DR. KEGEL AND KAeFERSTEIN

"For this hospitable house's Inviolable threshold Guardeth an oath, the Furies' child...."

HASSENREUTER

[Jumps up, runs about and roars.] Oath, oath, oath, oath!!! Don't you know what an oath is, Kaeferstein? "Guardeth an oath!!—the Furies' child." This oath is said to be the child of the Furies, Dr. Kegel! You've got to use your voice! The audience, to the last usher, has got to be one vast quivering gooseflesh when you say that! One shiver must run through every bone in the house! Listen to me: "For this house's ... threshold Guardeth an oath!!! The Furies' child, The fearfullest of the infernal deities!"—Go ahead! Don't repeat these verses. But you can stop long enough to observe that an oath and a Munich beer radish are, after all, two different things.

SPITTA

[Declaims.]

"Ireful my heart in my bosom burneth...."

HASSENREUTER

Hold on! [He runs up to SPITTA and pushes and nudges the latter's arms and legs in order to produce the desired tragic pose.]—First of all, you lack the requisite statuesqueness of posture, my dear Spitta. The dignity of a tragic character is in nowise expressed in you. Then you did not, as I expressly desired you to do, advance your right foot from the field marked ID into that marked IIC! Finally, Mr. Quaquaro is waiting; so let us interrupt ourselves for a moment. So; now I'm at your service, Mr. Quaquaro. That is to say, I asked you to come up because, in making my inventory, it became clear that several cases and boxes cannot be found or, in other words, have been stolen. Now, before lodging information with the authorities which, of course, I am determined to do, I wanted first to get your advice. I wanted to do that all the more because, in place of the lost cases, there was found, in a corner of the attic, a very peculiar mess—a find that could appropriately be sent to Dr. Virchow. First there was a blue feather-duster, truly prehistoric, and an inexpressible vessel, the use of which, quite harmless in itself, is equally inexpressible.

QUAQUARO

Well, sir, I can climb up there if you want me to.

HASSENREUTER

Suppose you do that. Up there you'll meet Mrs. John, whom the find in question has disquieted even more than it has me. These three gentlemen, who are my pupils, won't be persuaded that something very like a murder didn't take place up there. But, if you please, let's not cause a scandal!

KAeFERSTEIN

When something got lost in my mother's shop in Schneidemuehl, it was always said that the rats had eaten it. And really, when you consider the number of rats and mice in this house—I very nearly stepped on one on the stairs a while ago—why shouldn't we suppose that the cases of costumes were devoured in the same way. Silk is said to be sweet.

HASSENREUTER

Very excellent! Very good! You're relieved from the necessity of indulging in any more notion-shopkeepers' fancies, my good Kaeferstein! Ha, ha, ha! It only remains for you to dish up for us the story of the cavalry man Sorgenfrei, who, according to your assertion, when this house was still a cavalry barracks, hanged himself—spurred and armed—in my loft. And then the last straw would be for you to direct our suspicions toward him.

KAeFERSTEIN

You can still see the very nail he used.

QUAQUARO

There ain't a soul in the house what don't know the story of the soldier Sorgenfrei who put an end to hisself with a rope somewhere under the rooftree.

KAeFERSTEIN

The carpenter's wife downstairs and a seamstress in the second story have repeatedly seen him by broad daylight nodding out of the attic window and bowing down with military demeanour.

QUAQUARO

A corporal, they says, called the soldier Sorgenfrei a windbag an' gave him a blow outa spite. An' the idjit took that to heart.

HASSENREUTER

Ha, ha, ha! Military brutalities and ghost stories! That mixture is original, but hardly to our purpose. I assume that the theft, or whatever it was, took place during those eleven or twelve days that I spent on business in Alsace. So look the matter over and have the goodness, later, to report to me.

HASSENREUTER turns to his pupils. QUAQUARO mounts the stairs to the loft and disappears behind the trap-door.

HASSENREUTER

All right, my good Spitta: Fire away!

SPITTA recites simply according to the sense and without any tragic bombast.

"Ireful my heart in my bosom burneth, My hand is ready for sword or lance, For unto me the Gorgon turneth My foeman's hateful countenance. Scarce I master the rage that assails me. Shall I salute him with fair speech? Better, perchance, my ire avails me? Only the Fury me affrighteth, Protectress of all within her reach, And God's truce which all foes uniteth."

HASSENREUTER

[Who has sat down, supports his head on his hand and listens resignedly. Not until SPITTA has ceased speaking for some moments does he look up, as if coming to himself.] Are you quite through, Spitta? If so, I'm much obliged!—You see, my dear fellow, I've really gotten into a deuce of a situation as far as you are concerned: either I tell you impudently to your face that I consider your method of elocution excellent—and in that case I'd be guilty of a lie of the most contemptible kind: or else I tell you that I consider it abominable and then we'd get into another beastly row.

SPITTA

[Turning pale.] Yes, all this stilted, rhetorical stuff is quite foreign to my nature. That's the very reason why I abandoned theology. The preacher's tone is repulsive to me.

HASSENREUTER

And so you would like to reel off these tragic choruses as a clerk of court mumbles a document or a waiter a bill of fare?

SPITTA

I don't care for the whole sonorous bombast of the "Bride of Messina."

HASSENREUTER

I wish you'd repeat that charming opinion.

SPITTA

There's nothing to be done about it, sir. Our conceptions of dramatic art diverge utterly, in some respects.

HASSENREUTER

Man alive, at this particular moment your face is a veritable monogram of megalomania and impudence! I beg your pardon, but you're my pupil now and no longer the tutor of my children. Your views and mine! You ridiculous tyro! You and Schiller! Friedrich Schiller! I've told you a hundred times that your puerile little views of art are nothing but an innate striving toward imbecility!

SPITTA

You would have to prove that to me, after all.

HASSENREUTER

You prove it yourself every time you open your mouth! You deny the whole art of elocution, the value of the voice in acting! You want to substitute for both the art of toneless squeaking! Further you deny the importance of action in the drama and assert it to be a worthless accident, a sop for the groundlings! You deny the validity of poetic justice, of guilt and its necessary expiation. You call all that a vulgar invention—an assertion by means of which the whole moral order of the world is abrogated by the learned and crooked understanding of your single magnificent self! Of the heights of humanity you know nothing! You asserted the other day that, in certain circumstances, a barber or a scrubwoman might as fittingly be the protagonist of a tragedy as Lady Macbeth or King Lear!

SPITTA

[Still pale, polishing his spectacles.] Before art as before the law all men are equal, sir.

HASSENREUTER

Aha? Is that so? Where did you pick up that banality?

SPITTA

[Without permitting himself to be disconcerted.] The truth of that saying has become my second nature. In believing it I probably find myself at variance with Schiller and Gustav Freytag, but not at all with Lessing and Diderot. I have spent the past two semesters in the study of these two great dramaturgic critics, and the whole stilted French pseudo-classicism is, as far as I'm concerned, utterly destroyed—not only in creative art itself but in such manifestations as the boundless folly of the directions for acting which Goethe prescribed in his old age. These are mere superannuated nonsense.

HASSENREUTER

You don't mean it?

SPITTA

And if the German stage is ever to recuperate it must go back to the young Schiller, the young Goethe—the author of "Goetz"—and ever again to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing! There you will find set down principles of dramatic art which are adapted to the rich complexity of life in all its fullness, and which are potent to cope with Nature itself!

HASSENREUTER

Walburga! I'm afraid Mr. Spitta is taking us for each other. Mr. Spitta, you're about to give a lesson! Walburga, you and your teacher are free to retire to the library.—If human arrogance and especially that of very young people could be crystallised into one formation—humanity would be buried under that rock like an ant under the granite masses of an antediluvian mountain range!

SPITTA

But I wouldn't in any wise be refuted thereby.

HASSENREUTER

Man, I tell you that I've not only passed through two semesters of formal study, but I have grown grey in the practice of the actor's art! And I tell you that Goethe's catechism for actors is the alpha and the omega of my artistic convictions! If you don't like that—get another teacher!

SPITTA

[Pursuing his argument calmly.] According to my opinion, Goethe with his senile regulations for actors denied, in the pettiest way, himself and his whole original nature. What is one to say of his ruling that every actor, irrespective of the quality of the character represented by him, must—these are his very words—show an ogre-like expression of countenance in order that the spectator be at once reminded of the nature of lofty tragedy. Actually, these are his very words!

KAeFERSTEIN and KEGEL make an effort to assume ogre-like expressions.

HASSENREUTER

Get out your note-book, most excellent Spitta, and record your opinion, please, that Manager Hassenreuter is an ass, that Schiller is an ass, Goethe an ass, Aristotle, too, of course—[he begins suddenly to laugh like mad]—and, ha, ha, ha! a certain Spitta a—night watchman!

SPITTA

I'm glad to see, sir, that, at least, you've recovered your good humour.

HASSENREUTER

The devil! I haven't recovered it at all! You're a symptom. So you needn't think yourself very important.—You are a rat, so to speak. One of those rats who are beginning, in the field of politics, to undermine our glorious and recently united German Empire! They are trying to cheat us of the reward of our labours! And in the garden of German art these rats are gnawing at the roots of the tree of idealism. They are determined to drag its crown into the mire!—Down, down, down into the dust with you!

KAeFERSTEIN and KEGEL try to preserve their gravity but soon break out into loud laughter, which HASSENREUTER is impelled to join. WALBURGA looks on in wide-eyed astonishment. SPITTA remains serious.

MRS. JOHN is now seen descending the stairs of the loft. After a little while QUAQUARO follows her.

HASSENREUTER

[Perceives MRS. JOHN and points her out to SPITTA with violent gesticulations as if he had just made an important discovery.] There comes your tragic Muse!

MRS. JOHN

[Approaches, abashed by the laughter of HASSENREUTER, KEGEL and KAeFERSTEIN.] Why, what d'you see about me?

HASSENREUTER

Nothing but what is good and beautiful, Mrs. John! You may thank God that your quiet, withdrawn and peaceful life unfits you for the part of a tragic heroine.—But tell me, have you, by any chance, had an interview with ghosts?

MRS. JOHN

[Unnaturally pale.] Why do you ax that?

HASSENREUTER

Perhaps you even saw the famous soldier Sorgenfrei who closed his career above as a deserter into a better world?

MRS. JOHN

If it was a livin' soul, maybe you might be right. But I ain't scared o' no dead ghosts.

HASSENREUTER

Well, Mr. Quaquaro, how did it look under the roof there?

QUAQUARO

[Who has brought down with him a Swedish riding-boot.] Well, I took a pretty good look aroun' an' I came to the conclusion that, at least, some shelterless ragamuffins has passed the night there; though how they got in I ain't sayin'. An' then I found this here boot.—

[Out of the boot he draws an infant's bottle, topped by a rubber nipple and half filled with milk.

MRS. JOHN

That's easily explained. I was up there settin' things to rights an' I had little Adelbert along with me. But I don' know nothin' about the rest.

