Part 6

MRS. GABOR--I shall never see him again; I shall never see him again. He will never stand the degradation, he will never come to terms with filth. He will break the constraint put on him: the terrible example is fresh before his eyes.--And if I do see him again--O God, O God!--that happy, spring-like heart, his ringing laugh,--everything, everything,--his child-like resolution to battle manfully for right and good,--oh, that unspoiled spirit like the morning sky, as I have cherished it in him, clear and pure, as my highest good....--Hold =me= to account, if the wrong cries for reparation! Hold =me= to account! Do what you will with me! _I_ bear the blame!--But keep your fearful hands off the child!

MR. GABOR--It is =he= who has gone wrong.

MRS. GABOR--=He has not gone wrong!=

MR. GABOR--=He has= gone wrong!--I would have given anything to have spared your boundless love this!--A woman came to me this morning distracted, scarcely able to speak, with this letter in her hand--a letter to her fifteen-year-old daughter.[6] She had opened it, she said, from simple curiosity; the child was not at home.--In this letter Melchior explains to the fifteen-year-old girl that his treatment of her leaves him no peace, that he has sinned against her, etc., etc., and will naturally take the responsibility for everything. She is not to worry, even if she should feel consequences. He is already on the way to procure help--his expulsion will make that easier for him. The misstep they have made may yet lead to her happiness--and what more senseless twaddle you please!

MRS. GABOR--Impossible!

MR. GABOR--The letter is forged. It’s a case of imposture. Someone is trying to turn his notorious expulsion to account. I have not yet spoken with the lad--but just look at the hand! Look at the writing!

MRS. GABOR--An unheard-of, shameless piece of knavery!

MR. GABOR--[_With double meaning._] I fear so.

MRS. GABOR--No! No! Never in the world!

MR. GABOR--All the better for us, then.--The woman asked me, wringing her hands, what she ought to do. I told her she ought not to let her fifteen-year-old daughter scramble around haylofts. The letter she fortunately left with me.--Now if we send Melchior to another school where he won’t even be under =parental= supervision, we shall have the same thing happening in three weeks--a new expulsion--his joyous, spring-like heart will get accustomed to them by degrees.--Tell me, Fanny, where =am= I to put the lad?

MRS. GABOR--In the House of Correction----

MR. GABOR--In the...?

MRS. GABOR-- ... House of Correction!

MR. GABOR--He will find there, first of all, what was wrongfully withheld from him at home: iron discipline, fundamental principles, and a moral restraint to which he will have to submit under all circumstances.--And I may add that the House of Correction is not the abode of horror you imagine from the name. Chief weight there is laid upon the development of Christian thought and feeling. The lad will there, at last, learn to aim at what’s =good=, not what’s =interesting=, and in his actions take account not of his natural impulses but of the law.--Half an hour ago I received a telegram from my brother which, I think, confirms what the woman told me. Melchior has confided in him and asked him for two hundred marks with which to fly to England....

MRS. GABOR--[_Covers her face._] Merciful Heaven!

CURTAIN

SCENE IV.--_The House of Correction. The setting may be the same as for the Faculty Room, without any pictures or furniture._

MELCHIOR _is shown in company with_ DIETHELM, REINHOLD, RUPRECHT, HELMUTH, _and_ GASTON.

DIETHELM--Here’s a twenty-pfennig piece.

REINHOLD--What’s that for?

DIETHELM--I’ll put it on the floor. You get in a circle round it. Whoever hits it, gets it.

RUPRECHT--Aren’t you in on this too, Melchior?

MELCHIOR--No, thank you.

HELMUTH--The Joseph!

GASTON--He can’t any more. He’s here to recover his health.

MELCHIOR--[_To himself._] It isn’t wise for me to stay out. Everyone keeps an eye on me. I must join in--or my creature will go to the devil.--The confinement makes them abuse themselves.--I may break my neck: I’ll be glad. I may get away: I’ll be glad too. I can only gain, either way.--Ruprecht is getting to be my friend: he knows all about things here. I’ll treat him to the chapters of Judah’s daughter-in-law Tamar, of Moab, of Lot and his daughters, of Queen Vashti and of Abishag the Shunammite.--He’s got the sorriest face in the lot!

RUPRECHT--I’m getting it!

HELMUTH--It’ll come yet!

GASTON--Day after to-morrow, maybe!

HELMUTH--Now!--Look!--O God, O God!...

ALL--Summa--summa cum laude!!

RUPRECHT--[_Picking up the coin._] Many thanks.

HELMUTH--Come here with that, you!

RUPRECHT--Dirty beast!

HELMUTH--Jail-bird!

