Scene I.—The Faculty Room. Two small, high windows, one of them walled up. Portraits of Pestalozzi and J. J. Rousseau on the walls. Long, narrow, green table, with a gaspipe and six flaring burners over it. At one end, on a platform, Principal Sonnenstich[4] sits. Behind the table sit, quite close together, in a grotesque row, Professors Affenschmalz (nearest Sonnenstich), Knochenbruch, Fliegentod, Hungergurt, Zungenschlag, and Knüppeldick. Habebald, the beadle or proctor of the school, cowers near the door.
Sonnenstich—May one of the gentlemen perhaps have something further to remark?—Gentlemen!—If we find ourselves unable to avoid the necessity of moving the rustication of our crime-laden pupil before a superior Board of Education, it is for the very weightiest reasons that we cannot help it. We cannot if only to do our best to atone for the misfortune that has already burst upon us; still less if we would insure our institution for the future against further calamities of the same order. We cannot if we are to discipline our crime-laden pupil for the demoralizing influence that he has exerted upon his classmates; we cannot, most conclusively, if so we may prevent him from exerting the like influence upon the remainder of his classmates. We are compelled to it—and this, gentlemen, is perhaps the most fundamental ground of all, against which no protest can prevail,—because it is for us to protect our institution from the ravages of a suicide-epidemic, such as has already broken out at various schools like ours and has so far defied all efforts to attach the schoolboy to those conditions of existence best adapted to his education into cultivated manhood.—May one of the gentlemen still have something to remark?
Knüppeldick—[Furthest away; middle-aged.] I can no longer repel the conviction that it may at last be about time to open a window somewhere.
Zungenschlag—[Next him, bearded, choleric.] There—there prevails here an at-at-atmosphere like that in subterranean cata-catacombs, like tha-tha-that in the archive-repositories of the quo-quondam star-chamber tribunal at We-Wetzlar!
Sonnenstich—Habebald!
Habebald—Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?
Sonnenstich—Open a window. We have, Heaven be praised, atmosphere enough out-of-doors.—May one of the gentlemen have anything further to remark?
Fliegentod—[The Secretary, with the minutebook; bearded, ponderous.] If my worthy colleagues wish to have a window opened, I have nothing, personally, to object against it; only might I ask that they will not wish to have that window opened which is directly at my back?
Sonnenstich—Habebald!
Habebald—Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?
Sonnenstich—Open the other window!—May one of the gentlemen have something still further to remark?
Hungergurt—[Small, mild, spectacled; between Fliegentod and Zungenschlag.] Without any wish on my part to aggravate the controversy, might I recall the fact that the other window has been walled up since the autumn holidays?
Sonnenstich—Habebald!
Habebald—Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?
Sonnenstich—Leave the other window closed!—I see myself compelled, gentlemen, to bring the matter to a vote. I request those colleagues who are for opening the only window that can enter into the question, to indicate it by standing. [The three furthest from him stand.] One, two three. [Counting the seated ones, too.] One, two, three. Habebald!
Habebald—Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?
Sonnenstich—Leave the one window likewise closed.—I for my part am of the opinion that our atmosphere leaves nothing to be desired!—May one of the gentlemen still have something to remark?—Gentlemen!—Let us make the supposition that we omit to move the rustication of our crime-laden pupil before a superior Board of Education. We will then be held accountable, by the Ministry of Education, for the disaster that has befallen us. Of the various schools that have been visited by this suicide-epidemic, those in which twenty-five per cent of the pupils have fallen victims to the ravages of the suicide-epidemic have been temporarily closed by the Ministry of Education. To preserve our Institution from this most staggering blow is our duty, as the guardians and safekeepers of our institution. It grieves us deeply, gentlemen and colleagues, that we are in no position to let our crime-laden pupil’s qualifications in other respects count as mitigating circumstances. A mild procedure, which might be justifiable towards our crime-laden pupil singly, is at this time, when the very existence of our institution is imperilled in the most dangerous manner conceivable, certainly not justifiable! We see ourselves reduced to the necessity of passing judgment on the guilty lest we, the innocent, be judged.—Habebald!
Habebald—Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?
Sonnenstich—Bring him up. [Habebald goes out.]
Zungenschlag—If it is settled that the pre-prevailing a-a-a-atmosphere leaves little or nothing to be desired, I should like to move that during the summer vacation the other window as well should be-be-be-be-be-be-be-be-be-be walled up!
Fliegentod—If our dear colleague Zungenschlag does not find our sanctum satisfactorily ventilated, I should like to set the machinery in motion toward having a ventilator installed in our dear colleague Zungenschlag’s high and cavernous brow.
