Long pause during which everybody is subject to silent scrutiny by all the rest.
HUMMEL. How silent everybody is! [Long silence] Here, for instance, in this respectable house, this attractive home, where beauty and erudition and wealth have joined hands.... [Long silence] All of us sitting here now—we know who we are, don't we? I don't need to tell.... And all of you know me, although you pretend ignorance.... In the next room is my daughter—mine, as you know perfectly well. She has lost the desire to live without knowing why.... The fact is that she has been pining away in this air charged with crime and deceit and falsehood of every kind.... That is the reason why I have looked for a friend in whose company she may enjoy the light and heat radiated by noble deeds [Long silence] Here is my mission in this house: to tear up the weeds, to expose the crimes, to settle all accounts, so that those young people may start life with a clean slate in a home that is my gift to them. [Long silence] Now I grant you safe retreat. Everybody may leave in his due turn. Whoever stays will be arrested. [Long silence] Do you hear that clock ticking like the deathwatch hidden in a wall? Can you hear what it says?—"It's time! It's time!"—When it strikes in a few seconds, your time will be up, and then you can go, but not before. You may notice, too, that the clock shakes its fist at you before it strikes. Listen! There it is! "Better beware," it says.... And I can strike, too [He raps the top of a table with one of his crutches] Do you hear?
For a while everybody remains silent.
MUMMY. [Goes up to the dock and stops it; then she speaks in a normal and dignified tone] But I can stop time in its course. I can wipe out the past and undo what is done. Bribes won't do that, nor will threats—but suffering and repentance will [She goes to HUMMEL] We are miserable human creatures, and we know it. We have erred and we have sinned—we, like everybody else. We are not what we seem, but at bottom we are better than ourselves because we disapprove of our own misdeeds. And when you, Jacob Hummel, with your assumed name, propose to sit in judgment on us, you merely prove yourself worse than all the rest. You are not the one you seem to be—no more than we! You are a thief of human souls! You stole mine once upon a time by means of false promises. You killed the Consul, whom they buried this afternoon—strangling him with debts. You are now trying to steal the soul of the Student with the help of an imaginary claim against his father, who never owed you a farthing....
Having vainly tried to rise and say something, HUMMEL sinks back into his chair; as the MUMMY continues her speech he seems to shrink and lose volume more and more.
MUMMY. There is one dark spot in your life concerning which I am not certain, although I have my suspicions.... I believe Bengtsson can throw light on it.
[She rings the table-bell.
HUMMEL. No! Not Bengtsson! Not him!
MUMMY. So he does know? [She rings again.
The MILKMAID appears in the hallway, but is only seen by HUMMEL, who shrinks back in horror. Then BENGTSSON enters, and the MILKMAID disappears.