Produced by Michael Roe and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
produced from scanned images of public domain material
from the Google Print project.)
THE AWAKENING OF SPRING
BOOKS BY FRANK WEDEKIND
_Published by_ BROWN BROTHERS
THE AWAKENING OF SPRING.
A Tragedy of Childhood
Net, $1.25. By mail, $1.35
SUCH IS LIFE. A Play in Five Acts
Net, $1.25. By mail, $1.34
RABBI EZRA AND THE VICTIM.
Two Stories
Net, 25c. By mail, 29c
THE GRISLEY SUITOR. A Story
Net, 25c. By mail, 29c.
The Awakening of Spring
A TRAGEDY OF CHILDHOOD
BY
FRANK WEDEKIND
_Translated from the German by Francis J. Ziegler_
THIRD EDITION
PHILADELPHIA
BROWN BROTHERS
1912
_Copyright, 1910_
BY
BROWN BROTHERS
A PROEM FOR PRUDES
That it is a fatal error to bring up children, either boys or girls,
in ignorance of their sexual nature is the thesis of Frank Wedekind's
drama aEurooeFrA1/4hlings Erwachen.aEuro¯ From its title one might suppose it a
peaceful little idyl of the youth of the year. No idea a could be
more mistaken. It is a tragedy of frightful import, and its action is
concerned with the development of natural instincts in the adolescent
of both sexes.
The playwright has attacked his theme with European frankness; but of
plot, in the usual acceptance of the term, there is little. Instead
of the coherent drama of conventional type, Wedekind has given us a
series of loosely connected scenes illuminative of character--scenes
which surely have profound significance for all occupied in the
training of the young. He sets before us a group of school children,
lads and lassies just past the age of puberty, and shows logically
that death and degradation may be their lot as the outcome of
parental reticence. They are not vicious children, but little ones
such as we meet every day, imaginative beings living in a world of
youthful ideals and speculating about the mysteries which surround
them. Wendla, sent to her grave by the abortive administered with the
connivance of her affectionate but mistaken mother, is a most lovable
creature, while Melchior, the father of her unborn child, is a high
type of boy whose downfall is due to a philosophic temperament, which
leads him to inquire into the nature of life and to impart his
knowledge to others; a temperament which, under proper guidance,
would make him a useful, intelligent man. It is Melchior's very
excellence of character which proves his undoing. That he should be
imprisoned as a moral degenerate only serves to illustrate the
stupidity of his parents and teachers. As for the suicide of Moritz,
the imaginative youth who kills himself because he has failed in his
examinations, that is another crime for which the dramatist makes
false educational methods responsible.
A grim vein of humor is exhibited now and then, as when we are
introduced to the conference room in which the members of a gymnasium
faculty, met to consider the regulation of their pupils' morals, sit
beneath the portraits of Pestalozzi and J. J. Rousseau disputing with
considerable acrimony about the opening and shutting of a window. The
exchange of unpleasant personalities is interrupted only by the
entrance of the accused student, to whose defense the faculty refuses
to listen, having marked the boy for expulsion prior to the formal
farce of his trial.
Wedekind has been accused of depicting his adults as too ignorant and
too indifferent to the needs of the younger generation. But most of
us will have to admit that the majority of his scenes and characters
seem very true to life.
aEurooeFrA1/4hlings ErwachenaEuro¯ may not be pleasant reading exactly, but there
is no forgetting it after one has perused it; there is an elemental
strength about it which grips the intellect. As a play it stands
unique in the annals of dramatic art. That it has succeeded in
attracting much attention abroad is shown by the fact that this drama
in book form has gone through twenty-six editions in its original
version and has been translated into several European tongues,
Russian included, while stage performances of the work have been
given in France as well as in Germany.
The Teutonic grimness of the work puzzled the Parisians, who are not
used to having philosophy thrust at them over the footlights; but in
Germany aEurooeFrA1/4hlings ErwachenaEuro¯ proved much more successful. In Berlin,
indeed, it has become part of the regular stock of plays acted at
aEurooeDas Neue Theater,aEuro¯ where it is said to be certain of drawing a
crowded audience. That the play is radically different from anything
given on the American stage is undoubtedly true. It must be
remembered, however, that the Continental European playwright regards
the stage as a medium of instruction, as well as a place of
amusement. The dictum of the Swedish dramatist, August Strindberg,
that the playwright should be a lay priest preaching on vital topics
of the day in a way to make them intelligible to mediocre intellects,
is not appreciated in this country as it should be; but once admit
the kinship of dramatist and priest, and the position taken by
Wedekind in writing aEurooeFrA1/4hlings ErwachenaEuro¯ becomes self-evident. There
should be no question concerning the importance of his topic, nor
should it be forgotten that the evident lesson he seeks to inculcate
is one now preached by numerous ethical teachers. In order to
estimate the relationship of this play toward modern thought in
Germany, it must be understood that Wedekind's tragedy is merely one
of the documents in a paper war which has resulted at last in having
the physiology of sex taught in many German schools. The fact that
Wedekind's dialogue is frank to a remarkable degree only makes his
preachment more effective: aEurooeOne does not cure the pest with attar of
roses,aEuro¯ as St. Augustine remarked.
Conditions in this country are not so very different from those
depicted in this play, and evidence is not lacking that gradually,
very gradually, we are beginning to realize that ignorance and
innocence are not synonymous; that an evil is not palliated by
ignoring its existence; the Podsnappian wave of the hand has not
disappeared entirely, but it is not quite as fashionable as of yore.
All things considered, the moment seems appropriate for the
publication, of aEurooeFrA1/4hlings ErwachenaEuro¯ in an English version. The
translation given in this volume follows the German original as
closely as the translator can reconcile the nature of the two
languages.
Considered as a work of literature, aEurooeFrA1/4hlings ErwachenaEuro¯ is
remarkable as one of the few realistic studies of adolescence. Its
deceptive simplicity is the hall mark of that supreme literary
ability which knows how to conceal art by art. Dealing with
adolescence, an unformed period of human life, it is necessarily
without the climaxes we expect in dramas in which the characters are
adult, and the gruesome scene in the churchyard with which the play
closes--a scene with such peculiar symbolism could spring only from a
Teutonic imagination--leaves much unended.
