ADELAIDE

I got a package ...

WEHRHAHN

Wait a moment first ... [To WULKOW.] What do you want?

WULKOW

I'd like to report the birth of ...

WEHRHAHN

Matter of the public registry. The books, Glasenapp. That is to say, I'll attend to the other affair first. [To MRS. WOLFF.] What's the trouble about your daughter? Did Mr. Krueger box her ears again?

MRS. WOLFF

Well, he didn't go that far no time.

WEHRHAHN

What's the trouble, then?

MRS. WOLFF

It's about this here package ...

WEHRHAHN

[To GLASENAPP.] Hasn't Motes been here yet?

GLASENAPP

Not up to this time.

WEHRHAHN

That's incomprehensible. Well, girl, what do you want?

GLASENAPP

It's in the matter of the stolen fur coat, your honour.

WEHRHAHN

Is that so? Can't possibly attend to that today. No one can do everything at once. [To MRS. WOLFF.] She may come in to-morrow.

MRS. WOLFF

She's tried to talk to you a couple o' times already.

WEHRHAHN

Then let her try for a third time to-morrow.

MRS. WOLFF

But Mr. Krueger don't give her no peace no more.

WEHRHAHN

What has Mr. Krueger to do with it?

MRS. WOLFF

The girl went to him with the package.

WEHRHAHN

What kind of a rag is that? Let me see it.

MRS. WOLFF

It's all connected with the business of the fur coat. Leastways that's what Mr. Krueger thinks.

WEHRHAHN

What's wrapped up in those rags, eh?

MRS. WOLFF

There's a green waist-coat what belongs to Mr. Krueger.

WEHRHAHN

And you found that?

ADELAIDE

I found it, your honour.

WEHRHAHN

Where did you find it?

ADELAIDE

That was when I was goin' to the train with mama. I was walkin' along this way and there ...

WEHRHAHN

Never mind about that now. [To MRS. WOLFF.] Make your deposition some time soon. We can come back to this matter to-morrow.

MRS. WOLFF

Oh, I'm willin' enough ...

WEHRHAHN

Well, who isn't then?

MRS. WOLFF

Mr. Krueger is so very anxious about it.

WEHRHAHN

Mr. Krueger, Mr. Krueger—I care very little about him. The man just simply annoys me. Things like this cannot be adjusted in a day. He has offered a reward and the matter has been published in the official paper.

MRS. WOLFF

You can't never do enough for him, though.

WEHRHAHN

What does that mean: we can't do enough for him? We have recorded the facts in the case. His suspicions fell upon his washerwoman and we have searched her house. What more does he want? The man ought to keep quiet. But, as I said, to-morrow I'm at the service of this affair again.

MRS. WOLFF

It's all the same to us. We c'n come back.

WEHRHAHN

Very well, then. To-morrow morning.

MRS. WOLFF

Good mornin'.

ADELAIDE

[Dropping a courtsey.] Good mornin'.

MRS. WOLFF and ADELAIDE exeunt.

WEHRHAHN

[Turning over some documents. To GLASENAPP.] I'm curious to see what the result of all this will be. Mr. Motes has finally agreed to offer witnesses. He says the Dreier woman, that old witch of a pastry cook, once stood within earshot when Fleischer expressed himself disrespectfully. How old is the woman, anyhow?

GLASENAPP

Somewhere around seventy, your honour.

WEHRHAHN

A bit confused in her upper story, eh?

GLASENAPP

Depends on how you look at it. She's fairly sensible yet.

WEHRHAHN

I can assure you, Glasenapp, that it would be no end of a satisfaction to me to flutter these dove-cotes here pretty thoroughly. These people ought to be made to feel that they're dealing with somebody, after all. Who absented himself from the festivities on the emperor's birthday? Fleischer, of course. The man is simply capable of anything. He can put on all the innocent expressions he pleases. We know these wolves in sheep's clothing. They're too sweet-tempered to harm a fly, but if they think the occasion has come, the hounds can blow up a whole place. Well, here, at least, it will be made too hot for them!

MOTES

[Comes in.] Your servant.

WEHRHAHN

Well, how are things going?

MOTES

Mrs. Dreier said that she would be here around eleven.

WEHRHAHN

This matter will attract quite a little notice. It will, is fact, make a good deal of noise. I know what will be said: "That man Wehrhahn pokes his nose into everything." Well, thank heaven, I'm prepared for that. I'm not standing in this place for my private amusement. I haven't been put here for jest. People think—a justice, why he's nothing but a superior kind of gaoler. In that case they can put some one else here. The gentlemen, to be sure, who appointed me know very well with whom they are dealing. They know to the full the seriousness with which I conceive of my duties. I consider my office in the light of a sacred calling. [Pause.] I have reduced my report to the public prosecutor to writing. If I send it off at noon to-day, the command of arrest can reach us by day after to-morrow.

MOTES

Now everybody will be coming down on me.

WEHRHAHN

You know I have an uncle who is a chamberlain. I'll talk to him about you. Confound it all! There comes Fleischer! What does that fellow want? Does he smell a rat by any chance? [A knocking is heard and WEHRHAHN shouts:] Come in!

FLEISCHER

[Enters, pale and excited.] Good morning! [He receives no answer.] I should like to lodge information which has reference to the robbery recently committed here.

WEHRHAHN

[With his most penetrating official glance.] You are Dr. Joseph Fleischer?

FLEISCHER

Quite right. My name is Joseph Fleischer.

WEHRHAHN

And you come to give me some information.

FLEISCHER

If you will permit me, that is what I should like to do. I have made an observation which may, quite possibly, help the authorities to track down the thief in question.

WEHRHAHN

[Drums on the table with his fingers. He looks around at the others with an expression of affected surprise which tempts them to laughter.] What is this important observation which you have made?

FLEISCHER

Of course, if you have previously made up your mind to attach no importance to my evidence, I should prefer ...

WEHRHAHN

[Quickly and arrogantly.] What would you prefer?

FLEISCHER

To hold my peace.

WEHRHAHN

[Turns to MOTES with a look expressive of inability to understand FLEISCHER'S motives. Then, in a changed tone, with very superficial interest.] My time is rather fully occupied. I would request you to be as brief as possible.

FLEISCHER

My time is no less preempted. Nevertheless I considered it my duty ...

WEHRHAHN

[Interrupting.] You considered it your duty. Very well. Now tell us what you know.

FLEISCHER

[Conquering himself.] I went boating yesterday. I had taken Mrs. Wolff's boat and her daughter was rowing.

WEHRHAHN

Are these details necessarily pertinent to the business in hand?

FLEISCHER

They certainly are—in my opinion.

WEHRHAHN

[Drumming impatiently on the table.] Very well! Very well! Let's get on!

FLEISCHER

We rowed to the neighbourhood of the locks. A lighter lay at anchor there. The ice, we were able to observe, was piled up there. The lighter had probably not been able to proceed.

WEHRHAHN

H-m. Is that so? That interests us rather less. What is the kernel of this whole story?

FLEISCHER

[Keeping his temper by main force.] I must confess that this method of ... I have come here quite voluntarily to offer a voluntary service to the authorities.

GLASENAPP

[Impudently.] His honour is pressed for time. You are to talk less and state what you have to say briefly and compactly.

WEHRHAHN

[Vehemently.] Let's get to business at once. What is it you want?

FLEISCHER

[Still mastering himself.] I am concerned that the matter be cleared up. And in the interest of old Mr. Krueger, I will ...

WEHRHAHN

[Yawning and bored.] The light dazzles me; do pull down the shades.

FLEISCHER

On the lighter was an old boatman—probably the owner of the vessel.

WEHRHAHN

[Yawning as before.] Yes, most probably.

FLEISCHER

This man sat on his deck in a fur coat which, at a distance, I considered a beaver coat.

WEHRHAHN

[Bored.] I might have taken it to be marten.

FLEISCHER

I pulled as close up to him as possible and thus gained a very good view. The man was a poverty-stricken, slovenly boatman and the fur coat seemed by no means appropriate. It was, in addition, a perfectly new coat ...

WEHRHAHN

[Apparently recollecting himself.] I am listening, I am listening! Well? What else?

FLEISCHER

What else? Nothing.

WEHRHAHN

[Waking up thoroughly.] I thought you wanted to lodge some information. You mentioned something important.

FLEISCHER

I have said all that I had to say.

WEHRHAHN

You have told us an anecdote about a boatman who wears a fur coat. Well, boatmen do, no doubt, now and then wear such coats. There is nothing new or interesting about that.

FLEISCHER

You may think about that as you please. In such circumstances I have no more to say.

[Exit.

WEHRHAHN

Well now, did you ever see anything like that? Moreover, the fellow is a thorough fool. A boatman had on a fur coat! Why, has the man gone mad? I possess a beaver coat myself. Surely that doesn't make me a thief.—Confound it all! What's that again? I suppose I am to get no rest to-day at all! [To MITTELDORF, who is standing by the door.] Don't let anyone else in now! Mr. Motes, do me the favour of going over to my apartment. We can have our discussion there without interruptions. There's Krueger for the hundred and first time. He acts as though he'd been stung by a tarantula. If that old ass continues to plague me, I'll kick him straight out of this room some day.

In the open door KRUEGER becomes visible, together with FLEISCHER and MRS. WOLFF.

MITTELDORF

[To KRUEGER.] His honour can't be seen, Mr. Krueger.

KRUEGER

Nonsense! Not to be seen! I don't care for such talk at all. [To the others.] Go right on, right on! I'd like to see!

All enter, KRUEGER leading the way.

WEHRHAHN

I must request that there be somewhat more quiet. As you see, I am having a conference at present.

KRUEGER

Go right ahead with it. We can wait. Later you can then have a conference with us.

WEHRHAHN

[To MOTES.] Over in my apartment, then, if you please. And if you see Mrs. Dreier, tell her I had rather question her there too. You see for yourself: it isn't possible here.

KRUEGER

[Pointing to FLEISCHER.] This gentleman knows something about Mrs. Dreier too. He has some documentary evidence.

MOTES

Your honour's servant. I take my leave.

[Exit.

KRUEGER

That's a good thing for that man to take.

WEHRHAHN

You will kindly omit remarks of that nature.

KRUEGER

I'll say that again. The man is a swindler.

WEHRHAHN

[As though he had not heard, to WULKOW.] Well, what is it? I'll get rid of you first. The records, Glasenapp!—Wait, though! I'll relieve myself of this business first. [To KRUEGER.] I will first attend to your affair.

KRUEGER

Yes, I must ask you very insistently to do so.

WEHRHAHN

Suppose we leave that "insistently" quite out of consideration. What request have you to make?

KRUEGER

None at all. I have no request to make. I am here in order to demand what is my right.

