BERND

[Deeply perplexed.] What is it?

ROSE

I don't know ... I don't know!

[Trembling and kneeling, she crouches and stares at the floor.

AUGUST

[Overwhelmed and taken out of himself by the pity of the sight.] Rosie, get up! I won't desert you! Get up, I can't bear to see you lyin' there! We're all sinners together! An' anyone who repents so deep, is bound to be forgiven. Get up, Rose, Father, raise her up! We're not among them that condemns—not I, at least. There's nothin' in me o' the Pharisee! I see how it goes to her heart! Come what will, I'll stand by you! I'm no judge ... I don't judge. Our Saviour in Heaven didn't judge neither. Truly, he bore our sickness for us, an' we thought he was one that was tortured an' stricken, by God! Maybe we've all been guilty of error. I don't want to acquit myself neither. I've been thinkin'. Before the lass hardly knew me, she had to say her yea an' amen! What do I care about the world? It don't concern me.

ROSE

August, they clung to me like burrs ... I couldn't walk across the street safe ... All the men was after me!... I hid myself ... I was that scared! I was so afraid o' men!... It didn't help! 'Twas worse an' worse! After that I fell from one snare into another, till I hardly came to my senses no more.

BERND

You used to have the strictest notion o' such things. You condemned the Leichner girl an' despised the Kaiser wench! You boasted—you'd like to see someone come across your path! You struck the miller's journeyman in the face! A girl as does that, you said, don't deserve no pity; she can go an' hang herself! An' now you speak o' snares.

ROSE

I know better now.

AUGUST

Come what will, I'll stand by you, Rose. I'll sell my land! We'll go out into the world! I have an uncle in Brazil, across the ocean. We'll get our bit o' livin' somehow—one way or t'other. Maybe 'tis only now that we're ripe an' ready to take up our life together.

ROSE

O Jesus, Jesus, what did I do? Why did I go an' creep home? Why didn't I stay with my little baby?

AUGUST

With whom?

ROSE

[Gets up.] August, it's all over with me! First there was a burnin' in my body like flames o' fire! Then I fell into a kind o' swoon! Then there came one hope: I ran like a mother cat with her kitten in her mouth! But the dogs chased me an' I had to drop it....

BERND

Do you understand one word, August?

AUGUST

No, not o' this....

BERND

Do you know how I feel? I feel as if one abyss after another was openin', was yawnin' for us here. What'll we hear before the end?

ROSE

A curse! A curse will ye have to hear: I see you! I'll meet you! On the Day o' Judgment I'll meet you! I'll tear out your gullet an' your jaws together! You'll have to give an accountin'! You'll have to answer me, there!

AUGUST

Whom do you mean, Rosie?

ROSE

He knows ... he knows.

[A great exhaustion overtakes her and, almost swooning, she sinks upon a chair. A silence follows.

AUGUST

[Busying himself about her.] What is it that's come over you? Suddenly you're so....

ROSE

I don't know.—If you'd asked me earlier, long ago, maybe ... to-day I can't tell you!—There wasn't nobody that loved me enough.

AUGUST

Who can tell which love is stronger—the happy or the unhappy love.

ROSE

Oh, I was strong, strong, so strong! Now I'm weak! Now it's all over with me.

The CONSTABLE appears.

THE CONSTABLE

[With a quiet voice.] They say your daughter is at home. Kleinert said she was here.

AUGUST

It's true. We didn't know it a while ago.

THE CONSTABLE

Then I might as well get through now. There's somethin' to be signed here.

[Without noticing ROSE in the dim room, he lays several documents on the table.

AUGUST

Rose, here's somethin' you're to sign.

ROSE laughs with horrible and hysterical irony.

THE CONSTABLE

If you're the one, Miss, it's no laughin' matter.—Please!

ROSE

You can stay a minute yet.

AUGUST

An' why?

ROSE

[With flaming eyes, a malice against the whole world in her voice.] I've strangled my child.

AUGUST

What are you sayin'? For the love of God, what are you sayin'?

THE CONSTABLE

[Draws himself up, looks at her searchingly, but continues as though he had not heard.] It'll be somethin' connected with the Streckmann 'affair.

ROSE

[As before, harshly, almost with a bark.] Streckmann? He strangled my child.

BERND

Girl, be still. You're out o' your mind.

THE CONSTABLE

Anyhow, you have no child at all—?

ROSE

What? I has none? Could I ha' strangled it with my hands?... I strangled my baby with these hands!!!

THE CONSTABLE

You're possessed! What's wrong with you?

ROSE

My mind's clear. I'm not possessed. I woke up clear in my mind, so clear.... [Coldly, mildly, but with cruel firmness.] It was not to live! I didn't want it to live! I didn't want it to suffer my agonies! It was to stay where it belonged.

AUGUST

Rose, think! Don't torment yourself! You don't know what you're sayin' here! You'll bring down misery on us all.

ROSE

You don't know nothin' ... that's it ... You don't see nothin'. You was all blind together with your eyes open. He can go an' look behind the great willow ... by the alder-trees ... behind the parson's field ... by the pool ... there he can see the wee thing....

BERND

You've done somethin' so awful?

AUGUST

You've been guilty o' somethin' so unspeakable?

ROSE faints. The men look upon her confounded and helpless. AUGUST supports her.

THE CONSTABLE

'Twould be best if she came along with me to headquarters. There she can make a voluntary confession. If what she says isn't just fancies, it'll count a good deal in her favour.

AUGUST

[From the depth of a great experience.] Those are no fancies, sergeant. That girl ... what she must have suffered!

THE CURTAIN FALLS



THE RATS

A BERLIN TRAGI-COMEDY



PERSONS

HARRO HASSENREUTER, formerly a theatrical manager.

MRS. HARRO HASSENREUTER.

WALBURGA, their daughter.

PASTOR SPITTA.

ERICH SPITTA, postulant for Holy Orders, his son.

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH, actress.

NATHANAEL JETTEL, court actor.

KAeFERSTEIN, DR. KEGEL, Pupils of HASSENREUTER.

JOHN, foreman mason.

MRS. JOHN.

BRUNO MECHELKE, her brother.

PAULINE PIPERCARCKA, a servant girl.

MRS. SIDONIE KNOBBE.

SELMA, her daughter.

QUAQUARO, house-steward.

MRS. KIELBACKE.

POLICEMAN SCHIERKE.

TWO INFANTS.



THE FIRST ACT

The attic of a former cavalry barracks in Berlin, A windowless room that receives all its light from a lamp which burns suspended over a round table. From the back wall opens a straight passage which connects the room with the outer door—a door with iron hasps and a primitive signal bell which any one desiring to enter rings by means of a bell rope. A door in the right wall leads to an adjoining room, one in the left wall leads to the stairs into the loft immediately under the roof. Into this store room, as well as into the space visible to the spectator, the former theatrical manager, HARRO HASSENREUTER has gathered his collection of properties. In the prevalent gloom it is difficult to decide whether the place is the armour room of an old castle, a museum of antiquities or the shop of a costumer. Stands with helmets and breast-plates are put up on either side of the passage; a row of similar stands almost covers the two sides of the front room. The stairs wind upward between two mailed figures. At the head of the stairs is a wooden trap-door. In the left foreground, against the wall, is a high desk. Ink, pens, old ledgers, a tall stool, as well as several chairs with tall backs and the round table make it clear that the room serves the purposes of an office. On the table is a decanter for water and several glasses; above the desk hang a number of photographs. These photographs represent HASSENREUTER in the part of Karl Moor (in Schiller's "Robbers"), as well as in a number of other parts. One of the mailed dummies wean a huge laurel wreath about its neck. The laurel wreath is tied with a riband which bears, in gilt letters, the following inscription: "To our gifted manager Hassenreuter, from his grateful colleagues." A series of enormous red bows shows the inscriptions: "To the inspired presenter of Karl Moor ... To the incomparable, unforgettable Karl Moor" ... etc., etc. The room is utilised as far as its space will permit for the storing of costumes. Wherever possible, German, Spanish and English garments of every age hang on hooks. Swedish riding boots, Spanish rapiers and German broadswords are scattered about. The door to the left bears the legend: Library. The whole room displays picturesque disorder, Trumpery of all kinds—weapons, goblets, cups—is scattered about. It is Sunday toward the end of May.

At the table in the middle of the room are sitting, MRS. JOHN (between thirty-five and forty) and a very young servant girl, PAULINE PIPERCARCKA. PAULINE, vulgarly overdressed—jacket, hat, sunshade—sits straight upright. Her pretty, round little face shows signs of long weeping. Her figure betrays the fact that she is approaching motherhood. She draws letters on the floor with the end of her sunshade.

MRS. JOHN

Well, sure now! That's right! That's what I says, Pauline.

PAULINE

All right. So I'm goin' to Schlachtensee or to Halensee. I gotta go and see if I c'n meet him!

[She dries her tears and is about to rise.

MRS. JOHN

[Prevents PAULINE from getting up.] Pauline! For God's sake, don't you be doin' that! Not that there, for nothin' in the world! That don't do nothin' but raise a row an' cost money an' don't bring you in nothin'. Look at the condition you're in! An' that way you want to go an' run after that there low lived feller?

PAULINE

Then my landlady c'n wait an' wait for me to-day. I'll jump into the Landwehr canal an' drownd myself.

MRS. JOHN

Pauline! An' what for? What for, I'd like to know? Now you just listen to me for a speck of a minute, just for God's sake, for the teeniest speck of one an' pay attention to what I'm goin' to propose to you! You know yourself how I says to you, out on Alexander square, right by the chronomoneter—says I to you right out, as I was comin' out o' the market an' sees your condition with half an eye. He don't want to acknowledge nothin', eh? That's what I axed you right out!—That happens to many gals here, to all of 'em—to millions! An' then I says to you ... what did I say? Come along, I says, an' I'll help you!

PAULINE

O' course, I don't never dare to show myself at home lookin' this way. Mother, she'd cry it out at the first look. An' father, he'd knock my head against the wall an' throw me out in the street. An' I ain't got no more money left neither—nothin' but just two pieces o' gold that I got sewed up in the linin' o' my jacket. That feller didn't leave me no crown an' he didn't leave me no penny.

