JUDGE. Perhaps, but this time we had better obey, for I don't want to have any more trouble with hail-storms and such things.—However, the children are not here, and I suppose they'll come back when they get hungry.
OLD LADY. And I wish them luck when they do! [The rod is snatched out of her hand and dances across the floor; finally it disappears behind one of the casks] Now it's beginning again.
JUDGE. Well, why don't you submit and do as he—you know who!—says? I, for my part, don't dare to do wrong any longer. The growing grapes have been destroyed, and we must take pleasure in what is already safe. Come here, Caroline, and let us have a glass of something good to brace us up! [He knocks on one of the casks and draws a glass of wine from it] This is from the year of the comet—anno 1869, when the big comet came, and everybody said it meant war. And, of course, war did break out.
[He offers a filled glass to his wife.
OLD LADY. You drink first!
JUDGE. Well, now—did you think there might be poison in this, too?
OLD LADY. No, really, I didn't—but—we'll never again know what peace is, or happiness!
JUDGE. Do as I do: submit! [He drinks.
OLD LADY. I want to, and I try to, but when I come to think how badly other people have treated us, I feel that I am just as good as anybody else. [She drinks] That's a very fine wine! [She sits down.
JUDGE. The wine is good, and it makes the mind easier.—Yes, the wiseacres say that we are rapscallions, one and all, so I can't see what right anybody has to go around finding fault with the rest. [He drinks] My own actions have always been legal; that is, in keeping with prevailing laws and constitutions. If others happened to be ignorant of the law, they had only themselves to blame, for no one has a right to ignorance of that kind. For that reason, if Adolph does not pay the rent, it is he who breaks the law, and not I.