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Read Ebook: Love and Intrigue: A Tragedy by Schiller Friedrich
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Ebook has 141 lines and 8028 words, and 3 pages
LOVE AND INTRIGUE.
A TRAGEDY.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
PRESIDENT VON WALTER, Prime Minister in the Court of a German Prince. FERDINAND, his son; a Major in the Army; in love with Louisa Miller. BARON VON KALB, Court Marshal . WORM, Private Secretary to the President. MILLER, the Town Musician, and Teacher of Music. MRS. MILLER, his wife. LOUISA, the daughter of Miller, in love with Ferdinand. LADY MILFORD, the Prince's Mistress. SOPHY, attendant on Lady Milford. An old Valet in the service of the Prince. Officers, Attendants, etc.
MILLER--MRS. MILLER.
MILLER . Once for all! The affair is becoming serious. My daughter and the baron will soon be the town-talk--my house lose its character--the president will get wind of it, and--the short and long of the matter is, I'll show the younker the door.
MRS MILLER. You did not entice him to your house--did not thrust your daughter upon him!
MILLER. Didn't entice him to my house--didn't thrust the girl upon him! Who'll believe me? I was master of my own house. I ought to have taken more care of my daughter. I should have bundled the major out at once, or have gone straight to his excellency, his papa, and disclosed all. The young baron will get off merely with a snubbing, I know that well enough, and all the blame will fall upon the fiddler.
MRS MILLER . Pooh! nonsense! How can it fall upon you? What have people to do with you? You follow your profession, and pick up pupils wherever you can find them.
MILLER. All very fine, but please to tell me what will be the upshot of the whole affair? He can't marry the girl--marriage is out of the question, and to make her his--God help us! "Good-by t'ye!" No, no--when such a sprig of nobility has been nibbling here and there and everywhere, and has glutted himself with the devil knows what all, of course it will be a relish to my young gentleman to get a mouthful of sweet water. Take heed! Take heed! If you were dotted with eyes, and could place a sentinel for every hair of your head, he'll bamboozle her under your very nose; add one to her reckoning, take himself off, and the girl's ruined for life, left in the lurch, or, having once tasted the trade, will carry it on. Oh, horrible thought!
MRS MILLER. God in his mercy protect us!
MILLER. We shall want his protection. You may well say that. What other object can such a scapegrace have? The girl is handsome--well made--can show a pretty foot. How the upper story is furnished matters little. That's blinked in you women if nature has not played the niggard in other respects. Let this harum-scarum but turn over this chapter--ho! ho! his eyes will glisten like Rodney's when he got scent of a French frigate; then up with all sail and at her, and I don't blame him for it-- flesh is flesh. I know that very well.
MRS MILLER. You should only read the beautiful billy-doux which the baron writes to your daughter. Gracious me! Why it's as clear as the sun at noonday that he loves her purely for her virtuous soul.
MILLER. That's the right strain! We beat the sack, but mean the ass's back. He who wishes to pay his respects to the flesh needs only a kind heart for a go-between. What did I myself? When we've once so far cleared the ground that the affections cry ready! slap! the bodies follow their example, the appetites are obedient, and the silver moon kindly plays the pimp.
MRS MILLER. And then only think of the beautiful books that the major has sent us. Your daughter always prays out of them.
MILLER . Prays! You've hit the mark. The plain, simple food of nature is much too raw and indigestible for this maccaroni gentleman's stomach. It must be cooked for him artificially in the infernal pestilential pitcher of your novel-writers. Into the fire with the rubbish! I shall have the girl taking up with--God knows what all--about heavenly fooleries that will get into her blood, like Spanish flies, and scatter to the winds the handful of Christianity that cost her father so much trouble to keep together. Into the fire with them I say! The girl will take the devil's own nonsense into her head; amidst the dreams of her fool's paradise she'll not know her own home, but forget and feel ashamed of her father, the music-master; and, lastly, I shall lose a worthy, honest son-in-law who might have nestled himself so snugly into my connections. No! damn it! I'll break the neck of it at once, and the major--yes, yes, the major! shall be shown where the carpenter made the door.
MILLER . The blood money of my daughter? To Beelzebub with thee, thou infamous bawd! Sooner will I vagabondize with my violin and fiddle for a bit of bread--sooner will I break to pieces my instrument and carry dung on the sounding-board than taste a mouthful earned by my only child at the price of her soul and future happiness. Give up your cursed coffee and snuff-taking, and there will be no need to carry your daughter's face to market. I have always had my bellyful and a good shirt to my back before this confounded scamp put his nose into my crib.
MRS MILLER. Now don't be so ready to pitch the house out of window. How you flare up all of a sudden. I only meant to say that we shouldn't offend the major, because he is the son of the president.
MILLER. There lies the root of the mischief. For that reason--for that very reason the thing must be put a stop to this very day! The president, if he is a just and upright father, will give me his thanks. You must brush up my red plush, and I will go straight to his excellency. I shall say to him,--"Your excellency's son has an eye to my daughter; my daughter is not good enough to be your excellency's son's wife, but too good to be your excellency's son's strumpet, and there's an end of the matter. My name is Miller."
