Knobbe brats no more.
QUAQUARO
[_Observing JOHN with lurking curiosity._] You're wife was reel crazy to
have a son, wasn't she?
JOHN
Well, that's natural. D'you think I wasn't? What's a man to work for?
What do I slave away for? It's different thing savin' a good lump o'
money for your own son from doin' it for your sister's children.
QUAQUARO
So you don't know that a strange girl came here an' swore that the Knobbe
woman's child wasn't hers but belonged to the girl?
JOHN
Is that so? Well, Mrs. Knobbe an' child stealin'--them two things don't
go together. Now if it'd been mother, that would ha' been more likely.
But not that Knobbe woman! But tell me, Emil, what's all this here
business about?
QUAQUARO
Well, one person says one thing an' another says another. The Knobbe
woman says that certain people has started a plot with detectives an'
such like to get hold o' the brat. An' there ain't no doubt o' this. It's
proved that the child was hers. C'n you maybe give me a tip as to where
your brother-in-law's been keepin' hisself the past few days?
JOHN
You mean the butcher in Hangelsberg?
QUAQUARO
Naw, I don' mean the husband o' your sister, but the feller what's
brother o' your wife.
JOHN
It's Bruno you mean?
QUAQUARO
Sure, that's the feller.
JOHN
How do I know? I'd sooner be watchin' if the dogs still plays on the
curb. I don't want to have no dealin's with Bruno.
QUAQUARO
Listen to me, Paul. But don't get mad. They knows at the police station
that Bruno was seen in company o' the Polish girl what wanted to claim
this here child, first right outside o' the door here an' then at a
certain place on Shore street where the tanners sometimes looses their
soakin' hides. An' now the girl's jus' disappeared. I don' know nothin'
o' the particulars, excep' that the police is huntin' for the girl.
JOHN
[_Resolutely putting aside the long pipe which he had lit._] I don' know,
but I can't take no enjoyment in it this mornin'. I don' know what's
gotten into me. I was as jolly as can be. An' now all of a sudden I feel
so dam' mean I'd like to go straight back to Hamburg an' hear an' see
nothin' more!--Why d'you come aroun' with stories like that?
QUAQUARO
I jus' thought I'd tell you what happened while you an' your wife was
away right here in your own house?
JOHN
In my own house?
QUAQUARO
That's it! Yessir! They says that Selma pushed the perambulator with her
little brother in here where the strange girl an' her friend came an'
took him an' carried him off. But upstairs, in the actor's place, they
caught her.
JOHN
What's that?
QUAQUARO
So up there the strange girl an' the Knobbe woman pretty near tore each
other's hair out over the child's body.
JOHN
What I'd like to know is how all that concerns me? Ain't there trouble
here over some girl most o' the time? Let 'em go on! I don' care! That is
to say, Emil, if there ain't more to it than you're tellin' me.
QUAQUARO
That's why I come to you! There is more. The girl said in front o'
witnesses more'n onct that that little crittur o' Knobbe's was her own
an' that she had expressly given it in board to your wife.
JOHN
[_First taken aback, then relieved. Laughing._] She ain't quite right in
her upper story. That's all.
_ERICH SPITTA enters._
SPITTA
Good morning, Mr. John.
JOHN
Good mornin', Mr. Spitta. [_To QUAQUARO, who is still loitering in the
door._] It's all right, Emil. I'll take notice o' what you says an' act
accordin'.
_QUAQUARO exit._
JOHN
Now jus' look at a feller like that, Mr. Spitta. He's more'n half a gaol
bird an' yet he knows how to make hisself a favourite with the district
commissioner at headquarters! An' then he goes aroun' pokin' his nose
into honest folks' affairs.
SPITTA
Has Miss Walburga Hassenreuter been asking after me, Mr. John?
JOHN
Not up to this time; not that I knows of! [_He opens the door to the
hall._] Selma! Excuse me a minute, will you? Selma! I gotta know what
that there girl c'n tell me.
