The Robbers Read online

  HERMANN. Here is the sword; and here, too, is a picture which he drew from his breast at the same time. It is the very image of this young lady. "This for my brother Francis," he said; I know not what he meant by it.

  FRANCIS (feigning astonishment). For me? Amelia's picture? For me- Charles-Amelia? For me?

  AMELIA (rushing violently upon HERMANN). Thou venal, bribed impostor! (Lays hold of him.)

  HERMANN. I am no impostor, noble lady. See yourself if it is not your picture. It may be that you yourself gave it to him.

  FRANCIS. By heaven, Amelia! your picture! It is, indeed.

  AMELIA (returns him the picture) My picture, mine! Oh! heavens and earth!

  OLD M. (screaming and tearing his face.) Woe, woe! my curse drove him into death! He fell in despair!

  FRANCIS. And he thought of me in the last and parting hour-of me. Angelic soul! When the black banner of death already waved over him he thought of me!

  OLD M. (stammering like an idiot.) My curse drove him into death. In despair my son perished.

  HERMANN. This is more than I can bear! Farewell, old gentleman! (Aside to FRANCIS.) How could you have the heart to do this?

  [Exit in haste.]

  AMELIA (rises and rushes after him). Stay! stay! What were nis last words?

  HERMANN (calling back). His last sigh was "Amelia."

  [Exit.]

  AMELIA. His last sigh was Amelia! No, thou art no impostor. It is too true-true-he is dead-dead! (staggering to and fro till she sinks down)-dead-Charles is dead!

  FRANCIS. What do I see? What is this line on the sword?-written with blood-Amelia!

  AMELIA. By him?

  FRANCIS. Do I see clearly, or am I dreaming? Behold, in characters of blood, "Francis, forsake not my Amelia." And on the other side, "Amelia, all-powerful death has released thee from thy oath." Now do you see-do you see? With hand stiffening in death he wrote it, with his warm life's blood he wrote it-wrote it on the solemn brink of eternity. His spirit lingered in his flight to unite Francis and Amelia.

  AMELIA. Gracious heaven! it is his own hand. He never loved me.

  [Rushes off]

  FRANCIS (stamping the ground). Confusion! her stubborn heart foils all my cunning!

  OLD MOOR. Woe, woe! forsake me not, my daughter! Francis, Francis! give me back my son!

  FRANCIS. Who was it that cursed him? Who was it that drove his son into battle, and death, and despair? Oh, he was an angel, a jewel of heaven! A curse on his destroyers! A curse, a curse upon yourself!

  OLD MOOR (strikes his breast and forehead with his clenched fist). He was an angel, a jewel of heaven! A curse, a curse, perdition, a curse on myself! I am the father who slew his noble son! He loved me even to death! To expiate my vengeance he rushed into battle and into death! Monster, monster that I am! (He rages against himself.)

  FRANCIS. He is gone. What avail these tardy lamentations? (with a satanic sneer.) It is easier to murder than to restore to life. You will never bring him back from his grave.

  OLD Moon. Never, never, never bring him back from the grave! Gone! lost for ever! And you it was that beguiled my heart to curse him.- you-you-Give me back my son!

  FRANCIS. Rouse not my fury, lest I forsake you even in the hour of death!

  OLD MOOR. Monster! inhuman monster! Restore my son to me. (Starts from the chair and attempts to catch FRANCIS by the throat, who flings him back.)

  FRANCIS. Feeble old dotard I would you dare? Die! despair!

  [Exit.]

  OLD MOOR. May the thunder of a thousand curses light upon thee! thou hast robbed me of my son. (Throwing himself about in his chair full of despair). Alas! alas! to despair and yet not die. They fly, they forsake me in death; my guardian angels fly from me; all the saints withdraw from the hoary murderer. Oh, misery! will no one support this head, no one release this struggling soul? No son, no daughter, no friend, not one human being-will no one? Alone-forsaken. Woe, woe! To despair, yet not to die!

  Enter AMELIA, her eyes red with weeping.

  OLD MOOR. Amelia I messenger of heaven! Art thou come to release my soul?

  AMELIA (in a gentle tone). You have lost a noble son.

  OLD MOOR. Murdered him, you mean. With the weight of this impeachment I shall present myself before the judgment-seat of God.

  AMELIA. Not so, old man! Our heavenly Father has taken him to himself. We should have been too happy in this world. Above, above, beyond the stars, we shall meet again.

