Too long had Heinrich lived in the valley. It has sapped his strength, has clipped his wings. "Too late! Thy heavy burdens weigh thee down; thy dead ones are too mighty for thee." Heinrich has to die. "He who has flown so high into the very Light, as thou hast flown, must perish, if he once fall back to earth."
Thus speak the worldly wise. As if death could still the burning thirst for light; as if the hunger for the ideal could ever be appeased by the thought of destruction! The worldly wise never feel the irresistible urge to dare the cruel fates. With the adder in Maxim Gorki's "Song of the Falcon" they sneer, "What is the sky? An empty place.... Why disturb the soul with the desire to soar into the sky?... Queer birds," they laugh at the falcons. "Not knowing the earth and grieving on it, they yearn for the sky, seeking for light in the sultry desert. For it is only a desert, with no food and no supporting place for a living body."
The Heinrichs are the social falcons, and though they perish when they fall to earth, they die in the triumphant glory of having beheld the sun, of having braved the storm, defied the clouds and mastered the air.
The sea sparkles in the glowing light, the waves dash against the shore. In their lion-like roar a song resounds about the proud falcons: "O daring Falcon, in the battle with sinister forces you lose your life. But the time will come when your precious blood will illumine, like the burning torch of truth, the dark horizon of man; when your blood shall inflame many brave hearts with a burning desire for freedom."
The time when the peals of Heinrich's Bell will call the strong and daring to battle for light and joy. "Hark!... 'Tis the music of the Sun-bells' song! The Sun ... the Sun ... draws near!" ... and though "the night is long," dawn breaks, its first rays falling on the dying Heinrichs.
[FRANK WEDEKIND]
[THE AWAKENING OF SPRING]
Frank Wedekind is perhaps the most daring dramatic spirit in Germany. Coming to the fore much later than Sudermann and Hauptmann, he did not follow in their path, but set out in quest of new truths. More boldly than any other dramatist Frank Wedekind has laid bare the shams of morality in reference to sex, especially attacking the ignorance surrounding the sex life of the child and its resultant tragedies.