HASSENREUTER

Nobody has undertaken to assert that you do, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

When you considers how my little Adelbert came into the world ... an' when you considers how he died ... nobody c'n come an' tell me nothin' about bein' a reel mother ... But I gotta leave now, sir ... I can't be comin' up here for two three days. Good-bye! I has to go to my sister-in-law an' let Adelbert enjoy the country air a little.

[She trots off through the door to the outer hall.

HASSENREUTER

Can you make anything of her wild talk?

QUAQUARO

There's been a screw loose there ever since her first baby came, an' all the more after it took an' died. Now since she's got the second one, there's two screws what's wobbly. Howsoever, she c'n count—that's a fac'. She's got a good bit o' money loaned out at interest on pawned goods.

HASSENREUTER

Well, but what is the injured party—namely, myself—to do?

QUAQUARO

That depends on where the suspicion falls.

HASSENREUTER

In this house?—You'll admit yourself, Mr. Quaquaro ...

QUAQUARO

That's true all right. But it won't be long before we'll have a little cleanin' up aroun' here! The widow Knobbe with all her crowd is goin' to be put out! An' then there's a gang in wing B, where there's some tough customers by what Policeman Schierke tells me. Well, they're goin' to come from headquarters pretty soon and blow up that crowd.

HASSENREUTER

There must be a glee club somewhere in the house. At least I hear excellent male voices singing from time to time things like "Germany, our highest glory," and "Who has built thee, noble wood," and "In a cool galley turneth."

QUAQUARO

Them's the very fellers! That's right! An' they do sing fine! The sayin' is that bad men has no songs, but I wouldn't advise no one to fool with them! I wouldn't go into that company my own self without Prince. That's my bull dog. You just go an' lay information against 'em an' you won't be doin' no harm, sir.

[QUAQUARO exit.

HASSENREUTER

[Referring to QUAQUARO.] The gleam in his eye demands security. His lips demand cash. His fist portends immediate warning. He's a lucky creature who doesn't dream of him at the end of the month. And whoever dreams of him roars for help. A horrible, greasy fellow. But without him the people who rent this old shell would get no money and the army-treasurer could strike the income of these rentals from his books.—[The door bell rings.]—That Is Miss Alice Ruetterbusch, the young soubrette with whom, unfortunately, I haven't been able to make a hard and fast contract yet on account of the way the aldermen of Strassburg shilly shally about their final decision. After my appointment, which I will secure by God's help, her engagement will be my first managerial act.—Walburga and Spitta, march up into the loft! Count the contents of the six boxes marked "Journalists" in order that we may complete our inventory at the proper time.—[To KAeFERSTEIN and DR. KEGEL.] You may withdraw into the library in the meantime....

[He steps forward in order to open the door.

WALBURGA and SPITTA disappear swiftly and very willingly into the loft; KAeFERSTEIN and KEGEL retire into the library.

HASSENREUTER

[In the background.] If you please, step right in, my dear lady! I beg your pardon, sir! I was expecting a lady ... I was expecting a young lady ... But, please, come in.

HASSENREUTER comes forward accompanied by PASTOR SPITTA. The latter is sixty years old. A village parson, somewhat countrified. One might equally well take him to be a surveyor or a landowner in a small way. He is of vigorous appearance—short-necked, well-nourished, with a squat, broad face like Luther's. He wears a slouch-hat, spectacles and carries a cane and a coat of waterproof cloth over his arm. His clumsy boots and the state of his other garments show that they have long been accustomed to wind and weather.

PASTOR SPITTA

Do you know who I am, Mr. Hassenreuter?

HASSENREUTER

Not quite exactly, but I would hazard ...

PASTOR SPITTA

You may, you may! You needn't hesitate to call me Pastor Spitta from Schwoiz in Uckermark, whose son Erich—yes, that's it—has been employed in your family as private tutor or something like that. Erich Spitta: that's my son. And I'm obliged to say that with deep sorrow.

HASSENREUTER

First of all, I'm very glad, to have the privilege of your acquaintance. I hasten at once to beg you, however, dear Pastor, not to be too much worried, not to be too sorrowful concerning the little escapade in which your son is indulging.

PASTOR SPITTA

Oh, but I am greatly troubled, I am deeply grieved. [Sitting down on a chair he surveys the strange place in which he finds himself with considerable interest.] It is hard to say; it is extremely difficult to communicate to any one the real depth of anxiety. But forgive me a question, sir: I was in the trophy-chamber.—[He touches one of the armored dummies with his cane.] What kind of armor is this?

HASSENREUTER

These figures are to represent the cuirassiers in Schiller's "Wallenstein."

PASTOR SPITTA

Ah, ah, my idea of Schiller was so very different! [Collecting himself.] Oh, this city of Berlin! It confuses me utterly. You see a man before you, sir, who is not only grieved, whom this Sodom of a city has not only stirred to his very depths, but who is actually broken-hearted by the deed of his son.

HASSENREUTER

A deed? What deed?

PASTOR SPITTA

Is there any need to ask? The son of an honest man desiring to become an ... an ... an actor!

HASSENREUTER

[Drawing himself up. With the utmost dignity.] My dear sir, I do not approve of your son's determination. But I am myself—honi soit qui mal y pense—the son of an honest man and myself, I trust, a man of honour. And I, whom you see before you, have been an actor, too. No longer than six weeks ago I took part in the Luther celebration—for I am no less an apostle of culture in the broadest sense—not only as manager but by ascending the boards on which the world is shadowed forth as an actor! From my point of view, therefore, your son's determination is scarcely open to objection on the score of his social standing or his honourable character. But it is a difficult calling and demands, above all, a high degree of talent. I am also willing to admit that it is a calling not without peculiar dangers to weak characters. And finally I have myself proved the unspeakable hardships of my profession so thoroughly that I would like to guard anyone else from entering it. That is the reason why I box my daughters' ears if the slightest notion of going on the stage seizes them, and why I would rather tie stones about their necks and drown them where the sea is deepest than see them marry actors.

PASTOR SPITTA

I didn't mean to wound any one's feelings. I admit, too, that a simple country parson like myself can't very well have much of a conception of such things. But consider a father now—just such a poor country parson—who has saved and hoarded his pennies in order that his son might have a career at the university. Now consider, further, that this son is just about to take his final examinations and that his father and his mother—I have a sick wife at home—are looking forward with anxiety and with longing, whichever you call it, toward the moment in which their son will mount the pulpit and deliver the trial sermon before the congregation of his choice. And then comes this letter. Why, the boy is mad!

The emotion of the Pastor is not exactly consciously directed; it is controlled. The trembling of the hand with which he searches for the letter in his inner pocket and hands it to the manager is not quite convincing.

HASSENREUTER

Young men search after various aims. We mustn't be too much taken by surprise if, once in a while, a crisis of this kind is not to be avoided in a young man's life.

PASTOR SPITTA

Well, this crisis was avoidable. It will not be difficult for you to see from this letter who is responsible for this destructive change in the soul of a young, an excellent, and hitherto thoroughly obedient youth. I should never have sent him to Berlin. Yes, it is this so-called scientific theology, this theology that flirts with all the pagan philosophers, that would change the Lord our God into empty smoke and sublimate our blessed Saviour into thin air—it is this that I hold responsible for the grievous mistake of my child. And to this may be added other temptations. I tell you, sir, I have seen things which it is impossible for me to speak of! I have circulars in every pocket—"Ball of the Elite! Smart waitresses!" and so on! I was quietly walking, at half past twelve one night, through the arcade that connects Friedrich street with the Linden, and a disgusting fellow sidles up to me, wretched, undergrown, and asks me with a kind of greasy, shifty impudence: Doesn't the gentleman want something real fetching? And these show windows in which, right by the pictures of noble and exalted personages, naked actresses, dancers, in short the most shocking nudities are displayed! And finally this Corso—oh, this Corso! Where painted and bedizened vice jostles respectable women from the sidewalk! It's simply the end of the world!

HASSENREUTER

Ah, my dear Pastor, the world doesn't so easily come to an end—nor, surely, will it do so on account of the nudities that offend or of the vice which slinks through the streets at night. The world will probably outlive me and the whole scurrilous interlude of humanity.

PASTOR SPITTA

What turns these young people aside from the right path is evil example and easy opportunity.

HASSENREUTER

I beg your pardon, Pastor, but I have not observed in your son the slightest inclination toward leading a frivolous life. He is simply attracted to literature, and he isn't the first clergyman's son—remember merely Lessing and Herder—who has taken the road of literary study and creative art. Very likely be has manuscript plays in his desk even now. To be sure, I am bound to admit that the opinions which your son defends in the field of literature frighten even me at times!

PASTOR SPITTA

But that's horrible! That's frightful! That far exceeds my worst fears! And so my eyes have been opened.—My dear sir, I have had eight children, of whom Erich seemed our fairest hope and his next-oldest sister our heaviest trial. And now, it seems, the same accursed city has demanded them both as its victims. The girl developed prematurely, she was beautiful ... and ... But I must mention another circumstance now, I have, been in Berlin for three days and I haven't seen Erich yet. When I tried to see him to-day, he was not at home in his rooms. I waited for a while and naturally looked about me in my son's dwelling. And now: look at this picture, sir!

[Replacing ERICH'S letter in his pocket he extracts therefrom a small photograph and holds it immediately under HASSENREUTER'S eyes.

HASSENREUTER

[Takes the picture and holds it at varying distances from him. He is disconcerted.] Why should I look at this?

PASTOR SPITTA

The silly little face is of no importance. But pray look at the inscription.

HASSENREUTER

Where?

PASTOR SPITTA

[Reads.] "From Walburga to her only sweetheart."

HASSENREUTER

Permit me!—- What's the meaning of this?

PASTOR SPITTA

It simply means some seamstress if not, what is worse, some shady waitress!

HASSENREUTER

H-m. [He slips the picture into his pocket.] I shall keep this photograph.

PASTOR SPITTA

It is in such filth that my son wallows. And consider the situation in which it puts me: with what feelings, with what front shall I henceforward face my congregation from the pulpit ...?

HASSENREUTER

Confound it, what business is that of mine? What have I to do with your offspring, with your lost sons and daughters? [He pulls out the photograph again.] And furthermore, as far as this excellent and sound-hearted young lady is concerned, you're quite mistaken in your ideas about waitresses and such like. I'll say nothing more. All other matters will adjust themselves. Good-bye.

PASTOR SPITTA

I confess frankly, I don't understand you. Probably this tone is the usual one in your circles, I will go and not annoy you any longer. But as a father I have the right before God, to demand of you that henceforth you refuse to my deluded son this so-called dramatic instruction. I hope I shall not have to look for further ways and means of enforcing this demand.

HASSENREUTER

I won't only do that, but I'll actually put him out of doors.

[He accompanies the PASTOR to the door, slams it behind him and returns alone.

