The Robbers

"FRANCIS VON MOOR"

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

SPIEGEL. (slinking forward). Bread and water! Is that it? A temperate diet! But I have made a better provision for you. Did I not say that I should have to think for you all at last?

SCHWEIT. What does the blockhead say! The jackass is going to think for us all!

SPIEGEL. Cowards, cripples, lame dogs are ye all if you have not courage enough to venture upon something great.

ROLLER. Well, of course, so we should be, you are right; but will your proposed scheme get us out of this devil of a scrape? eh?

SPIEGEL. (with a proud laugh). Poor thing! Get us out of this scrape? Ha, ha, ha! Get us out of the scrape! – and is that all your thimbleful of brain can reach? And with that you trot your mare back to the stable? Spiegelberg would have been a miserable bungler indeed if that were the extent of his aim. Heroes, I tell you, barons, princes, gods, it will make of you.

RAZ. That's pretty well for one bout, truly! But no doubt it is some neck-breaking piece of business; it will cost a head or so at the least.

SPIEGEL. It wants nothing but courage; as to the headwork, I take that entirely upon myself. Courage, I say, Schweitzer! Courage, Roller! Grimm! Razman! Schufterle! Courage!

SCHW. Courage! If that is all, I have courage enough to walk through hell barefoot.

SCHUFT. And I courage enough to fight the very devil himself under the open gallows for the rescue of any poor sinner.

SPIEGEL. That's just what it should be! If ye have courage, let any one of you step forward and say he has still something to lose, and not everything to gain?

SCHW. Verily, I should have a good deal to lose, if I were to lose all that I have yet to win!

PAZ. Yes, by Jove! and I much to win, if I could win all that I have not got to lose.

SCHUFT. Were I to lose what I carry on my back on trust I should at any rate have nothing to lose on the morrow.

SPIEGEL. Very well then! (He takes his place in the middle of them, and says in solemn adjuration) – if but a drop of the heroic blood of the ancient Germans still flow in your veins – come! We will fix our abode in the Bohemian forests, draw together a band of robbers, and – What are you gaping at? Has your slender stock of courage oozed out already?

ROLLER. You are not the first rogue by many that has defied the gallows; – and yet what other choice have we?

SPIEGEL. Choice? You have no choice. Do you want to lie rotting in the debtor's jail and beat hemp till you are bailed by the last trumpet? Would you toil with pick-axe and spade for a morsel of dry bread? or earn a pitiful alms by singing doleful ditties under people's windows? Or will you be sworn at the drumhead – and then comes the question, whether anybody would trust your hang-dog visages – and so under the splenetic humor of some despotic sergeant serve your time of purgatory in advance? Would you like to run the gauntlet to the beat of the drum? or be doomed to drag after you, like a galley-slave, the whole iron store of Vulcan? Behold your choice. You have before you the complete catalogue of all that you may choose from!

ROLLER. Spiegelberg is not altogether wrong! I, too, have been concocting plans, but they come much to the same thing. How would it be, thought I, were we to club our wits together, and dish up a pocketbook, or an almanac, or something of that sort, and write reviews at a penny a line, as is now the fashion?

SCHUFT. The devil's in you! you are pretty nearly hitting on my own schemes. I have been thinking to myself how would it answer were I to turn Methodist, and hold weekly prayer-meetings?

GRIMM. Capital! and, if that fails, turn atheist! We might fall foul of the four Gospels, get our book burned by the hangman, and then it would sell at a prodigious rate.

RAZ. Or we might take the field to cure a fashionable ailment. I know a quack doctor who has built himself a house with nothing but mercury, as the motto over his door implies.

SCHWEIT. (rises and holds out his hand to Spiegelberg). Spiegelberg, thou art a great man! or else a blind hog has by chance found an acorn.

SCHW. Excellent schemes! Honorable professions! How great minds sympathize! All that seems wanting to complete the list is that we should turn pimps and bawds.

SPIEGEL. Pooh! Pooh! Nonsense. And what is to prevent our combining most of these occupations in one person? My plan will exalt you the most, and it holds out glory and immortality into the bargain. Remember, too, ye sorry varlets, and it is a matter worthy of consideration: one's fame hereafter – the sweet thought of immortality —

ROLLER. And that at the very head of the muster-roll of honorable names! You are a master of eloquence, Spiegelberg, when the question is how to convert an honest man into a scoundrel. But does any one know what has become of Moor?

SPIEGEL. Honest, say you? Do you think you'll be less honest then than you are now? What do you call honest? To relieve rich misers of half of those cares which only scare golden sleep from their eyelids; to force hoarded coin into circulation; to restore the equalization of property; in one word, to bring back the golden age; to relieve Providence of many a burdensome pensioner, and so save it the trouble of sending war, pestilence, famine, and above all, doctors – that is what I call honesty, d'ye see; that's what I call being a worthy instrument in the hand of Providence, – and then, at every meal you eat, to have the sweet reflection: this is what thy own ingenuity, thy lion boldness, thy night watchings, have procured for thee – to command the respect both of great and small!

ROLLER. And at last to mount towards heaven in the living body, and in spite of wind and storm, in spite of the greedy maw of old father Time, to be hovering beneath the sun and moon and all the stars of the firmament, where even the unreasoning birds of heaven, attracted by noble instinct, chant their seraphic music, and angels with tails hold their most holy councils? Don't you see? And, while monarchs and potentates become a prey to moths and worms, to have the honor of receiving visits from the royal bird of Jove. Moritz, Moritz, Moritz! beware of the three-legged beast.*

*[The gallows, which in Germany is formed of three posts.]

SPIEGEL. And does that fright thee, craven-heart? Has not many a universal genius, who might have reformed the world, rotted upon the gallows? And does not the renown of such a man live for hundreds and thousands of years, whereas many a king and elector would be passed over in history, were not historians obliged to give him a niche to complete the line of succession, or that the mention of him did not swell the volume a few octavo pages, for which he counts upon hard cash from the publisher. And when the wayfarer sees you swinging to and fro in the breeze he will mutter to himself, "That fellow's brains had no water in them, I'll warrant me," and then groan over the hardship of the times.

SCHWEIT. (slaps him on the shoulder). Well said, Spiegelberg! Well said! Why the devil do we stand here hesitating?

SCHW. And suppose it is called disgrace – what then? Cannot one, in case of need, always carry a small powder about one, which quietly smooths the weary traveller's passage across the Styx, where no cock-crowing will disturb his rest? No, brother Moritz! Your scheme is good; so at least says my creed.

SCHUFT. Zounds! and mine too! Spiegelberg, I am your recruit.

RAZ. Like a second Orpheus, Spiegelberg, you have charmed to sleep that howling beast, conscience! Take me as I stand, I am yours entirely!

GRIMMM. Si omnes consentiunt ego non dissentio;* mind, without a comma. There is an auction going on in my head – methodists – quack doctors – reviewers – rogues; – the highest bidder has me. Here is my hand, Moritz!

*[The joke is explained by placing a comma after non.]

ROLLER. And you too, Schweitzer? (he gives his right hand to SPIEGELBERG). Thus I consign my soul to the devil.

SPIEGEL. And your name to the stars! What does it signify where the soul goes to? If crowds of avantcouriers give notice of our descent that the devils may put on their holiday gear, wipe the accumulated soot of a thousand years from their eyelashes, and myriads of horned heads pop up from the smoking mouth of their sulphurous chimneys to welcome our arrival! 'Up, comrades! (leaping up). Up! What in the world is equal to this ecstacy of delight? Come along, comrades!

ROLLER. Gently, gently! Where are you going? Every beast must have a head, boys!

SPIEGEL. (With bitterness). What is that incubus preaching about? Was not the head already there before a single limb began to move? Follow me, comrades!

ROLLER. Gently, I say! even liberty must have its master. Rome and Sparta perished for want of a chief.

SPIEGEL. (in a wheedling manner). Yes, – stay – Roller is right. And he must have an enlightened head. Do you understand? A keen, politic head. Yes! when I think what you were only an hour ago, and what you are now, and that it is all owing to one happy thought. Yes, of course, you must have a chief, and you'll own that he who struck out this idea may claim to have an enlightened and politic head?

ROLLER. If one could hope, if one could dream, but I fear he will not consent.

SPIEGEL. Why not? Speak out boldly, friend! Difficult as it may be to steer a laboring vessel against wind and tide, oppressive as may be the weight of a crown, speak your thought without hesitation, Roller! Perhaps he may be prevailed upon after all!

ROLLER. And if he does not the whole vessel will be crazy enough. Without Moor we are a "body without a soul."

SPIEGEL. (turning angrily from him). Dolt! blockhead!

(Enter CHARLES VON MOOR in violent agitation, stalking backwards

and forwards, and speaking to himself.)

CHARLES VON M. Man – man! false, perfidious crocodile-brood! Your eyes are all tears, but your hearts steel! Kisses on your lips, but daggers couched in your bosoms! Even lions and tigers nourish their young. Ravens feast their brood on carrion, and he – he Malice I have learned to bear; and I can smile when my fellest enemy drinks to me in my own heart's blood; but when kindred turn traitors, when a father's love becomes a fury's hate; oh, then, let manly resignation give place to raging fire! the gentle lamb become a tiger! and every nerve strain itself to vengeance and destruction!

ROLLER. Hark ye, Moor! What think ye of it? A robber's life is pleasanter, after all, than to lie rotting on bread and water in the lowest dungeon of the castle?

CHARLES VON M. Why was not this spirit implanted in a tiger which gluts its raging jaws with human flesh? Is this a father's tenderness? Is this love for love? Would I were a bear to rouse all the bears of the north against this murderous race! Repentance, and no pardon! Oh, that I could poison the ocean that men might drink death from every spring! Contrition, implicit reliance, and no pardon!

ROLLER. But listen, Moor, – listen to what I am telling you!

CHARLES VON M. 'Tis incredible! 'tis a dream – a delusion! Such earnest entreaty, such a vivid picture of misery and tearful penitence – a savage beast would have been melted to compassion! stones would have wept, and yet he – it would be thought a malicious libel upon human nature were I to proclaim it – and yet, yet – oh, that I could sound the trumpet of rebellion through all creation, and lead air, and earth, and sea into battle array against this generation of hyenas!

GRIMM. Hear me, only hear me! You are deaf with raving.

CHARLES VON M. Avaunt, avaunt! Is not thy name man? Art thou not born of woman? Out of my sight, thou thing with human visage! I loved him so unutterably! – never son so loved a father; I would have sacrificed a thousand lives for him (foaming and stamping the ground). Ha! where is he that will put a sword into my hand that I may strike this generation of vipers to the quick! Who will teach me how to reach their heart's core, to crush, to annihilate the whole race? Such a man shall be my friend, my angel, my god – him will I worship!

ROLLER. Such friends behold in us; be but advised!

SCHW. Come with us into the Bohemian forests! We will form a band of robbers there, and you (MOOR stares at him).

SCHWEIT. You shall be our captain! you must be our captain!

SPIEGEL. (throws himself into a chair in a rage). Slaves and cowards!

CHARLES VON M. Who inspired thee with that thought? Hark, fellow! (grasping ROLLER tightly) that human soul of thine did not produce it; who suggested it to thee? Yes, by the thousand arms of death! that's what we will, and what we must do! the thought's divine. He who conceived it deserves to be canonized. Robbers and murderers! As my soul lives, I am your captain!

ALL (with tumultuous shouts). Hurrah! long live our captain!

SPIEGEL. (starting up, aside). Till I give him his coup de grace!

CHARLES VON M. See, it falls like a film from my eyes! What a fool was I to think of returning to be caged? My soul's athirst for deeds, my spirit pants for freedom. Murderers, robbers! with these words I trample the law underfoot – mankind threw off humanity when I appealed to it. Away, then, with human sympathies and mercy! I no longer have a father, no longer affections; blood and death shall teach me to forget that anything was ever dear to me! Come! come! Oh, I will recreate myself with some most fearful vengeance; – 'tis resolved, I am your captain! and success to him who Shall spread fire and slaughter the widest and most savagely – I pledge myself He shall be right royally rewarded. Stand around me, all of you, and swear to me fealty and obedience unto death! Swear by this trusty right hand.

ALL (place their hands in his). We swear to thee fealty and obedience unto death!

CHARLES VON M. And, by this same trusty right Hand, I here swear to you to remain your captain, true and faithful unto death! This arm shall make an instant corpse of him who doubts, or fears, or retreats. And may the same befall me from your hands if I betray my oath! Are you content?

[SPIEGELBERG runs up and down in a furious rage.]

ALL (throwing up their hats). We are content!

CHARLES VON M. Well, then, let us be gone! Fear neither death nor danger, for an unalterable destiny rules over us. Every man has his doom, be it to die on the soft pillow of down, or in the field of blood, or on the scaffold, or the wheel! One or the other of these must be our lot! [Exeunt.]

SPIEGEL. (looking after them after a pause). Your catalogue has a hole in it. You have omitted poison.

[Exit.]