It is interesting to note, by the way, that Wedekind himself appears
as the Masked Man when aEurooeFrA1/4hlings ErwachenaEuro¯ is given in Berlin, a
fact which gives this scene somewhat the nature of a _parabasis_.
Frank Wedekind's name is just beginning to be heard in America. In
Germany he has been recognized for some time as one of the leaders in
the new art of the theatre. Naturally enough, his plays are too
outspoken in their realism to appeal to all his fellow-countrymen.
But, if certain Germans reject this mental pabulum, others become
intoxicated by it, and, waxing enthusiastic with a flow of language
almost bacchic, hail Wedekind as the forerunner of a new drama--as a
power destined to infuse fresh strength into the German stage. aEurooeWith
this drink in its body,aEuro¯ writes one admirer, aEurooethe public will never
more endure lyrical lemonade, nor the dregs of dramatic penury.aEuro¯
Again, these enthusiasts compare Wedekind's work to that of the
pre-Shakesperian dramatists, or even to that of the Bard of Avon
himself, both of which comparisons are difficult to grasp by an
English-speaking student of the British drama.
Wedekind, it is true, has a habit of using the news of the day as
material for plays, just as the old English dramatists did when they
wrote aEurooedomestic tragedies.aEuro¯ He has a fondness, moreover, for gruesome
situations such as we can imagine appealing to the melancholy genius
of Webster; but of the childlike simplicity which marks much of the
Elizabethan drama there is not a particle.
Certainly there is no trace of the gentle romanticism which one finds
in some of the other modern German realists. Gerhart Hauptmann can
turn from the grim task of dramatizing starvation, as he does in aEurooeDie
Weber,aEuro¯ to indulge in the naA-ve Christian symbolism of aEurooeHannele,aEuro¯ or
the mythological poetry of aEurooeDie Versunkene Glocke.aEuro¯ Even the
iconoclast Strindberg writes romantically at times, and gives us
something resembling Maeterlinck; but when Wedekind departs from pure
realism his fancy creates a Gothic nightmare of horrors, peopled with
such terrifying creatures as the headless suicide wandering amid the
graves.
Wedekind's kinship to the dramatists of the aEurooedomestic tragediesaEuro¯ is
shown clearly in the tragedy aEurooeMusik,aEuro¯ which deals with a phase of
music study only too common in Germany. It is asserted that of the
thousands of students of music in that country not one in a hundred
amounts to anything artistically, while of those who master their art
not one in a thousand is capable of profiting financially by it. It
is this condition of affairs which gives additional importance to
this recent work of Wedekind.
aEurooeMusikaEuro¯ is described by the author as a depiction of morals in four
pictures (aEurooeSittengemA¤lde in vier BildernaEuro¯), to each of which he has
given a separate title, a method which enables him to indulge in his
trick of applying a pretty, inoffensive name to a tragic subject, as
he does in picture two of this series, which he calls aEurooeBehind Swedish
Curtains,aEuro¯ and which represents the interior of a jail. The curtains
to which the playwright refers are the iron bars of the prison.
The central character in aEurooeMusik,aEuro¯ Klara Huhnerwadel, is a neurotic
girl, whose mad love for her singing teacher has entangled her in the
meshes of the legal net drawn to catch Madame Fischer, a notorious
character in real life, who actively engaged the attention of the
German police authorities not long ago. At the instigation of her
lover, Josef Reissner, and with money supplied by Else Reissner,
Josef's wife, Klara flees to Antwerp, only to find existence
insupportable there, and to return to a life in jail which drives her
to the edge of insanity. Released from imprisonment, she continues
her relationship with her teacher until their association becomes
public scandal, and then takes refuge in the country, intending to
devote her life to her illegitimate child. The child dies, however,
and there descends upon Klara what Wedekind describes as aEurooethe curse
of the ridiculous.aEuro¯ In an outburst of frightful anguish she is filled
with aEurooea nameless loathing of the horrible fate of being racked to
death by bursts of sneering laughter,aEuro¯ and raves in hysteria by the
bedside of her dead baby.
Upon this final picture Wedekind has expended his full power of
biting irony. Josef Reissner, the cause of Klara's misfortune, is
thanked by her mother for all he has done for her, while Franz
Lindekuh, a literary man, whose rA'le in the play has been that of a
good Samaritan, is accused as the author of her disgrace. During
previous tribulations Reissner has assured Klara repeatedly that her
suffering would develop her artistic temperament and result in
bringing her fame as a singer. At the end, when Klara, after
undergoing imprisonment, exile, poverty, public disgrace and the loss
of her beloved child, finds herself bereft of even Reissner's regard,
she is led away in a stupor from her miserable attic. It is then, in
reply to a wish of the physician that she will suffer from no lasting
mental disturbance, that Lindekuh preludes the fall of the curtain by
the caustic remark: aEurooeShe'll be able to sing a song.aEuro¯
Here, truly, is a tragedy! There can be no doubt but what Wedekind
has handled it in a powerful fashion. He sounds the tragic note upon
the first rising of the curtain, a note which grows in intensity
until the auditor wonders if it is possible for it to reach
higher----and yet it swells.
aEurooeFrA1/4hlings ErwachenaEuro¯ is the best known of the Wedekind dramas and the
most original in its treatment. It has peculiarities, however, which
make it somewhat difficult to give as a stage performance. To see
what this German playwright can do on more conservative lines, and to
appreciate his mastership of the conventional technique of the stage,
one must turn to the dramas of modern life in which he handles such
subjects as socialism, woman's emancipation, naturalism and divorce;
frequently, it must be confessed, in a way which Americans refuse to
tolerate upon the stage, despite their fondness for the same sort of
information when supplied by the newspapers.