HASSENREUTER

[Waving his arms through the air.] All that one can say here is: Plain parson! [He rushes halfway up the stairs to the loft.] Spitta! Walburga! Come down here, will you?

WALBURGA and SPITTA come down.

HASSENREUTER

[To WALBURGA, who looks at him questioningly.] Go to your high stool over there and sit down on the humorous part of your anatomy! Well, and you, my dear Spitta, what do you want?

SPITTA

You called us both, sir.

HASSENREUTER

Exactly. Now look me in the eye!

SPITTA Certainly.

[He looks straight at HASSENREUTER.

HASSENREUTER

You two want to make an ass of me. But you won't succeed! Silence! Not a word! I would have expected something very different from you! This is a striking proof of ingratitude. Keep still! Furthermore, a gentleman was here just now! That gentleman is afraid in Berlin! March! Follow him! Take him down into the street and try to make it clear to him that I'm neither your bootblack nor his.

[SPITTA shrugs his shoulders, takes his hat and goes.

HASSENREUTER

[Strides up to WALBURGA energetically and tweaks her ear.] And as for you, my dear, you'll have your ears soundly boxed if ever again without my permission you exchange two words with this rascal of a theologian gone to smash!

WALBURGA

Ouch, papa, ouch!

HASSENREUTER

This fellow who is fond of making such an innocent face as if he couldn't harm a fly and whom I was careless enough to admit to my house is, unfortunately, a man behind whose mask the most shameless impudence lies in wait. I and my house are in the service of true propriety. Do you want to besmirch the escutcheon of oar honour as the sister of this fellow seems to have done—a girl who disgraced, her parents by coming to an end in the street and the gutter?

WALBURGA

I don't share your opinion about Erich, papa.

HASSENREUTER

What's that? Well, at least you know my opinion. Either you give him his walking papers or else you can look out for yourself and find out what it is to get along, away from your parental roof, in a way of life regardless of honour, duty and decency! In that case you can go! I have no use for daughters of that kind!

WALBURGA

[Pale and sombre.] You are always saying, papa, that you too had to make your way independently and without your parents.

HASSENREUTER

You're not a man.

WALBURGA

Certainly not. But think, for instance, of Alice Ruetterbusch.

[Father and daughter look firmly into each other's eyes.

HASSENREUTER

Why should I? Have you a fever, eh? Or have you gone mad? [He drops the whole discussion, noticeably put out of countenance, and taps at the library door.] Where did we leave off? Begin at the proper place.

KEGEL and KAeFERSTEIN appear.

KEGEL and KAeFERSTEIN

[Declaim:]

"A wiser temper Beseemeth age. I, being reasonable, Salute him first."

Led and directed by SPITTA appear PAULINE PIPERCARCKA in street dress and MRS. KIELBACKE, who carries an infant on a pillow.

HASSENREUTER

What do you want here? What kind of women are you bringing here to annoy me?

SPITTA

It isn't my fault, sir. The women insisted on coming to you.

MRS. KIELBACKE

No; all we wants is to see Mrs. John.

PAULINE

An' Mrs. John she's always up here with you!

HASSENREUTER

True. But I'm beginning to regret the fact, and I must insist, at all events, that she hold her private receptions in her own rooms and not here. Otherwise I'll soon equip the door here with patent locks and mantraps.—What's the matter with you, my good Spitta? I suppose you'll have to have the goodness to show these ladies the place they really want to go to.

PAULINE

But Mrs. John ain't to be found in her rooms downstairs.

HASSENREUTER

Well, she's not to be found up here either.

MRS. KIELBACKE

The reason is because this here young lady has her little son boardin' with Mrs. John.

HASSENREUTER

Glad to hear it! Please march now without further delay! Save me, Kaeferstein!

MRS. KIELBACKE

An' now a gentleman's come from the city, from the office of the government guardian office to see how the child is an' if it's well taken care of an' in good condition. An' then he went into Mrs. John's room an' we went with him. An' there was the child an' a note pinned to it what said that Mrs. John was workin' for you up here.

HASSENREUTER

Where was the child boarding?

MRS. KIELBACKE

With Mrs. John.

HASSENREUTER

[Impatiently.] That's simply a piece of imbecility. You are quite wrong.—Spitta, you would have been much better employed accompanying the old gentleman after whom I sent you than aiding these ladies to come here.

SPITTA

I looked for the gentleman you speak of but he was already gone.

HASSENREUTER

These ladies don't seem to believe me. Will you kindly inform them, gentlemen, that Mrs. John has no child in board, and that they are quite obviously mistaken in the name.

KAeFERSTEIN

I am asked to tell you that you are probably mistaken in the name.

PAULINE

[Vehemently and tearfully.] She has got my baby! She had my baby boardin' with her. An' the gentleman came from the city an' he said that the child wasn't in no good hands an' that it was neglected. She went an' ruined my baby's health.

HASSENREUTER

There is no doubt but what you have mistaken the name of the woman of whom you speak, Mrs. John has no child in board.

PAULINE

She had my baby in her claws, that's what! An' she let it starve an' get sick! I gotta see her! I gotta tell her right out! She's gotta make my little baby well again! I gotta go to court. The gentleman says as how I gotta go to court an' give notice.

HASSENREUTER

I beg of you not to get excited. The fact is that you are mistaken! How did you ever hit on the idea that Mrs. John has a child in board?

PAULINE

Because I gave it to her myself.

HASSENREUTER

But Mrs. John has her own child and it just occurs to me that she has taken it along with her on a visit to her sister-in-law.

PAULINE

She ain't got no child. No, Mrs. John ain't got none! She cheats an' she lies. She ain't got none. She took my little Alois an' she ruined him.

HASSENREUTER

By heaven, ladies, you are mistaken!

PAULINE

Nobody won't believe me that I had a baby. My intended he wrote me a letter an' he says it ain't true an' that I'm a liar an' a low creature. [She touches the pillow on which the infant is resting.] It's mine an' I'll prove it in court! I c'n swear it by the holy Mother o' God.

HASSENREUTER

Do uncover the child. [It is done and HASSENREUTER observes the infant attentively.]—H-m, the matter will not remain long in obscurity. In the first place ... I know Mrs. John. If she had had this child in board it could never look as it does. And that is true quite simply because, where it is a question of children, Mrs. John has her heart in the right place.

PAULINE

I want to see Mrs. John. That's all I says. I don't has to tell my business to everybody in the world. I c'n tell everythin' in court, down to the least thing—the day an' the hour an' jus' exackly the place where it was born! People is goin' to open their eyes; you c'n believe me.

HASSENREUTER

What you assert, then, if I understand you rightly, is that Mrs. John has no baby of her own at all, and that the one which passes as such is in reality yours.

PAULINE

God strike me dead if that ain't the truth!

HASSENREUTER

And this is the child in question? I trust that God won't take you at your word this time.—You must know that I, who stand before you, am manager Hassenreuter and I have personally had in my own hands the child of Mrs. John, my charwoman, on three or four occasions. I even weighed it on the scales and found it to weigh over eight pounds. This poor little creature doesn't weigh over four pounds. And on the basis of this fact I can assure you that this child is not, at least, the child of Mrs. John. You may be right in asserting that it is yours. I am in no position to throw doubt on that. But I know Mrs. John's child and I am quite sure that it is, in no wise, identical with this.

MRS. KIELBACKE

[Respectfully.] No, no; that's right enough. It ain't identical.

PAULINE

This baby here is identical enough all right, even if it's a bit underfed an' weakly. This business with the child is all straight enough! I'll take an oath that it's identical all right.

HASSENREUTER

I am simply speechless. [To his pupils.] Our lesson is ruled by an evil star to-day, my dear boys. I don't know why, but the error which these ladies are making engrosses me. [To the women.] You may have entered the wrong door.

MRS. KIELBACKE

No, me an' the gentleman from the guardian's office an' the young lady went an' fetched this here child outa the room what has the name plate o' Mrs. John on it, an' took it out into the hall. Mrs. John wasn't there an' her husband the mason is absent in Hamburg.

POLICEMAN SCHIERKE comes in, fat and good-natured.

HASSENREUTER

Ah, there's Mr. Schierke! What do you want here?

SCHIERKE

I understand, sir, that two women fled up here to you.

MRS. KIELBACKE

We ain't fled at all.

HASSENREUTER

They were inquiring for Mrs. John.

SCHIERKE

May I be permitted to ax somethin' too?

HASSENREUTER

If you please.

PAULINE

Jus' let him ax. We don't has to worry.

SCHIERKE

[To MRS. KIELBACKE.] What's your name?

MRS. KIELBACKE

I'm Mrs. Kielbacke.

SCHIERKE

You're connected with the society for raisin' children, eh? Where do you live?

MRS. KIELBACKE

Linien street number nine.

SCHIERKE

Is that your child that you have there?

MRS. KIELBACKE

That's Miss Pipercarcka her child.

SCHIERKE

[To PAULINE.] An' your name?

PAULINE

Paula Pipercarcka from Skorzenin.

SCHIERKE

This woman asserts that the child is yours. Do you assert that too?

PAULINE

Sergeant, I has to ax for your protection because suspicions is cast on me an' I'm innercent. The gentleman from the city did come to me. An' I did get my child outa the room o' Mrs. John what I had it in board with ...

SCHIERKE

[With a searching look.] Yes? Maybe it was the door across the way where the restaurant keeper's widow Knobbe lives. Nobody knows what you're up to with that child nor who sent you an' bribed you. You ain't got a good conscience! You took the child an' slipped up here with it while its rightful mother, the widow Knobbe, what it's been stolen from, is huntin' all over the stairs an' halls for it an' while a detective is standin' acrost the way.

PAULINE

I don't care about no detective. I'm ...

HASSENREUTER

You are refuted, my good girl. Can't you comprehend that? First you say that Mrs. John has no child. Next you say—kindly attend to me—that you had taken your child, which has been passing for Mrs. John's, out of the latter's room. However; all of us here happen to know Mrs. John's child and the one you have here is another. Is that clear to you? Hence your assertion cannot, in any circumstances, be a correct one!—And now, Schierke, you would do me a favour if you would conduct these ladies out so that I can continue giving my lesson.

SCHIERKE

All right, but if I does that we'll get into that Knobbe crowd. Because her child has been stolen.

PAULINE

It ain't me that done it; it's Mrs. John.

SCHIERKE

That's all right. [Continuing his account to HASSENREUTER.] And they says that the child has blue blood in it on its father's side. So Mrs. Knobbe thinks as how it's a plot of enemies 'cause they grudges her the alimony in some quarters an' a gentleman's eddication for the kid. [Someone is beating at the door with fists.] That's the Knobbe woman. There she comes now!

HASSENREUTER

Mr. Schierke, you are responsible to me. If these people trespass on my premises and I suffer any damages thereby, I'll complain to the chief of police. I know Mr. Maddei very well. Don't be afraid, my dear boys. You are my witnesses.

SCHIERKE

[At the door.] You stay out there! You don't get in here!

