Thanks, I don't smoke.——If it only keeps on this way! I will work and work until my eyes fall out of my head.——Ernest Röbel has failed three times since vacation; three times in Greek, twice with Knochenbruch; the last time in the history of literature. I have been first five times in this lamentable conflict, and from to-day it does not bother me!——Röbel will not shoot himself. Röbel has no parents who sacrifice everything for him. If he wants he can become a soldier, a cowboy or a sailor. If I fail, my father will feel the blow and Mamma will land in the madhouse. One can't live through a thing like that!——Before the examination I begged God to give me consumption that the cup might pass me by untouched. He passed me by, though to-day His aureole shines in the distance, so that I dare not lift my eyes by night or day.——Now that I have grasped the bar I shall swing up on it. The natural consequence will be that I shall break my neck if I fall.
Melchior.
Life is a worthless commonplace. It wouldn't have been a bad idea if I had hanged myself in the cradle.——Why doesn't Mamma come with the tea!
Moritz.
Your tea will do me good, Melchior!——I'm shivering. I feel so strangely spiritualized. Touch me once, please. I see,—I hear,—I feel, much more acutely——and yet everything seems like a dream——oh, so harmonious.——How still the garden stretches out there in the moonlight, so still, so deep, as if it extended to eternity. From out the bushes step indefinable figures that slip away in breathless officiousness through the clearings and then vanish in the twilight. It seems to me as if a counsel were to be held under the chestnut tree.——Shall we go down there, Melchior?
Melchior.
Let's wait until we have drunk our tea.
Moritz.
The leaves whisper so busily.——It's just as if I heard my dead grandmother telling me the story of the “Queen Without a Head.” There was once a wonderfully beautiful Queen, beautiful as the sun, more beautiful than all the maidens in the country. