First scene: in one of the upper counties of Hungary.
(Edge of a wood. In the background a noble castle is visible. To the side,
ploughed fields. Labourers. The bailiff, supervising the labourers, sits on
a stone and smokes. – Joseph, as Count Falkenstein, comes in hunting dress.
With him Count Rosenberg. Huntsman.)

JOSEPH
Whose castle is that?

HUNTSMAN
The Counts Szécsy’s,
my gracious lord.

JOSEPH
(Gesturing toward the bailiff.)
The lout!

HUNTSMAN
Oh, pardon,
your Excellency! – Perhaps he did not hear –

JOSEPH
True, that one’s least care still weighs
5 more than the great. With what conceit he sits and puffs!
A king, – nay! greater than a king
he thinks himself: that he commands a band of poor
peasants, and from their backs
may cut a strap at will! – A wretched
10 keeper, wretcheder than his wretched folk!
(He steps up.)
Hallo, fellow!

BAILIFF
(Over his shoulder.)
What’s wanted –?

ROSENBERG
Stand up at least, peasant!
– You speak with a gentleman.

BAILIFF
The high and mighty Count
is my master. The German gentlemen
I do not know.

ROSENBERG
Insolent boor!

JOSEPH
Let him be.
15 And how do you know that we are Germans?
Do I not speak Hungarian well?

BAILIFF
Well
enough, I understand you.

JOSEPH
Still, on what ground
do you take us for Germans?

BAILIFF
(Twirling his moustache with relish.)
Why, I just suppose it.

JOSEPH
You look at the moustache, and because we lack one,
20 you set us down for Germans? – But you’ll find
Hungarian magnates enough at court and in the land
as smooth of lip as I.

BAILIFF
I do not know if there are; but it is the gospel truth
that a smooth mouth suits none but a German.
25 The Hungarian’s lip is rougher, my good sir.
From under a moustache the word falls otherwise!

The beardless mouth befits the breeches.
My master, the high and mighty Count,
lies with his moustache on the bier;
30 the young lord, – eh, of him let’s not speak!
My master: in the coffin too,
dead too, is still the high and mighty Count!
(Wiping his eyes.)

JOSEPH
A mourning-bier –, a coffin you speak of,
good man, and wipe a tear from your eye?
35 Who is the dead one?

BAILIFF
The high and mighty Count,
old Count Szécsy. Yesterday he closed
his eyes. Only yesterday, – yet long
already he knew nothing of the world. They say,
I hear: he is well rid of it! – And I think so too.

JOSEPH
40 And why?

BAILIFF
Not to see this evil world,
God rest him! Better to lie now
for such a Hungarian! For the dead man shuts his eyes
to what the living cannot shut his eyes upon.

JOSEPH
(Aside.)
So Szécsy is dead? A great Hungarian, stiff
45 of neck he was, I hear. The last Hungarian
perhaps! And if he were the last, just as
I understand it: I’d not be sorry! A proud people,
but its pride keeps no good course,
it strains for the heights, and forgets that
50 its greatness lies below, in itself. And so
it is great, – and small.

(Aloud.)
So Szécsy is dead?
Ho, do you hear? All this land was his.
And the serf-host ploughing yonder?

BAILIFF
All? – And a hundred
times this much! The high and mighty Count
55 was lord of much land.

JOSEPH
Now to him too
six feet are given; – enough to bury him!
A great, proud lord, and he became like the peasant.
The lord and the peasant – were dust and to dust return.
And you, while your master lies dead upon
60 the bier, you plough and sow here?
Does the people keep no day of mourning,
nor the earth itself, for the lord of so much folk and field?

BAILIFF
Sir, the work is pressing. The lordship
had leisure to die; the peasant has no leisure
65 to rest. Serf and beast alike
drag the yoke on day of joy or mourning.

JOSEPH
See, that is the good order, Count! – The world-order!
Which, being used to it, the lordly man
finds so good! – And truly, what else
70 is the people, the serf: but cattle; which,
if it grows lazy, weary, or can no longer bear
the dismal yoke: the goad assists!
Come, my friend, let us try once
whether the plough-handle be heavy –?

ROSENBERG
But –

JOSEPH
75 Eh, no buts! – In China, every year
there is one great festival, and the Emperor,
the Son of Heaven, with his own exalted hand
gripping the plough-handle, ploughs; if but
half a furrow even – yet he ploughs. Is there
80 anything more honourable than the ploughshare?
There is one: the labourer’s sweat! – Come.
(He starts off.)

BAILIFF
Where to, sir?

JOSEPH
(Doffing his hat.)
Permit us, worthy
bailiff: to hold the plough-handle
the length of one furrow.

BAILIFF
Eh, the gentleman
85 knows nothing of it!

JOSEPH
The harm will not be so great
that I cannot make it good. – Take it!
(Joseph off, suddenly.)

BAILIFF
(Snatching off his hat.)
– Gold!
What sort of lord is this: that takes his pleasure
in such a thing, and pays with gold?
It seems he has more money than wit.

ROSENBERG
90 Be still, you boor.

BAILIFF
Why so? For I

told only the truth, – then has the gentleman
no mind to plough a furrow
at such a fee? – I’d let him,
a whole field of it! – His comrade, look,
95 is already at the furrow’s end. And handles
the plough quite well, indeed!
Mere comedy!

ROSENBERG
Be still, presumptuous fool!
Eh! – You don’t know who he is!

BAILIFF
A German lord
who took a mind to plough, since
100 he never saw the like before. And then?

ROSENBERG
You! Oh! –

BAILIFF
What ails him? Has he the colic,
that he so totters, and grinds his teeth? What?

JOSEPH
(From behind the wings.)
Count! I am waiting for you. Look,
I am already turning at the second furrow.
105 Won’t you come?

ROSENBERG
My shoes will get dusty, I fear.

JOSEPH
(Laughing.)
Indeed, and your palms too. True! Stay there.
(Off.)

ROSENBERG
What a man must endure! For a week now, so many

wondrous adventures! Since the world stands
– or turns: no man has understood
110 such things! – At last it grows a burden.
A taste is good, – like caviar!
But – for a regular meal! Monstrous: – on foot
five or six hours a day; – at night
to sleep on a wretched straw pallet that rustles
115 and pricks on every side (and how he can
sleep on it still! Never stirs till morning!)
And the food: – milk for breakfast, with
rye-bread crumbled in! Meat for dinner,
beans, gruel, sometimes – ugh! – curd-noodles,
120 scrambled eggs; or what one can find; not
a bit of jelly, nor dessert, no crème.
Who ever saw the like? – Ho, Antal, do you find
this life agreeable?

HUNTSMAN
Oh, Count, if I might
dare to speak. –

ROSENBERG
Well, speak then.

HUNTSMAN
At home the porter
125 and the stove-stoker live far better
than now his Maje –

ROSENBERG
Hush. Though it’s true!
But his Excellency wills it so.

BAILIFF
Why –
perhaps the German lord is tired now,
for he heads this way. What’s this? My serfs
130 throng round and escort him! Hey, peasant!
Back to work! I’d like to see who dares

leave his team.
(Joseph comes, escorted by the peasants.)

JOSEPH
Eh, friend,
do not forbid them, let them follow me,
the accustomed task is not so hard for them
135 as it is, being unaccustomed, for me –
let them gain a few minutes’ rest.
– My friends, this hand is weak, the plough-handle
has galled it; for you, happy men! –
Good and fair is the work, and soon the foaming crop,
140 the golden ear, and the full grain shall show what
you have laboured; and the land and its people bless you!
Only a bad and chilly heart eats the bread
without blessing your labour for it,
but in blessing and in bread I too
145 shall have one tiny share among you, now,
and when next year you break the bread
for your little ones, tell them:
"Know, my child: under this bread
the Emperor too helped to plough!"

ALL
(In wonder.)
150 The Emperor!

JOSEPH
Hush! The word is spoken,
and I’ll not take it back. Unknown to others:
to my fellow-soldiers I revealed myself!
Bailiff, take this purse and share it out
so that each gets a portion; whoever
155 has many children: then by twos as well –
enough remains for you too; and when
it comes to mind that under your staff
an Emperor once stood, let this too come
to mind: that the serf is no beast either,

160 and deal gently with your fellow men –
My sons, go, the work awaits.

ALL
Long live the Emperor! Our good father!

JOSEPH
Only go now.

ALL
Long live our gracious father!
(Bailiff, people, off.)

ROSENBERG
Sire!

JOSEPH
Did I do wrong? Scold me, Rosenberg!
165 But I could not master myself. This poor
people’s lot moved me. Long will it be
a comfort to them to recall that
the Emperor too shared in their labour,
because it is noble, and counts as glorious
170 what in many eyes degrades them,
and ranks them among the beasts. He is the beast
who lives off others, who values no labour,
and either drags the dismal yoke only by force, or
bites for nothing at what stands before him.
175 Poor, poor people! I wished to give them
comfort; to make them believe
that work is fairer than it is heavy;
though I lied, may heaven forgive me!
But let me only truly be, what now
180 I am in name alone: Emperor, – I swear,
in my realms the labouring people shall
no longer be as cattle. Let them be free
and men, like all the other peoples!
– Enough of this; – I am Count Falkenstein
185 again. And now which way shall we take? – Do you know what?

Here I laboured with the peasant, but above,
in the castle, there’s need now of something else:
of comfort; for the lord of the count’s house
lies on the bier. Should we not go up,
190 and bring to his mourning-bier a word
of Christian sympathy, a tear?
Ho, bailiff! –
(The bailiff comes.)
At the high and mighty Count’s
bier, who are the mourners?
Has he a son, a daughter, a widow?

BAILIFF
195 Our Countess died many years ago; – one son
– the young Count, – by your leave, – is the Emperor’s
servant, a major. Over the dead man
but one daughter mourns, the gracious
Countess Ilona.

JOSEPH
Do you hear this, Rosenberg!
200 A forsaken girl, who has no one,
no comforter, since it is we
her brother serves. To comfort her:
the duty falls on us. Up, quickly!
Let us not lose a moment.

ROSENBERG
(Aside.)
Gladly! Perhaps
205 a better dinner waits at the Countess’s table.
(All off.)

Second scene: the same place.
(A hall in the Szécsy castle, pictures, mirrors, etc. draped in mourning.
Joseph, Count Rosenberg come in. Behind them the steward.)

JOSEPH
All is dark here, and mourns. The very wall
has taken on, behold, its dwellers’ grief,
and if I am not mistaken, all is true sorrow,
no feigned mourning. For old Szécsy
210 this is a fair grave-inscription. – Well, what says Rosenberg,
what shall we do?

ROSENBERG
If I may speak:
there is no reason here to stay. We have seen
the dead man on the bier, his mourning
daughter, his servants, the hundred torch-flames,
215 and their veil of smoke, all that was
to be seen. But not one voice we heard
to greet us or to bid us stay.

JOSEPH
And this offends you? Ah, you reckoned
on a more obliging courtesy? Of true
220 sorrow expect none such. At the bier,
bowed to the ground, in deep, heavy prayer,
her face pressed to the mourning-draped step:
did you see the lady? – She is the dead man’s daughter,
now the castle’s mistress. Do you expect
225 that she should leap up from her father’s body
and with a merry smile, as it befits
a good hostess, hasten to greet you?

ROSENBERG
Oh, heaven forbid! On the contrary, I
say, let us not disturb her grief!
230 Let us go on to the next house!

JOSEPH
Did you see
how on tiptoe I too slipped across
the hall, and allowed not a word
to anyone, neither to others nor myself, – lest

I startle this grieving woman, who, like
235 a cloud-scrap torn in a storm,
cast down, dipped in sorrow, seemed to be.
Who would wish to disturb her? – Who would dare?
Her grief is sacred. – But let us wait, when at last
she lifts her tear-bathed silent face,
240 and the trembling lip and deep-feeling eye
ask for comfort – (without speaking a word though –)
let us be near. – Suffering, below
in the dust of earth and above in the halls,
is only suffering; nowhere does sorrow
245 deny its sacred right. How blest is he
who can give comfort, and need not beg it!
Perhaps today this fortune waits for us,
so let us stay.
(Rosenberg bows in silence.)
– Master steward!

STEWARD
Your pleasure.

JOSEPH
Uninvited, yet not heartless
250 guests we come into this house of mourning,
friends of the young Count, who served
the Emperor with him. – And since
he is far off, and cannot shed a tear
over his departed father: let it then
255 be permitted us to do what he,
could he be here, would do; to revive
his grieving sister’s soul, with the gentle
word of kindly sympathy, as the cool evening breeze
a drooping flower. –
260 Open us a simple room,
and when the Countess, her prayers done,
leaves the place of her mourning: you will

announce us to her –

STEWARD
But, sir –

JOSEPH
Count Falkenstein is my name,
265 and Count Rosenberg my friend’s.

STEWARD
Enough;
had not so grievous a day fallen on us,
our house and the lordship would rejoice
at your arrival. A little
patience I beg – while I make arrangement.
(The steward off.)

ROSENBERG
270 Sire, pardon, – uneasily
my heart is wrung. This house of mourning is
no place for a guest now. For your Majesty too
– do but consider – what comfort
awaits you here? –

JOSEPH
Come now, Rosenberg, what do you talk
275 forever of comfort? – Why, when
among the rocks, in the wood, night overtook us?
And toward midnight lightning and downpour broke?
Was there a private room? A good supper?
Or a feather-bed? And yet, remember, I
280 slept how well! – You are more demanding,
but I forgive it – you were no soldier.

ROSENBERG
And your Majesty is? The Emperor! – Though our whole
journey is nothing but a forgetting
that your Majesty is the Emperor –?

JOSEPH
(With ardour.)
And I am not!
285 No, no, Rosenberg, Emperor I am not!
My mother is the Emperor. Oh, were I but that:
it would not be so much! But in the Vienna Burg
everyone is more Emperor than I myself.
Kaunitz: – is! My mother’s confessor,
290 chambermaid, steward, – all may be
Emperor, not I!

ROSENBERG
Sire! Unjust
the words you let fall in your heat.

JOSEPH
In my heat?
No, by my God! A hundred times I’ve thought it,
and weighed it, and turned it over and over!
295 So it is! – But well! The Emperor: my mother,
and she may grant influence to whom
she will, nor is it even a question whether it pains
or not her son, that she gives only to others!
But what were we speaking of? Ah, yes!
300 You are no soldier, and I am one:
my mother’s soldier! Well, but good –
in the best sense! The army and the
whole war-office are entrusted to me. And the higher
our rank: the more useful it is
305 to know all that the lowest
common man knows. – Softly! Who comes from
the gallery? – Ah, this glorious figure,
in the trailing mourning, her veiled
beauty hid from sun and eyes:
310 whom I long to see, and know not why,
seized with a strange anguish I tremble:
it will be Countess Ilona, beyond doubt!

I’ll cut short her path.
(He hastens toward her.)
(Ilona comes, in full mourning, her face veiled.)
Dear Countess,
forgive two strangers this
315 intrusion. Sorrow does not shut out
the heart’s mercy, but rather softens
even the harder breast; – may your grief
make your heart kindlier toward us.
In your brother’s stead, who travels far, we came
320 to share your heart’s and your house’s sorrow. –

ILONA
(Aside.)
Oh, woe is me: the Emperor! – What shall I do?
What shall I say? – Oh! – But courage, my heart,
for he knows me not...

JOSEPH
Countess, your grief is sacred,
we shall not disturb it. Receive only
325 our word of sympathy.

ILONA
Count, for if I am
not mistaken, so they announced my guests,
as counts: – I thank you for your sympathetic
word.

JOSEPH
(Aside.)
What voice? Have I heard it somewhere?
This is the seraphs’ voice! – Or hers
330 whom for years I have sought in vain!
(Aloud.)
Countess, something whispers to me thus, that
in the realm of spirits often
even the stranger is familiar. Perhaps

(Oh, for who knows the secrets of one’s fate?)
335 such a familiar one we two may find
in one another.

ILONA
(Coldly.)
Count, my father’s bier
is not the place where my preoccupied heart
would wish to unriddle riddles.

JOSEPH (aside)
It is she! What mystery! By this I know her!
(Aloud.)
340 Countess, yet still, familiar be
or unfamiliar, our faces and our names:
on this place hallowed by your grief I beg you,
let me see: – is there no anger
in your gentle eyes against us?

ILONA
(After a struggle.)
So be it!
(She uncovers her face.)
345 And now, Count, God be with you. – My castle
is yours. – Permit me to bury
my poor father!
(She hastens off.)

JOSEPH
It is she! Oh, heavens,
how fair! – To be born blind, – and at this image’s
radiance to gain one’s sight: – oh,
350 what bliss!

ROSENBERG
Not a word do I understand of this whole
meeting.

JOSEPH
Hear me out,
else I fear my heart
will break. You do not understand? Oh, poor,
poor Rosenberg! That much perhaps you understand,
355 that Countess Szécsy is enchanting! Has earth,
has heaven made a fairer? This you too
understand, do you not? But that Joseph, this,
with his chill heart, should feel it and
cast off the icy crust: that, is it not so,
360 that you do not yet understand?

ROSENBERG
Sire, truly
we are used to seeing you stand cold
before a woman’s charm. A statue
in the Belvedere, a figure imagined
from the legends – is to you as much as
365 the freshest reality.

JOSEPH
Always, only not here!
My wonted cold self is but a cover
over the flame I have long kept hidden. One, –
one spark only, but from such an eye as
just now flashed on us: and my heart’s aflame.
370 But of such eyes there is but one; the whole world
besides is bleak and lightless.
Hear me out, Rosenberg. – You recall still:
that three years ago we were in Rome
(you too belonged to my retinue)
375 when the city was on its feet, and my open
carriage rolled in, man upon man,
in the streets and on the rooftops; windows,
so many frames, by the loveliest pictures
filled –, which way to look: I knew not!
380 Suddenly across the air, from a fair height

flung, a nosegay fell
right in my lap –

ROSENBERG
I remember, and a whole
chase went on for three days:
who could have thrown it?

JOSEPH
I saw –

ROSENBERG
And by what
385 could your Majesty know which
it was it came from, of so many?

JOSEPH
How does one know which tree or bush
drops a flower? Its slender branch
bends after, quivering, as if it
390 mourned. – I looked up suddenly,
and saw the loveliest rose-stem, which
dropped its blossoms in my lap. Ah,
its loveliest blossom – burned on her lip – and that
she did not give! – That evening a festival, a thousand
395 beauties, so many Venuses and Junos;
Paris among them stood there dazed –
but not one was she!

ROSENBERG
Alas, who knows, perhaps
she did not belong to the haute crème!

JOSEPH
(Scornfully.)
True, who knows! Yet hear me out:
400 toward midnight, weary, vexed,
I lay on a couch. My right hand
the rose-bouquet, unwilled,

– drawn from its hiding-place – raised
to my lips. And it was well that before my eyes
405 it was. Hear me, Rosenberg, a dark
masked figure stood before me. Her simple
dress, like the swallow, black.
Only her small hand shone white, and in it, ah,
the mate of my own flower: the very one;
410 had I not seen my own: I’d have thought
she had stolen it. I sprang up. Her hand
I seized eagerly. Softly she yielded.
"Who are you?" I cried, imploring. "Why do you wish
to know me?" she asked. – "Can you still ask?
415 When I love you." – "Me? Oh, love
my homeland one day!" – Her sweet voice, like
a silver bell, rang in my ear, and
she dropped the second nosegay
in my lap. With kisses I heaped it,
420 but did not even notice that for it
I let her hand slip away. Like a fairy,
– like a dream she vanished. In vain
I ran through every hall. She nowhere.
And since then nowhere, nowhere — to this day!
425 But I understood the flower’s word,
its colour. She was a Hungarian girl. A green leaf
enclosed the rose, which was red
and white. The colours of Hungary.
And in Hungarian she too spoke: "Oh, love
430 one day my homeland!" A heavenly voice! Such as
the soul hears in a dream. I thought
for three long years: it was a dream alone,
the being, the voice... Today I learned: it was real.
It was she, the Szécsy daughter – Ilona.

ROSENBERG
435 Your Majesty, of this matter until now,
what touched the Hungarian word and colours,
you did not mention; yet perhaps this trace

would have led our searches
to their goal.

JOSEPH
True; of those I kept silent.
440 I had cause: among us the Hungarian
name, word, colours, tongue, are of such ill omen,
that I thought it better to conceal it. Now
I am glad too that I kept silent. I myself
found her thus, whom otherwise – perhaps another
445 would have found. That would have wounded her,
she’d have thought it police prying. –
And that I, in my heat, could forget it!

ROSENBERG
And your Majesty rejoices now that you found
the lady of the Roman secret?

JOSEPH
Yes.
450 And do you wonder at this? –

ROSENBERG
And at this, that in a
Hungarian girl you found her: do you rejoice?

JOSEPH
Eh! Does the heart ask after nation,
race, tongue?

ROSENBERG
Your Majesty’s heart perhaps
would not ask. Your Majesty’s exalted
455 mind perhaps has risen above
every distinction and old partition-wall
that rises between man and man since Babel,
though your Majesty will not be
strong enough to topple all that
460 like outworn ruins into a heap, and

through its dust and rubble, triumphantly
passing, from your throne to the lowliest
serf to give a benefactor’s hand –

JOSEPH
Eh, are you a prophet too? Who’d have thought it!
465 Well, we shall see, we shall see! And if not, –
what comes of it? –

ROSENBERG
I turn it round:
and even if it could be so, – if your Majesty
can set yourself above all things:
do you suppose this Hungarian girl is so too?
470 Will she too forget that she is Hungarian?
Will it not come to her mind: what did she say,
in Rome: "Oh, love my homeland." – This
your Majesty can forget, but she never
will forget it.

JOSEPH
Nor I, oh,
475 nor I! – Should I not love the Hungarian?
This fair land, the diamond stone of our
ancestral crown? The glorious emerald of these green
peaks, valleys, hills? The red ruby of so much
precious blood? – This great nation,
480 which is yet but a fragment of itself,
and so is greater by a head than the rest!
Whose best, now cast down into the dust,
it is my calling to make whole, to bring
to new life? – Should I,
485 should I not love the Hungarian! Yes,
I love it and shall make it great and happy:
only let me be the Emperor!
(A trumpet-blast without.)
Ha! What is it?
My heart pounds. Something awaits me.

ROSENBERG
A courier arrives. From his foaming
horse he is just now leaping down.

JOSEPH
I know not
what is coming to me? From my mother, I sense, heavy
news arrives. Quick! Out to meet him.

ROSENBERG
Already
here comes the steward.
(The steward comes.)

STEWARD
Count sirs,
this courier arrives this moment
495 and to Count Falkenstein –
(The courier enters, a letter in his hand.)

JOSEPH
(Impatiently.)
Give it quickly, lad!
Is it good, or ill?

COURIER
My gracious lord –

JOSEPH
Just give it!
(He takes it and withdraws aside. He reads with great agitation.)

ROSENBERG
You, speak! What has happened?

COURIER
Oh, gracious lord!

ROSENBERG
Speak not! I read it from your eyes! Our glorious
Empress-mother –

COURIER
Is dead! Maria
500 Theresa!

ROSENBERG
But how did it happen?

COURIER
The poor lady
had long been failing. But she hid it,
bore her pains with a great heart. With trouble
they brought her at last to take some
medicine. In vain! None could help her
505 save the good God. They say most
fervently she longed, begging for death,
and always the departed gracious Francis
the Emperor, her husband, she would name.

ROSENBERG
Hush.

JOSEPH
She is dead, – Rosenberg –, not my mother,
510 but the mother of thirty millions has died!
Was there a heart so great as hers:
the love of a whole world fit within it!
A will so strong, – itself
even by the grief that pierced her heart with arrows
515 able to master! A woman, so noble –
and a man, so glorious! Never, never!
And now I, at this point, (which sinfully,
so eagerly, impatiently I waited for) –
seeing the void that has remained in her place,
520 stand trembling. Oh, only not yet, yet
a little while not! – Too late. Come, Rosenberg,
we cannot linger. One tear yet to my mother’s
memory! — And then I am Emperor.
I must be it! – Master steward,

525 announce to your lady our sympathetic
word. She mourns her father, I
my mother. Behold, that is why he could not
pay the last honours to
the corpse of Count Péter Szécsy – the
530 Emperor!
(He hastens off. Rosenberg, courier after him.)

STEWARD
The Emperor!
(The curtain falls.)

First scene: Vienna. In the imperial palace.
(A plainly furnished room, beside the Emperor’s cabinet. In the back-
ground a long writing-table heaped with papers. To the side a simple writing-
desk, for the Emperor. In all three chairs: two by the writing-table,
one before the fireplace. – At the writing-table Günther is at work, –
Field Marshal Lascy, Count Rosenberg come in.)

LASCY
Is it a reception-day today?

ROSENBERG
It is, Tuesday. Did you not see, on the Controlorgang they are already
gathering, the people. The greater part of them
will go home disconsolate.

LASCY
535 Yes, if the greater part of them ask an unjust thing.
With Joseph the unjust is always disconsolate. All
those pensioners, bonus-men, and grace-pensioners, with whom
her Majesty, the Empress-mother, in the goodness of her gracious heart,
flooded the state, and so burdened the treasury
540 that it well-nigh groaned under it – they now, day by day,
all wear away the black paving of the Controlorgang.
That stone is not so cold and unmovable toward them
as the Emperor’s heart.

