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VOLUME IX



FRIEDRICH HEBBEL

OTTO LUDWIG





THE GERMAN CLASSICS

Masterpieces of German Literature




TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH



Patrons' Edition IN TWENTY VOLUMES




ILLUSTRATED

1914



CONTENTS OF VOLUME IX


Friedrich Hebbel

  The Life of Friedrich Hebbel. By William Guild Howard

  Maria Magdalena. Translated by Paul Bernard Thomas

  Siegfried's Death. Translated by Katherine Royce

  Anna. Translated by Frances H. King

  On Theodor Körner and Heinrich von Kleist. Translated by Frances H. King

  Ludolf Wienbarg's _The Dramatists of the Present Day_. Translated by
  Frances H. King

  Review of Heinrich von Kleist's Play, _The Prince of Homburg, or The
  Battle of Fehrbellin_. Translated by Frances H. King

  Recollections of My Childhood. Translated by Frances H. King Extracts
  from the Journal of Friedrich Hebbel


Otto Ludwig

  The Life of Otto Ludwig. By Alexander R. Hohlfeld

  The Hereditary Forester. Translated by Alfred Remy

  Between Heaven and Earth. Translated by Muriel Almon




ILLUSTRATIONS--VOLUME IX


Summer Day. By Arnold Bucklin Frontispiece

Friedrich Hebbel    2

Death as Cup-Bearer. By Alfred Rethel    30

Death Playing the Finale at the Masquerade. By Alfred Rethel    60

Death as Friend. By Alfred Rethel    78

Title Page of the Nibelungenlied. By Peter Cornelius    82

Siegfried's Return from the Saxon War. By Schnorr von Carolsfeld    100

The Quarrel of the Queens. By Schnorr von Carolsfeld    122

Kriemhild finds the Slain Siegfried. By Schnorr von Carolsfeld    150

Kriemhild accuses Hagen of the Murder of Siegfried. By Schnorr von
Carolsfeld    170

The Battle between the Huns and the Nibelungs. By Schnorr von
Carolsfeld    190

Gunther and Hagen brought Captive before Kriemhild. By Schnorr von
Carolsfeld    222

The Death of Kriemhild. By Schnorr von Carolsfeld    246

Otto Ludwig    268

The Finding of Moses. By Schnorr von Carolsfeld    300

Moses on Mt. Sinai. By Schnorr von Carolsfeld    330

Jacob and Rachel at the Well. By Schnorr von Carolsfeld    360

Jacob's Journey. By Schnorr von Carolsfeld    390

David being Stoned by Sinei. By Schnorr von Carolsfeld    420

The Death of Eli. By Schnorr von Carolsfeld    450

Josiah hears the Law. By Schnorr von Carolsfeld    480

The Prophet Jeremiah. By Schnorr von Carolsfeld    510




EDITOR'S NOTE

The painters represented here alongside with the two writers to whom
this volume is devoted, are Cornelius, Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Rethel,
and Kaulbach. These men were not only contemporary with Hebbel and
Ludwig, but may indeed be called their artistic counterparts. Though
widely differentiated by individual temper and talent, these painters
and poets belong to the same phase of mid-century German literature and
art: the striving of Romanticism beyond itself, the struggle for a new
style uniting depth of feeling and terseness of delineation, the longing
for a new view of life harmonizing the worship of the past with the
demands of modern society and the problems of the day. Hence the heroic
note in the work of these painters and poets, hence their predilection
for great historical or mythological or religious subjects, hence their
leaning toward tragic conflicts in every day situations, hence their all
too conscious striving for pointed effects; hence, also, the inspiring
influence emanating from their best productions.

KUNO FRANCKE.




THE LIFE OF FRIEDRICH HEBBEL



By WILLIAM GUILD HOWARD, A.M.,

Assistant Professor of German, Harvard University


The greatest German dramatists of the middle of the nineteenth century
were Franz Grillparzer, Friedrich Hebbel, and Otto Ludwig. In a caustic
epigram written in 1855, Grillparzer set forth that Dame Poetry, for
some years a widow and now ailing, needed a husband, but could find
none; and we remember that the heroine of _Libussa_ rejects the wise
Lapak, the strong Biwoy, and the rich Domaslaw because she desires in
one man, united, the qualities which separately dominate the three. With
more charity, Grillparzer might have more fully recognized the poet in
Hebbel or Ludwig; but we may be permitted to think of these three
dramatists as not unlike the three suitors for the hand of Libussa:
Grillparzer was rich, Ludwig was wise, and Hebbel was strong. Each of
them was somewhat deficient in the qualities of the other two; each,
however, was a personality, and Hebbel one of the most powerful that
ever lived.

Hebbel's career is a long battle against all but insuperable obstacles.
Born at Wesselburen in the present province of Schleswig-Holstein on
March 18, 1813, he was the son of a poor stone mason--so poor that, as
Hebbel said, poverty had taken the place of his soul. Though Klaus
Hebbel was a well-meaning man, he was a slave to the inexorable _non
possumus_ of penury. In winter, especially, lack of work made even the
provision of daily bread often difficult and sometimes impossible for
him. But Friedrich Hebbel's childhood, full of hardship as it was, was
not cheerless. The father did what he could; and the mother, at whatever
sacrifice to herself, could nearly always do something for the children.
The greatest hardship was caused by the father's hostility to these
maternal concessions to childish desires; for to him, whose life was
labor, unproductive use of time was a crime. He thought it a matter of
course that his son should become a laboring man like himself, and it is
little less than a miracle that this did not happen. The mother, to be
sure, fostered the boy's more ambitious hopes; the death of the father
in Hebbel's fourteenth year was perhaps a blessing in disguise;
undoubtedly the happiest chance in Hebbel's boyhood, so far as external
events are concerned, was the fact that he won the favor of a real
teacher in his schoolmaster Dethlefsen, who not only gave his education
the proper start, but also recommended him, as his best scholar, to the
local magistrate, J.J. Mohr.

For nearly eight years (1827 to 1835) Hebbel was in Mohr's employ, first
as an errand boy, and ultimately as a clerk, to whom more and more
official business was intrusted. He lived in the household of his
superior, continued in the magistrate's library the assiduous reading
which he had begun with Dethlefsen's books, and acquired, along with the
habits of official accuracy, something of the ways of a higher social
station than that to which he had been born. His contact with the world
of affairs and with litigation also considerably broadened his outlook,
though it was often the seamy side of life that he saw, and his own
early necessities had sharpened his sense of the essential tragedy of
existence. Among the young people of the town Hebbel was as active and
inventive as any; he wrote verses, took part in amateur theatricals, and
was a leader in many undertakings that had not amusement as their sole
object.

From the beginning Hebbel shows extraordinary sensitiveness to esthetic
appeal and a disposition to dreamy imaginativeness. The Bible, the
Protestant hymnal, pre-classical prose and poetry of the eighteenth
century, as well as contemporary romantic fiction, including Jean Paul,
Hoffmann, and Heine, touched his fancy and stirred him to emulation.

[Illustration: FRIEDRICH HEBBEL]

As a boy, he is said to have composed a tragedy _Evolia, the Captain of
Robbers_, which his mother confiscated and burned. His early poems are
echoes of Klopstock, Matthisson, Hölty, Bürger, and other predecessors;
but especially of Schiller, whose moral seriousness and sonorous
language alike inspired the serious and rhetorically gifted youth. The
influence of Schiller, however, marks no epoch in the poetic development
of Hebbel; it dominates the period of adolescence. The sense of poetry
was aroused in him as a boy, he said, by Paul Gerhardt's hymn "The woods
are now at rest" (_Nun ruhen alle Wãlder_); the discovery of what poetry
is he made in 1830, when he read Uhland's _Minstrel's Curse_ and
perceived that the sole principle of art is not to write, like Schiller,
eloquently about ideas, but "to make in a particular phenomenon the
universal intuitively perceptible."

Having published poems and stories from 1829 on in a local newspaper,
Hebbel, in 1831, seeking a wider audience at the same time that he
longed for a larger sphere of activity, submitted specimens of his work
to Amalie Schoppe in Hamburg, the editress of a fashion paper; and in
this and the following years she printed a considerable number of his
productions. Moreover, she took a genuine personal interest in his
ambitions; and after several plans had proved abortive, she succeeded
in collecting for him a small sum of money and the promise of other
material aid in a plan that should give a firm foundation for the
structure of his hopes: he should come to Hamburg and prepare for the
study of law. Accordingly, on the fourteenth of February, 1835, he left
his modest but secure position in Wesselburen for the alluring great
world where he felt that he belonged, but where he was destined to toil
and to suffer, in a struggle for existence which only a hardy
North-German peasant could have endured.

Hebbel came to Hamburg as a young man of twenty-two, far ahead of his
years in knowledge, judgment, and capacity, but still unacquainted with
rudimentary things belonging to higher education, such as Latin grammar.
He could not find the right tone in dealing with his benefactors, and he
suffered unspeakable humiliation in the conflict of a proud and
independent spirit with the subjection which inconsiderate well-wishers
imposed upon him. He learned more by private reading and by association
with students in a Scientific Society than he learned in school; and to
one woman, Elise Lensing, who became his friend and angel of mercy, he
owed more than to the whole aggregation of those who gave him money and
meals. Somewhat more than eight years his senior, in respect to
experience of the world and training in the finer graces of life his
superior, she aided, encouraged, and loved him, well aware that his
feeling for her was, at the most, admiration and gratitude, and that the
intimate union and companionship which soon became for him an
indispensable solace could never lead to marriage.

In Hamburg Hebbel began the diary which, continued throughout his life,
is the most valuable source of information about him that we have, and
which, being the repository of his meditations as well as the record of
his experiences, is one of the most remarkable documents of the kind
ever composed. He wrote and published a number of poems, and began
several short stories. More significant, however, was the development
of his critical faculty, which found in the Scientific Society a free
field for exercise. Here, on the twenty-eighth of July, 1835, Hebbel
read a paper on Theodor Körner and Heinrich von Kleist which, in spite
of a rather juvenile tone, shows a maturity of insight quite
unparalleled in the critical literature of that day. It is greatly to
Hebbel's credit, and was to his profit, as the sequel showed, that
against the opinion of his generation he could demonstrate the poetic
excellence of Kleist and could distinguish in Körner between the heroic
patriot and the mediocre poet; for it was a dramatic masterpiece that
Hebbel analyzed in Kleist's _Prince of Hamburg_, and in this analysis he
formulated views that remained the canons of all his subsequent activity
as a playwright. The study of Kleist gave him for the drama the same
sort of illumination that Uhland had given him for lyric poetry.

Though Hebbel was unable to acquire in Hamburg a certificate of
preparedness for the university, he soon felt ready for university
studies, and after some difficulty persuaded his benefactors to give him
the balance of the fund that they had collected, and consent to his
going to Heidelberg. In March, 1836, he departed thither, with less than
eighty thalers in his pocket. He could be admitted only as a special
student; nevertheless, he was hospitably received by members of the
faculty of law, and attended their lectures. But the romantic scenery of
Heidelberg, and, the reading of Goethe and Shakespeare, whom he now for
the first time studied thoroughly, were more fruitful and suggestive to
him than jurisprudence, however much he was interested in "cases" as
examples of human experience. Such a "case" he treated in _Anna_, the
first short story with which he was satisfied, and which indeed is
worthy of his model in this _genre_, Kleist. Other narratives, and a few
poems, testify to a closer approach to nature and a less morbid attitude
toward life than had appeared in the earlier works. Hebbel was now
finishing his apprenticeship, wisely restraining the impulse to
dramatize until in the less exacting forms he had mastered the means of
expression. But everything pointed toward literature as a calling, and
before the year was out Hebbel resolved to migrate to Munich, still, to
be sure, a student, but from the moment of his arrival living there
under the name and title of _Literat_.

The journey to Munich Hebbel made afoot, leaving Heidelberg on September
12, 1836. He passed through Strassburg, and thought of Goethe as he
climbed the tower of the cathedral; he visited the Suabian poets at
Stuttgart and Tübingen, and was deeply disappointed with the kindly but
undemonstrative Uhland; and he reached Munich on September the
twenty-ninth. Here he remained until March, 1839.

Hebbel's two and a half years in Munich, years of solitude, unheard-of
privation, illness, and battling against despair, came near to wearing
out the physical man, and were, through long-continued insufficient
nourishment, the cause of the disease to which he finally succumbed; but
they were also the finishing school of the personality that henceforth
unflinchingly faced the world and demanded to be heard. Hebbel provided
for his material needs partly by journalistic work, to which he was
ill-adapted, but chiefly through the limitless bounty of Elise
Lensing--for months at a time the only being with whom, and only by
correspondence, he had human intercourse. He heard the lectures of
Schelling and Görres at the university; but, as at Heidelberg, he,
gained most by prodigious reading in literature, history; and
philosophy. His savage melancholy found relief in grimly humorous
narratives and gloomy poems. At the time of his greatest wretchedness he
conceived the plots of comedies, "ridiculing something by the
representation of nothing." But we note that his reading now begins to
suggest to him innumerable subjects for tragedies, such as Napoleon,
Alexander the Great, Julian the Apostate, the Maid of Orleans, Judith
and Holofernes, Golo and Genoveva,--all of them characters the key to
whose destiny lay in their personalities, and in whom Hebbel saw the
destiny of mankind typified. Still more directly, however, the tragedy
of human life was brought home to him--not merely through his personal
struggle for existence, but through the death of Emil Rousseau, a dear
friend who had followed him from Heidelberg to Munich, the death of his
mother, for whose necessities he had of late been able to do but little,
and misfortune in the family of Anton Schwarz, a cabinet maker, with
whose daughter, Beppy, Hebbel had been on too intimate terms. Hebbel's
dramas _Judith_, _Genoveva_, and _Maria Magdalena_ all germinated during
these terrible years of the sojourn in Munich.

But the actual output of these years was not large. Attempts to publish
a volume of poems and a volume of short stories had failed.
Nevertheless, Hebbel was no longer an unknown quantity in the world of
letters when, in the early spring of 1839, he decided to return to
Hamburg. Hope of aid from Campe, Heine's publisher, and from Gutzkow,
the editor of a paper published by Campe, encouraged this decision. But
Hebbel was really going home, going back to Elise, after having
accomplished the purpose of his pilgrimage, even though for lack of
money he could not take with him a doctor's degree. He came as a man who
could do things for which the world gives a man a living. The return
journey, lasting from the eleventh to the thirty-first of March, 1839,
amid alternate freezing and thawing, was a tramp, than which only the
retreat from Moscow could have been more frightful; but Hebbel
accomplished it, more concerned for the little dog that accompanied him
than for his own sufferings. And it appeared that he had wisely chosen
to return; for he found opportunity for critical work in Gutzkow's
_Telegraph_, and Campe published the works which in rapid succession he
now completed: _Judith_ (1840), _Genoveva_ (1841), _The Diamond_ (1841;
printed in 1847), and _Poems_ (1842).

These publications won fame for Hebbel and yielded some immediate
pecuniary gain. But although he had reached the goal of his ambition in
having become a poet, and a dramatist whose first play had appeared on
the stage, he still lacked a settled occupation and a sure income.
Having been born a Danish subject, he conceived the idea of a direct
appeal to Christian VIII. of Denmark for such an appointment as the king
might be persuaded to give him. In spite of the unacademic course of his
studies and his lack of strictly professional training, he thought of a
professorship of esthetics at Kiel. Even in those days, when
professorships could be had on easier terms than now, this was a wild
dream. But Hebbel did not appeal to his sovereign in vain. He spent the
winter of 1842-43 in Copenhagen, where the Danish-German dramatist
Oehlenschläger smoothed his path to royal favor; and after two audiences
with Christian VIII. he was granted a pension of six hundred thalers a
year for two years, in order that by traveling he might learn more of
the world and cultivate his poetic talents. His first expression of
gratitude for this privilege was the tragedy _Maria Magdalena_, begun at
Hamburg in May, finished at Paris in December, 1843, and dedicated to
the king.

Hebbel's departure for Paris, in September, 1843, did not mean for him
what Heine's settlement there twelve years before had meant for
Heine--the beginning of a new life. Hebbel's knowledge of French was
very imperfect, and he was as much isolated in Paris as he had been in
Munich; he did not seek stimulus from without so much as freedom to
develop the ideas that were teeming in his mind. When he left Hamburg,
however, he was destined never to return thither except as a visitor,
and started on the long, roundabout way to an unforeseen new home in
Vienna. He had been but little over a month in Paris when he learned of
the death of the little son that Elise had borne him three years before.
He was deeply grieved both for himself and for the despairing mother, to
whom he offered all the comfort he could give, not excepting marriage,
as soon as he should ever be able to provide for her. In May, 1844,
Elise bore him another son who, dying in 1847, was never seen by his
father. Hebbel did not forget what he owed to the mother of his
children, but he felt the debt more and more as an obligation, in the
fulfilment of which there was no prospect of satisfaction to either.
Despite the fact that she had a hundred times declared to him that he
was free, all her dreaming and planning tended solely to keep him bound.
He, who had been her pupil, had now far outgrown her capacity to
understand his endeavors and achievements; and he felt that he could
sacrifice much for her, but not himself, his personality, and his
mission. And so the unwholesome relation wore on, with aggravating
burdensomeness, to the inevitable crisis.

In the fall of 1844 Hebbel journeyed from Paris to Rome. He had met few
notables in Paris--Heine, Felix Bamberg, and Arnold Ruge almost complete
the tale--but in Italy he, like Goethe, made the acquaintance of a group
of German artists, and followed their leadership in the study of ancient
art. He enjoyed this study in natural, unaffected appreciation of the
beautiful; and a certain artistic polish distinguishes the poems which
nature and art in Italy inspired him to write. The Italian journey,
however, was far from being a renaissance to him as it had been to
Goethe. Hebbel remained a Northern artist. Vesuvius impressed him, but
Pompeii proved a disappointment; it was laid out, he said, like any
other city. He departed from Rome in October, 1845, richer in the
friendship of distinguished men--including Hermann Hettner--and in
accumulated experience, but not as one to whom the _Ponte Molle_ is a
bridge of sighs.

Hebbel's design was to return to Hamburg by way of Vienna. In Vienna,
which he reached on the fourth of November, 1845, he was cordially
received in literary circles. Men of influence promised their good
offices in getting his plays performed, but failed to take effective
measures, and he was about to continue his journey when the romantic
enthusiasm of two young barons Zerboni gave him an _entrée_ into
aristocratic society, and he tarried. Ere long he had decided to stay
for life. In Christine Enghaus, the leading lady at the
_Hofburgtheater_, he found the feminine counterpart to his masculine
nature; and on the twenty-sixth of May, 1846, they were married.

From every point of view this marriage proved so perfect that we may
well question whether anything whatever ought to have been allowed to
stand in the way of it. To Elise, of course, it seemed an outrage--the
more so that she was entirely mistaken as to the character of Christine;
and with furious bitterness she reproached Hebbel for violating her most
sacred rights in his infatuation for an actress. The storm broke, but it
cleared the air for both; and upon the death of her second son in 1847,
Elise came at Christine's invitation to Vienna and spent a year in the
Hebbel household.

Hebbel himself rightly dated an epoch in his life from his marriage and
the renewed productivity which followed upon it. He enjoyed now for the
first time not only freedom from economic worries but also complete
serenity of mind. Outwardly, indeed, he still had to keep up his
offensive and defensive warfare. Beyond the circle of his immediate
adherents, only the more enlightened of his contemporaries, such as
Ruge, Hettner, and Theodor Vischer, perceived what he was aiming at, and
his own public discussions were so abstruse and repellent that it is no
wonder they were misunderstood. Grillparzer declared that he was groping
in esthetic fog. Julian Schmidt recognized his power and the poetic
charm of many of his passages, but thought him in danger of crossing the
line which separates sense from nonsense, genius from insanity. Hebbel
was restive under criticism, and the method of his polemics tended
rather to exasperate than to conciliate his adversaries. Meanwhile
_Maria Magdalena_ and _Judith_ were performed at the _Hofburgtheater_,
with Christine as the heroine. But in 1850 Heinrich Laube became
director of this theatre, and he not only rejected one play of Hebbel's
after another, but also withdrew from Christine the leading parts which
she had heretofore taken in the regular repertory.

The new epoch in Hebbel's dramatic activity really began in 1848. The
fruits of his sojourn in Italy, _A Tragedy in Sicily_ (1846), _Julia_
(1847), and _New Poems_ (published in 1847) were mediocre stragglers in
the train of his first successes. But _Herodes and Mariamne_, begun in
1847 and completed in November, 1848, is the first of a new series of
masterpieces. Mariamne, Hebbel said, was not simply written for
Christine, she _was_ Christine. _The Ruby_, which followed in the spring
of 1849, is a graceful dramatization of a fairy-tale written ten years
before in Munich; _Michel Angelo_ (1850), a satire on his critics, is a
slight but clever refutation of ignorant presumption. _Agnes Bernauer_
(1851) is a worthy successor of _Herodes and Mariamne_; _Gyges and his
Ring_ (1854) is the most poetic and perhaps the most characteristic of
his dramas. The trilogy on the _Nibelungen_ (1855-1860) was Hebbel's
last great work, ranking with Grillparzer's _Golden Fleece_ and
Schiller's _Wallenstein_; and if he had lived to complete _Demetrius_,
we should have had another remarkable drama, on a subject which Schiller
too was destined to leave unfinished.

In the fifties, Hebbel accompanied Christine on professional trips to
North Germany, and had ample occasion to observe the spread of his
influence. In 1852 he was fêted at Munich in connection with the
production there of _Agnes Bernauer_. In 1858 he attended a performance
of _Genoveva_ in Weimar, and was decorated with an order by the Grand
Duke. In 1861 the Nibelungen trilogy was performed for the first time in
Weimar, with Christine as Brunhild and Kriemhild; and in the following
year Hebbel, who had even thought of going to live at Weimar, was the
guest of the Grand Duke at his castle in Wilhelmsthal. Though in Vienna
honors came later, Hebbel felt himself to be during these years at the
summit of his existence. In 1855 he bought a country home at Orth near
Gmunden in the Salzkammergut, and to the idyllic atmosphere of that
retreat he owed the inspiration for the epic poem _Mother and Child_
(1857), his gentlest treatment of a tragic theme. In 1857 he issued a
definitive edition of his _Poems_, dedicated to Uhland, "the first poet
of the present time." In 1854 _Genoveva_, in modified form, was
successfully presented as _Magellone_ at the _Burgtheater_, with
Christine as the heroine. But Hebbel's first Viennese triumph did not
come until February 19, 1863, when Christine played Brunhild in the
first and second parts of the _Nibelungen_. On his deathbed he received
the news that the Berlin Schiller Prize had been awarded to him for the
_Nibelungen_. Hebbel died on the thirteenth of December, 1863. Christine
out-lived him by nearly half a century, until the twenty-ninth of June,
1910.

Rightly or wrongly, Hebbel regarded himself as the creator of a new form
of drama, setting in at a step beyond Shakespeare and Schiller, and
attacking problems in the manner suggested, but not fully developed, by
Goethe. Shakespeare and Schiller, he said, locate the conflict in the
breast of the hero: shall he, or shall he not, endeavor to attain the
object of his desire, against forces which oppose him from without, and
which have their allies in his own conscience, in his own sense of right
and wrong? He desires the wrong, or neglects the right, and for his
tragic fault atones with death. We pity the unfortunate individual,
console ourselves, however, with the inviolability of the moral law, and
profit by his example: only those are free whose will chooses to be
moral. But Goethe, in the dramatically conceived _Elective Affinities_,
focuses attention not upon the doings of individuals, but upon the
sanctions of the law which a power superior to their wills forces them
to break. And so Hebbel, passing over the individual, as one of myriads,
directs inquiry into the causes that make him what he is, that make him
do what he does, that prevent him from doing what at the same time they
impel him to attempt; and he reveals, back of the individual typical
phenomenon, an irreconcilable conflict in the very condition and
definition of its existence. This conflict has its roots in the dualism
of all being.

The corner-stone of Martin Luther's system of morals was the paradox: "A
Christian is a sovereign lord over all things, and is subject to nobody;
a Christian is a duty-bound servant of all things, and is subject to
everybody." In other words, a man's soul is his own and is superior to
all the things of the flesh; but through his body he is made dependent
upon the life-giving earth, and subject to the laws which those other
"bodies" in the community in which he lives make for the common defense
and the general welfare. Hebbel carried the antithesis farther, asking
what is the soul, and what is the body? And he answered, in effect, that
the soul is indeed the very essence of personality, but is no original,
self-begotten, and self-sufficient entity--on the contrary, it is a
fragment, a participant in the animating principle of the universe--and
that the body is indeed the medium of contact between person and person,
but is also the separating barrier of soul from soul, and of the
individual soul from the soul of the world. The body is the form or
vessel which vouchsafes to the soul individual existence, and which the
soul, by its very impulse to activity, wears out and destroys. Birth is
a prophecy of destruction and a doom to death.

But life is activity, the soul is a motive force, self-assertion and
self-preservation are heaven's first law. Self-assertion, however, is
nothing but the operation of communicated and committed animation, and
self-preservation nothing but the postponement of the day of surrender.
Self-preservation is impossible; self-assertion is a challenge to the
assertiveness of other selves, as well as a hastener of dissolution. The
self follows its native bent, and its native impulse is for expansion;
but it thus, as a fraction, leaves, on its centrifugal path, the course
of the great world spirit from which it separates; and as both a
separate entity and a member of a community it must, in its attempt at
self-realization, meet the constraint which the community, whose only
object is likewise self-realization and self-preservation, puts upon all
within its power. The law is negative and repressive, self-interest is
positive and assertive; between the two there is no possible
reconciliation--at most a compromise--so that in the last analysis it
appears that the assertion of individual will as such is immoral, that
is, contrary to the will of the community; and is sinful, for it is not
the will of God, but the will of a particularized individual, however
godly he may be. There are differences in degree, but not in kind, among
immoralities and sins, with corresponding degrees of punitive
repression; but the potential tragic conflict is constant, and there is
as little doubt about the eminent domain of the State as about the
supremacy of God.

The laws of God are changeless and eternal, but human morality is a
local and temporal development. As the character of an individual is the
product of disposition and experience, so his fate is humanly determined
by the particular forms of custom and law established in the community
in which his lot is cast. But these change from time to time, and in
periods of change the disparity between public and private interest is
most conspicuous: the progressive individual bears not only the burden
of proof but also the dead weight of public inertia. Only at infinity
can the parallel antithetical interests coincide. Nevertheless, the
world gradually effects self-correction by the evolution of new
syntheses from the thesis and antithesis ever and anon presented for
trial and judgment as between liberal and conservative forces.

Hebbel's drama, then, is the representation of a process, the process of
life, by which things come into being. It reveals the individual in the
making, and discusses the validity of the institutions that condition
his life or cause his death. There is no question of guilt and
atonement. Protagonist and antagonist are right, each in his way and
from his point of view; the conflict may arise from excess of goodness
as well as from excess of evil; but the representative of the whole
prevails of necessity over the champion of a single interest; and in the
knowledge of this truth, rather than in the futile attempt to modify the
relation, we must seek our freedom. Hebbel's plays are historical:
character in its setting of circumstances is the only character really
and fully comprehensible. They are sociological: exhibiting the
ceaseless collision of individualistic and collectivistic tendencies,
they teach forbearance, and patience, and the will to face the
facts--_tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner_. And they are modern:
treating problems of character and _milieu_, they disdain the
adventitious aids of eloquence and theatrical splendor, and speak to us
with the directness, often with the bluntness, of nature herself. Hebbel
was no naturalist, in the sense of one who seeks but to reproduce
phenomena in all their details, sordid, trivial, or vulgar, if such they
be. But through Ibsen, who esteemed him alone among his German
predecessors, he became a factor in the recent naturalistic movement;
and he might have saved it from many an aberration, if his example had
been more closely followed.

Hebbel strikingly revealed his independence and originality at the
beginning of his public career, by his new conception of old and
familiar subjects. His Judith is a totally different person from the
heroine of the Apocrypha. The Biblical Judith is a widow who slays a
public enemy, and returns unscathed amid the plaudits of the multitude.
But Hebbel's Judith is a widow who has never been a wife, a woman who
seems to have been appointed by Providence to do a great deed in His
service, who takes the duty upon herself only to find that as a woman
she is unequal to it; for as a woman she loves the manly heathen. She
kills him, as she set out to do; but the motive for her act is personal
revenge for a personal outrage; and she returns to Bethulia broken in
spirit and appalled at the thought that she may bear a son by
Holofernes. The attempt to make of herself an impersonal instrument in
the hands of the Almighty--certainly a laudable undertaking--is her only
fault, and is tragic because inconsistent with the character of
womanhood, which the Almighty has also ordained. Compared with the iron
necessity of her being, to which Judith succumbs, the accidental and
improbable fault of Schiller's Maid of Orleans seems as trivial as it is
conventional.

Similarly, in the conception of the story of Genoveva, Hebbel shifted
attention from the saint to the sinner. In the centre of his _Genoveva_
stands Golo, the unfortunate young man whose good instincts are made
criminal because the faults and errors of others excite them, and
because his desire, justifiable according to nature, is directed toward
a woman who is bound to another in a wedlock which, from the side of the
husband at least, is only formally correct. In Golo's crime and
atonement we accordingly see a great deal more than the operation of the
moral law: we see how crime is begotten of innocence; and instead of
thinking of the wretched creature, we think of the Creator who has so
ordained it, and at whose central position in the moral universe there
can be neither good nor evil, but an equilibrium of forces which become
one or the other, and may become either when the equilibrium is
disturbed. Good and evil, mutually exclusive qualities in the world of
appearance, are, in the world of ideas, complementary conceptions,
different aspects of one and the same thing.

Golo appears, despite his crimes, less guilty than Siegfried, the
husband of Genoveva; and in his case a divine impulse, love, becomes an
evil because it happens to collide with an institution, marriage, which
we are here justified in calling human, since, though it has a social
sanction, it lacks the evidence of divine approval. Clara, in _Maria
Magdalena_, is chargeable with but the minimum of guilt, and perishes
because, too honest and dutiful to safeguard her own interests in a
stern and selfish community, she cannot otherwise preserve for her
father that unassailable reputation which is, in his imperfect ethics,
the highest good. The tragedy in this play is the tragedy of pharisaical
_bourgeois_ society itself. There is no collision between high and low,
such as constituted the plot of the _tragédies bourgeoises_ of the
eighteenth century--e.g., Lessing's _Emilia Galotti_, Schiller's _Cabal
and Love_--but the stubborn hardness of the middle-class society in its
typical representative is unable to meet a crisis; and by the
banishment, or the condemnation to suicide, of its most promising
members, this society pronounces its own doom. Altruism is contrary to
the custom, that is, to the morals of this community, and for that
reason is forbidden and suppressed.

Another community in which altruism is unusual and discredited is Judæa
just before the birth of Christ. Herod the king is a masterful ruler and
a benefactor; but the end justifies the means that he adopts, and he is
no respecter of persons. He does not even respect the person of his
wife. The love of Mariamne is the one sure rock upon which he can rest
when the earthquake, threatening at every moment, comes to shatter his
throne and engulf him. He loves her too with a passion which dreams of
union so perfect that death cannot break it, so perfect that one of them
would wish to die at the moment when the soul of the other left the
body. This is Mariamne's dream also, but Herod cannot trust her to
fulfil it. Not once, but twice, upon going to the wars, he leaves orders
that Mariamne shall be slain if he is killed; and these orders are an
assassination of her soul. The community can execute an individual; but
one individual can only assassinate another. In the ancient orient a
wife was a precious possession, entirely subject to the will of her
husband, and liable to be burned in his funeral pyre. Herod represents
such an ancient, oriental point of view; but Judæa is on the eve of
becoming occidental and modern. Herod represents the law and has the
power to crush the insurgent personality of Mariamne: he has not the
power to slay the infant Savior, nor to hinder the coming of the day
when every human soul is known to be an object of divine concern.

That play of Hebbel's in which the dualism of all being is most
conspicuously tragic is _Agnes Bernauer_. Agnes is the daughter of a
barber and surgeon, and is so beautiful that she is commonly known as
the angel of Augsburg. Albrecht, the son and sole heir of the reigning
duke Ernst, comes to Augsburg, falls in love with her, and, in spite of
friendly warning, marries her; for she has loved him at first sight,
too. As persons, they do what is right for them to do; their marriage
has been performed by a priest of the church; and they feel that it has
divine sanction. But Albrecht is not an ordinary person; he is the heir
to the throne, and public exigencies require that the succession shall
be guaranteed. This marriage, however, is illegal--a board of
incorruptible judges so finds it; it causes sedition and threatens
interminable strife. Duke Ernst is deliberate and patient in dealing
with the unprecedented case. He waits until he can wait no longer.
Albrecht will not give up Agnes, nor Agnes give up him; Ernst respects
the sacrament of wedlock by which they are united, and only after two
and a half years does he sign the warrant by which Agnes was duly
condemned to death. Agnes dies in perfect innocence and constancy, a
victim of social convention. But Albrecht, whose disregard of this
convention was rebellion, and whose vengeance for his wife's death
brings him to the point of parricide, is made to see, not merely because
excommunication accompanies the ban of the empire on him as a rebel, but
also because of the instructive words and actions of his father, that
the social organization he has defied has itself a divine sanction, and
that a prince, standing by common consent at the head of that
organization, cannot with impunity undermine the basis of his
sovereignty. Devotion to him is like loyalty to the national ensign. The
ensign is nothing in itself, but it symbolizes the idea of the State;
and the prince is also the representative of an idea, which he must
continue to represent in its entirety, or he ceases to be the prince.
This lesson Albrecht learns when, like Kleist's _Prince of Homburg_, he
is made judge in his own case, and when he perceives at the cost of what
personal sacrifice his father has done his duty. The State prevails over
Albrecht as it prevails over Agnes, whose only fault was that she did
not immure her beauty in a nunnery.

The sanction of tradition and custom which Albrecht and Agnes could not
break in _Agnes Bernauer_ Hebbel most impressively demonstrated in
_Gyges and his Ring_. Kandaules, King of Lydia, is a rash innovator in
both public and private life. He despises rusty swords and uncomfortable
crowns, he means to do away with silly prejudices, and, like Herod,
regarding his wife as a precious possession only, he procures for his
friend Gyges an opportunity to see her unveiled. But she, an Indian
princess, is, in Christine Hebbel's words, a convolution of veils; her
veil is inseparable from herself; and the brutal violation of her
modesty is a less forgivable crime than the taking of her life would be.
The wearing of a veil may be a foolish custom; but use and want hallow
even the trivial. Half of our law is based upon precedent, and we are
protected at every turn by unwritten law, which is nothing else than
precedent. Mankind needs to repose in the security of this protection.
Woe to him, said Hebbel, who disturbs the sleep of the world! Changes
must come, but rarely in the way of revolution.

The tragedy of the Nibelungen Hebbel approached somewhat differently
from the other subjects that he treated. He had his own conception of
the tragic content of the matter, of course; but he found that the
author of the _Nibelungenlied_, a dramatist from head to foot, has so
clearly presented the tragic aspects of the story that the modern
dramatist need only make himself the interpreter of the medieval epic
poet. Herewith Hebbel's trilogy is at once distinguished from such other
modern treatments of the subject as Geibel's _Brunhild_ or Wagner's
_Nibelungen Ring_. Geibel eliminated everything supernatural; Wagner
made use chiefly of the Old Norse versions of the story; Hebbel, on the
contrary, dramatized what he regarded as the significant content of the
Middle High German poem, retaining its mythological, Christian,
chivalrous, historical, and legendary elements. The mythological
elements of the epic are indeed indistinct survivals of earlier ages.
Hebbel leaned somewhat upon Norse myths in his reproduction of them,
though it was part of his plan to preserve a certain indistinctness and
mystery in these undramatic presuppositions. Similarly, he made more of
the element of Christianity than is made of it by the _Nibelungenlied_.
In both epic and drama the Burgundians are only formally Christian; the
cardinal principles of heathen ethics, tribal loyalty and vengeance, are
entirely unaffected by the Christian doctrine of forgiveness. In the
play, however, the transition from one system to the other is much more
strongly emphasized than in the poem. The heathen ethics lead to the
mutual destruction of those who profess them, and out of the ruins of
the old civilization a new world rises heralded by Theodoric of Verona,
who accepts the sovereignty relinquished by Attila the Hun, "in His name
who died on the cross."

The downfall of two peoples follows in the train of personal calamity.
Siegfried, foreordained by the ancient gods to become the husband of
Brunhild, neglects in the adventurous days of youth to woo her, and
undertakes for the price of Kriemhild's hand to secure her as a wife for
Gunther. Hidden in his cloak of invisibility, he twice overcomes
Brunhild, thereby committing against her the same kind of outrage as
Herod's against Mariamne, and that of Gyges against Rhodope. Through no
direct fault of Siegfried's the fraud is discovered; it is an offense to
the queen, which insults the State. Gunther the king will not punish it,
for he is under personal obligations to the offender; but he takes no
effective measures to prevent punishment by Hagen, who, though his loyal
motives are mixed with envy, acts within his rights as the prime
minister. But Siegfried, being vulnerable in only one spot, cannot be
challenged to open combat; he has to be slain by stealth; so that
Hagen's act is not strictly to be called murder, and the Burgundians,
even though their sense of solidarity should not require them to make
common cause with him against Kriemhild, might with some show of reason
confirm his oath that he is no murderer. Siegfried put himself outside
the pale of humanity when he assumed the dragon's skin. Dragons are
hunted to death. Only men are tried and executed.

We have chosen to examine Hebbel's principal plays from the point of
view of their idea, for the reason that, as said above, it was primarily
the idea which Hebbel found important in every individual phenomenon. He
did not treat cases and conditions for the sake of merely representing
life on the stage, but for the sake of exemplifying, in representations
of life, the fundamental irreconcilability of the expansive and
repressive forces which struggle in every individual. His characters are
certainly persons, not abstract constructions; the action in his plays
moves relentlessly forward, with no lack of inventiveness on his part or
of sensuous impressiveness on the part of his inventions; he seldom
fails to convince our understanding that in his dramatic debate each
side is adequately represented, and that the side which at length
prevails is the stronger under the presuppositions of time and place; it
would be unfair, furthermore, to deny the appeal that he makes to our
sympathy. But, on the other hand, he is not free from suggestions of
artifice; his characters are abnormally introspective and
self-explanatory, and they reveal a talent for logical exposition which
belongs rather to Friedrich Hebbel than to men of like passions with
ourselves. In the unsought, accidental, ingenuous details which
ingratiate themselves in spite, or perhaps because of their
insignificance, he is not to be compared with Grillparzer; nor, in the
capacity to create a poetic atmosphere, with Otto Ludwig. His language
is rugged and masculine; his style, frequently forensic. Taken as a
whole, his work furnishes more abundant food for thought than objects
of _naïve_ esthetic enjoyment; but, like Grillparzer's, his plays were
written for the stage; and proper enactment has seldom failed to produce
with them an effect of power worthy of his powerful personality, which
swam against the tide, knowing that the tide would turn and that the
flood would bear him to the haven.

       *       *       *       *       *




_FRIEDRICH HEBBEL_

       *       *       *       *       *



MARIA MAGDALENA


DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

Master ANTONY, _a joiner_

_His Wife_

CLARA, _his daughter_

CARL, _his son_

LEONARD

_A Secretary_ WOLFRAM, a merchant_

ADAM, _a bailiff_

_Another bailiff_

_A Boy_

_A Maid_

_Place. A fair-sized town_



MARIA MAGDALENA (1844)

TRANSLATED BY PAUL BERNARD THOMAS

ACT I

_A Room in the Joiner's House._

SCENE I

_Enter_ CLARA; _the_ MOTHER.

CLARA.

Your wedding dress? Oh, how well it becomes you! It looks as if it had
been made today!

MOTHER.

Yes, child, fashion keeps on going forward until it can go no farther
and has to turn around and go back. This dress has already been out of
style and in again ten times.

CLARA.

But this time it is not exactly in style, dear mother! The sleeves are
too wide! It must not annoy you!

MOTHER (_smiling_).

I should have to be you for that! CLARA.

And so this is the way you looked! But surely you carried a bunch of
flowers too, didn't you?

MOTHER.

I should hope so! Else why do you think I nursed that sprig of myrtle in
the pot for so many years?

CLARA.

I have often asked you to, but you have never before put it on. You have
always said: It is no longer my wedding dress; it is my shroud now, and
that is something one should not play with. I got so that I couldn't
even look at it any more, because, hanging there so white, it always
made me think of your death, and of the day when the old women would try
to pull it on over your head. Why then today?

MOTHER.

When one is very sick, as I was, and does not know whether one is going
to get well again or not, a great many things revolve in one's head.
Death is more terrible than you think--oh, it is awful! It casts a
shadow over the world; one after the other it blows out all the lights
that shine with such cheerful brightness all around us, the kindly eyes
of husband and children cease to sparkle, and it grows dark everywhere.
But deep in the heart it strikes a light, which burns brightly and
reveals a great deal one does not care to see. I am not conscious of
ever having done a wrong; I have walked in God's ways, I have done my
best about the home, I have brought you and your brother up to fear God,
and I have kept together the fruits of your father's hard work. I have
always managed to lay aside an extra penny for the poor, and if now and
then I have turned somebody away, because I felt out of sorts or because
too many came, it wasn't a very great misfortune for him, because I was
sure to call him back and give him twice as much. Oh, what does it all
amount to? People dread the last hour when it threatens to come, writhe
like a worm over it, and implore God to let them live, just as a servant
implores his master to let him do something over again that he has
done poorly, so that he may not come short in his wages on pay-day.

CLARA.

Don't talk in that way, dear mother! It weakens you.

MOTHER.

No, child, it does me good! Am I not well and strong again now? Did
not the Lord call me merely to let me know that my festal robe was not
yet pure and spotless? And did he not permit me to come back from the
very edge of the grave, and grant me time to prepare myself for the
heavenly wedding? He was not as kind as that to those five Virgins in
the Gospel, about whom I had you read to me last night. And that is the
reason why today, when I am going to the Holy Communion, I put this
dress on. I wore it the day I made the best and most pious resolutions
of my life; I want it to remind me of those which I have not yet carried
out.

CLARA.

You still talk as you did in your illness!



SCENE II

CARL (_enters_).

Good morning, mother! Well, Clara, I suppose you might put up with me,
if I were not your brother?

CLARA.

A gold chain? Where did you get that?

CARL.

Why do I sweat so? Why do I work two hours longer than the others every
evening? You are impertinent!

MOTHER.

A quarrel on Sunday morning? Shame on you, Carl!

CARL.

Mother, haven't you got a gulden for me?

MOTHER.

I haven't any money except for the housekeeping!

CARL.

Well, give me some of that then! I won't grumble if you make the
pancakes thinner for the next two weeks. You have often done so before!
I know that all right! When you were saving up for Clara's white dress,
we didn't have anything decent to eat for a month. I shut my eyes, but I
knew right well that a new hair ribbon or some other bit of finery was
on the way. So let me get something out of it too, for once!

MOTHER.

You are absolutely shameless!

CARL.

I haven't much time, else--[_He starts to go_.]

MOTHER.

Where are you going?

CARL.

I won't tell you, and then, when the old growler asks you where I am,
you can answer without blushing that you don't know. Anyway I don't need
your gulden--it is best not to draw all your water from one well.

[_To himself_.]

Here at home they always think the worst things they can about me; why
shouldn't I take pleasure in keeping them worried? Why should I say
that, since I don't get my gulden, I shall have to go to church, unless
a friend helps me out of my predicament?



SCENE III

CLARA.

What does he mean by that?

MOTHER.

Oh, he grieves me terribly! Yes, yes, your father is right! Those are
the consequences! He is just as insolent now in demanding a gulden as he
was cunning in pleading for a piece of sugar when he was a little
curly-headed baby. I wonder if he would not demand the gulden now, if I
had refused him the sugar then? That often hurts me! And I think he
doesn't even love me! Did you ever once see him cry during my illness?

CLARA.

I didn't see him very often at best--almost never except at the table.
He had more appetite than I!

MOTHER (_quickly_).

That was natural! He had to work so hard!

CLARA.

To be sure! And how strange men are! They are more ashamed of their
tears than they are of their sins! A clenched fist--why not exhibit
that? But red eyes!--And father too! The afternoon they opened your vein
and no blood came, he sobbed at his work-bench until it moved my very
soul! But when I went up to him and stroked his cheeks, what did he say?
"See if you can't get this accursèd splinter out of my eye! I have so
much to do and can't accomplish anything!"

MOTHER (_smiling_).

Yes! yes!--I never see Leonard any more, by the way. How does that
happen?

CLARA.

Let him stay away!

MOTHER.

I hope you are not seeing him anywhere else, except here at the house!

CLARA.

Is it because I stay out too long when I go to the well in the evening
that you have reason to suspect that?

MOTHER.

No, not that. But it was just for that reason that I gave him permission
to come here to the house, so that he wouldn't lie in wait for you out
there in the dark. My mother would never allow that, either!

CLARA.

I don't see him at all!

MOTHER.

Have you had a quarrel? Otherwise I think I might like him--he is so
steady! If he only amounted to something! In my time he would not have
had to wait long. Then gentlemen were eager for a good penman, as lame
people are for their crutch, for they were rare. Even we humble people
could use one. Today he would compose for a son a New Year's greeting to
his father and receive for the gilded initials alone enough to buy a
child's doll with. Tomorrow the father would give him a sly wink and
have him read the greeting aloud, secretly and behind closed doors, so
as not to be surprised and have his ignorance discovered. That meant
double pay. Then penmen were jolly people and made the price of beer
high. It is different now. Now we old folks, not knowing anything about
reading and writing, must allow ourselves to be made fun of by
nine-year-old children. The world is steadily growing wiser; perhaps the
time is yet to come when people who can't walk a tight-rope will have to
feel ashamed of it!

CLARA.

The bell is ringing!

MOTHER.

Well, child, I will pray for you. And as far as Leonard is concerned,
love him as he loves God--no more and no less. That is what my old
mother said to me when she died and gave me her blessing. I have kept it
long enough; now you have it!

CLARA (_hands her a nosegay_).

There!

MOTHER.

That certainly comes from Carl.

CLARA (_nods; then aside_.)

Would it were so! Anything that is to give her real pleasure has to come
from him!

MOTHER.

Oh, he is so good--and he likes me! [_Exit_.]

CLARA (_looks after her through the window_).

There she goes! Three times I have dreamt that she was lying in her
coffin, and now--oh, these awful dreams! I am not going to care about
dreams any more; I will take no pleasure in a good dream, and then I
shall not have to worry about the bad one that follows it. How firmly
and confidently she steps out! She is already close to the church-yard.
I wonder who will be the first person she meets? It would signify
nothing--no, I mean only [_she shudders_]--the gravedigger! He has just
finished digging a grave and is climbing out of it! She greets him and
glances smilingly down into the dismal hole! She throws the nosegay into
it and enters the church!

[_A choir is heard_.]

They are singing: _Praise ye the Lord_.

[_She folds her hands_.]

Yes! yes! If my mother had died, I should never have recovered from it,
for--[_Glances toward Heaven_.] But Thou art kind, Thou art merciful! I
would that I believed with the Catholics, so that I might offer Thee
something! I would empty the whole of my little box of savings and buy
Thee a beautiful gilded heart, and twine it with roses. Our pastor says
that sacrifices mean nothing to Thee, because everything is Thine, and
one should not offer Thee something Thou already hast. And yet
everything in the house belongs to my father too; and still he likes it
when I buy a piece of cloth with his money and embroider it and put it
on his plate for his birthday. Yes, and he honors me by wearing it only
on great holidays, at Christmas or Whitsuntide. Once I saw a little mite
of a Catholic girl carrying some cherries up to the altar. They were the
first the child had had that year, and I could see how she longed to eat
them. Still she resisted the innocent desire, and, in order to put an
end to the temptation, hurriedly threw them down. The priest, who was
just about to pick up the chalice, looked on with a scowl, and the child
hastened timidly away. But the Mary above the altar smiled gently, as if
she would have liked to step out of her frame and overtake the child and
kiss her.--I did it for her! Here comes Leonard. Oh, dear!



SCENE IV

LEONARD (_outside the door_).

Are you dressed?

CLARA.

Why so polite, so considerate? I am no princess, you know.

LEONARD (_enters_).

I thought you were not alone! In passing by I thought I saw your
neighbor Babbie standing by the window.

CLARA.

And so that is why--

LEONARD.

You are forever so irritable! One can stay away from here for two weeks,
rain and sunshine can have alternated ten times, and, when one does
finally come again, he finds the same old cloud darkening your face!

CLARA.

Things used to be different!

LEONARD.

Correct! If you had always looked as you do now, we should never have
become good friends!

CLARA.

What of it?

LEONARD.

So you feel yourself as free of me as that, do you? Perhaps it serves me
right! Then [_significantly_] your recent toothache was a mere pretext!

CLARA.

Oh, Leonard, it was not right of you!

LEONARD.

Not right for me to seek to bind to me the greatest treasure that I
have--for that is what you are to me--with the firmest of all bonds? And
especially at a time when I stood in danger of losing it? Do you think I
did not see the furtive glances you exchanged with the Secretary? That
was a triumphant day of joy for me! I take you to the dance and--
CLARA.

You never stop saying things that hurt me! I looked at the Secretary,
why should I deny it? But only on account of the moustache he had grown
at the University, and which--

[_She checks herself_.]

LEONARD.

Becomes him so well--isn't that it? Isn't that what you started to say?
Oh, you women! Anything that looks like a soldier, even a caricature of
one, you like. To me the fop's ridiculous little oval face, with that
tuft of hair in the middle of it, looked like a little white rabbit
hiding behind a bush. I am bitter toward him--I won't try to conceal it.
He held me back from you long enough!

CLARA.

I didn't praise him, did I? You don't need to run him down!

LEONARD.

You still seem to take a lot of interest in him.

CLARA.

We used to play together as children, and afterward--you know very well!

LEONARD.

Oh yes, I know! And that's just why!

CLARA.

Then I think it was only natural, seeing him again for the first time
in a long while that way, for me to look at him and be astonished to see
how big and--[_She checks herself_.]

LEONARD.

Why did you blush then, when he looked back at you?

CLARA.

I thought he was looking at the little mole on my left cheek to see if
it, too, had grown bigger! You know I always imagine people are looking
at that when they stare at me so, and it always makes me blush. I have a
feeling as if it _were_ growing larger, as long as they look at it!

LEONARD.

However that may be, it got on my nerves, and I thought to myself: This
very evening I will put her to the test! If she wants to become my wife,
she knows that she risks nothing. If she says no, then--

CLARA.

Oh, you said a bad, bad word, when I pushed you back and jumped up from
the bench. The moon, which up to that time had shone in through the
foliage with such kindly consideration for me, at that moment sank
shrewdly behind the wet clouds. I wanted to hurry away, but felt
something holding me. At first I thought it was you, but it was the
rose-bush, whose thorns held my dress like teeth. You outraged my heart,
so that I no longer trusted it myself. You stood before me like one
demanding the payment of a debt! I--Oh, God!

[Illustration: ALFRED RETHEL DEATH AS CUP-BEARER]

LEONARD.

I cannot yet regret it. I knew it was the only way I could have kept you
to myself. The old girlhood love was opening its eyes again, and I could
not close them quickly enough!

CLARA.

When I got home, I found my mother ill, mortally ill. She had been
stricken suddenly, as if by an invisible hand. My father had wanted to
send for me, but she would not consent to his doing so, not wishing to
interrupt my happiness. And how I felt when I heard that! I held myself
aloof, I did not dare to touch her, I trembled! She took it for childish
anxiety and motioned me over to her; when I slowly drew near her, she
held me down and kissed my desecrated mouth. I lost control of myself; I
wanted to confess to her, to cry out what I thought and felt: It is my
fault that you are lying there! I tried to do so, but tears and sobs
choked my voice. She reached for my father's hand, and said with a
blissful glance at me: What a heart!

LEONARD.

She is well again. I have come to congratulate her, and--what do you
think?

CLARA.

What?

LEONARD.

To ask your father for your hand.

CLARA.

Oh!

LEONARD.

Don't you want me to?

CLARA.

Want you to? It will mean my death, if I do not become your wife pretty
soon! But you do not know my father! He does not understand why we are
in such a hurry--he cannot understand why, and we cannot tell him why!
And he has declared a hundred times that he will never give his daughter
to any man unless he has not only, as he says, love in his heart for
her, but also bread in his cupboard for her. He will say: Wait another
year or two, my son.--And what will be your answer?

LEONARD. You foolish girl, that difficulty is disposed of! I have the
position now--I am cashier!

CLARA.

You cashier? And the other applicant, the pastor's nephew?

LEONARD.

Was drunk when he came to the examination, bowed to the stove instead of
to the burgomaster, and when he sat down knocked three cups off the
table. You know how hot-headed the old fellow is. "Sir!" he exclaimed
angrily, but he restrained himself and bit his lip. Nevertheless his
eyes glared through his spectacles like the eyes of a serpent about to
spring, and his whole body became rigid. Then we started computing and,
ha! ha!--my rival computed with a multiplication table of his own
invention that gave entirely new results. "He's way off in his
reckoning!" said the burgomaster, and, glancing in my direction, held
out his hand to me with the appointment. It smelled terribly of tobacco,
but I took it and raised it humbly to my lips.--Here it is now, signed
and sealed!

CLARA.

That comes--

LEONARD.

Unexpectedly, doesn't it? Well, it was not altogether an accident
either. Why didn't I come to see you for two weeks?

CLARA.

How do I know? I think it was because we got angry at each other the
Sunday before!

LEONARD.

Oh, I was cunning enough to bring about that little disagreement on
purpose--so that I could stay away without its astonishing you too much!

CLARA.

I don't understand you!

LEONARD.

I suppose not. I took advantage of the time to pay court to the
burgomaster's little hump-backed niece, whom the old fellow thinks so
much of, and who is his right hand, just as the bailiff is his left.
Understand me correctly! I didn't say anything nice to her about
herself, except perhaps a compliment regarding her hair, which everybody
knows is red--so I just told her some nice things she liked to hear
about you.

CLARA.

About me?

LEONARD.

Why should I keep still about it? I did it with the best of
intentions--as if I had never intended to deal seriously with you, as
if--enough! That lasted until I got this in my hands, and the credulous
little man-crazy fool will find out what I meant when she hears the
banns of our marriage published in the church.

CLARA.

Leonard!

LEONARD.

Child! child! You be as innocent as a dove, and I will be as wise as a
serpent. Then, since a man and his wife are one, we shall entirely
satisfy the demand of the Gospel.

[_Laughs_.]

Neither was it altogether an accident that young Hermann was drunk at
the most important moment of his life. You have surely never heard that
the fellow is given to drinking?

CLARA.

Not a word.

LEONARD.

The fact made the execution of my scheme all the easier. It was done
with three glasses. I had a couple of friends of mine waylay him. "May
one drink to your health?"--"Not now!"--"Oh, that is all arranged, you
know. Your uncle"--"And now, drink, my brother, drink!"--This morning
when I was on my way to you, he stood leaning on the bridge and gazing
dejectedly down at the river. I greeted him sarcastically, and asked him
if he had dropped anything into the water. "Yes," he answered, without
looking up, "and perhaps it would be well for me to jump in after it."

CLARA.

You bad man! Get out of my sight!

LEONARD.

You mean it?

[_Moves, as if to go_.]

CLARA.

Oh, my God, I am chained to this man!

LEONARD.

Don't be a baby! And now one more word in confidence: Does your father
still keep the thousand thalers in the apothecary shop?

CLARA.

I know nothing about it.

LEONARD.

Nothing about so important a matter?

CLARA.

Here comes my father.

LEONARD.

Understand me! The apothecary is said to be on the verge of
bankruptcy--that's why I asked!

CLARA.

I must go into the kitchen! [_Exit_.]

LEONARD (_alone_).

Well, I guess there is nothing to be got here! I can't understand it at
all; for Master Antony is one of those fellows whose ghost, if you
should accidentally put one too many letters on his gravestone, would
haunt you until you took it off. For he would regard it as dishonest to
appropriate more of the alphabet than he was properly entitled to.



SCENE V

_Enter_ LEONARD; _Master_ ANTONY.

ANTONY.

Good morning, Mr. Cashier! [_He takes off his cap and puts on a woolen
cap_.] Is it permissible for an old man to keep his head covered?

LEONARD.

You know then--

ANTONY.

Since yesterday evening. When I was going over in the dusk to take the
deceased miller's measure for his final sleeping room, I heard a couple
of your good friends slandering you. I thought right away: I guess
Leonard has not broken his neck.--At the house I heard more about it
from the sexton, who had come to console the widow, and, incidentally,
to get drunk.

LEONARD.

And you had to let Clara find out about it from me?

ANTONY.

If you didn't care enough about it to give the girl that pleasure
yourself, why should I do it? I don't light any candles in my house
except those that belong to me. Then I know that nobody is going to come
and blow them out, just as we are beginning to enjoy them.

LEONARD.

Surely you don't think that I--

ANTONY.

Think? About you? About anybody? I smooth over boards with my plane, but
I never smooth over men with my thoughts. I stopped that sort of
foolishness long ago. When I see a tree growing, I think to myself: It
will soon be blossoming; and when it sprouts: It will soon bear fruit.
In that I never see myself disappointed, and for that reason I don't
give up the old habit. But about men I never think anything, good or
bad, and then I don't have to turn alternately red and white when they
disappoint my fears one minute and my hopes the next. I merely observe
them and use the evidence of my eyes, which likewise do not think, but
only see. I thought I had made a complete observation of you, but now
that I find you here I must confess that it was only half an
observation.

LEONARD.

Master Antony, you have it all upside down. Trees are dependent upon
wind and weather, whereas men have laws and rules in themselves to
govern them.

ANTONY.

Do you think so? Yes, we old people owe hearty thanks to death for
allowing us to run around so long among you young folks, thereby giving
us an opportunity to educate ourselves. Formerly the stupid world used
to think that the father was there to educate his son. But now the son
is supposed to give his father the final touch of perfection, so that
the poor, simple man will not need to feel ashamed of himself before the
worms in his grave. God be praised! I have a fine teacher in my son Carl
who, without sparing his old child by indulgence, takes the field
against my prejudices. He taught me two new lessons this very morning,
and in the most clever way, without opening his mouth and without even
letting me see him--yes, by that very means. In the first place, he
showed me that it is not necessary for a man to keep his word; in the
second, that it is superfluous to go to church and freshen up one's
memory of God's laws. Yesterday evening he promised me that he would go,
and I counted on his doing it, for I thought to myself: He will want to
thank the gracious Creator for the recovery of his mother. But he wasn't
there, and I was very comfortable all alone in my pew, which, to be
sure, is a little too short for two persons anyway. I wonder if he would
like it if I myself were to act in accordance with the new doctrine, by
not keeping my word with him? I have promised him a new suit for his
birthday, and I might take the opportunity to test his joy over my
docility. But prejudice! Prejudice! I shall not do it!

LEONARD.

Perhaps he was not well--

ANTONY.

Possibly! I need only to ask my wife, then I am sure to hear that he is
sick. For she tells me the truth about everything else in the world, but
never about the boy. And even if he was not sick!--There too the younger
generation has the advantage over us old folks, in that they can find
their spiritual edification anywhere, and can do their worshipping when
they are out trapping birds, or taking a walk, or sitting in the
ale-house. "Our Father who art in Heaven"--"Good day, Peter, shall I
see you at the dance this evening?"--"Hallowed be Thy name"--"Yes, laugh
if you will, Catherine, but it is true"--"Thy will be done"--"The devil
take me, I am not shaved yet!"--and so forth. And each one pronounces
the blessing on himself, for he is a man just as much as the preacher,
and the power that emanates from a black garb certainly exists in a blue
one as well. Nor have I anything to say against it; even if you want to
intersperse the seven petitions with seven glasses, what of it? I can't
prove to anybody that beer and religion don't mix well, and perhaps it
will some day get into the liturgy as a new way of taking the Eucharist.
Frankly, I myself, old sinner that I am, am not strong enough to keep
pace with fashion; I cannot catch up worship in the street, as if it
were a cockchafer; for me the chirping of swallows and sparrows cannot
take the place of the organ. If I want to feel my heart exalted, I must
hear the heavy, iron doors of the church close behind me and think to
myself that they are the doors of the world. The dismal high walls with
their narrow windows, that admit but a dim remnant of the bold garish
daylight as if they were sifting it, must surround me on all sides. And
in the distance I must be able to see the charnel-house, with its
death-head cut in the wall. Oh well, better is better.

LEONARD.

You are too particular about it!

ANTONY.

Of course! Of course! And today, as an honest man, I must confess that
what I have been saying did not hold good; for I lost my reverent mood
in church, being annoyed by the vacant seat beside me, and found it
again under the pear-tree in my garden. You are astonished? But look! I
went sadly and dejectedly home, like one whose harvest has been ruined
by hail; for children are like fields--we sow good corn in them and
weeds sprout up. Under the pear-tree, which the caterpillars have half
eaten up, I stood still. "Yes," I thought, "the boy is like this tree,
empty and barren." Then I suddenly imagined that I was very thirsty, and
absolutely had to go over to the tavern. I deceived myself--it wasn't to
get a glass of beer that I wanted to go; it was to seek out the young
man and take him to task in the tavern, where I knew he was sure to be.
I was just about to start, when the sensible old tree let fall a juicy
pear right at my feet, as if to say: Take that for your thirst, and for
slandering me by comparing me with that good-for-nothing son of yours. I
deliberated a moment, took a bite of it, and went into the house.

LEONARD.

Do you know that the apothecary is on the verge of bankruptcy?

ANTONY.

What do I care?

LEONARD.

Don't you care at all

ANTONY.

Surely! I am a Christian--the man has several children!

LEONARD.

And still more creditors. The children, too, are creditors in a way.

ANTONY.

Happy is he who is neither the one nor the other!

LEONARD.

I thought you yourself--

ANTONY.

That was settled up long ago.

LEONARD.

You are a prudent man; of course you immediately demanded your money
when you saw that the green-grocer was about to fail.

ANTONY.

Yes, I need not tremble any more with the fear of losing it--it was lost
long ago!

LEONARD.

You are joking!

ANTONY.

In all seriousness!

CLARA (_looks in at the door_).

Did you call, father?

ANTONY.

Are your ears beginning to ring already? We had not talked about you
yet!

CLARA.

The weekly paper!

LEONARD.

You are a philosopher!

ANTONY.

What do you mean by that?

LEONARD.

You know how to compose yourself.

ANTONY.

I wear a mill-stone as a cravat sometimes, instead of going to the river
with it. That gives one a strong back.

LEONARD.

Let him who can imitate you.

ANTONY.

He who has such a gallant fellow to help him bear it, as I seem to have
found in you, ought to be able to dance under the burden. You have grown
quite pale. I call that sympathy!

LEONARD.

I hope you don't misunderstand me!

ANTONY.

Certainly not!

[_He drums on a dresser._]

That wood is not transparent, is it?

LEONARD.

I do not understand you!

ANTONY.

How foolish it was of our grandfather Adam to take Eve, when she was
naked and destitute, and did not even bring a fig-leaf with her. We two,
you and I, would have scourged her out of Paradise as a tramp! What do
you think?

LEONARD.

You are exasperated with your son.--I have come to you regarding your
daughter--

ANTONY.

You had better be careful!--Perhaps I'll not say no!

LEONARD.

I hope you will not. And I will tell you what I think: The patriarchs
themselves never used to scorn the dowries of their women. Jacob loved
Rachel and courted her seven years, but he also liked the fat rams and
sheep that he earned in her father's service. That, I think, was not to
his discredit, and to outdo him in anything would be to put him to the
blush. I should have liked very much to see your daughter bring a
couple of hundred thalers with her; and that was quite natural, because
she herself would thereby be so much the better off with me. If a girl
brings her bed in her trunk, then she will not have to card wool and
spin yarn. In this case it will not be so, but what of it? We'll make a
Sunday dinner out of Lenten fare, and a Christmas feast out of Sunday's
roast. In that way we'll make out all right!

ANTONY (_offers him his hand_).

You talk well, and God smiles on your words. Well, I will forget that
for fourteen days at tea-time my daughter put a cup on the table for you
in vain. And now that you are to be my son-in-law, I will tell you where
the thousand thalers are!

LEONARD (_aside_).

So they are gone then! Well, I shall not have to go out of my way to
please the old werewolf, even if he is my father-in-law!

ANTONY.

Things went hard with me in my early years. I was no more of a bristly
hedgehog than you when I came into the world, but I have gradually grown
to be one. At first all the quills in my case pointed inward, and people
found pleasure in pricking and pinching my soft smooth skin, and were
amused to see me flinch when the points penetrated into my very heart
and bowels. But the thing did not appeal to me; I turned my skin inside
out and then the quills pricked their fingers and I had peace.

LEONARD (_to himself_).

Safe from the very devil, methinks!

ANTONY.

My father, by not allowing himself any rest day or night, worked himself
to death in his thirtieth year, and my mother nourished me as well as
she could with her spinning. I grew up without learning anything. When I
became larger and was still unable to earn any money, I would gladly
have disaccustomed myself to eating; but when now and then at noon I
would pretend to be sick and push back my plate, what did it mean? It
meant that in the evening my stomach would compel me to announce myself
well again! My greatest grief was that I was so unskilled. I used to
blame myself for it, as if it were my own fault, as if in my mother's
womb I had been supplied with nothing but teeth to eat with, as if I had
purposely left behind me there all the useful capabilities and assets. I
used to blush with shame when the sun shone on me. Just after my
confirmation the man whom they buried yesterday, Master Gebhard, came
into our house. He scowled and made a wry face, as he always used to
frown when he had anything good in mind to do. Then he said to my
mother: "Did you bring your youngster into the world in order to let him
eat the very nose and ears off your head?" I felt ashamed and put the
loaf of bread, from which I was just on the point of cutting off a
piece, back into the cupboard again. My mother took offense at his
well-meant words; she stopped her wheel and replied vehemently that her
son was a fine good fellow. "Well, we will see about that," said the
Master. "If he wants to, he can come right now, just as he stands there,
into my workshop with me. I do not ask any money for teaching him; he
will get his board, and his clothes I will also supply; and if he wants
to get up early and go to bed late, opportunities will not be wanting
for him to earn a little money on the side for his old mother." My
mother began to cry and I to dance. When we finally came to an
agreement, the Master closed up his ears, walked out, and motioned me to
follow. I did not need to put a hat on, for I had none. Without saying
good-by to my mother, I went after him. And on the following Sunday,
when I was allowed to go back to her little room for the first time, he
gave me half a ham to take with me. God's blessing on the good man's
grave! I still hear his half-angry: "Tony, under your coat with it, so
my wife won't see it!"

LEONARD.

You are not crying?

ANTONY (_dries his eyes_).

Yes, I can never think of that without its starting the tears, no matter
how well the source of them may have been stopped up. Oh well, that's
all right! If I should ever get the dropsy, I shall at any rate not have
to draw off these drops too.

[_With a sudden turn._]

What do you think about it?--Supposing on a Sunday afternoon you went
over to smoke a pipe of tobacco with a friend, a friend to whom you owed
everything in the world; and supposing you found him greatly confused
and perturbed, a knife in his hand--the same knife you had used a
thousand times to cut his evening bread--and holding it, covered with
blood, at his neck, and nervously drawing his handkerchief up to his
chin--

LEONARD.

And that is the way old Gebhard went about to the end of his days.

ANTONY.

On account of the scar. And supposing you arrived in time to help save
him, but to do it you had not only to wrench the knife out of his hand
and bandage the wound, but you had also to give over a paltry thousand
thalers that you had saved up; and, furthermore, you had to do it all
absolutely on the sly, so as to induce the sick man to accept it, what
would you do?

LEONARD.

Being a free and single man, without wife and child, I would sacrifice
the money.

ANTONY.

And if you had ten wives, like the Turks, and as many children as were
promised to Father Abraham, and if you took only one second to think
about it, you would be--Well, you are to be my son-in-law! Now you know
where the money is. Today I could tell you, for my old Master is buried;
a month ago I would have kept the secret even on my death-bed. I slipped
the note under the dead man's head before they nailed up the coffin. If
I had known how to write, I would have written underneath: "Honestly
paid!" But, ignorant as I am, there was nothing for me to do but tear
the paper in two. Now he will sleep in peace--and I hope that I shall
too, when they stretch me out beside him.



SCENE VI

MOTHER (_enters hurriedly_).

Do you still know me?

ANTONY (_pointing to the wedding dress_).

The frame, yes--that is perfectly preserved; but the picture--not so
well. It seems to be covered with cobwebs. Oh, well! there has been time
enough for it.

MOTHER.

Have I not a frank husband? Still, I do not need to praise him
specially--frankness is a virtue of married men!

ANTONY.

Are you sorry that you were better gilded at twenty than you are at
fifty?

MOTHER.

Certainly not! If I were, I ought to be ashamed both for myself and for
you!

ANTONY.

Give me a kiss then! I am shaved and look better than usual.

MOTHER.

I say yes, merely to test you, to see if you still understand the art.
It is a long time since such a thing has occurred to you!

ANTONY.

Good mother, I will not ask you to close my eyes; that is a hard thing
to do, and I will take it off your hands. I will do that final service
of love for you. But you must grant me time, understand, to harden and
prepare myself for it, so that I won't make a botch of it. It would have
been much too soon!

MOTHER.

Thank God that we are still going to have a little time together!

ANTONY.

I hope so too! You have your old red cheeks again!

MOTHER.

A comical fellow, our new grave-digger! He was digging a grave this
morning when I passed through the church-yard. I asked him whom it was
for. "For whomsoever God wills," he said. "Perhaps for myself. The same
thing may happen to me that happened to my grandfather; he too had dug
one on chance once, and at night when he came home from the Inn he fell
into it and broke his neck."

LEONARD (_who, up to this time, has been reading the weekly paper_).

The fellow doesn't come from here--he can tell all the lies he likes.

MOTHER.

I asked him: "Why don't you wait until somebody orders a grave dug?" "I
was invited to a wedding today," he said, "and I am enough of a prophet
to know that I would still feel the effects of it in my head tomorrow if
I went. Now of course _some_ body has been inconsiderate enough to go and
die, so that in the morning I would have to get up early and would not
be able to sleep it off."

ANTONY.

"You clown!" I would have said, "supposing now the grave doesn't fit?"

MOTHER.

I said that too, but he shook sharp answers out of his sleeve, as the
devil does fleas. "I took the measurement for Veit, the weaver," he
said, "who, like King Saul, towers a head above everybody else. Now,
come who may, he will not find his house too small; and if it is too
large, that doesn't hurt anybody but me, for, as an honest man, I never
charge for a single foot more than the length of the coffin." I threw my
flowers into the grave and said: "Now it is occupied!"

ANTONY.

I think the fellow was only joking, and even that is sinful enough. To
dig graves in advance is to set the trap of death too soon; the
scoundrel who does it ought to be driven out of the business.

[_To LEONARD, who is still reading._]

What's the news? Is there any philanthropist looking for a poor widow,
who can use a few hundred thalers, or, _vice versa_, a poor widow
looking for a philanthropist who can supply them?

LEONARD.

The police announce the theft of some jewelry. Strange enough! It seems
that, in spite of the hard times, there are still people among us who
can own jewels!

ANTONY.

The theft of some jewelry? Where?

LEONARD.

Over at Wolfram's.

ANTONY.

At--impossible! Carl polished a desk there a few days ago!

LEONARD.

They were taken from a desk. Right!

MOTHER (_to Master_ ANTONY).

May God forgive you for saying that!

ANTONY.

You are right--it was a vile thought!

MOTHER.

To your son you are only half a father! I must tell you that!

ANTONY.

Wife! We'll not discuss that today!

MOTHER.

He is not like you--but is that any reason why he must be bad?

ANTONY.

Then where is he now? The noon hour struck long ago! I'll wager the
dinner is burning and spoiling, because Clara has secret orders not to
set the table until he is here!

MOTHER.

Where do you think he is? At the worst he is only bowling, and he has to
go the longest way about so that you won't see him. Naturally it takes
him a long time to get back!--I cannot see what you have against the
innocent game.

ANTONY.

Against the game? Nothing whatever! Noble men must have some way to pass
the time. Without the king of hearts, the real kings would often find
life tedious; and if bowling balls had not been invented, who knows
whether princes and barons would not be using our heads for the purpose?
But an ordinary workingman cannot do anything worse than spend his
hard-earned money on games. We must respect that which we have
laboriously earned in the sweat of our brows; we must hold it high and
precious, unless we are to lose our bearings and regard all our works
and doings with contempt. How can I strain all my nerves to earn a
thaler which I intend to throw away?

[_The door-bell is heard outside._]



SCENE VII

_Enter_ ADAM, _a Bailiff; another Bailiff._

ADAM (_to Master_ ANTONY).

Now, you just go ahead and pay your wager! No people in red coats with
blue trimmings [_with emphasis_] shall ever enter your house, eh?--Well,
here are two of us!

[_To the other bailiff._]

Why don't you keep your hat on, as I do? Who is going to observe
formalities among people of his own class?

ANTONY.

Your own class? You blackguard!

ADAM.

You are right--we are not among our own class! Scoundrels and thieves
are not of our class! [_Points to the dresser._] Open that up! And then
three steps away--so that you can't sneak anything out of it!

ANTONY.

What? What?

CLARA (_enters with things to set the table_).

Shall I--[_She stops, speechless._]

ADAM (_exhibits a paper_).

Can you read writing?

ANTONY.

Should I be able to do what even my schoolmaster could not do?

ADAM.

Then listen! Your son has stolen some jewelry! We have the thief
already! Now we are here to search the house!

MOTHER (_falls down and dies_).

Oh, God!

CLARA.

Mother! Mother! How her eyes roll!

LEONARD.

I will fetch a doctor!

ANTONY.

Not necessary! That is the last look! I have seen it a hundred times!
Good night, Theresa! You died when you heard it! Let them write that on
your gravestone!

LEONARD.

But perhaps it is [_starts to go_]--awful! But lucky for me!

[_Exit._]

ANTONY (_pulls a bunch of keys from his pocket and throws them down_).

There! Unlock everything! Drawer after drawer! Bring the ax! The key to
the trunk is lost! Ha! Scoundrels and thieves! [_He turns his pockets
inside out._] I find nothing here!

SECOND BAILIFF.

Master Antony, calm yourself! Everybody knows that you are the most
honest man in town!

ANTONY.

So? So?

[_Laughs._]

Yes,

I have used up all the honesty in the family! There, poor boy! There was
none left for him! She too [_points to the dead body_] was much too
virtuous!--Who knows whether or not the daughter--[_Suddenly to CLARA_]

What do you think, my innocent child?

CLARA.

Father!

SECOND BAILIFF (_to ADAM_).

Have you no pity?

ADAM.

Pity? Am I prying into the old fellow's pockets? Am I forcing him to
take off his stockings and turn his shoes inside out? I meant to start
out with doing that--for I hate him like poison, ever since that time in
the tavern when he--you know what I refer to, and you would feel
insulted too, if you had any self respect about you!

[_To CLARA._]

Where is your brother's room?

CLARA (_points_).

Back there!

[_Both Bailiffs, exeunt._]

CLARA.

Father, he is innocent! He must be innocent! He is your son, my brother!

ANTONY.

Innocent, and a matricide?

[_Laughs._]

A MAID (_enters with a letter to CLARA_).

From the cashier, Mr. Leonard.

ANTONY.

You need not read it! He declares himself free of you!

[_Claps his hands._]

Bravo, scoundrel

CLARA (_reads it_).

Yes! Yes! Oh, my God

ANTONY.

Let him go!

CLARA.

Father, father, I cannot--

ANTONY.

You cannot? Cannot? What do you mean? Are you?--

Both BAILIFFS reenter.

ADAM (_spitefully_).

Seek and ye shall find!

SECOND BAILIFF (_to ADAM_).

What do you mean by that? Did it turn out so today?

ADAM.

Hold your tongue!

[_Exeunt both._]

ANTONY.

He is innocent--and you--you--

CLARA.

Father, you are terrible!

ANTONY (_grasps her hand very gently_).

Dear daughter, Carl is only a bungler. He has killed his mother, and
what does it mean? His father remains alive! So, come to his aid--you
cannot ask him to do everything alone. You must make an end of me! The
old trunk still looks rugged, doesn't it? But it has begun to totter
already--it will not cost you much trouble to fell it! You need not
reach for the ax. You have a pretty face--I have never praised you, but
today I will tell you, so that you may acquire courage and confidence.
Your eyes, nose, mouth are surely admired! Become--You understand
me?--Or tell me, I have an idea that you are already--

CLARA (_almost crazy, throws herself with uplifted arms at the feet of
her mother, and cries out like a child_).

Mother! Mother!

ANTONY.

Take your mother's hand and swear to me that you are what you should be!

CLARA.

I--swear--that--I--will--never--bring--disgrace-on--you!

ANTONY.

Good!

[_He puts on his hat._]

It is beautiful weather! We will go out and run the gauntlet! Up the
street! Down the street!

[_Exeunt._]



ACT II

_A Room in the Master Joiner's House._



SCENE I

ANTONY (_rises from the table_).

CLARA (_starts to clear off the dishes_).

ANTONY.

Have you lost your appetite again?

CLARA.

Father, I have had enough.

ANTONY.

But you have taken nothing!

CLARA.

I ate out in the kitchen.

ANTONY.

A bad appetite means a guilty conscience. Oh, well, we shall see--or was
there poison in the soup, as I dreamt yesterday? Perhaps some wild
hemlock got in with the other vegetables by mistake, when they were
gathered?--In that case you did well!

CLARA. Great Heavens!

ANTONY.

Forgive me! I--Away with your pale sad look, which you stole from our
Savior's Mother! One should look ruddy when one is young! There is but
one who might show such a face, and he does not do it! Hey! A box on the
ear for every man who says "ouch!" when he cuts his finger! No man has
any right to do that now, for here stands a man who--ugh!--self-praise
stinks!--But what did I do when our neighbor started to nail down the
cover of your mother's coffin?

CLARA.

You wrenched the hammer away from him and did it yourself, and said:
"This is my masterpiece!" The preceptor, who was just then leading the
choir boys in the dirge over by the door, thought you had gone crazy.

ANTONY.

Crazy?

[_Laughs._]

Crazy. Yes, yes, it is a wise head that cuts itself off at the right
time. Mine must be too firmly fastened on, or else--We squat down in the
world and imagine ourselves sitting behind the stove in a good inn.
Suddenly a light is placed on the table and, behold! we find ourselves
sitting in a den of thieves! There is a bing! bang! on all sides, but no
harm it done--fortunately we have hearts of stone!

CLARA.

Yes, father, so it is.

ANTONY.

What do you know about it? Do you think you have a right to curse with
me because your clerk has deserted you? There will be another to take
you walking Suliday afternoons, another to tell you that your cheeks are
rosy and your eyes blue, and still another to take you as his wife, if
you deserve it! Wait until you have borne the burdens of life in
chastity and honor for thirty years, and have endured sorrow and death
and every human adversity with uncomplaining patience; then let your
son, who ought to stuff a soft pillow for your old head, come and so
overwhelm you with disgrace that you would like to cry out to the earth:
Swallow me, if it does not sicken thee, for I am muddier than thou! Then
you may utter all the curses that I suppress in my bosom, then you may
tear your hair and beat your breasts!--You have that advantage over me,
for you are not a man!

CLARA.

Oh, Carl!

ANTONY.

I wonder what I shall do when I see him again before me, when he comes
home some evening before candlelight with his hair shaved off--for
hair-dressing is not allowed in the penitentiary--and stammers out a
good evening, keeping his hand on the door-knob? I shall do something,
that is certain--but what?

[_Gnashes his teeth._]

And if they keep him locked up for ten years, he shall find me, for I
shall live until then--that much I know! Mark you, Death, what I say:
From now on I am a stone in front of your scythe! It shall fly to pieces
before it shall budge me!

CLARA (_grasps his hand_).

Father, you ought to lie down and rest for half an hour!

ANTONY.

To dream that you are about to be confined? And then to fly into a
passion and seize you, and afterward bethink myself too late and say:
"Dear daughter, I did not know what I was doing!" Thank you! My sleep
has dismissed the magician and employed a prophet, who points out
loathsome things to me with his bloody finger! I don't know how it
is--everything seems possible to me now. Ugh! I shudder at the future as
at a glass of water seen under the microscope--is that the right word,
Mr. Precentor? You have spelled it out for me often enough! I looked
through one once in Nuremburg at the fair, and couldn't drink any more
water all day long. Last night I saw my dear Carl with a pistol in his
hand; when I looked closer into his eyes he pulled the trigger. I heard
a cry, but could see nothing on account of the smoke. When it cleared
away, I saw no shattered skull--but my fine son had in the mean time
come to be a rich man; he was standing and counting gold pieces from one
hand into the other. His face--the Devil take me!--a man could have no
calmer one after working all day and closing the door of his workshop
behind him at night! Well, that's a thing one might prevent! One might
take the law into one's own hands, and afterward present one's self
before the supreme Judge!

CLARA.

Calm yourself!

ANTONY.

Get well again you mean to say! Why am I sick? Yes, doctor, hand me the
drink that shall make me well! Your brother is the worst of sons; be you
the best of daughters! Like a worthless bankrupt I stand before the eyes
of the world! I owed it a fine man to take the place of this weak
invalid, and I cheated it with a scoundrel! Be you such a woman as your
mother was, and then people will say: It does not come from his parents
that the boy went wrong, for the daughter treads the path of
righteousness and excels all others.

[_With terrible coldness._]

And I will do my part in the matter; I will make it easier for you than
it is for others. The moment I see anybody point his fingers at you, I
shall [with a motion toward his neck_] shave myself, and then, I swear
to you, I shall shave off head and all. Then you may say I did it from
fright, because a horse ran away in the street, or because the cat
overturned a chair on the floor, or because a mouse ran up my legs.
Anybody that knows me, to be sure, will shake his head at that, for I
am not easily frightened--but what difference does that make? I could
not endure to live in a world where the people would refrain from
spitting at me simply out of pity.

CLARA.

Merciful God! What shall I do?

ANTONY.

Nothing, nothing, dear child! I am too severe with you--I realize it. Do
nothing--be just as you are, and it is all right. Oh, I have suffered
such rank injustice that I myself must do injustice in order not to
succumb to it when it grips me so hard! Listen! Not long ago I was going
across the street when I met that pock-marked thief, Fritz, whom I had
thrown into jail a few years ago because for the third time he had shown
himself light-fingered in my house. Formerly the scoundrel never even
dared to look at me; now he walked boldly up and offered me his hand. I
felt like boxing his ears, but I bethought myself and did not even spit.
We have been cousins for a week now, and it is proper for relatives to
greet each other! The minister, the sympathetic man who visited me
yesterday, said that no man had anybody to look out for but himself, and
that it was unchristian pride for me to hold myself responsible for the
sins of my son; otherwise Adam would have to take it just as much to
heart as I. Sir, I verily believe that it no longer troubles our first
ancestor in Paradise when one of his descendants begins to rob and
murder.--But did not he himself tear his hair over Cain? No, no, it is
too much! Sometimes I find myself looking around at my shadow to see if
it too has not grown blacker. For I can endure anything and everything,
and have given proof of it, but not disgrace! Put on my back what
burdens you choose, but do not sever the nerve that holds me together!

CLARA.

Father, Carl has not yet confessed anything, and they have found nothing
on him.

ANTONY.

What difference does that make to me? I have gone around the town and
inquired at the different drinking-places about his debts. They amount
to more than he could have earned under me in a quarter of a year even
were he three times as industrious as he is! Now I know why he always
left off work two hours later than I every evening, and why, in spite of
that, he got up before me in the morning. But he soon saw that it all
did no good, or else that it was too much trouble for him and took too
long; so he embraced the opportunity when it presented itself!

CLARA.

You always believe the worst things you can of Carl! You have always
done so! I wonder if you still remember how--

ANTONY.

You talk as your mother would, and I will answer you as I used to answer
her--I will keep quiet!

CLARA.

And supposing Carl is acquitted? Supposing the jewels are found again?

ANTONY.

Then I would employ a lawyer and stake my last shirt to find out whether
or not the burgomaster was justified in throwing the son of an honest
citizen into prison. If he was, then I would submit; for a thing that
can befall anybody I also must accept with resignation. And if to my
misfortune it cost me a thousand times as much as it does others, I
would attribute it to fate. And if God struck me down for it, I would
fold my hands and say: "Lord, Thou knowest why!" If he was not
justified, if it should appear that the man with the gold chain around
his neck acted too hastily, because be thought of nothing except the
fact that the merchant who missed his jewels was his brother-in-law,
then people would find out whether the law has anywhere a gap in it,
whether the king, who doubtless knows that justice is the one demand his
subjects make in return for loyalty and obedience, and who least of all
would wish to remain under obligation to one of the humblest of them,
would allow that gap to remain unfilled. But all this is useless talk!
The boy has no more chance of coming through this trial unscathed, than
your mother has of rising from her grave alive! From him, neither now
nor ever shall I have any consolation! And for that reason do you not
forget what you owe me--keep your oath to me so that I shall not have to
keep mine to you! [_goes out, but returns again._] I shall come home
late tonight, for I am going out in the mountains to the old
lumber-dealer's. He is the only man who still looks me in the eye as he
used to, because he knows nothing of my disgrace. He is deaf; nobody can
tell him anything without yelling himself hoarse, and even then he hears
it all wrong.--So he finds out nothing!

[_Exit._]



SCENE II

CLARA (_alone_).

Oh, God! God! Have pity on me I Have pity on the old man! Take me to
Thee! There is no other way to help him! The sunlight lies like a golden
blanket on the street, and the children try to seize it with their
hands. The birds fly hither and thither, and the flowers and weeds do
not tire of growing higher. Everything is alive, everything wishes to be
alive! Oh, Death! Thousands of sick people are at this moment shuddering
with fear of thee! He who called for thee in the restless night, because
he could no longer endure his sufferings, now finds his bed soft and
downy again. I call upon thee! Spare him whose soul shrinks most
fearsomely from thee, and let him live until the beautiful world
becomes again gray and desolate! Take me in his stead! I shall not
shudder when thou givest me thy cold hand; I shall grasp it and follow
thee more bravely than ever yet a child of God has followed thee!



SCENE III

_Enter the Merchant,_ WOLFRAM.

WOLFRAM.

Good day, Miss Clara! Is your father at home?

CLARA.

He has just gone out.

WOLFRAM.

I have come--my jewels have been found!

CLARA.

Oh, father! Why are you not here?--He has forgotten his
spectacles--there they lie! Oh, if he only notices it and returns for
them!--How then? Where Who had them?

WOLFRAM.

My wife--tell me frankly, Miss: Have you ever heard anything strange
about my wife?

CLARA.

Yes!

WOLFRAM.

That she--[_Points to his brow._] Is that it?

CLARA.

That she is not altogether in her right mind, to be sure!

WOLFRAM (_bursting out_).

My God! My God! All in vain! Not a single
servant that I have ever taken into my house have I allowed to leave me;
to each one I have paid double wages and closed my eyes to all
remissness, in order to buy their silence! And yet--the false,
ungrateful creatures! Oh, my poor children! Only for your sake did I
seek to conceal it!

CLARA.

Do not blame your servants! Surely it is not their fault! Ever since
your neighbor's house burned down, and your wife stood at the open
window laughing and clapping her hands at the fire, yes, and even
puffing out her cheeks and blowing at it, as if she wanted to make it
burn more furiously, people have had to choose between taking her for
the devil himself or for a lunatic. And there were hundreds who saw
that!

WOLFRAM.

That is true. And now, since the whole town knows about my misfortune,
it would be foolish for me to exact a promise of you to keep still about
it! So listen! The theft for which your brother is in prison was
committed by a lunatic!

CLARA.

Your own wife!

WOLFRAM.

That she, who was once the noblest and most sympathetic soul in the
world, has become malicious and mischievous; that she shouts and screams
with joy when an accident happens before her eyes, when a maid breaks a
glass or cuts her finger--I knew that long ago; but that she also takes
things in the house and puts them out of sight, hides money and tears up
papers--that, alas! I found out too late--only this noon! I had laid
myself down on the bed and was just about to fall asleep, when I became
conscious that she had tiptoed noiselessly up beside me, and was
watching me intently to see if I were yet asleep. I closed my eyes
tighter. Then she took the key from the pocket of my vest, which was
hanging over a chair, unlocked my desk, took out a roll of gold pieces,
locked the desk again and put back the key. I was horrified! But I
restrained myself, so as not to disturb her. She went out of the room
and I crept after her on tiptoe. She climbed up to the attic and threw
the gold into an old chest, which has been standing there empty since
the days of my grandfather. Then she glanced timidly around the room,
and, without seeing me, hurried out again. I lighted a taper and
searched the chest; in it I found my youngest daughter's doll, a pair of
the maid's slippers, a ledger, several letters, and, alas! or, God be
praised!--which shall I say?--away down underneath, the jewels!

CLARA.

Oh, my poor mother! It is too terrible!

WOLFRAM.

God knows I would gladly sacrifice the jewelry if, by so doing, I could
undo what has already been done! But the fault is not mine! That my
suspicions, in spite of my profound respect for your father, fell on
your brother, was natural; he had polished the desk, and with him the
jewels had disappeared. I noticed it almost immediately, for I had
occasion to take some papers out of the drawer in which they lay. Still
it did not occur to me to take stringent measures to arrest him
immediately. Merely as a preliminary, I told Adam, the bailiff, about
the matter, and besought him to keep his investigations absolutely
secret. But he would not listen to the idea of sparing anybody; he
declared he must and would bring the case to court at once, for, he
said, your brother was a drunkard and a debt-contractor. And he has,
alas, so much influence with the burgomaster that he can put through
anything he wants to. The man seems to bear a bitter grudge against your
father--I do not know why, but it was impossible to soothe him; he held
his hands over his ears and called out, as he was hurrying away: "If you
had given me the jewelry, it would not have made me as happy as this!"

CLARA.

Once in the tavern the bailiff put his glass down on the table by my
father's and nodded to him as if he wanted to touch glasses with him. My
father then took his away, and said: "People in red coats and blue
trimmings used to have to drink out of glasses with wooden feet. Also
they used to have to wait out in front of the window, or, if it was
raining, by the door, and respectfully remove their hats when the
landlord handed them the drink. Moreover, if they felt a desire to touch
glasses with anybody, they waited until neighbor Hangman happened in."
Oh, God! What is not possible in this world! My mother had to pay for
that with an untimely death!

WOLFRAM.

One should never anger anybody, and least of all bad people! Where is
your father?

CLARA.

In the mountains at the lumber-dealer's.

WOLFRAM.

I'll ride out and hunt him up. I have already been at the burgomaster's,
but unfortunately found him out. Otherwise your brother would be here
now. But the Secretary has already dispatched a messenger! You will see
him before evening! [_Exit._]



SCENE IV

CLARA (_alone_).

Now I should rejoice! Oh, God! And I can think of nothing except: Now it
is you alone! And yet I have a feeling as though something must occur to
me at once that would set everything right again!



SCENE V

_Enter, the_ SECRETARY.

SECRETARY.

Good day!

CLARA (_seizes a chair to keep from falling_).

He! Oh, if only _he_ had not come back!

SECRETARY. Your father is not at home?

CLARA.

No!

SECRETARY.

I bring you good news. Your brother--No, Clara, I cannot talk to you in
this formal way. All these tables, chairs, and cupboards that I know so
well--Good day, old friend!

[_He nods to a cup-board._]

How are you? You have not changed a bit!--around which we used to romp
as children--it seems to me they will put their heads together and
deride me as a fool, unless I quickly assume another tone. I must "thou"
you, as I used to do! If you do not like it, just say to yourself: The
big boy is dreaming, I will awaken him, I will step in front of him and
draw myself up to my full height [_With gestures_], and let him see that
it is no longer a little child that stands before him--[_He points to a
scratch on the door_]--that shows how big you were at eleven!--but a
very proper, grown-up girl, who could reach the sugar when it is upon
the sideboard! Surely you remember! That was the place, the firm
fortress, where it was safe from us even without being locked up. We
used to amuse ourselves by slapping flies, when it stood there, because
we could not endure to see them flying around happily and enjoying what
we ourselves were unable to reach.

CLARA.

I should think people would forget about such things when they had
hundreds and thousands of books to study.

SECRETARY.

Indeed they do forget it! To be sure, what does one not forget over
Justinian and Gaius? Small boys who persistently resist their A B C's
know very well why they do it; they have a presentiment that if they do
not apply themselves too hard to the primer they will never have to
struggle with the Bible. But it is a downright shame! People deceive the
innocent souls! They are shown the red rooster with the basket full of
eggs on the last page, so that of their own accord they say: "Ah!" And
then there is no more holding back; they go tearing down the hill to Z,
and so forth and so forth, until all of a sudden they find themselves in
the midst of the _Corpus Juris_, and are horrified when they realize
what a wilderness the accursed twenty-four letters have enticed them
into--the letters, which, in the beginning, formed themselves, in a
merry dance, only into nice-tasting and nice-smelling words such as
"cherry" and "rose."

CLARA.

And [_Absent-mindedly, and without interest_]--what happens then?

SECRETARY.

That depends upon the difference of temperament. Some work themselves
through. Those usually come forth into daylight again after three or
four years, but looking somewhat thin and pale; however, one must not
blame them for that; I myself am one of that kind. Others lie down in
the middle of the forest; they intend merely to rest themselves, but
they seldom get up again. I myself have a friend who has been drinking
his beer for three years already in the shade of the _Lex Julia_; he
selected the place on account of its name--it recalls pleasant memories.
Still others give up in despair and turn back; those are the stupid
ones; people let them out of one thicket only on condition that they
will run at full speed into another. And then there are some who are
still worse, and who don't get anywhere!

[_To himself._]

How one chatters when one has something in his mind and does not know
how to bring it out!

CLARA.

Everything is bright and cheerful today; that's because it is such
beautiful weather.

SECRETARY.

Yes, in weather like this the owls fall out of their nests, the bats
kill themselves because they feel the devil has created them, the mole
burrows so deep into the earth that he cannot find his way out again and
must pitifully suffocate unless he bores through to the other side and
emerges again in America. Today every ear of corn shoots up twice as
high, and every poppy grows twice as red as usual, even if only out of
shame at not having been so at first. Shall man remain behind? Shall he
defraud the dear Lord of the only reward which His world offers Him--a
happy face and a bright eye, which mirrors and at the same time
transfigures all this gloriousness? Truly, when I see one of these
recluses sneaking out of his door in the morning, his brow furrowed with
wrinkles, and staring at the sky as if it were a vault of
blotting-paper, I often think to myself: It is going to rain soon; God
will have to let down the curtain of clouds, so that that sour face will
not irritate Him. They ought to take legal action against fellows like
that on the ground that they are thwarters of merry parties and
destroyers of harvest weather. How are you going to render thanks for
your life if not by living? Sing joyously, bird, or else you will not
deserve your voice!

CLARA.

Oh, that is true, so true! It almost makes me cry!

SECRETARY.

It was not meant for you. That for eight days you have been breathing
more heavily than you used to, I well understand--I know your father.
But, God be praised! I can make your heart free again, and for that very
purpose I am here. You shall see your brother again this very evening,
and people shall point their fingers, not at him, but at those who cast
him into prison. Does that deserve a kiss, a sisterly kiss, if it cannot
be any other kind? Or shall we play blindman's buff for it?--If I do not
catch you in ten minutes, I am to go away without the kiss and take a
box on the ear into the bargain.

CLARA (_to herself_).

I feel as if I had suddenly grown to be a thousand years old, and time
were standing still with me. I can go neither backwards nor forwards!
Oh, all this brazen sunshine and cheerfulness round about me!

SECRETARY.

You do not answer me. To be sure, I forgot--you are engaged. Oh, girl!
Why did you do that to me? And yet have I any right to complain? She is
like all that is dear and good, and all that is dear and good should
have made me think of her. And yet to me she was for years as if she no
longer existed in the world! For that reason she--If it only were a
fellow before whom one had to cast down one's eyes! But this Leonard--

CLARA (_suddenly, when she hears the name_).

I must go to him. That is just it--I am no longer the sister of a
thief!--Oh, God! what shall I do? Leonard will, he must! He needs only
not to be a fiend! Everything will be as it used to be [_Shudders_]--as
it used to be!

[_To the SECRETARY._]

Do not be offended, Frederick!--Why are my legs so heavy all of a
sudden?

SECRETARY.

You will--

CLARA.

To Leonard! Where else should I go? Only that one road lies before me in
this world!

SECRETARY.

You love him, then! Well--

CLARA (_wildly_).

Love him? It is either he or death! Does anybody wonder that I choose
him? I would not do it had I only myself to consider!

SECRETARY.

He or death? Girl, thus speaks Despair, or--

CLARA.

Do not make me frantic! Do not mention that word again! You! It is you I
love! There! I cry it out to you as if I were already wandering on the
other side of the grave, where no one blushes any more, where cold and
naked forms glide past one another, because the fearful, holy presence
of God has entirely consumed in every one all thought of others.

SECRETARY.

Me? Still me? Clara, I divined it when I saw you out in the garden.

CLARA.

Did you? Oh, the other too!

[_Gloomily, as if she were alone._]

He stepped up in front of me--he or I!--Oh, my heart, my accursed heart!
In order to prove to him, prove to myself, that it was not so, or to
stifle it if it were so, I did what now [_Breaks out into tears_]--God
in Heaven! I would have pity on myself, were I Thou, and Thou I!

SECRETARY.

Clara, be my wife! I came to look once more into your eyes in the old
way. Had you not understood the look I should have gone away again
without speaking. Everything that I am and have I now offer to you. It
is little, but it may grow to be more. I should have been here long ago,
but your mother was sick, and then she died.

[Illustration: Alfred Rethel DEATH PLAYING THE FINALE]

CLARA (_laughs crazily_).

SECRETARY.

Take courage, girl! The fellow has your word--that worries you. And, to
be sure, it is a damnable thing! How could you--

CLARA.

Oh, ask me everything that conspires to drive a poor girl crazy! Scorn
and derision from all sides when you went to the University, and did not
let me hear from you.--"She still thinks of him!" "She thinks that
child's play was meant seriously!" "Does she receive any letters from
him?"--And then, too, my mother: "Stay with people of your class!"
"Pride never succeeds!" "Leonard is a very nice fellow; everybody is
surprised that you look at him over your shoulder so!" And added to all
the rest, my own heart: "If he has forgotten you, show him that you
too--" Oh, God!

SECRETARY.

I am to blame. I realize it. Well, what is difficult is not necessarily
impossible. I will get him to release you. Perhaps--

CLARA.

Release me? There!

[_Throws LEONARD'S letter to him._]

SECRETARY (_reads_).

As cashier, I--your brother--thief--very sorry--but out of consideration
for my office, I cannot help it--[_To CLARA._] He wrote you that on the
very day your mother died? For he adds his condolence on her sudden
death!

CLARA.

I suppose so!

SECRETARY.

The Devil take him! Great God, the cats, snakes and other monsters
which, so to speak, slipped through Thy fingers at Creation, so
delighted Beelzebub that he imitated Thy patterns--but he finished them
off better than Thou didst; he put them in a human skin, and now they
stand in rank and file with the rest of Thy humanity, and one does not
recognize them until they begin to scratch and sting!

[_To CLARA._]

But it is well, indeed it is fine!

[_He tries to embrace her._]

Come! Forever! With this kiss--

CLARA (_sinks into his arms_).

No, not forever! Only to keep me from falling--but no kiss!

SECRETARY.

Girl, you do not love him, you have your release--

CLARA (_gloomily, straightening herself up again_).

And yet I must go to him, I must throw myself on my knees before him and
cry out: "Behold my father's white hairs! Take me!"

SECRETARY.

Unhappy girl! Do I understand you?

CLARA.

Yes!

SECRETARY.

No man can overlook that! Think of having to cast down one's eyes before
a man into whose face one would like to spit!

[_He presses CLARA wildly to him._]

Poor, poor girl!

CLARA.

Go now, go!

SECRETARY (_to himself, brooding_).

Or else one would have to shoot the dog who knows of it. Oh, that he had
some courage about him! That he would stand up and fight! That one could
force him to it! I should not be afraid of missing him!

CLARA.

I beg of you!

SECRETARY (_going_).

As soon as it grows dark!

[_He returns and grasps CLARA's hand._]

Girl, you stand before me--[_He turns away._]

Thousands of your sex would have kept it a secret with shrewd cunning,
and only in an hour of sweet forgetfulness would have confided it
coaxingly to the ear and soul of their husbands. I feel what I owe you!

CLARA (_alone_).

Oh, my heart, lock yourself up! Crush yourself together so that not
another drop of that blood may escape which would kindle again the
congealing life in my veins! For a moment a feeling akin to hope arose
in you again! Now for the first time I am conscious of it!

[_Laughs._]

No! No man can, overlook that! And if--could you yourself overlook it?
Would you have had the courage to grasp a hand that--No! no! Such evil
courage you would not have! You would with your own hands have to lock
yourself into your hell, if any one tried to open the door from the
outside. You are forever--Oh, alas, that the pain is intermittent, that
the piercing agony sometimes ceases! That is the reason why it lasts so
long! The tortured man imagines he is resting when the torturer merely
pauses to get his breath. It is like a drowning man's catching his
breath on the waves, when the current that has drawn him under spews him
forth again only to seize him once more and draw him down. He has
nothing but a double, futile fight for life!--

Well, Clara?--Yes, father, I am going! Your daughter will not drive you
to self-destruction! Soon I shall be the wife of that man, or--God! No!
I do not go begging for happiness--it is misery, the deepest misery that
I beg for! You will give me my misery!--Away! Where is the letter?

