spiritual struggles--a story which, until this moment, has been an
absolute secret and known only to myself. But my good fortune led me into
your house and from that moment on I felt that I was drawing nearer and
nearer to the true aim of my life.
HASSENREUTER
[_Wildly impatient._] That's very creditable to me; that does honour to
my family and myself! [_He puts his hands on SPITTA'S shoulders._] And
yet I must make it in the form of an urgent request that, at this moment,
you refrain from a further discussion of the question. My affairs cannot
wait.
SPITTA
Then I will only add the expression of my absolutely firm decision.
HASSENREUTER
But, my dear Spitta, who has put these mad notions into year head? I've
taken real pleasure in the thought of you. I've really been quietly
envying you the peaceful personage that was to be yours. I've attached no
special significance to certain literary ambitions that one is likely to
pick up in the metropolis. That's a mere phase, I thought, and will be
quite passing in his case! And now you want to become an actor? God help
you, were I your father! I'd lock you up on bread and water and not let
you out again until the very memory of this folly was gone. _Dixi!_ And
now, good-bye, my dear man.
SPITTA
I'm afraid that locking me op or resorting to force of any kind would not
help in my case at all.
HASSENREUTER
But, man alive, you want to become an actor--you, with your round
shoulders, with your spectacles and, above all, with your hoarse and
sharp voice. It's impossible.
SPITTA
If such fellows as I exist in real life, why shouldn't they exist on the
stage too? And I am of the opinion that a smooth, well-sounding voice,
probably combined with the Goethe-Schiller-Weimar school of idealistic
artifice, is harmful rather than helpful. The only question is whether
you would take me, just as I am, as a pupil?
HASSENREUTER
[_Hastily draws on his overcoat._] I would not. In the first place my
school of acting is only one of the schools of idealistic artifice which
you mention. In the second place I wouldn't be responsible to your father
for such an action. And in the third place, we quarrel enough as it
is--every time you stay to supper at my house after giving your lessons.
If you were my pupil, we'd come to blows. And now, Spitta, I must catch
the car.
SPITTA
My father is already informed. In a letter of twelve pages, I have given
him a full history of the change that has taken place within me....
HASSENREUTER
I'm sure the old gentleman will feel flattered! And now come along with
me or I'll go insane!
_HASSENREUTER forcibly takes SPITTA out with him. The door is heard
to slam. The room grows silent but for the uninterrupted roar of
Berlin, which can now be clearly heard. The trap-door to the loft is
now opened and WALBURGA HASSENREUTER clambers down in mad haste,
followed by MRS. JOHN._
MRS. JOHN
[_Whispering vehemently._] What's the matter? Nothin' ain't happened.
WALBURGA
Mrs. John, I'll scream! I'll have to scream in another second! Oh, for
heaven's sake, I can't help it much longer, Mrs. John!
MRS. JOHN
Stuff a handkerchief between your teeth! There ain't nothin'! Why d'you
take on so?
WALBURGA
[_With chattering teeth, making every effort to suppress her sobs._] I'm
frightened! Oh, I'm frightened to death, Mrs. John!
MRS. JOHN
I'd like to know what you're so scared about!
WALBURGA
Why, didn't you see that horrible man?
MRS. JOHN
That ain't nothin' so horrible. That's my brother what sometimes helps me
clean up your pa's things here.
WALBURGA
And that girl who sits with her back to the chimney and whines?
MRS. JOHN
Well, your mother didn't act no different when you was expected to come
into the world.
WALBURGA
Oh, it's all over with me. I'll die if papa comes back.
MRS. JOHN
Well then hurry and get out an' don' fool roun' no more!
[_MRS. JOHN accompanies the horrified girl along the passage, lets
her out, and then returns._
MRS. JOHN
Thank God, that girl don' know but what the moon _is_ made o' cheese!
[_She takes the uncorked bottle, pours out a glass full of wine and
takes it with her to the loft into which she disappears._
_The room is scarcely empty when HASSENREUTER returns._
HASSENREUTER
[_Still in the door. Singing._] "Come on down, O Madonna Teresa!" [_He
calls:_] Alice! [_Still in the door._] Come on! Help me put up my iron
bar with a double lock before the door, Alice! [_He comes forward._] Any
one else who dares to interrupt our Sunday quiet--_anathema sit!_ Here!
You imp! Where are you, Alice? [_He observes the bottle and lifts it
against the light._] What? Half empty! The little scamp! [_From behind
the door of the library a pleasant woman's voice is heard singing
coloratura passages._] Ha, ha, ha, ha! Heavens and earth! She's tipsy
already.