RUPRECHT--[_Strikes him in the face._] There! [_Runs away._]

HELMUTH--[_Running after him._] I’ll kill you!

THE REST--[_Rushing after them._] Get after him! Hustle! Hey! Hey! Hey!

MELCHIOR--[_Alone, looking at the window._] There’s where the lightning-rod goes down. You must wind a handkerchief round it.--When I think of =her= the blood always shoots to my head. And Moritz weighs on me like lead.--I’ll go to a newspaper office: pay me by the hundred, I’ll sell papers--collect news--write--local--ethical--psychophysical.... It’s no longer so easy to starve:--lunch-wagons, soft-drink places.--The house is sixty feet high and the stucco is crumbly.... She hates me--she hates me because I’ve robbed her of her freedom. No matter how I act, it remains--rape.--All I can do is to hope, gradually, in the course of years....--In a week it’ll be new moon. To-morrow I’ll grease the hinges. By Saturday at the latest I must know who has the key.--Sunday evening at prayers, a cataleptic fit--please God no one else gets sick!--Everything lies as clearly as if it had happened before me. I can get over the window-sill easily--a swing--a grip--but one must wrap a handkerchief around it.--There comes the Head Inquisitor. [_He goes off._ DR. PROKRUSTES _and a_ LOCKSMITH _enter on the other side_.]

DR. PROKRUSTES-- ... It’s true the windows are in the third story and nettles are planted underneath; but what does degeneracy care for nettles?--Last winter one climbed out of a skylight on us, and we had all the fuss of picking up and carting away and burying....

THE LOCKSMITH--Do you want the grating of wrought iron?

DR. PROKRUSTES--Wrought iron--and since it can’t be set in, riveted.

CURTAIN

SCENE V.--WENDLA’S _room_. WENDLA _in bed_. MRS. BERGMANN _at its foot_. INA _leaning at the window_. DR. VON BRAUSEPULVER _discoursing_.

DR. VON BRAUSEPULVER--How old are you exactly?

WENDLA--Fourteen and a half.

DR. VON BRAUSEPULVER--I have been prescribing Blaud’s pills for fifteen years, and in a great many cases have observed the most inspiring improvement. I prefer them to cod-liver oil or tonics with iron. Begin with three to four pills per day, and increase the quantity as fast as you can assimilate it. I had prescribed for the Baroness Elfriede von Witzleben an increase of one pill every third day. The Baroness misunderstood me and increased the dose three pills each day. In less than three weeks the Baroness was able to go to Pyrmont with her lady mother to complete the cure. Tiring walks and extra meals we can dispense with. Instead, promise me, my dear, that you will try to move about all the more energetically, and not be ashamed to ask for nourishment as soon as your appetite reappears. Then these oppressed feelings round the heart will soon pass off--and the headache, the chills, the dizziness--and our terrible bilious attacks. Baroness Elfriede von Witzleben within a week of beginning the cure was enjoying a whole broiled chicken with baked new potatoes for breakfast.

MRS. BERGMANN--May I offer you a glass of wine, Doctor?

DR. VON BRAUSEPULVER--Thank you, dear Mrs. Bergmann, my carriage is waiting. Don’t take it so much to heart. In a few weeks our dear little patient will be as fresh and lively again as a gazelle,--be sure of it!--Good day, Mrs. Bergmann. Good day, my dear. Good day, ladies. Good day. [_He goes, accompanied by_ MRS. BERGMANN.]

INA--[_At the window._] Well, your plane-tree is turning already--quite gay again. Can you see it from your bed?--A brief display, hardly worth being glad about, as one watches it come and go.--I must be going soon now, too. August will be waiting for me at the post office, and I must see the dressmaker first. Mucki is getting his first little trousers, and Karl is to have some new leggings for the winter.

WENDLA--Often I feel so happy, Ina!--all gladness and sunshine. I wouldn’t have dreamed that anyone could feel so blissful round the heart. I want to go out and walk across the meadows in the evening glow and hunt for primroses along the river, and sit down at the bank and dream.... And then comes the =toothache=, and I think I must be going to die first thing in the morning: I get hot and cold, everything goes black before my eyes, and then the uncanny thing flutters in me.--Every time I wake up I see mother crying. Oh, that hurts me so--I can’t tell you, Ina!

INA--Hadn’t I better lift your pillow higher?

MRS. BERGMANN--[_Coming back._] He thinks the nausea will get better too; and then you can just quietly get up again.... It’s my belief too that it’ll be better if you get up again soon, Wendla.

INA--By the next time I drop in, perhaps you’ll be dancing round the house again.--Good-bye, mother. I’ve just got to get to the dressmaker’s. God keep you, Wendla dear. [_Kisses her._] Get better very, very soon.