Enter SECRETARY WORM.
MRS MILLER. Ah! Good morning, Mr. Seckertary! Have we indeed the pleasure of seeing you again?
WORM. All on my side--on my side, cousin Miller! Where a high-born cavalier's visits are received mine can be of no account whatever.
MRS MILLER. How can you think so, Mr. Seckertary? His lordship the baron, Major Ferdinand, certainly does us the honor to look in now and then; but, for all that, we don't undervalue others.
MILLER . A chair, wife, for the gentleman! Be seated, kinsman.
WORM . Well, well--and how then is my future--or past--bride? I hope she'll not be--may I not have the honor of seeing--Miss Louisa?
MRS MILLER. Thanks for inquiries, Mr. Seckertary, but my daughter is not at all proud.
MILLER . Woman!
MRS MILLER. Sorry she can't have that honor, Mr. Seckertary. My daughter is now at mass.
WORM. I am glad to hear it,--glad to hear it. I shall have in her a pious, Christian wife!
MILLER . Woman!
WORM . In any other way? Much obliged! much obliged!--hm! hm! hm!
MILLER . Woman!
MRS MILLER. Good is good, and better is better, and one does not like to stand between fortune and one's only child . You understand me, Mr. Seckertary?
WORM . What's that you say? what?
MILLER. Keep your seat, keep your seat, Mr. Secretary! The woman's an out-and-out fool! Where's the great lady to come from? How you show your donkey's ears by talking such stuff.
MRS MILLER. Scold as long as you will. I know what I know, and what the major said he said.
MILLER . Will you hold your tongue? Shall I throw my fiddle at your head? What can you know? What can he have said? Take no notice of her clack, kinsman! Away with you to your kitchen! You'll not think me first cousin of a fool, and that I'm looking out so high for the girl? You'll not think that of me, Mr. Secretary?
MRS MILLER. The short and the long of it is--I refuse my consent downright; my daughter's intended for a lofty station, and I'll go to law if my husband is going to be talked over.
MILLER. Shall I break every bone in your body, you millclack?
WORM . Paternal advice goes a great way with the daughter, and I hope you know me, Mr. Miller?
MILLER. Plague take you! 'Tis the girl must know you. What an old crabstick like me can see in you is just the very last thing that a dainty young girl wants. I'll tell you to a hair if you're the man for an orchestra--but a woman's heart is far too deep for a music-master. And then, to be frank with you--you know that I'm a blunt, straightforward fellow--you'll not give thank'ye for my advice. I'll persuade my daughter to no one--but from you Mr. Sec--I would dissuade her! A lover who calls upon the father for help--with permission--is not worth a pinch of snuff. If he has anything in him, he'll be ashamed to take that old-fashioned way of making his deserts known to his sweetheart. If he hasn't the courage, why he's a milksop, and no Louisas were born for the like of him. No! he must carry on his commerce with the daughter behind the father's back. He must manage so to win her heart, that she would rather wish both father and mother at Old Harry than give him up--or that she come herself, fall at her father's feet, and implore either for death on the rack, or the only one of her heart. That's the fellow for me! that I call love! and he who can't bring matters to that pitch with a petticoat may--stick the goose feather in his cap.
WORM . Much obliged, Mr. Miller!
MILLER . For what? for what? You haven't taken anything, Mr. Secretary! He won't hear, and off he's gone. The very sight of that quill-driver is like poison and brimstone to me. An ugly, contraband knave, smuggled into the world by some lewd prank of the devil--with his malicious little pig's eyes, foxy hair, and nut-cracker chin, just as if Nature, enraged at such a bungled piece of goods, had seized the ugly monster by it, and flung him aside. No! rather than throw away my daughter on a vagabond like him, she may--God forgive me!
MRS MILLER. The wretch!--but you'll be made to keep a clean tongue in your head!
MILLER. Ay, and you too, with your pestilential baron--you, too, must put my bristles up. You're never more stupid than when you have the most occasion to show a little sense. What's the meaning of all that trash about your daughter being a great lady? If it's to be cried out about the town to-morrow, you need only let that fellow get scent of it. He is one of your worthies who go sniffing about into people's houses, dispute upon everything, and, if a slip of the tongue happen to you, skurry with it straight to the prince, mistress, and minister, and then there's the devil to pay.
Enter LOUISA with a book in her hand.
LOUISA. Good morning, dear father!
MILLER . Bless thee, my Louisa! I rejoice to see thy thoughts are turned so diligently to thy Creator. Continue so, and his arm will support thee.
LOUISA. Oh! I am a great sinner, father! Was he not here, mother?
MRS MILLER. Who, my child?
LOUISA. Ah! I forgot that there are others in the world besides him--my head wanders so. Was he not here? Ferdinand?
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