WEHRHAHN

Your right? Ah, what is that, exactly?

KRUEGER

My good right. I have been robbed and it is my right that the local authorities aid me in recovering my stolen possessions.

WEHRHAHN

Have you been refused such assistance?

KRUEGER

Certainly not. And that is not possible. Nevertheless, it is quite clear that nothing is being done. The whole affair is making no progress.

WEHRHAHN

You imagine that things like that can be done in a day or two.

KRUEGER

I don't imagine anything, your honour. I have very definite proofs. You are taking no interest in my affairs.

WEHRHAHN

I could interrupt you at this very point. It lies entirely beyond the duties of my office to listen to imputations of that nature. For the present, however, you may continue.

KRUEGER

You could not interrupt me at all. As a citizen of the Prussian state I have my rights. And even if you interrupt me here, there are other places where I could make my complaint. I repeat that you are not showing any interest in my affair.

WEHRHAHN

[Apparently calm.] Suppose you prove that.

KRUEGER

[Pointing to MRS. WOLFF and her daughter.] This woman here came to you. Her daughter made a find. She didn't shirk the way, your honour, although she is a poor woman. You turned her off once before and she came back to-day ...

MRS. WOLFF

But his honour didn't have no time, you know.

WEHRHAHN

Go on, please!

KRUEGER

I will. I'm not through yet by any means. What did you say to the woman? You said to her quite simply that you had no time for the matter in question. You did not even question her daughter. You don't know the slightest circumstance: you don't know anything about the entire occurrence.

WEHRHAHN

I will have to ask you to moderate yourself a little.

KRUEGER

My expressions are moderate; they are extremely moderate. I am far too moderate, your honour. My entire character is far too full of moderation. If it were not, what do you think I would say? What kind of an investigation is this? This gentleman here, Dr. Fleischer, came to you to report an observation which he has made. A boatman wears a beaver coat ...

WEHRHAHN

[Raising his hand.] Just wait a moment. [To WULKOW.] You are a boatman, aren't you?

WULKOW

I been out on the river for thirty years.

WEHRHAHN

Are you nervous? You seem to twitch.

WULKOW

I reely did have a little scare. That's a fac'.

WEHRHAHN

Do the boatmen on the Spree frequently wear fur coats?

WULKOW

A good many of 'em has fur coats. That's right enough.

WEHRHAHN

This gentleman saw a boatman who stood on his deck wearing a fur coat.

WULKOW

There ain't nothin' suspicious about that, your honour. There's many as has fine coats. I got one myself, in fac'.

WEHRHAHN

You observe: the man himself owns a fur coat.

FLEISCHER

But then he hasn't exactly a beaver coat.

WEHRHAHN

You were not in a position to discover that.

KRUEGER

What? Has this man a beaver coat?

WULKOW

There's many of 'em, I c'n tell you, as has the finest beaver coats. An' why not? We makes enough.

WEHRHAHN

[Filled with a sense of triumph but pretending indifference.] Exactly. [Lightly.] Now, please go on, Mr. Krueger. That was only a little side-play. I simply wanted to make clear to you the value of that so-called "observation."—You see now that this man himself owns a fur coat. [More violently.] Would it therefore occur to us in our wildest moments to assert that he has stolen the coat? That would simply be an absurdity.

KRUEGER

Wha—? I don't understand a word.

WEHRHAHN

Then I must talk somewhat louder still. And since I am talking to you now, there's something else I might as well say to you—not in my capacity as justice, but simply man to man, Mr. Krueger. A man who is after all an honourable citizen should be more chary of his confidence—he should not adduce the evidence of people ...

KRUEGER

Are you talking about my associates? My associates?

WEHRHAHN

Exactly that.

KRUEGER

In that case you had better take care of yourself. People like Motes, with whom you associate, were kicked out of my house.

FLEISCHER

I was obliged to show the door to this person whom you receive in your private apartment!

KRUEGER

He cheated me out of my rent.

MRS. WOLFF

There ain't many in this village that that man ain't cheated all ways—cheated out o' pennies an' shillin's, an' crowns an' gold pieces.

KRUEGER

He has a regular system of exacting tribute.

FLEISCHER

[Pulling a document out of his pocket.] More than that, the fellow is ripe for the public prosecutor. [He places the document on the table.] I would request you to read this through.

KRUEGER

Mrs. Dreier has signed that paper herself. Motes tried to inveigle her into committing perjury.

FLEISCHER

She was to give evidence against me.

KRUEGER

[Putting his hand on FLEISCHER'S arm.] This gentleman is of unblemished conduct and that scoundrel wanted to get him into trouble. And you lend your assistance to such things!

**All speak at once.**

WEHRHAHN

My patience is exhausted now. Whatever dealings you may have with Motes don't concern me and are entirely indifferent to me. [To FLEISCHER.] You'll be good enough to remove that rag!

KRUEGER

[Alternately to MRS. WOLFF and to GLASENAPP.] That man is his honour's friend: that is his source of information. A fine situation. We might better call him a source of defamation!

FLEISCHER

[To MITTELDORF.] I'm not accountable to any one. It's my own business what I do; it's my own business with whom I associate; it's my own business what I choose to think and write!

GLASENAPP

Why you can't hear your own words in this place no more! Your honour, shall I go an' fetch a policeman? I can run right over and get one. Mitteldorf!...

**End all**

WEHRHAHN

Quiet, please! [Quiet is restored. To FLEISCHER.] You will please remove that rag.

FLEISCHER

[Obeys.] That rag, as you call it, will be forwarded to the public prosecutor.

WEHRHAHN

You may do about that exactly as you please. [He arises and takes from a case in the wall the package brought by MRS. WOLFF.] Let us finally dispose of this matter, then. [To MRS. WOLFF.] Where did you find this thing?

MRS. WOLFF

It ain't me that found it at all.

WEHRHAHN

Well, who did find it?

MRS. WOLFF

My youngest daughter.

WEHRHAHN

Well, why didn't you bring her with you then?

MRS. WOLFF

She was here, all right, your honour. An' then, I c'n go over an' fetch her in a minute.

WEHRHAHN

That would only serve to delay the whole business again. Didn't the girl tell you anything about it?

KRUEGER

You said it was found on the way to the railway station.

WEHRHAHN

In that case the thief is probably in Berlin, That won't make our search any easier.

KRUEGER

I don't believe that at all, your honour, Mr. Fleischer seems to me to have an entirely correct opinion. The whole business with the package is a trick meant to mislead us.

MRS. WOLFF

Well, well. That's mighty possible.

WEHRHAHN

Now, Mrs. Wolff, you're not so stupid as a rule. Things that are stolen here go in to Berlin. That fur coat was sold in Berlin before we even knew that it was stolen.

MRS. WOLFF

No, your honour, I can't help it, but I ain't quite, not quite of the same opinion. If the thief is in Berlin, why, I ax, does he have to go an' lose a package like that?

WEHRHAHN

Such things are not always lost intentionally.

MRS. WOLFF

Just look at that there package. It's all packed up so nice—the vest, the key, an' the bit o' paper ...

KRUEGER

I believe the thief to be in this very place.

MRS. WOLFF

[Confirming him.] Well, you see, Mr. Krueger.

KRUEGER

I firmly believe it.

WEHRHAHN

Sorry, but I do not incline to that opinion. My experience is far too long ...

KRUEGER

What? A long experience? H-m!

WEHRHAHN

Certainly. And on the basis of that experience I know that the chance of the coat being here need scarcely be taken into account.

MRS. WOLFF

Well, well, we shouldn't go an' deny things that way, your honour.

KRUEGER

[Referring to FLEISCHER.] And then he saw the boatman ...

WEHRHAHN

Don't bother me with that story. I'd have to go searching people's houses every day with twenty constables and policemen, I'd have to search every house in the village.

MRS. WOLFF

Then you better go an' start with my house, your honour.

WEHRHAHN

Well, isn't that ridiculous? No, no, gentlemen: that's not the way. That method will lead us nowhither, now or later. You must give me entire freedom of action. I have my own suspicions and will continue to make my observations. There are a number of shady characters here on whom I have my eye. Early in the morning they ride in to Berlin with heavy baskets on their backs, and in the evening they bring home the same baskets empty.

KRUEGER

I suppose you mean the vegetable hucksters. That's what they do.

WEHRHAHN

Not only the vegetable hucksters, Mr. Krueger. And I have no doubt but that your coat travelled in the same way.

MRS. WOLFF

That's possible, all right. There ain't nothin' impossible in this world, I tell you.

WEHRHAHN

Well, then! Now, what did you want to announce?

WULKOW

A little girl, your honour.

WEHRHAHN

I will do all that is possible.

KRUEGER

I won't let the matter rest until I get back my coat.

WEHRHAHN

Well, whatever can be done will be done. Mrs. Wolff can use her ears a little.

MRS. WOLFF

The trouble is I don't know how to act like a spy. But if things like that don't come out—there ain't no sayin' what's safe no more.

KRUEGER

You are quite right, Mrs. Wolff, quite right. [To WEHRHAHN.] I must ask you to examine that package carefully. The handwriting on the slip that was found in it may lead to a discovery. And day after to-morrow morning, your honour, I will take the liberty of troubling you again. Good morning!

[Exit.

FLEISCHER

Good morning.

[Exit.

WEHRHAHN

[To WULKOW.] How old are you?—There's something wrong with those two fellows up here. [He touches his forehead. To WULKOW.] What is your name?

WULKOW

August Philip Wulkow.

WEHRHAHN

[To MITTELDORF.] Go over to my apartment. That Motes is still sitting there and waiting. Tell him I am sorry but I have other things to do this morning.

MITTELDORF

An' you don't want him to wait?

WEHRHAHN

[Harshly.] No, he needn't wait!

[MITTELDORF, exit.

WEHRHAHN

[To MRS. WOLFF.] Do you know this author Motes?

MRS. WOLFF

When it comes to people like that, your honour, I'd rather go an' hold my tongue. There ain't much good that I could tell you.

WEHRHAHN

[Ironically.] But you could tell me a great deal that's good about Fleischer.

MRS. WOLFF

He ain't no bad sort, an' that's a fac'.

WEHRHAHN

I suppose you're trying to be a bit careful in what you say.

MRS. WOLFF

No, I ain't much good at that. I'm right out with things, your honour. If I hadn't always gone an' been right out with what I got to say, I might ha' been a good bit further along in the world.

WEHRHAHN

That policy has never done you any harm with me.

MRS. WOLFF

No, not with you, your honour. You c'n stand bein' spoken to honest. Nobody don't need to be sneaky 'round you.

WEHRHAHN

In short: Fleischer is a man of honour.

MRS. WOLFF

That he is! That he is!

WEHRHAHN

Well, you remember my words of to-day.