[_She takes it._]

Three wells you pass on your way to him! You must not halt at any of
them, Clara--you have not yet the right to do that!

[_Exit._]



ACT III



SCENE I

_LEONARD'S Room._

LEONARD (_at a table covered with documents, writing_).

That makes the sixth sheet since dinner! How good a man feels when he is
doing his duty! Now anybody that wanted to could come through the door,
even the king himself! I should rise, but I should not feel embarrassed!
I make just one exception--that is the old joiner! But, after all, he
cannot do much to me! Poor Clara! I am sorry for her. I cannot think of
her without uneasiness! If only it were not for that one cursed evening!
It was really more jealousy than love that made me so frantic, and she
must have yielded to me only to silence my reproaches--for she was as
cold as death toward me! She has some bad days ahead of her! Oh, well, I
too shall suffer considerable annoyance! Let everybody bear his own
burden! Above all things I must make the affair with the little humpback
secure, so that she cannot escape me when the storm breaks out! Then I
shall have the burgomaster on my side, and shall have nothing to fear!



SCENE II

_Enter, CLARA._

CLARA.

Good evening, Leonard!

LEONARD.

Clara! [_To himself._]

This is something I did not expect!

[_Aloud._]

Did you not receive my letter? Surely--Perhaps you are coming for your
father to pay the taxes! How much is it?

[_He fumbles in a ledger._]

I really ought to have it in my head!

CLARA.

I have come to give back your letter! Read it again!

LEONARD (_reads it with great seriousness_).

It is a perfectly sensible letter! How can a man who has public money in
trust marry into a family to which [_he swallows a word_]--to which your
brother belongs?

CLARA.

Leonard!

LEONARD.

But perhaps the whole town is mistaken! Your brother is not in prison?
He never was in prison? You are not the sister of a--of your brother?

CLARA.

Leonard, I am my father's daughter! Not as the sister of an accused,
innocent man, who has been set free--for my brother is at liberty--not
as a girl who trembles before undeserved disgrace, for [_in a low
voice_] I tremble still more before you, only as the daughter of the old
man who gave me life, do I stand here!

LEONARD.

And you wish?--

CLARA.

Can you ask? Oh, that I might go away! My father will cut his throat,
unless--Marry me!

LEONARD.

Your father--

CLARA.

He has sworn it! Marry me!

LEONARD.

Hand and neck are near cousins--they never do harm to each other! Don't
be anxious!

CLARA.

He has sworn it! Marry me! And, afterward, kill me! I will thank you
even more for the latter than for the former!

LEONARD.

Do you love me? Did your heart prompt you to come here? Am I the man
without whom you cannot live and die?

CLARA.

Answer that yourself!

LEONARD.

Can you swear that you love me? That you love me as a girl loves a man
to whom she is to bind herself forever?

CLARA.

No, that I cannot swear! But this I can swear Whether I love you or do
not love you, that you shall never know! I will wait on you, I will work
for you, you need give me nothing to eat, I will support myself, I will
do sewing and spinning for other people at night, I will go hungry when
I have nothing to do, I will rather bite a piece out of my own arm than
go to my father and let him suspect anything! When you beat me, because
your dog is not at hand, or because you have kicked him out, I will
rather swallow my own tongue than emit a cry which will betray to the
neighbors what is going on. I cannot promise that my skin will not show
the welts caused by your whip, for that is not in my power. But I will
lie about it, I will say that I fell head foremost against the cupboard,
or that I slipped on the floor because it was too smooth--that I will do
before anybody has time to ask me where the black and blue marks came
from!--Marry me! I shall not live long! And if it lasts too long for
you, if you do not care to meet the expenses of the divorce proceedings
necessary to get rid of me, them buy some poison of the apothecary and
put it somewhere as if it were for your rats. I will take it without
your even nodding to me, and tell the neighbors with my dying breath
that I took it for pulverized sugar!

LEANARD.

A man of whom you expect all this will certainly not surprise you if he
says no!

CLARA.

Then may God not frown too severely on me if I come before he calls me!
If I had myself alone to consider I would endure it patiently. If the
world kicked me in my misery, instead of standing by me, I would bear it
submissively and regard it as just punishment for I know not what! I
would love my child, even if it had your features, and I would cry so
much before the poor innocent thing that, when it grew older and wiser,
it would certainly not despise and curse its mother. But it is not
myself alone; and on Judgement Day I shall much more easily find an
answer to the Judge's question: why did you drive your father to it?

LEANARD.

You talk as if you were the first woman and the last to find herself in
your predicament! Thousands have gone through it before you and
submitted to their fate. Thousands after you will be confronted with the
same situation and accept their fate. Are all these others strumpets,
that you are so anxious to stand in the corner by yourself? They also
had fathers who invented a score of new oaths when they first heard of
it, and talked about murder and homicide! Afterward they were ashamed of
themselves and repented their oaths and blasphemies; they sat down and
rocked the child, or fanned the flies away!

CLARA.

I readily believe that you fail to understand why anybody in the world
should keep an oath.



SCENE III

_Enter a boy_

BOY.

Here are some flowers! I am not to say from whom they come!

LEANARD.

Oh, what pretty flowers!

[_He beats his brow._]

The devil! How stupid of me! I should have sent Some! How can I get out
of it? I do not understand such things, and the little girl will take it
to heart! She has nothing else to think about!

[_He takes the flowers._]

But I shall not keep all of them.

[_To_ Clara] How about it? These here signify repentance and shame,
don't they? Did you not say that to me once?

CLARA (_nods_.)

LEANARD (_To the boy_).

See here, boy, these are for me. I fasten them on me here, you
see--where my heart is. These, these dark red ones, which burn like a
dismal fire, you may take back. Do you understand? As soon as my apples
are ripe, you may come for some!

BOY.

That is a long time off!

[_Exit_.]



SCENE IV

LEANARD.

Yes, you see, Clara; you spoke about keeping one's word. Just because I
am a man of my word I must answer you again as I have already answered
once before. A week ago I wrote you a letter--you cannot deny it--there
it lies! [_He hands her the letter, which she takes mechanically_.] I
had reason--your brother--you say he is acquitted--I am glad of that!
But during these eight days I have entered into a new relation. I had a
right to do it, for you did not protest against my letter at the right
time! I was free in my own conscience, as well as before the law. Now
you come to me--but I have already given my promise and received
another's! [_To himself._] I would it were so!--The other girl is
already in the same predicament as you are! I am sorry for you, but [_He
strokes her hair, and she permits it, as if she were absolutely
unconscious of it_]--you understand?--One cannot trifle with the
burgomaster!

CLARA (_absent-mindedly_).

Trifle with him!

LEONARD.

See! You are getting sensible! And as far as your father is concerned,
you can say it boldly to his face that he alone is to blame. Do not
stare at me so; do not shake your head! It is so, girl, it is so! Just
tell him that! He'll understand it all right, and repent! I'll vouch
for that! [_To himself._] Any man who gives away his daughter's dowry
must not be surprised if she remains an old maid. When I think of that
my back gets stiff, and I could wish that the old fellow were here to
receive a lecture. Why must I be such a monster?--Only because he was a
fool! Whatever happens as a result of that, he is to blame for it! That
is obvious!

[_To CLARA._]

Or would you prefer to have me talk with him myself? For your sake I
will risk a black eye and go to him. He may be rough with me, he may
throw the boot-jack at my head, but he will have to swallow the truth in
spite of the stomach-ache it gives him, and let you rest in peace!--Is
he at home?

CLARA (_stands up straight_).

I thank you!

[_Starts to go._]

LEONARD.

Shall I go over with you? I have the courage!

CLARA.

I thank you as I would thank a serpent which had wound itself around me
and unwound itself and sprung away again, because another prey enticed
it. I know that I have been bitten, I know that it deserts me only
because it does not seem worth the trouble to suck out what little
marrow there is left in my bones. But still I thank the snake, for now I
shall have a quiet death. Yes, man, I am not mocking; to me it is as if
I had seen through your breast down into the abyss of hell, and whatever
may be my lot in the awful eternity to come, I shall never have anything
more to do with you, and that is a consolation! And just as the
unfortunate person whom a viper has stung cannot be blamed for opening
his veins in terror and disgust, in order that his poisoned blood may
stream swiftly forth, so perhaps God in His everlasting mercy will take
pity on me when He looks down upon you and me and sees what you have
made of me! For how _could_ I do it, when I never, never _should_ have
done it?--One thing more: My father knows nothing, he does not even
suspect anything! And that he may never find out I shall quit the world
this very day! If I thought for one moment that you [_she takes a step,
wildly, toward him_]--oh, but that is foolishness! You would be only all
the better pleased to see them all stand and shake their heads and
inquire in vain of one another why it happened!

LEONARD.

Things will happen--what is one to do, Clara?

CLARA.

Away from here! The man can talk!

[_She starts to go._]

LEONARD.

Do you think that I believe you?

CLARA.

No!

LEONARD.

Thank God, you cannot be a suicide without being an infanticide as well!

CLARA.

Better both than a parricide! Oh, I know that one cannot atone for one
sin with another! But what I now do affects me alone! If I hand the
knife to my father the blow strikes him as well as me! It strikes me in
any case! That gives me courage and strength in all my distress! Things
will go well with you on earth!

[_Exit._]



SCENE V

LEONARD (_alone_).

"I must, I must marry her!" And why must I? She is going to do a crazy
thing in order to keep her father from doing one. Where lies the
necessity of my doing a still crazier thing in order to ward off hers? I
cannot admit the necessity--at least not until I see before me the man
who wants to get ahead of me with the most insane act of all! And if he
thinks as I do about it there will be no end! That sounds quite
sensible, and yet--I must follow her! Here comes somebody! Thank
God!--Nothing is more ignominious than to have to be at variance with
one's own thoughts! A rebellion in the head, in which one brings forth
viper after viper and each one tries to eat the other or bite his tail,
is the worst of all!



SCENE VI

_Enter the SECRETARY._

SECRETARY.

Good evening!

LEONARD.

Mr. Secretary? To what do I owe the honor--

SECRETARY.

Leonard, you will see at once!

LEONARD.

You say Leonard to me?--To be sure, we used to be schoolmates!

SECRETARY.

And we may perhaps be death-mates too!

[_He draws forth two pistols._]

Do you know how to handle these?

LEONARD.

I do not understand you!

SECRETARY (_cocks one of them_).

Do you see?--This is how it is done! Then you aim at me, as I am now
doing at you, and pull the trigger! So!

LEONARD.

What are you talking about?

SECRETARY.

One of us two must die! Die! And immediately!

LEONARD.

Die?

SECRETARY.

You know why!

LEONARD.

By God, no!

SECRETARY.

No matter--it will occur to you all right when you are dying!

LEONARD.

I have no idea--

SECRETARY.

Bethink yourself! Otherwise I might take you for a mad dog that has
unwittingly bitten the one I love most on earth, and shoot you down as
such! But for half an hour more I must let you pass as my equal!

LEONARD.

But don't talk so loud! If anybody should hear you--

SECRETARY.

If anybody could hear me you would have called him long ago! Well?

LEONARD.

If it is about the girl--I can marry her, you know! I had, in fact, half
made up my mind to do it, when she herself was here!

SECRETARY.

She was here! And has gone away again without having seen you contrite
and repentant at her feet? Come! Come!

LEONARD.

I beg of you! You see before you a man who is ready to do anything that
you dictate. This very evening I will betroth myself to her.

SECRETARY.

That I shall do, no one else. If the world itself hung on it you should
not even touch the hem of her dress again! Come! Into the woods with me!
But mark this! I shall take you by the arm, and if on the way you emit a
single cry--[_He holds up a pistol._] I trust you believe me!
Nevertheless, that you may not feel tempted, we will take the road
through the garden behind the house!

LEONARD.

One of them is for me--give it to me!

SECRETARY.

So that you can throw it away and compel me to murder you or let you
escape! Is that why you want it? Be patient, until we are on the spot!
Then I shall divide with you honestly!

LEONARD (_goes, and accidentally knocks his drinking-glass from the
table_).

Shall I never take another drink?

SECRETARY.

Courage, my lad! Perhaps it will go well with you! God and the devil
seem to be forever fighting for the world! Who knows which is master
just now?

[_Seizes him by the arm; exeunt both._]



SCENE VII

_A Room in the Joiner's House; enter CARL._

CARL.

Nobody at home! Had I not known about the rat-hole under the threshold
where they always hide the key when they all go out, I could not have
got in! Well, that would not have made any difference! I could run
around the city twenty times now and imagine to myself that there was no
greater pleasure in the world than that of using one's legs! Let's have
a light!

[_He strikes a light._]

I'll bet the tinder-box is in the same old place, for we have twice ten
commandments in this house! The hat belongs on the third nail, not on
the fourth! At half past nine one has to be tired! Before Martinmas one
must not shiver; after Martinmas one must not sweat! That stands on a
line with: Thou shalt love and fear God! I am thirsty!

[_Calls._]

Mother! Fie! As if I had forgotten that she lies where even the
innkeeper's boots no longer has to open his nut-cracker mouth with a
"Yes, sir!" when he is called! I did not weep when I heard the funeral
bell in my dark cell, but--Redcoat, you would not even let me roll the
last ball at the bowling alley, although I already had it in my hand.
Well, I shall not leave you time for a last breath when I meet you
alone, and that may happen this very evening! I know where you are to be
found about ten o'clock! Afterward, aboard ship!--I wonder where Clara
is? I am as hungry as I am thirsty! Today is Thursday--they have veal
broth for dinner. If it were winter, they would have had cabbage--before
Shrove-Tuesday white cabbage--after Shrove-Tuesday, green cabbage! That
is as fixed as Thursday's having to come when Wednesday has passed, so
that it cannot say to Friday: You go in my place--my feet are sore!



SCENE VIII

_Enter, CLARA._

CARL.

At last!--You should not kiss so much! Whenever four red lips meet a
bridge for the devil is built!--What have you there?

CLARA.

Where? What?

CARL.

Where? What?--In your hand!

CLARA.

Nothing!

CARL.

Nothing? Is it a secret?

[_He snatches LEONARD'S letter._]

Give me that! When the father is not here the brother is guardian!

CLARA.

I held fast to the scrap of paper, and yet the evening wind is so strong
that it blows the tiles off the roofs. As I was passing the church one
fell right in front of me, so that my foot struck against it. Oh, God! I
thought--one more! And I stood still. That would have been fine; they
would have buried me and said: "She met with an accident!"--But I waited
in vain for the second.

CARL (_has read the letter_).

Thunder and--I'll lame the hand that wrote that!--Bring me a bottle of
wine! Or is your savings box empty?

CLARA.

There is one more in the house. I had bought it secretly for mother's
birthday and put it aside. Tomorrow would have been the day--[_She turns
away._]

CARL.

Give it to me!

CLARA (_brings the wine_).

CARL (_drinks quickly_).

Now we can start in again--planing, sawing,
hammering, and, in between, eating, drinking, and sleeping, so that we
can go on planing, sawing, and hammering, and on Sundays do a bit of
praying into the bargain! I thank Thee, O Lord, that I may plane, saw,
and hammer!

[_Drinks._]

Long live every good dog that is tied to a chain, and yet does not snap
at everything around him!

[_He drinks again._]

And once more: Here's to his health!

CLARA.

Carl, do not drink so much! Father says the devil lurks in wine!

CARL.

And the priest says God lurks in wine! [_He drinks._] Let us see who is
right! The bailiff was here at the house--how did he behave himself?

CLARA.

As if he had been in a den of thieves. No sooner had he opened his mouth
than mother fell over and was dead!

CARL.

Good! If you hear tomorrow that the fellow has been found dead, then do
not curse the murderer!

CLARA.

Surely you are not going to--

CARL.

Am I his only enemy? Has he not been often attacked already? Among so
many it might be difficult to find the right man to attribute the deed
to, unless he left his cane or hat on the spot! [_He drinks._] Whoever
it is: Good success to him!

CLARA.

Brother, you talk--

CARL.

Don't you like it? Never mind! You will not see me very much longer!

CLARA (_shudders with terror_).

No!

CARL.

No? So you know already that I am going to sea? Do my thoughts crawl
around on my forehead, that you can read them so easily? Or did the old
man fly into a passion in his old way and threaten to shut me out of the
house? Bah! That would be very much the same thing as if the jailer had
sworn to me: You shall not stay in prison any longer--I am going to
shove you out into the open again!

CLARA.

You do not understand me!

CARL (_sings_).

  A ship lies in the offing,
  A-sporting with the winds.

Yes indeed, there is nothing to bind me to the bench here any longer!
Mother is dead, there is no longer any one to stop eating fish after
every storm, and that has been my wish from boyhood. Away! I shall not
prosper here--at least not until I know for sure that luck no longer
favors the brave fellow who stakes his life on the game, who throws back
onto the table the copper coin that he has received from the great
treasure, in order to see whether luck will pocket it or return it to
him gilded!

CLARA.

And are you going away to leave your father all alone? He is sixty years
old!

CARL.

Alone? Aren't you going to be left?

CLARA.

I?

CARL.

You! His pet child! What sort of weeds are growing in your head
that you ask me that? By going, I leave his joy with him and free him of
his everlasting annoyance! Why shouldn't I do it? Once and for all we
cannot get along together. He can't get things contracted enough to suit
him. He would like to close his fist and creep inside it. I would like
to strip off my skin like a baby's coat--if it were only practicable!

[_Sings_]

  The anchor they are heaving,
  I trow they'll soon be leaving,
  Now look! Away she spins.

Tell me yourself: Did he doubt my guilt for a single instant? And did he
not find the usual consolation in his over-wise: "Just as I expected!"
"I have always thought so!" "It could not end in any other way!" If it
had been you, he would have killed himself! I should like to see him if
you were to suffer a woman's fate! It would be to him as if he himself
had become pregnant--and by the devil besides!

CLARA.

Oh, what anguish! Yes, I must go! Away!

CARL.

What do you mean by that?

CLARA.

I must go into the kitchen! What else should I mean?

[_Clasping her forehead._]

Yes! That too! Just to hear that I came home again!

[_Exit._]

CARL.

She acts very strangely!

[_Sings_]

  A bold and saucy sea-gull
  Sweeps round, as if possessed--

CLARA. [_Reënters._]

The last thing is done! Father's supper is on the fire! As I closed the
kitchen door behind me, I thought to myself: You are never to enter
there again! I shuddered in my very soul! Thus I shall go out of the
room too, thus out of the house, thus out of the world!

CARL. [_Sings; he continues to walk back and forth; CLARA remains in the
background._]

  Aloft the sun is burning,
  The fishes, glancing, turning,
  Circle about their guest.

CLARA.

Why do I not do it then? Shall I never do it? Am I going to continue
putting it off from day to day, as I am now doing from one minute to the
next, until--certainly! Then, away! Away! And yet I stand still! I have
a feeling as if imploring hands were raised in my womb, as if
eyes--[_She sits down on a chair._] What does it mean? Am I too weak to
do it? Then ask yourself if you are strong enough to see your father
with his throat cut!--[_She rises._] No! No!--Our Father, Who art in
Heaven, hallowed be Thy name--God! God! My poor head! I cannot even
pray! Brother! Brother! Help me!

CARL.

What's the matter with you

CLARA.

The Lord's Prayer!

[_She bethinks herself._]

It seemed to me as if I were already lying in the water and sinking, and
had not yet prayed! I [_suddenly_]--Forgive us our trespasses, as we
forgive those that trespass against us! That is it! Yes! Yes! Certainly
I forgive him! I shall think no more of him!--Good night, Carl!

CARL.

Are you going to bed so soon? Good night!

CLARA. [_Like a child, repeating the Lord's Prayer._]

Forgive us--

CARL.

You might bring me a glass of water first--but it must be absolutely
fresh!

CLARA (_quickly_).

I will bring it to you from the well!

CARL.

All right! If you want to. It is not far, you know.

CLARA.

Thank you! Thank you! That was the last thing that still troubled me!
The deed itself would have betrayed me! Now people will say: She had an
accident! She fell in!

CARL.

Be careful of yourself! The board has probably not been nailed down
yet!

CLARA.

It is bright moonlight!--Oh, God, I am coming only because otherwise my
father would come! Forgive me, as I--have mercy on me--mercy--[_Exit._]


SCENE IX

CARL (_sings_).

  I fain would be aboard her,
  My kingdom's on the sea.

Yes, but first [_He looks at the clock._]--What time is it?--Nine
o'clock.

  A lad that's young and growing
  Must e'en be up and going,
  No matter where, says he.



SCENE X

_Enter, Master ANTONY._

ANTONY.

I should have an apology to make to you, but if I forgive you for
contracting secret debts and pay them off for you into the bargain, you
will probably allow me to omit the apology?

CARL.

The one is good, the other is not necessary. As soon as I sell my
Sunday clothes I shall myself be able to satisfy the people who have a
claim of a few thalers against me. And that I shall do tomorrow, for as
a sailor [_To himself_]--There, it is out! [_Aloud_]--I shall no longer
need them!

ANTONY.

What kind of talk is that again?

CARL.

This is not the first time you have heard it, but today you may answer
me as you will! My mind is made up!

ANTONY.

You are of age, that is true!

CARL.

And just because I am of age I am not defiant about it! For in my
opinion birds and fishes should not quarrel over the question whether it
is better in the water or in the air. Just one thing--either you will
never see me again, or else you will clap me on the shoulder and say:
Well done!

ANTONY.

We'll wait and see! I shall not have to pay off the fellow that I have
taken on in your place. That's all.

CARL.

I thank you.

ANTONY.

Tell me: Did the bailiff, instead of taking you by the shortest way to
the burgomaster, really lead you around through the whole town and--

CARL.

Up the street, down the street, across the marketplace like a carnival
ox! But do not doubt it--I shall settle up with him too before I go!
ANTONY.

I do not blame you for that, but I forbid you to do it! CARL.

Ho!

ANTONY.

I'll not let you out of my sight! I myself would run to the man's aid,
if you tried to attack him!

CARL.

I thought that you loved my mother too!

ANTONY.

I shall prove it!



SCENE XI

SECRETARY (_staggers in; he is pale, and is holding a handkerchief
against his breast_). Where is Clara? [_He falls into a chair_.]
God!--Good evening! Thank Heaven that I had time to get here!--Where is
she?

CARL.

She went to--Where is she? Her talk--I am afraid--[_Exit_.]

[Illustration: DEATH AS FRIEND _From a Drawing by Alfred Rethel_]

SECRETARY.

She is avenged! The scoundrel is done for! But I too am--Oh, why did it
have to be?--God! Now I cannot--

ANTONY.

What's the matter with you? What ails you?

SECRETARY.

It is nearly up with me! Give me your hand on it, that you will not cast
off your daughter--do you hear?--will not cast her off, if she--

ANTONY.

That is strange talk! Why should I, pray--Ha! My eyes are opening!--Was
I right after all in suspecting?--

SECRETARY.

Give me your hand!

ANTONY.

No!

[_He puts both hands into his pockets._]

But I will clear the way for her--she knows that! I have told her so.

SECRETARY (_horrified_).

You told her!--unhappy girl! Now for the first time I quite understand--

CARL (_rushes in_).

Father! Father! There is somebody lying in the well! If only it is not--

ANTONY.

The long ladder! Hooks! Ropes! Why do you delay? Quick! Even were it the
bailiff!

CARL.

Everything is already there! The neighbors arrived before me! If only it
is not Clara!--

ANTONY.

Clara?

[_He grasps the table._]

CARL.

She went to draw water, and they found her handkerchief!

SECRETARY.

Scoundrel, I know now why your bullet hit the mark! It is she!

ANTONY.

Go and find out!

[_He, sits down._]

I cannot!

[_Exit CARL._]

And yet--

[_Rises again._]

If [_to the SECRETARY_] I understood you correctly, everything is all
right!

CARL (_reënters_).

Clara! Dead! Her head terribly crushed on the edge of the well, as
she--Father, she did not fall in, she jumped in! A maid saw her!

ANTONY.

Let her think before she speaks! It is not light enough for her to have
distinguished things with certainty! SECRETARY. Do you doubt it? You
would like to, but you cannot! Think only of what you said to her! You
pointed out to her the road to death! I, I alone am to blame that she
did not turn back! When you suspected her misery, you thought only of
the tongues that would hiss at you, but not of the worthlessness of the
snakes to which they belonged! Then you uttered a word that drove her to
despair! And I, instead of catching her in my arms when her heart was
bursting with nameless anguish before me, thought only of the scoundrel
who could make light of it. And now I pay with my life for having made
myself so dependent upon a man who was worse than I! And you too, who
stand there so stolidly, you too will say one day: Daughter, I would to
God you had not spared me the head-shaking and shoulder-shrugging of the
Pharisees about me! It crushes me more deeply that you cannot sit by my
death-bed and wipe the sweat of anguish from my brow!

ANTONY.

She spared me nothing! People have seen it!

SECRETARY.

She did the best she could! You did not deserve to have her act succeed!

ANTONY.

Or she did not!

[_Tumult outside._]

CARL. They are coming with her!

[_Starts to go._]

ANTONY (_immovable, as to the end; calls after him_).

Into the back room, where your mother stood!

SECRETARY.

Away to meet her!

[_He attempts to rise, but falls back._]

Oh, Carl!

CARL (_helps him up and leads him away_).

ANTONY.

I no longer understand the world!

[_Stands brooding._]

       *       *       *       *       *




SIEGFRIED'S DEATH


  A TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS

  By FRIEDRICH HEBBEL


  DRAMATIS PERSONÆ


  KING GUNTHER

  HAGEN TRONJE

  DANK WART

  VOLKER

  GISELHER

  GERENOT

  WULF _Warrior_

  TRUCES _Warrior_

  RUMOLT

  SIEGFRIED

  UTE

  KRIEMHILD

  BRUNHILDA, _Queen of Iceland_

  FRIGGA, _her nurse_

  A CHAPLAIN

  A CHAMBERLAIN

  _Warriors, Populace, Maidens, Dwarfs_



SIEGFRIED'S DEATH (1862)

TRANSLATED BY KATHARINE ROYCE



  ACT I

  _Iceland, BRUNHILDA'S castle. Early morning._



  SCENE I

  _Enter BRUNHILDA and FRIGGA from opposite sides._

  BRUNHILDA.

  From whence so early? Dewy is thy hair
  And blood-stained are thy garments.

  FRIGGA.

  I have made
  A sacrifice unto the ancient gods,
  Before the moon was gone.

  BRUNHILDA.

  The ancient gods!
  The cross rules now, and Thor and Odin dwell
  As devils in deep hell.

  FRIGGA.

  And dost thou fear
  Them less for that? Their curses still may fall
  Upon us, though their blessings are withheld,
  And willingly I sacrificed the ram.
  Oh, wouldst thou kill one too! Thy need is great
  Above all others.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Mine?

  FRIGGA.

  Another time.
  I long had meant to tell thee, and today
  At last the hour has come.

  BRUNHILDA.

  I've always thought
  That at thy death the hour would come to me,
  So did not importune thee.

  FRIGGA.

  Mark me now!
  From our volcano came there suddenly
  An aged man and left with me a child,
  A tablet, too, with runes.

[Illustration: Peter Cornelius Title Page of the Nibelungenlied]

  BRUNHILDA.

  'Twas in the night?

  FRIGGA.

  How dost thou know?

  BRUNHILDA.

  When on thee falls the moonlight--On
  thy face, thou speakest oft aloud,
  Betraying much.

  FRIGGA.

  And thou didst harken to me?
  At midnight we were watching with our dead--Our
  beauteous Queen. The old man's hair was white,
  And longer than a woman's. Like a cloak
  It hung about him, flowing softly down.

  BRUNHILDA.

  The spirit of the mountain!

  FRIGGA.

  Naught know I!--
  No syllable he spoke. The little maid
  Reached forth her hands and grasped the golden crown
  That glittered brightly o'er the dead Queen's brow.
  We marveled that it fitted her.

  BRUNHILDA.

  The child?

  FRIGGA.

  The little maid; and it was none too large,
  Nor later did it bind her.

  BRUNHILDA.

  'Twas like mine!

  FRIGGA.

  Like thine it was! And, yet more wonderful.
  The child was like the maid that lay there dead
  Within the mother's arms and disappeared
  As had it ne'er existed--yes, so like
  That only by the breathing could we know
  The living from the dead. It seemed to us
  That nature must have formed one body twice,
  With life for one child only.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Had the Queen
  A new-born baby in her arms?

  FRIGGA.

  Her life
  She gave to bear her child, and with her died
  The little maid.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Thou didst not tell me that.
  FRIGGA. I never thought to tell thee. Sorrow broke
  The mother's heart that she could never show
  Her baby to her lord. For many years
  This priceless joy in vain he had desired,
  And, just a month before the child was born,
  A sudden death o'ertook him.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Tell me more!

  FRIGGA.

  We sought the aged man, but he was gone.
  The glowing mountain that had been cleft through
  As one might split an apple, slowly now
  Was drawn together there before our eyes.

  BRUNHILDA.

  The old man came no more?

  FRIGGA.

  Now hark to me!
  Next morning to the grave we bore our Queen;
  But when the priest was ready to baptize
  The little maid, his arm fell helpless down,
  Nor could he touch her forehead with the dew
  Of holy water, and his good right arm
  He never lifted more.

  BRUNHILDA.

  What, never more!

  FRIGGA.

  The man was old, and so we marveled not.
  We called another priest. The holy dew
  He sprinkled on the child. The blessed words
  Of benediction halted on his tongue,
  Nor hath his speech returned.

  BRUNHILDA.

  And now the third?

  FRIGGA.

  For him we waited long. We had to seek
  In other lands afar, where of the tale
  None knew. At last this priest baptized the child.
  His holy office ended, down he fell
  Upon the ground and nevermore arose!

  BRUNHILDA.

  And did the baby live

  FRIGGA.

  She throve apace,
  And strong she grew. Her playful ways to us
  Were signs what we should do or leave undone.
  They ne'er deceived us, for the runes had said
  That we might trust them ever.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Frigga! Frigga!

  FRIGGA.

  Thou art indeed the maid! Now dost thou know
  Not in the gloomy caverns of the dead,
  In Hecla where the ancient gods still dwell,
  Among the Norns, among the Valkyries,
  Seek thou the mother that gave birth to thee!
  Oh, that no drop of holy water e'er
  Had touched thy brow! Then were we wiser far.

  BRUNHILDA.

  What dost thou murmur?

  FRIGGA.

  How then did it hap
  That on this morning we were not in bed,
  But fully robed had tarried in the hall?
  Our teeth were chattering and our lips were blue.

  BRUNHILDA.

  A sudden sleep o'erwhelmed us, that was all.

  FRIGGA.

  But had it ever happened?

  BRUNHILDA.

  Not before.

  FRIGGA.

  Then hark! The old man came and tried to speak.
  It almost seems as if I'd seen him stand
  And grasp thy shoulder; and he threatened me,
  But heavy was thy sleep. Thou should'st not hear
  What fate awaits thee if thou dost persist.
  So offer sacrifice and then be free.
  Oh, had I paid no heed unto the priest,
  Howe'er he urged me! But the sacred runes
  I had not read aright.--Come, sacrifice,
  For danger cometh nigh.

  BRUNHILDA.

  'Tis nigh?

  FRIGGA.

  Alas!
  Thou knowest that the fiery sea is quenched
  That flamed around thy castle.
  BRUNHILDA. Yet the knight
  Still lingers who should wield the magic sword
  And on his war-horse gallop through the flames,
  When he had won proud Fafner's ill-starred hoard.

  FRIGGA.

  I may have erred. But yet this second sign
  Cannot deceive me, for I long have known
  That when the fateful hour shall come to thee,
  Clear vision doth await thee. Sacrifice!
  Mayhap the ancient gods surround thee now
  Invisibly, and they will straight appear
  With the first blood-drops of thine offering.

  BRUNHILDA.

  I do not fear.

  [_Trumpets are heard._]

  FRIGGA.

  The trumpets!

  BRUNHILDA.

  Hast thou ne'er
  Heard them before.

  FRIGGA.

  Never before with dread.
  The time for lopping thistle-heads is past,
  And iron helms arise before thee now.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Come hither all! For I will let her see
  Brunhilda still can conquer! While the sea
  Of fire still flamed I hastened forth to meet ye,
  And friendly, as a trusty dog will spring
  To give his master room, my faithful fire
  Drew back before me, sank on either hand;
  The road stands open now, but not my heart.
  [_She ascends her throne._]
  Now fling the portals wide and let them in!
  Whoever here may come, his head is mine!



  SCENE II

  _The gates are opened. Enter SIEGFRIED, GUNTHER, HAGEN and VOLKER_

  BRUNHILDA.

  Who cometh seeking death?

  (_To SIEGFRIED._)

  Ah! Is it thou?

  SIEGFRIED.

  I am not seeking death, nor will I sue.
  And too much honor dost thou yield to me
  In greeting Gunther's guide before himself,
  For I am but his helper.

  BRUNHILDA (_turning to GUNTHER_).

  Then 'tis thou?
  And know'st thou what is toward?

  GUNTHER.

  Full well I know!

  SIEGFRIED.

  The rumor of thy beauty spreads abroad,
  But further still the fame of thy hard heart.
  And who hath gazed but once in thy deep eyes
  Will nevermore forget, e'en in his cups,
  That dreadful death beside thee always stands.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Tis true! Who cannot conquer, he must die,
  And all his servants with him. Smilest thou?
  Be not so proud! For if thou cam'st to me
  As thou could'st hold a beaker full of wine
  On high above thy head and still could'st gaze
  On me as on a picture, yet I swear
  That thou shalt fall as any other falls.

  (_TO GUNTHER._)

  But thee I counsel, if thine ears can hear,
  List to my maidens! Bid them tell the tale
  Of heroes that my hand hath laid full low!
  The chance may hap among them there is one
  Hath tried his strength with thee. There may be one
  Hath laid thee conquered at his very feet!

  HAGEN.

  Ne'er was King Gunther conquered. That I vow!

  SIEGFRIED.

  High stands his castle by the Rhine at Worms,
  And rich are all the treasures of his land;
  Yet o'er all heroes stands he higher still,
  And richer far in honors is our King.

  HAGEN.

  Thy hand, thou lowlander! Thou speakest well!

  VOLKER.

  And would it be so hard to leave this land
  Amidst the ocean's desert solitude--
  Of thy free will to leave it, and the King
  To follow forth to life from night and hell?
  This land is like no other on the earth.--
  A desert waste, a rockbound wilderness;
  All living things have fled long since in fear,
  And if thou lovest it, 'tis only this,
  That thou wast born the last of all thy race.
  Above, the storms rage ever, and the sea
  Forever surgeth and the fiery mount
  In labor moaneth, while the fearful light
  That streameth ruddy from the firmament,
  As streams the blood from sacrificial stone,
  Is such as devils only may endure.--
  To breathe the air is like to drinking blood!

  BRUNHILDA.

  What knowest thou of this my wilderness?
  Naught have I lacked from that fair world of thine.
  And if I longed for aught, that would I take.
  Remember that! Brunhilda needs no gifts!

  SIEGFRIED.

  Did I not tell ye true? To arms! To arms!
  By force must she be brought from her wild home!
  And once 'tis done, then will she give thee thanks.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Perchance that is not true. And knowest thou
  The sacrifice thou askest? Thou know'st not,
  And no man knoweth. Harken now to me,
  And ask yourselves how I'll defend my rights.
  With us the time is motionless; we know
  Nor spring nor summer nor the autumntide.
  The visage of the year is e'er the same,
  And we within the land are changeless too.
  But although nothing grows and blooms with us,
  As in the sunlight of your distant home,
  Still in our darkness ripen precious fruits
  That in your land ye neither sow nor reap.
  In the fierce joy of battle I delight
  To conquer every haughty foe that comes
  To steal my freedom. And I have my youth,
  My glorious youth, and all the joy of life,
  Which still suffice me, and, ere these I lose,
  The benediction of the fates will fall
  Invisibly upon me. I shall be
  Their consecrated priestess evermore.

  FRIGGA.

  Is't possible? My offering sufficed?

  BRUNHILDA.

  The solid earth shall open 'neath my feet
  Revealing all that's hidden in its depths;
  And I shall hear the singing of the stars,
  And their celestial music understand.
  And still another joy shall be my share,
  A third one, all impossible to grasp.

  FRIGGA.

  'Tis thou, 'tis Odin, hast unsealed her eyes!
  In the deep night her ear was closed to thee--
  Yet now she sees the spinning of the Norns.

  BRUNHILDA (_rising to her full height, with fixed and dreaming
  eyes_).

  There comes a morning when I do not go
  To hunt for bears, or find the great sea-snake
  That's frozen in the ice, and set him free,
  So that his struggles may not smite the stars.
  I leave the castle early, bravely mount
  My faithful steed. He bears me joyfully,
  But suddenly I halt. Before my feet
  The earth has turned to air, and shuddering
  I wheel about. Behind me 'tis the same!
  All is transparent--glowing clouds beneath,
  As overhead. My maidens prattle still.
  I call them--Are ye blind? Do ye see naught?
  We float in empty space! They are amazed,
  They shake their heads in silence, while they press
  About me closer. Frigga whispers me:
  And has thine hour come? Ah, now I see!
  The solid earth is crystal to my gaze,
  And what I deemed were clouds were but the web
  Of gold and silver threads that, glistening,
  Lay tangled in the depths.

  FRIGGA.

  Thy triumph comes!

  BRUNHILDA.

  An evening comes. All's changed, and lingering
  We sit here late together. Suddenly,
  As they were dead, the maidens fall; their words
  Are frozen on their lips. I needs must go
  Upon the tower, for above me rings
  The sep'rate music of each farthest star.
  At first 'tis only music to mine ear,
  But with the dawn I murmur as in sleep:
  The King will die ere nightfall and his son
  Will never see the daylight, for he dies
  Within his mother's womb! The others say
  That so I told my tale, but I know naught
  Of how I learned it. Soon I understand,
  And swift the rumor flies from pole to pole
  And distant people flock as now to me,
  But not with swords to battle with me here--
  Nay, humbly come they, laying by their crowns,
  To hear my dreams and strive to understand
  The meaning of my murmurings. For my eyes
  Can see the future, in my hands I hold
  The key to all the treasures of this world.
  Far above all I rule, untouched by fate,
  And yet the fates I know. But I forget.
  That even more is promised me. There roll
  Whole centuries away--millenniums--
  I feel them not! Yet finally I ask:
  Where then is death? My tresses answer me--
  I see them in the mirror--they are black,
  The snow has never touched them, and I say:
  This is the third gift. Death comes not to me.

  [_She sinks back, and the maidens support
  her_.]

  FRIGGA.

  Why fear I still? For were it[1] Balmung's lord,
  She hath a shield that will protect her now.
  He'll fall, e'en if she loves but yet resists,
  And she will struggle, since her fate she knows.

  BRUNHILDA (_rising again_).

  I spoke! What said I?

  FRIGGA.

  Take thy bow, my child.
  Thy dart will fly today as ne'er before,
  All else may wait!

  BRUNHILDA (_to the knights_).

  Come on!

  SIEGFRIED (_to_ BRUNHILDA).

  Thou swear'st
  To follow us if thou art overcome?

  BRUNHILDA (_laughs_).

  I swear!

  SIEGFRIED.

  'Tis well! And I'll prepare the ship!

  BRUNHILDA (_while going away addresses_ FRIGGA).

  Go now into the trophy hall and drive
  The nail that will be needed.

  (_To the knights_.)

  Follow me!

  [_Exeunt omnes_.]



  ACT II

  _Worms. Courtyard of the Castle_.



  SCENE I

  _Enter_ RUMOLT _and_ GISELHER, _meeting_.

  GISELHER.

  Now, Rumolt, will a single tree be left?
  For weeks now thou hast brought whole forests in
  And grimly thou provid'st the wedding feast,
  As if men, dwarfs, and elves were all to come.

  RUMOLT.

  I make me ready, and if I should find
  A single kettle that's not full enough,
  I'll seize the lazy cook and throw him in
  And use the scullion-boy to stir the stew.

  GISELHER.

  Art thou so certain what the end will be?

  RUMOLT.

  I am, for Siegfried woos. The man who takes
  Two noble princes captive, sends them home
  As though they were no more than frightened hares,
  Will not be daunted by a witch-wife now.

  GISELHER.

  There thou art right! We have good hostages
  Since we have Lüdegast and Lüdeger!
  They meant to bring a host of armèd men,
  A greater than e'er Burgundy had seen.
  Yet humbly here as prisoners they came,
  Nor needed any guard upon their way.
  So cook, my man, we shall not want for guests!

  [GERENOT _enters_.]

  And here's the hunter!

  GERENOT.

  But he brings no game!
  I was upon the tower and saw the Rhine
  All covered o'er with ships.

  RUMOLT.

  It is the bride!
  I'll send my men to drive the beasts about,
  That from the noisy turmoil in the court
  The sound shall reach afar and prove to her
  The welcome that awaits her!

  [_Trumpets are heard_.]

  GERENOT.

  'Tis too late!



  SCENE II

  _Enter_ SIEGFRIED, _with retinue_.

  SIEGFRIED.

  Here am I once again!

  GISELHER.

  Without my brother?

  SIEGFRIED.

  Nay, fear not! As his messenger I come!--
  And yet I bear the message not for thee!
  'Tis for thy Lady Mother, and I hope
  That I may see thy sister Kriemhild, too.

  GISELHER.

  Brave knight, that shalt thou, for we owe to thee
  Our thanks for capturing the noble Danes.

  SIEGFRIED.

  I wish that I had never sent them here.

  GISELHER.

  Why so? Thou hadst no better way to prove
  What we have gained in winning thy right arm,
  For truly are the Princes stalwart men!

  SIEGFRIED.

  It may be! Yet had I not done the deed,
  Perhaps some bird had flown and spread abroad
  The rumor that the Danes had slain me there,
  And I might ask how Kriemhild heard the tale.

  GISELHER.

  But as it is they help thy cause enough!
  That one can take good metal and alloy
  And beat them into trumpets smooth and round,
  I long have known. But that one could shape men
  In such a way I knew not, but these two
  Show us the work of such a smith as thou.
  They praised thee--If thou hadst been there to hear,
  Thy cheeks would still flame scarlet! Yet 'twas not
  With measured praise, as men will praise their foe,
  Thinking to lessen thus the burning shame
  Of their own downfall. No, 'twas heartfelt praise.
  But you should hear Kriemhilda tell the tale.
  Unweariedly she asked them o'er and o'er.--
  She's coming now.



  SCENE III

  _Enter_ UTE _and_ KRIEMHILD.

  SIEGFRIED.

  I pray you!

  GISELHER.

  What's thy wish?

  SIEGFRIED.

  I never longed to have my father by,
  That he might teach me how to bear my arms,
  But ah! today I need my mother so,
  That I might ask her how to use my tongue.

  GISELHER.

  Give me thy hand, since thou art shamefaced too.
  They call me here "the child." Now let them see
  A "child" may lead a lion!

  [_He leads_ SIEGFRIED _to the women_.]

  'Tis the knight
  From Netherland!

  SIEGFRIED.

  Fair ladies, do not fear,
  Because I've come alone.

  UTE.

  Brave Siegfried, no!
  We do not fear, for thou art not the man
  Who's left alone when all but he are dead,
  To bear his tale, a messenger of woe.
  Thou comest to announce a daughter dear,
  And Kriemhild hath a sister.

  SIEGFRIED.

  So it is,
  My Queen!

  GISELHER.

  So is it! Nothing more? And scarce
  Those few words could he utter! Dost thou grudge
  The king his bride? Or hast thou lamed thy tongue
  In battle? That was never known before.
  But no, for thou could'st use it fast enough
  To tell me of Brunhilda's dark brown eyes
  And raven tresses.

  SIEGFRIED.

  Prithee, say not so!

  GISELHER.

  How hotly he denies it! See him raise
  On high three fingers, swearing that he loves
  Blue eyes--light hair!

  UTE.

  This is an arrant rogue!
  He is nor boy nor man, sapling nor tree.
  And long hath he outgrown his mother's rod,
  Nor ever hath he felt his father's whip.
  Ungoverned is he as a yearling colt,
  That's never known the bridle or the whip.
  We must forgive or punish him!

  SIEGFRIED.

  'Twere not
  So easy as you think! To break a colt
  Is difficult, and many limp away
  Ashamed, and cannot mount him!

  UTE.

  Then once more
  He 'scapes his punishment!

  GISELHER.

  As a reward,
  I'll tell a secret to thee.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Giselher!

  GISELHER.

  What hast thou to conceal? Be not afraid!
  I do not know thy secret, nor will blow
  The ashes from thy embers.--Never fear!

  UTE.

  What is it then?

  GISELHER.

  I have myself forgotten.
  When a man's sister blushes rosy-red,
  'Tis natural a brother is surprised
  And seeks to know the reason.--Never mind!
  The secret I'll recall before I die,
  And then shall Siegfried learn it.

  SIEGFRIED.

  Thou may'st jeer,
  For I forget my message utterly,
  And ere I've given word that you should don
  Your festal garments, do the trumpets blow,
  And Gunther and his train bring in the bride!

  GISELHER.

  Dost thou not see the steward hastening?
  Thy very coming told enough to him!
  But I will help!

  [_He goes to_ RUMOLT.]

  KRIEMHILD.

  A noble messenger
  May not be paid with gifts!

  SIEGFRIED.

  Indeed he may!

  KRIEMHILD (_fastens her bracelet and in so doing drops her
  handkerchief)_.

  SIEGFRIED (_snatches at the handkerchief)_.

  This is my gift.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Pray, no! 'Twere all unworthy!

  SIEGFRIED.

  Jewels I value as another, dust.
  And houses can I build of gold and silver,
  Yet lack I such a kerchief!

  KRIEMHILD.

  Take it then!
  It is my handiwork.

  SIEGFRIED.

  And thy free gift?

  KRIEMHILD.

  My noble Siegfried, yes, 'tis my free gift.

  UTE.

  I crave thy pardon--it is time to go!

  [_Exit, with_ KRIEMHILD.]



  SCENE IV

  SIEGFRIED.

  A Roland[2] would have stood as stood I here!
  I wonder that the sparrows did not nest
  Within my hair.



  SCENE V

  _Enter the_ CHAPLAIN.

  CHAPLAIN (_advances_).

  Your pardon, noble sir,
  Has Brunhild been baptized?

  SIEGFRIED.

  She is baptized.

  CHAPLAIN.

  Then 'tis a Christian land from which she
  comes?

  SIEGFRIED.

  They fear the cross.

  CHAPLAIN (_steps back again_).

  Perchance 'tis there as here!
  Where men will place it next to Wotan's tree
  Right gladly, for they do not surely know
  If magic may not dwell there; as we see
  Devoutest Christians hesitate to break
  A heathen image, for some remnant still
  Awakes within them of the olden fear
  Before those staring eyes.


  SCENE VI

  _Flourish of trumpets_. BRUNHILDA, FRIGGA, GUNTHER, HAGEN, VOLKER,
  _retainers_, KRIEMHILD _and_ UTE _approach them from the castle_.

  GUNTHER.

  And here's the castle!
  My mother's coming now to welcome thee,
  Kriemhilda too.

  VOLKER (_to BRUNHILDA, _as the women approach each other_).

  Are they no gain to thee?

  HAGEN.

  Siegfried, a word! Thy trick availed us naught.

  SIEGFRIED.

  Availed us naught? Was she not vanquished then?
  Is she not here?

  HAGEN.

  What profit is in that?

  SIEGFRIED.

  Why, all!

  HAGEN.

  But nay! Who cannot take by force
  Her first caress will master nevermore
  This maid, and Gunther is not strong enough.

  SIEGFRIED.

  And has he tried?

  HAGEN.

  Why else should I complain?
  In full sight of the castle! She at first
  Resisted him, as it befits a maid,
  And as our mothers may have done of old;
  But when she saw that but the lightest touch
  Sufficed to drive the ardent wooer forth,
  She grew enraged, and, when he tarried still,
  She seized and held him with her outstretched arm
  Above the Rhine. A shame it was to him,
  A shame to all of us.

  SIEGFRIED.

  She is a witch!

  HAGEN.

  Chide not, but help!

  SIEGFRIED.

  I think that if the priest
  But married them--

  HAGEN.

  Were that old hag not there,
  The woman that attends her! All day long
  She spies and questions, and she sits by her
  As the embodiment of wise old age.
  I fear the nurse the most.

  UTE (_to_ KRIEMHILD _and_ BRUNHILDA).

  Now love each other,
  And may the circlet that your arms have twined
  In this first joyful moment widen out
  Further and further to a perfect ring
  Within which you may wander, side by side,
  Sharing your joys in harmony complete!
  Yours is a privilege that I had not,
  For what I might not say unto my lord
  I had to bear in silence; but at least
  I could not speak complainingly of him.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Let us be like two sisters.

  BRUNHILDA.

  For your sake
  Your son and brother may imprint the seal
  Upon my lips that stamps me as his maid
  Before the nightfall comes, for I am still
  Unblemished and untouched like some young tree,
  And were it not for your sweet gentleness
  Forever would I hold this shame afar.

  UTE.

  Thou speak'st of shame?

  BRUNHILDA.

  Forgive me for that word;
  I speak but as I feel. And I am strange
  Here in your world, and as my rugged land
  Would surely terrify you, were you there,
  So does your land alarm me, for I feel
  That here I could not have been born at all--Yet
  must I live here!--Is the sky so blue
  Forever?

  KRIEMHILD.

  Nearly all the time 'tis blue.

  BRUNHILDA.

  We know not blue, unless we see blue eyes,
  And those we only have with ruddy hair
  And milk-white faces! Is it always still,
  And does the wind blow never?

  KRIEMHILD.

  Sometimes storms
  O'erwhelm the land, and then the day is night
  With thunderpeals and lightning.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Would it come
  Today!--'Twould be a greeting from my home!
  I cannot well endure the brilliant light;
  It pains me and it makes me feel so bare,
  As if no garment here were thick enough!
  And are those flowers--red and gold and green?

  KRIEMHILD. Thou ne'er hast seen them, yet thou know'st their hues?

  BRUNHILDA. Of precious stones there is with us no lack--
  Though never white or black ones; yet my hands
  Have taught me white, and raven is my hair.

  KRIEMHILD. Thou canst not know of fragrance!

  [_She plucks a violet for her_.]

  BRUNHILDA.

  Oh how sweet!
  And is't that tiny flower that breathes it forth--
  The only one my eye did not observe?
  I'd love to give the flower a pretty name--
  But surely it is named.

  KRIEMHILD.

  The little flower
  Is lowlier than all, and none thy foot
  More easily had crushed, for it appears
  To be ashamed that it is more than grass,
  And so it hides its head; but yet it drew
  A gentle word from thee, the first we've heard.
  So let it be a token that within
  Our land is much that's hidden from thy gaze
  That will delight thee.

  BRUNHILDA.

  That I hope indeed--
  For I need joy! Thou know'st not what it is
  To be a woman, yet to overcome
  A man in every combat and to gain
  His strength that ebbs away as flows his blood,
  And from the steaming blood breathe in new force--
  To feel yourself grow stronger, braver yet,
  And then, when victory is surer still--

  [_Turning suddenly_]

  Frigga, I ask again! What did I see--
  Before that latest contest, what said I?

  FRIGGA.

  It seemed thy spirit must have seen this land.

  BRUNHILDA.

  This land!

  FRIGGA.

  Thou didst rejoice.

  BRUNHILDA.

  And I rejoiced!--
  Thine eyes, however, flamed.

  FRIGGA.

  Because I saw
  Thy happiness.

  BRUNHILDA.

  These warriors looked to me
  As white as snow.

  FRIGGA.

  They had been ever so.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Wherefore didst thou conceal the dream so long?

  FRIGGA.

  It is but now that it is clear to me,
  Now that I can compare.

  BRUNHILDA.

  If I rejoiced
  When my prophetic vision saw this land,
  I must rejoice again.

  FRIGGA.

  Thou surely shalt!

[Illustration: SIEGFRIED'S RETURN FROM THE SAXON WAR _From the
Painting by Schnorr von Carolsfeld_]

  BRUNHILDA.

   And yet it seems to me the vision dealt
  With stars and metals too.

  FRIGGA.

  Yes, that is so.
  Thou said'st the stars gleamed still more brightly here.
  But yet that gold and silver were but dull.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Was't so?

  FRIGGA (_to_ HAGEN).

  Is't not the truth?

  HAGEN.

  I paid no heed.

  BRUNHILDA.

  I beg you all to treat me as a child;
  Though I shall grow up faster than another.
  Yet now I am no better.

  (_To_ FRIGGA.)

  That was all?

  FRIGGA.

   Yes, all!

  BRUNHILDA.

  Then all is well! Then all is well!

  UTE (_to_ GUNTHER, _who has approached_).

  My son, if she's too bitter toward thee now,
  But give her time! The clamor of the crows
  And ravens that she heard could never make
  Her heart grow softer, but 'twill soften now
  With the lark's song and with the nightingale.

  HAGEN. So speaks the minstrel when he is in love,
  And plays with foolish puppies. 'Tis enough!
  The maiden must have time to find her heart,
  But for the princess, hold her to her word;
  By right of conquest she's already thine.--Then
  claim thy rights!

  (_He calls_.)

  Chaplain!

  (_And starts on_.)

  GUNTHER.

  I'll follow thee!

  SIEGFRIED.

  Wait, Gunther, wait! What didst thou promise me!

  GUNTHER.

  May I, my Kriemhild, choose a spouse for thee?

  KRIEMHILD.

  My lord and brother, be it as thou wilt!

  GUNTHER (_to_ UTE).

  I have no opposition then to fear?

  UTE.

  Thou art the king, thy handmaids, she and I.

  GUNTHER.

  I beg thee then amongst my kinsfolk here:
  Redeem an oath for them and me, and give
  Thy hand to noble Siegfried.

  SIEGFRIED.

  I've no power
  To speak as I could wish to, when I gaze
  Upon thy face, and of my stammering tongue
  Perchance thou hast already heard enough.
  And so I ask thee as the hunter asks,
  But that I blow no feathers from my hat,
  To hide my fear: O maiden, wilt thou me?
  Yet lest thou err'st through my simplicity,
  And unenlightened actest in the dark,
  So let me tell thee, ere thou answer'st me,
  How my own mother blames me oftentimes.
  She says that I am surely strong enough
  To conquer all the world, but yet to rule
  The smallest molehill I'm too simple far.
  And if I do not lose my very eyes
  'Tis only that the thing's impossible.
  Thou may'st believe the half of what she says,
  The other half though, I can well disprove.
  For if I once have won thee, I will show
  The world how I can keep unharmed mine own.
  Again I ask thee: Kriemhild, wilt thou me?

  KRIEMHILD.

  Why dost thou smile, my mother? I have not
  Forgotten what I dreamed, the shudder still
  Creeps over me and warns me more and more,
  But still I say with dauntless courage: Yes!

  BRUNHILDA (_steps between_ KRIEMHILD _and_ SIEGFRIED).

  Kriemhild!

  KRIEMHILD.

  What wilt thou?

  BRUNHILDA.

  I will prove myself
  Thy sister.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Now? Wherein?

  BRUNHILDA (_to_ SIEGFRIED).

  How dost thou dare
  Aspire to her, the daughter of a king?
  How dost thou dare, a vassal such as thou,
  A serving man!

  SIEGFRIED.

  What?

  BRUNHILDA.

  Cam'st thou not as guide,
  As messenger departed?

  (_To_ GUNTHER.)

  Canst thou suffer
  And aid him in such boldness?

  GUNTHER.

  Siegfried is
  The first of all our warriors.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Grant him then
  The foremost seat beside thy very throne.

  GUNTHER.

  In treasure, he is richer far than I.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Is that his claim upon thy sister? Shame!

  GUNTHER.

  A thousand of my enemies he's slain.

  BRUNHILDA.

  The man who conquered me thanks him for that?

  GUNTHER.

  He is a king as I am.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Yet he ranks
  Himself amongst thy servants?

  GUNTHER.

  I will solve
  This riddle for thee when thou art mine own.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Ere I am thine thy secret will I know.

  UTE.

  Thou wilt refuse to call me mother then?
  Oh tarry not too long, for I am old.
  And worn with many sorrows!

  BRUNHILDA.

  As I swore,
  I'll go with him to church, and I will be
  Most willingly thy daughter--not his wife.

  HAGEN (_to_ FRIGGA).

  Pray quiet her!

  FRIGGA.

  What need is there of me?
  For if he once has overcome Brunhild,
  The second time he surely will not fail;
  And self-defense is every maiden's right.

  SIEGFRIED (_taking_ KRIEMHILD _by the hand_).

  That all may know me henceforth as a king,
  The Niblung's treasure do I give to thee.
  And now thy duty and my right I claim.

  [_He kisses her_.]

  HAGEN.

  To church!

  FRIGGA.

  Does Siegfried hold the Niblung's hoard?

  HAGEN.

  Thou heard'st! The trumpets!

  FRIGGA.

  And is Balmung[3] his?

  HAGEN.

  Why not? Musicians! Wedding music here!

  [_Loud and joyful music. Exeunt omnes_.]



  SCENE VII

  _The great hall. Enter_ TRUCHS _and_ WULF. _Dwarfs bring treasures
  across the stage._

  TRUCHS.

  I am for Kriemhild.

  WULF.

  And for Brunhild I.

  TRUCHS.

  And why, if thou wilt tell me?

  WULF.

  Where would be
  The play of rival lances, if we all
  Should wear one color?

  TRUCHS.

  Why, I grant thee that!
  The reason is sufficient, otherwise
  It were mere madness.

  WULF.

  Say it not so loud,
  For many heroes swear by Brunhild now.

  TRUCHS.

  They are as different as day and night.

  WULF.

  Who says they're not? Yet many love the
  night.

  [_Points to the dwarfs_.]

  What are they bringing?

  TRUCHS.

  It must be the hoard,
  The treasure of the Niblungs Siegfried won.
  He's called the dwarfs for escort duty here,
  And bade them bring the treasure, and I'm told
  It is the marriage portion for his bride.

  WULF.

  Uncanny are these dwarfs, with hollow backs!
  But turn one over--there's a kneading trough!

  TRUCHS.

  And ever with the dragons is their home
  Within the earth and in the mountain caves.--
  First cousins to the moles they are.

  WULF.

  But strong!

  TRUCHS.

  And clever are they too! One need not seek
  For mandrakes[4] if one has these dwarfs for
  friends.

  WULF (_pointing toward the treasure_).

  He who owns that needs neither of the two.

  TRUCHS.

  I love it not. It is an ancient saw
  That magic gold is thirstier for blood
  Than ever was the driest sponge for water;
  And, more than all, the Niblung heroes tell
  The strangest tales!

  WULF.

  Of ravens was the talk.
  What was it then? I heard it not aright.

  TRUCHS.

  A raven flew and lit upon the gold,
  When it was carried to the ship, and there
  He croaked till Siegfried, who could understand,
  At first stopped up his ears and would not hear,
  And whistled. Then the precious stones he threw
  To drive the bird, and when it would not fly,
  At last in desperation cast his spear.

  WULF.

  Why, that is strange! For Siegfried is at heart
  As gentle as he's brave.

  [_Horns are heard._]

  They call for us!
  They're gath'ring! Ho, Brunhilda!

  TRUCHS.

  Kriemhild, ho!

  [_Exeunt. Other warriors, who meanwhile have assembled,
  join them and repeat the cry. It grows dark gradually._]



  SCENE VIII

  _Enter HAGEN and SIEGFRIED._

  SIEGFRIED.

  But Hagen! Why didst thou make signs to me
  To leave the banquet? I shall nevermore
  Sit at this table as I sit today.
  Pray grant me this one day, I only ask
  A just reward.

  HAGEN.

  Your task is not yet done.

  SIEGFRIED.

  Let be till morning, for a minute's worth
  A year today. I still can count the words
  That I have spoken to my loving bride;
  Then let me have one evening with my wife.

  HAGEN.

  Without good reason I will ne'er disturb
  A lover or a drunkard. It avails
  No longer to resist! What Brunhild said
  Thou'st heard, and now her wedding gayety
  Thou may'st behold, for at the feast she weeps!

  SIEGFRIED.

  And can I dry her tears?

  HAGEN.

  She'll keep her word,
  The threat that she has sworn, there is no doubt;
  That endless shame would follow may we doubt
  Still less. Dost thou not understand me now?

  SIEGFRIED.

  What follows them

  HAGEN.

  That thou must conquer her.

  [_GUNTHER approaches._]

  SIEGFRIED.

  What, I?

  HAGEN.

  Now listen! Gunther goes with her
  Into the chamber.[5] In the Tarnhelm thou
  Must follow. Quickly he demands a kiss
  Ere she has raised her veil.--She grants it not.
  He grapples with her.--She laughs mockingly.
  He quenches, as by accident, the light--
  Exclaims: So much is jest, 'tis earnest now.
  It will not be on shore as on the ship!
  Then shalt thou seize her and so master her
  That she shall beg for mercy and for life.
  And when thy part is done, then shall the king
  Demand her oath to be his humblest maid,
  And thou shalt vanish as thou cam'st.

  GUNTHER.

  Wilt thou
  But do me this one service now, my friend,
  I vow I'll never ask thee then for more.

  HAGEN.

  He must and will. The task he has begun,
  How should he then not finish?

  SIEGFRIED.

  If I would!
  For truly you demand a deed from me
  That I might well refuse another time
  Than on my wedding day to do for you--
  How could I pray? What should I tell Kriemhild?
  She has so much already to forgive,
  The very ground is hot beneath my feet.
  Should I repeat the misdeed once again
  She never could forgive me in her life.

  HAGEN.

  When a young daughter from her mother parts
  And leaves the room where once the cradle stood,
  Into the bridal chamber she must pass,
  The farewell is a long one, know my friend.
  There's time enough for thee, and so--agreed!

  (_As SIEGFRIED refuses his hand._)

  Brunhilda now is like a wounded deer,
  Who'd let it with the arrow run away?
  A noble hunter sends the second shaft.
  The lost is ever lost, nor may return.
  The haughty heiress of the Valkyries
  And Norns is dying. Give the final stroke!
  A happy woman laughs tomorrow morn
  And only says: I had a troubled dream!

  SIEGFRIED.

  I know not, something warns me.

  HAGEN.

  Will Frau Ute
  Be ready ere thou art? Nay, there's no fear,
  For three times yet will she call Kriemhild back
  To bless her and embrace her.

  SIEGFRIED.

  I refuse.

  HAGEN.

  What? If this moment came a messenger
  In haste announcing that thy father lay
  Sick unto death, would'st thou not call at once
  For thy good steed? And surely would thy bride
  Speed thy departure! Yet a father may,
  Though old, recover. Honor wounded once
  By cruel wrong, nor mended speedily,
  Will never from the dead be raised again.
  The honor of the king's the guiding star
  Which brings or light or darkness to the knights,
  As to the king himself. O woe to him
  Who hesitates and robs him of one ray.
  Had I thy strength I'd sue to thee no more,
  But do the deed myself with pride and joy.
  And yet by magic was Brunhilda won,
  And magic arts must finish now the task.
  Then do it! Must I kneel?

  SIEGFRIED.

  I like it not!
  Who would have dreamed of this! And yet it lay
  So very near! O nature three times blest!
  In all my life no deed I've shunned like this;
  Yet what thou say'st is true. So let it be.

  GUNTHER.

  I'll go and give my mother but a hint--

  HAGEN.

  No, no! No woman! We're already three
  And have, I hope, no tongue to tell the tale.
  Let death the fourth one in our compact be!

  [_Exeunt omnes._]



  ACT III

  _Morning. Courtyard of the castle. The cathedral is at one side._



  SCENE I

  _Enter_ RUMOLT _and_ DANKWART _armed._

  RUMOLT.

  Three dead!

  DANKWART.

  For yesterday it was enough,
  For that was but the prelude! Now there'll be
  Another tale to tell.

  RUMOLT.

  These Nibelungs
  Are e'er prepared for death; they bring their shrouds
  And each man wears both shroud and sword at once.

  DANKWART.

  The customs are so strange in northern lands!
  For as the mountains grow more rugged still
  And cheerful oaks make way for sombre firs,
  Just so does man grow gloomy, till at last
  He's wholly lost and but the brute remains!
  First comes a race that cannot even sing,
  And next another race that cannot laugh,
  Then follows one that's dumb, and so it goes.



  SCENE II

  _Music. A great procession._ WULF _and_ TRUCHS _among the warriors._

  RUMOLT (_joining_ DANKWART).

  Will Hagen be content?

  DANKWART.

  I think he will.
  This is a summons, as it were, to war!
  Yet he is right, for this strange princess needs
  Quite other morning serenades than sings
  The lark that warbles in the linden tree.

  [_They pass by._]



  SCENE III

  _Enter_ SIEGFRIED _with_ KRIEMHILD.

  KRIEMHILD (_calling attention to her attire_).

  Wilt thou not thank me?

  SIEGFRIED.

  Nay, what dost thou mean?

  KRIEMHILD.

  But look at me!

  SIEGFRIED. That thou art living, smiling,
  I give thee thanks, and that thine eyes are blue--
  I love not black--

  KRIEMHILD.

  Thou dost but praise the Lord
  In his handmaiden! Did I make myself,
  Thou simple fellow? Did I choose the eyes
  Thou dost admire?

  SIEGFRIED.

  Yet love, methinks, might dream
  E'en such strange fancies! One fair morn in May
  When all things glistened as they glisten now,
  Two crystal dewdrops, clearer than the rest,
  Were hanging on the harebells bluest spray;
  And thou hast stolen them, and evermore
  All heaven's in thine eyes.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Then rather give
  Thy thanks to me that as a child I fell
  So wisely. My blue eyes I might have lost
  The day I only marked my temple here!

  SIEGFRIED.

  Oh, let me kiss the scar!

  KRIEMHILD.

  Thy healing art
  Would be but lost. No balsam craves the wound
  That's long since healed. But tell me more!

  SIEGFRIED.

  I thank
  Thy mouth--

  KRIEMHILD.

  With words?

  SIEGFRIED (_about to embrace her_).

  But may I thank thee so?

  KRIEMHILD (_draws back_).

  Dost think that I invite thee?

  SIEGFRIED.

  With words then
  For thy words! No, for sweeter yet than words,
  Thy murmuring of tender secret things
  My ear finds precious, as my lips thy kiss.
  I thank thee for thy secret gazing forth
  To see us throwing weights to win the prize.
  Oh, had I dreamed of it! And for thy scorn
  And mockery--

  KRIEMHILD.

  A maiden's pride to soothe
  For tarrying, thou thinkest? Cruel friend!
  I told thee in the dark! But wilt thou see
  My blushes now when in the light of day
  Thou tellest me the tale? My foolish blood
  Flushes and pales so fast, my mother says
  That I am like a rose-bush that sends forth
  Red buds and white upon a single stem--
  Else hadst thou never found my secret out.
  For I could feel the burning of my cheeks,
  When yestermorn my brother teased me so.
  I saw no way but to confess to thee.

  SIEGFRIED.

  Then may he start the noblest stag today!

  KRIEMHILD.

  And may he miss him! Yes, I wish it too.--
  see thou art just like my uncle, Hagen,
  Who, if one lays a garment by his bed,
  That one has made in secret, will not heed
  Unless perchance it is too tight.

  SIEGFRIED.

  And why?

  KRIEMHILD.

  Thou only see'st God's and nature's gifts
  In all that's mine, but my own handiwork,
  The raiment that adorns me, thou see'st not--
  Not even the fair girdle that I wear.

  SIEGFRIED.

  The girdle's gay, and yet I'd rather wind
  About thy waist the rainbow's lovely hue;
  Methinks that ye would suit each other well.

  KRIEMHILD.

  But bring it me at night and I will change,
  Yet do not throw it down like this I wear.
  'Tis but by chance I did not lose thy gift.

  SIEGFRIED.

  What sayest thou?

  KRIEMHILD.

  But for the precious stones,
  It might be underneath the table still,
  But fire is a thing one cannot hide.

  SIEGFRIED.

  Is that my gift?

  KRIEMHILD.

  It is.

  SIEGFRIED.

  But thou art dreaming!

  KRIEMHILD.

  I found it in the room.

  SIEGFRIED.

  It is thy mother's!
  She must have let it fall.

  KRIEMHILD.

  It is not hers!
  For well I know her ornaments. I thought
  It had been taken from the Niblung's hoard;
  To give thee joy I put it on at once.

  SIEGFRIED.

  I thank thee, but the girdle I know not!

  KRIEMHILD (_takes the girdle off_).

  Then for my golden girdle make thou room
  Which thou concealest! I was all attired,
  And only put it on to honor thee,
  My mother also, for this golden one
  She gave to me.

  SIEGFRIED.

  But that is very strange!--
  'Twas lying on the floor?

  KRIEMHILD.

  It was.

  SIEGFRIED.

  And crumpled?

  KRIEMHILD.

  I see you know it well! The second trick
  Succeeded like the first, and now I have
  My task twice over!

  [_She starts to put the girdle on again._]

  SIEGFRIED.

  No! For God's sake, no!

  KRIEMHILD.

  Art thou in earnest?

  SIEGFRIED (_to himself_).

  'Twas with that she strove
  To tie my hands.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Art laughing?

  SIEGFRIED (_to himself_).

  Then I raged,
  And put forth all my strength.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Nay, thou art not?

  SIEGFRIED (_to himself_).

  I snatched at something.

  KRIEMHILD.

  That I'll soon believe.

  SIEGFRIED (_to himself_).

  I thrust it, when she grasped for it again,
  Into my bosom, and--Now give it me!
  No well is deep enough to hide it in;
  With a great stone I'll sink it in the Rhine!

  KRIEMHILD.

  Siegfried!

  SIEGFRIED.

  I must have lost it--Give it me!

  KRIEMHILD.

  Where didst thou get this girdle?

  SIEGFRIED.

  Nay, this is
  A dark and fearful secret; thou should'st seek
  To learn no whit about it.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Yet thou hast
  Confided one still greater, and I know
  The place where Death may strike the fatal blow.

  SIEGFRIED.

  That I alone protect!

  KRIEMHILD.

  And there are two
  To guard the other!

  SIEGFRIED (_to himself_).

  I was far too quick.

  KRIEMHILD (_covers her face_).

  Thou gav'st thy oath to me! Why didst thou that?
  I had not even asked it.

  SIEGFRIED.

  Still I swear,
  I ne'er have known a woman!

  KRIEMHILD (_holds up the girdle_).

  SIEGFRIED.

  That was used
  To bind me.

  KRIEMHILD.

  If a lion told the tale
  'Twere less incredible!

  SIEGFRIED.

  And yet 'tis true.

  KRIEMHILD.

  This hurts me most! To such a man as thou,
  The sin itself, however black it be,
  Is more becoming than the cloak of lies
  Wherewith he fain would hide it.

  _Enter_ GUNTHER _and_ BRUNHILDA.

  SIEGFRIED.

  We must go!
  They come!

  KRIEMHILD.

  But who! Does Brunhild know the girdle?

  SIEGFRIED.

  Pray hide it quickly!

  KRIEMHILD.

  No, I'll show it them!

  SIEGFRIED.

  I pray thee hide it. Then thou shalt know all.

  KRIEMHILD (_hiding the girdle_).

  So Brunhilda knows the girdle?

  SIEGFRIED.

  Listen then!

  [_Both follow the procession._]



  SCENE IV

  BRUNHILDA.

  Was that not Kriemhild?

  GUNTHER.

  Yes.

  BRUNHILDA.

  How long does she
  Tarry beside the Rhine?

  GUNTHER.

  She'll soon depart,
  For Siegfried must go home.

  BRUNHILDA.

  I'll grant him leave,
  And willingly dispense with his farewell.

  GUNTHER.

  But dost thou hate him so?

  BRUNHILDA.

  I cannot bear
  To see thy noble sister sink so low.

  GUNTHER.

  She does as thou dost.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Nay, thou art a man!
  This name which was of old to me the call
  To arms, now fills my heart with joy and pride!
  Yes, Gunther, I am wonderfully changed.
  Thou see'st it too? There's something I might ask,
  But yet I do not!

  GUNTHER.

  Thou'rt my noble wife!

  BRUNHILDA.

  'Tis sweet to hear that word, and now it seems
  As strange to me that once I used to ride
  To battle on my horse and hurl my spear,
  As it would seem to see thee turn the spit!
  I cannot bear the sight of weapons now,
  And my own shield I find too heavy far;
  I tried to lay it by, but had to call
  My maid. I'd rather watch the spiders spin
  And see the little birds that build their nests,
  Than go with thee!

  GUNTHER.

  Yet this time thou must go!

  BRUNHILDA.

  And I know why. Forgive me! What I thought
  Was weakness was but magnanimity,
  For thou would'st not disgrace me on the ship
  When I defied thee! Naught of that there dwelt
  Within my heart, and therefore has the strength
  That some caprice of nature gave to me
  Departed from me, and returned to thee!

  GUNTHER.

  Since thou art gentle, then be reconciled
  With Siegfried too!

  BRUNHILDA.

  Oh, name him not to me!

  GUNTHER.

  There is no reason thou shouldst hate him so.

  BRUNHILDA.

  And if I have none? When a king descends
  To fill the humble office of a guide
  And carry messages, it is indeed
  As strange as if a man should take the place
  Of his own horse, the saddle on his back,
  Or bay and hunt in service of his hound.
  But if it pleases him, what's that to me!

  GUNTHER.

  It was not so.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Still stranger 't is to see
  His noble stature tow'ring high above
  All other men, so that it even seems
  That he has gathered all the royal crowns
  Of all the world to forge them into one,
  And thus to show the world for the first time
  A perfect picture of true majesty.
  For it is true, while still upon the earth
  More crowns than one are gleaming, none is round,
  And for the sun's full circle even thou
  Wearest a crescent pale upon thy head.

  GUNTHER.

  But see. Thou hast already viewed the man
  With other eyes.

  BRUNHILDA.

  I greeted him ere thee.
  Then slay him--challenge him--win my revenge!

  GUNTHER.

  Brunhilda! He's the husband of my sister,
  And so his blood is mine.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Do battle then
  With him and lay him low upon the ground,
  And let me see thy rightful majesty
  When he is as a footstool for thy feet!

  GUNTHER.

  Our custom is not so.
  BRUNHILDA. I will not yield;
  His downfall I must see. Thou hast the heart
  Of life, and he the glitter and the show.
  But blow away this magic which e'er holds
  The gaze of fools upon him. If Kriemhild
  Casts down those eyes in shame, that now she lifts
  Almost too proudly when she's by his side,
  'Twill do no damage, and I promise thee
  Far richer love if thou wilt do the deed.

  GUNTHER.

  He too is strong.

  BRUNHILDA.

  That he the dragon slew
  And conquered Alberich, does not compare
  With thy great prowess. For in thee and me
  Have man and woman for eternity
  Fought the last battle for supremacy.
  Thou art the victor, and I ask no more
  Than still to see those honors deck thy brow
  Of which I was so jealous. For thou art
  The strongest man of all; so cast him down
  From golden clouds to earth for my delight,
  And leave him naked, destitute, and bare--
  Then let him live a hundred years or more.

  [_Exeunt._]



  SCENE V

  _Enter_ FRIGGA _and_ UTE.

  UTE.

  Brunhilda looks already happier
  Than yesterday.

  FRIGGA.

  My Queen, she truly is.

  UTE.

  I thought it would be so.

  FRIGGA.

  But I did not!
  Her mind is strangely altered, 'twould astound
  Me not a whit now if her nature too
  Should alter and her hair should change to blonde
  Instead of raven tresses that of old
  So richly waved beneath my golden comb.

  UTE.

  Thou dost not grieve, I trust?

  FRIGGA.

  I'm more amazed.
  If this heroic woman thou hadst reared
  As I have done, and knew all that I know,
  Then would thy wonder be no less than mine.

  UTE (_turning to go back into the castle_).

  Do what thou canst!

  FRIGGA.

  I surely have done more
  Than ever thou couldst dream of. How this came
  I cannot tell, but if she's happy now
  I am content, and of the olden time
  She hath forgotten never will I tell.



  SCENE VI

  _Enter_ KRIEMHILD _and_ BRUNHILDA, _hand in hand. A large number of
  warriors and people gather._

  KRIEMHILD.

  Wouldst thou not watch the combat from afar
  Rather than join the fray?

  BRUNHILDA.

  Hast thou tried both,
  That thus thou canst compare them?

  KRIEMHILD.

  I'd not bear
  The heat of battle.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Then thou shouldst not try
  To judge of it!--No insult I intend.
  Nay, do not draw thy hand away from mine!
  It may be so, and yet I thought this joy
  Were but for me alone.

  KRIEMHILD.

  What dost thou mean?

  BRUNHILDA. Surely no woman can rejoice to see
  Her husband conquered.

  KRIEMHILD.

   Never!

  BRUNHILDA. Nor deceive
  Herself if in the fray he's not unhorsed,
  Because his conqueror spares him.

  KRIEMHILD. Surely not.

  BRUNHILDA. What then!

  KRIEMHILD. But I am quite secure from that?
  Thou smilest?

  BRUNHILDA. Over-confident art thou.

  KRIEMHILD. It is my right!

  BRUNHILDA. It may not come to proof,
  And even a dream is sweet--so slumber on,
  And I will never wake thee.

  KRIEMHILD. What say'st thou?
  My noble husband is too gentle far
  To grieve the rulers of his royal realm,
  Else had he made a sceptre long ago
  Of his good sword and held it forth so far
  That its great shadow covered all the earth.
  For all the lands are subject unto him,
  And should but one deny it, I would ask
  That land from him to make a flower bed.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Kriemhild, what then would be my husband's place?

  KRIEMHILD.
  He is my brother, and the standard's his
  Whereby one weighs all others. None weighs him.

  BRUNHILDA.

  No, for he is the standard of the world!
  And as 'tis gold decides the worth of things,
  So he the worth of heroes and of knights.
  Thou must not contradict me, dearest child,
  And in return I'll listen patiently
  If thou wilt only teach me how to sew.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Brunhilda!

  BRUNHILDA.

  Nay, I did not speak in scorn;
  I long to sew, and needle-work is not
  My birthright like the throwing of the lance,
  For which I never sought a master's aid,
  More than I needed aid to stand or walk.

  KRIEMHILD.

  If 'tis thy wish, we can begin at once;
  And since thou best enjoyest making wounds
  We'll take the bodkin for embroidery.
  I have a pattern!--

      [_She is about to show the girdle._]
                       No, I have it not.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Thou lookest on thy sister coldly now.
  But 'tis not friendly to withdraw thy hand
  From my fond clasp before I give it up--
  At least our custom is the contrary.
  And canst thou not be reconciled to know
  The sceptre of thy dreams is given now
  Into thy brother's hands? Thou art his sister,
  And that should comfort thee. A brother's fame
  Is half thine own, so thou shouldst yield to me,
  Before all other women, honor's crown
  That once for all could never have been thine,
  For no one could have paid for it as I.

  KRIEMHILD.

  'Tis thus perverted nature takes revenge.
  Thou didst resist love's rule as no one else,
  And now this blindness is thy penalty.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Thou speakest of thyself and not of me!
  We need not quarrel, for the whole world knows
  That ere my mother bore me, 'twas my fate
  The strongest knight alone should conquer me.

  KRIEMHILD.

  I can believe it.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Well?

  KRIEMHILD (_laughs_).

  BRUNHILDA.

  Then thou art mad!
  Perchance thou fear'st that we shall be too harsh
  With all the vassals? Yet thou need'st not fear!
  I plant no flower beds in conquered lands,
  And only once will I claim precedence
  If thou art not too proud and obstinate,--
  Here at the church today and nevermore.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Indeed I'd never have denied it thee,
  But, since my husband's honor is at stake,
  I will not yield one step.

  BRUNHILDA.

  He will command
  That thou shalt yield.

  KRIEMHILD.

  How dare'st thou scorn him so!

  BRUNHILDA.

   He made way for thy brother in my hall,
  As vassals for their lord, and he refused
  My proffered greeting!--That did not seem strange
  While I still thought him--as he called himself--
  A serving-man, a messenger to me.
  But now it all seems changed.

  KRIEMHILD.

  And how is that?

  BRUNHILDA.

  I've seen a wolf slip silently away
  Before a bear, and then I've seen the bear
  Flee from the mountain bull. Though he's not sworn,
  Yet is he still a vassal.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Say no more!

  BRUNHILDA.

  Wilt threaten me? Do not forget thyself!
  I have my senses--see that thou keep thine:
  There must have been some cause beneath all this.

  KRIEMHILD.

  There was! And if thou shouldst suspect the cause,
  How thou wouldst shudder.

  BRUNHILDA.

   Shudder!

  KRIEMHILD.

  Yes, indeed!
  But do not fear! I love thee even now
  Too fondly. Never can I hate thee so
  That I will tell the cause. Had aught like that
  Befallen me, today I'd dig my grave
  With my own hands. Brunhilda, never fear!
  I will not make thee the most wretched soul
  That draws the breath of life upon the earth!
  Then keep thy pride, for pity makes me dumb.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Thou boastest, Kriemhild! I despise thee now!

  KRIEMHILD.

  My husband's concubine despises me!

  BRUNHILDA.

  Put her in chains! She rages! Bind her then!

  KRIEMHILD (_draws out the girdle_).

  Know'st thou this girdle?

  BRUNHILDA.

  Well I do. 'Tis mine.
  And since I see it in a stranger's hands
  It must be that 'twas stolen in the night.

  KRIEMHILD.

   'Twas stolen! 'Twas no thief that gave it me!

  BRUNHILDA.

  Who then?

  KRIEMHILD.

  The man who overpowered thee!
  But not my brother!

  BRUNHILDA.

  Kriemhild!

  KRIEMHILD.

  Thy fierce strength
  Had surely strangled Gunther, then perchance
  Thou would'st have loved the dead as punishment.
  My husband gave it me!

  BRUNHILDA.

  'Tis false!

  KRIEMHILD.

  'Tis true!
  Now scorn him if thou canst! Wilt now consent
  That I may pass before thee through the door?

  (_To her women._)

  Now follow. She shall see me prove my rights!

  [_They leave and enter the cathedral._]

  [Illustration: "SCHNORR VON CAROLSFELD THE QUARREL OF THE QUEENS"]



  SCENE VII

  BRUNHILDA.

  Where are the lords of Burgundy!--Oh Frigga!
  Didst thou hear that?

  FRIGGA.

  I heard, and I believe it.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Oh this is death! 'Tis true?

  FRIGGA.

  She said too much,
  Surely too much--but this is plain to me,
  That thou hast been betrayed!

  BRUNHILDA.

  'Tis not a lie?

  FRIGGA.

  'Twas Balmung's master. On the shore he stood
  When died the flames.

  BRUNHILDA.

  Then he rejected me.
  For I was on the rampart and I know
  He saw me. But his heart was full of her.

  FRIGGA.

  That thou mayst know what thou hast lost by fraud,
  I too deceived thee!

  BRUNHILDA (_without listening to her_).

  Hence the haughty calm
  With which he gazed upon me!

  FRIGGA.

  Not alone
  This narrow country, but the whole wide earth
  Was meant to be thy kingdom, and to thee
  The stars should tell their message. Even death
  Should lose his fell dominion over thee!

  BRUNHILDA.

  Speak not of that!

  FRIGGA.

  Why not? Thy glories lost
  Thou'lt not regain, but yet thou canst avenge
  Thy wrongs, my child!

  BRUNHILDA.

  And I will have revenge!
  Despised and scorned! Oh, woman, in his arms
  If thou hast mocked at me a single night,
  Thou shalt weep bitterly for many years!
  I will--Alas! I am as weak as she.

  [_Throws herself on FRIGGA's bosom._]



  SCENE VIII

  _Enter_ GUNTHER, HAGEN, DANKWART, RUMOLT, GERENOT, GISELHER _and_
  SIEGFRIED.

  HAGEN.

  What then is wrong?

  BRUNHILDA (_drawing herself up to her full height, to
  GUNTHER_).

  Am I concubine?

  GUNTHER.

  A concubine?

  BRUNHILDA.

  Thy sister calls me so!

  HAGEN (_to FRIGGA_).

  What happened here?

  FRIGGA.

  Ye are discovered now!
  We know the conqueror, and Kriemhild vows
  That he was twice a victor.

  HAGEN

  (_to GUNTHER_).
                               He has told!

    [_He speaks to him aside._]



  SCENE IX

  KRIEMHILD (_who has meanwhile come out of the cathedral_).

  Forgive me, Siegfried, for the wrong I did!
  Yet if thou knewest how she slandered thee--

  GUNTHER (to SIEGFRIED).

  Hast thou then boasted?

  SIEGFRIED (_laying his hand on KRIEMHILD's head_).
                         By her life I swear,
  I never did.

  HAGEN.

  No oath is needed here!
  He only told the truth.

  SIEGFRIED.

  And even that
  Upon compulsion!
  HAGEN. That I do not doubt!
  The tale can wait the telling. 'Tis our part
  To separate the women, for we know
  That serpents' crests may ever rise again
  If they too soon gaze in each other's eyes.

  SIEGFRIED.

  I'm soon departing hence. Come, Kriemhild, come!

  KRIEMHILD (_to BRUNHILDA_).

  If thou couldst know how thou didst anger me,
  Then even thou--

  BRUNHILDA (_turns away_).

  KRIEMHILD.

  Since thou dost love my brother,
  How canst thou hate the means that gave thee him
  To be his bride?

  BRUNHILDA.

  Oh, Oh!

  HAGEN.

  Away! Away!

  SIEGFRIED (_leading KRIEMHILD away_).

  There's been no tattling here, as you shall see.

  [_Exeunt._]



  SCENE X

  HAGEN.

  Come, gather round and vote without delay
  The doom of death.

  GUNTHER.

  Hagen, what sayest thou?

  HAGEN.

  Have we not cause enough? There stands the Queen
  And burning tears are streaming from her eyes.
  For shame she weeps!

  (_To BRUNHILDA._)

  Oh, thou heroic Queen,
  To whom alone my homage I do yield,
  The man who shamed thee so must surely die!

  GUNTHER. Hagen!

  HAGEN (_to BRUNHILDA_).

  The man must die unless thou wilt
  Forego revenge and plead for him thyself.

  BRUNHILDA.

  I'll touch no food till judgment is fulfilled.

  HAGEN.

  Forgive me that I spoke before my king!
  I only strove to make the matter plain,
  Yet free decision is thy royal right--
  So make thy choice between thy bride and him.

  GISELHER.

  Thou canst not mean it! For a trifling fault,
  Thou wouldst not slay the truest man on earth?
  My King! My brother! Say it is not so!

  HAGEN.

  Will ye rear bastards here within your court?
  I doubt me if the proud Burgundians
  Will crown them! Yet thou art the master here!

  GERENOT.

  Brave Siegfried soon will quell all murmurings,
  If we ourselves cannot perform the task.

  HAGEN (_to_ GUNTHER).

  Thou speakest not. 'Tis well. The rest is mine!

  GISELHER.

  In bloody counsels I will take no part!

  [_Exit_.]



  SCENE XI

  BRUNHILDA.

  Frigga, I tell thee he or I must die!

  FRIGGA.

  'Tis he must die!

  BRUNHILDA.

  I was not merely scorned,
  But passed from hand to hand. They bartered
  me!

  FRIGGA.

  They bartered thee!

  BRUNHILDA.

  Too mean to be his wife,
  I was the price for which he bought him one.

  FRIGGA.

  The price, my child!

  BRUNHILDA.

  O this is worse than murder!
  And I will have revenge, revenge, revenge!

     [_Exeunt omnes_.]



  ACT IV


  _Worms._



  SCENE I

  _Great hall._ GUNTHER _with his warriors._ HAGEN _carries a spear._

  HAGEN.

  A blind man e'en can hit a linden leaf;
  At fifty paces I will wager you
  With this good spear to split a hazelnut.

  GISELHER.

  Why dost thou choose this day to show thy skill?
  We've always known thy arms would never rust.

  HAGEN.

  He comes! Now show me you can wear dark looks
  And altered bearing although none has lost
  His father.



  SCENE II

  _Enter SIEGFRIED._

  SIEGFRIED.

  Ho, ye knights! And hear ye not
  The hounds give tongue, and hark! Our youngest hunter
  Impatient tries his horn! To horse! Away!

  HAGEN.

  The day is fair!

  SIEGFRIED.

  And have you not been told
  That bears have ventured in the very stalls,
  And that the eagles wait before the doors
  And watch when they are opened for a child
  That may stray out?

  VOLKER.

  Indeed that has been known.

  SIEGFRIED.

  While we were courting no one thought to hunt.
  Then come, and we'll drive back the enemy,
  And hack and hew him.

  HAGEN. Friend, more need have we
  To grind our swords and nail our spear-heads firm.

  SIEGFRIED.

  And why?

  HAGEN.

  Thou'st dallied all these last few days
  With honeyed words, else hadst thou well known why.

  SIEGFRIED.

  I am about to say farewell, ye know!
  Yet speak, what's toward?

  HAGEN.

  Danes and Saxons too
  Again are coming.

  SIEGFRIED.

  Are the princes dead,
  Who swore allegiance to us?

  HAGEN.

  Nay, not dead;
  They're leading on the army.

  SIEGFRIED.

  Lüdegast
  And Lüdeger, who were my prisoners,
  Set free without a ransom?

  GUNTHER.

  Yesterday
  Renounced they every oath.

  SIEGFRIED.

  Their messengers--
  You surely must have hewn them limb from limb?
  Has every vulture had his share of them?

  HAGEN.

  So speakest thou?

  SIEGFRIED.

  Such vipers' messengers
  One tramples like a viper. Fiends of hell!
  Now feel I my first anger! I believed
  That often I knew hatred, but I erred;
  'Twas but less love I felt. For I can hate
  Nothing but broken vows and treachery,
  Hypocrisy and all the coward's sins
  That seek their victim as the spider crawls
  Upon its hollow legs. How can it be
  That such brave men (for surely they were brave),
  Could so besmirch themselves? Oh, my dear friends,
  Stand not so coldly by and gaze on me
  As though you thought me mad, as though I knew
  No longer great from small! We've never known
  What outrage is till now. Our reckoning
  May we strike calmly out to the last score.
  Only these two are guilty.

  GISELHER.

  Shameful 'tis.
  The way they praised thee echoes in my ear.
  When came this messenger?

  HAGEN.

  'Twas even now.
  Didst thou not see him. He made haste to leave
  As soon as he had done his errand here,
  Nor tarried for his messenger's reward.

  SIEGFRIED.

  Oh, shame that you did not chastise the man
  For impudence! A raven would have come
  And plucked his eyes out, and in very scorn
  Have cast them forth again before his lord.
  That was the only answer that was due.
  This is no lawful feud, this is no war
  That right and custom sanction--'tis the chase
  Of evil beasts! Nay, Hagen, do not smile!
  The headsman's ax should be our weapon now,
  So that we should not soil our noble blades,
  And, since the ax is iron like the sword,
  It were a shame to use it till we find
  No rope would be enough to hang the dogs.

  HAGEN.

  Thou say'st!

  SIEGFRIED.

  Thou mockest at me as it seems.
  'Tis strange, for trifles used to anger thee!
  I know thou art an older man than I,
  But 'tis not youth that's speaking through me now,
  Nor is it indignation that 'twas I
  Who begged thy mercy for them. Nay, I stand
  For the whole world. As calls a bell to prayer,
  So calls my tongue to vengeance every one
  Who stands as man amidst his fellow-men.

  GUNTHER.

  'Tis so.

  SIEGFRIED (_to_ HAGEN).

  Know'st thou betrayal? Treachery
  Gaze on the traitor! Smile then if thou canst.
  To open combat dost thou challenge him
  And dost o'erthrow him. But thou art too proud,
  If not too noble, to thrust home thy sword,
  And so thou set'st him free, and givest him
  His weapons once again that thou hadst won.
  He does not rage at thee and thrust them back;
  He gives thee humble thanks and praises sweet
  And swears with thousand oaths to be thy man.
  But when, the honeyed words still in thine ear,
  Thou lay'st thy weary limbs upon thy couch,
  Bare and defenseless as a helpless child,
  Then creeps the traitor up and murders thee,
  And even while thou diest spits on thee.

  GUNTHER (_to_ HAGEN).

  What dost thou say to that?

  HAGEN (_to_ GUNTHER).

  This noble wrath
  Gives me such courage that I ask our friend
  If he will grant us escort yet once more.

  SIEGFRIED.

  With my own Nib'lungs will I go alone,
  For it is by my fault this trouble comes
  To ye again! Howe'er I longed to show
  My bride unto my mother and to win
  For the first time her undivided praise,
  It may not be while yet these hypocrites
  Have ovens for their bread and flowing springs
  To slake their thirst! I will at once put off
  My homeward journey, and I promise you
  That I will take them living, and henceforth
  Before my castle shall they lie in chains
  And bay like hounds whene'er I come or go,
  Since, as it seems, they have the souls of dogs!

  [_He hastens away_.]



  SCENE III

  HAGEN.

  He'll surely rush to her in all his rage,
  And when he leaves, then I will seek her out.

  GUNTHER.

  I'll move in this no further.

  HAGEN.

  What, my King?

  GUNTHER.

  Bid heralds come once more and let them say
  That there is peace again.

  HAGEN.

  It shall be done
  When I have talked with Kriemhild privately
  And learned the secret from her.

  GUNTHER.

  Hast thou then
  No bowels of compassion? Thy hard heart
  No pity feeleth yet?

  HAGEN.

  Speak plainly, lord;
  I cannot understand.

  GUNTHER.

  He shall not die.

  HAGEN.

  He lives while thou commandest. If I stood
  Behind him in the woods and poised my spear,
  But shake thy head, and for this traitor dies
  A beast.

  GUNTHER.

  Not traitor, no! Was it his fault
  That he brought back the girdle carelessly
  And Kriemhild found it? It escaped him there,
  As clings an arrow in a warrior's mail
  If after battle 'tis not shaken off,
  And only by its rattling is it marked.
  I ask you one and all: was it his fault?

  HAGEN.

  No! No! Who says so? Nor was he to blame
  For lacking clever wits to clear himself,
  For doubtless he blushed crimson at th' attempt.

  GUNTHER.

  What then remains?

  HAGEN.

  Brunhilda's oath remains.

  GISELHER.

  Then let her slay him if she wants his blood.

  HAGEN.

  We're quarreling like children. May one not
  Collect his weapons, though he knoweth not
  When he may need to use them? One explores
  An unknown land and finds its passes out.
  Then why not, pray, a hero? I will try
  My fortune now with Kriemhild, if it were
  Only that this fine ruse that we have planned
  Might not be all in vain. She'll not betray
  The secret to me unless he hath told
  The matter to her. Then you may decide
  Whether to use the knowledge I may gain;
  And you may really do, if so you please,
  What I shall but pretend, and so in war
  Protect the place where death may find him out.
  But you must know where is his mortal spot.

      [_Exit_.]



  SCENE IV

  GISELHER (_to_ GUNTHER).

  Thou hast returned to thine own loyalty
  And faithfulness, or else I'd say: this trick
  Is far beneath a king!

  VOLKER.

  Thy angry mood
  Is natural; thou wast thyself deceived.

  GISELHER.

  That was not why. Yet let us not dispute
  When all is well again.

  VOLKER.

  When all is well?

  GISELHER.

  Is it not well?

  VOLKER.

  They tell me that the Queen
  In mourning robes is clad, and food and drink
  Refuses--even water.

  GUNTHER.

  True, alas!

  VOLKER.

  How then is't well? What Hagen said is true.
  She's not like others; for the breath of time
  Her wounds can never heal, nor give her peace.
  And we must face the question: He or she!
  Thou sayest truly, Siegfried's not to blame
  That to him clung the girdle like a snake,
  And was discovered. That is pure mischance;
  But this mischance is deadly, and thou canst
  Determine only whom it shall destroy.

  GISELHER.

  Let that one die who hath no will to live!

  GUNTHER.

  Oh, fearful choice!

  VOLKER.

  I warned thee long ago,
  From starting on this course, but now at last
  We see the end.

  DANKWART.

  And is it not our law,
  That even blunders bring their penalty
  He who runs through his bosom friend by night
  Because he bore his lance too carelessly,
  Can never free himself with all his tears,
  However hot and bitter they may flow.--
  The price is blood.

  GUNTHER.

  Now I will go to her.

    [_Exit_.]



  SCENE V

  VOLKER.

  There comes Kriemhild with Hagen. She's distressed,
  As he predicted. Let us go.

    [_Exeunt omnes_.]


  SCENE VI

  _Enter_ HAGEN _and_ KRIEMHILD.

  HAGEN.

  Thou com'st
  So early to the hall?

  KRIEMHILD.

  I could not bear
  To linger in my chamber.

  HAGEN.

  Saw I not
  Thy husband parting from thee? He was flushed,
  And angry were his looks. Is there not peace
  Between yourself and Siegfried once again?
  Is he not kind and gentle with his bride?
  Tell me, and I will talk with him.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Oh, no!
  Did nothing else remind me of that day,
  That evil day, 'twould be a dream that's past.
  My lord hath spared me every unkind word.

  HAGEN.

  I'm glad he is so gentle.

  KRIEMHILD.

  I could wish
  That he would blame me, yet perchance he knows
  I blame myself enough!

  HAGEN.

  Be not too harsh!

  KRIEMHILD.

  I know how bitterly I wounded her!
  I'll not forgive myself. I'd rather far
  Have felt the hurt myself than injured her.

  HAGEN.

  And this it is that drove thee from thy room?

  KRIEMHILD.

  Oh, no! 'twould make me hide myself away!
  I am so anxious for him!

  HAGEN.

  Dost thou fear?

  KRIEMHILD.

  There is another war.

  HAGEN.

  Yes, that is true.

  KRIEMHILD.

  The lying scoundrels!

  HAGEN.

  Be not overwrought
  Nor cease thy preparations for the voyage.
  Work tranquilly and do not be disturbed,
  For thou canst put away his armor last.
  What am I saying! For he wears no mail,
  Nor doth he need to wear it.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Thinkest thou

  HAGEN.

  I well might laugh. If any other wife
  So sighed, I'd say: Out of a thousand darts
  But one could touch him, and that one would break.
  But thee I ridicule and must advise
  Let thy stray fancy sing some wiser song.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Thou speak'st of arrows! Arrows are the thing
  That most I dread. I know an arrow's point
  Needs at the most the space of my thumb nail
  To penetrate, and yet it kills a man.

  HAGEN.

  Especially if 'tis a poisoned dart.
  These savages, who broke the bulwark down,
  The bulwark of our life and of the state,
  Which we hold sacred even in our wars,
  Would do a deed like this as soon as that.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Thou see'st!

  HAGEN.

  How can thy Siegfried come to harm?
  He is secure. And if there were such shafts
  That straighter flew than fly the sun's own rays,
  He'd shake them off as we shake off the snow;
  And this he knows, and so his confidence
  Abandons him no moment in the fray.
  We were not born beneath an aspen tree,
  Yet we nigh tremble at the deeds he dares.
  And heartily he laughs at this sometimes,
  And we laugh too. For iron you may thrust
  Into the fire--it changes into steel.

  KRIEMHILD.

  I shudder!

  HAGEN.

  Child, thou art but newly wed,
  Or I'd rejoice at thy timidity.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Hast thou forgotten, or hast thou not heard
  What in the ballads hath oft times been sung,
  That Siegfried may be wounded in one spot?

  HAGEN.

  I'd quite forgotten that, although 'tis true.
  I recollect, he spoke of it himself.
  It seems to me he told us of a leaf,
  But what it signified I cannot say.

  KRIEMHILD.

  It was a linden leaf.

  HAGEN.

  Oh yes! But say,
  How could a linden leaf have done him harm?
  For that's a riddle like no other one.

  KRIEMHILD.

  It floated down upon him on the breeze
  When he was bathing in the dragon's blood,
  And he is vulnerable where it fell.
  HAGEN. He would have seen it if it fell in front!--
  What matters it? Thou see'st thy nearest kin,
  Thy brothers even, who would shield him still
  Were but the shadow of a danger nigh,
  Know nothing of his vulnerable spot.
  What dost thou fear? Thy anguish is for naught.

  KRIEMHILD.

  I fear the Valkyries, for I have heard
  They always choose the noblest warriors;
  If they direct the dart, it ne'er can miss.

  HAGEN.

  But then he only needs a trusty squire.
  Who shall protect his back. Think'st thou not so?

  KRIEMHILD.

  I think I should sleep sounder.

  HAGEN.

  Mark my words!
  If he--thou know'st it almost happened once--
  Should fall from out his skiff and in the Rhine
  Should sink because his weapons drew him down
  To feed the greedy fishes, I would plunge
  To save our Siegfried, or else I myself
  Would die with him.

  KRIEMHILD.

  And is thy thought so noble?

  HAGEN.

  So I think! And if the red cock lit
  In darkest night upon his castle roof,
  And he, half smothered and but half awake,
  Should fail to find the way that leads to life,
  I'd bear him from the flames in my own arms,
  And should I not succeed, with him I'd die.

  KRIEMHILD (_turns about to embrace him_).

  Then must I--

  HAGEN (_refusing the caress_).

  Do not! But I swear, I'd do it.
  Though only lately had I sworn that oath.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Thy kinsman he became but recently!
  And dost thou really mean it? That thou would'st
  Thyself?--

  HAGEN.