Selecting his characters from all classes of life, Wedekind brings to
their making the knowledge of life as the police reporter sees it
plus the science of a skilled psychologist. There is something
sardonic about his art. He does not appear to sympathize with any of
his characters, but to stand outside of life making note of the
foibles and failures of his fellow-creatures. His irony appears in
the most tragic places, and his dialogue, wrought with a cunning
which requires strict attention on the part of the auditor if its
subtleties would be grasped, serves Wedekind as an instrument for
dissecting souls which he wields quite regardless of the mess he may
make in the operating room.
None knows better how to show the peculiarities of a neurotic woman,
or to betray a man's weakness by a few short sentences. The
demonstration is direct and thorough, and we watch it fascinated, as
we might the work of a skilled vivisectionist. When the job is
finished we feel convinced that Wedekind's personages are real,
although many of them are not the kind we enjoy meeting in actual
life. We do meet them daily, nevertheless, tolerating them chiefly by
our own polite habit of ascribing imaginary virtues to those that
possess them not.
Take that curious comedy, aEurooeDer Marquis von Keith,aEuro¯ as an example of
Wedekind's skill as a psychologist. aEurooeComedyaEuro¯ the author names it
himself, but he might just as well have called it a tragic farce, so
thoroughly has he mingled the laughable with the tragic. The
protagonist of this peculiar play (the underlying tone of which has
been likened musically to a Dies Irae written by Offenbach) is the
illegitimate son of a teacher of mathematics and a gypsy trull, an
adventurer who keeps on the shady side of the law, and who, despite
his practical view of life in general, is an idealist in several
particulars. His title of Marquis von Keith is merely a _nom de
guerre_, and his attempts to obtain a fortune involve methods which
the world acclaims as evidences of wonderful financial ability, or
stigmatizes as the practices of a sharper, according to their success
or failure. Resourceful, energetic, unhampered by vain regrets or
restrictions of conventional morals, wasting not a moment upon a
scheme which has proved unprofitable, von Keith is a forceful
personage who manages to pass in Munich as a wealthy American, even
when his pockets are empty and the sheriff is at the door. His own
view of life is embodied in his definition of sin as aEurooethe
mythological symbol for bad business,aEuro¯ and his accompanying
explanation that good business can be conducted only by a person
accepted by the existing order of society.
In other words, von Keith is a hypocrite for revenue only, but never
is deceived concerning his own personality.
The play deals with von Keith's scheme to build an amusement hall, to
be known as aEurooeThe Fairy Palace.aEuro¯ He applies himself so sedulously that
his plans are on the eve of realization, when suddenly he finds
himself ousted from the management of his own enterprise by the very
men he has interested in it.
Now all this is comedy, of course, but Wedekind is not to be deprived
of his predelection for the minor key. He introduces the tragic tone
in this instance right in the final scene, when von Keith is
confronted by the dead body of his common-law wife, Molly Griefinger.
In some respects this episode resembles a travesty upon the final act
of Sudermann's aEurooeSodoms Ende;aEuro¯ but it is characteristic of Wedekind
that he makes Molly kill herself because she fears von Keith's
success will estrange her from her husband, and that her suicide is
followed directly by the failure of von Keith's well-laid plans, just
as they seemed about to mature.
It is characteristic, also, that the crowd which denounces von Keith
as the cause of Molly's death, and which threatens to do him bodily
harm, is composed of tradesmen whose initial cause of discontent is
to be found in the promoter's failure to pay his bills.
Wedekind's certainty of touch is as much in evidence in his handling
of his minor characters as it is in the portrayal of von Keith. There
is Molly, whose little bourgeois soul fears the great world, shrinks
from her husband's acquaintances, and dreads to take its place among
the wealthy classes; Simba, the artist's model, who is astonished at
anybody pitying her as a victim of civilization when she can get
drunk on champagne; Casimir, the wealthy merchant; and the Bohemian
painter Saranieff, with his friend Zamrjaki, the composer. As an
antithesis to von Keith we are introduced to Ernst Scholz, a weakling
whose soul is torn by internal strife, until its owner is at peace
neither with himself nor the world. Scholz wastes his time seeking a
reason for his own existence and in longing to become a useful member
of society; von Keith scorns to bother his brain with such trifles,
boldly proclaiming the Nietzschean doctrine that the only way to be
useful to others is to help one's self as much as possible, and
asserting that he would rather gather cigar stumps in the cafA(C)
gutters than live in slothful peace in the country. There is no doubt
about von Keith being a rogue, in the conventional acceptance of the
term, but his enthusiasm appeals to us and we feel for him in his
undoing at the end of the play.
In aEurooeDie Junge WeltaEuro¯ Wedekind shows us the laughable attempts of a
party of young girls to live a life of celibacy in pursuance of a
resolution taken in boarding school. It is an amusing comedy, and
contains, among other interesting personages, a literary man, who
nearly drives his wife to divorce by his habit of jotting down notes
of her emotions, even when he is kissing her.
An opportunity to comment upon the German _lese majesty_ is not
neglected by Wedekind in the romantic drama, aEurooeSo ist das Leben,aEuro¯ a
dignified and carefully wrought work, partly in verse, which deals
with the tribulations of a deposed monarch in his own country. This
exiled king becomes tramp, tailor and strolling player, to end
eventually as court jester of the very man who has taken his place on
the throne.
aEurooeDer KammersA¤nger,aEuro¯ three scenes from the life of a popular tenor, is
little more than a dramatic sketch. aEurooeDer ErdgeistaEuro¯ and aEurooeDie BA1/4chse
der Pandora,aEuro¯ two plays which constitute an integral whole, deal with
a lady who embraces Mrs. Warren's profession. These, with aEurooeDer
LeibestrankaEuro¯ and aEurooeOaha,aEuro¯ two farces, with traces of real psychology,
round out the total of Wedekind's dramatic works. In addition, he has
indulged in verse-making and written a number of short stories
somewhat in the manner of De Maupassant.
