THE ROBBERS.


            By Frederich Schiller




SCHILLER'S PREFACE.

AS PREFIXED TO THE FIRST EDITION OF THE ROBBERS

PUBLISHED IN 1781.

Now first translated into English.

This play is to be regarded merely as a dramatic narrative in which, for
the purpose of tracing out the innermost workings of the soul, advantage
has been taken of the dramatic method, without otherwise conforming to
the stringent rules of theatrical composition, or seeking the dubious
advantage of stage adaptation. It must be admitted as somewhat
inconsistent that three very remarkable people, whose acts are dependent
on perhaps a thousand contingencies, should be completely developed
within three hours, considering that it would scarcely be possible, in
the ordinary course of events, that three such remarkable people should,
even in twenty-four hours, fully reveal their characters to the most
penetrating inquirer. A greater amount of incident is here crowded
together than it was possible for me to confine within the narrow limits
prescribed by Aristotle and Batteux.

It is, however, not so much the bulk of my play as its contents which
banish it from the stage. Its scheme and economy require that several
characters should appear who would offend the finer feelings of virtue
and shock the delicacy of our manners. Every delineator of human
character is placed in the same dilemma if he proposes to give a
faithful picture of the world as it really is, and not an ideal
phantasy, a mere creation of his own. It is the course of mortal things
that the good should be shadowed by the bad, and virtue shine the
brightest when contrasted with vice. Whoever proposes to discourage
vice and to vindicate religion, morality, and social order against their
enemies, must unveil crime in all its deformity, and place it before the
eyes of men in its colossal magnitude; he must diligently explore its
dark mazes, and make himself familiar with sentiments at the wickedness
of which his soul revolts.

Vice is here exposed in its innermost workings. In Francis it resolves
all the confused terrors of conscience into wild abstractions, destroys
virtuous sentiments by dissecting them, and holds up the earnest voice
of religion to mockery and scorn. He who has gone so far (a distinction
by no means enviable) as to quicken his understanding at the expense of
his soul--to him the holiest things are no longer holy; to him God and
man are alike indifferent, and both worlds are as nothing. Of such a
monster I have endeavored to sketch a striking and lifelike portrait,
to hold up to abhorrence all the machinery of his scheme of vice, and to
test its strength by contrasting it with truth. How far my narrative is
successful in accomplishing these objects the reader is left to judge.
My conviction is that I have painted nature to the life.

Next to this man (Francis) stands another who would perhaps puzzle not
a few of my readers. A mind for which the greatest crimes have only
charms through the glory which attaches to them, the energy which their
perpetration requires, and the dangers which attend them. A remarkable
and important personage, abundantly endowed with the power of becoming
either a Brutus or a Catiline, according as that power is directed. An
unhappy conjunction of circumstances determines him to choose the latter
for, his example, and it is only after a fearful straying that he is
recalled to emulate the former. Erroneous notions of activity and
power, an exuberance of strength which bursts through all the barriers
of law, must of necessity conflict with the rules of social life. To
these enthusiast dreams of greatness and efficiency it needed but a
sarcastic bitterness against the unpoetic spirit of the age to complete
the strange Don Quixote whom, in the Robber Moor, we at once detest and
love, admire and pity. It is, I hope, unnecessary to remark that I no
more hold up this picture as a warning exclusively to robbers than the
greatest Spanish satire was levelled exclusively at knight-errants.

It is nowadays so much the fashion to be witty at the expense of
religion that a man will hardly pass for a genius if he does not allow
his impious satire to run a tilt at its most sacred truths. The noble
simplicity of holy writ must needs be abused and turned into ridicule at
the daily assemblies of the so-called wits; for what is there so holy
and serious that will not raise a laugh if a false sense be attached to
it? Let me hope that I shall have rendered no inconsiderable service
to the cause of true religion and morality in holding up these wanton
misbelievers to the detestation of society, under the form of the most
despicable robbers.

But still more. I have made these said immoral characters to stand out
favorably in particular points, and even in some measure to compensate
by qualities of the head for what they are deficient in those of the
heart. Herein I have done no more than literally copy nature. Every
man, even the most depraved, bears in some degree the impress of the
Almighty's image, and perhaps the greatest villain is not farther
removed from the most upright man than the petty offender; for the moral
forces keep even pace with the powers of the mind, and the greater the
capacity bestowed on man, the greater and more enormous becomes his
misapplication of it; the more responsible is he for his errors.

The "Adramelech" of Klopstock (in his Messiah) awakens in us a feeling
in which admiration is blended with detestation. We follow Milton's
Satan with shuddering wonder through the pathless realms of chaos. The
Medea of the old dramatists is, in spite of all her crimes, a great and
wondrous woman, and Shakespeare's Richard III. is sure to excite the
admiration of the reader, much as he would hate the reality. If it is
to be my task to portray men as they are, I must at the same time
include their good qualities, of which even the most vicious are never
totally destitute. If I would warn mankind against the tiger, I must
not omit to describe his glossy, beautifully-marked skin, lest, owing to
this omission, the ferocious animal should not be recognized till too
late. Besides this, a man who is so utterly depraved as to be without a
single redeeming point is no meet subject for art, and would disgust
rather than excite the interest of the reader; who would turn over with
impatience the pages which concern him. A noble soul can no more endure
a succession of moral discords than the musical ear the grating of
knives upon glass.

