THE FOURTH ACT
The dwelling of the foreman-mason JOHN as in the second act. It is eight o'clock on a Sunday morning.
JOHN is invisible behind the partition. From his plashing and
snorting it is clear that he is performing his morning ablutions.
QUAQUARO has just entered. His hand is still on the knob of the outer door.
QUAQUARO
Tell me, Paul, is your wife at home?
JOHN
[From behind the partition.] Not yet, Emil. My wife went with the boy out to my married sister's in Hangelsberg. But she's goin' to come back this mornin'. [Drying his hands and face, JOHN appears in the door of the partition wall.] Good mornin' to you, Emil.
QUAQUARO
Mornin', Paul.
JOHN
Well, what's the news? I didn't come from the train till about half an hour ago.
QUAQUARO
Yes, I saw you goin' into the house an' mountin' the stairs.
JOHN
[In a jolly frame of mind.] That's right, Emil! You're a reglar old watch-dog, eh?
QUAQUARO
Tell, me, Paul: How long has your wife'n the kid been out in Hangelsberg?
JOHN
Oh, that must be somethin' like a week now, Emil. D'you want anythin' of her? I guess she paid her rent an' on time all right. By the way, I might as well give you notice right now. We got it all fixed. We're goin' to move on the first of October. I got mother to the point at last that we c'n move outa this here shaky old barracks an' into a better neighbourhood.
QUAQUARO
So you ain't goin' back to Hamburg no more?
JOHN
Naw. It's a good sayin': Stay at home an' make an honest livin'! I'm not goin' outa town no more. Not a bit of it! First of all, it's no sort o' life, goin' from one lodgin' to another. An' then—a man don' get no younger neither! The girls, they ain't so hot after you no more … No, it's a good thing that all this wanderin' about is goin' to end.
QUAQUARO
Your wife—she's a fine schemer.
JOHN
[Merrily.] Well, this is a brand new household what's jus' had a child born into it. I said to the boss: I'm a newly married man! Then he axed me if my first wife was dead. On the contrary an' not a bit of it, I says. She's alive an' kickin', so that she's jus' given birth to a kickin' young citizen o' Berlin, that's what! When I was travellin' along from Hamburg this mornin' by all the old stations—Hamburg, Stendal, Ultzen—an' got outa the fourth-class coach at the Lehrter station with all my duds, the devil take me if I didn't thank God with a sigh. I guess he didn't hear on account o' the noise o' the trains.
QUAQUARO
Did you hear, Paul, that Mrs. Knobbe's youngest over the way has been taken off again?
JOHN
No. What chance did I have to hear that? But if it's dead, it's a good thing, Emil. When I saw the poor crittur a week ago when it had convulsions an' Selma brought it in an' me an' mother gave it a spoonful o' sugar an' water—well, it was pretty near ready for heaven then.
QUAQUARO
An' you mean to tell me that you didn't hear nothin' o' the circumstances, about the how an' the why o' that child's death?
JOHN
Naw! [He fetches a long tobacco pipe from behind the sofa.] Wait a minute! I'll light a pipe first! I didn't have no chanct to hear nothin'.
QUAQUARO
Well, I'm surprised that your wife didn't write you nothin' at all.
JOHN
Aw, since we has a child o' our own, mother's taken no interest in them
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
Now listen here, Jette! What's gotten into you, anyhow? What is it? Looks 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!