  I mean it, for he'll fight for me,
  And no least one of all the thousand wonders
  His sword can do, has he refused to me;
  And so I'll shelter him!

  KRIEMHILD.

  I had not dared
  To hope for that!

  HAGEN.

  But I must know the spot,
  And thou must show it to me.

  KRIEMHILD.

  That is true!
  Between his shoulders is it, half across.

  HAGEN.

  'Tis target height!

  KRIEMHILD.

  Oh uncle, you will not
  Avenge on him the crime that's mine alone?

  HAGEN.

  What dost thou dream of?

  KRIEMHILD. It was jealousy
  That blinded me, or else her boastfulness
  Would not have roused my anger.

  HAGEN.

  Jealousy!

  KRIEMHILD.

  I am ashamed! But even if that night
  The blows were all, and that I will believe,
  I grudge Brunhilda even blows from him.

  HAGEN.

  Be patient! She'll forget it.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Is it true
  That she'll not eat or drink?

  HAGEN.

  She always fasts
  This time of year, for 'tis the Norns' own week,
  And still in Iceland 'tis a sacred time.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Three days have now passed by!

  HAGEN.

  What's that to us?
  But hush! They're coming.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Well

  HAGEN.

  Were it not wise
  To broider on his tunic a small cross?
  Forsooth our care is needless, and he would
  Deride thee if thou shouldst but tell thy fear.
  Yet since I now have made myself his guard
  I would not aught neglect.

  KRIEMHILD.

  That will I do.

     [_She goes to meet_ UTE _and the Chaplain_.]



  SCENE VII

  HAGEN (_following her_).

  Thy hero now is as a stag to me.
  Had he not broken silence, he were safe,
  And yet I surely knew that could not be.
  If one's transparent as an insect is,
  That looks now red, now green, as is its food,
  One must beware of any mysteries,
  Lest e'en the vitals show the secret forth!



  SCENE VIII

  UTE _and the Chaplain come forward_.

  CHAPLAIN.

  There is no image of it in this world!
  You strive to liken it and comprehend,
  Yet here all signs and measures too must fail.
  But kneel before the Lord in fervent prayer,
  And when contrition and humility
  Have made you lose yourself, you may be drawn,
  A moment only, as the lightning flash
  Does tarry upon earth, to heavenly heights.

  UTE.

  And can that happen?

  CHAPLAIN.

  Stephen, blessed saint,
  Saw, when the furious horde of angry Jews
  Were stoning him, the gates of paradise
  Standing ajar, and he rejoiced and sang.
  His suffering body only they destroyed,
  But 'twas to him as if the murderous band
  That thought to kill him in their fury blind
  Could only rend the garment he had doffed.

  UTE (_to_ KRIEMHILD _who has joined them_).


  Take heed, Kriemhild!

  KRIEMHILD.

  I do.

  CHAPLAIN.

  That was the power
  Of faith; And ye must also learn the curse
  Of unbelief. Saint Peter, who has charge
  Of sword and keys of our most holy church,
  Loved and instructed in the faith a youth,
  And brought him up. One day upon a rock
  The youth was standing, and the stormy sea
  Around him surged in fury. Then he thought
  Of how his Lord and Master left the ship,
  And trustingly obeyed the slightest sign
  The Saviour gave, and walked upon the deep
  That tossed and threatened him with certain death.
  A dizziness came o'er him at the thought
  Of such a trial, for the wonder seemed
  Beyond the bounds of reason, then he caught
  A corner of the rock and clung to it,
  Crying aloud: All, all, yet spare me this!
  Then breathed the Lord, and suddenly the stone
  Began to melt away. He sank and sank,
  And lost all hope, until for very fear
  He sprang from off the rock into the flood.
  The breath of the Eternal stilled the sea,
  And made it solid and it bore him up,
  As kindly earth bears up both ye and me.
  Repentantly he said: Thy will be done!

  UTE.

  In all eternity!

  KRIEMHILD.

  My Father, pray
  That He who changes water and firm rock,
  Will shield my Siegfried. For each sep'rate year
  Of happy life vouchsafed me by his side
  An altar will I build unto a saint.

    [_Exit_ KRIEMHILD.]

  CHAPLAIN.

  The miracle astounds thee. Let me tell
  The tale of how I won my friar's cowl.
  The Angles are my kin, a heathen folk,
  And as a heathen was I born and reared,
  And turbulent I was; at fifteen years
  The sword was girded on me. Then appeared
  The Lord's first messenger among my tribe.
  They scorned him and despised him, and at last
  They slew him. Queen, I stood and saw it all,
  And, driven by the others, gave to him
  With this right hand I nevermore shall use,
  Although the arm's not helpless as you think,
  The final blow. But then I heard him pray.
  He prayed for me, and his pure soul expired
  With the Amen. The heart within my breast
  Was changed from that time forth. I threw my sword
  Upon the ground, and put his garment on
  And went to preach the Gospel of the Cross.

  UTE.

  Here comes my son! Oh, couldst thou bring again
  To this distracted land the peace we've lost
  So utterly!

    [_Exeunt_.]



  SCENE IX

  _Enter_ GUNTHER _with_ HAGEN _and the others_.

  GUNTHER.

  It is as I have said,
  She reckons on the deed as we believe
  That autumn brings us apples. The old nurse
  Has tried to rouse her, and has quietly
  Bestrewn her chamber all with grains of wheat;
  They lie there undisturbed.

  GISELHER.

  How can it be
  That she should venture life for life to stake?

  HAGEN.

  I marvel at her also.

  GUNTHER. And withal
  She neither drives nor urges, as with things
  Bound up with time and place and human will
  'Twere natural to do. She questions not
  Nor changes countenance, but sits amazed
  That any man should speak and not announce--
  The deed is done!

  HAGEN.

  But I must tell thee this:
  His spell is on her, and her very hate
  Is rooted deep in love!

  GUNTHER.

  Believ'st thou so?

  HAGEN.

  'Tis not such love as binds, a man and wife,
  In holy union.

  GUNTHER.

  How then?

  HAGEN.

  'Tis a charm,
  A magic, that would keep her race alive.
  So drives the giantess to seek her mate,
  Joyless and choiceless, since they are the last.

  GUNTHER.

  Is there no hope?

  HAGEN.

  'Tis death must break the spell.
  Her blood congeals when his has ceased to flow.
  His destiny it was that he should slay
  The dragon and then take the dragon's road.

     [_A tumult is heard_.]

  GUNTHER.

  What may that be?

  HAGEN.

  'Tis those false messengers.
  And Dankwart drives them forth. He does it well.
  Lovers will hear it even while they kiss.



  SCENE X

  _Enter_ SIEGFRIED; _as_ HAGEN _notices hint_.

  HAGEN.

  By all the fiends of hell! No! ten times no!
  It were disgrace for us, and Siegfried thinks
  Assuredly as I do. Here he comes!
  Now speak, thou may'st decide it.--

  (_As_ DANKWART _enters_.)

        Though thy word
  Can alter nothing more. The answer's gone.

  (_To_ DANKWART.)

  Thou surely hast not spared to scourge them well

  (_To_ SIEGFRIED.)

  Yet set thy seal upon it even so!

  SIEGFRIED.

  What's this?

  HAGEN.

  The dogs have come again to sue
  For peace. I ordered that the worthless knaves
  With scourges should be driven from the court
  Before they gave their message.

  SIEGFRIED.

  'Twas well done!

  HAGEN.

  The King indeed reproves me, for he thinks
  We know not what has happened.

  SIEGFRIED.

  What? Not know?
  I know! For when a wolf is chased along,
  He harms not those before him!

  HAGEN.

  That is true!

  SIEGFRIED.

  And more than that! Behind them is a horde
  Of savage tribesmen who will never sow,
  And yet they want to reap.

  HAGEN.

  Now do you see?

  SIEGFRIED.

  But you should show no mercy on the wolf
  Because he has no time to guard himself.

  HAGEN.

  We surely shall not.

  SIEGFRIED.

  Come, we'll help the foxes
  And drive him to his final hiding place,
  Within the foxes' bellies.

  HAGEN.

  That we'll do;
  Yet let us not exert ourselves in vain,
  And so--Let's hunt today.

  GISELHER.

  I will not go.

  GERENOT.

  Nor will I either.

  SIEGFRIED.

  You are young and brave,
  Yet follow not the chase, but bide at home?
  They would have had to tie me, and the cords
  I would have gnawed in two. Oh huntsman's joy!
  If one could only sing it!

  HAGEN.

  Wilt thou go?

  SIEGFRIED.

  Go!--Friend, I am so full of rage and wrath
  That I could quarrel now with any man,
  And so I long for bloodshed.

  HAGEN.

  And I too!



  SCENE XI

  _Enter_ KRIEMHILD.

  KRIEMHILD.

  You're going hunting?

  SIEGFRIED.

  Yes, and pray command
  What I shall bring thee.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Siegfried, stay at home!

  SIEGFRIED.

  My child, one thing thou canst not learn too soon,
  Thou must not beg a man to stay at home,
  But beg him: Take me too!

  KRIEMHILD.

  Then, may I go?

  HAGEN.

  That may not be!

  SIEGFRIED.

  Why not? She's not afraid!
  And surely she has often gone before.
  Bring falcons here! For she shall take the birds,
  And we the beasts. There'll be more pleasure so.

  HAGEN.

  One woman hides her shame within her room--
  Her rival rideth gaily to the hunt?
  'Twould look like taunting her.

  SIEGFRIED.

  I had not thought.
  Ah well, it may not be.
  KRIEMHILD. Then change again
  Thy garments!

  SIEGFRIED.

  Yet again? Thy every wish
  I'll follow, not thy fancies.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Thou'rt severe.

  SIEGFRIED.

  But let me go! The breeze will change my mood.
  Tomorrow night I'll make my peace with thee.

  HAGEN.

  Then come!

  SIEGFRIED.

  I will. But now my farewell kiss.

  [_He embraces_ KRIEMHILD.]

  Thou'lt not deny me? Thou'lt not say, tomorrow,
  As I do? Thou art noble.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Oh, come back!

  SIEGFRIED.

  But what a strange desire! What's wrong, I pray?
  I go a-hunting with my own good friends,
  And if the lofty mountains do not fall
  And bury us, we cannot suffer harm.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Alas! That is the very thing I dreamed.

  SIEGFRIED.

  My child, the hills stand firm.

  KRIEMHILD (_throws her arms around him once more_).

              Come back! Come back!

  [_Exeunt warriors_.]



  SCENE XII

  KRIEMHILD.

  Siegfried!

  SIEGFRIED (_appears once more_).

       What now?

  KRIEMHILD.

  If thou wouldst not be angry--

  HAGEN (_follows SIEGFRIED hastily_).

  Well, hast thou got thy spindle yet?

  SIEGFRIED (_to_ KRIEMHILD).

  Thou Nearest,
  The hounds can be no longer held in leash;
  What dost thou wish?

  HAGEN.

  Oh wait, pray, for thy flax!
  And spin it in the moonlight with the elves.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Now go! I longed to see thee once again!

      [HAGEN _and_ SIEGFRIED _go out_.]



  SCENE XIII

  KRIEMHILD.

  And should I call him to me ten times more
  I'd never find the heart to tell it him.
  How can we do what straightway we repent!


  SCENE XIV

  _Enter_ GERENOT _and_ GISELHER.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Are you not gone? The Lord hath sent them here!
  My dearest brothers, earnestly I beg
  Vouchsafe me my desire, though to you
  It seems but foolish. Go ye with my lord
  Where'er he goes, and keep behind his back.

  GERENOT.

  We are not going. We've no wish to go.

  KRIEMHILD.

  No wish to go!

  GISELHER.

  What say'st thou? We've no time!
  We've much to do before our men march forth.

  KRIEMHILD.

  And is all that intrusted to your youth?
  If I am dear to you, if you have not
  Forgotten that one mother nourished us,
  Ride after them.

  GISELHER.

  They're long since in the wood.

  GERENOT.

  And then thou hast one brother with him,
  now,

  KRIEMHILD.

  I beg of you!

  GISELHER.

  We must collect the arms,
  As thou shalt see.

  [_Starts to go_.]

  KRIEMHILD.

  Then tell me one thing more
  Is Hagen Siegfried's friend?

  GERENOT.

  Why not, I pray?

  KRIEMHILD.

  But has he ever praised him?

  GISELHER.

  It is praise
  If Hagen does not blame, and I've not heard
  That he found fault with Siegfried.

  [_Both leave_.]

  KRIEMHILD.

  Most of all
  This frightens me. They are not with my lord!



  SCENE XV

  _Enter_ FRIGGA.

  KRIEMHILD.

  How, nurse? Art seeking me?

  FRIGGA.

  I seek for none.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Then is there something wanted for the Queen?

  FRIGGA.

  There is not. She needs nothing.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Nothing still?
  But can she not forgive?

  FRIGGA.

  I do not know!
  She has had no occasion to forgive;
  She never was offended. I heard horns.
  Is there a hunt?

  KRIEMHILD.

  Hast thou then ordered it?

  FRIGGA.

  I--No!

   [_Exit_.]



  SCENE XVI

  KRIEMHILD.

  Oh, had I only told it him!
  Oh, my beloved, no woman host thou known,
  I see it now! Else nevermore hadst thou
  Unto a trembling girl who doth betray
  Herself through fear, intrusted such a secret.
  Still do I hear the playful whispered words
  With which thou told'st it to me when I praised
  The dragon's death. And then I made thee swear
  To tell no other soul in all the world,
  And now--Oh birds that circle overhead,
  Oh snow white doves that fly about me now,
  Take pity on me, warn him, fly to him!

  [_Exit_.]



  ACT V


  _Oden Forest_.



  SCENE I

  _Enter_ HAGEN, GUNTHER, VOLKER, DANKWART _and serving men_.

  HAGEN.

  This is the place. The spring is gushing forth,
  The bushes cover it. If I stand here,
  I can impale the man who stoops to drink
  Against the rock.

  GUNTHER.

  I've given no command.

  HAGEN.

  When thou hast taken thought thou wilt command.
  There is no other way, and there will come
  No second day like this one. Therefore speak,
  Or if thou wilt not speak, be still!

  (_To the serving men_.)

             Hello!
  'Tis here we rest!

  [_The serving men prepare a meal_.]

  GUNTHER.

  Thou'st always hated him.

  HAGEN.

  I'll not deny that gladly to this work
  I lend my hand, and I would surely meet
  In combat any man who came between
  My enemy and me, and yet the deed
  I hold not for that reason less than just.

  GUNTHER.

  And yet my brothers spoke against the deed
  And turned their backs upon us.

  HAGEN.

  Had they then
  The courage to warn him and hinder us?
  They must have felt that we are in the right,
  And it is but their youth that makes them shrink
  From blood that is not shed in open fight.

  GUNTHER.

  It must be so.

  HAGEN.

  Why he has bought off death
  And so ennobled murder.

  (_To the serving men_.)

  Sound the horns,
  And call the hunt together. For 'tis time
  That we should eat.

  [_The horns are blown_.]

  Now take things as they are
  And leave it all to me. If thou art not
  Offended, or forgivest what is past,
  So be it, yet forbid thy servant not
  To rescue and avenge thy noble wife!
  She will not break the solemn oath she swore.
  If she's deceived in her firm trust in us--Her
  confidence that we'll redeem the pledge--Then
  all the joy of life that once again,
  May be aroused within her youthful heart
  When shadows deepen and the end is near,
  Will be transformed into one dreadful curse,
  One final imprecation upon thee!

  GUNTHER.

  There still is time.



  SCENE II

  _Enter_ SIEGFRIED _with_ RUMOLT _and huntsmen_.

  SIEGFRIED.

  I'm here! And now ye hunters,
  Where are your spoils? Mine were to follow me
  Upon a wagon, but the wagon broke.

  HAGEN.

  A lion is the game I chase today,
  But I have failed to find one.

  SIEGFRIED.

  That I know,
  For I myself have killed him!--Food is spread.
  Sound trumpets in his praise who ordered that,
  For now we feel the need. Accursed ravens,
  Here too? Now blow your bugles till they burst!
  I've thrown near every kind of game I killed
  At this black flock; at last I threw a fox,
  But still they would not fly, and yet I hate
  Nothing so much in all the woodland green
  As that deep black--'tis like the devil's hue.
  The doves have never flocked around me so!
  Shall we stay here to pass the night?

  GUNTHER.

  We thought--

  SIEGFRIED.

  'Tis well, the choice is fitting, and there gapes
  A hollow tree. I'll take it for myself.
  For all my life have I been used to that,
  And I know nothing better than at night
  On soft dry wood to lay my weary head,
  And so to dream, half waking, half asleep,
  To count the passing hours by the birds
  That waken slowly, softly, one by one,
  Each singing in his turn. Then tick, tick, tick!
  Now it is two. Tock, tock, and one must stretch!
  Kiwitt, kiwitt! The sun is blinking now,
  And now its eyes are open. Chanticleer
  Bids all arise, lest they should sneeze.

  VOLKER.

  I know!
  It is as if Time wakened them himself,
  As in the dark he feels his way along,
  To beat the rhythm of his pace for him.
  In measured intervals, as from the glass
  Trickles the sand, and as the shadow long
  Creeps on the dial, so there follow now
  The mountain cock, the blackbird and the thrush,
  And none disturbs the other as by day,
  Nor coaxes him to warble ere his time.
  I've watched it oft myself.

  SIEGFRIED.

  I too.--My brother,
  Thou art not happy.

  GUNTHER.

  But I am!

  SIEGFRIED.

  Oh, no!
  I have seen people at a wedding feast,
  And following a bier, and so I know
  How different they look. Now let us do
  As strangers might, who'd never met before
  Until by accident within the wood
  They meet, and one has this, the other that,
  And so they put together all they have,
  And thus with joy receive and also give.
  'Tis well! For I bring meat of every kind,
  And I will give to you a mountain bull,
  Five boars and thirty, even forty stags,
  And pheasants too, as many as you will,
  Not mentioning the lion and the bear,
  All this for one small beaker of cool wine.

  DANKWART.

  Alas!

  SIEGFRIED.

  What's Wrong?

  HAGEN.

  The wine has been forgotten.

  SIEGFRIED.

  Yes, I'll believe it. That may well befall
  A hunter who is resting from the chase
  And has a red hot coal for his own tongue
  Inside his mouth. Well, I must seek myself,
  Although I cannot scent it like a, hound--
  But let it be--I'll never spoil your sport!

    [_He seeks._]

  There is none here, nor here! Where is the cask?
  I pray thee, minstrel, save me, else I'll lose
  The tongue that has till now been wagging so.

  HAGEN.

  And that may happen, for--there is no wine.

  SIEGFRIED.

  The devil and his fiends may take your hunt
  If I am not to have a hunter's fare!
  Whose duty was it to provide the drink?

  HAGEN.

  Mine! Yet I did not know where we should be,

  [Illustration: Schnorr von Carolsfeld KRIEMHILD FINDS THE SLAIN
  SIEGFRIED]

  And sent the wine to Spessart, where it seems
  There are no thirsty men.

  SIEGFRIED.

  Give thanks who will!
  But have we then no water? Must a man
  Be satisfied with evening dew, and lap
  The drops from off the leaves?

  HAGEN.

  But hold thy tongue!
  Thine ear will bring thee comfort!

  SIEGFRIED (_listens_).

  Hark, a spring!
  Oh welcome stream! 'Tis true I love thee more
  When thou, instead of welling from the stone
  So suddenly and rushing to my mouth,
  Thy winding way pursuest through the grape;
  For from thy journey many things thou bring'st,
  That fill our heads with foolish gaiety.
  Yet even so be praised.

  [_He goes to the spring._]

  Ah no! I must
  Do penance first and ye shall witness bear
  That I have done it. I'm the thirstiest man
  Among you all and I will drink the last,
  Because I was so harsh with poor Kriemhild.

  HAGEN.

  Then I'll begin.

  [_He goes to the spring._]

  SIEGFRIED (_to GUNTHER_).

  Pray look more cheerfully.
  I know a way to reconcile thy bride;
  Brunhilda's kisses shall ere long be thine.
  My joy I will forego as long as thou.

  HAGEN (_comes back and lays aside his weapons_).

  The weapons will impede me when I stoop.

  [_Retires again._]

  SIEGFRIED.

  Before the full assemblage of thy folk,
  Kriemhild will sue for pardon ere we go.
  This pledge was freely given, but she longs
  To leave and hide her blushes.

  HAGEN (_returns_).

  Cold as ice!

  SIEGFRIED.

  Who next?

  VOLKER.

  First let us eat.

  SIEGFRIED.

  'Tis well!
  [_He goes toward the spring but turns back again._]

  Ah yes!

  [_He lays aside his weapons. Exit._]

  HAGEN (_pointing to the weapons_).

  Away with them!

  DANKWART (_carries the weapons away_).

  HAGEN (_who has taken up his own weapons again and has
  meanwhile kept his back turned toward_ GUNTHER; _takes
  a running start and throws his spear_).

  SIEGFRIED (_cries out_).

  My friends!

  HAGEN (_exclaims_).

  Not quiet yet?

  (_To the others._)

  No word with him, whatever he may say!

  SIEGFRIED (_crawls forward_).

  Murdered--while I was drinking! Gunther, Gunther?
  Have I deserved this from thee? In thy need
  I stood by thee.

  HAGEN.

  Lop branches from the trees,
  We need a bier. Quick, choose the strongest limbs,
  For heavy is a dead man.

  SIEGFRIED.

  I am slain,
  But yet not wholly!

  [_He springs up._]

  Where then is my sword?
  They've taken it! Oh, by thy manhood, Hagen,
  Give the dead man a sword! I challenge thee
  E'en now to mortal combat!

  HAGEN.

  In his mouth
  He has his enemy, yet seeks him still.

  SIEGFRIED.

  My life drips from me like a candle spent,
  And e'en my sword this murderer denies,
  Though granting it would render him less vile.
  For shame! Such cowardice! He fears my thumb,
  For that is all that's left of me.

  [_He stumbles over his shield._]

  My shield!
  My faithful shield, I'll throw thee at the hound!

  [_He stoops over the shield, but cannot lift it, and rises
  unsteadily once more._]

  As if 'twere nailed there! E'en for this revenge
  'Tis now too late!

  HAGEN.

  Oh, if this chatterer
  Would maim his foolish tongue between his teeth
  Where it has sinned so long all unreproved--
  His idle tongue that is not silenced yet!--
  Then would he have revenge, for that alone
  Has brought him to this pass.

  SIEGFRIED.

  Thou liest! 'Twas
  Thine envy!

  HAGEN.

  Silence!

  SIEGFRIED.

  Threats for a dead man?
  Aimed I so true that thou dost fear me still?
  Then draw, for now I fall, and thou canst dare
  To spit upon me like a heap of dust,
  For here I lie--

  [_He falls to the ground._]

  And you are free from Siegfried!
  Yet know, the blow that slew him killed you too,
  For who will trust you? They will drive you forth
  As I had driven the Danes.

  HAGEN.

  This simpleton!
  He hath not grasped our trick!

  SIEGFRIED.

  Then 'tis not true?
  Oh, horrible, that men should lie like this!
  Ah well! You are alone in this! And folk
  Will always curse you too, whene'er they curse.
  They'll say: Toads, vipers and Burgundians!
  Nay you are first: Burgundians, vipers, toads.
  For all is lost to you--nobility
  And honor, fame and all, are lost with me!
  There is no bound nor limit now for crime,
  The arm indeed may pierce the heart, but when
  The heart is dead the arm is useless too.
  My wife! My poor, foreboding, tender wife--
  How wilt thou bear the blow! If Gunther's heart
  Still means to do one deed of faith and love,
  May he be kind to thee!--Yet rather go
  Unto my father!--Hearest thou, Kriemhild?

  [_He dies._]

  HAGEN.

  He's silent now. Small merit is in that!

  DANKWART.

  What shall we tell?

  HAGEN.

  Some stupid tale of thieves
  Who killed him in the forest. It is true
  None will believe it, yet I think that none
  Will call us liars. Once again we stand
  Where none will dare to call us to account;
  For we're like fire and water. Till the Rhine
  Seeks out some lie to justify its floods,
  And fire explains why it has broken forth,
  We need not fear accusers. Thou, my King,
  Gav'st no commands--thou should'st remember that!
  The blame is mine alone. Now bear him forth!

  [_Exeunt with the body._]



  SCENE III

  _KRIEMHILD'S room. Deep night._

  KRIEMHILD.

  'Tis far too early yet. It is my blood
  That wakened me, and not the cock I heard,
  Or seemed to hear.

  [_She goes to the window and opens it partly._]

                    The stars are shining still,
  It surely is an hour yet till mass.
  Today I long to go to church and pray.



  SCENE IV

  _Enter UTE softly._

  UTE.

  Already up, Kriemhild?

  KRIEMHILD.

  I am amazed
  That thou art up, for thou hast always slept
  More soundly after dawn and claimed thy right
  To have thy daughter wake thee, as thou her
  So long ago.

  UTE.

  Today I could not sleep,
  I heard strange sounds.

  KRIEMHILD.

  And didst thou mark them too?

  UTE.

  It was like people trying to be still.

  KRIEMHILD.

  So I was right?

  UTE.

  They seemed to hold their breath,
  Yet dropped a sword that clanged! On tiptoe walked,
  And yet upset the brazier! Hushed the dog,
  Yet trod upon his paw.

  KRIEMHILD.

  They have perhaps
  Returned.

  UTE.

  The hunters?

  KRIEMHILD.

  Once it seemed to me
  That some one softly crept up to my door.
  I thought it must be Siegfried.
  UTE. Didst thou make
  Some sign that thou wast wakeful?

  KRIEMHILD.

  No.

  UTE.

  Indeed
  It might then have been Siegfried, but 'twould be
  Almost too soon.

  KRIEMHILD.

  To me it seems so too!
  And then he did not knock.

  UTE.

  The hunt was not,
  Or so I think, to bring us game for food;
  They wanted our poor farmers to have peace,
  Who have been threatening to burn their ploughs
  Because the wild boar harvests where they sow!

  KRIEMHILD.

  Was that it?

  UTE.

  Child, thou art already dressed,
  Yet hast not any maid with thee?

  KRIEMHILD.

  I thought
  That I would learn who woke the first of all.
  Besides, it was a pastime.

  UTE.

  Each in turn,
  My candle in my hand, I gazed upon.
  For each year brings a different kind of sleep.
  Fifteen and sixteen sleep like five and six,
  But seventeen brings dreams, and eighteen, thoughts,
  And nineteen brings desires--



  SCENE V

  _A Chamberlain cries out before the door._

  CHAMBERLAIN.

  Almighty God!

  UTE.

  What is it? What is wrong?

  CHAMBERLAIN (_enters_).

  I almost fell.

  UTE.

  And that was why you called?

  CHAMBERLAIN.

  Some one is dead!

  UTE.

  What's that?

  CHAMBERLAIN.

  A dead man lying at the door!

  UTE.

  A dead man?

  KRIEMHILD (_falls_).

  Then 'tis Siegfried, 'tis my lord!

  UTE (_catches her in her arms_).

  Impossible!

      (_To the CHAMBERLAIN._)

              Bring light!

  [_CHAMBERLAIN brings a light and then nods his head._]

  UTE.

  'Tis Siegfried? Go!
  Awaken all!

  CHAMBERLAIN.

  Help, help!

  [_The maidens rush in._]

  UTE.

  O piteous wife!

  KRIEMHILD (_rising_).

  Brunhild commanded, Hagen did the deed!--
  A light!

  UTE.

  My child!

  KRIEMHILD (_seizes a torch_).

  'Tis he! I know, I know!
  Let no one tread on him; for thou didst hear
  The servants stumble over him.--The servants!
  Yet once great kings made way for him.

  UTE.

  The light!

  KRIEMHILD.

  I'll place it there myself.

  [_She opens the door and falls to the floor._]

                                         Oh Mother, Mother,
  Why didst thou bear thy child! Oh thou dear head,
  But let me kiss thee. I'll not seek thy mouth,
  For all to me is precious. Thou canst not
  Forbid me as thou would'st perhaps.--Thy lips--
  'Tis too much pain!

  CHAMBERLAIN.

  She's dying.

  UTE.

  I could wish
  That she might die!



  SCENE VI

  _Enter GUNTHER with DANKWART, RUMOLT, GISELHER and GERENOT._

  UTE (_approaching GUNTHER_).

  My son, what deed was this?

  GUNTHER.

  I fain would weep myself. Yet of his death
  You've heard already? By the holy words
  Of our good priest you were to learn of this.
  I went to tell him in the night.

  UTE (_with a motion of the head_).

  Thou see'st
  The dead man told his story for himself.

  GUNTHER (_aside to DANKWART_).

  But how was this?

  DANKWART.

  My brother bore him here!

  GUNTHER.

  For shame!

  DANKWART.

  From his intent he'd not desist,
  And when he came again he laughed and said:
  This is my gratitude for his farewell.



  SCENE VII

  _Enter the Chaplain._

  GUNTHER (_going to meet him_).

  Too late!

  CHAPLAIN.

  And such a man slain in the woods!

  DANKWART.

  The robber's spear was guided by blind chance,
  So that it struck the spot. In such a way
  A child may kill a giant.

  UTE (_still busying herself with the maidens over KRIEMHILD_).

                           Rise, Kriemhild!

  KRIEMHILD.

  Another parting? No, I'll cling to him,
  And to the grave together will we go,
  Or you must leave him here. But half my love
  I gave him living. Now that he is dead
  I know it. Were it the reverse! His eyes
  I never yet had kissed! All, all is new!
  We thought we'd time before us.

  UTE.

  Come my child!
  We cannot leave him lying in the dust.
  KRIEMHILD. Oh that is true! The costliest and rarest
  Today shall be as naught.

  [_She rises._]

                           Here, take the keys!

  [_She throws down keys._]

  There'll be no festivals again! The silk,
  The wondrous golden garments, and the linen--
  Bring everything. Be sure to gather flowers--
  He loved them so! And you must cut them all,
  Even the little buds that have not bloomed.
  For whom then should they blossom? Lay them all
  Within his coffin, then my bridal robes,
  And lay him softly down, and I'll do so,

      [_She stretches out her arms._]

  And I will be his covering!

  GUNTHER (_to his followers_).

  Your oath!
  Let no one harm her more.

  KRIEMHILD (_turns around_).

  The murderer's here?
  Away, for fear the blood should flow again!
  No! No! Come here!

  [_She lays hold of DANKWART._]

                    That Siegfried may bear witness!

  [_She wipes her hand on her dress._]

  Alas, alas! My right hand nevermore
  May dare to touch him. Does the blood gush forth?
  O Mother, look! I cannot! No? Then these
  But hide the deed. I seek the murderer.
  If Hagen Tronje's here, let him come forth!
  He is not guilty--I'll give him my hand.

  UTE.

  My child--

  KRIEMHILD.

  Now go and hear Brunhilda laugh.
  She's eating too, and drinking.

  UTE.

  It was robbers--

  KRIEMHILD.

  I know them well.

  [_She takes GISELHER and GERENOT by the hand._]

                            Thou wast not with them there!
  Thou didst not go!

  UTE.

  But hear me!

  RUMOLT.

  Through the wood
  We had been scattered; for it was his wish,
  And 'tis our custom too. We found him dying
  At our next meeting place.

  KRIEMHILD.

  You found him there?
  What did he say? A word! His dying word!
  I will believe thy tale, if thou canst tell,
  And if it is no curse. But oh, beware!
  For sooner would a rose bloom from thy mouth
  Than thou imagine what thou didst not hear.

  (_As RUMOLT hesitates._)

  It is a lie!

  CHAPLAIN.

  'Tis possible! I've heard
  A magpie dropped a knife that killed a man
  Who could not have been reached by human hands.
  And what a wingéd thief by chance could do
  Because his gleaming booty burdened him,
  A robber well might do.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Oh, holy father,
  Thou knowest not!

  DANKWART.

  Princess, thy grief is sacred,
  But yet unjust and blind. Our warriors here,
  Our noblest will bear witness--

  [_Meanwhile the door has been closed and the body is no longer
  visible._]

  KRIEMHILD (_who observes this_). Halt! Who dares--

  [_She hastens to the door._]

  UTE.

  Stop, stop! He was but gently lifted up
  As thou thyself would'st wish.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Oh, give him back!
  Else they will rob me, they will bury him
  Where I shall never find him!

  CHAPLAIN.

  To the church!
  I'll follow him, for now he's God's alone.

  [_Exit._]



  SCENE VIII

  KRIEMHILD.

  So be it! To the church!
      (_To GUNTHER._)

                                     'Twas robbers then?
  I bid thee gather all thy kindred there
  To try the test of murder.

  GUNTHER.

  Be it so.

  KRIEMHILD.

  But bring them one and all, for now I find
  That some are missing. Call the absent too!

  [_Exeunt omnes; the men and women by
  different doors._]




  SCENE IX

   _In the cathedral. Torches. The Chaplain with other priests is at one
  side before an iron door. At the main entrance of the cathedral about
  sixty of_ HAGEN's _kindred are assembled. Finally_ HAGEN, GUNTHER _and
  the others. Knocking is heard._

  CHAPLAIN.

  Who knocks

  VOICE FROM WITHOUT.

  A great king from the Netherlands
  Whose crowns are as the fingers on his hands.

  CHAPLAIN.

  I know him not.

  [_The knocking is repeated._]


                             Who knocks?

  VOICE FROM WITHOUT.

  A warrior brave,
  Whose trophies are as many as his teeth.

  CHAPLAIN.

  I know him not.

  [_The knocking is repeated._]

                            Who knocks?

  VOICE FROM WITHOUT.

  Thy brother Siegfried,
  Whose sins are as the hairs upon his head.

  CHAPLAIN.

  Then open!

  [_The door is opened and_ SIEGFRIED's _body
  is brought in on the bier._ KRIEMHILD _and_
  UTE _with their maidens follow him._]

  CHAPLAIN (_turning toward the bier_).

                        Thou art welcome, my dead brother,
  For peace thou seekest here!
  [_To the women whom he keeps away from
  the coffin by coming between them and it,
  while it is being set down._]

                                    Be welcome too,
  If you are seeking peace as Siegfried is.

  [_He holds up the cross before KRIEMHILD._]

  Thou turn'st away from this most holy cross?

  KRIEMHILD.

  I come to ask for justice and for truth.

  CHAPLAIN.

  Thou seekest vengeance, and the Lord hath said,
  Vengeance is mine. It is the Lord alone
  Who sees what's hidden. He alone requites.

  KRIEMHILD.

  I am a woman, weak, half crushed to earth;
  No warrior can I strangle with my hair.
  What vengeance then is left for me, I pray?

  CHAPLAIN.

  Why should'st thou search to find thine enemy,
  Unless thou seek'st on him to take revenge?
  His Judge knows all, and is not that enough?

  KRIEMHILD.

  I do not want to curse the innocent.

  CHAPLAIN.

  Then curse thou no man, and 'twill not befall!--
  Thou poor frail child created but from dust
  And ashes, with no strength to breast the wind,
  Thy burden's great, well may'st thou cry to heaven,
  Yet gaze on Him who bore a greater still!
  In humblest guise He came upon the earth,
  And took upon Himself the sins of men,
  And suffered for atonement all the griefs
  That ever there have been throughout all time--
  The griefs that follow fallen mortals still.
  He suffered in thy sorrow more than thou!
  And heavenly power flowed from out His lips
  And all the angels floated round his head,
  But Jesus Christ was faithful unto death--
  Unto His shameful death upon the cross.
  This sacrifice He brought thee in his love,
  In pity that we may not comprehend.
  Wilt thou deny thine offering to Him?
  Then let them bury him! And turn thou back!

  KRIEMHILD.

  Thy work is done, and I will now do mine!

  [_She goes and stands at the head of the
  coffin._]

  Approach the bier, the dread ordeal begins!

  CHAPLAIN (_goes also to the coffin and stands at the foot.
  Three trumpet blasts are heard_).

  HAGEN (_to GUNTHER_).


  What then has happened?

  GUNTHER.

  Murder has been done.

  HAGEN.

  Why stand I here?

  GUNTHER.

  Suspicion rests on thee.

  HAGEN.

  My kin are gathered here. Of my fair name
  I'll question them.--Are ye prepared to swear
  That Hagen Tronje is no murderer?

  ALL EXCEPT GISELHER.

  We are prepared.

  HAGEN.

  Thou'rt silent, Giselher?
  Wilt thou not for thine uncle take thine oath
  That Hagen Tronje is no murderer?

  GISELHER (_raising his hand_).

  I am prepared.

  HAGEN.

  Ye need not take the oath.

  [_He goes forward to_ KRIEMHILD _in the
  cathedral._]

  Thou see'st, my kin will clear me when I will,
  'Tis needless that I now approach the bier,
  Yet will I stand there and will be the first!

  [_He walks slowly to the bier._]

  UTE.

  Oh Kriemhild, do not look.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Perchance he lives!
  My Siegfried! Had he strength to speak one word
  Or gaze but once upon me!

  UTE.

   My poor child,
  It is but nature, moving once again.
  Ghastly enough!

  CHAPLAIN.

  It is the hand of God,
  That softly stirs once more these sacred springs
  Because He must inscribe the sign of Cain.

  HAGEN (_bending over the coffin_).

  The scarlet blood! I ne'er believed the sign!
  But now I see it here with mine own eyes.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Yet thou canst stand and gaze?

  [_She springs toward him._]

                                          Away, thou fiend!
  Who knows but every drop of blood gives pain,
  That thy foul, murderous presence draws from him!

  HAGEN.

  Fair Kriemhild, if a dead man's blood still boils,
  Why may not mine? I am a living man.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Away! Away! I'd seize thee with my hands,
  Had I but some one who would back them off
  And cast them from me that I might be clean--
  For washing would not cleanse them, even if
  I dipped them in thy blood. Away! Away!
  So stood'st thou not to deal the deadly blow,
  Thy wolfish eyes fixed on him steadily,
  With fiendish grin disclosing thy intent
  Before the time! But slyly didst thou creep
  Behind him, ever shrinking from his gaze,
  As wild beasts do that fear the human eye,
  And peered to find the spot, that I--Thou dog,
  What was thine oath to me?

  HAGEN.

  To shelter him
  From fire and water.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Not from human foes?

  HAGEN.

  That too, and I'd have done it.

  KRIEMHILD.

  Thou didst mean
  To murder him thyself?

  HAGEN.

  To punish him!

  KRIEMHILD.

  Was murder ever called a punishment
  Since heaven and earth began?
  HAGEN. I'd challenged him
  To mortal combat, thou may'st take my word,
  But none might tell the hero from the dragon,
  And dragons must be killed. So proud a knight,
  Why did he hide him in the dragon's skin!

  KRIEMHILD.

  The dragon's skin! He had to slay him first,
  And with the dragon slew he all the world!
  The forest depths with all their monstrous beasts,
  And every warrior that had feared to slay
  The dreadful dragon, Hagen with the rest!
  Thy slander cannot harm him. But the dart
  Thine envy borrowed from thy wickedness.
  And folk will tell of his nobility
  As long as men still dwell upon the earth,
  And just so long they'll tell thy tale of shame.

  HAGEN.

  So be it then!

  [_He takes_ SIEGFRIED'S _sword, Balmung, from
  beside the body._]

                        And now 'twill never end!

  [_He girds on the sword and walks slowly
  back to his kindred._]

  KRIEMHILD.

  To murder foul is added robbery!

  (_To_ GUNTHER.)

  A judgment, Gunther! Judgment I demand.

  CHAPLAIN.

  Remember Him who on the cross forgave!

  KRIEMHILD.

  A judgment! If the king denies it me,
  The blood of Siegfried stains his mantle too.

  UTE. Cease, Kriemhild! Thou wilt ruin thy whole house!

  KRIEMHILD.

  So be it! For the measure's over full!

  [_She turns toward_ SIEGFRIED'S _body and falls upon the bier._]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Siegfried's wonderful sword is named Balmung.]

[Footnote 2: The reference is to a passage in the _Chanson de Roland_.
Roland was in command of a rear guard and was warned of the approach of
a large force of Saracens. His comrade Oliver begged him to sound his
horn and summon Charlemagne and his forces. Roland would not blow the
horn until nearly all his men were slain. At last, however, the Saracens
learned of Charlemagne's approach and fled. Roland then blew his horn
once more and died alone on the field as he heard Charlemagne's battle
cry.--TRANSLATOR.]

[Footnote 3: Balmung is the name of Siegfried's magical sword.]

[Footnote 4: The Mandrake is a plant growing in the Mediterranean region
and belonging to the potato family. It was early famed for its poisonous
and narcotic qualities. Love philtres were also made from its roots, and
an old High German story tells of little images made from the root, thus
endowed with the power of prophecy and respected as oracles. Probably
Hebbel refers to the German tradition, as he is speaking of the dwarfs
who are both small and wise. The German name of the plant is
_Alraune_.--TRANSLATOR.]

[Footnote 5: The translator finds that authorities and versions of the
tale differ as to Siegfried's _"Kappe."_ In Maurice Grau's
Götterdaemmerung libretto it is called in the English translation
"Tarnhelm," and Siegfried hangs it to his belt when not in use. Dippold
in his account of the Nibelung tale speaks of the _Tarn kappe_ or magic
_cap_ of darkness which _renders the wearer invisible._ But the
_Encyclopaedia Britannica_ speaks of the "cape of darkness" and Heath's
_Dictionary_ gives cap first, but calls _Tarn kappe_ "hiding cape." In
either case invisibility was obtained.--TRANSLATOR.]




ANNA (1836)

BY FRIEDRICH HEBBEL

TRANSLATED BY FRANCES H. KING

  "Mild the air, and heaven blue,
  Fragrant flowers full of dew,
  And at even dance and play,
  That is quite too much, I say."

Anna, the young servant maid, was gaily singing this song one bright
Sunday morning, while busily engaged in washing up the kitchen and dairy
crockery. At that moment Baron Eichenthal, in whose service she had been
for the last six months, passed by, wearing a green damask
dressing-gown. He was a decrepit young man, full of spleen and whims.
"What's the meaning of this yodelling!" he demanded haughtily, pausing
in front of her--"You know that I cannot bear frivolity."

Anna blushed violently: she remembered that her severe master would have
been very pleased to find her frivolous a few evenings ago in the
summerhouse. A sharp retort was on the tip of her tongue, but forcibly
suppressing it, she started to take up a white porcelain soup-tureen,
and, in a violent struggle with her natural fearlessness, let it fall to
the ground. The valuable dish broke and the Baron, who had already taken
a few steps forward, turned around, his face flaming with anger.

"What!" he exclaimed loudly, and strode up to the girl, "would you cool
your temper on my mother's kitchen crockery, you little sneak, because
your stubborn spirit will not allow you to accept a well-merited reproof
quietly, as becomes you?" And with that, scolding and storming, he gave
her, right and left, box after box on the ear, while she, stunned, gazed
at him, like a child, bereft of speech, indeed almost of her senses,
still holding the handle of the tureen in one hand, and involuntarily
pressing the other against her breast.

She was first aroused from this state, which bordered on a swoon, by the
mocking laughter of the chamber-maid Frederika, who, more easy going
than she, gladly allowed the Baron to trifle wantonly with her and pinch
her cheeks or play with her curls. The insolent wench looked at her
derisively, and called out, "That will give you a good appetite for the
kermess, Miss Prude."

The Baron, however, laughed loudly and placing his arms akimbo, said:
"You might just as well give up all desire for dance and play; I
withdraw the permission accorded by my mother, you shall take care of
the house. Is there nothing then for her to do today?" he continued,
talking to himself. Frederika whispered something to him. "Right," he
shouted, "she shall comb the flax until late at night; do you hear?"
Anna, completely bewildered, nodded her head, and then sank down
powerless on her knees; at the same time, however, she instinctively
snatched up a brass utensil, and, while the hot, uncontrollable tears
overflowed her eyes, she began to scour it bright.

The gardener had witnessed the foregoing scene from a distance. Fresh
and blooming as she was, he had long pursued her with attentions, but in
vain; coming up at that moment, he greeted her and asked maliciously how
she was? "Oh, oh," she moaned, quivering spasmodically, and springing,
up she clutched at the sneering fellow's breast and face.

"Madwoman," he cried, growing frightened, and, defending himself with
all his masculine strength, pushed her away. She stared after him with
wide-open eyes as though not realizing what she had done; then, as if
coming to her senses, returned to her work, which she continued without
interruption, except at times unconsciously heaving a loud sigh, until
at midday she was called to the kitchen to dinner. Here nothing but
faces expressing malicious joy at her discomfiture awaited her, and more
or less suppressed laughter and tittering, which grew stronger and more
pitiless as she continued to gaze down at her plate with burning cheeks,
and replied not a word to the volley of allusions.

The maids, already partly decked out in their finery, exchanged
bantering remarks, bearing unmistakable reference to her, on the score
of the lovers whom they had found, or hoped to find, and the flat-nosed
scullion, encouraged to commit the impertinence by the winks of the head
farm-hand and the coachman, asked Anna if he might not borrow her
red-flowered apron and the hat with the gay-colored ribbons that
Frederick, the Major's man, had given her at Christmas. She would
certainly not need these things in the flax-room, he said, and he hoped
by means of them to win the good graces of a girl who had no finery.

"Boy," she cried with white trembling lips, "I'll not cook you any milk
soup another time when you are sick in bed, and no one bothers himself
about you!" and shoving back her plate, she snatched up the empty
water-pails, which it was her duty to fill afresh at the well, and went
out.

"Fie," said John, an old servant, who, having grown gray in the service
of his lordship's father, was now eating the bread of charity in the
house of Baron Eichenthal. "It is wrong to spoil the wench's food and
drink with bitter words."

"Pshaw!" retorted the gardener, "it will not hurt her. Since that
lean-bodied toady, Frederick, has been running after her, she's as
proud as though she had angled a nobleman!"

"Pride comes before a fall!" said Lizzie, the buxom little cook, with a
tender glance at the phlegmatic head farm-hand. "Do you know that she
laces?"

"Why shouldn't she be proud," interjected the coachman, "isn't she the
schoolmaster's daughter!"

Frederika, the chambermaid, came into the kitchen with a heated face.
"Isn't Anna here?" she asked, drying her forehead with her silk
handkerchief. "The master has just gone to bed, he joked a good
deal"--here she coughed, as the others cast significant glances at one
another and laughed--"and I am to tell her that she is to begin combing
the flax right away, and"--this she added on her own authority--"she
must not stop work until ten o'clock."

"I'll give her the message, Rika!" answered Lizzie. Frederika tripped
out again.

"Doesn't she lace too?" asked the head farm-hand.

"Chut! Chut!" whispered John, and jingled his fork against his plate in
embarrassment. Anna entered the kitchen with her load of water.

"Anna," began Lizzie officiously, "I am to tell you--"

"I know all about it already," answered Anna drily, in a steady voice.
"I met the messenger. Where is the key to the flax-room hanging?"

"Over there on the nail!" replied the cook, and pointed with her finger
to the place.

Anna, composed, because inwardly crushed, took the key, and while the
others went off to their trunks in order to complete their toilet before
a three groschen mirror, she went hastily into the flax-room, the
windows of which looked out upon the castle courtyard and the high-road.
She sat down, her face turned toward the windows so that she could see
all the merry-makers on their way from the village to the kermess and
hear their gay talk. She began to work with gloomy industry. Although at
times she unconsciously sank into a fit of brooding, she would
immediately start up again terrified, as though bitten by a snake or
tarantula, and continue her labor with increased, indeed, with unnatural
zeal. Only once during the entire long afternoon did she get up from her
low, hard, wooden stool, and that was when her fellow servants drove
quickly down the castle yard in comfortable rack wagons drawn by fast
horses. But with a loud laugh, as though in self-derision, she sat down
again, and, although she grew so thirsty in all the heat and dust that
her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, she did not even drink the
coffee that old Bridget, who on an occasion like this of today used to
take care of the house for the maids, compassionately brought her toward
four or five o'clock.

When night gradually came on she went into the kitchen, without
smoothing back the locks of hair that hung wildly about her face. Making
no answer to Bridget's friendly invitation to remain there and share
with her a tempting dish of baked potatoes, she took a candle out of the
candle box, and holding her hand over it to protect it against the
draught, went back into the flax-room. It was not long before there was
a knock at the window, and when she had opened the door Frederick
entered hastily, dripping with perspiration.

"I must see what is the matter," he said, almost breathless and tearing
open his waist-coat, "they are whispering all kinds of things."

"You see!" answered Anna quickly, then stopped short and arranged her
bodice, which had been pushed somewhat awry.

"Your master is a scoundrel!" blustered Frederick, gnashing his teeth.

"Yes, yes!" said Anna.

"I should like to meet him up there on the cliff," cried Frederick, "oh,
it's abominable!"

"How hot you are," said Anna, gently taking his hand. "Have you been
dancing already?"

"I have been drinking wine, five or six glasses," rejoined Frederick.
"Come, Anna, dress yourself, you shall go with me in spite of every
devil who tries to interfere."

"No, no, no!" said Anna.

"But I say yes," Frederick flared out in a passion, and put his arm
around her waist, "I say yes!"

"Most certainly not!" Anna answered softly, embracing him
affectionately.


KRIEMHILD ACCUSES HAGEN OF THE MURDER OF SIEGFRIED

_From the painting by Schnorr von Carolsfeld_ [Illustration]

"You shall, I wish it," cried Frederick, releasing her.

Anna, without making any answer, took up the flax-comb and looked down
on the ground before her.

"Will you, or will you not?" persisted
Frederick, and stepped right in front of her.

"How could I?" returned Anna, looking confidingly in his eyes, and
laying her hand on her heart.

"Very well," cried Frederick. "You
will not. God damn me if I ever see you again!" He rushed out like a mad
man.

"Frederick," cried Anna after him, "Do stay, stay a moment, listen how
the wind is howling."

She was starting to hurry after him when her dress brushed against the
candle placed low down on an oak-block; it fell over and set fire to the
flax which burst at once into powerful flames. Frederick, crazed with
wine and anger, forced himself, as usually happens in such moments, to
sing a song as he strode out into the night, which had turned out to be
very stormy. The familiar tones, in wild hilarity, penetrated to where
Anna was. "Oh! oh!" she sighed from the depth of her heart. Then for the
first time she noticed that half of the room was already on fire.
Beating with her hands and stamping with her feet she threw herself upon
the greedy flames which, hot and burning, leaped toward her and scorched
her. Frederick's voice died away in the distance in a last halloo.
"Pshaw, why should I put it out, let it be!" she cried, and slamming the
door behind her with all her might, she hurried out with a horrible
laugh, involuntarily following the same path through the garden that
Frederick had taken.

Soon, however, she sank down, exhausted, almost fainting, in a meadow
which adjoined the garden, and groaning aloud pressed her face into the
cold, wet grass. Thus she lay for a long time.

Then from far and near the fire and alarm bells sounded, hollow and
terrifying. She half raised herself, but did not look around. Above her
the sky was blood-red and full of sparks; an unnatural heat was
spreading, and increasing from minute to minute. The wind howled and
roared, the flames crackled, wails and shouts resounded. She lay down
again at full length on the ground, and it seemed to her as though she
could sleep. But the next moment she was frightened out of this
death-like state by the words of two people hurrying past her, one of
whom cried out, "Lord have mercy on us! the village is already burning!"
She pulled herself together then with a superhuman effort, and hurried,
with flying hair, down to the village, which adjoined the burning side
of the castle. There, in more than one place the inflammable straw roofs
had already burst into flame.

The wind grew stronger and stronger. Most of the inhabitants, with the
exception of the children and decrepit old people, were more than four
miles away at the kermess. Had the necessary men been on the spot the
miserable fire apparatus could have offered only a vain resistance to
the league of the two dread elements. Since the summer had been
unusually dry, even water was lacking.

Distress, danger, confusion, increased every minute. A little boy ran
about crying, "O God, O God, my little sister!" And when he was asked,
"Where is your sister?" he repeated his horrifying cry, as though,
incapable of every intelligent thought, he had not understood the
question.

One old woman had to be forcibly dragged from her house. "My hen," she
moaned, "my poor little hen!" And indeed it was touching to see how the
little creature fluttered terrified from one corner to the other in the
suffocating smoke, and yet, because in better days it was probably
accustomed not to cross the threshold, it would not allow itself to be
driven through the open door into the air, even by its mistress.

Anna, weeping, screaming, beating her breast, and then again laughing,
rushed into every kind of danger with the reckless daring of despair.
She rescued, extinguished, and was an object at once of surprise,
admiration, and uncanny mystery to all the others. At last they
despaired of being able even to arrest the fire, which, continuing to
spread, threatened to reduce the whole village to ashes. It was then
that they saw her sink down on her knees in a burning house and gaze up
to Heaven, wringing her hands.

The pastor called out, "For God's sake, rescue the heroic girl, the
roof is falling in!" Anna, still on her knees, hearing his words,
stuck out her tongue at him with a gesture of violent abhorrence, and
laughed crazily. At this moment Frederick appeared. Hardly had he
perceived the terrible danger in which she was placed than, growing
deathly pale, he rushed toward the house which seemed about to
collapse. She, however, noticing him at once, sprang up terrified and
cried, "Don't, Frederick, don't; I, I am guilty, there--there." She
pointed with her hand to the place where the castle lay, and, in order
to make any rescue impossible, hurried up the already burning ladder,
which led to the garret of the house. The ladder, too far consumed by
the fire, broke under her, and at the same moment the roof fell in,
forming a wall of flame. They heard one more piercing cry; then there
was silence.

Baron Eichenthal arrived. As soon as Frederick caught sight of him he
rushed up to him and before the Baron could defend himself kicked him in
the abdomen, so that he fell over backward to the ground; then Frederick
quietly gave himself up to the peasants, who at the order of the justice
of the peace were trying to overpower him.

When the Baron learned next morning what had happened to Anna, he
ordered them to search for her bones among the ashes and to bury them in
the potter's field. This was done.




ON THEODOR KÖRNER AND HEINRICH VON
KLEIST (1835)

By FRIEDRICH HEBBEL
TRANSLATED BY FRANCES H. KING


Not only in the history of the world but in the history of literature as
well, we meet with strange aberrations on the part of entire epochs in
their estimate of individual men, rightly or wrongly raised above their
environment. Exactly what the age happens to demand, what fits in with
its restless activity, that is what it rewards and values. We cannot
deny, indeed, that every generation has the right to require the poet,
as well as its other sons, to consult its needs so far as possible. But
it is seldom satisfied with this; he must confer his benefits in the
most agreeable way, and whether or not he is weak enough to humor it in
this, determines, as a rule, whether it will take him fondly in its
arms, or will crush him. These reflections were recently aroused in me
when a volume of Heinrich von Kleist's writings came into my possession
together with a volume of Theodor Körner's works, and I trust that the
Scientific Society will not consider them too unimportant to be
developed in some detail.

In the two poets named we see two remarkable examples of the
above-mentioned aberration of an entire epoch. While the first of the
two, Heinrich von Kleist, possesses all the qualities that go to make up
the great poet and at the same time the true German, the other, Theodor
Körner, has only enthusiasm for those qualities; but while Kleist
refuses to forget his own dignity in the interests of the times, and
finally strives to unite these interests with the highest mission of
art, Körner prefers to throw himself submissively into the vortex. For
this reason Kleist was maligned, ignored, and misjudged during his
lifetime, scorned at his death, and forgotten by immediate posterity,
whereas Körner was enthusiastically received and applauded, and when he
descended into his early grave, was mourned by the whole world. I would
gladly pass by his grave in silence, and leave him the laurels which he
purchased with his death; but I see no reason why he should swell the
number of our fathers' sins, and should neglect an act of justice, which
will, in any case, be performed some day by our grandchildren, and then
perhaps with a smile of pity for us.

Before we go farther it will be necessary to establish, so far as
possible, certain conceptions of art in general, and of the branches of
art cultivated by Körner and Kleist. I purposely say "so far as
possible;" for it would not be easy to expound a complete conception of
art before one set forth a complete conception of the human soul, of
which art might be called the most comprehensive phenomenon. We must
therefore infer this conception from the effects of art, so far as they
appear; but as these effects are infinite the conception may be
something very different from a barrier erected for the purpose of a
mere provisional designation, which ceases to exist the moment that it
pleases genius to overstep it. We find this possibility confirmed when
we examine how the conception in question has changed in German
literature alone, during the various epochs of its relatively short
history.

In the day of Gessner, Bodmer, and the like, who saw a muse in every
sheep and every herdsman, the imitation of nature was the gospel in
which every one believed. This, at best, meant nothing at all, and
closely analyzed, it is half nonsensical, in so far as this definition
presupposes art to be something that exists outside the domain of
nature. But man belongs within the domain of nature; he must be
included within this domain, and at most can complete or enlarge it;
and for this reason alone art can never imitate a whole of which it is
a part.

Hereupon men went a step farther, and defined art as "imitation of the
beautiful." We should have less cause to object to this definition if
the question on which everything depends in this case had not been left
unanswered; if they had not left undecided what it was they meant by
"imitation of the beautiful." They were indeed very soon ready with an
explanation, calling that "beautiful" which reveals an agreeable unity
in variety. Unfortunately they could not prevail upon themselves to
grant the proposition: "All is beautiful or nothing," which follows
immediately from the first; for they had overlooked the fact that the
word "agreeable" was superfluous, since every unity, because it gives a
clear impression and permits us to look into the unviolated order of
nature, appeals to us "agreeably"--I must use this word because it
expresses _the least badly_ the feeling which I would describe. Now,
however, in spite of all reluctance, they had to acknowledge that in the
domain of art there were many phenomena in which no such narrow-minded
imitation of the beautiful, as was demanded, could be shown to exist,
but which nevertheless could not be denied recognition. It was truly
remarkable how they tried to find an escape from this dilemma. They
admitted that ugliness could sometimes form an ingredient in a work of
art, by which means it became possible for the artist to arouse certain
mixed sensations in default of purely agreeable sensations. Mark well,
"in default of purely agreeable sensations!" As though the incapacity or
the momentary embarrassment of the artist, and the inadequacy of a
chosen subject, could do away with a law of art once recognized as
supreme. It is just as though the political law-giver should modify the
prohibition of stealing by the clause: "if, namely, thou canst earn
something in an honest manner." Striking it is, that even Lessing should
cling to such definitions and employ all his ingenuity to prove their
tenableness. It goes to show that the taste of a nation never--as may
very well be imagined--precedes the genius, but always limps along
behind him. Still more striking it is that they could feel the
inadequacy of the accepted definition, that they could come so near to
the real remedy, and yet could overlook it. It seems to me, namely, that
everything could have been adjusted, if they had made the same demands
on the artist's work that they made on the subject chosen by him. This
is so plain that it needs no demonstration.

If I should be asked to state my conception of art--it is understood
that here, as elsewhere, that only the art of poetry is in question--I
would base it on the unconditional freedom of the artist, and say: Art
should seize upon life in all its various forms, and represent it. It is
obvious that this cannot be accomplished by mere copying. The artist
must afford life something more than a morgue, where it is prepared for
burial. We wish to see the point from which life starts and the one
where it loses itself, as a single wave, in the great sea of infinite,
effect. That this effect is a twofold one, and that it can turn inward
as well as outward, is of course self-evident. For the rest--be it said
incidentally--here is the point from which a parallel can be drawn
between the phenomena of real life and those of life embodied in art.

I will now review the separate branches of art at which Körner and
Kleist have tried their hand. We find that they are lyric poetry, drama,
and narrative. All three have to do with the representation of life, and
if a division can be made it can only be based upon the various ways in
which life is wont to manifest itself. Life manifests itself either as a
reaction upon outward impressions, or lacking these, directly from
within. When it works directly from within, we usually designate the
form under which it appears as feeling. Feeling is the element of lyric
poetry; the art of limiting and representing it makes the lyric poet.
Let no one object that there are feelings enough which arise in
consequence of outward impressions, and that these too have been
expressed sufficiently often by the poets; I am very much inclined to
distinguish between the results of these impressions and the feelings
which well up from the depths of the soul in consecrated moments; and in
any case, these alone are a worthy subject for the lyric poet; for only
in them does the whole man actually live, they only are the product of
his whole being. I hate examples because they are either make-shifts or
will-o'-the-wisps, but here I must add that in Uhland's song, "A short
while hence I dreamed," I find such a feeling expressed.

The drama represents the thought which seeks to become a deed through
action or suffering. The narrative is really not a pure form, but a
combination of the lyric and dramatic elements,--a combination which
differs from the drama in that it develops the outer life from the
inner, whereas in the drama the inner proceeds from the outer.

Let us now examine what Theodor Körner and Heinrich von Kleist have
accomplished, in the first place, as lyric poets. Kleist (unhappily) has
left us very little in this field, Körner (again unhappily) all the
more. Körner's war-songs have, in this stage of our investigation, the
precedence over his other lyric productions, for two reasons: in the
first place, they found the largest public and earned for their author,
beside the royalties, the title of a German Tyrtaeus; and in the second
place, Theodor Körner's soul was most ardently engrossed with the
supposed and the real sufferings of his time, with the dignity and the
misfortune of his people, and with the necessity and sacredness of the
war. Let no one scent any bombast in all this, but, on the contrary, let
him admire my cleverness in condensing into three lines, everything that
Theodor Körner expressed in a whole volume, in _Lyre and Sword_! If,
therefore, his war-songs are bad, we shall be justified in concluding
that we need expect still less from his other poems, in which he is
concerned with sentiments which certainly affected him more slightly
than those which placed the sword in his hand. I turn over the index of
his war-songs, and find _Call to the German Nation, Before the Battle,
Germany_,--in short, titles that all point to material very often
handled, and therefore grown trivial. I do not, indeed, immediately
conclude therefrom that the poems are trivial, but I have the right to
conclude that the man who attempts such worn out subjects must be either
a very great or a very small poet. May I be permitted to analyze one of
these poems? I will choose, as the most significant, the well known
_Battle Song of the Confederation_. In this poem the poet has striven
to collect everything that could serve to make the soldiers who were to
take part in the battle of Danneberg more indifferent to the bullets. I
should not, however, have liked to advise the commanding general
actually to use it for this purpose. Mr. Körner quite forgets with what
sort of people he is dealing when, in the third strophe, he expects the
soldiers to let themselves be slaughtered for German art and German
song. This is more than a joke, for I have the right to demand that a
_Battle-Song_ of the Confederation shall be comprehensible and
intelligible to all who are to take part in the battle; and art and song
are, in any case, not important enough to be named together with the
causes that made the fighting of a battle necessary, together with the
enslavement of a people; quite apart from the fact that both, art and
song, belong to those national treasures which are most secure in the
time of hostile invasion. But in order not to give my logic a bad
reputation, I will begin at the beginning. Mr. Körner not only began
there but even ended there--this in parenthesis. The first strophe aims
to give the picture of a battle; but it is fortunate that we already
know, from the superscription, with what battle we are concerned; we
should scarcely find it out from this first strophe, which finishes, but
does not complete the picture. In the second strophe we learn rather
more; we learn that the beloved German oak is broken, that the
language--thank God, not the women--has been violated, and we find it
quite natural that revenge should blaze up at last, even though we
cannot escape a slight feeling of surprise that dishonor, shame and such
like, already lay _behind_ those heroes, and therefore had been endured.
We have already tasted of the sweets of the third strophe; in spite of
this, we see there is a great deal still remaining in this strophe, a
happy hope, a golden future, a whole heaven, etc., etc.--it must be the
fault of my eyes that, notwithstanding, I can see nothing at all in it.
In the fourth strophe courage comes along on regular seven league boots,
and I wish the critic had as much reason to be satisfied with its
contents, as had the Fatherland, to which a splendid vow is sworn
therein. The fifth strophe contains a real human sentiment; it might
exclaim with Falstaff, "Heaven send me better company!" In the sixth
strophe we learn that the poet was not blustering in the fourth strophe,
but that the fighting is really going to begin: at the same time it
contains the principal beauty of the song, namely the end. Now, I ask,
apart from the school-boyish, crude composition of the poem, which
throws suspicion merely on the taste, not precisely on the power, of a
poet--where is even the faintest tinge of poetry? And the muse was a
battle!

We have finished, then, with the poetic part of this poem; it now
remains to investigate in how far it is a real German product, that is
to say, such an one as could have been produced only on German soil by a
German. Every one will find that it might very easily have been written
by some person from the Sultan's seraglio, and used by any people who
found themselves in a like situation. Even the French, although it is
directed against them, could gain inspiration from it, if their good
taste did not preserve them from doing so. Let no one throw the German
oaks (strophe four) in my way; I must stumble along over whole oak
trees.

Let us now compare with Körner's _Battle-Song of the Confederation_,
Kleist's poem _To Germany_, as I believe it is called. I am glad that I
am not able to characterize the separate strophes of _this_ poem; they
are, what the divisions of a poem should be, nothing, when they are
detached from the whole. "Germans," exclaims the poet--"Your forests
have long been cleared, serpents and foxes ye have destroyed, only the
Frenchman I still see slinking!" This is a folk song; the vast, the
great, is associated with the simplest and most familiar objects, and
the figures chosen are not only beautiful, but at the same time
inevitable.

I will pass on to consider the achievements of Körner and Heinrich von
Kleist in the field of the drama. In this both have been very active,
but in order to avoid boredom for a time at least, I shall begin with
the analysis of a piece by Kleist, choosing first a tragedy, his _Prince
of Homburg_ which, to be sure, is entitled simply "a drama" by its
author. I do not know whether he did this because of the circumstances
that the Prince, as the hero of the piece, happily escapes with his
life, or, what is more likely, in order to humor the public, who think
the tragic can only exist where there are rivers of blood; neither will
I censure it, but only call attention to the fact that in my opinion
that which makes a tragedy lies only in the _struggle_ of the
individual, never in the outcome of this struggle. The outcome is in the
hands of the gods, says an old proverb, well then, acts of the gods--as
events may very well be called which are the effects of fate--can never
be anything else for the dramatic poet than what curtain and wings are
for the stage; they limit without completing. I defined drama, above, as
a representation of the thought which seeks to become a deed through
action or suffering. What this thought may be like--upon that very
little depends; but that it really should be there, that it should fill
the entire man, so much, of a surety, is necessary. What is, then, the
thought that, in the play under discussion, fills the soul of the Prince
o£ Homburg, the chief hero? We find it expressed in scene two of the
second act, in the place where the Prince says to Kottwitz, who reminds
him, the man thirsting for deeds, of the Elector's orders:

  "Orders? Eh, Kottwitz, do you ride so slow?
   Have you not heard the orders of your heart?"

The thought is this: strength stands above the law, and courage
recognizes no other barrier but itself. Kleist, in the fifth scene of
the first act, with which the fifth scene of the fifth act corresponds,
_appears_ to have taken pains to set up as the lever of the piece, not
so much this thought as rather a mere accident, namely the inattention
of the Prince when the plan of battle was being dictated, but it is
really only in appearance. For though he makes Hohenzollern, properly
enough, lay great stress on this circumstance, that signifies little;
only if the Prince himself--a thing which never happens--had laid stress
upon it, could it have had an influence on the economy of the piece. Let
us proceed to a more detailed development of the tragedy.

The historical part of it is based on the famous battle which the
Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg fought against the Swedes at
Fehrbellin. The story of the play is briefly as follows: The Prince of
Homburg, to whom has been confided the commandment of the cavalry of the
Mark of Brandenburg, arbitrarily disobeys the orders given him, and
advances too soon. He wins the battle, but is placed on trial before a
court martial by Frederick William and condemned to death for
insubordination.

And truly--I should add, if I did not know that poetic enthusiasm is
very ridiculous in a criticism--the action is brought before us with
such power that this tragedy may very well be compared to a German oak,
on which every branch flourishes luxuriantly, and whose summit is nearer
to heaven than to earth. The whole play contains nothing but characters,
not a single puppet--which can seldom be said of the work of even the
greatest master--and I regret that I can develop in detail only the
character of the Prince of Homburg, and, for the others, can merely
touch upon those sides which come into contact with him.

I am not inclined, like Zimmermann, to see in the first scene simply an
endeavor on the part of the poet to provide a mystic background for his
picture. I do not see why a young man, who happens to be afflicted with
the sleep-walking malady, should not walk in his sleep even on the night
before a battle, and why a young hero who has long been nursing the most
high-flown thoughts concerning glory and immortality, should not, on
such a night, make himself an oak-wreath. In the day time, to be sure,
an occupation of that sort would not look very well, but night is the
realm of phantasy and the wreath is the emblem of glory. Then, too, I
find that this first scene--the naturalness of which I hope I have
proved--is of deep significance for the play. In order to explain
psychologically the Prince's headstrong disobedience of the Elector's
express order, a great excitement of mind was needed. Now I really do
not know where Kleist could better have derived this than precisely from
a half-waking dream, in which the Prince supposedly received in advance
all that constituted the highest goal of his hopes, and which should
have been the most valued fruit of his endeavors--the making of the
wreath points to this, and the fourth scene of the first act confirms
it. The absent-mindedness which this dream causes in the Prince in the
fifth scene, and particularly the monologue with which the first act
closes, prove that I am not mistaken in my opinion concerning the
significance which the poet placed upon the scene in question.

In the second act we must first notice the second scene. In this the
real action begins and ends. That which precedes and that which follows
are connected with it like cause and effect. The Prince wrests the
victory from the enemy, and earns for himself death. Then the eighth
scene of this act is of the greatest importance; in it the Prince
declares his love to Princess Nathalie of Orange. I am minded to count
this scene among the most important dramatic achievements ever
accomplished by the greatest poets of Germany. Let us picture the
exposition that introduces it. A rumor has been spread abroad that the
Elector has fallen in the battle. The Electress, with her ladies, is a
prey to the greatest anxiety. Homburg arrives and confirms the rumor.
Nathalie says:[6]

  "Who now will lead us in this terrible war
  And keep these Swedes in subjugation?--

  THE PRINCE of HOMBURG (_taking her hand_).

  I, lady, take upon myself your cause!
  The Elector hoped, before the year turned tide,
  To see the Marches free. So be it! I
  Executor will be on that last will.

  NATHALIE.
  My cousin, dearest cousin!

  PRINCE.
  Nathalie!
  What holds the future now in store for you?

  NATHALIE.
  Oh, I am orphaned now a second time.

  PRINCE.
  Oh, friend, sweet friend, were this dark hour not given
  To grief, to be its own, thus would I speak:
  Oh, twine your branches here about this breast!

  NATHALIE.
  My dear, good cousin!

  PRINCE.
  Will you, will you?"

I believe that during this love-scene, lovers will not be the only ones
to find amusement, though this is the case as a rule. The tenth scene of
this act is the turning point of the play. The Prince hastens to the
Elector with the conquered flags, rejoicing in the victory and in the
certitude that the latter still lives. The Elector commands that his
sword be taken from him and orders a court martial to be convoked. Let
us not overlook what this scene is in itself, through the contrasts
presented. It is moreover the chief argument for the correctness of the
opinion I have already expressed concerning the idea of the play. For
the Prince is far from being sensible of the fault committed, and when
Hohenzollern says to him,

  "The ordinance demands obedience," he replies bitterly: "So--so,
  so, so!"

And later:

  "My cousin Frederick hopes to play the Brutus--
  By God, in me he shall not find a son
  Who shall revere him 'neath the hangman's axe!" etc.

He cannot as yet be just to the Elector, because he is still too
indulgent to himself.

In the first scene of the third act he has come a step nearer the truth.
He calls himself a plant which has burst into bloom too swiftly and
opulently. But he still says,

  "Come, was it such a capital offense,
  Two little seconds ere the order said,
  To have laid low the stoutness of the Swede?"


The dignity of the code of war, upon which the Elector's mode of action
is based, still lies too remote from his comprehension; therefore he is
persuaded that:

  "Ere, at a kerchief's fall, he yields this heart,
  That loves him truly, to the muskets' fire,
  Ere that, I say, he'll lay his own breast bare
  And spill his own blood, drop by drop, in dust."


And when Hohenzollern lets fall a word about the mission of the Swedish
ambassador to ask for the hand of the Princess of Orange, the Prince is
even inclined to think _unworthily_ of the Elector. He is capable of
believing that the Elector will let him die because the Princess has be
trothed herself to him. This is genuinely psychological, and here, where
Homburg's character begins to appear in a dubious light, is actually the
real touch-stone of it. That he loves and admires the Elector, he has
already proved, that he has taken great trouble to find a reason for the
latter's conduct that is not unworthy of him, is self-evident; for the
human heart knows no greater pain than to have given admiration where it
should have bestowed contempt. When, therefore, the Prince nevertheless
believes that his betrothal to Nathalie has provoked the Elector's
severity, he shows thereby that he has absolutely no comprehension of
the dignity and necessity of the code of war, that consequently his
violation of the ordinance could not have been caused by boyish
petulancy, but by a grievous error, which, as an error, could be
forgiven in a man. But for that very reason it is not inconsistent with
his heroic character for him to exclaim "Oh, friend! Then help me! Save
me! I am lost!" For a man shows himself as such when he gives up for
lost a possession which is lost, not when he, like a madman, renounces
everything for the sake of making fine phrases: and the Prince only does
his duty when he tries in whatever way he can, to rescue his life from
the despotic will of an individual. In the fifth scene, where he
implores the Electress to intercede for him, he says:

  "You would not speak thus, mother mine, if death
  Had ever terribly encompassed you
  As it doth me. With potencies of heaven,
  You and my lady, these who serve you, all
  The world that rings me round, seem blest to save
  The very stable-boy, the meanest, least,
  That tends your horses, pleading I could hang
  About his neck crying: Oh, save me, thou!"

Even that is, in my opinion, fine and human, for it is the first
ebullition of emotion; and when is the feeling of painful loss ever
separated from the lively desire to preserve the endangered possession?
I do not make this statement because I believe I am saying something
new, but because I think it is something old which has not been
sufficiently taken to heart. For the rest, this fifth scene is very
beautiful and produces a deep effect. Who does not feel annihilated
with the Prince when he exclaims:

  "Since I beheld my grave, life, life, I want,
  And do not ask if it be kept with honor."

And farther on,

  "And tell him this, forget it not, that I
  Desire Nathalie no more, for her
  All tenderness within my heart is quenched."

And how wonderful, how splendid does Nathalie appear in her calm
nobility! How absolutely true to nature it is that her strength first
begins gently and noiselessly to unfold its wings when the man, whom she
had looked upon as her ideal, from whom she had expected all things, has
succumbed. And how genuinely womanly are the words with which she
attempts to raise him up once more:

  "Return, young hero, to your prison walls,
  And, on your passage, imperturbably
  Regard once more the grave they dug for you.
  It is not gloomier, nor more wide at all
  Than those the battle showed a thousand times!"

But poetic beauty is like the fragrance of flowers--it cannot be
described, but only perceived.

Nathalie's character is rounded off in the first scene of the fourth act
when she begs the Elector to liberate Homburg. She could have borne the
death of the Prince, but this timorous misrepresentation of himself she
cannot bear:

  "I never guessed a man could sink so low
  Whom history applauded as her hero.
  For look--I am a woman and I shrink
  From the mere worm that draws too near my foot;
  But so undone, so void of all control,
  So unheroic quite, though lion-like
  Death fiercely came, he should not find me thus!
  Oh, what is human greatness, human fame!"

It is then that the Elector decides to make the Prince himself the judge
of his offense, and writes him the following letter:

  "My Prince of Homburg, when I made you prisoner
  Because of your too premature attack,
  I thought that I was doing what was right--
  No more; and reckoned on your acquiescence.
  If you believe that I have been unjust,
  Tell me I beg you in a word or two,
  And forthwith I will send you back your sword."

He gives this letter to Nathalie for her to deliver to the Prince. I
must set down the words with which she receives the letter:

  "I do not know and do not seek to know
  What woke your favor, liege, so suddenly.
  But truly this, I feel this in my heart,
  You would not make ignoble sport of me.
  The letter hold whate'er it may--I trust
  That it hold pardon--and I thank you for it!"

Many another writer would have believed it was not enough for Nathalie
to prove herself a heroine, but that she must stride onward with seven
league boots and become an Amazon as well. Kleist, however, had looked
deeply into feminine nature, he knew that woman's greatness only blooms
above the abyss, and that she loses her wings the moment that earth
again offers her a spot where she can safely and firmly tread. Nathalie
sighs only once: "Oh what is human greatness, human fame!" But she
rejoices when she has the saving letter of the Elector in her
possession, and, without troubling herself further about its contents,
she hastens, enraptured, to the Prince of Homburg.

The Prince receives the letter. He reads it aloud while Nathalie
listens. She grows pale; for she feels what a man must do who is called
upon to be his own judge. Nevertheless she urges the Prince to write the
words which the Elector requires; she snatches the letter from the
Prince's hand; when he hesitates, she reminds him of the open grave he
has already seen. But neither is the Prince any longer in doubt
concerning the significance of the moment, concerning the Elector,
concerning his own guilt. He says,

  "I will not face the man who faces me
  So nobly, with a knave's ignoble front!
  Guilt, heavy guilt, upon my conscience weighs,
  I fully do confess--"

He writes this to the Elector, and Nathalie embraces him exclaiming:

  "And though twelve bullets made
  You dust this instant, I could not resist
  Caroling, sobbing, crying: 'Thus you please me!'"

I would gladly follow the great poet through the fifth act also, but it
is not indispensable for the analysis of the play, as the _dénouement_
is easy to foresee--namely that the Prince, after already suffering one
death through the relinquishment of that idea which has been the guiding
principle of his life hitherto, is spared a second death. Finally I must
add that I have not chosen the _Prince of Homburg_ as the subject of my
criticism because this tragedy is the most successful of all Kleist's
plays, but merely because it offers the best opportunity for drawing a
comparison between the dramatic achievements of Kleist and those of
Körner. And now, courage. We must start in with Körner and we will
choose that one of his products which is universally declared the
greatest, his _Zriny_.

In discussing the _Prince of Homburg_ I could limit myself to a general
outline, as it is not possible that any one who reads the play could
ever have the least doubt whether the characters are correctly drawn. We
have not such an easy task with Körner's _Zriny_, but rather must take
the opposite way. In order not to overpass the limits of this essay,
however, we will pay less attention to the play as a totality, which,
indeed, can occupy our attention only if the first investigation prove
favorable to the author.

The idea which kindles Zriny's enthusiasm is unconditional obedience to
Emperor and Fatherland. It must be admitted that it is an idea which may
have arisen in many a human breast in the year 1566, and which certainly
animated the heroic Zriny. It is not sufficient, however, for the
dramatic poet to give utterance to what fills the soul of his hero, for
that falls to the lot of history to perform. While the historian looks
upon every individual as a bomb, whose course and effect he must
calculate, but with whose origin he is but slightly concerned, it is the
affair of the dramatic poet--who, if he recognizes his high mission,
strives to complete history--to show how the character whom he has
chosen as a subject for treatment has become what he is. We find this,
for example, in Shakespeare, to go back to the Bible of the playwright.
Every passion which he describes we see as roots and tree at one and the
same time. Theodor Körner simplified the matter, he only shows us the
flame; whence it comes he leaves in doubt, and therefore has himself to
thank if we are undecided whether his heroes are pursuing
will-o'-the-wisps, or--to use his favorite metaphor--stars. I need not
call attention to the fact that this way is by far the easier.

  The plot of this play is sufficiently well known. I will
  therefore turn immediately to a closer examination of the
  several characters. Honor to whom honor is due; let Sultan
  Soliman advance. I will not pause at the first scene in
  which he appears, although even there he reveals damnable
  weaknesses. After all a Turk may be forgiven for losing
  his temper because his physician-in-ordinary does not know
  how long he will live. In the second scene Körner has tried
  to outline the hero who demands Vienna for his funeral
  torch. He has not succeeded as well as he might.

  "Karl, Karl!"--cries Soliman in his beard--"If only thou
  Thy Europe now would lie here at my feet"

[Illustration: THE BATTLE BETWEEN THE HUNS AND THE NIBELUNGS _From the
Painting by Schnorr von Carolsfeld_]

Every other hero would have considered that in which Soliman beheld the
curse of his life to be the greatest favor fortune could have shown him.
I do not expect much from the hound--this parable is very well suited to
the Turks--who only fights with little yelping dogs. How far Mr. Körner
has succeeded in spreading the oriental coloring over his picture is
shown very plainly in the fourth scene, where Soliman receives his
generals with the words:

  "I greet you all, supporters of my throne,
  Most welcome comrades of my victories,
  I greet you all."

Seldom has the sun shone upon a politer Turk than this Soliman, who, to
be sure, afterward throws around not only his oaths but his dagger. That
it is no merit of Körner if we behold in his Soliman a hero and a Turk,
must be evident to every one; but let us now examine whether he has
succeeded any better in representing the commander-in-chief and the
tyrant. We find both in the third scene of the third act. Mehmed reports
to the Sultan that the assault has been repulsed.

"A curse upon thee!"

answers the latter; then he inquires who gave the order for the retreat;
Mehmed answers that he did; the Janizaries had been slaughtered by the
thousands, but in vain, the army was exhausted, and it had been
impossible to wrest the victory from the enemy; he intended, however, to
bombard the castle the next night and was persuaded that the walls must
give way. Soliman flies into a passion:

  "But I from them will wrest it (the victory namely), must
  wrest it!"

In very truth an excellent commander-in-chief, who is not to be
persuaded by reasons such as Mehmed advanced, and who differs from a
child who is denied his will only in that he bellows where the child
screams. But--perhaps we have the tyrant before us where I thought I
perceived the nullity of the commander-in-chief. Let us read on:

  ALI.

  "Remember Malta!

  SOLIMAN.

  Death and Hell! Ali!
  Remind me not of Malta, if thy head
  Is dear to thee. More I endure from thee
  Than does befit the great lord Soliman!"

Really the beginning promises well.

  ALI.

  "My life is in thy hands, my Emperor!

  SOLIMAN.

  Since thou dost know that, yet didst freely speak
  Thy heart's thought to me, I'll forgive thee.
  For I love truth which knows no fear of death.
  In token then of my imperial grace,
  Thy council shall prevail; I'll not attack!"

I think we do not need to tremble before a tyrant whose fury could be
appeased by Ali's paltry words. "My life is in thy hands, my Emperor!"
which must have been said to him often enough before. Let no one
reproach me if, henceforth, I keep silence on the subject of Soliman.
Offenses of this kind are not mere blunders, they are the sign of
complete incompetency on the part of the poet, and solely out of
curiosity, not because it is necessary to demonstrate my argument, I
shall continue to analyze Zriny, Helena, and the other marionettes.

Zriny is an abortive copy of Wallenstein; his originality consists in
doing _for_ the Emperor, what the latter does _against_ him. Juranitsch
is Max Piccolomini the second, but has the misfortune to stand as far
_below_ the first as other people who also happened to be seconds, as
for example, Frederick the Second, Joseph the Second, etc., stood
_above_ their namesakes. In general, _Zriny_ has made it clear to me
that Körner, had he lived, would, without any doubt, have become a
second Schiller, namely, by completely absorbing the first. The
plagiarisms which the noble young man has indulged in, in this tragedy,
as regards the disposition of the scenes as well as in whole individual
speeches and sentences, surpass all belief. I shall perhaps point out
some of these in the course of my investigation of the characters.

But before I investigate the claims to heroism of Körner's Zriny may I
be allowed to determine what are the qualities absolutely indispensable
for a hero. I will not place my demands very high, but circumspection
and firmness I may at least be allowed to require, besides mere courage.
Also a certain amount of modesty would not become him ill, perhaps we
may even demand this of the hero of a drama; for the dramatic poet must
not indeed in any sense idealize, but he should render only the
genuinely human, not the purely accidental, which, because accidental,
is rare. For an individual to be at the same time a hero and a braggart
is, however, quite accidental, and the result merely of a deficient or a
perverted education. If one wishes to find firmness in the fact that a
man knows in advance what he wants, that he forms his decision before he
is acquainted with the controlling circumstances, then certainly this
quality cannot be denied our Zriny.

  "His loyalty no nobler guerdon asks
  Than to seek death, a joyful sacrifice,
  For his own folk and his undying faith."

But it seems to me that a desperate resolution is only justifiable when
it can no longer be avoided; whoever takes one before that, is cowardly
rather than brave; for he has not the strength to make the sacrifice at
the proper moment; therefore he tries, beforehand, to reason himself
into being courageous. When Zriny, however, speaks the words quoted, he
has already in his possession the letter of the Emperor, informing him
that he need hope for no relief; but he cannot know yet how long Soliman
will continue to assault Szigeth, and there is likewise no need to
inspire his companions with courage by these words, in which he boasts
of his own courage, for they were every one of them heroes. I fail,
therefore, to find in his braggadocio the firmness that is worthy of a
great man, and this is a fault which I may be permitted to charge to Mr.
Körner's account; for he intended it to form part of his Zriny's
character. The dear man has an even smaller share of circumspection:
read but the sixth scene of the second act where he ponders the
question, what he shall do with his wife and child. Truly, when he
decides to leave them in the fortress, so that the garrison shall not
lose courage, I cannot suppress the thought that the daughter has
already had an illegitimate child and the wife has been a heroine in the
wrong place; for if he had considered them worth a straw, he could not,
for such a reason, have exposed them to such a danger. And is that a
courageous garrison which is calm because it believes itself to be still
safe? And shall its eyes never be opened simply because it sees that the
danger is shared for a while by the wife and child of the
commander--for whom, as Zriny himself remarks, there are secret passages
which can be used in case of necessity. Mr. Zriny did not consider all
this; his circumspection, therefore, is surely not very great. Just one
sample of the noble simplicity and modesty of this hero:

  "Thou knowest me, Maximilian,
  I thank thee for thy high imperial trust,
  Thou knowest Zriny, thou dost not mistake."

It is nauseating to continue, I have the impression at this moment that
I am trying to prove that a soap-bubble is really only a soap-bubble.
Just one word more about Helena. The tender child, who faints away at
the end of the first act when Juranitsch takes leave of her to go into
battle, has made such progress in bravery in the seventh scene of the
second act, that she exclaims:

"Yes, father, father, send us not from thee!"

and at the conclusion of the fourth (indeed it is time, for in the next
act the piece comes to an end) she even says:

"Yes, let us die! What care we for the sun!"

Spare your sympathy, reader or spectator; you must not think that you
have to do with men who care anything for their lives, and who therefore
are making a sacrifice--no indeed! They have nothing in common with such
a weakling as you.

I hope I shall not be accused of hastiness--I must hurry on to the end,
for there are just as many absurdities in _Zriny_ as there are
verses--if from all this I draw the conclusion that Theodor Körner had
not the slightest talent for the drama. I promised, a while ago, to
specify some plagiarisms from Schiller, but I may safely refer to the
whole book. Instead I will make a few more remarks on the death-scene of
Helena, scene six, act five.

This scene is not badly constructed. I will not, indeed, examine too
closely how far love made it justifiable for a girl to ask of her lover
to kill her. For once we will take Helena's word for it that under
similar circumstances she would have done the like had Juranitsch
demanded it, and then she, as well as the poet, is held excused. We will
only listen to what Juranitsch answers when she has made her wish clear
to him. He says:

"Thee, I must kill? Thee? no, I cannot kill thee!"

This would be human, but listen to what follows:

  "--When the storm wind
  O'erthrows the oak and rages 'mongst the pines,
  It leaves unharmed the tender floweret,
  Its thunders change to gentle whisp'ring zephyrs
  And shall I wilder be than the wild storm?
  Shall I destroy life's loveliest vernal wreath?
  In cruelty the boisterous elements
  Surpassing, shall I break this floweret
  To touch which destiny's hand has yet not dared?"

I ask you is it possible to surpass such trivial nonsense?

I shall say no more concerning Körner's individual scenes. This is not
committing an injustice; for it is absolutely unimportant, so far as our
investigation is concerned, whether and in how far Körner had the
ability to construct a tragedy, since this faculty--as Goethe's example
shows us--has nothing to do with poetry in itself. There is no need for
us to draw the parallel between the _Prince of Homburg_ and _Zriny_; it
is quite evident. One reproach, however, which might be made by an
attentive reader, I must anticipate: namely, I might be asked why I have
subjected the two principal characters of Körner's tragedy to a regular
police examination, and, instead of accepting them in their totality,
have required them to render account in how far they were heroes,
commanders, tyrants, etc. But since they are, like all creations of mere
talent, nothing but arrows which are shot from a certain bow-string
toward a certain target, it follows that they can only be judged by the
deflections from their course. Herein--be it remarked incidentally--lies
the difference, often perceived but seldom explained, between the
characters portrayed by Schiller and those portrayed by Goethe.
Schiller's characters--to use a play on words which for once expresses
the truth--are beautiful because they are self-contained; Goethe's
characters because they are unrestrained. Schiller delineates the man
who is complete in his own strength, and, a man of iron, is tried by
circumstances; for this reason Schiller was great only in the historical
drama. Goethe delineates the endless creations of the moment, the
eternal modifications of the man caused by every step that he takes;
this is the token by which we may recognize genius, and it seems to me
that I have discovered it also in Heinrich von Kleist.

At this moment, when I would pass on to review the achievements of
Körner and Kleist in the field of comedy, I remember that I was not
sufficiently definite, above, when developing my conception of the
drama. I should have added that I cannot, strictly speaking, count
comedy as a form of drama, but must include it in the category of
dialogue narrative. If one recalls to mind the purpose of high-class
comedy--"to describe individual ages and classes," one must admit that I
am entitled to do so. I must remark in advance that neither Körner nor
Kleist has done anything for high-class comedy. But Kleist in his
_Broken Pitcher_ has drawn a comic character-picture which is so full of
life that it reminds us of Shakespeare, if of any one, while Körner in
his _Nightwatchman_ has drawn nothing but a funny caricature; with the
former the character shapes the situations, whereas with the latter the
situations shape the characters, if I may use this expression. I should
be giving myself a great deal of unnecessary trouble if I should engage
in a further analysis of the two comedies which I have mentioned, since
at all events I could only adduce sundry details, and such details in
this case prove absolutely nothing; for the only safe criterion of the
truly comic is that the picture as a whole, apart from what wit has done
for it, should arouse interest as an organic adaptation of nature. With
the rascally, lustful, country judge, Adam, in the _Broken Pitcher_,
this is certainly the case; one can safely take away from him the few
witty sallies which he indulges in: but what the nightwatchman Schwalbe
would become if one attempted the same procedure with him, I should not
like to decide; probably a clown, who has been deprived of his wooden
sword and cap and bells, and whose plain, honest features show that he
has only executed such droll antics for the sake of his bread and
butter. Schwalbe is merely ridiculous, but Adam is comic; the
difference, to define it more clearly, consists in this; every
caricature, because it diverges from laws which are eternal and
necessary, without standing in eternity as a peculiarly constructed
whole, has a tinge of incongruity, consequently of ridiculousness; while
only that caricature of nature can be comic of which the divergences are
self-consistent, which shows therefore that it is founded _in itself_.
The poet should take only the comic as a subject of treatment; for he
can never lay stress upon detached separate phenomena, if he cannot
prove the connection between them and the general whole, if they do not
constitute for him a window through which he looks down into Nature's
breast. It is easy to calculate, accordingly, how high Theodor Körner's
services to the comedy should be rated, provided he has actually
succeeded with his smaller things, _The Nightwatchman, The Green
Domino_, etc., in furnishing amusing farces. To accomplish this, nothing
was required but natural gaiety combined with a talent for
representation, and many men who were anything but poets have been
equipped with both.

It still remains for us to estimate what Körner and Kleist have achieved
in narrative. In this field Körner has produced such mere trifles that
it would be unjust for one to infer from them the least thing touching
his characteristics, as it probably never occurred to him to consider
himself a story-writer. Heinrich von Kleist's novels and stories, on the
other hand, belong among the best that German literature possesses.
Almost all the narratives of our writers, with the exception of a few
productions by Hoffmann and Tieck, suffer, if I may say so, from the
monstrousness of the subjects chosen, if they do indeed rise at all
above mediocrity. There is, however, no very deep psychological insight
needed in order to know how the whole man will be affected by an event
which sweeps down upon him like a stormwind, and very ordinary talents
may safely attempt tasks of this kind; just as, for example, every
painter with some technical skill can represent despair, fear, terror,
all those emotions, in short, which only permit of one expression;
whereas a Rembrandt is required, if a gipsy encampment is to be
pictured. Kleist, therefore, set himself other tasks; he knew and had
perhaps experienced in his own person, that life's process of
destruction is not a deluge but a shower, and that man is superior to
every great fatality, but subject to every pettiness. He proceeded from
this theory of life, when he delineated his _Michael Kohlhaas_, and I
maintain that in no German novel have the hideous depths of life been
projected upon the surface in such vivid fashion as in this, when the
theft by a squire, of two miserable horses, forms the first link in a
chain, which extends upward from the horse-dealer Kohlhaas to the ruler
of the Holy Roman Empire, and crushes a world by coiling round it. I
should like to analyze the novel more in detail, but am glad that the
limits of my essay, or rather the patience of my readers and auditors,
do not permit me to do so; for the members of the society will thus feel
prompted the sooner to acquaint and familiarize themselves with the
works of Heinrich von Kleist, if they have not already done so.

While hastening on to the close, I must, in accordance with the
introduction to this essay, call attention to the fact that Kleist, no
less than Körner, did not leave unheeded the claims that his country
properly made upon him in the portentous age in which he lived. In his
breast, as in that of his contemporaries, there glowed the flame of
enthusiasm for the honor and freedom of his people; and the oppression
that they endured, the internal and external slavery in which he beheld
them sunk, placed the pistol in his hand. I mention this because it has
been imputed to the poet Körner as a great merit that he was at the same
time a martyr. But Kleist could behold his country unworthily treated
without for that reason having unworthy thoughts of the man who was
treading it in the dust; he was great enough to be able to forgive
Napoleon the pain which he could not endure. He wrote no war-songs for
patriotic journeymen-tailors and high-minded counter-jumpers, but he
described Hermann's Battle and the battle of Fehrbellin; he called the
dead to life in order to arouse the living.


FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 6: The extracts from _The Prince of Homburg_ are taken from
Mr. Hagedorn's translation, Volume IV of THE GERMAN CLASSICS.]




LUDOLF WIENBARG'S "THE DRAMATISTS OF
THE PRESENT DAY"

A REVIEW (1839)

By FRIEDRICH HEBBEL

TRANSLATED BY FRANCES H. KING


It is probable that no German who is able to appreciate the power of the
theatre, its silent influence on the people, and the consequent reaction
on the development of dramatic talent, has looked on indifferently at
the decay and complete ruin of our stage. The drama of a nation,
conceived in a worthy sense, represents that nation in its
self-consciousness; it is the burning-mirror which receives the separate
rays of the nation's innermost being while passing history is enticing
them out of the depths, which condenses and concentrates them and thus
kindles one century by means of another, and calls to life one glorious
deed by means of another. Tragedy represents a people in its relation to
the most important problems, its own as well as those of humanity in
general. Comedy paints it in its natural aberrations and abnormalities,
in its tendencies and endeavors which are directed earthward. Both must
subsist together, in common development, and on an equal elevation, if
we are to sum up the entire life of a nation, and give a true, eternal
picture of its will-power and capacity, of its vacillations and defeats.
This is the object which dramatic literature must always keep in view if
it would be effectual. To be sure, it is possible to conceive a still
higher species of drama, a tragedy which deals with man only in the
abstract, with man in himself, in his mysterious relation to God and
Nature; a comedy which lays nationalities themselves in their coffin and
gaudily dresses up the corpse. But it is still an open question whether,
under such a general domination of the idea of humanity as is
presupposed in that case, art can continue to exist at all; and at any
rate the time of this spirit-like domination is still far off, although
literature has witnessed the production of many dramatic poems which
seem to be designed for it.

It was many years ago that Tieck, on the subject of some wretched stuff
by Clauren, made the remark that we had at last reached the cellar and
must begin to ascend again. He was right in his remark, but, unhappily,
not in the hope with which he accompanied it. Very far from hastening to
leave the cellar, we have found it very comfortable down there; we have
made ourselves at home as well as we could, and are hideously satisfied!
Instead of the heroic spirit of our past ages, Jack Pudding now staggers
out of the wings in a torn jacket and shows us what kind of humor is
engendered by stupidity and brandy, when they have a rendezvous in the
head of a porter. If Schiller and Goethe dare once to come out of their
exile, then Nestroy's plum-pudding jinnee steps in their path, and they
of course modestly give way to him. The magic worlds of Shakespeare and
Calderon are already suffocated in their birth by the head-shaking of
the stage-manager who must keep his machinery together for Raimund's
bedlam hocus-pocus. Let us be just, however, let us remember that our
theatre, in spite of the great talents which have been dedicated to it,
was not what it should have been, even in its most brilliant period, and
this perhaps not quite through its own fault. We have never had a real
comedy; farces and absurdities take its place, and the critics
themselves, if we except Schlegel, never seemed to divine that tragedy
and comedy sprout from one and the same root, and that the former
absolutely cannot unfold in all its greatness if the latter remains
behind it. Confining the conception of comedy to the narrow etymological
meaning of its name, and inferring the intrinsic impossibility of the
poem from the accidental lack of a poet, we have imagined that we could
not have a comedy, when on the contrary we, precisely, should and ought
to have the very best, for reasons which cannot be developed thus in
passing. Our tragedy, on the other hand, wished to take the second step
before the first; it was not satisfied to start out to conquer the world
from our own territory; it preferred to wander about as a homeless
vagabond among all the peoples of the earth; and only when it had fully
persuaded itself that one cannot grow fat off begged bread did it return
in shame to its mother's breast. But, in Germany, in the meantime, the
enthusiasm which can seldom or never be re-awakened had evaporated, and
when _Wallenstein_ and _William Tell_, when _Hermann's Battle_ and the
_Prince of Homburg_ appeared, the fusion of the theatre with life, which
might perhaps have still been possible at the time of _Iphigenia_, was
no longer to be thought of. People had become used to looking upon the
stage as a source of amusement, and, as a rule, whatever sinks to the
level of a pastime is forever degraded. This was the cause of all the
evil; this was the reason why for a long time dogs and monkeys,
prestidigitators and modern athletes, celebrated their triumphs where
art should have proclaimed her most profound oracles, and where a people
should have found refreshment and elevation in quiet self-enjoyment, in
the mild exertion of all their powers, and in the sensation of arousing
their most secret sympathies and antipathies.

Wienbarg believes that a turning point has now been reached. To this
belief we owe his present literary contribution "which consists in
seeking critically to elucidate, in irregularly appearing pamphlets,
modern dramatic literature--especially book-dramas, which are rarely or
not at all seen on the stage. He is guided in his selection each time by
some dramatic-educational purpose for author and public, and continually
bears in mind an ideal centre of taste in the historic-poetic
consciousness of the nation." Such an undertaking, carried out by a man
who combines insight into the subject with the gift of presenting it as
the times require, deserves full recognition. Only that criticism which
knows how to make itself respected, can regain for the muse of the drama
her temple, the stage; this cannot be done by the muse herself, who,
every time she seeks to enter, is, with the politest of bows, shoved
into the corner again by her noble priesthood. Criticism must, in view
of the voluntary poverty of our repertory, draw attention to the
neglected riches of our dramatic literature; it must, by
characterization and analysis, act as mediator between the genius of the
poet and the talent of the actor, and it sins heavily against the
present when it turns its attention chiefly to the recent past which has
not yet been canonized. It can, as a general rule, never look back often
enough.

Wienbarg begins with Uhland. From the point of view he has chosen he was
quite right to leave unnoticed for the present Heinrich von Kleist's
magnificent _Hermann's Battle_ and _Prince of Homburg._ Of all our poets
Uhland has unearthed in the purest form the treasure of German
nationality: all the dreaming and longing, the hoping and enduring, but
also all the courage, all the strength which steps into the first rank
only in battle, not on the parade ground. One cannot blame Uhland
without blaming Germany at the same time, but one can praise Uhland
without at the same time praising Germany; for all poetry idealizes
because it frames as in a mirror, but on account of its limits it
compresses scattered details into a seemingly well ordered whole, which,
however, does not by any means exist so harmoniously in nature. Uhland's
poetry is a tear, forced from the flashing dark eye by the intolerable
pain which dilates the heart and finds no more room there; but how much
more beautiful is the pain than the wound, and how much more beautiful
is the tear than the pain! Such tears are suffocated deeds. If our
supineness and sentimentality only did not so often degrade holy water
to the base uses of ablution!

Wienbarg introduces his characterization of Uhland with some excellent
remarks. We cannot take enough to heart what he says on page 17: "Our
literature is a ghost, most of the species of poetry are spectres, and
faith or unbelief in them is called esthetics. Fresh young life is
sucked out, architectonic powers are misused in order to spiritualize
and propagate lifeless forms and satisfy the vanity of literature by
means of so-called works of art." If philosophy is destroyed by
systematizing how much more so is poetry, which can exist only so long
as it is free. The instinct to make an end of everything, and wilfully
and arbitrarily to pen up what is not confined to time and space, is the
ugliest trait in human nature. Life, in whatever phase it may be, always
has a form, though sometimes one not to be seized with hands; it is
always in fermentation, never in putrefaction; but its form is lost when
we try to bring it into harmony with the tyrannical generalities which
are bequeathed from grandfather to grandchild; then it congeals, and the
stream that might have afforded us the most delicious bath can, at the
most, be transformed into a sledge-road. Protect yourself against the
sea but do not strive to hamper and dam up its movement; if this ever
succeeded, the sea would become a swamp, and all of you--not only the
sailors--would die a miserable death. To begin with, it is a misfortune
that human society requires the form of the State, which cannot be
traced back to any primitive foundation; for the individual tendencies
and developments that are most full of genius are thus nipped in the
bud, and it is an open question whether those that remain, which to be
sure are better protected against wind and weather inside the ramparts
and walls than elsewhere, can, even when yielding their most abundant
profits, make compensation for those that are held back and crushed.
Will you go even further than necessity forces you; will you compel the
spirit, even in its most peculiar sphere, to accept a constitution under
the lamblike innocent name of esthetics? Of what advantage will it be to
you? You can then, to be sure, lawfully scold and punish; today you can
lock up a sentiment in the guardhouse for drunkenness: tomorrow you can
drag off a thought to imprisonment for offense against your sovereign
majesty; and the day after you can send a phantasy to the mad house on
account of its all too bold flight. Life is its own law and its own
rule, but you never want to adore the god until after you have crucified
him. As long as the tree is green you cut off its branches, and out of
the dried hewn-down one you make, not an axle for your mill-wheel, but
an idol.

