Part 4

MRS. BERGMANN--And what fine nephews they are!--That’s just the way of it when one lives so close to the church roof.--It’ll be just two [and a half?] years to-morrow since she went up those steps in her wedding-dress!

WENDLA--Were you with her when he brought him, mother?

MRS. BERGMANN--He had just that minute flown away again!--Don’t you want to pin a rose on here? [_At the front of her dress._]

WENDLA--Why didn’t you get there a little bit sooner, Mother?

MRS. BERGMANN--Why, I do believe, almost, that he brought you something too--a brooch or something like that.

WENDLA--[_Losing patience._] Oh, it’s really too bad!

MRS. BERGMANN--But I tell you that he did bring you a brooch too!

WENDLA--I’ve got brooches enough....

MRS. BERGMANN--Why, then be happy, darling. What are you troubled about?

WENDLA--I’d like to have known, so much, whether he flew in by the window or down the chimney.

MRS. BERGMANN--You must ask Ina about that. [_Laughing._] You must ask Ina about that, dear heart! Ina will tell you all about it exactly. Didn’t Ina spend a whole half-hour talking to him?

WENDLA--I’ll ask Ina as soon as I get down there.

MRS. BERGMANN--Be sure you don’t forget, you angel child! Really, I’m interested myself in knowing if he came in by the window or the chimney!

WENDLA--Or how about asking the chimney-sweep, rather?--The chimney-sweep must know better than anybody whether he flies down the chimney or not.

MRS. BERGMANN--No, not the chimney-sweep, dear; not the chimney-sweep! What does the chimney-sweep know about the stork? He’ll fill you chuck-full of nonsense he doesn’t believe himself.... Wha-what are you staring down the street so at?

WENDLA--A man, mother, three times as big as an ox!--with feet like steamboats--!

MRS. BERGMANN--[_Plunging to the window._] Impossible! Impossible!

WENDLA--[_Right after her._] He’s holding a bedstead under his chin and fiddling “The Watch on the Rhine” on it--now he’s just turned the corner....

MRS. BERGMANN--Well! You are and always were a little rogue! To put your simple old mother into such a fright!--Go get your hat. I wonder when you’ll ever get any sense! I’ve given up hope!

WENDLA--So have I, Mother; so’ve I. It’s pretty sad about my sense! Here I have a sister who’s been married two and a half years; here I am an aunt three times over; and I haven’t the least idea how it all happens!... Don’t be cross, motherkin! don’t be cross! Who in the world should I ask about it but you? Please, Mother dear, tell it to me! Tell me, darling motherkin! I feel ashamed at myself! Please, please, mother, speak! Don’t scold me for asking such a thing. Tell me about it--how does it happen--how does it all come about?--Oh, you can’t seriously expect me still to believe in the stork when I’m fourteen!

MRS. BERGMANN--But, good Lord, child, how queer you are! What things do occur to you! Really, I just can’t do that!

WENDLA--But why not, mother? Why not? It can’t be anything ugly, surely, when everyone feels so glad about it!

MRS. BERGMANN--Oh, oh, God defend me!--Have I deserved to---- Go and put your things on, girl,--put your things on.

WENDLA--I’m going ... and supposing your child goes out now and asks the chimney-sweep?

MRS. BERGMANN--Oh, but that’s enough to drive me crazy!--Come, child, come here: I’ll tell you.... Oh, Almighty Goodness!--only not to-day, Wendla! To-morrow, day after, next week, whenever you want, dear heart!

WENDLA--Tell it to me to-day, mother. Tell it to me now; now, at once. Now that I’ve seen you so upset, it’s all the more impossible for me to quiet down again until you do!

MRS. BERGMANN--I just can’t, Wendla.

WENDLA--Oh, but why can’t you, motherkin?--Here I’ll kneel at your feet and put my head in your lap. Cover my head with your apron and talk and talk as if you were sitting all soul alone in the room. I won’t move a muscle, I won’t make a sound; I’ll keep perfectly still and listen, no matter what may come!

MRS. BERGMANN--Heaven knows, Wendla, it isn’t my fault! The good God knows me.--Come, in His name!--I will tell you, little girl, how you came into this world--so listen, Wendla....

WENDLA--[_Under her apron._] I’m listening.

MRS. BERGMANN--[_Incoherent._] But it’s no use, child! That’s all! I can’t justify it.--I know I deserve to be put in prison,--to have you taken from me....

WENDLA--[_Under her apron._] Pluck up heart, Mother!

