WALLENSTEIN, ILLO, COUNTESS,
DUCHESS, THEKLA.

Wallenstein. All quiet in the camp?
Illo.
It is all quiet.
Wallenstein. In a few hours may
couriers come from Prague
With tidings, that this capital is ours.
Then we may drop the mask, and to the

troops

The first pledge of my fortune.

30

Illo.
And doubt not
That his example will win over to you
The best men in the army.

Wallenstein.
Go and send
Isolani hither. Send him immediately.

Assembled in this town make known the He is under recent obligations to me.

With him will I commence the trial. Go.
[ILLO exit.
Wallenstein (turns himself round to
the females). Lo, there the mother
with the darling daughter!

For once we'll have an interval of rest-
Come! my heart yearns to live a cloud-

less hour

Than that the Pilsen army has gone In the beloved circle of my family.

through

ΙΟ

The forms of homage to us; and in Pilsen
They shall swear fealty to us, because
The example has been given them by
Prague.

Butler, you tell me, has declared himself.

Illo. At his own bidding, unsolicited, He came to offer you himself and regiment.

Wallenstein. I find we must not give implicit credence

To every warning voice that makes itself

40

What shall thy father have expressed The young man has no grovelling spirit.

Couple together in good peasant fashion The pair, that chance to suit each other's liking

And I must do it now, even now, when I Am stretching out the wreath that is to twine

My full accomplished work--no ! she is the jewel,

Which I have treasured long, my last, my noblest,

And 'tis my purpose not to let her from

me

For less than a king's sceptre.

O my husband!

Duchess.
You're ever building, building to the

clouds,

III

130

are mine no longer. Duchess (casting a look of terror on the Duke and the Countess). Is it

then true? It is. You are degraded ?

Deposed from the command? O God in heaven!

Countess (aside to the Duke). Leave her in this belief. Thou seest she cannot

Still building higher, and still higher Support the real truth.

What?

Wallenstein.

Tertsky. We are betrayed.
Wallenstein.
Tertsky.

'Twas Tiefenbach.

Wallenstein. Let Tiefenbach leave guard without delay,

They are off! This night And Tertsky's grenadiers relieve him.

The Jägers likewise-all the villages
In the whole round are empty.

That Esterhatzy, Goetz, Maradas, Kau-
nitz,

Kolatto, Palfi, have forsaken thee.
Tertsky. Damnation !

Wallenstein (winks at them). Hush!
Countess (who has been watching them
anxiously from the distance and
now advances to them). Tertsky!
Heaven! What is it? What has
happened?
Wallenstein (scarcely suppressing his
emotions). Nothing! let us be
gone!
Tertsky (following him). Theresa, it
is nothing.

Countess (holding him back). Nothing?
Do I not see, that all the life-
blood

Has left your cheeks--look you not like a ghost?

That even my brother but affects a calmness?

ΙΟ

Page (enters). An Aid-du-Camp en-
quires for the Count Tertsky.
[TERTSKY follows the Page.
Wallenstein. Go, hear his business.
[To ILLO.

This could not have happened
So unsuspected without mutiny.
Who was on guard at the gates?

[ILLO is going. Stop!

And no one knows the cause. Mys- He made the bond, and broke it not with