Zungenschlag—Th-th-that is too much for me to put up with!—Ru-rudenesses are more than I need to put up with!—I am in possession of my five senses...!
Sonnenstich—I must request our colleagues, Messrs. Fliegentod and Zungenschlag, to preserve decorum. I think I hear our crime-laden pupil already on the stairs. [Habebald opens the door, whereupon Melchior, pale but composed, steps before the assemblage.] Step up nearer to the table.—When Mr. Stiefel had been informed of his son’s impious and wicked act, he searched in his grief and perplexity among the effects that his son Moritz had left behind him, in hopes that so he might happen to find the moving cause of that abominable outrage. So doing, he stumbled, in an irrelevant place, upon a piece of writing which, without yet making the abominable outrage understandable in itself, yet offers, I regret to say, an explanation only too conclusive of the moral obliquity in the criminal which must have underlain his act. I am speaking of a twenty-page treatise in dialogue form entitled “Coition,” accompanied by life-sized drawings, rank with the most shameless obscenities, and responding to the most perverted demands that a depraved debauchee could possibly make upon lascivious literature——
Melchior—I have——
Sonnenstich—You have to keep quiet.—Mr. Stiefel handed this manuscript over to us, and we promised the distracted father at any cost to identify its author. The handwriting was accordingly compared with the hands of each one of the dead profligate’s schoolmates, and it proved, in the unanimous judgment of the whole faculty and in perfect accord with the specialist’s opinion of our esteemed colleague in calligraphy, to have the closest conceivable similarity to yours——
Melchior—I have——
Sonnenstich—You have to keep quiet.—Notwithstanding the crushing fact that this resemblance has been marked by unimpeachable authorities, we believe that we may refrain for the moment from taking any further steps till we have first circumstantially interrogated the guilty student concerning his crime against morals, in conjunction with the instigation to self-murder arising from it, with which he is accordingly charged.
Melchior—I have——
Sonnenstich—You have to answer to the particular questions which I shall put to you, in order, one after the other, with a simple, modest “Yes” or “No.”—Habebald!
Habebald—Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?
Sonnenstich—The documents!—I trust that our Secretary, Mr. Fliegentod, will from now on record the proceedings as nearly verbatim as possible. [To Melchior.] Do you recognize this manuscript?
Melchior—Yes.
Sonnenstich—Do you know what this manuscript contains?
Melchior—Yes.
Sonnenstich—Is the writing in this manuscript yours?
Melchior—Yes.
Sonnenstich—Does this obscene manuscript originate from you?
Melchior—Yes.—I beg you, Mr. Sonnenstich, to show me one obscenity in it.
Sonnenstich—You are to answer the particular questions I put to you with a simple, modest “Yes” or “No”!
Melchior—I have written no more and no less than what is very well known to you to be fact.
Sonnenstich—Insolence.
Melchior—I ask you to show me one offense against morals in that paper!
Sonnenstich—Do you imagine I’d have a mind to act the clown for you? Habebald!...
Melchior—I have——
Sonnenstich—You have as little respect for the dignity of your assembled teachers as you have decent sensibility for mankind’s inbred feeling for the modesty of the shamefastness of the moral order of the world!—Habebald!
Habebald—Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?
Sonnenstich—It’s in fact the Langenscheidt for the learning in three hours of agglutinative Volapük![5]
Melchior—I have——
Sonnenstich—I instruct our Secretary, Mr. Fliegentod, to close the minutes!
Melchior—I have——
Sonnenstich—You have to keep quiet!—Habebald.
Habebald—Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?
Sonnenstich—Take him down!
CURTAIN
Scene II.—A graveyard seen through pouring rain. Gray stone wall about five feet high, and quite close to it, parallel with it, an open grave, behind which stands Pastor Kahlbauch, umbrella in left hand and prayer-book in right, flanked by Moritz’s father, his friend Ziegenmelker, and Uncle Probst, on the right, and Principal Sonnenstich and Professor Knochenbruch, with a string of schoolboys, on the left. At a little distance, by a half-collapsed monument, are Ilse and Martha.
Pastor Kahlbauch— ... For he who rejects the mercy wherewith the Eternal Father has blest man born in sin, he shall die a spiritual death. He who in wilful, carnal denial of God’s proper honor liveth for evil and serveth it, he shall die the death of the body. He, however, who wantonly throws from him the cross which the All-merciful has laid upon him for his sins, verily, verily, I say unto you, he will die the everlasting death!—[He closes the book and puts it in his pocket, takes a shovel from the wall-face and with it pushes some mud into the grave, and hands the shovel to Mr. Stiefel.]—Let us, however, faithful pilgrims upon the thorny way, praise the Lord, the All-bountiful, and render him thanks for his inscrutable elections. For as truly as this soul did die a threefold death, so truly will God the Lord induct the righteous man into bliss and the Life Everlasting.—Amen.
