them, lighting them_.
MRS. GABOR-- ... They were in need of a scapegoat. They couldn’t
disregard the accusations that were springing up on every side against
=them=. And now that my son has had the ill luck to fall foul of the
old pedants at the precise moment, now am I, his own mother, to help to
complete his executioners’ work?--God preserve me from it!
MR. GABOR--I have looked on at your ingenious educational methods for
fourteen years in silence. They were contrary to my ideas. I had always
lived under the persuasion that a child was not a plaything, that a
child had a claim upon our most earnest efforts. But I said to myself,
if the grace and esprit of one parent are able to take the place of the
other’s serious principles, why, they may be preferable to the serious
principles.--I am not blaming you, Fanny; but don’t stand in my way
when I am trying to make good to the boy the wrong that both you and I
have done him.
MRS. GABOR--I will stand in your way as long as a drop of blood runs
warm in my veins! In a House of Correction my child will be lost. A
criminal nature may perhaps be bettered in such institutions.--I don’t
know. A child naturally good will there as certainly become criminal
as a plant degenerates when deprived of air and sun. I am conscious of
no wrong done him. I thank God to-day as always that He showed me the
way to awaken in my child an upright character and noble mind. What has
he done then that’s so dreadful?--I haven’t the least idea of trying to
exculpate him!--For being turned out of school he needs no exculpation;
and if he =were= at fault, he has paid for it.--You may know better
about all that; you may be perfectly right theoretically. But I cannot
let my only child be driven and forced to his destruction!
MR. GABOR--That does not depend upon us, Fanny. That is a risk that we
took upon ourselves along with our happiness. He that is too feeble
for the march is left by the wayside. And it is surely not so bad
as it might be, if the inevitable comes in time. May Heaven defend
us from it! Our duty is to steady the waverer as long as reason can
find means to do it.--That he has been expelled from school is not
his fault. If he had =not= been expelled from school, that wouldn’t
have been his fault, either.--You take things too lightly. You see
only inquisitive trifling where fundamental lesions of character are
really involved. You women are not qualified to judge such things.
Anyone who can write what Melchior writes must be degenerate at the
innermost core of his being. His essence is tainted. No nature that’s
half-way healthy permits itself that sort of thing. We are all of us
flesh and blood: every one of us strays from the strict, true path.
But what he has written represents a =principle=. What he has written
is no chance, casual slip, but documentary proof, of ghastly clarity,
of that frankly affected =purpose=, that natural propensity, that
bent toward the immoral because it =is= immoral!--it manifests that
exceptional spiritual corruption that we jurists designate as moral
imbecility.--Whether his condition can be in any way remedied, I am
not able to say. If we would retain one glimmer of hope,--and, before
all, consciences as his parents free from remorse,--we must apply
ourselves with decision and in all earnestness to the task.--Let us
cease contention, Fanny! I am sensible how hard for you it is. I know
you idolize him, because he suits so perfectly your gifted temperament.
But be stronger than yourself. Show yourself for once at last unselfish
toward your son!
MRS. GABOR--God help me, how can I prevail against that!--One must
be a =man=, to be able to say such things! One must be a man to
let oneself be so blinded by the dead letter! One must be a man to
close his eyes to what stares him in the face!--I have acted toward
Melchior conscientiously and carefully from the first day I found him
susceptible to impressions from his environment. Are we responsible
for =accident=? =You= may be struck down to-morrow by a falling tile,
and along will come your friend, your father, and instead of tending
your wounds set his foot upon your head!--I will not let my child be
ruined before my very eyes! Would I be his mother if I did?--It is
unthinkable! It is utterly out of the question. What in the world
did he write then, after all? Isn’t it the most blatant proof of his
innocence, of his ignorance, of his childish immaturity, that he =can=
write such things?--You can have no inkling of knowledge of human
nature, you must be an utterly soulless bureaucrat, or unbelievably
narrow, to smell out moral corruption here!--Say what you like: if you
put Melchior in the House of Correction, we must separate--and then let
me see if nowhere in the world I can find help and means to snatch my
child from his downfall!
MR. GABOR--You will have to reconcile yourself to it--if not to-day,
to-morrow. To discount misfortune comes hard to everybody. I will stand
by you, and when your courage threatens to fail I will spare no pains,
no sacrifice, to ease your heart. I see the future so lowering, so
gloomy,--it only lacked that you too should yet be lost to me.
MRS. GABOR--I shall never see him again; I shall never see him again.
He will never stand the degradation, he will never come to terms
with filth. He will break the constraint put on him: the terrible
example is fresh before his eyes.--And if I do see him again--O God, O
God!--that happy, spring-like heart, his ringing laugh,--everything,
everything,--his child-like resolution to battle manfully for right
and good,--oh, that unspoiled spirit like the morning sky, as I have
cherished it in him, clear and pure, as my highest good....--Hold =me=
to account, if the wrong cries for reparation! Hold =me= to account!
Do what you will with me! _I_ bear the blame!--But keep your fearful
hands off the child!
MR. GABOR--It is =he= who has gone wrong.
MRS. GABOR--=He has not gone wrong!=
MR. GABOR--=He has= gone wrong!--I would have given anything to have
spared your boundless love this!--A woman came to me this morning
distracted, scarcely able to speak, with this letter in her hand--a
letter to her fifteen-year-old daughter.[6] She had opened it, she
said, from simple curiosity; the child was not at home.--In this letter
Melchior explains to the fifteen-year-old girl that his treatment of
her leaves him no peace, that he has sinned against her, etc., etc.,
and will naturally take the responsibility for everything. She is not
to worry, even if she should feel consequences. He is already on the
way to procure help--his expulsion will make that easier for him. The
misstep they have made may yet lead to her happiness--and what more
senseless twaddle you please!
MRS. GABOR--Impossible!
MR. GABOR--The letter is forged. It’s a case of imposture. Someone
is trying to turn his notorious expulsion to account. I have not yet
spoken with the lad--but just look at the hand! Look at the writing!
MRS. GABOR--An unheard-of, shameless piece of knavery!
MR. GABOR--[_With double meaning._] I fear so.
MRS. GABOR--No! No! Never in the world!
MR. GABOR--All the better for us, then.--The woman asked me, wringing
her hands, what she ought to do. I told her she ought not to let her
fifteen-year-old daughter scramble around haylofts. The letter she
fortunately left with me.--Now if we send Melchior to another school
where he won’t even be under =parental= supervision, we shall have
the same thing happening in three weeks--a new expulsion--his joyous,
spring-like heart will get accustomed to them by degrees.--Tell me,
Fanny, where =am= I to put the lad?
MRS. GABOR--In the House of Correction----
MR. GABOR--In the...?
MRS. GABOR-- ... House of Correction!
MR. GABOR--He will find there, first of all, what was wrongfully
withheld from him at home: iron discipline, fundamental principles,
and a moral restraint to which he will have to submit under all
circumstances.--And I may add that the House of Correction is not
the abode of horror you imagine from the name. Chief weight there
is laid upon the development of Christian thought and feeling. The
lad will there, at last, learn to aim at what’s =good=, not what’s
=interesting=, and in his actions take account not of his natural
impulses but of the law.--Half an hour ago I received a telegram from
my brother which, I think, confirms what the woman told me. Melchior
has confided in him and asked him for two hundred marks with which to
fly to England....
MRS. GABOR--[_Covers her face._] Merciful Heaven!
CURTAIN