A small mob howls outside of the door.

PAULINE

They c'n holler all they wants to but they can't get my child.

HASSENREUTER

Perhaps this is the better way. You go into the library for the present. [He escorts PAULINE, MRS. KIELBACKE and the child into the library.] And now, Mr. Schierke, we might risk letting that fury enter in here.

SCHIERKE

[Opening the door slightly.] All right. But only Mrs. Knobbe! Come in here a minute.

MRS. SIDONIE KNOBBE appears. She is tall and emaciated and dressed in a badly worn but fashionable summer gown. Her face bears the stigma, of a dissolute life but gives evidence of a not ungentle origin. Her air is curiously like that of a gentlewoman. She talks affectedly and her eyes show addiction to alcohol and morphine.

MRS. KNOBBE

[Sailing in.] There is no cause for any anxiety, Mr. Hassenreuter. Those without are principally little boys and girls who have come with me because I am fond of children. Pray pardon me if I intrude. One of the children told me that two women had sneaked up here with my little boy. I am looking for my little son, named Helfgott Gundofried, who has actually disappeared from my dwelling. At the same time I do not wish to incommode you.

SCHIERKE

An' you better not do that if I has any say about it.

MRS. KNOBBE

[Disregarding these words except by a proud toss of the head.] To my great regret I caused a certain amount of disturbance in the yard. From the yard as a place of vantage it is possible to command every window and I made inquiries of the poor cigar maker in the second story and of the consumptive little seamstress in the third as to whether my Selma and my little son were with either of them. But nothing is farther from my intention than to create a scandal. I want you to know—- for I am quite conscious of being in the presence of a distinguished, indeed, of a famous man—you are to know that where Helfgott Gundofried is concerned I am obliged to be strictly on my guard! [With quivering voice and an occasional application of her handkerchief to her eyes.] I am an unfortunate woman who is pursued by fate, who has sunk low but who has seen better days. I do not care to bore you with my troubles. But I am being pursued and there are those who would rob me of my last hope.

SCHIERKE

Aw, hurry up an' say what you has to!

MRS. KNOBBE

[As before.] It is not enough that I was forced to lay aside my honest name. Later I lived in Paris and then married a brutal person, a south German inn-keeper, because I had the foolish thought that my affairs might be bettered thereby. O these scoundrels of men!

SCHIERKE

This don't lead to nothin'! You cut it short, I tell you.

MRS. KNOBBE

But I am glad of the opportunity of standing, once more, face to face with a man of culture and intellect. I could a tale unfold ... Popularly I am known here as "the countess" and God is my witness that in my earlier youth I was not far removed from that estate! For a time I was an actress, too. What did I say! I could unfold a tale from my life, from my past, which would have the advantage of not being invented!

SCHIERKE

Maybe not. Nobody c'n tell.

MRS. KNOBBE

[With renewed emphasis.] My wretchedness is not invented, although it may seem so when I relate how, one night, sunk in the deepest abysses of my shame, I met on the street a cousin—the playmate of my youth—who is now captain in the horse-guards. He lives in the world: I live in the underworld ever since my father from pride of rank and race disowned me because in my earliest youth I had made a mistake. Oh, you have no conception of the dullness, the coarseness, the essential vulgarity that obtains in those circles. I am a trodden worm, sir, and yet not for a moment do I yearn to be there, in that glittering wretchedness....

SCHIERKE

Maybe you don't mind comin' to the point now!

HASSENREUTER

If you please, Mr. Schierke, all that interests me. So suppose you don't interrupt the lady for a while. [To MRS. KNOBBE.] You were speaking of your cousin. Didn't you say that he is a captain in the horse-guards?

MRS. KNOBBE

He was in plain clothes. He is, however, a captain in the horse-guards. He recognised me at once and we dedicated some blessed though painful hours to memories. Accompanying him there was—I will not call his name—a very young lieutenant, a fair, sweet boy, delicate and brooding. Mr. Hassenreuter, I have forgotten what shame is! Was I not even, the other day, turned out of church? Why should a down-trodden, dishonoured, deserted creature, more than once punished by the laws—why should such an one hesitate to confess that he became the father of Helfgott Gundofried?

HASSENREUTER

Of this baby that's been stolen from you?

MRS. KNOBBE

Yes, stolen! At least it is so asserted! It may be! But though my enemies are mighty and have every means at their command, I am not yet wholly convinced of it. And yet it may be a plot concocted by the parents of the child's father whose name you would be astonished to hear, for they represent one of the oldest and most illustrious families. Farewell! Whatever you may hear of me, sir, do not think that my better feelings have been wholly extinguished in the mire into which I am forced to cast myself. I need this mire in which I am on terms of equality with the dregs of mankind. Here, look! [She thrusts forward her naked arm.] Forgetfulness! Insensibility! I achieve it by means of chloral, of opium. Or I find it in the abysses of human life. And why not? To whom am I responsible?—There was a time when my dear mama was scolded by my father on my account! The maid had convulsions because of me! Mademoiselle and an English governess tore each other's chignons from their heads because each asserted that I loved her best—! Now ...

SCHIERKE

Aw, I tell you to shut it now! We can't take up people's time an' lock 'em up. [He opens the library door.] Now tell us if this here is your kid?

PAULINE, staring at MRS. KNOBBE with eyes full of hatred, comes out first. MRS. KIELBACKE, carrying the child, comes next. SCHIERKE removes the shawl, that has been thrown over the child.

PAULINE

What d'you want o' me? Why d'you come chasin' me? I ain' no gypsy! I don' go in people's houses stealin' their children! Eh? You're crazy, I wouldn't do no such thing. I ain't hardly got enough to eat for myself an' my own child. D'you s'pose I'm goin' to steal strange children an' feed 'em till they're grown when the one I got is trouble an' worry enough!

MRS. KNOBBE stares about her inquiringly and as if seeking help. Rapidly she draws a little flask from her pocket and pours its contents upon a handkerchief. The latter she carries swiftly to her mouth and nose, inhaling the fragrance of the perfume to keep her from fainting.

HASSENREUTER

Well, why don't you speak, Mrs. Knobbe? This girl asserts that she is the mother of the child—not you.

MRS. KNOBBE lifts her umbrella in order to strike out with it. She is restrained by those present.

SCHIERKE

That won't do! You can't practice no discipline like that here! You c'n do that when you're alone in your nursery downstairs.—The main thing is: who does here kid belong to? An' so—now—Mrs. Knobbe, you just take care an' think so's to tell nothin' but the truth here! Well! Is it yours or is it her'n?

MRS. KNOBBE

[Bursts out] I swear by the holy Mother of God, by Jesus Christ, Father, Son and Holy Ghost that I am the mother of this child.

PAULINE

An' I swears by the Holy Mother o' God ...

HASSENREUTER

You'd better not if you want to save your soul! We may have a case here in which the circumstances are complicated in the extreme! It is possible, therefore, that you were about to swear in perfectly good faith. But you will have to admit that, though each of you may well be the mother of twins—two mothers for one child is unthinkable!

WALBURGA

[Who, like MRS. KNOBBE, has been staring steadily at the child.] Papa, papa, do look at the child a moment first!

MRS. KIELBACKE

[Tearfully and horrified.] Yes, the poor little crittur's been a-dyin', I believe, ever since I was in the other room there!

SCHIERKE

What?

HASSENREUTER

How? [Energetically he strides forward, and now regards the child carefully too.] The child is dead. There's no question about that! It seems that invisible to us, one has been in our midst who has delivered judgment, truly according to the manner of Solomon, concerning the poor little passive object of all this strife.

PAULINE

[Who has not understood.] What's the matter?

SCHIERKE

Keep still!—You come along with me.

MRS. KNOBBE seems to have lost the power of speech. She puts her handkerchief into her mouth. A moaning sob is heard deep in her chest. SCHIERKE, MRS. KIELBACKE with the dead child, followed by MRS. KNOBBE and PAULINE PIPERCARCKA, leave the room. A dull murmur is heard from the outer hall. HASSENREUTER returns to the foreground after he has locked the door behind those who have left.

HASSENREUTER

Sic eunt fata hominum. Invent something like that, if you can, my good Spitta.



THE FOURTH ACT

The dwelling of the foreman-mason JOHN as in the second act. It is eight o'clock on a Sunday morning.

JOHN is invisible behind the partition. From his plashing and snorting it is clear that he is performing his morning ablutions.

QUAQUARO has just entered. His hand is still on the knob of the outer door.

QUAQUARO

Tell me, Paul, is your wife at home?

JOHN

[From behind the partition.] Not yet, Emil. My wife went with the boy out to my married sister's in Hangelsberg. But she's goin' to come back this mornin'. [Drying his hands and face, JOHN appears in the door of the partition wall.] Good mornin' to you, Emil.

QUAQUARO

Mornin', Paul.

JOHN

Well, what's the news? I didn't come from the train till about half an hour ago.

QUAQUARO

Yes, I saw you goin' into the house an' mountin' the stairs.

JOHN

[In a jolly frame of mind.] That's right, Emil! You're a reglar old watch-dog, eh?

QUAQUARO

Tell, me, Paul: How long has your wife'n the kid been out in Hangelsberg?

JOHN

Oh, that must be somethin' like a week now, Emil. D'you want anythin' of her? I guess she paid her rent an' on time all right. By the way, I might as well give you notice right now. We got it all fixed. We're goin' to move on the first of October. I got mother to the point at last that we c'n move outa this here shaky old barracks an' into a better neighbourhood.

QUAQUARO

So you ain't goin' back to Hamburg no more?

JOHN

Naw. It's a good sayin': Stay at home an' make an honest livin'! I'm not goin' outa town no more. Not a bit of it! First of all, it's no sort o' life, goin' from one lodgin' to another. An' then—a man don' get no younger neither! The girls, they ain't so hot after you no more ... No, it's a good thing that all this wanderin' about is goin' to end.

QUAQUARO

Your wife—she's a fine schemer.

JOHN

[Merrily.] Well, this is a brand new household what's jus' had a child born into it. I said to the boss: I'm a newly married man! Then he axed me if my first wife was dead. On the contrary an' not a bit of it, I says. She's alive an' kickin', so that she's jus' given birth to a kickin' young citizen o' Berlin, that's what! When I was travellin' along from Hamburg this mornin' by all the old stations—Hamburg, Stendal, Ultzen—an' got outa the fourth-class coach at the Lehrter station with all my duds, the devil take me if I didn't thank God with a sigh. I guess he didn't hear on account o' the noise o' the trains.

QUAQUARO

Did you hear, Paul, that Mrs. Knobbe's youngest over the way has been taken off again?

JOHN

No. What chance did I have to hear that? But if it's dead, it's a good thing, Emil. When I saw the poor crittur a week ago when it had convulsions an' Selma brought it in an' me an' mother gave it a spoonful o' sugar an' water—well, it was pretty near ready for heaven then.

QUAQUARO

An' you mean to tell me that you didn't hear nothin' o' the circumstances, about the how an' the why o' that child's death?