Mr. Stiefel—[His voice thick with tears.] The boy was none of mine!—The boy was none of mine!—The boy never pleased me from childhood up! [He throws a shovelful of mud into the grave, and gives the shovel back. Pastor Kahlbauch hands it to Professor Sonnenstich.]
Sonnenstich—[Throws a shovelful of mud into the grave.] Self-murder as the most serious conceivable offense against the moral order of the world is the most perfect conceivable demonstration of the moral order of the world, in that the suicide relieves the moral order of the world from passing judgment upon him, and establishes its existence. [He passes the shovel to Professor Knochenbruch.]
Prof. Knochenbruch—[Throws a shovelful of mud into the grave.] Defective—depraved—delinquent—decayed—and detrited! [He walks around the grave and hands the shovel to Uncle Probst.]
Uncle Probst—[Throws a shovelful of mud into the grave.] Not from my very mother would I have believed a child could act so basely toward his parents! [Hands the shovel to Ziegenmelker.]
Ziegenmelker—[Throws a shovelful of mud into the grave.] Toward a father who for twenty years now has had no thought, early or late, but for his child’s welfare! [Puts the shovel back against the wall.]
Pastor Kahlbauch—[Pressing Mr. Stiefel’s hand.] We know that for them that love God all things work together for good. 1 Corinth. 12, 15.—Think of the sorrowing mother, and strive by redoubled love to make up to her for her loss. [He squeezes out past the Professors and boys.]
Sonnenstich—[Pressing Mr. Stiefel’s hand.] We would probably not have been able to promote him, anyway. [Stiefel passes him.]
Knochenbruch—[Pressing Mr. Stiefel’s hand.] And if we had promoted him, next spring he would most assuredly have failed to pass.
Uncle Probst—[Coming round in front and pressing Stiefel’s hand.] Now your first duty is to think of yourself. You’re the father of a family!...
Ziegenmelker—[Doing likewise.] Rely on me. I’ll steer you!—Beastly weather! enough to make one’s guts crawl. Whoever doesn’t get after that right away with a stiff drink ’ll be taken off with heart-failure! [Leads him toward Pastor Kahlbauch.]
Mr. Stiefel—[Blowing his nose.] The boy was none of mine.... The boy was none of mine.... [Kahlbauch takes his other arm. All the men pass off.—The rain lets up. Hansy Rilow slips in behind the grave.]
Hansy Rilow—[Throwing in a shovelful of mud.] Rest in peace, old fellow!—Greet my immortal brides from me, immolated memories; and commend me most humbly to the dear Lord’s mercy—poor dumbbell you!—They’ll put up a scarecrow on your grave here yet, in memory of your angel simpleness....
George—Has the pistol been found?
Robert—No one need hunt for a pistol!
Ernest—Did you see him, Robert?
Robert—A God-damned swindle, I call it.—Who did see him?—Who!
Otto—Yeah, that’s the sore point!—They’d thrown a cloth over him.
George—Was his tongue hanging out?
Robert—His eyes!—That’s why they’d thrown the cloth over.
Otto—[Shuddering.] Grrr!
Hansy—Do you know for sure that he hanged himself?
Ernest—I’ve heard that his whole head was gone.
Otto—Nonsense! Rot!
Robert—Why, I’ve had the noose in my hands!—I never saw a hanged body yet that you wouldn’t have covered up.
George—He couldn’t have taken his leave in a vulgarer way.
Hansy—What the devil,—hanging is said to be quite handsome!
Otto—I’ve got five marks still owing me from him. We had a bet. He swore he’d keep his place.
Hansy—It’s your fault that he’s lying there. You called him a boaster.
Otto—Poppycock! I’ve got to grind thru the nights, too. If he’d learned the history of ancient Greek literature, he wouldn’t have had to hang himself! [Turns to go.]
Ernest—Have you done your composition, Otto?
Otto—Just the introduction.
Ernest—I haven’t the least idea what to write.
George—What, weren’t you there when Affenschmalz gave us the choice of subject?
Hansy—I’m going to fake up something out of Democritus.
Ernest—I want to see if Meyer’s Abridged has anything left I can use.
