Part 63 (1/2)

GRIMM. It is a fruitful year.

CHARLES. Do you think so? Then at least one toil in the world will be repaid. One? Yet in the night a hailstorm may come and destroy it all.

SCHWARZ. That is very possible. It all may be destroyed an hour before the reaping.

CHARLES. Just what I say. All will be destroyed. Why should man prosper in that which he has in common with the ant, while he fails in that which places him on a level with the G.o.ds. Or is this the aim and limit of his destiny?

SCHWARZ. I know not.

CHARLES. Thou hast said well; and wilt have done better, if thou never seekest to know. Brother, I have looked on men, their insect cares and their giant projects,--their G.o.d-like plans and mouse-like occupations, their intensely eager race after happiness--one trusting to the fleetness of his horse,--another to the nose of his a.s.s,--a third to his own legs; this checkered lottery of life, in which so many stake their innocence and their leaven to s.n.a.t.c.h a prize, and,--blanks are all they draw--for they find, too late, that there was no prize in the wheel. It is a drama, brother, enough to bring tears into your eyes, while it shakes your sides with laughter.

SCHWARZ. How gloriously the sun is setting yonder!

CHARLES (absorbed in the scene). So dies a hero! Worthy of adoration!

SCHWARZ. You seem deeply moved.

CHARLES. When I, was but a boy--it was my darling thought to live like him, like him to die--(with suppressed grief.) It was a boyish thought!

GRIMM. It was, indeed.

CHARLES. There was a time--(pressing his hat down upon his face).

I would be alone, comrades.

SCHWARZ. Moor! Moor! Why, what the deuce! How his color changes.

GRIMM. By all the devils! What ails him? Is he ill?

CHARLES. There was a time when I could not have slept had I forgotten my evening prayers.

GRIMM. Are you beside yourself? Would you let the remembrances of your boyish years school you now?

CHARLES (lays his head upon the breast of GRIMM). Brother! Brother!

GRIMM. Come! Don't play the child--I pray you

CHARLES. Oh that I were-that I were again a child!

GRIMM. Fie! fie!

SCHWARZ. Cheer up! Behold this smiling landscape--this delicious evening!

CHARLES. Yes, friends, this world is very lovely--

SCHWARZ. Come, now, that was well said.

CHARLES. This earth so glorious!--

GRIMM. Right--right--I love to hear you talk thus.

CHARLES. (sinking back). And I so hideous in' this lovely world-- a monster on this glorious earth!

GRIMM. Oh dear! oh dear!