JOHN

Naw! [He fetches a long tobacco pipe from behind the sofa.] Wait a minute! I'll light a pipe first! I didn't have no chanct to hear nothin'.

QUAQUARO

Well, I'm surprised that your wife didn't write you nothin' at all.

JOHN

Aw, since we has a child o' our own, mother's taken no interest in them Knobbe brats no more.

QUAQUARO

[Observing JOHN with lurking curiosity.] You're wife was reel crazy to have a son, wasn't she?

JOHN

Well, that's natural. D'you think I wasn't? What's a man to work for? What do I slave away for? It's different thing savin' a good lump o' money for your own son from doin' it for your sister's children.

QUAQUARO

So you don't know that a strange girl came here an' swore that the Knobbe woman's child wasn't hers but belonged to the girl?

JOHN

Is that so? Well, Mrs. Knobbe an' child stealin'—them two things don't go together. Now if it'd been mother, that would ha' been more likely. But not that Knobbe woman! But tell me, Emil, what's all this here business about?

QUAQUARO

Well, one person says one thing an' another says another. The Knobbe woman says that certain people has started a plot with detectives an' such like to get hold o' the brat. An' there ain't no doubt o' this. It's proved that the child was hers. C'n you maybe give me a tip as to where your brother-in-law's been keepin' hisself the past few days?

JOHN

You mean the butcher in Hangelsberg?

QUAQUARO

Naw, I don' mean the husband o' your sister, but the feller what's brother o' your wife.

JOHN

It's Bruno you mean?

QUAQUARO

Sure, that's the feller.

JOHN

How do I know? I'd sooner be watchin' if the dogs still plays on the curb. I don't want to have no dealin's with Bruno.

QUAQUARO

Listen to me, Paul. But don't get mad. They knows at the police station that Bruno was seen in company o' the Polish girl what wanted to claim this here child, first right outside o' the door here an' then at a certain place on Shore street where the tanners sometimes looses their soakin' hides. An' now the girl's jus' disappeared. I don' know nothin' o' the particulars, excep' that the police is huntin' for the girl.

JOHN

[Resolutely putting aside the long pipe which he had lit.] I don' know, but I can't take no enjoyment in it this mornin'. I don' know what's gotten into me. I was as jolly as can be. An' now all of a sudden I feel so dam' mean I'd like to go straight back to Hamburg an' hear an' see nothin' more!—Why d'you come aroun' with stories like that?

QUAQUARO

I jus' thought I'd tell you what happened while you an' your wife was away right here in your own house?

JOHN

In my own house?

QUAQUARO

That's it! Yessir! They says that Selma pushed the perambulator with her little brother in here where the strange girl an' her friend came an' took him an' carried him off. But upstairs, in the actor's place, they caught her.

JOHN

What's that?

QUAQUARO

So up there the strange girl an' the Knobbe woman pretty near tore each other's hair out over the child's body.

JOHN

What I'd like to know is how all that concerns me? Ain't there trouble here over some girl most o' the time? Let 'em go on! I don' care! That is to say, Emil, if there ain't more to it than you're tellin' me.

QUAQUARO

That's why I come to you! There is more. The girl said in front o' witnesses more'n onct that that little crittur o' Knobbe's was her own an' that she had expressly given it in board to your wife.

JOHN

[First taken aback, then relieved. Laughing.] She ain't quite right in her upper story. That's all.

ERICH SPITTA enters.

SPITTA

Good morning, Mr. John.

JOHN

Good mornin', Mr. Spitta. [To QUAQUARO, who is still loitering in the door.] It's all right, Emil. I'll take notice o' what you says an' act accordin'.

QUAQUARO exit.

JOHN

Now jus' look at a feller like that, Mr. Spitta. He's more'n half a gaol bird an' yet he knows how to make hisself a favourite with the district commissioner at headquarters! An' then he goes aroun' pokin' his nose into honest folks' affairs.

SPITTA

Has Miss Walburga Hassenreuter been asking after me, Mr. John?

JOHN

Not up to this time; not that I knows of! [He opens the door to the hall.] Selma! Excuse me a minute, will you? Selma! I gotta know what that there girl c'n tell me.

SELMA KNOBBE enters.

SELMA

[Still at the door.] What d'you want?

JOHN

You shut the door a minute an' come in! An' now tell me, girl, what's all this that happened in this room about your little dead brother and the strange girl?

SELMA

[Who has, obviously, a bad conscience, gradually comes forward watchfully. She now answers glibly and volubly.] I pushed the perambulator over into the room here. Your wife wasn't in an' so I thinks that maybe here there'd be more quiet, 'cause my little brother, you know, he was sick anyhow an' cryin' all the time. An' then, all of a sudden, a gentleman an' a lady an' another woman all comes in here, an' they picked the little feller right outa the carridge an' put clean clothes on him an' carried him off.

JOHN

An' then the lady said as how it was her child an' how she'd given it in board with mother, with my old woman?

SELMA

[Lies.] Naw, not a bit. I'd know about that if it was so.

JOHN

[Bangs his fist on the table.] Well, damn it all, it'd be a idjit's trick to have said that.

SPITTA

Permit me, but she did say that. I take it you're talking of the incident with the two women that took place upstairs at manager Hassenreuter's?

JOHN

Did you see that? Was you there when the Knobbe woman an' the other one was disputin' about the little crittur?

SPITTA

Yes, certainly. I was present throughout.

SELMA

I tell you all I knows. An' I couldn't say no more if officer Schierke or the tall police lieutenant hisself was to examine me for hours an' hours. I don' know nothin'. An' what I don' know I can't tell.

JOHN

The lieutenant examined you?

SELMA

They wanted to take mama to the lock-up because people went an' lied. They said that our little baby was starved to death.

JOHN

Aha! 's that so? Well, Selma, s'pose you go over there an' cook a little coffee.

SELMA goes over to the stove where she prepares coffee for JOHN. JOHN himself goes up to his working table, takes up the compass. Then he draws lines, using a piece of rail as a ruler.

SPITTA

[Conquering his diffidence and shame.] I really hoped to meet your wife here, Mr. John. Someone told me that your wife has been in the habit of lending out small sums to students against security. And I am somewhat embarrassed.

JOHN

Maybe that's so. But that's mother's business, Mr. Spitta.

SPITTA

To be quite frank with you, if I don't get hold of some money by to-night, the few books and other possessions I have will be attached for rent by my landlady and I'll be put into the street.

JOHN

I thought your father was a preacher.

SPITTA

So he is. But for that very reason and because I don't want to become a preacher, too, he and I had a terrible quarrel last night. I won't ever accept a farthing from him any more.

JOHN

[Busy over his drawing.] Then it'll serve him right if you starve or break your neck.

SPITTA

Men like myself don't starve, Mr. John. But if, by any chance, I were to go to the dogs—I shouldn't greatly care.

JOHN

No one wouldn't believe how many half-starved nincompoops there is among you stoodents. But none o' you wants to put your hand to some reel work.—[The distant sound of thunder is heard. JOHN looks out through the window.]—Sultry day. It's thunderin' now.

SPITTA

Yon can't say that of me, Mr. John, that I haven't been willing to do real work. I've given lessons, I've addressed envelopes for business houses! I've been through everything and in all these attempts I've not only toiled away the days but also the nights. And at the same time I've ground away at my studies like anything!

JOHN

Man alive, go to Hamburg an' let 'em give you a job as a bricklayer. When I was your age I was makin' as much as twelve crowns a day in Hamburg.

SPITTA

That may be. But I'm a brain worker.

JOHN

I know that kind.

SPITTA

Is that so? I don't think you do know that kind, Mr. John. I beg you not to forget that your Socialist leaders—your Bebels and your Liebknechts—are brain workers too.

JOHN

All right. Come on, then! Let's have some breakfast first. Things look mighty different after a man's had a good bite o' breakfast. I s'pose you ain't had any yet, Mr. Spitta?

SPITTA

No, frankly, not to-day.

JOHN

Well, then the first thing is to get somethin' warm down your throat.

SPITTA

There's time enough for that.

JOHN

I don' know. You're lookin' pretty well done up. An' I passed the night on the train too. [To SELMA, who has brought in a little linen bag filed with rolls.] Hurry an' bring another cup over here. [He has seated himself at his ease on the sofa, dips a roll into the coffee and begins to eat and drink.]

SPITTA

[Who has not sat down yet.] It's really pleasanter to pass a summer night in the open if one can't sleep anyhow. And I didn't sleep for one minute.

JOHN

I'd like to see the feller what c'n sleep when he's outa cash. When a man's down in the world he has most company outa doors too. [He suddenly stops chewing.]—Come here, Selma, an' tell me exackly just how it was with that there girl an' the child that she took outa our room here.

SELMA

I don' know what to do. Everybody axes we that. Mama keeps axin' me about it all day long; if I seen Bruno Mechelke; if I know who it was that stole the costumes from the actor's loft up there! If it goes on that way ...

JOHN

[Energetically.] Girl, why didn't you cry out when the gentleman and the young lady took your little brother outa his carridge?

SELMA

I didn't think nothin' 'd happen to him excep' that he'd get some clean clothes.

JOHN

[Grasps SELMA by the wrist.] Well, you come along with me now. We'll go over an' see your mother.

JOHN and SELMA leave the room. As soon as they are gone SPITTA begins to eat ravenously. Soon thereafter WALBURGA appears. She is in great haste and strongly excited.

WALBURGA

Are you alone?

SPITTA

For the moment, yes. Good morning, Walburga.

WALBURGA

Am I too late? It was only by the greatest cunning, by the greatest determination, by the most ruthless disregard of everything that I succeeded in getting away from home. My younger sister tried to bar the door. Even the servant girl! But I told mama that if they wouldn't let me out through the door, they might just as well bar the window, else I'd reach the street through it, although it's three stories high. I flew. I'm more dead than alive. But I am prepared for anything. How was it with your father, Erich?

SPITTA

We have parted. He thought that I was going out to eat husks with the swine as the Prodigal Son did, and told me not to take it into my mind ever again to cross the threshold of my father's house in my future capacity as acrobat or bareback rider, as he was pleased to express it. His door was not open to such scum! Well, I'll fight it down! Only I'm sorry for my poor, dear mother.—You can't imagine with what abysmal hatred a man of his kind considers the theatre and everything connected with it. The heaviest curse is not strong enough to express his feelings. An actor is, to his mind, a priori, the worst, most contemptible scamp imaginable.

WALBURGA

I've found out, too, how papa discovered our secret.

SPITTA

My father gave him your picture.

WALBURGA

O Erich, if you knew with what awful, with what horrible names papa overwhelmed me in his rage. And I had to be silent through it all. I might have said something that would have silenced all his lofty moral discourses and made him quite helpless before me. I was almost on the point of saying it, too. But I felt so ashamed for him! My tongue refused to form the words! I couldn't say it, Erich! Finally mama had to intervene. He struck me! For eight or nine hours he locked me in a dark alcove—to break my stubbornness, as he put it, Erich. Well, he won't succeed! He won't break it!