Otto—[As all disappear.] Have you done your Virgil for to-morrow?—[When they are gone, Martha and Ilse come to the grave.]
Ilse—Quick! quick!—There come the grave-diggers off there.
Martha—Hadn’t we better wait, Ilse?
Ilse—What for?—We’ll bring new ones, and more, and more!—There are enough growing.
Martha—You’re right, Ilse!—[She throws an ivy-wreath into the grave. Ilse opens her apron and lets a shower of fresh anemones rain upon the coffin.]—I’ll dig up our roses. What if I am beaten for it?—Here they’ll bloom well.
Ilse—I will water them as often as I go past. I’ll bring forget-me-nots over from the brook, and irises from the house.
Martha—It ought to be glorious!—glorious!
Ilse—I was just over the bridge up there when I heard the shot.
Martha—Poor heart!
Ilse—And I know the reason too, Martha.
Martha—Did he tell you something?
Ilse—Parallelepipedon!—But don’t tell anybody.
Martha—I won’t.—There’s my hand.
Ilse—Here is the pistol.
Martha—That’s why it couldn’t be found!
Ilse—I took it right out of his hand when I went past in the morning.
Martha—Give it to me, Ilse!—Please, give it to me!
Ilse—No, I’m going to keep it for remembrance.
Martha—Is it true, Ilse, that he’s lying in there without a head?
Ilse—He must have loaded it with water!—The mulleins were spattered all over with blood. His brains hung round on the osiers.
CURTAIN
Scene III.—Mr. and Mrs. Gabor face each other, the window between them, lighting them.
Mrs. Gabor— ... They were in need of a scapegoat. They couldn’t disregard the accusations that were springing up on every side against them. And now that my son has had the ill luck to fall foul of the old pedants at the precise moment, now am I, his own mother, to help to complete his executioners’ work?—God preserve me from it!
Mr. Gabor—I have looked on at your ingenious educational methods for fourteen years in silence. They were contrary to my ideas. I had always lived under the persuasion that a child was not a plaything, that a child had a claim upon our most earnest efforts. But I said to myself, if the grace and esprit of one parent are able to take the place of the other’s serious principles, why, they may be preferable to the serious principles.—I am not blaming you, Fanny; but don’t stand in my way when I am trying to make good to the boy the wrong that both you and I have done him.
Mrs. Gabor—I will stand in your way as long as a drop of blood runs warm in my veins! In a House of Correction my child will be lost. A criminal nature may perhaps be bettered in such institutions.—I don’t know. A child naturally good will there as certainly become criminal as a plant degenerates when deprived of air and sun. I am conscious of no wrong done him. I thank God to-day as always that He showed me the way to awaken in my child an upright character and noble mind. What has he done then that’s so dreadful?—I haven’t the least idea of trying to exculpate him!—For being turned out of school he needs no exculpation; and if he were at fault, he has paid for it.—You may know better about all that; you may be perfectly right theoretically. But I cannot let my only child be driven and forced to his destruction!
Mr. Gabor—That does not depend upon us, Fanny. That is a risk that we took upon ourselves along with our happiness. He that is too feeble for the march is left by the wayside. And it is surely not so bad as it might be, if the inevitable comes in time. May Heaven defend us from it! Our duty is to steady the waverer as long as reason can find means to do it.—That he has been expelled from school is not his fault. If he had not been expelled from school, that wouldn’t have been his fault, either.—You take things too lightly. You see only inquisitive trifling where fundamental lesions of character are really involved. You women are not qualified to judge such things. Anyone who can write what Melchior writes must be degenerate at the innermost core of his being. His essence is tainted. No nature that’s half-way healthy permits itself that sort of thing. We are all of us flesh and blood: every one of us strays from the strict, true path. But what he has written represents a principle. What he has written is no chance, casual slip, but documentary proof, of ghastly clarity, of that frankly affected purpose, that natural propensity, that bent toward the immoral because it is immoral!—it manifests that exceptional spiritual corruption that we jurists designate as moral imbecility.—Whether his condition can be in any way remedied, I am not able to say. If we would retain one glimmer of hope,—and, before all, consciences as his parents free from remorse,—we must apply ourselves with decision and in all earnestness to the task.—Let us cease contention, Fanny! I am sensible how hard for you it is. I know you idolize him, because he suits so perfectly your gifted temperament. But be stronger than yourself. Show yourself for once at last unselfish toward your son!
