THE SECOND ACT
MRS. JOHN'S rooms on the second floor of the same house in the attics of which HASSENREUTER has stored his properties. A high, deep, green-tinted room which betrays its original use as part of a barracks. The rear wall shows a double door which gives on the outer hall. Above this door there hangs a bell connected by a wire with the knob outside. To the right of the door a partition, covered with wall-paper, projects into the room. This partition takes a rectangular turn and extends to the right wall. A portion of the room is thus partitioned off and serves as sleeping-chamber. From within the partition, which is about six feet high, cupboards are seen against the wall.
Entering the room from the hall, one observes to the left a sofa covered with oil-cloth. The back of the sofa is pushed against the partition wall. The latter is adorned with small photographs: the foreman-mason JOHN as a soldier, JOHN and his wife in their wedding garb, etc. An oval table, covered with a faded cotton cloth, stands before the sofa. In order to reach the entrance of the sleeping-chamber from the door it is necessary to pass the table and sofa. This entrance is closed by hangings of blue cotton cloth. Against the narrow front wall of the partition stands a neatly equipped kitchen cabinet. To the right, against the wall of the main room, the stove. This corner of the room serves the—purposes of kitchen and pantry. Sitting on the sofa, one would look straight at the left wall of the room, which is broken by two large windows. A neatly planed board has been fastened to the nearer of the windows to serve as a kind of desk. Upon it are lying blue-prints, counter-drawings, an inch-measure, a compass and a square. A small, raised platform is seen beneath the farther window. Upon it stands a small table with glasses. An old easy chair of cane and a number of simple wooden chairs complete the frugal equipment of the room, which creates an impression of neatness and orderliness such as is often found in the dwellings of childless couples.
It is about five o'clock of an afternoon toward the end of May. The warm sunlight shines through the windows.
The foreman-mason JOHN, a good-natured, bearded man of forty, sits at the desk in the foreground taking notes from the building plans.
MRS. JOHN sits sewing on the small platform, by the farther window. She is very pale. There is something gentle and pain-touched about her, but her face shows an expression of deep contentment, which is broken only now and then by a momentary gleam of restlessness and suspense. A neat new perambulator stands by her side. In it lies a newborn child.
JOHN
[Modestly.] Mother, how'd it be if I was to open the window jus' a speck an' was to light my pipe for a bit?
MRS. JOHN
Does you have to smoke? If not, you better let it be!
JOHN
No, I don't has to, mother. Only I'd like to! Never mind, though. A quid'll be just as good in the end.
[With comfortable circumstantiality he prepares a new quid.
MRS. JOHN
[After a brief silence.] How's that? You has to go to the public registry office again?
JOHN
That's what he told me, that I had to come back again an' tell him exackly … that I had to give the exack place an' time when that little kid was born.
MRS. JOHN
[Holding a needle in her mouth.] Well, why didn't you tell him that right away?
JOHN
How was I to know it? I didn't know, you see.
MRS. JOHN
You didn't know that?
JOHN
Well, I wasn't here, was I?
MRS. JOHN
You wasn't. That's right. If you goes an' leaves me here in Berlin an' stays from one year's end to another in Hamburg, an' at most comes to see me once a month—how is you to know what happens in your own home?
JOHN
Don't you want me to go where the boss has most work for me? I goes where
I c'n make good money.
MRS. JOHN
I wrote you in my letter as how our little boy was born in this here room.
JOHN
I knows that an' I told him that. Ain't that natural, I axes him, that the child was born in our room? An' he says that ain't natural at all. Well then, says I, for all I cares, maybe it was up in the loft with the rats an' mice! I got mad like 'cause he said maybe the child wasn't born here at all. Then he yells at me: What kind o' talk is that? What? says I. I takes an interest in wages an' earnin' an' not in talk—not me, Mr. Registrar! An' now I'm to give him the exack day an' hour …
MRS. JOHN
An' didn't I write it all out for you on a bit o' paper?
JOHN
When a man's mad he's forgetful. I believe if he'd up and axed me: Is you Paul John, foreman-mason? I'd ha' answered: I don' know. Well an' then I'd been a bit jolly too an' taken a drink or two with Fritz. An' while we was doin' that who comes along but Schubert an' Karl an' they says as how I has to set up on account o' bein' a father now. Those fellers, they didn't let me go an' they was waitin' downstairs in front o' the public registry. An' so I kept thinkin' o' them standin' there. So when he axes me on what day my wife was delivered, I didn't know nothin' an' just laughed right in his face.
MRS. JOHN
I wish you'd first attended to what you had to an' left your drinkin' till later.
JOHN
It's easy to say that! But if you're up to them kind o' tricks in your old age, mother, you can't blame me for bein' reel glad.
MRS. JOHN
All right. You go on to the registry now an' say that your child was borne by your wife in your dwellin' on the twenty-fifth o' May.
