SCENE: A public square. To right, Courthouse arcade, above which there is a speakers' cage with places for Burgomaster and Councilmen; to left shoemaker's house, with shop window and sign; outside a bench and table, close to them a hen-coop and water-tub. In the centre of the square stands a pillory, with two neck-irons on chains, above it a bronze figure with a switch in its hand; to right centre, statue o f Burgomaster Hans Schulze, which leans toward a marble female statue crowned with a laurel wreath. Background: view of city.
[Pillory and Statue.]
PILLORY. [Bows low to statue.] Good morning, Statue. Did you sleep well last night?
STATUE. [Nods.] Good morning, Pillory. Did you sleep well yourself?
PILLORY. To be sure I did—and dreamed also! Can you guess what I dreamed?
STATUE. [Crustily.] How should that be possible?
PILLORY. Well, I dreamt—can you imagine it?—that a reformer came to the city.
STATUE. What—a reformer? [Stamps.] Hell! how cold your feet get standing here; but what does one not do for glory's sake! A reformer? Then he, too, is to have a statue?
PILLORY. A statue—well, hardly! No, he had to play statue himself, at my feet, while I clasped him around the neck with both arms. [Neck-irons clash.] You see, he was a real reformer, and not a charlatan, such as you were in life!
STATUE. Oh, bosh! You should be put to shame!