And for this reason I should have been ill-advised in attempting to
bring my drama on the stage. A certain strength of mind is required
both on the part of the poet and the reader; in the former that he may
not disguise vice, in the latter that he may not suffer brilliant
qualities to beguile him into admiration of what is essentially
detestable. Whether the author has fulfilled his duty he leaves others
to judge, that his readers will perform theirs he by no means feels
assured. The vulgar--among whom I would not be understood to mean
merely the rabble--the vulgar I say (between ourselves) extend their
influence far around, and unfortunately--set the fashion. Too
shortsighted to reach my full meaning, too narrow-minded to comprehend
the largeness of my views, too disingenuous to admit my moral aim--they
will, I fear, almost frustrate my good intentions, and pretend to
discover in my work an apology for the very vice which it has been my
object to condemn, and will perhaps make the poor poet, to whom anything
rather than justice is usually accorded, responsible for his simplicity.

Thus we have a _Da capo_ of the old story of Democritus and the
Abderitans, and our worthy Hippocrates would needs exhaust whole
plantations of hellebore, were it proposed to remedy this mischief by a
healing decoction.

   [This alludes to the fable amusingly recorded by Wieland in his
   Geschichte der Abderiten. The Abderitans, who were a byword among
   the ancients for their extreme simplicity, are said to have sent
   express for Hipocrates to cure their great townsman Democritus,
   whom they believed to be out of his senses, because his sayings
   were beyond their comprehension. Hippocrates, on conversing with
   Democritus, having at once discovered that the cause lay with
   themselves, assembled the senate and principal inhabitants in the
   market-place with the promise of instructing them in the cure of
   Democritus. He then banteringly advised them to import six
   shiploads of hellebore of the very best quality, and on its arrival
   to distribute it among the citizens, at least seven pounds per
   head, but to the senators double that quantity, as they were bound
   to have an extra supply of sense. By the time these worthies
   discovered that they had been laughed at, Hippocrates was out of
   their reach. The story in Wieland is infinitely more amusing than
   this short quotation from memory enables me to show.  H. G. B.]

Let as many friends of truth as you will, instruct their fellow-citizens
in the pulpit and on the stage, the vulgar will never cease to be
vulgar, though the sun and moon may change their course, and "heaven and
earth wax old as a garment." Perhaps, in order to please tender-hearted
people, I might have been less true to nature; but if a certain beetle,
of whom we have all heard, could extract filth even from pearls, if we
have examples that fire has destroyed and water deluged, shall therefore
pearls, fire, and water be condemned. In consequence of the remarkable
catastrophe which ends my play, I may justly claim for it a place among
books of morality, for crime meets at last with the punishment it
deserves; the lost one enters again within the pale of the law, and
virtue is triumphant. Whoever will but be courteous enough towards me
to read my work through with a desire to understand it, from him I may
expect--not that he will admire the poet, but that he will esteem the
honest man.
                     SCHILLER.
EASTER FAIR, 1781.




ADVERTISEMENT TO THE ROBBERS.

AS COMMUNICATED BY SCHILLER TO DALBERG IN 1781, AND SUPPOSED TO HAVE
BEEN USED AS A PROLOGUE.

--This has never before been printed with any of the editions.--

The picture of a great, misguided soul, endowed with every gift of
excellence; yet lost in spite of all its gifts! Unbridled passions and
bad companionship corrupt his heart, urge him on from crime to crime,
until at last he stands at the head of a band of murderers, heaps horror
upon horror, and plunges from precipice to precipice into the lowest
depths of despair. Great and majestic in misfortune, by misfortune
reclaimed, and led back to the paths of virtue. Such a man shall you
pity and hate, abhor yet love, in the Robber Moor. You will likewise
see a juggling, fiendish knave unmasked and blown to atoms in his own
mines; a fond, weak, and over-indulgent father; the sorrows of too
enthusiastic love, and the tortures of ungoverned passion. Here, too,
you will witness, not without a shudder, the interior economy of vice;
and from the stage be taught how all the tinsel of fortune fails to
smother the inward worm; and how terror, anguish, remorse, and despair
tread close on the footsteps of guilt. Let the spectator weep to-day at
our exhibition, and tremble, and learn to bend his passions to the laws
of religion and reason; let the youth behold with alarm the consequences
of unbridled excess; nor let the man depart without imbibing the lesson
that the invisible band of Providence makes even villains the
instruments of its designs and judgments, and can marvellously unravel
the most intricate perplexities of fate.




PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

The eight hundred copies of the first edition of my ROBBERS were
exhausted before all the admirers of the piece were supplied. A second
was therefore undertaken, which has been improved by greater care in
printing, and by the omission of those equivocal sentences which were
offensive to the more fastidious part of the public. Such an
alteration, however, in the construction of the play as should satisfy
all the wishes of my friends and critics has not been my object.

In this second edition the several songs have been arranged for the
pianoforte, which will enhance its value to the musical part of the
public. I am indebted for this to an able composer,* who has performed
his task in so masterly a manner that the hearer is not unlikely to
forget the poet in the melody of the musician.

                        DR. SCHILLER.

STUTTGART, Jan. 5, 1782.

* Alluding to his friend Zumsteeg.--ED.




                THE ROBBERS.

                A TRAGEDY.

     "Quae medicamenta non sanant, ferrum sanat; quae ferrum non
     sanat, ignis sanat."--HIPPOCRATES.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

MAXIMILIAN, COUNT VON MOOR.

CHARLES,|
FRANCIS,| his Sons.
AMELIA VON EDELREICH, his Niece.
SPIEGELBERG,|
SCHWEITZER, |
GRIMM,   |
RAZMANN,  | Libertines, afterwards Banditti
SCHUFTERLE, |
ROLLER,   |
KOSINSKY,  |
SCHWARTZ,  |
HERMANN, the natural son of a Nobleman.
DANIEL, an old Servant of Count von Moor.
PASTOR MOSER.
FATHER DOMINIC, a Monk.
BAND OF ROBBERS, SERVANTS, ETC.