JOHN
Wasn't it on the twenty-sixth? 'Cause I said right along the twenty-sixth. Then he must ha' noticed that I wasn't quite sober. So he says: If that's a fac', all right; if not, you gotta come back.
MRS. JOHN
In that case you'd better leave it as it is.
The door is opened and SELMA KNOBBE pushes in a wretched perambulator which presents the saddest contrast to MRS. JOHN'S. Swaddled in pitiful rags a newly born child lies therein.
MRS. JOHN
Oh, no, Selma, comin' into my room with that there sick child—that was all right before. But that can't be done no more.
SELMA
He just gasps with that cough o' his'n. Over at our place they smokes all the time.
MRS. JOHN
I told you, Selma, that you could come from time to time and get milk or bread. But while my little Adelbert is here an' c'n catch maybe consumption or somethin', you just leave that poor little thing at home with his fine mother.
SELMA
[Tearfully.] Mother ain't been home at all yesterday or to-day. I can't get no sleep with this child. He just moans all night. I gotta get some sleep sometime! I'll jump outa the window first thing or I'll let the baby lie in the middle o' the street an' run away so no policeman can't never find me!
JOHN
[Looks at the strange child.] Looks bad! Mother, why don't you try an' do somethin' for the little beggar?
MRS. JOHN
[Pushing SELMA and the perambulator out determinedly.] March outa this room. That can't be done, Paul. When you got your own you can't be lookin' out for other people's brats. That Knobbe woman c'n look after her own affairs. It's different with Selma. [To the girl.] You c'n come in when you want to. You c'n come in here after a while an' take a nap even.
[She locks the door.
JOHN
You used to take a good deal o' interest in Knobbe's dirty little brats.
MRS. JOHN
You don' understan' that. I don' want our little Adelbert to be catchin' sore eyes or convulsions or somethin' like that.
JOHN
Maybe you're right. Only, don't go an' call him Adelbert, mother. That ain't a good thing to do, to call a child by the same name as one that was carried off, unbaptised, a week after it was born. Let that be, mother. I can't stand for that, mother,
A knocking is heard at the door. JOHN is about to open.
MRS. JOHN
What's that?
JOHN
Well, somebody wants to get in!
MRS. JOHN
[Hastily turning the key in the lock.] I ain't goin' to have everybody runnin' in on me now that I'm sick as this. [She listens at the door and then calls out:] I can't open! What d'you want?
A WOMAN'S VOICE
[Somewhat deep and mannish in tone.] It is Mrs. Hassenreuter.
MRS. JOHN
[Surprised.] Goodness gracious! [She opens the door.] I beg your pardon, Mrs. Hassenreuter! I didn't even know who it was!
MRS. HASSENREUTER has now entered, followed by WALBURGA. She is a colossal, asthmatic lady aver fifty. WALBURGA is dressed with greater simplicity than in the first act. She carries a rather large package.
MRS. HASSENREUTER
How do you do, Mrs. John? Although climbing stairs is … very hard for me … I wanted to see how everything … goes with you after the … yes, the very happy event.
MRS. JOHN
I'm gettin' along again kind o' half way.
MRS. HASSENREUTER
That is probably your husband, Mrs. John? Well, one must say, one is bound to say, that your dear wife, in the long time of waiting—never complained, was always cheery and merry, and did her work well for my husband upstairs.
JOHN
That's right. She was mighty glad, too.
MRS. HASSENREUTER
Well, then we'll have the pleasure—at least, your wife will have the pleasure of seeing you at home oftener than heretofore.
MRS. JOHN
I has a good husband, Mrs. Hassenreuter, who takes care o' me an' has good habits. An' because Paul was workin' out o town you musn't think there was any danger o' his leavin' me. But a man like that, where his brother has a boy o' twelve in the non-commissioned officers' school … it's no kind o' life for him havin' no children o' his own. He gets to thinkin' queer thoughts. There he is in Hamburg, makin' good money, an' he has the chance every day and—well—then he takes a notion, maybe, he'd like to go to America.
JOHN
Oh, that was never more'n a thought.
MRS. JOHN
Well, you see, with us poor people … it's hard-earned bread that we eats … an' yet … [lightly she runs her hand through JOHN'S hair] even if there's one more an' you has more cares on that account—you see how the tears is runnin' down his cheeks—well, he's mighty happy anyhow!
JOHN
That's because three years ago we had a little feller an' when he was a week old he took sick an' died.
MRS. HASSENREUTER
My husband has already … yes, my husband did tell me about that … how deeply you grieved over that little son of yours. You know how it is … you know how my good husband has his eyes and his heart open to everything. And if it's a question of people who are about him or who give him their services—then everything good or bad, yes, everything good or bad that happens to them, seems just as though it had happened to himself.
MRS. JOHN
I mind as if it was this day how he sat in the carridge that time with the little child's coffin on his knees. He wouldn't let the gravedigger so much as touch it.
JOHN
[Wiping the moisture out of his eyes.] That's the way it was. No. I couldn't let him do that.
