Chapter 92

_To them enter the COUNTESS._

_Countess._ This suspense, This horrid fear--I can no longer bear it. For heaven's sake, tell me, what has taken place.

_Illo._ The regiments are all falling off from us.

_Tertsky._ Octavio Piccolomini is a traitor. 5

_Countess._ O my foreboding! [_Rushes out of the room._

_Tertsky._ Hadst thou but believed me! Now seest thou how the stars have lied to thee.

_Wallenstein._ The stars lie not; but we have here a work Wrought counter to the stars and destiny. The science is still honest: this false heart 10 Forces a lie on the truth-telling heaven. On a divine law divination rests; Where nature deviates from that law, and stumbles Out of her limits, there all science errs. True, I did not suspect! Were it superstition 15 Never by such suspicion t' have affronted The human form, O may that time ne'er come In which I shame me of the infirmity. The wildest savage drinks not with the victim Into whose breast he means to plunge the sword. 20 This, this, Octavio, was no hero's deed: 'Twas not thy prudence that did conquer mine; A bad heart triumphed o'er an honest one. No shield received the assassin stroke; thou plungest Thy weapon on an unprotected breast-- 25 Against such weapons I am but a child.