What Wienbarg says of Uhland, the ballad-writer, is very pretty, but it
was refuted before it was even written. Uhland, the ballad-writer, is
not the dramatic poet, "broken into a thousand pieces;" the poems
appeared in 1815, the first drama in 1818. I would not advance this
superficial argument if it were not connected with an essential one. All
these full, flowing songs and romances were finished before the nobly
calm power that called them into being concentrated itself for the
creation of a dramatic work; and in truth they do not bear on their
forehead the red fever spot of aspiration groping in the dark, which
does not find what it seeks and therefore clasps in its arms the object
over which it stumbles; they breathe that smiling, lovely, self-absorbed
contentment, without which there may be intoxication, but no joy, no
life. It is true that through the songs as well as through the ballads,
the dramatic genius which was later to produce _Duke Ernest_ and _Louis
the Bavarian_ already treads softly like a sleep-walker; this it is
which gives them the firm form, the deeper meaning which is so
scandalously lacking in those good people who now and then innocently
versify a legend or some trifling emotion. But the dramatic element is,
strange as this assertion may sound, just as much an essential in
poetry--one without which poetry would crumble away into dust--as the
lyrical; from the former, poetry receives its body; from the latter, its
soul, and both are mutually dependent upon one another. Is not suffering
itself, only action turned inward!

On page twenty-one we read: "Do you know what it is that I love in
Uhland's imperfect dramas? It is the pure, vital, German-dramatic
poetry, which, piercing the tawdry veneer of culture and the
prevailingly wretched appearances of our life, strikes fire from the
bed-rock of spiritual life itself, and with its divining rod points to
the golden veins in the foundations of the national character.
German-dramatic! that is the right word! and this is saying a great
deal, for German and dramatic are contradictory terms. Just because
Uhland is so German-dramatic he might give our theatre the national
consecration which it lacks, and which alone can assure it intrinsic
worth and dignity, efficacy and stability. Goethe's _Goetz_ is not
adapted to the stage, and it will be difficult for the scissors to make
it so. Schiller's _Wallenstein_, in spite of its extensiveness, is only
a character picture; the Thirty Years' War merely peeps through shyly
now and again when the Duke's eloquence fails him, and when Max and
Thekla take a rest from their love-making. With all due respect for the
great dead, from whose laurel tree I do not intend to pluck a single
leaf, be it said that the piece has something ridiculous about it when
it is played; it is a thunderstorm during which two turtle-doves are
billing and cooing. There is some difference in _William Tell_, Bertha
and Rudenz are more modest and more sparing with their sighs, tears, and
premonitions. But the depicted situation is accidental, and under
similar circumstances is repeated everywhere, therefore one cannot judge
the Germanic nature by it--even if we include Switzerland as a
representative of this nature--any more than one can judge of a man by
the portrait which has been made of him during his illness. Neither am I
able to find the spectacle of the strength that breaks external fetters
so edifying as many others do: Why did it allow itself to be enchained?
Kleist's _Hermann's Battle_ and his _Prince of Homburg_ carry us, the
one too far back and the other too far forward. Uhland chose historic
events better than Kleist, he treated them more worthily and more nobly
than Schiller. For this reason, if for no other, he stands in the
foreground of this discussion."

In the same place the question is raised: What is the conception of
religion or fate from which our tragic drama has emanated? Wienbarg
skips over the question, or at least takes the answers to it too
lightly. Nevertheless here is the root of the whole tree. Human nature
and human destiny, these are the two riddles that the drama strives to
solve. The difference between the drama of the ancients and the drama of
the moderns lies in this: the ancients sought to illumine the labyrinths
of fate by means of the torch of poetry; we moderns try to refer human
nature, in whatever form or contortion it presents itself before us, to
certain eternal and changeless principles, as to an immovable
foundation. What to us is the means, was to them the end, and _vice
versa._

With the ancients the suffering results from the action; their tragedy
was really a triumph of instinct. The first bold lightning flash of
half-awakened consciousness illuminated the empty Olympus, and because
man found the halls of the gods deserted, he sought in his own breast a
centre for the circle of his existence. But when, revolving around
himself and thereby denying the pole of the world, he stood, in his
stubborn isolation, in the way of the great whole, the invisible
fly-wheel which drives the universe seized him with tremendous power and
flung him mockingly into an abyss. He felt that he had sinned, and
did not know in what way. He found himself justified in his earthly
relations and yet could not shake off the oppressive nightmare of a
secret monstrous guilt. Then he shudderingly divined that sin can go
further than knowledge, that in things and in events, as well as in
human thought and feeling, there lies a mysterious final something,
which, of whatever nature it may be and whatever its effect, must be
regarded as holy. Let us remember Oedipus and the way in which in this
drama one riddle is always solved by another riddle.

In the modern drama, on the contrary, the suffering as a rule first
begets action. The hero gets into the whirlpool, he does not himself
know how, but when near destruction he shows himself to be a brave,
fearless swimmer. This comes from the attempt, not so much to reconcile,
as to compare the idea of Freedom with the idea of Necessity. Modern
tragedy has, therefore, when placed beside the ancient, a sickly hue,
which is still further intensified by the circumstance that its point of
departure is the individual. I should like to have time to indicate all
the consequences of these opposite conceptions.

If I should be asked to express in brief the fundamental idea of modern
tragedy I should find it in the harsh fetters that bind the highest
nobility of human nature, in suffering and death, and in the resistance
of the world--occasioned thereby, nay presupposed as a necessity--which
the world offers to all greatness as it strives for self-realization.

Wienbarg, after his general preliminary remarks, proceeds to make an
analysis of Uhland's drama, _Louis the Bavarian._ It is excellent and
accomplishes everything that it should accomplish, by combining the
characterization of the poet with the characterization of the German
drama in its totality, of which totality the individual drama is an
organic part. Of course every reader will wish that Wienbarg had
rendered the tragedy, _Duke Ernest_, the same friendly service, of which
Uhland's dramas, in their unostentatious simplicity, stand so much in
need, if they are ever to receive the appreciation which they deserve.
Were it fitting to prolong the criticism of a criticism to such an
extent, I should myself attempt to elucidate this most German of
tragedies in all its ramifications; perhaps this will be done in another
place. We are rich and consider ourselves poor; we have the diamonds,
and there shall not be wanting people who know how to cut them. May the
second part of Wienbarg's treatise very soon appear! Many a one is now
pushing forward the hand on the horologe of time and hastening nothing
thereby but the hour of his own execution. Wienbarg is not one of these.




REVIEW OF HEINRICH VON KLEIST'S PLAY


THE PRINCE OF HOMBURG, OR THE BATTLE OF
FEHRBELLIN (1850)

By FRIEDRICH HEBBEL

TRANSLATED BY FRANCES H. KING


THE PRINCE OF HOMBURG is one of the most peculiar creations of the
German mind, for the reason that in it, through the mere horror of
death, through death's darkening shadow, has been achieved what in all
other tragedies (this work is a tragedy) is achieved only through death
itself: that is to say, the moral purification and apotheosis of the
hero. The whole drama is planned to bring about this result, and what
Tieck, in a well known passage, declares to be, the kernel of it, namely
the illustration of what subordination is, in reality is only the means
to an end. Neither do I agree with Tieck when he remarks further that
the sleep-walking scene with which the piece begins, and the final
_dénouement_ connected with it add to the other merits of the drama by
lending it the charm of a pleasing and attractive fairy-tale. On the
contrary, this feature is to be censured because it is disturbing, and
if, as in _Käthchen of Heilbronn_, it were intimately inwoven in the
organism of the work it would deprive the latter of its claim to be
considered a classic. For man must not be forced to do penance for the
mischief which the moon causes; otherwise we might be obliged to call it
a tragedy if a man, having climbed up to the apex of the roof in his
sleep, and been spied there by his sweetheart, who, in the first terror
of surprise, called his name, should fall at her feet crushed to pieces!
Happily, however, we can eliminate the whole sleep-walking episode and
the work continues to be what it is; it stands immovable on a solid
psychological foundation, and the rank weeds of Romanticism, have only
twined themselves around it like superfluous arabesques. That, indeed,
must not be understood to mean that half of the first and half of the
last act could be struck out. If such a barbaric procedure were
possible, Kleist would not be what, he is, a true poet, whom, like every
original God-given growth, one must accept as a whole or must reject as
a whole. No, we shall have to leave the Prince his garland-wreathing and
the glove which he catches as a consequence of it. But the incident is
by no means essential to the rest of the drama. The structure has,
beside these artificial supports, other very different and entirely
solid ones, and there is no need to enlarge upon the former unless one
is animated with a desire to find fault. Here we have a youth who had
the misfortune to have fortune smile upon him prematurely, and who loves
where perhaps--he has as yet no certainty of it--he should not love;
what more is needed to enable us to comprehend the arrogance displayed
in the first catastrophe and the pusillanimity in the second? Kleist has
put a set of pulleys in motion where the simplest lever would have
sufficed, but the pulleys have been connected with the lever, and the
purpose has been thoroughly accomplished, though not by the most direct,
and therefore the best means.

The action, conceived from the point of view just described, is, briefly
summed up, as follows: It is the evening, or rather the night, before
the battle of Fehrbellin. The Great Elector, surrounded by his family,
has gathered his generals about him and is making known to them, by his
field-marshal, the plan which he has devised for the battle on the
morrow. Each officer, Homburg among them, is informed what part he is to
play in the bloody work of the following day; the Prince receives the
most difficult post for one of his age and temperament, since he is to
remain outside the firing line with the cavalry which he commands during
the actual battle, and not until the victory is practically won can he
come into action; even then he is to await a definite order from the
Elector, and is merely to assist in completely routing the vanquished
enemy. Here, be it noted, his ordeal already begins. It is not an
accident that the Elector has assigned him a post which must necessarily
bring him into conflict with his passions and the demands of his blood;
the sovereign does it purposely in order that he may learn to control
both. The Prince is scarcely listening to the field-marshal when his
turn comes; he is absent-minded, for Nathalie, the Princess of Orange,
an orphan who has taken refuge at the Brandenburg Court, and whom he
secretly loves, is present, and the Electress is leaving with her and
the other ladies while his orders are being dictated. However, be
scarcely requires such pedantic instructions, for he sees in a battle
only an opportunity for personal distinction in one form or another, not
a moral task which can be properly executed only in one way.
Nevertheless, he learns from his friend Hohenzollern exactly what the
service requires of him; but of what avail is it? His friend can only
lend him his ears, not his judgment, and thus the first act ends,
conformably to this stage of his development, with a monologue, in which
we learn that he is only thinking of the laurels and the girl at whose
feet he will lay them, not of his duty and his country. Thus we see that
the sleep-walking scene, and all that is connected with it, can easily
be omitted; the exposition is complete without it, and therein lies the
actual proof of the correctness of my view of the work. A youth always
dreams of the man whom he already believes himself to be; there is
therefore no need of a double-dream. The glove might have been replaced
by a glance from the Princess, surprised unawares, followed by a sudden
blush. Was it intended for me or for you? That is enough to occupy a
youth to such an extent that he would pay no attention to Mars himself
were he to descend to earth. The battle takes place and what was to be
expected, occurs. The Prince attacks too soon, and the victory is indeed
gained, but it is not as complete a one as it would have been possible
to win. He knows very well what he is doing; it is impossible that he
should not know it, and therefore the poet might have spared himself the
carefully detailed description of his absent-mindedness in the first
act. Colonel Kottwitz, who is second in command, reminds him, with the
gruffness of an old man who might be at the same time his father and his
teacher, of the order that he should await from his sovereign, and
another officer even advises that his sword be taken from him. But he
curtly inquires of old Kottwitz whether he has not received the order
from his own heart, and he uses violence to the officer, then he dashes
away crying: "Now, gentlemen, the countersign: A knave who follows not
his general to the fight!" He arrives on the battlefield itself just at
the moment when the rumor is spreading that the Elector has fallen. He
performs marvels of valor, and we learn how much he loved his sovereign
by seeing how he avenges him. This is one of the most brilliant episodes
of the plot, and, truly, it alone is worth more than a whole catalogue
full of the ordinary dramas that one hears applauded in our theatres.
Sprinkled with blood, he hurries then into the peasant's but where the
Electress, with her court of ladies, has had to take refuge because a,
wheel of her coach broke while on the journey, and here he meets his
Nathalie. The women, who have also heard the terrible rumor, are
crushed; the Electress has fainted and the Princess, overcome by the
gravity of the situation, laments in a few simple, touching words her
complete loneliness. The Prince had not betrayed his affection for her
at the Elector's Court, but now that fortune seems to have abandoned the
fatherless and motherless girl, who was entirely dependent upon her
powerful uncle, he allows his heart to utter the first sound, and to
this sound she responds. Here we catch a gleam of his native, inborn
nobility of soul, which at the end of the whole purifying process is to
shine forth in perfect serenity, and we feel air unshakable confidence
in him. This love scene, which is brought about by death, belongs to the
highest sphere of art, and even the embarrassment which is evident in
the words exchanged between the Prince and the Princess, is warranted by
the relation in which they have hitherto stood to one another. They do
not dare to speak out plainly.

The scene is hardly over when the rumor which occasioned it is proved to
be false. The Elector lives and is already on the road to Berlin; the
battle has decided the whole war, and peace promptly follows. There is
infinite rejoicing, above all in the soul of the Prince. In the emotion
of his overflowing heart he tells the Electress his sweet secret, and
begs for her consent; she answers, "Not a suppliant on earth could I
deny today, whate'er he ask, and you, our battle-hero, least of all." He
is the happiest of mortals, and challenging "Caesar Divus" himself, as a
rival in Fortune's favor, he, with the ladies, follows his sovereign to
Berlin.

We must lay the proper weight upon this phase if we wish to comprehend
the further development of the tragedy. Arrived in Berlin he hurries at
once to the Elector, and places at his feet three flags captured from
the enemy. The Elector asks him sternly whether he was in command at
Fehrbellin, and when the Prince, in astonishment, replies in the
affirmative, he orders his sword to be taken from him. It had been
reported to the Elector that the Prince was wounded, and before knowing
definitely whether Homburg or Colonel Kottwitz-whom he believed to be
also capable of the deed-had led the cavalry into battle before
receiving the order, the Sovereign had declared that the commanding
officer was to be summoned before a court-martial and condemned to death
without respect of person. Now he simply carries out the sentence. The
Prince does not comprehend in the slightest; he would find it just as
natural if the trees should begin to speak and the stones to fly. He
must indeed obey, but as he gives up his sword, he declares bitterly
that if his "Cousin Frederick" wishes to play the rôle of Brutus, he
will not find in him a son who reveres him even under the executioner's
ax. That is all the more natural, as he is conscious of what he felt and
did on the battlefield in the moment when he received the news of the
death of his present judge. His friends try to calm him. The Elector
pays no attention to his passionate behavior, but with calm majesty
reads the inscriptions on the Swedish flags, and the Prince is led off
to prison. The noblest style is maintained throughout this scene, which
would have delighted the English of Shakespeare's day.

In the third act we find the Prince somewhat changed, but not to any
great extent. After thinking over the matter in solitude he has finally
grasped that the Elector could not allow the violation of his express
command to pass without some sort of punishment. But is it not
sufficient punishment for him to have spent some days in prison, and
does he not, moreover, deserve a reward because he entered it
voluntarily and did not strangle the jailer? Therefore he knows
positively that the first person to visit him will announce that he is
free, and when his friend Hohenzollern enters his cell, he exclaims
"Well, then, I'm free of my imprisonment." But when the latter examines
his position with very different eyes, when, by producing a series of
threatening facts each one more ominous than the other, he gradually
silences the Prince's emotion, which demonstrates exactly what the
Elector can do and what he cannot do, when he even tells him at last
that the death warrant is about to be brought for signature to the
Elector's cabinet, the Prince finally loses his foolish feeling of
security, and then of course he goes to the opposite extreme. Nay, when
the anxious Hohenzollern further informs him that the Swedish
ambassador, who has arrived on the occasion of the peace negotiations,
would ask the hand of the Princess of Orange for his master, but that
the Princess seems to have made her choice already and thus is
apparently thwarting the Elector's plan, and when he asks the Prince if
he is not in some way tangled up in all this, the latter cries out
despairingly "I am lost," and hurries off to the Electress to entreat
her to intervene in his behalf.

On the way he receives a last impressive confirmation of the seriousness
of his situation. He sees his grave being dug by torchlight. In the
apartment of the Electress now takes place the much decried scene, which
people refuse to comprehend, and therefore, of course, will not forgive
the poet for writing. The Prince, in the presence of the girl he loves,
begs for his life. He does so in the most ignominious fashion; indeed,
in order to remove what he considers one of the worst rocks of offense,
he even renounces Nathalie, while she stands by shuddering at the state
of humiliation in which she beholds her heart's ideal. Certainly that is
utterly unworthy of a hero and of a man, and we may unquestionably
depend upon it that the poet, who in the same piece created the Elector
beside the Prince, knew that as well as any of us. In fact, this scene
has no other purpose than to show us that the Prince is not yet either a
hero or a man, and that along the path he has trodden so far nobody can
become either the one or the other. Up to this time he has led a hollow,
sham existence, which could very well fill his head with giddy
intoxication, but could not put any real backbone into him. Now,
however, the true meaning of life, at least in one form, in the form of
love, has at last come close enough to him to make the continuation of
this sham existence impossible; therein lies the real import of the
scene in which he and Nathalie declare their love, the great
significance of which I pointed out above. If that had not taken place
he would probably have become a duelling-celebrity, and after the first
shock of surprise he would have been able to show the same contempt of
death as a professional fencer accustomed to the duelling-ground, who,
with perfect right, considers life--his own namely--to be a mere cipher;
he would have awaited the bullets defiantly, with his arms crossed à la
Napoleon, and the Elector would have had him shot, would indeed have
been forced to have him shot. He can no longer sink to such depths as
that now, but still less can he find the real moral strength soberly to
make up his mind to take voluntary leave of the world; for he has as yet
no feeling of completed existence and of duty performed to take away
with him; his life is still a blank. Therefore at this moment he must
act exactly as he does act; to be sure, the poet must not leave him in
this doubtful stage for any length of time; but neither, indeed, does he
do so. The Electress considers that any further step would be useless,
as she has already of her own accord done her utmost. Nathalie, however,
with death in her heart, promises to venture one last word with her
uncle for the fallen man, but bitterly advises the Prince in any case to
take another look at his grave, and to persuade himself that it is not
one whit gloomier than the battle has showed it a thousand times.

In the fourth act Nathalie keeps her promise, and the Elector sends her
with a mysterious letter to the Prince in his prison. He tells her
laconically that the Prince is saved just as surely as pardon lies in
his own wish. She brings the letter to the prisoner and he reads: "If
you believe that I have been unjust, tell me, I beg you, in a word or
two, and forthwith I will send you back your sword." Such words could be
used only by the majesty which would be revered even without a crown,
and the Prince feels it at once. "I cannot tell him that!" he cries out
when Nathalie presses him to write as the letter bids him. "What
matter?" he answers curtly, when she assures him that the regiment has
been detailed, which is to render the burial honors above his grave by
the thunder of their muskets. "I will tell him 'You did right!'" he
cries, when she continues to urge him; and he does so! He realizes that
the sovereign who summons him to judge himself, cannot have acted thus
toward him, in order to play the Brutus, or from heartless despotism. It
becomes clear to him that war, yes the State itself, rests upon the
principle of subordination, and that the commander must first perform in
his own person what he would require from his subordinates. He
determines,--and this too, be it noted, in the presence of the girl he
loves,--to make satisfaction to the offended code of war, and thus crush
again the Hydra of anarchy, which his arbitrary action, crowned with
victory though it was, might very well lead to. "And though twelve
bullets made you bite the dust this instant," cries Nathalie transported
with admiration, "I could not resist rejoicing, sobbing, crying: 'Thus
you please me.'" Truly she is right; now the man and the hero is
complete and never again in all eternity can he be seized with another
paroxysm of hollow self-glorification or of petty cowardice--which,
indeed, were intimately connected one with the other. The Prince has
become a stoutly forged link in the moral order of the universe, and the
more difficult it was for him, the more firmly he will endure. Whoever
does not find in this scene complete compensation for the preceding one
with the Electress--in which it is rooted like the flower in the black
earth; and whoever does not understand at the same time that the one was
not possible without the other, and that cause and effect cannot be
separated, to that person I must deny all capability of comprehending a
drama in its totality. The change effected by the Elector is one of the
most sublime conceptions that any literature can show, and is very far
from having an equal in our own.

The fifth act brings the necessary test. The Elector is entreated on all
sides to pardon the Prince; his family, the army, the Princess, all urge
him, indeed the latter--a fine touch--repeats the offense of her lover.
On her own authority, she calls a regiment of which she is chief, to
Fehrbellin, in order that the officers there may also sign their names
to a petition which is being circulated, and thus she could, in her
turn, actually be amenable to a court martial. The Elector allows
nothing to be wrung from him by coaxing or by bullying, but no one who
has an idea of the structure of the play need tremble any longer for the
Prince. It can already be seen that the Elector has no intention of
allowing matters to be carried to extremities from the leniency with
which he is inclined to treat old Kottwitz, who has suddenly arrived
with the cavalry, with out his knowledge and, as he believes, without
his orders. When Kottwitz presses him hard, and heatedly assures him
that at the very first opportunity he will repeat the act of the Prince,
which he once condemned but now must approve,--since for one case where
the impulse of the heart, the sudden instinct, does harm, there are ten
in which it alone can lead to the goal,--the Elector answers that lie
does not know how to convince him, but he will call an advocate who is
able to teach the old gentleman better than he can what discipline and
obedience are. Then he sends for the Prince, and the latter, solemnly
and of his own accord, declares before the entire body of generals that
he wishes by a voluntary death to glorify the code of war, which he had
criminally violated in the sight of the whole army, and that the only
favor he asks of the Elector, to whose just sentence he bows
unconditionally, is that he will not try, on behalf of the King of
Sweden, to force Nathalie's inclinations. This is granted him and he
returns to prison, which he leaves immediately after, to start, with
bandaged eyes, on the way which he perforce must think his last, and in
the moment when he expects the end he deservedly receives from the hands
of the Elector his life, his freedom, and his love.

Of course the romantic accessories of the first act have an
unsatisfactory sequel in the last, as the poet here too feels obliged
to take a roundabout road instead of the direct one. But we surely do
not need to prove thus late that the fault is quite as immaterial here
as there.

It is without doubt obvious to every one that in this drama the
evolution of an important man is presented with absolute directness, in
a way in which it is done nowhere else; that we gaze into the
characteristic medley of rough forces and wild impulses which as a rule
are the original ingredients of such a man, and that we accompany him
from the lowest stage up to the zenith, where the unrestrained roving
comet, that in its disorderliness was exposed to the danger of
self-destruction, is transformed into a clear self-dependent fixed star.
Do we need any other proof that the work is capable of producing a most
unprecedented effect? Even though it gave us nothing but the deep
psychological unfolding of this evolution, such an effect would perforce
be produced, for our dramatic authors, on general principles, seldom
give us opportunity to become acquainted with more than the outside skin
of the man, which, to be sure, is the same for Napoleon as for his most
insignificant corporal. In exceptional cases when they allow us a
glimpse into the heart and reins, they expect us to take a narrow
interest in a peculiarly organized individual, and are wanting in every
kind of background. However the psychological side in our drama is, with
extraordinary art, reduced to a mere substratum, out of which an
entirely new figure of tragedy develops, which combines in a wonderful
fashion the deepest tragic shudder with the gentle transports of a hope
that is not extinguished even in the blackest night. We are reminded of
a smiling May morning over which the first thunderstorm breaks with a
horrible crash; and that is a triumph of dramatic technique.

I would gladly examine the innumerable beauties of detail of this drama,
and in particular call attention to the central points of the plot,
abounding in the most vigorous life, into which a situation or a
character or the action itself is sometimes concentrated. But this
would lead me too far afield; moreover, since the most glaring
differences of opinion usually crop up precisely on this subject, I
could not avoid the dangerous ground on which, according to Goethe's
profound saying, the categorical imperative and the authority of the man
who pronounces it, form the last court of appeal. Or if some one, with a
liking for gaudy paint and iridescent rags, should prefer a puppet show
to the living figures of the piece, vital to their very finger tips,
but, to be sure, going about in very simple, sometimes even slovenly
garments, how could we decide the matter otherwise than in the well
known manner of Cato? The categorical imperative which occasionally
found favor with the old Romans is, however, terribly unpopular with the
Germans.

One question, notwithstanding, I dare not leave unanswered, the question
of how it is possible that the Prince of Homburg, in view of its great
literary importance and its abundant vitality, could up to this time
have met with so very little success on the stage? The answer is easy.
The great public, who in general suppose the poetical to lie in that
which is opposed to real life, has a strange conception of dramatic
heroism, and the greater part of the critics who should instruct the
public unfortunately share the same opinion. Because, in most cases, the
hero is entirely finished and manufactured to the last filament when he
makes his appearance in the drama, it is taken for granted that it must
be so under all circumstances. Therefore it follows that the poet fares
badly when, instead of leaving the development exclusively to the
action, he occasionally transfers it in part to the principal character,
and thus does not arouse the sympathy which he needs for his hero until
the end of the piece, instead of doing so in the very beginning. For we
immediately take for granted, even when we already know the poet, that
he has made a mistake, that he is growing enthusiastic over something
imperfect, immature, immoral, and that he demands of us to be
enthusiastic with him. That puts us out of humor, we do not await the
end, and even when we do, and become aware of his real intention, we
only partly abandon our former prejudice. This has already been proved
on various occasions. Kleist, in his _Prince of Homburg_, moreover,
touched what in his day was a most sensitive spot--when Theodor Körner
made his characters run a race to see who could die first. Fear of death
and a hero! That was really going too far! It was an insult to every
ensign "You ask a piece of bread and butter of me! I will not give you
that! But my life you may have with pleasure!"




RECOLLECTIONS OF MY CHILDHOOD (1846-1854)

By FRIEDRICH HEBBEL

TRANSLATED BY FRANCES H. KING


At the time of my birth my father possessed a small house, with a garden
adjoining, in which stood some fruit trees; in particular one very
productive pear-tree. In the house there were three dwellings, the most
pleasant and roomy of which we occupied; its principal advantage
consisted in the fact that it was situated on the sunny side. The other
two were rented. The one opposite to us was inhabited by an old mason,
Claus Ohl, and his little stooping wife, and the third, to which a
back-entrance through the garden gave access, by the family of a day
laborer. The tenants never changed, and for us children they belonged to
the house, just like Father and Mother, from whom indeed, as regards
loving attentions bestowed upon us, they differed but little, if at all.

Our garden was surrounded by other gardens. On one side was the garden
of a jovial master-joiner who loved to tease me. Even now I cannot
understand how he could take his own life, as he did, later on. Once
when I was a very little boy I had said to him over the hedge, with a
precociously knowing look: "Neighbor, it is very cold!" and he never
grew weary of repeating this remark to me, especially in the hot summer
months.

Next to the garden of the joiner was that of the minister. It was
inclosed by a high board fence, which prevented us children from looking
over, but not from peeping through cracks and chinks. This afforded us
infinite pleasure in the springtime when the beautiful strange flowers
which filled the garden, came up again; but we trembled lest the
minister should catch sight of us. We felt an unbounded reverence for
him, which may have been inspired by his serious, severe, sallow face
and his cold glance, as much as by his position and his functions, which
seemed to us very imposing, such as, for example, walking behind the
hearses, which always passed in front of our house. Whenever he looked
over at us, as he occasionally did, we stopped playing and crept back
into the house.

On another side an old well formed the boundary between our garden and
the next. Shaded by trees and deep, as it was, with its rickety wooden
roof covered with dark green moss, I never could look at it without a
shudder. The longish quadrangle was closed by the garden of a dairy-man
who was treated with the greatest respect by the whole neighborhood on
account of the cows which he owned--and by the courtyard of a dresser of
white leather, the most ill-humored of men. My mother always said of him
that he looked as if he had swallowed one person and was just about to
catch another by the head and take the first bite.

This was the atmosphere in which I lived as a child. It could not have
been more restricted, and yet its impressions live on to the present
day. Still the merry joiner looks at me over the hedge, the morose
minister over the board fence. Still I see the strapping, corpulent
dairy-man standing in his doorway, with his hands in his pockets, in
token that they are not empty; still I look upon the dresser of white
leather, with his bilious yellow face, to whom the mere red cheeks of a
child were an insult, and who always seemed more terrible to me when he
began to smile. Still I sit upon the little bench under the spreading
pear-tree, and while refreshing myself in its shade, wait to see if a
fruit, prematurely ripened by worm-holes, will not drop from its sun-lit
top branches; and the well, the roof of which had to be repaired every
little while, still inspires me with a feeling of dread.

[Illustration: GUNTHER AND HAGEN BROUGHT CAPTIVE BEFORE KRIEMHILD _From
the Painting by Schnorr von Carolsfeld_]

II

My father was of a very serious disposition in his home, outside of it
he was gay and talkative. He had acquired a reputation on account of his
talent for telling fairy-tales; many years passed, however, before we
heard them with our own ears. He could not bear to hear us laugh or make
any noise; on the other hand he was fond of singing hymns, and indeed
worldly songs as well, in the twilight of the long winter evenings, and
loved to have us join in. My mother was excessively good-hearted and
somewhat quick-tempered; the most touching kindliness shone from her
blue eyes; when she felt passionately agitated, she began to cry. I was
her favorite; my brother, two years younger than I, was my father's
favorite. The reason was that I resembled my mother, and my brother
seemed to resemble my father, though this was by no means the case, as
was proved later.

My parents lived on the best of terms with one another so long as there
was bread in the house. There were painful scenes at times when it was
lacking. This seldom occurred in summer, but often happened in winter
when work was scarce. Although these scenes never degenerated into
violence, I cannot remember the time when they were not more terrible to
me than anything else, and for that very reason I may not pass over them
in silence.

I can remember an unpleasant incident of another kind which took place
in my earliest childhood. It is the first that I recollect and it may
have happened in my third year, if not in my second. I can tell about it
without offending against the sacred memory of my parents; for whoever
sees in it anything out of the ordinary is not acquainted with the lower
classes. My father when following his trade generally had his meals
provided by the persons for whom he worked. Then we at home, like all
other families, ate our usual midday meal. Occasionally, however, he had
to furnish his own food, in return for extra wages. Then dinner was
deferred, and in order to ward off hunger a simple bread and butter
sandwich was partaken of at twelve o'clock. It was an economical
arrangement for the little household which could not afford two large
meals. On one such day my mother baked some pancakes, certainly more to
please us children than to satisfy any desire of her own. We ate them
with the utmost relish and promised not to say anything about them to
our father in the evening. When he arrived we had already gone to bed
and were sound asleep. I do not know whether he may have been accustomed
to find us still up and the contrary event made him suspect that the
rule of the household had been broken. Suffice it to say he awoke me,
petted me, took me in his arms and asked me what I had eaten.
"Pancakes," I answered, sleepily. He then proceeded to reproach my
mother with it. She had nothing to say, and placed his food before him,
throwing me a glance, however, which foretold evil to come. When we were
alone again the next day, she, to use her own expression, gave me with a
rod a forcible lesson in silence. At other times, on the contrary, she
inculcated in me the strictest love of truth. One would be inclined to
think that these contradictions might have had disastrous consequences.
It was not the case and never will be the case, for life entails many
other similar ones, and human nature can adapt itself even to them.
Certain it is that I acquired one piece of information which it is
better for a child to acquire late or not at all, namely, that at times
the father wishes one thing, and the mother another.

I do not remember that I really went hungry in my earliest childhood, as
I did later, but I do recollect that my mother sometimes had to content
herself with looking on while we children ate, and did so gladly,
because otherwise we could not have had our fill.

III

The principal charm of childhood consists in the fact that every
creature down to the household pets is friendly and kindly disposed
toward children; for out of this arises a feeling of security which
disappears with the first step out into the hostile world and never
returns. This is especially the case among the lower classes. The child
cannot play before the door without being presented with a flower by the
neighboring servant-maid who has been sent across the street to make a
purchase, or to draw water. The fruit-woman throws it a cherry or a pear
out of her basket, or a prosperous burgher perhaps even gives it a small
coin with which it can buy itself a roll. The driver cracks his whip in
passing; the musician as he goes by draws some tones from his
instrument, and whoever does none of all these things at least asks its
name and age, or smiles at it. To be sure, the child must be kept neat
and clean.

My brother and I came in for a bountiful share of this goodwill,
especially on the part of the tenants of our house, our special
neighbors who were almost as much to us as our mother and more than our
severe father. In summer they had their work and could not pay much
attention to us, but then at that season it was not necessary that they
should, as we played in the garden from early till late, from one
bed-time to the next, and the butterflies were company enough. But in
winter, in the rain and snow, when we were confined to the house, almost
everything that entertained and enlivened us came from them.

The wife of the day laborer, Meta by name, was a gigantic figure,
somewhat bent forward, with a stern Old-Testament face, of which I was
vividly reminded by Michaelangelo's Cumæan sybil in the Sistine Chapel.
She usually came over to us at twilight in the long winter evenings,
with a red cloth wound around her head, and stayed until the lights were
lit. Then she told us stories of witches and goblins, that sounded more
impressive from her lips than from any other. We heard of the Blocksberg
and the witches-Sabbath; the broomstick, so contemptible in appearance,
acquired a weird importance, and the dark hole in the chimney, which in
every house, and therefore in ours also, can be misused in such
malignant fashion by the powers of hell and their handmaids, inspired us
with dread. I can still remember perfectly the impression made upon me
by the story of the wicked miller's wife, who transformed herself at
night into a cat, and how I consoled myself with the fact that in the
end she did indeed receive due punishment for this wicked prank. The
cat, namely, when once starting out on her nightly walk, had a paw
chopped off by the miller's apprentice, who thought she looked
suspicious, and the next day the miller's wife lay in bed with a bloody
right arm minus a hand.

When the light was lit we usually went over to neighbor Ohl's, and in
his room we certainly felt more at ease than in Meta's company. Neighbor
Ohl was a man whom I have never seen cross, no matter how often he had
occasion to be so. With an empty stomach, indeed with what in his case
meant more, an empty pipe, he danced, sang, and whistled something for
us whenever we came; and in spite of his considerably reddened
nose--which, according to a tale of my mother's, I once wished for
longingly when looking up at him while being danced upon his knees--and
in spite of the felt cap tapering to a point, which he wore continually,
his always friendly, merry face still gleams before me like a star.
There had been a time when he was the only mason in the place and the
employer of from twenty to thirty journeymen, of whom many later set up
as masters and took the work away from him. At that time, so it was said
later, he could have assured himself a future free from care if he had
not visited the bowling alley too often, and loved a good glass of wine
too well. But whoever bore evil fortune as he did, could not be
reproached for careless enjoyment of the good. I cannot think of him
without emotion; how would it be possible for me to do sot He once, at
fair-time, presented my brother and me with a kettle-drum and a trumpet
which he had, with the greatest difficulty, obtained on credit from the
toy merchant, and as his poverty did not permit him to pay off the small
debt until much later, he had to submit to being dunned for it years
after, when I, already tall and knowing beyond my years, was walking at
his side. He was inexhaustible in inventing ways to amuse us, and as
with children nothing is necessary but goodwill, he never failed to do
so. It was a source of great delight to us when he took a piece of chalk
in his hand, sat himself down with us at his round table and began to
draw-mills, houses, animals, and all sorts of other things. At the same
time he cracked the merriest jokes, which still resound in my ears. Even
the chief of his pleasures was not one for him if we did not share it.
It consisted in drinking slowly a half jug of brandy, in remembrance of
better days, and in smoking a pipe at the same time, on Sunday morning
after the sermon and before dinner. We each had to have a thimble full
of this brandy or he did not enjoy it himself. The drink was certainly
not the best thing for us, but the quantity was small enough to prevent
disastrous consequences. My father, however, forbade this kind of Sunday
treat when he came to find out about it. This troubled the good old man
exceedingly, but did not prevent him, I am forced to add, from having us
drink with him again; only this took place quite secretly, and he
urgently recommended us to keep out of our father's way, so that he
should not have occasion to kiss one of us and thus discover the
transgression. It was a kiss, to wit pressed upon my father's lips, that
had betrayed the secret the first time.

Sometimes one or the other of his two unmarried brothers, who as a rule
tramped around the country and were probably good-for-nothings, would
spend the winter with him. They always found a ready welcome and
remained until the spring or hunger drove them away. He never turned
them out. Small as his piece of bread might be he gladly divided it once
again, but when he had nothing at all, then indeed he could not give
away anything. It was a regular treat for us when Uncle Hans or Johann
arrived, for they brought news of the world to our nest. They told us of
woods and their adventures in them; of robbers and murderers whom they
had escaped from with great difficulty; of the dark giblet stew which
they had eaten in lonely forest-taverns, and of men's fingers and toes
which they pretended to have found at last in the bottom of the dish.

The swaggering, parasitic brothers-in-law were extremely unwelcome to
the housewife, for she did not bear the burden of existence as
light-heartedly as her husband did, and she knew they would not leave
again so long as there was a piece of bacon hanging in the chimney; but
she contented herself with complaining in private, and at times pouring
out her heart to my mother. She, too, was fond of us children, and in
summer, as often as she could, she presented us with red and white
currants, which she, in turn, begged from a stingy friend. I, however,
avoided her too close proximity, for she made it her business to cut my
nails as often as it was necessary, and I detested this on account of
the prickly feeling in the nerve ends which it caused. She read the
Bible diligently, and long before I could read it myself I received from
her my first strong, nay terrible, impression from this gloomy book,
when she read to me out of Jeremiah the horrible passage in which the
angry prophet foretells that in the time of great distress the mothers
would slaughter their own children and eat them. I can remember yet with
what terror this passage inspired me when I heard it, perhaps because I
did not know whether it referred to the past or to the future, to
Jerusalem or to Wesselburen, and because I was myself a child and had a
mother.

 IV

In my fourth year I was sent to a primary-school. It was kept by an old
spinster, Susanna by name, of tall and masculine stature, with friendly
blue eyes, which shone forth like candles from out a pale grayish face.
We children were planted around the walls of the spacious chamber which
served as school-room, and which was rather dark. The boys were on one
side, the girls on the other; Susanna's table, piled high with school
books, stood in the middle, and she herself, a white clay pipe in her
mouth and a cup of tea before her, sat behind it in an ancestral arm
chair which inspired no little respect. Before her lay a long ruler,
which, however, was not used for drawing lines but for chastising us
when we were no longer to be held in check by frowning and clearing of
the throat. A cornucopia full of currants, destined as a reward for
extraordinary virtues, lay beside it. The raps, however, fell more
regularly than the currants; indeed, the cornucopia, sparingly as
Susanna made use of the contents, was sometimes completely empty; we
thus learned Kant's categorical imperative sufficiently early.

Children large and small were called up to the table from time to time,
the more advanced pupils for instruction in writing, the multitude to
repeat their lessons and to receive raps on the fingers with the ruler,
or currants, as the case might be. A sullen maid-servant, who even
occasionally took a hand in inflicting punishment, went up and down the
room, and was at times occupied in a most unpleasant manner with the
youngest pupils, for which reason she kept sharp watch that they should
not partake too freely of the sweet things which they brought with them.

Behind the house was a small yard, adjoining which was Susanna's little
garden. During recess we played our games in the yard; the garden was
kept locked up from us. It was full of flowers, whose fantastic shapes I
can still see swaying in the sultry summer wind. Susanna, when in a good
humor, used sometimes to pluck a few of these flowers for us, not,
however, until it was nearly time for them to fade; before that she
would not rob of a particle of their adornment the neatly laid-out,
carefully-weeded beds, between which ran footpaths that hardly seemed
wide enough for the birds to hop on. Susanna, moreover, distributed her
gifts with great partiality. The children of well-to-do parents received
the best and were allowed to give voice to their desires, which were
frequently lacking in modesty, without being reproved; the poorer had to
be satisfied with what remained, and received nothing at all if they did
not await the act of grace in silence. This was most flagrantly apparent
at Christmas time. Then a great distribution of cakes and nuts took
place, but in most faithful adherence to the words of the Gospel: "To
him who hath, shall be given." The daughters of the parish clerk, a
mightily respected person, the sons of the doctor, and so forth, were
loaded with half-dozens of cakes, with whole handkerchiefs full of nuts;
on the contrary the poor devils whose prospects for Christmas Eve,
unlike those of the rich children, were entirely dependent upon
Susanna's charitable hands, were scantily portioned off. The reason was
that Susanna counted upon return gifts, doubtless was forced to count
upon them, and could not expect any from people who even had difficulty
in getting together the school-money. I was not entirely neglected, as
Susanna received her tribute from our pear-tree regularly every autumn,
and besides, on account of my "good head," I enjoyed a sort of advantage
over many of the others. Nevertheless I too felt the difference, and in
especial had much to suffer from the maid-servant, who put a spiteful
construction upon my most innocent actions; for example, she once
interpreted the pulling out of my handkerchief as a sign that I wished
to have it filled, which drove the most burning blushes to my cheeks and
tears to my eyes. As soon as I became conscious of Susanna's partiality
and the injustice of her maid I stepped outside the magic circle of
childhood. It occurred very early.

V

Two incidents which took place in this school-room are still vividly
present before me. I remember, to begin with, that I received there my
first awful impression of nature and the invisible power which prophetic
man surmises behind it. The child has a period, which lasts a fairly
long time, when it believes that the whole world is subject to its
parents, at least to the father who always remains standing somewhat
mysteriously in the background, and when it would be just as likely to
beg them for good weather as for a plaything. This period naturally
comes to an end when the child, to its astonishment, undergoes the
experience that things occur which are quite as unwelcome to its parents
as a beating is to itself, and with this period disappears a great part
of the mystic spell which surrounds the sacred head of the father:
indeed not until it is past does real human independence begin. My eyes
were opened on this subject by a fearful thunderstorm, which was
accompanied by a cloud burst and hail.

It was a sultry afternoon, one of those which scorch up the earth and
roast all its creatures. We children sat around on our benches, lazy and
depressed, with our catechisms or primers. Susanna herself nodded
sleepily, and indulgently allowed to pass unnoticed the jokes and
teasing, by means of which we tried to keep ourselves awake. Not even
the flies were buzzing, except the very small ones which are always
lively, when all of a sudden the first thunderclap sounded and
reverberated, crashing and roaring, among the worm-eaten rafters of the
old, dilapidated house. In the most desperate combination, such as only
occurs during storms in the north, a clatter of hail stones now
followed, which in less than a minute demolished all the window-panes on
the windy side, and immediately after this, indeed in the midst of it,
came a downpour of rain which seemed to be the prelude of a new deluge.
We children, starting up terrified, ran about screaming and clamoring.
Susanna herself lost her head, and her maid succeeded in closing the
shutters only when there was nothing more to be saved; and there needed
only the Egyptian darkness added to the flood which had already
overtaken us, to heighten the general terror and increase the prevailing
confusion. In the pauses between one thunderclap and the next Susanna
did indeed collect herself somewhat and tried to calm and comfort her
charges, who according to their age were either hanging on to her apron
or crouching by themselves with closed eyes in the corners of the room.
But suddenly a bluish flame of lightning flashed once more through the
cracks of the shutters and the words died on her lips, while the maid,
almost as frightened as the youngest child, howled and screamed out,
"The good God is angry!" When it was dark again in the room she added
with pedagogical moroseness, "You're all of you good for nothing,
anyhow!" These words, no matter how odious the mouth from which they
fell, made a deep impression on me; they forced me to look upward, above
myself and above everything which surrounded me, and kindled in me the
spark of religious emotion.

On my return from school to my father's house, I found there, too, the
horrors of devastation. Our pear-tree had lost not only its young fruit
but likewise all its beautiful leaves, and stood there bare as in
winter: what is more, a very fruitful plum-tree, which used to supply
not only ourselves but half the town besides, and, at the very least,
our fairly numerous kinsfolk, had even been despoiled of the richest of
its branches, and in its mutilation looked like a man with a broken arm.
Though my mother found a sorry comfort in the fact that our pig was now
supplied with dainty fare for a week, I could derive none at all from
it, and even the pieces of glass lying around in abundance--from which
the most excellent mirrors could be made in the easiest way in the world
by sticking them together with damp earth--offered scarcely any
compensation for the irrecoverably lost autumn pleasures. Now, however,
I understood all at once why my father always went to church on Sunday,
and, why I was never allowed to put on a clean shirt without saying:
"God's mercy upon us!" when I did so. I had learned to know the Lord of
Lords; his angry servants, thunder and lightning, hail and storm, had
opened wide the portals of my heart to him, and he had entered in all
his majesty.

What had taken place in my soul was made manifest shortly afterward. For
one evening when once again the wind blew mightily down the chimney,
and the rain beat hard upon the roof as I was being put to bed, the
mechanical babbling of my lips was suddenly transformed into a real,
anxious prayer, and therewith the spiritual navel-string, which up to
that time had bound me exclusively to my parents, was broken. Indeed
things soon went so far that I began to complain to God of my father and
mother when I thought I had been unjustly treated by them.

Further there is connected with this school-room my first and perhaps
most bitter martyrdom. In order to make plain what I would say I must
explain a little. Even in the infant-school all the elements are to be
found which the maturer man later encounters in an intensified degree,
in the world. Brutality, deceit, vulgar cleverness, hypocrisy, all are
represented, and a pure mind always stands there, like Adam and Eve in
the picture, among the wild beasts. How much of this is to be ascribed
to nature, how much to early education, or rather to neglect in the
home, must remain undecided here; the fact admits of no doubt. This,
then, was likewise the case in Wesselburen. Every species was to be met
with, from the brutal boy who plucked the feathers from the living birds
and pulled the legs off the flies, down to the light-fingered little
rascal, who stole the bright colored book-marks out of the primers of
his comrades. The fate which their better-behaved fellow-pupils--who
were condemned to suffer on that account--sometimes angrily prophesied
for the young sinners, when the good boys had happened to be the object
of their jeers or their malicious tricks, was fulfilled to the letter in
the case of more than one of them. The gamins always have instinct
enough to know whom their sting will strike first and sharpest, and
therefore I was, for a time, the one most exposed to their spite.
Sometimes a boy pretended to be reading very zealously in the catechism,
which he held close before his face, but instead he whispered over the
top of the page all sorts of scurrilous things in my ear, and asked me
if I were still stupid enough to believe that children came out of the
well, and that the stork fetched them up? Sometimes another called to me
"If you want an apple, take it out of my pocket, I brought one along for
you!" And when I did so, he cried! "Susanna, I am being robbed," and
denied having said anything to me. A third even spat upon his book and
then began to howl and declared with a brazen face that I had done it.

Although I was almost the only one exposed to vexations of this kind,
partly because I felt them most keenly, and partly because they
succeeded best with me on account of my extreme unwariness, there were
other annoyances which all, without exception, had to put up with.
Foremost among these was the bragging of certain overgrown young rogues
who were considerably ahead of us others in years, but in spite of that
still sat on the A.B.C. bench, and from time to time played truant.
They got nothing out of it at the time but double and threefold boredom,
for as they dared not go home and could not find any playmates, there
was nothing for them to do but crouch down behind a hedge or lurk in a
dried-up ditch until the hour of deliverance struck, and then to mingle
with us on the way home as though they really had been where they
belonged. But they knew how to make up for it and get some fun for
themselves afterward, when they came back to school and related their
adventures. They would tell us how once their father had gone by right
close to the hedge, the cane with which he used to thrash them in his
hand, and yet had not noticed them; how another time their mother,
accompanied by the spitz dog, had come up to the ditch, the dog had
smelt them out, their mother had discovered them, but the lie that they
had been sent there by Susanna herself to pick camomile flowers for her,
had helped them through in spite of all. Then they plumed themselves
like old soldiers who are telling their heroic deeds to wondering
recruits, and the moral always was: we risk the whip and the cane, you
at most the switch, and yet you do not dare to do anything.

This was irritating and all the more so as it was not possible
absolutely to deny the truth of their assertions. Hence when the son of
a cobbler once came to school with his back black and blue, and told us
his father had caught him and punished him severely with his shoemaker's
stirrup, but that he was only going to try it now all the oftener, for
he was no coward, I also determined to show my courage, and that, too,
that very afternoon.

When, therefore, my mother sent me away at the usual hour, provided with
two juicy pears to quench my thirst, I did not go to Susanna's, but
crept, with a beating heart and anxiously peering behind me, into the
woodshed of our neighbor, the joiner, encouraged and assisted to do so
by his son, who was much older than I and already worked in his father's
shop. It was very hot and my hiding place was both dark and close; the
two pears did not last long, besides I could not eat them without some
twinges of conscience, and an old cat cowering in the background with
her young ones, who growled fiercely at my least movement, did not
contribute very much to my amusement. The sin carried its punishment
along with it; I counted every quarter and every half hour of the clock,
the strokes of which penetrated from the high tower to where I was with
a harsh, and it seemed to me, threatening sound. I tormented myself
wondering whether I could get out of the shed again without being
noticed, and I thought only very rarely and fleetingly of the triumph
which I hoped to celebrate on the morrow.

It was already getting rather late when my mother came into the garden
and glancing gaily and contentedly about her, went over to the well to
draw some water. She almost passed directly in front of me, and that in
itself arrested my breathing. But how was it with me when my confidant
suddenly asked her if she knew where Christian was, and to her
astonished reply, "With Susanna!" rejoined half mischievously, half
maliciously "No! no, with the cat!" and winking and blinking showed her
my hiding place! Beside myself with rage, I sprang out and would have
kicked the grinning traitor. My mother, however, her whole face aflame,
set her pail down on one side and seized me by the arms and hair to take
me to school after all. I tore myself away, I rolled on the ground, I
howled and screamed, but in vain. The discovery of such a criminal in
her quiet darling, whom every one praised, incensed her so that she
would not listen to me, but dragged me away by force; and my continued
resistance had no other result than to cause all the windows on the
street to be opened and all heads to pop out. When I arrived my
companions were just being dismissed; they crowded around me, however,
and heaped mockery and derision upon me, while Susanna, who may have
realized that the lesson was too severe, tried to pacify me. Since that
day I believe I know how the man feels who runs the gauntlet.

VI

I should really have mentioned, above, a third experience, but this
last, whether in retrospect one rate it high or low, is, in any case, so
unique and incomparable in the life of man that one dares not place it
in the same category with any other. In Susanna's gloomy school-room,
namely, I learned to know love, and that, too, in the very same hour in
which I entered it; therefore in my fourth year.

The first love! Who does not smile when he reads these words; before
whose vision does not an Aennchen or a Gretchen hover, who once seemed
to him to wear a starry crown and be arrayed in the blue of heaven and
the gold of the morning, and who now perhaps--it would be criminal to
paint the reverse of the picture. But who does not say to himself, too,
that at that time he was carried, as though on wings, past every
honey-cup in the garden of earth, too quickly indeed to become
intoxicated, but slowly enough to breathe in the sacred morning
fragrance. It is therefore with emotion that I now smile when I think of
the beautiful May morning on which actually took place that great event,
long since resolved upon, repeatedly deferred, and at last unalterably
appointed for a definite day--I mean my departure from the paternal home
to school. "He will cry!" said Meta on the evening before, and nodded
sibylline fashion, as though she knew everything. "He will not cry, but
he will get up too late!" rejoined neighbor Ohl's wife. "He will behave
bravely, and be out of his bed at the right time, too!" threw in the
good-natured old man. Then he added, "I have something for him, and I'll
give it to him when he comes in at my door at seven o'clock tomorrow
morning, washed and combed."

At seven o'clock I was at our neighbor's and as a reward was presented
with a little wooden cuckoo. Up to half past seven I was in good spirits
and played with our pug-dog, at quarter to eight I began to weaken, but
toward eight I was a man again, because Meta entered with a face full of
malicious enjoyment, and I sat out courageously, the new primer, with
John Ballhorn's egg-laying cock under my arm. My mother went with me in
order to introduce me ceremoniously; the pug followed; I was not yet
entirely forsaken, and stood in Susanna's presence before I realized it.
In school-master fashion Susanna patted me on the cheek and stroked back
my hair. My mother, in a severe tone which she had great pains in
assuming, bade me be industrious and obedient, and departed hastily, so
as not to allow her emotion to get the better of her; the pug was
undecided for some little time, but at last he went off to join her. I
was presented with a gold paper saint, then my place was shown me and I
was incorporated into the humming, buzzing child-beehive, which, glad of
the interruption, had watched the scene inquisitively.

It was some time before I dared to look up, for I felt that I was being
inspected and this embarrassed me. At last I did so, and my first glance
fell upon a pale, slender girl who sat directly opposite to me; she was
called Emilia and was the daughter of the parish clerk. A thrill of
emotion passed through me, the blood rushed to my heart, but a feeling
of shame also mingled at once with my first sensation, and I dropped my
eyes to the ground again as quickly as though they had committed a
crime.

From this hour I could not banish Emilia from my mind. School, formerly
so much feared, now became my favorite abiding place, because there only
could I see her; Sundays and holidays, which separated me from her, were
as hateful to me as they would otherwise have been welcome; I was
genuinely unhappy if she happened to stay away. She hovered before me
wherever I went and I never grew tired of repeating her name softly to
myself when I was alone; her black eyebrows and her very rosy lips, in
particular, were always present before me; on the other hand, I do not
remember that her voice made any impression upon me, although later
everything, for me, depended upon that.

It can easily be understood that I soon gained out of all this the
reputation of being the most constant attendant at school and the best
pupil. I felt rather strangely about it though, for I knew very well
that it was not the primer which attracted me to Susanna's, and that it
was not in order to learn to read quickly that I spelled away so
busily. However, no one must ever be allowed to divine what was going on
with me, and least of all Emilia. I avoided her most anxiously, so as,
by any and all means, to keep from betraying myself. When the games in
common nevertheless brought us together, I was hostile toward her rather
than in the least friendly. I pulled her back hair in order to touch her
at least for once, and hurt her in doing it, so as not to arouse
suspicion. Once, however, nature forcibly asserted itself, because put
to too severe a test. One afternoon in the romping hour which always
preceded lessons--for the children assembled slowly and Susanna liked to
take a midday nap--a distressing sight greeted me as I entered the
school-room; Emilia was being ill-treated by a boy, and he was one of my
best comrades. He pulled her about and buffeted her lustily, and I bore
it, though not without great difficulty and with ever increasing, silent
exasperation. At last, however, he drove her into a corner, and when he
let her out again, her mouth was bleeding, probably because he had
scratched her somewhere. Then I could control myself no longer, the
sight of the blood drove me mad, I fell upon him, threw him to the
ground and gave him back his thumps and slaps double and threefold. But
Emilia, far from being grateful to me, herself called for aid and
assistance for her enemy when I showed no signs of desisting, and thus
betrayed involuntarily that she liked him better than the avenger.
Susanna, awakened from her slumbers by the noise, hurried to the scene
and, naturally being cross and angry, demanded strict account of my
sudden outburst of rage. What I stammered and stuttered forth in excuse
was incomprehensible and foolish, and thus I received a rude
chastisement as a reward for my first gallant service. My affection for
Emilia lasted until my eighteenth year and passed through very many
phases; I must therefore often refer to it again.

VII

Even in my earliest years my imagination was very vivid. When I was put
to bed in the evening the rafters above me began to crawl, from every
nook and corner of the room distorted visages made grimaces, and the
most familiar objects, such as the cane on which I myself used to ride,
the foot of the table, yes, even the coverlet on my bed with its flowers
and figures, grew strange and filled me with terror. I believe it is
well to distinguish here between the vague general fear, which is
natural to all children without exception, and a greater one which
embodies its terrifying images in clear-cut distinct forms and really
makes them objective to the young soul. The former fear was shared by my
brother, who lay beside me, but his eyes always closed very soon and
then he slept quietly until bright daylight; the latter tormented me
alone, and not only did it keep sleep far from me, but when sleep
finally came, often frightened it away again and made me call for help
in the middle of the night. How deeply the phantasms of this same fear
impressed themselves upon me can be gathered from the fact that they
return in full force in every serious illness. As soon as the feverishly
seething blood rushes over my brain and drowns my consciousness, the
oldest devils, driving out and disarming all laterborn ones, come back
again, and that best shows, without doubt, how they must once have
tortured me.

But by day, as well, my imagination was unusually, and perhaps
unhealthily, active. Ugly people, for example, whom my brother laughed
at and mimicked, filled me with dread. A little hunch-backed tailor--on
either side of whose triangular, deathly-pale face, immoderately long
ears stood out, ears moreover which were bright red and
transparent--could not pass by without my running with screams into the
house; and it almost caused my death when he once, in a passion,
followed me, scolding and calling me a stupid youngster, and upbraiding
my mother because he thought she was making him play the bug-bear in her
domestic discipline. I could not endure the sight of a bone and buried
even the smallest one that came to light in our garden; nay later, when
in Susanna's school, I obliterated with my nails the word "rib" in my
catechism, because it always brought before me the disgusting object
which it designated as vividly as though the object itself lay there in
repulsive decay before my eyes. On the other hand, a rose-leaf, which a
breeze blew to me over the hedge, was as much to me as--nay, more than
the rose itself was to others, and words like tulip and lily, cherry and
apricot, apple and pear, immediately transplanted me into spring,
summer, and autumn; so that in the primer I liked to spell aloud the
pieces in which they occurred better than any others, and grew angry
each time when it was not my turn to do so. Only, unhappily, in the
world one needs the diminishing glass much oftener than the magnifying,
and this holds good even of the beautiful days of youth, except in very
rare cases. For as it is said of horses that they respect man only
because, on account of the construction of their eye, they see in him a
giant, so the child endowed with imagination stands still before a grain
of sand only because it seems to him an insuperable mountain. Things in
themselves therefore cannot set the standard here; on the contrary, one
must inquire about the shadows which they cast; hence the father can
often laugh while the son is enduring the tortures of hell because the
scales by which they weigh are fundamentally different.

An incident, comical in itself, belongs in this place because it throws
a very clear light precisely on this point, so important for education.
I was once sent to get a roll for dinner. The baker's wife handed it to
me and good-humoredly gave me at the same time an old nut-cracker, which
had probably turned up somewhere when she was cleaning house. I had
never seen a nut-cracker before. I was not acquainted with any of its
hidden qualities, and took it like any other doll which appealed to me
by reason of its red cheeks and staring eyes. Joyously starting on my
way home and pressing the nut-cracker, like a newly acquired favorite,
tenderly to my breast, I noticed all of a sudden that it opened its jaws
and in gratitude for my caresses showed me its cruel white teeth. One
may imagine my fright! I shrieked loudly, I ran across the street as
though pursued, but I had not sense or courage enough to throw the demon
away, and as it naturally sometimes closed its mouth and sometimes
opened it again, according to the movements I made while running, I
could not help considering it alive, and arrived home half dead. Here I
was, of course, laughed at and enlightened as to the truth, at last even
scolded. It was all of no avail. It was impossible for me to become
reconciled again to the monster although I recognized its innocence, and
I did not rest until I had received permission to give it away to
another boy. When my father learned of the matter he was of the opinion
that there was no other youngster alive to whom such a thing could
happen. That was very possible, for there was perhaps no other at whom
the cousins of the nut-cracker had made faces from the floor and from
the walls in the evening when he was just going to sleep. This very
night the activity of my seething imagination culminated in a dream,
which was so monstrous and left such an impression upon me that for that
very reason it returned seven times in succession. It seemed to me as
though the dear Lord, of whom I had already heard so much, had stretched
a rope between heaven and earth, had set me upon it, and placed Himself
beside it to swing me. Then without rest or pause I flew up and down
with dizzy speed; now I was high up among the clouds, my hair fluttering
in the wind, and I held on convulsively and closed my eyes; now I was so
near the earth again that I could plainly see the yellow sand and the
little red and white stones--indeed could even reach them with my toes.
I wished to throw myself off; that, however, required resolution, and
before I succeeded, I went up in the air again, and there was nothing
for me to do but seize the rope once more so as not to fall and be
dashed to pieces. The week in which this dream occurred was perhaps the
most terrible one of all my childhood, for the memory of it did not
leave me the whole day. When, in spite of my struggles, I was put to bed
I carried the fear of its return with me, even immediately into my sleep
so that it was no wonder the dream continually recurred, until by
degrees it faded out.

VIII

I remained in Susanna's school until my sixth year and learned there to
read fluently. I was not permitted to learn to write yet on account of
my youth, as it was said; it was the last thing that Susanna had to
teach and therefore she prudently held it in reserve. But I had already
started with the first necessary exercises in memory; for as soon as the
youngster had been promoted from the sexless frock to trousers, and from
the primer to the catechism, he had to learn by heart the ten
commandments and the chief articles of the Christian Faith as Doctor
Martin Luther, the great reformer, formulated them three hundred years
ago for the guidance of the Protestant Church. Memorizing went no
farther and the tremendous dogmas, which without explanation or
elucidation passed from the book into the undeveloped childish brain,
became transformed into wonderful and in part grotesque pictures. These,
however, did the young mind no manner of harm, but gave it a healthy
impetus and stirred it up to prophetic activity. For what does it matter
if the child, when it hears of original sin, or of death and the devil,
forms a conception or a fantastic image of those profound symbols? To
fathom them is the task of our whole lifetime, but the developing man is
warned at the very beginning of an all-disposing higher power, and I
doubt if the same end could be reached by early initiation into the
mysteries of the rule of three or into the wisdom of Æsop's fables. The
remarkable part of it was, to be sure, that in my imagination Luther
came to stand almost directly beside Moses and Jesus Christ, but without
doubt the reason was that his thundering "What is that?" always
resounded immediately after the majestic laconic utterances of Jehovah,
and that moreover his rough, expressive face, out of which the spirit
speaks all the more forcibly because it must manifestly first gain the
victory over the thick resisting flesh, was reproduced in the front of
the catechism in heavy black ink. But so far as I know that had no more
injurious consequences for me than my belief in the real horns and claws
of the devil, or in the scythe of death, and I learned, as soon as there
was any necessity for it, to distinguish perfectly between the Saviour
and the reformer.

For the rest the modest acquisitions that I had made at Susanna's
sufficed to procure for me a certain respect at home. To Master Ohl it
was immensely impressive that I soon knew better than he himself all
that the true Christian believes, and my mother was almost moved to
tears when for the first time I read the evening blessing aloud by
lamp-light, without faltering or stammering. Indeed she felt so edified
that she gave over to me forever the office of reader, the duties of
which I hereafter performed for a considerable length of time with much
zeal and not without self-complacency.

Toward the end of my sixth year a great change, nay a complete
transformation, took place in the school-system in Holstein, and
consequently in that of my own little fatherland. Up to that time the
State had not interfered at all in primary instruction and but little in
the secondary. Parents could send their children wherever they wished
and the primary schools were purely private institutions, about which
even the ministers scarcely troubled themselves, and which often sprang
up in the most curious manner. Thus Susanna had arrived in Wesselburen
one stormy autumn evening, in wooden shoes, without a penny, and an
entire stranger. She had been given a night's lodging, for sweet
charity's sake, by the compassionate widow of a pastor. The latter
discovers that the pilgrim can read and write and also knows quite a
little about the Bible and thereupon makes her on the spot the
proposition to remain in the town, in her very house, and teach. The
youth of the place, or at least the crawling part of the same, had, as
it happened, just been orphaned. The former teacher, for a long time
highly praised on account of his strict discipline, had undressed a
saucy little girl and set her upon a hot stove in punishment for some
naughtiness, perhaps in order to procure still greater praise thereby,
and that had been too much for even the most unqualified reverers of the
rod. Susanna was quite alone in the world, and did not know where she
should turn or what she should take up. She therefore gladly, although
according to her own words not without misgivings, exchanged the
accustomed labor with her hands for the difficult labor with her head,
and the speculation succeeded perfectly, and in the shortest space of
time imaginable.

To the boys and girls of more advanced age severe, sombre gymnasiums and
grammar-schools did indeed open their doors. These were under a sort of
supervision and in case of necessity were recruited by the secular arm,
if new comers did not enlist of their own accord. But in these
institutions too, only the merest manual training was given, in spite of
the pompous sounding names which they flaunted, and which to this hour
have remained a mystery to me. A brother of my mother's, universally
admired on account of his talents--whom the principal, though by no
means over modest, had dismissed with the solemn declaration that he
could teach him nothing further because he knew as much as he
himself--was indeed a mighty calligrapher, and decorated his New Year's
cards with tints and flourishes in India ink as the old printers Fust
and Schöffer did their incunabula, but nevertheless he could not achieve
a single grammatical sentence.

These conditions, undeniably defective and much in need of improvement,
were now once and for all to be brought to an end. The people were to be
educated from the cradle up, superstition was to be exterminated root
and branch. Whether thorough consideration was given to that which
should have been considered above everything else must remain in doubt;
for the conception of culture is extremely relative, and just as the
most disgusting intoxication follows the nipping from every bottle, so
superficial encyclopedical knowledge, which at the most can be made
broad, engenders precisely the most repulsive kind of arrogance. It will
no longer bow to any authority and yet never penetrates to the depths in
which the multifarious logical inconsistencies and contradictions find
their own solution.

Probably the right method was adopted when they founded normal schools
on the one hand and primary schools on the other, so that the essence
which had been distilled in the former and poured into the empty
schoolmaster heads in the form of rationalism, could from the latter
spread itself immediately over the whole land. The result was that a
somewhat superstitious generation was followed by an excessively
overwise one; for it is astonishing how the grandchild feels when he
knows that a nocturnal fiery meteor is composed merely of inflammable
gases, while his grandfather sees in it the devil trying to enter some
chimney or other with his shining money bags.

But however the matter may have stood in general,--and I repeat my
conviction that in this case the happy medium is hard to find,--to me
the reform was a great blessing. For Wesselburen, like the other towns,
acquired an elementary school and a man was chosen as teacher of it
whose name I cannot write down without a feeling of the deepest
gratitude, because in spite of his modest position, he exercised an
immeasurable influence on my development. He was called Franz Christian
Detlefsen and came to us from the neighboring town of Eiderstedt, where
he had already held a small official position.

IX

No house is so small as not to seem to the child who has been born in it
like a world whose wonders and mysteries he discovers only little by
little. Even the poorest cottage has at least a garret to which a ladder
leads up, and with what feelings is this climbed for the first time!
Some old rubbish is sure to be found up there, which, useless and
forgotten, points back to days long past, and reminds us of men whose
last bone has already moldered to dust. Behind the chimney there is
surely a worm-eaten, wooden chest which excites curiosity. The dust is
lying on it hand high, the lock is still there, but there is no need to
look for the key; for one can forage in it wherever one wants, and when
with fear and trembling the child does so, he pulls out a torn boot, or
the broken distaff of a spinning wheel which was laid aside half a
century ago. Shuddering he flings away the double find, because
involuntarily he asks himself where is the leg that wore the boot and
where is the hand that set the wheel in motion. But the mother carefully
picks up the one or the other because she happens to need a strap which
can be cut out of grandfather's boot, or because she believes that she
can start the fire again with great-aunt's distaff.

[Illustration: THE DEATH OF KRIEMHILD _From the Painting by Schnorr von
Carolsfeld_]

Even though the chest had found its way into the tiled stove during the
last hard winter, when people were even forced to burn dried cakes of
dung, there is still hidden away in the garret a rusty sickle which once
went off to the fields, shining and merry, and stretched low at one
swing of the arm a thousand golden-green stalks; and above it hangs the
uncanny scythe which a farm-hand once ran into a long time ago, so that
he cut off his nose--it having hung too far down over the garret hatch,
and he having mounted the ladder too quickly. Beside them the mice are
squeaking in the corners, a couple perhaps jump out of their holes and
after executing a short dance creep back into them again; a little
shiny white weasel is visible for a moment, lifting its clever little
head and forepaws in the air, peering and sniffing; and the single
sunbeam that enters through some hidden chink is so perfectly like a
gold thread that one would like to wind it around one's finger at once.

The cottage is not provided with a cellar but the burgher-house is,
though not indeed on account of the wine but of the potatoes and
turnips. The poorer classes keep these out doors under a goodly pile of
earth, which they raise above them in the autumn, and in winter, in time
of hard frost, carefully cover over with straw or dung as well.

Now to reach the cellar is really much more difficult than to climb to
the attic, but where is the child who does not know how to satisfy this
longing too in one way or another! He can go to the neighbors and hang
on coaxingly to the maid's apron when she goes down to get something, or
can even watch for the moment when the door is left open by mistake, and
venture down on his own account. That is dangerous to be sure, for the
door may be suddenly closed, and the sixteen-legged spiders, that crawl
around the walls in the most hideous deformed shapes, as well as the
trickling greenish water that gathers in the cavities intentionally left
here and there, do not invite one to tarry long. But what does it
matter? One has one's throat after all, and whoever screams lustily will
be heard sooner or later. Now if the house itself suffices, under all
circumstances, to make such an impression upon the child, how must the
town strike him! When he is taken along by mother or father for the
first time, he surely does not start to walk through the tangle of
streets without a feeling of astonishment, and it is still less likely
that he reaches home again without experiencing a sensation of
giddiness. Nay, be perhaps brings back lasting typical conceptions of
many objects, lasting in the sense that in after life they imperceptibly
stretch and widen _ad infinitum_, but never allow themselves to be
effaced; for the primitive impressions of things are indestructible and
maintain themselves against all later ones, no matter how far these, in
themselves, may surpass the old. For me too, then, it was a moment never
to be forgotten, and one whose influence continues to be felt to the
present day, when my mother took me with her for the first time on the
evening walk which she indulged in on Sundays and holidays during the
beautiful summer months. Good gracious, how large this Wesselburen was!
Five-year old legs were nearly tired out before they had made the entire
round! And what did one not meet on the road! The very names of the
streets and squares sounded so puzzling and fantastic! "Now we are on
the Lollard's Foot! That is White Meadow! This way goes over to Bell
Mountain! There stands the Oak Nest!" The less apparent reason there was
for these names, the more certain it seemed that they concealed some
mystery! And then the objects themselves! The church whose pealing voice
I had already heard so often; the graveyard with its dark trees and its
crosses and tombstones; a very old house, in which a, "forty-eighter"
had lived, and in the cellar of which a treasure was said to lie buried,
over which the devil kept watch; and, finally, a big fish-pond: all
these details coalesced in my mind, as though like the limbs of a
gigantic animal they were organically related, into one huge general
picture, and the autumn moon shed a bluish light over it. Since that
time I have seen St. Peter's and every German cathedral, I have been to
Pere la Chaise and the Pyramid of Cestius, but whenever I think in
general of churches, graveyards and the like, they still hover before me
today in the shape in which I saw them on that evening.

X

About the same time that I exchanged Susanna's gloomy room for the
newly-built bright and pleasant primary-school, my father also had to
leave his little house and move into a hired lodging. That was a strange
contrast for me. School had broadened: I gazed out of clear windows with
wide frames of fir wood, instead of trying my curious eyes on green
glass bottle panes with dirty leaden rims; and the daylight, which at
Susanna's always commenced later and stopped earlier than it should, now
came into its full rights. I sat at a comfortable table with a desk and
an ink bottle; the odor of fresh wood and paint, which still has some
charm for me, threw me into a sort of joyous ecstasy, and when, on
account of my reading, I was told by the inspecting minister, to
exchange the third bench, which I had modestly chosen, for the first,
and moreover to take one of the highest places on the latter, my cup of
felicity was nearly full.

Our home, on the contrary, had shrunk and grown darker; there was no
more garden now in which I could romp with my comrades when the weather
was fine, no hallway to receive us hospitably when it rained and blew. I
was restricted to a narrow room in which I myself could hardly move
around and into which I dared not bring any playmates, and to the space
before the door, where it was seldom that any one would stay with me
very long, as the street ran directly past it.

The reason for this change, which brought about such serious
consequences, was strange enough. My father at the time of his marriage
had, by going security, laden himself with another's debt, and would no
doubt have been driven out much earlier if his creditor had not
fortunately had to serve a long term in the penitentiary in punishment
for an act of incendiarism. He was one of those terrible men who do evil
for evil's sake, and prefer the crooked path even when the straight one
would lead them more quickly and surely to the goal. He had that
lowering, wicked, diabolical look in his eyes which no one can endure,
and which in a childlike age may have begotten belief in witches and
sorcerers, because enjoyment of evil finds expression in it, indeed it
seems of necessity to be forced to increase evil. A tavern and general
store-keeper by profession and more than prosperous for his station, he
might have led the most peaceful and merry existence possible, but he
absolutely had to be at enmity with God and the world, and to give free
rein to a truly devilish humor, such as I have never come across
elsewhere, even in detective stories.

Thus he once, with the greatest friendliness, allowed his wife, at her
request, to go to confession on Saturday, but forbade her to take the
communion on Sunday, in accordance with the Protestant custom, because
she had not asked his permission to do so. When any one of his neighbors
happened to be raising a fine young horse, he would go to him and offer
an absurdly low price for the animal. If the other refused it, he would
say: "I would think about it, and bear in mind the old rule, that one
should hand over everything that has once been bargained for; who knows
what may happen!" And surely enough the horse, in spite of careful
watching, would sooner or later be found in the meadow or in the stable
with the tendons of its feet cut and would have to be stabbed to death;
so that in the end he could buy whatever happened to please his fancy.
He willingly assisted his son-in-law in declaring a fraudulent
bankruptcy, and perhaps even beguiled him into it, but when the latter,
after having perjured himself, demanded the embezzled goods back again,
he laughed him to scorn and dared him to go to law. However he was
surprised by his own maid-servant while committing arson and taken in
the very act, in spite of his cleverness and his equally great luck, and
it was to this circumstance that my father, who had been talked into
going security by all sorts of cunning deceptive promises, owed the few
years of quiet possession which he enjoyed during his short lifetime.

As soon as the penitentiary had given its charge back to the community
we were obliged to leave the abode in which our grandparents had shared
joy and sorrow for over half a century. It seemed like the end of the
world to my brother and myself when the old pieces of furniture, which
up till then had scarcely been moved from their places even when the
rooms were whitewashed, suddenly emigrated into the street; when the
respectable old Dutch striking-clock that never went correctly and
always caused confusion, all at once found itself hanging on a branch of
the pear tree, brightly illuminated by the beams of the May sun, while
under it stood insecurely the round worm-eaten dining-table which, when
there happened to be very little on it, had so often elicited from us
the wish that we could have everything that had ever been eaten off it.
However, the whole affair was also, quite naturally, in the nature of a
spectacle for us, and as in the course of clearing out, a bright colored
pipe-head that I had lost a long time before came to light again in some
rat hole or other, and, moreover, various odds and ends, which the other
families who were moving out with us had come across when dusting in the
corners and did not consider worth taking along, fell to our share--since
we could make use of the least thing--the day soon began to seem like a
holiday. We parted, not indeed without emotion but still without sorrow,
from the house in which we had been born.

I did not learn what it really meant until later, though to be sure it
was soon enough. Without realizing it myself I had, up to that time,
been a little aristocrat, and now ceased to be one. This is how it was.
In the same way that the peasant proprietor and the rich burgher look
down However, in the end, all this had a very good effect upon me. I had
been up to that time a dreamer, who in the daytime liked to creep away
behind the hedge or the well, and in the evening cowered in my mother's
lap, or in that of one of our women neighbors, and begged to be told
fairy and ghost stories. Now I was driven out into active life. It was a
question of defending one's skin, and though I engaged in my first
scuffle only "after long hesitation and many, by no means heroic efforts
to escape," yet the result was such, that I no longer tried to avoid the
second, and began at the third or fourth quite to relish the idea. Our
declarations of war were even more laconic than those of the Romans or
Spartans. The challenger looked over at his opponent during
school-hours, when the teacher had turned his back for a moment,
clenched his right fist and laid it over his mouth, or rather over his
jaw; the opponent repeated the symbolic sign the next moment that it was
safe to do so, without by even so much as a look requiring a more
specific manifesto, and at midday, in the churchyard, in the vicinity of
an old vault, before which there, was a grass plot, the affair was
settled in the presence of the whole school, with natural weapons, by
wrestling and pounding, in extreme cases also by biting and scratching.
I never indeed rose to the rank of a genuine triarian, who made it a
point of honor to go about the whole year with a black eye or a swollen
nose, but I very soon lost the reputation for being a good child, which
I owed to my mother and which up to that time had meant so much to me,
and, to make up for it, rose in my father's estimation, who behaved
toward his sons as Frederick the Great did toward his officers,
punishing them if they fought and mocking them if they allowed
themselves to be trifled with. Once my opponent, while I was lying on
top of him pounding him at my ease, bit my finger through to the bone,
so that for weeks I could not use my hand for writing. That was,
however, the most dangerous wound that I can remember, and, as sometimes
happens later in life also, it led to the forming of an intimate
friendship.




EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF FRIEDRICH

HEBBEL


Reflections on the world, life, and books, but chiefly on myself, in the
form of a journal.

TRANSLATED BY FRANCES A. KING

(1836)


At the moment in which we conceive an ideal, there arises in God the
thought of creating it.

Social life in all its _nuances_ is no mere confluence of meaningless
accidents; it is the product of the experience of whole millenniums, and
our task is to apprehend the correctness of these experiences.

A poetic idea cannot be expressed allegorically; allegory is the
ebb-tide at once of the intellect and of the productive power.

Nature eternally repeats the same thought in ever widening expansion;
therefore the drop is an image of the sea.

Poetic and plastic art are alike in being both formative; that is to
say, they are intended to bring to view a limited amount of matter in
definite relations which are fixed by nature; and when the poet gives
expression to an idea, the process is exactly the same as when a painter
or sculptor represents the noble or beautiful outlines of a body.

"Throw away so that thou shalt not lose!" is the best rule of life.

There are said to have been people who, when a limb had been amputated,
still felt pain in the severed member. Twofold mode of all being: what
has _been_ from the beginning and what has only _become_. _Cogito ergo
sum_; am I not much more under the dominion of the thinking faculty
within me than the latter is under my dominion? Individuality is not so
much the goal as the way, and not so much the best way as the only one.

Two human beings are always two extremes.

Words are monuments not of what mankind has thought for centuries about
certain subjects but only of the fact that it has thought about them.
The difference is considerable.

A really great genius can never chance upon an age which would make it
impossible for him to allow free play to his superior powers. If he
chances upon a dull, exhausted, empty century,--well then, this century
is his problem.

Most of my knowledge about myself I have gained in moments when I
perceived the peculiarities of other people.

It is a sign of mediocre intelligence to be able to fix one's attention
upon details when contemplating a great work of art; on the other hand,
it is a sign of the mediocrity of a work of art (poetic or plastic) if
one cannot get beyond the details, if they, so to speak, impede the way
to the whole.

Goethe says in regard to _Michael Kohlhaas_ that one should not single
out such cases in the general course of human events. That is true in so
far as one should not draw any conclusions therefrom to the detriment of
mankind. But it seems to me that it is precisely to exceptions of this
sort that the poet must turn his attention, in order to show that they,
as well as common-place events, have their origin in what is most
genuinely human.

Man cannot abstract his ego from the universe. As firmly as he is
interwoven with the universe and life, just so firmly does he believe
that life and the universe are interwoven with him.

(1837)

It takes a great deal of time merely to perceive where the enigmatical
in many things is actually located. Many simply introduce logic into
their poetry and believe this is equivalent to motivation.

All reasoning (and here belongs what Schiller, under the trade mark of
the sentimental, would smuggle in as poetry) is onesided and allows the
heart and mind no further activity than simply to deny or affirm. On the
contrary, all that is actual and objective (and here belong the
so-called natural sounds, which reveal the innermost essence of a state
or a human personality) is infinite, and offers to those who are in
sympathy and to those who are not the widest scope for the employment of
all their powers.

Philosophy strives ever and always for the absolute, and yet that is
properly speaking the task of poetry.

With every human being (let him be who he will) disappears from the
world a mystery, that, owing to his peculiar construction, he alone
could reveal, and that no one will reveal after him.

It is dangerous to think in images, but it cannot always be avoided; for
often, especially in regard to the highest things, image and thought are
identical.

A miracle is easier to repeat than to explain. Thus the artist continues
the act of creation in the highest sense, without being able to
comprehend it.

(1838)

God Himself when, in order to attain great ends, He exerts a direct
influence upon an individual, and thus allows Himself an arbitrary
interference (if we put the case we must use expressions that fit it) in
the world's machinery, cannot protect His tool from being crushed by the
same wheel which this individual has arrested for a moment or has turned
in another direction. This is surely the principal tragic motif which
underlies the history of the Maid of Orleans. A tragedy which should
reflect this idea would produce a great impression through the glimpse
it would afford into the eternal order of nature, which God Himself may
not disturb with impunity.

When the poet attempts to delineate characters by making them speak, he
must be careful not to allow them to speak about their own inner life.
All their utterances must relate to something external; only then does
their inner nature come out vividly and expressively, for it fashions
itself only in reflections of the world and of life.

To depict two kindred characters one by means of the other, to have them
mutually reflect one another without their becoming aware of it, would
surely be the triumph of delineation.

It is a masterly trait in the _Prince of Homburg_ that the suspicion
that the Elector has had the Prince condemned to death, not so much on
account of the act of overhastiness committed on the battlefield as for
another reason, does not arise spontaneously in the Prince's soul, but
is first awakened by Hohenzollern's questioning.

A double process must take place in the mind of the true poet before it
can evolve anything. The crude matter must be resolved into an idea, and
the idea must condense again into a form. Man is the continuation of the
act of creation, an eternally growing, never completed creation, which
prevents the termination of the world and keeps it from congealing and
hardening. It is highly significant (this thought led me to the one I
have just expressed) that everything which exists as a human conception
is never wholly and perfectly--only fragmentarily--embodied in nature,
and everything which exists perfectly and completely in nature eludes
human conception, man's own nature not excepted. Thus we know and define
right and wrong, virtue and innocence (the latter as soon as we have
lost it), but not life itself, etc. Where knowledge has been vouchsafed
us, there nature requires our coöperation.

The first and last aim of art is to render intuitively perceptible the
process of life itself, to show how the soul of man develops in the
atmosphere surrounding him, let it be suited to him or not, how good
engenders evil within him, and evil in turn produces something less
evil, and how this eternal growth has a limit so far as our apprehension
is concerned, but none at all in reality; this is symbolization. It is
an error when men say that only the fully developed is matter for the
poet; on the contrary, what is in process of development, what is first
begotten in conflict with the elements of creation, that is matter for
him. What is finished can be only a plaything of the waves, it can
only be destroyed and devoured by them; can art have anything to do
with that which is most common, in other words, most universal? But what
is in process of development must pass from one form into another at the
hands of the poet, it must never as formless soft clay dissolve before
our eyes into chaos and confusion; it must always, in a certain sense,
be at the same time a finished product, just as in the universe we never
encounter naked raw material. Man exists only because of his future; an
inexplicable mystery, but one that may not be denied. Man, therefore,
cannot be brought before us as something complete in himself; for not
how he affects the world but how the world affects him arouses our
interest and is of importance to us; the great forces and powers outside
of him find embodiment by exerting an influence over him, and thus lose
their formidableness, the riddle of the universe is solved as soon as it
finds utterance, and even though at the end a question remains, we can
bear this much easier than an empty nothing.

Not only in art but in history as well life sometimes assumes a form,
and art should not seek her subjects and her themes where this has
occurred.

God was a mystery to Himself before the creation; He had to create in
order to understand Himself. If only some one thing had been completely
explained, then everything would be explained.

The motives before a deed are usually transformed during the deed, and
at least seem quite different after the deed: this is an important
circumstance which most dramatists overlook.

Lyric poetry has something childlike about it, dramatic poetry something
manly, epic poetry something senile.

Two hands can indeed clasp one another but cannot grow together. This is
the relation of one individuality to another.

(1840)

From my conception of form many consequences ensue of the most varied
kind. In reference to lyric poetry: the whole emotional life is a
shower, the emotion which is singled out is a drop illumined by the sun.
Dramatic poetry: form is the point where divine and human strength
neutralize one another.

The true idyll results when a man is represented as happy and complete
in himself within his own appointed sphere. So long as he remains within
this sphere fate has no power over him.

Poetry of the highest kind is the true historiography. It grasps the
result of historical processes and holds it fast in imperishable images
as, for example, Sophocles has done with the idea of Hellenism.

All life is a struggle of the individual with the universe.

Duality pervades all our intuitions and thoughts and every moment of our
being, and is our supreme, our last idea. Beside it we, have absolutely
no fundamental idea. Life and death, health and sickness, time and
eternity: we can imagine and picture to ourselves how one gradually
shades off into the other, but not that which lies behind these divided
dualities as a common solvent and reconciliation. (1841)

_Antigone_, representing as it does a romantic individual subject in a
classical form, is the masterpiece of tragic art.

Life is the attempt of the defiantly refractory part to tear itself
loose from the whole and to exist for itself, an attempt that succeeds
just so long as the strength endures which was robbed from the whole by
the individual separation.

"What a man can become, that he is already." God will not lay the
decisive weight on the sins committed by sinful individuals against one
another but only on the sins committed against the idea itself, and
there actual and merely possible sins are one and the same.

(1843)

Expiation in tragedy occurs in the interest of the community, not in
that of the individual, the hero, and it is not at all necessary,
although it is better, that he himself should be conscious of it. Life
is the great river, individualities are drops; tragic individualities
are, however, blocks of ice which must be liquefied again, and in order
that this may be possible they must break and wear themselves away one
against the other.

There is only one necessity, which is that the world should continue to
exist; what happens to individuals in the world is of no consequence.
The evil that they commit must be punished because it endangers the
existence of the world; but there is no reason why they should be
indemnified for the misfortune that befalls them.

(1844)

Absolutely everything depends upon a right conception of guilt. Guilt
must not, in any direction, be confounded with the subordinate
conception of sin, which even in the modern drama--where indeed it
finds, for reasons which are not far to seek, a wider scope than in the
ancient--must always be merged again into the conception of guilt, if
the drama is to rise above the anecdotal to the symbolical. For the
conception of tragic guilt can be developed only from life itself, from
the original incongruity between idea and phenomenon--which incongruity
manifests itself in the phenomenon as extravagance, the natural
consequence of the instinct of self-preservation and self-assertion, the
first and most legitimate of all instincts. But it cannot be developed
from one of the many consequences of this original incongruity, which
lead us too far down into the errors and aberrations of the individual
to allow the working out of the highest dramatic possibilities. So, too,
the conception of tragic expiation should be developed only from
extravagance, which, since it is irrepressible in the phenomenon,
represses the phenomenon, and thus frees the idea again from its
imperfect form. It is true the original incongruity between idea and
phenomenon remains unremoved and unovercome; but it is evident that in
the sphere of life, which art, so long as it understands itself, will
never go beyond, nothing can be removed that lies outside this sphere,
and that art reaches its supreme goal when it seizes upon the immediate
consequence of this incongruity, extravagance, and points out in it the
element of self-destruction; but leaves the incongruity enshrouded in
the darkness of creation, unexplained, as a fact immediately posited.

(1845)

A genuine drama may be compared to one of those great buildings which
have almost as many passages and rooms below the earth as above it.
Ordinary people only know the former; the architect knows the latter
also.

A king has less right than any other person to be an individual.

(1846)

In the poet humanity dreams. Decidedly, a dream is for the spirit what
sleep is for the body.

As every crystallization is dependent upon certain physical conditions,
so every individualization of human nature depends upon the state of
the historical epoch in which it occurs. To represent these
modifications of human nature in their relative necessity is the main
task which poetry has to fulfill in contradistinction to history, and
here it can, if it attains to pure form, render a supreme service. But
it is difficult to separate the merely incidental from the main task and
then besides to avoid subjective moods; so that we scarcely have even
the beginnings of such poems as now hover before my mind.

(1847)

To present the necessary, but in the form of the accidental: that is the
whole secret of dramatic style.

If the characters do not negate the moral idea, what does it matter that
the piece affirms it? The negation of the individual factors must be so
very decided, precisely in order to give emphasis to the affirmation of
the whole.

Human institutions require a man to be a man like other men; but man,
whoever and whatever he may be, wishes to be an individual, indeed is,
as such, individualized. Hence the rupture.

Let the understanding question in a work of art, but do not let it
answer.

(1848)

The understanding no more makes poetry than salt makes food, but it is
necessary to poetry as salt is to food.

(1849)

One does not sit down to play on the piano in order to verify
mathematical laws. Just as little does one write poetry in order to
demonstrate something. Oh, if people would only learn to comprehend
that! Indeed the beauty of all the higher activity of man is precisely
the fact, that ends which the individual never even thinks of are
attained thereby.

(1853)

The process of dramatic individualization is perhaps best illustrated by
comparison to water. Everywhere water is water and man is man, but as
the former acquires a mysterious flavor from every stratum of earth that
it flows or trickles through, so man acquires a peculiarity from his
time, his nation, history, and fate.

(1857) Man would perhaps still have as acute senses as animals, if
thinking did not divert him from the outer world.

(1859)

Ideas are the same thing in the drama that counterpoint is in music;
nothing in themselves but the primary condition for everything.

(1861)

(Concerning my _Nibelungen_.)

It seems to me that a purely human tragedy, natural in all its motifs,
can be constructed upon the mythical foundation inseparable from this
subject, and that so far as my powers permit I have constructed one. The
mysticism of the background should at most remind us that what we hear
in this poem is not the seconds' clock, which measures off the existence
of gnats and ants, but the clock that marks the hours only. Let the
reader who is nevertheless disturbed by the mythical foundation consider
that, if he examines closely, he will also discover such a basis in man
himself, and that, too, in the mere man, in the representative of the
species, and not only in the more specific branch of the same, in the
individual. Or may man's fundamental qualities, either physical or
mental, be accounted for, that is to say, can they be deduced from any
other organic canon than the one which has been posited once for all
with man himself, and which cannot be traced farther back to a final
primitive cause of things, or be critically resolved into its
components? Are they not in part, as for example most of the passions,
opposed to reason and conscience, therefore to the very faculties of man
which, being quite general and disinterested, may most safely be
designated as those which connect him immediately with the universe, and
has this contradiction ever been explained away? Why, then, in art
negate an act upon which is founded even our view of nature?

Otto Prechtler related to me the following incident. When Grillparzer
made my acquaintance upon my arrival in Vienna he said to Prechtler: "No
one on earth will be able to influence this man. One person might have
done so, but he is dead; I mean Goethe." A few years later he added, "I
was mistaken, not even Goethe would have been able to influence him."

(1863)

I do not know the world, for although I myself represent a piece of it,
this is such a minutely small part that no conclusion as to the true
nature of the world can be deduced therefrom. Man, however, I know, for
I am myself a man, and even though I do not know how he originates in
the world, yet I know very well how, having once originated, he reacts
upon it. I therefore conscientiously respect the laws of the human soul;
in reference to everything else, however, I believe that imagination
draws inspiration from the same depths out of which the world itself
arose, that is to say, the multifarious series of phenomena which exists
at present, but which at some future time, may perhaps be replaced by
another.

(To Siegmund Englaender.)

--You wish to believe in the poet as you believe in the Deity; why
ascend so high into the region of clouds, where everything ceases to be,
even analogy? Would you not probably attain more if you descended to the
beast and ascribed to the artistic faculty an intermediate stage between
the instinct of the beast and the consciousness of man? There at least
we are in the sphere of experience, and have the prospect of
ascertaining something real by applying two known quantities to an
unknown one. The beast leads a dream life which nature herself
immediately regulates and strictly adapts to those purposes, by the
attainment of which, on the one hand, the creature itself subsists, but,
on the other, the world continues. The artist leads a similar dream
life, naturally only as an artist, and probably from the same cause; for
the cosmic laws hardly come any more clearly into his field of vision
than the organic laws come into that of the beast, and yet he cannot
round off and complete any of his images without going back to them. Why
then should nature not do for him what she does for the beast? You will,
however, find in general--to go still deeper--that the processes of life
have nothing to do with consciousness, and artistic generation is the
highest of all processes; they differ from the logical precisely in that
they absolutely cannot be traced back to definite factors. Who has ever
closely watched evolution in any of its phases, and what has the
impregnation theory of physiology, in spite of the microscopic detailed
description of the working apparatus, done for the solution of the
fundamental mystery? Can it explain even a humpback? On the other hand,
there can be no complex which it would not be possible to follow up in
all its involutions and finally to resolve. The structure of the
universe is revealed to us, we can, if we like, play the fiddle for the
dance of the heavenly bodies; but the sprouting blade of grass is a
riddle and will always remain one. You would therefore be perfectly
right in laughing at Newton if he wanted to "play the naïve child" and
declare that the falling apple had inspired him with the idea of the
system of gravitation, whereas it may very well have given him the
impetus which started him to reflect upon the subject. On the other
hand, you would wrong Dante if you should doubt that Heaven and Hell had
arisen in colossal outline before his soul at the mere sight of a wood,
half in light and half in shadow. For systems are not dreamed, but
neither are works of art made by minute calculations, nor, what amounts
to the same thing, since thinking is only a higher kind of arithmetic,
thought out. The artistic imagination is the organ which drains those
depths of the world which are inaccessible to the other faculties, and
in accordance herewith, my mode of viewing things puts, in place of the
false realism which takes the part for the whole, only the true realism,
which also comprises what does not lie on the surface. For the rest,
this false realism is not curtailed thereby, for even though one can no
more prepare oneself for writing poetry than for dreaming, yet dreams
will always reflect daily and yearly impressions, and no less do poems
reflect the sympathies and antipathies of the author. I believe all
these propositions are simple and comprehensible. Whoever refuses to
recognize them must throw the half of literature overboard, for example
_Edipus at Colonus_ (for geography knows nothing of sacred groves),
Shakespeare's _Tempest_ (for there is no such thing as magic), _Hamlet_
and _Macbeth_ (for only a fool is afraid of ghosts, etc.); nay he must
also--and this even he who might be ready to make the other sacrifices
would find it hard to bring himself to do--he must also place the French
at the head of what remains; for where can one find realists like
Voltaire, etc.? This, to me, seems to demonstrate my proposition, at
least the counter-test is made.




THE LIFE OF OTTO LUDWIG

By A.R. HOHLFELD, Ph.D.

Professor of German Literature, University of Wisconsin


The career of Otto Ludwig belongs to a sad period in nineteenth century
literature in Germany. Sad not because of any lack of works of
originality and power, but sad because of the wanton neglect with which
the German public of those years treated its ablest and most forceful
writers. The historian Treitschke, in an essay probably written not long
after the death of Otto Ludwig, sarcastically says in direct reference
to the latter's tragic life: "No nation reads more books than ours, none
buys fewer." To be sure, Germany was then a poor country and its readers
had some excuse for being economical in supplying their literary wants.
But there was no excuse for the notorious narrowness of vision and
judgment shown by many of the leading critics, theatres, and literary
journals of that time. Writers of mediocre talent were praised to the
skies. But old Grillparzer, Hebbel and Ludwig, Keller, Raabe, Storm, and
others who brought a really new and vital message were left to bear the
burden of neglect, if not of animosity. No wonder that in foreign lands,
after the middle of the nineteenth century, contemporary German
literature fell into an almost universal disrepute from which it is only
slowly recovering at present. Foreign critics were justified in judging
the significance of the literary output of Germany by those writers on
whom the Germans themselves were placing the seal of national approval.
Zschokke, Gerstäcker, Auerbach, Spielhagen, not to mention the
ubiquitous Mühlbach or Marlitt or Polko--these were the names which in
America, for instance, figured most prominently in the magazines between
1850 and 1880. [Illustration: OTTO LUDWIG] [Blank Page] Their works
were reviewed and translated. They were considered as the
representatives of Germany in the literary parliament of nations, while
those of her men of letters whom we have since learned to recognize as
the real forces of her mid-century literature remained unknown. Of
Ludwig, who clearly belongs to this more select group, the _Atlantic
Monthly_ and the _North American Review_, for obvious reasons, reviewed
at some length his _Studies in Shakespeare_; but, as far as the present
writer's knowledge goes, not one of his works was ever translated in
this country until the _Hereditary Forester_ appeared in _Poet Lore_
only a few years ago.

Otto Ludwig was born in 1813 in Eisfeld, a small town picturesquely
situated in the foothills of the southern slope of the Thuringian
Forest, and his entire life was spent within the limited confines of
Thuringia and Saxony. Leipzig and Dresden, not much over one hundred
English miles to the northeastward of Eisfeld, were the only two larger
cities with which he ever became acquainted, and, even when living
there, it was characteristic of him to take refuge in some rustic suburb
or near-by village. Ludwig's parents belonged to the "leading families"
of their town and were in very comfortable circumstances at the time of
his birth and early childhood. Sudden reverses, however, soon interfered
with the boy's prospects in life. At the age of twelve, he lost his
father, six years later his mother. After the father's death a
well-to-do uncle took it upon himself to care for the boy, whom he
intended to be his heir and his successor in business. But neither the
imaginative, nervously sensitive mother, nor the well-meaning but
happy-go-lucky uncle were able to furnish that guidance which the
delicate and prematurely contemplative youth needed. After only a short
period of irregular schooling, Ludwig, sixteen years old, had to enter
his uncle's business; but a few years of apprenticeship convinced even
the uncle that the young man was hardly on his right track as a salesman
of groceries. A renewed effort to take up systematic school work with
the view of preparing for one of the learned professions did not prove
any more successful, and, in 1833, Ludwig, who had always shown an
unusual talent for music and enjoyed excellent instruction in it,
decided to become a musician. Continuing his secluded life at Eisfeld he
devoted himself for years to the leisurely study and composition of
music, until a few successful amateur performances of some operatic
compositions of his attracted attention to him in musical circles in
Meiningen, the near-by ducal residence. He was granted a scholarship
amply sufficient to permit him to perfect his musical education at
Leipzig under Mendelssohn, then the renowned director of the famous
_Gewandhaus_ concerts. But the large city only deterred the shy recluse,
Mendelssohn showed little appreciation for Ludwig's efforts to cultivate
a realistically characteristic style of musical expression, and finally
a severe spell of illness came to make the Leipzig venture a complete
failure.

After a year's absence we thus find Ludwig again at home. But his
experiences in the great world were not to be without consequences.
While he was at Leipzig his homesickness had made him paint in rosy
colors the dreamy hermit-life at Eisfeld. Now, however, after his
return, he became keenly conscious of the pettiness and inadequacy of
his surroundings and of the lack of well-defined purpose in his life
thus far. It was during this period of introspection and doubt that he
finally decided to devote himself to a literary career. He took up the
study of English, plunged into Shakespeare and Goethe, and worked
assiduously on a number of dramatic and novelistic ventures. In 1843 he
again left Eisfeld, this time for good, and first turned to Leipzig and
then to Dresden. Efforts to get some of his dramas accepted by the
Leipzig and Dresden theatres continued to prove fruitless. But in 1844,
after his uncle's death, he had come into possession of a small fortune,
and as his habits were always exceedingly frugal, he now saw before
himself the assurance of a few years free from all care. In
characteristic fashion he again created for himself a quiet retreat,
partly in the idyllic surroundings of Meissen, partly in Meissen itself,
the charmingly picturesque town of historic fame not far from Dresden,
on the Elbe. He soon became engaged to a lovable young woman, who
entered heart and soul into all of his hopes and plans, and with but
brief interruptions he continued to live here in rustic retirement,
until the year 1850 at last was destined to bring him recognition and
fame.

Thus far none of Ludwig's writings, aside from a mere trifle or two, had
found their way before the public. As many as five or six regular dramas
had been completed, but none had been printed, none performed. But now
he finished his _Hereditary Forester_ and with it made a deep impression
upon his influential friend Eduard Devrient, the famous actor of the
Dresden court theatre. Through Devrient's mediation the drama was
accepted at Dresden and, although its reception by the public was at
first a divided one, it was at once recognized by friend and foe as a
literary and theatrical event of great significance. Though late, yet
all of a sudden, Ludwig, like Byron, awoke to find himself famous. When,
in 1852, he at last felt able to marry the woman of his love, his life
battle seemed to have been won for good. In the same year, 1852, he
published his second great drama, _The Maccabeans_, which, though not
attaining the popularity of the _Hereditary Forester_, did even more
perhaps to enhance the poet's fame. He could now count among the
steadily widening circle of his friends and admirers men like Julian
Schmidt, the prominent critic and editor, Gustav Freytag, and Berthold
Auerbach. At Auerbach's suggestion, Ludwig for awhile turned to
narrative literature and in the years 1855 and 1856 published his two
best stories, the _Heiterethei_ and _Between Heaven and Earth_--the
former again the more popular, the latter of higher literary merit.
These brief years from 1850 to 1856 were the zenith of Ludwig's career,
the height of his productivity as an artist and of his success and
happiness as a man. But already the shadows were gathering which were to
cast such a deep gloom over the last years of the poet's life.

