AMELIA. Go—I say. You have robbed me of a precious hour; may it be deducted from your life.
FRANCIS. You hate me then!
AMELIA. I despise you—away!
FRANCIS (stamping with fury). Only wait! you shall learn to tremble
before me!—To sacrifice me for a beggar!
[Exit in anger.]
AMELIA. Go, thou base villain! Now, Charles, am I again thine own.
Beggar, did he say! then is the world turned upside down, beggars are
kings, and kings are beggars! I would not change the rags he wears for
the imperial purple. The look with which he begs must, indeed, be a
noble, a royal look, a look that withers into naught the glory, the
pomp, the triumphs of the rich and great! Into the dust with thee,
glittering baubles! (She tears her pearls from her neck.) Let the rich
and the proud be condemned to bear the burden of gold, and silver, and
jewels! Be they condemned to carouse at the tables of the voluptuous!
To pamper their limbs on the downy couch of luxury! Charles! Charles!
Thus am I worthy of thee!
[Exit.]
ACT II.
SCENE I.—FRANCIS VON MOOR in his chamber—in meditation.
FRANCIS. It lasts too long-and the doctor even says is recovering—an old man's life is a very eternity! The course would be free and plain before me, but for this troublesome, tough lump of flesh, which, like the infernal demon-hound in ghost stories, bars the way to my treasures.
Must, then, my projects bend to the iron yoke of a mechanical system? Is my soaring spirit to be chained down to the snail's pace of matter? To blow out a wick which is already flickering upon its last drop of oil—'tis nothing more. And yet I would rather not do it myself, on account of what the world would say. I should not wish him to be killed, but merely disposed of. I should like to do what your clever physician does, only the reverse way—not stop Nature's course by running a bar across her path, but only help her to speed a little faster. Are we not able to prolong the conditions of life? Why, then, should we not also be able to shorten them? Philosophers and physiologists teach us how close is the sympathy between the emotions of the mind and the movements of the bodily machine. Convulsive sensations are always accompanied by a disturbance of the mechanical vibrations— passions injure the vital powers—an overburdened spirit bursts its shell. Well, then—what if one knew how to smooth this unbeaten path, for the easier entrance of death into the citadel of life?—to work the body's destruction through the mind—ha! an original device!—who can accomplish this?—a device without a parallel! Think upon it, Moor! That were an art worthy of thee for its inventor. Has not poisoning been raised almost to the rank of a regular science, and Nature compelled, by the force of experiments, to define her limits, so that one may now calculate the heart's throbbings for years in advance, and say to the beating pulse, "So far, and no farther"? Why should not one try one's skill in this line?*