WENDLA--Good-bye, Ina.--Bring me some primroses when you come again. Good-bye. Kiss your youngster for me.... [INA _goes_.]--What else did he say, mother, when he was out there?

MRS. BERGMANN--He didn’t say anything. He said the Baroness von Witzleben was also subject to fainting-spells. It was almost always that way with chlorosis.

WENDLA--Did he say, mother, that I had chlorosis?

MRS. BERGMANN--You’re to drink milk and eat meat and vegetables when your appetite has come back.

WENDLA--Oh, mother, mother, I don’t believe I have chlorosis!...

MRS. BERGMANN--You have chlorosis, child. Lie still, Wendla, lie still. You have chlorosis.

WENDLA--No, mother, no! I know I haven’t! I feel it! I haven’t got chlorosis--I’ve got the dropsy....

MRS. BERGMANN--You have chlorosis. Yes, he did say you had chlorosis. Quiet down, girlie. It will get better.

WENDLA--It won’t get better. I have the dropsy. I must die, mother.--Oh, mother, I must die!

MRS. BERGMANN--You must not die, child! You must not die!... Merciful Heaven, you must not die!

WENDLA--But why do you cry, then, so miserably?

MRS. BERGMANN--You must not die--child! You haven’t got dropsy. You have a =baby=, girl! You have a baby!--Oh, why, why did you do that to me?

WENDLA--I didn’t do anything----

MRS. BERGMANN--Oh, don’t deny it now, Wendla!--I know, I know. See, I couldn’t have said a word to you,--Wendla, my Wendla!...

WENDLA--But that is quite impossible, mother! I’m not married!

MRS. BERGMANN--Great God, that’s just it--that you’re not married! That is just the frightful thing about it!--Wendla, Wendla, Wendla, what did you do!

WENDLA--Why, really, I don’t remember any more! We were lying in the hay.... I haven’t loved a soul in the world but you--only you, mother.

MRS. BERGMANN--My darling----

WENDLA--Oh, mother, why didn’t you tell me everything?

MRS. BERGMANN--Child, child, let’s not make each other’s hearts still heavier. Control yourself! Don’t despair, my child!--What, tell that to a fourteen-year-old girl? Why, I should sooner have expected the sun to go out! I haven’t done anything different with you than my dear good mother did with me.--Oh, let us trust in the good God, Wendla; let us hope for pity, and bear our lot! See, there’s still time: nothing has happened =yet=, child; and if we just don’t get cowardly now, the good God won’t forsake us either.--Be brave, Wendla, be =brave=!--One may be sitting at the window so with her hands in her lap, because so far everything has turned out good,--and then something bursts in on her and makes her heart feel like breaking on the spot.... Wha-what are you trembling for?

WENDLA--Somebody knocked.

MRS. BERGMANN--I didn’t hear anything, dear heart. [_Goes to the door and opens it._]

WENDLA--Oh, I heard it very clearly.--Who is outside?

MRS. BERGMANN--No one.--Schmidt’s mother from Garden Street.--You come just right, Mother Schmidtin.

CURTAIN

SCENE VI.--_Vintagers, men and women, are in the Vineyard. In the west the sun is sinking behind the mountain peaks. A clear sound of bells comes up from the valley.--At the uppermost vine-trellis, under the overhanging cliffs_, HANSY RILOW and ERNEST ROEBEL _sprawl in the drying grass_.

ERNEST--I have overworked.

HANSY--Let’s not be sad.--Too bad how the minutes fly.

ERNEST--You see them hanging and can no more--and to-morrow they’ll be pressed.

HANSY--Being tired is as unbearable to me as being hungry.

ERNEST--Oh, I can no more!

HANSY--Just this one shining muscatel!

ERNEST--There’s a limit to my elasticity.

HANSY--If I bend the spray, it’ll swing back and forth between our mouths. We’ll neither of us have to stir--just bite off the grapes and let the stalk spring back to the vine.

ERNEST--One no sooner resolves on something than lo! the strength that had vanished is renewed in him again.

HANSY--And add the flaming firmament--and the evening bells,--my hopes for the future rise scarcely higher than this.

ERNEST--I often see myself as a Reverend Pastor already, with a genial, motherly housewife, a voluminous library, and offices and honors everywhere. Six days you have, to ruminate, and on the seventh you open your mouth. When you go walking, school-children take your hand, and when you come home the coffee is steaming, the cakes are brought in, and thru the garden door the girls come up with apples.--Can you imagine anything happier?