The scene is laid in Germany. Period of action about two years.




               THE ROBBERS

                 ACT I.


             SCENE I.--Franconia.

        Apartment in the Castle of COUNT MOOR.

              FRANCIS, OLD MOOR.


FRANCIS. But are you really well, father? You look so pale.

OLD MOOR. Quite well, my son--what have you to tell me?

FRANCIS. The post is arrived--a letter from our correspondent at
Leipsic.

OLD M. (eagerly). Any tidings of my son Charles?

FRANCIS. Hem! Hem!--Why, yes. But I fear--I know not--whether I dare
--your health.--Are you really quite well, father?

OLD M. As a fish in water.* Does he write of my son? What means this
anxiety about my health? You have asked me that question twice.

   [*This is equivalent to our English saying "As sound as a roach."]

FRANCIS. If you are unwell--or are the least apprehensive of being so--
permit me to defer--I will speak to you at a fitter season.--(Half
aside.) These are no tidings for a feeble frame.

OLD M. Gracious Heavens? what am I doomed to hear?

FRANCIS. First let me retire and shed a tear of compassion for my lost
brother. Would that my lips might be forever sealed--for he is your
son! Would that I could throw an eternal veil over his shame--for he is
my brother! But to obey you is my first, though painful, duty--forgive
me, therefore.

OLD M. Oh, Charles! Charles! Didst thou but know what thorns thou
plantest in thy father's bosom! That one gladdening report of thee would
add ten years to my life! yes, bring back my youth! whilst now, alas,
each fresh intelligence but hurries me a step nearer to the grave!

FRANCIS. Is it so, old man, then farewell! for even this very day we
might all have to tear our hair over your coffin.*

   [* This idiom is very common in Germany, and is used to express
   affliction.]

OLD M. Stay! There remains but one short step more--let him have his
will! (He sits down.) The sins of the father shall be visited unto the
third and fourth generation--let him fulfil the decree.

FRANCIS (takes the letter out of his pocket). You know our
correspondent! See! I would give a finger of my right hand might I
pronounce him a liar--a base and slanderous liar! Compose yourself!
Forgive me if I do not let you read the letter yourself. You cannot,
must not, yet know all.

OLD M. All, all, my son. You will but spare me crutches.*

   [* _Du ersparst mir die Krucke_; meaning that the contents of the
   letter can but shorten his declining years, and so spare him the
   necessity of crutches.]

FRANCIS (reads). "Leipsic, May 1. Were I not bound by an inviolable
promise to conceal nothing from you, not even the smallest particular,
that I am able to collect, respecting your brother's career, never, my
dearest friend, should my guiltless pen become an instrument of torture
to you. I can gather from a hundred of your letters how tidings such as
these must pierce your fraternal heart. It seems to me as though I saw
thee, for the sake of this worthless, this detestable"--(OLD M. covers
his face). Oh! my father, I am only reading you the mildest passages--
"this detestable man, shedding a thousand tears." Alas! mine flowed--ay,
gushed in torrents over these pitying cheeks. "I already picture to
myself your aged pious father, pale as death." Good Heavens! and so you
are, before you have heard anything.

OLD M. Go on! Go on!

FRANCIS. "Pale as death, sinking down on his chair, and cursing the day
when his ear was first greeted with the lisping cry of 'Father!' I have
not yet been able to discover all, and of the little I do know I dare
tell you only a part. Your brother now seems to have filled up the
measure of his infamy. I, at least, can imagine nothing beyond what he
has already accomplished; but possibly his genius may soar above my
conceptions. After having contracted debts to the amount of forty
thousand ducats, "--a good round sum for pocket-money, father" and having
dishonored the daughter of a rich banker, whose affianced lover, a
gallant youth of rank, he mortally wounded in a duel, he yesterday, in
the dead of night, took the desperate resolution of absconding from the
arm of justice, with seven companions whom he had corrupted to his own
vicious courses." Father? for heaven's sake, father! How do you feel?

OLD M. Enough. No more, my son, no more!

FRANCIS. I will spare your feelings. "The injured cry aloud for
satisfaction. Warrants have been issued for his apprehension--a price
is set on his head--the name of Moor"--No, these unhappy lips shall not
be guilty of a father's murder (he tears the letter). Believe it not,
my father, believe not a syllable.

OLD M. (weeps bitterly). My name--my unsullied name!

FRANCIS (throws himself on his neck). Infamous! most infamous Charles!
Oh, had I not my forebodings, when, even as a boy, he would scamper
after the girls, and ramble about over hill and common with ragamuffin
boys and all the vilest rabble; when he shunned the very sight of a
church as a malefactor shuns a gaol, and would throw the pence he had
wrung from your bounty into the hat of the first beggar he met, whilst
we at home were edifying ourselves with devout prayers and pious
homilies? Had I not my misgivings when he gave himself up to reading
the adventures of Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, and other
benighted heathens, in preference to the history of the penitent Tobias?
A hundred times over have I warned you--for my brotherly affection was
ever kept in subjection to filial duty--that this forward youth would
one day bring sorrow and disgrace on us all. Oh that he bore not the
name of Moor! that my heart beat less warmly for him! This sinful
affection, which I can not overcome, will one day rise up against me
before the judgment-seat of heaven.

OLD M. Oh! my prospects! my golden dreams!

