KOTTWITZ and TRUCHSZ (helter-skelter).
What, my adored—my worshipped—What, my liege?—
ELECTOR. Will you? Will you?
KOTTWITZ. Now, by the living God,
He'd watch you standing on destruction's brink
And never twitch his sword in your behalf,
Or rescue you unless you gave command.
ELECTOR (tearing up the death warrant).
So, to the garden! Follow me, my friends!
SCENE X
The Castle with the terrace leading down into the garden, as in ACT I. It is night, as then.—The PRINCE OF HOMBURG, with bandaged eyes, is led in through the lower garden-wicket, by CAPTAIN STRANZ. Officers with the guard. In the distance one can hear the drumming of the death-march.
[Illustration: #STATUE OF THE GREAT ELECTOR# Sculptor, Andreas Schlüter]
THE PRINCE. All art thou mine now, immortality!
Thou glistenest through the veil that blinds mine eyes
With that sun's glow that is a thousand suns.
I feel bright pinions from my shoulders start;
Through mute, ethereal spaces wings my soul;
And as the ship, borne outward by the wind,
Sees the bright harbor sink below the marge,
Thus all my being fades and is submerged.
Now I distinguish colors yet and forms,
And now—all life is fog beneath my feet.
[The PRINCE seats himself on the bench which stands about the oak in the middle of the open space. The CAPTAIN draws away from him and looks up toward the terrace.]
How sweet the flowers fill the air with odor!
D'you smell them?