MRS. WOLFF

An' you remember mine.

WEHRHAHN

Very well. The future will show. [He stretches himself, gets up, and stamps his feet gently on the floor. To WULKOW.] This is our excellent washerwoman. She thinks that all people are like herself. [To MRS. WOLFF.] But unfortunately the world is differently made. You see human beings from the outside; a man like myself has learned to look a little deeper. [He takes a few paces, then stops before her and lays his hand on her shoulder.] And as surely as it is true when I say: Mrs. Wolff is an honest woman; so surely I tell you: this Dr. Fleischer of yours, of whom we were speaking, is a thoroughly dangerous person!

MRS. WOLFF

[Shaking her head resignedly.] Well, then I don't know no more what to think ...

THE CURTAIN FALLS



THE CONFLAGRATION



PERSONS:

FIELITZ, Shoemaker and Spy. Near sixty years old.

MRS. FIELITZ, formerly MRS. WOLFF, his wife. Of the same age.

LEONTINE, her oldest daughter by her first marriage; unmarried; near thirty.

SCHMAROWSKI, Architect.

LANGHEINRICH, Smith. Thirty years old.

RAUCHHAUPT, retired Prussian Constable.

GUSTAV, his oldest son, a congenital imbecile.

MIEZE, LOTTE, TRUDE, LENCHEN, LIESCHEN, MARIECHEN, TIENCHEN, HANNCHEN, his daughters.

DR. BOXER, a vigorous man of thirty-six. Physician. Of Jewish birth.

VON WEHRHAHN, Justice.

EDE, Journeyman at LANGHEINRICH'S.

GLASENAPP, Clerk in the Justice's Court.

SCHULZE, Constable.

MRS. SCHULZE, his aunt.

TSCHACHE, Constable.

A FIREMAN.

A BOY.

JANITOR OF THE COURT.

VILLAGE PEOPLE.

Scene: Anywhere in the neighbourhood of Berlin.



THE FIRST ACT

The work shop of the shoemaker FIELITZ. A low room with blue tinted walls. A window to the right. In each of the other walls a door. Under the window at the right a small platform. Upon it a cobbler's bench and a small table. On the latter a stand upholding three spheres of glass filled with water. Near them stands an unlit coal-oil lamp. In the corner, left, a brown tile oven surrounded by a bench and kitchen utensils of various kinds.

SHOEMAKER FIELITZ is still crouching over his work. On the platform and around it old shoes and boots of every size are heaped up. FIELITZ is hammering a piece of leather into flexibility.

MRS. FIELITZ (formerly MRS. WOLFF) is thoughtfully turning over in her hands a little wooden box and a stearin candle. It is toward evening, at the end of September.

FIELITZ

You get outta this here shop. Go on now!

MRS. FIELITZ

[Briefly and contemptuously.] Who d'you think'll come in here now? It's past six.

FIELITZ

You get outta the shop with that trash o' yours.

MRS. FIELITZ

I wish you wouldn't act so like a fool. What's wrong about this here little box, eh? A little box like this ain't no harm.

FIELITZ

[Working with enraged violence.] It's somethin' good, ain't it now?

MRS. FIELITZ

[Still thoughtfully and half in jest.] The sawdust comes up to here ... An' then they go an' put a candle plumb in the middle here ...

FIELITZ

Look here, ma, you're too smart for me! If that there smartness o' yours keeps on, I see myself in gaol one o' these days.

MRS. FIELITZ

[Harshly.] I s'ppose you can't listen a bit when a person talks to you. You might pay some attention when I talks to you. Things like that interest a body.

FIELITZ

I takes an interest in my boots, an' I don't take no interest in nothin' else.

MRS. FIELITZ

That's it! O Lordy! That'd be a nice state for us. We'd all go an' starve together. Your cobblin'—there's a lot o' good in that!—They puts the candle in here. Y'understand? This here little box ain't big enough neither. That one over there would be more like. Let's throw them children's shoes out.

[She turns a box full of children's shoes upside down.

FIELITZ

[Frightened.] Don't you go in for no nonsense, y'understand?

MRS. FIELITZ

An' then when they've lit the candle—... then they stands it up in the middle o' the box, so's it can't burn the top, o' course. Then you puts it, reel still, up in some attic—Grabow didn't do that different neither—right straight in a heap o' old trash—an' then you goes quiet to Berlin, an' when you comes back ...

FIELITZ

Ssh! Somebody's comin'! Ssh!

MRS. FIELITZ

An' the devil hisself can't go an' prove nothin' against you.

[A protracted silence.

FIELITZ

If it was as simple as all that! But that ain't noways as easy as you thinks. First of all there's got to be air-holes in here. O' course this here awl—: that'll do for a drill. That thing's got to have a draught, if you want it to catch! If there ain't no draught, it just smothers! Fire's gotta have a draught or it won't burn. Somebody's got to lend a hand here as knows somethin'.

MRS. FIELITZ

Well, that'd be an easy thing for you!

FIELITZ

[Forgetting his point of view in his growing zeal.] There's gotta be a draught here an' another here! An' it's all gotta be done just right! An' then sawdust an' rags here. An' then you go an' pour some kerosene right in.—There ain't nothin' new in all that. I was out in the world for six years.

MRS. FIELITZ

Well, exactly. That's what I been sayin'.

FIELITZ

You c'n do that with a sponge an' you c'n do that with a string. All you gotta do is to steep 'em good an' hard in saltpetre. An' you c'n light that with burning glasses. It c'n be done twenty steps away!—All that's been done before now. There ain't nothin' new in all that to me. I know all about it.

MRS. FIELITZ

An' Grabow's built up again. If he hadn't gone an' taken his courage in both hands, he'd ha' been in the street long ago.

FIELITZ

That's all right, if a man's in trouble like water up to his neck an' is goin' to be drowned. Maybe then ...

MRS. FIELITZ

An' there's many as lets the time slip till he is drowned.

[The doorbell rings.

FIELITZ

Go an' put the box away an' then open the door.

JUSTICE VON WEHRHAHN enters, wearing a thick overcoat, tall boots and a fur cap.

WEHRHAHN

Evening, Fielitz! How about those boots?

FIELITZ

They's all right, your honour.

MRS. FIELITZ

You better go an' get a little light so's Mr. von Wehrhahn can see somethin'.

WEHRHAHN

Well, how is everything and what are you doing, Mrs. Wolff?

MRS. FIELITZ

I ain't no Mrs. Wolff no more.

WEHRHAHN

She's grown very proud, eh, Fielitz? She carries her head very high? She feels quite set up?

MRS. FIELITZ

Hear that! Marryin's gone to my head? I could ha' lived much better as a widder.

FIELITZ

[Who has drawn the lasts out of WEHRHAHN'S boots.] Then you might ha' gone an' stayed a widder.

MRS. FIELITZ

If I'd ha' known what kind of a feller you are, I wouldn't ha' been in no hurry. I could ha' gotten an old bandy-legged crittur like you any day o' the week.

WEHRHAHN

Gently, gently!

FIELITZ

Never you mind her. [With almost creeping servility.] If you'll be so very kind, your honour, an' have the goodness to pull off your right boot. If you'll let me; I c'n do that. So. An' if you'll be so good now an' put your foot on this here box.

MRS. FIELITZ

[Holding the burning lamp.] An' how is the Missis, Baron?

WEHRHAHN

Thank you, she's quite well. But she's still lamenting her Mrs. Wolff ...

MRS. FIELITZ

Well, you see, I couldn't do that no more reely. I washed thirty years an' over for you. You c'n get enough o' anything in that time, I tell you. I c'n show you my legs some day. The veins is standin' out on 'em, thick as your fist. That comes from the everlastin' standin' up at the tub! An' I got frost boils all over me and the rheumatiz in every limb. They ain't no end to the doctorin' I gotta do! I just gotta wrap myself up in cotton, an' anyhow I'm cold all day.

WEHRHAHN

Certainly, Mrs. Wolff, I can well believe that.

MRS. FIELITZ

There was a time an' I'd work against anybody. I had a constitootion! You couldn't ha' found one in ten like it. But nowadays ... O Lord! Things is lookin' different.

FIELITZ

You c'n holler a little louder if you want to.

WEHRHAHN

I can't blame you, of course, Mrs. Fielitz. Any one who has worked as you have may well consider herself entitled to some rest.

MRS. FIELITZ

An' then, you see, things keep goin'. We got our livin' right along. [She give FIELITZ a friendly nudge on the head.] An' he does his part all right now. We ain't neither of us lazy, so to speak. If only a body could keep reel well! But Saturday I gotta go to the doctor again. He goes and electrilises me with his electrilising machine, you know. I ain't sayin' but what it helps me. But first of all there's the expenses of the trip in to Berlin an' then every time he electrilises me that costs five shillin's. Sometimes, you know, a person, don't know where to get the money.

FIELITZ

You go ahead an' ram your money down doctors' throats!

WEHRHAHN

[Treads firmly with his new shoe.] None of us are getting any younger, Mrs. Fielitz. I'm beginning to feel that quite distinctly myself. Perfectly natural. Nothing to be done about it. We've simply got to make up our minds to that.—And, anyhow, you oughtn't to complain. I heard it said a while ago that your son-in-law had passed his examinations very well. In that case everything is going according to your wishes.

MRS. FIELITZ

That's true, of course, an' it did make me reel happy too. In the first place he'll be able to get along much better now that he's somethin' like an architect ... an' then, he deserved it all ways.—The kind o' time he had when he was a child! Well, I ain't had no easy time neither, but a father like that ...

WEHRHAHN

Schmarowski is a fellow of solid worth. I never had any fears for him. Your Adelaide was very lucky there.—You remember my telling you so at the time. You came running over to me that time, you recall, when the engagement was almost broken, and I sent you to Pastor Friederici:—that shows you the value of spiritual advice. A young man is a young man and however Christian and upright his life, he's apt to forget himself once in a while. That's where the natural function of the spiritual adviser comes in.

MRS. FIELITZ

Yes, yes, I s'ppose you're right enough there. An' I'll never forget what the pastor did for us that time! If Schmarowski had gone an' left the girl, she'd never have lived through it, that's certain.

WEHRHAHN

There we've got an instance of what happens when a church and a pastor are in a place. The house of God that we've built together has brought many a blessing. So, good evening and good luck to you.—Oh, what I was going to say, Fielitz: the celebration takes place on Monday morning. You will be there surely?

MRS. FIELITZ

Naturally he'll come.

FIELITZ

Sure an' certain.

WEHRHAHN

I would hardly know what to do without you, Fielitz. In the meantime, come in for a moment on Sunday, I'm proposing certain points ... certain very marked points, and we must pull together vigorously. So, good evening! Don't forget—we've got to have a strong parade.

FIELITZ

That's right. You can't do them things without one.