One may feel at times that Wedekind's art would gain by the exercise
of more restraint, but there is no denying it is a great relief from
aEurooelyric lemonade.aEuro¯
An attempt to explain symbolism is usually a dangerous matter. If a
failure, it makes the one who essays the task ridiculous. If
successful, it cheapens the value of the symbolism; symbolism being a
kind of an overtone to verbal reasoning, to which it bears much the
same relationship as music does to poetry. In spite of this double
danger, the translator ventures to close this review with a guess at
the personality of the Masked Man who plays such an important part in
the final scene of aEurooeFrA1/4hlings ErwachenaEuro¯ and to whom the author has
dedicated the play. To the translator, then, this mysterious
personage is none other than Life, Life in its reality, not Life as
seen through the fogged glasses of Melchior's pedagogues or the
purblind eyes of the unfortunate mother who sends her daughter to an
untimely grave.
FRANCIS J. ZIEGLER.
_June, 1909._
*Author's Dedication*
TO THE MASKED MAN
ACT I
The Awakening of Spring.
SCENE FIRST.
_A Dwelling Room._
WENDLA.
Why have you made my dress so long, Mother?
FRAU BERGMANN.
You are fourteen years old to-day.
WENDLA.
Had I known you were going to make my dress so long, I would rather
not have been fourteen.
FRAU BERGMANN.
The dress is not too long, Wendla. What do you want? Can I help it
that my child is two inches taller every spring? As a grown-up maiden
you cannot go about in short dresses.
WENDLA.
At any rate, my short dress becomes me better than this
nightgown.--Let me wear it again, Mother, only through this summer.
This penitential robe will fit me just as well whether I am fifteen
or fourteen. Let's put it aside until my next birthday, now I should
only tear the flounces.
FRAU BERGMANN.
I don't know what to say. I want to take special care of you just
now, child. Other girls are hardy and plump at your age. You are the
contrary.----Who knows what you will be when the others have
developed?
WENDLA.
Who knows--possibly I shall not be at all.
FRAU BERGMANN.
Child, child, how do such thoughts come to you!
WENDLA.
Don't, dear Mother, don't be sad.
FRAU BERGMANN.
(_Kissing her._)
My own darling!
WENDLA.
They come to me at night when I can't sleep. I am not made sad by
them, and I believe that I sleep better after them. Is it sinful,
Mother, to have such thoughts?
FRAU BERGMANN.
Go hang the long dress up in the closet. Put on your short dress
again, in God's name!--I will put another depth of ruffles on it.
WENDLA.
(_Hanging the dress in the closet._)
No, I would rather be twenty at once----!
FRAU BERGMANN.
If only you are not too cold!----The dress was long enough for you in
its time, but----
WENDLA.
Now, when summer is coming?----Mother, when one is a child, one
doesn't catch diphtheria in one's knees! Who would be so cowardly. At
my age one doesn't freeze--least of all in the legs. Would it be any
better for me to be too warm, Mother? Give thanks to God if some day
your darling doesn't tear out the sleeves and come to you at twilight
without her shoes and stockings!--If I wore my long dress I should
dress like an elfin queen under it.--Don't scold, Mother! Nobody sees
it any more.
SCENE SECOND.
_Sunday Evening._
MELCHIOR.
This is too tiresome for me. I won't do anything more with it.
OTTO.
Then we others can stop, too!----Have you the work, Melchior?
MELCHIOR.
Keep right on playing!
MORITZ.
Where are you going?
MELCHIOR.
For a walk.
GEORGE.
But it's growing dark!
ROBERT.
Have you the work already?
MELCHIOR.
Why shouldn't I go walking in the dark?
ERNEST.
Central America!----Louis the Fifteenth!----Sixty verses of
Homer!----Seven equations!
MELCHIOR.
Damn the work!
GEORGE.
If only Latin composition didn't come to-morrow!
MORITZ.
One can't think of anything without a task intervening.
OTTO.
I'm going home.
GEORGE.
I, too, to work.
ERNEST.
I, too, I too.
ROBERT.
Good-night, Melchior.
MELCHIOR.
Sleep well! (_All withdraw save Moritz and Melchior._) I'd like to
know why we really are on earth!
MORITZ.
I'd rather be a cab-horse than go to school!----Why do we go to
school?----We go to school so that somebody can examine us!----And
why do they examine us?----In order that we may fail. Seven must
fail, because the upper classroom will hold only sixty.----I feel so
queer since Christmas.----The devil take me, if it were not for Papa,
I'd pack my bundle and go to Altoona to-day!
MELCHIOR.
Let's talk of something else----
(_They go for a walk._)
MORITZ.
Do you see that black cat there with its tail sticking up?
MELCHIOR.
Do you believe in omens?
MORITZ.
I don't know exactly. They come down to us. They don't matter.
MELCHIOR.
I believe that is the Charybdis on which one runs when one steers
clear of the Scylla of religious folly.----Let's sit down under this
beech tree. The cool wind blows over the mountains. Now I should like
to be a young dryad up there in the wood to cradle myself in the
topmost branches and be rocked the livelong night.
MORITZ.
Unbutton your vest, Melchior.
MELCHIOR.
Ha!----How clothes make one puff up!
MORITZ.
God knows, it's growing so dark that one can't see one's hand before
one's eyes. Where are you?----Do you believe, Melchior, that the
feeling of shame in man is only a product of his education?
MELCHIOR.
I was thinking over that for the first time the day before yesterday.
It seems to me deeply rooted in human nature. Only think, you must
appear entirely clothed before your best friend. You wouldn't do so
if he didn't do the same thing.----Therefore, it's more or less of a
fashion.
MORITZ.
I have often thought that if I have children, boys and girls, I will
let them occupy the same room; let them sleep together in the same
bed, if possible; let them help each other dress and undress night
and morning. In hot weather, the boys as well as the girls, should
wear nothing all day long but a short white woolen tunic with a
girdle.----It seems to me that if they grew up that way they would be
easier in mind than we are under the present regulations.
MELCHIOR.
I believe so decidedly, Moritz!----The only question is, suppose the
girls have children, what then?
MORITZ.
How could they have children?