MRS. HASSENREUTER
Just think, to-day at the dinner-table we had to drink wine—suddenly, to drink wine! Wine! For years and years the city-water in decanters has been our only table drink … absolutely the only one. Dear children, said my husband.—You know that he had just returned from an eleven or twelve day trip to Alsace. Let us drink, my husband said, the health of my good and faithful Mrs. John, because … he cried out in his beautiful voice … because she is a visible proof of the fact that the cry of a mother heart is not indifferent to our Lord.—And so we drank your health, clinking our glasses! Well, and here I'm bringing you at my husband's special … at his very special and particular order … an apparatus for the sterilisation of milk.—Walburga, you may unpack the boiler.
HASSENREUTER enters unceremoniously through the outer door which has stood ajar. He wears a top-hat, spring overcoat, carries a silver-headed cane, in a word, is gotten up in his somewhat shabby meek-day outfit. He speaks hastily and almost without pauses.
HASSENREUTER
[Wiping the sweat from his forehead.] Berlin is hot, ladies and gentlemen, hot! And the cholera is as near as St. Petersburg! Now you've complained to my pupils, Spitta and Käferstein, Mrs. John, that your little one doesn't seem to gain in weight. Now, of course, it's one of the symptoms of the general decadence of our age that the majority of mothers are either—unwilling to nurse their offspring or incapable of it. But you've already lost one child on account of diarrhoea, Mrs. John. No, there's no help for it: we must call a spade a spade. And so, in order that you do not meet with the same misfortune over again, or fall into the hands of old women whose advice is usually quite deadly for an infant—in order that these things may not happen, I say, I have caused my wife to bring you this apparatus. I've brought up all my—children, Walburga included, by the help of such an apparatus …Aha! So one gets a glimpse of you again, Mr. John! Bravo! The emperor needs soldiers, and you needed a representative of your race! So I congratulate you with all my heart.
[He shakes JOHN'S hand vigorously.
MRS. HASSENREUTER
[Leaning over the infant.] How much … how much did he weigh at birth?
MRS. JOHN
He weighed exactly eight pounds and ten grams.
HASSENREUTER
[With noisy joviality.] Ha, ha, ha! A vigorous product, I must say! Eight pounds and ten grams of good healthy, German national flesh!
MRS. HASSENREUTER
Look at his eyes! And his little nose! His father over again! Why, the little fellow is really, really, the very image of you, Mr. John.
HASSENREUTER
I trust that you will have the boy received into the communion of the
Christian Church.
MRS. JOHN
[With happy impressiveness.] Oh, he'll be christened properly, right in the parochial church at the font by a clergyman.
HASSENREUTER
Right! And what are his baptismal names to be?
MRS. JOHN
Well, you know the way men is. That's caused a lot o' talk. I was thinkin' o' "Bruno," but he won't have it!
HASSENREUTER
Surely Bruno isn't a bad name.
JOHN
That may be. I ain't sayin' but what Bruno is a good enough name. I don't want to give no opinion about that.
MRS. JOHN
Why don't you say as how I has a brother what's twelve years younger'n me an' what don't always do just right? But that's only 'cause there's so much temptation. That boy's a good boy. Only you won't believe it.
JOHN
[Turns red with sudden rage.] Jette … you know what a cross that feller was to us! What d'you want? You want our little feller to be the namesake of a man what's—I can't help sayin' it—what's under police soopervision?
HASSENREUTER
Then, for heaven's sake, get him some other patron saint.
JOHN
Lord protect me from sich! I tried to take an interest in Bruno! I got him a job in a machine-shop an' didn't get nothin' outa it but annoyance an' disgrace! God forbid that he should come aroun' an' have anythin' to do with this little feller o' mine. [He clenches his fist.] If that was to happen, Jette, I wouldn't be responsible for myself!!
MRS. JOHN
You needn't go on, Paul! Bruno ain't comin'. But I c'n tell you this much for certain, that my brother was good an' helpful to me in this hard time.
JOHN
Why didn't you send for me?
MRS. JOHN
I didn't want no man aroun' that was scared.
HASSENREUTER
Aren't you an admirer of Bismarck, John?
JOHN
[Scratching the back of his head.] I can't say as to that exackly. My brothers in the masons' union, though, they ain't admirers o' him.
HASSENREUTER
Then you have no German hearts in your bodies! Otto is what I called my eldest son who is in the imperial navy! And believe me [pointing to the infant] this coming generation will well know what it owes to that mighty hero, the great forger of German unity! [He takes the tin boiler of the apparatus which WALBURGA has unpacked into his hands and lifts it high up.] Now then: the whole business of this apparatus is mere child's play. This frame which holds all the bottles—each bottle to be filled two-thirds with water and one-third with milk—is sunk into the boiler which is filled with boiling water. By keeping the water at the boiling-point for an hour and a half in this manner, the content—of the bottles becomes free of germs. Chemists call this process sterilisation.
