teadfast, resolute.

Egmont. Yes, when matters are not too much involved. For once, however,
she is a little disconcerted.

Clara. How so?

Egmont. She has a moustache, too, on her upper lip, and occasionally an
attack of the gout. A regular Amazon.

Clara. A majestic woman! I should dread to appear before her.

Egmont. Yet thou art not wont to be timid! It would not be fear, only
maidenly bashfulness.

(Clara casts down her eyes, takes his hand, and leans upon him.)

Egmont. I understand thee, dearest! Thou mayst raise thine eyes. (He
kisses her eyes.)

Clara. Let me be silent! Let me embrace thee! Let me look into thine
eyes, and find there everything--hope and comfort, joy and sorrow!
(She embraces and gazes on him.) Tell me! Oh, tell me! It seems so
strange--art thou indeed Egmont! Count Egmont! The great Egmont, who
makes so much noise in the world, who figures in the newspapers, who is
the support and stay of the provinces?

Egmont. No, Clara, I am not he.

Clara. How?

Egmont. Seest thou, Clara? Let me sit down! (He seats himself, she
kneels on a footstool before him, rests her arms on his knees and
looks up in his face.) That Egmont is a morose, cold, unbending Egmont,
obliged to be upon his guard, to assume now this appearance and now
that; harassed, misapprehended and perplexed, when the crowd esteem him
light-hearted and gay; beloved by a people who do not know their own
minds; honoured and extolled by the intractable multitude; surrounded
by friends in whom he dares not confide; observed by men who are on the
watch to supplant him; toiling and striving, often without an object,
generally without a reward. O let me conceal how it fares with him,
let me not speak of his feelings! But this Egmont, Clara, is calm,
unreserved, happy, beloved and known by the best of hearts, which is
also thoroughly known to him, and which he presses to his own with
unbounded confidence and love. (He embraces her.) This is thy Egmont.

Clara. So let me die! The world has no joy after this!

ACT IV

SCENE I.--A Street

Jetter, Carpenter

Jetter. Hist! neighbour,--a word!

Carpenter. Go your way and be quiet.

Jetter. Only one word. Is there nothing new?

Carpenter. Nothing, except that we are anew forbidden to speak.

Jetter. How?

Carpenter. Step here, close to this house. Take heed! Immediately on
his arrival, the Duke of Alva published a decree, by which two or three,
found conversing togethe