Mrs. Gabor—God help me, how can I prevail against that!—One must be a man, to be able to say such things! One must be a man to let oneself be so blinded by the dead letter! One must be a man to close his eyes to what stares him in the face!—I have acted toward Melchior conscientiously and carefully from the first day I found him susceptible to impressions from his environment. Are we responsible for accident? You may be struck down to-morrow by a falling tile, and along will come your friend, your father, and instead of tending your wounds set his foot upon your head!—I will not let my child be ruined before my very eyes! Would I be his mother if I did?—It is unthinkable! It is utterly out of the question. What in the world did he write then, after all? Isn’t it the most blatant proof of his innocence, of his ignorance, of his childish immaturity, that he can write such things?—You can have no inkling of knowledge of human nature, you must be an utterly soulless bureaucrat, or unbelievably narrow, to smell out moral corruption here!—Say what you like: if you put Melchior in the House of Correction, we must separate—and then let me see if nowhere in the world I can find help and means to snatch my child from his downfall!
Mr. Gabor—You will have to reconcile yourself to it—if not to-day, to-morrow. To discount misfortune comes hard to everybody. I will stand by you, and when your courage threatens to fail I will spare no pains, no sacrifice, to ease your heart. I see the future so lowering, so gloomy,—it only lacked that you too should yet be lost to me.
Mrs. Gabor—I shall never see him again; I shall never see him again. He will never stand the degradation, he will never come to terms with filth. He will break the constraint put on him: the terrible example is fresh before his eyes.—And if I do see him again—O God, O God!—that happy, spring-like heart, his ringing laugh,—everything, everything,—his child-like resolution to battle manfully for right and good,—oh, that unspoiled spirit like the morning sky, as I have cherished it in him, clear and pure, as my highest good....—Hold me to account, if the wrong cries for reparation! Hold me to account! Do what you will with me! I bear the blame!—But keep your fearful hands off the child!
Mr. Gabor—It is he who has gone wrong.
Mrs. Gabor—He has not gone wrong!
Mr. Gabor—He has gone wrong!—I would have given anything to have spared your boundless love this!—A woman came to me this morning distracted, scarcely able to speak, with this letter in her hand—a letter to her fifteen-year-old daughter.[6] She had opened it, she said, from simple curiosity; the child was not at home.—In this letter Melchior explains to the fifteen-year-old girl that his treatment of her leaves him no peace, that he has sinned against her, etc., etc., and will naturally take the responsibility for everything. She is not to worry, even if she should feel consequences. He is already on the way to procure help—his expulsion will make that easier for him. The misstep they have made may yet lead to her happiness—and what more senseless twaddle you please!
Mrs. Gabor—Impossible!
Mr. Gabor—The letter is forged. It’s a case of imposture. Someone is trying to turn his notorious expulsion to account. I have not yet spoken with the lad—but just look at the hand! Look at the writing!
Mrs. Gabor—An unheard-of, shameless piece of knavery!
Mr. Gabor—[With double meaning.] I fear so.
Mrs. Gabor—No! No! Never in the world!
Mr. Gabor—All the better for us, then.—The woman asked me, wringing her hands, what she ought to do. I told her she ought not to let her fifteen-year-old daughter scramble around haylofts. The letter she fortunately left with me.—Now if we send Melchior to another school where he won’t even be under parental supervision, we shall have the same thing happening in three weeks—a new expulsion—his joyous, spring-like heart will get accustomed to them by degrees.—Tell me, Fanny, where am I to put the lad?
Mrs. Gabor—In the House of Correction——
Mr. Gabor—In the...?
Mrs. Gabor— ... House of Correction!
Mr. Gabor—He will find there, first of all, what was wrongfully withheld from him at home: iron discipline, fundamental principles, and a moral restraint to which he will have to submit under all circumstances.—And I may add that the House of Correction is not the abode of horror you imagine from the name. Chief weight there is laid upon the development of Christian thought and feeling. The lad will there, at last, learn to aim at what’s good, not what’s interesting, and in his actions take account not of his natural impulses but of the law.—Half an hour ago I received a telegram from my brother which, I think, confirms what the woman told me. Melchior has confided in him and asked him for two hundred marks with which to fly to England....
Mrs. Gabor—[Covers her face.] Merciful Heaven!
CURTAIN
Scene IV.—The House of Correction. The setting may be the same as for the Faculty Room, without any pictures or furniture.
Melchior is shown in company with Diethelm, Reinhold, Ruprecht, Helmuth, and Gaston.
Diethelm—Here’s a twenty-pfennig piece.
Reinhold—What’s that for?
Diethelm—I’ll put it on the floor. You get in a circle round it. Whoever hits it, gets it.