ROSENBERG
Who is otherwise so sensitive –

LASCY
545 Where there is cause for it. Toward the old soldier who shows
his Rossbach or Kolin wound, instead of sealed letters
of recommendation, or the six-childed widow, whose husband
died in the state’s service, leaving his family without

a morsel of bread. – Is the "Toleration" not mercy
550 toward those who for two hundred years were ceaselessly persecuted,
the poor Protestants? Is it not mercy, the serf’s
free migration, though to the landlord’s
legal hurt, well, but of that let us not speak! – Nay, is not
the Emperor merciful even to the capital
555 criminals, from whose necks he has taken the fear of axe and rope?
What? – Merciful is the Emperor, oh, far too merciful and
kind-hearted where he should be. – But to these! He does well, if
he is merciless!

ROSENBERG
And the respect for his mother’s memory?

LASCY
560 Shall it consist in emptying his treasury into idlers’ pockets?

ROSENBERG
But to deprive so many men at once
of the income they enjoyed? It is a great matter still.

LASCY
Go on, go on, Count. You too are the echo
of those discontented with my Joseph,
565 and because he does not spare them – no deed of his is
to their taste.

ROSENBERG
But pray –

LASCY
I know them! These: the de-pensioned pensioners
of every kind we spoke of, these reverend fathers
570 and aunts over whom the cloister is ablaze, these
equally reverend ink-gobblers who grieve
that they have nothing to censor, these high
and mighty and gracious counts and princes
who so dreadfully toilsomely mourn their idle
575 ceremony-days. These – to the devil with them!

GÜNTHER
(Who till now seemed not to notice the new-comers, at the great
shout lifts his head.)
Ah! Father! – I could not imagine who would dare
to shout so in the Emperor’s antechamber.

LASCY
Who dares? Why, Field Marshal Lascy dares, who is
used to the loud word of command.

GÜNTHER
580 True, father! More is permitted you than others.

LASCY
More permitted? I should think so. And so it ought to be. –
For else, while behind his back everyone whispers,
who would tell the Emperor to his face, when
he blunders so very greatly, as –

ROSENBERG
585 How? Field Marshal! You too find fault with the Emperor’s
deeds?

LASCY
Whether I find fault? Of course I find fault.

ROSENBERG
And pray, with what?

LASCY
That I shall tell before the Emperor. –
590 Behind a man’s back I like to wound no one.

ROSENBERG
Only those reverend –

LASCY
That is another matter. Least of all, though, my Joseph, who
deserves of me, and even expects of me, that I
sell him no cat in a bag. Well, Günther? You,
595 I see, are always at work.

GÜNTHER
There is work enough, thank God.

LASCY
Erzsike, to be sure, would not mind if there were
less. Eh? Hehehe!

GÜNTHER
True, for some days my evenings too were not
600 free, and scarcely –

LASCY
But this, I hope, is no mere excuse? I hope,
not somewhere else –

GÜNTHER
Ah, father! What are you thinking, for God’s sake? –

LASCY
Well, never. A thousand cannon! That girl, Günther, that
605 girl, prize her! For if I should ever find anything out –

GÜNTHER
Oh, father, what suspicion!

LASCY
Well, son, no suspicion, no suspicion. Only good counsel,
and that always suits youth. – I too was
young, for all that now I am old and – gouty!
610 Well, no matter, I think nothing ill of you.
When does the Emperor come out? Is he in?

GÜNTHER
He should be here long since, but he rode out, rose
early and seemed very out of sorts. But perhaps
he has come home already. As if I heard
615 his pacing in his room. Likely he came up the back stairs.

ROSENBERG
The back stairs, – the Emperor!

GÜNTHER
Such is his custom.

ROSENBERG
Ah! He who only a few years ago saw him – would not
know the good Vienna Burg now!
(Joseph comes.)

JOSEPH
620 I had a sleepless night, I am unwell.
The morning breath of air did not much
help my poor head. Eh, no matter.
– Is it you, Rosenberg? – Lascy, good day!
Well, what’s the news? – Günther, good fellow,
625 you are at work? Just write for me too, today
I slept ill. My head is not in its place.
I am languid today.

ROSENBERG
Your Majesty quite
wears yourself out.

JOSEPH
With what then?
With all the work? Oh, indeed, we have no leisure,
630 as in former days, to take life easy.
When merrily, from bough to bough, like
a whistling bird, we skipped! Do you recall
how happy we were! That is, not you,
you grumbled even then, to you
635 the fresh mountain air and the cool spring water
were not to your taste. And now the room
and the dust-laden documents do not please you?
Let them please, then, Privy Councillor, sir!
You, Lascy, are different! How often have I slept
640 on one cloak with you, under one blanket!
You alone are my man,
you never murmured. To you, what-

ever Joseph did: all was good. Was it not?
Only come to my help now too! This
645 boundless carping, thicker than the savage hail
of canister and shot, whistles
round my ears. My head rings with it!
Defend me, save me!

LASCY
Your Majesty, I indeed now
neither can defend, nor save you. I myself
650 have a complaint of my own.

JOSEPH
You?
Well, that I’d like to hear! Out with it, quick.

LASCY
It is not so short. Nor takes it so few
words. And then your Majesty knows well,
I can speak only in soldierly fashion;
655 politics and the courtier’s finesse are not my bread.

JOSEPH
I know, I know what your bread is:
always the army loaf! Good old man, never mind.
Speak, and just as in camp. Eh,
660 were I now your soldier: pray,
what would you say? Let me hear the word of command.

LASCY
I would say, Sire: "Halt! Ground
arms! At ease!"

JOSEPH
And why?

LASCY
And why this haste?
I ask: why this greedy hurry,

665 toward a distant goal? Not a year has passed,
Sire, since you are Emperor: and see how
all stands topsy-turvy, heels to heaven!
The building of the state will soon be
overthrown; no stone stands on stone,
670 everywhere ruin.

JOSEPH
Because I am building.

LASCY
The wise builder takes apart, fair and
slow, what he would pull down: perhaps it
proves usable still; he needs a clean place too,
where his hand may come and go and have
675 free movement; Joseph, thus
we do not build, we only demolish.

JOSEPH
And you, Lascy,
you old storming-hero, you speak so? Who other times
cried "Fix bayonets!" and against a thousand
cannon, charge! leaped to meet them!
680 You?

LASCY
I, and just I alone may speak it,
for another, if he spoke, – who spent his whole
life chewing the pen, – I know well,
his name would be coward. Lascy
that no one can call. He who saw him
685 at Hochkirch too: least of all!

JOSEPH
That is true. Well then?

LASCY
I say it:
why this greedy hurry? Why

demolish all that’s old at once? Why
kindle fire on every side? Set upon ourselves
690 every interest, and whether sacred
or not, overturn it? Why?
Maybe all good is your Majesty’s aim (though
I know not, but among so many innovations
there may be dross too): but in order, and
695 not rushed, my good lord! First
the sowing, and that too with method, awaiting
good weather for it; then sunshine, rain,
– and patience too! – and only then the harvest!
Of this your Majesty thinks not, greedily
700 and all at once you want it all!

JOSEPH
But, dear Lascy, see,
your Joseph is forty years old already –
and who knows whether he’ll reach fifty?

LASCY
Ah, ah! Nonsense –

JOSEPH
That, perhaps,
and perhaps not? – And so: patience!
705 Did I not endure for sixteen years,
since my father’s death? Emperor by
name, in truth a mere puppet! With a head
burning with a thousand ideas, with a wild
host of plans! A furnace-fire that they
710 smother, – under the iron lid, would not
seethe more fiercely than my brain and heart, –
for a single night? No! For sixteen years!
Wishing to do all – and able to do
nothing! And when the sluice-gate bursts open,
715 you would command the flood
not to roar!

LASCY
But only let him not go
against the rock! There it shatters to dust, and
steams up in white sparks. My God, –
let your Majesty act! Your calling is sacred,
720 glorious, exalted! But await its time,
in fair order!

JOSEPH
I said, I have no time to wait.
I wish to reap, not only to sow!
And in the palace that I build:
I wish to live as well. See, is there
725 in Europe a land fairer than
our Austria! Thirty million!
Rich of soil! Wealthy! Its past great, glorious! –
Rudolf of Habsburg history
will name forever. See,
730 and yet how far behind we have stayed! The world
goes rushing on, but us the old good
darkness holds fast! Nations
wake startled, and like one man, stand
on the battlefields of peril; us so many small
735 pieces it tears, as many as we are,
every storm; neighbour does not understand
neighbour; takes him for an enemy and
sets upon him; German, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak,
Croat, Italian, Serb – I am with them
740 like the father of countless children,
he no longer knows even their names, – so many are they!
No, Lascy, here is no time even to weigh –
far less to wait!

LASCY
Does your Majesty
know this: that those for whom you so
745 consume yourself, are all your enemies?

Who lie in wait, watching where you stumble, fall!

JOSEPH
Who are my enemies? Every one I know;
these: the owls of blindness, who at a single
ray already screech; and these:
750 the caterpillars of interest, who greedily
devour the green leaf while it lasts,
and when there is none, fall in heaps, first
drawing their ugly body’s rings into
hideous cramps! Those, the elephants of
755 antiquity, who can tread only in one place
– and falling there
never rise again… These are my enemies?

LASCY
Would there were no others! These too – and rightly,
indeed! The Emperor does not spare them – and
760 let him not spare them, he does well!

JOSEPH
What then is the trouble?

LASCY
What? This, that not only they
are your Majesty’s enemies. Not only
an evil sore is the state’s body; no!
There is sound limb too; and your Majesty against that too
765 whets the destroying iron. Among the many weeds
shall the cedar fall too? Let a hundred
abuses perish; right and proper; but the
sacred right remain! Your Majesty though,
what does not fit your great design, that,
770 right or not right, you trample. Witness this: –

JOSEPH
I know – don’t say it! The Hungarian crown.

LASCY
That too. But I begin with another. What is
not your Majesty’s: the landlord’s right
over his serf’s body, his plot: – you took away! –

JOSEPH
775 And you defend serfdom?

LASCY
I, no;
but I defend the sacred right of property!
And I would have wished that we ourselves, if it must be,
should give it up, and not another take it away, –
what he did not give; for though to me the Majesty
780 gave it, to a stranger; how many there are who held it
earlier than your ancestors the throne,
gracious lord!

JOSEPH
And then the crown still!
My fault, is it not? This old kalpak
that I did not set upon my head?

LASCY
Let there be no mockery,
785 Sire! To be a king is a fine thing.
And to wear such a crown as great,
noble heads have worn since Stephen,
your Majesty too may proudly rejoice.

JOSEPH
Eh,
since when have you become so strong a Hungarian?

LASCY
790 I was there, a page-lad, when
at Pozsony, in forty-one, the Hungarian
thundered the "moriamur." I was there
in every battle. And if I honour

– nor wonder at it, Sire! – the Hungarian.

JOSEPH
795 To another I would not even answer: Lascy, – you
deserve a word. I have resolved
to break in pieces, and then to fuse together,
my realms. And this resolve
is stronger than myself; than all that may
800 rise to hinder it. The Emperor of a falling-apart
mass I do not wish to be; one
– or nothing shall my Austria be! If a peak stands
in my way: I blast it to the air; I have no time
to go round it. My peoples perhaps
805 will understand one day that it was to their good,
all that I did. – Will understand that a glorious
future I created, sacrificing their mute
past alone, and at the price of outworn titles
I win them a right to greatness.
810 If they will: in my dust too they will bless me.
If not: their paltry, narrow-breasted interest
waits from me in vain, – and does not deserve
to be spared. Enough. I will not
return to this theme. – Ah, today is Tuesday,
815 and ten o’clock, Günther, pray, open now
the gallery door. Let the petitioners
come.
(Günther goes to the rear door and opens it,
a great throng of petitioners appears.)
May I but stay here.
You, Lascy, sit down. I have one chair, it is
at your service. An old fellow,
820 why should he stand the hour long? – Sit, do.
(Lascy, after some reluctance, sits in the chair before the fireplace.
Rosenberg stands beside him. Joseph goes toward the open door,
through which Sonnenthal is just entering. A petition in his hand. He
bows deeply. The Emperor takes his petition and looks at the
signature.)

Sonnenthal? Mining-referendary?
Well, what do you wish?

SONNENTHAL
Sire, the greatest
injustice has befallen my person.

JOSEPH
For God’s sake –?

SONNENTHAL
I have been removed, and
825 without any ascertainable cause.

JOSEPH
Wait, you.
(He goes to the table and opens a great book.)
Sonnenthal. Here it is. Incompetent, utterly
ignorant –

SONNENTHAL
Oh, gracious lord –

JOSEPH
Never
was he at a mining-place –

SONNENTHAL
(In confusion.)
True.