MELCHIOR.
In that respect I believe in instinct. I believe, for example, that
if one brought up a male and a female cat together, and kept both
separated from the outside world----that is, left them entirely to
their own devices----that, sooner or later, the she cat would become
pregnant, even if she, and the tom cat as well, had nobody to open
their eyes by example.
MORITZ.
That might happen with animals----
MELCHIOR.
I believe the same of human beings. I assure you, Moritz, if your
boys sleep in the same bed with the girls, and the first emotion of
manhood comes unexpectedly to them--I should like to wager with
anyone----
MORITZ.
You may be right--but after all----
MELCHIOR.
And when your girls reached the same age it would be the same with
them! Not that the girls exactly--one can't judge that the same,
certainly--at any rate, it is supposable--and then their curiosity
must not be left out of account.
MORITZ.
A question, by the way----
MELCHIOR.
Well?
MORITZ.
But you will answer?
MELCHIOR.
Naturally!
MORITZ.
Truly?!
MELCHIOR.
My hand on it.----Now, Moritz?
MORITZ.
Have you written your composition yet??
MELCHIOR.
Speak right out from your heart!----Nobody sees or hears us here.
MORITZ.
Of course, my children will have to work all day long in yard or
garden, or find their amusement in games which are combined with
physical exercise. They must ride, do gymnastics, climb, and, above
all things, must not sleep as soft as we do. We are weakened
frightfully.----I believe one would not dream if one slept harder.
MELCHIOR.
From now until fall I shall sleep only in my hammock. I have shoved
my bed back of the stove. It is a folding one. Last winter I dreamed
once that I flogged our Lolo until he couldn't move a limb. That was
the most gruesome thing I ever dreamed.----Why do you look at me so
strangely?
MORITZ.
Have you experienced it yet?
MELCHIOR.
What?
MORITZ.
How do you say it?
MELCHIOR.
Manhood's emotion?
MORITZ.
M--'hm.
MELCHIOR.
Certainly!
MORITZ.
I also ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
---- ---- ---- ---- ----
MELCHIOR.
I've known that for a long while!----Almost for a year.
MORITZ.
I was startled as if by lightning.
MELCHIOR.
Did you dream?
MORITZ.
Only for a little while--of legs in light blue tights, that strode
over the teacher's desk--to be correct, I thought they wanted to go
over it. I only saw them for an instant.
MELCHIOR.
George Zirschnitz dreamed of his mother.
MORITZ.
Did he tell you that?
MELCHIOR.
Out there on the gallow's road.
MORITZ.
If you only knew what I have endured since that night!
MELCHIOR.
Qualms of conscience?
MORITZ.
Qualms of conscience??----The anguish of death!
MELCHIOR.
Good Lord----
MORITZ.
I thought I was incurable. I believed I was suffering from an inward
hurt.----Finally I became calm enough to begin to jot down the
recollections of my life. Yes, yes, dear Melchior, the last three
weeks have been a Gethsemane for me.
MELCHIOR.
I was more or less prepared for it when it came. I felt a little
ashamed of myself.----But that was all.
MORITZ.
And yet you are a whole year younger than I am.
MELCHIOR.
I wouldn't bother about that, Moritz. All my experience shows that
the appearance of this phantom belongs to no particular age. You know
that big LA¤mmermeier with the straw-colored hair and the hooked nose.
He is three years older than I am. Little Hans Rilow says LA¤mmermeier
dreams now only of tarts and apricot preserves.
MORITZ.
But, I ask you, how can Hans Rilow know that?
MELCHIOR.
He asked him.
MORITZ.
He asked him?----I didn't dare ask anybody.
MELCHIOR.
But you asked me.
MORITZ.
God knows, yes!----Possibly Hans, too, has made his will.----Truly
they play a remarkable game with us. And we're expected to give
thanks for it. I don't remember to have had any longing for this kind
of excitement. Why didn't they let me sleep peacefully until all was
still again. My dear parents might have had a hundred better
children. I came here, I don't know how, and must be responsible
because I didn't stay away.----Haven't you often wondered, Melchior,
by what means we were brought into this whirl?
MELCHIOR.
Don't you know that yet either, Moritz?
MORITZ.
How should I know it? I see how the hens lay eggs, and hear that
Mamma had to carry me under her heart. But is that enough?----I
remember, too, when I was a five year old child, to have been
embarrassed when anyone turned up the dA(C)colletA(C) queen of hearts. This
feeling has disappeared. At the same time, I can hardly talk with a
girl to-day without thinking of something indecent, and--I swear to
you, Melchior--I don't know what.
MELCHIOR.
I will tell you everything. I have gotten it partly from books,
partly from illustrations, partly from observations of nature. You
will be surprised; it made me an atheist. I told it to George
Zirschnitz! George Zirschnitz wanted to tell it to Hans Rilow, but
Hans Rilow had learned it all from his governess when he was a child.
MORITZ.
I have gone through Meyer's Little Encyclopedia from A to Z.
Words--nothing but words and words! Not a single plain explanation.
Oh, this feeling of shame!----What good to me is an encyclopedia that
won't answer me concerning the most important question in life?
MELCHIOR.
Did you ever see two dogs running together about the streets?
MORITZ.
No!----Don't tell me anything to-day, Melchior. I have Central
America and Louis the Fifteenth before me. And then the sixty verses
of Homer, the seven equations and the Latin composition.----I would
fail in all of them again to-morrow. To drudge successfully I must be
as stupid as an ox.
MELCHIOR.
Come with me to my room. In three-quarters of an hour I will have the
Homer, the equations and two compositions. I will put one or two
harmless errors in yours, and the thing is done. Mamma will make
lemonade for us again, and we can chat comfortably about propagation.
MORITZ.
I can't----I can't chat comfortably about propagation! If you want to
do me a favor, give me your information in writing. Write me out what
you know. Write it as briefly and clearly as possible, and put it
between my books to-morrow during recess. I will carry it home
without knowing that I have it. I will find it unexpectedly. I cannot
but help going over it with tired eyes----in case it is hard to
explain, you can use a marginal diagram or so.