MRS. BERGMANN--Well, then, listen....

WENDLA--[_Trembling._] O God, O God!

MRS. BERGMANN--To have a child--you understand me, Wendla?----

WENDLA--Quick, mother! I can’t bear it much longer!

MRS. BERGMANN--To have a child--one must love the man--to whom one is married--=love= him, I say,--as one can only love a man! You must love him so utterly--with all your heart--that--that--it can’t be =told=! You must love him, Wendla, as you at your age can’t possibly love anyone yet.... Now you know.

WENDLA--[_Getting up._] Great--God--in Heaven!

MRS. BERGMANN--Now you know what tests lie before you!

WENDLA--And that is all?

MRS. BERGMANN--God help me, yes, all!--Now pick up the basket there and go down to Ina. You’ll get some chocolate there, and cakes with it.--Come here--let me just look you over--laced boots, silk gloves, sailor-blouse, a rose in your hair.... But your little dress is really getting too short now, Wendla!

WENDLA--Have you got meat for dinner already, motherkin?

MRS. BERGMANN--God bless you and keep you!--I must find time to sew another breadth of ruffles round your skirt.

CURTAIN

SCENE III.--_A toilet--not to be thought of as equipped with modern plumbing._ HANSY RILOW _enters, a light in his hand; bolts the door and opens the lid_.

HANSY--Hast thou prayed to-night, Desdemona? [_He draws from his bosom a reproduction of the Venus of Palma Vecchio._] I shouldn’t say you looked like “Our Father Who Art in Heaven,” darling:--awaiting contemplatively whoever may be coming, just as in that delicious moment of dawning rapture when I beheld thee lying in Schlesinger’s shop-window--these supple limbs just as beguiling still, these softly swelling hips, these young, upstanding breasts!--Oh, how giddy with joy must the great master have felt when the fourteen-year-old original lay stretched on the divan before his eyes!

And wilt thou sometimes visit me in dreams? With eager arms will I receive thee, and kiss thee till thy breath is gone. Thou wilt take possession of me as the lawful heiress takes possession of her desolated castle. Gate and door spring open as by invisible hands, and below in the park the fountain joyously begins to plash!

“It is the cause! It is the cause!”--That I am not lightly moved to murder thee, thou may’st learn from the fearful throbbing in my breast. My throat contracts at the thought of my lonely nights. I swear to thee, dear, upon my soul, it is not satiety inspires me! Who would dare boast that he was satiated with =thee=?

But thou dost suck the marrow from my bones! Thou crook’st my back, and rob’st my eyes of their last gleam of youth. You claim too much of me with your inhuman coyness, you wear me out with your unmoving limbs!--It’s you or I!--and _I_ who have prevailed!

If I should count them up--those vanished ones with all of whom I have fought this same fight here!--Psyche by Thumann--one legacy yet from that dried-up Mlle. Angelique, that rattlesnake in the Eden of my childhood; Io by Correggio; Galathea by Lossow; then an Amor of Bouguereau’s; Ada by J. van Beers--that Ada whom I had to abduct from a secret drawer in father’s desk, to add her to my harem; a quivering, thrilling Leda by Makart, that I found by chance among my brother’s college lecture-notes; seven, O thou doomed in thy perfect flower, who have rushed before thee down this path into Tartarus! Let that give thee comfort, and seek not to heighten my pangs into agony with these supplicating looks!

Thou diest not for =thy= sins, but for =mine=! Need to defend myself against myself drives me with bleeding heart to do this seventh murder on a mate. There =is= something tragic in the rôle of Bluebeard. I guess that all his murdered wives together suffered less than he did in the strangling of each single one.

But my conscience will grow calmer and my body stronger when thou, she-devil, residest no longer in the red-silk cushions of my jewel-casket. Then in thy stead I will have the Lorelei of Bodenhausen or the Forsaken Lass of Linger or the Loni of Defregger occupy that voluptuous pleasure-chamber--provided I shall have recovered the quicker for this! A bare three months more, perhaps, and your unveiled Jehoshaphat, sweet soul, would have begun devouring my poor brain as the sun a butter-ball. It was high time to effect the separation from bed and board!

Brrr! I feel a Heliogabalus in me! Moritura me salutat!--O girl, girl, why do you press your knees together?--why still even now,--in the face of inscrutable eternity?--One spasm, and I will let thee live! One feminine movement, one sign of sensuality, of sympathy, girl! and I will frame thee in gold and hang thee above my bed. Art thou not conscious that it is thy =purity=, nothing more, begets my excesses? Woe, woe to the unhuman!