MRS. JOHN

Miss, my husband, he's a foreman mason. I just wants you to pay attention ... just for heaven's sake, pay attention to the propositions that I'm goin' to make to you. They'll help us both. You'll be helped out an' the same way I'll be. An' what's more, Paul, that's my husband, he'll be helped, because he'd like, for all the world, to have a child, an' our only one, little Adelbert, he went an' died o' the croup. Your child'll be as well taken care of as an own child. Then you c'n go an' you c'n look up your sweetheart an' you c'n go back into service an' home to your people, an' the child is well off, an' nobody in the world don't need to know nothin'.

PAULINE

I'll do it just outa spite—that's what! An' drownd myself! [She rises.] An' a note, a note, I'll leave in my jacket, like this: You drove your Pauline to her death with your cursed meanness! An' then I'll put down his name in full: Alois Theophil Brunner, instrument-maker. Then he c'n see how he'll get along in the world with the murder o' me on his conscience.

MRS. JOHN

Wait a minute, Miss! I gotta unlock the door first.

MRS. JOHN acts, as though she were about to conduct PAULINE to the door.

Before the two women reach the passage, BRUNO MECHELKE enters with slow and suspicious demeanour by the door at the left and remains standing in the room. BRUNO is short rather than tall, but with a powerful bull's neck and athletic shoulders. His forehead is low and receding, his close-clipped hair like a brush, his skull round and small. His face is brutal and his left nostril has been ripped open sometime and imperfectly healed. The fellow is about nineteen years old. He bends forward, and his great, lumpish hands are joined to muscular arms. The pupils of his eyes are small, black and piercing. He is trying to repair a rat trap.

BRUNO whistles to his sister as he would to a dog.

MRS. JOHN

I'm comin' now, Bruno! What d'you want?

BRUNO

[Apparently absorbed by the trap.] Thought I was goin' to put up traps here.

MRS. JOHN

Did you put the bacon in? [To PAULINE.] It's only my brother. Don't be scared, Miss.

BRUNO

[As before.] I seen the Emperor William to-day. I marched along wi' the guard,

MRS. JOHN

[To PAULINE, who stands fearful and moveless in BRUNO'S presence.] 'Tain't nothin' but my brother. You c'n stay.—[To BRUNO.] Boy, what're you lookin' that way for again? The young lady is fair scared o' you.

BRUNO

[As before, without looking up.] Brrr-rr-rr! I'm a ghost.

MRS. JOHN

Hurry an' go up in the loft an' set your traps.

BRUNO

[Slowly approaching the table.] Aw, that business ain't no good 'cept to starve on! When I goes to sell matches, I gets more outa it.

PAULINE

Good-bye, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

[Raging at her brother.] Are you goin' to leave me alone?

BRUNO

[Knuckling under.] Aw, don' go on so. I'm leavin'.

Obediently he withdraws into the adjoining room. MRS. JOHN locks the door behind him with a determined gesture.

PAULINE

That's a feller I wouldn't like to meet in the Tiergarten. Not by night an' not by day neither.

MRS. JOHN

If I sets Bruno on anyone an' he gets at him, God help him!

PAULINE

Good-bye. I don't like this here place. If you wants to see me again, Mrs. John, I'd rather meet you at a bench on the Kreuzberg.

MRS. JOHN

Pauline, I brought up Bruno with sorrow and trouble by day an' by night. An' I'll be twenty times better to your child. So when it's born, Pauline, I'll take it, an' I swears to you by my father an' mother what died in the Lord an' what I goes to visit the graves of out in Ruedersdorf one Sunday a year an' puts candles on 'em an' don' let nobody keep me back—I swears to you that little crittur'll live on the fat o' the land just like a born prince nor a born princess couldn't be treated no better.

PAULINE

I'm goin' and with my last penny I'm goin' to buy vitriol—I don' care who it hits! An' I'll throw it in the face o' the wench that he goes with ... I don' care who it hits ... right in the middle o' the mug. I don' care! It c'n burn up his fine-lookin' phiz! I don' care! It c'n burn off his beard an' burn out his eyes if he goes with other women! What did he do? Cheated me! Ruined me! Took my money! Robbed me o' my honour! That's what the damn' dog did—seduced me an' lied to me an' left me an' kicked me out into the world! I don' care who it hits! I wants him to be blind! I wants the stuff to burn his nose offa his face! I wants it to burn him offa the earth!

MRS. JOHN

Pauline, as I hopes to be happy hereafter, I tells you, from the minute where that there little one is born ... it's goin' to be treated like ... well, I don' know what!... as if it was born to be put in silks an' in satins. All you gotta do is to have some confidence—that's what! You just say: Yes. I got it all figgered out. It c'n be done, it c'n be done—that's what I tells you! An' no doctor an' no police an' no landlady don't has to know nothin'. An' then, first of all, you gets paid a hundred an' twenty crowns what I saved scrubbin' an' charrin' here for manager Hassenreuter.

PAULINE

I might strangle it when it's born, rather 'n sell it!

MRS. JOHN

Who's talkin' about sellin'?

PAULINE

Look at the frights an' the misery I've stood from October las' to this very day. My intended gives me the go; my landlady puts me out! They gives me notice at a lodgin's. What does I do that I has to be despised an' cursed an' kicked aroun'?

MRS. JOHN

That's what I says. That's cause the devil is still gettin' the better of our Lord Jesus.

Unnoticed and busy with the trap as before BRUNO has quietly re-entered by the door.

BRUNO

[With a strange intonation, sharply and yet carelessly.] Lamps!

PAULINE

That feller scares me. Lemme go!

MRS. JOHN

[Makes violently for BRUNO.] Is you goin' to go where you belongs? I told you I'd call you!

BRUNO

[In the same tone as before.] Well, Jette, I jus' said: Lamps!

MRS. JOHN

Are you crazy? What's the meanin' o' that—lamps?

BRUNO

Ain't that a ringin' o' the front bell?

MRS. JOHN

[Is frightened, listens and restrains PAULINE, who makes a motion to go.] Sh, Miss, wait! Just wait one little minute!

[BRUNO continues whittling as the two women stop to listen.

MRS. JOHN

[Softly and in a frightened tone to BRUNO.] I don't hear nothin'!

BRUNO

You ol' dried up piece! You better go an' get another pair o' ears!

MRS. JOHN

That'd be the first time in all the three months that the manager'd be comin' in when it's Sunday.

BRUNO

If that there theayter feller comes, he c'n engage me right on the spot.

MRS. JOHN

[Violently.] Don' talk rot!

BRUNO

[Grinning at PAULINE.] Maybe you don' believe it, Miss, but I went an' took the clown's hoss at Schumann's circus aroun' the ring three times. Them's the kind o' things I does. An' is I goin' to be scared?

PAULINE

[Seeming to notice for the first time the fantastic strangeness of the place in which she finds herself. Frightened and genuinely perturbed.] Mother o' God, what kind o' place is this?

MRS. JOHN

Whoever c'n that be?

BRUNO

'Tain't the manager, Jette! More like it's a spout what's drippin'!

MRS. JOHN

Miss, you be so kind an' go for two minutes, if you don' mind, up into this here loft. Maybe somebody's comin' that just wants some information.

In her growing terror PAULINE does as she is asked to do. She clambers up the stairs to the loft, the trap door being open. MRS. JOHN has taken up a position in which she can, at need, hide PAULINE from anyone entering the room. PAULINE disappears: MRS. JOHN and BRUNO remain alone.

BRUNO

What business has you with that pious mug?

MRS. JOHN

That ain't none o' your business, y'understan'?

BRUNO

I was just axin' 'cause you was so careful that nobody should see her. Otherwise I don't know's I gives a damn.

MRS. JOHN

An' you ain't supposed to!

BRUNO

Much obliged. Maybe I better toddle along, then.

MRS. JOHN

D'you know what you owes me, you scamp?

BRUNO

[Carelessly.] What are you gettin' excited for? What is I doin' to you? What d'you want? I gotta go to my gal now. I'm sleepy. Las' night I slept under a lot o' bushes in the park. An' anyhow, I'm cleaned out—[He turns his trowsers pockets inside out.] An' in consequence o' that I gotta go an' earn somethin'.

MRS. JOHN

Here you stays! Don't you dare move! If you do you c'n whine like a whipped purp an' you'll never be gettin' so much as a penny outa me no more—that's what you won't! Bruno, you're goin' ways you hadn't ought to.

BRUNO

Aw, what d'you think? Is I goin' to be a dam' fool? D'you think I ain' goin' when I gets a good livin' offa Hulda? [He pulls out a dirty card-case.] Not so much as a measly pawn ticket has I got. Tell me what you want an' then lemme go!

MRS. JOHN

What I wants? Of you? What're you good for anyhow? You ain't good for nothin' excep' for your sister who ain't right in her head to feel sorry for you, you loafer an' scamp!

BRUNO

Maybe you ain' right in your head sometimes!

MRS. JOHN

Our father, he used to say when you was no more'n five an' six years old an' used to do rowdy things, that we couldn't never be proud o' you an' that I might as well let you go hang. An' my husband what's a reel honest decent man ... why, you can't be seen alongside of a good man like him.

BRUNO

Sure, I knows all that there, Jette. But things ain' that easy to straighten out. I knows all right I was born with a kind o' a twist in my back, even if nobody don't see it. No, I wasn't born in no castle. Well, I gotta do what I c'n do with my twist. All right. What d'you want? 'Tain't for the rats you're keepin' me. You wanta hush up somethin' wi' that whore!

MRS. JOHN

[Shaking her hand under BRUNO'S nose.] You give away one word o' this an' I'll kill you, I'll make a corpse o' you!

BRUNO

Well now, looka here! I'm goin', y'understan'? [He mounts the stairs.] Maybe someday I'll be droppin' into good luck without knowin' it.

He disappears through the trap-door, MRS. JOHN hurriedly blows out the lamp and taps her way to the door of the library. She enters it but does—not wholly close the door behind her.—The noise that BRUNO actually heard was that of a key being turned in a rusty keyhole. A light step is now heard approaching the door. For a moment the street noises of Berlin as well as the yelling of children in the outer halls had been audible. Strains of a hurdy-gurdy from the yard.—WALBURGA HASSENREUTER enters with hesitating and embarrassed steps. The girl is not yet sixteen and is pretty and innocent of appearance. Sunshade, light-coloured summer dress, not coming below the ankle.

WALBURGA

[Halts, listens, then says nervously:] Papa!—Isn't any one up here yet? Papa! Papa! [She listens long and intently and then says:] Why, what an odour of coal oil there is here! [She finds matches, lights one, is about to light the lamp and burns her fingers against the hot chimney.] Ouch! Why, dear me! Who is here?

