PRESIDENT (pale with anger, and approaching MILLER). What? What's that you dare to utter?
MILLER (retreating a few steps). Only a little bit of my mind sir—no offence, I hope!
PRESIDENT (furiously). Insolent villain! Your impertinence shall procure you a lodging in prison. (To his servants). Call in the officers of justice! Away! (Some of the attendants go out. The PRESIDENT paces the stage with a furious air.) The father shall to prison; the mother and her strumpet daughter to the pillory! Justice shall lend her sword to my rage! For this insult will I have ample amends. Shall such contemptible creatures thwart my plans, and set father and son against each other with impunity? Tremble, miscreants! I will glut my hate in your destruction—the whole brood of you—father, mother, and daughter shall be sacrificed to my vengeance!
FERDINAND (to MILLER, in a collected and firm manner). Oh! not so! Fear not, friends! I am your protector. (Turning to the PRESIDENT, with deference). Be not so rash, father! For your own sake let me beg of you no violence. There is a corner of my heart where the name of father has never yet been heard. Oh! press not into that!
PRESIDENT. Silence, unworthy boy! Rouse not my anger to greater fury!
MILLER (recovering from a stupor). Wife, look you to your daughter! I fly to the duke. His highness' tailor—God be praised for reminding me of it at this moment—learns the flute of me—I cannot fail of success. (Is hastening off.)
PRESIDENT. To the duke, will you? Have you forgotten that I am the threshold over which you must pass, or failing, perish? To the duke, you fool? Try to reach him with your lamentations, when, reduced to a living skeleton, you lie buried in a dungeon five fathoms deep, where light and sound never enter; where darkness goggles at hell with gloating eyes! There gnash thy teeth in anguish; there rattle thy chains in despair, and groan, "Woe is me! This is beyond human endurance!"
SCENE VII.
Officers of Justice—the former.