Anyone can see that she’s had the advantage of a model education!--Well, =so have _I_ too=.

Hast thou prayed to-night, Desdemona?

My heart contracts in convulsions---- Silly!--Holy St. Agnes died for her continence too, and was not half so naked as thou!--One more kiss on your virginal body, your child-like, budding breast, your sweetly rounded--cruel, unyielding knees....

It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.

Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!

It is the cause!----

[_The picture falls into the depths. He shuts the lid._]

CURTAIN

SCENE IV.--_A hayloft. Murky light, the smell of fresh hay_, MELCHIOR _lying in it_. WENDLA _comes up the ladder_.

WENDLA--So =here’s= where you hid! Everybody’s looking for you. The wagon’s gone out again. You must help. There’s a storm coming up.

MELCHIOR--Get away from me!--Get away from me!

WENDLA--What’s the matter with you?--Why do you hide your face?

MELCHIOR--Get out! Get out!--Or I’ll throw you down on the barn-floor!

WENDLA--Now I certainly won’t go. [_She kneels beside him._] Why won’t you come out on the hayfield with us, Melchior? Here it’s so sultry and dark! What if we =do= get wet to the skin--we don’t care!

MELCHIOR--The hay smells so wonderful.--The sky outside must be as black as a pall.--I can’t see anything but the gleaming poppy at your breast,--and your heart, I hear it beating!----

WENDLA--Don’t kiss me, Melchior!--Don’t kiss me!

MELCHIOR--Your heart--I hear it beating----

WENDLA--People love each other--when they kiss---- Don’t! Don’t!----

MELCHIOR--Oh, believe me, there’s no such thing as love!--Self-seeking, egoism,--that’s all there is!--I love you as little as you love me.----

WENDLA--Don’t!-------- Don’t, Melchior!----

MELCHIOR-- ... Wendla!

WENDLA--Oh, Melchior!----don’t--don’t----

CURTAIN

SCENE V.--MRS. GABOR _sits and writes_.

[_Or else she may be shown in a dark room, in silhouette against the window, reading her letter over by its failing light._]

MRS. GABOR--My dear Moritz Stiefel!

I take up my pen with a heavy heart after twenty-four hours of considering and reconsidering everything that you write me. The money for passage to America I am not able, I give you my solemn word, to furnish you. In the first place I have not that much at my disposal, and in the second, even if I had, it would be doing you the greatest wrong I can imagine to put into your hands the means of carrying out so rash and critical a venture. You would do me bitter injustice, Moritz Stiefel, if you saw in this refusal of mine any sign of failing affection. On the contrary, it would be the grossest failure in my duty as your friend and counselor for me to be willing to let your momentary loss of judgment cause me too to lose my head and blindly follow my first, most natural impulses. I am willing and ready, if you wish me to, to write to your parents and try to convince them that throughout the course of this last term you have done all you could and drawn so heavily upon your strength that a severe attitude towards what has happened to you would not only be unwarranted but, more seriously, might have the gravest effect upon your mental and physical health.

Your implied threat that you will take your own life in case your flight is not made feasible has--to speak frankly, Moritz,--rather taken me aback. No matter how undeserved a misfortune may be, we should never let ourselves be driven to ignoble measures. The way in which you seem to wish to make me--who have never shown you anything but kindness--answerable for a possible shocking outrage on your part, might, to a person inclined to think evil, look very much like blackmail. I must confess that this mode of acting from you, who usually are so well aware of what a man owes himself, was the very last I should have expected. For the present, I cherish the firm conviction that you were still suffering too much from the first shock to be able to realize fully what you were doing.

And so I am confidently hoping that these words of mine will find you already in a more composed state of mind. Take the affair as it stands. To my way of thinking, it is wholly inadmissible that a young man should be judged by his school marks. We have too many examples of very bad scholars who have become remarkable men, and conversely of excellent scholars who have not distinguished themselves in life. In any case I assure you that so far as I am concerned your mishap will not cause any change in your relations with Melchior. It will always give me pleasure to see my son in the company of a young man who--let the world judge of him as it will--deserved and won not only his but my most cordial sympathy.

And so--up with your chin, Moritz Stiefel! Such crises, of this kind or of that, come upon us all and must just be got over. If everyone so placed should snatch forthwith at dagger and poison, there might easily soon be no more men and women in the world. Let us hear from you soon again, and believe me cordially and steadfastly

Your maternal friend, FANNY G.