FRANCIS. Ay, well I knew it. Exactly what I always feared. That fiery
spirit, you used to say, which is kindling in the boy, and renders him
so susceptible to impressions of the beautiful and grand--the
ingenuousness which reveals his whole soul in his eyes--the tenderness
of feeling which melts him into weeping sympathy at every tale of
sorrow--the manly courage which impels him to the summit of giant oaks,
and urges him over fosse and palisade and foaming torrents--that
youthful thirst of honor--that unconquerable resolution--all those
resplendent virtues which in the father's darling gave such promise--
would ripen into the warm and sincere friend--the excellent citizen--the
hero--the great, the very great man! Now, mark the result, father; the
fiery spirit has developed itself--expanded--and behold its precious
fruits. Observe this ingenuousness--how nicely it has changed into
effrontery;--this tenderness of soul--how it displays itself in
dalliance with coquettes, in susceptibility to the blandishments of a
courtesan! See this fiery genius, how in six short years it hath burnt
out the oil of life, and reduced his body to a living skeleton; so that
passing scoffers point at him with a sneer and exclaim--"_C'est l'amour
qui a fait cela_." Behold this bold, enterprising spirit--how it
conceives and executes plans, compared to which the deeds of a Cartouche
or a Howard sink into insignificance. And presently, when these
precious germs of excellence shall ripen into full maturity, what may
not be expected from the full development of such a boyhood? Perhaps,
father, you may yet live to see him at the head of some gallant band,
which assembles in the silent sanctuary of the forest, and kindly
relieves the weary traveller of his superfluous burden. Perhaps you may
yet have the opportunity, before you go to your own tomb, of making a
pilgrimage to the monument which he may erect for himself, somewhere
between earth and heaven! Perhaps,--oh, father--father, look out for
some other name, or the very peddlers and street boys who have seen the
effigy of your worthy son exhibited in the market-place at Leipsic will
point at you with the finger of scorn!

OLD M. And thou, too, my Francis, thou too? Oh, my children, how
unerringly your shafts are levelled at my heart.

FRANCIS. You see that I too have a spirit; but my spirit bears the
sting of a scorpion. And then it was "the dry commonplace, the cold,
the wooden Francis," and all the pretty little epithets which the
contrast between us suggested to your fatherly affection, when he was
sitting on your knee, or playfully patting your cheeks? "He would die,
forsooth, within the boundaries of his own domain, moulder away, and
soon be forgotten;" while the fame of this universal genius would spread
from pole to pole! Ah! the cold, dull, wooden Francis thanks thee,
heaven, with uplifted hands, that he bears no resemblance to his
brother.

OLD M. Forgive me, my child! Reproach not thy unhappy father, whose
fondest hopes have proved visionary. The merciful God who, through
Charles, has sent these tears, will, through thee, my Francis, wipe them
from my eyes!

FRANCIS. Yes, father, we will wipe them from your eyes. Your Francis
will devote--his life to prolong yours. (Taking his hand with affected
tenderness.) Your life is the oracle which I will especially consult on
every undertaking--the mirror in which I will contemplate everything.
No duty so sacred but I am ready to violate it for the preservation of
your precious days. You believe me?

OLD M. Great are the duties which devolve on thee, my son--Heaven bless
thee for what thou has been, and wilt be to me.

FRANCIS. Now tell me frankly, father. Should you not be a happy man,
were you not obliged to call this son your own?

OLD M. In mercy, spare me! When the nurse first placed him in my arms,
I held him up to Heaven and exclaimed, "Am I not truly blest?"

FRANCIS. So you said then. Now, have you found it so? You may envy
the meanest peasant on your estate in this, that he is not the father of
such a son. So long as you call him yours you are wretched. Your
misery will grow with his years--it will lay you in your grave.

OLD M. Oh! he has already reduced me to the decrepitude of fourscore.

FRANCIS. Well, then--suppose you were to disown this son.

OLD M. (startled). Francis! Francis! what hast thou said!

FRANCIS. Is not your love for him the source of all your grief? Root
out this love, and he concerns you no longer. But for this weak and
reprehensible affection he would be dead to you;--as though he had never
been born. It is not flesh and blood, it is the heart that makes us
sons and fathers! Love him no more, and this monster ceases to be your
son, though he were cut out of your flesh. He has till now been the
apple of your eye; but if thine eye offend you, says Scripture, pluck it
out. It is better to enter heaven with one eye than hell with two! "It
is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not
that thy whole body should be cast into hell." These are the words of
the Bible!

OLD M. Wouldst thou have me curse my son?

FRANCIS. By no means, father. God forbid! But whom do you call your
son? Him to whom you have given life, and who in return does his utmost
to shorten yours.

OLD M. Oh, it is all too true! it is a judgment upon me. The Lord has
chosen him as his instrument.

FRANCIS. See how filially your bosom child behaves. He destroys you by
your own excess of paternal sympathy; murders you by means of the very
love you bear him--has coiled round a father's heart to crush it. When
you are laid beneath the turf he becomes lord of your possessions, and
master of his own will. That barrier removed, and the torrent of his
profligacy will rush on without control. Imagine yourself in his place.
How often he must wish his father under ground--and how often, too, his
brother--who so unmercifully impede the free course of his excesses.
But call you this a requital of love? Is this filial gratitude for a
father's tenderness? to sacrifice ten years of your life to the lewd
pleasures of an hour? in one voluptuous moment to stake the honor of an
ancestry which has stood unspotted through seven centuries? Do you call
this a son? Answer? Do you call this your son?

OLD M. An undutiful son! Alas! but still my child! my child!