[She has cried out and is about to run away.

MRS. JOHN reappears.

MRS. JOHN

Well, Miss Walburga, who's goin' to go an' kick up a row like that! You c'n be reel quiet. 'Tain't nobody but me!

WALBURGA

Dear me, but I've had an awful fright, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

Well, then I advise you to be gettin' out o' here to-day—on Sunday?

WALBURGA

[Laying her hand over her heart.] Why, my heart is almost standing still yet, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

What's the matter, Miss Walburga? What's frightenin' you? You oughta know that from your pa that Sunday an' week day I gotta be workin' aroun' here with them boxes an' cases, dustin' an' tryin' to get rid o' the moths! An' then, after two or three weeks, when I've gone over the twelve or eighteen hundred theayter rags that're lyin' here—then I gotta start all over again.

WALBURGA

I was frightened because the chimney of the lamp was still quite hot to the touch.

MRS. JOHN

That's right. That there lamp was burnin' 'an' I put it out jus' a minute ago. [She lifts up the chimney.] It don't burn me; my hands is hard. [She lights the wick.] Well, now we has light. Now I lit it again. What's the danger here? I don' see nothin'.

WALBURGA

But you do look like a ghost, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

How do you say I looks?

WALBURGA

Oh, it just seems so when one comes out of the vivid sunlight into the darkness, into these musty holes. It seems as though one were surrounded by ghosts.

MRS. JOHN

Well, you little ghost, why did you come up here? Is you alone or has you got somebody with you? Maybe papa'll be comin' in yet?

WALBURGA

No, papa has been granted an important audience out in Potsdam to-day.

MRS. JOHN

All right! What're you lookin' for here then?

WALBURGA

I? Oh, I just came out for a walk!

MRS. JOHN

Well, then I advise you to be gettin out o' here again. No sun don't shine into your papa's lumber-room.

WALBURGA

You look so grey! You had better go out into the sunlight yourself!

MRS. JOHN

Oh, the sunlight's just for fine folks! All I needs is a couple o' pounds o' dust an' dirt on my lungs.—You just go along, missie! I gotta get to work. I don' need nothin' else. I jus' lives on mildew an' insec'-powder.

[She coughs.

WALBURGA

[Nervously.] You needn't tell papa that I was up here.

MRS. JOHN

Me? Ain't I got somethin' better to do'n that?

WALBURGA

[With assumed carelessness.] And if Mr. Spitta were to ask after me....

MRS. JOHN

Who?

WALBURGA

The young gentleman who gives us private lessons at home....

MRS. JOHN

Well, s'posin'?

WALBURGA

Then be so kind as to tell him that I've been here but left again at once.

MRS. JOHN

So I'm to tell Mr. Spitta but not papa?

WALBURGA

[Involuntarily.] Oh, for heaven's sake, no!

MRS. JOHN

Well, you jus' wait an' see! You jus' look out! There's many a one has looked like you an' has come from your part o' the city an'—has gone to the dogs in the ditch in Dragoner street or, even, behind Swedish hangin's in Barnim street.

WALBURGA

Surely you don't mean to insinuate, Mrs. John, and surely you don't believe that there's anything unpermitted or improper in my relations with Mr. Spitta?

MRS. JOHN

[In extreme fright.] Shut up!—Somebody's put the key into the keyhole.

WALBURGA

Blow out the lamp!

[MRS. JOHN blows out the lamp quickly.

WALBURGA

Papa!

MRS. JOHN

Miss! Up into the loft with you!

MRS. JOHN and WALBURGA both disappear through the trap-door, which closes behind them.

_Two gentlemen, the manager HARRO HASSENREUTER and the court actor NATHANAEL JETTEL, appear in the frame of the outer door. The manager is of middle height, clean shaven, fifty years old. He takes long steps and shows a lively temperament in his whole demeanour. The cut of his face is noble, his eyes have a vivid, adventurous expression. His behaviour is somewhat noisy, which accords with his thoroughly fiery nature. He wears a light overcoat, a top-hat thrust back on his head, full dress suit and patent leather boots. The overcoat, which is unbuttoned, reveals the decorations which almost cover his chest—JETTEL wears a suit of flannels under a very light spring overcoat. In his left hand he holds a straw hat and an elegant cane; he wears tan shoes. He also is clean shaven and over fifty years old.

HASSENREUTER

[Calls:] John! Mrs. John!—Well, now you see my catacombs, my dear fellow! Sic transit gloria mundi! Here I've stored everything—mutatis mutandis—that was left of my whole theatrical glory—trash, trash! Old rags! Old tatters!—John! John! She's been here, for the lamp chimney is still quite hot! [He strikes a match and lights the lamp.] Fiat lux, pereat mundus! Now you can get a good view of my paradise of moths and rats and fleas!

JETTEL

You received my card, didn't you, my dear manager?

HASSENREUTER

Mrs. John!—I'll see if she is in the loft up there. [He mounts the stairs and rattles at the trap-door.] Locked! And of course the wretched creature has the key tied to her apron. [He beats enragedly against the trap-door with his fist.] John! John!

JETTEL

[Somewhat impatient.] Can't we manage without this Mrs. John?

HASSENREUTER

What? Do you think that I, in my dress suit and with all my decorations, just back from His Highness, can go through my three hundred boxes and cases just to rout out the wretched rags that you are pleased to need for your engagement here?

JETTEL

I beg your pardon. But I'm not wont to appear in rags on my tours.

HASSENREUTER

Man alive, then play in your drawers for all I care! It wouldn't worry me! Only don't quite forget who's standing before you. Because the court actor Jettel is pleased to emit a whistle—well, that's no reason why the manager Harro Hassenreuter should begin to dance. Confound it, because some comedian wants a shabby turban or two old boots, is that any reason why a pater familias like myself must give up his only spare time at home on Sunday afternoon? I suppose you expect me to creep about on all fours into the corners here? No, my good fellow, for that kind of thing you'll have to look elsewhere!

JETTEL

[Quite calmly.] Would you mind telling me, if possible, who has been treading on your corns?

HASSENREUTER

My boy, it's scarcely an hour since I had my legs under the same table with a prince; post hoc, ergo propter hoc!—On your account I got into a confounded bus and drove out to this, confounded bole, and so ... if you don't know how to value my kindness, you can get out!

JETTEL

You made an appointment with use for four o'clock. Then you let me wait one solid hour in this horrible tenement, in these lovely halls with their filthy brats! Well, I waited and didn't address the slightest reproach to you. And now you have the good taste and the good manners to use me as a kind of a cuspidor!

HASSENREUTER

My boy ...

JETTEL

The devil! I'm not your boy! You seem to be kind of a clown that I ought to force to turn sommersaults for pennies!

[Highly indignant, he picks up his hat and cane and goes.

HASSENREUTER

[Starts, breaks out into boisterous laughter and then calls out after JETTEL:] Don't make yourself ridiculous! And, anyhow, I'm not a costumer!

The slamming of the outer door is heard.

HASSENREUTER

[Pulls out his watch.] The confounded idiot! The damned mutton head.—It's a blessing the ridiculous ass went! [He puts the match back into his pocket, pulls it out again at once and listens. He walks restlessly to and fro, then stops, gases into his top-hat, which contains a mirror, and combs his hair carefully. He walks over to the middle door and opens a few of the letters that lie heaped up there. At the same time he sings in a trilling voice:

"O Strassburg, O Strassburg, Thou beautiful old town."

Once more he looks at his watch. Suddenly the doorbell at his head rings.] On the minute! Ah, but these little girls can be punctual when they really care about it! [He hurries out into the hall and is heard to extend a loud and merry welcome to someone. The trumpet notes of his voice are soon accompanied by the bell-like tones of a woman's speaking. Very soon he reappears, at his side an elegant young lady, ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH.]—Alice! My little Alice! Come here where I can see you, little girl! Come here into the light! I must see whether you're the same infinitely delightful, mad little Alice that you were in the great days of my career in Alsace? Girl, it was I who taught you to walk! I held your leading strings for your first steps. I taught you how to talk, girl! The things you said! I hope you haven't forgotten!

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

Now, look here! You don't believe that I'm an ungrateful girl?

HASSENREUTER

[Draws up her veil.] Why, girlie, you've grown younger instead of older.

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

[Flushed with delight.] Well, a person would just have to be like everything to say that you had changed to your disadvantage! But, do you know—it's awful dark up here really and—Harro, maybe you wouldn't mind opening a window a little—oh, the air's a bit heavy, too,

HASSENREUTER

"Pillicock sat on Pillicock-hill" "But mice and rats and such small deer Have been Tom's food for seven long year."

In all seriousness I have passed through dark and difficult times! In spite of the fact that I preferred not to write you of it, I have no doubt that you are informed.

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

But it wasn't extra friendly, you know, for you not to answer one little word to the long, nice letter I wrote you.

HASSENREUTER

Ha, ha, ha! What's the use of answering a little girl's letter if one has both hands full taking care of oneself and can't possibly be of the slightest use to her? Pshaw! E nihilo nihil fit! In the vernacular: You can't get results out of nothing! Moth and dust! Dust and moths! And that's all my efforts for German culture in the west profited me!

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

So you didn't turn over your collection of properties to manager Kunz.

HASSENREUTER

"O Strassburg, O Strassburg, Thou beautiful old town!"

No, little one, I didn't leave my properties in Strassburg! This ex-waiter, ex-innkeeper and lessee of disreputable dance halls, this idiot, this imbecile who succeeded me, didn't happen to want my stuff. No, I didn't leave my collection of properties there, but what I did have to leave there was forty thousand crowns of hard-earned money left me from my old touring days as an actor, and, in addition, fifty thousand crowns which formed the dowry of my excellent wife. However, it was a piece of good luck, after all, that I kept the properties. Ha, ha, ha! These fellows here ... [he touches one of the mailed figures] ... surely you remember them?

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

Could I forget my pasteboard knights?

HASSENREUTER

Very well, then: it was these pasteboard knights and all the other trash that surrounds them, that actually, after his hegira, kept the old rag-picker and costumer, Harro Eberhard Hassenreuter, above water. But let's speak of cheerful things: I saw with pleasure in the paper that his Excellency has engaged you for Berlin.

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

I don't care a great deal about it! I'd rather play for you, and you must promise me, whenever you undertake the management of a theatre again—you will promise, won't you?—that you'll let me break my contract right away? [The MANAGER laughs heartily.] I had to be annoyed quite enough for three long years by the barn-stormers of the provinces. Berlin I don't like, and a court theatre least of all. Lord, what people and what a profession it is! You know I belong to your collection—I've always belonged to it!