Ruprecht—Aren’t you in on this too, Melchior?
Melchior—No, thank you.
Helmuth—The Joseph!
Gaston—He can’t any more. He’s here to recover his health.
Melchior—[To himself.] It isn’t wise for me to stay out. Everyone keeps an eye on me. I must join in—or my creature will go to the devil.—The confinement makes them abuse themselves.—I may break my neck: I’ll be glad. I may get away: I’ll be glad too. I can only gain, either way.—Ruprecht is getting to be my friend: he knows all about things here. I’ll treat him to the chapters of Judah’s daughter-in-law Tamar, of Moab, of Lot and his daughters, of Queen Vashti and of Abishag the Shunammite.—He’s got the sorriest face in the lot!
Ruprecht—I’m getting it!
Helmuth—It’ll come yet!
Gaston—Day after to-morrow, maybe!
Helmuth—Now!—Look!—O God, O God!...
All—Summa—summa cum laude!!
Ruprecht—[Picking up the coin.] Many thanks.
Helmuth—Come here with that, you!
Ruprecht—Dirty beast!
Helmuth—Jail-bird!
Ruprecht—[Strikes him in the face.] There! [Runs away.]
Helmuth—[Running after him.] I’ll kill you!
The Rest—[Rushing after them.] Get after him! Hustle! Hey! Hey! Hey!
Melchior—[Alone, looking at the window.] There’s where the lightning-rod goes down. You must wind a handkerchief round it.—When I think of her the blood always shoots to my head. And Moritz weighs on me like lead.—I’ll go to a newspaper office: pay me by the hundred, I’ll sell papers—collect news—write—local—ethical—psychophysical.... It’s no longer so easy to starve:—lunch-wagons, soft-drink places.—The house is sixty feet high and the stucco is crumbly.... She hates me—she hates me because I’ve robbed her of her freedom. No matter how I act, it remains—rape.—All I can do is to hope, gradually, in the course of years....—In a week it’ll be new moon. To-morrow I’ll grease the hinges. By Saturday at the latest I must know who has the key.—Sunday evening at prayers, a cataleptic fit—please God no one else gets sick!—Everything lies as clearly as if it had happened before me. I can get over the window-sill easily—a swing—a grip—but one must wrap a handkerchief around it.—There comes the Head Inquisitor. [He goes off. Dr. Prokrustes and a Locksmith enter on the other side.]
Dr. Prokrustes— ... It’s true the windows are in the third story and nettles are planted underneath; but what does degeneracy care for nettles?—Last winter one climbed out of a skylight on us, and we had all the fuss of picking up and carting away and burying....
The Locksmith—Do you want the grating of wrought iron?
Dr. Prokrustes—Wrought iron—and since it can’t be set in, riveted.
CURTAIN
Scene V.—Wendla’s room. Wendla in bed. Mrs. Bergmann at its foot. Ina leaning at the window. Dr. von Brausepulver discoursing.
Dr. von Brausepulver—How old are you exactly?
Wendla—Fourteen and a half.
Dr. von Brausepulver—I have been prescribing Blaud’s pills for fifteen years, and in a great many cases have observed the most inspiring improvement. I prefer them to cod-liver oil or tonics with iron. Begin with three to four pills per day, and increase the quantity as fast as you can assimilate it. I had prescribed for the Baroness Elfriede von Witzleben an increase of one pill every third day. The Baroness misunderstood me and increased the dose three pills each day. In less than three weeks the Baroness was able to go to Pyrmont with her lady mother to complete the cure. Tiring walks and extra meals we can dispense with. Instead, promise me, my dear, that you will try to move about all the more energetically, and not be ashamed to ask for nourishment as soon as your appetite reappears. Then these oppressed feelings round the heart will soon pass off—and the headache, the chills, the dizziness—and our terrible bilious attacks. Baroness Elfriede von Witzleben within a week of beginning the cure was enjoying a whole broiled chicken with baked new potatoes for breakfast.
Mrs. Bergmann—May I offer you a glass of wine, Doctor?
Dr. von Brausepulver—Thank you, dear Mrs. Bergmann, my carriage is waiting. Don’t take it so much to heart. In a few weeks our dear little patient will be as fresh and lively again as a gazelle,—be sure of it!—Good day, Mrs. Bergmann. Good day, my dear. Good day, ladies. Good day. [He goes, accompanied by Mrs. Bergmann.]
Ina—[At the window.] Well, your plane-tree is turning already—quite gay again. Can you see it from your bed?—A brief display, hardly worth being glad about, as one watches it come and go.—I must be going soon now, too. August will be waiting for me at the post office, and I must see the dressmaker first. Mucki is getting his first little trousers, and Karl is to have some new leggings for the winter.
