With all the detail of the operation,
Some days ago with the Envoy Questenberg.
[WALLENSTEIN sinks down into a chair and covers his face.
TERZKY.
Oh, hadst thou but believed me!
SCENE IX.
To them enter the COUNTESS.
COUNTESS.
This suspense,
This horrid fear-I can no longer bear it.
For heaven's sake tell me what has taken place?
ILLO.
The regiments are falling off from us.
TERZKY.
Octavio Piccolomini is a traitor.
COUNTESS.
O my foreboding!
[Rushes out of the room.
TERZKY.
Hadst thou but believed me!
Now seest thou how the stars have lied to thee.
WALLENSTEIN.
The stars lie not; but we have here a work
Wrought counter to the stars and destiny.
The science is still honest: this false heart
Forces a lie on the truth-telling heaven,
On a divine law divination rests;
Where nature deviates from that law, and stumbles
Out of her limits, there all science errs.
True I did not suspect! Were it superstition
Never by such suspicion to have affronted
The human form, oh, may the time ne'er come
In which I shame me of the infirmity.
The wildest savage drinks not with the victim,
Into whose breast he means to plunge the sword.
This, this, Octavio, was no hero's deed
'Twas not thy prudence that did conquer mine;
A bad heart triumphed o'er an honest one.
No shield received the assassin stroke; thou plungest
Thy weapon on an unprotected breast-
Against such weapons I am but a child.
SCENE X.
To these enter BUTLER.
TERZKY (meeting him).
Oh, look there, Butler! Here we've still a friend!
WALLENSTEIN (meets him with outspread arms and embraces him with warmth).
Come to my heart, old comrade! Not the sun
Looks out upon us more revivingly,
In the earliest month of spring,
Than a friend's countenance in such an hour.
BUTLER.
My general; I come--
WALLENSTEIN (leaning on BUTLER'S shoulder).
Knowest thou already
That old man has betrayed me to the emperor.
What sayest thou? Thirty years have we together
Lived out, and held out, sharing joy and hardship.
We have slept in one camp-bed, drank from one glass,
One morsel shared! I leaned myself on him,
As now I lean me on thy faithful shoulder,
And now in the very moment when, all love,
All confidence, my bosom beat to his
He sees and takes the advantage, stabs the knife
Slowly into my heart.
[He hides his face on BUTLER's breast.
BUTLER.
Forget the false one.
What is your present purpose?
WALLENSTEIN.
Well remembered!
Courage, my soul! I am still rich in friends,
Still loved by destiny; for in the moment
That it unmasks the plotting hypocrite
It sends and proves to me one faithful heart.
Of the hypocrite no more! Think not his loss
Was that which struck the pang: Oh, no! his treason