JOSEPH
Nor
finished his schooling. He did not study
830 philosophy – well, that would be no harm! –
nor mathematics, nor natural science. – There’s the harm!
(He claps the book shut and stands before Sonnenthal.)
And is it true?

SONNENTHAL
Sire, I cannot deny it –

JOSEPH
And an injustice befell your person?
Was it not an injustice: for so many years
835 to draw a salary you did not earn? – Go.

SONNENTHAL
Gracious lord, your gracious mother –

JOSEPH
She
was good, may she rest! – I am just.
You may go.
(Sonnenthal off, confounded. Madame Vinter comes.)
Who comes? – Your pleasure, madame?

VINTER
Gracious lord, gracious sovereign, glorious
840 Emperor, your mercy on my knees –

JOSEPH
No, no –
Rise, madame, and be brief.

VINTER
Sire, my husband, now but the late
Councillor Vinter, served your Majesty
faithfully sixteen years and
845 by his death, ah, left his family
without support.

JOSEPH
So? – How many children
have you, madame?

VINTER
Two little gentlemen, and a
little miss.

JOSEPH
Ah so, a little miss?

I had a little daughter too; but already
850 she has died, poor thing. And your little gentlemen, how
old are they?

VINTER
Twenty, and sixteen years.

JOSEPH
That one I’ll have enrolled as a soldier. This one
in the trade-school.

VINTER
Oh, but Sire,
my family is of ancient nobility.

JOSEPH
Have they an estate?

VINTER
855 None, alas – but our rank –

JOSEPH
Titulus
sine vitulo. What did your daughter learn?

VINTER
Learn? – Nothing –

JOSEPH
Let her fold her
hands then, if she can live so, the little miss.
Pardon, madame; my time is short.

VINTER
860 Sire, and disconsolate you dismiss me?

JOSEPH
Oh,
I almost fear to wound so high-ranking a lady
with some trifle.
I shall find a way. – Let another come.

(The Emperor signs. Madame Vinter off in amazement. Hóra comes. A tall,
red-, young-faced, grey-haired man, in Wallachian dress.)
Günther! – Do not let me forget. Twenty florins to this
865 gracious lady. – Who is this fine
figure? Who are you? What is your name? Your nation?

HÓRA
My name is Hóra. I am a Wallachian.

JOSEPH
Do you come from far off?

HÓRA
From a twenty-days’ journey land,
from Zaránd county.

JOSEPH
And what do you wish?

HÓRA
Only
870 to see you, gracious lord,
who are the redeemer of the poor people,
and when I have kissed your foot, and the dust
have kissed from your sandal, to return
to my yoke.

JOSEPH
Speak, is your lot hard?

HÓRA
875 Hard? Four days the corvée; one
the pope demands; one is God’s.
The seventh remains to us, and if perhaps
a sick child, or for some other cause, or one
day is lost: our hide pays for it.
880 But we complain not; the poor Wallachian
can still wait; the Imperatu will
help. And there comes a day on which our murderers
shall tremble, the sky takes flame

and the shadow of castles trembles in smoke. That
885 I shall yet live to see.

JOSEPH
What are you saying?

HÓRA
Gracious
Emperor, forgive me. The serf blesses but one
name: yours. The poor Wallachian
looks to one saint, while he fasts and labours:
to you. His hopes, which diet and lord
890 have cheated a thousandfold, you do not cheat;
his prayers, by God so often re-
jected, you do not reject!
(He casts himself to the ground and clasps Joseph’s feet.)

JOSEPH
Enough, enough, rise up.

HÓRA
I am happy!
And my whole village I will make happy!
895 I have kissed the Emperor’s sandals. Oh,
a giant has risen at this foot’s tread
in my heart! A spring has welled up here:
so soothing – and so burning!
(Hóra off, suddenly.)

JOSEPH
(Toward Lascy and Rosenberg.)
What a
man! What primal force! You see this!
900 A serf, and Wallachian at that! Is there a noble
nobler than this peasant? One day, when perhaps
I shall have need of arms –
(He sinks into thought.)

LASCY
(To Rosenberg.)
My back too
creeps at this Wallachian! What dark
revenge! What fanaticism!

JOSEPH
(Starting up.)
God preserve me
905 from the terrible necessity! – Let another come!
(The door opens. An aged warrior appears; with a wooden leg and
a crutch. Joseph hastens toward him.)

Second scene.
In one of the upper counties of Hungary.
(An old-fashioned palace hall. On the walls ancestral portraits, coats of arms,
weapons, etc. Count Miklós Ghymes leads Ilona in by the hand.)

GHYMES
God’s welcome, niece; your mourning is over;
mine, though, begins. A good father
your heart mourns; but my mourning is greater:
a mother, the best, the dearest
910 mother, my heart laments, – the homeland.
Whom the mourning of so many faithful sons
cannot revive. – My widowed house
take into your care, I beg you; there is no woman
who with faithful heart watched wisely
915 over my hearth, and so went to the grave that,
leaving no offspring, disconsolate
she left me on the earth. You she,
her sister’s child, like your own mother
embraced with love. Be, fatherless
920 girl, to me, a childless father,
be my child! And again, God’s welcome to you!

ILONA
Brother, if there is aught that can soothe
my orphanhood, it is your goodness alone.
Be blessed for it. But not for long
925 shall I be your guest. Fate beckons me,
and I am come to take my leave.

GHYMES
And where do you hasten?

ILONA
To the court.

GHYMES
What do I hear?

ILONA
To Vienna.

GHYMES
What!
To that Sodom, which sooner or later
will sink down, for the punishment
930 cannot delay; and God’s wrath will
reach all who are there!

ILONA
Be calm!
Perhaps God has not yet given out
his judgment, unalterably,
to his fire-angel. Perhaps escape is possible!
935 For five righteous men perhaps he will yet preserve
this doomed city, the Lord!

GHYMES
For five righteous men? But will you be even so many?

ILONA
The Lord is merciful. In him I trust.
And like Jephtha’s daughter, with willing heart I go

940 to the sacrifice.

GHYMES
You appall me.

ILONA
Father! –
For so my heart names you – I could not
so depart, but leave with someone
the key of my future, by which, when one day
humbled, slander-covered, I shall stand,
945 he may open the pure hall of my secret,
and look into the hidden place
of my sacred resolve, where my altar stands – and on it:
I, drowned in blood, but a pure offering.

GHYMES
I understand you not, – but I tremble.

ILONA
And perhaps
950 it is better that you understand not. You are a man, and the woman –
what man understands her? For you, the sword and shield, –
for us, what weapon have we? – And as we
cannot lift with weak hand your sword,
you cannot lift our weapons either!
955 But know this much, that whatever the world
shall say of me, nay, not only it,
but my own life and deeds… – a lie,
all that will be a lie; only so much will there be
of truth beneath it, as softly, in the
960 last heartbeat, thus whispers: my homeland!

GHYMES
What a name you have uttered! Weak girl!
You who spoke of weapons the woman’s
hand cannot wield: lay down the sacred name
of the homeland; this shield, with its veiled
965 crest! That you cannot bear.

ILONA
Wound me not!
I will not stain your cherished crest.
Sacred it is, to me too.

GHYMES
I did not mean
to ask your purpose. I would trust your heart’s
feeling; though not knowing what you
970 intend, I would bless you. Now, when
you name the homeland: jealously I must
demand to know: what do you intend? The homeland’s
exalted name is not for play!
And every son of hers must guard it;
975 above all, when he does not guard it, who on high
holds his defending sword in hand. – Speak,
I am listening.

ILONA
Brother, if your sorrowing homeland’s
desperate fate to redeem
– though with scant hope – one tiny little
980 ray were to gleam: what would you do? Would you not
give all for it, yourself!
Your life, your heart! And if this ray of hope
proved a fleeting will-o’-the-wisp:
would you reproach your faith, that for it
985 you were ready to sacrifice all?

GHYMES
Not I.

ILONA
And if you knew the magic word that
would compel the dreadful boa
to release its prey, the lion coiled
in its rings; or
990 that, leading you to your stolen treasure,

would spring open the lock fastened on it:
would you speak that word? Though
your tongue should be torn out with it? –

GHYMES
That would I!

ILONA
And if on your breast a lily snow-pure
995 you tended, guarding it from stain – and the sphinx,
which with dread care sits over your glorious future’s
hidden word, asked that as a pledge:
speak, would you cast it away?

GHYMES
That would I!

ILONA
And if it were not you of whom fate
1000 demanded all this, speak, would you bless
the one who resolved upon it?

GHYMES
That would I!

ILONA
And if it were your own daughter who is that one:
speak, would you let her go?

GHYMES
Let her go I would!

ILONA
(Kneeling.)
Then bless me, – and let me go!

GHYMES
Oh!
1005 Are you this bold pilgrim? – Weak girl!

ILONA
Why do you call me so? I am a Hungarian girl
and of that race which the
Rozgonyi women and the Eger ladies
bore. Only bless me.

GHYMES
Rise up.

ILONA
I will
1010 that you bless me.

GHYMES
I, who am no saint nor priest?
God bless you! The great God
of the Hungarians.
(He holds his hand over her head.)

ILONA
(Rising.)
Enough. God be with you.

GHYMES
Stay. What is your purpose? I will
know it. I am your father; and I demand it.

ILONA
Do not ask.

GHYMES
1015 Answer.

ILONA
Enough was it to say so much
as I have said, that you might understand.

GHYMES
Enough? What
I could understand breeds rather alarm
than reassurance.

ILONA
Hear then –

GHYMES
Let us sit down meanwhile,
take a seat.

ILONA
One foot of mine is on the road,
1020 and I shall be brief. – Is there yet hope
that Joseph yields, and our homeland’s right
will recognize?

GHYMES
No. Blind and stubborn.
Blind, he sees not the radiance of our sacred right, for
his own phantasms; and stubborn, while only his hand
1025 and mind he holds: he will not step back.

ILONA
And is there no way to touch his heart?

GHYMES
I know not;
nor do I believe it. Where the brain is bone:
the heart either bleeds to death, or ceases
to feel.

ILONA
But his heart is able, infinitely
1030 greatly to love.

GHYMES
His plans? Himself?

ILONA
Not that. Mankind.

GHYMES
(With bitter scorn.)
Just so; that man
whom their so-called philosophy made;

a man who is not flesh, bone, nor blood, nor heart,
neither peasant nor lord, neither coward nor noble,
1035 son of no nation, of no homeland,
fired for no past; fighting for no right;
on whom is nothing that makes us: the
name, tongue, dress, memory, ancestral grief, hope; –
a bare man only: idea, machine, subject, –
1040 this is Voltaire’s and Rousseau’s man,
emptier and worse than Plato’s man.
This is the man whom Joseph too loves,
this, for whom his fervent heart is fired!

ILONA
No! He loves man, the real one, and
1045 the suffering one (or is not the non-suffering
one the real man) he loves!
He can love the aged, the child,
the wounded and the disconsolate. He can
love woman! – You doubt it? Do you want
1050 a proof? An instance of it? – Good!
Lo, with face aflame I say it: he
loves me!

GHYMES
How do you know? Did he himself
perhaps tell you?

ILONA
No. But I know it,
for every woman knows, feels, that she
1055 is loved. I know that he loves me.
And if he loves, it is no everyday
flame-flare. His love is a world;
centreless: spreading wide – and perhaps
with its flood sweeping the great millions into
1060 the depths – into its own depths!
But having found its goal: its flame-rays

it gathers all together. So, dark night;
thus, bliss-giving light; so, a bleak great void;
thus, rich abundance. – I in this love’s
1065 name beg of him my sacred homeland’s
weal, its right.

GHYMES
And for a fancy, with cold
calculation, heartless, yourself
would you cast into his arms?

ILONA
Heartless? Who says it?
I too love!

GHYMES
You love? Poor girl!
1070 Then you are lost.

ILONA
Fear not for me. For more even than him
a hundredfold do I love honour!
And more than honour –

GHYMES
Do not even say it!
A woman can love nothing more than
her honour!

ILONA
Nor the homeland?
(Ghymes silently shakes his head.)
Ah!
1075 You do not speak? Fear not! Countess Ilona Szécsy
can love – but can also die!
You do not understand what here this soft
woman’s heart beats. And I am sorry that I yielded
to your questions. – But, God be with you.
(Ghymes seizes her hand.)

1080 Let me go!

GHYMES
Renounce this mad design.

ILONA
No,
no!

GHYMES
You have not my consent.

ILONA
I have
your blessing already. Let me go! God be with you!
(She tears herself away and quickly off.)

GHYMES
Poor girl! What worth the sacrifice,
1084 if even at the price of her blood there is no atonement?
(The curtain falls.)