Wendla—Often I feel so happy, Ina!—all gladness and sunshine. I wouldn’t have dreamed that anyone could feel so blissful round the heart. I want to go out and walk across the meadows in the evening glow and hunt for primroses along the river, and sit down at the bank and dream.... And then comes the toothache, and I think I must be going to die first thing in the morning: I get hot and cold, everything goes black before my eyes, and then the uncanny thing flutters in me.—Every time I wake up I see mother crying. Oh, that hurts me so—I can’t tell you, Ina!
Ina—Hadn’t I better lift your pillow higher?
Mrs. Bergmann—[Coming back.] He thinks the nausea will get better too; and then you can just quietly get up again.... It’s my belief too that it’ll be better if you get up again soon, Wendla.
Ina—By the next time I drop in, perhaps you’ll be dancing round the house again.—Good-bye, mother. I’ve just got to get to the dressmaker’s. God keep you, Wendla dear. [Kisses her.] Get better very, very soon.
Wendla—Good-bye, Ina.—Bring me some primroses when you come again. Good-bye. Kiss your youngster for me.... [Ina goes.]—What else did he say, mother, when he was out there?
Mrs. Bergmann—He didn’t say anything. He said the Baroness von Witzleben was also subject to fainting-spells. It was almost always that way with chlorosis.
Wendla—Did he say, mother, that I had chlorosis?
Mrs. Bergmann—You’re to drink milk and eat meat and vegetables when your appetite has come back.
Wendla—Oh, mother, mother, I don’t believe I have chlorosis!...
Mrs. Bergmann—You have chlorosis, child. Lie still, Wendla, lie still. You have chlorosis.
Wendla—No, mother, no! I know I haven’t! I feel it! I haven’t got chlorosis—I’ve got the dropsy....
Mrs. Bergmann—You have chlorosis. Yes, he did say you had chlorosis. Quiet down, girlie. It will get better.
Wendla—It won’t get better. I have the dropsy. I must die, mother.—Oh, mother, I must die!
Mrs. Bergmann—You must not die, child! You must not die!... Merciful Heaven, you must not die!
Wendla—But why do you cry, then, so miserably?
Mrs. Bergmann—You must not die—child! You haven’t got dropsy. You have a baby, girl! You have a baby!—Oh, why, why did you do that to me?
Wendla—I didn’t do anything——
Mrs. Bergmann—Oh, don’t deny it now, Wendla!—I know, I know. See, I couldn’t have said a word to you,—Wendla, my Wendla!...
Wendla—But that is quite impossible, mother! I’m not married!
Mrs. Bergmann—Great God, that’s just it—that you’re not married! That is just the frightful thing about it!—Wendla, Wendla, Wendla, what did you do!
Wendla—Why, really, I don’t remember any more! We were lying in the hay.... I haven’t loved a soul in the world but you—only you, mother.
Mrs. Bergmann—My darling——
Wendla—Oh, mother, why didn’t you tell me everything?
Mrs. Bergmann—Child, child, let’s not make each other’s hearts still heavier. Control yourself! Don’t despair, my child!—What, tell that to a fourteen-year-old girl? Why, I should sooner have expected the sun to go out! I haven’t done anything different with you than my dear good mother did with me.—Oh, let us trust in the good God, Wendla; let us hope for pity, and bear our lot! See, there’s still time: nothing has happened yet, child; and if we just don’t get cowardly now, the good God won’t forsake us either.—Be brave, Wendla, be brave!—One may be sitting at the window so with her hands in her lap, because so far everything has turned out good,—and then something bursts in on her and makes her heart feel like breaking on the spot.... Wha-what are you trembling for?
Wendla—Somebody knocked.
Mrs. Bergmann—I didn’t hear anything, dear heart. [Goes to the door and opens it.]
Wendla—Oh, I heard it very clearly.—Who is outside?
Mrs. Bergmann—No one.—Schmidt’s mother from Garden Street.—You come just right, Mother Schmidtin.
CURTAIN
Scene VI.—Vintagers, men and women, are in the Vineyard. In the west the sun is sinking behind the mountain peaks. A clear sound of bells comes up from the valley.—At the uppermost vine-trellis, under the overhanging cliffs, Hansy Rilow and Ernest Roebel sprawl in the drying grass.
Ernest—I have overworked.
Hansy—Let’s not be sad.—Too bad how the minutes fly.