[She stands up primly among the pasteboard knights.

HASSENREUTER

Ha, ha, ha, ha! Well then, come to my arms, faithful knight!

[He opens his arms wide, she flies into them, and they now salute each other with long, continuous kisses.

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

Go on, Harro. Now tell me. How is your wife?

HASSENREUTER

Teresa gets along very well except that she gets fatter every day in spite of sorrow and worries.—Girl, girl, how fragrant you are! [He presses her to him.] Do you know that you're a devilish dangerous person?

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

D'you think I'm an idiot? Of course I'm dangerous!

HASSENREUTER

Well, I'll be ...!

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

Why, do you think if I didn't know it was dangerous, dangerous for us both, I'd make an appointment with you out here in this lovely neighbourhood, under this stuffy roof? By the way, though, since I'm always bound to have the queerest luck if ever I do go a bit on questionable ways, whom should I meet on the stairs but Nathanael Jettel? I almost ran into the gentleman's arms! He'll take good care that my visiting you doesn't remain our secret.

HASSENREUTER

I must have made a mistake in writing down the date. The fellow insists on asserting—ha, ha, ha!—that I made an engagement with him for this very afternoon.

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

And that wasn't the only person I met on the six flights. And as for the dear little children that roll about on the stairs here! What they called out after me was unparliamentary to a degree—such vulgarities as I've never heard from such little beggars in my life.

HASSENREUTER

[Laughs, then speaks seriously.] Ah, yes! But one gets accustomed to that. You could never write down all the life that sweeps down these stairs with its soiled petticoats—the life that cringes and creeps, moans, sighs, sweats, cries out, curses, mutters, hammers, planes, jeers, steals, drives its dark trades up and down these stairs—the sinister creatures that hide here, playing their zither, grinding their accordions, sticking in need and hunger and misery, leading their vicious lives—no, it's beyond one's power of recording. And your old manager, last but not least, runs, groans, sighs, sweats, cries out and curses with the best of them. Ha, ha, ha, girlie! I've had a pretty wretched time.

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

Oh, by the way, d'you know whom I ran into just as I was making for the railroad station at the Zoological Garden? The good old Prince Statthalter! And straight off, cool as a cucumber—that's my way you know—I tripped along next to him for twenty minutes and got him absorbed in a conversation. And then something happened, Harro, upon my honour, just as I'm going to tell you—literally and truly: Suddenly on the bridle-path His Majesty came riding along with a great suite. I thought I'd sink into the earth with embarrassment. And His Majesty laughed right out and threatened his Serenity playfully with his finger. But I was delighted, you may believe me. The main thing comes now, however. Just think! His Serenity asked me whether I'd be glad to go back to Strassburg if the manager Hassenreuter were to assume direction of the theatre there again. Well, you may know that I almost jumped for joy!

HASSENREUTER

[Throws off his overcoat and stands with his decorations displayed.] You probably couldn't help noticing that His Serenity had had a most excellent breakfast. Aha! We had breakfast together! We attended an exquisite little stag party given by Prince Ruprecht out in Potsdam. I don't deny, therefore, that a turn for good may take place in the miserable fate of your friend.

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

Sweetheart, you look like a statesman, like an ambassador!

HASSENREUTER

Ah, don't you know this breast covered with high and exalted decorations? Klaerchen and Egmont! Here you can drink your fill! [They embrace each other anew.] Carpe diem! Enjoy the passing hour! Ah, my little Miss Simplicity, champagne is not recorded at present on the repertory of your old manager, inspirer and friend. [He opens a wooden case and draws forth a bottle of wine.] But this old cloister vintage isn't to be sneezed at either! [He pulls the cork. At the same moment the door bell rings.] What? Sh! I wonder who has the monstrous impudence to ring here on Sunday afternoon? [The bell rings with increased violence.] Confound it all—the fellow must be a lunatic. Little girl, suppose you withdraw into the library. [ALICE hurries into the library. The ringing is repeated. He hurries to the door.] Either be patient or go to the devil. [He is heard opening the door.] Who? What? "It is I, Miss Walburga." What? I am not Miss Walburga. I am not the daughter. I am the father. Oh, it's you, Mr. Spitta! Your very humble servant. I'm only her father—only her father! What is it that you want?

HASSENREUTER reappears in the passage accompanied by ERICH SPITTA, a young man of twenty-one, spectacled, with keen and not undistinguished features, SPITTA passes as a student of theology and is correspondingly dressed. He does not hold himself erect and his development shows the influence of over-study and underfeeding.

HASSENREUTER

Did you intend to give my daughter one of your private lessons here in my storeroom?

SPITTA

I was riding past on the tram-car and I really thought I had seen Miss Walburga hurry into the doorway downstairs.

HASSENREUTER

No possibility of such a thing, my dear Spitta. At this moment my daughter Walburga is attending a ritualistic service with her mother in the Anglican church.

SPITTA

Then perhaps you'll forgive my intrusion. I took the liberty of coming upstairs because I thought that Miss Walburga might not find it unpleasant or useless to have an escort home through this neighbourhood.

HASSENREUTER

Very good! Very excellent! But she isn't here. I regret it. I'm here myself by the merest chance—on account of the mail. And in addition, I have other pressing engagements. Can I do anything else for you?

SPITTA polishes his glasses and betrays signs of embarrassment.

SPITTA

One doesn't grow used to the darkness at once.

HASSENREUTER

Perhaps you stand in need of the tuition due you. Sorry, but unfortunately I have the habit of going out with only some small change in my waistcoat pocket. So I must ask you to have patience until I am at home again.

SPITTA

Not the least hurry in the world.

HASSENREUTER

Yes, it's easy for you to say that. I'm like a hunted animal, my dear fellow ...

SPITTA

And yet I would like to beg for a minute of your precious time. I can't but look upon this unexpected meeting as a kind of providential arrangement. In short: may I put a question to you?

HASSENREUTER

[With his eyes on his watch, which he has just been winding.] One minute exactly. By the watch, my good fellow!

SPITTA

Both my question and your answer need hardly take that long.

HASSENREUTER

Well, then!

SPITTA

Have I any talent for the stage?

HASSENREUTER

For the love of God, man! Have you gone mad?—Forgive me, my dear fellow, if a case like this excites me to the point of being discourteous. You have certainly given the lie to the saying: natura non facit saltus by the unnatural leap that you've taken. I must first get my breath after that! And now let's put an end to this at once. Believe me, if we were both to discuss the question now we wouldn't come to any conclusion in two or three weeks, or rather, let us say years.—You are a theologian by profession, my good fellow, and you were born in a parsonage. You have all the necessary connections and a smooth road to a comfortable way of life ahead of you. How did you hit upon such a notion as this?

SPITTA

That's a long story of the inner life, Mr. Hassenreuter, of difficult spiritual struggles—a story which, until this moment, has been an absolute secret and known only to myself. But my good fortune led me into your house and from that moment on I felt that I was drawing nearer and nearer to the true aim of my life.

HASSENREUTER

[Wildly impatient.] That's very creditable to me; that does honour to my family and myself! [He puts his hands on SPITTA'S shoulders.] And yet I must make it in the form of an urgent request that, at this moment, you refrain from a further discussion of the question. My affairs cannot wait.

SPITTA

Then I will only add the expression of my absolutely firm decision.

HASSENREUTER

But, my dear Spitta, who has put these mad notions into year head? I've taken real pleasure in the thought of you. I've really been quietly envying you the peaceful personage that was to be yours. I've attached no special significance to certain literary ambitions that one is likely to pick up in the metropolis. That's a mere phase, I thought, and will be quite passing in his case! And now you want to become an actor? God help you, were I your father! I'd lock you up on bread and water and not let you out again until the very memory of this folly was gone. Dixi! And now, good-bye, my dear man.

SPITTA

I'm afraid that locking me op or resorting to force of any kind would not help in my case at all.

HASSENREUTER

But, man alive, you want to become an actor—you, with your round shoulders, with your spectacles and, above all, with your hoarse and sharp voice. It's impossible.

SPITTA

If such fellows as I exist in real life, why shouldn't they exist on the stage too? And I am of the opinion that a smooth, well-sounding voice, probably combined with the Goethe-Schiller-Weimar school of idealistic artifice, is harmful rather than helpful. The only question is whether you would take me, just as I am, as a pupil?

HASSENREUTER

[Hastily draws on his overcoat.] I would not. In the first place my school of acting is only one of the schools of idealistic artifice which you mention. In the second place I wouldn't be responsible to your father for such an action. And in the third place, we quarrel enough as it is—every time you stay to supper at my house after giving your lessons. If you were my pupil, we'd come to blows. And now, Spitta, I must catch the car.

SPITTA

My father is already informed. In a letter of twelve pages, I have given him a full history of the change that has taken place within me....

HASSENREUTER

I'm sure the old gentleman will feel flattered! And now come along with me or I'll go insane!

HASSENREUTER forcibly takes SPITTA out with him. The door is heard to slam. The room grows silent but for the uninterrupted roar of Berlin, which can now be clearly heard. The trap-door to the loft is now opened and WALBURGA HASSENREUTER clambers down in mad haste, followed by MRS. JOHN.

MRS. JOHN

[Whispering vehemently.] What's the matter? Nothin' ain't happened.

WALBURGA

Mrs. John, I'll scream! I'll have to scream in another second! Oh, for heaven's sake, I can't help it much longer, Mrs. John!

MRS. JOHN

Stuff a handkerchief between your teeth! There ain't nothin'! Why d'you take on so?

WALBURGA

[With chattering teeth, making every effort to suppress her sobs.] I'm frightened! Oh, I'm frightened to death, Mrs. John!

MRS. JOHN

I'd like to know what you're so scared about!

WALBURGA

Why, didn't you see that horrible man?

MRS. JOHN

That ain't nothin' so horrible. That's my brother what sometimes helps me clean up your pa's things here.

WALBURGA

And that girl who sits with her back to the chimney and whines?

MRS. JOHN

Well, your mother didn't act no different when you was expected to come into the world.

WALBURGA

Oh, it's all over with me. I'll die if papa comes back.

MRS. JOHN

Well then hurry and get out an' don' fool roun' no more!

[MRS. JOHN accompanies the horrified girl along the passage, lets her out, and then returns.

