The Swedish officer?--Well, let him enter.
[_The_ PAGE _exit_, WALLENSTEIN _fixes his eye in deep thought on the door_.]
Yet is it pure--as yet!--the crime has come Not o'er this threshold yet--so slender is The boundary that divideth life's two paths.
WALLENSTEIN (_after having fixed a searching look on him_).
Gustave Wrangel, General Of the Sudermanian Blues.
It was a Wrangel Who injured me materially at Stralsund, And by his brave resistance was the cause Of the opposition which that sea-port made.
It was the doing of the element With which you fought, my Lord! and not my merit. The Baltic Neptune did assert his freedom: The sea and land, it seem'd, were not to serve One and the same.
You pluck'd the Admiral's hat from off my head.
WALLENSTEIN (_makes the motion for him to take a seat, and seats himself_).
And where are your credentials? Come you provided with full powers, Sir General?
There are so many scruples yet to solve--
WALLENSTEIN (_having read the credentials_).
An able letter!--Ay--he is a prudent Intelligent master whom you serve, Sir General! The Chancellor writes me, that he but fulfils His late departed Sovereign's own idea In helping me to the Bohemian crown.
He says the truth. Our great King, now in heaven, Did ever deem most highly of your Grace's Preëminent sense and military genius; And always the commanding Intellect, He said, should have command, and be the King.
Yes, he _might_ say it safely.--General Wrangel,
Come, fair and open. Trust me, I was always A Swede at heart. Eh! that did you experience Both in Silesia and at Nuremberg; I had you often in my power, and let you Always slip out by some back door or other. 'Tis this for which the Court can ne'er forgive me, Which drives me to this present step: and since Our interests so run in one direction, E'en let us have a thorough confidence Each in the other.
Confidence will come Has each but only first security.
The Chancellor still, I see, does not quite trust me; And, I confess--the game does not lie wholly To my advantage. Without doubt he thinks, If I can play false with the Emperor, Who is my sovereign, I can do the like With the enemy, and that _the one_ too were Sooner to be forgiven me than the _other_. Is not this your opinion, too, Sir General?