FRANCIS. A most amiable and precious child--whose constant study is to
get rid of his father. Oh, that you could learn to see clearly! that
the film might be removed from your eyes! But your indulgence must
confirm him in his vices! your assistance tend to justify them.
Doubtless you will avert the curse of Heaven from his head, but on your
own, father--on yours--will it fall with twofold vengeance.

OLD M. Just! most just! Mine, mine be all the guilt!

FRANCIS. How many thousands who have drained the voluptuous bowl of
pleasure to the dregs have been reclaimed by suffering! And is not the
bodily pain which follows every excess a manifest declaration of the
divine will! And shall man dare to thwart this by an impious exercise
of affection? Shall a father ruin forever the pledge committed to his
charge? Consider, father, if you abandon him for a time to the pressure
of want will not he be obliged to turn from his wickedness and repent?
Otherwise, untaught even in the great school of adversity, he must
remain a confirmed reprobate? And then--woe to the father who by a
culpable tenderness bath frustrated the ordinances of a higher wisdom!
Well, father?

OLD M. I will write to him that I withdraw my protection.

FRANCIS. That would be wise and prudent.

OLD M. That he must never come into my sight again

FRANCIS. 'Twill have a most salutary effect.

OLD M. (tenderly). Until he reforms.

FRANCIS. Right, quite right. But suppose that he comes disguised in
the hypocrite's mask, implores your compassion with tears, and wheedles
from you a pardon, then quits you again on the morrow, and jests at your
weakness in the arms of his harlot. No, my father! He will return of
his own accord, when his conscience awakens him to repentance.

OLD M. I will write to him, on the spot, to that effect.

FRANCIS. Stop, father, one word more. Your just indignation might
prompt reproaches too severe, words which might break his heart--and
then--do you not think that your deigning to write with your own hand
might be construed into an act of forgiveness? It would be better, I
think, that you should commit the task to me?

OLD M. Do it, my son. Ah! it would, indeed, have broken my heart!
Write to him that--

FRANCIS (quickly). That's agreed, then?

OLD M. Say that he has caused me a thousand bitter tears--a thousand
sleepless nights--but, oh! do not drive my son to despair!

FRANCIS. Had you not better retire to rest, father? This affects you
too strongly.

OLD M. Write to him that a father's heart--But I charge you, drive him
not to despair. [Exit in sadness.]

FRANCIS (looking after him with a chuckle). Make thyself easy, old
dotard! thou wilt never more press thy darling to thy bosom--there is a
gulf between thee and him impassable as heaven is from hell. He was
torn from thy arms before even thou couldst have dreamed it possible to
decree the separation. Why, what a sorry bungler should I be had I not
skill enough to pluck a son from a father's heart; ay, though he were
riveted there with hooks of steel! I have drawn around thee a magic
circle of curses which he cannot overleap. Good speed to thee, Master
Francis. Papa's darling is disposed of--the course is clear. I must
carefully pick up all the scraps of paper, for how easily might my
handwriting be recognized. (He gathers the fragments of the letter.)
And grief will soon make an end of the old gentleman. And as for her--
I must tear this Charles from her heart, though half her life come with
him.

No small cause have I for being dissatisfied with Dame Nature, and, by
my honor, I will have amends! Why did I not crawl the first from my
mother's womb? why not the only one? why has she heaped on me this
burden of deformity? on me especially? Just as if she had spawned me
from her refuse.* Why to me in particular this snub of the Laplander?
these negro lips? these Hottentot eyes? On my word, the lady seems to
have collected from all the race of mankind whatever was loathsome into
a heap, and kneaded the mass into my particular person. Death and
destruction! who empowered her to deny to me what she accorded to him?
Could a man pay his court to her before he was born? or offend her
before he existed? Why went she to work in such a partial spirit?

No! no! I do her injustice--she bestowed inventive faculty, and set us
naked and helpless on the shore of this great ocean, the world--let
those swim who can--the heavy** may sink. To me she gave naught else,
and how to make the best use of my endowment is my present business.
Men's natural rights are equal; claim is met by claim, effort by effort,
and force by force--right is with the strongest--the limits of our power
constitute our laws.

It is true there are certain organized conventions, which men have
devised to keep up what is called the social compact. Honor! truly a
very convenient coin, which those who know how to pass it may lay out
with great advantage.*** Conscience! oh yes, a useful scarecrow to
frighten sparrows away from cherry-trees; it is something like a fairly
written bill of exchange with which your bankrupt merchant staves off
the evil day.

   * See Richard III., Act I, Sc. 1, line 17.

   **Heavy is used in a double meaning; the German word is plump,
   which Means lumpish clumsy awkward.

   ***So Falstaff, Hen. IV., Pt. I., Act V., Sc. 1, "Honor is a mere
   scutcheon."

Well! these are all most admirable institutions for keeping fools in
awe, and holding the mob underfoot, that the cunning may live the more
at their ease. Rare institutions, doubtless. They are something like
the fences my boors plant so closely to keep out the hares--yes
I' faith, not a hare can trespass on the enclosure, but my lord claps
spurs to his hunter, and away he gallops over the teeming harvest!

Poor hare! thou playest but a sorry part in this world's drama, but your
worshipful lords must needs have hares!

   *[This may help to illustrate a passage in Shakespeare which
   puzzles the commentators--"Cupid is a good hare-finder."--Much ADO,
   Act I., Sc. 1.
   The hare, in Germany, is considered an emblem of abject submission
   and cowardice. The word may also be rendered "Simpleton,"
   "Sawney," or any other of the numerous epithets which imply a soft
   condition.]

