'Tis not the embodiment of living strength
That makes the truly terrible. It is
The vulgar brood of all the yesterdays,
The eternally recurring commonplace,
That was and therefore is and hence will be.
For man is fashioned of the trivial
And customary use he names his nurse.[117]
It would seem as if such a blind and superstitious self-worshiper could have but little chance of winning sympathy, and the less chance for the reason that he really does nothing in the play to justify his grand airs. His mighty deeds are a matter of hearsay. We are obliged to take his greatness on trust, as something growing out of the past. And yet Schiller contrives, with splendid artistic cunning, that we do take him from first to last at his own estimate. His assumption of superiority appears perfectly reasonable; and even in the ticklish astrological scenes, about which Schiller himself was in doubt until reassured by Goethe, he never becomes ridiculous. His belief in destiny and his unctuous palaver about the occult connection of events do not detract from his dignity. One understands that his oracles are fallacious, that it is all a humbug; but so perfect is the illusion that instead of smiling one mentally associates him with other men undoubtedly great,—men like Caesar, Cromwell and Napoleon,—who were haunted by more or less similar hallucinations.
This is effected, in part at least, by bringing Wallenstein into contrast with vulgar and commmonplace natures. In the presence of a real hero he would be a pigmy,—even under the searchlight of the ardent young Max his effulgence pales somewhat,—but surrounded by the Illos, the Terzkys, Isolanis and the rest of them, he is a moral and intellectual giant. One does not wish to belong to their company or to believe in their arguments; and so when they urge him to act one is quite prepared to credit the mysterious oracles which assure him that the time is not yet ripe. Thus even his indecision,—most damning of weaknesses in a great soldier,—does not seem to belittle him. One enters into the spirit of his self-defense, is half inclined to believe in his innocence and to sympathize with him, when the psychological moment arrives and the capture of Sesina compels him to translate a traitorous thought into a traitorous deed. And even after this, when he stands forth as a declared traitor; while his trusted friends are secretly turning against him, and his unsuspected enemies are quietly plotting his doom; when, with a futile energy, he is making the plans that are yet, as he believes, to leave him master of the situation; and when, finally, in his bereavement and isolation, he is brought to face his miserable fate,—everywhere he looms up as a grand figure. Schiller has taken good care that one shall not think of his treason or of his weakness, but rather of his imposing personality.
That Wallenstein produces such an impression is largely due to the character of his chief antagonist. Octavio Piccolomini is certainly one of Schiller's most notable minor studies. It is he who stands for the cause of loyalty to which one naturally leans; but he is so portrayed that one soon distrusts and in the end almost despises him. And yet he is no villain of the extreme type so dear to Schiller in his early years. Octavio's conduct and his sentiments are technically correct. He is a faithful servant of the empire, a far-sighted and energetic commander and an affectionate father. The groundwork of his character seems much better entitled to sympathy than that of Wallenstein. In the play, however, from the moment we hear of the secret order making him temporary commander-in-chief, we begin to suspect that he too is playing a game for profit. And when he lays his secret plans against Wallenstein, while openly appearing as his friend; when he craftily works upon the vanity of Butler, and instils into Butler's small soul the poison of a murderous hate, one is not drawn to the cause which needs such championship.
Rationally and before the bar of politics, Octavio's conduct is unimpeachable. He does his duty in baffling a powerful traitor in the most effective way. It is not his fault that Wallenstein is deceived in him, and nothing requires that he go and undeceive him. He resorts to no tricks, he feigns no sentiments that are not his. He but tells the truth to Butler in regard to the ancient matter of the title. It is no part of his plan that Butler shall murder his former chief. And when Wallenstein falls, not so much because of his present treason as because of his former duplicity, Octavio is technically guiltless of the deed. And yet so skillfully is the portrait drawn, so subtly are the lights and shadows managed, that when the curtain falls one is little disposed to sympathize with him in his triumph. There is a world of ironical pathos in those last words of the play: 'To Prince Piccolomini'.
A very important element in the impression produced by Octavio, as also in that produced by Wallenstein himself, is the fact that we are made to try them not at the bar of worldly ethics, but before the tribunal of the heart as represented by the young idealist, Max. It is a weak criticism of Wallenstein which objects to the love-story or regards it as a mere concession to the sentimental demands of the average play-goer. For the reason just stated it must rather be looked upon as a vital element of the plot. No doubt the play can be imagined without it and would in that case be more in accordance with history. But what a relatively cold affair it would be! The tragedy of the lovers is an important part of the Nemesis that follows Wallenstein from the moment of his taking the fateful step. It is this which makes in no small degree the real impressiveness of his final isolation. Without it we should see in Wallenstein a masterful spirit, like Macbeth, playing fast and loose with the higher law and meeting an ignoble fate at the hands of enemies meaner than himself. In a sense the moral law would be vindicated, but how much more effective is the vindication when this masterful spirit first makes havoc of all that should be dearest to him as a man!