JOHN
Jette, at the master-mason's house, the milk that's fed to the twins is sterilised too.
The pupils of HASSENREUTER, KÄFERSTEIN and DR. KEGEL, two young men between twenty and twenty-five years of age, have knocked at the door and then opened it.
HASSENREUTER
[Noticing his pupils.] Patience, gentlemen. I'll be with you directly. At the moment I am busying myself with the problems of the nourishment of infants and the care of children.
KÄFERSTEIN
[His head bears witness to a sharply defined character: large nose, pale, a serious expression, beardless, about the mouth a flicker of kindly mischievousness. With hollow voice, gentle and suppressed.] You must know that we are the three kings out of the East.
HASSENREUTER
[Who still holds the apparatus aloft in his hands.] What are you?
KÄFERSTEIN
[As before.] We want to adore the babe.
HASSENREUTER
Ha, ha, ha, ha! If you are the kings out of the East, gentlemen, it seems to me that the third of you is lacking.
KÄFERSTEIN
The third is our new fellow pupil in the field of dramaturgic activity, the studiosus theologiae, who is detained at present at the corner of Blumen and Wallnertheater streets by an accident partly sociological, partly psychological in its nature.
DR. KEGEL
We made all possible haste to escape.
HASSENREUTER
Do you see, a star stands above this house, Mrs. John! But do tell me, has our excellent Spitta once more made some public application of his quackery for the healing of the so-called sins of the social order? Ha, ha, ha, ha! Semper idem! Why, that fellow is actually becoming a nuisance!
KÄFERSTEIN
A crowd gathered in the street for some reason and it seems that he discovered a friend in the midst of it.
HASSENREUTER
According to my unauthoritative opinion this young Spitta would have done much better as a surgeon's assistant or Salvation Army officer. But that's the way of the world: the fellow must needs want to be an actor.
MRS. HASSENREUTER
Mr. Spitta, the children's tutor, wants to become an actor?
HASSENREUTER
That is exactly the plan he has proposed to me, mama.—But now, if you bring incense and myrrh, dear Käferstein, out with them! You observe what a many sided man your teacher is. Now I help my pupils, thirsty after the contents of the Muses' breasts, to the nourishment they desire—nutrimentum spiritus—again I….
KÄFERSTEIN
[Rattles a toy bank.] Well, I deposit this offering, which is a fire-proof bank, next to the perambulator of this excellent offspring of the mason, with the wish that he will rise to be at least a royal architect.
JOHN
[Having put cordial glasses on the table, he fetches and opens a fresh bottle.] Well, now I'm goin' to uncork the Danziger Goldwasser.
HASSENREUTER
To him who hath shall be given, as you observe, Mrs. John.
JOHN
[Filling the glasses.] Nobody ain't goin' to say that my child's unprovided for, gentlemen. But I takes it very kindly o' you, gentlemen! [All except MRS. HASSENREUTER and WALBURGA lift up their glasses.] To you health! Come on, mother, we'll drink together too.
[The action follows the words.
HASSENREUTER
[In a tone of reproof.] Mama, you must, of course, drink with us.
JOHN
[Having drunk, with jolly expansiveness.] I ain't goin' to Hamburg no more now. The boss c'n send some other feller there. I been quarrelin' with him about that these three days. I gotta take up my hat right now an' go there; he axed me to come roun' to his office again at six. If he don' want to give in, he needn't. It won't never do for the father of a family to be forever an' a day away from his family … I got a friend—why, all I gotta do's to say the word 'n I c'n get work on the layin' o' the foundations o' the new houses o' Parliament. Twelve years I been workin' for this same boss! I c'n afford to make a change some time.
HASSENREUTER
[Pats JOHN'S shoulder.] Quite of your opinion, quite! Our family life is something that neither money nor kind words can buy of us.
ERICH SPITTA enters. His hat is soiled; his clothes show traces of mud. His tie is gone. He looks pale and excited and is busy wiping his hands with his handkerchief.
SPITTA
Beg pardon, but I wonder if I could brush up here a little, Mrs. John?
HASSENREUTER
Ha, ha, ha! For heaven's sake, what have you been up to, my good Spitta?
SPITTA
I only escorted a lady home, Mr. Hassenreuter—nothing else!
HASSENREUTER
[Who has joined in the general, outburst of laughter called forth by SPITTA'S explanation.] Well now, listen here! You blandly say: Nothing else! And you announce it publicly here before all these people?
SPITTA
[In consternation.] Why not? The lady in question, was very well dressed; I've often seen her on the stairs of this house, and she unfortunately met with an accident on the street.
HASSENREUTER
You don't say so? Tell us about it, dear Spitta! Apparently the lady inflicted spots on your clothes and scratches on your hands.
SPITTA
Oh, no. That was probably the fault of the mob. The lady had an attack of some kind. The policeman caught hold of her so awkwardly that she slipped down in the middle of the street immediately in front of two omnibus horses. I simply couldn't bear to see that, although I admit that the function of the Good Samaritan is, as a rule, beneath the dignity of well-dressed people on the public streets.
MRS. JOHN wheels the perambulator behind the partition and reappears with a basin full of water, which she places on a chair.
HASSENREUTER
Did the lady, by any chance, belong to that international high society which we either regulate or segregate?
SPITTA
I confess that that was quite as indifferent to me in the given instance, as it was to one of the omnibus horses who held his left fore foot suspended in the air for five, six or, perhaps, even eight solid minutes, in order not to trample on the woman who lay immediately beneath it. [SPITTA is answered by a round of laughter.] You may laugh! The behaviour of the horse didn't strike me as in the least ludicrous. I could well understand how some people applauded him, clapped their hands, and how others stormed a bakery to buy buns with which to feed him.
MRS. JOHN
[Fanatically.] I wish he'd trampled all he could! [MRS. JOHN'S remark calls forth another outburst of laughter.] An' anyhow! That there Knobbe woman! She oughta be put in some public place, that she ought, publicly strapped to a bench an' then beaten—beaten—that's what! She oughta have the stick taken to her so the blood jus' spurts!
SPITTA
Exactly, I've never been deluded into thinking that the so-called Middle Ages were quite over and done with. It isn't so long ago, in the year eighteen hundred and thirty-seven, as a matter of fact, that a widow named Mayer was publicly broken on the wheel right here in the city of Berlin on Hausvogtei Square,—[He displays fragments of the lenses of his spectacles.] By the way, I must hurry to the optician at once.
JOHN
[To SPITTA.] You must excuse us. But didn't you take that there fine lady home on this very floor acrost the way? Aha! Well, mother she noticed it right off that that couldn't ha' been nobody but that Knobbe woman what's known for sendin' girls o' twelve out on the streets! Then she stays away herself an' swills liquor an' has all kinds o' dealin's an' takes no care o' her own children. Then when she's been drunk an' wakes up she beats 'em with her fists an' with an umbrella.
HASSENREUTER
[Pulling himself together and bethinking himself.] Hurry, gentlemen! We must proceed to our period of instruction. We're fifteen minutes behind hand as it is and our time is limited. We must close the period quite punctually to-day. I'm sorry. Come, mama. See you later, ladies and gentlemen.
[HASSENREUTER offers his arm to his wife and leaves the room, followed by KÄFERSTEIN and DR. KEGEL. JOHN also picks up his slouch hat.
JOHN
[To his wife.] Good-bye. I gotta go an' see the boss.
[He also leaves.
SPITTA
Could you possibly lend me a tie?
MRS. JOHN
I'll see what c'n be found in Paul's drawer. [She opens the drawer of the table and turns pale.] O Lord! [She takes from the drawer a lock of child's hair held together by a riband.] I found a bit of a lock o' hair here that was cut off the head of our little Adelbert by his father when he was lyin' in the coffin. [A profound, grief-stricken sadness suddenly comes over her face, which gives way again, quite as suddenly, to a gleam of triumph.] An' now the crib is full again after all! [With an expression of strange joyfulness, the lock of hair in her hand, she leads the young people to the door of the partition through which the perambulator projects into the main room by two-thirds of its length. Arrived there she holds the lock of hair close to the head of the living child.] Come on! Come on here! [With a strangely mysterious air she beckons to WALBURGA and SPITTA, who take up their stand next to her and to the child.] Now look at that there hair an' at this! Ain't it the same? Wouldn't you say it was the same identical hair?
SPITTA
Quite right. It's the same to the minutest shade, Mrs. John.
MRS. JOHN
All right! That's all right! That's what I wanted to know.
[Together with the child she disappears behind the partition.
WALBURGA
Doesn't it strike you, Erich, that Mrs. John's behaviour is rather peculiar?
SPITTA
[Taking WALBURGA'S hands and kissing them shyly but passionately.] I don't know, I don't know … Or, at least, my opinion musn't count to-day. The sombre state of my own mind colours all the world. Did you get the letter?
WALBURGA
Yes. But I couldn't make out why you hadn't been at our house in such a long while.
SPITTA
Forgive me, Walburga, but I couldn't come.
WALBURGA
And why not?
SPITTA
Because my mind was not at one with itself.
WALBURGA
You want to become an actor? Is that true? You're going to change professions?
SPITTA
What I'll be in the end may be left to God. But never a parson—never a country parson!
WALBURGA
Listen! I've had my fortune told from the cards.
SPITTA
That's nonsense, Walburga. You mustn't do that.
WALBURGA
I swear to you, Erich, that it isn't nonsense. The woman told me I was betrothed in secret and that my betrothed is an actor. Of course I laughed her to scorn. And immediately after that mama told me that you wanted to be an actor.
SPITTA
Is that a fact?
WALBURGA
It's true—every bit of it. And in addition the clairvoyant said that we would have a visitor who would cause us much trouble.