  OLD MOOR. Meet again! Meet again! Oh! it will pierce my soul like a Sword-should I, a saint, meet him among the saints. In the midst of heaven the horrors of hell will strike through me! The remembrance of that deed will crush me in the presence of the Eternal: I have murdered my son!

  AMELIA. Oh, his smiles will chase away the bitter remembrance from your soul! Cheer up, dear father! I am quite cheerful. Has he not already sung the name of Amelia to listening angels on seraphic harps, and has not heaven's choir sweetly echoed it? Was not his last sigh, Amelia? And will not Amelia be his first accent of joy?

  OLD MOOR. Heavenly consolation flows from your lips! He will smile upon me, you say? He will forgive me? You must stay with my, beloved of my Charles, when I die.

  AMELIA. To die is to fly to his arms. Oh, how happy and enviable is your lot! Would that my bones were decayed!-that my hairs were gray! Woe upon the vigor of youth! Welcome, decrepid age, nearer to heaven and my Charles!

  Enter FRANCIS.

  OLD MOOR. Come near, my son! Forgive me if I spoke too harshly to you just now! I forgive you all. I wish to yield up my spirit in peace.

  FRANCIS. Have you done weeping for your son? For aught that I see you had but one.

  OLD MOOR. Jacob had twelve sons, but for his Joseph he wept tears of blood.

  FRANCIS. Hum!

  OLD MOOR. Bring the Bible, my daughter, and read to me the story of Jacob and Joseph! It always appeared to me so touching, even before I myself became a Jacob.

  AMELIA. What part shall I read to you? (Takes the Bible and turns over the leaves.)

  OLD MOOR. Read to me the grief of the bereaved father, when he found his Joseph no more among his children;-when he sought him in vain amidst his eleven sons;-and his lamentation when he heard that he was taken from him forever.

  AMELIA (reads). "And they took Joseph's coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood; and they sent the coat of many colors, and they brought it to their father, and said, 'This have we found: know now whether it be thy son's coat or no.' (Exit FRANCIS suddenly.) And he knew it and said, 'It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces'"

  OLD MOOR (falls back upon the pillow). An evil beast hath devoured Joseph!

  AMELIA (continues reading). "And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days. And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted, and he said, 'For I will go down into the grave'"

  OLD MOOR. Leave off! leave off. I feel very ill.

  AMELIA (running towards him, lets fall the book). Heaven help us! What is this?

  OLD MOOR. It is death-darkness-is waving-before my eyes-I pray thee-send for the minister-that he may-give me-the Holy Communion. Where is-my son Francis?

  AMELIA. He is fled. God have mercy upon us!

  OLD MOOR. Fled-fled from his father's deathbed? And is that all-all -of two children full of promise-thou hast given-thou hast-taken away-thy name be-

  AMELIA (with a sudden cry). Dead! both dead!

  [Exit in despair.]

  Enter FRANCIS, dancing with joy.

  FRANCIS. Dead, they cry, dead! Now am I master. Through the whole castle it rings, dead! but stay, perchance he only sleeps? To be sure, yes, to be sure! that certainly is a sleep after which no "good-morrow" is ever said. Sleep and death are but twin-brothers. We will for once change their names! Excellent, welcome sleep! We will call thee death! (He closes the eyes of OLD MOOR.) Who now
will come forward and dare to accuse me at the bar of justice, or tell me to my face, thou art a villain? Away, then, with this troublesome mask of humility and virtue! Now you shall see Francis as he is, and tremble! My father was overgentle in his demands, turned his domain into a family-circle, sat blandly smiling at the gate, and saluted his peasants as brethren and children. My brows shall lower upon you like thunderclouds; my lordly name shall hover over you like a threatening comet over the mountains; my forehead shall be your weather-glass! He would caress and fondle the child that lifted its stubborn head against him. But fondling and caressing is not my mode. I will drive the rowels of the spur into their flesh, and give the scourge a trial. Under my rule it shall be brought to pass that potatoes and small-beer shall be considered a holiday treat; and woe to him who meets my eye with the audacious front of health. Haggard want and crouching fear are my insignia; and in this livery I will clothe ye.

  [Exit.]

  SCENE III.-THE BOHEMIAN WOODS.

  SPIEGELBERG, RAZMAN, A Troop Of ROBBERS.

