Masters of the Theatre

by Delphi Classics

  ROLLER. Now my guards looked behind them — there lay the city, like Sodom and Gomorrah — the whole horizon was one mass of fire, brimstone, and smoke; and forty hills echoed and reflected the infernal prank far and wide. A panic seized them all — I take advantage of the moment, and, quick as lightning — my fetters had been taken off, so nearly was my time come — while my guards were looking away petrified, like Lot’s wife, I shot off — tore through the crowd — and away! After running some sixty paces I throw off my clothes, plunge into the river, and swim along under water till I think they have lost sight of me. My captain stood ready, with horses and clothes — and here I am. Moor! Moor! I only wish that you may soon get into just such another scrape that I may requite you in like manner.

  RAZ. A brutal wish, for which you deserve to be hanged. It was a glorious prank, though.

  ROLLER. It was help in need; you cannot judge of it. You should have marched, like me, with a rope round your neck, travelling to your grave in the living body, and seen their horrid sacramental forms and hangman’s ceremonies — and then, at every reluctant step, as the struggling feet were thrust forward, to see the infernal machine, on which I was to be elevated, glaring more and more hideously in the blaze of a noonday sun — and the hangman’s rapscallions watching for their prey — and the horrible psalm-singing — the cursed twang still rings in my ears — and the screeching hungry ravens, a whole flight of them, who were hovering over the half-rotten carcass of my predecessor. To see all this — ay, more, to have a foretaste of the blessedness which was in store for me! Brother, brother! And then, all of a sudden, the signal of deliverance. It was an explosion as if the vault of heaven were rent in twain. Hark ye, fellows! I tell you, if a man were to leap out of a fiery furnace into a freezing lake he could not feel the contrast half so strongly as I did when I gained the opposite shore.

  SPIEGEL. (Laughs.) Poor wretch! Well, you have got over it. (Pledges him). Here’s to a happy regeneration!

  ROLLER (flings away his glass). No, by all the treasures of Mammon, I should not like to go through it a second time. Death is something more than a harlequin’s leap, and its terrors are even worse than death itself.

  SPIEGEL. And the powder-magazine leaping into the air! Don’t you see it now, Razman? That was the reason the air stunk so, for miles round, of brimstone, as if the whole wardrobe of Moloch was being aired under the open firmament. It was a master-stroke, captain! I envy you for it.

  SCHWEITZER. If the town makes it a holiday-treat to see our comrade killed by a baited hog, why the devil should we scruple to sacrifice the city for the rescue of our comrade? And, by the way, our fellows had the extra treat of being able to plunder worse than the old emperor. Tell me, what have you sacked?

  ONE OF THE TROOP. I crept into St. Stephen’s church during the hubbub, and tore the gold lace from the altarcloth. The patron saint, thought I to myself, can make gold lace out of packthread.

  SCHWEITZER. ’Twas well done. What is the use of such rubbish in a church? They offer it to the Creator, who despises such trumpery, while they leave his creatures to die of hunger. And you, Sprazeler — where did you throw your net?

  A SECOND. I and Brizal broke into a merchant’s store, and have brought stuffs enough with us to serve fifty men.

  A THIRD. I have filched two gold watches and a dozen silver spoons.

  SCHWEITZER. Well done, well done! And we have lighted them a bonfire that will take a fortnight to put out again. And, to get rid of the fire, they must ruin the city with water. Do you know, Schufterle, how many lives have been lost?

  SCHUF. Eighty-three, they say. The powder-magazine alone blew threescore to atoms.

  CHARLES (very seriously). Roller, thou art dearly bought.

  SCHUF. Bah! bah! What of that? If they had but been men it would have been another matter — but they were babes in swaddling clothes, and shrivelled old nurses that kept the flies from them, and dried-up stove-squatters who could not crawl to the door — patients whining for the doctor, who, with his stately gravity, was marching to the sport. All that had the use of their legs had gone forth in the sight, and nothing remained at home but the dregs of the city.

  CHARLES. Alas for the poor creatures! Sick people, sayest thou, old men and infants?

