the sun is sinking behind the mountain peaks. A clear sound of
bells comes up from the valley.--At the uppermost vine-trellis,
under the overhanging cliffs_, HANSY RILOW and ERNEST ROEBEL
_sprawl in the drying grass_.
ERNEST--I have overworked.
HANSY--Let’s not be sad.--Too bad how the minutes fly.
ERNEST--You see them hanging and can no more--and to-morrow they’ll be
pressed.
HANSY--Being tired is as unbearable to me as being hungry.
ERNEST--Oh, I can no more!
HANSY--Just this one shining muscatel!
ERNEST--There’s a limit to my elasticity.
HANSY--If I bend the spray, it’ll swing back and forth between our
mouths. We’ll neither of us have to stir--just bite off the grapes and
let the stalk spring back to the vine.
ERNEST--One no sooner resolves on something than lo! the strength that
had vanished is renewed in him again.
HANSY--And add the flaming firmament--and the evening bells,--my hopes
for the future rise scarcely higher than this.
ERNEST--I often see myself as a Reverend Pastor already, with a genial,
motherly housewife, a voluminous library, and offices and honors
everywhere. Six days you have, to ruminate, and on the seventh you
open your mouth. When you go walking, school-children take your hand,
and when you come home the coffee is steaming, the cakes are brought
in, and thru the garden door the girls come up with apples.--Can you
imagine anything happier?
HANSY--I have visions of half-shut lashes, half-opened lips, and
Turkish draperies.--I don’t believe in pathos. You see, our elders
pull long faces to cover their stupidities from us. Among themselves
they call each other blockheads as we do. I know that.--When I’m a
millionaire, I’ll set up a memorial to dear God.--Think of the future
as a milk pudding with sugar and spice. One fellow upsets it and bawls.
Another stirs it all up in a mess and toils. Why not skim it?--or don’t
you believe that that art can be learned?
ERNEST--Let us skim!
HANSY--What’s left ’ll be chicken-feed.--I’ve pulled my head out of so
many nooses now already....
ERNEST--Let us skim, Hansy!--Why do you laugh?
HANSY--Are you beginning again already?
ERNEST--One of us has got to begin.
HANSY--When we think back thirty years hence to an evening such as
this, it may seem to us beautiful beyond words.
ERNEST--And how beautiful everything =is=, now, quite of itself!
HANSY--So why not?
ERNEST--If one happened to be alone, one might even weep.
HANSY--Don’t let us be sad. [_Kisses him on the mouth._]
ERNEST--[_Returning the kiss._] I left the house with the idea of just
merely speaking to you and going back again.
HANSY--I was expecting you.--Virtue isn’t a bad clothing, but it
belongs on imposing figures.
ERNEST--It still hangs loose around our limbs. I should have been
uneasy if I hadn’t found you.--I love you, Hansy, as I’ve never loved a
living soul....
HANSY--Let’s not be sad.--When we think back, thirty years hence,--why,
we may laugh at ourselves!--And now it is all so beautiful! The
mountains are glowing, the grapes droop into our mouths, and the
evening breeze whispers along the rocks like a little playful
wheedling-- ...
CURTAIN