[Exit WEHRHAHN.

FIELITZ

You go an' take that candle out! Will you, please?

MRS. FIELITZ

You're as easy scared as a rabbit, Anton! That's what you are—a reg'lar rabbit.

She takes the candle out of the little box. Almost at the same moment RAUCHHAUPT opens the door and looks in.

RAUCHHAUPT

Good evenin'. Am I intrudin'?

FIELITZ

— — — —

MRS. FIELITZ

Aw, come right into our parlour!

RAUCHHAUPT

Ain't Langheinrich the smith come in yet?

MRS. FIELITZ

Was he goin' to come? No, he ain't been here.

RAUCHHAUPT

We made a special engagement.—I brought along the cross too. Here, Gustav! Bring that there cross in! [GUSTAV brings in a cross of cast iron with an inscription on it.] Go an' put it down on that there box.

FIELITZ

[Quickly.] No, never mind, Edward, that'll break.

RAUCHHAUPT

Then you c'n just lean it against the wall.

MRS. FIELITZ

So you got through with it at last. [Calls out through the door.] Leontine! You come down a minute!

RAUCHHAUPT

Trouble is I had so much to do. I'm buildin' a new hot house, you know.

MRS. FIELITZ

Another one, eh? Ain't that a man for you! You're a reg'lar mole, Rauchhaupt. The way that man keeps diggin' around in the ground.

RAUCHHAUPT

A man feels best when he's doin' that. That's what we're all made of—earth: an that's what we're all goin' to turn to again. Why shouldn't we be diggin' around in the earth? [He helps himself from the snuff-box which FIELITZ holds out to him.] That's got a earthy smell, too, Fielitz. That smells like good, fresh earth.

LEONTINE enters. A pair of scissors hangs by her side; she has a thimble on her finger.

LEONTINE

Here I am, mama. What's up?

MRS. FIELITZ

He just brought in papa his hephitaph.

LEONTINE and MRS. FIELITZ regard the cross thoughtfully.

MRS. FIELITZ

Light the candle for me, girl. [She hands her the tallow-candle with which she has been experimenting.] We wants to study the writin' a bit.

RAUCHHAUPT

I fooled around with that thing a whole lot. But I got it to please me in the end. You c'n go an' look through the whole cemetery three times over and you'll come away knowin' this is the finest inscription you c'n get. I went an' convinced myself of that.

[He sits down on the low platform and fills his nose anew with snuff.

MRS. FIELITZ holds the lighted lamp and puzzles out the inscription.

MRS. FIELITZ

Here rests in ...

LEONTINE

[Reading on.] In God.

RAUCHHAUPT

That's what I said: in God. I was goin' to write first: in the Lord. But that's gettin' to be so common.

MRS. FIELITZ

[Reads on with trembling voice.] Here rests in God the unforgotten carpenter ... [Weeping aloud.] Oh, no, I tell you, it's too awful! That man—he was the best man in the world, he was. A man like that, you c'n take my word for it, you ain't likely to find no more these days.

LEONTINE

[Reading on.] ... the unforgotten carpenter Mr. Julian Wolff ...

[She snivels.

FIELITZ

—Don't you be takin' on now, y'understand? No corpse ain't goin' to come to life for all your howlin'. [He hands the whiskey bottle to RAUCHHAUPT.] Here, Edward, that'll do you good. Them goin's on don't.

[He gets up and brushes off his blue apron with the air of a man who has completed his day's work.

RAUCHHAUPT

[Pointing with the bottle.] Them lines there I made up myself. I'll say 'em over for you; listen now:

"The hearts of all to sin confess" ...

'Tain't everybody c'n do that neither!—

"The hearts of all to sin confess, The beggar's and the king's no less. But this man's heart from year to year Was spotless and like water clear."

[The women weep more copiously. He continues.] I gotta go over that with white paint. An' this part here about God is goin' to be Prussian blue.

[He drinks.

The smith LANGHEINRICH enters.

LANGHEINRICH

[Regarding LEONTINE desirously.] Well now, look here, Rauchhaupt, old man, I been lookin' for you half an hour! I thought I was to come an' fetch you, you chucklehead.—Well, are you pleased with the job?

MRS. FIELITZ

Oh, go an' don't bother me, any of you! If a person loses a man like that one, how's she goin' to get along with you jackasses afterwards!

FIELITZ

Come on, man, an' pull up a stool. You just let her get back to her right mind.

LANGHEINRICH

[With sly merriment.] That's right, I always said so myself: this here dyin' is a invention of the devil.

MRS. FIELITZ

We was married for twenty years an' more. An' there wasn't so much as one angry word between us. An' the way that man was honest. Not a penny, no,—he never cheated any man of a penny in all his days. An' sober! He didn't so much as know what whiskey was like. You could go an' put the bottle before him an' he wouldn't look at it. An' the way he brought up his children! What d'you think about, but playin' cards and swillin' liquor ...

LEONTINE

Gustav is poking out his tongue at me.

RAUCHHAUPT

[_Takes hold of a cobbler's last and throws himself enragedly upon GUSTAV, who has been making faces at LEONTINE and has poked out his tongue at her.] You varmint! Ill break your bones!—That rotten crittur is goin' to be the death o' me yet. I just gets so mad sometimes I think it's goin' to be the death o' me.

LANGHEINRICH

The poor crittur ain't got his right senses.

RAUCHHAUPT

I wish to God the dam' brat was dead. I'll get so dam' wild some day, if he ain't, that I'll go an' kill my own flesh an' blood.

FIELITZ

I'd go an' have him locked up in the asylum. Then you don't have the worry of him no more. D'you want me to write out a petition for you?

RAUCHHAUPT

Don't I know all about petitions? What does they say then: he ain't dangerous bein' at large.—The whole world ain't nothin' but a asylum. It ain't dangerous, o' course, that he fires bricks at me, an' unscrews locks and steals house keys—oh, no, that ain't considered dangerous. No, an' it's all right for him to eat my tulip bulbs. I c'n just go ahead an' do the best I can.

MRS. FIELITZ

How did that happen at Grabow's the other day—I mean when his inn the "Prussian Eagle" burned down?

LANGHEINRICH

Aw, Grabow, he needed just that. It wasn't no Gustav that set that there fire. He wasn't needed there.

MRS. FIELITZ

They say he's always playin' with matches.

RAUCHHAUPT

Gustav an' matches? Aw, that's all right. If he c'n just go an' hunt up matches some place, trouble ain't very far off. You know I needs coverin's for my hot house plants; so I built a kind of a shed. I stored the straw in there. Well, I tell you, Mrs. Fielitz, that there idjit went an' burned the shed down. It was bright day an' o' course nobody wasn't thinkin', an' I got loose boards all over my lot. The shed crackled right off. It wasn't more'n a puff! But Grabow—he took care o' his fire hisself.

MRS. FIELITZ

I'd give notice about a thing like that, Rauchhaupt—I mean burnin' down the shed.

RAUCHHAUPT

I don't get along so very well with Constable Schulze. That's often the way with people in your own profession. I was honourably retired. He don't like that. He ain't sooted with that. All right; all that may be so. An' that I own my own lot, an' that my old woman died. Sure, it ain't no use denyin' it! I made a few crowns outta all that. An' that my gardenin' brings in somethin'—well, he don't like to see it. So then it's easy to say: Rauchhaupt? He don't need no help. He c'n take care o' hisself. An' that's the end of it.

MRS. FIELITZ

Fred Grabow, he's all right now!

LANGHEINRICH

[Eagerly.] An' he's got me to thank for it. Only thing is, I pretty near got into a dam' mess myself that time. You see, I'm captain of the hook an' ladder. Well, I says to my boys, says I:—I don't know but I must ha' had more'n I could carry. The whole crowd was pretty well full!—Well, I says to my boys: Sail right in an' see that there ain't a stone left standin', 'cause if there is, Grabow'll get one reduction of insurance after another an' then the whole thing ain't no good to him. I guess I hollered that out a bit too loud. So when I takes a step or two backward I thinks all hell's broke loose, 'cause there stands Constable Schulze an' stares at me. Your health, says I, your health, captain!—Grabow, you know, was treatin' to beer!—An' then Schulze was real sociable and took a drink with me.

MRS. FIELITZ

It's queer that nothin' don't come out there. That fellow ain't a bit cute. How did he manage to do it?

LANGHEINRICH

Everybody likes Fritz Grabow.

MRS. FIELITZ

He ain't got sense enough to count up to three. An' anyhow he had to go an' take oath.

RAUCHHAUPT

Takin' oath? Aw, that ain't so much! I'll just tell you how 'tis, 'cause you never can't tell. Who knows about it? Anybody might have to do that some day. All you do is to twist off one o' your breeches buttons while you goes ahead and swears reel quiet. You just try it. That's easy as slidin'.

[General laughter.

MRS. FIELITZ

He's got one o' his jokin' spells again. I won't have to go an' twist off a button, I c'n tell you. Things can't get that way with me.—But tell me this: whose turn is it goin' to be now? It's about time for somebody, you know. Somethin's got to burn pretty soon now.

LANGHEINRICH

It could be most anybody. Things is lookin' pretty poor over at Strombergers. The rain's comin' right down into his sittin' room,—Well, good evenin'. A man's got to have his joke.

MRS. FIELITZ

But who's goin' to drink my hot toddy now?

FIELITZ

You stay right where you are!

LANGHEINRICH

Can't be done. I gotta be goin'. [He puts an arm around LEONTINE, who frees herself carelessly and with a contemptuous expression.]—If mother don't hear my hammerin' downstairs she'll be swimmin' away in tears an' the bed with her when I gets home.

LEONTINE

That's nothin' but jealousy, mama.

MRS. FIELITZ

Maybe it is, an' maybe she's got reason. You go on up to your work.—How is the Missis?

LANGHEINRICH

Pretty low. What c'n you expect?

LEONTINE

You'll be drivin' me to work till I gets consumption.

MRS. FIELITZ

If you get consumption, it won't be your dress-makin' that's the cause of it. You act as much like a ninny as if you was a man.

LANGHEINRICH

[Putting his arms around MRS. FIELITZ.] Come now, young woman, don't be so cross! Young people wants to have their fling—that's all. An' they'll have it, if it's only with Constable Schulze.

[Exit.

MRS. FIELITZ

Now what's the meanin' o' that?

RAUCHHAUPT

Wait there a minute an' I'll join you.

[He gets up and motions to GUSTAV, who lifts the iron cross again.

MRS. FIELITZ

Why d'you go an' run off all of a sudden?

RAUCHHAUPT

I gotta go an' get rid o' some work.

[_Exit with GUSTAV.

MRS. FIELITZ

What's the trouble with you an' Langheinrich again? You act like a fool—that's what you do!

