The Piccolomini: A Play

SCENE III.

      OCTAVIO and MAX. PICCOLOMINI.

   OCTAVIO.
   Well—and what now, son? All will soon be clear;
   For all, I'm certain, went through that Sesina.

   MAX. (who through the whole of the foregoing scene has been in
      a violent and visible struggle of feelings, at length starts
      as one resolved).
   I will procure me light a shorter way.
   Farewell.

   OCTAVIO.
        Where now? Remain here.

   MAX.
                     To the Duke.

   OCTAVIO (alarmed).
   What——

   MAX. (returning).
       If thou hast believed that I shall act
   A part in this thy play, thou hast
   Miscalculated on me grievously.
   My way must be straight on. True with the tongue,
   False with the heart—I may not, cannot be
   Nor can I suffer that a man should trust me—
   As his friend trust me—and then lull my conscience
   With such low pleas as these: "I ask him not—
   He did it all at his own hazard—and
   My mouth has never lied to him." No, no!
   What a friend takes me for, that I must be.
   I'll to the duke; ere yet this day is ended
   Will I demand of him that he do save
   His good name from the world, and with one stride
   Break through and rend this fine-spun web of yours.
   He can, he will! I still am his believer,
   Yet I'll not pledge myself, but that those letters
   May furnish you, perchance, with proofs against him.
   How far may not this Terzky have proceeded—
   What may not he himself too have permitted
   Himself to do, to snare the enemy,
   The laws of war excusing? Nothing, save
   His own mouth shall convict him—nothing less!
   And face to face will I go question him.

   OCTAVIO.
   Thou wilt.

   MAX.
         I will, as sure as this heart beats.

   OCTAVIO.
   I have, indeed, miscalculated on thee.
   I calculated on a prudent son,
   Who would have blessed the hand beneficent
   That plucked him back from the abyss—and lo!
   A fascinated being I discover,
   Whom his two eyes befool, whom passion wilders,
   Whom not the broadest light of noon can heal.
   Go, question him! Be mad enough, I pray thee.
   The purpose of thy father, of thy emperor,
   Go, give it up free booty! Force me, drive me
   To an open breach before the time. And now,
   Now that a miracle of heaven had guarded
   My secret purpose even to this hour,
   And laid to sleep suspicion's piercing eyes,
   Let me have lived to see that mine own son,
   With frantic enterprise, annihilates
   My toilsome labors and state policy.

   MAX.
   Ay—this state policy! Oh, how I curse it!
   You will some time, with your state policy,
   Compel him to the measure: it may happen,
   Because ye are determined that he is guilty,
   Guilty ye'll make him. All retreat cut off,
   You close up every outlet, hem him in
   Narrower and narrower, till at length ye force him—
   Yes, ye, ye force him, in his desperation,
   To set fire to his prison. Father! father!
   That never can end well—it cannot—will not!
   And let it be decided as it may,
   I see with boding heart the near approach
   Of an ill-starred, unblest catastrophe.
   For this great monarch-spirit, if he fall,
   Will drag a world into the ruin with him.
   And as a ship that midway on the ocean
   Takes fire, at once, and with a thunder-burst
   Explodes, and with itself shoots out its crew
   In smoke and ruin betwixt sea and heaven!
   So will he, falling, draw down in his fall
   All us, who're fixed and mortised to his fortune,
   Deem of it what thou wilt; but pardon me,
   That I must bear me on in my own way.
   All must remain pure betwixt him and me;
   And, ere the daylight dawns, it must be known
   Which I must lose—my father or my friend.

       [During his exit the curtain drops.