In 1856 he was again stricken by what seemed to be the same mysterious
illness, never fully explained, that had befallen him in Leipzig. He
recovered, to be sure, for the time being, but his ailments returned
again and again. From about 1860 Ludwig practically never was a well
man. Confined to the house and soon to his bed, he slowly wasted away.
The tenderest care of his devoted wife and the affection of a few loyal
friends could do but little to relieve the most excruciating pain or to
keep away the actual want that began to knock at his door. Ludwig had
never learned to look upon his art as a commercial asset; his few
published works had never brought him much return, and his own slender
means had for some time been exhausted. Some gifts of honor were
bestowed upon the invalid by authors' societies and princely patrons,
but they came too late to prevent the inevitable. As late as 1859 Ludwig
still had hope for the future. "I see before me," he wrote in his diary,
"a veritable world of conceptions and forms which I might conquer if,
freed from the weight that keeps me down, I could take wings again. I
believe it would not be too late yet." It was not to be. Successful
production of a high order would probably have been impossible under
such circumstances in any case. With Ludwig it was further prevented by
an obstacle of a psychological nature. As the feeling of health and
strength and ease of mind departed from him, there came in its place an
ever growing, almost morbid, spirit of self-questioning criticism and
doubt. As the springs of creative energy ceased flowing, Ludwig thought
he could replenish them by turning to theory and analysis. In the free
intervals between the attacks of his illness, when his mind worked as
vigorously as ever, the luckless poet filled volume upon volume with
esthetic and ethical reflections upon poetry and literature. From
Shakespeare especially he thought he might be able to wrest those last
secrets of an art which tantalizingly hovered before his vision. In
these studies, fragmentary, ill-organized, not prepared for publication
as they are, we nevertheless possess a veritable treasure-house of
soundest reflection and subtlest intuition on many of the fundamental
questions of poetry, especially of the drama. They have often been
compared with Lessing's _Hamburg Dramaturgy_, of which, in many
respects, they are the worthiest continuation. But in this unequal
struggle Ludwig became less and less able to give life and color to his
own conceptions or to be satisfied with his results when he had done so.
How many could safely try to measure up to a standard taken directly
from Shakespeare! Plan upon plan was started and laid aside. A field of
ruins, disquieting, threatening, piled up around the lonesome fighter
who slowly succumbed beneath the crushing greatness of his vision.
Noble, but also tragic beyond words it is when, shortly before his
death, Ludwig declared to one of his friends that even in his suffering
no poet had ever been to him such a source of strength as Shakespeare,
to whom he owed far more than the clarification of his ideals of art.
Thus the mariner sang the praises of the ocean as it was about to engulf
his shipwrecked craft. Ludwig died in Dresden in February, 1865,
fifty-two years of age. Of his three surviving children, two sons came
to this western hemisphere and attained, in successful business and
professional life, to positions of honor and influence among the German
element of Southern Brazil.

Aside from the posthumous _Studies_ just spoken of, Ludwig's fame as a
writer rests entirely on the two dramas, the _Hereditary Forester_ and
_The Maccabæans_, and on the two long novel-like stories, the
_Heiterethei_ and _Between Heaven and Earth_. They represent practically
everything that he ever published during his lifetime. The few
insignificant lyrics, the additional dramas and stories, partly
completed and partly fragmentary, which have become known after his
death, have added no new traits to the picture of Ludwig as it will
remain in the history of German literature, and they can well be omitted
from consideration in this brief appreciation. It must be admitted that
it is a rare phenomenon to see lasting fame and influence built on such
a slender amount of work and on so brief a period of productivity. But
within this limited range Ludwig must be recognized as a writer of
unusual powers of observation and sympathy, of imagination and embodying
execution. Truthful to himself and to the ideals of his art,
uninfluenced by the popular demands of the day or by any desire for gain
or fame, free from everything that smacks of sham or artifice, he
succeeded in creating works that speak to us with the robustness and
authority of life itself and yet are ennobled by the graces of a
selective and restraining art.

In his _Hereditary Forester_ Ludwig produced one of the best
middle-class tragedies of modern literature, combining in it, as indeed
he had set out to do, highest literary merit with impelling
effectiveness upon the stage. "It is exceedingly easy," he said, "to
write a poetic drama if one does not care to keep an eye upon the stage,
or one that is a successful stage play, but without poetry. * * * I
shall do what I can to help create that really healthy condition of the
drama which consists in the intimate union of poetry and the stage."
Following in the footsteps of Schiller in his _Intrigue and Love_ and of
Hebbel in his _Maria Magdalena_, he has not attained, it is true, the
massive solidity of the latter, nor has he breathed into his drama that
lofty spirit of social challenge that wings the former. On close
inspection, the construction of Ludwig's drama shows undeniable flaws of
motivation. The playwright has allowed too free a play to chance and
slender probability. The spirit of the revolutionary unrest of 1848 is
in the background, especially in the tavern scene of the third act, but
it does not in any way organically connect the family tragedy which we
witness with the broad movements of contemporary public life. But the
play is indeed, as Ludwig desired it to be, "a declaration of war
against the unnaturalness and conventionalities of our latter-day stage
literature." The life-like characters which it portrays, the convincing
language which they speak, the carefully drawn _milieu_ in which they
move, the intense struggle of passions in which they are engaged-these
are all handled with a skill as rare as it is artistically true to life.
And even though the atmosphere enveloping it all seems to combine the
realism of Ludwig's maturity with the romantic pre-disposition of his
earlier works, it remains in fine keeping with that shadowy forest-world
which forms the setting of the play.

Ludwig's next drama, _The Maccabæans_, was of a radically different
mold. From prose we pass to verse, from humble middle-class life to the
traditional grandeur of classical tragedy, from the narrow circle of
domestic happenings to a Shakespearean canvas of broad historical
associations, from contemporary Germany to those heroic struggles in
which, in the second century, B.C., the Jews under the leadership of
Judas Maccabæus defended their national and religious freedom against
Syrian oppression. In this drama also, certain faults of construction
are evident. There is a lack of central unity of interest, in part due,
no doubt, to the long processes of development which the play underwent
before completion. But again, there is the same masterly technique in
all matters of detail, a wonderful strength and beauty of language,
subtle and convincing character-portrayal and a splendid realization of
that ethnic atmosphere of Jewish life and character in which the drama
moves and from which its conflicts spring.

Of the two stories of Ludwig, the _Heiterethei_ is in every way the
lighter; nevertheless, it is one of the best of those famous stories
from peasant life in which German literature is so rich. More artistic
than Jeremias Gotthelf and in a deeper sense truer to life than
Auerbach, Ludwig has here created a popular tale of great charm and
power. The "poetic realism" of his manner and the subdued ethical
didacticism of his purpose have been skillfully united in forming an
excellent example of truly popular art. The story is that of the gradual
mellowing and final happy marriage of two young people who, with the
best of hearts, are veritable firebrands of self-willed defiance to
everything suggesting outside interference. The nickname of the girl,
"Heiterethei," given her on account of her bright and sunny disposition,
explains the title of the story. And it must not be left unsaid that,
despite the underlying seriousness of the character-development
portrayed, the story as a whole is characterized by a sovereign play of
humor, at times a bit grotesque and boisterous, maybe, but none the less
irresistible in its quaint charm and deeper meaning.

In _Between Heaven and Earth_, Ludwig finally achieved his masterpiece,
creating a work in which vision and workmanship are both on the highest
level and thoroughly worthy of each other. No "hero" in the traditional
sense, no glamor of what is commonly regarded as "poetic," no broad
social background, no philosophic outlook, but within a narrow, and if
you will, commonplace range, the author here permits us to get same of
the profoundest glimpses of human life and character. It is a story of
slaters working on steep roofs and tall church spires; and as does their
scaffolding, so the poet tries to move along "between heaven and earth,"
his feet and eyes firmly fastened to life's realities, his heart and
soul lifted into the realm of the ideal, the eternal. Thus interpreted,
the title of the story may indeed be taken as a symbol of that principle
of "poetic realism" which Ludwig strove for and of which the story is
one of the best embodiments. The technique of the work, to be sure, is
that of Ludwig's day, not of our own. There are long descriptions and
reflections and a good deal of direct psychological analysis, in all of
which the narrator does not hesitate to speak from his subjective point
of view. Such a method modern theorists would feign stamp as a crime
against the spirit of epic art, as though a novel were a drama, and
genuine narration did not by nature participate of both the objective
and subjective manner of presentation. But even if these things were
undeniable flaws of technique, which we are far from admitting, they
certainly cannot mar genuine art in its essential beauty and appeal. The
Thuringian landscape and the life of the small town embedded in it, the
tragic happenings in the Nettenmair family, the slow processes of
soul-life in the two hostile brothers and the martyred woman between
them--all this is made to live before our eyes with such simple and yet
absolutely adequate means that we get from it that deep and satisfying
feeling of harmony of content and form that characterizes a true
masterpiece of art. Character drawing and milieu painting, always
Ludwig's strong points, have again been most felicitously handled. With
equal success the author has developed the plot of the story which, in a
few memorable scenes, attains to truly dramatic scope and power. More
admirable than everything else, however, is the subtly realistic
treatment of the psychological processes in Fritz Nettenmair. His
gradual deterioration, step by step, from self-indulgent joviality,
through envy and jealousy, to the hatred of despair that does not even
shrink from fratricide, is depicted with masterly insight and
consistency. This phase of Ludwig's art strikes us as fresh and modern
today, and it must have appeared like a revelation to a generation that
did not yet, know Flaubert's _Madame Bovary_ or George Eliot's _Adam
Bede_.

Considered in his totality as man and as artist, Ludwig cannot be
counted among the names of the very first rank in German nineteenth
century literature. To him cannot be assigned the unequivocal greatness
of a Kleist, a Hebbel, a Keller. The narrowness of the circumstances of
his life and the invalidism of his mature years combined with, and no
doubt were aided by, an apparent lack of robustness and forcefulness of
character and temperament, and thus conspired to keep him from attaining
that victorious self-assertion, that sovereign balance between volition
and power, without which true greatness in the full sense of the word is
impossible. But among the leading names of second rank, his will always
occupy a place of distinction. If his was not the work of a Messiah, it
was that of a John the Baptist. Having been nurtured in the traditions
of the romanticism of Tieck, E.T.A. Hoffmann, and Jean Paul, he was
one of the first to experience the artistic charm and possibilities of
unidealized reality and to respond to its call. It was he who seems to
have coined the phrase, even if he was not first to formulate the
principle, of that restrained or "artistic realism" that tries to set
its standards half-way between subjectively idealistic and objectively
naturalistic art. Even his extravagant admiration for Shakespeare was
chiefly due to the fact that he saw in his art the supreme embodiment of
this principle. Ludwig did not renounce beauty of art except where it
infringed upon the one thing needful--essential truthfulness to reality,
especially in all that pertains to what Hebbel called "the laws of the
human soul." Many of the utterances of Ludwig's _Studies_ are as
startlingly modern, not to say Ibsenesque, as similar ones in Hebbel's
_Diaries_, in their frank recognition of the solemn claims of reality,
even ugly reality, upon the honest artist who endeavors to interpret
life in its entirety. For art, too, like all other achievements of human
culture, according to Ludwig, must render service unto life. It is its
function to furnish insight into life, mastery over life. "Rather no
poetry at all," he exclaims, "than a poetry that robs us of the joy of
living, that makes us unproductive in life, that, instead of nerving us
for life, unnerves us for it."

In German literature Ludwig thus occupies a not unimportant place. Far
more penetrating and far more artistic than "realists" like Auerbach or
Spielhagen he paved the way for the coming of Anzengruber who, in turn,
anticipated the realism of the moderns in more, ways than is generally
recognized. Ludwig will always be a figure of prominence in the history
of the modern middle-class tragedy, in the development of the story
dealing with village life, in the efforts to emphasize the value of a
literature close to the native soil, in the attempts of German criticism
to fathom the secret of Shakespearean art. More than that, however. When
the final account of the gradual evolution of nineteenth century realism
will some time be written from another than a one-sidedly French point
of view, a place of honorable recognition will be due to the thoughtful
and forceful author of the _Studies_ and _Between Heaven and Earth_.


FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 6: The extracts from _The Prince of Homburg_ are taken from
Mr. Hagedorn's translation, Volume IV of THE GERMAN CLASSICS.]

       *       *       *       *       *




OTTO LUDWIG

       *       *       *       *       *




  THE HEREDITARY FORESTER

  A TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS

            *       *       *       *       *

  DRAMATIS PERSONÆ



STEIN, _a rich manufacturer and country gentleman_.

ROBERT, _his son_.

CHRISTIAN ULRICH, _forester on the estate of Düsterwalde, called "The
Hereditary Forester_."

SOPHY, _his wife_.

ANDREW, _forester's assistant _}
MARY                                } _their children_.
WILLIAM                             }

WILKENS, _a wealthy farmer, uncle of_ SOPHY.

_The Pastor of Waldenrode_.

MÖLLER, _Stein's bookkeeper_.

GODFREY, _a hunter_.

WEILER, _keeper in Ulrich's forest_.

_The proprietor of the "Boundary Inn."_

FREI         }
LINDENSCHMIED} _Poachers_.
KATHARINE    }

BASTIAN, _Stein's valet_.

_Two porters._

_The scene is alternately the forester's house at Düsterwalde and
Stein's mansion at Waldenrode; once, in Act III, the Frontier Inn and
the Dell._



THE HEREDITARY FORESTER (1850)

TRANSLATED BY ALFRED REMY, A.M.

Professor of Modern Languages, Brooklyn Commercial High School.



ACT I

_The_ FORESTER'S _house at Düsterwalde_.

_In the back of the room a folding door and a closet; at either side
ordinary doors. On the right, a window; on the left, in the rear, the
stove; more to the front a cuckoo-clock; then a rack where several
rifles are hanging, among them two double-barreled ones, hunter's bags
and similar utensils; and a book shelf on which are a Bible and
hymn-books._


SCENE I

_Behind the scenes musicians are heard playing._ WEILER, _looking about
him, slowly through the centre door; the_ FORESTER'S _wife at the same
time from the left with an air of being very busy. Then_ ANDREW,
WILLIAM, _and finally_ MARY.

SOPHY. There, the musicians have come already. I wonder where I put the
cellar-key. The musicians must have something to drink. You here,
Weiler?

WEILER.

Yes, I'm here. But where is the old man--the forester?

SOPHY.

My husband? Isn't he outside?

WEILER.

I want to see him about the wood-cutters.

SOPHY.

Can't you wait?

WEILER.

Wait? Bless you, no. I have my hands full.

SOPHY.

Then get along with you!

WEILER (_quietly filling his short clay pipe with tobacco_).

Yes.

SOPHY.

Is he perhaps already with Herr Stein--

WEILER.

Yes; the sand was already strewn on Tuesday. And the garlands outside at
the door. If I do not mistake we are today celebrating the engagement of
Miss Mary to Mr. Robert Stein? Then they will be even more chummy when
he can say "my father-in-law, Mr. Stein." And that is by no means all.
Now Stein has also bought the estate where Ulrich is forester. The fat
lawyer from town fixed up the deeds yesterday. And this morning Stein
got out of bed as proprietor of Düsterwalde.

SOPHY.

The table here--

WEILER (_while they carry the table together, on the left_).

Won't Ulrich have an easy time of it, now that his old friend has become
his master, and is going to be his father-in-law into the bargain!

SOPHY.

Nearer the stove. We must get in one more table.

WEILER (_chuckling to himself_).

Regular ale-house politicians those two, Stein and Ulrich. Every day
they have a row.

SOPHY.

What are you talking there about a row? They're only fooling.

[_Exit in a hurry; reënters immediately afterward_.]

WEILER (_going as far as the door, gesticulating behind her_).

Fooling? Don't you believe it! The one is hot-headed, the other
obstinate. Ever since there was talk of buying the estate, the clearing
of the forest has been the daily apple of discord. Rich people always
pretend to know something, even if they don't know the first thing. Now
Stein thinks that by cutting down every other row of trees in the forest
the first would have more light and room for growing. Maybe Godfrey has
hunted that up in some old book. But when he comes with that theory to
Ulrich he strikes the wrong man. Only day before yesterday I thought
they were going to eat each other up, so that nothing would remain of
either of them. Stein says: "The forest will be _cleared_." The
forester: "The forest will _not_ be cleared." Stein: "But it _shall_ be
cleared." The forester: "It _shall not_ be cleared." Stein jumps up,
buttons his coat, two buttons at a time, knocks down two chairs, and is
gone. Well, I thought, that is the end of the friendship! But Lord bless
my soul! That happened the night before last, and early yesterday
morning--it was scarcely dawn--who comes whistling from the castle and
knocks at the forester's window, as though nothing had happened? That's
Stein. And who has already been waiting for a quarter of an hour and
grunts forth from under his white moustache, "I'm coming?" That's
Ulrich. And now both of them, without asking each other's pardon, go
together out into the forest, as though there never had been a quarrel!
Nobody takes any notice of it any longer. At night they quarrel, in the
morning they go together into the forest, as though it could not be
otherwise. But does he treat his boy any differently? Robert? Does he?
Didn't he want to leave home half a dozen times? And afterward he is too
good. Queer business that!

[During the last words he has retreated step by step before the table
which ANDREW and WILLIAM are carrying in and placing against the table
which already stands on the left in the direction from the footlights to
the back of stage.]

SOPHY.

Put it here. That's it. And now chairs, boys. From the upper room.
Weiler might--

[ANDREW and WILLIAM exeunt.]

WEILER (in a hurry, making ready to go).

Well, if Weiler did not have his hands full! Outside with the
wood-cutters--then with the fir-seed and with the salt--there--I don't
know where my head's standing with all the work. And the old man--

[A pantomime expressive of ULRICH'S severity.]

SOPHY.

Well, I don't want to be to blame if you neglect anything.

[Exit.]

WEILER (very calmly).

All right!

[Laying his finger against his nose.]

But I wonder whether he will still always be the first to patch up
differences? I mean Stein. Now that he is the forester's master? Well; I
don't want to prophesy, but--the master is always right because he is
the master. Humph! I wish something serious would come to pass. At any
rate, I am getting tired of merry faces again.

[Enter ANDREW and WILLIAM, carrying chairs.]

SOPHY. Seven, eight, nine, ten, chairs.

[Counts once more, softly.]

Correct!

WEILER.

That was a queer expression that Godfrey had on his face yesterday, Mr.
Andrew. I bet you had another quarrel with him.

SOPHY.

With that vindictive brutal fellow?

[_She sets the table._]

ANDREW.

Who can live in peace with him?

SOPHY.

Well, what's done can't be undone. But you'd better look out for him.

WEILER.

So say I. For there is not a muscle in that fellow's body which is not
wicked.

ANDREW.

I am not afraid of him.

SOPHY.

Come, William; run into the garden. Get me some crown-imperials,
snap-dragons, larkspurs--something big, so that it will look like
something in the glass. The Steins will soon be here with Mr. Möller,
the bookkeeper.

WEILER.

The old bachelor--

SOPHY.

Just look, Andrew, whether cousin Wilkens isn't coming yet.

[_ANDREW and WILLIAM exeunt._]

WEILER.

Wilkens is coming too?

SOPHY (with emphasis).

Mr. Wilkens? He will not stay away when his niece's daughter announces
her engagement.

WEILER.

No, indeed. He has money, has Mr. Wilkens. The richest farmer for miles
around. I also was Mr. Weiler once, before my creditors closed up my
coffee store. Then they jammed the "Mr." in the door and there it is
still. Now people say simply "Weiler"--"Weiler might"--"As long as
Weiler is here," etc. Sometimes, when I am in the humor, I get angry
over it. A strange pleasure, to get angry, but it is a pleasure. Hey!
There comes the bride-to-be.

[_MARY appears; during the following dialogue the women set the
table._]

WEILER.

My! Like a squirrel!

SOPHY.

Weiler means to pay you a compliment, Mary. He has a peculiar manner.

WEILER.

That is true. It does not matter whether the flattery is coarse or fine.
If a woman only notices that one means to flatter her, she is satisfied.
It is just as when boys stroke a kitten. Whether they pet it gently or
roughly, whether it likes it or not, it cannot help purring.

MARY.

And I presume you mean to pet me with this comparison.

WEILER.

If you feel obliged to purr it must have been a petting.

MARY (looking out of the window).

He is coming, mother.

SOPHY.

Who? Robert?

WEILER.

I had better be off to my wood-cutters. Otherwise the old man will make
a row.

[Exit.]

SOPHY (calling after him).

If you cannot come in I will save your portion. An uncomfortable fellow!
And it is not likely that he will acquire polite manners at this late
day. That is a relic of his better days. And for that reason your father
is indulgent with him because they were old comrades. Godfrey also was
one of them. When he had wasted his property in drink he fell in with
Stein.

[_Surveying the table_.]

Here at the head the father of the bridegroom; next to him your father;
then the good droll pastor. If it had not been for him, Robert would
have gone long ago.

MARY.

Mother, at that time Robert was so wild, so impetuous--

SOPHY.

You are right. At that time the pastor and we could scarcely
keep him. [_Counts once more the afore-mentioned persons_.] Then here
Mr. Möller; and there your godfather, my cousin Mr. Wilkens; then I
myself here; there Robert and you; finally, at the foot, Andrew and
William. How the time passes! If I think back to my engagement day! Then
I was not as happy as I am today.

MARY.

Mother, I wonder whether every girl that is to become a bride feels as I
do? SOPHY. Not every one has such good cause to be glad as you have.

MARY.

But is it gladness that I feel? I am so depressed, mother, so--

SOPHY.

Of course. You are like the flower on which clings a dewdrop. It hangs
its head, and yet the dew is no burden.

MARY.

I feel as if it were wrong of me to leave my father, even if it is to go
with Robert.

SOPHY.

The Bible says, "A woman shall leave father and mother and cleave to her
husband."--But my case was quite different from yours. Your father was a
stately man, no longer quite young, but tall and straight like a pine.
At that time his beard was still black as coal. Many a girl that would
gladly have married him set her cap at him; that I knew. But to me he
seemed too serious, too severe. He took everything so seriously, and he
cared nothing for amusements. It was no easy matter to accommodate
myself to him. I never had to worry about the means of subsistence; and
if I should say that he ever treated me harshly, I should be telling a
lie; even if he pretended to be harsh.

MARY.

And that was all you had expected? Was that all.

SOPHY.

As if the good Lord could grant everything that is dreamt of by the
heart of a girl who herself does not know what she desires! But here
comes Robert. We will be quite merry, so that no gloomy thoughts will
come to him.



SCENE II

_Enter_ ROBERT.

ROBERT.

Good morning, mother dear. Good morning, Mary.

SOPHY.

Good morning, Mr. Bridegroom-to-be.

ROBERT.

How glad I am to see you so cheerful. But you Mary? You are
sad, Mary? And I am so joyful, so over-joyful. The whole morning I have
been in the forest. Where the bushes glistened brightest with the dew,
there I penetrated, so that the moist branches should strike my heated
face. There I threw myself down on the grass. But I could not stay
anywhere. It seemed that nothing could relieve me but weeping aloud. And
you--at other times as blithe and gay as a deer--you are sad? Sad on
this day?

SOPHY. She surely is glad, dear Robert. But you have known her ever
since she was a little child; when others proclaim their happiness, she
hides hers in silence. MARY. No, Robert. Sad I surely am not. I only
have a feeling of solemnity; it has been upon me the whole morning.
Wherever I go, it seems to me as though I were in church. And--

ROBERT.

And what?

MARY.

And that now my life is soon to be broken off behind me, as if it were
sinking away from under me, and that a new life is to begin, one so
entirely new--don't be offended, good Robert! This to me is so
strange--gives me such a feeling of anxiety!

ROBERT.

A new life? A life so entirely new? Why, Mary, it is still the old life,
only more beautiful. It is still the dear old tree under which we are
sitting, only it is in bloom now.

MARY.

Besides, the thought that I am to leave my father and my mother! The old
I see passing away, the new I do not see coming; the old I must leave,
the new I cannot reach.

ROBERT.

Must you indeed leave your father? Do we not all remain together? Has
not my father for this very reason bought the estate of Düsterwalde?

SOPHY.

That is the anxiety which comes over one in spring; one knows not whence
it comes, nor why. And yet in spring one knows that everything will
become more and more beautiful, and still one feels anxious. One is
merely afraid of happiness. Now that my dearest wishes are about to be
fulfilled--do I not experience the same sensation? I might almost wish
that a roast were burnt, or that a piece of the fine china were broken.
Happiness is like the sun: There must be a little shade if man is to be
comfortable. I will just go to see whether a little shade of that sort
has not been cast in the kitchen.

[_Exit to the left_.]

MARY (_after she and_ ROBERT _have been standing in silence facing each
other_).

Is anything wrong with you, Robert?

ROBERT.

With me? No. Perhaps--

MARY.

You are still angry with your father? And he is so good!

ROBERT.

That is just the trouble, that he is so good. Oh, his kindness is almost
more difficult to bear than his violent temper! His anger only hurts,
his kindness humiliates; over against his anger I set my pride--but what
can I set against his kindness?

MARY.

And you wanted to go away, you wicked Robert, and leave us all!

ROBERT.

I wanted to go, but I am still here. Oh! That was a wretched time! I
despaired of everything; of you, Mary; of myself; but all that is now
past. There must be a little shade, only not too much. Let us go out,
Mary. It is so close here in the house. The musicians shall play us the
merriest piece they know. [_They are about to go_.]



SCENE III

_The same. Enter the_ FORESTER, _his Wife behind him. As soon as_ MARY
_sees the_ FORESTER, _she leaves_ ROBERT _and embraces her father_.

FORESTER.

Get out, wench! [_Tearing himself free_.] Is this the sun's ray after a
rainy day, that the gadflies come buzzing about one's head? Have you
filled Robert's ears with lamentations, you women folks? You silly girl
there!

[_Pushes_ MARY _from him_.]

I have something to say to Robert. I have been looking for you, Mr.
Stein.

ROBERT.

Mr. Stein? No longer Robert?

FORESTER.

Everything has its due season, familiar speech and formal speech. When
the women folks are gone--

SOPHY.

Don't worry, we'll retreat, you old bear. Don't be afraid to talk.

FORESTER.

All right. As soon as you are out.

ROBERT (_leads her out_).

Don't be angry, mother dear.

SOPHY.

If I were to mind him, I should never cease being angry.

FORESTER.

Close the door! Do you hear?

SOPHY.

Hush, hush!

FORESTER.

Who is master here? Confound it!



SCENE IV

_The_ FORESTER; ROBERT. _The_ FORESTER, _when they are alone becomes
embarrassed, and walks up and down for some time_.

ROBERT.

You wished to say--

FORESTER.

Quite right--

[_Wipes the perspiration from his forehead_.]

Well; sit down, Mr. Stein.

ROBERT.

These preparations--

[FORESTER _points to a chair at the end of the table_. ROBERT _seats
himself_.]

FORESTER (_takes the Bible from the shelf, seats himself opposite_)

ROBERT,(_puts on his spectacles, opens the book and clears his throat_).

Proverbs, chapter 31, verse 10: "Who can find a virtuous woman? for her
price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in
her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and
not evil all the days of her life." [7]

[_Short pause; then he calls brusquely toward_ _the window, while he
remains seated_.]

William, be careful out there! And then further on, verse 30. You'll
trample down all the boxweed, confound you! "Favor is deceitful, and
beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be
praised."--Robert!

ROBERT (_starting_).

Father Ulrich--

FORESTER.

Again, Ecclesiasticus, verse so and so--Mr. Stein--

ROBERT.

Once more "Mister."

FORESTER.

I see I shall have to use the familiar form of address. Otherwise I
shall not be able to speak my mind.--Robert--

ROBERT.

You are so solemn!

FORESTER.

Solemn? Perhaps so. But this affair is enough to make one solemn. I am
not a heathen.

[_Strikes an attitude_.] So you are decided with God's help, Robert--

ROBERT. Well--

FORESTER.

Hang it!--Don't look at me that way!--You intend to marry, Robert?

ROBERT (_rises, surprised_).

Why, you know that--

FORESTER.

That's true. But there must be some sort of introduction. Never mind,
sit down. However, you must give me a chance to finish what I have to
say. On other occasions I am not afraid to talk, but now that I am about
to preach a sermon, it strikes me just as if I were to see the pastor in
his cassock trying to chase a hare.

[_Relieved_.]

Now, then; at last I have struck the trail. Suppose a stag from Lützdorf
is roaming about. You understand, Robert? Now give me your attention.
This fork here represents the stag. Right here, do you see? Here is the
salt-cellar: that's you. And the wind blows from the direction of that
plate. What are you going to do now in order to stalk the stag? Hey?

[_Trying to assist him_.]

You--well?

ROBERT.

I must--

FORESTER (_nodding assent_).

You must--

[_Makes a pantomime_.]

ROBERT.

I must get to the windward of him.

FORESTER.

Get to the windward. Correct. Do you begin to see what I am driving at?
You must get to the windward of him. That's it! Do you see now? That is
the reason why I had to have a talk with you.

[_Solemnly_.]

You must get to the windward of the stag.

[_Rises_.]

And now--make her happy--Robert--my Mary.

[_About to go_.]

ROBERT.

But what has all this to do with Mary?

FORESTER.

Why, you have not yet understood me? Look here! The stag must not have
an inkling that you are very anxious about him; and much less a woman.
You make too much fuss about the women. Children must not know how
dearly one loves them; anything but that! But women even less so. In
reality, they are nothing but grown-up children, only more shrewd. And
the children are already shrewd enough.--Sit down, Robert, I must tell
you something.

[_They sit at the edge of the table, facing the audience_.]

When that Mary of mine was four years old--no taller than this--I once
came home later than usual. "Where is Mary?" I ask. One child says: "In
her room;" the other: "In front of the house. She'll be here pretty
soon." But one guess was as far from the truth as the other. Evening
comes, night comes--Mary does not appear. I go outside. In the garden,
in the adjoining shrubbery, on the rocks of the dell, in the whole
forest--not a trace of Mary. In the meantime my wife is looking for her
at your house, then at every house in the village, but nowhere can she
find a trace of Mary. Can it be possible that some one should have
kidnapped her? Why, she was as beautiful as a wax-doll, my Mary. The
whole night I never touched my bed. Even at that time Mary was
everything to me. The next morning I alarm the entire village. Not a
person fails to respond. All were passionately fond of Mary. At least I
wished to bury the corpse. In the dell, you know, the thicket of
firs--under the cliffs where on the other side of the brook the old
footpath runs high along the rocks-next to it the willows. This time I
crawl through the whole thicket. In the midst of it is the small open
meadows; there at last I see something red and white. Praised be heaven!
It is she--and neither dead nor ill, no, safe and sound in the green
grass; and after her sleep her little cheeks were as red as peonies,
Robert. But--

[_He looks about him and lowers his voice_.]

I hope she is not listening.

[_Draws closer to_ ROBERT; _whenever he forgets himself, he immediately
lowers his voice_.]

I say: "Is it you, really?" "Of course," she says, and rubs her eyes so
that they sparkle. "And you are alive," I say; "and did not die," I say,
"of hunger and fear?" I say. "Half a day and a whole, night alone in the
forest, in the very thickest of the forest! Come," I say, "that in the
meantime mother may not die of anxiety," I say. Says she: "Wait a while,
father." "But, why and for what?" "Till the child comes again," says
she. "And let us take it with us, please, father. It is a dear child."
"But who, in all the world, is this child?" I ask. "The one that came to
me," says she, "when I ran away from you a little while ago after the
yellow butterfly, and when all at once I was quite alone in the forest
and wanted to cry and call after you, and who picked berries for me and
played with me so nicely." "A little while ago?" I say. "Did not the
night come since then?" I say. But she would not believe that. We looked
for the child and--naturally did not find it. Men no longer have faith
in anything, but I know what I know. Do you understand, Robert? Say
nothing. It seems to me I were committing a sacrilege if I should say it
right out. There, shake hands with me without saying anything. All
right, Robert.--For heaven's sake, don't let her hear what we are saying
about her.

[_Goes softly to the door; looks out_.] MARY (_outside_).

Do you want anything, father?

FORESTER (_nods secretly toward_ ROBERT, _then brusquely_).

Nothing. And don't you come in again before I--

[_Comes back; speaks just above a whisper_.]

Do you see? That's the way to treat her. You make far too much fuss
about that girl. She is [_still more softly_] a girl that any father
might be proud of, and I think she is going to be a wife after God's own
heart. I have such a one. Do you see, I don't mind telling you, because
I know you are not going to repeat it to her. For she must not know it;
otherwise all my pains would go for nothing. And pains it certainly cost
me till I got her so far; pains, I tell you. I advise you not to spoil
my girl, whom I have gone to so much trouble to bring up properly.

ROBERT.

You may think,--but I don't understand you at all.

FORESTER.

There's just the rub! You don't do it purposely. But, confound it! Don't
make such a fuss over the girl, do you hear? If you go on this way, she
will have you in her pocket within a month. The women always want to
rule; all their thoughts and aspirations tend to that end, without being
themselves aware of it. And when they finally do rule, they are unhappy
in spite of it; I know more than one instance of this. I only look
inside the door, and I know for certain what sort of figure the man
cuts. I only look at the cattle. If the dog or the cat is not well
trained, neither are the children; and the wife still less. Hey? My wife
does not yet know me as far as that here [_points to his heart_] is
concerned. And if she should ever get hold of that secret--then good-by,
authority! The wife may be an angel, but the man must act like a bear.
And especially a huntsman. That's part of the business, just as much as
the moustache and the green coat.

ROBERT.

But could it not be possible that--

FORESTER (_eagerly_). No, Robert. Once and for all, no! There is no way
out of it. Either he trains her, or she trains him.--For example; let me
give you only one instance how to go about it. My wife cannot see any
human being suffer; now the poor wretches come in troops, and I should
like to know what is to come of it all, if I were to praise her to her
face. Therefore I grumble and swear like a trooper, but at the same time
I gradually withdraw, so that she has full liberty. And when I notice
that she is through, then I come along again, as if by accident, and
keep on grumbling and swearing. Then people say: "The Hereditary
Forester is harder on the poor than the devil himself, but his wife and
his girl, they are angels from heaven." And they say this so that I
should hear it; and hear it I do. But I pretend not to notice it, and
laugh in my sleeve; and to keep up appearances I bluster all the
more.--It seems the guests are arriving. Robert, my wife, and my girl,
my Mary--if I at some time--you understand me, Robert. Give me your
hand. God is looking down on us.

[_Wipes his eyes_.]

The deuce! Confound it! Don't let the cat out of the bag to the
women--and you rule her as it ought to be.

[_He turns around to hide his emotion, with gestures expressive of his
vexation that he cannot control himself. At the door he encounters the
following_]:



SCENE V

_The same_. STEIN; MÖLLER; WILKENS; MARY; SOPHY. _They exchange
greetings with the_ FORESTER.

STEIN.

What's your hurry, old man? Have you already had a row with him?

FORESTER.

Yes. I have given the young gentleman a lecture on the subject of
women-folks.

STEIN.

High treason against the majesty of petticoat-government? And you permit
that, madam?

SOPHY.

A little more, a little less--when one has to put up with so much!

FORESTER.

And now can anybody say that this woman is not clever enough to get one
under her thumb. But let us have cards. I had to promise Stein that he
should have his revenge today before lunch--

STEIN. Revenge I must have.

[_The_ FORESTER _and_ STEIN _sit down opposite each other on the right
side of the stage and play cards_.]

SOPHY (_watches them a moment; then to_ ROBERT, _while going to and fro
with an air of being very busy_).

I hope to heaven they are not going to discuss the clearing of the
forest today.

MÖLLER (_on the left side, stepping up to_ WILKENS _and pointing to_
MARY, _who is talking to her mother and_ ROBERT).

That is what I call a fine-looking bride!

WILKENS.

And she is not a beggar's child either, Sir.

MÖLLER (_politely_).

Who does not know that Mr. Wilkens is her mother's uncle?

WILKENS (_flattered_).

Well, well!

MÖLLER.

And Mr. Wilkens need not be ashamed, I believe, of the firm of Stein and
Son.

WILKENS (_calmly_).

By no means.

MÖLLER (_with great enthusiasm_).

Sir! The firm of Stein and Son! I have served the firm twenty years.
That is my honor and my pride. For me the firm is wife and child!

WILKENS.

I do not doubt it.

MÖLLER.

The foremost houses of Germany would consider it an honor to ally
themselves in marriage with Stein and Son.

WILKENS. I am sure of it.

[_Turns to the bridal couple_.]

MÖLLER (_angrily to himself_).

And that fellow parades his peasant's pride, as if Stein and Son ought
to esteem it a high honor to ally themselves with that forester's goose.
His forty-five will be divided into three parts, and only after his
death. The only daughter of Löhlein & Co. with her eighty! That were
quite a different capital for our business; and cash down today! This
mesalliance is unpardonable. But what can one do? One must [_A waltz is
heard without_] dance off one's vexation. May I have the honor, madam
[_to_ SOPHY] on the lawn?

[_Bows with an old bachelor's jauntiness_.]

STEIN.

I wonder whether I'll get decent cards!

SOPHY.

I guess we'll have time for that?

WILKENS.

Old Wilkens is not yet going to sit in a corner.

[_Fumbles in his pocket_.]

Wilkens must also contribute his dollar for the benefit of the
musicians. I hope I have your permission, Mr. Bridegroom?

[MÖLLER _leads out_ SOPHY; WILKENS _leads_ MARY; ROBERT _follows_.]



SCENE VI

STEIN; _the_ FORESTER.

STEIN (_throwing down his cards_).

Have I a single trump?

FORESTER (_calling_).

Twenty in spades.

STEIN (_taking up his cards again; impatiently_).

Why not forty? Talking about spades reminds me--have you considered that
matter about the clearing?

FORESTER. That fellow is a--

[_They continue to play_.]

STEIN.

What fellow?

FORESTER.

The fellow who hatched that scheme.

STEIN.

Do you mean me?

FORESTER.

Your Godfrey there--

STEIN (_getting excited: with emphasis_).

_My_ Godfrey?

FORESTER (_growing more and more calm and cheerful_).


Well, for all I care, mine, then.

STEIN.

Why do you always drag him in?

FORESTER.

Never mind him, then.

STEIN.

As if I--it is you--whenever an opportunity offers, you, you drag him
in. You can't get rid of him. Like dough he sticks to your teeth.

FORESTER (_very calmly_).

As, for example, just now.

STEIN.

You have made up your mind to annoy me.

FORESTER.

Nonsense! You only want to pick a quarrel. STEIN. I? But why do you
immediately trump, when I play a wrong card?

FORESTER.

Playing a wrong card means losing the game.

STEIN (_throwing down his cards_).

Well, there you have the whole business!

[_Jumps up_.]

FORESTER. I deal.

[_Shuffles calmly and deals_.]

STEIN (_has taken a few steps_).

I am not going to play any more with you.

FORESTER (_unconcerned_).

But it is my turn to deal.

STEIN (_sits down again_).

Obstinate old fellow!

FORESTER.

You immediately lose your temper.

STEIN (_taking his cards; still angry_).

You would not give in, even if it were as clear as day that you are
wrong!



SCENE VII

_The same. Enter_ MÖLLER, _leading in_ SOPHY; WILKENS. _The waltz
outside is finished_.

SOPHY.

But now I think that--

FORESTER.

One more turn.

SOPHY.

Everything is ready--

FORESTER.

The pastor--

SOPHY.

He sent word that we are not to wait lunch for him. But he would be here
at eleven o'clock sharp for the betrothal.

FORESTER.

Then sit down and eat.

STEIN.

Please, do not let us detain you.

FORESTER.

It is immaterial whether we sit here or there. Now then! Forty in
spades.

[_Continuing to play_.]

STEIN.

All right! Go ahead.

FORESTER (_triumphantly_).

Are not you thinking of Godfrey again? And the clearing? Hey?

STEIN (_controlling himself_).

Now you see--

FORESTER (_more excited_).

That the fellow is a fool--Queens are trumps.

STEIN.

I'm bearing in mind that we are not alone.

FORESTER (_excited by the game_).

And trump--and trump!--the forest shall be cleared!

STEIN.

That will do, I say. The idea was mine.

FORESTER.

And trump.

STEIN.

And if I--[_He controls himself_.]

FORESTER (_triumphantly_).

Well, what then?

[_Puts the cards together_.]

STEIN (_making a desperate effort to contain himself_).

And if I should wish to have it so--if I should insist upon it--then--
FORESTER.

Everything would remain as it is.

STEIN.

The forest would be cleared.

FORESTER.

Nothing of the kind.

STEIN.

We'll see about that. And now the forest _shall_ be cleared.

FORESTER.

It shall _not_.

STEIN.

Sir!

FORESTER (_laughing_).

Mr. Stein!

STEIN.

It's all right! It's all right!

FORESTER (_very calmly_).

As it is.

STEIN.

Not another word--

FORESTER.

And not a tree--

STEIN (_rises_).

No contradiction and no sarcasm! That I request. That I insist upon. I
am the master of Düsterwalde.

FORESTER.

And I am the forester of Düsterwalde.

[STEIN _is getting more and more excited. He shows plainly that the
presence of other persons increases his sensitiveness, and he makes an
evident effort to control his temper. The_ FORESTER _treats the matter
lightly, as an every-day affair_. SOPHY _with increasing anxiety looks
from one to the other_. WILKENS _does not move a muscle of his face_.
MÖLLER _exhibits his sympathy by accompanying his master's words with
appropriate gestures. The entire pantomimic by-play is very rapid_.]

STEIN.

You are my servant, and I command: The forest shall be cleared. If not,
you are no longer my servant. The forest shall be cleared.

FORESTER.

Old hot-head!

STEIN.

Either you obey, or you are no longer forester.

FORESTER.

Stuff and nonsense!

STEIN.

And I shall put Godfrey in your place.

FORESTER.

Quite right. Congratulations.

STEIN (_buttons his coat_).

The forest shall be cleared.

FORESTER.

The forest shall not be cleared.

SOPHY (_stepping between the two_).

But--

STEIN.

I regret this exceedingly.--Mr. Möller!--I bid everybody good-day.

[_Exit_.]

MÖLLER.

Bravo! At last he has spoken his mind in a manner worthy of Stein and
Son. Yours truly.

[_Follows_ STEIN.]

FORESTER.

I deal--

[_He looks up while shuffling the cards_.]

But--well, let him go. If he can't sit for an hour without exploding,
the old powder-bag--



SCENE VIII

_The_ FORESTER _remains seated imperturbably_. SOPHY _stands beside his
chair_. WILKENS _steps up to the_ FORESTER.

SOPHY.

But what in the world is going to come of this?

WILKENS.

He should have gone after him.

FORESTER. The old hot-head!

SOPHY.

I am absolutely dumbfounded. On the very day of betrothal!

WILKENS.

But for the sake of a few miserable trees he surely is not going to--

FORESTER.

Miserable trees? Thunder! In my forest there is no miserable
tree!--Nonsense. There is no cause for lamentation.

WILKENS.

But Mr. Stein--

FORESTER.

Is not going to run far. When his anger has subsided, he will be the
first one to--he is better than I.

WILKENS.

But--

FORESTER.

Hang it! You always have a "But." That's the way he goes on every day.
For twenty years--

WILKENS.

But today he is your master.

FORESTER.

Master or not. The forest shall not be cleared. WILKENS. But you will
lose your place.

FORESTER.

To Godfrey? Idle talk! Stein himself can't bear Godfrey, and he knows
what I am worth to him. I need not sing my own praise. Show me a forest
anywhere in the whole district that can be compared to mine.--Do you
hear? Why, there he is back again. Sit down. And if he comes in, act as
if nothing had happened.



SCENE IX _The same. Enter_ MÖLLER _rapidly; later_, ANDREW.

FORESTER (_not looking up_).

Well, I deal.

[_Takes the cards, notices his mistake_.]

Is that you, Mr. Möller?

MÖLLER (_pompously_).

At your service.

FORESTER.

Well, sit down. Has he cooled down again, the old hot-head? Why doesn't
he come in? I suppose he expects me to fetch him?

[_Is about to go_.]

MÖLLER.

Mr. Stein sends me to ask you, sir, whether you have changed your mind.

FORESTER.

I should say not!

MÖLLER.

That you will clear the forest?

FORESTER.

That I will _not_ clear the forest.

MÖLLER.

That means, that you are going to resign your position as forester.

FORESTER.

That means--that you are a fool.

MÖLLER (_very pompously_).

I have been commissioned by Mr. Adolf Friedrich Stein, head of the firm
of Stein and Son, in case you should still persist in your refusal to
execute the command of your master, to announce to you your dismissal,
and to notify Godfrey immediately that he is forester of Düsterwalde.

FORESTER.

And that would be a great pleasure to you--

MÖLLER.

I am not to be considered in this matter. What is to be considered is
the firm of Stein and Son, whom I have the honor to represent. I give
you five minutes time for consideration.

[_Steps to the window_.]

[Illustration: SCHNORR VON CAROLSFELD THE FINDING OF MOSES]

FORESTER.

Dismiss me? Dismiss me? Do you know what that means? Dismiss a man who
has served faithfully for forty years? Good heavens, sir! If I should do
what he wishes--then I deserved to be dismissed. Clear the forest! And
the mountain faces north and northwest, absolutely exposed--

WILKENS.

Well! But this is not a question of your trees.

FORESTER.

So that the wind can rush in and break down everything. Hang it!
Nonsense! He does not mean it at all. If he only comes to his senses--

WILKENS.

That's just what I say. Until it comes to the actual cutting down, one
has time to think a hundred times. And don't you see that it is not at
all the cutting down that Mr. Stein is concerned about? He is only
concerned about maintaining his authority. If he is the master he
necessarily must be right.

FORESTER.

But he is wrong, and I shall not give my consent to anything that is
wrong. For forty years I have disregarded my own interest for the sake
of what was intrusted to my care; I have--

WILKENS.

Well. My opinion is, that if for forty years you have had such tender
regard for your trees, you might now, for once, have a similar regard
for your wife and children and yourself.

FORESTER.

Do you know that to Stein there may result from this a loss of six
thousand dollars? Do you? Of that sum I should deprive him if I
consented. And would you have some one come along and say: "Ulrich gave
his consent to that? In fifteen years there might have been such a
forest of timber, that a forester's heart would have swelled with pride,
and--"

WILKENS.

Well. That might still--

FORESTER.

After the cursed wind from the direction of Hersbruck once has made
havoc in it? You talk as you understand it.

SOPHY (_anxiously_).

But what is to become of us?

FORESTER.

We are honest people, and such we shall remain. WILKENS. Well! As if
honesty entered even remotely into this question!

FORESTER.

But, gracious heavens! What else does enter? Hey? Am I to play the
sycophant? Just try to kick me! You'll soon learn better. And laugh in
my sleeve? Only no honest, fearless word! That is your peasant's
philosophy. As long as they don't touch your pocket-book, you put up
with anything. If you are not compelled--

WILKENS (_self-satisfied_).

Well, yes. If the peasant is not compelled, he moves neither hand nor
foot. There he is quite right. That is the peasant's philosophy. And, I
tell you, this peasant's philosophy is not so foolish. Had you practised
this philosophy, you would have done your duty, and not a penny's worth
more; you would have spent your money on yourself, your wife and your
children, and not to increase somebody else's wealth. In that case, it
would not concern you now what becomes of it.--Whose bread I eat, his
praise I sing. You are paid to be servant, not master. When, therefore,
your master says: The forest shall be cleared--

FORESTER.

Then I must see to it that it is not done. The honest man comes before
the servant.

WILKENS.

Well. Now we are just as far as we were at the beginning.

[_Turns away_.]

SOPHY.

You are not going? You are my only consolation, cousin. No doubt, he
will change his mind. He has the greatest respect for you, cousin.

WILKENS.

I notice he has.

SOPHY.

The betrothal!--Mary! How unfortunate that the pastor has not yet
arrived! Cousin, if you only would--

_Enter_ ANDREW.

WILKENS.

His head is as hard as iron. Can any one make anything plain to him?
MÖLLER (_who until now has been looking out of the window without saying
anything, looks at his watch, and then turns pompously to the_
FORESTER).

Sir, I should like to ask you for your final decision.

FORESTER.

What I have said, I have said.

[_Takes a few steps, then stops_.]

And moreover, he can't do it; I mean, dismiss me. He has no right to
dismiss me. First of all he must produce evidence that I have deserved
it. He has no right to dismiss me without any cause whatever.

MÖLLER (_with authority_).

So you will not clear the forest? Say it plainly: You will not?

FORESTER.

If it was not sufficiently plain to you before, then: No! I can't state
it more plainly. I will not be a scoundrel, and he cannot dismiss an
honest man. Is that plain, definite and unmistakable? I am forester, and
I remain forester--and the forest shall not be cleared. That you may
tell your master and your Godfrey and whomever you please.

SOPHY.

Have only a little patience with him. I am sure Mr. Stein does not mean
it, and you have been so kind already--

MÖLLER.

If the decision rested with me, with me, Justus Möller,--what would I
not do to please you, madam? But I am here as the representative of
Stein and Son.

FORESTER.

And if he thinks he has a right, let him act accordingly. But you,
woman, do not insult my good right by asking favors of the wrong-doer.
Good-day, Mr. Möller. Is there anything else you desire? Nothing? Have
you anything else to tell me?

MÖLLER (_very pompously_).

Nothing beyond the fact that your incumbency of the post of forester
ceases with the present moment. Here is your salary--a half year in
advance. In consideration whereof, as soon as possible, within three
days at the latest, you will vacate this house, so that the present
forester may move in, upon whom, from this moment on, rests the sole
responsibility for the forest.

[_The_ FORESTER _is obliged to sit down_.]

SOPHY (_to_ ANDREW, _whom she has been compelled to restrain all the
while, and who now rushes toward the door_).

Where are you going, Andrew?

ANDREW.

I am going to tell Robert what his father--

SOPHY.

Don't you dare to--

ANDREW.

Let me go, mother, before I lay hands on that fellow there--

[_Exit in violent anger_.]

FORESTER.

Never mind. Never mind! Keep quiet, woman.

[_Rises_.]

Good-day, Mr. Möller. You have left some money behind you, sir. Better
take it, or I'll throw it after you.

[_Steps to the window and whistles_.]

MÖLLER.

You see, madam, it gives me pain to discharge my duty. I am going to
Godfrey.

FORESTER (_without turning toward him_).

Good luck on the way!



SCENE X

_The_ FORESTER _is standing at the window whistling_. WILKENS _is
looking for his cane and hat_. SOPHY _in perplexity looks from one to
the other. As he is about to leave_, MÖLLER _encounters_ ROBERT _and_
ANDREW, _who come rushing in_. MARY _is clinging to the arm of_ ROBERT
_whom she tries to calm_.

ROBERT (_entering angrily_).

He shall give in. He shall not spoil the beautiful day.

ANDREW.

Go to your father. He commenced this quarrel.

MÖLLER.

It is lucky that I meet you, Mr. Stein. I am commissioned to beg you to
come home at once.

[_Exit_.]

ROBERT.

Ulrich, you yield; you must yield.

FORESTER (_turning away from the window_).

You, Mr. Stein? What do you want from me? Mary, you go out there! What
do you want from the man whom your father intends to dismiss?

ROBERT.

But why will you not consent?

ANDREW.

Because he wishes to remain an honest man, and will not suffer himself
to be made a scoundrel by you. [_The_ FORESTER _makes a sign to him to
be silent_.]

ROBERT.

I am not talking to you now, Andrew.


FORESTER.

You are here with your father's consent, Mr. Stein? Moreover--sir, and
if your father had the power to take from me my position and my
honor--the fact that I have an irreproachable child, that is something
he cannot take from me. And any one else--hey? Young man, on this point
I am touchy. Do you understand?

SOPHY.

But will you fall out even with your last friend?

FORESTER.

Mary's reputation is at stake. If he is a friend, he knows without my
telling him what he has to do.

ROBERT.

I know what I have to do; but you do not. Otherwise you would
not risk your children's happiness for a whim--for--

FORESTER.

Ho! ho! Tell that to your father, young man!

ROBERT.

For your obstinacy. I have your word, and Mary has mine; I am a man, and
will be no scoundrel.

FORESTER.

And because you will not be a scoundrel, I am to be one? Shall people
say: "Ulrich caused a quarrel between father and son?" Sir, my girl is
too good to have it said of her that she stole into your family. Mr.
Stein, this is my home. You know what I mean.

SOPHY.

At least let the children--

FORESTER.

Do something foolish? And you look on; and afterward you can do nothing
better than weep.

ROBERT.

Mary, whatever befall--

FORESTER.

I do not know whether I know Mary. If I am mistaken in her then it is
better you go with him at once.

MARY.

Father, he is so true.

FORESTER.

Very well. Go with him.

SOPHY.

So inflexible--

ROBERT. In the name of heaven, Mary, which has
destined us for one another--

FORESTER (_as before, to his wife_).

And let me advise you not to--Do you hear, if it should come to pass--


[_Turns with her toward the background_.]

ANDREW (_bursting out_).

Now it's enough! Mary, either you go or he goes.

SOPHY.

Now you are beginning too, Andrew! [_Goes to him on the left side of the
stage_.]

ANDREW.

I have been silent long enough. Let me alone, mother. His father has
insulted my father; I will not allow this fellow to insult my sister
also.

ROBERT.

You belong to me, Mary. I should like to see him who--keep your hands
off!

MARY.

Robert, it is my brother!

ANDREW (_threatening_).

Only one step further, or--

ROBERT.

Away, I say; for God's sake--

ANDREW.

You are no match for me--

ROBERT.

Not with the point of your finger shall you touch what belongs to me. I
defy you all--

ANDREW.

Do you hear that, father?

FORESTER (_stepping between the two_).

Back there, fellow! Who is master in this house?

ANDREW.

If you are master, father, then show that you are. Otherwise let me show
it to that fellow there.

FORESTER.

Andrew, go over there, and say not another word!

ANDREW.

Father--

FORESTER.

Will you mind what I say?

[ANDREW _pulls a rifle from the wall_.]

FORESTER.

What are you doing there?

ANDREW (_with suppressed rage_).

Nothing. Here in the house you are master. Outside no one is master;
outside we all are.

FORESTER.

In my forest I am master.

ANDREW.

But not a step beyond.

FORESTER.

What do you mean? Answer!

ANDREW.

Nothing particular, father. Only that fellow there need know.--If you
are not concerned about your own honor--I shall protect Mary's honor.
That is for him who dares to come near Mary.

SOPHY.

What words are those?

ROBERT.

Idle words. It is children that are afraid of words.

ANDREW.

There will be something more than words, as surely as I am a man.

ROBERT.

If you were a man you would not threaten, you--

ANDREW.

If we were somewhere else, you would not taunt--

FORESTER.

Andrew!

ROBERT.

Make room--

ANDREW.

Get out, I say--

[FORESTER _almost at the same time puts his finger in his mouth and
gives a shrill whistle_.]

ANDREW.

If you no longer--

FORESTER (_stepping between the two_).

Rebellious boys! Hold your peace! Don't you dare to strike, either one
of you! You confounded fellow! When I need a guardian I certainly shall
not select a greenhorn. Is it I who is master here or is it some one
else? What business have you here, fellow? Get you gone into the forest;
look after Weiler that he does not loaf; then take out a dozen maple
trees from the nursery and put them up in damp moss; see to it that the
messenger from Haslau does not have to wait when he comes. Not a word!
Along with you!

[ANDREW _obeys and goes, after having cast a threatening look at_
ROBERT, _to which the latter replies_.]

FORESTER.

And you, Mr. Stein; good-day, Mr. Stein. You know what I mean.

SOPHY.

If you would intercede with your father; but gently and kindly! And if
you would bring him back!

MARY.

Then I should see how truly you love me, Robert.

FORESTER (_less roughly_).

Don't come again before that. Good-by, Robert. And leave that girl
alone.

ROBERT.

I am going. But come what may, I shall not resign my claim upon Mary.
[_Exit_.]

SOPHY.

Is everything to turn out unlucky today? And you, cousin, are you also
going to leave us?

WILKENS.

Well! If one insists on running his head through a wall, I'm not the
fool to hold my hand in between.

[_Exit_.]



ACT II

_In the Manor House_



SCENE I

STEIN _alone, seated._

STEIN.

Confound his obstinacy! The whole fine day spoiled! Otherwise
we should now be at table. I suppose he is right after all, that this
clearing serves no goad purpose. But is that a reason why he should put
me into this rage? It is true, I should have been wiser than he.
Probably my excitement was also partly to blame.--I am only sorry for
his wife--and the children. I am going to--[_Rises, then sits down
again._] Do what? Repair one foolish action with another? Be as rash in
yielding as I was in taking offense? The old hotspur! But that shall
serve me as a lesson.

[_Short pause. Then he rises again, takes his cane and hat and throws
both down again._]

No, it won't do--It simply will not do. Well! I should make myself
ridiculous forever! This time he must come to me; I can't help him. But
perhaps he has already--isn't that Möller?

[_Hastens toward the person coming in._]



SCENE II

ROBERT; STEIN.

ROBERT (_entering, in a passion_).

You will ruin my happiness, father?

STEIN (_surprised, indignant_).

Robert!

ROBERT.

You have no right to do that.

STEIN.

That's the last straw! Now you too must come along and set me fuming.

ROBERT.

Father, you have me fetched away from the betrothal festivities like a
child from his playthings. But I am no child to whom one gives and takes
away as one likes. I have your word, and you must keep it. Do you intend
to sacrifice my happiness to a whim? Paternal authority cannot go so
far.

STEIN.

But tell me, what is your object in saying this?

ROBERT.

I wish to ask you whether you intend to bring about a reconciliation
between the forester and yourself.

STEIN.

Boy, how can you dare to ask? Do you mean to call me to account? Go to
that obstinate fellow. It is he that is in the wrong; it is he that must
yield!

ROBERT.

I just came from the forester; he referred me to you.

STEIN.

I can do nothing. And now leave me in peace.

ROBERT.

You will do nothing toward a reconciliation?

STEIN.

Nothing, unless he yields. And now go your ways.

ROBERT.

If you will do nothing toward a reconciliation I shall never again cross
his threshold. Andrew and I have become mortal enemies. Perhaps this
very day I shall face him in an encounter for life and death. Come what
may, I have done everything I was able to do. Father, no blame can
attach to me. If a catastrophe takes place--you could have prevented it,
the forester could have prevented it. Mary is mine, and neither you nor
the forester shall take her from me.

STEIN.

Are you mad, boy? To your room this moment! Do you hear?

ROBERT.

Father, I ask you--

STEIN.

You shall obey, not ask!

ROBERT.

Your anger carries you away. Father, I implore you, do not tear open the
wound which healed only because I made allowance for your excited state.
I shall wait till you have become calm; till you are again master of
yourself.

STEIN.

You see that I am master of myself. You try to provoke me by all means,
and you do not succeed. But now not another word! Not a sound!

ROBERT (_beside himself_).

Not a word? A hundred words, a thousand words; as many as I have breath
to utter. I _will_ speak; until I have relieved myself of this load on
my heart, I will speak! You may forbid your Möller, your blacksmiths to
speak, not me! Show your impatience as much as you want, remain or
go--speak I _will_. Once for all you shall know that I will no longer
stand being treated like a boy, that I will be free, that I can stand on
my own feet, that you shall be obliged to respect me, that I will be
neither your toy nor any man's!

STEIN.

Do you threaten me with the old song? I know it by heart. You are still
here? I thought you had gone. Oh, indeed! You mean to speak, do you?
Speak, do what you wish. I shall not prevent you.

ROBERT (_calmly, with the accent of determination_).

And if you wished to prevent me, it were too late. I insist upon my
right, even if it should cost my own or another's life. But I hold you
and the forester responsible.

STEIN (_who is beginning to repent his anger_).

Boy--

ROBERT.

Farewell--perhaps forever! [_Rushes out_.]



SCENE III

STEIN _alone; later, the_ PASTOR.

STEIN (_forgetting himself, going a few steps after him_).

Where are you going? Robert! My boy!--Curse it! I have scarcely got over
my anger, and the next moment--But does it not seem as though all had
entered into a conspiracy to keep me in a turmoil of excitement? If he
really has had a falling out and meets those hotspurs--But I cannot run
after him. Will he come back?

_Enter the_ PASTOR.

STEIN.

You, parson? You find me here.

PASTOR.

I have heard of the affair.

[_Shakes hands_.]

STEIN.

Robert, my boy--

PASTOR.

Almost knocked me down. He wants to leave home again, hey? We'll manage
to hold him.

STEIN.

And with that obstinate old fellow--

PASTOR.

I know. It's the old story again, the everlasting story, the ending of
which one always knows in advance.

STEIN.

But this time one cannot be so certain.

PASTOR.

True. It is more complicated than usual, because at the same time the
affair of the young gentleman was mixed up with it. Moreover, the young
gentleman this time has also had words with Andrew. However--

STEIN.

Isn't that he who is coming along there?



SCENE IV

MÖLLER; STEIN; _the_ PASTOR.

STEIN.

You, Möller? What is the prospect? Will he yield?

MÖLLER.

So little does he think of yielding that he even wishes me to tell you,
you have not the power to dismiss him.

STEIN.

He thinks I have not the power?

[_More composed_.]

If he only thought I had not the intention!--And you have tried
everything?

MÖLLER.

Everything.

STEIN.

Did you also threaten him with Godfrey? As if he were to be appointed
forester, as if you were to deliver to him his commission immediately,
in case--

MÖLLER.

As if I were to?--My instructions were more definite. I bring you
Godfrey's respectful acknowledgment; he accepts the position.

STEIN.

He ac--he accepts it? He really accepts it? What an obliging man he is,
that Godfrey! And you into the bargain--with your haste. Have you
entirely lost your senses, sir? The whole thing was intended to scare
Ulrich. I wanted him to listen to reason--to yield. And if in the first
heat I actually did say it as you understood it, you should have
interpreted it differently. You know that in my heart I am not thinking
of dismissing that old man who is worth a thousand times more--but you
understand it, you understood it right, but--now that it is too late, I
recall you always opposed this marriage.

MÖLLER.

I have served the firm of Stein and Son for twenty years, time enough to
learn at last that one can serve too faithfully. I have done nothing but
execute your instructions literally. And if, in spite of that, you
persist in misjudging me, then this must be my consolation. I have never
compromised the dignity of Stein and Son.

[_Sits down to work_.]

STEIN.

Then the dignity of Stein and Son may thank you for what you have done;
I shall not. [_Pause_.] And yet, when one considers the matter calmly,
what else was to be done? After all that took place? Don't be uneasy; I
simply asserted myself as master.

PASTOR.

That is quite a new sensation!

STEIN.

Now I have confronted him with that confounded alternative,
before old Wilkens there. Surely, I cannot--confound the rash word!--a
word that in my innermost heart I did not mean seriously, and which now
becomes fate, because I did not take the pains to keep that word under
control.

PASTOR.

Indeed! it is exceedingly disagreeable for discretion to acknowledge the
debts that passion has contracted. Why, in the name of common sense, did
you not have your quarrel by yourselves, as usual?

STEIN (_who has been walking up and down_).

No, it will not do. And yet, if I think of those hot-headed
boys--Möller, please send immediately for my Robert; send some one to
find him and tell him that I must speak with him.

[_Exit_ MÖLLER, _and returns soon_.]

STEIN.

I can't help the obstinate old fellow; this time _he_ must knuckle
under. I cannot go back on my word; that he must see himself. And by
this time he also may have come to his senses. But in order that he may
see that I am ready to do whatever I can toward a reconciliation,
without losing my dignity--how would it be, parson, if you went to see
him? His post, I dare say, he must resign for the time being; but his
present salary he may--yes, he shall draw twice the amount. He may
regard it as a pension, until further notice. I should think--after all,
his is the chief fault in this business--in this way he is let off
easily enough for his share.

PASTOR.

I am going at once.

STEIN.

And I shall accompany you part of the way. I ought not to walk all
alone.

[_Exeunt to the left_.]



SCENE V

MÖLLER _alone; later,_ GODFREY.

MÖLLER.

Even if the marriage with Miss Löhlein should not come to pass, at least
Stein and Son have asserted themselves. It used to turn my stomach to
see how he always was the first to make up. This time I am satisfied
with my chief, and will not mind his rebuke. But who is making that
noise out there? [_At the door_.] It is lucky that they went through the
rooms. It is Godfrey. And in what condition! What sort of man do you
call that? [_Leads in _GODFREY, _who is intoxicated_.]

GODFREY (_while still behind the scenes_).

Where is Stein? Hey there, fellow! Stein, I say! Is that you, Möller?

MÖLLER (_with a patronizing air_).

There can be no doubt that it is you. What do you want here?

GODFREY (_while_ MÖLLER _pushes him down on a chair_).

Thank him, why, I must thank him. Fetch Stein. Thank him, for that's the
fashion.

MÖLLER.

In this condition?

GODFREY (_while_ MÖLLER _is obliged to hold him forcibly down on the
chair_).

Condition? What's my condition to you? That I want to express my thanks
is condition enough. Let me alone with my condition. Is he in? Hey?

MÖLLER.

Nobody is in there. Be glad that nobody is in. You are past all help.
You have made up your mind not to get along. Those who have your
interest at heart can never do anything for your advantage without your
doing something that counteracts their efforts a hundredfold, so that
everything is spoiled. My master already repents having given you the
post, and now you at once give him an opportunity--

GODFREY.

You stupid fellow, you. With your patronizing air, hang it! As if you
did not want to make a break between Stein and Ulrich because of that
Löhlein girl. I should know that, even if I were as stupid as that
confounded, patronizing fellow of a Möller. That's all I have to say.
And what of it, that I am forester for a day? For it won't be two days
before those two cronies are again one heart and one soul; after that
it's all over with my forester's job. You think you are a decent fellow,
because you are not thirsty. It will last one day--for one day I shall
be sp--spite-forester--and that day I have turned to account, my dear
fellow--with Ulrich's Andrew--turned to account, my dear fellow. Come,
my dear fellow, for I am jolly, my dear fellow. You patronizing fellow
of a Möller. [_Embrace him_.]

MÖLLER (_ashamed and very much embarrassed, trying to keep him off_).

For heaven's sake, what are you thinking of? If any one should see this!
Shame on you!

[_Making an effort to recover his dignity_.]

You have hatched a scheme with Ulrich's Andrew, have you?

GODFREY.

Scheme, scheme! I have had a talk with him, do you know? Because of
yesterday, you know? and because of my grudge against his old man, you
know? You know nothing, you know? When he hears it he'll bite his white
beard with rage, the old man will.

MÖLLER.

But what the deuce could you have put into Andrew's head?

GODFREY.

What? Nothing. You'll learn it soon enough. Hey? Thirst, thirst--that is
my wail, that is my chronic ill-health, my misery; that is the cause of
my gout; that will kill me while I am still young. Where is Stein?

MÖLLER.

Now come along to my room and drink a cup of black coffee, so that you
may recover your senses. Then I must go to the blast-furnace. I'll take
you along as far as the mill in the dell, and then you go the rest of
the way to your home. One has to tie your hands, if you are not to drive
away your good fortune.

GODFREY (_while_ MÖLLER _is leading him off_).

Where is he? Hey, there! Where is he? Stein!



SCENE VI

_In the_ FORESTER's _house_.

SOPHY _alone; then_ WEILER; _and, later, the_ FORESTER.

SOPHY (_closing the window_).

Robert hasn't come back yet, nor the pastor.

WEILER (_entering through the centre door_).

Bless my soul, if he don't come to grief! But who, in thunder, is really
forester? I wonder whether the mistress has saved me anything? But,
anyhow, I have no appetite. Well!

SOPHY.

I suppose it has become cold by this time.

[_Takes from the oven a plate with food, from the closet bread, etc.,
and puts it on the table to the left_.]

WEILER.

We shall all be cold some day.

[_Sits down to eat_.]

FORESTER (_has entered from the side_).

Have you found the trail of the stag from Lützdorf again?

WEILER.

Stalking about. But that's the way it goes. As soon as they are man and
wife, master and servant--then love and friendship fly out of the
window.

FORESTER.

What do you mean by "stalking about?"

WEILER.

On his four legs he stood by the boundary forest in the oats, and was
eating.

FORESTER.

Who?

WEILER.

The stag from Lützdorf.

FORESTER (_emphatically_).

A stag does not--eat; he browses.

WEILER.

All right!

SOPHY (_waiting on him_).

But what is your news?

WEILER.

Well--

SOPHY.

I wonder whether I shall hear anything now? If I don't care to know
anything, then you never get through talking.

FORESTER (_stands before him; severely_).

Weiler, do you hear?

WEILER.

Well, Godfrey. Today he has grown six inches; he immediately put on his
laced hat, girded on his hunting knife and drank two bitters and a half
dozen glasses of whisky more than usual; in consequence he has need of a
road that's broader than the ordinary by half.

FORESTER.

Have you done eating?

WEILER.

Almost. But tell me, who is now the real forester of Düsterwalde? The
other fellow is already giving orders to the woodcutters for the
clearing, so he must be the forester. But you also act as if you were
still forester.

FORESTER.

You may be sure, I still am. I am forester of Düsterwalde, and nobody
else.

WEILER.

You intend to carry your point? But I'll tell you who is in the right
nowadays [_makes a pantomime of counting money_]--whoever has the
longest breath.--Who is coming there in such a hurry?



SCENE VII

WILKENS _enters as hurriedly as his figure permits_. WEILER _eating_;
FORESTER; SOPHY.

WILKENS (_while entering_).

But what in the world has happened here? Good-day to you all.

SOPHY (_alarmed_).

Happened! But for heaven's sake--has anything happened?

FORESTER.

You immediately lose your head.

WILKENS.

You'll see, you obstinate fellow!

SOPHY.

But what is the meaning of all this?

WILKENS.

How should I know? On the road I meet that crazy John, and he is
gesticulating with his arms as if he were striking some one, and points
in the direction of the forester's house--

FORESTER.

He was pointing toward the forest; he meant to call attention to the
clearing--

WILKENS.

I really was going in another direction, but I thought I'd better see.
And immediately I see some one standing absorbed in thought, not far
from the house. It's Andrew. You ask him, I say to myself. Well! As he
hears me coming he starts up, gives me a wild look, and--is gone. I call
after him. Well! It seems he has forgotten his name. I run after him,
but he--disappears, as if he had an evil conscience.

SOPHY.

I wonder what that can mean.


FORESTER (_calls out of the window, with authority_).

Andrew!

WILKENS.

There he comes.



SCENE VIII

_The same. The_ PASTOR; WEILER _seated_. WEILER.

It's the pastor! [_All exchange greetings_.]

SOPHY.

God be praised! Our good pastor!

FORESTER.

You are under the impression that you are coming to the betrothal,
pastor, but--

PASTOR.

I know all that has been going on here.

FORESTER.

Mr. Stein--

PASTOR.

I have just come from him. And the message I have to give you--I know,
you will not receive it less kindly because I am the messenger.

SOPHY.

If you come from Mr. Stein, then everything may still end well. But,
pastor, you do not know how obstinate that man is.

PASTOR.

How so? I know everything. But yet he is not the chief culprit;
otherwise I should not be here as Stein's ambassador. He is willing to
take the first step.

WILKENS.

I should not take it, if I were the master.

PASTOR.

Yes, old friend Ulrich, Stein is sorry that his impetuosity was the
cause of spoiling this beautiful day.

FORESTER.

Do you hear that, cousin Wilkens?

PASTOR.

The threat about dismissal was not meant as seriously as it sounded.

FORESTER.

Do you hear, Weiler?

PASTOR.

That the matter should rest there--

FORESTER.

Should rest there? Pray, what does he mean by that?

PASTOR.

He means that he could not retract his word immediately without making
himself ridiculous. He thinks you would see this yourself.

FORESTER (_drawling_).

Indeed? And Godfrey?

PASTOR (_shrugs his shoulders_).

Is forester of Düsterwalde for the
time being. That cannot be helped--

FORESTER.

That is what you say. But I tell you Godfrey is not. I am the forester
of Düsterwalde. That I am, and that I remain, until Mr. Stein proves
that I have not acted in accordance with my duty.

PASTOR.

But, in order that you might see how ready he is, for his part, to
redress his share of the wrong and to reëstablish the old comfortable
relation, you are to draw the double amount of your present salary as a
pension.

[FORESTER _walks up and down, and whistles_.]

PASTOR.

Thus far my message, old friend; and now--

FORESTER (_stops in front of the pastor_).

For what, sir? Does he think of buying my honor with it? Sir, my honor
is not to be bought with money.

[_Walks up and down, and whistles_.]

PASTOR.

But, queer old friend--

WILKENS.

Yes, if he would only listen to one!

FORESTER (_as before_).

Is that pension to be given from charity? I need no charity. I can
work. I will have nothing gratis. I accept no alms. I know he cannot
dismiss me, if I have not been unfaithful. That I know from several
instances--for example, hunter Rupert in Erdmansgrün. If I allowed
myself to be dismissed without protest, it would be tantamount to a
confession that I were dishonest. Nothing could be proved against
Rupert, and he remained in his position. And who will employ a man that
has been dismissed? Sir, from my father and grandfather I have inherited
my honor, and I owe it to my children and children's children. Before me
my father occupied this post, and my grandfather before my father.
Throughout the whole valley people call me the Hereditary Forester. I am
the first of my race to be dismissed. Go out into my forest, sir, and if
it is not a sight to gladden your soul--Sir, I have planted the forest
as far as the church-yard. There my father and grandfather lie buried,
and upon their tombstones you may read their masters' testimony: "They
were honorable men and faithful servants." They are resting under green
pine trees, as behooves huntsmen. Sir, and if my grandchild should ever
come there and ask: "But why is he who planted the pines not resting
under them? Why have we no business there? Was he a scoundrel, that his
master had the right to dismiss him?" And when they are looking for my
grave, and find it behind the church-yard wall? Sir, if you can live
without your honor, it is well for you--or, rather, it is wicked of you.
But you see, sir, for me there is only one choice: either by the side of
my father and grandfather under the pine trees--or behind the
church-yard wall. Sir, I am forester here, or Mr. Stein would be obliged
to proclaim publicly that he has treated me as only a scoundrel would
treat a man. My money I have spent for his forest. I will take out
nothing but the staff with which I shall go forth into the world to seek
in my old age a new position. But from me the disgrace must be removed,
and to him it must ever remain attached. I am within my right, and I
will maintain it. WILKENS. Within your right? Well! What will you do
with your right? Right costs money. Right is a plaything for the rich,
as horses and carriages. Well! With your talk about right and wrong!
Your right, that is your obstinacy. You will even go so far as to snatch
the clothes from the bodies of your wife and children, just to keep your
obstinacy warm.

PASTOR.

But--



SCENE IX

_The same. Enter_ WILLIAM.

WILLIAM.

Father, Andrew is outside, and refuses to come in. I told him that you
had called him.

SOPHY.

Come, William, let us go out to Andrew.

FORESTER.

Keep quiet, woman. Are you going to make him completely crazy with your
lamentations? Either you keep quiet, or you go in there, and I shall
lock you in.

[_Goes solemnly to the rear door_.]

Andrew! Come in at once! Do you hear?



SCENE X

_The same. Enter_ ANDREW. ANDREW _at the door; when he sees the people
he is going to withdraw_.

FORESTER.

Andrew, you come in. Before your superior!


[_Seats himself as if preparing for trial_.]

_The_ FORESTER, SOPHY, WEILER, WILLIAM _on the left. The_ PASTOR,
WILKENS _on the right_. ANDREW, _who dares not look any one in the face,
in the centre_.

FORESTER.

Come here, forester's assistant Andrew Ulrich. Where do you come from?

ANDREW. From the nursery, father.

FORESTER.

Where is your rifle, Andrew Ulrich?

[ANDREW _is silent_.]

FORESTER.

Who has it?

ANDREW (_in a hollow voice_).

Godfrey.

[FORESTER _rises involuntarily_.]

SOPHY (_in great alarm_).

Ulrich!

FORESTER (_sits down again_).

Here no one has anything to say, except the forester's assistant Ulrich
and his superior. Andrew--

ANDREW.

Father--

FORESTER.

Why do you not look at me?

ANDREW.

I no longer can look any one in the face. I want to go to America as
cabin-boy. Let me go, father.

FORESTER.

Boy, it is your duty to answer when your superior asks. What is it that
Godfrey has? Out with it!

ANDREW.

I was just at my task of taking out the maple trees in the nursery--

FORESTER.

As I had ordered you.

ANDREW.

Then came--

FORESTER.

Godfrey? Go on, Andrew Ulrich.

ANDREW.

With six woodcutters from the Brandsberg--

FORESTER.

From--go on, Andrew Ulrich.

ANDREW.

He was intoxicated--

WEILER (_half audibly_).

As usual--

[_When the forester casts a look at him, he pretends not to have said
anything_.]

ANDREW.

And so were the woodcutters. He had them pass the bottle round. "Here we
begin," he said. "Ulrich has made a fine mess of it," he said; "for that
reason he is dismissed." When he had said that I stepped forward
forward--

FORESTER.

You stepped forward?--

[_Rises_.]

ANDREW.

And said he was a miserable slanderer. And that, moreover, he had no
business to give orders in the forest.

FORESTER (_straightens himself_).

In the forest.

ANDREW.

And that he should go where he belonged.

FORESTER (_emphatically_).

Where he belonged.

[_Sits down_.]

And he--

ANDREW.

Laughed.

FORESTER (_rises and sits down again; whistles, and drums on the
table_).

Go on.

ANDREW.

And said: "What does that fellow want?"

FORESTER (_in a loud voice_).

Andrew!

ANDREW.

Father--

FORESTER.

And you? Go on, go on.

ANDREW.

"Hasn't he plants from my forest in his hand?" [_Lowering his voice._]

"Hold that thief who steals wood and plants."

FORESTER (_short pause_).

And they--

ANDREW.

Held me.

FORESTER.

And you--

ANDREW.

They were too many. My resistance was of no avail--

FORESTER (_acting as if he were present at the fight_).

Was of no avail. They were six against one.

ANDREW.

I was furious when I saw what he intended to do. They took off my
clothes. I told him to shoot me, otherwise I would shoot him if he let
me escape with my life. At that he laughed. They--had--to hold--me.

FORESTER (_jumps up_).

And he--

ANDREW (_reluctantly, imploring_).

Father--

FORESTER.

And he--he--

ANDREW.

He--

FORESTER (_faintly_).

He--

ANDREW (_beside himself_).

Father, I cannot say it. No man in God's world has ever dared to do that
to me!

FORESTER (_drawing a deep breath_).

Be quiet now. Say it later--Andrew.

[_Pause. He passes by ANDREW, who now steps over to SOPHY._]

Fine weather today, pastor. All at once the old rheumatism in my arm
begins to bother me again.--And the gnats are flying so low. We shall
have a thunderstorm before the day is over.--Andrew, he did--I never
did, and a stranger--a--say nothing, Andrew--I understand you.

[_Goes up and down._]

SOPHY (_to ANDREW_).

How unfortunate that you provoked Godfrey yesterday!

WEILER.

Haven't I foretold it?

SOPHY.

You are deathly pale. I will give you some drops--

FORESTER (_drawn up to his full height, stops before_ ANDREW. SOPHY
_timidly draws back_).

Listen, Andrew. And you, Weiler.

[WEILER _advances_.]

Open your ears! Whoever comes into my forest with a gun--you challenge
him! You understand?

WEILER.

Well, yes.

FORESTER.

Those are your instructions. You challenge him! I am forester, and
nobody else, and you are my servants. The master and his son may pass.
But whoever else comes into my forest with a gun--do you hear?--be he
who he may--whether he wears a green coat or not--he is a poacher, he is
to be challenged--"Stop! Down with your gun!" As is provided in the
regulations. If he throws it down--all right. If he does not throw it
down--fire! As is provided in the regulations. And you, William, go
without delay to town to see lawyer Schirmer. You tell him the whole
affair. He is to draw up a complaint against Stein and his Godfrey, and
is to file it with the court. Don't forget anything, William: that my
father and grandfather held the position; that people call me the
Hereditary Forester; the case of Rupert in Erdmansgrün. It probably will
not be necessary, but one cannot be too careful. Don't forget that the
forest is exposed toward the north and west and that Stein intends to
dismiss me because I refuse to act as a scoundrel toward him. If you go
now, you can be home before night. Andrew and I will accompany you as
far as the Boundary Inn. There Andrew can wait for you in the evening
when you return.

[_To_ ANDREW, _who is examining the guns_.]

Take the double-barreled one with the yellow strap, Andrew. I am going
to take the other.

ANDREW (_does as told_).

Mother, a muffler; I feel chilly.

SOPHY (_takes one from the closet_).

But you really should stay home, Andrew, after that outrage.

[_Helps him to tie the muffler around his neck.]

WILKENS.

And you don't see that you are absolutely in the wrong? You will be
wilfully blind?

PASTOR.

You wish to begin a suit because of your dismissal? You cannot do that.

FORESTER (_who in the meantime has girded on his hunting knife_).

I cannot do that? Then it is right that he wishes to dismiss me?

PASTOR.

It certainly is unfair; wrong before the tribunal of the heart, but not
before the law.

FORESTER.

Whatever is right before the heart must also be right before the law.

PASTOR.

If you would permit me to explain to you--

FORESTER.

Explain? Here everything is clear, except your cobwebs of the brain by
means of which those gentlemen would like to puzzle you, so that you
might lose confidence in your own common-sense. Those Buts and those
Ifs! I know all about that! The Buts and the Ifs--they originate
entirely in the head; the heart knows nothing of them; they are the
creators of intrigues. Very well, sir, go ahead with your explanation.
But confine yourself to plain Yes and No. Anything outside of that is a
nuisance. The Buts and Ifs are a nuisance. Mr. Stein intends to rob me
of my honor; he intends to reward my fidelity and my honesty with
disgrace; in my sixty-fifth year I am to stand before the world as a
scoundrel. Now, Sir, Yes or No--is that right?

PASTOR.

I am to answer Yes or No? Indeed, it is not right in the ordinary sense,
but--

FORESTER (_interrupts triumphantly_).

Then it is not right? And if it is not right, it must be wrong. And for
this purpose the courts are there, that no wrong shall be done. No man
shall make me doubt my good right. And I shall break friendship forever
with him who says another word to me about yielding. Amen! If only a But
were required to make wrong right, then I would rather live among the
savages, then I would rather be the most miserable beast on God's earth
than a human being. Are you ready, boys?

ANDREW _and_ WILLIAM.

Yes.

FORESTER.

Come then, boys. Everything else may go to the devil, sir. But right,
sir, right must remain right!

[_Exeunt_.]



ACT III

_The Boundary Inn._



SCENE I

LINDENSCHMIED; HOST. _Enter_ MÖLLER, _after him_ FREI.

MÖLLER.

Host, let me have a drink. [_Aside_.] I guess he will find his way home;
Godfrey will. From the mill in the Dell it is scarcely a quarter of an
hour to his house.--Good evening.

FREI (_still without_).

Let's take a drink while we are passing.

[_Enters_.]

I am going over to the duke's estate. There they are having a jolly
time.

HOST.

God save us from that sort of jollity! Your health, Mr. Möller!

MÖLLER.

Fine company!

HOST.

Will you not take a seat, Mr. Möller?

MÖLLER.

Thank you. I still have to go to the blast-furnace this evening; my men
have gone ahead.

[_Aside, while putting the glass to his lips_.]

To the happy consummation of the marriage with Löhlein and Co!

FREI.

Over yonder things are going topsy-turvy, and with us here the crisis
will come today or tomorrow. The Hereditary Forester has already
barricaded himself in his house.

HOST.

Nonsense! He! He is conscientiousness personified!

FREI.

One is conscientious as long as it pays. That man is a fool who remains
so one hour longer. He or his people are going to shoot Godfrey wherever
they find him.

[_Makes a gesture_.]

And the Hereditary Forester does not waste many words. In that respect I
know the old fellow with his white moustache.

LINDENSCHMIED (_laughing hoarsely_).

Is that so?

FREI (_looks at him_).

Do you mean to say you are going to take Godfrey's part? Hey,
Lindenschmied?

LINDENSCHMIED (_as before_).

Godfrey's--

FREI.

Every child knows how much you love him!

LINDENSCHMIED (_with a gesture, as before_).

Ha! Ha!

FREI.

Weiler himself heard the Hereditary Forester say it. And, I tell you,
what the Hereditary Forester says--that's as good as if another fellow
had already done it.

LINDENSCHMIED.

He'll look out for his skin, the Hereditary Forester will.

[_Softly._]

If there were no judges that sit around the green table, and if there
were no--

[_Indicates by a pantomime that he means the hangman._]

FREI.

His reign is at an end. He--For now it is

[_Strikes the table._]

Liberty! Long life to the Hereditary Forester! And whoever has any evil
intentions toward him--I am alluding to no one--

MÖLLER (_hurriedly_).

Here, host. Almost eight o'clock!

HOST.

Are you in such a hurry, Mr. Möller?

MÖLLER.

At the blast-furnace they are waiting for me.

HOST.

Your change--

MÖLLER (_already at the door_).

Never mind! Credit it to me for tomorrow.

[_Exit._]



SCENE II

LINDENSCHMIED; HOST; FREI.

FREI (_rises, shaking his fist after him_).

Nothing shall be credited to you and fellows of your kind. Everything
shall be paid to you. Lindenschmied, are you coming along to the duke's
estate?

LINDENSCHMIED.

I'm going my own way. [_Advances._]

Those judges around the green table! The idea, that an honest fellow
should be frightened when a leaf rustles, and look behind him to see
whether the constable isn't after him!

FREI.

We'll knock it down--the green table--I tell you. We'll see to it that
in ten years from now nobody will be able to get any information as to
what sort of thing a constable ever was. Now it is Liberty, and Order
has ceased to exist: everybody can do what he pleases. No more
constables, no green table, I tell you. No tower, no chains. If the Lord
had created the hares expressly for the nobleman, he would at once have
stamped his coat of arms into their fur. That would have been an easy
matter for a person like the Lord. Now men know that those who are in
prisons are martyrs worthy of veneration, and that the noblemen are
rascals, be they ever so honest. And the industrious people are rascals,
for it is their fault that honest people who do not like to work are
poor. That you can read printed in the newspapers. And if the Hereditary
Forester gets hold of Godfrey [_pantomime_] nobody can hurt him for
that; for Godfrey got honest people into prison, when they had stolen.

LINDENSCHMIED.

And he will not be punished? No? And another fellow neither, if he does
it?

FREI.

Another fellow neither, I tell you. Over yonder the honest people set
fire to the castle and plundered it; several people lost their lives in
the affair; nobody cares a fig. Lucky he who now has an old grudge. And
Ulrich need not run far. Godfrey is reeling around there in the Dell;
he's lost his hat--

LINDENSCHMIED (_puts his hands with convulsive haste into his pockets_).

And nothing--absolutely nothing--not even a blunt knife about me!



SCENE III

_The same. Enter ANDREW._

ANDREW (_entering_).

Isn't it close in here! [_Takes off his muffler._] Good evening.

[_Wraps the muffler around the lock of the gun, and puts the gun next to
him against the wall._]

I advise every one not to touch this; the gun is loaded.

[_To the host._]

I do not know what is the matter with me. All at once I began to feel so
badly out there. I was going to wait for my brother at the boundary.
HOST.

Make yourself at home, Mr. Andrew.

ANDREW.

I suppose William has not yet come.

[_Throws himself on a bench, puts his arms upon the table and rests his
head upon them._]

FREI (_rattles his glass on the table_).

Let me have another one, host. And it is a favor that I now drink in
your place, when you still charge for it. In a week from now you will
have to provide the stuff, and no honest man need pay you a penny for
it, I tell you.

LINDENSCHMIED (_from this point on incessantly casting furtive glances
sometimes at_ ANDREW, _sometimes at the gun_).

If he would only go to sleep--that fellow!

[_Leaning across the table, secretly to_ FREI.]

There in the Dell, you say?--And are you quite sure, Frei, that nothing
will be punished any longer?

FREI.

Superstition, I tell you! If you do something, and they hang you, you
may call me a rascal for the rest of your life. Look here! What formerly
was called fidelity and honesty, that's a tale with which old grannies
used to humbug us. And a fellow that keeps his word is a scoundrel; such
a one I would not trust as far as the door. The common people are
essentially honest, because they are the common people. You ought to
hear those gentlemen over there talk; there was a professor among them;
he ought to know.

LINDENSCHMIED (_leads him aside_).

But what about conscience? And about the hereafter?

FREI.

All superstition! Nothing else, let me tell you.

LINDENSCHMIED.

That's what I always thought. But formerly a person was not allowed to
say such things.

FREI.

They humbugged people with heaven and hell, so that our noble
and gracious master might keep his hares all to himself. They have
drummed a conscience into poor people in their childhood, so that they
should submit patiently when the rich are living in luxury and
extravagance.

LINDENSCHMIED.

And he is in the Dell?

[HOST _becomes attentive._]

FREI.

Who?

LINDENSCHMIED.

That--

[_Buttons his coat._]

FREI.

Where are you going?

LINDENSCHMIED.

To pay debts before another day comes.

[_While he watches_ ANDREW _furtively, he fumbles with his left hand in
his vest-pocket, in order to pay the host_.]

Why, I can't get it out with--

FREI.

The fingers of your left hand are stiff.

LINDENSCHMIED (_with a pantomime_).

Those of my right will soon become crooked.

FREI.

Have you had a stroke?

LINDENSCHMIED (_laughing hoarsely_).

Yes, a leaden one. Two ounces of powder and three of buckshot.

[_Constantly speaks in a subdued voice, so as not to awaken_ ANDREW.]
A memorandum from that fellow in the Dell.

FREI.

From Godfrey?

LINDENSCHMIED.

Because I coined money out of the deer belonging to the owner of
Strahlau. There was enough uncoined money running about in the forest.

FREI.

Let me have another one, host.

[_Holds out his glass._]

LINDENSCHMIED (_lost in thought, alone in the foreground_).

Six times I ran out where he was to pass; but he did not come. At that
time conscience was still the fashion. Then I thought: "It is not to be
now," and postponed it to some time when he should come along by
accident, so that I should be obliged to see that it was to be. For
whole nights it choked me like a nightmare and wasted my body, that I
should not lay hands on him, and now--ha! ha! ha!

[_Gives a short convulsive laugh, thus rousing himself out of his
thoughts; looks around embarrassed._]

FREI.

Did you laugh, Lindenschmied?

LINDENSCHMIED.

I don't know whether it was me.

FREI.

You have a queer laugh. Are you going along, Lindenschmied, into
the ducal territory?

LINDENSCHMIED (_slaps him on the shoulder_).

Man, now we have liberty! I have my own way.

FREI.

I don't care.

[_Steps to the background to the host_.]

What do I owe you on this last occasion that it is necessary to pay?
There; give me change.

HOST.

You have had three, four--

[LINDENSCHMIED _has availed himself of the moment when no one is looking
at him to take away_ ANDREW'S _gun furtively, and hurries out with it_.]

FREI.

What is the time, host?

HOST.

Past eight.

FREI (_going out_).

Good-by.



SCENE IV

HOST; ANDREW.

ANDREW (_starts up_).

Eight? Now William may come.

HOST (_approaches_ ANDREW _timidly_).

You are an honest man. To you I may unburden my mind. They are an
abominable set--those that just left. They let fall some words. Godfrey
is drunk in the Dell, and Lindenschmied, his mortal enemy, has gone
after him. And what didn't he say! He was talking of making his fingers
crooked. And that fellow is capable of everything!

ANDREW.

You believe Lindenschmied intends to have Godfrey's life?

HOST.

I have said nothing. If I expose their plot, they will burn my house
over my head. And if I do nothing--

[_Walks up and down_.]

ANDREW (_was about to rise, but sits down again_).

To save that fellow? Let happen to him what God permits. I will not turn
a finger to save him.

HOST (_as before_).

What shall I do?

ANDREW.

Father says: When a person is in distress every decent man must come to
his assistance, and when it's all over he may ask: Whom did I assist?

[Illustration: MOSES ON MT. SINAI SCHNORR VON CAROLSFELD].

HOST.

Perhaps I had better inform? But--

ANDREW (_rises with sudden decision_).

I am going. I will see whether I can find Godfrey. I am sure nothing
will happen to William. It is only a few steps from here to the house.
What am I looking for? My muffler. There in my temples something is
hammering and buzzing. What did I do with it? I tied it around the gun.

[_When he cannot find it_.]

But where is my gun?

HOST.

You miss your gun?

ANDREW.

I put it right here. The one with the yellow strap.

HOST.

Only a moment ago I saw it standing there.

ANDREW.

Did you take it up, perhaps?

HOST.

I? I have not touched it. Good heavens! If Lindenschmied--you were
resting, and I was just counting. What is to be done?

ANDREW.

Nothing. I go without my gun. I have no time to get another one from
home.

HOST.

But unarmed--

ANDREW.

Never mind! If that pain in my chest only does not become worse.

[_At the door_.]

I only hope I shall not be too late.

[_From without_.]

Good-night, host.

[_Exeunt both_.]



SCENE V

_In the Dell. Picturesque forest glen; in the background the brook right
across the stage; on the other side rocks, along which a steep, narrow
path runs parallel with the brook. Twilight._

_Enter_ ROBERT _with a gun on his shoulder_; KATHARINE.

KATHARINE.

How gruesome it is here! We have gone a long way from the mansion. Where
are we now, Mr. Robert?

ROBERT.

In the Dell, Katharine.

KATHARINE.

In the Dell? Where one is never safe? Where there are always poachers
from across the Duchy's frontier?

[_Looks about timidly_.]

ROBERT.

Don't be afraid, little one. We have a reliable companion with us--

[_Putting his hand on his gun_.]

Do you see over there?

KATHARINE.

Something glimmering like a white wall with dark shutters--

ROBERT.

That is the forester's house.

KATHARINE.

Really? Yes, thank heaven! Now I see the stag's horns on
the roof-tree outlined against the evening sky.

ROBERT.

Here is the letter. But you must not carry it so openly in your hand.
Have you thought of some pretext, in case the old man should meet you?

KATHARINE (_bashful, and smiling with self-satisfaction_).

Oh, Mr. Robert, do you suppose a girl is so stupid? Don't worry about
that. My little sisters take knitting and sewing lessons from the young
lady--so--

ROBERT (_folds the letter, which he was reading_).

Here it is, Katharine. But give that letter only into Mary's or her
mother's hands; to no one else, neither to Andrew nor William. Only into
her own or her mother's hands.

KATHARINE.

But must I go all alone so far?

ROBERT.

It is scarcely two gunshots. Nobody must see me in the vicinity of the
forester's house. When you go home, you follow the road. Only in case
you should not succeed in delivering the letter come back.

KATHARINE.

But surely you will not go away?

ROBERT.

No, Katharine, I shall remain here.

[_Exit_ KATHARINE.]



SCENE VI

ROBERT, _alone; later_, GODFREY; finally MÖLLER _with two workingmen_.

ROBERT (_looks for some time after_ KATHARINE; _then walks up and
down_).

I wonder whether she will come? Whether she will leave her father for my
sake?

[_Stops_.]

I shall go into the world as a hunter. I am young, strong, and
understand my profession thoroughly--why should I not succeed?

[_Losing himself in thought_.]

And then--when I come home from the forest--healthily tired out by my
work in the open air--and she has been watching for me--and comes to
meet me--and takes my gun, so as to have something to carry--and hangs
it on her shoulder--and my hunter's house standing like that one
yonder--the trees rustling--and I holding her in my arms, exclaiming
jubilantly: Only that happiness is happiness which one owes to one's own
efforts!--And then--

[_The report of a gun is heard, and startles him_.]

GODFREY (_still behind the scenes, groaning_).

Scoundrel!

ROBERT.

What is that?

GODFREY (_staggers upon the scene_; ROBERT _hurries toward him and
catches him just as he is falling down_).

I--am--done for--

ROBERT.

Godfrey! For heaven's sake! Has some one shot you? Hallo! Is nobody
near? Hallo! Help!

MÖLLER (_behind the scenes_).

Hurry up, men! Over there! The shouting comes from the path!

ROBERT.

People are coming. Come here, come here! Help!

MÖLLER (_as before_).

That is Mr. Robert's voice.

ROBERT.

If help is to be of any avail here, it must come quickly.

[_Opens_ GODFREY'S _coat and vest_.]

MÖLLER.

To be sure, it is you, Mr. Stein.

[_Enters with two workingmen_.]

But--

ROBERT.

Möller, is that you? Look here what has happened!--Are you still alive,
Godfrey?

GODFREY.

Still--but--

MÖLLER (_coming up_).

Godfrey! Merciful heavens!

ROBERT.

Shot from ambush. The bullet entered at the back.

MÖLLER.

Godfrey, speak! Who did it?

GODFREY.

He had--the rifle--with the yellow strap--

ROBERT.

Andrew's rifle?

GODFREY.

He--threatened--to shoot me--

ROBERT.

It is not possible.

MÖLLER.

Was it Andrew, Godfrey?

GODFREY.

Andrew--yes--

MÖLLER.

He is dying.

[_Pause_.]

Take him up, men. And you, Mr. Stein--this here is a nest of murderers.
Come along. There are others about here lying in ambush. Just now we met
Weiler with a gun--that vicious fellow. He was out spying, that's clear.
It is a regular hunt. Come along! But, for heaven's sake, why will you
not--

ROBERT.

Never mind! Go ahead.

MÖLLER.

But what do you intend to do? And your father--if I leave you alone in
danger--if I do not bring you home with me! How will he ever believe me,
that I tried to persuade you?

ROBERT.

Why, you have witnesses here with you. When I say a thing I mean it--I
am going to stay here.

[_Walks up and down in agitation_.]

MÖLLER.

Well, come along, men. You have heard it.

[_While going out_.]

Good heavens! How will it all end?

[_The men have lifted up the corpse; exeunt with_ MÖLLER.]



SCENE VII

ROBERT, _alone; then_ ANDREW; _finally_ LINDENSCHMIED.

ROBERT.

Disgraceful! Disgraceful! Could it be possible that Andrew was capable
of this kind of revenge? And I must believe it--I must! The dying man
said it; he had threatened him with it--it was his gun--and all this is
real--here the murdered man died--here is--with his blood he wrote it in
the turf, so that I can have no doubt. And such men stand between me and
my happiness? Take a firm stand, Robert; here everything is at stake.
You are dealing with men who are afraid of no crime. Who comes there? It
is Andrew himself. [_Shouting to_ ANDREW, _who is not yet visible_.]
Come on! If you are looking for me, murderer! You shall not find me
defenseless and unwary as Godfrey--

ANDREW (_entering, pale and tottering_).

Godfrey?--

ROBERT.

There they carry him. He has been murdered, and you have done it.

ANDREW (_angrily_).

I, Robert?

ROBERT.

The murdered man recognized you and your gun--and your conscience
betrays you.

ANDREW.

Hear me--for God's sake!

[LINDENSCHMIED _comes stealing along the rocky path in the background_.]

ROBERT.

Flee, murderer! Every step carries you nearer the gallows! Here is the
blood that accuses you, and you yourself carry the confession on your
pale face. The fever that shakes you testifies against you.

ANDREW.

May the fever rack your bones, shameless liar! The gun was stolen from
me by Lindenschmied, who was on the lookout for Godfrey. I hurried after
him as soon as I learned it. I fell in a swoon--by sheer will-force I
recovered from the swoon--and--

ROBERT.

You say it is Lindenschmied who--

ANDREW.

If you do not believe me, look there toward the rocky path--

ROBERT.

Murderer, stand! Or I shoot you down!

[LINDENSCHMIED _hurries across the stage on the rocky path._ ROBERT
_follows him below_.]

ANDREW (_totters after him_).

Be careful, Robert! The man is desperate--it is a matter of life and
death.

LINDENSCHMIED.

Stand back! I'll shoot.

ROBERT (_also behind the scenes_).

Down with your gun, and stand!

ANDREW.

He is taking aim--jump aside, Robert!

[_Two shots are heard in succession_.]

Now it is done!

[_Disappears in the bushes_.]

       *       *       *       *       *



SCENE VIII

_The Manor House_.

_Enter_ STEIN, _uneasy; then_ BASTIAN; _later, the_ PASTOR.

STEIN.

I wonder whether Möller forgot to send some one to look for Robert? Or
should the boy--that quarrel with Andrew! Bastian!

[BASTIAN _appears at the door_.]

Where is the bookkeeper?

BASTIAN.

Toward evening he went to the blast-furnace.

STEIN.

Hasn't Robert been home again since noon?

BASTIAN.

Mr. Robert made preparations for a journey, and then went away with
Katharine, the Steward's daughter.

[STEIN _makes a sign of dismissal. Exit_ BASTIAN.]

STEIN.

And the pastor--he might have been back long ago.

BASTIAN (_at the door_). The pastor.

STEIN. In the nick of time!

[_The_ PASTOR _appears_.]

STEIN (_shakes hands with him_).

At last! At last! Have you good news?

PASTOR (_shrugging his shoulders_).

It might be better.

STEIN.

Did you meet that hothead, Robert?

PASTOR.

No.

STEIN.

I was in hopes, because you stayed away so long, that you would bring
him with you.

PASTOR.

A sick person, to whom I was called while on my way to you, kept me
until now.

STEIN.