  RAZ. Are you come? Is it really you? Oh, let me squeeze thee into a jelly, my dear heart's brother! Welcome to the Bohemian forests! Why, you are grown quite stout and jolly! You have brought us recruits in right earnest, a little army of them; you are the very prince of crimps.

  SPIEGEL. Eh, brother? Eli? And proper fellows they are! You must confess the blessing of heaven is visibly upon me; I was a poor, hungry wretch, and had nothing but this staff when I went over the Jordan, and now there are eight-and-seventy of us, mostly ruined shopkeepers, rejected masters of arts, and law-clerks from the Swabian provinces. They are a rare set of fellows, brother, capital fellows, I promise you; they will steal you the very buttons off each other's trousers in perfect security, although in the teeth of a loaded musket,* and they live in clover and enjoy a reputation for forty miles round, which is quite astonishing.

  *[The acting edition reads, "Hang your hat up in the sun, and I'll

  take you a wager it's gone the next minute, as clean out of sight

  as if the devil himself had walked off with it."]

  There is not a newspaper in which you will not find some little feat or other of that cunning fellow, Spiegelberg; I take in the papers for nothing else; they have described me from head to foot; you would think you saw me; they have not forgotten even my coat-buttons. But we lead them gloriously by the nose. The other day I went to the printing- office and pretended that I had seen the famous Spiegelberg, dictated to a penny-a-liner who was sitting there the exact image of a quack doctor in the town; the matter gets wind, the fellow is arrested, put to the rack, and in his anguish and stupidity he confesses the devil take me if he does not-confesses that he is Spiegelberg. Fire and fury! I was on the point of giving myself up to a magistrate rather than have my fair fame marred by such a poltroon; however, within three months he was hanged. I was obliged to stuff a right good pinch of snuff into my nose as some time afterwards I was passing the gibbet and saw the pseudo- Spiegelberg parading there in all his glory; and, while Spiegelberg's representative is dangling by the neck, the real Spiegelberg very quietly slips himself out of the noose, and makes jolly long noses behind the backs of these sagacious wiseacres of the law.

  RAZ. (laughing). You are still the same fellow you always were.

  SPIEGEL. Ay, sure! body and soul. But I must tell you a bit of fun, my boy, which I had the other day in the nunnery of St. Austin. We fell in with the convent just about sunset; and as I had not fired a single cartridge all day,-you know I hate the /diem perdidi/ as I hate death itself,-I was determined to immortalize the night by some glorious exploit, even though it should cost the devil one of his ears! We kept quite quiet till late in the night. At last all is as still as a mouse -the lights are extinguished. We fancy the nuns must be comfortably tucked up. So I take brother Grimm along with me, and order the others to wait at the gate till they hear my whistle-I secure the watchman, take the keys from him, creep into the maid-servants' dormitory, take. away all their clothes, and whisk the bundle out at the window. We go on from cell to cell, take away the clothes of one sister after another, and lastly those of the lady-abbess herself. Then I sound my whistle, and my fellows outside begin to storm and halloo as if doomsday was at hand, and away they rush with the devil's own uproar into the cells of the sisters! Ha, ha, ha! You should have seen the game-how the poor creatures were groping about in the dark for their petticoats, and how they took on when they found they were gone; and we, in the meantime, at 'em like very devils; and now, terrified and amazed, they wriggled under their bedclothes, or cowered together like cats behind the stoves. There was such shrieking and lamentation; and then the old beldame of an abbess-you know, brother, there is nothing in the world I hate so much as a spider and an old woman-so you may just fancy that wrinkled old hag standing naked before me, conjuring me by her maiden modesty forsooth! Well, I was determined to make short work of it; either, said I, out with your plate and your convent jewels and all your shining dollars, or-my fellows knew what I meant. The end of it was I brought away more than a thousand dollars' worth out of the convent, to say nothing of the fun, which will tell its own story in due time.

  RAZ. (stamping on the ground). Hang it, that I should be absent on such an occasion.

  SPIEGEL. Do you see? Now tell me, is not that life? 'Tis that which keeps one fresh and hale, and braces the body so that it swells hourly like an abbot's paunch; I don't know, but I think I must be endowed with some magnetic property, which attracts all the vagabonds on the face of the earth towards me like steel and iron.

