as if there was nothin' but ghosts aroun' me here! You know I has a good
easy temper! When the workmen heave bricks at each other, I don't even
get excited. An' what do they say? Paul has a comfortable nature. But
now: what's this here? The sun's shinin'; it's bright daylight! I can't
_see_ nothin'; that's a fac'. But somethin's titterin' an' whisperin' an'
creepin' aroun' in here. Only when I stretches out my hand I can't lay
hold on nothin'! Now I wants to know what there is to this here story
about the strange girl what came to the room. Is it true?
MRS. JOHN
You heard, Paul, that the young lady didn't come back no more. An' that
shows you, don't it ...
JOHN
I hear what you're sayin'. But your lips is fair blue an' your eyes look
as if somebody was tormentin' you.
MRS. JOHN
[_Suddenly changing her attitude_] Yes. Why do you leave me alone year in
an' year out, Paul? I sits here like in a cave an' I ain't got a soul to
who I c'n say what I'm thinkin'. Many a time I've sat here an' axed
myself why I works an' works, why I skimps an' saves to get together a
few crowns, an' find good investments for your earnin's an' try to add to
'em. Why? Was all that to go to strangers? Paul, it's you who's been the
ruin o' me!
[_She lays her head on the table and bursts out in sobs._
_Softly and with feline stealth BRUNO MECHELKE enters the room at
this moment. He has on his Sunday duds, a sprig of lilac in his hat
and a great bunch of it in his hand. JOHN drums with his fingers on
the window and does not observe him._
MRS. JOHN
[_Has gradually realised BRUNO'S presence as though he were a ghost._]
Bruno, is that you?
BRUNO
[_Who has recognised JOHN in a flash, softly._] Sure, it's me, Jette.
MRS. JOHN
Where d'you come from? What d'you want?
BRUNO
I been dancin' all night, Jette! You c'n see, can't you, that I'm dam'
jolly?
JOHN
[_Has been staring steadily at BRUNO. A dangerous pallor has overspread
his face. He now goes slowly to a small cupboard, takes out an old army
revolver and loads it. MRS. JOHN does not observe this._] You! Listen!
I'll tell you somethin'--somethin' you forgot, maybe. There ain't no
reason on God's earth why I shouldn't pull this here trigger! You
scoundrel! You ain't fit to be among human bein's! I told you ... las'
fall it was ... that I'd shoot you down if I ever laid eyes on you in my
home again! Now go ... or I'll ... shoot. Y'understan'?
BRUNO
Aw, I ain't scared o' your jelly squirter.
MRS. JOHN
[_Who observes that JOHN, losing control of himself, is slowly
approaching BRUNO with the weapon and raising it._] Then kill me too,
Paul. 'Cause he's my brother.
JOHN
[_Looks at her long, seems to awaken and change his mind._] All right.
[_He replaces the revolver carefully in the cupboard._] You're right,
anyhow, Jette! It's hell, Jette, that your name's got to be on the tongue
of a crittur like that. All right. The powder'd be too good, too. This
here little pistol's tasted the blood o' two French cavalry men! Heroes
they was! An' I don't want it to drink no dirt.
BRUNO
I ain' doubtin' that there's dirt in your head! An' if it hadn't been
that you board with my sister here I'd ha' let the light into you long
ago, you dirt eater, so you'd ha' bled for weeks.
JOHN
[_With tense restraint._] Tell me again, Jette, that it's your brother.
MRS. JOHN
Go, Paul, will you? I'll get him away all right! You know's well as I
that I can't help it now that Bruno's my own brother.
JOHN
All right. Then I'm one too many here. You c'n bill an' coo. [_He is
dressed for the street as it is and hence proceeds to go. Close by BRUNO
he stands still._] You scamp! You worried your father into his grave.
Your sister might better ha' let you starve behind some fence rather'n
raise you an' litter the earth with another criminal like you. I'll be
back in half an hour! But I won't be alone. I'll have the sergeant with
me!
[_JOHN leaves by the outer door, putting on his slouch hat._
_So soon as JOHN has disappeared BRUNO turns and spits out after him
toward the door._
BRUNO
If I ever gets hold o' you!
MRS. JOHN
Why d'you come, Bruno? Tell me, what's the matter?
BRUNO
Tin's what you gotta give me. Or I'll go to hell.
MRS. JOHN
[_Locks and latches the outer door._] Wait till I close the door! Now,
what's the matter? Where d'you come from? Where has you been?
BRUNO
Oh, I danced about half the night an' then, about sunrise, I went out
into the country for a bit.
MRS. JOHN
Did Quaquaro see you comin' in, Bruno? Then you better look out that you
ain't walked into no trap.
BRUNO
No danger. I crossed the yard an' then went through the cellar o' my
friend what deals in junk an' after that up through the loft.
MRS. JOHN
Well, an' what happened?
BRUNO
Don' fool aroun', Jette. I gotta have railroad fare. I gotta take to my
heels or I'll go straight to hell.
MRS. JOHN
An' what did you do with that there girl?
BRUNO
Oh, I found a way, Jette!
MRS. JOHN
What's the meanin' o' that?
BRUNO
Oh, I managed to make her a little more accommodatin' all right!
MRS. JOHN
An' is it a sure thing that she won't come back now?
BRUNO
Sure. I don' believe that she'll come again! But that wasn't no easy
piece of work, Jette. But I tell you ... gimme somethin' to
drink--quick!... I tell you, you made me thirsty with your damned
business--thirsty, an' hot as hell.
[_He drains a jug full of water._
MRS. JOHN
People saw you outside the door with the girl.
BRUNO
I had to make a engagement with Arthur. She didn't want to have nothin'
to do with me. But Arthur, he came dancin' along in his fine clothes an'
he managed to drag her along to a bar. She swallowed the bait right down
when he told her as how her intended was waitin' for her there. [_He
trills out, capering about convulsively._]
"All we does in life's to go
Up an' down an' to an' fro
From a tap-room to a show!"
MRS. JOHN
Well, an' then?
BRUNO
Then she wanted to get away 'cause Arthur said that her intended had gone
off! Then I wanted to go along with her a little bit an' Arthur an'
Adolph, they came along. Next we dropped in the ladies' entrance at
Kalinich's an' what with tastin' a lot o' toddy an' other liquors she got
good an' tipsy. An' then she staid all night with a woman what's Arthur's
sweetheart. All next day there was always two or three of us boys after
her, didn't let her go, an' played all kinds o' tricks, an' things got
jollier an' jollier.
[_The church bells of the Sunday morning services begin to ring._
BRUNO
[_Goes on._] But the money's gone. I needs crowns an' pennies, Jette.
MRS. JOHN
[_Rummaging for money._] How much has you got to have?
BRUNO
[_Listening to the bells._] What?
MRS. JOHN
Money!
BRUNO
The old bag o' bones in the junk shop downstairs was thinkin' as how I'd
better get across the Russian frontier! Listen, Jette, how the bells is
ringin'.
MRS. JOHN
Why do you has to get acrost the frontier?
BRUNO
Take a wet towel, Jette, an' put a little vinegar on it. I been bothered
with this here dam' nosebleed all night.
[_He presses his handkerchief to his nose._
MRS. JOHN
[_Breathing convulsively, brings a towel._] Who was it scratched your
wrist into shreds that way?
BRUNO
[_Listening to the bells._] Half past three o'clock this mornin' she
could ha' heard them bells yet.
MRS. JOHN
O Jesus, my Saviour! That ain't true! That can't noways be possible! I
didn't tell you nothin' like that, Bruno! Bruno, I has to sit down. Oh!
[_She sits down._] That's what our father foretold to me on his dyin'
bed.
BRUNO
It ain't so easy jokin' with me. If you go to see Minna, jus' tell her
that I got the trick o' that kind o' thing an' that them goin's on with
Karl an' with Fritz has to stop.
MRS. JOHN
But, Bruno, if they was to catch you!
BRUNO
Well, then I has to swing, an' out at the Charity hospital they got
another stiff to dissect.
MRS. JOHN
[_Giving him money._] Oh, that ain't true. What did you do, Bruno?
BRUNO
You're a crazy old crittur, Jette.--[_He puts his hand on her not without
a tremor of emotion._] You always says as how I ain't good for nothin'.
But when things can't go on no more, then you needs me, Jette.
MRS. JOHN
Well, but how? Did you threaten the girl that she wasn't to let herself
be seen no more? That's what you ought to ha' done, Bruno! An' did you?
BRUNO
I danced with her half the night. An' then we went out on the street.
Well, a gentleman came along, y'understan'? Well, when I told him that I
had some little business o' my own to transact with the lady an' pulled
my brass-knuckles outa my breeches, o' course he took to his heels.--Then
I says to her, says I: Don't you be scared. If you're peaceable an' don'
make no outcry an' don' come no more to my sister axin' after the
child--well, we c'n make a reel friendly bargain. So she toddled along
with me a ways.
MRS. JOHN
Well, an' then?
BRUNO
Well, she didn't want to! An' all of a sudden she went for my throat that
I thought it'd be the end o' me then an' there! Like a dawg she went for
me hot an' heavy! An' then ... then I got a little bit excited too--an'
then, well ... that's how it come ...
MRS. JOHN
[_Sunk in horror._] What time d'you say it was?
BRUNO
It must ha' been somewhere between three an' four. The moon had a big
ring aroun' it. Out on the square there was a dam' cur behind the planks
what got up an' howled. Then it began to drip an' soon a thunderstorm
came up.
MRS. JOHN
[_Changed and with sudden self-mastery._] It's all right. Go on. She don'
deserve no better.
BRUNO
Good-bye. I s'pose we ain't goin' to see each other for years an' years.
MRS. JOHN
Where you goin' to?
BRUNO
First of all I gotta lie flat on my back for a couple o' hours. I'm goin'
to Fritz's. He's got a room for rent in the old police station right
acrost from the Fisher's Bridge. I'm safe there all right. If there's
anythin' of a outcry you c'n lemme know.
MRS. JOHN
Don' you want to take a peek at the child onct more?
BRUNO
[_Trembling._] Naw!
MRS. JOHN
Why not?
BRUNO
No, Jette, not in this here life! Good-bye, Jette. Hol' on a minute: Here
I got a horseshoe. [_He puts a horseshoe on the table._] I found it.
That'll bring you good luck. I don' need it.
_Stealthily as he has come, BRUNO MECHELKE also disappears. MRS.
JOHN, her eyes wide with horror, stares at the spot where he stood.
Then she totters backward a few paces, presses her hands, clenched
convulsively as if in prayer, against her mouth, and collapses, still
trying in vain to stammer out a prayerful appeal to heaven._
MRS. JOHN
I ain't no murderer! I ain't no murderer! I didn't want that to happen!
FIFTH ACT
_JOHN'S room. MRS. JOHN is asleep on the sofa. WALBURGA and SPITTA
enter from the outer hall. The loud playing of a military band is
heard from the street._
SPITTA
No one is here.
WALBURGA
Oh, yes, there is, Erich. Mrs. John! She's asleep here.
SPITTA
[_Approaching the sofa together with WALBURGA._] Is she asleep? So she
is! I don't understand how anyone can sleep amidst this noise.
_The music of the band trails off into silence._
WALBURGA
Oh, Erich, sh! I have a perfect horror of the woman. Can you understand
anyhow why policemen are guarding the entrance downstairs and why they
won't let us go out into the street? I'm so awfully afraid that, maybe,
they'll arrest us and take us along to the station.
SPITTA
Oh, but there's not the slightest danger, Walburga! You're seeing ghosts
by broad daylight.
WALBURGA
When the plain clothes man came up to you and looked at us and you asked
him who he was and he showed his badge under his coat, I assure you, at
that moment, the stairs and the hall suddenly began to go around with me.
SPITTA
They're looking for a criminal, Walburga. It is a so-called raid that is
going on here, a kind of man hunt such as the criminal police is at times
obliged to undertake.
WALBURGA
And you can believe me, too, Erich, that I heard papa's voice. He was
talking quite loudly to some one.
SPITTA
You are nervous. You may have been mistaken.
WALBURGA
[_Frightened at MRS. JOHN, who is speaking in her sleep._] Listen to her:
do!
SPITTA
Great drops of sweat are standing on her forehead. Come here! Just look
at the rusty old horseshoe that she is clasping with both hands.
WALBURGA
[_Listens and starts with fright again._] Papa!
SPITTA
I don't understand you. Let him come, Walburga. The essential thing is
that one knows what one wants and that one has a clean conscience. I am
ready. I long for the explanation to come about.
_A loud knocking is heard at the door._
SPITTA
[_Firmly._] Come in!
_MRS. HASSENREUTER enters, more out of breath than usual. An
expression of relief comes over her face as she catches sight of her
daughter._
MRS. HASSENREUTER
Thank God! There you are, children! [_Trembling, WALBURGA throws herself
into her mother's arms._] Girlie, but what a fright you've given your old
mother.
[_A pause in which only the breathing of MRS. HASSENREUTER is heard._
WALBURGA
Forgive me, mama: I couldn't act differently.
MRS. HASSENREUTER
Oh, no! One doesn't write letters containing such thoughts to one's own
mother. And especially not to a mother like me. If your soul is in pain
you know very well that you can always count on me for help and counsel.
I'm not a monster, and I was young myself once. But to threaten to drown
yourself ... and things like that ... no, that's all wrong. You shouldn't
have done that. Surely you agree with me, Mr. Spitta. And now this very
minute ... heavens, how you both look!... this very minute you must both
come home with me!--What's the matter with Mrs. John?
WALBURGA
Oh yes, help us! Don't forsake us! Take us with you, mama! Oh, I'm _so_
glad that you're here! I was just paralysed with fright!
MRS. HASSENREUTER
Very well, then. Come along. That would be the last straw if one had to
be prepared for such desperate follies from you, Mr. Spitta, or from this
child! At your age one should have courage. If everything doesn't go
quite smoothly you have no right to think of expedients by which one has
nothing to gain and everything to lose. We live but once, after all.
SPITTA
Oh, I have courage! And I'm not thinking of putting an end to myself as
one who is weary and defeated ... unless Walburga is refused to me. In
that case, to be sure, my determination is firm. It doesn't in the least
undermine my belief in myself or in my future that I am poor for the
present and have to take my dinner occasionally in the people's kitchen.
And I am sure Walburga is equally convinced that a day must come that
will indemnify us for all the dark and difficult hours of the present.
MRS. HASSENREUTER
Life is long; and you're almost children to-day. It's not so very bad for
a student to have to take an occasional meal in the people's kitchen. It
would be much worse, however, for Walburga as a married woman. And I hope
for the sake of you both that you'll wait till something in the nature of
a hearthstone of your own with the necessary wood and coal can be
founded. In the meantime I've succeeded in persuading papa to a kind of
truce. It wasn't easy and it might have been impossible had not this
morning's mail brought the news of his definitive appointment as manager
of the theatre at Strassburg.
WALBURGA
[_Joyously._] Oh, mama, mama! That is a ray of sunshine, isn't it?
MRS. JOHN
[_Sits up with a start._] Bruno!
MRS. HASSENREUTER
[_Apologising._] Oh, we've wakened you, Mrs. John.
MRS. JOHN
Is Bruno gone?
MRS. HASSENREUTER
Who? Who's Bruno?
MRS. JOHN
Why, Bruno! Don' you know Bruno?
MRS. HASSENREUTER
Ah, yes, yes! That's the name of your brother.
MRS. JOHN
Was I asleep?
SPITTA
Fast asleep. But you cried out aloud in your sleep just now.
MRS. JOHN
Did you see, Mr. Spitta, how them boys out in the yard threw stones at my
little Adelbert's wee grave? But I got after 'em, eh? An' they wasn't no
bad slaps neither what I dealt out.
MRS. HASSENREUTER
It seems that you've been dreaming of your first little boy who died,
Mrs. John.
MRS. JOHN
No, no; all that's fac'! I ain't been dreamin'. An' then I took little
Adelbert an' I went with him to the registrar's office.
MRS. HASSENREUTER
But if your little boy's no longer alive ... how could you ...
MRS. JOHN
Aw, when a little child is onct born, it don't matter if it's dead ...
it's still right inside o' its mother. Did you hear that dawg howlin'
behind the board fence? An' the moon had a big ring aroun' it! Bruno, you
ain' doin' right!
MRS. HASSENREUTER
[_Shaking MRS. JOHN._] Wake up, my good woman! Wake up, Mrs. John! You
are ill! Your husband ought to take you to see a physician.
MRS. JOHN
Bruno, you ain' doin' right! [_The bells are ringing again._] Ain't them
the bells?
MRS. HASSENREUTER
The service is over, Mrs. John.
MRS. JOHN
[_Wholly awake now, stares about her._] Why does I wake up? Why didn't
you take an ax when I was asleep an' knock me over the head with
it?--What did I say? Sh! Only don't tell a livin' soul a word, Mrs.
Hassenreuter.
[_She jumps up and arranges her hair by the help of many hairpins._
_Manager HASSENREUTER appears in the doorway._
HASSENREUTER
[_Starting at the sight of his family._]
"Behold, behold, Timotheus,
_Here_ are the cranes of Ibicus!"
Didn't you tell me there was a shipping agent's office in the
neighbourhood, Mrs. John?--[_To WALBURGA._] Ah, yes, my child! While,
with the frivolousness of youth you have been thinking of your pleasure
and nothing but your pleasure, your papa has been running about for three
whole hours again purely on business.--[_To SPITTA._] You wouldn't be in
such a hurry to establish a family, young man, if you had the least
suspicion how hard it is--a struggle from day to day--to get even the
wretched, mouldy necessary bit of daily bread for one's wife and child! I
trust it will never be your fate to be suddenly hurled one day, quite
penniless, into the underworld of Berlin and be obliged to struggle for a
naked livelihood for yourself and those dear to you, breast to breast
with others equally desperate, in subterranean holes and passages! But
you may all congratulate me! A week from now we will be in Strassburg.
[_MRS. HASSENREUTER, WALBURGA and SPITTA all press his hand._] Everything
else will be adjusted.
MRS. HASSENREUTER
You have fought an heroic battle for us during these past years, papa.
And you did it without stooping to anything unworthy.
HASSENREUTER
It was a fight like that of drowning men who struggle for planks in the
water. My noble costumes, made to body forth the dreams of poets, in what
dens of vice, on what reeking bodies have they not passed their
nights--_odi profanum vulgus_--only that a few pennies of rental might
clatter in my cashbox! But let us turn to more cheerful thoughts. The
freight waggon, alias the cart of Thespis is at the door in order to
effect the removal of our Penates to happier fields--[_Suddenly turning
to SPITTA._] My excellent Spitta, I demand your word of honour that, in
your so-called despair, you two do not commit some irreparable folly. In
return I promise to lend my ear to any utterances of yours characterised
by a modicum of good sense.--Finally: I've come to you, Mrs. John,
firstly because the officers bar all the exits and will permit no one to
go out; and secondly because I would like exceedingly to know why a man
like myself, at the very moment when his triumphant flag is fluttering in
the wind again, should have become the object of a malicious newspaper
report!
MRS. HASSENREUTER
Dear Harro, Mrs. John doesn't understand you.
HASSENREUTER
Aha! Then let us begin _ab ovo_. I have letters here [_he shows a bundle
of them_] one, two, three, five--about a dozen! In these letters unknown
but malicious individuals congratulate me upon an event which is said to
have taken place in my storage loft. I would pay no attention to these
communications were they not confirmed by a news item in the papers
according to which a newborn infant is said to have been found in the
loft of a costumer in the suburbs ... a costumer, forsooth! I would have
said nothing, I repeat, if this item had not perplexed me. Undoubtedly
there is a case of mistaken identity involved here. In spite of that, I
don't like to have the report stick to me. Especially since this cub of a
reporter speaks of the costumer as being a bankrupt manager of barn
stormers. Read it, mama: "The Stork Visits Costumer." I'll box that
fellow's ears! This evening my appointment at Strassburg is to be made
public in the papers and at the same time I am to be offered as a kind of
comic dessert _urbi et orbi_. As if it were not obvious that of all
curses that of being made ridiculous is the worst!
MRS. JOHN
You say there's policemen at the door downstairs, sir?
HASSENREUTER
Yes, and their watch is so close that the funeral procession of Mrs.
Knobbe's baby has been brought to a standstill. They won't even let the
little coffin and the horrid fellow from the burial society who is
carrying it go out to the carriage.
MRS. JOHN
What child's funeral was that?
HASSENREUTER
Don't you know? It's the little son of Mrs. Knobbe which was brought up
to me in so mysterious a way by two women and died almost under my very
eyes, probably of exhaustion. _À propos_ ...
MRS. JOHN
The Knobbe woman's child is dead?
HASSENREUTER
_À propos_, Mrs. John, I was going to say that you ought really to know
how the affair of those two half-crazy women who got hold of the child
finally ended?
MRS. JOHN
Well now, tell me, ain't it like the very finger of God that they didn't
take my little Adelbert an' that he didn't die?
HASSENREUTER
Just why? I don't understand the logic of that. On the other hand, I have
been asking myself whether the confused speeches of the Polish girl, the
theft committed in my loft, and the milk bottle which Quaquaro brought
down in a boot--whether all these things had not something to do with the
notice in the papers.
MRS. JOHN
No, there ain't no connection between them things. Has you seen Paul,
sir?
HASSENREUTER
Paul? Ah yes; that's your husband. Yes, yes. Indeed I saw him in
conversation with detective Puppe, who visited me too in connection with
the theft.
_JOHN enters._
JOHN
Well, Jette, wasn't I right? This here thing's happened soon enough!
MRS. JOHN
What's happened?
JOHN
D'you want me to go an' earn the thousand crowns' reward what's offered
accordin' to placards on the news pillars by the chief o' police's office
for denouncin' the criminal?
MRS. JOHN
How's that?
JOHN
Don't you know that all this manoeuverin' o' police an' detectives is
started on account o' Bruno?
MRS. JOHN
How so? Where? What is it? What's been started?
JOHN
The funeral's been stopped an' two o' the mourners--queer customers they
is, too--has been taken prisoner. Yes, sir! That's the pass things has
come to, Mr. Hassenreuter. I'm a man, sir, what's tied to a women as has
a brother what's bein' pursued by the criminal police an' by detectives
because he killed a woman not far from the river under a lilac bush.
HASSENREUTER
But my dear Mr. John: God forbid that that be true!
MRS. JOHN
That's a lie! My brother don' do nothin' like that.
JOHN
Aw, don' he though, Jette? Mr. Hassenreuter, I was sayin' the other day
what kind of a brother that is! [_He notices the bunch of lilacs and
takes it from the table._] Look at this here! That there monster's been
in my home! If he comes back I'll be the first one that'll take him,
bound hand an' foot, an' deliver him up to justice!
[_He searches through the whole room._
MRS. JOHN
You c'n tell dam' fools there's such a thing as justice. There ain't no
justice, not even in heaven. There wasn't a soul here. An' that bit o'
lilac I brought along from Hangelsberg where a big bush of it grows
behind your sister's house.
JOHN
Jette, you wasn't at my sister's at all. Quaquaro jus' told me that! They
proved that at headquarters. You was seen in the park by the river ...
MRS. JOHN
Lies!
JOHN
An' 'way out in the suburbs where you passed the night in a arbour!
MRS. JOHN
What? D'you come into your own house to tear everythin' into bits?
JOHN
All right! I ain't sorry that things has come to this. There ain't no
more secrets between us here. I foretold all that.
HASSENREUTER
[_Tense with interest._] Did that Polish girl who fought like a lioness
for Mrs. Knobbe's baby the other day ever show herself again?
JOHN
She's the very one. She's the one what they pulled out o' the water this
morning. An' I has to say it without bitin' my tongue off: Bruno Mechelke
took that girl's life.
HASSENREUTER
[_Quickly._] Then she was probably his mistress?
JOHN
Ask mother! I don' know about that! That's what I was scared of; that's
the reason I rather didn't come home at all no more, that my own wife was
loaded down with a crowd like that an' didn't have the strength to shake
it off.
HASSENREUTER
Come, children!
JOHN
Why so? You jus' stay!
MRS. JOHN