_Isolani (to Max, who all the while has been staring on the paper with fixed but vacant eyes)._ Slow and sure, my noble brother!--Hast parsed it all yet?--Some words yet to go through?--Ha? _Max._ What am I to do? _Tertsky (and at the same time Isolani)._ Sign your name. _Max (returns the paper)._ Let it stay till to-morrow. It is 25 business--to-day I am not sufficiently collected. Send it to me to-morrow. _Tertsky._ Nay, collect yourself a little. _Isolani._ Awake, man! awake!--Come, thy signature, and have done with it! What? Thou art the youngest in the 30 whole company, and wouldest be wiser than all of us together? Look there! thy father has signed--we have all signed. _Tertsky (to Octavio)._ Use your influence. Instruct him. _Octavio._ My son is at the age of discretion. _Illo (leaves the service-cup on the sideboard)._ What's the dispute? 35 _Tertsky._ He declines subscribing the paper. _Max._ I say, it may as well stay till to-morrow. _Illo._ It cannot stay. We have all subscribed to it--and so must you.--You must subscribe. _Max._ Illo, good night! 40 _Illo._ No! You come not off so! The Duke shall learn who are his friends. [_All collect round ILLO and MAX._ _Max._ What my sentiments are towards the Duke, the Duke knows, every one knows--what need of this wild stuff? 45 _Illo._ This is the thanks the Duke gets for his partiality to Italians and foreigners.--Us Bohemians he holds for little better than dullards--nothing pleases him but what's outlandish. _Tertsky (to the commanders, who at Illo's words give a sudden start, as preparing to resent them)._ It is the wine that speaks, and not his reason. Attend not to him, I entreat you. 50 _Isolani._ Wine invents nothing: it only tattles. _Illo._ He who is not with me is against me. Your tender consciences! Unless they can slip out by a back-door, by a puny proviso---- _Tertsky._ He is stark mad--don't listen to him! 55 _Illo._ Unless they can slip out by a proviso.--What of the proviso? The devil take this proviso! _Max._ What is there here then of such perilous import? You make me curious--I must look closer at it. _Tertsky (in a low voice to Illo)._ What are you doing, Illo? 60 You are ruining us. _Tiefenbach (to Kolatto)._ Ay, ay! I observed, that before we sat down to supper, it was read differently. _Goetz._ Why, I seemed to think so too. _Isolani._ What do I care for that? Where there stand other 65 names, mine can stand too. _Tiefenbach._ Before supper there was a certain proviso therein, or short clause concerning our duties to the Emperor.