LEONTINE

There ain't no trouble. I want him to leave me alone.

MRS. FIELITZ

He'll be willin' to do that all right! If you're goin' to turn up your nose an' wriggle around that way, you won't have to take much trouble to get rid o' him. He don't need nothin' like that!

LEONTINE

But he's a married man.

MRS. FIELITZ

So he is. Let him be. You got no sense 'cause you was born a fool. You got a baby and no husband; Adelaide's got a husband an' no baby.

[LEONTINE goes slowly out.

MRS. FIELITZ

If she'd only go an' take advantage o' her chances. There ain't no tellin' how soon Langheinrich'll be a widower.

FIELITZ

I don't know's I like to see the way Constable Schulze runs after that girl.

MRS. FIELITZ

[Sententiously.] You can't run your head through no stone walls. [She sits down, takes out a little notebook and turns its leaves.] You got a office. All right. Why shouldn't you have? Things is as they is. But havin' a office you got to look out all around. You just let Constable Schulze alone! Did you read the letter from Schmarowski?

FIELITZ

Aw, yes, sure. I got enough o' him all right. I wish somebody'd given me the money—half the money—that feller's had the use of. But no: nobody never paid no attention to me. Nobody sent me to no school o' architecture.

MRS. FIELITZ

I'd like to know what you got against Schmarowski! You're pickin' at him all the time.

FIELITZ

Hold on! Not me! He ain't no concern o' mine. But every time you open your mouth I gets ready to bet ten pairs o' boots that you're goin' to talk about Schmarowski.

MRS. FIELITZ

Did he do you any harm, eh? Well?

FIELITZ

No, I can't say as he has. Not that I know. An' I wouldn't advise him to try neither. Only when I sees him I gets kind o' sick at my stomick. You oughta have married him yourself.

MRS. FIELITZ

If I had been thirty years younger—sure enough.

FIELITZ

Well, why don't you go an' move over to your daughter then! Go right on! Hurry all you can an' go to Adelaide's. Then they got hold of you good and tight an' you c'n get rid o' your savin's.

MRS. FIELITZ

That's an ambitious man. He don't have to wait, for me; that's sure!—there ain't no gettin' ahead with your kind. Instead o' you fellows helpin' each other, you're always hittin' out at each other. Now Schmarowski—he's a wide-awake kind o' man. No money ain't been wasted on him. You needn't be scared: he'll make his way all right.—But if you knew just a speck o' somethin' about life, you'd know what you'd be doin' too.

FIELITZ

Me? How's that? Why me exactly?

MRS. FIELITZ

What was it that there bricklayer boss told me? I saw him one day when he was full; they was just raisin' that church. He says: Schmarowski, says he, that's a sly dog. An' he knew why he was sayin' that. Them plans o' his takes 'em all in.

FIELITZ

I ain't got no objection to his takin' 'em in.

MRS. FIELITZ

He ain't the kind o' man to sit an' draw till he's blind an' let the bricklayers get all the profit.

FIELITZ

Well, I ain't made the world.

MRS. FIELITZ

No, nor you ain't goin' to stop it neither.

FIELITZ

An' I don't want to.

MRS. FIELITZ

You ain't goin' to stop it, Fielitz—not the world an' not me. That's settled.—

[She has said this in a slightly ironical way, yet with a half embarrassed laugh. She now puts away her little book excitedly.

FIELITZ

I can't get to understand reel straight. I'm always thinkin' there's somethin' wrong with you.

MRS. FIELITZ

Maybe there was somethin' wrong with Grabow too, eh? I s'ppose that's the reason he's livin' in his new house this day.—I wish there'd be somethin' like that wrong with you onct in a while. But if somebody don't pull an' poke at you, you'd grow fast to the stool you're sittin' on.

FIELITZ

[With decision.] Mother, put that there thing outta your mind. I tell you that in kindness now. I ain't goin' to lend my help to no such thing. Because why? I knows what that means. Is I goin' to jump into that kind of a mess again? No, I ain't young enough for that no more.

MRS. FIELITZ

Just because you're an old feller you oughta be thinkin' about it all the more. How long are you goin' to be able to work along here. You don't get around to much no more now. You cobbled around on Wehrhahn's shoes! It took more'n two weeks.

FIELITZ

Well, mother, you needn't lie that way.

MRS. FIELITZ

That cobblin' o' yours—that ain't worth a damn. I ain't much good no more an' you ain't. That's a fact. I don't excep' myself at all. An' if people like us don't go an' get somethin' they c'n fall back on, they got to go beggin' in the end anyhow. You c'n kick against that all you want to.

FIELITZ

It's a queer thing about you, mother. It's just like as if the devil hisself got a hold o' you. First it just sort o' peeps up, an' God knows where it comes from. Sometimes it's there an' sometimes it's gone. An' then it'll come back again sudden like an' then it gets hold o' you an' don't let you go no more. I've known some tough customers in my time, mother, but when you gets took that way—then I tell you, you makes the cold shivers run down my back.

MRS. FIELITZ

[Has taken out her notebook again and become absorbed in it.] What did you think about all this? We're insured here for seven thousand.

FIELITZ

What I thought? I didn't think nothin'.

MRS. FIELITZ

Well, there ain't any value to this place excep' what's in the lot itself.

FIELITZ

[Gets up and puts on his coat.] You just leave me alone, y'understand?

MRS. FIELITZ

Well, ain't it true? You just stop your foolin'. I seen that long ago, before we was ever married. Schmarowski told me that ten times over, that this here is the proper place for a big house. An' anybody as has any sense c'n see that it's so. Now just look for yourself: over there, that's the drug shop! An' a bit across the way to the left is the post office. An' then a little ways on is the baker an' he's built hisself a nice new shop. Four noo villas has gone up and if, some day, we gets the tramway out here—we'll be right in the midst o' things.

FIELITZ

[About to go.] Good evenin'.

MRS. FIELITZ

Are you goin' out this time o' day?

FIELITZ

Yes, 'cause I can't stand that no more.—If I'd known the kind of a crittur you are ... only I didn't know nothin' about it ... I'd ha' thought this here marryin' over a good bit—yes, a good bit.

MRS. FIELITZ

You? Is that what you'd ha' thought over, eh?

FIELITZ

Is I goin' to let myself be put up to things like that?...

MRS. FIELITZ

A whole lot o' thinkin' over you'd ha' done! You ain't done any thinkin' all the days o' your life. A great donkey like you ... an' thinkin'. Well! A fine mess would come of it if you took to thinkin'.

FIELITZ

Mother, I axes you to consider that ...

MRS. FIELITZ

Put you up? To what? What is I puttin' you up to?—This here old shed is goin' to burn down sometime. It's goin' to burn down one time or 'nother, if it don't first come topplin' down over our heads. It's squeezed in here between the other houses in a way to make a person feel ashamed, if he looks at it.

FIELITZ

Mother, I axes you to consider ...

MRS. FIELITZ

Aw, I wish you'd clear out o' the front door this minute! I'm goin' to pack up my things pretty soon too. An' you c'n go over to the justice for all I care. I been puttin' you up to things, you know!

FIELITZ

Mother, I axes you to consider that ... Look out that you don't go an' get a black eye! 'Cause I, if I ...

MRS. FIELITZ

[With a gesture as though about to push him out.] Get out! Just get out! It'll be good riddance! The sooner the better! What are you dawdlin' for?

FIELITZ

[Beside himself.] Mother, I'll hit you one across the ... You're goin' to put me out, eh? What? Outta my shop? Is this here your shop? I'll learn you! Just wait!

MRS. FIELITZ

Well, I'm waitin'. Why don't you start? You're that kind of a man, are you? Come right on! Come on now! You got the courage! I'll hold my breath or maybe I'd blow you right into Berlin.

FIELITZ

[Hurls a boot against the wall in his impotent rage.] I'll break every stick in this here shop! To hell with the whole business: that's what I says! I must ha' been just ravin' mad! There I goes an' burdens myself with a devil of a woman like that, an' I might ha' lived as comfortable as can be! She killed off one husband an' now I'm dam' idjit enough, to take his place! But you're goin' to find out! It ain't goin' to be so easy this time! I'll first kick you out before I'll let you get the best o' me! Not me! No, sir! You c'n believe that!

MRS. FIELITZ

You needn't exert yourself that much, Fielitz ...

FIELITZ

Not me! Not me! You c'n depend on that! You ain't agoin' to down me! You c'n take my word for it.

[He sits down, exhausted.

MRS. FIELITZ

Maybe you might like throwin' some more boots. There's plenty of 'em around here—I s'ppose you married me for love, eh?

FIELITZ

God knows why I did!

MRS. FIELITZ

If you'll go an' study it out, maybe you'll know why. Maybe it was out o' pity? Eh? Maybe not.—Or maybe it was the money I had loaned out?—Well, you see! I s'ppose that was it.—You c'n live a hundred years for my part! But it's always the same thing. 'Twasn't much different with Julius neither. If things had gone his way, I wouldn't have nothin' saved this day neither. The trouble is a person is too good to you fellers.

FIELITZ

An' outta goodness you want me to go an' take a match an' set fire to the roof over my head?

MRS. FIELITZ

You knew that you'd have to go an' build. I said that to myself right off, an' buildin' costs money. There ain't no gettin' away from that fact. An' the few pennies we has ain't more'n a beginnin'. If we had what you might call a real house here ... Schmarowski, he'd build us one that'd make all the others look like nothin' ... you could have a fine shop here. We might put a few hundred dollars into it an' sell factory shoes. If you'd want to take in repairing you could get a journeyman an' put him here. An' if you wanted to go an' make some new shoes yourself, you could take the time for all I care.

FIELITZ

I don't know! I s'ppose I ain't got sense enough for them things. I thought I'd get hold o' a bit o' money ... I thought I'd be able to lay out a bit o' money! Buildin' a little annex of a shop—that's good fun. I thought it all out to myself like—with nice shelves and things like that ... an' I planned to hang up a big clock an' such. An' now you sit on your money bag like an old watch dog.

MRS. FIELITZ

That money—it ain't to be thrown away so easy. 'Twas earned too bitter hard for that.

FIELITZ

... You forgets that I've been in trouble before. Is I to go an' get locked up again?

MRS. FIELITZ

Never mind, Fielitz, to-morrow is another day. A person mustn't go an' take things that serious! I was more'n half jokin' anyhow.—Go over to Grabow's an' drink a glass o' beer!... We must all be satisfied's best we can. An' even if you can't go an' open a shoe shop, an' even if you gotta worry along cobblin' an' can't buy no clock—well, a good conscience is worth somethin' too.

