been hanged,
as the captain prophesied. (A shot is heard. )

SCHWARZ (jumping up). Hark! a pistol shot! (Another shot is heard. )
Another! Hallo! the captain!