WALLENSTEIN (stepping to the door).

Who interrupts us now at this late hour? 
It is the Governor.  He brings the keys
Of the Citadel.  ’Tis midnight.  Leave me, sister!

COUNTESS.

O ’tis so hard to me this night to leave thee—­
A boding fear possesses me!

WALLENSTEIN.

Fear!  Wherefore?

COUNTESS.

Shouldst thou depart this night, and we at waking
Never more find thee!

WALLENSTEIN.

Fancies!

COUNTESS.

O my soul
Has long been weigh’d down by these dark fore-bodings,
And if I combat and repel them waking,
They will crush down upon my heart in dreams. 
I saw thee yesternight with thy first wife
Sit at a banquet, gorgeously attired.

WALLENST.

This was a dream of favorable omen,
That marriage being the founder of my fortunes.

COUNTESS.

Today I dreamt that I was seeking thee
In thy own chamber.  As I enter’d, lo! 
It was no more a chamber:  the Chartreuse
At Gitschin ’twas, which thou thyself hast founded,
And where it is thy will that thou should’st be
Interr’d.

WALLENSTEIN.

Thy soul is busy with these thoughts.

COUNTESS.

What! dost thou not believe that oft in dreams
A voice of warning speaks prophetic to us?

WALTENST.

There is no doubt that there exist such voices;
Yet I would not call them
Voices of warning that announce to us
Only the inevitable.  As the sun,
Ere it is risen, sometimes paints its image
In the atmosphere, so often do the spirits
Of great events stride on before the events,
And in today already walks tomorrow. 
That which we read of the fourth Henry’s death
Did ever vex and haunt me like a tale
Of my own future destiny.  The king
Felt in his breast the phantom of the knife,
Long ere Ravaillac arm’d himself therewith. 
His quiet mind forsook him:  the phantasma
Started him in his Louvre, chased him forth
Into the open air:  like funeral knells
Sounded that coronation festival;
And still with boding sense he heard the tread
Of those feet that even then were seeking him
Throughout the streets of Paris.

COUNTESS.

And to thee
The voice within thy soul bodes nothing?

WALLENSTEIN.

Nothing. 
Be wholly tranquil.

COUNTESS.

And another time
I hasten’d after thee, and thou ran’st from me
Through a long suite, through many a spacious hall. 
There seem’d no end of it:  doors creak’d and clapp’d;
I follow’d panting, but could not o’ertake thee;
When on a sudden did I feel myself
Grasp’d from behind—­the hand was cold that grasped me—­
’Twas thou, and thou didst kiss me, and there seem’d
A crimson covering to envelop us.

WALLENST. That is the crimson tapestry of my chamber.