HANSY--I have visions of half-shut lashes, half-opened lips, and Turkish draperies.--I don’t believe in pathos. You see, our elders pull long faces to cover their stupidities from us. Among themselves they call each other blockheads as we do. I know that.--When I’m a millionaire, I’ll set up a memorial to dear God.--Think of the future as a milk pudding with sugar and spice. One fellow upsets it and bawls. Another stirs it all up in a mess and toils. Why not skim it?--or don’t you believe that that art can be learned?

ERNEST--Let us skim!

HANSY--What’s left ’ll be chicken-feed.--I’ve pulled my head out of so many nooses now already....

ERNEST--Let us skim, Hansy!--Why do you laugh?

HANSY--Are you beginning again already?

ERNEST--One of us has got to begin.

HANSY--When we think back thirty years hence to an evening such as this, it may seem to us beautiful beyond words.

ERNEST--And how beautiful everything =is=, now, quite of itself!

HANSY--So why not?

ERNEST--If one happened to be alone, one might even weep.

HANSY--Don’t let us be sad. [_Kisses him on the mouth._]

ERNEST--[_Returning the kiss._] I left the house with the idea of just merely speaking to you and going back again.

HANSY--I was expecting you.--Virtue isn’t a bad clothing, but it belongs on imposing figures.

ERNEST--It still hangs loose around our limbs. I should have been uneasy if I hadn’t found you.--I love you, Hansy, as I’ve never loved a living soul....

HANSY--Let’s not be sad.--When we think back, thirty years hence,--why, we may laugh at ourselves!--And now it is all so beautiful! The mountains are glowing, the grapes droop into our mouths, and the evening breeze whispers along the rocks like a little playful wheedling-- ...

CURTAIN

SCENE VII.--_The graveyard, in a clear November night. On bush and tree rustles the withered foliage. Jagged clouds speed by under the moon._--MELCHIOR _clambers over the wall above_ MORITZ’S _grave--set much farther up-stage than in Scene II--and jumps down, knocking over_ MORITZ’S _cross_.

MELCHIOR--The pack won’t follow me into this place.--While they’re searching brothels, I can catch my breath and see how far I’ve gotten....

Coat in tatters, pockets empty,--even from the most harmless I have something to fear.--During the day I must try to get farther on in the wood....

I have kicked down a cross.--The little flowers would have been frozen to-night!--All around the earth is bare....

In the realm of the dead!

To climb out of the skylight was not so hard as the road before me.--This was the only thing that I was not prepared for....

I hang above the abyss--everything swallowed up and gone!--Oh, that I had stayed back there!

Why she thru my fault?--Why not the guilty one!--Inscrutable Providence!--I would have broken stones and gone hungry...!

What is left now to keep me straight?--Crime will follow on crime. I am abandoned to the mire. Not even the strength left to wind things up....

I was not bad!--I was not bad!--I was not bad!...

Never has mortal wandered over graves so filled with envy!--Pah! I should never screw up the courage!--Oh, if insanity would but seize on me--this very night!

I must look over there among the latest ones.--The wind whistles past every stone with a different note--a heart-chilling symphony! The rotten wreaths blow apart and dangle on their long strings piecemeal round the marble crosses--a forest of scarecrows!--Scarecrows on all the graves, each more horrible than the next, house-high, putting the devils to flight.--The golden letters glitter so coldly.... The weeping willow moans, and gropes with gigantic fingers over the inscriptions!...

A praying cherub--a bare slab----

Now a cloud casts its shadow down here.--How fast it flies, crying!--like a host pursued it rushes up in the east.--Not a star in the sky!----

Evergreen round the plot?--Evergreen?--a girl?...

[Illustration:

· _Here Rests in God_ ·

WENDLA BERGMANN

BORN · MAY · 5 · 1878 DIED _of_ CHLOROSIS OCTOBER · 27 · 1892

· _Blessed are the Pure in Heart_ ·

]

And I am her murderer!--I am her murderer!--Despair is left me--only despair!--I may not cry here. I must get away--away! [MORITZ STIEFEL, _with his head under his arm, comes stumping over the graves_.]

MORITZ--One moment, Melchior. It may be long before the chance recurs. You’ve no idea how everything depends on the time and place....

MELCHIOR--Where did =you= come from?

MORITZ--From over there--from the wall. You knocked down my cross. I lie by the wall.--Give me your hand, Melchior....

MELCHIOR--You are =not= Moritz Stiefel!

MORITZ--Give me your hand. I’m certain sure you’ll thank me. It’ll never be so easy for you again. This is a rarely fortunate meeting.--I came up especially----

MELCHIOR--Don’t you sleep?

MORITZ--Not what you call sleeping.--We sit on church steeples, on lofty gables,--wherever we want....

