Thekla. Oh! my mother!
Neubrunn. So much as she has suffered too already; [40]
Your tender mother—Ah! how ill prepared
For this last anguish!
Thekla. Woe is me! my mother! [Pauses.
Go instantly.
Neubrunn. But think what you are doing!
Thekla. What can be thought, already has been thought.
Neubrunn. And being there, what purpose you to do? 45
Thekla. There a divinity will prompt my soul.
Neubrunn. Your heart, dear lady, is disquieted!
And this is not the way that leads to quiet.
Thekla. To a deep quiet, such as he has found.
It draws me on, I know not what to name it, 50
Resistless does it draw me to his grave.
There will my heart be eased, my tears will flow.
O hasten, make no further questioning!
There is no rest for me till I have left
These walls—they fall in on me—A dim power 55
Drives me from hence—Oh mercy! What a feeling!
What pale and hollow forms are those! They fill,
They crowd the place! I have no longer room here!
Mercy! Still more! More still! The hideous swarm!
They press on me; they chase me from these walls— 60
Those hollow, bodiless forms of living men!
Neubrunn. You frighten me so, lady, that no longer
I dare stay here myself. I go and call
Rosenberg instantly. [Exit Lady Neubrunn.