SPITTA

[Taking WALBURGA into his arms.] You dear, brave girl! I am beginning to see now what I possess in having your love, what a treasure you are! [Passionately.] And how beautiful you look, Walburga!

WALBURGA

Don't! Don't!—I trust you, Erich; that's all.

SPITTA

And you shall not be disappointed, dearest. You see, a man like me in whom everything is still in a ferment, who feels that he was born to achieve something great and significant but something which, for the present, he can make sufficiently clear neither to himself nor to the world—such a man has, at twenty, every man's hand against his and is a burden and a laughing-stock to all the world. But believe me: it will not always be so! The germs of the future lie in us! The soil is being loosened even now by the budding shoots! Unseen to-day, we are the harvest of the future! We are the future! And the time will come when all this great and beautiful world will be ours!

WALBURGA

Ah, go on, Erich! What you say heals my heart.

SPITTA

Walburga, I did more, last night! I flung straight out into my father's face, just as I felt it, my accusation of the crime committed against my sister. And that made the break definite and unbridgeable. He said stubbornly: He had no knowledge of such a daughter as I was describing. Such a daughter had no existence in his soul, and it seemed to him that his son would also soon cease to exist there. O these Christians! O these servants of the good shepherd who took the lost lamb with double tenderness into his arms! O thou good Shepherd, how have your words been perverted; How have your eternal truths been falsified into their exact contrary. But to-day when I sat amidst the flash of lightning and the roll of thunder in the Tiergarten and certain Berlin hyaenas were prowling about me, I felt the crushed and restless soul of my sister close beside me. How many nights, in her poor life, may she not have sat shelterless on such benches, perhaps on this very bench in the Tiergarten, in order to consider in her loneliness, her degradation, her outcast estate, how, two thousand years after the birth of Christ, this most Christian world is drenched with Christianity and with the love of its fellow-men! But whatever she thought, this is what I think; the poor harlot, the wretched sinner who is yet above the righteous, who is weighed down by the sins of the world, the poor outcast and her terrible accusation shall never die in my soul! And into this flame of our goals we must cast all the wretchedness, all the lamentations of the oppressed and the disinherited! Thus shall my sister stay truly alive, Walburga, and effect noble ends before the face of God through the ethical impulse that lends wings to my soul, and that will be more powerful than all the evil, heartless parson's morality in the world.

WALBURGA

You were in the Tiergarten all night, Erich? Is that the reason why your hands are so icy cold, and why you look so utterly worn out? Erich, you must take my purse! No, please, you must! Oh, I assure you what is mine is yours! If you don't feel that, you don't love me. Erich, you're suffering! If you don't take my few pennies, I'll refuse all nourishment at home! By heaven, I'll do it, I'll do it, unless you're sensible about that!

SPITTA

[Chokes down his rising tears and sits down.] I'm nervous; I'm overwrought.

WALBURGA

[Puts her purse into his pocket.] And you see, Erich, this is the real reason why I asked you to meet me here. To add to all my misfortunes I received yesterday this summons from the court.

SPITTA

[Regards a document which she hands to him.] Look here? What's behind this, Walburga?

WALBURGA

I'm quite sure that it must have some connection with the stolen goods upstairs in the loft. But it does disquiet me terribly. If papa were to discover this ... oh, what would I do then?

MRS. JOHN enters, carrying the child in her arms. She is dressed for the street, and looks dusty and harassed.

MRS. JOHN

[Frightened, suspicious.] Well, what d'you want here? Is Paul home yet? I jus' went down in the street a little with the baby.

[She carries the child behind the partition.

WALBURGA

Erich, do mention the summons to Mrs. John!

MRS. JOHN

Why, Paul's at home. There's his things!

SPITTA

Miss Hassenreuter wanted very much to talk to you. She received a summons to appear in court. It's probably about those things that were stolen from the loft. You know.

MRS. JOHN

[Emerging from behind the partition.] What's that? You reelly got a summons, Miss Walburga? Well, then you better look out! I ain't jokin'. An' maybe you're thinkin' o' the black man!

SPITTA

What you're saying there is quite incomprehensible, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

[Taking up her domestic tasks.] Did you hear that 'way out in the Lauben settlement, beyond the Halle Gate, the lightenin' struck a man an' a woman an' a little girl o' seven this mornin'. It was right under a tall poplar tree.

SPITTA

No, Mrs. John, we didn't hear that.

MRS. JOHN

The rain's splashin' down again.

One hears a shower of rain beginning to fall.

WALBURGA

[Nervously.] Come, Erich, let's get out into the open anyhow.

MRS. JOHN

[Speaking louder and louder in her incoherent terror.] An' I tell you another thing: I was talking to the woman what was struck by lightenin' jus' a short time before. An' she says—now listen to me, Mr. Spitta—if you takes a dead child what's lyin' in its carridge an' pushes it out into the sun ... but it's gotta be summer an' midday ... it'll draw breath, it'll cry, it'll come back to life!—You don't believe that, eh? But I seen that with my own eyes!

[She circles about the room in a strange fashion, apparently becoming quite oblivious of the presence of the two young people.

WALBURGA

Look, here, Mrs. John is positively uncanny! Let's go!

MRS. JOHN

[Speaking still louder.] You don' believe that, that it'll come to life again, eh? I tell you, its mother c'n come an' take it. But it's gotta be nursed right off.

SPITTA

Good-bye, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

[In strange excitement accompanies the two young people to the door. Speaking still more loudly.] You don' believe that! But it's the solemn truth, Mr. Spitta!

SPITTA and WALBURGA leave the room.

MRS. JOHN

[Still holding the door in her hand calls out after them.] Anybody that don' believe that don' know nothin' o' the whole secret that I discovered.

The foreman-mason JOHN appears in the door and enters at once.

JOHN

Why, there you are, mother! I'm glad to see you. What's that there secret you're talkin' about?

MRS. JOHN

[As though awakening, grasps her head.] Me?—Did I say somethin' about a secret?

JOHN

That you did unless I'm hard o' hearin'. An' it's reelly you unless it's a ghost.

MRS. JOHN

[Surprised and frightened.] Why d'you think I might be a ghost?

JOHN

[Pats his wife good-naturedly on the back.] Come now, Jette, don't bite me. I'm reel glad, that I am, that you're here again with the little kid! [He goes behind the partition.] But it's lookin' a little measly.

MRS. JOHN

The milk didn't agree with him. An' that's because out there in the country the cows is already gettin' green fodder. I got milk here from the dairy company that comes from dry fed cows.

JOHN

[Reappears in the main room.] That's what I'm sayin'. Why did you have to go an' take the child on the train an' outa town. The city is healthier. That's my notion.

MRS. JOHN

I'm goin' to stay at home now, Paul.

JOHN

In Hamburg everythin' is settled, too. To-day at noon I'm goin' to meet Karl an' then he'll tell me when I c'n start workin' for the new boss!—Look here: I brought somethin' with me, too.

[He takes a small child's rattle from his breeches pocket and shakes it.

MRS. JOHN

What's that?

JOHN

That's somethin' to bring a bit o' life into the place, 'cause it's pretty quiet inside in Berlin here! Listen how the kid's crowin'. [The child is heard making happy little noises.] I tell you, mother, when a little kid goes on that way—there ain't nothin' I'd take for it!

MRS. JOHN

Have you seen anybody yet?

JOHN

No!—Leastways only Quaquaro early this mornin'.

MRS. JOHN

[In timid suspense.] Well ...?

JOHN

Oh, never mind! Nothin! There was nothin' to it.

MRS. JOHN [As before.] What did he say?

JOHN

What d'you think he said? But if you're bound to know—'tain't no use talkin' o' such things Sunday mornin'—he axed me after Bruno again.

MRS. JOHN

[Pale and speaking hastily.] What do they say Bruno has done again?

JOHN

Nothin'. Here, come'n drink a little coffee, Jette, an' don' get excited! It ain't your fault that you got a brother like that. We don't has to concern ourselves about other people.

MRS. JOHN

I'd like to know what an old fool like that what spies aroun' all day long has always gotta be talkin' about Bruno.

JOHN

Jette, don' bother me about Bruno—You see ...aw, what's the use ... might as well keep still!... But if I was goin' to tell you the truth, I'd say that it wouldn't surprise me if some day Bruno'd come to a pretty bad end right out in the yard o' the gaol, too—a quick end. [MRS. JOHN sits down heavily beside the table. She grows grey in the face and breathes with difficulty.] Maybe not! Maybe not! Don't take it to heart so right off!—How's the sister?

MRS. JOHN

I don' know.

JOHN

Why, I thought you was out there visitin' her?

MRS. JOHN

[Looks at him absently.] Where was I?

JOHN

Well, you see, Jette, that's the way it is with you women! You're jus' shakin', but oh no—you don' want to go to no doctor! An' it'll end maybe, by your havin' to take to your bed. That's what comes o' neglectin' nature.

MRS. JOHN

[Throwing her arms about JOHN'S neck.] Paul, you're goin' to leave me! For God's sake, tell me right out that it's so! Don' fool me aroun' an' cheat me! Tell me right out!

JOHN

What's the matter with you to-day, Henrietta?

MRS. JOHN

[Pulling herself together.] Don' attend to my fool talk. I ain't had no rest all night—that's it. An' then I got up reel early, an' anyhow, it ain't nothin' but that I'm a bit weak yet.

JOHN

Then you better lie down flat on your back an' rest a little. [MRS. JOHN throws herself on the sofa and stares at the ceiling.] Maybe you'd better comb yourself a bit afterwards, Jette!—It musta been mighty dusty on the train for you to be jus' covered all over with sand the way you are! [MRS. JOHN does not answer but continues staring at the ceiling.] I must go an' bring that there little feller into the light a bit.

[He goes behind the partition.

MRS. JOHN

How long has we been married, Paul?

JOHN

[Plays with the rattle behind the partition. Then answers:] That was in eighteen hundred and seventy-two, jus' as I came back from the war.

MRS. JOHN

Then you came to father, didn't you? An' you assoomed a grand position an' you had the Iron Cross on the left side o' your chest.

JOHN

[Appears, swinging the rattle and carrying the child on its pillow. He speaks merrily.] That's so, mother. An' I got it yet. If you want to see it, I'll pin it on.

MRS. JOHN

[Still stretched out on the sofa.] An' then you came to me an' you said that I wasn't to be so busy all the time ... goin' up an' down, runnin' upstairs an' downstairs ... that I was to be a bit more easy-goin'.

JOHN

An' I'm still sayin' that same thing to-day.

MRS. JOHN

An' then you tickled me with your moustache an' kissed me right behind my left ear! An' then ...

JOHN

Then it didn't take long for us to agree, eh?

