the world to hear! It's bad enough if fate's brought a misfortune like
that on us. Go on! Make a noise about it if you want to. But you won't
see me very soon again.
HASSENREUTER
And you mean to say that that ...
JOHN
That's jus' what I'll do! Jus' that! I'll call in anybody as wants to
know--outa the street, offa the hall, the carpenter outa the yard, the
boys an' the girls what takes their confirmation lessons--I'll call 'em
all an' I'll tell 'em what a woman got into on account o' her fool love
for her brother!
HASSENREUTER
And so that good-looking girl who laid claim to the child is actually
dead to-day?
JOHN
Maybe she was good-lookin'. I don' know nothin' about that, whether she
was pretty or ugly. But it's a fac' that she's lyin' in the morgue this
day.
MRS. JOHN
I c'n tell you what she was! She was a common, low wench! She had
dealin's with a Tyrolese feller that didn't want to have nothin' more to
do with her an' she had a child by him. An' she'd ha' liked to kill that
child while it was in her own womb. Then she came to fetch it with that
Kielbacke what's been in prison eighteen months as a professional
baby-killer. Whether she had any dealin's with Bruno, I don' know! Maybe
so an' maybe not! An' anyhow, I don' see how it concerns me what Bruno's
gone an' done.
HASSENREUTER
So you _did_ know the girl in question, Mrs. John?
MRS. JOHN
How so? I didn't know her a bit! I'm only sayin' what everybody as knows
says about that there girl.
HASSENREUTER
You're an honourable woman: you're an honourable man, Mr. John. This
matter with your wayward brother is terrible enough as a fact, but it
ought not seriously to undermine your married life. Stay honest and ...
JOHN
Not a bit of it! I don't stay with such people; not anywhere near 'em.
[_He brings his fist down on the table, taps at the walls, stamps on the
floor._] Listen to the crackin'! Listen, how the plasterin' comes
rumblin' down behind the wall-paper! Everything rotten here, everythin's
worm eaten! Everythin's undermined by varmint an' by rats an' by mice.
[_He see-saws on a loose plank in the floor._] Every thin' totters! Any
minute the whole business might crash down into the cellar.--[_He opens
the door._] Selma! Selma! I'm goin' to pull outa here before the whole
thing just falls together into a heap o' rubbish!
MRS. JOHN
What do you want o' Selma?
JOHN
Selma is goin' to take that child an' I'll go with 'em on the train an'
take it out to my sister.
MRS. JOHN
You'll hear from me if you try that! Oh, you jus' try it!
JOHN
Is my child to be brought up in surroundin's like this, an' maybe some
day be driven over the roofs with Bruno an' maybe end in the
penitentiary?
MRS. JOHN
[_Cries out at him._] That ain't your child at all! Y'understan'?
JOHN
'S that so? Well, we'll see if an honest man can't be master o' his own
child what's got a mother that's gone crazy an' is in the hands of a
crowd o' murderers. I'd like to see who's in the right there an' who's
the stronger. Selma!
MRS. JOHN
I'll scream! I'll tear open the windows! Mrs. Hassenreuter, they wants to
rob a mother o' her child! That's my right that I'm the mother o' my
child! Ain't that my right? Ain't that so, Mrs. Hassenreuter? They're
surroundin' me! They wants to rob me o' my rights! Ain't it goin' to
belong to me what I picked up like refuse, what was lyin' on rags
half-dead, an' I had to rub it an' knead it all I could before it began
to breathe an' come to life slowly? If it wasn't for me, it would ha'
been covered with earth these three weeks!
HASSENREUTER
Mr. John, to play the part of an arbitrator between married people is not
ordinarily my function. It's too thankless a task and one's experiences
are, as a rule, too unhappy. But you should not permit your feeling of
honour, justly wounded as, no doubt, it is, to hurry you into acts that
are rash. For, after all, your wife is not responsible for her brother's
act. Let her have the child! Don't increase the misery of it all by such
hardness toward your wife as must hurt her most cruelly and
unnecessarily.
MRS. JOHN
Paul, that child's like as if it was cut outa my own flesh! I bought that
child with my blood. It ain't enough that all the world's after me an'
wants to take it away from me; now you gotta join 'em an' do the same!
That's the thanks a person gets! Why, it's like a pack o' hungry wolves
aroun' me. You c'n kill me! But you can't touch my baby!
JOHN
I comes home, Mr. Hassenreuter, only this mornin'. I comes home with all
my tools on the train, jolly as c'n be. I broke off all my connections in
Hamburg. Even if you don' earn so much, says I to myself, you'd rather be
with your family, an' take up your child in your arms a little, or maybe
take it on your knee a little! That was about the way I was thinkin'!
MRS. JOHN
Paul! Here, Paul! [_She goes close up to him._] You c'n tear my heart out
if you want to!
[_She stares long at him, then runs behind the partition, whence her
loud weeping is heard._
_SELMA enters from the hall. She is dressed in mourning garments and
carries a little wreath in her hand._
SELMA
What is I to do? You called me, Mr. John.
JOHN
Put on your cloak, Selma. Ax your mother if you c'n go an' take a trip
with me to Hangelsberg. You'll earn a bit o' money doin' it. All you
gotta do is to take my child on your arm an' come along with me.
SELMA
No, I ain' goin' to touch that child no more.
JOHN
Why not?
SELMA
No; I'm afraid, Mr. John! I'm that scared at the way mama an' the police
lieutenant screamed at me.
MRS. JOHN
[_Appears._] Why did they scream at you?
SELMA
[_Crying vociferously._] Officer Schierke even slapped my face.
MRS. JOHN
Well, I'll see about that ... he oughta try that again.
SELMA
I can't tell why that Polish girl took my little brother away. If I'd
known that my little brother was goin' to die, I'd ha' jumped at her
throat first. Now little Gundofried's coffin stands on the stairs. I
believe mama has convulsions an' is lyin' down in Quaquaro's alcove. An'
me they wants to take to the charity organisation, Mrs. John.
[_She weeps._
MRS. JOHN
Then you c'n be reel happy. They can't treat you worse'n you was treated
at home.
SELMA
An' I gotta go to court! An' maybe they'll take me to gaol!
MRS. JOHN
On account o' what?
SELMA
Because they says I took the child what the Polish girl had up in the
loft an' carried it down to you.
HASSENREUTER
So a child actually was born up there.
SELMA
Certainly.
HASSENREUTER
In _whose_ loft?
SELMA
Why, where them actors lives! It ain't none o' my business! How is I to
know anythin' about it? All I c'n say is ...
MRS. JOHN
You better hurry on about your business now, Selma! You got a clean
conscience! You don' has to care for what people jabber.
SELMA
An' I don' want to betray nothin' neither, Mrs. John.
JOHN
[_Grasps SELMA, who is about to run away, and holds her fast._] Naw, you
ain't goin'! Here you stays! The truth! "I don' want to betray nothin',"
you says. You heard that, too, Mrs. Hassenreuter? An' Mr. Spitta an' the
young lady here heard it too. The truth! You ain't goin' to leave this
here spot before I don' know the rights o' this matter about Bruno an'
his mistress, an' if you people did away with that child!
MRS. JOHN
Paul, I swear before God that I ain't done away with it!
JOHN
Well ...? Out with what you know, girl! I been seein' for a long time
that there's been some secret scheming between you an' my wife. There
ain't no use no more in all that winkin' an' noddin'. Is that child dead
or alive?
SELMA
No, that child is alive all right.
HASSENREUTER
The one, you mean, that you carried down here under your apron or in some
such way?
JOHN
If it's dead you c'n be sure that you an' Bruno'll both be made a head
shorter'n you are!
SELMA
I'm tellin' you the child is alive.
HASSENREUTER
But you said at first that you hadn't brought down any child at all.
JOHN
An' you pretend to know nothin' o' that whole business, mother? [_MRS.
JOHN stares at him; SELMA gazes helplessly and confusedly at MRS. JOHN._]
Mother, you got rid o' the child o' Bruno an' that Polish wench an' then,
when people came after it, you went an' substitooted that little crittur
o' Knobbe's.
WALBURGA
[_Very pale and conquering her repugnance._] Tell me, Mrs. John, what
happened on that day when I so foolishly took flight up into the loft at
papa's coming? I'll explain that to you later, papa. On that occasion, as
became clear to me later, I saw the Polish girl twice: first with Mrs.
John and then with her brother.
HASSENREUTER
You, Walburga?
WALBURGA
Yes, papa. Alice Rütterbusch was with you that day, and I had made an
engagement to meet Erich here. He came to see you finally but failed to
meet me because I kept hidden.
HASSENREUTER
I can't say that I have any recollection of that.
MRS. HASSENREUTER
[_To her husband._] The girl has really passed more than one sleepless
night on account of this matter.
HASSENREUTER
Well, Mrs. John, if you are inclined to attach any weight to the opinion
of a former jurist who exchanged the law for an artistic career only
after having been plucked in his bar examination--in that case let me
assure you that, under the circumstances, ruthless frankness will prove
your best defense.
JOHN
Jette, where did you put that there child? The head detective told me--I
jus' remember it now--that they're still huntin' aroun' for the child o'
the dead woman! Jette, for God's sake, don't you have 'em suspect you o'
layin' hands on that there newborn child jus' to get the proofs o' your
brother's rascality outa the world!
MRS. JOHN
_Me_ lay hands on little Adelbert, Paul?
JOHN
Nobody ain't talkin' o' Adelbert here. [_To SELMA._] I'll knock your head
off for you if you don' tell me this minute what's become o' the child o'
Bruno an' the Polish girl!
SELMA
Why, it's behind your own partition, Mr. John!
JOHN
Where is it, Jette?
MRS. JOHN
I ain't goin' to tell that.
_The child begins to cry._
JOHN
[_To SELMA._] The truth! Or I'll turn you over to the police,
y'understan'? See this rope? I'll tie you hand and foot!
SELMA
[_Involuntarily, in the extremity of her fear._] It's cryin' now! You
know that child well enough. Mr. John.
JOHN
Me?
[_Utterly at sea he looks first at SELMA, then at HASSENREUTER.
Suddenly a suspicion flashes upon him as he turns his gaze upon his
wife. He believes that he is beginning to understand and wavers._
MRS. JOHN
Don't you let a low down lie like that take you in, Paul! It's all
invented by the fine mother that girl has outa spite! Paul, why d'you
look at me so?
SELMA
That's low of you, mother John, that you wants to make me out so bad now.
Then I won't be careful neither not to let nothin' out! You know all
right that I carried the young lady's child down here an' put it in the
nice, clean bed. I c'n swear to that! I c'n take my oath on that!
MRS. JOHN
Lies! Lies! You says that my child ain't my child!
SELMA
Why, you ain't had no child at all, Mrs. John!
MRS. JOHN
[_Embraces her husband's knees._] Oh, that ain't true at all!
JOHN
You leave me alone, Henrietta! Don' dirty me with your hands!
MRS. JOHN
Paul, I couldn't do no different. I had to do that, I was deceived myself
an' then I told you about it in my letter to Hamburg an' then you was so
happy an' I couldn't disappoint you an' I thought: it's gotta be! We c'n
has a child this way too an' then ...
JOHN
[_With ominous calmness._] Lemme think it over, Jette. [_He goes to the
chest of drawers, opens a drawer and flings the baby linen and baby
dresses that he finds therein into the middle of the room._] C'n anybody
understan' how week after week, an' month after month, all day long an'
half the nights she could ha' worked on this trash till her fingers was
bloody?
MRS. JOHN
[_Gathers up the linen and the dresses in insane haste and hides them
carefully in the table drawer and elsewhere._] Paul, don' do that! You
c'n do anythin' else! It's like tearin' the last rag offa my naked body!
JOHN
[_Stops, grasps his forehead and sinks into a chair._] If that's true,
mother, I'll be too ashamed to show my face again.
[_He seems to sink into himself, crosses his arms over his head and
hides his face._
HASSENREUTER
Mrs. John, how could you permit yourself to be forced into a course of so
much error and deception? You've entangled yourself in the most frightful
way! Come, children! Unhappily there is nothing more for us to do here.
JOHN
[_Gets up._] You might as well take me along with you, sir.
MRS. JOHN
Go on! Go on! I don' need you!
JOHN
[_Turning to her, coldly._] So you bargained for that there kid someway
an' when its mother wanted it back you got Bruno to kill her?
MRS. JOHN
You ain't no husband o' mine! How could that be! You been bought by the
police! You took money to give me up to my death! Go on, Paul, you ain't
human even! You got poison in your eyes an' teeth like wolves'! Go on an'
whistle so they'll come an' take me! Go on, I says! Now I see the kind o'
man you is an' I'll despise you to the day o' judgment!
[_She is about to run from the room when policeman SCHIERKE and
QUAQUARO appear._
SCHIERKE
Hold on! Nobody can't get outa this room.
JOHN
Come right in, Emil! You c'n come in reel quiet, officer. Everything in
order here an' all right.
QUAQUARO
Don't get excited, Paul! This here don' concern you!
JOHN
[_With rising rage._] Did you laugh, Emil?
QUAQUARO
Man alive, why should I? Only Mr. Schierke is to take that there little
one to the orphan house in a cab.
SCHIERKE
Yessir! That's right. Where is the child?
JOHN
How is I to know where all the brats offa junk heaps that witches use in
their doin's gets to in the end? Watch the chimney! Maybe it flew outa
there on a broomstick.
MRS. JOHN
Paul!--Now it _ain't_ to live! No, outa spite! Now it don' _has_ to live!
Now it's gotta go down under the ground with me!
[_With lightning-like rapidity she has run behind the partition and
reappears at once with the child and makes for the door. HASSENREUTER
and SPITTA throw themselves in front of the desperate woman, intent
on saving the child._
HASSENREUTER
Stop! I'll interfere now! I have the right to do so at this point!
Whomever the little boy may belong to--so much the worse if its mother
has been murdered--it was born on my premises! Forward, Spitta! Fight for
it, my boy! Here your propensities come properly into play! Go on!
Careful! That's it! Bravo! Be as careful as though it were the Christ
child! Bravo! That's it! You yourself are at liberty, Mrs. John. We don't
restrain you. You must only leave us the little boy.
_MRS. JOHN rushes madly out._
SCHIERKE
Here you stays!
MRS. HASSENREUTER
The woman is desperate. Stop her! Hold her!
JOHN
[_With a sudden change._] Look out for mother! Mother! Stop her! Catch
hold o' her! Mother! Mother!
_SELMA, SCHIERKE and JOHN hurry after MRS. JOHN. SPITTA,
HASSENREUTER, MRS. HASSENREUTER and WALBURGA busy themselves about
the child, which lies on the table._
HASSENREUTER
[_Carefully wrapping the infant._] The horrible woman may be desperate
for all I care! But for that reason she needn't destroy the child.
MRS. HASSENREUTER
But, dearest papa, isn't it quite evident that the woman has pinned her
love, silly to the point of madness as it is, to this very infant?
Thoughtless and harsh words may actually drive the unhappy creature to
her death.
HASSENREUTER
I used no harsh words, mama.
SPITTA
An unmistakable feeling assures me that the child has only now lost its
mother.
QUAQUARO
That's true. Its father ain't aroun' an' don' want to have nothin' to do
with it. He got married yesterday to the widow of a man who owned a
merry-go-roun'! Its mother was no better'n she should be! An' if Mrs.
Kielbacke was to take care of it, it'd die like ten outa every dozen what
she boards. The way things has come aroun' now--it'll have to die too.
HASSENREUTER
Unless our Father above who sees all things has differently determined.
QUAQUARO
D'you mean Paul, the mason? Not now! No sir! I knows him! He's a ticklish
customer where his honour is concerned.
MRS. HASSENREUTER
Just look how the child lies there! It's incomprehensible! Fine
linen--even lace! Neat and sweet as a doll! It makes one's heart ache to
think how suddenly it has become an utterly forlorn and forsaken orphan.
SPITTA
Where I judge in Israel ...
HASSENREUTER
You would erect a monument to Mrs. John! It may well be that many an
element of the heroic, much that is hiddenly meritorious, lurks in these
obscure fates and struggles. But not even Kohlhaas of Kohlhaasenbrück
with his mad passion for justice could fight his way through! Let us use
practical Christianity! Perhaps we could permanently befriend the child.
QUAQUARO
You better keep your hands offa that!
HASSENREUTER
Why?
QUAQUARO
Unless you're crazy to get rid o' money an' are anxious for all the
worries an' the troubles you'll have with the public charities an' the
police an' the courts.
HASSENREUTER
For such things I have no time to spare, I confess.
SPITTA
Won't you admit that a genuinely tragic fatality has been active here?
HASSENREUTER
Tragedy is not confined to any class of society. I always told you that!
_SELMA, breathless, opens the outer door._
SELMA
Mr. John! Mr. John! Oh, Mr. John!
MRS. HASSENREUTER
Mr. John isn't here. What do you want, Selma?
SELMA
Mr. John, you're to come out on the street!
HASSENREUTER
Quiet, quiet now! What is the matter?
SELMA
[_Breathlessly._] Your wife ... your wife ... The whole street's crowded
... 'buses an' tram-cars ... nobody can't get through ... her arms is
stretched out ... your wife's lyin' on her face down there.
MRS. HASSENREUTER
Why, what has happened?
SELMA
Lord! Lord God in Heaven! Mrs. John has killed herself.
THE END