SPITTA
My father is coming to Berlin, Walburga, and it's undoubtedly true that the old gentleman will give us not a little trouble. Father doesn't know it, but my views and his have been worlds asunder for a long time. It didn't need these letters of his which seem actually to burn in my pocket and by which he answered my confession—it didn't need these letters to tell me that.
WALBURGA
An evil, envious, venomous star presided over our secret meeting here! Oh, how I used to admire my papa! And since that Sunday I blush for him every minute. And however much I try, I can't, since that day, look frankly and openly into his eyes.
SPITTA
Did you have differences with your father too?
WALBURGA
Oh, if it were nothing more than that! I was so proud of papa! And now I tremble to think of even your finding it out. You'd despise us!
SPITTA
I despise anyone? Dear child, I can't think of anything less fitting for me! Look here: I'll set you an example in the matter of frankness. A sister of mine, six years older than I, was governess in a noble family. Well, a misfortune happened to her and … when she sought refuge in the house of her parents, my Christian father put her out of doors! I believe he thought that Jesus would have done the same. And so my sister gradually sank lower and lower and some day we can go and visit her in the little suicides' graveyard near Schildhorn where she finally found rest.
WALBURGA
[Puts her arms around SPITTA.] Poor boy, you never told me a word of that.
SPITTA
Circumstances have changed now and I speak of it. I shall speak of it to papa too even if it causes a breach between us.—You're always surprised when I get excited, and that I can't control myself when I see some poor devil being kicked about, or when I see the rabble mistreating some poor fallen girl. I have actual hallucinations sometimes. I seem to see ghosts in bright daylight and my own sister among them!
PAULINE PIPERCARCKA enters, dressed as before. Her little face seems to have grown paler and prettier.
PAULINE
Good mornin'.
MRS. JOHN
[From behind the partition.] Who's that out there?
PAULINE
Pauline, Mrs. John.
MRS. JOHN
Pauline? I don't know no Pauline.
PAULINE
Pauline Pipercarcka, Mrs. John.
MRS. JOHN
Who? Oh, well then you c'n wait a minute, Pauline.
WALBURGA
Good-bye, Mrs. John.
MRS. JOHN
[Emerges from behind the partition and carefully draws the hangings.] That's right. I got somethin' to discuss with this here young person. So you young folks c'n see about getting out.
SPITTA and WALBURGA leave hastily. MRS. JOHN locks the door behind them.
MRS. JOHN
So it's you, Pauline? An' what is it you want?
PAULINE
What should I be wantin'? Somethin' jus' drove me here! Couldn't wait no longer. I has to see how everythin' goes.
MRS. JOHN
How what goes? What's everythin'?
PAULINE
[With a somewhat bad conscience.] Well, if it's well; if it's gettin' on nicely.
MRS. JOHN
If what's well? If what's gettin' on nicely?
PAULINE
You oughta know that without my tellin'.
MRS. JOHN
What ought I to know without your tellin' me?
PAULINE
I wants to know if anythin's happened to the child!
MRS. JOHN
What child? An' what could ha' happened? Talk plainly, will you? There ain't a word o' your crazy chatter that anybody c'n understand!
PAULINE
I ain't sayin' nothin' but what's true, Mrs. John.
MRS. JOHN
Well, what is it?
PAULINE
My child …
MRS. JOHN
[Gives her a terrific box on the ear.] Say that again an' I'll bang my boots about your ears so that you'll think you're the mother o' triplets. An now: get outa here! An' don' never dare to show your face here again!
PAULINE
[Starts to go. She shakes the door which is locked.] She's beaten me! Help! Help! I don' has to—stand that! No! [Weeping.] Open the door! She's maltreated me, Mrs. John has!
MRS. JOHN
[Utterly transformed, embraces PAULINE, thus restraining her.] Pauline! For God's sake, Pauline! I don' know what could ha' gotten into me! You jus' be good now an' quiet down an' I'll beg your pardon. What d'you want me to do? I'll get down on my knees if you wants me to! Anythin'! Pauline! Listen! Let me do _some_thin'!
PAULINE
Why d'you go 'n hit me in the face? I'm goin' to headquarters and say as how you slapped me in the face. I'm goin' to headquarters to give notice!
MRS. JOHN
[Thrusts her face forward.] Here! You c'n hit me back—- right in the face! Then it's all right; then it's evened up.
PAULINE
I'm goin' to headquarters …
MRS. JOHN
Yes, then it's evened up. You jus' listen to what I says: Don't you see it'll be evened up then all right! What d'you want to do? Come on now an' hit me!
PAULINE
What's the good o' that when my cheek is swollen?
MRS. JOHN
[Striking herself a blow on the cheek.] There! Now my cheek is swollen too. Come on, my girl, hit me an' don' be scared!—- An' then you c'n tell me everythin' you got on your heart. In the meantime I'll go an' I'll cook for you an' me, Miss Pauline, a good cup o' reel coffee made o' beans—none o' your chicory slop, so help me!
PAULINE
[Somewhat conciliated.] Why did you has to go an' be so mean an' rough to a poor girl like me, Mrs. John?
MRS. JOHN
That's it'—that's jus' what I'd like to know my own self! Come on, Pauline, an' sit down! So! It's all right, I tells you! Sit down! It's fine o' you to come an' see me! How many beatin's didn't I get from my poor mother because sometimes I jus' seemed to go crazy an' not be the same person no more. She said to me more'n onct: Lass, look out! You'll be doin' for yourself some day! An' maybe she was right; maybe it'll be that way. Well now, Pauline, tell me how you are an' how you're gettin' along?
PAULINE
[Laying down bank-notes and handfuls of silver, without counting them, on the table.] Here is the money: I don't need it.
MRS. JOHN
I don' know nothin' about no money, Pauline.
PAULINE
Oh, you'll know about the money all right! It's been jus' burnin' into me, that it has! It was like a snake under my pillow …
MRS. JOHN
Oh, come now …
PAULINE
Like a snake that crept out when I went to sleep. An' it tormented me an' wound itself aroun' me an' squeezed me so that I screamed right out an' my landlady found me lyin' on the bare floor jus' like somebody what's dead.
MRS. JOHN
You jus' let that be right now, Pauline. Take a bit of a drink first of all! [She pours out a small glassful of brandy.] An' then come an' eat a bite. It was my husband's birthday yesterday.
[She gets out some coffee-cake of which she cuts an oblong piece.
PAULINE
Oh, no, I don' feel like eatin'.
MRS. JOHN
That strengthens you; that does you good; you oughta eat that! But I is pleased to see, Pauline, how your fine constitootion helped you get back your strength so good.
PAULINE
But now I want to have a look at it, Mrs. John.
MRS. JOHN
What's that? What d'you want to have a look at?
PAULINE
If I could ha' walked I'd ha' been here long ago. I want to see now what
I come to see!
MRS. JOHN, whose almost creeping courtesies have been uttered with lips aquiver with fear, pales ominously and keeps silent. She goes to the kitchen cabinet, wrenches the coffee handmill out and pours beans into it. She sits down, squeezes the mill between her knees, grasps the handle, and stares with a consuming expression of nameless hatred over at PAULINE.
MRS. JOHN
Eh? Oh, yes! What d'you want to see? What d'you want to see now all of a sudden? That what you wanted to throttle with them two hands o' yours, eh?
PAULINE
Me?
MRS. JOHN
D'you want to lie about it? I'll go and give notice about you!
PAULINE
Now you've tormented me an' jabbed at me an' tortured me enough, Mrs. John. You followed me up; you wouldn't leave me no rest where I went. Till I brought my child into the world on a heap o' rags up in your loft. You gave me all kinds o' hopes an' you scared me with that rascal of a feller up there! You told my fortune for me outa the cards about my intended an' you baited me an' hounded me till I was most crazy.
MRS. JOHN
An' that's what you are. Yes, you're as crazy as you c'n be. I tormented you, eh? Is that what I did? I picked you up outa the gutter! I fetched you outa the midst of a blizzard when you was standin' by the chronometer an' stared at the lamplighter with eyes that was that desperate scared! You oughta seen yourself! An' I hounded you, eh? Yes, to prevent the police an' the police-waggon an' the devil hisself from catchin' you! I left you no rest, eh? I tortured you, did I? to keep you from jumpin' into the river with the child in your womb! [Mocking her.] "I'll throw myself into the canal, mother John! I'll choke the child to death! I'll kill the little crittur with my hat pin! I'll go an' run to where its father plays the zither, right in the midst o' the saloon, an' I'll throw the dead child at his feet!" That's what you said; that's the way you talked—all the blessed day long and sometimes half the night too till I put you to bed an' petted you an' stroked you till you went to sleep. An' you didn't wake up again till next day on the stroke o' twelve, when the bells was ringin' from all the churches, Yes, that's the way I scared you, an' then gave you hope again, an' didn't give you no peace! You forgot all that there, eh?
PAULINE
But it's my child, Mrs. John …
MRS. JOHN
[Screams.] You go an' get your child outa the canal!
[She jumps up and walks hastily about the room, picking up and throwing aside one object after another.
PAULINE
Ain't I goin' to be allowed to see my child even?
MRS. JOHN
Jump into the water an' get it there! Then you'll have it! I ain't keepin' you back. God knows!
PAULINE
All right! You c'n slap me, you c'n beat me, you c'n throw things at my head if you wants to. Before I don' know where my child is an' before I ain't seen it with my own eyes, nothin' an' nobody ain't goin' to get me away from this place.
MRS. JOHN
[Interrupting her.] Pauline, I put it out to nurse!
PAULINE
That's a lie! Don't I hear it smackin' its lips right behind that there partition. [The child behind the partition begins to cry. PAULINE hastens toward it. She exclaims with pathetic tearfulness, obviously forcing the note of motherhood a little.] Don' you cry, my poor, poor little boy! Little mother's comin' to you now!