First scene: Vienna. Ilona Szécsy’s palace.
(A reception-hall furnished with great splendour and coquettish taste. Ilona, in
sumptuous attire, sits on a sofa. Before her Eliz stands modestly.)

ILONA
1085 I thank you, my dear. And not only do you
oblige me thus, but your brother, the valiant
General, the Emperor’s sword, – so
I may call him, – deserves my gratitude,
that he yielded you, gentle child, to me,
1090 as the brightener of my solitude.

ELIZ
Your Ladyship has no need of that; and so
poor a girl could not even be capable
of cheering you. My uncle perhaps
goes to camp, and is glad that his child
1095 under so dear a lady’s sheltering wing
he may leave. His Majesty was so gracious,
himself desired it –

ILONA
And I am the happier,
that thereby I could fulfil
his Majesty’s wish.
(She rings. The lady’s maid comes.)
My child!
1100 Today I shall have company. I wish
that you take part in it. – Szeráf,
show the young lady her chamber. –
– Her rooms are ready and all is
arranged; your taste, your habits,

1105 I hope, we have guessed, my dear.

ELIZ
Oh, dear Countess, in my brother’s simple
dwelling I was not used to such
splendour! With little I was so happy –
your Ladyship, with your favour, bewitches me.

ILONA
Modest,
1110 good child! – God be with you, only make haste,
and return quickly. This very day the Emperor
wishes to see you.

ELIZ
(Aside.)
Ah! Poor
Günther! You do not see! And I think only
of you!
(She bows. Off with the lady’s maid.)

ILONA
Good child! And in her too the
1115 Emperor takes interest. Worthy
of his sympathy. And he is gracious to
everyone. What a heart! What a noble temper!
And how stern, where idea and will
guide his deeds! Brother, you know him
1120 well. His mind is bone, and for his warm
heart that is the bar. A sacrifice
like mine cannot win a single smile
from his lip, there where the stubborn brain
chills its flame. – For he loves, not
1125 only says it; and his love is deep and true.
I see it well; but deeper and stronger is
his resolve. Behold, I staked all
for him. The Hungarian girl
who is proud of forty ancestors, and inherited as a sacred

1130 trust their virgin name – cast her treasure
into a bold game. Sinning,
if she does not win; blest, if she wins. – My name
is on the lips of Vienna; over my honour
at home they crossed themselves; and what did I gain,
1135 innocent, nay, of my own will cast off
in the price of my name? Nothing. While our cause,
like a galley that a hundred ropes and pulleys
drag, push, yet cannot draw to the sea,
for its weight has stuck fast in the sand: –
1140 has not stirred at all. Perhaps today! Oh, hope,
you cheat me day by day, you flatter, you persuade,
and cheat again! If now one thread snaps:
you tie, you knot another, till that too is torn apart
by the morrow. Oh, today too there is one little hope-
1145 thread. Günther... Will he come? Will he bring
better news of our cause? And if not? – If not,
mine shall be the final trial. Now! And if even
now he does not bend; if my love cannot
dissolve the ice-crust of his mind
1150 from his heart; if his resolve
even today, even at the last, defies
my love and my love’s flames:
it is forever over, – I yield myself
and go, carrying my shame with me.
1155 My homeland! The sacrifice is ready! The warrior
on the battlefield bleeds no more freely,
no more gladly – and ah, not so in vain!
– Away, fainthearted thought! Nothing is lost,
not even hope. – They come; – my God!
(Countess Thurn, Countess Khevenhüller, Count Rosenberg,
Baron Meerstrom; guest lords and ladies come; Ilona
receives them. General greetings.)

THURN
1160 You are exceedingly kind.

ILONA
Dear Countess,
you oblige me. I scarcely dared hope it.
(They sit. Countess Thurn beside Ilona in the place of honour.
Countess Khevenhüller next to them. The others in conversing
groups.)

THURN
(Answering the former.)
Everyone hastens only toward you:
your rich palace is the model in Vienna now.
At your soirées everything that is rare, fair,
1165 or sought-after is together.

KHEVENHÜLLER
Oh, true!
That I admit already. What in Vienna is one,
nay, in the world without peer, and what
is found only in rare spots: – that too
is here to be found!

ILONA
The Countess makes me
1170 curious; of such treasures I
know nothing. And what might that be?

KHEVENHÜLLER
You are
very modest! You conceal your treasures
which the whole world envies you.

ILONA
Eh,
yet, what is it?

KHEVENHÜLLER
The Emperor! Whom only the
1175 fair Countess Szécsy won as the jewel
for her soirées.

ILONA
The Countess is, truly,
exceedingly witty!
(Aside.) The serpent!
(Aloud.) And do you
hope: that today we may have the fortune
of his Majesty?

KHEVENHÜLLER
(With scorn.)
And are you not entirely
1180 certain of that?

ILONA
How should I be? Why, his
Majesty rarely and unexpectedly
surprises, – not me, for to myself I would
not dare ascribe that, – but
the company that my humble dwelling
1185 and my soirées now and then are graced to entertain.

THURN
If I must confess it, Countess, I myself
too lived in such hope and came
that his Majesty would be here.

ILONA
(With scorn.)
Ah, the Countess
greatly obliges me.

THURN
(In confusion.)
That is, – pardon –

ILONA
1190 No, no, – truly there is here no other
attraction, save if his Majesty deign
to abase himself here.

(She turns away scornfully. – To Rosenberg.)
Count, you
are exceedingly rare with us. For a time
– and long! – now you give cause only for complaint.

ROSENBERG
1195 I would be disconsolate –

ILONA
Is it fitting thus
to neglect old acquaintances?
Among all the lords and ladies of the court
you were my first acquaintance. – Is it not so,
you recall still: – His Majesty and you
1200 came to my castle.
(They go on talking softly.)

KHEVENHÜLLER
(Secretly to Countess Thurn.)
Did you notice, Countess,
how touchy she is!

THURN
(Likewise.)
And stings like a bee! Her wicked
sting stuck fast, but I’ll wager,
not to my, – to her own ruin it shall be!

KHEVENHÜLLER
(Likewise.)
How dare
such a one even speak! – Today she must, today still
1205 be humbled by us.
(The folding doors are flung open at once. Everyone turns that way.
Expectation.)

THURN
(Springing up.)
The Emperor!

KHEVENHÜLLER
(Likewise.)
Truly?
(Two chamberlains stand on either side of the door.)

FIRST CHAMBERLAIN
(Announcing.)
His Grace Prince Kaunitz!
(Kaunitz enters.)

ILONA
(Hastening toward him with great respect.)
Gracious lord, what great fortune!

KAUNITZ
(Scarcely returning the greeting.)
– Is
the Emperor here?

ILONA
His Majesty has not yet
arrived.

KAUNITZ
(Turning back.)
– Let my carriage wait!
1210 – Not yet? You said, Countess? Can you assure me
that his Majesty will be here?

ILONA
(Softly.)
I have his word.

KAUNITZ
My carriage may go.
(While the doors are shut: he comes forward, looks round
at the company.)
A very fine company!
Countess, you are an enchantress. Where did you get
your magic wand: that you could summon

1215 these here?

ILONA
That is my secret. May I
keep it?

KAUNITZ
Keep it, do! A secret that
everyone suspects does not pique me.
Where is my place? Pray, show me,
for I would not stand underfoot.

ILONA
(Indicating the place where she herself had sat, beside Countess Thurn.)
1220 If it please you, gracious lord.

KAUNITZ
Thank you!
I never sit beside another. With me
let no one sit on one settee.

THURN
(Rising, offended.)
Ah!

KAUNITZ
So, good.
(He sits.)
If you please, my dear –
(Pointing to a chair.)

THURN
How
insufferable.

KHEVENHÜLLER
This one must only endure.
1225 Let us go.
(Aside.) So I see, today the order of the day here
is humiliation.

(The two countesses go to another sofa, and taking their seats
there, converse.)

KAUNITZ
(To Ilona.)
Ah, Countess, this only
I wished, to drive off those two silkworms.
Sit beside me; I am not
so rude to everyone!
1230 And I have business too with the Countess. – So.
Have you heard news today? Surely not?
Our couriers have arrived. Good tidings!
The Belgians are in uproar. – The war
against the Turk is unavoidable. –
1235 The Muscovite Czarina, whose interest
lies in the war, wishes in person
– and this very spring – to meet with the
Emperor. If this succeeds: our cause
is won; – there trouble, here peril: – such
1240 times are not exactly favourable to
reform.

ILONA
Ah! At such a price?

KAUNITZ
Why, is it a great price,
a little turmoil? A little war?
Great, a little civic blood, and a
little Turkish blood? – That a great price? Why,
1245 if I am not mistaken, the Countess herself
did not ask the price so closely
when it was a matter of herself? – Enough,
that the success is ours, – and he, compelled
to let his reforms, though but for a short time,
1250 rest.

ILONA
For but a short time only?
What worth, if not forever?

KAUNITZ
Ah! He who has won
time, has won life!

ILONA
Time,
in uncertainty, is a new death to me;
it is but the respite of my sufferings; the longer
1255 my death is delayed: the longer
is the death-bed’s making-ready!

KAUNITZ
Why
these dreadful thoughts? Such a fair combatant
smiling kills, smiling bleeds to death.
– May I venture one question?
1260 Countess, do you ply not only politics,
but something else as well?

ILONA
What else of your Grace’s
would interest me? No. With you I ply
only politics.

KAUNITZ
And with Günther?
His Majesty’s secretary?

ILONA
Eh,
1265 so you know that too?

KAUNITZ
I know everything.

ILONA
Why do you ask then? – Besides, with him too only
politics. What else could it be?

KAUNITZ
Countess, you are cold, of evil heart;
only to reach your goal, you regard nothing else.
1270 What do you think of Günther? Who is this
Günther to you? A mere little secretary
who deserves not a single sigh. True! –
So the cat plays with the mouse:
play to the one, death to the other.

ILONA
1275 What do you think of me, gracious lord?

KAUNITZ
And you did not notice it? Günther in this
game gambles away all he has:
his Emperor’s sacred trust, his own future,
his honour. Such a man as he
1280 will not do this for money. What will
his pay be? Ah, poor man, he himself
will pay the cost! And do you know what? – His heart!

ILONA
Your Grace appalls me.

KAUNITZ
Truly?
And you did not notice it? His good heart
1285 speaks rather for that, than for his sharpness of mind.
Well, only observe him! – But I continue
my questions about your Ladyship’s intrigues,
if you pardon it, – and with the Emperor?
(The doors are opened.)

ILONA
Ah!

Who comes? Is it not the Emperor?
(Joseph, Lascy, Günther come.)

KAUNITZ
But he himself!
1290 Fortune to you, my fair adversary.
(Everyone has risen and looks toward the Emperor, who comes forward
and graciously greets the company.)

ILONA
Sire, my thanks –

KAUNITZ
(Who alone has remained in his place. Aside.)
Adversary? – Why,
we work to one hand. Eh; yet she is one!
We cheat each other turn and turn about.

JOSEPH
Dear Countess,
we come late. We come, because companions
1295 I brought with me, by your leave –
my old Lascy, who departs tomorrow, – and
comes to take his leave. And Günther, my secretary,
whom I have the honour to present.

ILONA
We
already know each other.

JOSEPH
(Aside.)
I know it well!
(Feigning surprise.)
How so?

GÜNTHER
(In confusion.)
1300 Sire –

ILONA
(Quickly.)
The other day on the Glacis my fiery
team bolted; perhaps I was even lost,
when with self-sacrifice a daring
youth seized the reins –

JOSEPH
And that
was you, Günther? (Aside.)
Not awkwardly
1305 did she find herself out of it –

GÜNTHER
Gracious lord –

THURN
(Secretly to Countess Khevenhüller.)
How romantic! This little knight
is over head and ears in love.

KHEVENHÜLLER
I can almost see the
ink-stain on his hand.

THURN
Only let no
blood wash it off.

KHEVENHÜLLER
Fear not, my dear,
1310 this is not the age of the knightly romance!
And would it even be worth it, for such a one?

JOSEPH
Fine, my Günther; as gallant a knight
as you are a good secretary! And why
did you not tell of your heroic deed?
(He looks fixedly at Günther, who stands before him confounded
and with downcast eyes – pointedly.)

1315 See, I as a reward, even not yet knowing it,
had a dear surprise in store for you.

GÜNTHER
Sire –

ILONA
(Aside.)
What might it be?

JOSEPH
Only wait for it,
today you shall yet receive it. – Countess, is your little
protégée here already?

ILONA
I hope, before long
1320 I may present her.

GÜNTHER
(Aside.)
Protégée? Hah!

JOSEPH
My pardon to the fair company! Here
– as always – so much that is fair is in one cluster,
that butterfly and bee would fall into confusion: on which
flower to alight? Only divert yourselves,
1325 my fair ladies! – Ah, Kaunitz! You too?