MRS. JOHN

Yes, an' I laughed an', bit by bit, I looked at myself in every one o' your brass buttons. I was lookin' different then! An' then you said ...

JOHN

Well, mother, you're a great one for rememberin' things, I must say!

MRS. JOHN

An' then you said: When we has a boy, an' that'll be soon, he c'n follow the flag into the field too "with God for King an' country."

JOHN

[Sings to the child, playing with the rattle.]

"To heaven he turns his glances bold Whence gaze the hero sires of old: The Rhine, the Rhine, the German Rhine!"...

Well, an' now that I has a little feller like that I ain't half so keen on sendin' him to the war to be food for powder.

[He retires with the child behind the partition.

MRS. JOHN

[Still staring at the ceiling.] Paul, Paul! Seems as if all that was a hundred years ago!

JOHN

[Reappears from behind the partition without the child.] Not as long ago as all that.

MRS. JOHN

Look here, what d'you think? How would it be if you was to take me an' the child an' go to America?

JOHN

Now listen here, Jette! What's gotten into you, anyhow? What is it? Looks as if there was nothin' but ghosts aroun' me here! You know I has a good easy temper! When the workmen heave bricks at each other, I don't even get excited. An' what do they say? Paul has a comfortable nature. But now: what's this here? The sun's shinin'; it's bright daylight! I can't see nothin'; that's a fac'. But somethin's titterin' an' whisperin' an' creepin' aroun' in here. Only when I stretches out my hand I can't lay hold on nothin'! Now I wants to know what there is to this here story about the strange girl what came to the room. Is it true?

MRS. JOHN

You heard, Paul, that the young lady didn't come back no more. An' that shows you, don't it ...

JOHN

I hear what you're sayin'. But your lips is fair blue an' your eyes look as if somebody was tormentin' you.

MRS. JOHN

[Suddenly changing her attitude] Yes. Why do you leave me alone year in an' year out, Paul? I sits here like in a cave an' I ain't got a soul to who I c'n say what I'm thinkin'. Many a time I've sat here an' axed myself why I works an' works, why I skimps an' saves to get together a few crowns, an' find good investments for your earnin's an' try to add to 'em. Why? Was all that to go to strangers? Paul, it's you who's been the ruin o' me!

[She lays her head on the table and bursts out in sobs.

Softly and with feline stealth BRUNO MECHELKE enters the room at this moment. He has on his Sunday duds, a sprig of lilac in his hat and a great bunch of it in his hand. JOHN drums with his fingers on the window and does not observe him.

MRS. JOHN

[Has gradually realised BRUNO'S presence as though he were a ghost.] Bruno, is that you?

BRUNO

[Who has recognised JOHN in a flash, softly.] Sure, it's me, Jette.

MRS. JOHN

Where d'you come from? What d'you want?

BRUNO

I been dancin' all night, Jette! You c'n see, can't you, that I'm dam' jolly?

JOHN

[Has been staring steadily at BRUNO. A dangerous pallor has overspread his face. He now goes slowly to a small cupboard, takes out an old army revolver and loads it. MRS. JOHN does not observe this.] You! Listen! I'll tell you somethin'—somethin' you forgot, maybe. There ain't no reason on God's earth why I shouldn't pull this here trigger! You scoundrel! You ain't fit to be among human bein's! I told you ... las' fall it was ... that I'd shoot you down if I ever laid eyes on you in my home again! Now go ... or I'll ... shoot. Y'understan'?

BRUNO

Aw, I ain't scared o' your jelly squirter.

MRS. JOHN

[Who observes that JOHN, losing control of himself, is slowly approaching BRUNO with the weapon and raising it.] Then kill me too, Paul. 'Cause he's my brother.

JOHN

[Looks at her long, seems to awaken and change his mind.] All right. [He replaces the revolver carefully in the cupboard.] You're right, anyhow, Jette! It's hell, Jette, that your name's got to be on the tongue of a crittur like that. All right. The powder'd be too good, too. This here little pistol's tasted the blood o' two French cavalry men! Heroes they was! An' I don't want it to drink no dirt.

BRUNO

I ain' doubtin' that there's dirt in your head! An' if it hadn't been that you board with my sister here I'd ha' let the light into you long ago, you dirt eater, so you'd ha' bled for weeks.

JOHN

[With tense restraint.] Tell me again, Jette, that it's your brother.

MRS. JOHN

Go, Paul, will you? I'll get him away all right! You know's well as I that I can't help it now that Bruno's my own brother.

JOHN

All right. Then I'm one too many here. You c'n bill an' coo. [He is dressed for the street as it is and hence proceeds to go. Close by BRUNO he stands still.] You scamp! You worried your father into his grave. Your sister might better ha' let you starve behind some fence rather'n raise you an' litter the earth with another criminal like you. I'll be back in half an hour! But I won't be alone. I'll have the sergeant with me!

[JOHN leaves by the outer door, putting on his slouch hat.

So soon as JOHN has disappeared BRUNO turns and spits out after him toward the door.

BRUNO

If I ever gets hold o' you!

MRS. JOHN

Why d'you come, Bruno? Tell me, what's the matter?

BRUNO

Tin's what you gotta give me. Or I'll go to hell.

MRS. JOHN

[Locks and latches the outer door.] Wait till I close the door! Now, what's the matter? Where d'you come from? Where has you been?

BRUNO

Oh, I danced about half the night an' then, about sunrise, I went out into the country for a bit.

MRS. JOHN

Did Quaquaro see you comin' in, Bruno? Then you better look out that you ain't walked into no trap.

BRUNO

No danger. I crossed the yard an' then went through the cellar o' my friend what deals in junk an' after that up through the loft.

MRS. JOHN

Well, an' what happened?

BRUNO

Don' fool aroun', Jette. I gotta have railroad fare. I gotta take to my heels or I'll go straight to hell.

MRS. JOHN

An' what did you do with that there girl?

BRUNO

Oh, I found a way, Jette!

MRS. JOHN

What's the meanin' o' that?

BRUNO

Oh, I managed to make her a little more accommodatin' all right!

MRS. JOHN

An' is it a sure thing that she won't come back now?

BRUNO

Sure. I don' believe that she'll come again! But that wasn't no easy piece of work, Jette. But I tell you ... gimme somethin' to drink—quick!... I tell you, you made me thirsty with your damned business—thirsty, an' hot as hell.

[He drains a jug full of water.

MRS. JOHN

People saw you outside the door with the girl.

BRUNO

I had to make a engagement with Arthur. She didn't want to have nothin' to do with me. But Arthur, he came dancin' along in his fine clothes an' he managed to drag her along to a bar. She swallowed the bait right down when he told her as how her intended was waitin' for her there. [He trills out, capering about convulsively.]

"All we does in life's to go Up an' down an' to an' fro From a tap-room to a show!"

MRS. JOHN

Well, an' then?

BRUNO

Then she wanted to get away 'cause Arthur said that her intended had gone off! Then I wanted to go along with her a little bit an' Arthur an' Adolph, they came along. Next we dropped in the ladies' entrance at Kalinich's an' what with tastin' a lot o' toddy an' other liquors she got good an' tipsy. An' then she staid all night with a woman what's Arthur's sweetheart. All next day there was always two or three of us boys after her, didn't let her go, an' played all kinds o' tricks, an' things got jollier an' jollier.

[The church bells of the Sunday morning services begin to ring.

BRUNO

[Goes on.] But the money's gone. I needs crowns an' pennies, Jette.

MRS. JOHN

[Rummaging for money.] How much has you got to have?

BRUNO

[Listening to the bells.] What?

MRS. JOHN

Money!

BRUNO

The old bag o' bones in the junk shop downstairs was thinkin' as how I'd better get across the Russian frontier! Listen, Jette, how the bells is ringin'.

MRS. JOHN

Why do you has to get acrost the frontier?

BRUNO

Take a wet towel, Jette, an' put a little vinegar on it. I been bothered with this here dam' nosebleed all night.

[He presses his handkerchief to his nose.

MRS. JOHN

[Breathing convulsively, brings a towel.] Who was it scratched your wrist into shreds that way?

BRUNO

[Listening to the bells.] Half past three o'clock this mornin' she could ha' heard them bells yet.

MRS. JOHN

O Jesus, my Saviour! That ain't true! That can't noways be possible! I didn't tell you nothin' like that, Bruno! Bruno, I has to sit down. Oh! [She sits down.] That's what our father foretold to me on his dyin' bed.

BRUNO

It ain't so easy jokin' with me. If you go to see Minna, jus' tell her that I got the trick o' that kind o' thing an' that them goin's on with Karl an' with Fritz has to stop.

MRS. JOHN

But, Bruno, if they was to catch you!

BRUNO

Well, then I has to swing, an' out at the Charity hospital they got another stiff to dissect.

MRS. JOHN

[Giving him money.] Oh, that ain't true. What did you do, Bruno?

BRUNO

You're a crazy old crittur, Jette.—[He puts his hand on her not without a tremor of emotion.] You always says as how I ain't good for nothin'. But when things can't go on no more, then you needs me, Jette.

MRS. JOHN

Well, but how? Did you threaten the girl that she wasn't to let herself be seen no more? That's what you ought to ha' done, Bruno! An' did you?

BRUNO

I danced with her half the night. An' then we went out on the street. Well, a gentleman came along, y'understan'? Well, when I told him that I had some little business o' my own to transact with the lady an' pulled my brass-knuckles outa my breeches, o' course he took to his heels.—Then I says to her, says I: Don't you be scared. If you're peaceable an' don' make no outcry an' don' come no more to my sister axin' after the child—well, we c'n make a reel friendly bargain. So she toddled along with me a ways.

MRS. JOHN

Well, an' then?

BRUNO

Well, she didn't want to! An' all of a sudden she went for my throat that I thought it'd be the end o' me then an' there! Like a dawg she went for me hot an' heavy! An' then ... then I got a little bit excited too—an' then, well ... that's how it come ...

MRS. JOHN

[Sunk in horror.] What time d'you say it was?

BRUNO

It must ha' been somewhere between three an' four. The moon had a big ring aroun' it. Out on the square there was a dam' cur behind the planks what got up an' howled. Then it began to drip an' soon a thunderstorm came up.

MRS. JOHN

[Changed and with sudden self-mastery.] It's all right. Go on. She don' deserve no better.

BRUNO

Good-bye. I s'pose we ain't goin' to see each other for years an' years.

MRS. JOHN

Where you goin' to?

BRUNO

First of all I gotta lie flat on my back for a couple o' hours. I'm goin' to Fritz's. He's got a room for rent in the old police station right acrost from the Fisher's Bridge. I'm safe there all right. If there's anythin' of a outcry you c'n lemme know.

MRS. JOHN

Don' you want to take a peek at the child onct more?

BRUNO

[Trembling.] Naw!

MRS. JOHN

Why not?

BRUNO

No, Jette, not in this here life! Good-bye, Jette. Hol' on a minute: Here I got a horseshoe. [He puts a horseshoe on the table.] I found it. That'll bring you good luck. I don' need it.