Then fancy that you are coming from a sick person to one more seriously
sick. If impatience, dissatisfaction with oneself, evil presentiments,
were diseases, then I should be a dangerous patient.--But your answer--I
don't even give you time to catch your breath. [_Motions to him to take
a seat; sits down, but rises again_.] If at least I could remain seated!
Six times I mechanically took my hat in my hand; to that extent my old
habit of being together with the forester makes my hands and feet twitch
worse than the gout. In the meantime a thought struck me--but first of
all: How do matters stand with the obstinate old fellow?

PASTOR.

Your offer did not exactly meet with the kindest reception. And yet, who
knows whether, after all, he had not agreed to it, if unfortunately the
affair with Andrew--

STEIN.

With Andrew? What affair?

[_Jumps up_.]

You don't mean to say he has come to blows with Robert?

PASTOR.

This time only with Godfrey--

STEIN (_sits down again_).

You see I am trembling with impatience.

PASTOR.

Godfrey, intoxicated as usual, treated him like a prowling thief, had
him whipped--

[STEIN _jumps up again_.]

PASTOR.

Then it was no wonder that the old man would no longer listen to
anything, and gave orders to treat as a poacher every one, except you,
who enters the forest with a gun.

STEIN (_who has been walking up and down_).

Bastian!

[BASTIAN _appears at the door_.]

As soon as Möller comes the scoundrel shall be deposed, the brute shall
be locked up--do you hear?

BASTIAN.

The bookkeeper?

STEIN.

Godfrey--and Möller with him, if he--come, pastor.

[_Takes his hat and cane. Exit_ BASTIAN.]

PASTOR.

You intend--

STEIN.

You ask?--I am going to the old man! I am going to brush away those
caprices in spite of all Wilkens and Möllers!

PASTOR.

That's right! I am with you. [_Rises_.]

STEIN (_stops_).

Wait a moment, parson. Am I to have had that good idea in vain? Listen,
what came into my mind a little while ago--as if straight from heaven!
Parson, what do you say if this very day I should transfer Düsterwalde
to Robert as his own independent property? He could reinstate the old
man with all honors, and nobody's dignity would be hurt. I shall
immediately draw up the deed of transfer. Go quickly to the forester's
house, parson.

PASTOR.

With this message--

STEIN.

Before the old man, or the hotheaded boys, or all three, do something
impetuous which--

[_Makes preparations for writing_.]

PASTOR.

And tomorrow--

STEIN.

As if today had never been--

PASTOR.

Mr. Stein comes as usual around the corner of the forester's house and
knocks at the window, and the white moustache inside grunts his
"Immediately--"

STEIN.

And if you meet Robert--

PASTOR.

I shall be the first one to congratulate the new proprietor of
Düsterwalde.

STEIN.

And today you bring them all along--the old man, the boys, the mother
and the bride. Then[_advances to the pastor at the door_],
as a preliminary celebration we'll crack a bottle of my oldest
Johannisberger. But what is the matter out there? Who comes rushing up
the stairs?

[_At the door_.] What has happened?



SCENE IX

_The same_: MÖLLER, _then_ BASTIAN.

MÖLLER (_comes in, beside himself_).

Horrible! Horrible!

STEIN.

But what is the matter?

MÖLLER.

A murder!--A dreadful murder!

STEIN.

But, man alive, speak--

MÖLLER.

Mr. Robert--

STEIN. My son!

[_Falls into a chair_.]

PASTOR.

Has Robert been murdered?

[_Goes anxiously up to_ STEIN.]

_Enter_ BASTIAN.

MÖLLER.

Not yet. Not yet, I hope. But--I am quite beside myself. Ulrich's Andrew
has already shot and killed Godfrey. Those from the forester's house
have instituted a regular hunt for their enemies. I had Godfrey carried
home. He looks horrible. The bullet entered at the left side of the
spine. He died in Mr. Robert's arms. I asked him: Was it Andrew,
Godfrey? It was Andrew, he said--it was Andrew--and lay down a dead man.
I implored Mr. Robert to come home for God's sake; he was quite beside
himself, and would not come. And I had not gone two hundred steps with
my men, when two more shots were fired behind us.

STEIN (_rises, beside himself_).

Mount your horse at once--ride till it drops dead--only be quick--get
soldiers from the town--surround the whole forest--catch that murderer's
band from the forester's house! You, Bastian, get quickly my Lüttich
rifle, the one that's loaded--then call the workingmen--have them
armed--to--where was it, Möller?

MÖLLER.

At the first bridge--in the Dell, scarcely ten minutes beyond the
forester's house.

PASTOR.

God grant that the worst may still be prevented!

STEIN (_stamps his foot_).

Bastian! Bastian! Why are you still standing there! Make haste!

[_Exit_ MÖLLER.]

And I--while--Bastian!

[BASTIAN _brings the rifle_. STEIN _tears it from him_.]

I am coming!
Robert, hold your own! I am coming!

[_Exeunt omnes_.]



ACT IV

_Twilight. The_ FORESTER'S _House._



SCENE I

WILKENS; SOPHY.

WILKENS.

Your husband has been dismissed. There is no doubt about that. And if he
desires to remain here he is going just the wrong way about it. Stein
certainly cannot afford to allow Ulrich to gain his point by defiance
and revolt. Godfrey now is forester. Well, Godfrey is a brutal fellow;
but here he is in the right. If now they should come together, your
husband and Godfrey? And each is going to treat the other as a poacher?
Or if Godfrey should come across Andrew once more? And if he does what
his father commanded him? Or if Andrew and young Stein come together?
Well? And viewed in the most charitable light, Ulrich is a dismissed
man, whom nobody will wish to employ after this open rebellion of which
he has been guilty. And what is then to become of you and your
children?

SOPHY.

I am sure you will not withdraw your aid from us. If you would only talk
to him once more!

WILKENS.

After the trump that he has played? Even if it were not for that, I
value my breath too much to preach to deaf ears. You and your children
must leave him. That I said to myself a little while ago, while on my
way, and made a solemn resolution to bring this about; and I came back
to tell you. Before you have a corpse or a murderer in the house--

SOPHY (_throws up her hands in terror_).

Matters surely cannot come to that pass!

WILKENS.

Well. I see you'll risk it. You also are a queer mother. But I am not so
indifferent as you, and I will not have a catastrophe on my conscience,
if I can prevent it. I have most to lose by this. To be brief: If you
leave him and come with your children to me, I shall have it settled
that very hour that you and your children are to be my heirs. Till
tomorrow noon you have plenty of time to consider the matter. If by noon
tomorrow you are at the Boundary Inn, where I will wait for you, then
we'll go at once into town to the notary; if you are not there--all
right also. But I'll be a scoundrel--and you know I am as good as my
word--and cursed be my hand, if after that it ever gives a piece of
bread either to you or your children.

[_Exit_.]

SOPHY (_quite overcome; then follows him anxiously and hastily_).

But, cousin! Cousin Wilkens!



SCENE II

MARY _alone; then_ SOPHY _returning_.

MARY (_has a letter in her hand_).

Why did I take it till I had considered matters?--and then I had it in
my hand. And Katharine, too, was so quickly gone!--I should not have
taken it!

SOPHY (_reappearing_).

Those cruel men! Prayers avail nothing. What have you there, Mary?

MARY.

A letter from Robert.

SOPHY.

If your father should see that!

MARY.

I cannot understand at all how I came to accept it; but I felt so sorry
for Robert. Katharine told me he was down in the Dell, and waiting. Then
I again recollected my dream of last night.

SOPHY.

A dream?

MARY.

I dreamt I was at the spring among the willows in my favorite spot, and
was sitting among the many colored flowers and looking up into the sky.
There I saw a thunder-storm, and I became as depressed as if I were to
die. And the child, you know, the one that had been with me fourteen
years ago when I lost my way, was sitting beside me and said: Poor Mary!
and pulled the bridal wreath out of my hair, and in place of it fastened
to my bosom a large blood-red rose. Then I fell backwards into the
grass, I knew not how. Yonder in the village the bells were ringing, and
the singing of the birds, the chirping of the crickets, the soft evening
breeze in the willows above me--all that seemed like a lullaby. And the
turf sank down with me lower and ever lower, and the chimes and the
singing sounded ever more distant--the sky became blue once more, and I
felt so light and free--

SOPHY.

A strange dream! Have you opened the letter?

MARY.

No, mother. And I do not wish to do so.

SOPHY.

At least don't let your father see it. Alas, Mary! we shall be obliged
to leave your father!

MARY.

Leave father? We?

SOPHY.

He is coming. Do not betray anything! Put away the letter. Put the Bible
there before you, so that be may not suspect anything. I will try once
more--if he thinks we are going away, he perhaps may yet give in, and we
may stay.



SCENE III

_The stage is becoming darker and darker._

_The_ FORESTER; SOPHY; MARY.

FORESTER.

William not yet back?

SOPHY.

I have not seen him.

[FORESTER _steps to the window, and, lost in thought, drums against the
panes_. SOPHY _begins packing_.]

MARY.

But, mother--

SOPHY.

Be quiet now, Mary, and don't take part in the conversation.

FORESTER (_has turned around and watched his wife for some time_).

What are you doing there?

SOPHY (_without looking up_).

I am packing some dresses--if I have to go away--

FORESTER.

 We don't have to go. There is a law to prevent that.

SOPHY (_shaking her head_). _Your_ law? [_Continues packing_.]

_I_ shall be obliged to go away with the children.

FORESTER (_surprised_).

You are going to--

SOPHY.

If you don't come to terms with Stein--

FORESTER.

If--

SOPHY.

You need not get angry, Ulrich. You cannot act otherwise, and neither
can I. I do not reproach you; I say nothing, absolutely nothing. You
persist in regarding as your enemy whoever counsels you to yield--and
cousin Wilkens is going to disinherit the children if you remain
obstinate, and if I and the children are not in his house by noon
tomorrow. Under the circumstances I can do nothing but go in silence.

FORESTER (_drawing a deep breath_).

You wish--

SOPHY. I wish nothing. You wish and cousin Wilkens wishes. You cruel men
decree our fate, and--we must bear it. If you would give in, then,
indeed, we might stay. Do you believe I am going with a light heart? As
far as I am concerned, I should be willing to stand by you till death.
But for the children's sake and--for your sake also.

FORESTER (_gloomily_).

How for my sake?

SOPHY.

You are dismissed, you have no resources; and another position at your
age--after your affair with Stein--you might--

FORESTER (_violently_).

Accept charity? For my wife and children?

SOPHY.

Don't become angry. I don't say: Yield. I will press nothing upon you.
You cannot yield, and I--cannot remain--unless you yield. If we must
part [_Her voice shakes_]--then let us part amicably. Let us forgive
each other for what one party does against the interests of the other,
or [_with gentle reproach_]--for what the other party thinks is being
done against his interests.

FORESTER.

You intend, then, going to Wilkens?

SOPHY.

I must.

FORESTER.

And the children are to go also?

SOPHY.

It is for their sake that I go.

FORESTER.

Will you not also take Nero along? Out there? The dog? Why should the
dog remain longer with his dismissed master? Take the dog along. And
when I get my rights, as I am bound to get them--and stand before the
world no longer as a scoundrel--then--why, then the dog may come back
again. You think he is not going to leave me? Surely the dumb beast is
not going to be more stupid than human beings are? Wife and children are
prudent, and only such a poor beast is going to be stupid? One ought to
kick the beast for such stupidity. An old man, a ruined man, who in his
old age would be branded as a scoundrel, if Stein had his will, and such
a beast refuses to see reason? After fifty years of faithful service
thrown out of my position as a scoundrel, because I refuse to be a
scoundrel--and I have sacrificed my own money into the bargain, and the
poor beast in its kennel is going to show more gratitude than the rich
Stein in his mansion? In that case one should simply blow out the brains
of the whole brood of beasts, if they served no other purpose but to
make man bow his head in shame before them. [_Walks up and down; turns
to her with emotion_.] We are to be two? After twenty-five years?--Very
well! Then from now on may each suffer alone--as long as the heart holds
out!

SOPHY.

Ulrich--

[_She is obliged to restrain_ MARY, _who wishes to throw herself at the_
FORESTER's _feet_].

FORESTER.

From now on we are two. Go away! Go away! Wilkens is rich, and I am a
poor man in spite of my right. You're going after the money. I'll not
prevent you. But if you say you have acted rightly--then--and now the
matter is disposed of. Not one more word about it.



SCENE IV

_The same. Enter_ WILLIAM.

FORESTER (_seated on the right of the stage_).

Come here, William. Where did you leave Andrew?

WILLIAM.

I waited for him a quarter of an hour at the Boundary Inn.

FORESTER.

Perhaps he thought you were coming later--

SOPHY (_aside_).

Andrew has not come back with him? I can't get my uncle's words out of
my head.

[MARY _lights the lamp and puts it on the table by the_ FORESTER.]

FORESTER.

Did you ask the lawyer how long it would be before the matter is
settled? Till I have my rights?

WILLIAM.

He refuses to institute proceedings.

SOPHY (_drawing a deep breath; aside_).

Then there is still some hope left!

FORESTER (_rises; quite perplexed_).

He refuses--

WILLIAM.

He says you are not in the right, father.

FORESTER.

Not in the right?

[_Is obliged to sit down_.]

SOPHY (_as before_).

If he only would yield.

WILLIAM.

He said state officials could not be deposed, unless it could
be proved against them that they deserved it. But you were not a state
official; your master was not the state, but he who owned the forest,
the owner of the estate.

FORESTER (_with suppressed anger_).

Then, if I were an official of the state, Stein would not be allowed to
do me an injustice. And because I am not, he is allowed to brand me as a
scoundrel?--You did not understand him rightly, William!

WILLIAM.

He repeated it to me three times--

FORESTER.

Because you did not represent the matter to him as it is--that already
your great-grandfather had been forester of Düsterwalde, and your
grandfather after him, and that for forty years, throughout the whole
valley, people have called me the Hereditary Forester.

WILLIAM.

That, he said, was an honor to both masters and servants; but before the
court nothing could be based on it.

FORESTER.

But he does not know that Stein wants to depose me, because
I had his best interests at heart, that the forest is exposed on the
north and west. A lawyer does not know that a forest is like a vault,
where one stone always holds and supports the others. Thus the vault can
withstand any force, but take out only a dozen stones from the centre,
and the whole thing comes tumbling about your ears.

WILLIAM.

At such arguments he only shrugged his shoulders.

FORESTER (_growing more excited_).

And my money that I have put into it? And all the trees that I planted
with my own hands? Hey? Which the wind now shall wantonly break?

WILLIAM.

At that he only smiled. He said you might be a very honest man, but in
court that would prove nothing.

FORESTER (_rises_).

If one is an honest man, that proves nothing? Then one must be a rascal,
if he is to prove anything in court?--But how about Rupert of
Erdmansgrün--hey, William?

WILLIAM.

He happened to have been a state official. After I had left
him, I even went to another lawyer. This man laughed right in my face.
But to that fellow I spoke my mind like a hunter's son.

FORESTER.

You did well. But what about Andrew? Hey?

WILLIAM.

He said that you had been deposed at the time that Andrew went into the
forest. You ought to know yourself that no stranger is allowed to take
plants from a forest according to his own inclination, without the
knowledge and consent of the forester. That then Godfrey was the lawful
forester, and consequently Andrew had no one to blame but himself, if he
was treated as a poacher. And that Andrew himself must understand it
would be wiser to take his punishment quietly, and not stir up the
matter any further; and he might be glad to have come off so easily.

[_The_ FORESTER _has seated himself again; pauses; then whistles, and
drums on the table_.]

SOPHY (_watching him with anxiety_).

When he becomes so calm--

FORESTER.

So I must remain a scoundrel before the world? Very well!--Why don't you
pack your things, you women-folk? William, get me a bottle of wine.

SOPHY.

You are going to drink wine? And you know it is not good for you,
Ulrich? And just now, in your present state of vexation--

FORESTER.

I must get my mind off the subject.

SOPHY.

You always become so excited after wine. If you drink now it may be your
death.

FORESTER.

Better to drink oneself to death than live as a scoundrel! And a
scoundrel I must remain before the world. William, a bottle and a glass.
Have matters come to that pass, that I am no longer master in my own
house? Hurry up, there!

[_Exit_ WILLIAM.]

SOPHY.

If only you would change your mind! But you will not do it, and--I must
leave you.

FORESTER.

That matter is settled, woman, and my resolution is taken. None of your
lamentations! Tomorrow I am going. Since I am not an official of the
State and--today I intend to be right jolly.

[WILLIAM _brings wine; the_ FORESTER _pours out and drinks repeatedly,
every time a full glass. Between glasses he whistles and drums_.]

FORESTER.

Put that light away, so that I may not see my shadow.

[WILLIAM _puts the lamp on the table near the women, seats himself by
them and takes the still opened Bible before him_.]

SOPHY (_aside and to Mary_).

Andrew still stays out, and it has been dark for a long while. And
tomorrow I must go. Now I say indeed: I must go; and yet I am not sure
that, when the moment comes, I shall have the strength of mind to carry
out my intention--after we have lived together for twenty years, sharing
joys and sorrows! And to say farewell to the forest with its green
leaves which all day long looks into every window! How still it will
seem to us, when during the entire day we no longer shall hear the
rustling of the trees, the singing of the birds, and the sound of the
wood-cutter's ax. And the old cuckoo-clock there--it was ticking when I
was a bride, and now you too have been betrothed here! There in that
corner you raised yourself on your feet for the first time, Mary, and
began to walk, and took three steps; and there where your father is
sitting, I sat and wept for joy. Is that what life is? An everlasting
bidding farewell? If, after all, I were to remain? And yet when I think
of all the things uncle said might happen! If Robert's letter--William,
please go into the garden. I must have left the glass by the spring, or
in the arbor or somewhere thereabouts.

[_Exit_ WILLIAM.]



SCENE V

_The same, without_ WILLIAM. SOPHY _and_ MARY _in front of the stage
busied with the lamp. The_ FORESTER _sometimes seated in the rear,
sometimes walking up and down past the table to the window_.

SOPHY (_having waited till_ WILLIAM _is out_).

Suppose you find out what Robert has been writing.

MARY.

You mean I should open the letter, mother?

SOPHY.

Perhaps everything can still be arranged, and Robert writes us how. If
you will not open it, give me the letter. If I do it, you have nothing
to reproach yourself for.

[_Opens it_.]

If I only could read by lamp-light. If I put on my spectacles, he would
notice it. Read it to me, Mary.

MARY.

You want me to read it, mother?

SOPHY.

If I give you permission, you may surely do so. Put it there next to the
Bible. And if he comes near, or his attention is attracted, you read
from the Bible.

MARY.

But what?

SOPHY.

Whatever your eyes light upon. If I cough, you read from the Bible.
First the letter.

MARY (_reads_).

"Dear Mary. I have so much to--

SOPHY.

He is getting up again from his chair. Read from the Bible till he is at
the window.

MARY.

"Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath
caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again."

[FORESTER _drums on the window_.]

SOPHY (_constantly watching him_).

Now the letter, Mary. Till I cough.

MARY.

"I have so much to tell you. Sometime during the evening or the night
come to the Dell by the spring under the willows. There I shall wait for
you. Come, Mary. Tomorrow morning I am going out into the world to win
happiness for you and for me. If you do not come, I know what you mean,
and you will never see me again."

SOPHY.

He intends to go? Out into the world? Forever, if you do not go? Then
everything would be lost!

MARY.

"You will never again see your Robert."

SOPHY (_coughs, just as the_ FORESTER _is turning away from the
window_).

From the Bible, Mary.

MARY.

"As he hath caused a blemish in a man, so it shall be done to him again.
Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger as for one of
your own country: for I am the Lord, your God."

FORESTER (_has become attentive; stops_).

What is that there about law?

MARY.

"Ye shall have one manner of law--"

FORESTER.

"Ye shall have one manner"--Where is that?

MARY.

Here, father. Up there at the left.

FORESTER.

Put a mark there where that begins, what you have read there about the
law. Do you see now that I am right? Even if I have to put up with
injustice? That my old heart here is no liar? "Ye shall have one manner
of law"--not a special one for officials of the State. At that time the
Law was still sound; then it did not live in dusty, moldy offices. It
was administered under the gates in the open air, as we read there. If I
had my way, the courts ought to have sessions in the forest; in the
forest man's heart remains sound; there one knows what is right and what
is wrong without Ifs and Buts. With their secret tricks they have put a
string of Ifs and Buts to it; in their dusty, moldy offices it has
become sick and blunt and withered, so that they can turn and twist it
as they like. And now what is right must be put in writing and have a
seal to it, otherwise it is not to be recognized as right. Now they have
deprived a man's word of all value and degraded it, since one is only
bound by what one has sworn to, what one has under seal and in writing.
Out of the good old right they have made a turn-coat, so that an old
man, whose honor was never sullied by the slightest blemish, must stand
as a rascal before men--because they in their offices have two rights
instead of one.

[_Sits down and drinks_.]

SOPHY.

The night is advancing further and further, and Andrew does not come.
And with such talk one becomes doubly frightened. If you went to
Robert--

MARY.

To Robert? What, in the world, are you thinking of, mother?

SOPHY.

That it is God's finger--that letter of Robert's.

MARY.

I am to go to Robert? Now? To the Dell?

SOPHY.

What is to prevent it? You are not afraid.

MARY.

The idea of being afraid!

[_Proudly_.]

Ulrich's daughter!

SOPHY.

How often have you not been out at a more advanced hour of the night!

MARY.

But then father knew it. If I have father's permission and yours, I know
that an angel stands behind every tree. And father said: "If I am
mistaken in Mary"--

SOPHY.

I cannot slip away, without his noticing it, as well as you
can. The matter might still have taken a favorable turn, but it was not
to be. And your dream? You felt so light, the sky became so blue--you
see, in the Dell by the spring under the willows, there the sorrow that
weighs on you and on us all is to end.

MARY (_shaking her head_).

Do you really think so, mother?

SOPHY.

If you would go. We might then remain with father, Robert would try once
more to persuade his father, uncle Wilkens also would yield, and when
you wear the bridal wreath a second time it would be even more becoming
to you.

MARY.

I am to deceive my father, mother? In that case I believe no good could
ever come to me again in this world.

SOPHY.

You would have the satisfaction of knowing that you went for his sake.
Perhaps if, tomorrow, he must go forth into misery, or if they confine
him in the tower, or if something still worse happens--

MARY.

To father?

SOPHY.

Yes. Then you will think, perhaps too late: "Had I only gone!"

MARY.

But mother, if I were in the forest, and father should meet me? Or if he
should find us together?

SOPHY.

We must ask him, whether he is going to stay home.

MARY.

I cannot look at him without feeling as if my heart were bursting.

SOPHY.

Ask him on account of the soup.

MARY.

I shall ask him at once.

[_She approaches the_ FORESTER _timidly, stands next to him without his
noticing her_.]

SOPHY (_encouraging her_).

Don't be a child.

MARY (_softly_).

Father!

[_She bends over him, beside herself with pity_.]

Father, poor father!

[_Is going to embrace him_.]

FORESTER (_looking about, roughly_).

What's the matter? No lamentations!

SOPHY (_as_ MARY _stands disconcerted_).

Mary--

MARY (_controls herself_).

Are you again going into the forest tonight?

FORESTER.

Why?

MARY.

Because--

SOPHY (_interrupts, for fear_ MARY _might tell the truth_).

Because of the soup; she wants to know whether she is to warm it.

FORESTER.

No. And what are you waiting for, you silly wench?

[_Turns away. As_ MARY _hesitates, calls out roughly_.]

Do you hear?

MARY (_goes back to_ SOPHY).

Mother, he has been crying! I saw a tear hanging on his eye-lash,
mother! And I am about to deceive him!

SOPHY.

He is crying because in his old age he has to go forth into
misery.--And as to you--why, you are not obliged to go.

MARY.

If you speak in that way, mother!--I am going.

SOPHY.

Then say good-night to him. It is time. Afterward I shall help you climb
out of the window. At this moment Robert is already waiting. You can be
back soon.

MARY.

Yes, mother, I will go. But not for Robert's sake, mother, nor for mine;
only for father's sake. I will tell him: "Robert," I will say to him,
"you will yet find a girl, more beautiful and better than myself, but my
father will not find another child, if I leave him." I will tell him:
"Robert," I will say to him, "I will forget you! God will give me
strength that I may be able to forget you. Remain away from me, so that
I may not see you again." God will help me, mother, will he not? He
will, for I did love Robert so much.

SOPHY.

Now go. Say good-night and don't betray yourself.

[MARY _stands by the_ FORESTER.]

SOPHY.

Mary wants to say good-night to you.

FORESTER.

Can't you say it yourself, silly thing?

MARY (_mastering her emotion_).

Good-night, father.

FORESTER.

Good-night. You need not wait for me tomorrow when you are going to your
uncle. Perhaps I shall have gone out by that time. I have an errand;
don't know whether I shall come back tomorrow. And take Nero along--and
whatever else is there; take everything along. I no longer need
anything--but my tools, my short rifle and--powder and bullets. The
other rifles you may sell. Go to Wilkens, you poor thing, he perhaps
will get Robert for you yet--after I have gone; after people have once
forgotten that your father was a dismissed man.

MARY.

Good-night.

[_Beside herself_.]

Good-night, father!

FORESTER.

Wench, that is a good-night as if forever.--You are right, Mary. Such a
stain as I am upon your good reputation must be removed. Go, Mary. Do
you hear, Mary?

MARY.

You shall remain, father. And if you go, I go with you.

FORESTER.

The way I have to go one goes alone. Go, Mary.

SOPHY.

Go to bed, Mary.

FORESTER.

Good-night. And now it's enough. You know I cannot bear lamentations.

MARY.

You are not going without me, father. You cannot live without me,
father. Father, I now feel that in my heart.

FORESTER (_protesting_).

Yes, I can. What doesn't such a greenhorn feel!

MARY.

You turn away, father, so that I should not see you crying. Father,
pretend you are ferocious, as much as you like--

FORESTER (_wants to disengage himself_).

Silly thing there--

MARY.

I am going with you. You insist upon your right, and I upon mine, and
that is, that I must not leave you. Father, I feel now for the first
time that I love no one in the world as much as you. Tomorrow we go
together--if you must go. I am going to put on William's clothes. There
are still green forests in the world. And surely you shall not hear me
complaining. Don't be afraid of that. Why, I can cry during the nights,
when you don't see it. But then you will see it by my eyes in the
daytime. Why, I must not cry at all! I will only laugh and skip along
before you and sing--the beautiful hunting songs.--You see, father, this
is the last tear for Robert! And it is already dried, do you see? I am
sure that we shall still find happiness in this world--if you must go,
father. And if it is not to be, we will thank God and pray, if He only
keeps us honest. Then we will think: It is asking too much, if we also
wish to be happy. Have I not you? Have not you your good conscience and
your Mary? What more do we need?

[_Hanging on his neck_.]

FORESTER (_who has been warding her off constantly, almost furious,
because he can scarcely control his emotion_).

Indeed, indeed! Stupid thing!

[_More calmly_.]

And a "table--spread--thyself," a "gold--mule--stretch-thyself," and the
fairy-story is complete. Now go to bed, Mary.

[_Roughly_.]

Do you hear?

SOPHY.

Come, Mary.

MARY (_at the door of her room she looks around, and runs again to him;
embracing him, beside herself_).

Good-night, good-night!

[_She hurries to her room;_ SOPHY _follows_.]

FORESTER (_looking after her_).

My girl, my poor girl! It must not be here that I make an end of
myself!--Confound it. Shame on you, old--



SCENE VI

WEILER; _The_ FORESTER.

WEILER (_greets him with a silent nod; he is very much excited; hangs
the rifle on the rack and busies himself with the hunting utensils_).

Well!

FORESTER (_notices him_).

Is it you?

[_Lapses again into his thoughts_.]

WEILER.

It's me.

FORESTER.

Where are you coming from at this time?

WEILER.

From the forest. At the fence I had a talk with your William. So, after
all, you are dismissed.

FORESTER.

Because there are two kinds of right.

WEILER.

And didn't you know that before?

FORESTER.

You have your pay for three months in advance.

WEILER.

And may go. I know that too. Where is your William? Why, to be sure! I
just met him. And your Andrew?

FORESTER (_half absent-mindedly_).

Not at home.

WEILER.

But I suppose you know where your Andrew is?

FORESTER (_impatiently_).

What else do you want? Leave me alone!

WEILER.

All right. It's none of my business.

FORESTER.

Therefore I think you'd better go.

WEILER.

But to come back to Andrew. You don't know where he is?

FORESTER.

Always harping on Andrew? If you have something to say, don't be like a
thunderstorm that keeps threatening for hours.

WEILER (_points toward the window_).

Some one is coming up across the Lautenberg. The plovers were screeching
as if in fear. I expected it. It was too sultry. Ulrich [_approaches
him_] an hour ago some one was shot.

FORESTER.

You know who?

WEILER.

You don't know it? If your Andrew were home--

FORESTER.

Always Andrew! You know something about him!

WEILER.

Well. The rifle--tell me, did Andrew have the one with the yellow strap?

FORESTER.

Why?

WEILER (_as if lost in meditation_).

Surely I know your rifle--

FORESTER.

Do you want to drive me mad?

WEILER.

You haven't it in the house?

FORESTER.

I won't answer you any more. I'm ugly enough as it is. I have been
drinking wine.

WEILER.

Take good care that you are not mistaken.

FORESTER.

Take good care that I don't take you by the collar.

WEILER.

It's no joke--

FORESTER.

You shall see that it is not.

WEILER.

I know nothing but what I have heard and seen. And now sit down. I don't
feel like standing long. It seems to me that I must look like my
clay-pipe there.

[_The_ FORESTER _sitting down at the table to the right;_ WEILER _has
drawn a chair close to him, and talks hurriedly in an uncanny, subdued
voice_.]

A little while ago, as I was quitting work and going away from my
wood-cutters, I heard a shot from the direction of the Dell. I thought
perhaps it was you, and went in that direction. But it must have been
Robert Stein. He was walking up and down there by the first bridge like
a sentinel. I thought to myself: What can he be waiting for? Not for
game; for in that case one doesn't run up and down; I thought: You must
get to the bottom of this. You get behind the high oak. There you can
see everything and can't be seen. But I was hardly there, when I heard a
commotion behind me. And what was it I heard? Your Andrew and Robert in
a most violent dispute. I could not understand anything clearly, but one
could hear that they were after each other for life and death. I was
just about to creep closer, when they already came rushing along. The
one on the further side of the brook on the rocky path, the other on
this side. The one on this side was Robert with his gun against his
cheek. Two steps from me he stopped--"Stand or I shoot." On the rocky
path no two persons can pass each other. There it is--"Man, fight for
your life." And now, pif! paf!--two shots in succession. The bullet from
the one on the rock whistled between me and Robert into the bushes. But
Robert's bullet--Ulrich, I have heard many a shot, but never such a one.
One could hear by the sound of the lead, it scented human life. I do not
know what sensation I felt when he on the other side collapsed like a
wounded stag--

FORESTER.

Andrew?

WEILER.

Who else could it have been? Hey? Perhaps he's home? Perhaps you know
where else he is? And the person that was shot had the rifle with the
yellow strap. He held it tight. The strap really glistened in the
twilight like a signal of distress. It was a weird sound, as the iron
parts of the gun in falling struck the rocks and the corpse tumbled
after it, breaking the bushes--till there was a splash in the brook
below, as if it started in terror. And when, after this, there succeeded
such a strange stillness, as if it had to bethink itself of what had
really happened, I had a sensation as though some one were pursuing me.
I should have been back half an hour ago, if I had not lost my way--I,
who know every tree thereabouts. Now you may imagine how I felt! Not
until I had reached the second bridge there toward Haslau, did I have
courage to stop a moment to take breath--there where the brook is
roaring among the rocks. Accidentally I looked down. There the brook was
playing with a colored rag. Do you know it, perhaps?

[_Takes out_ ANDREW'S _muffler, and holds it before the_ FORESTER'S
_eyes; the latter snatches it from his hand_.]

FORESTER.

All sorts of shapes before my eyes--the wine--

[_Holds it sometimes far, sometimes near, without being able to see
it_.]

WEILER (_short pause_).

You are so quiet. Is something wrong with you?

[FORESTER _draws a single loud breath, and still keeps holding the
muffler mechanically before him, without seeing it_.]

WEILER.

Your face is quite distorted. I am going to call your wife.

FORESTER (_makes a movement, as if he were pushing a load from him with
utmost exertion_).

Never mind! A slight dizziness. Have not been bled recently; the wine
into the bargain--it's already passing away--say nothing to any one
about this.

[_Rises with difficulty_.]

WEILER.

So they have had a regular stand-up fight, Andrew and Robert! But what
do you intend to do now? As a dismissed man? If that fellow says: "I
challenged the poacher, he did not throw down his gun?" You know better
than any one that a hunter may then shoot. He is not even obliged to
challenge; if he only hits the mark, he is also in the right. And
whoever, like your Andrew, has fallen the height of two stories from the
rock into the water, his tongue will cease wagging even without powder
and lead. You know the law, as it is nowadays. And they will lock you up
into the bargain because of insubordination. I am sorry for you. I
should not like to be you. Hey?

FORESTER.

The thunderstorm has already passed the Lautenberg, do you hear? If you
delay any longer you will be caught in the rain.

WEILER.

There was lightning some time ago. As I came along the hill with the
larch-firs, the whole country was lighted up. Then I saw Robert still
walking up and down by the willows below.

[FORESTER _goes to the door so that_ WEILER _may see he is waiting for
his departure_.]

WEILER.

Are you going once more to the lawyer? That might do some good if you
were an official of the state. But what are you going to do when you are
not?

FORESTER.

Nothing.

WEILER.

Whoever believes it--

FORESTER.

Fool that you are! I'm going to bed.

WEILER.

It isn't late enough for that.

FORESTER.

I am going to lock the door and the shutters.

WEILER (_as he has no alternative, hesitating_).

Now then, sleep well, Ulrich--if you can.

[_Exit, the_ FORESTER _after him_.]



SCENE VII

_Enter_ SOPHY; _then the_ FORESTER _and_ WILLIAM.

SOPHY (_coming out of_ MARY'S _room_).

Now she may be where the willows begin.

[_At the window_.]

He is closing the shutters. I must close Mary's for appearance's sake,
so that she can climb in when she returns. And Andrew not yet back! All
at once a feeling comes over me, as if I should not have allowed Mary to
go.

_Enter the_ FORESTER _with_ WILLIAM. SOPHY _goes again into_ MARY'S
_room_.

WILLIAM (_while entering_).

Father, Lora Kramer came to the fence, and said that Stein was beside
himself--that shots had been heard in the forest--that Robert was
missing, and that Stein had sent Möller into town; he was to get the
soldiers; they were to arrest the whole band of murderers from the
hunter's house, he said. She also said that Möller had passed Kramer's
house at full gallop. They might be expected to arrive before one
o'clock.

FORESTER (_while_ SOPHY _steps out of_ MARY'S _room_).

What have you still to do outside?

[_Looks about him_.]

WILLIAM.

In the garden, father. Mother, there was nothing in the arbor.

SOPHY (_remains at the door_).

Then somebody must have brought it in.

[_To the_ FORESTER.]

Are you looking for anything?

FORESTER.

I? No. Yes, the rifle with the yellow strap. Where can that be? Perhaps
in Mary's--

SOPHY (_involuntarily covering the door, quickly_).

There is no rifle in Mary's room.

WILLIAM.

To be sure, Andrew took it along when he went to accompany me.

FORESTER. True. [_Shows the muffler_.]

There, I have somebody's muffler in my pocket! Is it yours, William?

SOPHY.

The red and yellow muffler? That belongs to Andrew.

FORESTER.

He left it around yesterday, and absentmindedly I must have put it in my
pocket.

SOPHY.

Yesterday? Only today, before you went, I gave it to him.

FORESTER.

You gave it to--all right!

SOPHY (_comes nearer_).

Yes, yes. That is Andrew's muffler.

[_She examines it_.]

Here is his monogram.

FORESTER (_wishes to take it from her_).

Give it to me.

SOPHY.

It is wet!--And what blood is that upon the muffler?

FORESTER.

Blood?

[_Suppresses his emotion_.]

It's from my hand. I cut it on the lock of the gun. Never mind!

SOPHY (_busies herself on the other side of the stage_).

FORESTER.

William, come here. Read to me. There in the Bible, begin where the
book-mark is.

WILLIAM.

In the middle of the chapter?

FORESTER.

Beginning at the mark there. Go on!

[_Gets his hat_.]

WILLIAM (_reads_).

"And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall--"

FORESTER.

That isn't it.

[_Hangs the gun over his shoulder_.]

WILLIAM.

"And he that killeth any man"--is that it?

FORESTER (_profoundly moved, comes a step nearer_).

No--but go on reading.

[_He stands next to_ WILLIAM. _During the following he involuntarily
takes off his hat, and folds his hands_.]

WILLIAM.

"And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death. And he that
killeth a beast shall make it good; beast for beast. And if a man cause
a blemish on his neighbor; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him;
breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he hath caused a
blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again. And he that killeth
a beast, he shall restore it: and he that killeth a man, he shall be put
to death."

FORESTER.

He shall be put to death.

WILLIAM.

"Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one
of your own country: for I am the Lord your God."

FORESTER.

Amen.

[_Puts on his hat and is about to go; turns back_.]

When did she say they might be there, William?

[Illustration: SCHNORR VON CAROLSFELD JACOB AND RACHEL AT THE WELL]

WILLIAM.

The soldiers?

FORESTER.

Before--

WILLIAM.

Before one o'clock.

FORESTER.

There's time enough.

WILLIAM.

For what, father?

FORESTER.

For--getting a sound sleep.

WILLIAM.

Father, how strangely you look at me?

FORESTER.

Go to bed, William.

[_As_ SOPHY _enters_.]

Shake hands with your mother.

SOPHY (_surprised_).

Are you going out now, Christian?

FORESTER.

Yes.

SOPHY.

Did Weiler pick up the trail of the stag again?

FORESTER.

Yes. Maybe.

SOPHY.

How you look! One might be afraid of you, if one did not know how it is
with you when you have taken wine.

FORESTER.

For that reason I want to go out into the open air.

SOPHY.

At such times you see everything different from what it is. You may fall
into the abyss.

FORESTER.

Then you cut the leaf there from the Bible and put it into my coffin.

SOPHY.

How you talk!

FORESTER.

GO to bed, William.

[_Exit_ WILLIAM.]

Pray--or do not pray--

SOPHY.

What is the matter with you, Christian? Why am I so anxious? Stay, for
God's sake, stay! Your business surely can wait.

FORESTER.

No. It must be done even today. [_Going_.]

SOPHY (_about to follow him_).

Ulrich--

FORESTER (_turning around at the door, softly to himself_).

"Eye for eye, tooth for tooth."

[_Exit_.]

SOPHY (_recoiling from the glare of the sheet-lightning which is seen
through the open door_).

God have mercy on us!

[_At the door_.]

Ulrich!

[_In far-away voice, outside_.]

Ulrich!



ACT V

_The_ FORESTER'S _House. Night. For a short time the stage remains
empty_.



SCENE I

SOPHY (_alone, comes in with a lamp, looks into_ MARY'S _room, puts the
lamp upon the table, goes to the window, opens the shutter through which
the reflection of the sheet-lightning is visible, looks out; then she
closes shutter and window, takes the lamp again, and looks once more
into_ MARY'S _room. At intervals she listens and betrays great
anxiety_.)

Not yet! What if he's encountered her! What if he's met them together!
She ought to be back by this time. Oh, why did I let her go? And Andrew
does not come, either! And then this sultry, stormy night!

[_Listens_.]

Surely, that was she? At last! God be praised!

[_Looks into the room_.]

No. It is not she. The wind blew open the half-closed shutter.



SCENE II

WILLIAM, _in his shirt-sleeves_; SOPHY.

WILLIAM.

Are the soldiers there, mother?

[_At the door of_ MARY'S _room_.]

Mother, where is father?

[SOPHY _is startled, and quickly closes the door_.]

WILLIAM.

And Mary? She is not in her room?

SOPHY.

What ideas you get into your head!

WILLIAM.

Her bed is still as if it had just been made.

SOPHY (_listens, frightened_).

Is that your father? William, say nothing about this before your father!

WILLIAM.

I'm the fellow to play the informer! But you must tell me where Mary is.
 SOPHY.

Gone to the Dell to ask Robert--

WILLIAM.

Mother, we beg at nobody's door. I am going to fetch her.

SOPHY.

In this storm?

WILLIAM (_puts on his jacket_).

He would be a fine hunter's boy who is afraid of a little bit of
lightning. Only tell me which way Mary went. The one below along the
brook? All right. She is not like the others, but she is only a girl.
And they are afraid.

[_Exit_.]



SCENE III

SOPHY (_alone; after him_).

William! William! [_Comes back_.]

He is gone! And the storm is getting worse. A fog below, and the
thunderstorm above coming nearer. And another one is coming on from the
Brandsberg. And Ulrich outside, and none of the children at home. And I
all alone in this solitary hunter's house in the midst of the forest,
and at such an hour of the night!

[_A door is heard slamming; she starts up_.]

Merciful God! It is he! If he should look into the room and should not
see Mary! Or--



SCENE IV

_Enter the_ FORESTER _in haste; pale and distracted_; SOPHY.

SOPHY (_going to meet him_).

Back already?--[_Correcting herself_] at last?

FORESTER (_looking shyly about_).

Did anybody ask for me?

SOPHY.

No. Are they pursuing you?

FORESTER.

Who?

SOPHY.

Godfrey--

FORESTER.

Why?

SOPHY.

Because you come in as if you were being hunted.

FORESTER.

I meant the soldiers.--Why do I see Mary everywhere! In the Dell--

SOPHY (_is frightened_).

In the Dell!

[_Aside_.]

Good Heavens!

FORESTER.

And all the way back I heard her walking behind me.

SOPHY.

On your way back--

FORESTER.

Whenever I walked, I heard her behind me; whenever I stood still, she
also stood still, but I did not look around.

SOPHY (_relieved_).

You did not look around?

FORESTER.

Why, I knew it was nothing. I have a feeling as though even now she were
still standing behind me.

SOPHY (_wishes to divert him from the subject_).

Did you shoot anything? Is it outside?

FORESTER (_shuddering involuntarily_).

Outside?

SOPHY.

Before the door. What a strange look you give me! What is that on your
clothes?

FORESTER (_turns away involuntarily_).

What is it?

SOPHY.

A spot--

FORESTER.

What you see--

SOPHY.

Why will you not let me see it?

FORESTER.

It is nothing.

[_Turns to the table at the right, takes down his gun_.]

Is the soup warm? My tongue is glued to the roof of my mouth.

SOPHY (_takes a plate and spoon from the closet, goes to the stove where
she pours out the soup_).

If he should look into the room! What I ask, I ask only in anxiety to
have him forget about Mary.

[_She puts the soup before the_ FORESTER _on the table to the right;
listens_.]

Isn't there a noise in the room?

[_Walks about the_ FORESTER'S _chair, so as to distract him_.]

Ulrich, don't you think that Robert could still restore the old friendly
relations?

[FORESTER _makes a movement_.]

SOPHY.

Why do you start so?

FORESTER.

Don't wake up Mary! Wasn't there some one at the window?

SOPHY.

That is the old rose-bush outside, which is always nodding so anxiously
and knocking at the window, as if it had to prevent a catastrophe, and
nobody paid any attention to it.

[_Pause; aside_.]

It is so still. I must keep on talking, otherwise he can hear me
breathing, and will notice my anxiety--and also that he may not hear
Mary when she climbs in at the window.

[_Listening repeatedly_.]

The whole evening I have been thinking about it. Only yesterday Robert
said to me--

FORESTER.

Always Robert--

SOPHY (_has seated herself by his side_).

We were walking along the willows, where the pine-thicket is, under the
rock, in the Dell--

FORESTER (_violently_).

Don't mention that--

SOPHY.

How you start! It was at sunset; and as I looked around, something was
coming out from under the pines--so red. I--frightened--For God's sake,
I say, why, that is blood!

[FORESTER _throws down his spoon and rises_.]

SOPHY.

Then the evening glow was reflected in the water.--But what is the
matter with you?

FORESTER.

Always with your Dell. What do you care about the Dell?

SOPHY.

Did something happen to you there? People say the place is haunted.
Robert said so to me yesterday. They say that there is an accursed spot!
There some one committed a murd--

FORESTER (_seizes his gun_).

What do you know?

SOPHY (_recoiling in terror_).

Ulrich!--

FORESTER.

Will you keep quiet?

SOPHY (_stops before him, shuddering, filled with a presentiment_).

Ulrich! What have you done?

FORESTER (_has recovered his self-possession_).

Stuff and nonsense! Is this a night for such stories?

[_Lost in thought_.]

SOPHY.

Go ahead. Whether an hour sooner, or an hour later. You have me on your
conscience.

[_Sinks down upon a chair to the left_.]

FORESTER (_pause; then he walks slowly up and down, and gradually comes
near her, hesitating_).

I must tell you something, Sophy--if you do not already know it; it will
not let me rest. I am in the right; but--and then I cannot tell--is it
true or is it only an oppressive dream?--a dream in which one cannot do
what one wishes--and exhausts oneself--because one must always do what
one does not wish. Come here! Do you hear? Place your hand on the Bible.

SOPHY.

Great God! What can be the meaning of this!

FORESTER.

It would be horrible if I had been obliged to kill her, and after all
everything were only--and then I should have in vain--Sophy!

[_Quite close to her; softly_.]

There is a report that a corpse is lying in the Dell!

SOPHY.

You are drunk or mad!

FORESTER.

I am in my right mind. Look at me, woman! Do you believe in a God in
Heaven? Very well, Very well! Then place your hand upon the Bible, right
here. There my right is written. Now say after me: "As truly as I hope
to be saved--"

SOPHY (_faintly_).

As truly as I hope to be saved--

FORESTER.

"So truly shall it remain a secret what I am now about to hear."

SOPHY.

So truly shall it remain a secret what I am now about to hear.

[_Is obliged to sit down_.]

FORESTER.

And now give heed.--It is short--no But and no If about it--it is clear
as the right--and right must remain right--else we need no God in
Heaven! [_After he has made several attempts to begin, in a dejected and
low voice, while he leads her to the footlights_.] Do not be frightened.
Robert shot our Andrew, and I--I have executed judgment upon him.

SOPHY.

Oh, God! [_She can scarcely keep herself on her feet; wants to go to the
chair. He supports her_.]

FORESTER.

I have judged him. As it is written there--"Eye for eye, tooth for
tooth." I have judged him, because the courts no longer judge right.
They have two kinds of law, and here it is written: "Ye shall have one
manner of law." I have not murdered him, I have executed judgment upon
him. [_He walks up and down, then loses himself in thought at the place
where he believes_ SOPHY _still to be, who totters to the chair_.] But I
do not know whether it did happen--what has happened. My brain is so
wild and confused--[_Recollects with difficulty_] but I suppose it
really did happen--what has happened--and as it was about to
happen--what has happened--I saw Mary before my eyes, as if she put
herself in front of him and made a sign to me to stop, and cried: "It
is"--well, you know who! It was a delusion; it was only in my
imagination. After I have had wine, I always am in a state that I see
things which do not exist. And if it should have been she--the bullet
then was no longer under any control.

SOPHY.

Almighty God!

[_She drags herself with difficulty into_ MARY'S _room_.]

FORESTER (_does not notice it and, staring before him, continues as if
she were still standing beside him_).

It was not she. How could Mary have come there? It is nothing but the
effect of the wine, that today I see her everywhere. But nevertheless I
was frightened until I saw it had only been the smoke from the gun.
Everything was turning around before my eyes. But when the smoke had
cleared away--that was only a moment--then I saw him--still standing as
before, but only for a moment--then he collapsed--then had happened what
did happen. Then I folded my hands over my gun, and said: "You have been
judged according to your desert." And I prayed: "God have mercy on his
poor soul." Then a swarm of owls flew up and screeched. That sounded as
though they said Amen. Then I stood again erect on my feet. For God and
Earth and Heaven and every creature demand justice.

[_He loses himself in a brown study_.]



SCENE V

_The_ FORESTER, _lost in thought, alone. Then_ STEIN _and the_ PASTOR,
_at first only heard behind the scenes_.

STEIN (_still outside_).

Ulrich!

FORESTER (_awaking, mechanically_).

Stein!

STEIN (_as above_).

Do you hear?

FORESTER (_the connection of the events suddenly flashes upon him_).

It did happen!

[_Makes a movement as if to seize his gun; but controls himself_.]

No! Not an iota more than my right!

STEIN (_entering, the_ PASTOR _behind him_).

Where is your Andrew, Ulrich?

FORESTER.

What do you want with my Andrew?

STEIN.

To demand my Robert from him.

FORESTER.

Your Robert?--From my Andrew?--Look here!

[_Shows the muffler_.]

PASTOR.

For Heaven's sake!--There is blood on the muffler!

STEIN.

What is that?

FORESTER.

That is my Andrew's blood, and your Robert spilled it. And you sent
your Möller for the soldiers! And you made me a scoundrel before the
world--with your two kinds of right--so that you may twist it as you
like! But here--[_striking his breast_] there still is a right! That
neither you nor your lawyers can twist.



SCENE VI

ANDREW, _still without_. STEIN, FORESTER, PASTOR.

ANDREW (_outside, in a low voice_).

Father--

PASTOR.

Who calls?

STEIN.

Is not that Andrew's voice?

FORESTER (_continuing_).

Here it is written: "Ye shall have one manner of law." And the law has
judged you. "And he that killeth any man he--"

ANDREW.

Father!

FORESTER (_trembling, staring at the door, with smothered voice,
mechanically_).

"He--he--shall--surely--be--put to death"--

_Enter_ ANDREW.

STEIN (_going toward him_).

God be thanked! Andrew, you live!

FORESTER (_makes a great effort_).

It is not true. He is dead. He must be dead.

ANDREW.

Father!

FORESTER (_stretching out his hand, as if warding him off_).

Who are you?

ANDREW (_more and more alarmed_).

Do you not know your Andrew any more?

FORESTER.

_My_ Andrew is dead. If you lie slain in the Dell--then you shall be my
Andrew--then everything is well--then we will rejoice--then we will
sing: Lord God, we praise Thee!

PASTOR.

He is demented!

STEIN.

Andrew, my Robert--

ANDREW.

You have my muffler which Lindenschmied stole from me before he killed
Godfrey?

STEIN.

Lindenschmied killed Godfrey? And my Robert--

ANDREW.

Robert was pursuing him. He compelled Robert to shoot him.

FORESTER.

He? He had your gun?

ANDREW.

Stolen it with my muffler.

FORESTER.

And Robert did--

ANDREW.

Lindenschmied was not mortally wounded. I had his wound dressed in the
mill, and had him removed before the magistrate--

FORESTER (_gradually collapsing_).

I am in the wrong!

[_Sinks down upon a chair_.]

ANDREW.

That is the reason why I am so late.

FORESTER (_rises; goes to_ STEIN _with his gun in his hand_).

Stein, do to me according to my desert.

STEIN.

What do you mean?

FORESTER.

"Eye for eye, tooth for tooth"--

STEIN (_looking at the_ PASTOR).

What does he mean by that again?

FORESTER.

Weiler thought that Lindenschmied with the gun was my Andrew. Your
Robert wounded Lindenschmied, and I--killed your Robert for this!

PASTOR.

Almighty God!

ANDREW (_at the same time_).

Robert!

FORESTER (_almost simultaneously_).

Shoot me!

STEIN (_has seized the gun_).

You murderer!

[_The_ PASTOR _arrests his arm_.]

ANDREW.

You shot Robert, father? Robert lives!

STEIN.

He lives?

PASTOR.

He lives?

FORESTER.

He lives?

ANDREW.

He lives, as surely as I live!

FORESTER.

It was only a dream? Can it be that I am not a murderer? That I am an
honorable man?

PASTOR.

That you are, Ulrich. Drive away that unfortunate delusion.

STEIN.

Man alive, to what might you have provoked me!

[_Puts away the gun_.]

FORESTER.

You saw him? When did you see him, Andrew? Now, Andrew? Just
now, Andrew?

ANDREW.

Just now, as I was coming home, I met two men from the mill with a
stretcher. Robert had just called them out of their beds; they were
going to the Dell; Robert had gone ahead of them.

FORESTER.

To the Dell?

PASTOR.

With a stretcher?

STEIN.

What can be behind all this?

FORESTER (_has gone to the door of_ MARY'S _room; releases the latch_).

Thanks be to God!

[_Listening_.]

I hear her breathing. Oh, she sleeps a peaceful sleep. I am oppressed
with a world of cares, and she takes them from my heart with her breath.
Do you hear, Pastor, do you hear?

STEIN.

The unfortunate man! His delusion is returning.

PASTOR (_after an anxious pause, during which the_ FORESTER _has not
taken his eyes from the_ PASTOR'S _face_).

I hear nothing. That is your own heavy breathing that you hear.

FORESTER (_begins to collapse again_).

My own heavy breathing that I hear--

[_Summons up courage, opens the door_.]

My eyes deceive me? Where she is not, there I see her; and where she is,
there I do not see her. Pastor, for God's sake, tell me: "There lives
Mary."

[_He has convulsively clutched the_ PASTOR'S _arm_.]

PASTOR.

I do not see her. The bed there is untouched, the windows open--your
wife--

FORESTER (_rushes into the room_).

Woman! Woman! Poor, poor woman!



SCENE VII

SOPHY, _like a ghost; can hardly stand or speak; dragged in forcibly by
the_ FORESTER.

FORESTER.

Where is my child?

ANDREW.

Mother, what ails you?

[_He supports her on one side, the_ PASTOR _on the other_.]

SOPHY.

Andrew! At least one!

FORESTER (_shakes her_).

My child! My child! Where is my child?

SOPHY (_with repulsion, but faintly_).

Leave me, you--

FORESTER.

My Mary!

SOPHY.

To the Dell--you--

FORESTER.

Creature, you lie!

SOPHY.

To Robert--

FORESTER.

Yes, she met me--in the fog--as I was coming--

SOPHY.

That was William.

FORESTER.

It was Mary, woman; Mary!

PASTOR.

She cannot answer any more. She has fainted.

STEIN.

Take her away from the madman!

FORESTER.

You mean to say that I--my own child--

ANDREW.

Mother! Mother!

[_He and the_ PASTOR _are busy about her, at the table to the right_.]

STEIN (_who in the meantime is trying to keep the_ FORESTER _away from
her_).

Hands off, you madman!

FORESTER.

Madman? God grant that I am!

[_A knock is heard; he steps back in horror and stretches out his hands
toward the door, as if warding off something_.]


Nonsense! What do you want, the whole lot of you? Why, that is Mary. She
is standing outside, and does not dare to come in, because she ran out
in the night. She hasn't the courage. I am severe--oh, I am severe!
Silly wench!

[_Stands up straight_.]

Come what may!

[_He rushes toward the door; before he reaches it, another knock is
heard; he steps back again horrified and powerless_.]

The raging fever has seized me--nothing else. These are the
symptoms--chattering of the teeth and chills along the spine.
Elderberry-tea--a night or two of perspiration! What has the knocking to
do with my fever? Why does not some one open, some one call her in? Why
are you all so pale and tongueless? Has some one told a fairy-tale, and
are you afraid? My Mary was a living fairy-tale--she is-she is, I mean
to say. That Mary could be dead--but she would not give me such pain!
She knows that I cannot live without my Mary. Do you hear her giggling
outside? Now she will come skipping in and hold her hands over my eyes,
as she is accustomed to do, and I must not spoil her fun. Oh, it
is--[_Attempts to laugh, but sobs_.]--a--[_Beside himself_.]--After all,
it has to be! Come in!

[_Attempts to go to the door, but with eyes closed sinks into a chair on
the left_.]



SCENE VIII

ROBERT, WILLIAM, _then two men with a covered stretcher, which they put
down. The men go away_.

STEIN.

Robert!

[_Going toward him_.]

Do you see, Ulrich? He lives!

ROBERT (_embracing him, pale and distracted_).

Father! Father!

STEIN.

What has happened to you?

ROBERT.

Would that the murderer had killed me! Father Ulrich, be a man!

FORESTER (_making a supreme effort to collect his energies_).

Go on! I will see whether I am a man.

[ROBERT _removes the covering_.]

STEIN.

Great God!

SOPHY (_who, supported by_ ANDREW _and the_ PASTOR, _has
fallen upon her knees by the stretcher_).

Mary!

ANDREW.

Oh, God! It is Mary!

STEIN.

How did this happen? Explain it, Robert.

PASTOR.

It is dreadfully clear to me.

ROBERT (_with difficulty maintaining his self-possession_).

She was praying: "God, let me belong only to my father." I was about to
say to her: "Mary, you are going to give me up?" Then she rushed upon
me, as if she wished to protect me with her own body, made a sign and
called in the direction of the forest. I saw no one; I did not
understand her; I was about to ask: "What is the matter, Mary?"
when--the report of a gun--she sank down in my arms; I threw myself over
her; a bullet had penetrated her heart.

SOPHY.

That was her dream.

STEIN (_holds_ ROBERT _in his embrace, almost simultaneously_).

She died for you!

FORESTER.

She saw me aim at him, and ran purposely into the course of my bullet. I
wanted to judge and--have judged myself. Crime and punishment at the
same moment! I was praying: "God have mercy on his poor soul!" I prayed
for myself, and the owls screeched Amen, and meant me!

ROBERT (_recoils, horrified_).

Almighty God--he himself!--

STEIN.

You did not do it consciously. A fearful madness urged you against your
will.

PASTOR.

Do not be so obstinate, man; God does not measure the deed according to
a superficial standard. Innocence and crime are at the extreme poles of
human nature. But often it is merely a quicker pulse that separates the
innocent from the criminal.

FORESTER.

Give me words of life instead of your cobwebs of the brain--no If and
no But. Tell me something, so that I must believe it! Your words do not
convince me. Why do you offer consolation to my head? Offer consolation
to my heart, if you can. Can you with your consolation restore my child
to life, so that she will rush into my arms? In that case keep on
consoling me. Every word that fails to restore my child to life slays
her once more.

STEIN.

Flee to America; I will procure passports for you; all my money is
yours. Your wife and your children are mine!

FORESTER.

Do you hear, Andrew, what that man there is saying? He wants to give you
money. Buy a hand-organ with it. Go about to the fairs, and sing of the
old murderer who shot his child--for no reason, for no reason at all in
the world. You need no picture. Take the old woman there along with you.
No painter can paint the story as it stands written upon her face.
Praise the child. Represent her more beautiful than she was--if you
can--as you imagine the most beautiful angel, and then say: "And yet she
was a thousand times more beautiful!" And represent the old murderer so
that people will shed a waterfall of tears for the child, and that every
street-urchin will shake his fist at the old fellow. And he who hears
this story and does not give you with chattering teeth his last penny,
though he had ten starving children at home, and does not pray to God
for the child and curse the old murderer that shot her, must have a
heart like the old murderer's who committed the deed. Do not say: "The
man was honest throughout his life and avoided evil and believed in a
God, and did not permit the least taint upon his honor." If you do, they
will not believe you. Say: He looked like a wolf; do not say: His beard
was white when he committed the crime. If you do, no one will give you
anything; none will believe that one can be so old and yet such an
abandoned villain. And on the lower part of your organ have a picture
painted--how the old murderer blows out his brains and walks as a ghost
during the night--and on the spot where the crime was perpetrated he
sits moaning at midnight with his fiery eyes and white beard--and there
no breeze wafts coolness, and there no dew falls and no rain--there grow
poisonous weeds--the spot is accursed like himself--and the animal that
accidentally strays there bellows with fear--and man is shaken as with
the ague. And have an angel painted from whose mouth proceeds a scroll
on which is written: "There sits he whom God has marked. Abel was a man,
and Cain was only his brother; but this was a child, and he that slew
her was her father. For Cain, there is still a hope of salvation, but
for the old murderer of his child, none--none--none!" Oh! Some comfort!
Some comfort! Only a shadow of comfort! For this I would give my
salvation, if I had any hope of salvation. I will ask God whether there
is any comfort for me!

[_He takes the Bible and reads, at first trembling in every limb, with
panting breath_.]

"And he that killeth any--"

PASTOR.

No further, Ulrich. Let me show you words of life, words of humanity:
"'As I live,' saith the Lord God, 'I have no pleasure in the death of
the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live.'"

FORESTER (_who keeps a firm hold of the Bible, and breaks away from the_
PASTOR, _almost simultaneously_).

Leave me alone, you inhuman creatures, with your humanity!

[_He continues reading. With every word his manner becomes more calm and
certain, the sound of his voice stronger_.]

"And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death."

[_Lays down the Bible_.]

STEIN.

Does he find solace in these words?

PASTOR.

Let him have such comfort as consoles him.

FORESTER (_takes up the Bible again; his manner assumes an expression
of joyousness_).

That is certainty, that is promise, that convinces me--no But and no If.
"And he that killeth a man shall surely be put to death." That means:
Then it is expiated, then it is wiped out, and he is pure once more.

[_Puts on his hat and buttons his coat_.]

I am going before the magistrate.

[_About to go_.]

STEIN.

And you think they are going to put you to death?

[FORESTER _stops and turns around_.]

PASTOR.

People more guilty than you have been pardoned.

FORESTER.

Pardoned to be imprisoned--hey? Like Leutner? He--Indeed, they don't
judge right in those courts, not as it is written here. I know very
well--but--never mind!--All right!--

[_Takes his gun_.]

STEIN.

What do you intend to do?

FORESTER.

Nothing, I must take along the rifle with which the deed was done. O,
they are particular about that! Farewell, Andrew, William. Take good
care of your mother.

[_Shakes hands with everybody_.]

Stein, Pastor, Robert, Sophy--she has fainted. God will soon let her
come after me. Bury my child. Have the bells ring; lay her bridal wreath
upon her coffin. O, I am an old woman! When we meet again I shall be a
murderer no longer.

[_Makes with his hand a sign of farewell_.]

STEIN.

You want--

FORESTER (_turns around at the door_).

My sight--and then--[_Points upward to heaven_.]--to meet my child.

[_Exit. Short pause, during which the others look after him with
surprise and emotion_.]

STEIN (_seized with a sudden apprehension_).

If the other barrel is still loaded--quick--after him--

[_Outside the door a shot is heard_.]

Too late! I suspected it!

ANDREW, WILLIAM (_rushing out_).

Father!

ROBERT (_in the open door, rooted to the spot through horror and pain at
what he sees_).

He has his right!

STEIN (_also at the door_).

A second time his own judge!

PASTOR (_stepping to the others_).

May God do unto him according to his faith.

[_Exeunt_.]


FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 7: Translation of the King James version.]





BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH (1856)


By OTTO LUDWIG

TRANSLATED AND CONDENSED BY MURIEL ALMON


The little garden lies between the dwelling-house and the slate shed;
whoever goes from one to the other must pass it. As you go from the
house to the shed it is on your left; on the right there is a yard
with a woodshed and a stable, separated from the neighboring house by
a trellis-fence. Every morning the house opens twelve green shutters
onto one of the busiest streets of the town, the shed opens a large
gray door on a back street; the roses on the bushes that have been
trained to grow like trees in the little garden can look out into the
lane which connects its two larger sisters. On the other side of the
lane stands a tall house which, in elegant seclusion, does not deign
to bestow a glance on the smaller one. Its eyes are open only to the
doings of the main street; if you look nearer at its closed eyes
facing the narrow street, you soon see the reason for its eternal
sleep--they are only a sham, painted on the outer wall.

Not all sides of the house that belongs to the little garden look as
decorative as the one on the main street. There, a pale rose-colored
tint contrasts not too sharply with the green window-shutters and the
blue slate roof. The weather side of the house, on the narrow street,
looks as if it were clad in an armor of slate from top to toe; the
other gable-end joins directly on to the row of houses of which it is
the beginning or the end; at the back, however, it is an example of
the proverb that everything has its weak point. There, an upstairs
piazza has been built onto the house, not unlike half a crown of
thorns. Supported by roughly-hewn wooden posts it runs along the upper
story and expands toward the left into a little room. There is no
direct entrance to it from the upper story of the house. To reach the
"gallery chamber" from there one must leave the house by the back
door, walk perhaps six steps along the wall, past the dog-kennel, to
the wooden stairs, resembling those of a henhouse, and after climbing
these must wander the whole length of the piazza to the left.

If all the structures are not equally ornamental and if piazza, stable
and shed stand out noticeably against the dwelling-house, yet there is
nowhere lacking a quality which adorns more than beauty of form and
shining ornamentation. Extreme cleanliness smiles at the observer from
the most hidden corners. In the little garden it reaches such a pitch
that it hardly dares to smile. The garden does not look as if it were
cleaned with a hoe and broom; it looks as if it had been brushed. The
little beds that stand out so sharply against the yellow gravel of the
walks look, not as if they had been dug by a cord, but as if they were
drawn on the ground with a ruler and compasses, the box edging has the
air of being daily attended to by the most accurate barber in town
with comb and razor. And yet the blue coat which, if one stands on the
piazza, one may see twice daily stepping into the little garden and
every day at exactly the same minute, is still more neatly kept than
the garden. When, after doing various pieces of work, the old
gentleman leaves the garden again--and every day he goes at the same
minute, just as punctually as he comes--the white apron over his blue
coat shines with such unblemished whiteness that it is really
incomprehensible why the old gentleman should have put it on. When he
moves about among the tall rose-bushes which seem to have taken the
old gentleman's bearing for a model, each of his steps is like the
other, none is longer or fails to keep the regularity of his tempo. If
one looks at him closer as he stands thus in the middle of his
creation, one sees that he has merely copied externally that of which
nature has created the model in himself. The regularity of the
different parts of his tall figure seems to have been as accurately
measured as the beds of the little garden. When nature formed him, her
countenance must have borne the same expression of conscientiousness
as the old man's face--an expression which, because of its strength,
would appear to be obstinacy if an expression of loving gentleness,
indeed almost of dreamy enthusiasm, were not mixed with it. And even
now nature seems to watch over him with the same care that his eye
shows when it looks over his little garden. His hair, cut short at the
back and twisted above his brow into a so-called "corkscrew-curl," is
of the same unblemished whiteness that is shown by his neckerchief,
waistcoat, collar and the apron over his buttoned-up coat. Here, in
his little garden, he completes the finished picture that it presents;
away from home his appearance and personality must appear a little
odd. His hat still has the high pointed crown, his blue overcoat the
narrow collar and padded shoulders of a long vanished fashion. These
offer opportunities enough for bad jokes; but no one makes them. It is
as if there were an invisible something emanating from the stately
figure that prevents the rise of flippant thoughts.

When the older inhabitants of the town, meeting Herr Nettenmair, pause
in their conversation to greet him respectfully, it is not alone the
magic something that has this effect. They know what it is that they
respect in the old gentleman; when he has passed, their eyes follow
him as they stand, still in silence, until he has disappeared round
the corner; then it may well be that a hand is raised and an extended
forefinger tells more eloquently than lips could of a long life
adorned with all the virtues of a good citizen and untarnished by a
single misdeed. He is never seen in a public place, unless indeed
something relating to the common welfare is to be discussed or
started. The recreation which he allows himself he seeks in his little
garden. At other times he sits over his ledgers or stands in the shed
superintending the loading and unloading of the slate which comes from
his own quarry and which he sells all over the country and far beyond
its borders. A widowed sister-in-law looks after his house for him
and her sons manage the business of slating which is connected with
the trade in slate and is scarcely inferior to it in size. It is their
uncle's spirit, the spirit of orderliness, of conscientiousness to the
point of obstinacy, that rests upon the nephews and gains and keeps
for them such confidence that they are sent for from far away wherever
a slater is needed to roof a new building or to make extensive repairs
to an old one.

It is a peculiar life that goes on in the house with the green
window-shutters. The sister-in-law, still a beautiful woman, little
younger than the master of the house, treats him with a kind of silent
respect, or even veneration. And her sons do the same. The old
gentleman shows his sister-in-law a respectful consideration, a sort
of chivalry that has something touching in its grave reserve; toward
his nephews he displays the fondness of a father. Yet even there
something lies between them that lends to their whole intercourse
something of considerate formality.

The sabbath-like peace that now spreads its wings above the most
strenuous activity of the dwellers in the house did not always hover
there. There was a time when bitter sorrow that came from stolen
happiness, and wild desires divided its inmates, when even the menace
of murder cast its shadow into the house; when despair at self-created
misery wandered, wringing its hands in the still night, from the back
door, up the stairs and along the piazza and down again by the path
between the little garden and the stable-yard to the shed, creeping
restlessly to the front again and again to the back.

What, at that time, made the hearts in the house swell to the
bursting-point, what went on in the shadowed souls and issued from
them in part, in the self-forgetfulness of fear, or became a deed, a
deed of desperation--all that may pass through the memory of the man
with whom we have been occupied. It is thirty-one years today since he
returned to his home town from a long absence. So we turn back the
thirty-one years and find a young man instead of the old one whom we
leave. He is tall, but not so strong; and, like the old man, he wears
his brown hair cut short at the back and brushed into a
"corkscrew-curl" above his high white forehead. The sternness of the
old man does not yet appear in his face, and the scar of mental pain
endured has not yet been stamped upon his good-humored expression. Yet
he is far from showing the light-hearted carelessness usually
belonging to his age and the easy-going manners that are so frequently
habitual with the traveling journeyman. The high road still leads him
through the dense woods; but from the town, far down below, the sound
of St. George's bells rises up to the height, as impossible to
restrain as a mother flying to the loved child that comes toward her.
Home! How much lies in this one short syllable! What swells within the
human heart when the voice of home, the tone of the bells, calls a
welcome to him who is returning from abroad, the tone that called the
child to church, the boy to his confirmation and his first communion,
that spoke to him every hour! In the idea of home, all our good angels
embrace one another.

Tears gathered in our young wanderer's serious and yet kindly eyes. If
he had not been ashamed he would have sobbed aloud. He felt as if he
had only dreamed his sojourn away from home and, now that he was
awake, could scarcely remember the dream; as if he had only dreamed
that he had grown to be a man while abroad; as if it had always seemed
to him in his dreams that he was only dreaming abroad in order, when
he should wake up at home, to be able to tell about it. It might have
been noticed that, in spite of all this inward agitation of the
moment, he did not fail to see the cobweb that the breeze from home
laid as a greeting against his coat collar, and that he carefully
dried his tears so that they might not fall on his neckerchief, and
that he removed the last, tiniest scraps of the silver thread with the
most persistent patience before he gave himself up to his feeling for
home with his whole soul. And even his attachment to his home was in
part only an expression of his obstinate need of cleanliness which
made him regard everything alien that threatened to fly against him as
dirt; and this need in turn sprang from the warmth of feeling with
which he embraced everything that stood in closer relation to his
personality. The clothes on his body were a piece of home to him, from
which he must ward off everything strange.

Now the road turned; the mountain ridge which had closed it in up to
this point was now left behind to one side and the top of a spire
appeared above the young growth. It was the top of St. George's
steeple. The young wanderer paused. Natural as it was that the highest
building of the town should become visible to him before the others,
the tender meaning with which his fancy imbued the fact made him
forget that it was so. The slate roof of the church and steeple needed
repairs. This work had been given to his father; and it was the
reason, or at least the pretext, for his father's calling him back
home sooner than he had intended. Perhaps tomorrow he would begin his
part of the work. There, above the wide arch through which he saw the
bells moving, the steeple door had been placed. There the two beams
would have to be pushed out to bear the ladder on which he should
climb up to the broach-post to fasten to it the rope of the
contrivance in which he would make his airy circuit of the roof. And
as it was his nature to bind the cords of his heart to the objects
with which his work brought him in touch, he saw a greeting in the
sudden appearance of the spire and involuntarily reached out toward it
as if he would press a hand offered him in friendship. Then the
thought of the work quickened his step, till a clearing in the wood
and his arrival on the highest slope of the mountain showed him his
whole home town lying at his feet.

Again he stopped. There stood his father's house with the slate shed
behind it, not far from it the house where she had lived at the time
he went away. Now she lived in his father's house, was his father's
daughter, his brother's wife; and from now on he was to live in the
same house with her and to see her daily as his sister-in-law. His
heart beat harder at the thought of her. But it did not allow any of
the hopes which had formerly been bound up with her memory to rise.
His affection had become that of a brother for a sister, and what
moved him now was more like anxiety. He knew that she thought of him
with dislike. She was the only one in his father's whole house who
looked forward to his coming with displeasure. How had this all come
about? Had there not been a time when she seemed to be fond of him,
when she had apparently liked to meet him as much as she later avoided
him? Down below there, in front of the town, the shooting-house stood
surrounded by gardens. How much bigger the trees round the house had
grown since he had waved his last greeting to it from this height!
Shortly before he had stood there under that acacia--it had been a
beautiful spring evening, the most beautiful he thought he had ever
known--at the Whitsuntide shooting. Within all the other young people
were dancing; he walked happily round outside the house in which he
knew her to be dancing. Even now he still felt embarrassed with girls
and women and did not know how to talk to them; at that time he had
felt even more so. How dearly he would have loved to tell her--how
much he had to tell her, when he was alone, and how well he knew how
to say it; and if chance ordained that he met her alone (it was
wonderful how busy chance seemed to be in arranging such meetings) the
thought that now the moment had come drove all the blood to his heart,
the words from his tongue back into their hiding-place in the depths
of his soul. Thus it had been when, her cheeks still glowing from the
dance, she had come out of the house alone. She seemed to be concerned
only with getting cool; she fanned herself with her white scarf, but
her cheeks only grew the redder. He felt that she had seen him, that
she expected him to come nearer; and it was the knowledge that he
understood her that dyed her cheeks redder--that drove her, as he
hesitated, back again into the hall. Perhaps, too, she had heard a
third person coming. His brother came out of another door of the hall.
He had seen the two standing silently opposite each other, perhaps had
also seen the girl's blush. "Are you looking for Beate?" asked our
hero to hide his embarrassment. "No," answered his brother, "she is
not at the dance--and it's just as well. Nothing can come of it, after
all; I must get another--and until I find one, Bohemian beer is my
sweetheart."

There was something wild in his brother's speech. Our hero looked at
him amazed and at the same time disturbed. "Why can nothing come of
it?" he asked. "And what is the matter with you?"

"Oh, yes, you think I ought to be like you, pious and patient so long
as there is no thread on your coat. But I am another kind of fellow,
and if anybody upsets my calculations I have to let off steam. Why can
nothing come of it? Because the old man in the blue coat won't have
it."

"Father called you into the little garden yesterday--"

"Yes, and raised his white eyebrows, which are drawn with a ruler, an
inch and a half. 'I thought it was so. You are going with Beate, the
collector's daughter. That comes to an end today!'"

"Is it possible? And why?"

"Did you ever know old Blue-coat to give any 'why'? And did you ever
ask him 'But why, father?' He didn't say so, but I know why it has to
come to an end with me and Beate. I've been expecting it the whole
week; whenever he raised his hand I thought he was pointing to the
little garden and was ready to follow him like a poor sinner. That is
the place where he gives his cabinet orders. The collector is said not
to be in very good circumstances. There is some gossip about his
spending more than his pay. And--well, you are a quill-driver, too,
like old Blue-coat. But what can the girl do? Or I? Well, the affair
must stop--but I'm sorry about the girl, and I must see how I can
forget her. I must drink or get another one."

Our hero was accustomed to his brother's manner; he knew that the
words were not intended to be as wild as they sounded, and his brother
was showing his love and respect for their father by the fact of his
obedience; still our hero would have liked to see them shown in speech
as well as in action. It seemed to Apollonius as if there were
something unclean on his brother's soul and involuntarily he stroked
the other's coat collar several times with his hand as if he could
brush it off him from outside. Dust had collected on the collar during
the dance; when he had removed it he felt as if he had really removed
what had troubled him.

The subject of their conversation changed. They began to speak of the
girl who had just been out, fanning herself to get cool; Apollonius
certainly did not know that he was responsible for this. Just as the
girl was the goal to which all his lines of thought led, so, too, when
once he began to speak of her he could not escape from his theme. He
forgot his brother so completely that at last he was really talking to
himself. His brother now seemed for the first time to perceive all the
beautiful and good things in her that the hero lauded with unconscious
eloquence. He agreed with more and more enthusiasm until he broke into
a wild laugh which roused the hero from his self-forgetfulness and
dyed his cheeks as red as those of the girl had been a short time
before.

"And so you slink about round the hall where she is dancing with
others, and if she shows herself you haven't the heart to draw her
into conversation. Wait, I will be your ambassador. From now on she
shall dance no turn except with me, so that no one else shall cross
your plans. I know how to get on with girls. Let me take your part for
you."

Our hero was frightened at the thought that the girl should learn that
very day what he felt for her. Besides, he was ashamed of his own
embarrassed and awkward behavior to her, and of what she must think of
him when she knew that he needed a mediator. He had already raised his
hand to stop his brother when the appearance of the girl herself
caused everything else to grow dark to him. Quietly and alone, as
before, she stepped out of the door. Beneath the scarf with which she
had fanned herself she seemed to glance furtively about her. Again he
saw her cheeks grow redder. Had she seen him? But she turned her face
in the opposite direction. She seemed to be looking for something in
the grass in front of her. He saw her pick a little flower, lay it on
a bench and, after she had stood for a time as if in doubt whether she
should pick it up again or not, with quick decision turn again to the
door. A half involuntary movement of her arm seemed to tell him to
take it, that it was picked for him. Once more a wave of red rushed up
over her face to her dark brown hair, and the haste with which she
disappeared in the door seemed intended to prevent a regret which
might give rise to anxiety as to how her conduct would be understood.

The brother, who seemed not to have noticed anything of all this, had
continued to speak in his lively, vehement fashion; his words were
lost; our hero would have had to have had two lives in order to hear
them, for all the one he possessed was in his eyes. Now he saw his
brother rushing away toward the hall. He thought of detaining him, but
it was too late. In vain he hurried after him up to the door. There
the flower absorbed him again which the girl had left lying for some
finder, for a happy one, if _he_ found it for whom it was intended.
And while his lips continued to call softly and mechanically to his
brother, who no longer heard him, to keep silence, he was inwardly
asking himself: "Was it really I for whom she laid the flower here?
Did she lay it here for any one?" His heart answered both questions
with a happy "Yes," while at the same time the thing that his brother
intended to do troubled him.

If it was a sign of love from her and for him, then it was the last.

Twice he glanced surreptitiously into the hall when the door was
opened; he saw her dancing with his brother and then, when they were
resting after the dance, he saw his brother talking persuasively to
her in his hasty way. "Now he is talking of me," he thought, his whole
face burning. He rushed into the shade of the bushes when she left the
hall. His brother took her home. He followed them at as great a
distance as he thought necessary to prevent her seeing him. When his
brother came back from accompanying her he stepped away from the door.
He felt naked with shame. His brother had noticed him nevertheless. He
said: "She won't hear of you yet; I don't know whether she means it,
or whether it is just airs. I shall meet her again. No tree falls at
one stroke. But I must confess, you have good taste. I don't know
where my eyes have been up to now. She's away ahead of Beate; and
that's saying a good deal!"

From then on his brother had danced untiringly with Walter's
Christiane and spoken for Apollonius and always, after he had taken
her home, he came and gave our hero an account of his efforts on his
behalf. For a long time he was uncertain whether it was only
affectation, or whether she really looked with disfavor on our hero.
He repeated conscientiously what he had said in our hero's praise, and
how she had answered his questions and assurances. He still had hope
after our hero had already given it up. And her behavior toward the
latter would have compelled him to realize that he could expect no
return of his affection, even if he had not known what answers she
gave his brother. She avoided him wherever she saw him as assiduously
as she had formerly seemed to seek him. And had it really been he whom
she had sought before, if indeed she had sought any one?

A hundred times his brother urged him to waylay her and press his own
suit. He exerted all his inventive power to procure him an opportunity
of speaking to her alone. Our hero refused to be urged or to accept
his offers. After all, it was useless. All that he might accomplish
would be to make her still more angry.

"I can't stand by any longer and see you growing thinner and paler all
the time," said his brother one evening, after he had reported how
unsuccessfully he had spoken for him again that day. "You must go away
from here for a while; that will have good results for you in two
ways. When I tell her that it is on her account that you have gone out
into the world, perhaps she will turn. Believe me, I know the
long-haired tribe, and I know how to treat them. You must write her a
touching letter for good-by; I will deliver it, and I'll manage to
soften her heart. And if it can't be accomplished, it will do you good
to be away from here where everything reminds you of her, for a
year--or several years. And finally, strange places will make another
man of you, who will know better how to get round the apron-wearers.
You must learn to dance; that's already half the battle. And anyway,
the old Blue-coat has been asked by his cousin in Cologne to send one
of us to him; I read it the other day in a letter that had fallen out
of his pocket. Just tell him that you have gathered something of the
sort from several things he has said lately and that you are ready to
go if he wants you to. Or let me do that. You are too honest."

And he really did arrange it. It is a question whether our hero would
have been able voluntarily to make up his mind to leave home. He could
not understand how any one could live anywhere else but in his home
town; to him it had always seemed like a fairy tale that there were
other towns and people living in them. He had not imagined the life
and doings of these people as real, like those of the inhabitants of
his home, but as a kind of shadow-play that existed only for the
looker-on, not for the shadows themselves. His brother, who knew how
to treat the old man, led the conversation up to the cousin in Cologne
as if by chance, and was clever enough to interpret the suggestions
that Herr Nettenmair made in his diplomatic way as preliminary hints
and connect them with others that referred to our hero. After frequent
conversations he seemed to take it as the express desire of the old
man that Apollonius should go to his cousin in Cologne. This put the
idea into the old man's mind and, as it passed for his own, he brooded
over it in his own way. There was little work to do at the time, and
there seemed to be no prospect of its increasing materially for some
time. A pair of hands could be spared; if they remained in the
business all the workers would be condemned to semi-idleness. The old
man could stand nothing as little as what he called dawdling. The only
thing that was lacking was that our hero should resist. He knew
nothing of his brother's plans. The latter had wisely not initiated
him into them, because he knew him too well to expect his support in a
matter that he would have rejected as both underhand and disrespectful
to his father.

"You want to send Apollonius to Cologne," said his brother to the old
man one afternoon; "but will he want to go? I don't think so. You will
have to send me out on my travels. Apollonius won't go--at least not
today, nor tomorrow."

That was enough. That very evening the old man beckoned our hero to
follow him into the little garden. He stopped in front of the old
pear-tree and, removing a little twig that was growing out of its
trunk, said: "Tomorrow you will go to your cousin in Cologne."

With a rapid movement he turned toward his son, and saw with
astonishment that Apollonius nodded his head obediently. It seemed
almost to displease him that he should have no self-will to break.
Did he think that the poor boy was nursing defiant thoughts, even if
he did not express them, and did he want to break down even the
defiance of thoughts? "You pack your knapsack this very day, do you
hear?" he shouted at him.

"Yes, father," said Apollonius.

"You start tomorrow at sunrise." After he had seemed to try almost to
force a defiant answer, he may have regretted his anger. He made a
gesture of dismissal; Apollonius went obediently. The old man followed
him, and several times he came up to the brothers' room with milder
sternness to remind his son, who was packing, of this and that which
he was not to forget.

And the last of four strokes was just ringing out from the tower of
St. George's when the door of the house with the green shutters
opened, and our young wanderer stepped out, accompanied by his
brother. At the same spot where he now stood looking down on the town
lying below him, his brother had taken farewell of him, and he had
looked after him a long, long time. "Perhaps I can win her for you
after all," his brother had said; "and then I'll write you so at once.
And if you can't get her, she isn't the only one in the world. I can
tell you, you are as good-looking a fellow as any; and if you'll only
lay aside your stupid way you can get on with any of them. Once for
all, things are so that the girls can't court us--and I shouldn't even
want one that threw herself at my head of her own accord. And what can
a lively girl do with a dreamer? Our cousin in Cologne is said to have
a couple of pretty daughters. And now, good-by. I will deliver your
letter today." With that his brother had left him.

"Yes," said Apollonius to himself as he looked after him. "He is
right. Not because of my cousin's daughters, or any other girl, no
matter how pretty she might be. If I had been different perhaps I need
not have had to go away now. Was it I for whom she laid the flower
there at the Whitsuntide shooting? Did she want to meet me then, and
before then? Who knows how hard it has become for her! And having done
all that in vain must she not have felt ashamed? Oh, she is right not
to want to have anything more to do with me. I must learn to be
different."

And this resolution had been no bloomless bud. His cousin's house in
Cologne did not encourage dreaming of any kind. Apollonius found an
entirely different family life there from that in his own home. His
old cousin was as full of life as the youngest member of the family.
Loneliness was impossible. A lively sense of the ridiculous
[Illustration: Jacob's Journey. Schnorr Von Carolsfeld] [Blank Page]
prevented the growth of any kind of peculiarity. Every one had to be
on his guard; no one could let himself go.

Apollonius could not have avoided growing to be another man, even if
he had not wanted to change; and he recognized clearly that it was a
piece of good fortune that had led him to his cousin. He lost more and
more of his dreaminess; before long his cousin could put the most
difficult task into the young man's hands and he would complete it,
without the aid of another's advice, so satisfactorily that his cousin
was obliged to confess to himself that even he would not have begun
the matter more thoroughly, carried it on more energetically, finished
it more speedily and happily. Soon the youth was able to form his own
opinion of the way in which the business at home had been carried on.
He was obliged to acknowledge that it had not been the most practical
way, in fact, that some of his father's orders could not but be called
wrong-headed; then he reproached himself bitterly for his unfilial
criticism, endeavored to justify his father's actions to himself, and,
if he found that impossible, forced himself to believe that the old
man must have had his good reasons and it could only be that he
himself was too limited in knowledge to be able to guess them.

Letters came from his brother. In the first one he wrote that he was
now clear in his mind about the girl to this extent, that her
harshness toward Apollonius was due to her fondness for another whom
he could not bring her to name. In the next, one in which he scarcely
spoke of the girl, Apollonius read between the lines a certain pity
for himself, the reason for which he knew not how to find. The third
gave this reason only too clearly. His brother himself was the object
of the girl's secret affection. She had given him various signs of
this, after he had renounced his former sweetheart in accordance with
his father's will. He had suspected nothing of this; and when he had
approached her as a suitor on his brother's behalf, shame and the
conviction that he himself did not love her had sealed her lips.

Now Apollonius realized with pain that he had been mistaken when he
believed that those dumb signs had been meant for him. He wondered that
he had not seen that he was in error at the time. Had not his brother
been as near to her as he when she laid down the flower which the wrong
man found? And when she had met him alone so intentionally
unintentionally--indeed, when he called to mind the moments that
dominated his dreams--she had sought his brother, that was why she had
been so startled to meet him, that was why she had fled every time as
soon as she had recognized him, as soon as she found him whom she was
not seeking. She did not talk to him, but she could joke for a quarter
of an hour at a time with his brother.

These thoughts characterized hours, days and weeks of pain that lay
deep within him, but his cousin's confidence which he had to reward by
living up to it, the healing effect of busy and purposeful work, the
manliness which both these things had already ripened in him, all held
their own in the struggle and came out of it strengthened.

A later letter which he received from his brother announced that old
Walther had discovered the inclination of the girl's heart and that he
and the old gentleman in the blue coat had decided that Apollonius'
brother should marry the girl. The old gentleman's "should" was a
"must;" Apollonius knew that as well as his brother. The girl's
affection had touched his brother; she was beautiful and good; should
he oppose his father's will for Apollonius' sake, for the sake of a
love that was without hope? Being certain of Apollonius' consent
beforehand, he had resigned himself to the decree of heaven.

Throughout the first half of the following letter, in which he
announced his marriage, this pious mood echoed. After many cordial
words of comfort came his brother's apology, or rather justification,
for having allowed two years to elapse between this letter and the
last one. Then followed a description of his domestic happiness; his
young wife who still clung to him with all the fire of her girlish
love, had borne him a girl and a boy. In the mean time his father had
been afflicted by an ailment of the eyes, and had grown constantly
less able to conduct the business alone in his sovereign manner. This
had made him grow odder and odder. After he had left the reins in his
son's hands for a time, the old imperative desire to rule, intensified
by the monotony of enforced idleness, had caused him to rouse himself
once more. Finally, however, he had been obliged to realize that
things could not go on in his way. To subordinate himself to another
merely as an advisory assistant, and particularly when the other was
his own son who until recently had carried out his commands without
being consulted and without any will of his own, this proved to be
impossible for the old man. He found occupation in the little garden.
There he could remove the old, think of something new, and again make
room for something newer; and he did so. Ruling unrestrictedly in the
little green realm in which from now on no "why" might be heard,
where, beside the law of nature, only one other governed and that his
will, he forgot or seemed to forget that he had formerly borne a
mightier sceptre.

But his brother's following letters were not so full of the business
and of the odd old gentleman as they were of the festivities of the
shooting society of the home town and of a club which had been formed
to keep its pleasures separate from those of the lower classes. In all
the descriptions of bird and target shooting, concerts and balls of
which he and his young wife appeared as the centre, shone the utmost
gratification of the writer's vanity. Only in a postscript to the last
letter did he mention the more serious fact that the town wanted to
have repairs made to the tower and roof of St. George's, and that the
work had been entrusted to him. The old gentleman in the blue coat
urged him to ask Apollonius to return to his home town and the
business. It was his brother's opinion that Apollonius would not care
to leave the life in Cologne of which he had become fond for such a
trifling matter. The repairs could be completed in a short time with
the present working force. There were only a few damaged places on the
tower and roof. Moreover, apart from his wife's dislike of Apollonius
which he had continued to combat in vain, it would be a useless
torture to his brother to refresh in his mind all that he must be glad
to have forgotten. He would easily find an excuse for refusing to obey
a command which only oddity had suggested. The conclusion of the
letter contained a teasing insinuation of a relation between our hero
and his cousin's youngest daughter, of which his home town was
talking. His brother sent his regards to her as his future
sister-in-law.

Although no such relation existed, Apollonius acknowledged to himself
that it was only for him to call it into being. He knew that he could
become his cousin's son-in-law if he wished. The girl was pretty,
good, and fond of him, as was her sister. But he looked on her only as
a sister; he had never felt a wish that she might be more to him. He
believed he had conquered his love for Christiane; he did not know
that after all it was only she that stood between him and his cousin's
daughter, as she would have stood between him and any other woman.
When he learned that Christiane loved his brother, he had taken from
his breast the little metal box in which he had carried the flower
ever since the evening when he had picked it up in the mistaken
belief that it had been laid there for him. When Christiane became his
brother's wife, he packed up the box with the flower and sent it to
him. He could not throw away what had once been dear to him--but he
might no longer possess it. Only he had a right to the flower for whom
it had been intended, to whom belonged the hand which had bestowed it.

His father called him back; he must obey. But it was more than mere
obedience that awoke in him. He not only went; he went gladly. His
father's words conveyed to him a permission rather than an order. When
the spring sun penetrates into a room that has been uninhabited and
closed for the winter we see that what has lain on the floor like dry
mummies was really sleeping life. Now it moves and stretches itself
and becomes a buzzing cloud and swarms up jubilantly into the golden
ray. Not his father alone, every house in his home-town, every hill,
every garden about it, every tree within it, called him. His brother,
his sister--this was the name he gave Christiane--called him. Yet, she
did not call him. She felt a dislike of him, a dislike so strong that
for six years his brother had struggled in vain to overcome it. He
felt as if he must go home on that account if on no other; he must
show her that he did not deserve her dislike, that he was worthy to be
her brother. He wrote this to his brother in the letter which
announced his intention to obey and named the day on which they might
expect him. He was able to assure him that recollections of the time
that was gone would not torture him, that his brother's anxiety was
groundless.

It had come to that--the thought of her did not awaken any of the old
hopes. When he looked down from the height he asked himself: "Shall I
succeed in becoming a brother to her who is now my sister?"

He has arrived at the door of the paternal home. In vain he has
scanned the windows, seeking for some familiar face. Now a thickset
man in a black coat comes rushing out. He dashes out so hastily,
embraces him so wildly, presses him so close to his white waistcoat,
lays his cheek so near his cheek and keeps it there so long that one
must choose to believe either that he loves his brother to the utmost
or--that he does not want him to look into his eyes. But at last he
has to let go of him; he takes him by the right arm and draws him into
the door.

"It's fine that you've come! It's grand that you've come! It really
wasn't necessary--simply an idea of the old man's, and he has nothing
more to say about the business. But it really is splendid of you; I'm
only sorry that you're making your betrothed's eyes red for nothing."
He said the words "your betrothed" so distinctly and in such a loud
tone that they could be heard and understood in the living room.
Apollonius searched his brother's face with moist eyes, as if to check
off, point by point, whether everything was still there that had been
so dear to him. His brother did nothing to help him; he looked only at
what lay between Apollonius' chin and toes.

"Father wanted it," said Apollonius easily; "and what you say of a
betrothed--"

His brother interrupted him; he laughed loudly in his old manner, so
that even if Apollonius had gone on speaking he could not have been
understood. "That's all right! That's all right! And once more, it's
splendid that you've come to visit us, and we won't let you go for a
fortnight at least, whether you want to or not. Don't mind her," he
added softly, pointing through the doorway with his right hand while
he opened the door with his left.

The young wife was standing at a cupboard with the contents of which
she was busy, her back toward the door. She turned, in an embarrassed
and not quite friendly manner, and only toward her husband. Her
brother-in-law could still see nothing but a part of her right cheek,
with a burning blush upon it. Whatever other criticism might be made
of her behavior, an unmistakable honesty showed itself in it, an
incapability of pretending to be otherwise than she was. She stood
there as if she were preparing herself to hear an expected insult.
Apollonius went up to her and took her hand, which at first she seemed
to want to draw away and then allowed to lie motionless in his. He was
glad to greet his sister-in-law. He begged her not to be displeased at
his coming and hoped by earnest endeavor to conquer the unmistakable
dislike that she felt for him.

       *       *       *       *       *

However considerate and courteous were the terms in which he clothed
his pleading and hope, yet he expressed both only in thought. That
everything was just as he had imagined it and yet so entirely
different robbed him of all ease and courage.

His brother put a welcome end to the painful pause, for his wife did
not utter a syllable in reply. He pointed to the children. They were
still crowding, unconfused by all that oppressed their elders and
which they did not notice or understand, about their new uncle; and he
was glad of the opportunity to bend down to them and to have to answer
a thousand questions.

"They're a forward brood," said their father. He pointed to the
children, but he looked furtively at his wife. "For all that I'm
surprised to see how soon you have become acquainted--and intimate at
once," he added. Perchance he continued his last remark in thought:
"it seems that you know how to become intimate quickly and to make
others intimate with you!" A shade as of anxiety spread over his red
face. But his anxiety was not about the children; otherwise he would
have looked at the children and not at his wife.

Apollonius was talking more and more eagerly to the children. He had
failed to hear the remark or he did not want to let the angry woman
know whose face he carried so vividly within him. He would have
recognized the little ones, if they had met him by chance, as his
brother's children by their resemblance to their mother. But the
question how they had become so quickly intimate with him ought to
have been put to old Valentine. It was he who had been continually
telling them about the uncle who was soon coming to see them--perhaps
only so as to be able to talk with some one about what he liked to
talk of so much. The brother and the sister-in-law avoided such
conversations, and the father did not make himself familiar enough
with the old fellow to talk with him about matters which might give
him an excuse to drop into any kind of intimacy. Old Valentine would
also have been able to say that the children had not met their uncle
just by chance. They had come to find him. Old Valentine had thought
of how love that has waited long hurries to meet thousands of
homecomers; it had hurt him to think that his favorite alone should
fail to find any greeting before he knocked at his father's door.

Apollonius suddenly ceased speaking. He was shocked to think that his
embarrassment had caused him to forget his father. His brother
understood his start and said with relief: "He's in the little
garden." Apollonius jumped up and hurried out.

There, among his beds, crouched the figure of the old gentleman. He
was still following old Valentine's shears with his critical hands as
the servant slipped along on his knees before him. He found many an
inequality which the fellow had to remove at once. It was no wonder.
Twice every minute old Valentine thought: "Now he's coming!" And when
he thought thus the shears cut crookedly right into the bog. And the
old gentleman would have growled in quite another manner if the same
thought had not made uncertain the hand that was now his eye.

Apollonius stood before his father and could not speak for pain. He
had long known that his father was blind and had often pictured him to
himself in sorrowful thought. At such times he had seen him looking as
usual, only with a shield over his eyes. He had thought of him sitting
or leaning on old Valentine, but never as he now saw him, the tall
figure helpless as a child, the trembling and uncertain hands feeling
their way. Now he knew for the first time what it meant to be blind.

Valentine laid the shears down and laughed or cried on his knees; it
could not be said what he did. The old gentleman first inclined his
head to one side as if listening, then he pulled himself together.
Apollonius saw that his father felt his blindness to be something of
which he must be ashamed. He saw how the old man exerted himself to
avoid every movement that might recall the fact that he was blind. The
old gentleman felt that the new-comer was somewhere near him. But
where? On which side? Apollonius understood that his father felt this
uncertainty with shame, and forced himself to cry with a voice that
almost failed him. "Father! Dear father!" He dropped on his knees
beside the old man and wanted to throw both arms around him. His
father made a motion which seemed to beg for forbearance, though it
was only intended to keep the young man away from him. Apollonius
threw the arms his father had refused around his own breast to hold
the pain there which, if it had risen and crossed his lips, would have
betrayed to his father how deeply he felt the latter's misery. The
same consideration made old Valentine turn his involuntary motion to
help the old gentleman to stand upright, into a movement to pick up
the shears which lay between him and his master. He too wanted to hide
from the son what could not be hidden, so faithfully and deeply had he
learned to live in the father's feelings.

The old gentleman had risen and held out his hand to his son much as
if the latter had been absent as many days as he had been years. "You
must be tired and hungry! I am somewhat troubled with my eyes--but it
is of no consequence. As regards the business, talk to Fritz. I have
given it up. I want to have peace. But that is not the real reason;
young people must become independent some time. It makes them more
eager to work."

He came a step nearer his son. He seemed to be carrying on a struggle
within himself. He wanted to say something which no one should hear
except his son. But he was silent. Why did he suppress what he wanted
to say? Did it concern the business, or the honor of the house? And
did he know or suspect that the one who was now responsible for both
in his place was standing leaning against the gate of the little
garden and could hear what he said to the new-comer, or, if he spoke
secretly to him, could at least see that he did so? Was this why he
had had Apollonius called home from abroad? And did the expression of
a "why" now still seem to him incompatible with his position?

It was a curious party at the midday meal. The old gentleman dined
alone in his little room as usual. The children too had been sent
away, and did not come in again until after the meal. The young wife
was more in the kitchen or elsewhere out of the room than at the
table; and if she did once sit down there for a few minutes, she was
as dumb as she had been when Apollonius greeted her; the resentful
cloud did not pass from her forehead. Fritz was accustomed to his
father's condition, which pierced Apollonius' heart with the keenness
of new-felt pain. He talked only of the old man's oddities; old
Blue-coat did not know what he wanted himself, and made life
needlessly unpleasant for himself and all the others in the house. If
Apollonius began to talk of the business, of the repairs to be made to
the roof of St. George's, his brother spoke of pleasures with which he
was glad to be able to make his brother's stay with him more
agreeable--and he always mentioned this stay as he would a passing
visit. When Apollonius told him he had not come to enjoy himself but
to work, he laughed as if it were an incomparable joke that Apollonius
should want to help to do nothing, and showed that he understood wit,
however dry might be its expression. Then, when his wife had gone out
of the room, he asked about his brother's understanding with his
cousin's daughter, and then laughed again at his brother wag, in whom
no one would recognize the old dreamer.

After dinner the children came in again, and with them more life and
easy familiarity. While the old conditions still confronted Apollonius
as new and strange, to the children what was new had already become
old and familiar. All the afternoon Fritz, and apparently his wife
too, were occupied only with a ball that was to be given. Fritz forgot
more and more whatever might have caused him uneasiness, in thinking
of the impression that he, as the chief person, would make on the
new-comer at the festivity, and made use of the time till it should
begin in giving him a foretaste of the affair by means of tales and
hints dropped of the honor and attention shown him on such occasions
by the most prominent citizens. He became noticeably more cheerful,
and walked more and more proudly up and down the room. The creaking of
his well-polished shoes said for the present, before the guests at the
ball could do so: "Ah, there he is! Ah, there he is!" And when at
intervals he jingled the money in his trousers-pockets all the corners
of the hall rang with: "Now the fun will begin! Now the fun will
begin!" And thither among those who were welcoming the guests--but he
was no longer walking, he was gliding, swimming on the music--every
dance was a jubilant overture on the name Nettenmair--he felt no
floor, no feet, no legs beneath him, he scarcely still felt young Frau
Nettenmair swimming along beside him, hanging to his right fin, the
most beautiful among the beautiful, just as he was the most jovial
among the jovial, the thumb on the hand of the ball.

And two hours later cries of "There he is!" really did ring from all
sides and all the corners shouted: "Now the fun will begin!" Wherever
they passed chairs were offered them. No hand was shaken as often and
as long as that of jovial Fritz Nettenmair, no member of the company
had so much sincere praise poured into his ears as he. But then, how
agreeable he was! How condescendingly he accepted all this deserved
homage! How witty he showed himself; how pleasantly he laughed! And
not at his own jokes alone--there was no art in that; they were so
brilliant that he had to laugh even if he didn't want to--he laughed
at others too, little as they deserved it, compared with his. There
were people, to be sure, who paid little attention to him, but he did
not notice them; and those who showed it more plainly were
"Philistines, everyday fellows, insignificant people," as he whispered
to his brother with contemptuous pity. It was quite peculiar:
everyone's greater or lesser importance as a man and a citizen could
be measured with perfect exactitude by the degree of his admiration
for Fritz Nettenmair.