CURTAIN

SCENE VI.--_The_ BERGMANN _Garden in the radiance of the morning sun_.

WENDLA--[_Discovered._] Why have you stolen out of the house?--To look for violets!--Because mother sees me smiling.--And why can’t you stop, and shut your lips tight any more?--I don’t know.--Oh, I don’t know--I can’t find words....

The path is like a plush carpet underfoot--not one little stone, not a thorn.--My feet don’t touch the ground.... Oh, how I did sleep last night.

Here’s where they used to be. [_Kneels._] They make me feel as solemn as a nun at communion.--Dear violets!--All right, motherling! I’ll put on my penitence-dress!--Oh, God, if somebody would only come whom I could hug and tell!

CURTAIN

SCENE VII.--_Twilight. The sky is lightly overcast. The path winds through low growth and sedgegrass. Not far away the river sounds._ MORITZ _sits facing the audience, his back to some bushes and the path_.

MORITZ--It is better so.--I don’t fit in. Let them mount and climb upon each other’s heads.--I will pull the door to behind me, and step into the open. I won’t pay so much just to let myself be pushed around.

I didn’t put myself forward. Why should I put myself forward now?--I have no compact with God. Let them distort the thing any way they have a mind to. I was pressed.--I don’t say my parents are responsible. After all, they had to be prepared for the worst. They were old enough to know what they were doing. I was an infant when I came into the world--otherwise even I might have been cunning enough to become another person. Why should I pay the penalty for all the others’ being there already!

I suppose I must have fallen on my head.... If anyone gives me a present of a mad dog, I give him his mad dog back; and if he won’t take his mad dog back, then I am humane and....

Yes, I just must have fallen on my head!

One is born quite by accident, and yet, after the most mature consideration, one is not supposed to---- It’s enough to make one shoot one’s self dead!

At least the weather shows that it sympathizes. All day it’s looked like rain, but it’s still holding off.--A rare peace is brooding over nature: nowhere anything sharp or exciting; heaven and earth like a transparent spider’s-web. And everything seems to feel so well. The landscape lovely as a lullaby--“Schlafe, mein Prinzchen, schlaf’ ein,” as Fraülein Snandulia sang. Too bad she holds her elbows awkwardly!--It was at the feast of St. Cecilia I danced for the last time. Snandulia only dances at parties. Her silk dress was cut so low, back and front--behind down to the belt at her waist, and in front low enough to take away your wits.--She can’t have had a chemise on....

That would be something that might stop me yet!--More just for curiosity.--It must be an extraordinary sensation--a feeling as if one were being swept down a torrent---- I shan’t tell anybody that I’ve come back with the thing undone. I shall act as if I had taken part in all that.... It’s rather mortifying, to have been human and not got to know the most human thing of all.--You come from Egypt, my dear sir, and have not seen the =pyramids=?!

I don’t want to cry again to-day. I don’t want to think any more about my funeral---- Melchior will lay a wreath upon my casket; Pastor Kahlbauch will console my parents; old Sonnenstich will cite parallels from history.--A gravestone I probably won’t get. I should have liked an urn of snowy marble on a black syenite base,--but, praise God, I shan’t miss it! Memorials are for the living, not for the dead.

I should need a year to take leave of everything in my thoughts. I don’t want to cry again. I am so happy that I can look back without bitterness. How many lovely evenings I have spent with Melchior!--under the river willows, at the forester’s hut, on the highroad out there where the five lindens stand, up on castle hill among the peaceful ruins of Runenburg---- When the hour has come, I shall think with all my might of whipped cream. Whipped cream doesn’t sustain you, but it’s filling and leaves a pleasant taste.... And I had thought mankind was infinitely worse. I haven’t found a soul that wouldn’t have wanted to do his best; and many a one I have pitied on my account.

I pass to the altar like the youth in ancient Etruria whose dying rattle buys his brothers’ prosperity through the coming year.--One by one I go through all the mysterious shudders of deliverance. I gulp with sorrow at my fate.--Life has given me the cold shoulder. From up there I see grave, friendly looks beckon me: the headless queen, the headless queen--sympathy with soft arms awaiting me.... Your tenders are for children; I carry my free pass within myself. Sinks the shell, off sails the butterfly: the dream besets us no more.--You should play no mad games with the fraud! The mist dissolves: life is a matter of taste. [_His shoulder is suddenly grabbed from behind by_ ILSE.]