Ernest—You see them hanging and can no more—and to-morrow they’ll be pressed.
Hansy—Being tired is as unbearable to me as being hungry.
Ernest—Oh, I can no more!
Hansy—Just this one shining muscatel!
Ernest—There’s a limit to my elasticity.
Hansy—If I bend the spray, it’ll swing back and forth between our mouths. We’ll neither of us have to stir—just bite off the grapes and let the stalk spring back to the vine.
Ernest—One no sooner resolves on something than lo! the strength that had vanished is renewed in him again.
Hansy—And add the flaming firmament—and the evening bells,—my hopes for the future rise scarcely higher than this.
Ernest—I often see myself as a Reverend Pastor already, with a genial, motherly housewife, a voluminous library, and offices and honors everywhere. Six days you have, to ruminate, and on the seventh you open your mouth. When you go walking, school-children take your hand, and when you come home the coffee is steaming, the cakes are brought in, and thru the garden door the girls come up with apples.—Can you imagine anything happier?
Hansy—I have visions of half-shut lashes, half-opened lips, and Turkish draperies.—I don’t believe in pathos. You see, our elders pull long faces to cover their stupidities from us. Among themselves they call each other blockheads as we do. I know that.—When I’m a millionaire, I’ll set up a memorial to dear God.—Think of the future as a milk pudding with sugar and spice. One fellow upsets it and bawls. Another stirs it all up in a mess and toils. Why not skim it?—or don’t you believe that that art can be learned?
Ernest—Let us skim!
Hansy—What’s left ’ll be chicken-feed.—I’ve pulled my head out of so many nooses now already....
Ernest—Let us skim, Hansy!—Why do you laugh?
Hansy—Are you beginning again already?
Ernest—One of us has got to begin.
Hansy—When we think back thirty years hence to an evening such as this, it may seem to us beautiful beyond words.
Ernest—And how beautiful everything is, now, quite of itself!
Hansy—So why not?
Ernest—If one happened to be alone, one might even weep.
Hansy—Don’t let us be sad. [Kisses him on the mouth.]
Ernest—[Returning the kiss.] I left the house with the idea of just merely speaking to you and going back again.
Hansy—I was expecting you.—Virtue isn’t a bad clothing, but it belongs on imposing figures.
Ernest—It still hangs loose around our limbs. I should have been uneasy if I hadn’t found you.—I love you, Hansy, as I’ve never loved a living soul....
Hansy—Let’s not be sad.—When we think back, thirty years hence,—why, we may laugh at ourselves!—And now it is all so beautiful! The mountains are glowing, the grapes droop into our mouths, and the evening breeze whispers along the rocks like a little playful wheedling— ...
CURTAIN
Scene VII.—The graveyard, in a clear November night. On bush and tree rustles the withered foliage. Jagged clouds speed by under the moon.—Melchior clambers over the wall above Moritz’s grave—set much farther up-stage than in Scene II—and jumps down, knocking over Moritz’s cross.
Melchior—The pack won’t follow me into this place.—While they’re searching brothels, I can catch my breath and see how far I’ve gotten....
Coat in tatters, pockets empty,—even from the most harmless I have something to fear.—During the day I must try to get farther on in the wood....
I have kicked down a cross.—The little flowers would have been frozen to-night!—All around the earth is bare....
In the realm of the dead!
To climb out of the skylight was not so hard as the road before me.—This was the only thing that I was not prepared for....
I hang above the abyss—everything swallowed up and gone!—Oh, that I had stayed back there!
Why she thru my fault?—Why not the guilty one!—Inscrutable Providence!—I would have broken stones and gone hungry...!
What is left now to keep me straight?—Crime will follow on crime. I am abandoned to the mire. Not even the strength left to wind things up....
I was not bad!—I was not bad!—I was not bad!...
Never has mortal wandered over graves so filled with envy!—Pah! I should never screw up the courage!—Oh, if insanity would but seize on me—this very night!
I must look over there among the latest ones.—The wind whistles past every stone with a different note—a heart-chilling symphony! The rotten wreaths blow apart and dangle on their long strings piecemeal round the marble crosses—a forest of scarecrows!—Scarecrows on all the graves, each more horrible than the next, house-high, putting the devils to flight.—The golden letters glitter so coldly.... The weeping willow moans, and gropes with gigantic fingers over the inscriptions!...
A praying cherub—a bare slab——
Now a cloud casts its shadow down here.—How fast it flies, crying!—like a host pursued it rushes up in the east.—Not a star in the sky!——
Evergreen round the plot?—Evergreen?—a girl?...