  SCHUF. Ay, the devil go with them! And lying-in-women into the bargain; and women far gone with child, who were afraid of miscarrying under the gibbet; and young mothers, who thought the sight might do them a mischief, and mark the gallows upon the foreheads of their unborn babes — poor poets, without a shoe, because their only pair had been sent to the cobbler to mend — and other such vermin, not worth the trouble of mentioning. As I chanced to pass by a cottage I heard a great squalling inside. I looked in; and, when I came to examine, what do you think it was? Why, an infant — a plump and ruddy urchin — lying on the floor under a table which was just beginning to burn. Poor little wretch! said I, you will be cold there, and with that I threw it into the flames!

  CHARLES. Indeed, Schufterle? Then may those flames burn in thy bosom

  to all eternity! Avaunt, monster! Never let me see thee again in my

  troop! What! Do you murmur? Do you hesitate? Who dares hesitate when

  I command? Away with him, I say! And there are others among you ripe

  for my vengeance. I know thee, Spiegelberg. But I will step in among

  you ere long, and hold a fearful muster-roll. [Exeunt, trembling.]

  CHARLES (alone, walking up and down in great agitation). Hear them not, thou avenger in heaven! How can I avert it? Art thou to blame, great God, if thy engines, pestilence, and famine, and floods, overwhelm the just with the unjust? Who can stay the flame, which is kindled to destroy the hornet’s nest, from extending to the blessed harvest? Oh! fie on the slaughter of women, and children, and the sick! How this deed weighs me down! It has poisoned my fairest achievements! There he stands, poor fool, abashed and disgraced in the sight of heaven; the boy that presumed to wield Jove’s thunder, and overthrew pigmies when he should have crushed Titans. Go, go! ’tis not for thee, puny son of clay, to wield the avenging sword of sovereign justice! Thou didst fail at thy first essay. Here, then, I renounce the audacious scheme. I go to hide myself in some deep cleft of the earth, where no daylight will be witness of my shame. (He is about to fly.) Enter a ROBBER hurriedly.

  ROBBER. Look out, captain! There is mischief in the wind! Whole detachments of Bohemian cavalry are scouring the forests. That infernal bailiff must have betrayed us. Enter more ROBBERS.

  2D ROBBER. Captain! captain! they have tracked us! Some thousands of them are forming a cordon round the middle forest. Enter more ROBBERS again.

  3D ROBBER. Woe, woe, woe! we are all taken, hanged drawn, and

  quartered. Thousands of hussars, dragoons, and chasseurs are mustering

  on the heights, and guard all the passes. [Exit CHARLES VON MOOR.]

  Enter SCHWEITZER, GRIMM, ROLLER, SCHWARZ, SCHUFTERLE, SPIEGELBERG, RAZMAN, and the whole troop.

  SCHWEITZER. Ha! Have we routed them out of their feather-beds at last? Come, be jolly, Roller! I have long wished to have a bout with those knights of the bread-basket. Where is the captain? Is the whole troop assembled? I hope we have powder enough?

  RAZ. Powder, I believe you; but we are only eighty in all and therefore scarcely one to twenty.

  SCHWEITZER. So much the better! And though there were fifty against my great toe-nail — fellows who have waited till we lit the straw under their very seats. Brother, brother, there is nothing to fear. They sell their lives for tenpence; and are we not fighting for our necks? We will pour into them like a deluge, and fire volleys upon their heads like crashes of thunder. But where the devil is the captain.

  SPIEGEL. He forsakes us in this extremity. Is there no hope of escape?

  SCHWEITZER. Escape?

  SPIEGEL. Oh, that I had tarried in Jerusalem!

  SCHWEITZER. I wish you were choked in a cesspool, you paltry coward! With defenceless nuns you
are a mighty man; but at sight of a pair of fists a confirmed sneak! Now show your courage or you shall be sewn up alive in an ass’s hide and baited to death with dogs.

  RAZ. The captain! the captain! Enter CHARLES (speaking slowly to himself).

  CHARLES. I have allowed them to be hemmed in on every side. Now they must fight with the energy of despair. (Aloud.) Now my boys! now for it! We must fight like wounded boars, or we are utterly lost!

  SCHWEITZER. Ha! I’ll rip them open with my tusks, till their entrails protrude by the yard! Lead on, captain! we will follow you into the very jaws of death.

  CHARLES. Charge all your arms! You’ve plenty of powder, I hope?

  SCHWEITZER (with energy). Powder? ay, enough to blow the earth up to the moon.

  RAZ. Every one of us has five brace of pistols, ready loaded, and three carbines to boot.

  CHARLES. Good! good! Now some of you must climb up the trees, or conceal yourselves in the thickets, and some fire upon them in ambush —

  SCHWEITZER. That part will suit you, Spiegelberg.

  CHARLES. The rest will follow me, and fall upon their flanks like furies.

  SCHWEITZER. There will I be!

  CHARLES. At the same time let every man make his whistle ring through the forest, and gallop about in every direction, so that our numbers may appear the more formidable. And let all the dogs be unchained, and set on upon their ranks, that they may be broken and dispersed and run in the way of our fire. We three, Roller, Schweitzer, and myself, will fight wherever the fray is hottest.

  SCHWEITZER. Masterly! excellent! We will so bewilder them with balls that they shall not know whence the salutes are coming. I have more than once shot away a cherry from the mouth. Only let them come on (SCHUFTERLE is pulling SCHWEITZER; the latter takes the captain aside, and entreats him in a low voice.)

  CHARLES. Silence!

  SCHWEITZER. I entreat you —

  CHARLES. Away! Let him have the benefit of his disgrace; it has saved him. He shall not die on the same field with myself, my Schweitzer, and my Roller. Let him change his apparel, and I will say he is a traveller whom I have plundered. Make yourself easy, Schweitzer. Take my word for it he will be hanged yet. Enter FATHER DOMINIC.

  FATHER DOM. (to himself, starts). Is this the dragon’s nest? With your leave, sirs! I am a servant of the church; and yonder are seventeen hundred men who guard every hair of my head.

  SCHWEITZER. Bravo! bravo! Well spoken to keep his courage warm.

  CHARLES. Silence, comrade! Will you tell us briefly, good father, what is your errand here?

  FATHER Dom. I am delegated by the high justices, on whose sentence hangs life or death — ye thieves — ye incendiaries — ye villains — ye venomous generation of vipers, crawling about in the dark, and stinging in secret — ye refuse of humanity — brood of hell — food for ravens and worms — colonists for the gallows and the wheel —

  SCHWEITZER. Dog! a truce with your foul tongue! or —— — (He holds the butt-end of his gun before FATHER DOMINIC’S face.)

  CHARLES. Fie, fie, Schweitzer! You cut the thread of his discourse. He has got his sermon so nicely by heart. Pray go on, Sir! “for the gallows and the wheel?”

  FATHER Dom. And thou, their precious captain! — commander-in-chief of cut-purses! — king of sharpers! Grand Mogul of all the rogues under the sun! — great prototype of that first hellish ringleader who imbued a thousand legions of innocent angels with the flame of rebellion, and drew them down with him into the bottomless pit of damnation! The agonizing cries of bereaved mothers pursue thy footsteps! Thou drinkest blood like water! and thy murderous knife holds men cheaper than air-bubbles!

  CHARLES. Very true — exceedingly true! Pray proceed, Sir!

  FATHER DOM. What do you mean? Very true — exceedingly true! Is that an answer?

  CHARLES. How, Sir? You were not prepared for that, it seems? Go on — by all means go on. What more were you going to say?

  FATHER DOM. (heated). Abominable wretch! Avaunt! Does not the blood of a murdered count of the empire cling to thy accursed fingers? Hast thou not, with sacrilegious hands, dared to break into the Lord’s sanctuary, and carry off the consecrated vessels of the sanctissimum? Hast thou not flung firebrands into our godly city, and brought down the powder-magazine upon the heads of devout Christians? (Clasps his hands). Horrible, horrible wickedness! that stinketh in the nostrils of Heaven, and provoketh the day of judgment to burst upon you suddenly! ripe for retribution — rushing headlong to the last trump!

  CHARLES. Masterly guesses thus far! But now, sir, to the point! What is it that the right worshipful justices wish to convey to me through you?

  FATHER Dom. What you are not worthy to receive. Look around you, incendiary! As far as your eye can reach you are environed by our horsemen — there is no chance of escape. As surely as cherries grow on these oaks, and peaches on these firs, so surely shall you turn your backs upon these oaks and these firs in safety.

  CHARLES. Do you hear that, Schweitzer? But go on!

  FATHER DOM. Hear, then, what mercy and forbearance justice shows towards such miscreants. If you instantly prostrate yourselves in submission and sue for mercy and forgiveness, then severity itself will relent to compassion, and justice be to thee an indulgent mother. She will shut one eye upon your horrible crimes, and be satisfied — only think! — to let you be broken on the wheel.