MRS. JOHN

Thank God, that girl don' know but what the moon is made o' cheese!

[She takes the uncorked bottle, pours out a glass full of wine and takes it with her to the loft into which she disappears.

The room is scarcely empty when HASSENREUTER returns.

HASSENREUTER

[Still in the door. Singing.] "Come on down, O Madonna Teresa!" [He calls:] Alice! [Still in the door.] Come on! Help me put up my iron bar with a double lock before the door, Alice! [He comes forward.] Any one else who dares to interrupt our Sunday quiet—anathema sit! Here! You imp! Where are you, Alice? [He observes the bottle and lifts it against the light.] What? Half empty! The little scamp! [From behind the door of the library a pleasant woman's voice is heard singing coloratura passages.] Ha, ha, ha, ha! Heavens and earth! She's tipsy already.



THE SECOND ACT

MRS. JOHN'S rooms on the second floor of the same house in the attics of which HASSENREUTER has stored his properties. A high, deep, green-tinted room which betrays its original use as part of a barracks. The rear wall shows a double door which gives on the outer hall. Above this door there hangs a bell connected by a wire with the knob outside. To the right of the door a partition, covered with wall-paper, projects into the room. This partition takes a rectangular turn and extends to the right wall. A portion of the room is thus partitioned off and serves as sleeping-chamber. From within the partition, which is about six feet high, cupboards are seen against the wall.

Entering the room from the hall, one observes to the left a sofa covered with oil-cloth. The back of the sofa is pushed against the partition wall. The latter is adorned with small photographs: the foreman-mason JOHN as a soldier, JOHN and his wife in their wedding garb, etc. An oval table, covered with a faded cotton cloth, stands before the sofa. In order to reach the entrance of the sleeping-chamber from the door it is necessary to pass the table and sofa. This entrance is closed by hangings of blue cotton cloth. Against the narrow front wall of the partition stands a neatly equipped kitchen cabinet. To the right, against the wall of the main room, the stove. This corner of the room serves the—purposes of kitchen and pantry. Sitting on the sofa, one would look straight at the left wall of the room, which is broken by two large windows. A neatly planed board has been fastened to the nearer of the windows to serve as a kind of desk. Upon it are lying blue-prints, counter-drawings, an inch-measure, a compass and a square. A small, raised platform is seen beneath the farther window. Upon it stands a small table with glasses. An old easy chair of cane and a number of simple wooden chairs complete the frugal equipment of the room, which creates an impression of neatness and orderliness such as is often found in the dwellings of childless couples.

It is about five o'clock of an afternoon toward the end of May. The warm sunlight shines through the windows.

The foreman-mason JOHN, a good-natured, bearded man of forty, sits at the desk in the foreground taking notes from the building plans.

MRS. JOHN sits sewing on the small platform, by the farther window. She is very pale. There is something gentle and pain-touched about her, but her face shows an expression of deep contentment, which is broken only now and then by a momentary gleam of restlessness and suspense. A neat new perambulator stands by her side. In it lies a newborn child.

JOHN

[Modestly.] Mother, how'd it be if I was to open the window jus' a speck an' was to light my pipe for a bit?

MRS. JOHN

Does you have to smoke? If not, you better let it be!

JOHN

No, I don't has to, mother. Only I'd like to! Never mind, though. A quid'll be just as good in the end.

[With comfortable circumstantiality he prepares a new quid.

MRS. JOHN

[After a brief silence.] How's that? You has to go to the public registry office again?

JOHN

That's what he told me, that I had to come back again an' tell him exackly ... that I had to give the exack place an' time when that little kid was born.

MRS. JOHN

[Holding a needle in her mouth.] Well, why didn't you tell him that right away?

JOHN

How was I to know it? I didn't know, you see.

MRS. JOHN

You didn't know that?

JOHN

Well, I wasn't here, was I?

MRS. JOHN

You wasn't. That's right. If you goes an' leaves me here in Berlin an' stays from one year's end to another in Hamburg, an' at most comes to see me once a month—how is you to know what happens in your own home?

JOHN

Don't you want me to go where the boss has most work for me? I goes where I c'n make good money.

MRS. JOHN

I wrote you in my letter as how our little boy was born in this here room.

JOHN

I knows that an' I told him that. Ain't that natural, I axes him, that the child was born in our room? An' he says that ain't natural at all. Well then, says I, for all I cares, maybe it was up in the loft with the rats an' mice! I got mad like 'cause he said maybe the child wasn't born here at all. Then he yells at me: What kind o' talk is that? What? says I. I takes an interest in wages an' earnin' an' not in talk—not me, Mr. Registrar! An' now I'm to give him the exack day an' hour ...

MRS. JOHN

An' didn't I write it all out for you on a bit o' paper?

JOHN

When a man's mad he's forgetful. I believe if he'd up and axed me: Is you Paul John, foreman-mason? I'd ha' answered: I don' know. Well an' then I'd been a bit jolly too an' taken a drink or two with Fritz. An' while we was doin' that who comes along but Schubert an' Karl an' they says as how I has to set up on account o' bein' a father now. Those fellers, they didn't let me go an' they was waitin' downstairs in front o' the public registry. An' so I kept thinkin' o' them standin' there. So when he axes me on what day my wife was delivered, I didn't know nothin' an' just laughed right in his face.

MRS. JOHN

I wish you'd first attended to what you had to an' left your drinkin' till later.

JOHN

It's easy to say that! But if you're up to them kind o' tricks in your old age, mother, you can't blame me for bein' reel glad.

MRS. JOHN

All right. You go on to the registry now an' say that your child was borne by your wife in your dwellin' on the twenty-fifth o' May.

JOHN

Wasn't it on the twenty-sixth? 'Cause I said right along the twenty-sixth. Then he must ha' noticed that I wasn't quite sober. So he says: If that's a fac', all right; if not, you gotta come back.

MRS. JOHN

In that case you'd better leave it as it is.

The door is opened and SELMA KNOBBE pushes in a wretched perambulator which presents the saddest contrast to MRS. JOHN'S. Swaddled in pitiful rags a newly born child lies therein.

MRS. JOHN

Oh, no, Selma, comin' into my room with that there sick child—that was all right before. But that can't be done no more.

SELMA

He just gasps with that cough o' his'n. Over at our place they smokes all the time.

MRS. JOHN

I told you, Selma, that you could come from time to time and get milk or bread. But while my little Adelbert is here an' c'n catch maybe consumption or somethin', you just leave that poor little thing at home with his fine mother.

SELMA

[Tearfully.] Mother ain't been home at all yesterday or to-day. I can't get no sleep with this child. He just moans all night. I gotta get some sleep sometime! I'll jump outa the window first thing or I'll let the baby lie in the middle o' the street an' run away so no policeman can't never find me!

JOHN

[Looks at the strange child.] Looks bad! Mother, why don't you try an' do somethin' for the little beggar?

MRS. JOHN

[Pushing SELMA and the perambulator out determinedly.] March outa this room. That can't be done, Paul. When you got your own you can't be lookin' out for other people's brats. That Knobbe woman c'n look after her own affairs. It's different with Selma. [To the girl.] You c'n come in when you want to. You c'n come in here after a while an' take a nap even.

[She locks the door.

JOHN

You used to take a good deal o' interest in Knobbe's dirty little brats.

MRS. JOHN

You don' understan' that. I don' want our little Adelbert to be catchin' sore eyes or convulsions or somethin' like that.

JOHN

Maybe you're right. Only, don't go an' call him Adelbert, mother. That ain't a good thing to do, to call a child by the same name as one that was carried off, unbaptised, a week after it was born. Let that be, mother. I can't stand for that, mother,

A knocking is heard at the door. JOHN is about to open.

MRS. JOHN

What's that?

JOHN

Well, somebody wants to get in!

MRS. JOHN

[Hastily turning the key in the lock.] I ain't goin' to have everybody runnin' in on me now that I'm sick as this. [She listens at the door and then calls out:] I can't open! What d'you want?

A WOMAN'S VOICE

[Somewhat deep and mannish in tone.] It is Mrs. Hassenreuter.

MRS. JOHN

[Surprised.] Goodness gracious! [She opens the door.] I beg your pardon, Mrs. Hassenreuter! I didn't even know who it was!

MRS. HASSENREUTER has now entered, followed by WALBURGA. She is a colossal, asthmatic lady aver fifty. WALBURGA is dressed with greater simplicity than in the first act. She carries a rather large package.

MRS. HASSENREUTER

How do you do, Mrs. John? Although climbing stairs is ... very hard for me ... I wanted to see how everything ... goes with you after the ... yes, the very happy event.

MRS. JOHN

I'm gettin' along again kind o' half way.

MRS. HASSENREUTER

That is probably your husband, Mrs. John? Well, one must say, one is bound to say, that your dear wife, in the long time of waiting—never complained, was always cheery and merry, and did her work well for my husband upstairs.

JOHN

That's right. She was mighty glad, too.

MRS. HASSENREUTER

Well, then we'll have the pleasure—at least, your wife will have the pleasure of seeing you at home oftener than heretofore.

MRS. JOHN

I has a good husband, Mrs. Hassenreuter, who takes care o' me an' has good habits. An' because Paul was workin' out o town you musn't think there was any danger o' his leavin' me. But a man like that, where his brother has a boy o' twelve in the non-commissioned officers' school ... it's no kind o' life for him havin' no children o' his own. He gets to thinkin' queer thoughts. There he is in Hamburg, makin' good money, an' he has the chance every day and—well—then he takes a notion, maybe, he'd like to go to America.

JOHN

Oh, that was never more'n a thought.

MRS. JOHN

Well, you see, with us poor people ... it's hard-earned bread that we eats ... an' yet ... [lightly she runs her hand through JOHN'S hair] even if there's one more an' you has more cares on that account—you see how the tears is runnin' down his cheeks—well, he's mighty happy anyhow!

JOHN

That's because three years ago we had a little feller an' when he was a week old he took sick an' died.

MRS. HASSENREUTER

My husband has already ... yes, my husband did tell me about that ... how deeply you grieved over that little son of yours. You know how it is ... you know how my good husband has his eyes and his heart open to everything. And if it's a question of people who are about him or who give him their services—then everything good or bad, yes, everything good or bad that happens to them, seems just as though it had happened to himself.

MRS. JOHN

I mind as if it was this day how he sat in the carridge that time with the little child's coffin on his knees. He wouldn't let the gravedigger so much as touch it.

JOHN

[Wiping the moisture out of his eyes.] That's the way it was. No. I couldn't let him do that.