MELCHIOR.
You are like a girl.----Nevertheless, as you wish. It will be a very
interesting task for me.----One question, Moritz?
MORITZ.
Hm?
MELCHIOR.
Did you ever see a girl?
MORITZ.
Yes!
MELCHIOR.
All of her?
MORITZ.
Certainly!
MELCHIOR.
So have I!----Then we won't need any illustrations.
MORITZ.
During the SchA1/4tzenfest in Leilich's anatomical museum! If it had
leaked out I should have been hunted out of school.----Beautiful as
the light of day, and----oh, so true to nature!
MELCHIOR.
I was at Frankfurt with Mamma last summer----Are you going already,
Moritz?
MORITZ.
I must work.----Good-night.
MELCHIOR.
'Till we meet again.
SCENE THIRD.
_Thea, Wendla and Martha come along the street arm in arm._
MARTHA.
How the water gets into one's shoes!
WENDLA.
How the wind blows against one's cheeks!
THEA.
How one's heart thumps!
WENDLA.
Let's go out there to the bridge. Ilse says the stream is full of
bushes and trees. The boys have built a raft. Melchi Gabor was almost
drowned yesterday.
THEA.
Oh, he can swim!
MARTHA.
I should think so, child!
WENDLA.
If he hadn't been able to swim he would have been drowned!
THEA.
Your hair is coming down, Martha, your hair is coming down.
MARTHA.
Pooh!----Let it come down! It bothers me day and night. I may not
wear short hair like you; I may not wear my hair down my back like
Wendla; I may not wear bangs, and I must always do my hair up at
home----all on account of my aunt!
WENDLA.
I'll bring the scissors with me to-morrow to devotions. While you are
saying, aEurooeBlessed are they who do not stray,aEuro¯ I will clip it off.
MARTHA.
For heaven's sake, Wendla! Papa would beat me black and blue, and
Mamma would lock me up in the coal hole for three nights.
WENDLA.
What does he beat you with, Martha?
MARTHA.
It often seems to me as if they would miss something if they didn't
have an ill-conditioned brat like me.
THEA.
Why, girl!
MARTHA.
Are you ever allowed to put a blue ribbon through the top of your
chemise?
THEA.
A pink ribbon! Mamma thinks a pink ribbon goes well with my big dark
eyes.
MARTHA.
Blue suits me to a T!----Mamma pulled me out of bed by the hair. I
fell with my hands out so on the floor.----Mamma prayed night after
night with us----
WENDLA.
In your place I should have run away long ago.
MARTHA.
There you have it! The reason I am going away!----There you have
it!----They will soon see----oh, they will soon see! At least I shall
never be able to reproach my mother----
THEA.
H'm, h'm.----
MARTHA.
Can you imagine, Thea, what Mamma meant by it?
THEA.
I can't----can you, Wendla?
WENDLA.
I should simply have asked her.
MARTHA.
I lay on the floor and shrieked and howled. Then Papa came in.
Rip----he tore off my chemise. Out of the door I went. There you have
it!----I only wanted to get out in the street that way----
WENDLA.
But that is not so, Martha.
MARTHA.
I froze. I was locked up. I had to sleep all night in a sack.
THEA.
Never in my life could I sleep in a sack!
WENDLA.
I only wish I could sleep once for you in your sack.
MARTHA.
If only one weren't beaten!
THEA.
But one would suffocate in it!
MARTHA.
Your head is left outside. It's tied under your chin.
THEA.
And then they beat you?
MARTHA.
No. Only when there is special occasion.
WENDLA.
What do they beat you with, Martha?
MARTHA.
Oh, with anything that is handy.----Does your mother think it's
naughty to eat a piece of bread in bed?
WENDLA.
No! no!
MARTHA.
I believe they enjoy it----even if they don't say so. If I ever have
children I will let them grow up like the weeds in our flower garden.
Nobody worries about them and they grow so high and thick----while
the roses in the beds grow poorer and poorer every summer.
THEA.
If I have children I shall dress them all in pink. Pink hats, pink
dresses, pink shoes. Only the stockings----the stockings shall be
black as night! When I go for a walk they shall march in front of
me.----And you, Wendla?
WENDLA.
How do you know that you will have any?
THEA.
Why shouldn't we have any?
MARTHA.
Well, Aunt Euphemia hasn't any.
THEA.
You goose, that's because she isn't married.
WENDLA.
Aunt Bauer was married three times and she didn't have a single one.
MARTHA.
If you have any, Wendla, which would you rather have, boys or girls?
WENDLA.
Boys! boys!
THEA.
I, too, boys!
MARTHA.
So would I. Better twenty boys than three girls.
THEA.
Girls are tiresome.
MARTHA.
If I weren't a girl already I certainly wouldn't want to be one.
WENDLA.
That's a matter of taste, I believe, Martha. I rejoice every day that
I am a girl. Believe me, I wouldn't change places with a king's
son.----That's the reason why I only want boys!
THEA.
But that's crazy, pure craziness, Wendla!
WENDLA.
But it must be a thousand times more exciting to be loved by a man
than by a girl!
THEA.
But you don't want to assert that Forest Inspector PfA¤lle loves
Melitta more than she does him.
WENDLA.
That I do, Thea. PfA¤lle is proud. PfA¤lle is proud because he is a
forest inspector--for PfA¤lle has nothing.----Melitta is happy because
she gets ten thousand times more than she is.
MARTHA.
Aren't you proud of yourself, Wendla?
WENDLA.
That would be silly.
MARTHA.
In your place I should be proud of my appearance.
THEA.
Only look how she steps out----how free her glance is--how she holds
herself, Martha. Isn't that pride?
WENDLA.
Why not? I am so happy to be a girl; if I weren't a girl I should
break down the next time----
(_Melchior passes and greets them._)
THEA.
He has a wonderful head.
MARTHA.
He makes me think of the young Alexander going to school to
Aristotle.
THEA.