THE CURTAIN FALLS



THE SECOND ACT

The smithy of LANGHEINRICH. The little house protrudes at an angle into the village street. The shed that projects over the smithy is supported by wooden posts. The empty space below the shed is used for the storage of tools and materials. Wheels are leaned against the wood, a plough, wheel-tyres, pieces of pig iron, etc. An anvil stands in the open, too, and several working stools. From behind the house, jutting out diagonally, a wooden wagon is visible. The left front wheel has been taken off and a windlass supports the axle.

Through the door that leads to the shop one sees smithy fires and bellows.

Opposite the smithy, on the left side of the village street which, taking a turn, is lost to view in the background, there is a board fence. A small locked gate opens upon the street.

A cloudy, windy day.

DR. BOXER, in a slouch hat and light overcoat, stands holding a heavy smith's hammer at arm's length. EDE has a horseshoe in his right hand, a smaller hammer in his left, and is looking on.

EDE

[Counts.] ... twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four an' one makes twenty-five an' another makes twenty-six.—Great guns, you're ahead o' me now. An' twenty-seven, an' twenty-eight, an' twenty-nine an' thirty. My respects, Doctor. That's all right. Is that the effect o' the sea air?

DR. BOXER

It may be. You see I haven't quite forgotten the trick.

EDE

No, you haven't. That's pretty good. Now let's try it with weights, though. I c'n hold up a hundred an' fifty pounds, Doctor. How about yourself?

DR. BOXER

I don't know. It remains to be seen.

EDE

What? You think you c'n lift a hundred weight an' a half? You're a little bit of a giant, ain't you? You didn't learn that on board ship. I thought you travelled as a sawbones an' not as a strong man!—Look at that little man over there goin' into Mrs. Fielitz' house. That's her son-in-law.

DR. BOXER

He looks very much like a bishop.

EDE

Right enough! That's what he is—Bishop Schmarowski.—You c'n knock! The old woman's out and she took her cobbler with her. There won't be nothin' to get there to-day.—You see, Doctor, when that fellow goes there he wants money. If he weren't hard up he wouldn't come.

DR. BOXER

The Fielitzes went in to Berlin to-day; I met them this morning at the railway station. Tell me: he isn't quite right in his mind, is he?

EDE

How so? That wasn't never noticed. He's a pretty keen fellow ... No, I couldn't say that he's crazy.

DR. BOXER

He talked a mixture of idiotic nonsense and looked away from me while he was talking. The fellow looked like an evil conscience personified. But I don't suppose he has a conscience.

EDE

By the way: that time they came down on you an' made a search in your house—that fellow Fielitz had his hand in it. He helped get you into that pickle.

[MRS. SCHULZE puts her head out at the attic window.

MRS. SCHULZE

Ede!

EDE

What?

MRS. SCHULZE

Ain't Mr. Langheinrich back yet?

EDE

Well, o' course he is, naturally. [MRS. SCHULZE disappears and EDE withdraws under the shed.] Quick! Take this hammer, will you, Doctor, an' hammer away a bit. If you kept up your strength the way you have, you ain't forgot about that neither.

DR. BOXER

I went at locksmith's work like the deuce when there was nothing to do on board ship. That gave me a very good chance.

EDE

You're a doctor an' you're a smith an' ... I guess you're a sausage maker too!

DR. BOXER

I even made sausages once.

EDE

Nobody didn't want to eat them, I guess.

DR. BOXER

I wouldn't have advised any one to do so either. The sausages were mainly filled with arsenic. The rats scarcely left us space to turn around in.

EDE

[About to set to work.] Ugh! That wouldn't be no kind o' sausage for me. Come now, Doctor, go at it! We wants the missis to think that two people is workin' here or she'll never stop axin' questions.

DR. BOXER

Where did Langheinrich go so early?

EDE

That's a secret all right—the kind o' secret that all the sparrows on the gutters is chirpin'.—Doctor, roll that wheel over here, will you? You got a chance now to deserve well, as they says, o' the Prussian state, 'cause this here waggon belongs to the government forester.—That sort o' thing can't do you no harm.

DR. BOXER

No. And anyhow I ought to stand in with people.

[He rolls the wheel slowly along; it escapes him and glides backwards.

EDE

That ain't so easy. Them people has long memories. [He catches the wheel.] Hold on there! No goin' backward! I'm for progress, I am, Doctor! I'm willin' to fight for that!

DR. BOXER

But you must be careful of your fingers. [He puts on a leathern apron.] Is Langheinrich going to be gone long?

EDE

[Whistles.] That depends on how hard it is!

DR. BOXER

Why do you whistle so significantly?

EDE

That's a gift o' my family. All my eleven brothers an' sisters is musicians. I'm the only one that's a smith. [For a space both work at the wheel in silence. Then EDE continues.] 'Twouldn't be a bad stage play, I tell you. You wouldn't have to be scared o' riskin' somethin' on that. You'd make money! That's somethin' fine—specially for young people! You been away here a good long while, that's the reason you don't know what's what. I could tell you a few little things that happen around here in bright daylight.—D'you know that Leontine?

DR. BOXER

Very sorry indeed, but I don't.

EDE

No? An' then you pretend that this is your home an' don't know that girl. Somethin' wrong with you!

DR. BOXER

Oh, yes, yes, Leontine! Mrs. Wolff's daughter! I once got the deuce of a flogging on her account.

EDE

Well, I wish you'd ha' been here two hours ago. Well, first of all that same girl slouched by here ... No! First of all her mother an' father went away ...'twasn't more'n dawn yet! Then Leontine at about eight. She looked all around an' waited an' made lovin' eyes in this direction an' then walked by. You should ha' seen Langheinrich. "Sweetheart, where are you goin'?"—Then, after a while comes Constable Schulze and goes after her.—That was too much for Langheinrich. Off with his apron an' there he goes, quick 's a stag. That's the way it was. You could ha' observed that: the rest ain't to be observed.—There's Langheinrich hurryin' back now. [He at once sets zealously to work and pretends to discover LANGHEINRICH, who is approaching hastily and vigorously at this moment.] Well, at last! Good thing you're here! No end o' askin' after you. Did you catch her?

LANGHEINRICH

[Brusquely.] Catch what?

EDE

I meant the 'bus.

LANGHEINRICH

Hold your...! I had business to attend to.—Well now, I'll give a dollar if this here ain't Dr. Boxer! Why, how are you? How are things goin'? An' what are you doin' nowadays? Did your ship come in? You been away now—lemme see—that must be three years, eh? Sure. That's ... well, time passes.

DR. BOXER

I want to settle down here, Langheinrich. That is to say, I have that intention if it's possible. I should like to try my luck at home for a change.

LANGHEINRICH

Things is best at home, that's right. O' course, there's one here now, a doctor I mean, but he ain't good for much. They say somethin' queer happened to him onct—got his ears boxed too hard or somethin'. An' they say that made him kind o' melancholious. That ain't much good for his patients! No sick man can't get well through that. I'll send for you, Doctor, if I need help.

DR. BOXER

I'll extract my first dozen wisdom teeth free of charge. So you'll be glad if you don't need me soon.

LANGHEINRICH

Well, I ... fact is ... my wife is sick.

MRS. SCHULZE comes hurriedly from the house.

MRS. SCHULZE

It's a mighty good thing that you're here. D'you hear? That whimperin' goes right on.

LANGHEINRICH

Doctor, I'm goin' to ax you somethin' now: d'you know any cure for jealousy? You see, it's this way: We had a baby, an' I'd be lyin' if I said I wasn't mighty well pleased. An' why shouldn't I be? But now my wife is sick. She can't get up an' she don't want me to budge from the side o' her bed. She screams an' she scolds an' she reproaches me. Sometimes I reely don't know what to do no more.

MRS. SCHULZE

You better go upstairs a bit first.

EDE

Do give him a chance to get his breath!

LANGHEINRICH

Oh, pshaw! Never you mind! I c'n attend to that right off.

[After he has taken off his hat and coat and slipped on wooden shoes he hurries into the house.

EDE

Well, what d'you think o' that?

DR. BOXER

He's a cheerful soul—more so, if possible, than he used to be. It does one good to find a man that way.

EDE

Only that I axed after Leontine, that riled him more'n a little bit all right.

MRS. SCHULZE

[To EDE, watchfully:] Where was the boss so early this mornin'?

EDE

In Lichtenberg, attendin' a dance.

MRS. SCHULZE

The treatment that woman's gettin' is all wrong, Doctor. I don't mix in what don't concern me. But the way she's treated, that ain't no kind o' treatment, I c'n tell you. I told that Majunke man too that the missis was goin' to the dogs this way.

DR. BOXER

But Dr. Majunke is very capable. I know him to be an excellent physician.

MRS. SCHULZE

[Interrupting.] Sure, sure, an' that's true. 'Course he's capable. That's right, an' so he is. But, you see, he just won't prescribe nothin' ...

DR. BOXER

What should he prescribe? Let the people save their money.

MRS. SCHULZE

But that's just what people don't want to do. It's like this: medicine's got to be. If there ain't none they says: how c'n the doctor help us?

DR. BOXER

Mrs. Langheinrich never was strong. Even years ago when she used to sew for us ...

MRS. SCHULZE

That's the way it is. She's a little bit humpbacked; that's right. That's the way women is, though, Doctor! A seamstress—that's what she was...! She sewed an' she sewed and saved up a little money...! An' what kind of a bargain is it she's got now. A handsome feller an' sickness an' worry an' no rest no more by day or night.

LANGHEINRICH returns from the house.

LANGHEINRICH

[Tapping MRS. SCHULZE'S shoulder somewhat roughly.] Hurry now! Go on up! It's all arranged an' settled. To-morrow I'm goin' to take her to the clinic.

MRS. SCHULZE

That ain't goin' to be no easy work!

LANGHEINRICH

[Lifts a great can of water to his mouth.] I can't help that. Things is as they is. [He takes an enormously long draught from the tin can. Putting it down:] Ede, drive them ducks away!

EDE

[Acting as though he were driving away ducks, flaps his leathern apron and rattles his wooden shoes.] Shoo! Shoo! Shoo! Chuck! Chuck! Chuck!

MRS. SCHULZE retires into the house, shaking her head.

LANGHEINRICH

Them ducks is your regular fire eaters. There don't need nothin' but for some sparks to fly off an', right straight off, they gobbles 'em down. Then we gets what you might call roast duck that never meant to be roasted. An' my old woman she ain't no friend o' that.

RAUCHHAUPT looks over the fence to the left.

LANGHEINRICH

There's been a big fire again over there behind Landsberg. All the houses on a great estate is ashes.

RAUCHHAUPT

Did you maybe see Gustav anywhere?

LANGHEINRICH

Mornin', old boy! No, not me! Has he gone an' run off again?

RAUCHHAUPT

I ordered him to go over to the Fielitzes.