Stealthily as he has come, BRUNO MECHELKE also disappears. MRS. JOHN, her eyes wide with horror, stares at the spot where he stood. Then she totters backward a few paces, presses her hands, clenched convulsively as if in prayer, against her mouth, and collapses, still trying in vain to stammer out a prayerful appeal to heaven.

MRS. JOHN

I ain't no murderer! I ain't no murderer! I didn't want that to happen!



FIFTH ACT

JOHN'S room. MRS. JOHN is asleep on the sofa. WALBURGA and SPITTA enter from the outer hall. The loud playing of a military band is heard from the street.

SPITTA

No one is here.

WALBURGA

Oh, yes, there is, Erich. Mrs. John! She's asleep here.

SPITTA

[Approaching the sofa together with WALBURGA.] Is she asleep? So she is! I don't understand how anyone can sleep amidst this noise.

The music of the band trails off into silence.

WALBURGA

Oh, Erich, sh! I have a perfect horror of the woman. Can you understand anyhow why policemen are guarding the entrance downstairs and why they won't let us go out into the street? I'm so awfully afraid that, maybe, they'll arrest us and take us along to the station.

SPITTA

Oh, but there's not the slightest danger, Walburga! You're seeing ghosts by broad daylight.

WALBURGA

When the plain clothes man came up to you and looked at us and you asked him who he was and he showed his badge under his coat, I assure you, at that moment, the stairs and the hall suddenly began to go around with me.

SPITTA

They're looking for a criminal, Walburga. It is a so-called raid that is going on here, a kind of man hunt such as the criminal police is at times obliged to undertake.

WALBURGA

And you can believe me, too, Erich, that I heard papa's voice. He was talking quite loudly to some one.

SPITTA

You are nervous. You may have been mistaken.

WALBURGA

[Frightened at MRS. JOHN, who is speaking in her sleep.] Listen to her: do!

SPITTA

Great drops of sweat are standing on her forehead. Come here! Just look at the rusty old horseshoe that she is clasping with both hands.

WALBURGA

[Listens and starts with fright again.] Papa!

SPITTA

I don't understand you. Let him come, Walburga. The essential thing is that one knows what one wants and that one has a clean conscience. I am ready. I long for the explanation to come about.

A loud knocking is heard at the door.

SPITTA

[Firmly.] Come in!

MRS. HASSENREUTER enters, more out of breath than usual. An expression of relief comes over her face as she catches sight of her daughter.

MRS. HASSENREUTER

Thank God! There you are, children! [Trembling, WALBURGA throws herself into her mother's arms.] Girlie, but what a fright you've given your old mother.

[A pause in which only the breathing of MRS. HASSENREUTER is heard.

WALBURGA

Forgive me, mama: I couldn't act differently.

MRS. HASSENREUTER

Oh, no! One doesn't write letters containing such thoughts to one's own mother. And especially not to a mother like me. If your soul is in pain you know very well that you can always count on me for help and counsel. I'm not a monster, and I was young myself once. But to threaten to drown yourself ... and things like that ... no, that's all wrong. You shouldn't have done that. Surely you agree with me, Mr. Spitta. And now this very minute ... heavens, how you both look!... this very minute you must both come home with me!—What's the matter with Mrs. John?

WALBURGA

Oh yes, help us! Don't forsake us! Take us with you, mama! Oh, I'm so glad that you're here! I was just paralysed with fright!

MRS. HASSENREUTER

Very well, then. Come along. That would be the last straw if one had to be prepared for such desperate follies from you, Mr. Spitta, or from this child! At your age one should have courage. If everything doesn't go quite smoothly you have no right to think of expedients by which one has nothing to gain and everything to lose. We live but once, after all.

SPITTA

Oh, I have courage! And I'm not thinking of putting an end to myself as one who is weary and defeated ... unless Walburga is refused to me. In that case, to be sure, my determination is firm. It doesn't in the least undermine my belief in myself or in my future that I am poor for the present and have to take my dinner occasionally in the people's kitchen. And I am sure Walburga is equally convinced that a day must come that will indemnify us for all the dark and difficult hours of the present.

MRS. HASSENREUTER

Life is long; and you're almost children to-day. It's not so very bad for a student to have to take an occasional meal in the people's kitchen. It would be much worse, however, for Walburga as a married woman. And I hope for the sake of you both that you'll wait till something in the nature of a hearthstone of your own with the necessary wood and coal can be founded. In the meantime I've succeeded in persuading papa to a kind of truce. It wasn't easy and it might have been impossible had not this morning's mail brought the news of his definitive appointment as manager of the theatre at Strassburg.

WALBURGA

[Joyously.] Oh, mama, mama! That is a ray of sunshine, isn't it?

MRS. JOHN

[Sits up with a start.] Bruno!

MRS. HASSENREUTER

[Apologising.] Oh, we've wakened you, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

Is Bruno gone?

MRS. HASSENREUTER

Who? Who's Bruno?

MRS. JOHN

Why, Bruno! Don' you know Bruno?

MRS. HASSENREUTER

Ah, yes, yes! That's the name of your brother.

MRS. JOHN

Was I asleep?

SPITTA

Fast asleep. But you cried out aloud in your sleep just now.

MRS. JOHN

Did you see, Mr. Spitta, how them boys out in the yard threw stones at my little Adelbert's wee grave? But I got after 'em, eh? An' they wasn't no bad slaps neither what I dealt out.

MRS. HASSENREUTER

It seems that you've been dreaming of your first little boy who died, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

No, no; all that's fac'! I ain't been dreamin'. An' then I took little Adelbert an' I went with him to the registrar's office.

MRS. HASSENREUTER

But if your little boy's no longer alive ... how could you ...

MRS. JOHN

Aw, when a little child is onct born, it don't matter if it's dead ... it's still right inside o' its mother. Did you hear that dawg howlin' behind the board fence? An' the moon had a big ring aroun' it! Bruno, you ain' doin' right!

MRS. HASSENREUTER

[Shaking MRS. JOHN.] Wake up, my good woman! Wake up, Mrs. John! You are ill! Your husband ought to take you to see a physician.

MRS. JOHN

Bruno, you ain' doin' right! [The bells are ringing again.] Ain't them the bells?

MRS. HASSENREUTER

The service is over, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

[Wholly awake now, stares about her.] Why does I wake up? Why didn't you take an ax when I was asleep an' knock me over the head with it?—What did I say? Sh! Only don't tell a livin' soul a word, Mrs. Hassenreuter.

[She jumps up and arranges her hair by the help of many hairpins.

Manager HASSENREUTER appears in the doorway.

HASSENREUTER

[Starting at the sight of his family.]

"Behold, behold, Timotheus, Here are the cranes of Ibicus!"

Didn't you tell me there was a shipping agent's office in the neighbourhood, Mrs. John?—[To WALBURGA.] Ah, yes, my child! While, with the frivolousness of youth you have been thinking of your pleasure and nothing but your pleasure, your papa has been running about for three whole hours again purely on business.—[To SPITTA.] You wouldn't be in such a hurry to establish a family, young man, if you had the least suspicion how hard it is—a struggle from day to day—to get even the wretched, mouldy necessary bit of daily bread for one's wife and child! I trust it will never be your fate to be suddenly hurled one day, quite penniless, into the underworld of Berlin and be obliged to struggle for a naked livelihood for yourself and those dear to you, breast to breast with others equally desperate, in subterranean holes and passages! But you may all congratulate me! A week from now we will be in Strassburg. [MRS. HASSENREUTER, WALBURGA and SPITTA all press his hand.] Everything else will be adjusted.

MRS. HASSENREUTER

You have fought an heroic battle for us during these past years, papa. And you did it without stooping to anything unworthy.

HASSENREUTER

It was a fight like that of drowning men who struggle for planks in the water. My noble costumes, made to body forth the dreams of poets, in what dens of vice, on what reeking bodies have they not passed their nights—odi profanum vulgus—only that a few pennies of rental might clatter in my cashbox! But let us turn to more cheerful thoughts. The freight waggon, alias the cart of Thespis is at the door in order to effect the removal of our Penates to happier fields—[Suddenly turning to SPITTA.] My excellent Spitta, I demand your word of honour that, in your so-called despair, you two do not commit some irreparable folly. In return I promise to lend my ear to any utterances of yours characterised by a modicum of good sense.—Finally: I've come to you, Mrs. John, firstly because the officers bar all the exits and will permit no one to go out; and secondly because I would like exceedingly to know why a man like myself, at the very moment when his triumphant flag is fluttering in the wind again, should have become the object of a malicious newspaper report!

MRS. HASSENREUTER

Dear Harro, Mrs. John doesn't understand you.

HASSENREUTER

Aha! Then let us begin ab ovo. I have letters here [he shows a bundle of them] one, two, three, five—about a dozen! In these letters unknown but malicious individuals congratulate me upon an event which is said to have taken place in my storage loft. I would pay no attention to these communications were they not confirmed by a news item in the papers according to which a newborn infant is said to have been found in the loft of a costumer in the suburbs ... a costumer, forsooth! I would have said nothing, I repeat, if this item had not perplexed me. Undoubtedly there is a case of mistaken identity involved here. In spite of that, I don't like to have the report stick to me. Especially since this cub of a reporter speaks of the costumer as being a bankrupt manager of barn stormers. Read it, mama: "The Stork Visits Costumer." I'll box that fellow's ears! This evening my appointment at Strassburg is to be made public in the papers and at the same time I am to be offered as a kind of comic dessert urbi et orbi. As if it were not obvious that of all curses that of being made ridiculous is the worst!

MRS. JOHN

You say there's policemen at the door downstairs, sir?

HASSENREUTER

Yes, and their watch is so close that the funeral procession of Mrs. Knobbe's baby has been brought to a standstill. They won't even let the little coffin and the horrid fellow from the burial society who is carrying it go out to the carriage.

MRS. JOHN

What child's funeral was that?

HASSENREUTER

Don't you know? It's the little son of Mrs. Knobbe which was brought up to me in so mysterious a way by two women and died almost under my very eyes, probably of exhaustion. A propos ...

MRS. JOHN

The Knobbe woman's child is dead?

HASSENREUTER

A propos, Mrs. John, I was going to say that you ought really to know how the affair of those two half-crazy women who got hold of the child finally ended?

MRS. JOHN

Well now, tell me, ain't it like the very finger of God that they didn't take my little Adelbert an' that he didn't die?

HASSENREUTER

Just why? I don't understand the logic of that. On the other hand, I have been asking myself whether the confused speeches of the Polish girl, the theft committed in my loft, and the milk bottle which Quaquaro brought down in a boot—whether all these things had not something to do with the notice in the papers.

MRS. JOHN

No, there ain't no connection between them things. Has you seen Paul, sir?

HASSENREUTER

Paul? Ah yes; that's your husband. Yes, yes. Indeed I saw him in conversation with detective Puppe, who visited me too in connection with the theft.