This suspense, This horrid fear--I can no longer bear it. For heaven's sake tell me what has taken place? ILLO. The regiments are all falling off from us. TERZKY. Octavio Piccolomini is a traitor. COUNTESS. O my foreboding! [_Rushes out of the room_.] TERZKY. Hadst thou but believed me! Now seest thou how the stars have lied to thee. [Illustration: WALLENSTEIN HEARS OF OCTAVIO'S TREASON As performed at the Municipal Theatre, Hamburg, 1906.] WALLENST. The stars lie not; but we have here a work Wrought counter to the stars and destiny. The science is still honest: this false heart Forces a lie on the truth-telling heaven. On a divine law divination rests; Where nature deviates from that law, and stumbles Out of her limits, there all science errs. True I did not suspect! Were it superstition Never by such suspicion t' have affronted The human form, O may that time ne'er come In which I shame me of the infirmity. The wildest savage drinks not with the victim, Into whose breast he means to plunge the sword. This, this, Octavio, was no hero's deed: 'Twas not thy prudence that did conquer mine; A bad heart triumph'd o'er an honest one. No shield received the assassin stroke; thou plungest Thy weapon on an unprotected breast-- Against such weapons I am but a child. SCENE X _To these enter_ BUTLER TERZKY (_meeting him_). O look there! Butler! Here we've still a friend! WALLENSTEIN (_meets him with outspread arms, and embraces him with warmth_). Come to my heart, old comrade! Not the sun Looks out upon us more revivingly In the earliest month of spring, Than a friend's countenance in such an hour. BUTLER. My General: I come-- WALLENSTEIN (_leaning on_ BUTLER's _shoulder_). Know'st thou already? That old man has betray'd me to the Emperor. What say'st thou? Thirty years have we together Lived out, and held out, sharing joy and hardship. We have slept in one camp-bed, drunk from one glass, One morsel shared! I lean'd myself on _him_, As now I lean me on _thy_ faithful shoulder. And now in the very moment, when, all love, All confidence, my bosom beat to his, He sees and takes the advantage, stabs the knife Slowly into my heart. [_He hides his face on_ BUTLER'S _breast_.] BUTLER. Forget the false one. What is your present purpose? WALLENSTEIN.