Oh dear, Greek history!----I only know how Socrates lay in his barrel
when Alexander sold him the ass' shadow.
WENDLA.
He stands third in his class.
THEA.
Professor Knochenbruch says he can be first if he wants.
MARTHA.
He has a beautiful brow, but his friend has a soulful look.
THEA.
Moritz Stiefel?----He's a stupid!
MARTHA.
I've always gotten along well with him.
THEA.
He disgraces anybody who is with him. At Rilow's party he offered me
some bon-bons. Only think, Wendla, they were soft and warm. Isn't
that----? He said he had kept them too long in his trouser's pocket.
WENDLA.
Only think, Melchi Gabor told me once that he didn't believe
anything----not in God, not in a hereafter----in anything more in
this world.
SCENE FOURTH.
_A park in front of the grammar school. Melchior, Otto, George,
Robert, Hans Rilow and LA¤mmermeier._
MELCHIOR.
Can any of you say where Moritz Stiefel is keeping himself?
GEORGE.
It may go hard with him!----Oh, it may go hard with him!
OTTO.
He'll keep on until he gets caught dead to rights.
LAEMMERMEIER.
Lord knows, I wouldn't want to be in his skin at this moment!
ROBERT.
What cheek! What insolence!
MELCHIOR.
Wha----Wha----what do you know?
GEORGE.
What do we know?----Now, I tell you----
LAEMMERMEIER.
I wish I hadn't said anything!
OTTO.
So do I----God knows I do!
MELCHIOR.
If you don't at once----
ROBERT.
The long and the short of it is, Moritz Stiefel has broken into the
Board Room.
MELCHIOR.
Into the Board Room----?
OTTO.
Into the Board Room. Right after the Latin lesson.
GEORGE.
He was the last. He hung back intentionally.
LAEMMERMEIER.
As I turned the corner of the corridor, I saw him open the door.
MELCHIOR.
The devil take----
LAEMMERMEIER.
If only the devil doesn't take him.
GEORGE.
Perhaps the Rector didn't take the key.
ROBERT.
Or Moritz Stiefel carries a skeleton key.
OTTO.
That may be possible.
LAEMMERMEIER.
If he has luck, he'll only be kept in.
ROBERT.
Besides getting a demerit mark in his report!
OTTO.
If this doesn't result in his being kicked out.
HANS RILOW.
There he is!
MELCHIOR.
White as a handkerchief.
(_Moritz comes in in great agitation._)
LAEMMERMEIER.
Moritz, Moritz, what have you done!
MORITZ.
Nothing----nothing----
ROBERT.
You're feverish!
MORITZ.
From good fortune----from happiness----from jubilation----
OTTO.
You were caught!
MORITZ.
I am promoted!----Melchior, I am promoted! Oh, I don't care what
happens now!----I am promoted!----Who would have believed that I
should be promoted!----I don't realize it yet!----I read it twenty
times!----I couldn't believe it----Good Lord, it's so!----It's so; I
am promoted! (_Laughing._) I don't know----I feel so queer----the
ground turns around----Melchior, Melchior, can you realize what I've
gone through?
HANS RILOW.
I congratulate you, Moritz----Only be happy that you got away with
it!
MORITZ.
You don't know, Hans, you can't guess, what depends on it. For three
weeks I've slunk past that door as if it were a hellish abyss. To-day
I saw it was ajar. I believe that if some one had offered me a
million----nothing, oh nothing, could have held me.----I stood in the
middle of the room,--I opened the report book----ran over the
leaves----found----and during all that time----I shudder----
MELCHIOR.
----During all that time?
MORITZ.
During all that time the door behind me stood wide open. How I got
out----how I came down the steps, I don't know.
HANS RILOW.
Is Ernest RA¶bel promoted, too?
MORITZ.
Oh, certainly, Hans, certainly!----Ernest RA¶bel is promoted, too.
ROBERT.
Then you can't have read correctly. Counting in the dunce's stool,
we, with you and Robert, make sixty-one, and the upper class-room
cannot accommodate more than sixty.
MORITZ.
I read it right enough. Ernest RA¶bel is given as high a rating as I
am--both of us have conditions to work off.----During the first
quarter it will be seen which of us has to make room for the other.
Poor RA¶bel!----Heaven knows, I'm not afraid of myself any longer.
I've looked into it too deeply this time for that.
OTTO.
I bet five marks that you lose your place.
MORITZ.
You haven't anything. I won't rob you.----Lord, but I'll grind from
to-day on!----I can say so now----whether you believe it or
not----It's all the same now----I----I know how true it is; if I
hadn't been promoted I would have shot myself.
ROBERT.
Boaster!
GEORGE.
Coward!
OTTO.
I'd like to see you shoot yourself!
LAEMMERMEIER.
Box his ears.
MELCHIOR.
(_Gives him a cuff._)
Come, Moritz, let's go to the forester's house!
GEORGE.
Do you believe his nonsense?
MELCHIOR.
What's that to you? Let them chatter, Moritz! Come on, let's go to
town.
(_Professors Hungergurt and Knochenbruch pass by._)
KNOCHENBRUCH.
It is inexplicable to me, my dear colleague, how the best of my
scholars can fail the very worst of all.
HUNGERGURT.
To me, also, professor.
SCENE FIFTH.
_A sunny afternoon--Melchior and Wendla meet each other in the
wood._
MELCHIOR.
Is it really you, Wendla?----What are you doing up here all
alone?----For three hours I've been going from one side of the wood
to the other without meeting a soul, and now you come upon me out of
the thickest part of it!
WENDLA.
Yes, it's I.
MELCHIOR.
If I didn't know you were Wendla Bergmann, I would take you for a
dryad, fallen out of your tree.
WENDLA.
No, no, I am Wendla Bergmann.----How did you come here?
MELCHIOR.
I followed my thoughts.
WENDLA.
I'm hunting waldmeister.[1] Mamma wants to make Maybowl. At first she
intended coming along herself, but at the last moment Aunt Bauer
dropped in, and she doesn't like to climb.----So I came by myself.