Then courage, and onward, Francis. The man who fears nothing is as
powerful as he who is feared by everybody. It is now the mode to wear
buckles on your smallclothes, that you may loosen or tighten them at
pleasure. I will be measured for a conscience after the newest fashion,
one that will stretch handsomely as occasion may require. Am I to
blame? It is the tailor's affair? I have heard a great deal of twaddle
about the so-called ties of blood--enough to make a sober man beside
himself. He is your brother, they say; which interpreted, means that he
was manufactured in the same mould, and for that reason he must needs be
sacred in your eyes! To what absurd conclusions must this notion of a
sympathy of souls, derived from the propinquity of bodies, inevitably
tend? A common source of being is to produce community of sentiment;
identity of matter, identity of impulse! Then again,--he is thy father!
He gave thee life, thou art his flesh and blood--and therefore he must
be sacred to thee! Again a most inconsequential deduction! I should
like to know why he begot me;** certainly not out of love for me--for I
must first have existed!

   **[The reader of Sterne will remember a very similar passage in the
   first chapter of Tristram Shandy.]

Could he know me before I had being, or did he think of me during my
begetting? or did he wish for me at the moment? Did he know what I
should be? If so I would not advise him to acknowledge it or I should
pay him off for his feat. Am I to be thankful to him that I am a man?
As little as I should have had a right to blame him if he had made me a
woman. Can I acknowledge an affection which is not based on any
personal regard? Could personal regard be present before the existence
of its object? In what, then, consists the sacredness of paternity?
Is it in the act itself out of which existence arose? as though this
were aught else than an animal process to appease animal desires. Or
does it lie, perhaps, in the result of this act, which is nothing more
after all than one of iron necessity, and which men would gladly
dispense with, were it not at the cost of flesh and blood? Do I then
owe him thanks for his affection? Why, what is it but a piece of
vanity, the besetting sin of the artist who admires his own works,
however hideous they may be? Look you, this is the whole juggle,
wrapped up in a mystic veil to work on our fears. And shall I, too, be
fooled like an infant? Up then! and to thy work manfully. I will root
up from my path whatever obstructs my progress towards becoming the
master. Master I must be, that I may extort by force what I cannot win
by affection.*


   *[This soliloquy in some parts resembles that of Richard, Duke of
   Gloster, in Shakespeare's Henry VI., Act V. Sc. 6.]

[Exit.]




       SCENE II.--A Tavern on the Frontier of Saxony.


 CHARLES VON MOOR intent on a book; SPIEGELBERG drinking at the table.



CHARLES VON M. (lays the book aside). I am disgusted with this age of
puny scribblers when I read of great men in my Plutarch.

SPIEGEL. (places a glass before him, and drinks). Josephus is the book
you should read.

CHARLES VON M. The glowing spark of Prometheus is burnt out, and now
they substitute for it the flash of lycopodium,* a stage-fire which will
not so much as light a pipe. The present generation may be compared to
rats crawling about the club of Hercules.**


   *[Lycopodium (in German Barlappen-mehl), vulgarly known as the
   Devil's Puff-ball or Witchmeal, is used on the stage, as well in
   England as on the continent, to produce flashes of fire. It is
   made of the pollen of common club moss, or wolf's claw (Lycopodium
   clavatum), the capsules of which contain a highly inflammable
   powder. Translators have uniformly failed in rendering this
   passage.]

   **[This simile brings to mind Shakespeare's:
                     "We petty men
         Walk under his huge legs, and peep about."
                JULIUS CAESAR, Act I., Sc. 2.]

A French abbe lays it down that Alexander was a poltroon; a phthisicky
professor, holding at every word a bottle of sal volatile to his nose,
lectures on strength. Fellows who faint at the veriest trifle criticise
the tactics of Hannibal; whimpering boys store themselves with phrases
out of the slaughter at Canna; and blubber over the victories of Scipio,
because they are obliged to construe them.

SPIEGEL. Spouted in true Alexandrian style.

CHARLES VON M. A brilliant reward for your sweat in the battle-field
truly to have your existence perpetuated in gymnasiums, and your
immortality laboriously dragged about in a schoolboy's satchel. A
precious recompense for your lavished blood to be wrapped round
gingerbread by some Nuremberg chandler, or, if you have great luck, to
be screwed upon stilts by a French playwright, and be made to move on
wires! Ha, ha, ha!

SPIEGEL. (drinks). Read Josephus, I tell you.

CHARLES VON M. Fie! fie upon this weak, effeminate age, fit for nothing
but to ponder over the deeds of former times, and torture the heroes of
antiquity with commentaries, or mangle them in tragedies. The vigor of
its loins is dried up, and the propagation of the human species has
become dependent on potations of malt liquor.

SPIEGEL. Tea, brother! tea!

CHARLES VON M. They curb honest nature with absurd conventionalities;
have scarcely the heart to charge a glass, because they are tasked to
drink a health in it; fawn upon the lackey that he may put in a word for
them with His Grace, and bully the unfortunate wight from whom they have
nothing to fear. They worship any one for a dinner, and are just as
ready to poison him should he chance to outbid them for a feather-bed
at an auction. They damn the Sadducee who fails to come regularly to
church, although their own devotion consists in reckoning up their
usurious gains at the very altar. They cast themselves on their knees
that they may have an opportunity of displaying their mantles, and
hardly take their eyes off the parson from their anxiety to see how his
wig is frizzled. They swoon at the sight of a bleeding goose, yet clap
their hands with joy when they see their rival driven bankrupt from the
Exchange. Warmly as I pressed their hands,--"Only one more day." In
vain! To prison with the dog! Entreaties! Vows! Tears! (stamping
the ground). Hell and the devil!

SPIEGEL. And all for a few thousand paltry ducats!

CHARLES VON M. No, I hate to think of it. Am I to squeeze my body into
stays, and straight-lace my will in the trammels of law. What might
have risen to an eagle's flight has been reduced to a snail's pace by
law. Never yet has law formed a great man; 'tis liberty that breeds
giants and heroes. Oh! that the spirit of Herman* still glowed in his
ashes!

   *[Herman is the German for Armin or Arminius, the celebrated
   deliverer of Germany from the Roman yoke. See Menzel's History,
   vol. i., p. 85, etc.]

Set me at the head of an army of fellows like myself, and out of Germany
shall spring a republic compared to which Rome and Sparta will be but as
nunneries. (Rises and flings his sword upon the table.)

SPIEGEL. (jumping up). Bravo! Bravissimo! you are coming to the right
key now. I have something for your ear, Moor, which has long been on my
mind, and you are the very man for it--drink, brother, drink! What if
we turned Jews and brought the kingdom of Jerusalem again on the tapis?
But tell me is it not a clever scheme? We send forth a manifesto to the
four quarters of the world, and summon to Palestine all that do not eat
Swineflesh. Then I prove by incontestable documents that Herod the
Tetrarch was my direct ancestor, and so forth. There will be a victory,
my fine fellow, when they return and are restored to their lands, and
are able to rebuild Jerusalem. Then make a clean sweep of the Turks out
of Asia while the iron is hot, hew cedars in Lebanon, build ships, and
then the whole nation shall chaffer with old clothes and old lace
throughout the world. Meanwhile--

CHARLES VON M. (smiles and takes him by the hand). Comrade! There must
be an end now of our fooleries.

SPIEGEL. (with surprise). Fie! you are not going to play the prodigal
son!--a fellow like you who with his sword has scratched more
hieroglyhics on other men's faces than three quill-drivers could
inscribe in their daybooks in a leap-year! Shall I tell you the story
of the great dog funeral? Ha! I must just bring back your own picture
to your mind; that will kindle fire in your veins, if nothing else has
power to inspire you. Do you remember how the heads of the college
caused your dog's leg to be shot off, and you, by way of revenge,
proclaimed a fast through the whole town? They fumed and fretted at
your edict. But you, without losing time, ordered all the meat to be
bought up in Leipsic, so that in the course of eight hours there was not
a bone left to pick all over the place, and even fish began to rise in
price. The magistrates and the town council vowed vengeance. But we
students turned out lustily, seventeen hundred of us, with you at our
head, and butchers and tailors and haberdashers at our backs, besides
publicans, barbers, and rabble of all sorts, swearing that the town
should be sacked if a single hair of a student's head was injured. And
so the affair went off like the shooting at Hornberg,* and they were
obliged to be off with their tails between their legs.

   *[The "shooting at Hornberg" is a proverbial expression in Germany
   for any expedition from which, through lack of courage, the parties
   retire without firing a shot.]

You sent for doctors--a whole posse of them--and offered three ducats to
any one who would write a prescription for your dog. We were afraid the
gentlemen would stand too much upon honor and refuse, and had already
made up our minds to use force. But this was quite unnecessary; the
doctors got to fisticuffs for the three ducats, and their competition
brought down the price to three groats; in the course of an hour a dozen
prescriptions were written, of which, of course, the poor beast very
soon died.

CHARLES VON M. The vile rascals.

SPIEGEL. The funeral procession was arranged with all due pomp; odes
for the dog were indited by the gross; and at night we all turned out,
near a thousand of us, a lantern in one hand and our rapier in the
other, and so proceeded through the town, the bells chiming and ringing,
till the dog was entombed. Then came a feed which lasted till broad
daylight, when you sent your acknowledgments to the college dons for
their kind sympathy, and ordered the meat to be sold at half-price.
_Mort de ma vie_, if we had not as great a respect for you as a garrison
for the conqueror of a fortress.

CHARLES VON M. And are you not ashamed to boast of these things? Have
you not shame enough in you to blush even at the recollection of such
pranks?

SPIEGEL. Come, come! You are no longer the same Moor. Do you remember
how, a thousand times, bottle in hand, you made game of the miserly old
governor, bidding him by all means rake and scrape together as much as
he could, for that you would swill it all down your throat? Don't you
remember, eh?--don't you remember?' O you good-for-nothing, miserable
braggart! that was speaking like a man, and a gentleman, but--

CHARLES VON M. A curse on you for reminding me of it! A curse on myself
for what I said! But it was done in the fumes of wine, and my heart
knew not what my tongue uttered.

SPIEGEL. (shakes his head). No, no! that cannot be! Impossible,
brother! You are not in earnest! Tell me! most sweet brother, is it
not poverty which has brought you to this mood? Come! let me tell you a
little story of my youthful days. There was a ditch close to my house,
eight feet wide at the least, which we boys were trying to leap over for
a wager. But it was no go. Splash! there you lay sprawling, amidst
hisses and roars of laughter, and a relentless shower of snowballs. By
the side of my house a hunter's dog was lying chained, a savage beast,
which would catch the girls by their petticoats with the quickness of
lightning if they incautiously passed too near him. Now it was my
greatest delight to tease this brute in every possible way; and it was
enough to make one burst with laughing to see the beast fix his eyes on
me with such fierceness that he seemed ready to tear me to pieces if he
could but get at me. Well, what happened? Once, when I was amusing
myself in this manner, I hit him such a bang in the ribs with a stone
that in his fury he broke loose and ran right upon me. I tore away like
lightning, but--devil take it!--that confounded ditch lay right in my
way. What was to be done? The dog was close at my heels and quite
furious; there was no time to deliberate. I took a spring and cleared
the ditch. To that leap I was indebted for life and limb; the beast
would have torn me to atoms.