It is quite true that the figure of Max, like that of Posa, is out of harmony with the general milieu. Schiller was a lover of contrast, and in his skillful use of it lies a large part of his effectiveness as a playwright. To a certain extent his contrasts are made to order; that is, they proceed from the vision of the artist calculating an effect, rather than from the observation of life as it is. Partisans of realism tell us that this propensity is a weakness, a fault; and such it is, beyond question, whenever it leads to forced and stagy contrasts. But surely no general indictment can lie against Schiller for taking advantage of a principle which is perfectly legitimate in itself and has been employed more or less freely by the dramatists of all ages, including realists like Ibsen and Hauptmann. After all life does really offer contrasts of character as glaring as any that poet ever imagined, only they are not apt to be found in juxtaposition. The artist, however, has a perfect right to juxtapose them if it suits his purpose; that is, if it will really enhance the effect that he wishes to produce. If ever he departs too far from the familiar verities of life, he pays the penalty; for the judicious, instead of being thrilled by his pathos (or whatever it may be), are annoyed by his artificiality. This is the whole law of the matter, so far as its general aspect is concerned.
As for Max Piccolomini, he is a perfectly thinkable character—in the time of the Thirty Years' War or at any other time. There is nothing supernal about him; he is simply the type of a brave and honorable young soldier who tries to walk by the higher law of conscience. There are always such men in the world, and Schiller cannot be blamed for locating one in the camp of Wallenstein, though history omitted to hand down his name. It is perhaps a little surprising that such a youngster as Max should be in command of the great Pappenheim's regiment; that, however, is a part of the presupposition which one must mentally adjust as best one can. Within the limits of the play everything follows naturally. As a soldier he loves his commander and sides with him instinctively against the courtiers and politicians. His enthusiasm increases the 'mighty suggestion' that goes out from Wallenstein; one feels that the object of such idolatry from such a worshiper must indeed be great. In the love-scenes Max is always a man,—no trace here of sentimental weakness, or of any leaning to Quixotic folly. In his relation to Wallenstein, to Octavio, and to Thekla, his character is firmly and naturally drawn. And when his great disillusionment comes and he is forced to choose between love and duty, he makes a man's choice and his career ends as it must end—in a tragic drama.
The drawing of the female characters in 'Wallenstein' bears witness, like all the rest of the play, to the ripening power of the years that had intervened since the writing of 'Don Carlos'. That indefinable something that infects the earlier heroines of Schiller and gives them an air of sentimental futility, or else of schematic unnaturalness, has disappeared. The Countess Terzky, in particular, is a strong portrait which one can admire without reservation. As for Thekla, while her essence is an all-absorbing love for Max, she has at the same time a will and an energy of resolution which make her the worthy daughter of her father. Upon the whole she is the most lovable of all the heroines of Schiller. It is her tragedy of the heart which renders 'Wallenstein' perennially interesting to the young. And this is much; for does not Goethe's shrewd Merry-Andrew declare that the great object of dramatic art is to please the young,—that die Werdenden are the very ones to be considered?[118]
It is true that critics, speaking more for die Gewordenen, have often objected that the love-story in 'Wallenstein' is unduly expanded and that the lines have here and there, for a historical tragedy, rather too much of a sentimental, lyrical coloring. In the first of these objections, at any rate, there is some force. It was Schiller's personal fondness for his pair of lovers that led him to spin out his material until it became necessary to divide it into two plays of five acts each. This, from a dramatic point of view, was unfortunate, albeit the reader who knows the entire work will hardly find it in his heart to wish that any portion of it had remained unwritten. Properly speaking, the entire 'Piccolomini' should constitute the first two acts of a five-act tragedy. It has no distinct unity of its own, but it takes an entire evening with what is properly the exposition and the entanglement of a play relating to Wallenstein's defection and death. The result of a separate performance is that the climax of what should be the third act—Wallenstein's momentous decision—comes right at the beginning of the second evening, and is thus not adequately led up to, save as one carries over the impressions of a preceding occasion. The effect is like that of dividing any other play between the second and the third act. One could wish, therefore, that Schiller had seen fit in his later years to prepare a stage version which would have made it possible to present the entire play in a single evening. It would have been a difficult task,—hopeless for an ordinary theatrical man working by the process of excision,—but for Schiller it would have been possible. And if he had attempted it, we may be quite certain that the love-story would have been very much abbreviated.