When the dancing began Fritz drew his brother into a room at the side.
"You must dance," he said. "My wife would turn you down, and that
would be unpleasant for me. I will bring you a partner who is firm on
her feet and can keep you in time. Pluck up heart, boy, even if it
doesn't go smoothly all at once."

In the excitement of vanity Fritz Nettenmair had forgotten six years.
His brother was still to him the dreamer of old whom he forced to
dance at times for his pleasure. Now, when, paying no attention to his
refusal, he led the girl to Apollonius, the latter resigned himself so
as not to appear impolite.

Fritz Nettenmair was the best-natured fellow in the world as long as
he knew himself to be the sole object of the general admiration. In
such a mood he could perform deeds of sacrifice for those who threw
his brilliance into the shade. So it was now. As he sat among the
important people, treating them to champagne, and read in his wife's
eyes the gratification with which she saw him overwhelmed with honors,
a feeling crept over him as if he had forgiven his brother a great
wrong, and he felt himself to be an extraordinarily noble man, who
deserved all these marks of honor and who yet with wonderful modesty
condescended to allow himself to be touched by them. He saw that his
brother was no longer the dreamer of old; but he forgave him that too.
All eyes were directed toward the handsome dancer and his skilful
carriage. Fritz teased his wife, and, in the certainty that he must
far outshine his brother, he felt the additional gratification of
forgiving any amount of wrong that Apollonius had never done him.

But, oh the ungrateful one! He would not allow himself to be outshone.
Fritz Nettenmair danced jovially, as one who is at home in the world
and knows how to treat the species that wears long hair and aprons;
his brother was a stiff figure in comparison. He did not keep time
with his head, nor, if the step was made with the left foot on the
down beat, throw the upper part of his body to the right and vice
versa; he did not now and again, with the boldness of a genius, slide
across the hall and outdistance other couples. He danced neither
jovially nor as one who is familiar with the world and knows how to
treat the species that wears long hair and aprons; yet all eyes
remained fixed on him, and Fritz Nettenmair outdid himself in vain.

It was the dullest ball that Fritz Nettenmair had ever experienced; it
could not have been more so if Fritz Nettenmair had stayed at home.
Fritz Nettenmair proclaimed the fact with mighty oaths, and the
important people who had drunk his champagne agreed with him in his
opinion, as they always did.

Some of the important women expressed to Frau Nettenmair their
righteous and friendly indignation at her brother-in-law. That he had
not asked his sister-in-law for the first dance betrayed an
unpardonable disparagement of her. Frau Nettenmair, who felt the
universal wrong done to her husband as deeply as if it had been done
to herself, said that her brother-in-law had long known that she would
only have turned him down if he had. But still Apollonius was only
admired and honored more and more, and consequently the ball only
became still duller. It became so dull, in fact, that Fritz Nettenmair
left with his wife at an hour when as a rule he was only just
beginning to be really jovial. Nevertheless he heaped coals of fire on
his ungrateful brother's head. He asked the girl in his brother's name
to allow Apollonius to accompany her home. Then he went out of the
little room at the side into the hall again to his wife, and with her
left the house, to the unfeigned despair of the important people, who
were still thirsty for champagne.

After he had performed his enforced knightly service for his lady,
Apollonius found the door of the paternal home open and all its
inmates already asleep. At least there was no light to be seen
anywhere and everything was still. His brother had assigned to him the
little room at the left of the second-story piazza. Fortunately for
Apollonius, the six years had not altered the house as they had its
inmates. He went softly through the back door, past Moldau who growled
in a friendly way and whose rough neck he stroked full of gratitude
for this sign of constancy, mounted the stairs, walked the length of
the piazza and found a bed in his little room. But before he undressed
he still sat for a long time on the chair by the window and compared
what he had found with what he had left. Before he lay down for the
night he had determined on his future course of action. The next
morning he must learn what he was to do here, his relation to his
father's house must be clearly settled. If there was no work for him,
he would be on his way back to Cologne before the day was over.

He was up with the sun; but he had long to wait before it pleased his
brother to rise from his couch. He made use of the time to take a walk
to St. George's; he wanted to see for himself what was to be done
there. When he came back again he met his brother and a gentleman with
him who were just about to leave the living room. Apollonius knew the
gentleman as the inspector of buildings from the town council. They
greeted each other. They had already spoken to each other the day
before at the ball, where the gentleman had not proved himself to be a
prominent man and citizen, but, on the contrary, had joined the
Philistines, everyday fellows, and insignificant people. Apparently he
was not displeased to meet Apollonius just now. After the customary
exchange of courtesies he explained the purpose of his presence. A
final conference of experts was to take place that morning to consider
what was to be done to the roof of the church and the tower, so that
the result could be reported at a meeting of the council in the
afternoon and a decision reached. Fritz Nettenmair and the inspector
were on the way to St. George's, where they knew that the rest of the
experts were already assembled.

Fritz, as he said, did not want to trouble his visitor by making him
participate in business in which he was not concerned; just as
little--but he did not say this--did he want to leave him alone at
home. He asked him to be at the house in the woods, from which he
would fetch him to go for a walk. Apollonius assured him quite easily
that he would rather be present at the meeting; and when the inspector
went so far as to ask him to go with him as another expert, no pretext
could be found on which this could be prevented. Perhaps Fritz
Nettenmair had a suspicion that he would soon have a great deal more
to forgive the newcomer.

They found the rest of the meeting, two strange master-slaters and the
official builders of the council, carpenter, masons, and tinsmiths,
waiting for them at the tower-door. Several scaffoldings had already
been fastened to the roof so that it could be examined; the conference
took place in the church-loft nearest the largest of them. Apollonius
stood modestly a few steps away in order to hear and, if he were
asked, to speak. He had carefully examined the roof beforehand and
formed his own opinion of the matter.

The two strange slaters stated that they thought extensive repairs
were necessary. Fritz Nettenmair, on the contrary, was convinced that
with a few patches which he enumerated, nothing more need be done for
years. The builders, carpenter, masons and tinsmith eagerly agreed
with him; all of them jovial and prominent men at yesterday's ball who
conscientiously believed that if you drank a man's champagne, his was
the opinion you must hold. The strange slaters knew very well that the
Council feared the expense of more extensive repairs and had postponed
those that had long been highly necessary from year to year. As,
moreover, they had no prospect of being intrusted with the repairs
themselves, they did not give themselves unnecessary trouble to aid in
forcing upon Herr Fritz Nettenmair work and profit for which he
himself seemed to care nothing at all. Hence in the course of the
discussion they became more and more convinced that, whatever way you
looked at the matter, Herr Fritz Nettenmair too was right. The
inspector, a good man, perhaps grasped their motives and those of the
prominent men. For a time he had listened in silence with a
dissatisfied face, when he remembered Apollonius. He saw something in
the latter's expression that seemed to correspond to his own opinion.
"And what do you say?" he asked, turning to him.

Apollonius modestly came a step nearer.

"I wish you would look at the matter as carefully as possible," said
the councilman.

Apollonius replied that he had already done so.

"I need not draw your attention to the fact that the matter is very
important," continued the councilman.

Apollonius bowed. The councilman repressed what he had been about to
say. With all its softness and mildness, such strict conscientiousness
and obstinate honesty was expressed in the young man's countenance,
that the councilman was almost ashamed of the admonition he had been
on the point of giving him.

Apollonius began by stating the results of the examination he had
made. He explained the condition of the places he had been able to
test and what might be inferred from that as regarded the others. As
the church accounts showed, no extensive repairs had been made to the
church roof for eighty years. Even though the slate itself, if the
material was good, might defy the elements for a long time yet, this
was not true of the nails with which the slates were fastened to the
lathing and planking. And wherever he had tested them he had found the
nails either entirely destroyed or very nearly so.

It was unavoidably necessary to re-lay the entire slate covering and
to replace with new material the rotten spots in the lathing and
planking. Another winter would make the condition of the roof so much
worse that there was nothing to be gained by postponing the repairs
with the object of saving the interest, for, without greater loss, the
repairs could at the most be delayed only till the next year. He led
those assembled to places which might serve as samples. He did not
draw the conclusion himself, but knew how to use the cleverness which
he had learnt from his cousin to force his opponents to do that for
him.

The councilman's confidence in and respect for our Apollonius grew
visibly. During the rest of the discussion he appealed almost entirely
to him and shook his hand cordially when the left the meeting. If the
undertaking should receive the approval of the Council, which he now
no longer doubted, he hoped that Apollonius would take an active part
in it, and he requested him to write out a report as to the most
practical method of beginning it. Apollonius thanked him modestly for
his confidence, of which he would try to show himself worthy. As to
his taking part in the work itself, he replied that his father, as the
master, would have to decide.

"I'll go with you at once," said the councilman, "and speak to him."

Even though Fritz had conducted the business until now and was
regarded and treated by the important people as the master, still he
was not. The old man had let him become master just as little as he
had formally made over the business to him; he wanted to reserve to
himself a sovereign power of interference wherever he should find it
necessary.

He heard the two approaching while still at a distance and groped his
way to a bench in his arbor. There he was sitting when they entered.
After greetings had passed the councilman asked after Herr
Nettenmair's health.

"Thank you," replied the old gentleman, "I am somewhat troubled with
my eyes--but it is of no consequence." He smiled as he spoke, and the
councilman exchanged a glance with Apollonius that won the latter's
whole soul. Then he told the old man the whole conference, and made
Apollonius blush in his modesty so that it was long before his usual
color came back. The old man pulled his shield lower down on his face,
that no one might see the thoughts which were oddly struggling with
one another there.

Any one who could have seen beneath the shield would have thought at
first that the old gentleman was glad; the shade of suspicion with
which he had received Apollonius the day before disappeared. He need
not be afraid, then, that this son would make common cause with his
brother against him! Indeed, a something appeared on his countenance
that seemed to rejoice malignantly at the elder's humiliation. Perhaps
he might have interfered, as was his way, with a laconic: "You will
take my place from now on, Apollonius, do you hear?" if the councilman
had not sung Apollonius' praise and if it had not been so well
deserved.

"Yes," he said in his diplomatic manner of hiding his thoughts by only
half expressing them; "yes, indeed, youth! he is young." "And yet so
efficient already!" supplemented the councilman.

The old gentleman inclined his head. One who was interested, as was
the councilman, might believe that he nodded. But he said: "It's the
young men that are all-important today in the world!" Yes, he felt
proud that his son was so efficient, ashamed that he himself was
blind, glad that Fritz could now no longer do as he liked, that the
honor of the home had gained one guardian more, afraid that the
efficiency in which he rejoiced would make him himself superfluous.
And he could do nothing to prevent it; he could do nothing more, he
was nothing more. And as if Apollonius had expressed that, he rose
stiffly erect, as if to show that his son was triumphing too early.

The councilman begged the old gentleman to keep his son at home during
the time that the repairs were being made and to allow him to work at
them. The old gentleman was silent for a time as if he were waiting
for Apollonius to refuse to stay. Then he seemed to assume that
Apollonius refused for, with his harsh brevity, he commanded: "You are
to stay; do you hear?"

Apollonius went to his little room to unpack his things. He was still
thus engaged when the news came that the town council had approved the
repairs.

So it was settled: he was to stay. He was to be allowed to work for
his beloved home and to apply what he had learnt while abroad.

After he had arranged all his things in his room, he at once set to
work on the report which the councilman had requested. The repairs had
been decided upon on his advice, he was concerned in them not alone as
one of his father's "hands," as a mere workman; he felt that he had
taken upon himself in addition a special moral obligation toward his
home town; he must do everything in his power to fulfil it. He would
not have needed such an incentive; even without it he would have done
all that he could; he did not know himself well enough to know that.

In this exalted mood it appeared to him easy to overcome whatever
threatened, on the part of his brother and his sister-in-law, to make
his stay uncomfortable. After all, his brother wished him to go only
on account of his sister-in-law's dislike of him and that could be
conquered by enduring, honest effort. He had never offended his
brother; he would willingly subordinate himself to him in the
business. It did not occur to him that we can offend without knowing
it or wishing to do so, in fact, that duty may command us to offend.
It did not occur to him that his brother might have offended him. He
did not know that one can also hate him whom one has offended, not
only the offender.

Below, near the shed, a disagreeable-looking workman stood grinning in
front of Fritz Nettenmair and said: "I understand some one at the
first glance. Oh, yes, Herr Apollonius knows what he's about! But it's
of no consequence. That won't last long!" Fritz Nettenmair gnawed his
nails and ignored the gesture that was intended to excite him to ask
what the fellow meant when he said, that would not last long. He went
toward the living room and as he went he flew out quietly at somebody
who was not there: "Uprightness? Knowledge of business, as that
Philistine of an inspector says? I know why you're forcing your way in
and insinuating yourself in here, you fluff-picker! Pretend to be as
innocent as you like, I"--he made the gesture that meant: "I am one
who know life and the species that wears long hair and aprons!" With
this he turned toward the door, but his movement was not jovial, as
usual.

How many people think they know the world, and know only themselves!

       *       *       *       *       *

Between heaven and earth lies the slater's realm. Far below is the
noisy tumult of the wanderers of the earth, high above are the
wanderers of the sky, the silent clouds in their vast course. For
months, years, decades, this realm has no inhabitants but the
restlessly fluttering race of cawing jackdaws. But one day the narrow
door halfway up the tower-roof is opened; invisible hands push two
scaffolding timbers out, part way into space. To the spectator below
it looks as if they wanted to build a bridge of straws into the sky.
The jackdaws have fled to the pommel of the steeple and to the
weather-vane and look down from there, ruffling their feathers with
fear. The timbers stand out only a few feet from the door and the
invisible hands cease pushing. Then a hammering begins in the heart of
the tower-loft. The sleeping owls start up and tumble staggeringly out
of their scuttles into the open eye of the day. The jackdaws hear it
with horror; the child of man below on the firm earth does not catch
the sound, the clouds above on the sky pass over it untroubled. The
pounding continues a long time; then it ceases and two or three short
boards follow the timbers and are laid across them. Behind them appear
a man's head and a pair of vigorous arms. One hand holds the nail, the
other swings the hammer that strikes it until the boards are firmly
nailed down. The "flying" scaffold is ready. Thus the builder calls
it, for whom it may become a bridge to heaven, without his desiring
it. Then from the scaffold the ladder is built and, if the tower roof
is very high, ladder upon ladder. Nothing holds it together but iron
hooks, nothing holds it firm but two pairs of hands on the scaffold
and, at the top, the broach-post against which it leans. Once it is
tied fast to the broach-post and at the bottom, the slater no longer
sees any danger in mounting it, however anxious the dizzy man may feel
down on the firm earth when he looks up and thinks the ladder made of
match-wood glued together, like a child's Christmas toy. But before he
has bound the ladder fast--and in order to do that he must climb it
once--the slater may commend his poor soul to God. Then he is indeed
between heaven and earth. He knows that the slightest shift of the
ladder--and a single false step may shift it--will dash him helplessly
down to certain death. Stop the clang of the bells beneath him, it may
startle him! The spectators far below on the earth involuntarily clasp
their hands breathlessly; the jackdaws, who have been driven from
their last place of refuge by the ascending figure, caw as they
flutter wildly round his head; only the clouds in the sky pursue their
way above him, untouched. Only the clouds? No. The daring man on the
ladder goes on as calmly as they. He is no vain dare-devil wantonly
bent on making himself talked of; he goes his dangerous way in the
course of his calling. He knows that the ladder is firm; he himself
has built the scaffold, he knows that it is firm; he knows that his
heart is strong and his tread sure. He does not look down where the
earth holds out her green arms luringly, he does not look up where
from the procession of clouds in the sky the fatal giddiness may drop
down on his steady eye. The centre of the rungs is the pathway of his
glance, and he stands on top. No heaven exists for him, no earth,
nothing but the broach-post and the ladder which he ties together with
his rope. The knot is made; the spectators breathe with relief and
give utterance in all the streets to their admiration for the daring
man and his doings high up between heaven and earth. For a week the
children of the town play at being slaters.

But now the daring man begins his work indeed. He fetches up another
rope and lays it as a rotary ring round the post below the pommel of
the steeple. To this he fastens his tackle with three blocks, to the
tackle the rings of his hanging seat. A board to sit on with two
places cut out to allow his legs to hang down, and with a low, curved
back, on either side boxes for slates, nails and tools; in front,
between the places for his legs, a little anvil on which he hammers
the slate to the shape he wants it with his slater's hammer; this
apparatus, held by four strong cables which unite above to form two
rings for the hooks of the tackle, is the hanging-seat as he calls it,
the light craft in which he sails round the roof of the steeple high
in the air. By means of the tackle he easily pulls himself up or lets
himself down as high or as low as he likes; the ring above turns round
the steeple with the tackle and hanging-seat in whichever direction he
desires. A gentle kick against the roof sets the whole in motion, for
him to stop where he pleases. Soon no one stands below any longer
looking up; the slater at work is no longer any novelty. The children
turn again to their old games. The jackdaws grow accustomed to him;
they regard him as a bird, like themselves, only bigger, but
peaceful, as they are; and the clouds in the sky have never troubled
themselves about him from the beginning. The ladies envy him his view.
Who can look out so freely across the green plain and see how
mountains range themselves behind mountains, first green, then growing
bluer and bluer to where the sky, even bluer than they, rests on the
last ones! But he troubles himself as little about the mountains as
the clouds trouble themselves about him. Day after day he works on
with iron and claw-hammer, day after day he hammers slates and drives
in nails, till he is done with hammering and nailing. One day man,
tackle, ladder and scaffolding have disappeared. The removal of the
ladder is just as dangerous as its setting up; but no one below folds
his hands, no mouth extols the achievement of the man between heaven
and earth. The crows wonder for a whole week and then it seems to them
as if years ago they had dreamt of some odd bird. Far below the tumult
of the wanderers of the earth still sounds, high above the wanderers
of the sky, the silent clouds still continue in their vast course, but
no one flies around the steep roof save the cawing swarm of jackdaws.

It was proposed to put the whole management of the repairs in
Apollonius' hands. In order not to hurt his brother's feelings, he
begged the council to arrange differently. He was so anxious not to
hurt his brother that he did not even say why he asked this. His work
in Cologne had accustomed him to act independently; he foresaw that
his brother, as he had found him again, would be the cause of many a
hindrance. He knew that he was taking a heavy burden upon himself when
he promised the inspector that the work itself should not suffer by
reason of the two-headed management. The honest man, who guessed
Apollonius' purpose and only respected him the more on that account,
obtained the consent of the council for him, and silently resolved
that wherever it should be necessary he would take the part of his
favorite and uphold the latter's orders against those of his brother.

It was a difficult task that Apollonius had set himself; it was much
more difficult than he knew. His presence at home had not pleased his
brother from the beginning; Apollonius attributed that to the
influence of his sister-in-law; since then he had grown even more
estranged from him--and no wonder! Apollonius had already become
acquainted with his brother's vanity and greed for honor, and what had
happened since then had made the latter feel himself slighted in favor
of Apollonius. His sister-in-law's dislike Apollonius thought he could
overcome in time by honest endeavor, his brother's injured greed of
honor by outward subordination. If there was no further obstacle in
the way, he might hope to perform the task, difficult as it seemed.
But what lay between him and his brother was something different, very
different, from what he thought; and that he did not know it only made
it more dangerous. It was a suspicion, born of the consciousness of
guilt. Whatever he did to clear the apparent obstacles out of the way
could only increase the real one.

Apollonius soon saw that the system to which he had become accustomed
in Cologne, the rapid and carefully planned coöperation, did not exist
here, nor even such methodical management as his father had formerly
maintained. The slater had to wait for fifteen minutes and longer at a
time for the slates; the tenders dawdled and had a good excuse for
doing so in the slackness and laziness of the cutters and sorters. His
brother laughed half compassionately at Apollonius' complaint. Such
system as he demanded did not exist anywhere and was not even
possible. In his own mind he made fun again of the dreamer who was so
unpractical. And even if the system had been possible the work was
done by the day. Wasted time was paid for just the same as that
properly applied. And when Apollonius himself tried to put an end to
the old method of jogging along, his brother saw in him again the
time-server of the inspector and the council, while he saw himself as
the straightforward man who disdained such tricks. He persuaded
himself that Apollonius wanted to unseat him altogether, and had even
worse intentions in his mind--in which, however, he should not succeed
with all his cunning, although he had come home on purpose to do so.
And still he thought the dreamer would make a fool of himself if he
tried to carry out what he himself, who knew the world, could not
succeed in doing;--he who was keener in action than even old Blue-coat
had been in his day.

Fritz Nettenmair thought he was outdoing the old gentleman when he
whistled still more shrilly on his fingers, coughed still more
wrathfully and spat still more decisively. The qualities in the old
gentleman that had really commanded respect, the consistency which,
even where it degenerated into obstinacy, compelled esteem, the calm,
self-contained dignity of a capable personality--these he failed to
see. Not possessing them himself, he lacked also the desire to
perceive them in others. Just as his figure was absolutely at variance
with the bearing of the old gentleman which he sought artificially to
assume, so too his lack of repose and inward stability constantly
contradicted it. He seemed merely to have borrowed the old gentleman's
diplomatic manner of speaking in order to show his own superficiality
and emptiness. Then at times he would suddenly lapse from the stiff
demeanor of the wearer of the blue coat into his own patronizing
joviality and onto a plane where joking rubs out with dirty fingers
the line between superior and subordinate as if it had never existed.
Then when he forcibly jerked himself back just as suddenly into the
person of authority, he did not regain the respect he had lost, he
merely offended. To all this was added the fact that he knew himself
to be excelled by some of his workmen, and in difficult cases was
obliged to let them do as they liked.

Apollonius, on the contrary, had by nature and by virtue of the
training that he had received at his cousin's what his brother lacked;
he possessed dignity of personality, consistency to the point of
obstinacy. His inward sureness made him authoritative; he did not have
to exert himself to be so--he was raised above the necessity of
demanding respect by visible effort which so seldom attains its
purpose, indeed usually defeats it. And so he succeeded in doing what
he wanted. Soon the work was being carried on in the most systematic
order, and all those concerned seemed to feel contented under the
change--all except Fritz Nettenmair. The rapid coöperation that moved
as on the track of an invisible necessity made the figure in the blue
coat in which he felt himself so big, superfluous. Another reason for
uneasiness was that the new system came from his brother; from him
whom he already had so much to forgive and whom he wanted less and
less to forgive. He did not know, or did not want to know, what charm
a self-contained personality exercises, although he himself was
obliged to acknowledge it against his will, and still less that he
lacked this and that his brother possessed it. He had agreed in his
own mind that his brother had used means which he was pleased to feel
himself too noble to apply. In that way Apollonius had won the people
away from him. The latter had no suspicion of what was going on in his
brother's breast; he was on his guard against him, as one must be
against cunning persons, for such enemies can only be defeated with
their own weapons. The brotherly friendliness and respect with which
Apollonius treated him was a mask behind which he thought he could
certainly hide his sinister plans; he would pay him back and make him
more easily harmless if he hid his watchfulness behind the same mask.
Apollonius' good-natured willingness outwardly to subordinate himself
to him appeared to his brother like derision in which the workmen, won
over by the deceitful one, knowingly took part. In his sensitiveness,
he himself resorted to the means that he assumed his brother employed.
He was prevented from opposing him openly by the fact that Apollonius
impressed him himself, even though he would not have acknowledged
this to be the reason. He laid the blue coat of thunder aside and
descended to the very lowest rung of his joviality. He began by hints
and then gradually by words to show his sympathy with the workmen who
groaned beneath the tyranny of a time-serving intruder, as he proved
to them; as he had not the courage to incite them to open rebellion he
sought to lead them to commit single petty acts of mutiny. He began to
treat them to food and drink daily. They ate and drank, but remained
as before in the course that Apollonius marked out for them.

The common man has a child's keen eye for the strong points and
weaknesses of his superior. This endeavor, which they saw through,
lost Fritz Nettenmair the last vestige of the men's respect; it taught
them, if they did not already know it, in whose bad books they might
safely come, in whose they might not. And if they had been uncertain,
the inspector's different behavior toward the two brothers might have
determined them. And as they were not so finely organized, and also
had not the same reasons as Fritz Nettenmair, their opinion made
itself undisguisedly plain. They took liberties with him which showed
him that the success of his condescension was entirely different from
what he had intended. Then he drew the cloud of the blue coat once
more wrathfully about him, whistled more shrilly than ever, so that
the big bell on the other side resounded, was doubly bombastic and
raised his shoulders as high again toward his black head. The wrath
and decision of his former coughing and spitting was child's play to
those he displayed now. But the workmen soon knew that this went on
only in Apollonius' absence; and his chance appearance, like the
rising full moon, disconcerted the heaviest thunder-storms.

Fritz Nettenmair was obliged to despair of reëstablishing his lost
importance on the scene of the repairs. Naturally he added also the
result of his mistaken measures to Apollonius' ever-growing account.
The feeling that he was superfluous seized him as it had his father,
but not with quite the same effect. What the little garden was to the
old gentleman the slate-shed now became to the elder son; at least as
long as he saw Apollonius on the hanging-seat or on the church roof.
But now he also brought the blue coat with him into the living room.
His children--and this was easy as he himself did not trouble himself
about them--had also been won over by his brother, by reprehensible
means, of course. The reprehensible means were just those which he
himself never applied: unintentional kindness and love that was wise
in its severity. But even in his wife he began to see more and more
one who was to some extent his brother's ally in the latter's
conspiracy against him. He saw this long before he had the slightest
real cause to do so, and that was the shadow that his guilt threw
across the future of his imagination. Its old law was to compel him,
by reason of the wrongness of his means of defense, to make of this
shadow a real, living form and to place it in his life as a
retributive force.

Vague, premonitory fear that fluttered by in momentary clear
intervals, seemed to tell him that his changed behavior toward his
wife must hasten this change. At such times he suddenly became doubly
pleasant and jovial with her; but even this joviality bore something
of the nature of the sultry soil from which it grew.

One cure for such a disease is highly praised; that is diversion,
self-forgetfulness. As if the navigator should forget himself at sight
of the threatening reef, as if every one should forget himself
wherever double foresight is necessary! Fritz Nettenmair took the
cure.

From now on he was never missing at a ball or any public amusement;
he felt himself to have fled the danger forever if he were absent only
for an hour from the place where he saw it threatening. He was more
out of his house than in it--and not he alone. He thought the cure
still more necessary for his wife than for himself. His vengeful
self-consciousness assumed what lay as a mere possibility in the
future to be a reality of the present. And his wife was still so much
on his side that she was now angry with his brother to whose influence
she attributed the change in her husband's behavior--only not in the
way in which it really was responsible.

Apollonius, who was oppressed by all this as by a heavy cloud, an
uncomprehended intuitive feeling, understood only this: his brother
and his sister-in-law avoided him. He kept away from the places to
which they went. The inmost need of his nature, the tendency to gather
together rather than to dissipate, in itself, would have led him to do
so. Solitude became a better cure for him than diversion proved to be
for the other two. He saw how different his sister-in-law was from
what she had seemed to him to be before. He was obliged to
congratulate himself that his dearest hopes had not been fulfilled.
His work gave him enough sense of himself; whatever gaps remained the
children filled.

And the old man in the blue coat? Has he in his blindness no suspicion
of the clouds that are piling up all about his house? Or is it such a
suspicion that grips him at times when, meeting Apollonius, he
exchanges indifferent words with him? Then two powers strive on his
brow which his son, confronted by the shield over his father's eyes,
does not see. He wants to ask something but he does not ask. So thick
is the cloud that the old man has spun about him like a cocoon that
there is no longer any way through it from him out into the world nor
any, leading from outside in to him. He behaves as if he knew about
everything. If he did not do so, he would show the world his
helplessness and himself challenge it to abuse this helplessness. And
if he should ask would people tell him the truth? No! He believes the
world to be as obdurate toward him as he is toward it. He does not
ask. He listens where he knows he is not seen listening, straining
feverishly to catch every sound. And in every sound he hears something
that is not there; his strained imagination builds boulders of it that
crush his breast, but he does not ask. He dreams of nothing but of
things that bring disgrace on him and his house.

It is the nature of guilt that it entangles not alone its author in
new guilt. It has the magic power of drawing into its fermenting
circle all who surround him and of ripening in him whatever is bad to
fresh guilt. Well for him who successfully defends his unblemished
heart against this magic power! Even if he cannot save the guilty one
himself, he may be an angel to the others. Here are these four human
beings with all their differences of individuality, held together in
one knot of life which is being consumed by the guilt of one! What
destiny will they spin for themselves, the people in the house with
the green shutters?

Weeks had now passed since Apollonius' return and still he had not
realized his sister-in-law's fears. During the first few days Fritz
Nettenmair read in her demeanor a convulsive effort to pull herself
together, a desperate endeavor to be prepared; now this gave way to
something that appeared to be amazement. He, and he alone, saw how she
began to observe his brother more and more courageously when he did
not suspect that her gaze rested upon him. She seemed to be comparing
his personality, his behavior with her expectation. Fritz Nettenmair
felt in her soul how little the two agreed. He took pains to nurse his
young wife's dislike of her brother-in-law back to its old strength.
He did so, feeling all the time how vain his effort was; for a single
glance at his brother's gentle, upright countenance must tear down
what it had taken him days laboriously to build up. He felt how
delicately he ought to go to work and how roughly he really did so;
for the same power that sharpened his feeling for the degree carried
him beyond it as soon as he came to act. He knew that what he had
begun must complete its course to his ruin. He sought forgetfulness
and drew his wife ever deeper with him into the whirlpool of
diversion.

Medicines taken in too large doses are said to have the opposite of
the desired effect. Thus it was with Fritz Nettenmair's medicine; at
least as regarded his young wife. In the midst of every-day domestic
work she had formerly longed for the festival of pleasure; now that
this had become her every-day atmosphere her longing was for the quiet
life of her home. Satiated with the marks of honor bestowed upon her
husband by the important people, she now began for the first time to
notice that there were other people who measured him according to a
different standard. She began to compare, and the important people
fell lower and lower in her eyes beside the every-day people. She
thought of the dull ball on the evening of Apollonius' arrival.

She was sitting in the garden sewing while the old gentleman dreamt
his heavy midday dreams. She felt so peculiarly happy at home. Her
boys were playing at her feet, as quietly as if the old gentleman had
been present, or no, not like that, for if he had been in the little
garden they would not have dared to go in there at all. The little
girl had thrown her arms round her mother, who seemed herself to be
still a girl, so chaste did she appear. Now the child raised her
little head with old-fashioned earnestness, looked meditatively at her
mother and said: "Whatever can be the reason?"

[Illustration: SCHNORR VON CAROLSFELD DAVID BEING STONED BY SINAI]

"Reason of what?" asked her mother.

"Whenever you have been with us and then go away, he looks after you
so sadly."

"Who?" asked her mother.

"Why, Uncle Apollonius. Who else could it be? Did you scold him, or
slap him as you do me when I take sugar without asking? You must have
done something to him, or he wouldn't be so sorry."

The little girl went on chattering and soon forgot her uncle over a
butterfly. Not so her mother. She no longer heard what the child said.
What a queer feeling was this that had come over her, happy and
unhappy at the same time! She had let her needle fall without noticing
it. Was she startled? It seemed to her that she was startled, much as
she would have been if she had been speaking to some one and suddenly
realized that it was not the person she thought. She had thought that
Apollonius wanted to insult her, and now the child told her that she
had insulted him. She looked up and saw Apollonius coming from the
shed toward the house. At the same moment another man stood between
her and him as if he had grown up out of the earth. It was Fritz
Nettenmair. She had not heard him approaching.

After putting an indifferent question he went on with strange haste to
speak of the "dull ball." He repeated what people had said about it,
told her how offended every one felt that Apollonius had not asked her
for a dance, not even for the first one. It was curious that when he
reminded her of it now she felt it more keenly than ever; but not with
anger, only with sad pain. She did not say so; she did not need to.
Fritz Nettenmair was like a man in a magnetic sleep; from the leaf of
a tree, from a picket in the fence, from a white wall he read, with
closed eyes, what his wife felt.

"We shall soon get rid of him, I think," he went on as if he had not
been reading from the stable-wall. "There is no room here for two
households. And Anne is accustomed to plenty of space."

That was the name of the girl with whom Apollonius had been obliged to
dance at the dull ball and see home afterward. Since then she had
often been at the house on pretexts which her crimson cheek branded as
lies. Her father too, a much-respected citizen, had sought Apollonius'
acquaintance, and Fritz Nettenmair had furthered the matter in every
way he could.

"Anne?" cried his wife as if shocked.

"It's good that she can't lie," thought Fritz Nettenmair with relief.
But it occurred to him that her inability to disguise her feelings
would also promote his brother's evil plan. He had sought to make her
jealous as a last resort. That had been foolish of him, and he already
regretted it. She could not pretend; and even if he were still the
dreamer of old, her excitement could not but betray to him what was
going on in her breast, could not but betray it to herself. And
then--once more he had reached the point to which every conclusion led
him; he saw her awakening to an understanding of herself. "And
then"--he forced the words out so that every syllable tore itself on
his teeth--"and then--she'll learn to know what it means!"

His brother expected him in the living-room. "Of course, now that he
knows I saw him, he must make some excuse for having passed by here
when he thought she was alone." Thus thought Fritz, and followed his
brother.

Apollonius was really waiting for him in the living-room. He wanted to
see his brother in order to warn him against the evil-looking workman.
He had heard much that was suspicious about him, and knew that his
brother trusted him implicitly. "And so you order me to send him
away?" asked Fritz; and this time he could not help allowing his spite
to gleam through his disguise. From the tone in which he spoke
Apollonius could not fail to read his real feeling. It was: "So you
want to force your way even into the shed too, and drive me out of it.
Try it, if you dare!"

Apollonius looked into his brother's eyes with unconcealed pain. He
brushed the lapel of his brother's coat as if he would wipe away
whatever clouded the relations between them, and said: "Have I done
anything to hurt you?"

"Me?" laughed his brother. His laughter was intended to mean: "I'm
sure I don't know what!" But it really meant: "Do you ever do anything
else, do you ever want to do anything else, but just what you know
will hurt me?"

"For a long time I have wanted to say something to you," went on
Apollonius, "I will tomorrow; you are not in the right humor today.
You had to know what I have told you about the workman, and it wasn't
meant as you have taken it."

"Of course! Of course!" laughed Fritz. "I'm convinced that it wasn't
so meant."

Apollonius went and Fritz supplemented his speech with, "it was not
meant as you would have me believe, old fox. And wasn't it meant as I
took it? You think--The workman is a bad fellow; but you would never
have warned me if you hadn't needed an excuse." He turned on his heel
with a movement that suggested his feeling of superiority. In his
desolate state of mind it had pleased him to make successful use of
his father's diplomatic method of concealing his thoughts by half
expressing them.

His pleasure was short-lived; his old worry fastened him again to the
rack. And a newer one had been added to it. He had neglected the
business. In his master's absence from the shed the workman had had
opportunity enough to steal, and had certainly made use of it. It was
long since Fritz had done any work at the church; Apollonius had been
obliged to engage another workman and put him in his brother's place.
He had earned nothing now for a long time and yet never missed any
public amusement. The esteem of the important people showed a growing
inclination to fall, and could only be kept up by increasing
quantities of champagne. He had plunged himself into debt, and
continued to add to his obligations daily. And yet the moment was
bound to come when the appearance of prosperity which he had been at
such pains to sustain would disappear.

Anne Wohlig had often been at the house since Apollonius' arrival; and
Christiane, with the credulity which in simple souls is the natural
consequence of their own truthfulness, had seen nothing suspicious in
her most far-fetched pretexts. This was not so today. She had suddenly
grown so keen-sighted that what she recognized to be an excuse assumed
in her eyes the proportions of an unpardonable crime. She disliked any
girl that could be so double-faced, and she herself was too honest to
hide her opinion. Anne sought the reason for Christiane's treatment of
her in the latter's dislike of her brother-in-law. It was well known
that she begrudged the poor fellow his brother's affection. She
herself had said that she would turn him down if he should dare to ask
her for a dance. And Apollonius' appearance showed that she made it
impossible for him to enjoy his stay in his father's house. Vexation
made Anne honest, too, and she expressed her thoughts as far as she
could without touching on the delicate point of her own feeling for
Apollonius. Christiane was now obliged to hear the same reproach from
a stranger's mouth that she had already heard from her own child.

The girl went. Apollonius, on his way back from his brother, passed by
again. He was still in time to see Anne leaving. But nothing showed in
his face to confirm Christiane's only half understood fear.

The child had said: "You have done something to him." Anne had said:
"You hate him, you won't let him enjoy himself." And the sad glance
that he sent after her--she herself caught him now and then
unnoticed--said the same thing. Like a flash of joyous light it came
into her mind that he did not look sadly after Anne--nor joyfully
either. His gaze was as indifferent as it was with every one else. She
had been told: "You hate him, you have offended him and you want to
hurt him." And she had believed that he hated her, that he wanted to
hurt her. And had he not done so? She looks back into the time long
past when he insulted her. It is long now since she had felt angry
with him for it; she had only feared a fresh insult. Could she still
be angry, when he had become such a different man, when she herself
knew that he would not offend her, when people said, and his own sad
glance confirmed it, that she offended him? And she let her thoughts
run back eagerly, so eagerly that the music sounded again about her
and she sat again among her girl friends, in her white dress with the
pink sash, in the shooting-house, on the bench in front of the
windows; and she got up again, driven by a vague impulse and,
dreaming, made her way among the dancers to the door--there she saw
outside, was it not the same face that looked after her now when she
passed, so honest, so gentle in its sadness? Was it not the same
peculiar sympathy now as then, that followed her every step and never
left her? Then, she had avoided him and looked at him no more, for he
was false. False? Is he false again? Is he still false?

       *       *       *       *       *

All day long Fritz Nettenmair thought of what it could be that
Apollonius wanted to say to him tomorrow: "Tomorrow, because I am not
in the humor for it today? In the humor? I've let the fox see my hand.
If I hadn't, he would have blurted it out; now I have warned him and
made him cautious. I am too honest with a player who cheats so; I am
bound to lose. Good; I will be 'in the humor' tomorrow, I'll act as
though I were blind and deaf, as if I didn't see what it is he is
trying to do, even if it were still clearer. A cobweb on the lapel of
my coat so that he may have something to brush off! I can't bear to
have a fellow like that look into my face--the hypocrite!"

Thus prepared and resolved to outdo the fox in cunning, even though it
should put his self-control to the severest test, Apollonius found his
brother waiting for him the following day. Apollonius too had resolved
on his course. He was determined not to let himself be confused today
by any mood of his brother's; everything depended on shutting off the
source of all these moods. Fritz wished him the most unembarrassed,
jovial good morning that he could command.

"If you will listen to me calmly and in a spirit of brotherliness,"
said Apollonius, "I hope that this will be the best kind of a morning
for you and me and all of us."

"And all of us," repeated Fritz and put nothing of his explanation of
the three words into his tone. "I know that you always think of us
all, so speak out merrily from your heart; I'll do the same."

Apollonius omitted his intended introduction. He had learnt to be wise
and cautious; but to be wise and cautious toward a brother would have
seemed to him to be duplicity. Even if he had known of his brother's
duplicity he, unlike the latter, would never have thought of meeting
him with the same weapons. Even in the face of his experience he would
have persuaded himself that he was mistaken.

"I think, Fritz," he, began cordially, "we should have been different
toward each other from what we have been." He good-naturedly took half
the blame on himself. In his own mind his brother put the whole of it
on him, and was about to assure him jovially of the contrary when
Apollonius continued. "Things have not been the same as they used to
be between us, nor as they should be. The reason for this, as far as I
know, is only your wife's dislike of me. Or do you know of any other?"

"I know of none," said his brother shrugging his shoulders
regretfully; but he thought of Apollonius' return against his advice,
of the ball, of the conference in the church loft, of his being pushed
aside in the matter of the repairs, of his brother's whole plan, of
that part of it that had been and of that part which was still to be
carried out. He thought that Apollonius was occupied only in trying to
put it into execution, and of how much depended on his guessing
Apollonius' next intention and bringing it to naught.

While he was thinking this, Apollonius went on speaking, with no idea
of what was passing in his brother's mind. "I do not know what it can
be that has made your wife dislike me. I only know that it cannot be
anything that I have done intentionally. Can you tell me what it is? I
do not want to accuse her; it is possible that there is something
about me that displeases her. And if so, then it is certainly nothing
that should be praised or spared. And I should be the very last to
spare myself if I only knew what it is. If you know, please tell me.
If it is anything bad you must not spare me, even if it should cause
you pain to tell me. If you know it and don't tell me, that can be the
only reason. But you would not offend me by telling me, really,
Fritz."--

Fritz Nettenmair did what Apollonius had just done; in his own mind he
measured his brother by himself. The result was bound to be to
Apollonius' disadvantage. Apollonius took his thoughtful silence for
an answer.

"If you do not know," he went on, "let us go to her together and ask
her. I must know what I ought to do. Our life cannot go on like this.
What would father say if he knew? I reproach myself day and night that
he does not know. It is better for us all, Fritz. Come, let us not put
it off."

Fritz Nettenmair heard only his brother's presumptuous demand that he
should take him to her! That he should take him to her now! Did
Apollonius already know of her state and want to take advantage of it?
The question was superfluous; if they saw each other now they could
not fail to understand each other. And then it would be there, the
thing that for weeks he had not allowed himself an hour's rest in
trying to prevent. Then it would come to pass, the thing of which he
knew that it must come and the coming of which he had yet made
desperate efforts to hinder. They must not see each other face to face
now; they must not see each other now until he had built a new
dividing wall between them. Of what? He had no leisure to think of
that now. He must have some pretext on which to prevent the meeting,
must have time to find an excuse. And merely to gain time he said
laughingly:

"Of course! Ask her freely and cheerfully. Whoever asks is told. But
how do you come to think of that just now? Just now?" A thought that
flashed overwhelmingly into his mind involuntarily expressed itself in
this question. Apollonius was already at the door. He turned back to
his brother, and answered with a gladness that seemed fiendish to the
latter because he did not look into the other's honest face. If he
had, Apollonius would have caught something of the devilish fear that
disfigured his brother's countenance. And still, perhaps he would not.
He might have thought his brother ill, so entirely was he without the
slightest suspicion of anything in his proposal that could inspire his
brother with fear. In fact he thought that what pleased him must
please his brother also.

"Before," replied Apollonius, "I was obliged to fear that I should
make her still more angry. And that would have been even more
disagreeable for you than for me."

His brother laughed and nodded in his jovial way with his head and
shoulders merely for the sake of doing something. And his: "And now?"
sounded as if it were half stifled with laughter, not with anything
else.

"Your wife has been different for some time," went on Apollonius
confidingly.

"She is"--answered Fritz Nettenmair's start against his will and
wanted to say what he considered her to be. It was an evil word. But
would he himself who had made her that tell him so? No, it has not yet
come to pass, what he fears. And even if it is bound to come; he can
still delay it. He forces himself not to give utterance to his
excitement. He would like to ask: "And how do you know that she--is
different?" But he knows that his voice would tremble and betray him.
He must know who has told his brother. Has he already spoken to her?
Has he read it in her eyes at a distance? Or is there a third person
involved--an enemy whom he already hates before he knows whether he
exists?

Apollonius seems to have caught something of his brother's unfortunate
gift of reading another's thoughts. His brother does not ask; his face
is turned away; he is seeking like a desperate man and cannot find;
and yet Apollonius answers him. "Your little Annie told me," he said,
and laughed as he thought of the child. "'Uncle,' said the odd little
thing, 'mother is not so cross with you any more; go to her and say
you won't do it any more; then she'll be kind again and will give you
sugar.' That's how she put the idea into my head. It's wonderful how
it sometimes seems as if an angel were speaking out of a child's
mouth. Your little Annie may have been an angel to us all."

Fritz Nettenmair laughed so boisterously at the child that Apollonius'
laughter caught fire again from his. But Fritz knew that it was a
devil that had spoken out of the child's mouth. Yet he laughed--so
hard that it did not strike Apollonius how forced and disconnected his
reply was. "Well then, tomorrow, as far as I'm concerned, or even this
afternoon; now I can't possibly spare the time. Now I'll go down with
you to St. George's. I have a necessary errand to do tomorrow! Oh, the
confounded child!"

Apollonius had no suspicion how seriously the laughing "confounded"
was meant. He said, still laughing at the child himself, "Good. We'll
ask tomorrow then. And then everything will be different. I am looking
forward to it as gladly as the child, and you are too, I know, Fritz.
We'll make it a very different life from what we have been leading."
Kindhearted Apollonius rejoiced so heartily at his brother's joy! He
continued to do so even after he was up again on his swinging seat,
flying round the church roof.

Just as restlessly hovered about his brother's fear the sinister
something that hung above him and threatened to engulf him; still more
industriously did his heart hammer away at the crumbling plans to
hinder the fall: but the ship of his thoughts did not hang between
heaven and earth, held by the light of heaven. It pitched deeper and
ever deeper between earth and hell, and hell branded him ever darker
with its fire.

Toward evening Christiane was suddenly aroused from her dreaming by
two men's voices. She was sitting in the grass not far from the closed
door of the shed. Fritz and his brother had just entered the shed from
the street at the back. She heard him teasing his brother about Anne
Wohlig. Anne was the best match in the whole town--and Apollonius was
a rascal who knew the world and the species that wore long hair and
aprons. Anne was already sewing away at her outfit, and her cousins
were carrying the news of her approaching marriage to Apollonius from
house to house. Christiane heard her husband ask when the wedding was
to be. She had been about to move away; now she forgot to go, she
forgot to breathe. And then she almost gave a jubilant shout:
Apollonius had said that he was not going to marry at all, either Anne
or any one else.

His brother laughed. "Then that's why the evening you came back you
didn't dance with any one but Anne and took her home afterward?"

"I would have danced with your wife," replied Apollonius. "You warned
me that she would turn me down because she was so set against me. Then
I didn't want to dance at all. You brought Anne up to me, and when you
went you asked her if I might see her home. I couldn't do anything
else under the circumstances. I have never thought of Anne in
connection with--"

"Marriage?" interrupted his brother laughing. "Well, she's pretty
enough to--amuse yourself with too, and it's worth the trouble to make
her perfectly mad about you.

"Fritz!" exclaimed Apollonius, displeased. "But you're not in
earnest," he added to soothe himself. "I know you know me better; but
even in fun it isn't right to jest lightly about a respectable girl."

"Pshaw," said his brother, "if she behaves like that herself! What
does she come to the house for and throw herself at your head?"

"She hasn't done that," answered Apollonius hotly. "She is a good
girl, and comes here without any thought of wrong."

"Yes, or you would have put her right," laughed Fritz, and there was
mockery in his voice.

"Did I know what she thought?" said Apollonius. "You've teased her
about me and me about her. I have done nothing that could have
awakened any such thoughts in her. I should have thought it a sin."

The men went back the way they had come. It did not occur to
Christiane that they might have come along the path where she stood.
All that was open and true in her rose in indignation against her
husband. It was not other people who had lied to him; he himself was
false. He had lied to her and to Apollonius and she had erred and had
hurt Apollonius, Apollonius who was so good that he could not bear to
hear Anne made fun of, who had certainly never made fun of her.
Everything had been a lie from the beginning. Her husband was
persecuting Apollonius because he was false and Apollonius was good.
Her inmost heart turned away from the persecutor and toward the
persecuted. Out of the rebellion of all her emotions a new and sacred
feeling rose triumphant, and she gave herself up to it with the
complete abandon of innocence. She did not know it. Oh, that she might
never learn to know it! As soon as she learnt to know it would
become a sin.--And already the steps were rustling through the grass
that were to bring her the bitter knowledge.

Fritz Nettenmair had to erect a new dividing wall before he could
bring his brother to his wife. He came for this purpose. His gait was
uneven. He was still choosing and could not decide. He became even
more uncertain when he stood before her. He read what she felt in her
face; it was too honest to conceal anything; it knew too little of
what it spoke to think it must hide this feeling. He felt that he
could do nothing more with her by repeating the old slanders. He knew
that petty absurdities are better fitted to destroy a growing interest
than are gross faults. He imitated Apollonius going back along a way
along which he had already passed with a light, for fear that he might
have let a spark fall; he showed how his brother could not rest at
night for thinking that perhaps a workman had not deserved the harsh
word that he had spoken to him in the heat of the moment, how he
sprang up out of bed to straighten the position of a ruler that he had
left lying crooked on the table. At the same time Fritz kept on
blowing imaginary fluff from his sleeves. He saw indeed that his
efforts were having an opposite effect to what he wished. Irritated by
this he went on to stronger measures. He pitied poor Anne whom
Apollonius had made fall in love with him by hypocrisy, and told how
coarsely he made fun of her in public.

A dark red had come into his young wife's cheeks. Frank, simple
natures have a deep hatred of all duplicity, perhaps because they feel
instinctively how defenseless they stand before such an enemy. She was
trembling with emotion as she rose and said: "_You_ might do that; he
could not."

Fritz Nettenmair was startled. In the sight of the figure that stood
before him full of contempt there was something that disarmed him. It
was the power of truth, the loftiness of innocence confronting the
sinner. He pulled himself together with an effort. "Did he tell you
so? Have you got so far already?" he said, forcing the words out
between his teeth. Christiane wanted to go into the house; he stopped
her. She wanted to tear herself away.

"You have lied about everything," she said. "You have lied to him. You
have lied to me. I heard what you said to him just now in the shed."

Fritz Nettenmair drew a breath of relief. So she did not know
everything. "Was I not obliged to?" he said, his eye scarcely able to
stand the purity of her gaze. "Was I not obliged to in order to
prevent your disgrace? Do you want the fluff-picker to despise you?"
Now her eyes made him drop his. "Do you know what you are? Ask him
what a woman is who forgets her honor and her duty. Of whom do you
think as you should think only of your husband? When you creep about
like a wench in love wherever you think you will see him? And you
think that people are blind. Ask him what he calls that kind of a
woman? Oh, people have fine names for a woman of that sort."

He saw how she started, shocked. Her arm quivered in his hand. He saw
she was beginning to understand him, was beginning to understand
herself. He had feared her obstinacy--and behold, she was breaking
down! The angry red faded in her cheek and a blush of shame flushed
wildly over its pallor. He saw her eyes seek the ground as if she felt
the gaze of all men fixed upon her, as if the shed, the fence, the
trees all had eyes and they were all staring into hers. He saw how in
the suddenness of her perception she called herself one of the women
for whom people have such fine names.

The pain poured its rain over her burning cheeks that bled with shame
and her tears were like oil; the fire grew when a voice sounded from
the shed and his tread was heard. She tried to tear herself violently
away and looked up with a half wild, half imploring glance that,
dying, sank again to the ground before the thousand eyes that were
fixed upon her. He saw that the eye of the man who was coming through
the shed was the most terrible of all to her. He was again in
possession of all his courage.

"Tell him,"--he forced the words out softly--"what you want of him. If
he is as you think he is he must despise you."

Fritz Nettenmair held the struggling woman fast with the strength of
the victor until he had beckoned to Apollonius, who stepped
questioningly out of the shed, to come over to him. He let her go and
she fled into the house. Apollonius, shocked, stopped halfway up to
him.

"You see how she is," Fritz said to him. "I told her you wanted to ask
her. If you like we will go after her, and she must confess to us.
I'll see whether my wife can safely insult my brother, who is so
good."

Apollonius had to restrain him. Fritz would not consent at first.
Finally he said: "Well, now you see, at least, that it is not my
fault. Oh, I am so sorry!"

There was an involuntary dismay in the last words which Apollonius
connected with the failure at a reconciliation. Fritz Nettenmair
repeated them softly, and this time they sounded like a mockery of
Apollonius, like mocking regret at the failure of a sly trick.

Christiane had rushed into the living-room and bolted the door behind
her. She was not thinking of Fritz; but Apollonius might come in. She
turned over and over the feverish thought of fleeing out into the
world. But wherever she thought of herself, on the steepest mountain,
in the deepest valley, he met her and saw what it was that she wanted
and he had to despise her. Little Annie was in the room; she had not
noticed the child. All the mother's life was engaged in her inward
struggle; Annie could not tell from her mother's look what was going
on within her. She drew her mother onto a chair, threw her arms round
her in her usual fashion and looked up into her face. Her gaze struck
her mother as if it came from Apollonius' eyes. Little Annie said:

"Do you know, Mother, Uncle 'Lonius"--the mother jumped up and pushed
the child away from her as if it had been he himself. "Don't tell me
anything more about--don't tell me anything more about him!" she said
with such angry fear that the little girl stopped speaking and began
to cry. Little Annie did not see the fear, she saw only the anger in
her mother's action. It was anger at herself. The little girl lied
when she told her uncle of her mother's anger at him. He did not need
to be told. Had he not seen her red cheek himself, when she fled from
his and his brother's question; the same red of angry dislike with
which she had received him when he came home? Oh, from then on life
was curiously sultry in the house with the green shutters for days and
weeks.

Fritz Nettenmair was very little at home. From early in the morning
till late at night he sat in a public house from which the door in the
church roof and the hanging seat on the tower could be seen. He was
more jovial than ever, and treated everybody in order to forget
himself in their insincere admiration.

In the shed and in the slate quarry the disagreeable-looking workman
took his place. Until he came home late at night, the workman wandered
back and forth in the passage leading from the living-room to the
shed. There had been some cases of theft in the neighborhood, and the
workman stood watch; Fritz Nettenmair had become a very anxious man
about his home. Other people wondered at Fritz Nettenmair's confidence
in the workman. Apollonius warned him repeatedly. Of course! He had
good reason not to desire any watch kept, least of all by this workman
who did not like him. And that was just why Fritz Nettenmair trusted
the workman and would not listen to warnings. When Fritz Nettenmair
said to his brother: "I am so sorry," he had just caught sight of the
workman. The latter's grin showed him that the workman saw through him
and knew what it was that he feared. He ground his teeth; half an hour
later he intrusted him with the watch and his place in the shed and
the quarry. It needed but few words. The workman understood what Fritz
told him that he must do; he also understood what Fritz did not tell
him and what he must do nevertheless. Fritz Nettenmair had as little
confidence in the fellow's honesty in the business as had Apollonius;
but the man's dishonesty there secured him his honesty where he needed
it more.

The old gentleman in the blue coat had worse dreams than ever; he
listened more anxiously than ever to every fleeting sound, heard more
in it, and added ever greater loads to what lay on his breast. But he
did not ask.

It was late one evening. From the tavern window Fritz Nettenmair had
seen Apollonius leave his hanging seat and tie it to the scaffold.
According to his custom, he hurried out of the restaurant so as to get
home before Apollonius. He found his wife in the living-room, busy
about her household work. The workman came in and made his customary
report. Then he whispered something to his master and went.

Fritz Nettenmair sat down at the table with his wife. He usually sat
there until the sound of the workman's shuffling tread in the hall
told him that Apollonius had gone to bed. Then he went back again to
his tavern; he knew that the house was safe from thieves, the workman
was on the watch.

The feeling that he had his wife in his hand and that she resigned
herself to the situation with suffering had until now aided the wine
to cast over him a faint reflection of the jovial condescension which
formerly had shone like the sun from every button of his clothes.
Today the reflection was unusually faint--perhaps because her eye had
not sought the ground when it met his glance. He put a few indifferent
questions, and then said: "You have been merry today." He wanted her
to feel that he knew everything that went on in the house even when he
was not there. "You were singing."

She looked at him calmly and said: "Yes, and tomorrow I'll sing again.
I don't know why I shouldn't."

He got up noisily from his chair and walked up and down with heavy
steps. He wanted to intimidate her. She rose quietly, and stood there
as if expecting an attack that she did not fear. He stepped close to
her, laughed hoarsely and made a gesture which he intended to frighten
her into stepping back. She did not do so. But the crimson of hurt
feelings spread over her cheeks. She had grown keen-sighted,
distrustful of her husband. She knew that he had her and Apollonius
watched.

"And did he tell you nothing more?" she asked. "Who?" shouted Fritz.
He raised his shoulders and thought he looked like the old man in the
blue coat. His wife did not answer.

Presently she said softly, "I have come to be at peace with myself,"
and this was written so brightly in her eyes that the man began to
walk up and down again in order not to have to look at them. "I am at
peace with myself. The thoughts came to me; I was not to blame for
that, and I did not call them into my mind. I did not know they were
evil. Then I fought with them and I will not tire as long as I live.
In my soul I went to my dear mother's bed where she died, and I saw
her lying there and laid three fingers on her heart. I promised her
that I will do and suffer nothing dishonorable and I begged her with
tears to help me not to do or suffer anything dishonorable. I promised
and begged until all my fear had gone away, and I knew that I was an
honorable woman and would remain an honorable woman. And no one may
despise me. Whatever you may do to me, I am not afraid and will not
defend myself. But you shall not do anything to the child. You do not
know how strong I am and what I can do. I will not have it; that I
tell you."

His glance passed fearfully by the slender figure without touching her
pale, beautiful countenance; he knew that an angel stood there and
threatened him. Oh, he realized, he felt how strong she was; he felt
how powerfully the resolution of an honest heart protects. But only
against him! His weakness made him feel that. He felt that no one who
had the power of belief could fail to believe her. He had gambled away
this right in the crooked game. He would have had to believe her, if
he had not known that what must come, would come. Not she nor any one
could prevent it. He had fallen into the hands of the spirit of his
guilt, the thought of retribution, which drove him irresistibly to
bring about what he wished to prevent; the long steady habit of
thinking this thought had buried him too deep. Hope and trust were
alien to the thought; hate was more akin to it. And it was hate that
he called to his aid.--Outside the workman's feet shuffled on the
sanded floor of the hall. The house was safe from thieves: he could
leave it again.

Fritz Nettenmair was as jovial in the tavern that night as he could
possibly be. His flatterers were thirsty, and pleased with his
condescension. He drank, pushed the guests' hats down over their ears,
performed many another tender caress with his stick and his hand, and
laughed admiringly at them as brilliant jokes. He did everything to
forget himself; but he did not succeed.

If he could only have changed with his wife, who during this time was
sitting solitary at home! The thing for which he longed--to forget
himself--was the very thing against which she must be on her guard.
What he must do, what he could not avert by any effort, was the thing
for which she strove unavailingly--to remember herself. All her
thoughts spoke to her of Apollonius. She thought she was avoiding him,
and now she saw that he had fled from her. She ought to be glad, and
it hurt her. Her cheeks burned again. It was peculiar that she herself
regarded her position more sternly or more mildly according to whether
Apollonius in her thoughts judged it more sternly or more mildly. He
had become to her the involuntary standard by which to measure things.
Did he know what she was, and despise her? He was so gentle and
indulgent; he did not ridicule Anne, did not despise her. Even before
he came, did she already have thoughts that she should not have had
and did he guess them? And he was sorry for her, and that was why he
looked after her with such a sad glance when she went? Yes! Of course!
And now he fled from her in order to spare her: the sight of him
should not arouse thoughts in her that had better sleep till she
herself slept in her coffin. Perhaps he himself had said so to her
husband, or written; and the latter had chosen dislike as a means of
curing her.

Was it chance that at this moment she glanced at her husband's desk?
She saw that he had forgotten to take the key out of the lock. She
remembered that he had never been so careless before. Usually she
would have taken no notice of it; now she remembered that if he knew
her to be there he had never left the room even for a moment without
locking the desk and taking the key with him. Apollonius' letters lay
in the top right-hand drawer; usually her glance avoided the spot. Now
she opened the desk and drew out the drawer. Her hands trembled, her
whole form quivered--not for fear that her husband might surprise her
in what she was doing. She must know how it stood between her,
Apollonius, and her husband; she would have asked the latter, she
would not have come to her own aid if she could have trusted him. She
trembled in expectation of what she should find. Had she any
premonition of what it would be?

There were many letters in the drawer; all of them lay open and
unfolded. She touched them all, one after another, before she read
them. With each one that she touched a fresh flush spread over her
cheeks, as if she touched Apollonius himself, and involuntarily she
drew back her hand. Now a little metal box fell from one of the
letters back into the drawer; the box flew open and out of it fell a
small, dry blossom--a little bluebell. It was just such a one that she
had once laid on the bench that he might find it. She was startled.
That one, Apollonius had auctioned off the same evening with ridicule
and mockery among his comrades, asking them what they would give and
finally, amid the general laughter, solemnly knocked it down to his
brother. He had brought it to her and told her about it while they
were dancing and Apollonius had looked in at the hall window,
mockingly, as his brother had said. That one she had pulled to pieces;
all the young people had danced over the ruins. The blossom in the box
was another one. The letter must tell from whom it was or to whom
Apollonius sent it.

And yet it was the same flower. She read it. What feelings took
possession of her as she read that it was the same one. Tear after
tear fell on the paper and out of them mounted a rosy haze and veiled
the narrow walls of the little room. Oh, it was a world of happiness,
of laughing and crying with happiness that rose from the tears; every
one shone more like a rainbow, every one cried: "She was yours!" And
the last one lamented: "And she has been stolen from you!" The flower
was from her; he carried it on his breast in yearning, hope, and fear,
until she of whom he thought when he touched it had become his
brother's. He was so good that he had thought it a sin to keep the
poor blossom away from the man who had stolen the giver from him. And
she might have clung to such a man, might have enfolded him in the
arms of her yearning and never let him go! She could have done it,
might have done it, should have done it! It would not have been a sin;
it would have been a sin if she had not done so. And now it was a sin
because the other had defrauded him and her, the other who now
tormented her about what he himself had made sinful, who forced her to
sin--for be forced her to hate him, and that too was a sin and his
fault. With terribly sweet fear she thought of the nearness of the man
who should be a stranger to her, who was not a stranger to her, from
whom in the dread of her weakness she saw no escape. She fled from
him, from herself, into the room where her children slept, where her
mother had died. There, where such peace had come to her, she heard
the slight movement of the innocent little slumberers whose guardian
God had made her, heard their quiet breathing whispering into the
still, dark night. She went from bed to bed, sank motionless on her
knees before each, and pressed her forehead against the sharp edges of
the bedsteads.

From the tower of St. George's the bells rang as the step of time
passed over her; and he did not cease his march. She lay, her hot
hands clasped, a long, long time. Then from the gentle web of her
feelings there rose, silvery as the sound of Easter morning bells, the
thought: why are you afraid of him? And she saw all her angels
kneeling About her and he was one of her angels, the most beautiful
and the strongest and the gentlest. And she might look up to him as
one looks up to his angels. She rose and went back into the other
room. She spread the letters out on the table and then laid herself to
rest. She meant their possessor to know, when he came home and found
the letters, that she had read them. It was hard for her to part with
them; but they did not belong to her. She took away only the little
box with the withered flower, and meant to tell him in the morning
that she had done so.

Fritz Nettenmair still sat on all alone in the wine-tavern. His head
hung wearily down on his breast. He justified to himself his hatred
and his course of action. His brother and she were false; his brother
and she were guilty, not he who sat here squandering what belonged to
his children. He who had stolen her heart away from him might look
after them. Just at the moment when he had succeeded in convincing
himself, the door of the bedroom at home opened. His wife had got up
out of bed again and put back the box containing the flower with the
letters. Apollonius had not kept it, neither might she. Her husband
had not yet thought of going home when she once more pulled the covers
over her chaste limbs. In the thought that thence-forward Apollonius
should be her lode-star, and that if she acted as he did she would
remain pure and safe from evil, she fell asleep and smiled in her
slumber like a carefree child.

Apollonius knew little of his brother's mode of life. Fritz Nettenmair
hid it from him through the involuntary restraint that Apollonius'
efficient personality laid upon him, though he would not have
acknowledged it to any one, least of all to himself. And the workmen
knew that they might not go to Apollonius with anything that looked
like tale-bearing, least of all where his brother was concerned, whom
he would have liked to see respected by them all more than himself.
But he had noticed that Fritz looked on him as an intruder on his
rights who robbed him of all pleasure in his business and occupation.
From the day of his return Apollonius had not felt happy at home. He
was a burden to those whom he loved most; he often thought of Cologne,
where he knew himself to be welcome. Until now the moral obligation
had held him which he had taken upon himself in respect to the
repairs. These were nearing completion with rapid strides. Thus his
thought was at liberty to demand realization; and he imparted it to
his brother.

It was difficult for Apollonius at first to convince his brother that
he was in earnest in his intention to return to Cologne. Fritz took it
for a sly pretext meant to reassure him. Man gives up a fear with as
much difficulty as he does a hope. And he would have had to confess to
himself that he had done wrong to the two whom he had become so
accustomed to accusing of having done wrong to him that he felt a kind
of satisfaction in so doing. He would have had to forgive his brother
for a second wrong which the latter had suffered from him. He did not
become reconciled until he had succeeded in seeing again in his
brother the dreamer of old and in his intention a piece of
foolishness, until he saw in it an involuntary confession that his
brother had recognized in him a superior opponent and was leaving in
despair of ever being able to carry out his evil plan. Then at once
all his old jovial condescension waked as from a winter sleep. His
boots creaked again: "There he is!" and his dangling seal once more
voiced the triumphant shout: "Now the fun will begin!" His boots
drowned what his head said to him of the unavoidable consequences of
his extravagance, of his descent in the general esteem. It seemed to
him that everything would be just as it had been, once his brother was
away. Looking ahead, he even believed in his extraordinary magnanimity
in forgiving his brother for having been there. He stood before his
brother in all his old greatness, in which he confronted the intruder
as the sole head of the business; with his most condescending laugh he
waved to his brother the assurance that he would manage to get the old
man in the blue coat to consent; he himself must send Apollonius away.

The young wife felt as if her angel were about to leave her. She felt
that she was safer from him when near him than when he was at a
distance; for all the charm that forbade her desires to be sinful fell
upon her from his honest eyes.

Apollonius had also told the councilman of his decision. It hurt him
that the good man--who usually approved of everything that Apollonius
wanted to do, in advance, as if the latter could not do anything that
he would not be obliged to approve--received his news with odd,
wondering, monosyllabic coldness. He pressed him to tell him the
reason for this change. The two good men understood each other easily.
After recovering from his surprise at finding Apollonius in ignorance
of it, the councilman told him what he knew of his brother's mode of
life and expressed the opinion that his father's house and business
could not exist without Apollonius' aid. He promised to make further
inquiries about the matter, and was soon able to enlighten Apollonius
as to the details. Here and there in the town his brother owed not
inconsiderable sums; the slate business, particularly of late, had
been so carelessly and unconscientiously carried on that some
customers of many years' standing had already withdrawn their
patronage, and others were about to do so. Apollonius was frightened.
He thought of his father, of his sister-in-law and of her children. He
thought of himself too, but it was just his own strong sense of honor
that made him first imagine what the proud, upright, blind old man
would have to suffer under the disgrace of a possible bankruptcy. He
would be able to earn his bread; but his brother's wife and children?
And they were not accustomed to hardship. He had heard that
Christiane's inheritance from her parents had been considerable. He
took heart. Perhaps the situation could still be saved. And he wanted
to save it. He would not stop at any sacrifice of time and strength
and property. If he could not hinder the decline, at least those who
were dear to him should not want.

The staunch councilman rejoiced at his favorite's view of the matter,
on which indeed he had reckoned; he had thought it odd that Apollonius
had not shown it before. He offered him his aid, saying that he had
neither wife nor child and that God had permitted him to acquire
something so that he might help a friend with it. Apollonius did not
as yet accept his offer. He wanted first to see how matters stood and
to feel sure that he could remain an honest man if he took his friend
at his word.

Hard days came for Apollonius. His old father must as yet know
nothing, and, if it were possible to uphold his honor, should never
learn that it had tottered. In his treatment of his brother Apollonius
required all his firmness and all his gentleness.

After having found out who the creditors were and what the various
sums amounted to, Apollonius examined the condition of the business
and found it even more confused than he had feared. The books were in
disorder; for some time no more entries had been made at all. Letters
from customers were found complaining of the poor quality of the
material delivered and of carelessness in the execution of their
orders; others, with bills inclosed, were from the owner of the quarry
who did not want to take any new orders on credit until the old ones
were paid. The greater part of Christiane's fortune was gone;
Apollonius had to force his brother to produce the remains of it. He
was obliged to threaten him with court proceedings. What did not
Apollonius, with his punctilious love of order, suffer in the midst of
such confusion! What did he not go through, with his intense love of
his family, in having to act thus toward his brother! And yet the
latter saw in every utterance, every act of this man who was suffering
so, only badly concealed triumph. After infinite pains Apollonius
succeeded in getting a comprehensive survey of the state of affairs.
If the creditors could be persuaded to have patience and the customers
who had transferred their business could be won back again, it would
be possible, with strict economy, industry and conscientiousness, to
save the honor of the house; and, by untiring effort, he might succeed
in assuring to his brother's children at least an unincumbered
business as their inheritance.

Apollonius wrote at once to the customers and then went to his
brother's creditors. The former agreed to give the house another
trial. Among the latter he had the pleasure of learning what
confidence he had already won in his home town. In every case if he
would stand security the creditor was willing to allow the sum owing
to remain as a loan, at low interest, to be gradually paid off. Some
of them even wanted to intrust him with cash in addition. He did not
attempt to test the sincerity of these offers by accepting them, and
thus only added to the confidence that those who made them felt in
him. Then he modestly and gently explained to his brother what he had
done and still wanted to do. Reproaches could not do any good, and he
thought that admonitions were superfluous where the necessity was so
plain. If from now on Apollonius, acting alone and independently, took
over the management of the whole, of the business and of the
household, his brother surely could not see in his conduct any
voluntary derogation. In a matter in which he had staked his honor he
must have a free hand.

Above all things the selling end of the business must once more be
brought up to its former standing. The quality of the material
delivered by the owner of the quarry had steadily deteriorated, and
his brother had been obliged to accept it in order to get any material
at all. The other creditors' offers, to let the money owing them stand
as loans, he accepted, in order to settle the quarry owner's old
account with what could at once be liquidated of the remnant of
Christiane's fortune, and to pay cash at once for a new order. Thus it
was possible to obtain good material again at a reasonable price and
to satisfy his purchasers. The owner of the quarry, who on this
occasion made Apollonius' acquaintance and saw something of his
knowledge of the material and of its treatment, made him an offer, as
he himself was old and tired of work, to lease him the quarry. The
conditions under which he was willing to do this would have allowed
Apollonius to reckon on large profits; but as long as he had only
himself to depend upon in his difficult situation, he could not divide
his strength among several enterprises.

Apollonius made his plan for the first year and fixed a certain sum
which his brother was to receive from him weekly for his household
expenses. He dismissed as many of the hands as he could possibly
spare. He put the faithful Valentine in charge during the time that he
himself was obliged to be busy about affairs outside. There was a
well-founded suspicion that the disagreeable-looking workman had been
guilty of various dishonest acts. Fritz Nettenmair, who clung to the
guardian of his honor as to its last bulwark, did everything he could
to justify him and thus to keep him in the house. He explained that he
had given the man express orders to do all the things of which he was
accused. Apollonius would have liked to have made a legal complaint
against the fellow, but he was obliged to be content with paying him
off and forbidding him the house. Apollonius was inexorable, gentle
though he was in putting his reasons before his brother. Any
unprejudiced person would have to admit that he could not do
otherwise, that the fellow must go. And with a savage laugh Fritz
Nettenmair, too, thought, when he was alone, "Of course he must go!"
Whatever Apollonius showed him, strictness and gentleness merely
strengthened him in the belief that relaxed its hold upon him the less
the longer he nourished it and that grew the thirstier for his heart's
blood the longer he fed it from that fount. He saw no further obstacle
to prevent his brother's criminal intention from succeeding.

From now on his state of mind alternated between despairing
resignation to what could no longer be prevented, what had already
probably taken place, and feverish endeavors to prevent it
notwithstanding. In accordance with these two moods his behavior
toward Apollonius took the form of unconcealed obstinacy or of
cringing and vigilant dissimulation. When the first mood governed him
he sought forgetfulness day and night. Unfortunately the discharged
workman had found employment in a quarry near by and was his companion
on many a night. The important people turned away from him, and
revenged themselves on him with unconcealed contempt for the desire
that he had awakened in them and could no longer satisfy. He avoided
them, and followed the workman into places where the latter was at
home. There he sounded his jovial condescension an octave lower. The
gin-shops now rang with his jokes; and they took on more and more the
character of the surroundings.


Roofs that are covered with metal or tiles usually require repairing
only after a number of years have elapsed; it is different with slate
roofs. While the roof is being covered damage to the slates from the
scaffolds and the workmen's feet cannot be avoided. And such damage
often does not become apparent until afterward. Often more
considerable repairs are required during the three years immediately
following the covering of the roof than for fifty years afterward. The
roof of St. George's added its testimony to the truth of this old
experience. The slate roof of the tower, on the contrary, which
Apollonius had attended to alone, bore gratifying witness to its
maker's obstinate conscientiousness. The jackdaws who inhabited it
would have been left in peace by his swinging seat for a long time if
an old master-tinsmith had not chosen to show his ecclesiastical
leanings by donating a tin ornament. This wreath of tin flowers which
Apollonius was to lay around the tower roof was now the cause of his
once more fastening his ladder to the broach-post. A little more than
six months had elapsed since he had taken it down.

In the meantime his strenuous efforts had not been without success. He
had kept his old customers and won new ones in addition. His creditors
had their interest and a small payment on the principal for the first
year; confidence in Apollonius and respect for him grew from day to
day and with them grew his hope and his strength, for which he paid by
redoubled exertions. If only the same thing could have been said of
his brother, of the understanding between him and his wife!

It was fortunate for Apollonius that he had to put his whole soul into
his purpose, that he had no time to follow his brother with his eye
and heart, to see how the man whom he was trying to save sank deeper
and deeper. When he rejoiced in his success, he did so from a feeling
of loyalty to his brother and his brother's family; Fritz saw
something quite different in his rejoicing and thought of nothing but
of how to destroy it.

In the beginning he had given his wife the greater part of the money
that he received weekly for his household expenses. Then he began to
keep back more and more and finally he carried the whole of it into
the places where the need of buying flatterers by treating them had
followed him more faithfully than had the respect of the town. The
experience he had had with the "important" people had not converted
him. His wife had been obliged to get on with less and less. Old
Valentine saw her distress, and from now on the house money went
through his, instead of her husband's, hands. Finally Valentine became
her treasurer, and never gave her more than she needed at the moment
because money was no longer safe from her husband in her hands.

She used what time she had from her housekeeping and her children in
doing different pieces of work which Valentine, as her agent, sold for
her. The money that she thus received she used partly--she herself
would rather go hungry even though she could not see her children do
so--to adorn the living-room with all kinds of things that she knew
that Apollonius loved. And yet she knew that Apollonius never came in
there, that he never saw it. But then, she would not have done it if
she had known that he would see it. Her husband saw it as often as he
came into the room. Nothing escaped his eyes that might act as an
excuse for his anger and his hatred. Then he began to abuse
Apollonius, and in such terms as if he too must now show how much it
is possible to acquire of another person's manner.

If the children were present it was his wife's first care to send them
away. They must not witness his roughness and learn to despise their
father--not for his sake but for their own. He did not betray how glad
he was to be rid of the "spies." He feared that the children would
complain of him to Apollonius. He did not think that his wife would
complain herself, although he assumed that she and Apollonius met each
other. Everything that he saw in the room was to him a fresh proof of
his shame. How could he believe that it was for any other purpose than
to be noticed by Apollonius? Then, when she told him that he might
abuse her, only not Apollonius, the keen eye of jealousy showed him
what pleasure she took in suffering for Apollonius. He reproached her
with it, and she did not deny it. She said to him: "Because he suffers
for me and for my children. He gives what he has been at great pains
to save to take the place of the weekly sum of which the father has
robbed his children."

"And he tells you that? He tells you that!" said the man, laughing
with savage joy at having trapped her into a confession that she met
him.

"Not he," returned his wife angrily, because the man she despised was
judging Apollonius by himself. "Old Valentine told me." She went on to
tell him that Valentine had sold as his own the watch that Apollonius
had brought with him from Cologne. Apollonius had forbidden him to
tell her.

"And also to tell you that he forbade him?" laughed her husband. And
there was something of contempt in his laugh. Such things might indeed
be believed of the dreamer; but now he would not believe it of him.
"Of course!" he laughed still more wildly. "Even a stupider fellow
than that dreamer knows that no woman will do it for nothing. The
worst of them thinks herself worth something. One with such hair and
such eyes and such a body!" He seized her by the hair and gazed into
her eyes with a glance before which purity must blush; only depravity
could meet it and laugh. He took her blush for a confession and
laughed still more wildly. "You want to say that I am worse than he.
Ha, Ha! You're right; I married such a woman. He wouldn't have done
that. He isn't bad enough for that!"

Old Valentine must have failed to keep his word, or else Apollonius
passed the door by chance when his brother believed him far away. He
heard his brother's savage outbreak of anger, he heard the clear tone
of the wife's voice, still clear and melodious in spite of her
excitement. He heard them both without understanding what they were
saying. He was shocked. He had not imagined that the breach between
them had gone so far. And he was the cause of this breach. He must do
what he could to improve matters.

His brother stood in his threatening attitude as if turned to stone
when he caught sight of Apollonius entering. He had the feeling of a
man suddenly surprised while doing a wrong. If Apollonius had turned
on him as he deserved he would have groveled before him. But
Apollonius wanted to reconcile them, and said so calmly and from his
heart. He might indeed have known, for he had experienced it often
enough, that his gentleness only gave his brother the courage to be
sneeringly obstinate. It was the same this time. Fritz sneered at him,
laughing savagely, and said that he was making an excuse where he was
master. Was that the reason he had made himself master of the house?
He knew that in Apollonius' place he would have behaved quite
differently. He would have let the woman feel it whom he knew to be in
his power. He was an honest fellow, and did not need to pretend to be
so sweet. It occurred to him, moreover, how often he had sneaked about
the door in vain, hoping to surprise Apollonius in the room. Now he
was in the room. He had come in because he had not expected to find
him. It was Apollonius who must be startled, Apollonius was the person
caught, not he. The reconciliation was merely the first excuse on
which Apollonius had seized. That was why he was so meek. That was why
his wife was frightened--she had been trying to make him believe that
Apollonius never came into the room. That was why she looked up at him
so pleadingly. The contemptuous gaze with which she had just measured
him had suddenly been torn from her consciously guilty face with the
mask of pretended innocence. Now he knew with certainty: there was no
longer anything to prevent; nothing remained to him but retribution.
Now he could show his brother that he knew him, had always known him.

He pointed to his wife. "She's begging me to go. Why should I? I'll
look out of the window. That will do just as well. I shan't see what
you are doing."

Apollonius did not understand him. Christiane knew that he did not,
without looking at him. She tried to leave the room. She could not
endure to be humiliated in Apollonius' presence till she was nothing
but dirt under his feet. Her husband held her with a savage grip. He
seized her with the swoop of a bird of prey. She would have had to
scream aloud if her mental torture had not deadened her physical pain.

"Don't mind her wanting to go away," gasped Fritz Nettenmair, stifled
with unnatural laughter, and held his brother with his eye as he held
his wife with his hand. "You needn't be afraid. Just as soon as I turn
my back she will be here again. Go on, talk to each other. Go on, tell
him that you can't bear him; I believe it of course; what won't a man
believe if a woman like you tells him so? And you, give her some of
your teachings from Cologne, where you learnt everything, how to drive
your brother out of his house and business so as to--hm--well--Ha, ha!
Why don't you tell her? A woman ought to be willing. Oh, such a
willing woman is--go on, tell her what that kind of a woman is. She
doesn't know it yet, innocent as she is! Ha, ha!"

Apollonius understood nothing of what he heard and saw; but the abuse
of a man's strength on a helpless woman filled him with indignation.
Involuntarily this feeling carried him away. It doubled his strength,
which was far superior to his brother's at all times, when he gripped
him by the arm that held his wife so that it let go its prey and
dropped as if paralyzed. Christiane tried to leave the room, but she
collapsed helplessly. Apollonius caught her and laid her on the sofa,
supported against its back. Then he stood before his brother like a
wrathful angel.

"I have tried to win you by gentleness, but you are not worthy of it.
I have endured much at your hands and will continue to endure," said
Apollonius; "you are my brother. You blame me for having driven you
into misfortune; God is my witness that I have done everything that I
knew to hold you back. For whom have I done what you reproach me with
doing, if not for you, and for the sake of your honor and to save your
wife and your children? Who compelled me to be hard on you? For whom
do I work? For whom am I doing all that I do? If you knew how it hurts
me to have you force me to tell you what I am doing for you! God
knows, you force me to it; I have never done it yet, not with others,
nor with myself. You know that you are only seeking an excuse to be
unbrotherly toward me. I know it, and will continue to endure you as I
have done till now. But that you should make an excuse of your wife's
dislike of me to torture her too, and to treat her as no good man
treats a good woman, that I will not stand."

Fritz Nettenmair burst into a horrible laugh. His brother had put him
to shame in every way, and now still wanted to play the virtuous hero
to him, the innocently offended, the chivalrous protector of the
innocently offended woman. "A good woman! Such a good woman! Oh yes
indeed! Is she not? You say so--and you are a good man. Ha, ha! Who
should know better whether a woman is good or not than such a good
man? You have not robbed me of everything? You have still to rob me of
my reason so that I shall believe your fairy-tale. She dislikes you?
She can't bear you? Oh, you don't know yet how much she dislikes you.
I need only be away, then she will tell you. Then it will be bad for
you! She will strangle you to make you believe her. When I am present
she won't tell you. A woman won't tell a thing like that when her
husband is there--a good woman, as she is. Why don't you say that you
can't bear her either? Oh, I have no longer any sense! I'll believe
anything that you two tell me!"

Forgetting everything but his passion, Fritz Nettenmair was convinced
that Christiane and Apollonius had invented the fairy-tale of her
dislike.

Apollonius stood shocked. He was obliged to say to himself what he did
not want to believe. His brother read in his face terror at the light
that was breaking in on him, dismay and pain at the misconstruction
put upon his conduct. And everything that he saw was so genuine that
even he was obliged to believe it. He was silenced by the thoughts
that pierced his brain like strokes of lightning. So it might still
have been prevented after all; what must come might still have been
hindered! And again it was he, himself--But Apollonius--he saw that in
spite of his confusion--still doubted and could not believe. So he
might still destroy the effects of his madness, might still perhaps
prevent, still hinder what must come, even if it were only for today
and tomorrow. But how? Should he make a wild joke out of the whole
scene? Such jokes were not unusual with him, and in his mind
Apollonius once more became the dreamer of old who believed everything
that was told him. He broke into a laugh, a fearful caricature of the
jovial laugh with which he had formerly been accustomed to reward his
own sallies. That was a confounded joke, that Apollonius could be made
to believe that Fritz Nettenmair was jealous! Jovial Fritz Nettenmair
jealous! Jovial Fritz Nettenmair! And, better still, of him. He had
never heard a more confounded joke than that! He read in his wife's
face how relieved she was at the turn he had given to the scene. He
dared to appeal to her to confirm the fact that it was a confounded
joke. Her "yes" made him still bolder. Now he laughed at his wife who
could be "confounded" enough to reproach him angrily with having made
her dependent on the favor of the man she hated, and explained
laughingly that it was such things that gave rise to little quarrels
in married life. He laughed at Apollonius for taking such a little
dispute so seriously. He asked to be shown the married people who
didn't have such disagreements now and then. It was easy to see that
Apollonius was still a bachelor!

Apollonius heard the councilman's voice in the hall, asking for him;
he went out quickly so that the councilman should not come in and be a
witness to the scene. His brother heard them going away together. He
was far from being reassured yet. When he went out Apollonius' face
had shown that he was still struggling with the thought that had
dawned on him.

Two passions were fighting against each other in Fritz Nettenmair's
soul. The dissolute habit of forgetting himself in drink drew him out
of the house by a hundred chains; jealous fear held him at home with a
thousand talons. If his brother had not yet thought of what he might
have if he liked, he himself had now introduced the thought into his
mind. All day long he turned his fear over and over and did not let
his wife out of his sight. Not until it had all grown quiet around
him, till his wife had put the children to bed and laid herself to
rest, till he no longer saw any light in Apollonius' windows, did the
talons relax their hold and the chains draw the stronger. He locked
the back door which separated Apollonius from the rest of the house,
he even bolted it as well, and locked the door of the stairs leading
to the piazza and finally the door at which he went out. He had cause
for haste without knowing it. The disagreeable-looking workman could
not stay much longer. Fritz Nettenmair did not yet know that
Apollonius had been to the quarry owner and succeeded in having the
workman dismissed, had talked to the police and brought it about that
the workman might no longer let himself be seen in the neighborhood on
the morrow. The workman was ready for his departure; from the public
house he was going straight out into the wide world. He only wanted to
take leave of his former master and tell him something more before he
went.

There was little left in the world to which Fritz Nettenmair was
attached. The road that he had been traveling led farther and farther
down from what he loved most; it was irretrievably lost to him. He
would never again be the centre of admiration and flattery. All that
still bound him to his wife was the searing chain of jealousy. He
never had been fond of his father; he hated his brother. He knew
himself to be hated or, in his madness, believed himself to be hated.
Little Annie would have clung to him with all the strength of a
child's heart longing to be loved, but he drove her away from him with
hatred; to him she was "the spy." To one man alone did his heart
cling, to the one who least deserved it. He knew that the man had
cheated him, had helped to ruin him, and still he clung to him. The
man hated Apollonius, he was the only person besides himself who hated
Apollonius and therefore Apollonius' brother clung to him!

Fritz Nettenmair accompanied the workman a part of his way. The
workman wanted to walk faster, so he thanked him for his company,
intending to proceed alone. When others part their last words are of
what they both love; Fritz Nettenmair's and the workman's last words
were of their hatred. The workman knew that Apollonius would have
liked to have put him in the penitentiary, if he could. As the two now
stood facing each other at parting, the workman measured the other
with his eye. It was an evil, lurking glance, a grimly surreptitious
glance that asked Fritz Nettenmair, without intending to be heard,
whether he was ready for something which the workman did not name.
Then he said, in a hoarse voice which would have struck the other but
that Fritz Nettenmair was accustomed to it: "What was it I wanted to
say? Oh, yes, you will soon be in mourning. I saw him the other day."
He did not need to mention any name, Fritz Nettenmair knew whom he
meant. "There are people who see more than others," the workman
continued, "there are people who can see in a slater's face if he is
doomed to fall that year, who see him being carried home, and see him
lying there, only he is not there any more. An old slater told me the
secret of how to see with the 'second sight.' I have it. And now
farewell. Meet it with resignation when they carry him home."

The workman had left him; his steps were already growing faint in the
distance. Fritz Nettenmair still stood and gazed into the white-gray
fog into which the workman had disappeared. The layers of fog hung
horizontally above the meadows by the street spread out like a cloth.
They rose and melted together, forming strange shapes, they curled,
floated apart and sank down again only to rear themselves once more.
They hung on the branches of the willows by the way, now veiling them,
now leaving them free, till it seemed uncertain whether the fog was
dissolving into trees or the trees into fog. It was a dreamlike
activity, untiring movement without aim or purpose. It was a picture
of what was going on in Fritz Nettenmair's soul, such a true picture
that he did not know whether he was looking at something outside or
something within himself. There came a hazy bending down and wringing
of hands about a pale figure on the ground, then a slowly moving
funeral procession, and now it was his enemy, his brother who lay
there, whom they carried. Now malicious joy flamed up sharply, died
down and pity took its place, now both were mixed and one tried to
hide the other. The figure lying there, whom they carried, Fritz
forgave everything. He wept over him; for in the intervals of the
funeral song the merry dance-tune sounded softly which the future
struck up: "There he comes! Now the fun will begin!" And beside the
dead lay a second corpse, invisible, his fear of what must come if his
poor brother did not lie dead. And in the coffin, Fritz Nettenmair's
old jovial happiness put forth new buds. Fritz Nettenmair felt himself
to be an angel; he wished that his brother need not die, because--he
knew that his brother must die.

He was still walking in the fog when the pavement of the town sounded
again under his feet. He had forgotten a past, he forgot the present,
for the future was his again. And he was one who--as he turned into
his street the old words rang as jovially as they ever did.

It gave him a curious feeling to think that through the door which he
had just opened a coffin was going to be carried out. Involuntarily he
stood aside as if to let the procession pass him. "We must submit," he
said softly, as if repeating to himself what he would have to answer
some one offering him consolation when once the time had come, "We
must submit to what is unalterable." And as he raised his shoulders in
accompaniment to the words, he perceived a faint glimmer of light. He
looked up; the light came through the crack between the lower part of
the shutter and the window ledge. There was a light in there, in the
living-room. "So late?" He gasped; the load lies again on his breast.
His brother was still alive; and what must come if he were not to die,
might still come before he died, or--it was already here! How swiftly
his hands moved--and yet the door was locked again quietly in an
instant! Just as softly and just as quickly he went to the back door.
It was not open, but the key was only turned once in the lock, and
Fritz Nettenmair could swear to it that he turned it twice before he
went. He felt his way to the door of the room; he found the latch and
gently pressed it; the door opened; a faint glimmer shone out into the
hall. It came from a covered light on the table; beside the table a
small bed stood in the shadow. It was little Annie's bed, and her
mother was sitting beside it.

Christiane did not notice the opening of the door. Her head was bent
low down over the bed; she was singing softly and did not know what
she was singing; she was listening full of fear, but not to her song;
she would cry if the tears did not dim her eyes. But now the color
might come back to the child's cheek again, the strange expression
about the child's eyes and mouth might disappear, and she might fail
to see it and might fear in vain. It seemed to her as if the color
must come and the expression change if she only tried hard enough to
notice this coming and going. And at the same time she was able to
think how suddenly this thing had come that had made her so afraid;
how little Annie in the bed beside her own, suddenly cried out in a
strange voice and then could not speak any more; how she jumped up and
dressed; how she waked Valentine in her distress, and he, without her
knowledge, waked Apollonius. The old fellow had tried all the keys in
the house until he found that the key of the shed opened the back
door; she did not know that. So much the more vividly did she picture
how Apollonius came in, how she felt at his unexpected appearance,
full of terror and shame and yet wonderfully tranquillized. Apollonius
had fetched the doctor at once and medicines. He had stood by the bed
and bent over little Annie as she did now. He had looked at her full
of pain and said that little Annie's illness was owing to the discord
between herself and her husband, and that she would not get well
unless this ceased. He had told her of the miracles that are possible
to a mother and of how men and women can and must conquer themselves.
Then he had given Valentine a few more orders relating to little Annie
and had left, fearing that his brother, in his error, might otherwise
believe that he wanted to drive him away from the sick-bed of his
children. Apollonius had said that little Annie would not get well
again if the discord did not cease. He had said that people can and
must conquer themselves; Christiane determined to conquer herself
because he had said so. A mother could do miracles for her child; if
she thought of Apollonius' face when he spoke thus, the greatest
miracle must become possible to her.

Fritz Nettenmair entered. He thought of nothing but that Apollonius
must have been there, even if he were not there any longer. Everything
danced before his eyes he was in such a fury. He would have flown at
his wife if he had not seen old Valentine sitting at the door of the
bedroom. He meant to wait till the old man had left the room, and
crept to the chair at the window where he had always sat formerly,
when he was such a different man. His wife heard his soft tread; she
could not see his face. It seemed to her that he knew of little
Annie's condition and walked so softly on that account. She looked at
little Annie with a glance that said, that what she was about to do
now she would do for the sake of her sick child; a glance at the door
by which he had gone out added: "And because he said I should."

"Here is father, Annie," she said. In reality she was talking to her
husband who sat at the window, but she could not turn her face toward
him, could not address her words directly to him. "You always asked
for him, you know. You thought that when he came he would be as he
used to be before you were sick. Mother wants him to be like that
too--for your sake."

Her voice came from so deep down in her chest that the man had to
force himself to control his rage. He thought: "She is speaking so
sweetly so as to deceive me. They planned that when he was here." And
the soft tones in which she continued only caused his anger to swell
more wrathfully.

"And you won't go to Heaven yet, will you Annie? You're such a good
little girl and you'll stay with father and mother. If only--you
mustn't be afraid of father, you silly little Annie, because he speaks
so loud. He doesn't mean to be cross."

She stopped; she expected an answer from the father, not from the
child. She expected that he would come to the bed and speak to the
child as she had done, and through the child with her. Whatever she
might think of him, the child was his child, after all, and it was
ill.

The man remained silent and sat on quietly in his chair. For the
length of time that it takes to say half the Lord's Prayer there was
no sound but the ticking of the clock; and that grew faster and faster
like the beating of a human heart that feels misfortune approaching.
The flame of the light flickered as with fear.

Valentine rose from his chair to attend to the light.

There was a sound of wheezing in the child's chest; she wanted to
speak and could not. She wanted to stretch out her hands toward her
father, and she could not. She could do nothing but hold out the arms
of her soul to her father. But her father's soul did not see the
beseeching arms; it held its wrath convulsively in its hands and had
no hand free for the child. Valentine stepped away from the light and
went out to give vent to his feelings in tears. The man rose and
approached his wife softly without her noticing him. He wanted to
surprise her, and he succeeded. She started, frightened, as she
suddenly saw facing her across the bed a distorted human countenance.
She started, and he said through his teeth: "You are frightened? Do
you know why?"

She meant to tell him herself that Apollonius had been there, but she
had not yet had an opportunity; she did not dare to do so at the sick
child's bedside, because she knew that he would fly into a rage;
whenever she could she had spared the child the sight of his roughness
while she was still well; now it might frighten the little girl to
death. She did not answer him, but looked at him beseechingly,
indicating the child by a glance.

"He was here! Wasn't he here?" he asked, not for information but to
show that he did not need any. He raised his clenched fist; little
Annie struggled to sit up. He did not see it; but his wife saw it, and
her terror grew. She clasped her hands, she looked at him with a
glance in which there was everything that a woman can promise, that a
woman can threaten. He saw only her terror at his knowing what had
happened--and his fist descended on her forehead.

There was a shriek. The child writhed in convulsions; the mother, who
had fallen upon her, wept loudly. Valentine hurried in, Fritz
Nettenmair went into the bedroom. He did not know which was uppermost
in him, gratified revenge or fright at what he had done. He sank down
on the bed as if the blow that he struck had stunned himself. He only
half heard Valentine running for the doctor. In the same state he
heard the latter come and go, and in the same state he listened to see
if he could hear Apollonius' voice whispering and his soft tread. He
did not dare to show himself; shame restrained him. He justified his
behavior and called little Annie's illness just a desire to be
coddled. "Children think they're dying one day, and the next they're
more lively than ever," he said to himself.

His feverish listening and efforts to reassure himself turned into
feverish dreaming. Between waking and sleeping he heard quiet steps in
the next room, quiet voices, quiet weeping, and at intervals silence.

The quiet weeping that grows loud and is controlled again as if a
sleeper were near whom it will not wake, that breaks out again as if
it could not wake the sleeper, and again grows soft as if it were
frightened at itself for being so loud when every one is quiet: who
does not know such weeping? Who does not guess what it means, even if
he does not know it?

Fritz Nettenmair knew it, half asleep; there was a dead person in the
next room. They had brought him home. "We must submit to what is
unalterable."

For the first time for many months he slept quietly again.

And why should he not? The quiet weeping turned into a merry waltz.
"There he is! Now the fun will begin"--the words rang triumphantly
from the "Red Eagle Tavern" in the distance, into his sleep.

But the quiet steps and the quiet voices were real, and they
continued; and there was a dead body in the next room, the beautiful,
dead body of a child. The breach between the parents had made the
child ill; pain at her father's savage attack on her mother had broken
her little heart.

When the new day sent its first glimmer of light through his window,
Apollonius rose from the chair on which he had sat ever since his
return to his room. There was something solemn in the manner in which
he stood upright. He seemed to say to himself: "If it is as I fear, I
must act for us both; it is for that that I am a man. I have sworn to
uphold my father's house and his honor, and I will do what I have
sworn to do, in every sense."

Fritz Nettenmair woke at last. He knew nothing more of the
dream-scenes of the night. He only knew that his wife had magnified
the "spy's" desire to be coddled into an illness so that she might
have an excuse for being together with "him." He began to think of how
he should put an end to this coddling. With this idea in his mind he
stepped through the door and stood--before a dead body. A shudder ran
over him. The dead child lay there before him like a sign to warn him:
"You shall not go farther on the way that you have taken!" There the
child lay, his child, and she was dead. The child stood before him, an
accuser and a witness. She bore witness for her mother. The mother had
known that she was dying; and at the deathbed of her child not even
the lowest creature would do what he had thought her capable of doing.
The child accused him. He had struck a mother at the side of her
child's deathbed. No man can do that, not even if the woman were
guilty. And she was not; the child testified to that. Now he knew that
the pale, dumb countenance of the mother had cried: "You will kill the
child; don't strike!" And he had struck nevertheless. He had killed
the child. That thought fell on him like a thunder-bolt, so that he
collapsed before the child's bed, across which he had struck her
mother, before the bed in which his child had died because he struck
her mother.

There he lay a long time. The bolt that struck him down had lighted
the past with cruel distinctness: he had seen them both innocent whom
he persecuted. And there was no guilt but his. He alone had built up
the misery that lay crushingly upon him, load on load, guilt on guilt.
But after all it was not yet too late! He heard his wife's quiet step
in the hall coming toward the door of the room. He heard the door
open. If little Annie had been standing in the door of the bedroom
then, she would have smiled. He meant to be kind, he meant to be again
as he had been before little Annie had been taken sick. He held out
his hand to the woman as she entered. She saw him and started. She was
as white as little Annie's body, even her lips, usually so crimson,
were white. Her neck, her beautiful arms, her soft hands were white,
her eyes that were always so shining, were dull. All the life in her
had withdrawn to the deepest recesses of her heart and there wept for
her dead child. When she saw him her whole body began to tremble. In
two steps she stood between him and the body; as if she still wanted
to protect the child from him. And yet it was not that. Neither fear
nor dread quivered about her little mouth; it was firmly closed. It
was a different feeling that drew her beautifully arched eyebrows
together and flamed in her usually so gentle eyes. He saw: this was no
longer the woman who had spoken melting words of peace; she had died
with her child in the terrible night just past. The woman who stood
before him was no longer the mother who looked at him with hope, whose
child he could save; it was the mother whose child he had killed. It
was a mother who drove the murderer away from the holy place where her
child lay. He spoke--Oh, if he had but spoken yesterday! Yesterday she
had yearned for the words; today she did not hear them.

"Give me your hand, Christiane," he said. She drew her hand back
convulsively, as if he had already touched her. "I have been
mistaken," he continued; "I will believe you, I see myself; I will not
do it again! You are better than I."

"The child is dead," she said, and even her voice sounded pale. "Don't
leave me without comfort in my terrible fear. If I can become
different I can only do so now, and if you give me your hand and raise
me up," said the man. She looked at the child, not at him.

"The child is dead," she repeated. Did that mean it was indifferent to
her what became of him now that his improvement could no longer save
the child? The man half raised himself; he gripped her hand with a
strength full of fear and held it fast.

"Christiane," he sobbed wildly, "Here I lie like a worm. Don't tread
on me! Don't tread on me! For God's sake, have mercy. I could never
forget it, if I had lain here like a worm in vain. Think of it! For
God's sake, think of it; you have me in your hand now. You can make of
me what you will. I hold you responsible. You will be to blame for
anything that may come after this."--She had finally succeeded in
withdrawing her hand from his grasp; she held it away from herself as
if she looked at it with loathing because he had touched it.

"The child is dead," she said. He understood that she said: "Between
me and the murderer of my child there can never be anything more in
common, neither on earth nor in heaven."

He rose. A word of forgiveness might perhaps have saved him! Perhaps!
Who knows! He staggered back into the bedroom. Christiane did not see
him go, but she felt that his presence no longer profaned the place in
which lay the sacred image of her maternal sorrow. Weeping softly, she
sank down over her dead child.


In the meantime Apollonius had begun the decorating of the tower-roof
of St. George's. He had built a scaffold, fastened his ladder to the
broach-post, put a hempen ring on it, attached his tackle to the ring
and hung his swinging-seat on the pulley. The tin ornamentation, which
consisted of single long pieces, was intended to represent two
garlands festooned around the spire.

Apollonius was industrious at his work. The mastertinsmith, who was
anxious to see his decorations completed as soon as possible, had less
ground to complain of Apollonius than the latter had to be
dissatisfied with him. At first the master urged Apollonius; soon
Apollonius had to drive the master on. A part of the top garland which
was to hang in a festoon over the door in the roof was lacking.
Apollonius could not finish his work until he had the material for it.
A neighboring village required his services for minor repairs. Leaving
his tackle hanging from the tower of St. George's he went to Brambach.

The next day old Valentine knocked at the living-room door. He had
already been there several times and gone away again. His entire being
expressed uneasiness. He was so preoccupied with something that he had
on his mind that he thought he must have failed to hear the answer to
his knock and laid his ear to the key-hole as if he assumed that it
must still be there to hear if he only listened hard enough. His
anxiety aroused him from his absent-mindedness. He knocked a second
and a third time and, still receiving no answer, plucked up courage to
open the door and go in. The young wife had avoided him for some time.
She did so now, too, but today he had to speak to her. She
intentionally sat at some distance from the windows, near the bedroom
door. The old man did not perceive that she was as uneasy as he, and
that his presence made her even more so. He apologized for his
intrusion. When she made a movement to leave the room, he assured her
that he would not remain long and that he would not have forced
himself upon her had he not been impelled to do so by something which
was perhaps very important. He hoped that it was not so, but still, it
might be. She listened and looked more and more anxiously now at the
windows, now at the door. Her demeanor showed plainly that she hoped
if he had anything to say to her he would say it as quickly as he
could.