MELCHIOR--Ever restless?

MORITZ--For fun.--We scoot around young birch-trees, round lonely forest shrines. Over gatherings of people we hover, over sites of misfortune, over gardens and festival places. In the dwelling-houses we crouch in the chimney-corner and behind the bed-curtains.--Give me your hand!--We have little to do with each other but we see and hear everything that happens in the world. We know that everything is folly that men strive for and achieve,--and laugh at it.

MELCHIOR--What good does that do?

MORITZ--What’s it need to do?--We are out of reach--nor good nor evil can touch us any more. We stand high, high above the earth-folk, each for himself alone. We have nothing to do with each other because that bores us. None of us still has anything at heart whose loss he could feel. We are equally immeasurably far above both grief and rejoicing. We are content with ourselves, and that is all!--The living we despise beyond words: we can hardly pity them. They amuse us with their doings, because, being alive, they are not really to be pitied. We smile, each to himself, over their tragedies, and meditate.--Give me your hand! If you will give me your hand, you will fall over with laughing at the emotion with which you give me your hand....

MELCHIOR--Doesn’t that disgust you?

MORITZ--We stand too high above it for that. We smile!--At my funeral I was among the mourners. I got a lot of entertainment from it. That is sublimity, Melchior! I made more noise than any of them, and slipped off to the wall to hold my sides for laughter. Our unapproachable sublimity is in fact the only standpoint that lets us assimilate the dirt.... I suppose I was laughed at too before I soared aloft!

MELCHIOR--I have no desire to laugh at myself.

MORITZ-- ... The living as such are truly not to be pitied.--I admit I should never have thought so either. And now it’s beyond my comprehension how one can be so naïve. Now I see thru the fraud so clearly that not the tiniest cloud is left.--How can you hesitate, Melchior? Give me your hand. In a turn of the head you’ll be standing sky-high above yourself.--Your living is a grievous omission, a sin of negligence....

MELCHIOR--Can you dead forget?

MORITZ--We can do everything. Give me your hand! We can be sorry for the young, for the way they take their timidity for idealism, and the old, whose stoical superiority comes near to breaking their hearts. We see the Kaiser shake for dread of a street-song, and the beggar for dread of the trump of doom. We look straight thru the actor’s make-up, and see the poet in the dark don his. We behold the contented man in his beggary, and in the weariness of his burdened soul the capitalist. We observe people in love, and see them blush before each other in the presentiment that they are frauds defrauded. Parents we see bringing children into the world in order that they may call to them “How fortunate you are to have such parents!”--and we see the children go forth and do the like. We can eavesdrop on the innocent in their lonely cravings, and the five-groschen drab at her reading of Schiller.... God and the devil we see making fools of themselves before each other, and cherish in our hearts the unshakable conviction that both are drunk.... A quiet--a content--Melchior!--You need only reach me your little finger.--You may get to be snow-white before such a favorable moment appears to you again.

MELCHIOR--If I shake hands on it, Moritz, it will be from self-contempt. I see myself proscribed. What lent me courage, lies in the grave. I can no longer think myself worthy of noble impulses--and perceive nothing, nothing, that might yet stand in the way of my descent.--I am, in my own opinion, the most detestable creature in the universe....

MORITZ--What are you waiting for? [A MUFFLED GENTLEMAN _enters, and addresses_ MELCHIOR.]

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--The fact is, you’re shivering with hunger. You’re in no sort of condition to decide.--[_To_ MORITZ.] Go.

MELCHIOR--Who are you?

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--That will come out.--[_To_ MORITZ.] Vanish!--What have you here to do?--Why haven’t you got your head on?

MORITZ--I shot myself.

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--Then stay where you belong! You’re altogether done with. Don’t bother us here with your charnel stench. Inconceivable--why, just look at your fingers! Pah, what the devil! they’re crumbling down already!

MORITZ--Don’t send me away, please!...

MELCHIOR--Who are you, good sir?

MORITZ--Don’t send me away, I beg you! Let me take part in things here a little while yet. I will not oppose you in anything.--It’s so chilly down there!

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--Then why do you brag about =sublimity=?--You know well enough that that’s humbug--sour grapes! Why do you wilfully =lie=, you coinage of the brain?--If you value the favor so highly, stay for all of me; but look out for any more hot-air boasting, my friend, and kindly keep your rotting hand out of the game!

MELCHIOR--Are you going to tell me who you are, or not?

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--No.--I propose that you entrust yourself to me. First, I should see to your getting away.

MELCHIOR--You are--my father?!

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--Would you not recognize your worthy father by his voice?

MELCHIOR--No.