MRS. HASSENREUTER

Just think, to-day at the dinner-table we had to drink wine—suddenly, to drink wine! Wine! For years and years the city-water in decanters has been our only table drink ... absolutely the only one. Dear children, said my husband.—You know that he had just returned from an eleven or twelve day trip to Alsace. Let us drink, my husband said, the health of my good and faithful Mrs. John, because ... he cried out in his beautiful voice ... because she is a visible proof of the fact that the cry of a mother heart is not indifferent to our Lord.—And so we drank your health, clinking our glasses! Well, and here I'm bringing you at my husband's special ... at his very special and particular order ... an apparatus for the sterilisation of milk.—Walburga, you may unpack the boiler.

HASSENREUTER enters unceremoniously through the outer door which has stood ajar. He wears a top-hat, spring overcoat, carries a silver-headed cane, in a word, is gotten up in his somewhat shabby meek-day outfit. He speaks hastily and almost without pauses.

HASSENREUTER

[Wiping the sweat from his forehead.] Berlin is hot, ladies and gentlemen, hot! And the cholera is as near as St. Petersburg! Now you've complained to my pupils, Spitta and Kaeferstein, Mrs. John, that your little one doesn't seem to gain in weight. Now, of course, it's one of the symptoms of the general decadence of our age that the majority of mothers are either—unwilling to nurse their offspring or incapable of it. But you've already lost one child on account of diarrhoea, Mrs. John. No, there's no help for it: we must call a spade a spade. And so, in order that you do not meet with the same misfortune over again, or fall into the hands of old women whose advice is usually quite deadly for an infant—in order that these things may not happen, I say, I have caused my wife to bring you this apparatus. I've brought up all my—children, Walburga included, by the help of such an apparatus ...Aha! So one gets a glimpse of you again, Mr. John! Bravo! The emperor needs soldiers, and you needed a representative of your race! So I congratulate you with all my heart.

[He shakes JOHN'S hand vigorously.

MRS. HASSENREUTER

[Leaning over the infant.] How much ... how much did he weigh at birth?

MRS. JOHN

He weighed exactly eight pounds and ten grams.

HASSENREUTER

[With noisy joviality.] Ha, ha, ha! A vigorous product, I must say! Eight pounds and ten grams of good healthy, German national flesh!

MRS. HASSENREUTER

Look at his eyes! And his little nose! His father over again! Why, the little fellow is really, really, the very image of you, Mr. John.

HASSENREUTER

I trust that you will have the boy received into the communion of the Christian Church.

MRS. JOHN

[With happy impressiveness.] Oh, he'll be christened properly, right in the parochial church at the font by a clergyman.

HASSENREUTER

Right! And what are his baptismal names to be?

MRS. JOHN

Well, you know the way men is. That's caused a lot o' talk. I was thinkin' o' "Bruno," but he won't have it!

HASSENREUTER

Surely Bruno isn't a bad name.

JOHN

That may be. I ain't sayin' but what Bruno is a good enough name. I don't want to give no opinion about that.

MRS. JOHN

Why don't you say as how I has a brother what's twelve years younger'n me an' what don't always do just right? But that's only 'cause there's so much temptation. That boy's a good boy. Only you won't believe it.

JOHN

[Turns red with sudden rage.] Jette ... you know what a cross that feller was to us! What d'you want? You want our little feller to be the namesake of a man what's—I can't help sayin' it—what's under police soopervision?

HASSENREUTER

Then, for heaven's sake, get him some other patron saint.

JOHN

Lord protect me from sich! I tried to take an interest in Bruno! I got him a job in a machine-shop an' didn't get nothin' outa it but annoyance an' disgrace! God forbid that he should come aroun' an' have anythin' to do with this little feller o' mine. [He clenches his fist.] If that was to happen, Jette, I wouldn't be responsible for myself!!

MRS. JOHN

You needn't go on, Paul! Bruno ain't comin'. But I c'n tell you this much for certain, that my brother was good an' helpful to me in this hard time.

JOHN

Why didn't you send for me?

MRS. JOHN

I didn't want no man aroun' that was scared.

HASSENREUTER

Aren't you an admirer of Bismarck, John?

JOHN

[Scratching the back of his head.] I can't say as to that exackly. My brothers in the masons' union, though, they ain't admirers o' him.

HASSENREUTER

Then you have no German hearts in your bodies! Otto is what I called my eldest son who is in the imperial navy! And believe me [pointing to the infant] this coming generation will well know what it owes to that mighty hero, the great forger of German unity! [He takes the tin boiler of the apparatus which WALBURGA has unpacked into his hands and lifts it high up.] Now then: the whole business of this apparatus is mere child's play. This frame which holds all the bottles—each bottle to be filled two-thirds with water and one-third with milk—is sunk into the boiler which is filled with boiling water. By keeping the water at the boiling-point for an hour and a half in this manner, the content—of the bottles becomes free of germs. Chemists call this process sterilisation.

JOHN

Jette, at the master-mason's house, the milk that's fed to the twins is sterilised too.

The pupils of HASSENREUTER, KAeFERSTEIN and DR. KEGEL, two young men between twenty and twenty-five years of age, have knocked at the door and then opened it.

HASSENREUTER

[Noticing his pupils.] Patience, gentlemen. I'll be with you directly. At the moment I am busying myself with the problems of the nourishment of infants and the care of children.

KAeFERSTEIN

[His head bears witness to a sharply defined character: large nose, pale, a serious expression, beardless, about the mouth a flicker of kindly mischievousness. With hollow voice, gentle and suppressed.] You must know that we are the three kings out of the East.

HASSENREUTER

[Who still holds the apparatus aloft in his hands.] What are you?

KAeFERSTEIN

[As before.] We want to adore the babe.

HASSENREUTER

Ha, ha, ha, ha! If you are the kings out of the East, gentlemen, it seems to me that the third of you is lacking.

KAeFERSTEIN

The third is our new fellow pupil in the field of dramaturgic activity, the studiosus theologiae, who is detained at present at the corner of Blumen and Wallnertheater streets by an accident partly sociological, partly psychological in its nature.

DR. KEGEL

We made all possible haste to escape.

HASSENREUTER

Do you see, a star stands above this house, Mrs. John! But do tell me, has our excellent Spitta once more made some public application of his quackery for the healing of the so-called sins of the social order? Ha, ha, ha, ha! Semper idem! Why, that fellow is actually becoming a nuisance!

KAeFERSTEIN

A crowd gathered in the street for some reason and it seems that he discovered a friend in the midst of it.

HASSENREUTER

According to my unauthoritative opinion this young Spitta would have done much better as a surgeon's assistant or Salvation Army officer. But that's the way of the world: the fellow must needs want to be an actor.

MRS. HASSENREUTER

Mr. Spitta, the children's tutor, wants to become an actor?

HASSENREUTER

That is exactly the plan he has proposed to me, mama.—But now, if you bring incense and myrrh, dear Kaeferstein, out with them! You observe what a many sided man your teacher is. Now I help my pupils, thirsty after the contents of the Muses' breasts, to the nourishment they desire—nutrimentum spiritus—again I....

KAeFERSTEIN

[Rattles a toy bank.] Well, I deposit this offering, which is a fire-proof bank, next to the perambulator of this excellent offspring of the mason, with the wish that he will rise to be at least a royal architect.

JOHN

[Having put cordial glasses on the table, he fetches and opens a fresh bottle.] Well, now I'm goin' to uncork the Danziger Goldwasser.

HASSENREUTER

To him who hath shall be given, as you observe, Mrs. John.

JOHN

[Filling the glasses.] Nobody ain't goin' to say that my child's unprovided for, gentlemen. But I takes it very kindly o' you, gentlemen! [All except MRS. HASSENREUTER and WALBURGA lift up their glasses.] To you health! Come on, mother, we'll drink together too.

[The action follows the words.

HASSENREUTER

[In a tone of reproof.] Mama, you must, of course, drink with us.

JOHN

[Having drunk, with jolly expansiveness.] I ain't goin' to Hamburg no more now. The boss c'n send some other feller there. I been quarrelin' with him about that these three days. I gotta take up my hat right now an' go there; he axed me to come roun' to his office again at six. If he don' want to give in, he needn't. It won't never do for the father of a family to be forever an' a day away from his family ... I got a friend—why, all I gotta do's to say the word 'n I c'n get work on the layin' o' the foundations o' the new houses o' Parliament. Twelve years I been workin' for this same boss! I c'n afford to make a change some time.

HASSENREUTER

[Pats JOHN'S shoulder.] Quite of your opinion, quite! Our family life is something that neither money nor kind words can buy of us.

ERICH SPITTA enters. His hat is soiled; his clothes show traces of mud. His tie is gone. He looks pale and excited and is busy wiping his hands with his handkerchief.

SPITTA

Beg pardon, but I wonder if I could brush up here a little, Mrs. John?

HASSENREUTER

Ha, ha, ha! For heaven's sake, what have you been up to, my good Spitta?

SPITTA

I only escorted a lady home, Mr. Hassenreuter—nothing else!

HASSENREUTER

[Who has joined in the general, outburst of laughter called forth by SPITTA'S explanation.] Well now, listen here! You blandly say: Nothing else! And you announce it publicly here before all these people?

SPITTA

[In consternation.] Why not? The lady in question, was very well dressed; I've often seen her on the stairs of this house, and she unfortunately met with an accident on the street.

HASSENREUTER

You don't say so? Tell us about it, dear Spitta! Apparently the lady inflicted spots on your clothes and scratches on your hands.

SPITTA

Oh, no. That was probably the fault of the mob. The lady had an attack of some kind. The policeman caught hold of her so awkwardly that she slipped down in the middle of the street immediately in front of two omnibus horses. I simply couldn't bear to see that, although I admit that the function of the Good Samaritan is, as a rule, beneath the dignity of well-dressed people on the public streets.

MRS. JOHN wheels the perambulator behind the partition and reappears with a basin full of water, which she places on a chair.

HASSENREUTER

Did the lady, by any chance, belong to that international high society which we either regulate or segregate?

SPITTA

I confess that that was quite as indifferent to me in the given instance, as it was to one of the omnibus horses who held his left fore foot suspended in the air for five, six or, perhaps, even eight solid minutes, in order not to trample on the woman who lay immediately beneath it. [SPITTA is answered by a round of laughter.] You may laugh! The behaviour of the horse didn't strike me as in the least ludicrous. I could well understand how some people applauded him, clapped their hands, and how others stormed a bakery to buy buns with which to feed him.