LANGHEINRICH

The Fielitzes have all gone in to town.

RAUCHHAUPT

I don't know, but there's a kind o' burned smell in the air ... Ouch! [He distorts his face in pain and grasps his leg.] Ain't Leontine here?

LANGHEINRICH

Naw, she had to go to court to-day. Always the same trouble with the alimony. That confounded feller, he don't pay.

RAUCHHAUPT

[Calls out.] Gustav! [He listens and then turns leisurely back to the little gate. The wind worries and drives him.] Gustav!

LANGHEINRICH

Stiff wind coming up, all right! [RAUCHHAUPT disappears.] Ede!

EDE

All right.

LANGHEINRICH

Let's get to work now! [He spits into his hands and sets to work vigorously.] Well, Doctor, where've you been runnin' about? Did you get as far as the Chinese? You gotta tell us all about that some day when we got plenty o' time for it.

DR. BOXER

Surely, I've been all over.

LANGHEINRICH

Did you see the sea-serpent too?

Da. BOXER

Surely, Langheinrich, far down in the South Seas.

LANGHEINRICH

An' it's true that it feeds on dill pickles?

DR. BOXER

Several hundred dozen a day.

LANGHEINRICH

[Laughing.] That's all right then. An' when, you see that serpent again, just give her my best regards.

DR. BOXER

I doubt whether I'll ever get so far again in life.

LANGHEINRICH

I guess you got all you wanted o' that? Now you see. Doctor, you just got to the point where I am exactly an' I didn't have to move from this spot.—Well, I guess your old mother, she'll be glad. She's gettin' along all right. Doin' reel well. I always looked in a bit now an' then, helpin' to see that things was all right.

DR. BOXER

And that was very good in you, Langheinrich.

LANGHEINRICH

Naw! Pshaw! I ain't sayin' it on that account. By the way, though, before I forget. I got a little account standin' with your good mother—for taffeta an' silk an' needles an' thread. Some cloth, too. My wife used 'em sewing. I'll straighten that up very soon.

DR. BOXER

[Deprecatingly.] Never mind. That matter will be arranged.

LANGHEINRICH

Ede!

EDE

All right?

LANGHEINRICH

Hurry along now! [He takes up a heavy hammer.] If I don't go right on workin' I'll end by bustin' out o' my skin.

EDE approaches with a white hot piece of iron in the tongs and holds it on the anvil.

LANGHEINRICH

Now we're goin' to start, Doctor! Down on it! Hit it now! [He and DR. BOXER beat the iron, keeping time with each other.] Well, you see! It's got to go evenly. Doctor! Then I tell you the work's smooth as butter.

[They stop hammering; EDE takes up the iron again, takes it into the smithy and holds it into the flame.

LANGHEINRICH

[Takes up the water can again and sets it to his lips.] There ain't much to this!

[Drinks.

EDE

Things like that makes you thirsty.

LANGHEINRICH puts the can down.

LANGHEINRICH

You c'n believe me, Doctor: it was fine anyhow.

DR. BOXER

What was it that was go very fine?

LANGHEINRICH

Lord! I don't know! I don't know nothin' much. But when I met Constable Schulze I had a devil of a good time—that's what!

EDE

An' now a glass o' beer from Grabow over there. That's what I could stand fine just now.

LANGHEINRICH

Hurry! Get three steins! Dr. Boxer will pay for 'em.

EDE wipes his hands on his apron and goes.

LANGHEINRICH

An' so you want to settle down here now! That ain't no bad idea neither. Only this: you got to be up to all kinds o' tricks here. An' if you want my advice, Doctor, don't go to people for nothin'.

DR. BOXER

Do you think that I'll be unmolested in other respects?

LANGHEINRICH

Aw, them old stories! Them's all outlawed by now. An' then, nowadays they can't worry people so much no more as they used to do under the old laws.

DR. BOXER

Well, at all events I'll make the attempt ... My political ardour has cooled off. If these people annoy me in spite of that, I'll simply trudge off again. I'll go back to sea, or I'll let myself be engaged ...

LANGHEINRICH

Pretty easy drownin' on water!

DR. BOXER

[Continuing.] ... Then I'll let myself be engaged to go to Brazil with the Russian Jews.

LANGHEINRICH

What would you get out o' that?

DR. BOXER

Yellow fever, perhaps.

LANGHEINRICH

Anything else. Doctor? That wouldn't be nothin' for me!

DR. BOXER

I believe that.

LANGHEINRICH

Me go an' wear myself out for other people? Not me! No, sir! I don't do nothin' like that. An' why should I? Nobody don't give me nothin'. I tell you people in this world is a pretty sly set. I've had time to find that out.

DR. BOXER

You're a regular heathen: you're not a Christian at all!

LANGHEINRICH

That kind o' talk don't do much good with me. I'm a Christian just like all the rest is! The people that sit in the new church here ... 'cause they built a new church here now!... if them is Christians, the Lord forgive 'em.

DR. BOXER

That's easily said, Langheinrich. But one ought not to be a Pharisee. Where is your Christian long-suffering?

LANGHEINRICH

No, I ain't goin' in for long-sufferin'. I'm a sinner myself; that's true all right. But now you take this Dalchow here for instance! It'd take the devil to be long-sufferin' where he's concerned! What did he do with that son o' his. He kicked him out, that's what, by night, in winter. Then he tied him up and beat him till he couldn't gasp. An' then he apprenticed the little feller to a butcher so that he had to drive out the sheep! An' all the time jabbin' at him an' overworkin' him till in the end the poor little crittur went an' drowned hisself in the lake. Just shook his head an' kept still an' then dived down an' that was the end.

DR. BOXER

[Ironically.] I don't see what you've got against Dalchow, Langheinrich? He's a man who seems to understand his business magnificently.

LANGHEINRICH

Yes, ruinin' girls an' that sort o' thing, that's what. An' then beatin' his hat around their heads an' sayin': Out with the low strumpet! That's what they is all of a sudden when it's he that made 'em—what they is!—Oh, an' then he's a great friend o' Wehrhahn's an' grunts out like a swine in public meetin's: There ain't no more morality these days ... an' there ought to be laws against such doin's ... an' so on, an' so on ... an' if you'd like to go to church, there the old rotten sinner sits an' turns up his eyes. [A distant ringing of church bells if heard.] Listen to that! The sparrow is singin'.—I always calls that the sparrow, Doctor. I always says: the sparrow sings. I mean when them bells is ringin'. An' ain't I right that it's the sparrow that sings? 'Cause since Wehrhahn got that bird in his buttonhole them bells has begun to ring. An' if the bells didn't go an' ring, why he wouldn't have no decoration neither.

EDE comes in grinning and carrying three steins of beer.

EDE

Oho, listen there, the sparrow is singin'.

LANGHEINRICH

Well, you see, he don't call it nothin' else no more. [Each of the three holds a stein. They knock them together.] Your health! An' welcome back to the old country! [They drink.] That's a fine evenin' this mornin'. I'd like to see this night by day.

DR. BOXER

Now I'm goin' to blaspheme a bit. I'm not opposed to the building of churches at all.

LANGHEINRICH

An' I ain't neither. People gets work! I didn't get any this time, though. An' even if there's a little trouble now an' then, Pastor Friderici an' a bit o' nonsense with coloured windows an' altar cloths—that don't do no harm. People has to have a little.

DR. BOXER

Yes, those people are entitled to cultivate their own pleasures. And then, Langheinrich, a higher principle has to be represented somehow.

LANGHEINRICH

Sure, an' it brings people out here too, you c'n believe me. Buildin' lots has gone up considerable.

EDE

That's so. An' there was a man onct that didn't have no roof over his head ... No, that ain't the way to begin what I want to say.—I was onct out on the heath—far out. All of a sudden: what d'you think I heard, Doctor! I heard a dickens of a screechin'.—I goes up to it. Crows! Yes, sir. There was a feller hangin' high up in a pine tree—tailor's journeyman from over in Berkenbruck: he hanged hisself on account o' starvation—hanged hisself high up.—Yes, there's always got to be somethin' higher!

[While they finish drinking their beer the long-drawn cries of pain of a man's voice are heard from some distance. The wind has risen considerably.

DR. BOXER

What is that?

EDE

Rauchhaupt. Nothin' to worry about.

LANGHEINRICH

Sounds kind o' gruesome, don't it? 'Tain't nothin' very lovely neither. When that feller's pains in his leg gets hold o' him an' he roars out that way o' nights—that goes right through an' through any one. No, before I'd stand pain like that I'd go an' put a bullet through my head.

EDE

Gee-rusalem! That's a wind again. Look out, Doctor, that your hat don't fly away.

A hat is whirled by the wind along the street. SCHMAROWSKI, hatless, a roll of paper in his hand, runs chasing it.

EDE

Run along, sonny! Right on there! Show us what you c'n do!

DR. BOXER

That hat is tired of his position: wants a holiday.

SCHMAROWSKI

[Who has recovered his hat, turns angrily to DR. BOXER.] What was that very appropriate remark you made just now?

DR. BOXER

That you are an excellent runner.

SCHMAROWSKI

Schmarowski!

DR. BOXER

Boxer!

SCHMAROWSKI

Much pleased.—Now I'd like to ask you a question. Do you know what a fathead is?

DR. BOXER

No.

SCHMAROWSKI

You don't? Neither do I. But now tell me: you know what a schlemihl is, I suppose.

LANGHEINRICH

Nothin' broke loose here? What's all this about? Easy now, easy! Howdy do, Mr. Schmarowski? How are you? Have you come to visit your mother-in-law?

SCHMAROWSKI

I have business here!—And before I forget it, I should like to say: Have the goodness to be more careful.

DR. BOXER

Who is this amusing gentleman, Langheinrich?

EDE

That's Mrs. Wolff's son-in-law.

SCHMAROWSKI

I'll have no dealings with you at all.

EDE

Naw, you better not.

SCHMAROWSKI

Not with you—[Turning to DR. BOXER.] But if you don't know who I am, you can get information from Baron von Wehrhahn, the Right Reverend Bishop, the Baroness Bielschewski and the Countess Strach.

DR. BOXER

You want me to go around and get information from all those people?

SCHMAROWSKI

That's what you're to do—just that an' nothing else. Then maybe you can be more careful in future an' look people over before you talk.

LANGHEINRICH

What's gotten into you to-day? You're so dam' touchy!

SCHMAROWSKI

[To DR. BOXER, who has glanced at EDE and LANGHEINRICH alternately with serene laughter.] You just be so good an' be more careful: we ain't so soft. We don't take jokes so easy, especially not from the race to which you ...

LANGHEINRICH

Hold on, Mr. Schmarowski! That's enough! Nothin' like that here. That's enough an' too much, Mr. Schmarowski. You just see about gettin' along on your way now.

SCHMAROWSKI

Do you know where I am going straight from here?

LANGHEINRICH

You c'n go straight ahead to the Lord hisself! You c'n go where you want to, Schmarowski; only, don't be keepin' me from my work. We ain't got no time to lose here!—Ede, put that axle in!

SCHMAROWSKI exit, enraged.

EDE

Good-bye!

DR. BOXER

So that was Mr. Schmarowski, the envied pillar of the church? Why, he's a poisonous little devil!

LANGHEINRICH

Yes, you're right there! Pois'nous is what he is. So you didn't, know him, Dr. Boxer? Well, then you've seen him now—nothin' but a little, sly, venomous pup! But you ought to go an' watch him when he gets in with that pious crowd. Then he lets his ears hang, so 'umble his own mother wouldn't hardly know him, like as if he was sayin': I ain't goin' to live more'n two weeks at—most an' then I'm goin' to heaven to be with Jesus. Yes! Likely! There's another place where he's goin'. But that won't be soon. He ain't thinkin' of it much yet. An' in the meantime he rolls his eyes upward 'cause somethin' might be hangin' round that he c'n make a profit on.

EDE

Well, you c'n look out now! Yon ain't goin' to get no work on the new institution.

LANGHEINRICH

I know that. Can't be helped. Things is as they is. Can't hold' my tongue at things like that. I won't learn that in a lifetime.

DR. BOXER

Have you many of that kind hereabouts now?

LANGHEINRICH

So, so. Enough to last for the winter.

RAUCHHAUPT has come out of the little gate. He faces the wind, shades his eyes with his hand and peers around.

RAUCHHAUPT

Lord A'mighty! Well, well! Things is goin' the queerest way to-day! When is they comin' back—them Fielitzes?

LANGHEINRICH

That ain't goin' to be so very soon to-day. They've gone to buy a seven-day clock, a regulator. What are you upset about to-day?

RAUCHHAUPT

Wha'? Fielitz goin' to buy that kind of a clock? I don't believe's he c'n survive that. [Calls.] Gustav!

LANGHEINRICH

Ain't he come back yet? I guess he's listenin' to the bells. You know how he sits an' listens when they ring.

RAUCHHAUPT

I don't know. Things is goin' queer to-day. Mrs. Fielitz sent for him to come over. Horseradish seed is what she said she wanted. An' then she goes an' leaves for the city.

[Exit, shaking his head.

EDE

They been stalkin' about since four o'clock in the mornin'. Up an' down they went with their bull's-eye lantern. I don't believe they went to bed at all.

LANGHEINRICH

Well, if Fielitz has gone to buy a clock you can't expect him to eat or drink or sleep.

RAUCHHAUPT

[Behind the fence.] Gustav!

DR. BOXER

The boy is coming now, running along.

LANGHEINRICH

That's right. Rauchhaupt! Here's Gustav!

GUSTAV comes prancing up, highly excited, gesticulating violently. He points in the direction from which he has come.

EDE

Is that there a war dance you're tryin' to perform? Looks like the cannibals' goin's on. I believe that brat feeds on human flesh.

LANGHEINRICH

Hurry now an' run to your father.

EDE

Go on now!

LANGHEINRICH

Get along with your horse-radish.

GUSTAV gesticulating, puts his hollow hand to his mouth and toots in imitation of a trumpet. Laughter.

EDE

Where's the fire, you little firebrand?

LANGHEINRICH

Ede, catch hold o' him!

EDE

All right. [He tries to creep up to GUSTAV. The latter observes this, gives a loud toot and, still tooting, hurries away, dropping a box of matches as he does so.] Hallo!

LANGHEINRICH

What's that?

EDE

Just what I need.

LANGHEINRICH

What?

EDE

Safetys! A whole box full.

MRS. SCHULZE comes rushing down the stairs.

MRS. SCHULZE

Mr. Langheinrich!

LANGHEINRICH

Well, what?

MRS. SCHULZE

Mr. Langheinrich!

LANGHEINRICH

Here I is!

MRS. SCHULZE

It's ... it's ... it's ... over at ...

LANGHEINRICH

Anything about the missis?

MRS. SCHULZE

No, at Fielitzes'.

LANGHEINRICH

Is that so? Nothin' about my wife? Well, then,—[he shakes her]—just stop to get your breath. Things is as they is. I'm prepared for anythin'—life an' death. I gotta stand it.

MRS. SCHULZE

The engine!

LANGHEINRICH

What kind o' talk is that? Anythin' wrong with you?

MRS. SCHULZE

No; it's burnin'!

LANGHEINRICH

Go an' blow it out then!—Where is it burnin'!

MRS. SCHULZE

At the Fielitzes'!

LANGHEINRICH

Good Lord! That ain't possible!

[He drops the iron file and some nails which he has been holding.

EDE

Where's the fire?

MRS. SCHULZE

At Fielitzes'; the flame is comin' out o' the skylight.

DR. BOXER

[Has stepped forward.] Confound it all, but it's smoky! Come here! You can see it well from here.

EDE

[Also stares in the direction of the fire. His expression shows that a complete understanding of the situation has come to him, which he expresses by a conscious whistling.] There ain't no words for this; I just gotta whistle.

LANGHEINRICH

Ede! Run over to Scheibler's! Run! Get the horses for the engine! That smoke's comin' up thick over the gable.

[He rushes into the smithy, throws his apron aside, puts on a fireman's helmet, belt, etc.

MRS. SCHULZE

An' nobody at home there, goodness gracious!

DR. BOXER

That's the lucky part of it, after all.

The roaring of the fire alarm trumpet is heard.

MRS. SCHULZE

You hear, Doctor? They're tootin' already!

LANGHEINRICH

[Reappears in his fireman's uniform.] You get out o' the way here, old lady. Go an' attend to things upstairs. Nothin' to be done here with a syringe. You go up to my wife. Hold on! We gotta have the key to the engine house. The devil!

MRS. SCHULZE withdraws into the house. RAUCHHAUPT'S head reappears on the other side of the fence.

RAUCHHAUPT

My, but there's a smell o' burnin' in the air.

LANGHEINRICH

Sure it smells that way. There's a fire at the Fielitzes'.

RAUCHHAUPT

The devil! I didn't know nothin' about that!

LANGHEINRICH

That's all right, old man. Wasn't you a constable onct?

[He rushes away.

A fourteen-year-old boy comes madly hurrying up.

THE BOY

[To DR. BOXER.] Master! The key to the engine house! They can't get in to the engine.

DR. BOXER

I'm not the fireman! Just keep cool!

THE BOY

They wants you to come to the engine right off.

DR. BOXER

You didn't hear what I told you.

THE BOY

There's a fire!

DR. BOXER

I know that. The engine master has left. He's reached the engine long ago.

THE BOY

There's a fire. They wants you to come down to the engine!

[He runs away.

RAUCHHAUPT appears at the gate. Two LITTLE GIRLS cling to his rags.

RAUCHHAUPT

I'm used to that! It don't excite me a bit! Mieze! Lottie! You c'n come an' see somethin'.—I seen hundreds an' hundreds o' fires,

DR. BOXER

[Takes off the leathern apron.] It's a very sad thing for those people, though!

RAUCHHAUPT

Everythin' is sad in this here world. It's all a question o' how you looks at it! The same thing that's sad c'n be mighty cheerin'. Now there's me: I raises pineapples, an' my hothouse wall ... it's right up against Fielitzes' back wall. Now I won't have to keep no fire goin' for three days.

A somewhat OLDER GIRL also comes out through the gate and nestles close up to the others. MRS. SCHULZE leans out from the window in the gable.

MRS. SCHULZE

[Addressing someone in the room behind her.] Missis, you c'n be reel quiet! The wind's blowin' from the other side.

[She disappears.

RAUCHHAUPT

Did you see that there old witch? She always knows where the wind comes from.—I retired from all that, yessir! I didn't want to be a old bloodhound right along. I don't mix in them things no more. But that woman—she could be a keen one. [A fireman, blowing his horn very excitedly, walks by.] Go it easy, August! Patience! Look out, or your breeches will bust!

THE FIREMAN

[Enraged.] Aw, shut up! Go an' hide yourself in the holes you're always diggin.

[Exit.

A FOURTH and a FIFTH GIRL, aged nine and ten years respectively, join the old man.

DR. BOXER

[Laughing.] That's quite a fierce fellow.

RAUCHHAUPT

Gussie, Nelly, gimme your hand.—That's all nothin' but hurry. That feller don't know what's goin' on in this world. He's blowin' the trumpet of Jericho, I'm thinkin', or maybe even the trump o' Judgment Day!—

DR. BOXER

I don't think I quite take your meaning, Mr. Rauchhaupt.

RAUCHHAUPT

Maybe Mrs. Wolff was only tryin' to scorch roaches. All right. Maybe, for all I care, 'twas somethin' else. But if Mrs. Wolff ever puts her hand to somethin'—there ain't very much left.

DR. BOXER

What do you mean by that?

RAUCHHAUPT

Oh, I was just thinkin'.

[He withdraws, together with the children.

THE CURTAIN FALLS



THE THIRD ACT

The court-room of JUSTICE VON WEHRHAHN. A large, white-washed room level with the ground. The main door is in the left wall. Along the wall to the right is the large official table covered with books, documents, etc. Behind it stands the chair of the justice. By the middle window, small table and chair for the clerk of the court. In the foreground, right, a book case of soft wood, and on the left wall, shelves for documents and records. A small door in the background. Several chairs.

GLASENAPP sits at his small table. The JUSTICE'S chair is unoccupied.

In front of the official table DR. BOXER, LANGHEINRICH in his uniform of a captain of the fire brigade, EDE and THREE FIREMEN are waiting. They are engaged in a rather excited conversation. All are red with heat, stained with mud, wet and sooty.

MRS. SCHULZE, somewhat pale, is resting in a chair and waiting likewise. She is in a very thoughtful mood. Repeatedly she takes off her headkerchief and puts it on again and arranges her grey hair.

The action takes place on the same day as that of the first act, five hours later.

The conversation suddenly ceases.

JUSTICE VON WEHRHAHN enters betraying a high degree of official zeal. He covers his left eye with his left hand as though in pain, sits down behind the table, takes his hand from his eye, which twitches painfully, and begins.

WEHRHAHN

Well, what's the result of this wretched mess?

LANGHEINRICH

[Noticeably stimulated by exertion, whiskey and beer.] I've come to announce, Baron, that the whole business is burned down.

WEHRHAHN

[Throwing down on the table an object which he has brought with him. It is seen to be a photograph in a frame of deer feet.] That's because you're all only half awake! You're all made that way. Yon drowse around and do nothing. We're not three miles distant from Berlin; our entire activity should have a different air!