MEERSTROM
(Softly to a lady.)
See, your Ladyship, how proud, that he
is the one whom his Majesty does not say "thou" to
among the men.

LADY
Rightly! And he is such
as an old Madame! Is he not?

MEERSTROM
Ah, superb!

JOSEPH
(Sitting beside Kaunitz.)
1330 Well, how are we?

KAUNITZ
Well.

JOSEPH
And the Countess?

KAUNITZ
Poor lady,
she both fears and hopes.

JOSEPH
And dreams
of her Hungarian homeland? Does she not?

KAUNITZ
And of the Hungarian
king as well.

JOSEPH
With me?

KAUNITZ
Sire, he who is not
crowned: is not Hungarian king.

JOSEPH
1335 So then the charming Countess dreams
with No one –?

KAUNITZ
That is why she dreams,
because the object of her thought is not real.

JOSEPH
Words, words!

KAUNITZ
But all is word and empty talk!
Word the Turkish quarrel; word Catherine
1340 the Czarina’s wrath; word the Belgian fervour;
word the Hungarian question. One fact only: –

JOSEPH
And what is that?

KAUNITZ
That your Majesty will be deceived.

JOSEPH
And in what?

KAUNITZ
In everything and in everyone:
in words, in things, and in men.
1345 In the Czarina: that she is a faithful ally,
though she weaves intrigue for herself; and for interest:
faith, honour she casts off.
In the poor Turk: that he breaks easily;
in the Belgian: that his fire dies into embers;
1350 in the Hungarian: that his indifference does not deceive,
and his whirlpool is not deep, beneath the calm surface!
And finally in the Countess too: –

JOSEPH
Go on!

KAUNITZ
That is as far as it goes.

JOSEPH
You speak in riddles.

KAUNITZ
When did I ever speak clearly?
1355 My eye alone is clear with me, – as
clear as the daylight; my word

cloudy forever!

JOSEPH
Has it lightning too?

KAUNITZ
Only for the enemies of the state.

JOSEPH
Only hurl it at them boldly!

KAUNITZ
I dare not.

JOSEPH
1360 Why?

KAUNITZ
First of all your Majesty
I would strike along with them.

JOSEPH
How?

KAUNITZ
Your Majesty is the first
and most dangerous enemy of the
state and of yourself.

JOSEPH
So I myself
shall be the state, – like Louis? –

KAUNITZ
It may be, –
1365 but then a suicide.

JOSEPH
(Rising.)
Kaunitz, beware!
To you too not all is permitted!

KAUNITZ
(Also rising.)
Not even to save
Austria?
(They sit down again, and softly continue their conversation.)

ILONA
(Until now holding a soft conversation, to Günther.)
Thus I can scarcely
hope for a turn!

GÜNTHER
Today come
the overdue addresses. In a hard
1370 tone they speak. His Majesty flew into a great
rage and gave the order:
that the counties be dissolved.
"I am sick of it," – thus he cried in vexation, –
"from fifty counties, from each one again
1375 fifty times, to hear one lesson, on the
Hungarian common law. Now I slam upon them
my door: let them clamour out there."
Your Ladyship, pardon, his own words
I quote. –

ILONA
His Majesty thinks:
1380 if they clamour without: in here they will
not feel it!
(Aside.)
Now is my turn! The final
effort! Even from that I cannot
shrink back!
(Aloud.)
Günther, sir, much
am I in your debt, for your most valued
1385 communications. You may be assured:
you did not lavish on an ungrateful one, your good

services.

GÜNTHER
Your Ladyship! Your gratitude, with a
single brief word, is richly, lavishly
repaid. I do not await it –
1390 nor could I deserve it!
(They continue softly.)

JOSEPH
(To Kaunitz.)
So then
you recommend: that I yield?

KAUNITZ
If you do not
fear to lose Belgium, half of Hungary,
the Pope’s holy favour,
and your Countess’s heart: – then only go on, Sire,
1395 stand firm. This is my last word.
(He rises and bows deeply.)

JOSEPH
(Rising.)
And mine is: Si fractus illabatur!
(He starts toward the rest of the company; Kaunitz calmly
sits back in his place.)

KAUNITZ
Such a spirit! Such a heart! Such a sacred will!
And why does it consume itself all away!

JOSEPH
Fair hostess, can you forgive your
1400 manners-forgetting guest? Come,
let us sit to music. Till now I have been tedious
and tired. Let us cheer one another, by mutual
endeavour. – My ladies
and gentlemen! With the Countess’s leave

1405 I trespass on the host’s office.

ILONA
Oh!
Your Majesty is here and everywhere the master! (secretly)
Sire, I must speak with you today.

JOSEPH
(Likewise.)
I
too wish it. Only let us dispose
of this rabble.
(Aloud.)
Does it please you, madame?
(He offers his arm to Ilona. They start off. After them the whole
company, partly in groups, partly – as Kaunitz too – singly. Lascy
with Günther at the very rear. When Joseph and Ilona just reach the
right-hand door, Eliz steps out in sumptuous attire and meets them
face to face.)

ELIZ
1410 Your Ladyship is kinder than I could deserve.
Your care moves my orphaned heart
more than your lavish favour.
(She kisses her hand.)

ILONA
Fair child, there is nothing to thank for.

JOSEPH
Truly, nothing. It is not the rich dress that makes
1415 her; she makes the poor dress fair.
Lovely child! – A little surprise
still awaits your Ladyship. –

ILONA
This is already the second your
Majesty promises. And what will it be –?

JOSEPH
Why then,
they are for each other: Günther and Eliz.

ILONA
Ah, so?

JOSEPH
1420 This perhaps you did not even know? Oh, only hear –
(Joseph and Ilona off, conversing. After them the rest in turn.
Eliz modestly steps aside. Only Eliz, Lascy and Günther
remain on the stage.)

ELIZ
(Aside.)
Ah! Günther does not even see me in this dress,
or does not know me! – Oh, how much better you were,
and how I pity you now, my simple dress!
(Aloud, in confusion.)
Father! How good that – – – Günther, my God –

LASCY
1425 See, see, little Eliz! I’d almost not know
you!

ELIZ
And Günther, you not either?

GÜNTHER
I? Why not, oh,
dear young lady! –

ELIZ
Ah! Young lady, – so!
(She bursts into tears.)
Truly – Günther, sir, – I do not even know
what I am saying – Oh, this horrible dress!
1430 It pinches like armour!

LASCY
Now, children,
what is the trouble? I leave you here, quickly
make it up! A thousand cannon, that
I will not endure, that you should still be sulking!
Only tell each other what troubles you,
1435 and there’s an end of it. – Let me not see, after,
that you weep, Eliz. You, Günther, be wiser.
(Lascy off.)

GÜNTHER
Why does she weep?

ELIZ
But it was fine of you, so
to address me?

GÜNTHER
A mistake –

ELIZ
It was not!
Don’t say it! I see it. Perhaps because of my dress?
1440 – Could I help that? My father
sent me here, – and the Emperor wished it –

GÜNTHER
What do I hear? The Emperor? – Great heaven, Eliz,
is it true? You by the Emperor ordained
to this house? – He knows everything! His deep eye’s
1445 glance I understand now! Now: why
he brought me along, this very day! – Thus he wishes
to punish me!

ELIZ
Günther, speak, by the
heavens I beg you! Are you guilty? And the Emperor
punished you? – Oh, come! He is gracious!
1450 I will cast myself at his feet! For me he

will pardon you.

GÜNTHER
Do you think so?
No, no!

ELIZ
What has happened? Oh, for God’s sake,
Günther, speak.

GÜNTHER
Oh, do not ask, Eliz.
My sin is greater than could be
1455 pardonable! Against his Majesty, – and –
and against you! Do you not understand? Against you!

ELIZ
Only against me? I forgive that.

GÜNTHER
(Aside.)
Angel! If she knew: that this traitorous
heart has sinned! Ah, a woman forgives
1460 everything, only one thing – this she does not!

ELIZ
Günther! You
are silent? Do you not even look at Erzsike?

GÜNTHER
Oh!
Leave me to myself! Loathe me and
despise me! Oh, I am not even
worthy of anything else. I too hate
1465 myself – myself! For I cannot, nor
will I repent!

ELIZ
What talk is this!
This is already very bad, sinful talk!

GÜNTHER
And that it is so!

ELIZ
Surely it is not so? My Günther,
you cannot be hardened! Perhaps
1470 you erred! But you will repent, I see it,
you are sorry for it! You are sick, my Günther.
Speak, what ails you? Come, open your heart,
let me see its wound! Perhaps it is not even
so dangerous. And your Erzsike
1475 knows about wounds; oh, many a wound already
she has healed; orphans, widows
came, while we lived in the country; perhaps
she will heal yours too!

GÜNTHER (covering his eyes)
Never! Never! For me there is no healing!
1480 Oh, leave me! Let me perish! The better
you are: the worse I am;
when you are an angel: a devil then am I;
if your lips open to accuse: you kill me;
and if you forgive: I am damned!

ELIZ
1485 In terror I await what you will say.

GÜNTHER
Oh, shall I say it? And kill you with it?
Understand me: I cannot love you; my heart
has bent to another; it is bewitched; a fever,
a spell, oh, or a love-potion has seized me:
1490 for I – the Emperor’s beloved –

ELIZ
Great heaven!
Günther, help!
(She faints.)

GÜNTHER
(Ringing.)
Great God, what shall I do? (The lady’s maid comes.)

MAID
Ah!

GÜNTHER
The young lady has been taken ill; carry her
to her bed; – I run for a physician.
(Günther off.)

ELIZ
(Reviving.)
Where am I?
I am better. Szeráf, help me to
1495 my room!

MAID
Good young lady, perhaps your dress
was too tight?

ELIZ
It may be! That, that!
Let us take it off, come, this ugly dress!
(Eliz, led by the maid, off. At once: Joseph,
Ilona come.)

JOSEPH
What is it then, that holds me bound: this
leash, wound about my heart,
1500 fused with my life-vein: what?
This glance that beckons, and denies?
This hand that draws and forever thrusts away?
This mind-shattering, soul-destroying smile? –
No, no further! Today you are still my tyrant,
1505 tomorrow I shake off your chain! – And this heart,
which, like a mimosa, fearfully shut itself
– since on its Maria’s gravestone
death-frost’s finger touched it, – again a shut

flower shall be, angry at itself,
1510 that to a treacherous ray it opened!

ILONA
Sire –

JOSEPH
Speak not so! One word I await,
but that, not thus, not thus must it begin.
Into what a labyrinth you led me! Lightly
– like the will-o’-the-wisp in the night – flitting, gliding
1515 before me: unattainable, perhaps
not even existent, treacherous, lying world!
What are you? Is your being virtue, or caprice?
Are you sin’s daughter, – who kills while she embraces, –
or a Vestal virgin, – who keeps vigil and offers sacrifice?
1520 Whom do you cheat: me? Yourself? Or the
world? So many questions, – and to not one
an answer! In vain I tore apart every fold
of my brain, – ah, how painfully! –
there is no answer!

ILONA
None? – I will give one.
1525 Hear me out, Joseph; what you have long asked,
lo, I open both chambers’ locks
of my heart. Look into its abyss!
I love you. – This is little. Why do you start
up to joy? Oh, the blazing sun
1530 who would not love? – Your soul is that:
fervent and luminous! – And the mountain-tarn,
with its deep blue water, beneath the smooth surface
with its funnel-twisting whirlpools,
who would not love? Whom would not seize a
1535 bewitching mad desire: to bury
himself in it forever! – Your heart is that!
And you too have long known that I love you; that

this lip, this hand, eye, all betrayed –
I love you, Joseph, and am yours:
1540 yours my heart, my soul, my hopes,
my prayer, – and of bliss what part is mine:
all is yours, all! Thus I love you!
(Suddenly changing her tone:)
– Thus,
and a thousand times more I hate you! – You are he
who confiscated my homeland’s sacred right?
1545 Who scorned its crown? – You are he
who trampled out its tongue? Who boldly
erase its ancient history? Who break
its borders? – Say: that you are not he!
And I will worship you for that one word! – But no;
1550 you are he, you are he – and I hate you!

JOSEPH
My Ilona,
you rave!

ILONA
And do you wonder? Why, it is natural,
when in the narrow cage of one brain, such
a great love and a savage hatred wrestle!
Throw between tiger and panther
1555 a dove, and wonder if they tear it apart!

JOSEPH
Poor girl, you cling forever to your homeland’s cause,
torment yourself. Leave that to men.
To love, this is woman’s destiny.
To hate, to fight, is man’s work. And they
1560 without you, never fear, diligently
will fulfil this calling!