MRS. JOHN

[Fanatically.] I wish he'd trampled all he could! [MRS. JOHN'S remark calls forth another outburst of laughter.] An' anyhow! That there Knobbe woman! She oughta be put in some public place, that she ought, publicly strapped to a bench an' then beaten—beaten—that's what! She oughta have the stick taken to her so the blood jus' spurts!

SPITTA

Exactly, I've never been deluded into thinking that the so-called Middle Ages were quite over and done with. It isn't so long ago, in the year eighteen hundred and thirty-seven, as a matter of fact, that a widow named Mayer was publicly broken on the wheel right here in the city of Berlin on Hausvogtei Square,—[He displays fragments of the lenses of his spectacles.] By the way, I must hurry to the optician at once.

JOHN

[To SPITTA.] You must excuse us. But didn't you take that there fine lady home on this very floor acrost the way? Aha! Well, mother she noticed it right off that that couldn't ha' been nobody but that Knobbe woman what's known for sendin' girls o' twelve out on the streets! Then she stays away herself an' swills liquor an' has all kinds o' dealin's an' takes no care o' her own children. Then when she's been drunk an' wakes up she beats 'em with her fists an' with an umbrella.

HASSENREUTER

[Pulling himself together and bethinking himself.] Hurry, gentlemen! We must proceed to our period of instruction. We're fifteen minutes behind hand as it is and our time is limited. We must close the period quite punctually to-day. I'm sorry. Come, mama. See you later, ladies and gentlemen.

[HASSENREUTER offers his arm to his wife and leaves the room, followed by KAeFERSTEIN and DR. KEGEL. JOHN also picks up his slouch hat.

JOHN

[To his wife.] Good-bye. I gotta go an' see the boss.

[He also leaves.

SPITTA

Could you possibly lend me a tie?

MRS. JOHN

I'll see what c'n be found in Paul's drawer. [She opens the drawer of the table and turns pale.] O Lord! [She takes from the drawer a lock of child's hair held together by a riband.] I found a bit of a lock o' hair here that was cut off the head of our little Adelbert by his father when he was lyin' in the coffin. [A profound, grief-stricken sadness suddenly comes over her face, which gives way again, quite as suddenly, to a gleam of triumph.] An' now the crib is full again after all! [With an expression of strange joyfulness, the lock of hair in her hand, she leads the young people to the door of the partition through which the perambulator projects into the main room by two-thirds of its length. Arrived there she holds the lock of hair close to the head of the living child.] Come on! Come on here! [With a strangely mysterious air she beckons to WALBURGA and SPITTA, who take up their stand next to her and to the child.] Now look at that there hair an' at this! Ain't it the same? Wouldn't you say it was the same identical hair?

SPITTA

Quite right. It's the same to the minutest shade, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

All right! That's all right! That's what I wanted to know.

[Together with the child she disappears behind the partition.

WALBURGA

Doesn't it strike you, Erich, that Mrs. John's behaviour is rather peculiar?

SPITTA

[Taking WALBURGA'S hands and kissing them shyly but passionately.] I don't know, I don't know ... Or, at least, my opinion musn't count to-day. The sombre state of my own mind colours all the world. Did you get the letter?

WALBURGA

Yes. But I couldn't make out why you hadn't been at our house in such a long while.

SPITTA

Forgive me, Walburga, but I couldn't come.

WALBURGA

And why not?

SPITTA

Because my mind was not at one with itself.

WALBURGA

You want to become an actor? Is that true? You're going to change professions?

SPITTA

What I'll be in the end may be left to God. But never a parson—never a country parson!

WALBURGA

Listen! I've had my fortune told from the cards.

SPITTA

That's nonsense, Walburga. You mustn't do that.

WALBURGA

I swear to you, Erich, that it isn't nonsense. The woman told me I was betrothed in secret and that my betrothed is an actor. Of course I laughed her to scorn. And immediately after that mama told me that you wanted to be an actor.

SPITTA

Is that a fact?

WALBURGA

It's true—every bit of it. And in addition the clairvoyant said that we would have a visitor who would cause us much trouble.

SPITTA

My father is coming to Berlin, Walburga, and it's undoubtedly true that the old gentleman will give us not a little trouble. Father doesn't know it, but my views and his have been worlds asunder for a long time. It didn't need these letters of his which seem actually to burn in my pocket and by which he answered my confession—it didn't need these letters to tell me that.

WALBURGA

An evil, envious, venomous star presided over our secret meeting here! Oh, how I used to admire my papa! And since that Sunday I blush for him every minute. And however much I try, I can't, since that day, look frankly and openly into his eyes.

SPITTA

Did you have differences with your father too?

WALBURGA

Oh, if it were nothing more than that! I was so proud of papa! And now I tremble to think of even your finding it out. You'd despise us!

SPITTA

I despise anyone? Dear child, I can't think of anything less fitting for me! Look here: I'll set you an example in the matter of frankness. A sister of mine, six years older than I, was governess in a noble family. Well, a misfortune happened to her and ... when she sought refuge in the house of her parents, my Christian father put her out of doors! I believe he thought that Jesus would have done the same. And so my sister gradually sank lower and lower and some day we can go and visit her in the little suicides' graveyard near Schildhorn where she finally found rest.

WALBURGA

[Puts her arms around SPITTA.] Poor boy, you never told me a word of that.

SPITTA

Circumstances have changed now and I speak of it. I shall speak of it to papa too even if it causes a breach between us.—You're always surprised when I get excited, and that I can't control myself when I see some poor devil being kicked about, or when I see the rabble mistreating some poor fallen girl. I have actual hallucinations sometimes. I seem to see ghosts in bright daylight and my own sister among them!

PAULINE PIPERCARCKA enters, dressed as before. Her little face seems to have grown paler and prettier.

PAULINE

Good mornin'.

MRS. JOHN

[From behind the partition.] Who's that out there?

PAULINE

Pauline, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

Pauline? I don't know no Pauline.

PAULINE

Pauline Pipercarcka, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

Who? Oh, well then you c'n wait a minute, Pauline.

WALBURGA

Good-bye, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

[Emerges from behind the partition and carefully draws the hangings.] That's right. I got somethin' to discuss with this here young person. So you young folks c'n see about getting out.

SPITTA and WALBURGA leave hastily. MRS. JOHN locks the door behind them.

MRS. JOHN

So it's you, Pauline? An' what is it you want?

PAULINE

What should I be wantin'? Somethin' jus' drove me here! Couldn't wait no longer. I has to see how everythin' goes.

MRS. JOHN

How what goes? What's everythin'?

PAULINE

[With a somewhat bad conscience.] Well, if it's well; if it's gettin' on nicely.

MRS. JOHN

If what's well? If what's gettin' on nicely?

PAULINE

You oughta know that without my tellin'.

MRS. JOHN

What ought I to know without your tellin' me?

PAULINE

I wants to know if anythin's happened to the child!

MRS. JOHN

What child? An' what could ha' happened? Talk plainly, will you? There ain't a word o' your crazy chatter that anybody c'n understand!

PAULINE

I ain't sayin' nothin' but what's true, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

Well, what is it?

PAULINE

My child ...

MRS. JOHN

[Gives her a terrific box on the ear.] Say that again an' I'll bang my boots about your ears so that you'll think you're the mother o' triplets. An now: get outa here! An' don' never dare to show your face here again!

PAULINE

[Starts to go. She shakes the door which is locked.] She's beaten me! Help! Help! I don' has to—stand that! No! [Weeping.] Open the door! She's maltreated me, Mrs. John has!

MRS. JOHN

[Utterly transformed, embraces PAULINE, thus restraining her.] Pauline! For God's sake, Pauline! I don' know what could ha' gotten into me! You jus' be good now an' quiet down an' I'll beg your pardon. What d'you want me to do? I'll get down on my knees if you wants me to! Anythin'! Pauline! Listen! Let me do somethin'!

PAULINE

Why d'you go 'n hit me in the face? I'm goin' to headquarters and say as how you slapped me in the face. I'm goin' to headquarters to give notice!

MRS. JOHN

[Thrusts her face forward.] Here! You c'n hit me back—- right in the face! Then it's all right; then it's evened up.

PAULINE

I'm goin' to headquarters ...

MRS. JOHN

Yes, then it's evened up. You jus' listen to what I says: Don't you see it'll be evened up then all right! What d'you want to do? Come on now an' hit me!

PAULINE

What's the good o' that when my cheek is swollen?

MRS. JOHN

[Striking herself a blow on the cheek.] There! Now my cheek is swollen too. Come on, my girl, hit me an' don' be scared!—- An' then you c'n tell me everythin' you got on your heart. In the meantime I'll go an' I'll cook for you an' me, Miss Pauline, a good cup o' reel coffee made o' beans—none o' your chicory slop, so help me!

PAULINE

[Somewhat conciliated.] Why did you has to go an' be so mean an' rough to a poor girl like me, Mrs. John?

MRS. JOHN

That's it'—that's jus' what I'd like to know my own self! Come on, Pauline, an' sit down! So! It's all right, I tells you! Sit down! It's fine o' you to come an' see me! How many beatin's didn't I get from my poor mother because sometimes I jus' seemed to go crazy an' not be the same person no more. She said to me more'n onct: Lass, look out! You'll be doin' for yourself some day! An' maybe she was right; maybe it'll be that way. Well now, Pauline, tell me how you are an' how you're gettin' along?

PAULINE

[Laying down bank-notes and handfuls of silver, without counting them, on the table.] Here is the money: I don't need it.

MRS. JOHN

I don' know nothin' about no money, Pauline.

PAULINE

Oh, you'll know about the money all right! It's been jus' burnin' into me, that it has! It was like a snake under my pillow ...

MRS. JOHN

Oh, come now ...

PAULINE

Like a snake that crept out when I went to sleep. An' it tormented me an' wound itself aroun' me an' squeezed me so that I screamed right out an' my landlady found me lyin' on the bare floor jus' like somebody what's dead.

MRS. JOHN

You jus' let that be right now, Pauline. Take a bit of a drink first of all! [She pours out a small glassful of brandy.] An' then come an' eat a bite. It was my husband's birthday yesterday.

[She gets out some coffee-cake of which she cuts an oblong piece.

PAULINE

Oh, no, I don' feel like eatin'.

MRS. JOHN

That strengthens you; that does you good; you oughta eat that! But I is pleased to see, Pauline, how your fine constitootion helped you get back your strength so good.

