University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

A Room in the Castle.
Count Julian and Countess.
Countess.
Your sickly conscience feeds a traitor's life.
Is it not monstrous, we being what we are,
And he what he is, we should live in fear
Of him?

Count.
I pity him more than I fear.

Countess.
Julian, O! be a man. Pity the villain
Who tow'rds you stretches one base hand for gold,
And dare with th' other shake above your brow
The hissing brand of infamy!

Count.
O! Bertha,
What's infamy?

Countess.
My husband! My son's father!
Thyself of unstain'd ancestors the son!

Count.
No tie have I on earth but one,—to thee
And him,—the bond of guilt. Thou art my wife,
But ere thou wert, my father's son and I
Were brothers. Give me back my brother—

Countess.
Julian,
What talkst thou? Thou dost know thy brother died—

Count.
And thereby made me father to his son.
That boy were now a man.—O! I am not
My brother's brother;—nor myself. That deed
Unmade me which unbrother'd me; for since,
I have not hop'd, or lov'd, or had a wish
In common with my fellow-men; but life
Has been to me one dreary memory,
Which as I near my grave doth grow more clear,
As though the past were there to be the present.

Countess.
Thou did'st it not. Thou but consented to—
And—

Count.
What's the hand that strikes? As innocent
As is the steel it holds. O! I could wash
My hands. But thoughts that move th' opposeless will,
Take from its deeds the hues that colour them
Till what is done shall be undone.

Countess.
Brood not
My husband, ever thus upon the past.
Our very lives are built of right and wrong.
'Tis passion makes the motion of the world,
And thus bids darkness alternate with day.
The good thou'st done weighs heavier 'gainst the ill
Than in the account of common men, whose smiles
Reflect the world's esteem.

Count.
Thou art too subtle.
No more.—That letter answer as thou lik'st.
But Bertha,—he must not come hither. Once
Thou know'st he came. He must not come again.

(Exit.)
Countess,
alone.
I am rebuk'd by his dejected state;
And were there for the poison of remorse
No antidote, I should be sick at heart.—
To right me, I but used the power he used
To wrong me. All a woman has to give
I gave,—my love. Boldly I launched my hopes.
O! the remembrance breaks upon my soul
Like the free far off sound of revelry
On the wall'd convict's ear,—He blasted them!
He for whose sake they grew,—who made them bloom,
And nursed them so with art, that nature seem'd
O'erfraught with ripeness:—he for whom I op'd
The treasure of a maid's first wishes, and
In my lone hours thought of with bridal thoughts.—
The breath of love that to my unseal'd breast
Had wasted such rich seed of joy and hope
Grew to a howling tempest. On the wreck
He'd made he smil'd.—Count Hermann, give me back
What thou took'st from me—and thy son shall live.
Death balk'd my vengeance. Both died: but left a son.—
Dare Klebel thus defy me? than am I
Joint victim of a deed whose consequence
Is burden'd with an everlasting fear.
He must be dealt with sternly. Treachery
He knows were self destruction, for the which
He has no stomach; and he shall know too,
That threats may be as dangerous.

(Exit.)