MELCHIOR.
Have you found your waldmeister?
WENDLA.
A whole basketful. Down there under the beach it grows as thick as
meadow clover. Just now I am looking for a way out. I seem to have
lost the path. Can you tell me what time it is?
MELCHIOR.
Just a little after half-past four. When do they expect you?
WENDLA.
I thought it was later. I lay dreaming for a long time on the moss by
the brook. The time went by so fast, I feared it was already evening.
MELCHIOR.
If nobody is waiting for you, let us linger here a little longer.
Under the oak tree there is my favorite place. If one leans one's
head back against the trunk and looks up through the branches at the
sky, one becomes hypnotized. The ground is warm yet from the morning
sun.----For weeks I've been wanting to ask you something, Wendla.
WENDLA.
But I must be home at five o'clock.
MELCHIOR.
We'll go together, then. I'll take the basket and we'll beat our way
through the bushes, so that in ten minutes we'll be on the
bridge!----When one lies so, with one's head in one's hand, one has
the strangest thoughts.----
(_Both lie down under the oak._)
WENDLA.
What do you want to ask me, Melchior?
MELCHIOR.
I've heard, Wendla, that you visit poor people's houses. You take
them food and clothes and money also. Do you do that of your own free
will, or does your mother send you?
WENDLA.
Mother sends me mostly. They are families of day laborers that have
too many children. Often the husband can't find work and then they
freeze and go hungry. We have a lot of things which were laid away
long ago in our closets and wardrobes and which are no longer
needed.----But how did you know it?
MELCHIOR.
Do you go willingly or unwillingly, when your mother sends you?
WENDLA.
Oh, I love to go!----How can you ask?
MELCHIOR.
But the children are dirty, the women are sick, the houses are full
of filth, the men hate you because you don't work----
WENDLA.
That's not true, Melchior. And if it were true, I'd go just the same!
MELCHIOR.
Why just the same, Wendla?
WENDLA.
I'd go just the same! It would make me all the happier to be able to
help them.
MELCHIOR.
Then you go to see the poor because it makes you happy?
WENDLA.
I go to them because they are poor.
MELCHIOR.
But if it weren't a pleasure to you, you wouldn't go?
WENDLA.
Can I help it that it makes me happy?
MELCHIOR.
And because of it you expect to go to heaven! So it's true, then,
that which has given me no peace for a month past!--Can the covetous
man help it that it is no pleasure to him to go to see dirty sick
children?
WENDLA.
Oh, surely it would give you the greatest pleasure!
MELCHIOR.
And, therefore, he must suffer everlasting death. I'll write a paper
on it and send it to Pastor Kahlbauch. He is the cause of it. Why did
he fool us with the joy of good works.--If he can't answer me I won't
go to Sunday-school any longer and won't let them confirm me.
WENDLA.
Why don't you tell your trouble to your dear parents? Let yourself be
confirmed, it won't cost you your head. If it weren't for our horrid
white dresses and your long trousers one might be more spiritual.
MELCHIOR.
There is no sacrifice! There is no self-denial! I see the good
rejoice in their hearts, I see the evil tremble and groan--I see you,
Wendla Bergmann, shake your locks and laugh while I am as melancholy
as an outlaw.--What did you dream, Wendla, when you lay in the grass
by the brook?
WENDLA.
----Foolishness----nonsense.----
MELCHIOR.
With your eyes open?
WENDLA.
I dreamed I was a poor, poor beggar girl, who was turned out in the
street at five o'clock in the morning. I had to beg the whole long
day in storm and bad weather from rough, hard-hearted people. When I
came home at night, shivering from hunger and cold, and without as
much money as my father coveted, then I was beaten----beaten----
MELCHIOR.
I know that, Wendla. You have the silly children's stories to thank
for that. Believe me, such brutal men exist no longer.
WENDLA.
Oh yes, Melchior, you're mistaken. Martha Bessel is beaten night
after night, so that one sees the marks of it the next day. Oh, but
it must hurt! It makes one boiling hot when she tells it. I'm so
frightfully sorry for her that I often cry over it in my pillows at
night. For months I've been thinking how one can help her.----I'd
take her place for eight days with pleasure.
MELCHIOR.
One should complain of her father at once. Then the child would be
taken away from him.
WENDLA.
I, Melchior, have never been beaten in my life----not a single time.
I can hardly imagine what it means to be beaten. I have beaten myself
in order to see how one felt then in one's heart----It must be a
gruesome feeling.
MELCHIOR.
I don't believe a child is better for it.
WENDLA.
Better for what?
MELCHIOR.
For being beaten.
WENDLA.
With this switch, for instance! Ha! but it's tough and thin.
MELCHIOR.
That would draw blood!
WENDLA.
Would you like to beat me with it once?
MELCHIOR.
Who?
WENDLA.
Me.
MELCHIOR.
What's the matter with you, Wendla?
WENDLA.
What might happen?
MELCHIOR.
Oh, be quiet! I won't beat you.
WENDLA.
Not if I allow you?
MELCHIOR.
No, girl!
WENDLA.
Not even if I ask you, Melchior?
MELCHIOR.
Are you out of your senses?
WENDLA.
I've never been beaten in my life!
MELCHIOR.
If you can ask for such a thing----
WENDLA.
Please----please----
MELCHIOR.
I'll teach you to say please! (_He hits her._)
WENDLA.
Oh, Lord, I don't notice it in the least!
MELCHIOR.
I believe you----through all your skirts----
WENDLA.
Then strike me on my legs!
MELCHIOR.
Wendla! (_He strikes her harder._)
WENDLA.
You're stroking me! You're stroking me!
MELCHIOR.
Wait, witch, I'll flog Satan out of you!
(_He throws the switch aside and beats her with his fists so that
she breaks out with a frightful cry. He pays no attention to this,
but falls upon her as if he were crazy, while the tears stream
heavily down his cheeks. Presently he springs away, holds both
hands to his temples and rushes into the depths of the wood crying
out in anguish of soul._)