PAULINE

But now I want to have a look at it, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

What's that? What d'you want to have a look at?

PAULINE

If I could ha' walked I'd ha' been here long ago. I want to see now what I come to see!

MRS. JOHN, whose almost creeping courtesies have been uttered with lips aquiver with fear, pales ominously and keeps silent. She goes to the kitchen cabinet, wrenches the coffee handmill out and pours beans into it. She sits down, squeezes the mill between her knees, grasps the handle, and stares with a consuming expression of nameless hatred over at PAULINE.

MRS. JOHN

Eh? Oh, yes! What d'you want to see? What d'you want to see now all of a sudden? That what you wanted to throttle with them two hands o' yours, eh?

PAULINE

Me?

MRS. JOHN

D'you want to lie about it? I'll go and give notice about you!

PAULINE

Now you've tormented me an' jabbed at me an' tortured me enough, Mrs. John. You followed me up; you wouldn't leave me no rest where I went. Till I brought my child into the world on a heap o' rags up in your loft. You gave me all kinds o' hopes an' you scared me with that rascal of a feller up there! You told my fortune for me outa the cards about my intended an' you baited me an' hounded me till I was most crazy.

MRS. JOHN

An' that's what you are. Yes, you're as crazy as you c'n be. I tormented you, eh? Is that what I did? I picked you up outa the gutter! I fetched you outa the midst of a blizzard when you was standin' by the chronometer an' stared at the lamplighter with eyes that was that desperate scared! You oughta seen yourself! An' I hounded you, eh? Yes, to prevent the police an' the police-waggon an' the devil hisself from catchin' you! I left you no rest, eh? I tortured you, did I? to keep you from jumpin' into the river with the child in your womb! [Mocking her.] "I'll throw myself into the canal, mother John! I'll choke the child to death! I'll kill the little crittur with my hat pin! I'll go an' run to where its father plays the zither, right in the midst o' the saloon, an' I'll throw the dead child at his feet!" That's what you said; that's the way you talked—all the blessed day long and sometimes half the night too till I put you to bed an' petted you an' stroked you till you went to sleep. An' you didn't wake up again till next day on the stroke o' twelve, when the bells was ringin' from all the churches, Yes, that's the way I scared you, an' then gave you hope again, an' didn't give you no peace! You forgot all that there, eh?

PAULINE

But it's my child, Mrs. John ...

MRS. JOHN

[Screams.] You go an' get your child outa the canal!

[She jumps up and walks hastily about the room, picking up and throwing aside one object after another.

PAULINE

Ain't I goin' to be allowed to see my child even?

MRS. JOHN

Jump into the water an' get it there! Then you'll have it! I ain't keepin' you back. God knows!

PAULINE

All right! You c'n slap me, you c'n beat me, you c'n throw things at my head if you wants to. Before I don' know where my child is an' before I ain't seen it with my own eyes, nothin' an' nobody ain't goin' to get me away from this place.

MRS. JOHN

[Interrupting her.] Pauline, I put it out to nurse!

PAULINE

That's a lie! Don't I hear it smackin' its lips right behind that there partition. [The child behind the partition begins to cry. PAULINE hastens toward it. She exclaims with pathetic tearfulness, obviously forcing the note of motherhood a little.] Don' you cry, my poor, poor little boy! Little mother's comin' to you now!

[MRS. JOHN, almost beside herself, has sprung in front of the door, thus blocking PAULINE'S way.

PAULINE

[Whining helplessly but with clenched fists.] Lemme go in an' see my child!

MRS. JOHN

[A terrible change coming over her face.] Look at me, girl! Come here an' look me in the eye!—D'you think you c'n play tricks on a woman that looks the way I do? [PAULINE sits down still moaning.] Sit down an' howl an' whine till ... till your throat's swollen so you can't give a groan. But if you gets in here—then you'll be dead or I'll be dead an' the child—he won't be alive no more neither.

PAULINE

[Rises with some determination.] Then look out for what'll happen.

MRS. JOHN

[Attempting to pacify the girl once more.] Pauline, this business was all settled between us. Why d'you want to go an' burden yourself with the child what's my child now an' is in the best hands possible? What d'you want to do with it? Why don't you go to your intended? You two'll have somethin' better to do than listen to a child cryin' an' takin' all the care an' trouble he needs!

PAULINE

No, that ain't the way it is! He's gotta marry me now! They all says so—Mrs. Keilbacke, when I had to take treatment, she said so. They says I'm not to give in; he has to marry me. An' the registrar he advised me too. That's what he said, an' he was mad, too, when I told him how I sneaked up into a loft to have my baby! He cried out loud that I wasn't to let up! Poor, maltreated crittur—that's what he called me an' he put his hand in his pocket an' gave me three crowns! All right. So we needn't quarrel no more, Mrs. John. I jus' come anyhow to tell you to be at home to-morrow afternoon at five o'clock. An' why? Because to-morrow an official examiner'll come to look after things here. I don't has to worry myself with you no more....

MRS. JOHN

[Moveless and shocked beyond expression.] What? You went an' give notice at the public registry?

PAULINE

O' course? Does I want to go to gaol?

MRS. JOHN

An' what did you tell the registrar?

PAULINE

Nothin' but that I give birth to a boy. An' I was so ashamed! Oh my God, I got red all over! I thought I'd just have to go through the floor.

MRS. JOHN

Is that so? Well, if you was so ashamed why did you go an' give notice?

PAULINE

'Cause my landlady an' Mrs. Kielbacke, too, what took me there, didn't give me no rest.

MRS. JOHN

H-m. So they knows it now at the public registry?

PAULINE

Yes; they had to know, Mrs. John!

MRS. JOHN

Didn't I tell you over an' over again?

PAULINE

You gotta give notice o' that! D'you want me to be put in gaol for a investergation?

MRS. JOHN

I told you as how I'd give notice.

PAULINE

I axed the registrar right off. Nobody hadn't been there.

MRS. JOHN

An' what did you say exackly?

PAULINE

That his name was to be Aloysius Theophil an' that he was boardin' with you.

MRS. JOHN

An' to-morrow an officer'll be comin' in.

PAULINE

He's a gentlemen from the guardian's office. What's the matter with that? Why don't you keep still an' act sensible. You scared me most to death a while ago!

MRS. JOHN

[As if absent-minded.] That's right. There ain't nothin' to be, done about that now. An' there ain't so much to that, after all, maybe.

PAULINE

All right. An' now c'n I see my child, Mrs. John?

MRS. JOHN

Not to-day. Wait till to-morrow, Pauline.

PAULINE

Why not to-day?

MRS. JOHN

Because no good'd come of it this day. Wait till to-morrow, five o'clock in the afternoon.

PAULINE

That's it. My landlady says it was written that way, that a gentleman from the city'll be here to-morrow afternoon five o'clock.

MRS. JOHN

[Pushing PAULINE out and herself going out of the room with her, in the same detached tone.] All right. Let him come, girl.

MRS. JOHN has gone out into the hall for a moment. She now returns without PAULINE. She seems strangely changed and absent-minded. She takes a few hasty steps toward the door of the partition; then stands still with an expression of fruitless brooding on her face. She interrupts herself in this brooding and runs to the window. Having reached it she turns and on her face there reappears the expression of dull detachment. Slowly, like a somnambulist, she walks up to the table and sits down beside it, leaning her chin on her hand. SELMA KNOBBE appears in the doorway.

SELMA

Mother's asleep, Mrs. John, an' I'm that hungry. Might I have a bite o' bread?

MRS. JOHN rises mechanically and cuts a slice from the loaf of bread with the air of one under an hypnotic influence.

SELMA

[Observing MRS. JOHN'S state of mind.] It's me! What's the matter, Mrs. John? Whatever you do, don't cut yourself with the bread knife.

MRS. JOHN

[Lets the loaf and the bread-knife slip involuntarily from her hand to the table. A dry sobbing overwhelms her more and more.] Fear!—Trouble!—You don' know nothin' about that!

[She trembles and grasps after some support.



THE THIRD ACT

The same decoration as in the first act. The lamp is lit. The dim light of a hanging lamp illuminates the passage.

HASSENREUTER is giving his three pupils, SPITTA, DR. KEGEL and KAeFERSTEIN instruction in the art of acting. He himself is seated at the table, uninterruptedly opening letters and beating time to the rhythm of the verses with a paper cutter. In front of him stand, facing each other, KEGEL and KAeFERSTEIN on one side, SPITTA on the other, thus representing the two choruses in Schiller's "Bride of Messina." The young men stand in the midst of a diagram drawn with chalk on the floor and separated, like a chess-board, into sixty-four rectangles. On the high stool in front of the office desk WALBURGA is sitting. Waiting in the background stands the house steward QUAQUARO, who might be the manager of a wandering circus and, in the capacity of athlete, its main attraction. His speech is uttered in a guttural tenor. He wears bedroom slippers. His breeches are held up by an embroidered belt. An open shirt, fairly clean, a light jacket, a cap now held in his hand, complete his attire.

DR. KEGEL AND KAeFERSTEIN

[Mouthing the verses sonorously and with exaggerated dignity.]

"Thee salute I with reverence, Lordliest chamber, Thee, my high rulers' Princeliest cradle, Column-supported, magnificent roof. Deep in its scabbard ..."

HASSENREUTER

[Cries in a rage.] Pause! Period! Period! Pause! Period! You're not turning the crank of a hurdy-gurdy! The chorus in the "Bride of Messina" is no hand-organ tune! "Thee salute I with reverence!" Start over again from the beginning, gentleman! "Thee salute I with reverence, Lordliest chamber!" Something like that, gentlemen! "Deep in its scabbard let the sword rest." Period! "Magnificent roof." I meant to say: Period! But you may go on if you want to.

DR. KEGEL AND KAeFERSTEIN

"Deep in its scabbard Let the sword rest, Fettered fast by your gateway Moveless may lie Strife's snaky-locked monster. For ..."

HASSENREUTER

[As before.] Hold on! Don't you know the meaning of a full stop, gentlemen? Haven't you any knowledge of the elements? "Snaky-haired monster." Period! Imagine that a pile is driven there! You've got to stop, to pause. There must be silence like the silence of the dead! You've got to imagine yourself wiped out of existence for the moment, Kaeferstein. And then—out with your best trumpeting chest-notes! Hold on! Don't lisp, for God's sake. "For ..." Go on now! Start!