THE SECOND ACT
_MRS. JOHN'S rooms on the second floor of the same house in the
attics of which HASSENREUTER has stored his properties. A high, deep,
green-tinted room which betrays its original use as part of a
barracks. The rear wall shows a double door which gives on the outer
hall. Above this door there hangs a bell connected by a wire with the
knob outside. To the right of the door a partition, covered with
wall-paper, projects into the room. This partition takes a
rectangular turn and extends to the right wall. A portion of the room
is thus partitioned off and serves as sleeping-chamber. From within
the partition, which is about six feet high, cupboards are seen
against the wall._
_Entering the room from the hall, one observes to the left a sofa
covered with oil-cloth. The back of the sofa is pushed against the
partition wall. The latter is adorned with small photographs: the
foreman-mason JOHN as a soldier, JOHN and his wife in their wedding
garb, etc. An oval table, covered with a faded cotton cloth, stands
before the sofa. In order to reach the entrance of the
sleeping-chamber from the door it is necessary to pass the table and
sofa. This entrance is closed by hangings of blue cotton cloth.
Against the narrow front wall of the partition stands a neatly
equipped kitchen cabinet. To the right, against the wall of the main
room, the stove. This corner of the room serves the--purposes of
kitchen and pantry. Sitting on the sofa, one would look straight at
the left wall of the room, which is broken by two large windows. A
neatly planed board has been fastened to the nearer of the windows to
serve as a kind of desk. Upon it are lying blue-prints,
counter-drawings, an inch-measure, a compass and a square. A small,
raised platform is seen beneath the farther window. Upon it stands a
small table with glasses. An old easy chair of cane and a number of
simple wooden chairs complete the frugal equipment of the room, which
creates an impression of neatness and orderliness such as is often
found in the dwellings of childless couples._
_It is about five o'clock of an afternoon toward the end of May. The
warm sunlight shines through the windows._
_The foreman-mason JOHN, a good-natured, bearded man of forty, sits
at the desk in the foreground taking notes from the building plans._
_MRS. JOHN sits sewing on the small platform, by the farther window.
She is very pale. There is something gentle and pain-touched about
her, but her face shows an expression of deep contentment, which is
broken only now and then by a momentary gleam of restlessness and
suspense. A neat new perambulator stands by her side. In it lies a
newborn child._
JOHN
[_Modestly._] Mother, how'd it be if I was to open the window jus' a
speck an' was to light my pipe for a bit?
MRS. JOHN
Does you have to smoke? If not, you better let it be!
JOHN
No, I don't has to, mother. Only I'd like to! Never mind, though. A
quid'll be just as good in the end.
[_With comfortable circumstantiality he prepares a new quid._
MRS. JOHN
[_After a brief silence._] How's that? You has to go to the public
registry office again?
JOHN
That's what he told me, that I had to come back again an' tell him
exackly ... that I had to give the exack place an' time when that little
kid was born.
MRS. JOHN
[_Holding a needle in her mouth._] Well, why didn't you tell him that
right away?
JOHN
How was I to know it? I didn't know, you see.
MRS. JOHN
You didn't know that?
JOHN
Well, I wasn't here, was I?
MRS. JOHN
You wasn't. That's right. If you goes an' leaves me here in Berlin an'
stays from one year's end to another in Hamburg, an' at most comes to see
me once a month--how is you to know what happens in your own home?
JOHN
Don't you want me to go where the boss has most work for me? I goes where
I c'n make good money.
MRS. JOHN
I wrote you in my letter as how our little boy was born in this here
room.
JOHN
I knows that an' I told him that. Ain't that natural, I axes him, that
the child was born in our room? An' he says that ain't natural at all.
Well then, says I, for all I cares, maybe it was up in the loft with the
rats an' mice! I got mad like 'cause he said maybe the child wasn't born
here at all. Then he yells at me: What kind o' talk is that? What? says
I. I takes an interest in wages an' earnin' an' not in talk--not me, Mr.
Registrar! An' now I'm to give him the exack day an' hour ...
MRS. JOHN
An' didn't I write it all out for you on a bit o' paper?
JOHN
When a man's mad he's forgetful. I believe if he'd up and axed me: Is you
Paul John, foreman-mason? I'd ha' answered: I don' know. Well an' then
I'd been a bit jolly too an' taken a drink or two with Fritz. An' while
we was doin' that who comes along but Schubert an' Karl an' they says as
how I has to set up on account o' bein' a father now. Those fellers, they
didn't let me go an' they was waitin' downstairs in front o' the public
registry. An' so I kept thinkin' o' them standin' there. So when he axes
me on what day my wife was delivered, I didn't know nothin' an' just
laughed right in his face.
MRS. JOHN
I wish you'd first attended to what you had to an' left your drinkin'
till later.
JOHN
It's easy to say that! But if you're up to them kind o' tricks in your
old age, mother, you can't blame me for bein' reel glad.
MRS. JOHN
All right. You go on to the registry now an' say that your child was
borne by your wife in your dwellin' on the twenty-fifth o' May.
JOHN
Wasn't it on the twenty-sixth? 'Cause I said right along the
twenty-sixth. Then he must ha' noticed that I wasn't quite sober. So he
says: If that's a fac', all right; if not, you gotta come back.
MRS. JOHN
In that case you'd better leave it as it is.
_The door is opened and SELMA KNOBBE pushes in a wretched
perambulator which presents the saddest contrast to MRS. JOHN'S.
Swaddled in pitiful rags a newly born child lies therein._
MRS. JOHN
Oh, no, Selma, comin' into my room with that there sick child--that was
all right before. But that can't be done no more.
SELMA
He just gasps with that cough o' his'n. Over at our place they smokes all
the time.
MRS. JOHN
I told you, Selma, that you could come from time to time and get milk or
bread. But while my little Adelbert is here an' c'n catch maybe
consumption or somethin', you just leave that poor little thing at home
with his fine mother.
SELMA
[_Tearfully._] Mother ain't been home at all yesterday or to-day. I can't
get no sleep with this child. He just moans all night. I gotta get some
sleep sometime! I'll jump outa the window first thing or I'll let the
baby lie in the middle o' the street an' run away so no policeman can't
never find me!
JOHN
[_Looks at the strange child._] Looks bad! Mother, why don't you try an'
do somethin' for the little beggar?
MRS. JOHN
[_Pushing SELMA and the perambulator out determinedly._] March outa this
room. That can't be done, Paul. When you got your own you can't be
lookin' out for other people's brats. That Knobbe woman c'n look after
her own affairs. It's different with Selma. [_To the girl._] You c'n come
in when you want to. You c'n come in here after a while an' take a nap
even.
[_She locks the door._
JOHN
You used to take a good deal o' interest in Knobbe's dirty little brats.
MRS. JOHN
You don' understan' that. I don' want our little Adelbert to be catchin'
sore eyes or convulsions or somethin' like that.
JOHN
Maybe you're right. Only, don't go an' call him Adelbert, mother. That
ain't a good thing to do, to call a child by the same name as one that
was carried off, unbaptised, a week after it was born. Let that be,
mother. I can't stand for that, mother,
_A knocking is heard at the door. JOHN is about to open._
MRS. JOHN
What's that?
JOHN
Well, somebody wants to get in!
MRS. JOHN
[_Hastily turning the key in the lock._] I ain't goin' to have everybody
runnin' in on me now that I'm sick as this. [_She listens at the door and
then calls out:_] I can't open! What d'you want?
A WOMAN'S VOICE
[_Somewhat deep and mannish in tone._] It is Mrs. Hassenreuter.
MRS. JOHN
[_Surprised._] Goodness gracious! [_She opens the door._] I beg your
pardon, Mrs. Hassenreuter! I didn't even know who it was!
_MRS. HASSENREUTER has now entered, followed by WALBURGA. She is a
colossal, asthmatic lady aver fifty. WALBURGA is dressed with greater
simplicity than in the first act. She carries a rather large
package._
MRS. HASSENREUTER
How do you do, Mrs. John? Although climbing stairs is ... very hard for
me ... I wanted to see how everything ... goes with you after the ...
yes, the very happy event.
MRS. JOHN
I'm gettin' along again kind o' half way.
MRS. HASSENREUTER
That is probably your husband, Mrs. John? Well, one must say, one is
bound to say, that your dear wife, in the long time of waiting--never
complained, was always cheery and merry, and did her work well for my
husband upstairs.
JOHN
That's right. She was mighty glad, too.
MRS. HASSENREUTER
Well, then we'll have the pleasure--at least, your wife will have the
pleasure of seeing you at home oftener than heretofore.
MRS. JOHN
I has a good husband, Mrs. Hassenreuter, who takes care o' me an' has
good habits. An' because Paul was workin' out o town you musn't think
there was any danger o' his leavin' me. But a man like that, where his
brother has a boy o' twelve in the non-commissioned officers' school ...
it's no kind o' life for him havin' no children o' his own. He gets to
thinkin' queer thoughts. There he is in Hamburg, makin' good money, an'
he has the chance every day and--well--then he takes a notion, maybe,
he'd like to go to America.
JOHN
Oh, that was never more'n a thought.
MRS. JOHN
Well, you see, with us poor people ... it's hard-earned bread that we
eats ... an' yet ... [_lightly she runs her hand through JOHN'S hair_]
even if there's one more an' you has more cares on that account--you see
how the tears is runnin' down his cheeks--well, he's mighty happy anyhow!
JOHN
That's because three years ago we had a little feller an' when he was a
week old he took sick an' died.
MRS. HASSENREUTER
My husband has already ... yes, my husband did tell me about that ... how
deeply you grieved over that little son of yours. You know how it is ...
you know how my good husband has his eyes and his heart open to
everything. And if it's a question of people who are about him or who
give him their services--then everything good or bad, yes, everything
good or bad that happens to them, seems just as though it had happened to
himself.
MRS. JOHN
I mind as if it was this day how he sat in the carridge that time with
the little child's coffin on his knees. He wouldn't let the gravedigger
so much as touch it.
JOHN
[_Wiping the moisture out of his eyes._] That's the way it was. No. I
couldn't let him do that.
MRS. HASSENREUTER
Just think, to-day at the dinner-table we had to drink wine--suddenly, to
drink wine! Wine! For years and years the city-water in decanters has
been our only table drink ... absolutely the only one. Dear children,
said my husband.--You know that he had just returned from an eleven or
twelve day trip to Alsace. Let us drink, my husband said, the health of
my good and faithful Mrs. John, because ... he cried out in his beautiful
voice ... because she is a visible proof of the fact that the cry of a
mother heart is not indifferent to our Lord.--And so we drank your
health, clinking our glasses! Well, and here I'm bringing you at my
husband's special ... at his very special and particular order ... an
apparatus for the sterilisation of milk.--Walburga, you may unpack the
boiler.
_HASSENREUTER enters unceremoniously through the outer door which has
stood ajar. He wears a top-hat, spring overcoat, carries a
silver-headed cane, in a word, is gotten up in his somewhat shabby
meek-day outfit. He speaks hastily and almost without pauses._
HASSENREUTER
[_Wiping the sweat from his forehead._] Berlin is hot, ladies and
gentlemen, hot! And the cholera is as near as St. Petersburg! Now you've
complained to my pupils, Spitta and Käferstein, Mrs. John, that your
little one doesn't seem to gain in weight. Now, of course, it's one of
the symptoms of the general decadence of our age that the majority of
mothers are either--unwilling to nurse their offspring or incapable of
it. But you've already lost one child on account of diarrhoea, Mrs. John.
No, there's no help for it: we must call a spade a spade. And so, in
order that you do not meet with the same misfortune over again, or fall
into the hands of old women whose advice is usually quite deadly for an
infant--in order that these things may not happen, I say, I have caused
my wife to bring you this apparatus. I've brought up all my--children,
Walburga included, by the help of such an apparatus ...Aha! So one gets a
glimpse of you again, Mr. John! Bravo! The emperor needs soldiers, and
you needed a representative of your race! So I congratulate you with all
my heart.
[_He shakes JOHN'S hand vigorously._
MRS. HASSENREUTER
[_Leaning over the infant._] How much ... how much did he weigh at birth?
MRS. JOHN
He weighed exactly eight pounds and ten grams.
HASSENREUTER
[_With noisy joviality._] Ha, ha, ha! A vigorous product, I must say!
Eight pounds and ten grams of good healthy, German national flesh!
MRS. HASSENREUTER
Look at his eyes! And his little nose! His father over again! Why, the
little fellow is really, really, the very image of you, Mr. John.
HASSENREUTER
I trust that you will have the boy received into the communion of the
Christian Church.
MRS. JOHN
[_With happy impressiveness._] Oh, he'll be christened properly, right in
the parochial church at the font by a clergyman.
HASSENREUTER
Right! And what are his baptismal names to be?
MRS. JOHN
Well, you know the way men is. That's caused a lot o' talk. I was
thinkin' o' "Bruno," but he won't have it!
HASSENREUTER
Surely Bruno isn't a bad name.
JOHN
That may be. I ain't sayin' but what Bruno is a good enough name. I don't
want to give no opinion about that.
MRS. JOHN
Why don't you say as how I has a brother what's twelve years younger'n me
an' what don't always do just right? But that's only 'cause there's so
much temptation. That boy's a good boy. Only you won't believe it.
JOHN
[_Turns red with sudden rage._] Jette ... you know what a cross that
feller was to us! What d'you want? You want our little feller to be the
namesake of a man what's--I can't help sayin' it--what's under police
soopervision?
HASSENREUTER
Then, for heaven's sake, get him some other patron saint.
JOHN
Lord protect me from sich! I tried to take an interest in Bruno! I got
him a job in a machine-shop an' didn't get nothin' outa it but annoyance
an' disgrace! God forbid that he should come aroun' an' have anythin' to
do with this little feller o' mine. [_He clenches his fist._] If that was
to happen, Jette, I wouldn't be responsible for myself!!
MRS. JOHN
You needn't go on, Paul! Bruno ain't comin'. But I c'n tell you this much
for certain, that my brother was good an' helpful to me in this hard
time.
JOHN
Why didn't you send for me?
MRS. JOHN
I didn't want no man aroun' that was scared.
HASSENREUTER
Aren't you an admirer of Bismarck, John?
JOHN
[_Scratching the back of his head._] I can't say as to that exackly. My
brothers in the masons' union, though, they ain't admirers o' him.
HASSENREUTER
Then you have no German hearts in your bodies! Otto is what I called my
eldest son who is in the imperial navy! And believe me [_pointing to the
infant_] this coming generation will well know what it owes to that
mighty hero, the great forger of German unity! [_He takes the tin boiler
of the apparatus which WALBURGA has unpacked into his hands and lifts it
high up._] Now then: the whole business of this apparatus is mere child's
play. This frame which holds all the bottles--each bottle to be filled
two-thirds with water and one-third with milk--is sunk into the boiler
which is filled with boiling water. By keeping the water at the
boiling-point for an hour and a half in this manner, the content--of the
bottles becomes free of germs. Chemists call this process sterilisation.
JOHN
Jette, at the master-mason's house, the milk that's fed to the twins is
sterilised too.
_The pupils of HASSENREUTER, KÄFERSTEIN and DR. KEGEL, two young men
between twenty and twenty-five years of age, have knocked at the door
and then opened it._
HASSENREUTER
[_Noticing his pupils._] Patience, gentlemen. I'll be with you directly.
At the moment I am busying myself with the problems of the nourishment of
infants and the care of children.
KÄFERSTEIN
[_His head bears witness to a sharply defined character: large nose,
pale, a serious expression, beardless, about the mouth a flicker of
kindly mischievousness. With hollow voice, gentle and suppressed._] You
must know that we are the three kings out of the East.
HASSENREUTER
[_Who still holds the apparatus aloft in his hands._] What are you?
KÄFERSTEIN
[_As before._] We want to adore the babe.
HASSENREUTER
Ha, ha, ha, ha! If you are the kings out of the East, gentlemen, it seems
to me that the third of you is lacking.
KÄFERSTEIN
The third is our new fellow pupil in the field of dramaturgic activity,
the _studiosus theologiae_, who is detained at present at the corner of
Blumen and Wallnertheater streets by an accident partly sociological,
partly psychological in its nature.
DR. KEGEL
We made all possible haste to escape.
HASSENREUTER
Do you see, a star stands above this house, Mrs. John! But do tell me,
has our excellent Spitta once more made some public application of his
quackery for the healing of the so-called sins of the social order? Ha,
ha, ha, ha! _Semper idem!_ Why, that fellow is actually becoming a
nuisance!
KÄFERSTEIN
A crowd gathered in the street for some reason and it seems that he
discovered a friend in the midst of it.
HASSENREUTER
According to my unauthoritative opinion this young Spitta would have done
much better as a surgeon's assistant or Salvation Army officer. But
that's the way of the world: the fellow must needs want to be an actor.
MRS. HASSENREUTER
Mr. Spitta, the children's tutor, wants to become an actor?
HASSENREUTER
That is exactly the plan he has proposed to me, mama.--But now, if you
bring incense and myrrh, dear Käferstein, out with them! You observe what
a many sided man your teacher is. Now I help my pupils, thirsty after
the contents of the Muses' breasts, to the nourishment they
desire--_nutrimentum spiritus_--again I....
KÄFERSTEIN
[_Rattles a toy bank._] Well, I deposit this offering, which is a
fire-proof bank, next to the perambulator of this excellent offspring of
the mason, with the wish that he will rise to be at least a royal
architect.
JOHN
[_Having put cordial glasses on the table, he fetches and opens a fresh
bottle._] Well, now I'm goin' to uncork the _Danziger Goldwasser_.
HASSENREUTER
To him who hath shall be given, as you observe, Mrs. John.
JOHN
[_Filling the glasses._] Nobody ain't goin' to say that my child's
unprovided for, gentlemen. But I takes it very kindly o' you, gentlemen!
[_All except MRS. HASSENREUTER and WALBURGA lift up their glasses._] To
you health! Come on, mother, we'll drink together too.
[_The action follows the words._
HASSENREUTER
[_In a tone of reproof._] Mama, you must, of course, drink with us.
JOHN