[MRS. JOHN, almost beside herself, has sprung in front of the door, thus blocking PAULINE'S way.
PAULINE
[Whining helplessly but with clenched fists.] Lemme go in an' see my child!
MRS. JOHN
[A terrible change coming over her face.] Look at me, girl! Come here an' look me in the eye!—D'you think you c'n play tricks on a woman that looks the way I do? [PAULINE sits down still moaning.] Sit down an' howl an' whine till … till your throat's swollen so you can't give a groan. But if you gets in here—then you'll be dead or I'll be dead an' the child—he won't be alive no more neither.
PAULINE
[Rises with some determination.] Then look out for what'll happen.
MRS. JOHN
[Attempting to pacify the girl once more.] Pauline, this business was all settled between us. Why d'you want to go an' burden yourself with the child what's my child now an' is in the best hands possible? What d'you want to do with it? Why don't you go to your intended? You two'll have somethin' better to do than listen to a child cryin' an' takin' all the care an' trouble he needs!
PAULINE
No, that ain't the way it is! He's gotta marry me now! They all says so—Mrs. Keilbacke, when I had to take treatment, she said so. They says I'm not to give in; he has to marry me. An' the registrar he advised me too. That's what he said, an' he was mad, too, when I told him how I sneaked up into a loft to have my baby! He cried out loud that I wasn't to let up! Poor, maltreated crittur—that's what he called me an' he put his hand in his pocket an' gave me three crowns! All right. So we needn't quarrel no more, Mrs. John. I jus' come anyhow to tell you to be at home to-morrow afternoon at five o'clock. An' why? Because to-morrow an official examiner'll come to look after things here. I don't has to worry myself with you no more….
MRS. JOHN
[Moveless and shocked beyond expression.] What? You went an' give notice at the public registry?
PAULINE
O' course? Does I want to go to gaol?
MRS. JOHN
An' what did you tell the registrar?
PAULINE
Nothin' but that I give birth to a boy. An' I was so ashamed! Oh my God,
I got red all over! I thought I'd just have to go through the floor.
MRS. JOHN
Is that so? Well, if you was so ashamed why did you go an' give notice?
PAULINE
'Cause my landlady an' Mrs. Kielbacke, too, what took me there, didn't give me no rest.
MRS. JOHN
H-m. So they knows it now at the public registry?
PAULINE
Yes; they had to know, Mrs. John!
MRS. JOHN
Didn't I tell you over an' over again?
PAULINE
You gotta give notice o' that! D'you want me to be put in gaol for a investergation?
MRS. JOHN
I told you as how I'd give notice.
PAULINE
I axed the registrar right off. Nobody hadn't been there.
MRS. JOHN
An' what did you say exackly?
PAULINE
That his name was to be Aloysius Theophil an' that he was boardin' with you.
MRS. JOHN
An' to-morrow an officer'll be comin' in.
PAULINE
He's a gentlemen from the guardian's office. What's the matter with that? Why don't you keep still an' act sensible. You scared me most to death a while ago!
MRS. JOHN
[As if absent-minded.] That's right. There ain't nothin' to be, done about that now. An' there ain't so much to that, after all, maybe.
PAULINE
All right. An' now c'n I see my child, Mrs. John?
MRS. JOHN
Not to-day. Wait till to-morrow, Pauline.
PAULINE
Why not to-day?
MRS. JOHN
Because no good'd come of it this day. Wait till to-morrow, five o'clock in the afternoon.
PAULINE
That's it. My landlady says it was written that way, that a gentleman from the city'll be here to-morrow afternoon five o'clock.
MRS. JOHN
[Pushing PAULINE out and herself going out of the room with her, in the same detached tone.] All right. Let him come, girl.
MRS. JOHN has gone out into the hall for a moment. She now returns without PAULINE. She seems strangely changed and absent-minded. She takes a few hasty steps toward the door of the partition; then stands still with an expression of fruitless brooding on her face. She interrupts herself in this brooding and runs to the window. Having reached it she turns and on her face there reappears the expression of dull detachment. Slowly, like a somnambulist, she walks up to the table and sits down beside it, leaning her chin on her hand. SELMA KNOBBE appears in the doorway.
SELMA
Mother's asleep, Mrs. John, an' I'm that hungry. Might I have a bite o' bread?
MRS. JOHN rises mechanically and cuts a slice from the loaf of bread with the air of one under an hypnotic influence.
SELMA
[Observing MRS. JOHN'S state of mind.] It's me! What's the matter, Mrs. John? Whatever you do, don't cut yourself with the bread knife.
MRS. JOHN
[Lets the loaf and the bread-knife slip involuntarily from her hand to the table. A dry sobbing overwhelms her more and more.] Fear!—Trouble!—You don' know nothin' about that!
[She trembles and grasps after some support.