_SELMA KNOBBE enters._
SELMA
[_Still at the door._] What d'you want?
JOHN
You shut the door a minute an' come in! An' now tell me, girl, what's all
this that happened in this room about your little dead brother and the
strange girl?
SELMA
[_Who has, obviously, a bad conscience, gradually comes forward
watchfully. She now answers glibly and volubly._] I pushed the
perambulator over into the room here. Your wife wasn't in an' so I thinks
that maybe here there'd be more quiet, 'cause my little brother, you
know, he was sick anyhow an' cryin' all the time. An' then, all of a
sudden, a gentleman an' a lady an' another woman all comes in here, an'
they picked the little feller right outa the carridge an' put clean
clothes on him an' carried him off.
JOHN
An' then the lady said as how it was her child an' how she'd given it in
board with mother, with my old woman?
SELMA
[_Lies._] Naw, not a bit. I'd know about that if it was so.
JOHN
[_Bangs his fist on the table._] Well, damn it all, it'd be a idjit's
trick to have said that.
SPITTA
Permit me, but she did say that. I take it you're talking of the incident
with the two women that took place upstairs at manager Hassenreuter's?
JOHN
Did you see that? Was you there when the Knobbe woman an' the other one
was disputin' about the little crittur?
SPITTA
Yes, certainly. I was present throughout.
SELMA
I tell you all I knows. An' I couldn't say no more if officer Schierke or
the tall police lieutenant hisself was to examine me for hours an' hours.
I don' know nothin'. An' what I don' know I can't tell.
JOHN
The lieutenant examined you?
SELMA
They wanted to take mama to the lock-up because people went an' lied.
They said that our little baby was starved to death.
JOHN
Aha! 's that so? Well, Selma, s'pose you go over there an' cook a little
coffee.
_SELMA goes over to the stove where she prepares coffee for JOHN.
JOHN himself goes up to his working table, takes up the compass. Then
he draws lines, using a piece of rail as a ruler._
SPITTA
[_Conquering his diffidence and shame._] I really hoped to meet your wife
here, Mr. John. Someone told me that your wife has been in the habit of
lending out small sums to students against security. And I am somewhat
embarrassed.
JOHN
Maybe that's so. But that's mother's business, Mr. Spitta.
SPITTA
To be quite frank with you, if I don't get hold of some money by
to-night, the few books and other possessions I have will be attached for
rent by my landlady and I'll be put into the street.
JOHN
I thought your father was a preacher.
SPITTA
So he is. But for that very reason and because I don't want to become a
preacher, too, he and I had a terrible quarrel last night. I won't ever
accept a farthing from him any more.
JOHN
[_Busy over his drawing._] Then it'll serve him right if you starve or
break your neck.
SPITTA
Men like myself don't starve, Mr. John. But if, by any chance, I were to
go to the dogs--I shouldn't greatly care.
JOHN
No one wouldn't believe how many half-starved nincompoops there is among
you stoodents. But none o' you wants to put your hand to some reel
work.--[_The distant sound of thunder is heard. JOHN looks out through
the window._]--Sultry day. It's thunderin' now.
SPITTA
Yon can't say that of me, Mr. John, that I haven't been willing to do
real work. I've given lessons, I've addressed envelopes for business
houses! I've been through everything and in all these attempts I've not
only toiled away the days but also the nights. And at the same time I've
ground away at my studies like anything!
JOHN
Man alive, go to Hamburg an' let 'em give you a job as a bricklayer. When
I was your age I was makin' as much as twelve crowns a day in Hamburg.
SPITTA
That may be. But I'm a brain worker.
JOHN
I know that kind.
SPITTA
Is that so? I don't think you do know that kind, Mr. John. I beg you not
to forget that your Socialist leaders--your Bebels and your
Liebknechts--are brain workers too.
JOHN
All right. Come on, then! Let's have some breakfast first. Things look
mighty different after a man's had a good bite o' breakfast. I s'pose you
ain't had any yet, Mr. Spitta?
SPITTA
No, frankly, not to-day.
JOHN
Well, then the first thing is to get somethin' warm down your throat.
SPITTA
There's time enough for that.
JOHN
I don' know. You're lookin' pretty well done up. An' I passed the night
on the train too. [_To SELMA, who has brought in a little linen bag filed
with rolls._] Hurry an' bring another cup over here. [_He has seated
himself at his ease on the sofa, dips a roll into the coffee and begins
to eat and drink._]
SPITTA
[_Who has not sat down yet._] It's really pleasanter to pass a summer
night in the open if one can't sleep anyhow. And I didn't sleep for one
minute.
JOHN
I'd like to see the feller what c'n sleep when he's outa cash. When a
man's down in the world he has most company outa doors too. [_He suddenly
stops chewing._]--Come here, Selma, an' tell me exackly just how it was
with that there girl an' the child that she took outa our room here.
SELMA
I don' know what to do. Everybody axes we that. Mama keeps axin' me about
it all day long; if I seen Bruno Mechelke; if I know who it was that
stole the costumes from the actor's loft up there! If it goes on that way
...
JOHN
[_Energetically._] Girl, why didn't you cry out when the gentleman and
the young lady took your little brother outa his carridge?
SELMA
I didn't think nothin' 'd happen to him excep' that he'd get some clean
clothes.
JOHN
[_Grasps SELMA by the wrist._] Well, you come along with me now. We'll go
over an' see your mother.
_JOHN and SELMA leave the room. As soon as they are gone SPITTA
begins to eat ravenously. Soon thereafter WALBURGA appears. She is in
great haste and strongly excited._
WALBURGA
Are you alone?
SPITTA
For the moment, yes. Good morning, Walburga.
WALBURGA
Am I too late? It was only by the greatest cunning, by the greatest
determination, by the most ruthless disregard of everything that I
succeeded in getting away from home. My younger sister tried to bar the
door. Even the servant girl! But I told mama that if they wouldn't let me
out through the door, they might just as well bar the window, else I'd
reach the street through it, although it's three stories high. I flew.
I'm more dead than alive. But I am prepared for anything. How was it with
your father, Erich?
SPITTA
We have parted. He thought that I was going out to eat husks with the
swine as the Prodigal Son did, and told me not to take it into my mind
ever again to cross the threshold of my father's house in my future
capacity as acrobat or bareback rider, as he was pleased to express it.
His door was not open to such scum! Well, I'll fight it down! Only I'm
sorry for my poor, dear mother.--You can't imagine with what abysmal
hatred a man of his kind considers the theatre and everything connected
with it. The heaviest curse is not strong enough to express his feelings.
An actor is, to his mind, _a priori_, the worst, most contemptible scamp
imaginable.
WALBURGA
I've found out, too, how papa discovered our secret.
SPITTA
My father gave him your picture.
WALBURGA
O Erich, if you knew with what awful, with what horrible names papa
overwhelmed me in his rage. And I had to be silent through it all. I
might have said something that would have silenced all his lofty moral
discourses and made him quite helpless before me. I was almost on the
point of saying it, too. But I felt so ashamed for him! My tongue refused
to form the words! I couldn't say it, Erich! Finally mama had to
intervene. He struck me! For eight or nine hours he locked me in a dark
alcove--to break my stubbornness, as he put it, Erich. Well, he won't
succeed! He won't break it!
SPITTA
[_Taking WALBURGA into his arms._] You dear, brave girl! I am beginning
to see now what I possess in having your love, what a treasure you are!
[_Passionately._] And how beautiful you look, Walburga!
WALBURGA
Don't! Don't!--I trust you, Erich; that's all.
SPITTA
And you shall not be disappointed, dearest. You see, a man like me in
whom everything is still in a ferment, who feels that he was born to
achieve something great and significant but something which, for the
present, he can make sufficiently clear neither to himself nor to the
world--such a man has, at twenty, every man's hand against his and is a
burden and a laughing-stock to all the world. But believe me: it will not
always be so! The germs of the future lie in us! The soil is being
loosened even now by the budding shoots! Unseen to-day, _we_ are the
harvest of the future! We _are_ the future! And the time will come when
all this great and beautiful world will be ours!
WALBURGA
Ah, go on, Erich! What you say heals my heart.
SPITTA
Walburga, I did more, last night! I flung straight out into my father's
face, just as I felt it, my accusation of the crime committed against my
sister. And that made the break definite and unbridgeable. He said
stubbornly: He had no knowledge of such a daughter as I was describing.
Such a daughter had no existence in his soul, and it seemed to him that
his son would also soon cease to exist there. O these Christians! O these
servants of the good shepherd who took the lost lamb with double
tenderness into his arms! O thou good Shepherd, how have your words been
perverted; How have your eternal truths been falsified into their exact
contrary. But to-day when I sat amidst the flash of lightning and the
roll of thunder in the _Tiergarten_ and certain Berlin hyaenas were
prowling about me, I felt the crushed and restless soul of my sister
close beside me. How many nights, in her poor life, may she not have sat
shelterless on such benches, perhaps on this very bench in the
_Tiergarten_, in order to consider in her loneliness, her degradation,
her outcast estate, how, two thousand years after the birth of Christ,
this most Christian world is drenched with Christianity and with the love
of its fellow-men! But whatever she thought, this is what I think; the
poor harlot, the wretched sinner who is yet above the righteous, who is
weighed down by the sins of the world, the poor outcast and her terrible
accusation shall never die in my soul! And into this flame of our goals
we must cast all the wretchedness, all the lamentations of the oppressed
and the disinherited! Thus shall my sister stay truly alive, Walburga,
and effect noble ends before the face of God through the ethical impulse
that lends wings to my soul, and that will be more powerful than all the
evil, heartless parson's morality in the world.
WALBURGA
You were in the _Tiergarten_ all night, Erich? Is that the reason why
your hands are so icy cold, and why you look so utterly worn out? Erich,
you must take my purse! No, please, you must! Oh, I assure you what is
mine is yours! If you don't feel that, you don't love me. Erich, you're
suffering! If you don't take my few pennies, I'll refuse all nourishment
at home! By heaven, I'll do it, I'll do it, unless you're sensible about
that!
SPITTA
[_Chokes down his rising tears and sits down._] I'm nervous; I'm
overwrought.
WALBURGA
[_Puts her purse into his pocket._] And you see, Erich, this is the real
reason why I asked you to meet me here. To add to all my misfortunes I
received yesterday this summons from the court.
SPITTA
[_Regards a document which she hands to him._] Look here? What's behind
this, Walburga?
WALBURGA
I'm quite sure that it must have some connection with the stolen goods
upstairs in the loft. But it does disquiet me terribly. If papa were to
discover this ... oh, what would I do then?
_MRS. JOHN enters, carrying the child in her arms. She is dressed for
the street, and looks dusty and harassed._
MRS. JOHN
[_Frightened, suspicious._] Well, what d'you want here? Is Paul home yet?
I jus' went down in the street a little with the baby.
[_She carries the child behind the partition._
WALBURGA
Erich, do mention the summons to Mrs. John!
MRS. JOHN
Why, Paul's at home. There's his things!
SPITTA
Miss Hassenreuter wanted very much to talk to you. She received a summons
to appear in court. It's probably about those things that were stolen
from the loft. You know.
MRS. JOHN
[_Emerging from behind the partition._] What's that? You reelly got a
summons, Miss Walburga? Well, then you better look out! I ain't jokin'.
An' maybe you're thinkin' o' the black man!
SPITTA
What you're saying there is quite incomprehensible, Mrs. John.
MRS. JOHN
[_Taking up her domestic tasks._] Did you hear that 'way out in the
Lauben settlement, beyond the Halle Gate, the lightenin' struck a man an'
a woman an' a little girl o' seven this mornin'. It was right under a
tall poplar tree.
SPITTA
No, Mrs. John, we didn't hear that.
MRS. JOHN
The rain's splashin' down again.
_One hears a shower of rain beginning to fall._
WALBURGA
[_Nervously._] Come, Erich, let's get out into the open anyhow.
MRS. JOHN
[_Speaking louder and louder in her incoherent terror._] An' I tell you
another thing: I was talking to the woman what was struck by lightenin'
jus' a short time before. An' she says--now listen to me, Mr. Spitta--if
you takes a dead child what's lyin' in its carridge an' pushes it out
into the sun ... but it's gotta be summer an' midday ... it'll draw
breath, it'll cry, it'll come back to life!--You don't believe that, eh?
But I seen that with my own eyes!
[_She circles about the room in a strange fashion, apparently
becoming quite oblivious of the presence of the two young people._
WALBURGA
Look, here, Mrs. John is positively uncanny! Let's go!
MRS. JOHN
[_Speaking still louder._] You don' believe that, that it'll come to life
again, eh? I tell you, its mother c'n come an' take it. But it's gotta be
nursed right off.
SPITTA
Good-bye, Mrs. John.
MRS. JOHN
[_In strange excitement accompanies the two young people to the door.
Speaking still more loudly._] You don' believe that! But it's the solemn
truth, Mr. Spitta!
_SPITTA and WALBURGA leave the room._
MRS. JOHN
[_Still holding the door in her hand calls out after them._] Anybody that
don' believe that don' know nothin' o' the whole secret that I
discovered.
_The foreman-mason JOHN appears in the door and enters at once._
JOHN
Why, there you are, mother! I'm glad to see you. What's that there secret
you're talkin' about?
MRS. JOHN
[_As though awakening, grasps her head._] Me?--Did I say somethin' about
a secret?
JOHN
That you did unless I'm hard o' hearin'. An' it's reelly you unless it's
a ghost.
MRS. JOHN
[_Surprised and frightened._] Why d'you think I might be a ghost?
JOHN
[_Pats his wife good-naturedly on the back._] Come now, Jette, don't bite
me. I'm reel glad, that I am, that you're here again with the little kid!
[_He goes behind the partition._] But it's lookin' a little measly.
MRS. JOHN
The milk didn't agree with him. An' that's because out there in the
country the cows is already gettin' green fodder. I got milk here from
the dairy company that comes from dry fed cows.
JOHN
[_Reappears in the main room._] That's what I'm sayin'. Why did you have
to go an' take the child on the train an' outa town. The city is
healthier. That's my notion.
MRS. JOHN
I'm goin' to stay at home now, Paul.
JOHN
In Hamburg everythin' is settled, too. To-day at noon I'm goin' to meet
Karl an' then he'll tell me when I c'n start workin' for the new
boss!--Look here: I brought somethin' with me, too.
[_He takes a small child's rattle from his breeches pocket and shakes
it._
MRS. JOHN
What's that?
JOHN
That's somethin' to bring a bit o' life into the place, 'cause it's
pretty quiet inside in Berlin here! Listen how the kid's crowin'. [_The
child is heard making happy little noises._] I tell you, mother, when a
little kid goes on that way--there ain't nothin' I'd take for it!
MRS. JOHN
Have you seen anybody yet?
JOHN
No!--Leastways only Quaquaro early this mornin'.
MRS. JOHN
[_In timid suspense._] Well ...?
JOHN
Oh, never mind! Nothin! There was nothin' to it.
MRS. JOHN [_As before._] What did he say?
JOHN
What d'you think he said? But if you're bound to know--'tain't no use
talkin' o' such things Sunday mornin'--he axed me after Bruno again.
MRS. JOHN
[_Pale and speaking hastily._] What do they say Bruno has done again?
JOHN
Nothin'. Here, come'n drink a little coffee, Jette, an' don' get excited!
It ain't your fault that you got a brother like that. We don't has to
concern ourselves about other people.
MRS. JOHN
I'd like to know what an old fool like that what spies aroun' all day
long has always gotta be talkin' about Bruno.
JOHN
Jette, don' bother me about Bruno--You see ...aw, what's the use ...
might as well keep still!... But if I was goin' to tell you the truth,
I'd say that it wouldn't surprise me if some day Bruno'd come to a pretty
bad end right out in the yard o' the gaol, too--a quick end. [_MRS. JOHN
sits down heavily beside the table. She grows grey in the face and
breathes with difficulty._] Maybe not! Maybe not! Don't take it to heart
so right off!--How's the sister?
MRS. JOHN
I don' know.
JOHN
Why, I thought you was out there visitin' her?
MRS. JOHN
[_Looks at him absently._] Where was I?
JOHN
Well, you see, Jette, that's the way it is with you women! You're jus'
shakin', but oh no--you don' want to go to no doctor! An' it'll end
maybe, by your havin' to take to your bed. That's what comes o'
neglectin' nature.
MRS. JOHN
[_Throwing her arms about JOHN'S neck._] Paul, you're goin' to leave me!
For God's sake, tell me right out that it's so! Don' fool me aroun' an'
cheat me! Tell me right out!
JOHN
What's the matter with you to-day, Henrietta?
MRS. JOHN
[_Pulling herself together._] Don' attend to my fool talk. I ain't had no
rest all night--that's it. An' then I got up reel early, an' anyhow, it
ain't nothin' but that I'm a bit weak yet.
JOHN
Then you better lie down flat on your back an' rest a little. [_MRS. JOHN
throws herself on the sofa and stares at the ceiling._] Maybe you'd
better comb yourself a bit afterwards, Jette!--It musta been mighty dusty
on the train for you to be jus' covered all over with sand the way you
are! [_MRS. JOHN does not answer but continues staring at the ceiling._]
I must go an' bring that there little feller into the light a bit.
[_He goes behind the partition._
MRS. JOHN
How long has we been married, Paul?
JOHN
[_Plays with the rattle behind the partition. Then answers_:] That was in
eighteen hundred and seventy-two, jus' as I came back from the war.
MRS. JOHN
Then you came to father, didn't you? An' you assoomed a grand position
an' you had the Iron Cross on the left side o' your chest.
JOHN
[_Appears, swinging the rattle and carrying the child on its pillow. He
speaks merrily._] That's so, mother. An' I got it yet. If you want to see
it, I'll pin it on.
MRS. JOHN
[_Still stretched out on the sofa._] An' then you came to me an' you said
that I wasn't to be so busy all the time ... goin' up an' down, runnin'
upstairs an' downstairs ... that I was to be a bit more easy-goin'.
JOHN
An' I'm still sayin' that same thing to-day.
MRS. JOHN
An' then you tickled me with your moustache an' kissed me right behind my
left ear! An' then ...
JOHN
Then it didn't take long for us to agree, eh?
MRS. JOHN
Yes, an' I laughed an', bit by bit, I looked at myself in every one o'
your brass buttons. I was lookin' different then! An' then you said ...
JOHN
Well, mother, you're a great one for rememberin' things, I must say!
MRS. JOHN
An' then you said: When we has a boy, an' that'll be soon, he c'n follow
the flag into the field too "with God for King an' country."
JOHN
[_Sings to the child, playing with the rattle._]
"To heaven he turns his glances bold
Whence gaze the hero sires of old:
The Rhine, the Rhine, the German Rhine!"...
Well, an' now that I has a little feller like that I ain't half so keen
on sendin' him to the war to be food for powder.
[_He retires with the child behind the partition._
MRS. JOHN
[_Still staring at the ceiling._] Paul, Paul! Seems as if all that was a
hundred years ago!
JOHN
[_Reappears from behind the partition without the child._] Not as long
ago as all that.
MRS. JOHN
Look here, what d'you think? How would it be if you was to take me an'
the child an' go to America?
JOHN