ILSE--[_In torn clothes, a gay kerchief round her head._] What have you lost?

MORITZ--[_Starting to his feet._] Ilse!

ILSE--What are you looking for here?

MORITZ--What d’you frighten me so for?

ILSE--What is it? What have you lost?

MORITZ--But why did you startle me so awfully?

ILSE--I’ve just come from the city.--I’m going home.

MORITZ--I don’t know, what I’ve lost.

ILSE--Then it’s no good your looking. [MORITZ _swears_.] It’s four days since I was home.

MORITZ--Sneaking like a cat!

ILSE--That’s ’cause I’ve got my dancing-slippers on.--Mother =will= make eyes!--Come along to the house with me!

MORITZ--Where have you been bumming around again?

ILSE--In =Priapia=!

MORITZ--Priapia?

ILSE--At Nohl’s, at Fehrendorf’s, at Padinsky’s,--with Lenz, Rank, Spühler,--with everybody you can think of!--Kling, kling,--=she= will jump!

MORITZ--Are they painting you?

ILSE--Fehrendorf’s painting me as St. Stylites, standing on a Corinthian capital. Fehrendorf, I must tell you, is a mess.[3] Last time I stepped on one of his tubes. Squashed it. He wipes his brush on my hair. I give him one on the ear. He throws his palette at my head. I knock the easel over. He gets after me with the maulstick over couch and tables and chairs, all round the studio. Behind the stove lay a sketch! Be good, or I’ll tear it!--He swore amnesty, and then for a finishing touch he kissed me--kissed me, oh, something terrible!

MORITZ--Where do you spend the night when you stay in town?

ILSE--Last night we were at Nohl’s; night before at Boyokevitch’s; Sunday with Oikonomopulos. At Padinsky’s there was champagne. Valabregez had sold his “Man Sick with the Plague.” Adolar drank out of the ash-tray. Lenz sang “The Murd’ress of Her Child,” and Adolar played the guitar to pieces. I was so drunk they had to put me to bed.--You’re still going to school all the time, Moritz?

MORITZ--No, no--this term, I’m getting out.

ILSE--You’re right. Oh, how the time flies when you’re earning money!--D’you remember how we used to play robbers?--Wendla Bergmann and you and I and the rest, when you all came out in the evening and drank new, warm goat’s milk at our house?--What’s Wendla doing? I remember seeing her at the flood.--What’s Melchi Gabor doing?--Does he still gaze so deeply into things?--In singing-lesson we used to stand opposite each other.

MORITZ--He philosophizes.

ILSE--Wendla came to see us a while ago, and brought mother some preserves. I was sitting that day for Isidor Landauer. He’s using me for Holy Mary, the Mother of God, with the Christ-child. He’s a ninny, and disgusting. Whew! like a weathercock!--Have you got a “morning after” headache?

MORITZ--From last night. We swilled like hippopotamuses. It was five o’clock when I staggered home.

ILSE--One only needs to look at you.--Were there girls there?

MORITZ--Arabella, the bar-maid,--a Spanish girl. The landlord left us all, the whole night through, alone with her.

ILSE--One only needs to look at you, Moritz.--I never have these morning-afters! Last Carnival I went for three days and three nights without getting into a bed, or even out of my clothes. From masquerade ball to café; noontimes at the Bellavista, evenings at the cabaret, nights to another ball! Lena was along, and fatty Viola.--The third night, Henry found me.

MORITZ--Had he been looking for you?

ILSE--He’d stumbled over my arm. I was lying senseless in the gutter-snow.--So then I joined up with him. For two weeks I never left his lodgings. That was a horrible time!--Mornings I had to throw on his Persian dressing-gown, and evenings walk about the room in a black page’s costume--white lace at the collar, cuffs, and knees. Every day he’d photograph me in a new arrangement: one time on the back of the sofa, as Ariadne, another time as Leda, another as Ganymede, and once on all fours as a female Nebuchadnezzar. And then he would rave about killing--about shooting, suicide, and charcoal fumes. Early mornings he’d bring a pistol into bed, load it full of cartridges and poke it into my breast: one wink, and I’ll fire!--Oh, he would have fired, Moritz; he would have fired!--Then he’d stick the thing in his mouth like a bean-shooter. Maybe that would wake my instinct for self-preservation! And then--Brrr! the bullet would have gone through my spine.

MORITZ--Is Henry still alive?