  SCHWEITZER. Did you hear that, captain? Shall I throttle this well-trained shepherd’s cur till the red blood spurts from every pore?

  ROLLER. Captain! Fire and fury! Captain! How he bites his lip! Shall I topple this fellow upside down like a ninepin?

  SCHWEITZER. Mine, mine be the job! Let me kneel to you, captain; let me implore you! I beseech you to grant me the delight of pounding him to a jelly! (FATHER DOMINIC screams.)

  CHARLES. Touch him not! Let no one lay a finger on him! — (To FATHER DOMINIC, drawing his sword.) Hark ye, sir father! Here stand nine-and-seventy men, of whom I am the captain, and not one of them has been taught to trot at a signal, or learned to dance to the music of artillery; while yonder stand seventeen hundred men grown gray under the musket. But now listen! Thus says Moor, the captain of incendiaries. It is true I have slain a count of the empire, burnt and plundered the church of St. Dominic, flung firebrands into your bigoted city, and brought down the powder-magazine upon the heads of devout Christians. But that is not all, — I have done more. (He holds out his right hand.) Do you observe these four costly rings, one on each finger? Go and report punctually to their worships, on whose sentence hangs life or death what you shall hear and see. This ruby I drew from the finger of a minister, whom I stretched at the feet of his prince, during the chase. He had fawned himself up from the lowest dregs, to be the first favorite; — the ruin of his neighbor was his ladder to greatness — orphans’ tears helped him to mount it. This diamond I took from a lord treasurer, who sold offices of honor and trust to the highest bidder, and drove the sorrowing patriot from his door. This opal I wear in honor of a priest of your cloth, whom I dispatched with my own hand, after he had publicly deplored in his pulpit the waning power of the Inquisition. I could tell you more stories about my rings, but that I repent the words I have already wasted upon you —

  FATHER DOM. O Pharaoh! Pharaoh!

  CHARLES. Do you hear it? Did you mark that sigh? Does he not stand there as if he were imploring fire from heaven to descend and destroy this troop of Korah? He pronounces judgment with a shrug of the shoulders, and eternal damnation with a Christian “Alas!” Is it possible for humanity to be so utterly blind? He who has the hundred eyes of Argus to spy out the faults of his brother — can he be so totally blind to his own? They thunder forth from their clouds about gentleness and forbearance, while they sacrifice human victims to the God of love as if he were the fiery Moloch. They preach the love of one’s neighbor, while they drive the aged and blind with curses from their door. They rave against covetousness; yet for the sake of gold they have depopulated Peru, and
yoked the natives, like cattle, to their chariots. They rack their brains in wonder to account for the creation of a Judas Iscariot, yet the best of them would betray the whole Trinity for ten shekels. Out upon you, Pharisees! ye falsifiers of truth! ye apes of Deity! You are not ashamed to kneel before crucifixes and altars; you lacerate your backs with thongs, and mortify your flesh with fasting; and with these pitiful mummeries you think, fools as you are, to veil the eyes of Him whom, with the same breath, you address as the Omniscient, just as the great are the most bitterly mocked by those who flatter them while they pretend to hate flatterers. You boast of your honesty and your exemplary conduct; but the God who sees through your hearts would be wroth with Him that made you, were He not the same that had also created the monsters of the Nile. Away with him out of my sight!

  FATHER DOM. That such a miscreant should be so proud!

  CHARLES. That’s not all. Now I will speak proudly. Go and tell the right worshipful justices — who set men’s lives upon the cast of a die — I am not one of those thieves who conspire with sleep and midnight, and play the hero and the lordling on a scaling-ladder. What I have done I shall no doubt hereafter be doomed to read in the register of heaven; but with his miserable ministers of earth I will waste no more words. Tell your masters that my trade is retribution — vengeance my occupation! (He turns his back upon him.)

  FATHER DOM. Then you despise mercy and forbearance? — Be it so, I have done with you. (Turning to the troop.) Now then, sirs, you shall hear what the high powers direct me to make known to you! — If you will instantly deliver up to me this condemned malefactor, bound hand and foot, you shall receive a full pardon — your enormities shall be entirely blotted out, even from memory. The holy church will receive you, like lost sheep, with renewed love, into her maternal bosom, and the road to honorable employment shall be open to you all. (With a triumphant smile.) Now sir! how does your majesty relish this? Come on! bind him! and you are free!