DUCHESS. Thou wilt share An easier, calmer lot, my child! We, too, I and thy father, witnessed happy days. Still think I with delight of those first years, When he was making progress with glad effort, When his ambition was a genial fire, Not that consuming flame which now it is. The emperor loved him, trusted him; and all He undertook could not but be successful. But since that ill-starred day at Regensburg, Which plunged him headlong from his dignity, A gloomy, uncompanionable spirit, Unsteady and suspicious, has possessed him. His quiet mind forsook him, and no longer Did he yield up himself in joy and faith To his old luck and individual power; But thenceforth turned his heart and best affections All to those cloudy sciences which never Have yet made happy him who followed them. COUNTESS. You see it, sister! as your eyes permit you, But surely this is not the conversation To pass the time in which we are waiting for him. You know he will be soon here. Would you have him Find her in this condition? DUCHESS. Come, my child! Come, wipe away thy tears, and show thy father A cheerful countenance. See, the tie-knot here Is off; this hair must not hang so dishevelled. Come, dearest! dry thy tears up. They deform Thy gentle eye. Well, now--what was I saying? Yes, in good truth, this Piccolomini Is a most noble and deserving gentleman. COUNTESS. That is he, sister! THEKLA (to the COUNTESS, with marks of great oppression of spirits). Aunt, you will excuse me? (Is going). COUNTESS. But, whither? See, your father comes! THEKLA. I cannot see him now. COUNTESS. Nay, but bethink you. THEKLA. Believe me, I cannot sustain his presence. COUNTESS. But he will miss you, will ask after you. DUCHESS. What, now? Why is she going? COUNTESS. She's not well. DUCHESS (anxiously). What ails, then, my beloved child? [Both follow the PRINCESS, and endeavor to detain her. During this WALLENSTEIN appears, engaged in conversation with ILLO. SCENE IV. WALLENSTEIN, ILLO, COUNTESS, DUCHESS, THEKLA. WALLENSTEIN. All quiet in the camp? ILLO. It is all quiet. WALLENSTEIN. In a few hours may couriers come from Prague With tidings that this capital is ours. Then we may drop the mask, and to the troops Assembled in this town make known the measure And its result together. In such cases Example does the whole. Whoever is foremost Still leads the herd. An imitative creature Is man. The troops at Prague conceive no other, Than that the Pilsen army has gone through The forms of homage to us; and in Pilsen They shall swear fealty to us, because The example has been given them by Prague. Butler, you tell me, has declared himself? ILLO. At his own bidding, unsolicited, He came to offer you himself and regiment.