FRANCIS. Will you be able to prevent it? You, too, my good Hermann,
will be made to feel his lash. He will spit in your face when he meets
you in the streets; and woe be to you should you venture to shrug your
shoulders or to make a wry mouth. Look, my friend! this is all that
your lovesuit, your prospects, and your mighty plans amount to.

HERMANN. Tell me, what am I to do?

FRANCIS. Well, then, listen, Hermann! You see how I enter into your
feelings, like a true friend. Go--disguise yourself, so that no one may
recognize you; obtain audience of the old man; pretend to come straight
from Bohemia, to have been at the battle of Prague along with my
brother--to have seen him breathe his last on the field of battle!

HERMANN. Will he believe me?

FRANCIS. Ho! ho! let that be my care! Take this packet. There you
will find your commission set forth at large; and documents, to boot,
which shall convince the most incredulous. Only make haste to get away
unobserved. Slip through the back gate into the yard, and then scale
the garden wall.--The denouement of this tragicomedy you may leave to
me!

HERMANN. That, I suppose, will be, "Long live our new baron, Francis
von Moor!"

FRANCIS (patting his cheeks). How cunning you are! By this means, you
see, we attain all our aims at once and quickly. Amelia relinquishes
all hope of him,--the old man reproaches himself for the death of his
son, and--he sickens--a tottering edifice needs no earthquake to bring
it down--he will not survive the intelligence--then am I his only son,
--Amelia loses every support, and becomes the plaything of my will, and
you may easily guess--in short, all will go as we wish--but you must not
flinch from your word.

HERMANN. What do you say? (Exultingly.) Sooner shall the ball turn
back in its course, and bury itself in the entrails of the marksman.
Depend upon me! Only let me to the work. Adieu!

FRANCIS (calling after him). The harvest is thine, dear Hermann!
(Alone.) When the ox has drawn the corn into the barn, he must put up
with hay. A dairy maid for thee, and no Amelia!

SCENE II.--Old Moor's Bedchamber.

OLD MOOR asleep in an arm-chair; AMELIA.

AMELIA (approaching him on tip-toe). Softly! Softly! He slumbers.
(She places herself before him.) How beautiful! how venerable!--
venerable as the picture of a saint. No, I cannot be angry with thee,
thou head with the silver locks; I cannot be angry with thee! Slumber