CHARLES VON M. And to what does all this tend?

SPIEGEL. To this--that you may be taught that strength grows with the
occasion. For which reason I never despair even when things are the
worst. Courage grows with danger. Powers of resistance increase by
pressure. It is evident by the obstacles she strews in my path that
fate must have designed me for a great man.

CHARLES VON M. (angrily). I am not aware of anything for which we still
require courage, and have not already shown it.

SPIEGEL. Indeed! And so you mean to let your gifts go to waste? To
bury your talent? Do you think your paltry achievements at Leipsic
amount to the _ne plus ultra_ of genius? Let us but once get to the
great world--Paris and London! where you get your ears boxed if you
salute a man as honest. It is a real jubilee to practise one's
handicraft there on a grand scale. How you will stare! How you will
open your eyes! to see signatures forged; dice loaded; locks picked,
and strong boxes gutted; all that you shall learn of Spiegelberg! The
rascal deserves to be hanged on the first gallows that would rather
starve than manipulate with his fingers.

CHARLES VON M. (in a fit of absence). How now? I should not wonder if
your proficiency went further still.

SPIEGEL. I begin to think you mistrust me. Only wait till I have grown
warm at it; you shall see wonders; your little brain shall whirl clean
round in your pericranium when my teeming wit is delivered. (He rises
excited.) How it clears up within me! Great thoughts are dawning in on
my soul! Gigantic plans are fermenting in my creative brain. Cursed
lethargy (striking his forehead), which has hitherto enchained my
faculties, cramped and fettered my prospects! I awake; I feel what I
am--and what I am to be!

CHARLES VON M. You are a fool! The wine is swaggering in your brain.

SPIEGEL. (more excited). Spiegelberg, they will say, art thou a
magician, Spiegelberg? 'Tis a pity, the king will say, that thou wert
not made a general, Spiegelberg, thou wouldst have thrust the Austrians
through a buttonhole. Yes, I hear the doctors lamenting, 'tis a crying
shame that he was not bred to medicine, he would have discovered the
_elixir vitae_. Ay, and that he did not take to financiering, the
Sullys will deplore in their cabinets,--he would have turned flints into
louis-d'ors by his magic. And Spiegelberg will be the word from east to
west; then down into the dirt with you, ye cowards, ye reptiles, while
Spiegelberg soars with outspread wings to the temple of everlasting
fame.

CHARLES VON M. A pleasant journey to you! I leave you to climb to the
summit of glory on the pillars of infamy. In the shade of my ancestral
groves, in the arms of my Amelia, a nobler joy awaits me. I have
already, last week, written to my father to implore his forgiveness, and
have not concealed the least circumstance from him; and where there is
sincerity there is compassion and help. Let us take leave of each
other, Moritz. After this day we shall meet no more. The post has
arrived. My father's forgiveness must already be within the walls of
this town.


     Enter SCHWEITZER, GRIMM, ROLLER, SCHUFTERLE, and RAZMAN.


ROLLER. Are you aware that they are on our track!

GRIMM. That we are not for a moment safe from being taken?

CHARLES VON M. I don't wonder at it. It must be as it will! Have none
of you seen Schwarz? Did he say anything about having a letter for me?

ROLLER. He has been long in search of you on some such errand, I
suspect.

CHARLES VON M. Where is he? where, where? (is about to rush of in
haste).

ROLLER. Stay! we have appointed him to come here. You tremble?

CHARLES VON M. I do not tremble. Why should I tremble? Comrades, this
letter--rejoice with me! I am the happiest man under the sun; why
should I tremble?


               Enter SCHWARZ.


CHARLES VON M. (rushes towards him). Brother, brother! the letter, the
letter!

SCHW. (gives him a letter, which he opens hastily). What's the matter?
You have grown as pale as a whitewashed wall!

CHARLES VON M. My brother's hand!

SCHW. What the deuce is Spiegelberg about there?

GRIMM. The fellow's mad. He jumps about as if he had St. Vitus' dance.

SCHUF. His wits are gone a wool gathering! He's making verses, I'll be
sworn!

RAZ. Spiegelberg! Ho! Spiegelberg! The brute does not hear.

GRIMM. (shakes him). Hallo! fellow! are you dreaming? or--

SPIEGEL. (who has all this time been making gestures in a corner of the
room, as if working out some great project, jumps up wildly). Your
money or your life! (He catches SCHWEITZER by the throat, who very
coolly flings him against the wall; Moor drops the letter and rushes
out. A general sensation.)

ROLLER. (calling after him). Moor! where are you going? What's the
matter?

GRIMM. What ails him? What has he been doing? He is as pale as death.

SCHW. He must have got strange news. Just let us see!

ROLLER. (picks up the letter from the ground, and reads). "Unfortunate
brother!"--a pleasant beginning--"I have only briefly to inform you that
you have nothing more to hope for. You may go, your father directs me
to tell you, wherever your own vicious propensities lead. Nor are you
to entertain, he says, any hope of ever gaining pardon by weeping at his
feet, unless you are prepared to fare upon bread and water in the lowest
dungeon of his castle until your hair shall outgrow eagles' feathers,
and your nails the talons of a vulture. These are his very words. He
commands me to close the letter. Farewell forever! I pity you.

                         "FRANCIS VON MOOR"


SCHW. A most amiable and loving brother, in good truth! And the
scoundrel's name is Francis.