ILONA
I do not speak of my homeland’s laws,
I do not defend its trampled right; for that

a stern man’s word is needed; you are right; I
1565 am a girl; but mark this well:
a Hungarian girl; who, ignorant though she be, – one thing
knows, that one must love one’s homeland. And if it
loved you even more than this heart
loves you, I would tear it out, if it did not hate;
1570 and I would have cause, – I have a right.
Look: what I sacrificed for my love,
for love of you! My spotless name!
Did you not see here these countesses’ scornful
grimaces? – But so I willed it. They
1575 believe and let them believe that I am your concubine,
a Countess Szécsy, the Emperor’s concubine!
For I willed that indissolubly
your name be bound to me,
and I knew you, that the one whom the world,
1580 wrongly though, deems yours, and whom
you love too: you would not thrust away.

JOSEPH
(Bitterly.)
You believed that? And believed you knew me?

ILONA
I knew: you love; I wished upon your blazing
heart’s fire, like a rain of brimstone
1585 to pour oil. I came up to Vienna:
to live, to burn here in your nearness, and
to sweep you too into my flame.
– At home hated, here despised creature,
ambiguous perhaps even to you: –
1590 but the shut book of my heart till now stood
in an angel’s hand, who read it;
smiling, approved it. Now to you
I opened it. Look within! – And pray
from it, or cast it into the mire!

JOSEPH
(Over whom, during Ilona’s speeches, a great struggle and visible
change has passed.)
What do you wish?
1595 Unhappy woman, what price for your love?
A life? – Too little! And how easy and
how sweet it would be to cast it away:
to embrace you and together to die!
But no, you do not ask a life only:
1600 a soul you ask, which from God an exalted,
great mission received: – that now it cast it off;
hopes: that it shatter them itself;
great plans: that it call them a house of cards;
twenty mute years’ every thought,
1605 desire, sowing, when it ripened:
that it cast them into the fire and say – it was chaff!
And even this would not be much! Like a string of pearls
perhaps I would thread it round your neck, – be glad,
play with it a moment, then break it to pieces!
1610 But oh, all this is little to you! You
cannot give your love so cheap!
More, you ask the weal, the good of millions,
the sacred right of their great being, which all to me
is entrusted: – this you ask! – Madame, this
1615 I cannot give, for it is not mine. – But
that you may see how all that is my own
my heart is ready to give you: – lo, what I have,
my great treasure, my fairest crown,
my chief jewel, I hand over: my love.
1620 My love, to you. Take it, it is yours!
Break it. I hold no right to it.
I have given all. I have become a beggar;
but my peoples shall live and bloom
my homeland! – My homeland! For I too have a
1625 homeland, for all that I am Emperor!

ILONA
Oh, Joseph! Is this then your final word?

JOSEPH
It is. I do not love you. I have cast away this
diamond of mine. Are you paid with it
for your self-sacrifice?

ILONA
What dreadful words!

JOSEPH
1630 Love’s many imploring words,
into such, contempt transmutes them.

ILONA
And I deserve contempt? –

JOSEPH
What else, alas?
Think of Günther, – whom in his fidelity
your false word, your eye unsettled!
1635 Were you not ashamed: to use the servant against
his master? Did you not shudder, his heart, –
this pure, only-too-weak, soft heart –
– but oh! Who could resist you? –
so wretched to make!

ILONA
Joseph! Oh,
1640 oh, kill me rather!

JOSEPH
That would be best, both
for you and for me. Yet I do it not,
I only thrust you away and – brand you;
that my heart be no more seized
by such a weakness as might again to your feet
1645 carry me. I must secure
this dear, – oh, how dear! – triumph!

ILONA
What are you about to do – what? For God’s sake!

JOSEPH
You shall see at once.
(He goes toward the door where the company is.)

ILONA
Hah! His ravaged face, – ill
forebodings it stirs. I tremble... Never
1650 have I seen him thus. In his great translucent sky-
blue eye the mountain-tarn’s
storm lashes. Dizziness seizes me...

JOSEPH
(Calling into the company:)
Ladies and gentlemen! Pray, come out!
Our fair hostess is preparing to
1655 surprise you with something. Come quickly.

ILONA
For heaven’s sake! (no! – for he knows no God –)
By your noble heart I beg you! Have mercy –

JOSEPH
My noble heart? That you have cured me of!

ILONA
Do then what you will! The sacrifice is ready, –
1660 and motionless awaits the blow.
(The guests meanwhile throng disorderly forward.)

KHEVENHÜLLER
You shall see, a scandal is ready!

THURN
It may be!

KHEVENHÜLLER
I almost regret already that it did not
happen through us! Why did I not make haste!

KAUNITZ
(To Lascy.)
Oho!
What is brewing here? I fear, hard times!

LASCY
1665 But where are Erzsi and Günther too?

JOSEPH
Now, dear Countess, – we await your fair word.
You do not speak? Ah, I understand! Me you will be
so gracious as to commission. You meant to say:
that our company is already a burden to you,
1670 and that you dismiss it –? Is it not so?

ILONA
(Mechanically.)
Yes.

JOSEPH
And that henceforth your halls are closed
to everyone and forever. That?

ILONA
(With growing apathy.)
Yes.

JOSEPH
And that neither you at the court ever again
shall appear, – nor the Emperor ever
1675 in your dwelling, and that henceforth you two
shall not know each other. – Is it not so?

ILONA
(With a final effort.)
Yes. (She collapses in a faint.)

THURN
She is thrust away.

KHEVENHÜLLER
She is killed!

JOSEPH
Let us go,
we have no place here longer. Let us be no longer
a burden to our hostess.
(He starts off. After him the rest. To the fainting woman, who lies
on the carpet, no one goes to help.)

KAUNITZ
– Oh,
1679 Sire, yet still – this is too much.

LASCY
Have mercy!

JOSEPH
Right about! Forward! March! – I command it.
(Kaunitz and Lascy bow in silence and off. After them
Joseph. After him all off. Ilona lies on the carpet. For a
few moments the stage is silent. Then Günther comes. He sees
no one, goes into the room where the company had been.
He returns.)

GÜNTHER
No one! And so soon? – Midnight is not past!
Yet there is light still – every lamp burns.
(Coming to the front of the stage he sees the fainting Ilona.)
1684 For God’s sake, it is she! Great heaven, what has happened!
(He kneels beside her, and seizes her hands ardently.)
(The curtain falls.)

First scene: Vienna. In the imperial palace.
(The room of the

’s first scene. – Günther comes,
with papers.)

GÜNTHER
1685 I can bear it no longer! What need have I
of this service! Günther has no need
of anything in this world any more,
not even of his life. That too is a burden.
And were I not a Christian: easily would I
1690 cast it from me. As it is, I only drag it,
like a galley-slave the ball chained to him,
till he sinks down – and in the sand a grave
is dug, or the ocean swallows him.
All one to him; – truly, all one to me too.
1695 – She is no more! She vanished from the sky, like a will-o’-the-wisp
in the mist: that is what she was! – Erzsi, the poor
girl, has gone into the convent. Oh, her veil’s light
fabric is to me how heavy an iron shirt,
which presses on my heart and crushes it.
1700 – All are gone! What do you still seek,
you Günther, here?
(Joseph comes, brooding.)
– Hush. His Majesty comes.

JOSEPH
Could I have done otherwise? All is against me,
from my hand already the triumph was
all but wrung. And so near the goal!
1705 Hungarian nobility, you yourself are the cause!
I took up the gauntlet that before me

so boldly you flung! – You would not have
the fruit of my sacred purposes at the price
of love: – receive it now at the price
1710 of flame and hatred! Three Sibylline books –
and now the last! – Hóra! Does it burn already?
Does the sky grow light? – Hah, does it flare,
the restless blood, that would not yield,
and now spurts into fire? – Yet... terrible!
1715 Death runs through my body, shuddering.
I cannot live long... Hah, I will
– even in this dark illumination –
before I go to the grave, see my work!
And what, terrible? Was it not more terrible,
1720 what I have sacrificed till now? –

GÜNTHER
(Approaching timidly.)
Gracious lord –

JOSEPH
Who is it? Who dares? Ha!

GÜNTHER
Oh, gracious lord –

JOSEPH
Is it you? What do you want? Only sit down and write on –
leave me.

GÜNTHER
(Aside.)
I must take courage. (aloud) I,
your Majesty, – for my discharge
1725 I beg.

JOSEPH
And why? Are you not well paid?
Is the work too much?

GÜNTHER
It is not that, Sire! – Only
I am ill, – and some out-of-the-way
spot I seek: to die!

JOSEPH
Good fellow,
I understand your trouble! Do not leave me.

GÜNTHER
1730 Your Majesty has no further use of me.

JOSEPH
Who knows? Only stay. I understand well
your trouble. Better perhaps than you yourself!
Oh, I knew that Ilona Szécsy
you too loved.

GÜNTHER
Oh, gracious lord!
1735 Oh, have mercy!

JOSEPH
Only hear me.
This too I know, that for her sake me too
you betrayed. But I could not be angry:
you were only crazed, – and was I not so too?
Nay, even then I meant only good!
1740 Without your knowing it, I sent there
Lascy’s sister, that seeing her there:
your feeling, asleep in embers, might again
flame up for her; from her gentle image
you might learn again to smile; – one smile’s
1745 flower is worth more than passion’s
whole fire, in which melting
diamonds hiss! – I meant good;
that I did not reach the goal: who can help that?
But see, what Joseph takes into his hand:

1750 it all breaks! A curse holds this hand!
Forgive me, I meant good! Oh, that in
hell so many of good intent roast,
who, stupidly, out of mere good will,
cast the world into blood and flame!

GÜNTHER
1755 Gracious lord –

JOSEPH
And still you long to go?
My plea does not move you? Look at your poor
Emperor: – with whom shall he one day
speak of her, whom – But hush! You may go,
he neither wishes, nor will he ever!
(Rosenberg comes.)

ROSENBERG
1760 Sire –

JOSEPH
Is it you, Rosenberg? Well, what news?

ROSENBERG
What your Majesty charged me with a week
ago, I have only now found out.

JOSEPH
I?
Charged you? I do not even remember – What was it?

ROSENBERG
To find out: where Countess Ilona
1765 Szécsy has withdrawn.

JOSEPH
(Feigning indifference.)
Ah, so! Well then –?

ROSENBERG
Secretly she went, – to her Transylvanian estate.

JOSEPH
To Transylvania? Ha! Has she an estate there too?
What?

ROSENBERG
She has, in Zaránd.

JOSEPH
(Seizing him.)
Man! What are you saying!
In Zaránd?

ROSENBERG
There, truly, – I do not know,
1770 gracious lord, – if I have erred –?

JOSEPH
Perhaps
you know it ill? Or did I hear amiss?
Zaránd, you said –? No, do not protest! – You lie –
Ah, so! True! What do I care, – what is it
to me with her? – Ha! Hóra! Does it flame already,
1775 the evening sky? Does the blood flare,
her heart’s blood?... No, this I did not will!
Ah, fate! You are terrible! Your foot
why do you set on me? Here I writhe, here
I twist, behold, beneath your heel’s pressure!

ROSENBERG
1780 What has befallen his Majesty, Günther?

GÜNTHER
I
understand nothing.

JOSEPH
(Starting up.)
Günther, you believed:
your life is useless now? – Oh, it is not!
A spider-thread, on which a life hangs, – her –

hear! – Ilona’s life.
(He goes to the writing-desk and quickly writes a few lines.)
I do not wish
1785 that she die. Thus? Oh, no, not thus!
Carry this letter! – To Hóra! Straight!
Carry it! Go! Fly! Be the storm, – let this
dry leaf onto your wing! No! It is a seed
that bears life, to a distant land! – Make
1790 day of the night. And when, drawing near, you
see the sky redden eastward:
make possible there the impossible!
(With confidential whispering:)
See, to no other can I entrust this!
For even the bird would become a crawling snail
1795 for me... You, though, will fly.
Oh, only fly; give it to Hóra. Be gone!
(Günther off.)

ROSENBERG
Sire –?

JOSEPH
Rosenberg, not a single question! Not a
sound! Be blind, dumb and deaf!
(Rosenberg bows in silence.)
Who comes –?
(Kaunitz comes.)
Is it you, my good Kaunitz? What news?

KAUNITZ
1800 Your Majesty, the Hungarian deputation –

JOSEPH
Ah,
this very day, – this very moment! – Could I still
not receive them?

KAUNITZ
That can scarcely be.

The hour was fixed, – and they are punctual.

JOSEPH
Then let them come! All one: today, at any time,
1805 the answer is one, – I do not yield. Not a single
line! Let them bow, or break.

KAUNITZ
Sire, but once more I, on my knees –
(He kneels.)

JOSEPH
Rise up! It is all in vain anyway.

KAUNITZ
(Still kneeling.)
Sire,
Kaunitz once, now kneels, once
1810 and never more. Hear my word!
– Today one may still yield, it is still permitted.
For if not now, there is no more stepping back;
and then – for your Majesty’s honour
I will not yield, though all
1815 our Austria collapse after it!
One hour there yet is, this present one;
if this runs out, forever it has run, – and the
clepsydra does not turn back; though
a time will come when each tiny
1820 grain of its sand we would redeem with a pearl.
Now Belgium has quieted, and perhaps
tomorrow rages again. – The Turkish quarrel
slumbers a moment; – Hóra now, darkly –

JOSEPH
What do you know of that?

KAUNITZ
(Repeating his last words.)
Hóra now, darkly

1825 brandishes his bloody torch, and perhaps
tomorrow struck down: – again freely
breathes the nobility, frightened but for a
single moment; – its awakening,
driven by wrath and revenge, will be terrible.
1830 – Sire! You will not yield a single line? Do not!
To all that you set as your aim
I promise realization. I, Kaunitz –
A moment’s holding-back is all that I
demand. One word, one encouragement:
1835 to calm the Hungarian. Only one
stroke of the hand, to stroke down the noble – but now
growling lion!

JOSEPH
Be silent! – To promise what cannot be,
and what I will not grant: this Joseph
1840 has never done, nor will he ever!
Why did I not set their crown upon my head?
And why do they urge me to take it up? – Because
they know, and I know: that the crown is but
a vain ornament, yet fifty kings’
1845 oaths swarm within its frame: – and
Joseph, if he swears: keeps it; or
does not swear. – A moment’s stepping-back,
you said: a little holding-back? – Kaunitz,
where is your head? A moment’s weakness
1850 loses all forever! – And what right shall I have
to urge again what I myself
gave up once?! – Stand up, let them come.

KAUNITZ
(Rising.)
Here?
In the throne-hall –

JOSEPH
I have no mind to make a parade.

Go, Rosenberg; let them come,
1855 here I await them.
(Rosenberg off.)

KAUNITZ
(With scorn.)
Is there no warm water
handy here?

JOSEPH
Would you wash your hands,
you new Pilate?

KAUNITZ
That, my lord.
(A door opens. Twelve Hungarian magnates, under the leadership
of Count Miklós Ghymes, come. – Joseph, leaning on his
writing-desk, motionless, awaits them. Kaunitz stands beside him
on the left.)

JOSEPH
Speak.

GHYMES
Sire. In our Hungarian homeland’s
name we speak. Though, the Hungarian
1860 nation’s right only a diet
can uphold; and to defend it: commission
only this can give. Yet, our requests
concerning a diet have not gained
a hearing; our counties, which
1865 could speak and spoke: a higher command
dissolved. And now, deeply stricken, only
as individuals, – though knowing that our word
is the silent homeland’s, we stand here: – before our father,
the heir of our kings;
1870 – the grievous wrongs done to our laws
we bring with complaint before the Majesty,
who, called to be their guardian, now

in them tramples his own right.
– Our tongue’s complaint, which, broken, quivers
1875 that, exiled, it must wander
at the foot of the Carpathians, where for many centuries
it flourished and sang the law in its tones.
– Our persons’ complaints, that we, of noble
birth, have nearly come to this,
1880 that our houses – the noble plot’s
glorious right mocked, – under taxation,
our land’s bounds by acre and chain
(oh, the true symbol!) – they had inscribed.
But oh, what is all this, all our sorrow,
1885 beside its chief source? – The Majesty’s head
is still uncrowned, – our ancient laws
his oath has not yet sealed!
Nay, our crown too, Stephen’s sacred sign,
which in so many perils, like a relic,
1890 guarded our homeland: that too they carried from home;
a sign that the right, – which it represents, –
is not at home in the home, and hidden, lurks!
– But why do I speak? Our grievances, with whom
can they be more familiar than before our king:
1895 who alone gave them,
and can withdraw them. – Sire, we have not been
bitter. The child, before his father,
speaks gently and trustingly.
(He bows.)

JOSEPH
Have you finished? – I shall be still briefer,
1900 and begin at the end. A vain ornament is
the crown to many; – of broken oaths
there are as many instances as the contrary;
my crown, which like a wedding-ring
binds me to my peoples, on my heart
1905 I wear, and shall let it fall only when
this heart ceases to beat – for you!

– All your complaints, in the fifty-two counties’
as many writings, stood before us;
we weighed them. But what we deem fit
1910 to do for our peoples’ good: nothing in that
shall make us waver. – Your tongue I esteem;
at home it is excellent, sweetly avows love,
but is not fit for governance. – Then
the chain, the acre, and the house-number.
1915 Would you not be ashamed, proud magnate,
not to pay tax for your homeland’s good, while
your poor peasant toils for you,
and pays in your stead! Prince Eszterházy,
I hear, with his own hand wrote up
1920 – to set an example – on his ancestral castle wall
the number; and to him it is no grievance?
– A diet would be superfluous now
(for only complaint would clamour) to hold.
But when before our sacred designs
1925 self-interest retreats, and, as we trust, noble
hearts’ gratitude shall draw the tear
of our paternal heart into our eye: then
we shall hear out faithful Hungary’s
desires.

GHYMES
(Kneeling.)
Sire! An aged Hungarian,
1930 who has knelt to none but his God,
begs, implores: only now, the faithful Hungarian,
now do not thrust away! Oh, in his bitterness
who knows what he may do? – Your ancestor, Leopold – –

JOSEPH
Be silent. You from history very
1935 much love to read lessons. – One time
is the enemy of another, two alike
days there are not in history. – Stand up, and

(Ghymes rises.)
you may go. – Take this home with you yet:
Joseph is gracious, ready to forgive.
1940 But the stubborn he strikes inexorably.
My hand is gentle, in friendly handclasp,
but an iron fetter, if it grips a hostile hand.
You may go.
(He signals.)

GHYMES
Oh, king! We pray
that never may a grimmer herald
1945 come to you from us than I.
(The Hungarian lords bow and – off.)

JOSEPH
Hah! What was that last word?
A threat?

KAUNITZ
The alarm-bell only,
which announces, unalterably,
that either your Majesty, or Austria
from this moment is lost!
Second scene: on the borders of Transylvania. Ilona Szécsy’s castle.
(The Countess’s room. Plain furniture. By the window a prayer-stool; in the
fireplace a fire. Ilona, in full mourning, sits at a table. The steward
stands beside her.)

STEWARD
1950 My lady, alas, there is no time to wait.
Already the two neighbouring villages are in flames
with their ancient castles and their slaughtered dwellers.
Our turn is next, and Hóra’s savage band
understands no jest. By heaven I beg you –

ILONA
Oh,
1955 good Péter mine, you only go. An old, faithful
servant of ours you were; may heaven bless you for it!
I do not go.

STEWARD
And I will not leave
my mistress.

ILONA
That I do not permit. Make haste,
and leave me to my fate! My life
1960 shall not fall into their hands. Of that I assure you.
Our servants –?

STEWARD
The household servants
– being all Wallachian, – have fled; perhaps
over to Hóra. Only old Juon
I saw today still; down by the barn
1965 he was prowling. – Your Ladyship’s Trézi
– poor thing, the chill of fear shook her –
sits on the kitchen floor, prays and weeps;
but swears that without your Ladyship she too
will not leave here! –

ILONA
The poor, good, faithful girl!
1970 No! That I do not permit. For her sake too,
Péter, you must run. Go quickly,
tie up only your most necessary
bundles – go! Leave me alone; while
I pray.

STEWARD
(Aside.)
Good, I will go. But only
1975 nearby, here I will wait, whatever may come.

(The steward off.)

ILONA
Good people, who still upon this life
can be anxious. To you it is precious.
To me only death is desirable!
He willed it! – Ah! Did he know that here
1980 I had hidden, like the wounded bird beneath
the leaves: that just thus, upon me
he sent his revenge’s bloody instruments?
He willed it! – And with bowed head I
calmly await his axe; already before
1985 its stroke reached my heart, and what in it
stood upon the highest altar: my homeland!
Only strike; harder you cannot strike! – Perhaps
I shall have time enough, while I pray.
(She goes toward her prayer-stool. She looks out the window.)
Hah! Here, facing this vision? – No!
1990 Here my prayer would drown in blood and horror,
and turn to a curse!.... What should I even ask
of God? – With my life I begged him,
not with bare words; yet he did not hear me.
Not a vow, a heart I sacrificed
1995 for you, my homeland, to heaven! And yet, ah,
with empty hands returned to me
from the sacrifice its angel!
– But still, for him! Of me perhaps my prayer
he will have need. And for my homeland? – Oh, poor
2000 homeland, if a single prayer of mine could
redeem you, when my life could not redeem you!
No, I cannot.
(She goes back to her table. She takes up a packet of letters from it.)
These are his little letters!
Only a few, but oh, what treasure! Fleeting,
paper-scattered lines: – but deep into
2005 my heart engraved.

(She sits before the fireplace, and while she speaks, casts them in
one by one.)
Soon my heart
shall burn to ashes. Go you before it!
– You the very first! Only stay to the last!
– You little song, which he sang,
and at my asking transcribed! – Oh, foolish little leaf,
2010 perhaps his smile clung to you, that thus
you laugh at me? – Ah, imploring words!
Then nor now can I show mercy!
– You too! – You too! – Let this one stay here
as a pillow for my dying heart, for you!
2015 No, no! – Be no betrayer! – Go!
– Ah, how they blaze. Then ash, – one little
spark still runs about, as if it begged
back the taken flame, the life...
Too late! Forever gone! And not even ash!
(She muses. – Juon rushes in.)

JUON
2020 Gracious lady! Flee! Here is the
Wallachian host.

ILONA
How, Juon, you here?
Why, you too are Wallachian!

JUON
That I am,
but the gracious lordship to me is
only my lordship. Old Juon, whose hand
2025 for many years they kissed:
could not kill that! With me
the master dealt kindly, the steward did not harm me,
why should I harm them!

ILONA
Only go, good Juon;

I too will go, presently.

JUON
Alas, but Hóra is already
2030 in the village; just this way he heads
with his band.

ILONA
Then only go out, good Juon,
I am preparing already.
(Juon, shaking his head, off.)
Hah! Here is the hour, then!
Come, good phial: your content is salvation.
(She takes up a little phial from her table. Suddenly she empties it.
Outside an ever-growing noise.)
Enough
has life been already. Oh, do not tarry, death!
(She kneels at her prayer-stool.)
2035 God, are you angry with me? A poor,
poor girl, alas, who knew not
what she did! Who of her own will broke her heart
waiting for a great prize – and gained nothing:
only a great disillusion and an everlasting pain!
2040 Oh, foolish me! Who cast off the wise
counsel: "A woman can love nothing
more than her honour." Foolish and
sinful my heart! Within yourself you are punished.
Pray in my stead, blessed Virgin Mother!
2045 And you, my Saviour Christ, be my
faithful intercessor. – Oh, be it for him too,
the more sinful! No, no; – I am
the more sinful: who did not cease to
love him, – and bless, ah, his murderous hand!
(Bending over the prayer-stool, she prays in silence. The noise
outside is broken by single cries. A scuffle is heard. Then a shriek,
as when someone is being killed. – Then Hóra
in richly adorned
national costume/

– and Szalisz
in a half-imperial uniform/ rush in
at the head of an armed Wallachian band.)

HÓRA
2050 Slay them all! No one is to be
spared. – That traitor Wallachian,
who dared to plead for his master still,
to the highest tree!

SZALISZ
Yet that
factotum we must spare a while,
2055 until he gives up their treasures. For
I’ll wager: gold and silver
are all buried.

HÓRA
(Going to the still-kneeling Ilona and seizing her.)
Up, vile creature!

ILONA
Wound me not!
I pray.

HÓRA
You had time enough for it;
we made day of the night too, your church
2060 is not so bright at high mass
as the region was, lit by us. Make haste!
You must die.

ILONA
For that I am ready.
(She rises.)

SZALISZ
Look! Fair!
This girl I beg for, Hóra. Let her
be mine.

HÓRA
First mine. To you
2065 she is good enough after.

SZALISZ
(Aside.)
The haughty Wallachian!
But to cross him I dare not.

ILONA
In vain you contend whose I shall be;
for alive my body shall be neither’s.
I have one already to carry me off:
2070 the good death!

HÓRA
That too shall find you out!
Carry her off meanwhile.
(Several approach Ilona. Günther, holding a paper
high in his hand, comes, and by force breaks himself a way.)

GÜNTHER
Ho! Halt!
Where is Hóra!

HÓRA
Here I am, who are you, what do you want?

GÜNTHER
(Catching sight of Ilona, with joy.)
I am not too late! Great heaven, I give thanks:
in good time I came.

ILONA
Poor Günther, it is you!
2075 And for me you came? Who sent you? Joseph –?