  RAZ. A precious magnet, indeed. But I should like to know, I'll be hanged if I shouldn't, what witchcraft you use?

  SPIEGEL. Witchcraft? No need of witchcraft. All it wants is a head-a certain practical capacity which, of course, is not taken in with every spoonful of barley meal; for you know I have always said that an honest man may be carved out of any willow stump, but to make a rogue you must have brains; besides which it requires a national genius-a certain rascal-climate-so to speak.*

  *[In the first (and suppressed) edition was added, "Go to the

  Grisons, for instance; that is what I call the thief's Athens."

  This obnoxious passage has been carefully expunged from all the

  subsequent editions. It gave mortal offence to the Grison

  magistrates, who made a formal complaint of the insult and caused

  Schiller to be severely rebuked by the Grand Duke. This incident

  forms one of the epochs in our author's history.]

  RAZ. Brother, I have heard Italy celebrated for its artists.

  SPIEGEL. Yes, yes! Give the devil his due. Italy makes a very noble figure; and if Germany goes on as it has begun, and if the Bible gets fairly kicked out, of which there is every prospect, Germany, too, may in time arrive at something respectable; but I should tell you that climate does not, after all, do such a wonderful deal; genius thrives everywhere; and as for the rest, brother, a crab, you know, will never become a pineapple, not even in Paradise. But to pursue our subject, where did I leave off?

  RAZ. You were going to tell me about your stratagems.

  SPIEGEL. Ah, yes! my stratagems. Well, when you get into a town, the first thing is to fish out from the beadles, watchmen, and turnkeys, who are their best customers, and for these, accordingly, you must look out; then ensconce yourself snugly in coffee-houses, brothels, and beer- shops, and observe who cry out most against the cheapness of the times, the reduced five per cents., and the increasing nuisance of police regulations; who rail the loudest against government, or decry physiognomical science, and such like? These are the right sort of fellows, brother. Their honesty is as loose as a hollow tooth; you have only to apply your pincers. Or a shorter and even better plan is to drop a full purse in the public highway, conceal yourself somewhere near, and mark who finds it. Presently after you come running up, search, proclaim your loss aloud, and ask him, as it were casually, "Have you perchance picked up a pur
se, sir?" If he says "Yes," why then the devil fails you. But if he denies it, with a "pardon me, sir, I remember, I am sorry, sir," (he jumps up), then, brother, you've done the trick. Extinguish your lantern, cunning Diogenes, you have found your match.

  RAZ. You are an accomplished practitioner.

  SPIEGEL. My God! As if that had ever been doubted. Well, then, when you have got your man into the net, you must take great care to land him cleverly. You see, my son, the way I have managed is thus: as soon as I was on the scent I stuck to my candidate like a leech; I drank brotherhood with him, and, /nota bene/, you must always pay the score. That costs a pretty penny, it is true, but never mind that. You must go further; introduce him to gaming-houses and brothels; entangle him in broils and rogueries till he becomes bankrupt in health and strength, in purse, conscience, and reputation; for I must tell you, by the way, that you will make nothing of it unless you ruin both body and soul. Believe me, brother, and I have experienced it more than fifty times in my extensive practice, that when the honest man is once ousted from his stronghold, the devil has it all his own way-the transition is then as easy as from a whore to a devotee. But hark! What bang was that?

  RAZ. It was thunder; go on.

  SPIEGEL. Or, there is a yet shorter and still better way. You strip your man of all he has, even to his very shirt, and then he will come to you of his own accord; you won't teach me to suck eggs, brother; ask that copper-faced fellow there. My eyes, how neatly I got him into my meshes. I showed him forty ducats, which I promised to give him if he would bring me an impression in wax of his master's keys. Only think, the stupid brute not only does this, but actually brings me-I'll be hanged if he did not-the keys themselves; and then thinks to get the money. "Sirrah," said I, "are you aware that I am going to carry these keys straight to the lieutenant of police, and to bespeak a place for you on the gibbet?" By the powers! you should have seen how the simpleton opened his eyes, and began to shake from head to foot like a dripping poodle. "For heaven's sake, sir, do but consider. I will- will-" "What will you? Will you at once cut your stick and go to the devil with me?" "Oh, with all my heart, with great pleasure." Ha ! ha! ha! my fine fellow; toasted cheese is the thing to catch mice with; do have a good laugh at him, Razman; ha! ha! ha!