Valentine began: "Master Fritz is on the roof of St. George's. I saw
him just now in the church-yard."

"And did he look this way? Did he see you coming into the house?"
asked Christiane breathlessly.

"God forbid!" replied the old man. "He is working like the devil
today, not even thinking of anything to eat and drink. When a man
works like that--" Valentine stopped and completed the sentence to
himself--"he has some end in view." Christiane was silent. She was
struggling with the desire to confide her whole anxiety to the
faithful old soul. He saw nothing of this. "Our neighbor, over there,"
he continued, "has times, you know, when he cannot sleep at all. The
night before Master Apollonius went to Brambach he was at his kitchen
window and saw somebody sneaking from the back of our house into the
shed." He did not say whom the neighbor had seen, he probably expected
the young wife to ask. But she had not even heard his story. "The
previous evening," he went on, "before Master Apollonius left for
Brambach, he tried to get together the things he wanted to take with
him; he examined everything, as he always does, but he could not make
up his mind what to take. And it is so strange that Master Fritz has
become so industrious all of a sudden."

Apollonius' name roused Christiane; she listened as the old man
continued: "It occurred to me for the first time, just now, when our
neighbor told me that somebody had crept into the shed. I wondered
what he could be wanting there, and at night too. And when I looked up
and saw Master Fritz working so hard, an uneasy feeling came over me
and drove me into the shed as if I were being chased with a stick.
There, I imagined what any one who had sneaked in there might have
done. First I saw the ax that belongs with the other tools lying near
the door. I thought to myself: did he do anything with the ax? And
again I imagined what any one who had crept in there at night might
have done with it. It occurred to me that he might have done something
to the ladders. But I found nothing wrong there. Nor was there
anything wrong with the swinging-seat that still lay there. Then I
began to look at the pulleys and last of all at the tackle. It seemed
as if one of the ropes had been worn a little by rubbing against
something hard. I thought to myself: 'that often happens,' and was
about to lay it down again, but then I thought: 'there is nothing else
wrong, and if somebody crept in here at night he meant to do
something, and if he had the ax then he did something with that.' I
looked a little closer and--merciful Heavens!--the rope had been cut
into in several different places. I threw it over the beam and hung on
it; the cuts gaped open. I believe if the seat were hung on it the
rope would break." The old man had become quite pale. Christiane hung
breathlessly on his every word; she had fallen back in her chair and
could scarcely speak.

"It was not so the evening before," he continued. "Master Apollonius
has an eye for every detail. He would have discovered it. I think the
person who cut the rope watched Master Apollonius as he examined
everything, and thought he would not look them over again before he
used them. That is the reason why he crept in at night."

"Valentine!" cried the young wife, seizing him by the shoulders, half
as if she wanted to compel him to tell the truth, half as if to
support herself, "he did not take it with him? Valentine, tell me!"

"No, not that one," said Valentine. "But the other seat that was
there, and the tackle belonging to it."

"And was that cut too?" she asked with ever increasing fear. He
replied: "I do not know. But the man who did it had no idea which one
Master Apollonius would take with him."

The woman trembled so violently that the old man forgot his fears
concerning Apollonius in his fear concerning her. He had to support
her to prevent her from falling. She pushed him away and half
imploringly, half threateningly, cried: "Oh, save him, Valentine, save
him. Oh God, it is I who have done it!" She prayed to God to save him,
and then moaned that he was dead and that it was her fault. She called
Apollonius by the tenderest names and entreated him not to die.
Valentine, in his distress, sought for words to comfort her and in so
doing found comfort for himself; or if there were no real comfort, at
least there was the hope that Apollonius was already on his way home.
He had certainly examined the tackle again. If he had met with an
accident they would have heard of it by now. He had to repeat this a
dozen times before she understood what he meant. And now she began to
expect the bearer of the terrible tidings, and started at every sound.
She even imagined her own sobbing to be his voice. Finally Valentine,
infected by her desperate terror and not knowing what else to do, ran
to fetch the old gentleman, thinking that he might know how to save
Apollonius, if it were still possible.

The old gentleman sat in his little room. As he withdrew deeper and
deeper into the clouds that separated him from the outer world, even
his little garden finally became strange to him. Especially the
eternal question: "How are you, Herr Nettenmair?" had driven him to
the house. He felt that people no longer believed his: "I am somewhat
troubled with my eyes, but it is a matter of no consequence," and in
every question he heard only a mockery. Much as Apollonius suffered
with him, his father's isolation and increasing unsociability were not
altogether unwelcome to him; for the deeper his brother sank, the more
difficult it had become to conceal from the old gentleman the
condition of the house; and to exclude busybodies from the garden was
impossible. Apollonius did not know that his father suffered tortures
in his room equal to those from which he wanted to protect him. Here
the old gentleman sat the livelong day, crouched down in his leather
chair behind the table, and brooded over all the possibilities of
dishonor that might come to his house; or he strode up and down with
hasty step, the flush in his sunken cheeks and the vehement gestures
of his arms betraying all too plainly how in his thoughts he did his
utmost to avert impending calamity. His was a condition which would
eventually lead to complete insanity, if the external world did not
throw a bridge across to him and force him to leave his isolation.

This was what happened on that day. Force of habit compelled old
Valentine, without his being conscious of the fact, to open the door
gently, and gently to step in; but the old gentleman, with his
morbidly acute perception, discerned at once the unusual. His
anticipation naturally took the same course which all his thoughts
pursued. Some disgrace must be threatening the house so to alter
Valentine's usual manner; and it must be a terrible one indeed thus to
upset the old fellow and break through his assumed composure. The old
gentleman trembled as he arose from his chair. He struggled with
himself as to whether he should ask. It was not necessary. The old
fellow confessed, unasked. With nervous haste he related his fears and
his reasons for them. The old gentleman was startled, in spite of the
fact that his imagination had prepared him for the truth; but
Valentine observed none of this in his exterior, he listened to him as
always, as if he were relating matters of the utmost indifference.
When Valentine had finished, the sharpest eye could no longer have
perceived the slightest tremor in the tall, stately figure. The old
gentleman had the firm ground of reality under his feet once more; he
was again the old gentleman in the blue coat. He stood as austere as
of yore before his servant; so austere and so quiet was he that his
bearing inspired Valentine with courage. "Imagination!" he exclaimed
in his old grim manner. "Are none of the journeymen around?" Valentine
called one who was just about to fetch slate. The old gentleman
despatched him to Brambach to bid Apollonius return home at once. "If
you think he won't go quickly enough for you, you fussy old woman,
tell him to hurry so that you may soon learn that you've worked
yourself into a state about nothing. But no word of this to anybody
and lock up the wife so that she can't do anything silly." Valentine
obeyed. The old gentleman's assurance, and the fact that something had
really been done, had a more powerful effect upon him than a hundred
good arguments. He imparted his encouragement to Christiane. He was in
too great haste to tell her upon what grounds it was based. If he had
had time for that he would probably have left her less reassured.
Nothing was further from himself than the suspicion that the old
gentleman, while characterizing his fears as idle fancies, and
pretending to send the messenger only to reassure him and the young
wife, was inwardly convinced of the guilt of his elder son and of the
danger, if not actual death, of his younger son.

"Now," said Herr Nettenmair, when Valentine had returned to him, "the
old fool has of course told our neighbor the fairy-tale that he spun
out of thin air, and the young wife has confided it to all the gossips
in town!"

Valentine noticed nothing of the feverish suspense with which the old
gentleman awaited an answer to the question which he had disguised as
an exclamation. "I've done nothing of the kind," he replied earnestly.
The old gentleman's supposition had wounded him. "In the first place I
didn't really think myself that anything was very wrong yet; and Frau
Nettenmair has not spoken to a soul since then."

The old gentleman took hope anew. During Valentine's absence he had
given way for a moment to all the anguish that a father cannot but
feel under such circumstances; but then he reasoned with himself that
there was no use in wasting time in idle complaint as long as
something might still be done. Even if Valentine and Christiane had
told nobody what they knew, other things of the same sort might have
become known. Such a criminal thought does not originate by chance; it
is the blossom of a poisonous tree with trunk and branches. Valentine
had to tell him all that had happened since Apollonius' return home.
It was the story of a wanton, inordinate, pleasure-seeking spendthrift
who in spite of the efforts of his better brother had sunk to the
level of an ordinary libertine and drunkard; of a faithful brother
who, compelled by the necessity of rescuing the honor of business and
home, had shouldered the care of everything and as a reward was being
persecuted unto death by the degraded prodigal.

The old gentleman sat motionless. Only the blush that burned ever
warmer on his thin cheeks betrayed what he suffered for the honor of
his house. Otherwise he seemed to know it all, already. That was his
old manner, which he perhaps made use of now because he thought that
Valentine would then be less likely to conceal or alter facts against
his better knowledge. His inward agitation prevented him from
perceiving in what strong contradiction this semblance of calm stood
to his morbid sense of honor. Valentine did not endeavor to deepen the
shadows which fell upon Fritz Nettenmair's conduct, but, knowing the
old gentleman as he thought he did, he deemed it necessary to place
Apollonius' actions in the brightest possible light. But he only half
knew the old gentleman after all. He miscalculated the effect that he
would produce when he praised the filial tenderness with which
Apollonius had withheld all news of danger from his father's ears.
Thus he undid what a simple tale, describing the son's efforts to save
that which the old gentleman held most dear, had accomplished. The
father saw only a realization of the fear which Apollonius' diligence
had awakened in him. In unfilial fashion Apollonius had concealed the
danger from him in order to be able to take the whole credit for the
rescue to himself. Or he looked upon his father as a helpless, blind
old man who was not, and could not be anything but an incumbrance.
This latter feeling the old gentleman could forgive him less than the
former, even in face of his grief over his son's death, which he now
deemed a certainty. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he
became that things would never have come to such a pass if he had
known about it and taken the matter in hand, and that Apollonius in
fact had only his own ambitious desires to thank for his death. These
thoughts, however, had to give way before immediate necessity. What he
knew concerning Fritz was enough to strengthen suspicion once it was
aroused, but not to create it in the first place unless there were
some additional reason of which he knew nothing. He must learn from
his guilty son himself if such existed. He had made up his mind what
to do in any case. He called for his hat and cane. At any other time
Valentine would have been astonished at this command, perhaps even
frightened. But when one is wrought up over something unusual, only
the usual seems unexpected, only that which calls to mind the old
quiet state of affairs. As the old gentleman made ready to depart, he
pointed out to Valentine once more how foolish and groundless his
fears were. "Who knows," he said grimly, "what our neighbor saw? How
could he recognize anybody at night, so far off? And you with your ax
story! If the rope should break by chance or any other accident happen
to the boy in Brambach, of course you would be sure and certain that
it was your imaginary ax-slashes that had done it, and that the man
whom our neighbor pretends to have seen sneaking into the shed, had
made them. And if you say a word or make mysterious hints about all
that you imagine in your silly pate, the whole town will be full of it
in no time. Not because what you have invented is probable enough for
any sensible man to believe, but just because people are glad to speak
ill of anybody. God will take care that nothing happens to the boy.
But of course it might happen, and maybe it has already happened. How
easy it is for an accident to happen to anybody, specially to a slater
who hovers between heaven and earth like a bird, and yet has not the
wings of a bird. That is why the slater's calling is such a noble
calling; the slater is the most manifest picture of how Providence
holds the man who works at an honest profession safe in its hands. But
if Providence lets him fall, there is a reason for it, and nobody has
a right to go around spinning yarns which will bring unhappiness and
even disgrace on somebody else. I am sure this affair will soon show
itself as it really is and not as your fears have led you to imagine.
For--"

The old gentleman had reached this point in his speech when some one
was heard outside setting down a load. He stood for a moment dumb,
petrified. Valentine looked through the window and saw that it was the
journeyman tinner unloading.

"It's Jörg," said he, "who is bringing the tin garlands."

"And you get frightened and think they are bringing, goodness knows
whom. Where is Fritz?"

"On the church roof," replied Valentine.

"Good," said Herr Nettenmair. "Tell the tinner to come in when he has
done--." Valentine did so. Until he came Herr Nettenmair continued his
lecture in a somewhat lower tone. Then he turned to where the
workman's respect made itself audible in a quiet clearing of the
throat and asked him if he had time to accompany him to the church
roof of St. George's where his elder son was at work. The tinner
assented. Valentine ventured the suggestion that it would be better to
send for Fritz. The old gentleman said grimly: "I must speak to him up
there. It is about the repairs." He turned again to the tinner and
said with condescending grimness: "I shall take your arm. I am having
a little trouble with my eyes, but it is a matter of no consequence."

The appearance of the old gentleman on the street was calculated to
create a sensation. He would certainly have been stopped by a hundred
hand-shakers and interrogators if something had not diverted public
attention. A hurried, whispered rumor ran through the streets. Two or
three stood together in little groups awaiting the approach of a third
or fourth, who would give them to understand that he knew what it was
that was responsible for the formation of the ten or twelve similar
groups standing around. Then somebody would whisper it as he passed
rapidly by, beginning always with a: "Haven't you heard?" which was
generally brought forth by a: "What has happened?" Herr Nettenmair did
not need to ask; he knew without being told what had happened, but he
did not dare to appear as if he knew. The journeyman thought Herr
Nettenmair was going to sink down beside him, but the old gentleman
had only struck his foot: "it was of no consequence." The journeyman
questioned a hurrying passer-by. "A slater has been killed in
Brambach." "How?" asked the journeyman. "A rope broke; nothing further
is known." Herr Nettenmair felt that the journeyman was frightened,
and that he was frightened at the thought that it was the son of the
man he was leading who had been killed. He said: "It was probably in
Tambach. They have made a mistake. It is of no consequence." The
journeyman did not know what to think of Herr Nettenmair's
indifference. The latter kept repeating to himself, as a burning flush
came into his cheeks: "Yes, it must be. It must be." He thought of a
way in which one can escape all courts, all investigations. It must
have been a hard way of which he thought, for he clenched his teeth,
as he shook his head and said: "It must be, now it must be." As if in
a dream the journeyman led the old gentleman up the tower steps of St.
George's. The people were right, Herr Nettenmair was certainly a queer
man!

The old gentleman had said he had to speak to his son on the
church-roof--about some repairs. He had spoken unconsciously in his
diplomatic way.

It had to be on the church-roof, and it was about some repairs--but
not about those of the church-roof.

Between heaven and earth is the slater's realm. Between heaven and
earth, high up on the roof of St. George's Fritz Nettenmair was at
work when the old gentleman was led up the steps to him. He had fled
here to escape the eyes of men which he imagined riveted upon him; he
had fled here to escape his own thoughts in a fury of diligence. But
he had brought with him all the demons of hell, and, industriously as
he toiled, the moisture that stood on his brow was not the warm sweat
of honest labor, but the cold sweat born of a guilty conscience. In
agonized haste he hammered and nailed slate together as if he were
nailing fast the universe which otherwise would crumble to pieces in a
quarter of an hour. But his soul was not where he hammered; it was
where ropes were constantly breaking and luckless slaters plunging
headlong to certain death. Now he heard voices, and the sound of one
of them struck like the blow of a hammer on his tortured heart. It was
the only voice which he did not expect to hear. Would he to whom it
belonged ask, "Where is thy brother Abel?" No. He wanted to tell his
son that his brother had met with disaster, that it was a day of
misfortune and that he must not work any more. And if he should ask,
the answer was almost as old as the human race; "Am I my brother's
keeper?" It seemed like a relief to him when he remembered that his
father was blind. For he knew that he could not endure his father's
seeing eyes. He hammered and nailed more and more hurriedly. He would
elude his father if he could, but the roof-truss was small, and the
old gentleman's voice was already at the roof door. He would not
notice him until he was compelled. He heard him say: "This is far
enough. My compliments to your master, and here is something for you.
Drink my health with it." Fritz Nettenmair, listening, heard his
father sit down on the empty board in the dormer window and knew that
his tall figure filled the entire opening. He heard the journeyman's
thanks and his footsteps as they gradually receded.

"Beautiful weather," said Herr Nettenmair. The son realized that the
father wanted to know if anybody else were near by. There came no
answer, the words died in Fritz Nettenmair's breast, he hammered
always louder and more vehemently. He wished the hour, the day, his
life were at an end. "Fritz!" called the old gentleman. He called
again and yet again. At last Fritz Nettenmair was compelled to answer.
He thought of the call, "Cain, where art thou?" and responded "Here,
father," and hammered on.

"The slate is solid," said the old man, indifferently; "I can tell by
the sound; it does not split."

"Yes," replied Fritz with chattering teeth, "it will let no water
through."

"It is better than it used to be," continued his father, "they have
got deeper into the quarry. You seem to be alone." A "Yes" died on the
son's lips. "The deeper it lies, the stronger the slate is. Is there
no other scaffold near?"

"None."

"Good. Come here. Here in front of me!"--

"What do you want me to do?"

"To come here. What has to be said must be said softly."

Fritz Nettenmair went and stood before his father, shaking all over.
He knew that he was blind and yet he sought to avoid his glance. The
old man struggled for composure but not a line of his withered face
betrayed the struggle, only the length of his silence and his
breathing, which sounded like the tired echo of the creaking swing of
the pendulum on the tower clock near-by, might have suggested it.
These preparations awoke in Fritz Nettenmair a premonition of what was
to come. He strove for defiance. "If he in his distrust has surmised
it, who can prove it? And if he could prove it, he would never tell,
of that I am sure. Otherwise why does he speak so softly? He may say
what he will--I know nothing, it was not I. I have done nothing." The
muscles of his face quivered; an expression of wild defiance played
upon his features. The old gentleman said no word. The sound of
traffic in the streets rose muffled to the heights, violet shadows lay
on all below, about Apollonius' swinging seat trembled the sun's last
ray.

"Where is your brother?" came at last from between the father's teeth.

"I do not know. How should I know?" answered the son defiantly.

"You do not know?" It was only a whisper but every word struck like
thunder in the soul of the son. "I will tell you. Yonder in Brambach
he lies dead. The rope broke with him, and you had made slits in it
with the ax. Our neighbor saw you sneaking into the shed. You
threatened before your wife that you would do it. The whole town knows
it, they are carrying it now to the courts. The first person who comes
up these steps will be the bailiff to lead you before the judge."

Fritz Nettenmair broke down completely; the scaffolding creaked
beneath him. The old gentleman listened. If the miserable wretch
should fall over the edge of the scaffolding, he would be plunged into
the depths and all would be over. All that had to be, would be! A lark
soared above them scattering its merry _Tirili_ over trees and houses.
Happier mortals heard the song from afar; workmen let their spades
rest, children their whips and tops; with eyes turned heavenward all
sought the soaring, singing bird and hearkened with bated breath. Herr
Nettenmair did not hear the lark; he also held his breath, but he was
listening to what was happening below, not above. It was nothing that
sounded like the song of a lark which he wanted to hear. There was a
rumbling, and a broken cry of anguish. At first he listened full of
hope, then filled with despair. On the boards of the scaffolding
before him he heard the rattle of heavy breathing. Fate, which might
have stretched out a sympathizing, helping hand, had not done so. He
must do it, for it must be done. If he did not, people would point
their finger at the children and say: "It was their father who slew
his brother and died on the gallows" or "in the penitentiary." And
when it was long forgotten the children would only need to appear and
it would be called into life again; people would point with their
fingers and turn from them in horror. The confidence of the world
which one inherits from one's parents is the capital with which one
begins life. Confidence must be placed in man before he deserves it,
in order that he may learn to deserve it. Who would place confidence
in children branded with a father's guilt? The flush on his thin
cheeks burned brighter, his sunken breast panted heavily.
Involuntarily he pointed forward with his arm. Fritz Nettenmair
divined his meaning, tried to pull himself together, and would have
sunk helplessly down again if he had not supported himself with both
hands. Lying thus on his hands and knees before the old gentleman he
cried out in an agony of fear, "What do you want, father? What have
you in mind?"

"I want to see," said the old gentleman in a shrill whisper, "whether
I must do it or whether you will do what must be done. For it must be
done. Nobody knows anything as yet which could lead to an
investigation before the courts except me, your wife and Valentine.
For myself I can answer, but not for them; they may betray what they
know. If you should fall now from the scaffolding, so that people
could think it was an accident, the great disgrace would be prevented.
The slater who meets his death through accident stands before the
world as an honest man--honest as the soldier who dies on the
battle-field. You are not worthy of such a death, you bankrupt soul.
The hangman should drag you on a cowhide to the gallows, you villain,
who have murdered your brother and have tried to poison the future of
your innocent children and my past life which has been always full of
honor. You have brought down disgrace enough on your house, you shall
not bring more. They shall never say of me, that my son, or of my
grandchildren, that their father, died on the gallows or in the
penitentiary. Say the Lord's Prayer, now, if you can still pray. Then
turn as if you were going back to your work and step with your right
foot over the scaffolding. If I say the shock of your brother's death
made you dizzy, the courts and the town will believe me. That is the
return for a life that has been different from yours. If you will not
do it of your own accord, I shall go with you and you will have me too
on your conscience. People know that I have trouble with my eyes; they
will say that I stumbled and tried to hold on to you and dragged you
down with me. My life is of no value after what I have heard today,
but your children's is just beginning. And no disgrace shall be
attached to them, as truly as my name is Nettenmair. Make up your mind
now what is to be done. I shall count thirty--by the pendulum there."

Fritz Nettenmair had listened to his father's words with growing
horror. That his deed had not yet become generally known, gave him
hope. Fear of impending death aroused his energies. He took refuge
again in defiance. Vehemently he declared: "I do not know what you
want. I am innocent. I do not know what you mean by an ax." He
expected his father to enter into his protest, even if sceptically at
first. But the old gentleman began calmly to count--"one--two--"

"Father!" he cried with increasing fear, and his mocking defiance
broke into a wail. "Only listen to me. The courts would listen and you
will not. I will throw myself over because you want me to be dead; I
will die, though I am innocent. But at least listen to me." The old
gentleman gave no answer; he counted on. The miserable man saw that
sentence had been pronounced. His father would not believe him no
matter what he said, and he knew that what the stubborn old man
undertook, he always carried out, unrelentingly. First he decided to
acquiesce in his fate; then the thought came to him that he would
plead again; and then it occurred to him that he could push the old
man aside and make his escape; then that he could hang on to something
in some way when the old man caught hold of him and not fall with him.
Nobody could blame him for this. Through all these thoughts he saw
shudderingly what awaited him if he escaped and the courts should
seize him. It was better to die now. But on the other side of death
something still more terrible awaited him. He looked back and lived
his whole life through in a moment to see if the eternal Judge would
find pardon for him. His thoughts became confused, he was now here,
now there, and had forgotten why. He saw the mist gathering in which
the workman had disappeared and at the same time he looked into the
bright windows of the Red Eagle inn where he heard voices: "There he
comes--now the fun will begin." He stood on the street corners and
counted, and the boards beneath Apollonius would not break, nor the
ropes above him; he stood before his wife and, leaning over little
Annie's dying bedside, said, "Do you know why you are frightened?" and
reached out his hand to give the fatal blow; also he lay as if in a
fever dream before his father and brooded in anxious, terrible fear.
Then it was as if he had come to himself again and unending time had
elapsed between the moment when his father began to count and the
present. Everything must be all right by now, only he must try to
recall whether he had pushed his father aside and thus made his escape
or whether he had held back when his father attempted to drag him down
with him. But there he still lay, and there his father still sat. He
heard him count "nine" and stop. Consciousness forsook him completely.
The old gentleman had in truth ceased to count. His sharp ear heard a
hurrying footstep on the stairs. He seized hold of his son and held
fast as if to be sure that he did not escape him. So cold and lifeless
was the son's body that the father knew it was not necessary to hold
him; he must be unconscious. A new uneasiness awoke in him. If the son
had lost consciousness, he must be hidden from strange eyes, for this
unconsciousness might in some way arouse suspicion. He arose and
turned away from the window in the direction of the newcomer. He was
undecided whether he would stand before the window covering it with
his body or go forward to meet the intruder.

[Illustration: SCHNORR VON CAROLSFELD JOSIAH HEARS THE LAW]

The journeyman whom he had sent to Brambach, for it was he who was
approaching in such haste, coughed as he came up the stairs. He could
keep him back from the scaffolding and most likely prevent him from
seeing that somebody was lying there if he went to meet him; if he
stood in front of the window it was probable that he would not be able
to cover the whole space. The old gentleman felt now for the first
time how his strength had been broken by what he had gone through that
day. The journeyman, however, observed nothing unusual as Herr
Nettenmair, leaning on the rafters of the stairs, barred the way.

"Shall I tell him to come to you here, Herr Nettenmair?" asked the
journeyman.

"Tell whom?" Herr Nettenmair had difficulty in retaining his
artificial composure.

"He will be home by this time," responded the journeyman. The old
gentleman did not repeat his question; he held fast to the rafter on
which he was leaning. "He was already on his way home," continued the
journeyman. "I came with him as far as the gate. Then he sent me to
the tinner's to see if the tin was ready at last. Jörg told me that he
had already brought it to the house and had just come from the roof of
St. George's where he had led you and I thought because you were in
such a hurry to see Herr Apollonius, I would ask you if I must tell
him to come up here."

Herr Nettenmair ran his hand up and down the rafter as if he had only
taken hold of it to examine it. But, feeling that his hands trembled,
he gave up the examination. As grimly as he could, he replied, "I
shall come down myself." Wait at the landing until I call you. The
journeyman obeyed. Herr Nettenmair drew a deep breath when he knew he
was no longer observed. This breath became a sob. The terrible strain
which he had undergone was beginning to find an end, and the agony of
the father which had been swallowed up till now in passionate fear for
the honor of the house, asserted itself. But he knew that his good
son's life would hang in the same danger as long as the wicked son
lived near him. He had foreseen this contingency and had mapped out a
plan of action. He felt his way back to the window. Fritz Nettenmair
in the meanwhile had recovered consciousness and been able to rise.
The old gentleman bade him come in from the scaffolding and said:
"Tomorrow before sunrise you will no longer be here. See if you can
become another man in America. Here you are in disgrace, and can only
bring disgrace. You will follow me home. I will give you money, you
will make ready for the trip. You have done nothing for your wife and
children for years. I will take care of them. Do you hear?"

Fritz Nettenmair reeled. He had just looked inevitable death in the
face and now he might live! Live where nobody knew what he done, where
every chance sound would not frighten him with the vision of the
bailiff.

"Apollonius did not fall," continued the old gentleman, and Fritz
Nettenmair's bright, new heaven sank into nothingness. The old spectre
held him again in its grasp. He loved again the woman from whom he had
just wanted to flee. The old gentleman had awaited his son's assent.
"You will go," he said, when the son remained silent. "You will go.
Tomorrow before day-break you will be on your way to America, or I
shall be on my way to the court. If disgrace must be, it is better to
have disgrace alone and not disgrace combined with murder. Remember, I
have sworn it. Take your choice."

The old gentleman called to the journeyman to come up to him and lead
him home.

       *       *       *       *       *

The rumor which the old gentleman had heard on his way to St.
George's, had penetrated to the street where the house with the green
shutters stands. One passer-by said to another: "Have you heard the
news? A slater has been killed in Brambach." The young wife sprang
from her chair but sank fainting to the floor. A second time Valentine
forgot his fears for Apollonius in his anxiety about her. He sat near
her as she lay on the floor and held her head in his trembling hands.
At last she made a slight movement. He helped her raise the upper part
of her body and supported her. She brushed her disheveled hair from
her face and looked about her. Her gaze was such a strange tense one
that Valentine's fear increased. She nodded her head and said in a low
voice, "Yes!" Valentine knew that she was saying to herself that she
had really heard the terrible news and had not dreamed it. She sat for
a long time motionless, hearing no word of all that Valentine spoke to
her--not even when he tried to prove that Apollonius could not be
dead, that he was too careful and too good for an accident to happen
to him. He would have given his life to help her, but he knew not how.
So he talked on and on, hoping by ceaseless chatter to help her and
himself over the anguish of the moment.

At last she found tears. Valentine lived again; he saw that she was
saved. He read it in her face, which, open as she herself, could
conceal nothing. He sat and listened with joyful attention to her
weeping, as if it were a beautiful song she was singing him. He
listened to the pure melody of her voice as she wept, the melody which
she had not lost when, leaning over little Anne's dying bed, she had
uttered the twofold cry of pain and horror. She wept her heart out and
arose without help from Valentine. Then she prepared to go out. There
was something solemn and resolute in her bearing. Valentine perceived
it with astonishment and dread. He asked anxiously if she were going
anywhere. She nodded her head. "But I must not let you," he said. "The
old gentleman made me solemnly vow."

"I must," she replied. "I must go to the court. I must say that I am
guilty. I must suffer my punishment. Their grandfather will take care
of my children. I would like to tell them to lay him by little Anne's
side, he loved her so. I should like to lie there too, but they won't
allow that. No, I won't say anything to them about that."

"Won't you stay until the old gentleman comes back? Then I shall be
free of my responsibility." He hoped that Herr Nettenmair would find
some way to dissuade her from her purpose.

The young wife nodded assent. "I will wait that long," she said.

Anxiety and hope drove Valentine out of the house to see if Herr
Nettenmair were anywhere in sight. Christine took her hymn-book from
the desk and sat down at the table.

When Valentine returned he was no longer the same man who had gone
out. He was confused and embarrassed, but in a very different way from
what he had been before. He appeared constantly on the point of doing
or saying something, became suddenly frightened and did and said
something entirely different, and then seemed uncertain whether he
should not be frightened at that too. At first the young wife did not
notice the change in him, but soon she began to watch him curiously
and with increasing apprehension. Gradually she became infected by his
behavior. When he laughed involuntarily she glowed with hope, and when
he put on a long face she clasped her hands convulsively together and
turned pale; sometimes she pressed her hands to her beating heart,
sometimes to her burning, hammering temples. At last Valentine
considered her sufficiently prepared, to abandon the weather topic.
"It is a day," said he, "when men might rise from the dead, and who
knows--but please, for my sake, don't be frightened." She became
frightened, however. She said to herself, "But it isn't possible." And
she was all the more frightened because it was not only possible but
certain. "Look toward the back of the house," sobbed Valentine,
attempting to laugh. She had looked before he told her to do so. She
held fast to the door post as she heard footsteps in the shed. But
even the door post no longer stood firmly, she herself stood no longer
on firm ground; she rocked dizzily between heaven and earth. When she
saw him coming, there was nothing in the world for her except the man
for whom she had suffered weeks of death-agony; everything whirled
about her in a circle, the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the trees,
the sky and the green earth; it was as if the whole world would sink
from under her and drag her into its vortex if she did not hold fast
to him. She felt herself fall to the ground, and then she knew nothing
more.

Apollonius caught her as she fell. He stood and held in his arms the
beautiful woman whom he loved, who loved him. She was pale and seemed
dead. He did not carry her into the room, he did not let her fall to
the ground, he did nothing to revive her. He stood bewildered; he did
not know what had happened to him, he had to collect himself.
Valentine had not yet spoken with him, he had only heard from the
journeyman who was hastening to St. George's that Apollonius was
following him and would soon be there. Apollonius had been detained at
the gate for a moment by the nail-smith. He had then made haste to
obey his father's command which he, however, found surprising, as he
could discover no reason for it. He had heard of the slater's death in
Tambach; but he did not know that rumor had confused the names of the
two places, and that it was possible for anybody to believe that the
accident had occurred to him. Absolutely unprepared for that which was
to happen in the next moment, he came through the shed. He had meant
to go straight to his father in his room, when, seeing Christiane fall
fainting to the ground, he hastened toward her. Now he held her in his
arms. Slowly her deep blue eyes opened. She looked at him and
recognized him. She did not know how she had come into his arms, she
did not know that she lay there, she knew only that he lived. She wept
and laughed at the same time, and put both arms around him to be sure
that he was there. She asked in yearning, anxious eagerness: "Is it
you? Are you really here? Are you still alive? You didn't fall? I
didn't kill you? You are you, and I am I? But he--he may come." She
gazed about wildly. "He will kill you. He will not rest till he has
killed you." She clasped him to her as if she wanted to cover him with
her body from the enemy, then she forgot all fears in the certainty
that he still lived, and she laughed and wept and asked him again if
it were really he, and if he were alive. But she must warn him. She
must tell him everything that the other had done--and what he had
threatened to do to him. She must do it quickly; any minute he might
come. Warning, sweet unconscious love-words, weeping, laughter,
blessed gladness, fear, anguish over lost happiness, bride-like
embarrassment, forgetfulness of the world in the one moment which was
life to her--all this trembled through each quivering word she
uttered. "He lied to you and to me. He told me that you jeered at me
and that you had offered my flower to the highest bidder. You know, at
the Whitsun feast, the little blue-bell that I laid there. And you
sent it to him. I saw it. I did not know why I was sorry for you. Then
he told me during the dance that you had laughed at me. You went away,
and he told me you made fun of me in your letters. That hurt me. You
don't know how it hurt, even though I did not know why. Father wanted
me to marry him. And when you came I was afraid of you, but I was
still sorry for you and I loved you though I did not know it. It was
he who first told me so. Then I avoided you--I didn't want to become a
bad woman--and I still don't want to. Then he compelled me to lie. And
he made threats of what he would do to you. He would see to it that
you fell and were killed. It was only a joke, he said, but if I told
you, then he would do it in earnest. Since then I have not slept a
night, I have sat up in my bed and been full of deadly fear. I saw you
in danger and could not tell you and could not help you. And he made
slits in the rope with the ax the night before you went to Brambach.
Valentine told me that our neighbor had seen him creeping into the
shed. I thought you were dead, and I wanted to die too. For I was the
cause of your death, when I would die a thousand times to save you.
And now you are alive and I cannot grasp it. Everything is just as it
was, the trees, the shed, the sky, and you are not dead. And I wanted
to die because you were dead. And now you are alive, and I don't know
whether it is true or whether I am dreaming. Is it true? Tell me, is
it true? I will believe anything you say. And if you tell me that I
must die, I will die. But he may be coming! Perhaps he has been
listening! Tell Valentine to go to the court and have him taken away,
so that he can do you no more harm."

Thus the feverish woman went on raving, laughing and weeping in his
arms. Forgetting everything, like a child playing on the edge of an
abyss of which it knows nothing, she unconsciously called into life a
danger more deadly than the one which had just been averted, more
threatening than the one from which she wanted to guard the man with
her body. She did not realize what her passionate movements, the
sweetness of her reckless abandon, her caresses, her warm, throbbing
embraces must arouse in the man who loved her; that she was doing
everything that could make the man whose uprightness and honor she
trusted so blindly, forget uprightness and honor in the tumult of his
blood. She had no idea what a conflict she was kindling in him, and
how hard, if not impossible she was making the victory. Now he knew
that the woman in his arms was his, that his brother had defrauded him
of her and her of him. Now he knew it, while the woman in his arms
revealed to him the greatness of the happiness of which his brother
had robbed him. The brother had stolen her and had ill-treated her;
and for all that he had suffered and done for his brother's sake, he
now persecuted him and sought his life. Did the woman belong to him
who had stolen and ill-treated her, to him whom she hated--or to him
from whom she had been infamously stolen, who loved her and whom she
loved? These were not clearly defined thoughts, but countless detached
sensations which, borne along in a stream of deep, wild feeling,
rushed through his veins and made taut the muscles in his arms--to
clasp to his heart that which was his! But a vague, dark fear rose
counter to this current and stiffened his muscles in a convulsive
cramp--the feeling that he wanted to do something and did not know
what it was or where it might lead him, a far-off recollection that he
had made a vow and would break it if he now let himself be carried
away. He struggled for a long time beneath the flow of intoxicating
sounds before he realized that he was struggling and that the thing
for which he struggled was clearness, the fundamental requirement of
his nature. At last this clearness came to him and said: "The vow that
you have made is to uphold the honor of your house, and what you want
to do now will destroy it forever." He was the man, and must answer
for himself and for her. The treachery of which he with a touch, with
a glance, might be guilty toward this woman whose trust in him was so
unbounded, stood before him in all its blackness. There still stood,
protectingly, a holy reserve between him and her, which a single
touch, a single glance might dispel forever. He looked anxiously about
for a helper. If only Valentine would come! Then he would have to let
her go from his arms. Valentine did not come. But shame at his
weakness that sought help from without, became his helper. He gently
laid the defenseless woman down. Not until he felt the soft limbs slip
from his grasp did he lose her. He had to turn away and could not
choke back a loud sob. Just then the youngest boy peeped curiously
into the yard. He hastened to him, took him in his arms, pressed him
to his heart and placed him between him and her. It was strange; the
pressure with which he clasped the child to his heart relieved his
wild yearning and his tense muscles relaxed. In the child he had
clasped her to his heart in the only way he dared hold her close to
him.

She saw him place the child between him and her and understood him. A
burning flush rose to the roots of her brown, unruly locks. She knew
now for the first time that she had lain in his arms, had embraced
him, had talked to him as only unforbidden love may talk. She saw now
for the first time the abyssmal danger in which she had placed him and
herself. She raised herself up on her knees, as if she wanted to
beseech him not to despise her. Then it occurred to her that her
husband might have been listening and might still carry out his
threat. Through her joy over his escape she might still be his
destruction. He saw all this and suffered with her. He had gained the
conflict with himself not to show her what was going on within him,
but he had not yet fought the inward struggle to its end. He leaned
toward her and said "Above us and your husband is God. Go in now,
sister, my dear, good sister." She dared not look up but through her
closed lids she saw the benevolence, the deep, inexhaustible
kindliness, the indelible respect for man which shone in his eyes and
played about his gentle mouth. And as he was her conscious and
unconscious standard, so now she knew that she was not bad, could not
become so, he would carry her in his strong arms, protected, as a
mother carries her child. Herr Nettenmair came from the shed toward
them accompanied by the journey-man. Fritz Nettenmair who followed
them saw Apollonius lead Christiane to the house door.

When Herr Nettenmair came home, nothing was to be read in his crusty
face of all that he had suffered and planned that day. The young wife
and Valentine had to listen to a sermon on unfounded imaginings, for
the story had proved to be as it was, not as Valentine had imagined it
in his fear. He spoke of Fritz Nettenmair's trip as one which his son
had had in contemplation for a long time but to which he had not
consented until today. Apollonius was told to bring the account books
into the old gentleman's room at once.

He had to read them aloud to the old gentleman; a curiously
purposeless task, for neither of them had his mind on the figures. And
moreover the old gentleman behaved as if he knew all about everything
already. Valentine came and received various instructions relative to
the departure of the elder son. An hour later he returned, having
performed his duties. He told how Fritz Nettenmair was looking forward
to his new life in America. They would be astonished when they saw him
again. He could hardly await the time. The old gentleman's courage
revived. Grimly he commanded Apollonius to go to bed; the work they
had begun could be continued another time.

Disquieted, like a tortured spirit, now wringing his hands, now
clenching his fists, Fritz Nettenmair wandered from the shed to the
house and from the house again to the shed. With each round he made,
his soul rose up in the wildest defiance and sank again into
despairing helplessness. His heart cried out for a word of love. His
arms stretched out convulsively to press something to his heart which
was his, that he might know he was not lost. For nobody is lost who
has somebody in the world to love. Endowed of a sudden with renewed
strength, he hastened through the house door into the room where his
children lay. A night-light protected by a shade shone brightly enough
for the father to see his children. He sank on his knees before the
nearest little bed. A long forgotten sound rose to his lips and he
whispered it, yearningly as never before. "Fritz!" He only wanted to
clasp his children to his heart once, to see their love and then to
go; to go and become another man, a better one, a happier one. The
little fellow awakened: he thought his mother had called. Smilingly he
opened his eyes and--shivered with fright. He feared the man standing
at his bedside; one he knew so well, and yet more strange than a
stranger to him. It was the man who had given him such angry glances,
the man from whom his mother had locked him in his room that he might
not see what the man did to her. But he had got up trembling and
listened at the door; and clenched his little fists in powerless rage.

"Fritz," said the father anxiously, "I am going away and I shall not
come back. But I will send you beautiful apples and picture-books, and
think of you a thousand times a minute."

"I don't want them," replied the boy, frightened but defiant. "Uncle
'Lonius gives me apples. I don't want yours."

"Don't you love me either?" asked the father in a breaking voice at
the second little bed. George took flight into his brother's bed.
There the children clung to each other in fright. Scorn and repugnance
were reflected in George's face. "I love mother and I love Uncle
'Lonius, but I don't like you. Let me alone; I'll tell Uncle 'Lonius."

Fritz Nettenmair laughed in wild mockery, and at the same time sobbed
in impotent pain. The children were no longer his. He was no longer
their father. Yet they were his children! And he had to go away and
leave them; and those whom he hated, who had ruined everything for
him, would be happy through his going. He became even more miserable
than he had already been. He saw his wife lying before him in her
beauty, and the desire entered his mind to destroy this beauty. But
his recollection of the moment when he lay stretched before his
father, prepared for death, was mightier than the desire and banished
it. The picture of that moment lived strong within him, only there was
an exchange of persons. He painted it with more and more vivid colors.
And now it was a fierce joy that drove him again from the house to the
shed and from the shed to the house. His arms moved in violent
gesticulation. The moon rose. The house with the green shutters lay
there so peaceful in its shimmer. No passer-by would have divined the
unrest concealed behind its walls; none would have suspected the
thought that hell was brewing there in a ruined vessel.

       *       *       *       *       *
 Apollonius was exhausted from watching and struggling. He needed
rest. The next morning he had to complete the garlanding of the
tower-roof, and then take down his swinging-seat, block and pulley,
iron ring and ladder. His step must be firm, his eye clear. For the
single hour that remained before work was to begin, he did not wish to
undress and go to bed. He sat down in his wooden chair. There sleep
came to him sooner than he expected--but it was not the kind of sleep
he needed; it was an uninterrupted disturbing dream. Christiane lay in
his arms as she had lain the day before; he struggled again, but this
time he did not conquer, he clasped her to him. When he opened his
eyes, it was day and time to go to work. He was in a more excited
state of mind than when he had left his father. He hoped that the
visions of his dream which had intensified his old desires and his
pangs of conscience concerning them would retreat before the fresh
morning air and the sobering effect of a cold water rub. But this did
not happen; they stayed with him and would not let go of him, not even
during his work. The breath of her warm lips lingered on his cheek, he
felt himself always in her throbbing embrace; passionate upbraidings
of his brother rose again and again in his heart. He did not know
himself any longer. In addition to the reproaches he made himself for
his evil thoughts, came dissatisfaction because he knew he was not
putting his whole mind on his work. Usually he worked his cheerful,
industrious self into each task he performed, and it was bound to be
good and lasting. But today it seemed to him that he was hammering
unrighteous thoughts into his work, that he was forging out of them an
evil charm, and that the result could not be good nor enduring.

The slater must work thoughtfully. The man who undertakes repairs today
must rely upon the faithfulness of him who stood decades, perhaps
centuries ago where he stands now. The lack of conscientiousness that
rivets a roof-hook slovenly today may be the cause of a good man's death
fifty years hence when he hangs his ladder on that hook. Behind the
struggle of his conscience against the visions of his sinful dream
lurked, like a dark cloud, the fear that in his distraction he might be
forging a future disaster for somebody.

His work was done. The new tin decoration gleamed in the sun around
the dark surface of the slate roof. Ring, tackle, swinging-seat and
ladder had been removed; the workmen who had assisted at the removal
had gone again. Apollonius had taken down the "flying" scaffold and
the poles on which it rested; he stood alone on the narrow board which
formed the path from the cross-beam to the roof-door. He stood
thinking. He felt as if he had forgotten to drive in nails somewhere.
He looked in the slate and nail boxes of his swinging-seat which hung
near him on a beam. The sound of a mysterious hurrying step came to
his ears from the tower stairs. He paid no attention to it, for just
then he found a sheet of lead lying among his things. He had brought
with him the exact number of sheets that he needed. So this was
evidently one that he had forgotten; in his distracted state of mind
he had overlooked one of the riveting points. From the door he looked
up and down the surface of the roof. If the mistake had happened on
this side of the tower he could perhaps rectify it without his seat.
Perhaps the ladder would suffice to reach the required point. And so
it proved to be. About six feet above him, near the roof-hook he had
taken out a slate and had neglected to replace it with a sheet of lead
and to fasten the garland to it. In the meantime the mysterious steps
were coming ever nearer; the man in such haste had now reached the end
of the stone stairs and was climbing the ladder to the roof. The clock
below rumbled. It was almost two. Apollonius had not yet had dinner,
but when there was a flaw of any kind in his work he could not rest
until he had rectified it. He had gone back to fetch the ladder. It
lay on the beam near the swinging-seat. As he stooped to get it he
felt himself seized and pushed with wild violence toward the door.
Instinctively he caught hold of the lower edge of a beam with his
right hand while with his left he sought in vain for support. This
movement brought him face to face with his assailant. Horrified he saw
the distorted, wild features of his brother.

"You shall have her all to yourself, or down you go with me."

"Away!" cried Apollonius. In his angry pain all his reproaches against
his brother mounted into his face. Exerting all his strength he pushed
him back with his free hand.

"So you show your true face, at last?" mocked Fritz Nettenmair in
still greater rage. "You have dislodged me from every place that I
possessed; now it is my turn. You shall have me on your conscience,
you fluff-picker. Throw me over, or down you go with me!"

Apollonius saw no deliverance. The hand with which he held desperately
to the sharp edge of the beam was well-nigh exhausted. With all his
strength he would have to seize his brother by the arms, turn him
round and push him over if he did not want to be dragged down with
him. And yet he cried: "I will not!"

"Very well," groaned Fritz. "You want to put the blame of this too on
me; you want to make me do this too. Your sanctimoniousness shall now
have an end." Apollonius would have sought a new hold, but he knew
that his brother would take advantage of the instant when he let go
his present one. Fritz was already just on the point of making a
violent dash at him. Apollonius' hand was slipping from the edge of
the beam. He would be lost if he did not find some new hold. He could
perhaps make a jump and catch the beam with both hands; but then his
brother, by the force of his own onset, would certainly fall through
the door. A vision of his honest, proud, old father, of the young wife
and her children, rose before him, and he remembered the vow that he
had made to himself; he was their only support--he must live. One
spring and he had caught the beam in his arms; at the same moment his
brother rushed headlong past him. The weights below rattled, and the
clock struck two. The jackdaws, disturbed in their rest by the
struggle, swooped wildly down to the roof-door and fluttered about in
a croaking cloud. There was the sound of a heavy body striking on the
street pavement far below. A cry went up from all sides. Pale living
faces looked on a paler dead one which lay all bloody on the pavement.
Ghastly haste, screams, a clasping of hands, a running hither and
thither, spread like a whirlwind from the church-yard to the farthest
corner of the town. But the clouds high above in the sky heeded it not
and continued on their vast course unmoved. They see so much
self-created misery below them that a single instance cannot touch
them.

Everything in the world has its use, if not in itself or for him who
does it or who has it, then at least for others. So that which had
brought disgrace on the house of Nettenmair was now a guard against
greater disgrace. Fritz Nettenmair's love of drink was known
everywhere; everybody had seen him drunk; it was no wonder that all
who learned of his death attributed it to this vice. It was well that
nobody outside of the Nettenmair household knew that he had intended
to go to America; it was also well that, to avoid attracting attention
upon his return, he had worn his ordinary workman's clothes in the
mail coach with only his overcoat thrown over them. The coat had got
lost on the way and those who had a right to its restitution naturally
put in no claim for it. It did not occur to anybody to attach much
importance to this scarcely-noticed incident, as it was not necessary
to piece a story together when a complete one was already at hand.
Moreover, before the deed he had gone to his usual place of
recreation, had drunk heavily, and, after boasting in his foolhardy
way that he would now perform his master-piece, had left the tavern
for St. George's much intoxicated. All these outward circumstances
served to confirm the generally accepted opinion. By a fortunate
chance there had been no workmen at St. George's; of the struggle that
had taken place before the fall nobody knew anything except Apollonius
and the jackdaws who lived there. As soon as the inspector learned of
Fritz's death he looked up Apollonius, whom he found sitting exhausted
at the foot of the tower, and told him the story that was going the
rounds. It entered nobody's head to question Apollonius. They all told
him about it instead of letting him tell. He therefore kept silence
about that which nobody questioned. The courts found no reason to make
an investigation, and the danger which had menaced the honor of the
family passed quietly over.

One evening a black bier was seen before the house with the green
shutters. At a distance stood groups of women and children, now
whispering softly to one another, now peering eagerly in one direction
with a curiosity that at times became impatient. Here and there a long
black coat and a three-cornered hat came down the street in solemn
gloom and vanished behind the bier into the house. At last the door
opened. The coffin stood on the bier, the pall covered both; gently,
in rhythmical motion, there appeared a black moving mass; now they
were in their places; the pall-bearers adjusted their hats. The
procession moved, rippling, wavering. On top gleamed bright the hammer
which Valentine had polished, and told that what they were now
surrendering to earth had worked honestly between heaven and earth.
The sweet tears of the old women washed away whatever stains clung to
his memory. Inwardly they made a vow that none who belonged to them
should ever become a slater. The slater's calling is a dangerous one,
between heaven and earth; the man who lay beneath the black pall,
between the boards, silent as he was, preached that with poignant
eloquence. They turned their eyes toward the old gentleman who was led
by two mourners. He seemed to embody the very spirit of honest burial.
But when their gaze fell upon Apollonius they forgot the mildness with
which they had just judged; they unburied the dead man from the cool
funeral flowers that covered his human nakedness. The hammer lying
above him would have been covered with the dark rust of shame had it
not been for Apollonius. Then they looked at the young wife, and,
according to the way of their sex, the mourners became match-makers.
And indeed they had right on their side; a bonnier couple or one
better suited could scarce have been found in the whole town. The
procession passed by the Red Eagle, where a ball was in progress at
which Fritz Nettenmair was missing--surely a dull affair! The
procession went the same way that Fritz Nettenmair had gone after he
had talked with the workman. He had then seen in spirit his brother
lying beneath the black fluttering pall and himself following as a
mourner. The procession went on, still keeping to the streets that
Fritz Nettenmair had trodden on that occasion. Outside the town-gate
the willows melted again into mist or the mist into willows. Here and
there mist-men carried mist-coffins near the real one. At the
cross-ways, where Fritz Nettenmair had seen the journeyman disappear
in the mist, he himself disappeared. In Tambach they were bearing the
journeyman to burial. The two must have had much to say to each other.
Fritz Nettenmair could have told the workman how carefully he had
carried out the thought sown by him, even to the cutting of the rope;
and the workman could have told his former master how he became a
victim to the cuts thus made. The pastor who preached the sermon over
Fritz Nettenmair's grave, who was buried with all the honors due to
his standing or to be bought with money, did not know what an
awe-inspiring theme had eluded him.

The last word of the funeral sermon had died away, the last spadeful
of earth had fallen on the coffin, the mourners had gone home; it
became night, and again day, and again night, and again and again day
and night; other things drove Fritz Nettenmair's unfortunate death
from the minds of the townsmen--and still other things these things. A
stone was erected over his grave, and his honest death was vouched for
by a sculptor and impressed with chisel-strokes upon forgetful
posterity. One might think that the dark cloud that had hovered over
the house with the green shutters would have burst in the storm that
dashed the older son from the tower-roof of St. George's to the
pavement below, and that life would now be bright there, as its outer
aspect promised. One might indeed think so if one saw only the young
widow and her children. The three strong young beings raised their
drooping heads as soon as the burden which had oppressed them was
lifted. The young widow did not look as if she had been a wife, still
less an unhappy wife; from day to day she seemed more like a bridal
maiden or a maidenly bride. And why should she not? Did she not know
that he loved her? Did she not love him? Did not the teasing words of
others, even if she did not think of it herself, remind her that her
love was no longer a forbidden one? The marriage was so natural, so
necessary according to traditional ideas that those who were too old
or too dignified to jest took it as a matter of course without
mentioning it, and did not mention it merely because they took it as a
matter of course.

In his diplomatic fashion the old gentleman made various intimations
that if he had remained at the head of things all would have happened
differently. What Apollonius had spoiled, he would now carry out to
the best possible end. Necessity had placed him at the helm again, and
he would remain there. He forgot that he had twice been forced to the
acknowledgment that when one becomes old, control in the business is
only possible when one need not see through strange eyes. He was to
experience this now for a third time. Since the night before his older
son met a violent death, Herr Nettenmair had resumed his position as
manager of the business. Apollonius reported to him daily concerning
the progress of current work and received orders. When a piece of work
has once been fairly started it can go on by itself and requires from
the superintendent nothing but inspection and an occasional stimulus.
If, however, something new is to be undertaken, a groove must be
sought in which it can run, and the groove must be the shortest,
surest, and most profitable. Clear-seeing eyes are needed, with a
quick power to grasp. That Apollonius possessed these the old
gentleman perceived on the first occasion. It pertained to a
particularly difficult piece of work. Apollonius put it before him
with such clearness that the old gentleman believed he saw it with his
bodily eyes. It was a case, however, in which his experience failed
him. To Apollonius it presented no difficulties. He pointed out three
or four different ways in which it could be done and reduced the old
gentleman to such a state of confusion that he could scarcely conceal
it. A curious, wild train of contradictory sensations rushed through
his brain--joy and pride in his son, then pain that he was nothing and
never could be any more, then shame and wrath that his son knew this
and triumphed over him; the desire to curb him and show him that he
still was lord and master. But even if he wanted to carry his point,
would his son obey? There was no way to preserve even the appearance
of leadership save through his diplomatic art. In a grim voice he gave
commands which were utterly unnecessary, because they pertained to
things which would have been done as a matter of course without
command. In new matters he angrily disapproved of all suggestions made
by Apollonius; but the commands which he finally gave were always in
general accordance with that which Apollonius had suggested as most
expedient. Afterward he made excuses to himself and found something
that would have been much better than Apollonius' suggestion. He was
convinced that if he only had his eyesight everything would be
different. Sometimes he gave himself up unreservedly to his joy and
pride in his son's efficiency; but this feeling was soon replaced by
the wrathful necessity to exert his diplomatic art. Apollonius
realized the restraint that he was imposing upon his father quite as
little as he did his father's pride in him. He was glad that he had
nothing more to conceal from the old gentleman concerning the
business, and that obedience to him did not interfere with the
fulfilment of his vow. The sky above the house with the green shutters
took on a brighter, bluer hue. But the spirit of the house still
wandered about wringing its hands. When the clock struck two in the
morning it stood in the arbor before the door to Apollonius' room and
raised its pallid arms pleadingly toward heaven.

The business increased under Apollonius' diligent hand; the orders
were twice as many as they had formerly been. The postman brought
great piles of letters into the house. Apollonius accepted an
advantageous offer made by the owner and leased the slate quarry. He
understood the management of the works from his stay in Cologne, and
he employed a former acquaintance from that city whom he knew to be an
expert in the business and reliable in his dealings. His choice was a
good one; the man was energetic, but in spite of this fact much
additional work fell on Apollonius. The councilman shook his head
sometimes doubtfully, fearing that Apollonius had over-estimated his
strength. It did not strike the young widow how seldom Apollonius came
into the living-room. The children, whom he often called to him to
perform little services whereby they might learn, kept up the
intercourse. They could testify that Apollonius had very little time.
She went to his room frequently, but always when he was not at home.
She adorned the doors and walls with everything she had which she knew
he loved, and she spent many hours there at work. She noticed the
pallor of his face, which seemed to become greater each time she saw
him. As she was but a mirror of his feelings, his pallor reflected
itself in her. She would have liked to cheer him up, but she did not
seek to be near him; her presence seemed to have the opposite effect
upon him from what she desired. He was always friendly and full of
chivalrous respect toward her. This at least comforted her to a
certain extent. She had endowed him with all the virtues that she
knew; among these she had not forgotten truthfulness, the first of
them all to her. Therefore she knew that he would not compel himself
to show respect to her if he did not feel it. He made merry sometimes,
especially when he saw her eyes fixed anxiously upon his pale face,
but she noticed that her society did not make him healthier or more
cheerful. She would have liked to ask him what was the matter. When he
stood before her she did not dare. When she was alone she asked him.
Many nights through she thought of ways to entice the confession from
him and talked with him. Surely if he had heard her weep, had heard
how sweetly and tenderly she cajoled and pleaded, had heard the dear
names she gave him, he would have told her what ailed him. Her whole
life was between heart and mouth; and when her heart whispered in her
ear what she had said, she flushed rosily and hid her blushes deep
beneath the covers from herself and the listening night.

She confided her fears to the old inspector. "Is it a wonder?" he
asked, "when a person sits all day long for a year and a half over his
business and all night long over books and letters? And then all the
anxiety he had about his--God forgive him, he is dead and one should
not speak ill of the dead--about his brother; and then the fright,
which made me ill for three days, over--and when his widow is there
too--I never did like him much, least of all toward the end. But youth
is so! I warned him a hundred times, the brave fellow! And now the
confounded quarry! Such conscientiousness! He is one who would never
consider his own health." The councilman gave the young widow a long
lecture which was not in the least meant for her. Then they agreed
that Apollonius ought to have a doctor whether he wanted him or not;
and the councilman immediately went to the best physician in town. The
physician promised to do all that was possible. He called on
Apollonius, who put up with him because those whom he loved desired
it. The doctor felt his pulse, came again and again, prescribed and
re-prescribed; Apollonius became ever paler and gloomier. At last the
good man declared that here was a malady against which all art was
useless. So deep-seated was the trouble that no remedy of his could
reach it.

Apollonius knew that no physician could cure his illness. The
councilman had only partly divined the cause. Overwork had merely
watered the soil for the parasite growth which was gnawing at
Apollonius' inmost being. The first symptoms seemed of a physical
nature. As his brother had plunged to death before him, the clock
below had struck the hour of two. Since then every sound of a bell
frightened him. What aroused more serious apprehension was an attack
of dizziness. All the horrors of that day did not obliterate the
feeling of uneasiness which had taken possession of him when he
discovered the inexactitude in his work. Every time a bell sounded it
seemed to him a warning. Early the next morning he went to the
roof-door with his ladder in his hand. He had already noticed how
insecure his step was as he climbed the tower stairs; now, when
through the open door the distant mountains began to nod so curiously
to him and the firm tower to rock beneath him, he became frightened.
That was dizziness, the slater's worst, most malicious enemy when it
takes sudden hold of him on a swaying ladder between heaven and earth.
In vain Apollonius strove to overcome it; he had to give up his
purpose for the day. No way had ever been so hard for Apollonius as
the tower stairs down from St. George's. What would happen? How could
he fulfil his vow if this dizziness did not leave him? On the same day
he had some work to do on the tower of St. Nicholas. There he had to
venture into more dangerous places than at St. George's; the bells
rang at the most critical instant; he felt no trace of dizziness.
Joyfully he hastened back to St. George's, but again the ladder
trembled under his feet, the mountains nodded, the tower rocked. He
was on the lowest rung of the ladder when the clock began to strike
the hour. The sound penetrated every nerve of his body; he had to hold
fast to the railing until the last echo had died away. He made attempt
after attempt, and climbed all ladders and towers with his old
sureness of foot; only at St. George's did dizziness return. There he
had hammered his sinful thoughts into his work; he had felt at the
time that he was forging an evil charm, a coming disaster. Day and
night the picture followed him of the place where he had forgotten to
insert the sheet of lead and to rivet the decoration. The flaw was
like an evil spot, a spot where a crime had been begun or completed
and where no grass grows, no shadow falls; like an open wound which
does not heal until it has been avenged, like an empty grave which
does not close until it has received its denizen. If only the gap were
closed the charm would lose its potency. He might authorize a workman
to do the job, but the thought of leaving his neglected work to
another brought a flush of shame to his pale cheeks. The sheet of lead
nailed by another would be certain to fall; the gap cried out for him,
and he alone could close it. Or the destruction which he had forged
there would seize hold of the workman, dizziness would overtake him
and he would plunge into the depths.

Since his brother's wife had lain in his arms he had lived a double
life. During the day he worked outside and at night he sat in his room
among his books, all that went on mechanically; in spite of his
efforts his heart was only half in his work; the other half lived its
own life, hovering with the jackdaws about the flaw in the tower-roof
and brooding over the coming disaster which he had forged that
morning. His soul fought ever anew the battle with his brother. Was it
his brother's fall that he had forged? Perhaps it would have been
possible to save the madman. Anxiously he sought for possibilities,
and shrank with horror from the thought that he might find one. All
his good qualities became overwrought--his loyalty, his
conscientiousness, his scrupulousness. He did not try to put his
shortcomings upon his brother; with loving hand he took his brother's
guilt and placed it on his own shoulders. It became ever clearer in
his mind that he might have saved his brother. He could have found
some way if his heart and head had not been full of wild, forbidden
desires, if he had not been full of wrath against the madman instead
of feeling pity for him. With his evil thoughts he had forged disaster
for his brother. Without those thoughts his work would have been
finished and his brother would not have found him in the tower, would
have come too late and would have repented of his resolve. Or, if he
had still been there, he was the stronger, cooler headed, and he
should have found a way to prevent the calamity.

It was natural that people should chaff him about the marriage that
seemed a necessity to them. He had to confess to himself that they
were right and that his desires were no longer forbidden ones. But the
fact that they had once been so cast its shadow over the blameless
present. His love seemed sullied to him. Reason and love might say
what they would, he felt that there would be guilt in the marriage.
And so it came that Christiane's presence brought him no cheer. There
were moments when his gloom struck him as a sort of illness and he
hoped that it would pass over. But even then he drew no nearer to
Christiane, much as his heart yearned for her. He continued the same
as on that day when he placed the child between him and her. She
remained pure and holy to him.

To the old gentleman with his external sense of honor, a life like
Apollonius' and Christiane's, without the consecration of the church,
was a grave offense. Only under the name of her husband could
Apollonius, without disgrace, be the protector and supporter of the
beautiful young widow and her children. According to his way he
pronounced the ultimatum. He fixed the time for the wedding. The
indispensable half-year of mourning was over; in a week the betrothal
should be announced, three weeks later the marriage should take place.

Life in the house with the green shutters grew more and more sultry.
The new clouds which had gathered invisibly about it threatened a
storm severer than that in which the old ones had been dispelled. The
young widow had no choice but to play the part of the affianced; she
was rallied about her wedding garment, and, adjusting herself to the
situation, she began preparations. Tears fell upon her work, and joy
had an ever smaller and smaller part in it. She saw the condition of
the man she loved become hourly worse; and she could not fail to know
that the approaching marriage was to blame. The paler and more fragile
he became, the gentler and more full of respect was his conduct toward
her. There was something in it that seemed like pitying pain and an
unexpressed prayer for forgiveness of a wrong, an insult of which he
felt himself guilty toward her.

Apollonius was compelled to come to a decision. He could not. The
yawning discord in his soul became ever greater. If he resolved to
renounce happiness, the phantom of guilt disappeared and happiness
stretched out alluring arms toward him. She loved him and had always
loved him, only him; all the world approved, in fact demanded it of
him. He saw her before she had been stolen from him, how she had laid
the little blue-bell down for him, all rosy beneath the brown curling
locks which struggled to be free; then, pale under the ill-treatment
of the brother who had stolen her from him, pale for him; then
trembling before his brother's threats, trembling for him; then
laughing, weeping, full of anguish and full of happiness in his arms.
His brother's fall had made this woman free. He had known that when he
let his brother fall. If he should wed his brother's wife, who had
become free through the fall, he would make himself guilty of this
fall. If he received the reward of the deed, the deed was also his. If
he took her, the feeling would never leave him; he would be unhappy
and would make her unhappy with him. For her sake and for his he must
refrain. When he came to this decision, he realized how unsubstantial
his conclusions were, viewed with the clear eye of the spirit; and
yet, if he tried to reach out for happiness, the dark feeling of guilt
hovered over him like an icy frost about a flower, and his soul could
do nothing against its annihilating power. And the bells of St.
George's continued to ring their warning. What made Apollonius'
agitation even more feverish was the knowledge that the flaw in his
work had not been corrected. It rained incessantly, the gap yawned
wide, the boarding greedily drank in the water, the wood was bound to
rot. If the winter cold increased, the water would freeze in the wood
and injure the slate. The town, which trusted to his sense of duty,
would suffer harm through him. Each night the stroke of two awakened
him from sleep. Shadows mingled with his fever-dreams. The reproaches
of his inward and outward yearning for purity blended. The open wound
cried aloud for justice, the open grave for him who would close it.
And it was he whom the bells called to justice, he who must close the
grave before the disaster he had forged should descend upon an
innocent head. He must climb to the tower and correct the flaw. But
when he got there, it struck two, dizziness seized hold of him and
dragged him down after his brother. From day to day, from hour to
hour, the beautiful young widow saw him grow paler and became pale
with him. Only the old gentleman in his blindness did not see the
cloud which was lowering so threateningly. The air was very sultry in
the house with the green shutters. No one who looks at the little
house now would suspect how sultry it once was there.

It was on the night before the appointed betrothal day. Snow had
fallen, and then great cold had suddenly set in. For several nights
the so-called St. Elmo's fire had been seen darting tongues of flame
from the tops of the towers to the gleaming stars of heaven. In spite
of the dry cold, the inhabitants of the district felt a curious
heaviness in their limbs. There was no air stirring. The people looked
at one another as if each were asking the other if he too felt the
same uneasiness. Odd prophecies of war, sickness and famine went from
mouth to mouth. The more intelligent smiled, but were themselves
unable to refrain from clothing their inward gloom in corresponding
pictures of some impending disaster. All day long dark clouds, of
different form and color from what the wintry sky is accustomed to
display, had been gathering. Their blackness would have been in
unbearably glaring contrast to the snow which covered mountains and
valley and hung like candied sugar on the leafless boughs, if their
dark reflection had not somewhat deadened the dazzling splendor. Here
and there the firm outline of the cloud-castles softened and seemed to
hang down over earth like drooping breasts. These bore more nearly the
aspect of ordinary snow-clouds, and their dull reddish gray served to
unite the leaden blackness of the higher plane with earth's drab
whiteness and dingy appearance. The whole mass hung motionless over
the town. The blackness increased. Two hours after midday it was
already night in the streets. Dwellers on the ground floor drew down
their blinds; in the windows of the upper stories appeared one light
after another. In the public squares of the town, where a greater
portion of the sky could be seen, groups of people stood, looking now
upward into the heavens, now into the long, doubtful faces around
them. They told of the ravens that had come in great flocks into the
suburbs, they pointed to the deep, restless, uneven fluttering of the
jackdaws around St. George's and St. Nicholas', they spoke of
earthquakes, of land-slides and even of the Judgment Day. The more
courageous thought it was only a violent thunder-storm. But even that
seemed serious enough. The river and the so-called fire-pond, the
waters of which could, at a moment's notice, be let into any part of
the town by means of subterranean channels, were both frozen. Some
hoped the danger would pass by. But each time they looked up at the
sky they saw that the dark cloud-mass had not changed its position.
Two hours after midday it had stood there; toward midnight it still
stood there unmoved. Only it seemed to have become heavier and had
sunk lower. How could it move when there was not a breath of air in
motion, and to scatter and dispel such a mass as this a hurricane
would have been required!

It struck twelve from St. George's tower. The last stroke seemed
unable to die away. But the deep trembling murmur that hung on so long
was no longer the dying tone of the bell. For now it began to grow; as
if on a thousand wings it came rushing and surging and pushed angrily
against the houses that would retard it; whistling and shrieking, it
drove through every crevice that it met, and blustered about the house
until it found another rift to drive out of again; it tore shutters
open and slammed them furiously, it squeezed its way groaningly
between adjacent walls, whistled madly round street corners, lost
itself in a thousand currents, found itself again and rushed headlong
into a raging stream, careered up and down with savage joy, jolted
everything that stood fast, trilled with wild-playing fingers on the
rusty vanes and weather-cocks and laughed shrilly at their groans; it
blew the snow from one roof to another, swept it from the street,
chased it onto steep walls where it crouched with fear in all the
window chinks, and whirled great, dancing fir-trees of snow before it
in its mad course.

Seeing that a storm was imminent, no one had taken off his clothes.
The town and county storm night-watch, as well as the fire company,
had been gathered together for hours. Herr Nettenmair had sent his son
to the main guard-room in the town hall to represent him there as the
master-slater of the town. The two journeymen sat with the tower
watchman, one at St. George's, one at St. Nicholas'. The other
municipal workmen entertained one another in the guard-room as well as
they could. The building inspector looked anxiously at Apollonius,
who, feeling his friend's eye fixed upon him, rose, to conceal from
him if possible his brooding state of mind. At this very moment the
storm broke forth with renewed violence. From the town-hall tower it
struck one. The sound of the bell whimpered in the grip of the storm
which dragged it along in its wild chase. Apollonius stepped to the
window as if to see what was happening outside. A gigantic,
sulphur-blue tongue leaped into the room, sprang twice trembling upon
stove, wall and people, and then, leaving no trace, was swallowed up
in itself again. The tempest raged on: but, even as the storm had
seemed born out of the last sound of St. George's bell, there now
arose a something out of the raging which exceeded it in force as far
as the raging had exceeded the sound of the bell. An invisible world
seemed to tear it to pieces in the air. The storm raged and panted
with the fury of the tiger which cannot destroy what it holds in its
grasp; the deep, majestic rolling that outsounded it was the roar of
the lion which has his foot on the enemy--the triumphant expression of
struggle satisfied by action.

"That struck somewhere!" said one. Apollonius thought: "If it should
strike St. George's tower, where the gap is, and I should have to
climb up, and the clock should strike two, and"--he could think no
further. A cry for help, a cry of fire resounded through storm and
thunder. "The lightning has struck!" was the cry on the street. "It
has struck St. George's tower! Quick to St. George's! Fire! Help!
Fire! St. George's! Fire in the tower of St. George's!" Horns blew,
drums beat. And always the storm and peal after peal of thunder! Then
the cry came: "Where is Nettenmair? If anybody can help it is
Nettenmair. Fire! Fire! At St. George's! Nettenmair! Where is
Nettenmair? The tower of St. George's is on fire!"

The councilman saw Apollonius turn pale, his form sink more deeply
into itself than before. "Where is Nettenmair?" was again the cry from
the street. Then came a dark flush over his pale cheeks and his
slender figure rose to its full height. He buttoned his coat quickly,
and drew the strap of his cap firmly under his chin. "If I stay," he
said to the councilman, as he turned to go, "remember my father, my
brother's wife and the children." The councilman was taken aback. The
young man's "if I stay" sounded like "I shall stay." A presentiment
came over the friend that here was something that had to do with the
salvation of Apollonius' soul. But the expression on Apollonius' face
was no longer one of suffering; nor was it anxious or wild. In spite
of apprehension and alarm, the stout-hearted man felt something like
joyful hope. It was indeed the old Apollonius again who stood before
him, with the same quiet, modest resoluteness that had won his heart
at the first sight of the young man. "If he would only remain so!"
thought the inspector. He had no time to reply. He pressed his hand.
Apollonius felt all that this hand-pressure wanted to say. Compassion
crept over him for the good old man, and something like regret for the
anxiety he had caused him and would still cause him. He said with his
old-time smile: "For such cases I am always prepared. But there is no
time to spare. Good-by for a while!" Apollonius, who moved more
quickly than the councilman, was soon out of sight. All the way to St.
George's, amid the cries, the horns, drums, storm and thunder, the
councilman kept repeating to himself: "Either I shall never see the
good fellow again, or he will be well when he returns." He did not try
to explain to himself how he had come to this conclusion. There was no
time. His duty as municipal inspector demanded his entire attention.

The cry "Nettenmair! Where is Nettenmair?" greeted Apollonius on all
sides and echoed in the distance. The confidence of his
fellow-citizens awakened in him a renewed sense of his own worth.
When, upon returning from afar, he had seen his native town stretched
out before him, he had dedicated himself to her and her service. The
opportunity now presented itself to show whether he had meant this vow
in earnest. He reviewed in his mind all the possible forms of danger
and how they could best be met. A fire-sprinkler lay ready in the
roof-truss, and cloths were at hand to dip into water and protect the
places most in danger. The journeyman had been instructed to have hot
water ready. The beams were connected everywhere by ladders. For the
first time since his return from Brambach he threw his whole soul into
his work. Before real necessity and its demands the visions of his
brooding fancy receded like dissolving shadows. All his old elasticity
and buoyancy were [Illustration: The Prophet Jeremiah] [Blank Page]
called into being again, intensified by the feeling of relief which
had taken possession of him. Thoughts can be refuted by thoughts,
against feelings they are a very weak weapon. In vain had his spirit
seen the way of salvation; he had fallen a victim to the general
apathy about him. Now a strong, healthful feeling sprang up in
opposition to the strong, morbid ones and devoured them in the ardor
of its flame. He knew, without any special thought on the subject,
that he had found the solution which brings redemption, and that this
was the cause of his renewed being. He knew that dizziness would not
overcome him, but if he should remain it would be a sacrifice made to
duty, not to guilt, and God and the gratitude of the town would assume
in his stead the responsibility for his loved ones.

St. George's Square was thronged with people who gazed in troubled
fear at the roof of the tower. The ancient building stood like a rock
in the fierce battle which the brightness of lightning and the old
night waged untiringly about it. A thousand glowing arms embraced the
tower with such ardor that it seemed as if it would be consumed in
their glow; like a great surging sea the light broke upon its walls,
only to fall back again before the power of night which engulfed all
in its dark flood. The mass of pale faces, pressed close together at
the foot of the tower, flashed into view during momentary gleams of
light but were soon lost again in dreary blackness. The storm tore at
their hats and coats, blew hair into their faces, struck them with
flapping garments and pelted them with glistening drops of snow, as if
it wanted to make them atone for the wounds it received when it beat
as rain on the rocky ribs of the tower. And as the people now
appeared, now disappeared in alternating light and darkness, so also
their confused attempts at conversation were drowned at every turn by
storm and thunder.

Somebody called out in self-consolation: "It was a harmless flash;
though it struck, nothing caught fire." Somebody else thought that the
flame might still break out. A third became angry; he took this
suggestion as a wish that the flame might break out. He had been
comforted by the first thought; he had to avenge himself for the
uneasiness which the suggestion created in his mind. Trembling with
cold and anxiety, many stared up stupidly with blinded eyes into space
and knew not even why. A hundred voices explained what misfortune
would befall the town, must befall it, if the lightning had really
struck and the tower had caught fire. Some told of the nature of
slate, how it melts in fire and is carried as slack through the air,
often setting fire to a whole city at the same time. Others lamented
that the storm would further a possible fire, and that there would be
no water with which to extinguish it. Still others said that if there
were any water it would freeze in the engines and be of no avail. Most
of them depicted with fearful eloquence the course that the fire would
take. If the burning truss should fall the storm would blow it right
where there was a thick cluster of houses, quite near the tower. This
was the most dangerous place in the whole town in case of fire, for
there were numberless frame verandas in narrow courts, boarded gable
roofs and shingle-covered sheds, all crowded so closely together that
it would be impossible for a fire-engine to be squeezed in among them
or for the firemen to get at their work. If the burning truss should
fall on this side, as it most certainly would, the entire portion of
the town that lay before the wind would be irretrievably lost. These
reflections reduced the timid to such a state of mind that every new
flash seemed to them the inevitable fire. That nobody could see more
than one side of the tower at a time tended to increase the
misapprehension. It was curious, but from all sides the cry was heard:
"Where? Where?" Storm and thunder prevented mutual understanding.
Everybody wanted to see for himself. Wild excitement prevailed.

"Where did it strike?" asked Apollonius, who had just arrived. "On the
side toward Brambach," answered many voices. Apollonius pushed his way
through the crowd. With long strides he hastened toward the tower
steps. He had come considerably in advance of his more deliberate
associates. In the tower his questions were to no purpose. The people
in the tower thought that though the lightning had struck it had not
set fire to anything; still they were on the point of gathering
together their best things to flee from the danger. Only the
journeyman, whom he found occupied at the stove, remained
self-possessed. Apollonius hastened with lanterns to the truss, to
hang them there. The ladder steps did not tremble beneath his feet; he
was in too great haste to notice it. There seemed to be no trace of
incipient fire in the truss. Neither the odor of sulphur, which
denotes fire by lightning, nor ordinary smoke was perceptible.
Apollonius heard his associates on the steps. He called to them that
he was there. Just at that moment a blue light flashed through all the
tower-windows followed immediately by a tremendous crash of thunder.
Apollonius stood for an instant, stunned. If he had not unconsciously
caught hold of a beam, he would have fallen to the ground from the
shock. A thick fume of sulphur took his breath away. He sprang to the
nearest window to obtain fresh air. The workmen farther from where it
had struck had not been stunned, but stood motionless with fright on
the topmost flight of steps. "Come!" cried Apollonius. "Quick! the
water! The sprinkler! It must have struck on this side--that's where
the pressure and the smell of sulphur came from. Quick, water and the
sprinkler at the door!" The master-carpenter, standing on the ladder
steps, called, coughing, "But the smoke!" "Quick!" replied Apollonius,
"the door will give more air than we want." The mason and the
chimney-sweep followed the carpenter, who carried the hose with the
sprinkler, as quickly as he could, up the ladder steps. The others
brought buckets of cold water, the journeyman a pail of hot water to
pour over the cold to prevent its freezing.

At such moments he who remains calm inspires confidence; to the
self-possessed man of action others defer without question. The wooden
passage-way to the door was narrow, but through Apollonius'
intelligent directions room was immediately found for all. Next to
Apollonius stood the carpenter, then the sprinkler, then the mason.
The sprinkler was so turned that the two men had the levers before
them. Two strong men could work it. Behind the mason stood the
journeyman who was to pour hot water on the cold as often as was
necessary. Others performed the journeyman's previous duty; they
melted snow and ice and kept the water thus obtained in the watchman's
warm room so that it should not freeze again. Still others were ready
to serve as carriers and formed a sort of double line between roof and
watchman's room. While Apollonius was explaining to the carpenter and
mason, in rapid words and signs, his plan of action which they then
carried into effect, he had taken hold of the roof-ladder with his
right hand and was reaching out with his left toward the bolt of the
door. The workmen were all full of hope, but when the storm whistled
in through the opened door, tore the carpenter's cap from his head,
blew masses of fine snow against the beams, howled, rattled, and
blustered against the ridge of the roof, while flash after flash of
lightning broke through the dark opening, the bravest among them
wanted to withdraw his hand from the futile work. Apollonius had to
stand with his back to the door to get his breath. Then gripping the
lath-work above the door, with both hands, he bent his head back in
order to get a look at the roof from the outside. "It can still be
saved," he cried with an effort so that he could be heard above the
storm and the uninterrupted rolling of the thunder. He seized the tube
of the shorter hose, the lower end of which the carpenter had screwed
onto the sprinkler, and wound the upper part around his body. "When I
pull twice on the hose start the sprinkler; we'll save the church and
perhaps the town." With his right hand propped against the lath-work
he swung himself out of the door; in his left hand he held the light
roof-ladder which he wanted to hang on the next hook above the door.
This seemed impossible to the workmen. The storm would certainly tear
the ladder down, and all too possibly the man with it. It came in well
for Apollonius that the wind pressed the ladder against the surface of
the roof. There was plenty of light by which to find the hook; but the
fine snow which flurried about and, rolling down from the roof, struck
him in the eyes, was a hindrance. He could feel, however, that the
ladder hung securely. There was no time to lose; he swung himself up
on it. He had to trust more to the strength and sureness of his arms
and hands than to a secure footing as he climbed upward, for the storm
swayed man and ladder to and fro like a bell. Above, to one side of
the topmost rung of the ladder, blue flames with yellow points leaped
forth from under the gap and licked the edges of the slate roof. The
lightning had struck two feet below the point where the sheet of lead
was lacking. A short hour ago he had been frightened by the thought of
the mere possibility that the lightning could strike there and that he
would have to climb up--a series of dark, deadly fever visions had
risen before him: now, all had happened as he had pictured it--but the
gap was like any other part of the tower-roof and he stood on the
ladder, free from all dizziness, pervaded only by a keen, strong
desire to avert impending danger from church and town. Yes, something
that had enhanced his vague fears now proved to be of distinct
advantage to him. The water which had been pouring into the hole for
weeks, and which was now frozen in the wood, prevented the flame from
obtaining the upper hand as quickly as it would otherwise have done.
The area taken possession of by the fire up to the present time was
small. The frost in the boarding had stubbornly beat back the leaping,
ever-returning flames and it would take time before they could
permanently strike root and from their vantage point do further
destruction. If they had united in one big flame and overstepped the
space below the hole protected by the frost, the fire would soon have
grown to gigantic proportions and the church, perhaps the town, have
succumbed to the combined force of fire and storm. He saw that there
was still time to save, and he needed the strength that this thought
gave. The ladder not only swung backward and forward, it moved up and
down. What could be the cause of that? If the beams of the roof were
loose--but he knew that that was not the case--this movement would be
impossible. But the trouble was that the ladder was not hanging on the
hook; he had hung it on a projecting tin oak-leaf which formed part of
the roof's decoration, near one of the rivets, and he had neglected to
fasten the other end of the garland on which the ladder hung. His
weight was pulling on it now and dragging it and the ladder gradually
down. An inch more and the leaf would be horizontal, the ladder would
slide off it and he and the ladder together would fall into the
tremendous depth below. His newly-acquired courage was to be put to
the test. Six inches from the leaf was the hook. He took three
cautious steps up the tottering ladder; then, seizing hold of the hook
with his left hand and holding fast, he raised the ladder with his
right hand from the leaf to the hook. It hung securely. He let go the
hook and, holding fast to a rung of the ladder with both hands,
stepped back onto it again. And now the slates below the hole began to
glow; it would not be long before the burning particles carried
destruction far and near. Apollonius drew his claw-hammer from his
belt; a few strokes with the tool and the slate fell, splintering
below. Now he could see clearly the very small area of burning
surface; his confidence increased. He pressed twice on the hose and
the sprinkler began to work. First he held the nozzle toward the hole
so that the lath-work above might be the better protected from the
flame. The sprinkler proved to be powerful; the water that penetrated
beneath the edge of the slate shivered it into small bits. The flames
cracked and leaped angrily under the gushing water; only when the jet
was turned directly upon them, and then more by means of its
smothering power than its inherent qualities, did it finally vanquish
them.

The surface of the fire lay black before him; there was no hissing in
response to the jet from the hose. Far below him the works of the
clock rattled. It struck two! Two strokes! Two! And he stood and did
not plunge headlong into space. How different in reality from what his
feverish forebodings had threatened! In his brooding, waking dreams he
had stood at the top of the tower, it had struck two, a great
dizziness had come over him and dragged him down, to expiate a dark
crime. But now he stood there in reality, the ladder swayed in the
storm, snowdust flurried about him, lightning darted around him, the
sheet of snow on roofs, mountains and valley shimmered bright with
each gleaming flash, it struck two below him, the tone of the bells,
rent by the storm, wailed in the tumult, and he stood, stood free from
all dizziness and did not fall. He knew that no guilt was attached to
him, he had done his duty where thousands would have failed, he had
saved the town which he loved with all his soul, from a terrible
danger. But there was no vainglory in his heart, only a prayer of
thanksgiving. His thoughts were not of the people who would praise
him, but of those who would breathe freely again, of the misery that
had been prevented, of the happiness that would be preserved. For the
first time in many months he felt what it means to breathe freely.
This night had brought gladness to him. With joy he looked back on the
vow that he had made. To men like Apollonius, the highest blessing of
a good deed is that it gives courage for new good deeds.

The throng below still cried: "Where? Where?" and crowded close
together when the second stroke occurred. They stood for a moment
paralyzed with fear. "Thank the Lord! It was harmless this time too!"
exclaimed one voice. "No! No! It is burning. God have mercy!" replied
others; sharp eyes saw in the darkness that appeared between the
flashes little blue flames leaping like candles over the slate. These
flames sought one another and when they found one another they blazed
up convulsively into a larger flame, then fled dancingly away and
shivered into pieces. The storm bent and blew them here and there;
sometimes they seemed to die out, but suddenly they leaped up brighter
than ever. They were growing, one could see that, but their growth was
not rapid. Much more rapid and vehement was the new cry of fire that
swelled through the town. In anxious suspense the gaze of all was
riveted on the one small spot. "Help! Now! It can still be put out!"
And again through storm and thunder sounded the agonized cry:
"Nettenmair! Where is Nettenmair?" A voice called, "He is in the
tower." All hearts felt relief when they heard that. And most of them
did not know him, even among those who called out for him, and those
who did not know him cried out loudest. In moments of general
helplessness the crowd clings to a name, to a mere word. Some thus
thrust from themselves the calls of conscience which demanded personal
effort, personal risk, and these are they who are most merciless in
their judgment of the helper if he is unable to help. The rest are
happy if they can delude themselves for the moment. "What could he
do?" cried one. "Help! Rescue!" cried others. "Even if one had wings,
he would not dare the ascent in such a storm." "Nettenmair surely
would." In the depths of their hearts, however, even the most
confident knew that he would not. The thought that the flame could be
extinguished if it were only accessible aggravated the general spirit
of uneasiness. It prevented that dull submission which the inevitable
with gentle severity compels. When the door opened and the suspended
ladder became visible, and it seemed as if somebody were going to dare
the deed, the effect on the crowd was as terrifying as the stroke
itself had been. And the ladder hung and swayed in the air with the
man who was climbing upward, enveloped in snow, encircled by
lightning; the ladder that seemed cut from a splinter swinging with
the man like a bell in the awful heights. Every one held his breath.
The same expression of horror stared from hundreds of unlike faces at
the man on high. None believed in the daring feat--and yet they saw
the man who dared. It was like something that was at the same time
dream and reality. Nobody believed in it, and yet each one stood
himself on the ladder while under him swung the light splinter in
storm and lightning and thunder, high between heaven and earth. And
again they stood below on the firm earth and looked upward; and yet if
the man should fall it would be they who fell. The people on the firm
ground held convulsively to their own hands, to their canes, to their
clothes, that they might not fall from the terrible height. They stood
secure, and yet at the same time they hung over the abyss of death,
for years, for a lifetime; the past had never been; and yet they had
only been hanging on high for a moment. They forgot the peril to the
town and their own, in the peril of the man above them whose peril was
their own. They saw that the fire was quenched, the danger to the town
was over; they knew it as in a dream when one knows that he dreams; it
was a mere thought without a living meaning. Only when the man had
climbed down the ladder, had disappeared into the door and drawn the
ladder after him, only when the people no longer clung to their own
hands, canes, and clothes, only then did admiration battle with
anxiety, only then did the exultant cry: "Hurrah! Brave fellow!"
become smothered in the lament: "He is lost!" A trembling old voice
began to sing: "Now thank we all our God!" When the aged man came to
the line: "Who has protected us," a great consciousness seemed to
sweep over the people of what might have been lost and what had been
rescued for them. Absolute strangers fell into one another's arms,
each embraced in his neighbor the loved ones whom he might have lost
and who had been saved. All united in the singing of the hymn; the
sounds of thanksgiving swelled through the whole town, soared over the
streets and squares where the people stood who had feared to go
closer, entered the houses, penetrated into the innermost chambers,
rose to the remotest garrets. The sick man in his lonely bed, the old
man in the chair where weakness had bound him, little children who did
not know the meaning of the hymn or of the danger that had been
averted, all joined in the song of praise. The town was one great
church, and storm and thunder the giant organ. Again the cry was
heard: "Nettenmair! Where is Nettenmair? Where is our helper? Where is
our rescuer? Where is the brave fellow? Where is the noble man?" Wind
and storm were forgotten. Everybody pushed forward, looking for the
man who was being called on all sides. The tower of St. George's was
besieged. The carpenter appeared, saying that Nettenmair had lain down
in the watchman's room to rest for a few moments. The carpenter was
beset with questions. Had he been injured at all? Would his health
suffer? The carpenter could tell nothing except that Nettenmair had
done more than a man is capable of doing in the ordinary course of
events. In such supreme moments man is a different being; later he
marvels himself at the power he displayed. But everything must be paid
for. It would not surprise the carpenter if, after the tremendous
exertion, Nettenmair should sleep for three days and nights at a
stretch. The people seemed prepared to wait on the steps for that
length of time, in order to see the brave man as soon as he waked. In
the meantime a prominent man had begun to take up a collection in the
market-place. Money, of course, could not reward such a deed as had
been performed that day; but at least they could show their gratitude
to the courageous doer. Carried away by the impulse of the moment,
acknowledged misers hastened home to fetch their contribution,
regardless of the fact that in an hour they would regret having done
so. Not many of the well-to-do refused to contribute, all the poor
gave their share. The collector was astonished at the rich success of
his efforts.

Apollonius rested for half an hour. Before he lay down he saw that the
lanterns were carefully put out. He closed the door, and had the
sprinkler emptied and the hose brought into the watchman's room so
that the frost could do no harm to them. He was able to stand no
longer. The councilman, who had come to him in the meantime, had to
compel him almost with force, to go down to the watchman's room. His
friend then bolted the door, made Apollonius take off his frozen
clothes, and sat down like a mother at his bedside. Apollonius could
not sleep, but the old man did not allow him to speak. He had brought
rum and sugar with him, and there was hot water enough; but
Apollonius, who had never drunk anything strong, declined the grog
with thanks. In the meantime the workman had brought clothes.
Apollonius assured them that he felt perfectly himself again but that
he felt a hesitancy about getting out of bed. Laughingly the old man
gave him his clothes. Apollonius had undressed under the bedclothes
and in the same way he now dressed beneath them. The councilman turned
his back to him and looked laughingly out of the window at storm and
lightning; whether his smiles were over Apollonius' bashfulness or
from pure joy at having his favorite again he did not know. He had
often regretted having remained a bachelor, now he was almost glad. He
had a son at any rate, and as good a one as a father could wish.

Trouble now began for Apollonius. He was torn from arm to arm; even
women of prominence kissed and embraced him. His hands were so shaken
and squeezed that for three days he had no feeling in them. He did not
lose, however, his naturally noble bearing. His modest, blushing
embarrassment in the face of so much enthusiastic thanks and admiring
praise, became him as well as his brave, determined conduct in time of
danger. Those who did not already know him were amazed; they had
formed a very different conception of him: dark, bold-eyed, audacious,
overflowing with spirits, in fact almost wild. Still they had to
acknowledge that his appearance was not at variance with his deed. His
maidenly blushes lent an added charm to the tall manly figure, and the
modest embarrassment of his honest face, which seemed in no way to
realize what he had done, was very winning; his gentle thoughtfulness
and quiet simplicity placed his achievement in a still more pleasing
light, for it was plainly to be seen that vanity and ambition had
played no part in it.

       *       *       *       *       *

We pass now in spirit over a period of three decades and return to the
man with whom we were occupied at the beginning of our tale. We left
him in the arbor of his little garden. The bells of St. George's
called the dwellers of the town to morning service; they sounded also
in the garden behind the house with the green shutters. There he sits
every Sunday at this time. When the bells call to afternoon service he
is seen wending his way to church with his silver-headed cane in his
hand. Nobody sees the old gentleman without greeting him with
reverence. It has been nearly thirty years, but there are still people
who lived through that remarkable night. They can tell those who do
not know what the man with the silver-headed cane did for the town on
that night. And to what he set on foot the next day the stones
themselves bear witness. Just outside of the town, on the road to
Brambach, not far from the rifle-range there rises a stately building
with a pleasant garden. It is the new town hospital. Every stranger
who goes to it learns that its conception originated with Herr
Nettenmair. He also has to listen to the entire story of that night,
and of Herr Nettenmair's brave deed, who was then a young man; and how
a collection was taken up for him, and how he gave this money to the
town as a nucleus for the hospital, and how rich citizens, inspired by
his example, donated and bequeathed until, after a number of years, an
additional contribution from the town completed the sum necessary for
the erection of the building.

When Herr Nettenmair returns from church he spends the rest of Sunday
in his little room where he still lives; or he takes a walk to the
slate quarry, which now belongs to him, or rather to his nephews. The
fulfilment of the vow which he made to himself has continued to be the
aim of his life. Everything that he has done he has done for his
brother's family, he has considered himself only the administrator. If
he happens to see a pretty little girl anywhere, he thinks of dear
little dead Annie. His memory is as conscientious as he himself, for
he always calls the child to him, strokes her hair, and it would be
strange indeed if he did not find in the pocket of his blue coat
something or other wrapped up in nice clean paper which he produces to
bring forth a word of thanks from the little mouth. The child,
however, cannot enjoy herself to the full until he has gone, for, in
spite of his friendliness, his tall figure has something so grave and
solemn about it that her joy is usually swallowed up in respect.
During the week Herr Nettenmair sits over his books and letters, or
superintends the packing and unpacking, the chipping and sorting of
the slate. Punctually at twelve o'clock he has his dinner in his room,
punctually at six his evening meal; this takes a quarter of an hour.
Then, rubbing his hand gently over the old sofa, he rises and, if it
is summer time, exercises for three-quarters of an hour in his garden.
On the stroke of a quarter to one and a quarter to seven he latches
the door behind him. On Sunday it is different; then he sits for a
whole hour in the arbor and gazes up at the church roof of St.
George's. There is little for us to tell; the reader knows all that
goes on in Nettenmair's soul, and what he reads from the church tower.
The reader also knows to whom the aged but still beautiful face
belongs that sometimes peers through the trellised arbor at the old
man. The lock which is now white was dark brown and full, falling over
an unwrinkled forehead, the cheeks glowed with youthful strength, the
lips were red and smiling and the blue eyes gleamed when she hastened
to meet the man who had rescued the town. He kissed her gently on the
brow and called her "Sister." She understood what he meant. Even at
that time she looked up to the man with the submission, nay, the
devotion with which she now hangs on his every word; but at that time
there was another feeling as well that showed itself in her open
countenance.

The old gentleman flew into a rage when Apollonius told him of his
determination not to marry. He gave his son his choice between
considering the honor of the family or returning to Cologne.
Apollonius' heart found it harder than his head to convince his father
that it devolved upon him alone to uphold the honor of the family and
that he must remain. He knew that he could keep his word only by
remaining true to his determination. But he could not tell his father
this, for if the old man should discover the true relation existing
between the two young people he would insist upon the marriage more
strongly than ever. Then he would also have to tell him how his
brother had met his death, and that would cause his father unnecessary
pain. He did not realize that his father in his heart was convinced
that his brother had taken his own life. The two men, so closely
related, did not understand each other. Apollonius assumed that his
father had the same inward sense of honor which he himself possessed;
and the father saw in his son's refusal and in his argument of having
to maintain the position of the family, nothing but the old obstinacy
contending that his presence was indispensable and not even taking the
trouble to conceal itself--he thought that in his son's eyes he was
nothing but a blind, helpless old man. And what caused and furthered
their misunderstanding was reserve, that family trait which they held
in common. On the same morning a delegation had tendered Apollonius
the thanks of the town and its most prominent citizens had vied with
each other in giving tokens of esteem and respect. This was cause
enough to arouse arrogance in an ambitious soul, and cause enough for
the old gentleman, who considered that Apollonius had such a soul, to
believe in this arrogance. The old gentleman had to admit that his son
was indispensable and dared assert neither right nor might against
him. The emotion and mental exertion on the day before the death of
his eldest son had undermined his strength; he collapsed entirely now
and became each day queerer and more sensitive. He no longer demanded
subserviency from Apollonius; he found a certain self-tormenting
pleasure in reproaching his son with unfilial conduct, and in
continually giving expression to his bitter regret that such an
industrious son should have to put up with so much from an overbearing
old father who was not, and never could be, anything any more. At the
same time he rejoiced in his eccentric fashion over the industry of
his son, the growing honor and increasing fortunes of his house. He
lived to see the purchase of the slate quarry which Apollonius had
previously leased. The son endured his father's eccentricities with
the same loving, untiring patience which he had exhibited toward his
brother. He lived only in the thought of fulfilling as completely as
lay within his power the vow that he had made to himself, and in this
vow he had included his father. The success of his work gave him
strength to bear all little annoyances with cheerfulness.

On the day after the winter night's storm he had told the old building
inspector the whole story of his inner life. The councilman, who till
the day of his death clung to Apollonius with all his soul, remained
the latter's only companion, as he was the only person with whom he
could hold intimate intercourse without being untrue to his own
nature.

For several days after the storm Apollonius had to lie in bed. A
burning fever had taken hold of him. At first the physician pronounced
his illness a very serious one, but in reality it was only the body
fighting triumphant battle against the general suffering which had
found mental absolution in the resolve of that night. The sympathy of
the town manifested itself in various touching ways. The old
councilman and Valentine were his nurses. The one whom nature through
love and gratitude had determined upon as the best nurse for the sick
man, Apollonius did not call to his bed, and she dared not go
uncalled. Throughout his illness, however, she took up her abode in
the little trellised arbor and remained there so as to be as near to
him as possible. When he slept the old councilman beckoned to her to
enter. Then she stood with folded hands behind the screen at the foot
of his bed and accompanied his every breath with anxiety and hope.
Unconsciously her gentle breathing regulated itself by his. For hours
she stood looking through a crack in the screen at the sick man. He
knew nothing of her presence, and yet the inspector could see how his
sleep became easier, his face more smiling. There was no bottle from
which he took his medicine which, without his knowing it, he did not
receive from her hand, no plaster, no application which she had not
prepared; no cloth, no cover touched him which she had not warmed on
her breast, kissed with her loving lips. When he talked with the
councilman about her, she saw that he was more anxious concerning her
than himself; when he sent friendly, comforting messages to her she
trembled behind the screen with joy. She rested but little; and when
the cold night wind blew flakes of snow through the loose blinds onto
her warm face, when her own breath, frozen on the pillow, touched
icily throat, chin and bosom, she was happy in the thought that she
was allowed to suffer something for him who had suffered all for her.
In those nights sacred love conquered earthly love in her; out of the
pain of sweet, disappointed desire which yearned to possess, arose his
image surrounded once more by that halo of unattainable glory in which
she had known him of yore.

Apollonius recovered quickly. And now began the joint life of these
two people. They saw each other but seldom. He lived in his little
room by himself. Valentine brought him his meals, as always. The
children were often with him. If the two happened to meet, he greeted
her with friendly reserve and she returned his greeting. If they had
anything to discuss together it happened each time as if by chance
that either the maid was present or the children and Valentine. But no
day passed without some silent token of courteous respect. On Sundays,
when he came in from his garden, he brought a bouquet of flowers with
him which Valentine then presented to her. He could have made a
brilliant marriage, gallant lovers sued for her hand; but he repelled
all offers and she all suitors. So passed days, weeks, months, years,
decades. The old gentleman died and was buried. The good councilman
followed, and then Valentine. The children grew to be youths. The
unruly lock over the widow's brow, Apollonius' corkscrew-curl, turned
gray; the children became men, strong and gentle like their teacher
and master; lock and curl were silver white; the life of the two
remained the same.

Now the reader knows all the past which the old man, sitting in his
arbor, reads from St. George's tower when the bells call for Sunday
morning service. Today he looks forward into the future, rather than
backward into the past. For his older nephew is soon to lead Anna
Wohlig's daughter to the altar of St. George's, and then home; not to
the house with the green shutters, however, but to the big house close
by. The pink-tinted house is too small for the growing business--and
besides the new household would not find room there; Herr Nettenmair
has bought the big house across the way. The youngest nephew is going
to Cologne. The old cousin who did so much for Apollonius has been
dead for many years; also the son has died, leaving his large business
to his only child who is the betrothed of Fritz Nettenmair's younger
son. There will be a double wedding at St. George's. The two old
people will then live alone in the house with the green shutters. For
a long time the old gentleman has wanted to hand over the business to
his nephews, but the young men have steadfastly refused till now. The
older nephew insists that his uncle shall remain at the head; the old
gentleman does not wish to do so. A part of the councilman's estate,
which he inherited, he has reserved for himself for his lifetime;
everything else, and that is by no means little, for Herr Nettenmair
is considered a rich man, he will give over to his nephews; what he
has reserved for himself will go at his death to the new town
hospital. He has made good his word; he will go down to his grave with
unsullied name.

The future bride protests against accepting all that her mother-in-law
wants to give her. There is but one thing that the old lady wishes to
keep for herself; it is a little tin box with a withered flower, and
it lies with her Bible and hymn-book, as sacred to the owner as these.

The bells still call. The roses on the tall bushes are fragrant as of
yore; a white-throat sits on the bush beneath the old pear-tree and
sings; a gentle breeze steals through the garden and even the box
around the circular beds rustles its dark leaves. The old gentleman
looks musingly at the tower of St. George's; the beautiful matron's
face peers through the trellis at him. The bells call it, the
white-throat sings it, the roses breathe it, the gentle breeze
whispers it, the beautiful aged faces speak it, from the tower roof of
St. George's you may read it: "Men tell of the happiness and
unhappiness that heaven brings them! What men call happiness and
unhappiness is but the raw material. It lies within man himself to
mold that material as he will. It is not heaven that brings happiness;
man prepares happiness for himself, and raises heaven in his own
breast. Man need take no care to go to heaven, if heaven but comes to
him. Who carries not heaven within himself may search in vain for it
through all the universe. Be guided by reason, but encroach not upon
the sacred bounds of feeling. Turn not disapprovingly from the world
as it is, but seek to be just to it, and it will be just to thee. In
this sense let thy path be

BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH."