DUCHESS.

What now?  Why is she going?

COUNTESS.

She’s not well.

DUCHESS (anxiously).

What ails then my beloved child?

[Both follow the PRINCESS, and endeavor to detain her.  During this WALLENSTEIN appears, engaged in conversation with ILLO.]

SCENE IV

WALLENSTEIN, ILLO, COUNTESS, DUCHESS, THEKLA

WALLENST.

All quiet in the camp?

ILLO.

It is all quiet.

WALLENST.

In a few hours may couriers come from Prague
With tidings that this capital is ours. 
Then we may drop the mask, and to the troops
Assembled in this town make known the measure
And its result together.  In such cases
Example does the whole.  Whoever is foremost
Still leads the herd.  An imitative creature
Is man.  The troops at Prague conceive no other
Than that the Pilsen army has gone through
The forms of homage to us; and in Pilsen
They shall swear fealty to us, because
The example has been given them by Prague. 
Butler, you tell me, has declared himself?

ILLO.

At his own bidding, unsolicited,
He came to offer you himself and regiment.

WALLENST.

I find we must not give implicit credence
To every warning voice that makes itself
Be listen’d to in the heart.  To hold us back,
Oft does the lying Spirit counterfeit
The voice of Truth and inward Revelation,
Scattering false oracles.  And thus have I
To entreat forgiveness, for that secretly
I’ve wrong’d this honorable, gallant man,
This Butler:  for a feeling, of the which
I am not master (fear I would not call it),
Creeps o’er me instantly, with sense of shuddering
At his approach, and stops love’s joyous motion. 
And this same man, against whom I am warn’d,
This honest man is he, who reaches to me
The first pledge of my fortune.

ILLO.

And doubt not
That his example will win over to you
The best men in the army.

WALLENSTEIN.

Go and send
Isolani hither.  Send him immediately;
He is under recent obligations to me: 
With him will I commence the trial.  Go.

[Exit ILLO.]

WALLENSTEIN (turns himself round to the females).

Lo, there the mother with the darling daughter
For once we’ll have an interval of rest—­Come!
my heart yearns to live a cloudless hour
In the beloved circle of my family.

COUNTESS.

’Tis long since we’ve been thus together, brother.

WALLENSTEIN (to the COUNTESS aside).

Can she sustain the news?  Is she prepared?

COUNTESS.

Not yet.

WALLENST.

Come here, my sweet girl!  Seat thee by me. 
For there is a good spirit on thy lips. 
Thy mother praised to me thy ready skill;
She says a voice of melody dwells in thee,
Which doth enchant the soul.  Now such a voice
Will drive away from me the evil demon
That beats his black wings close above my head.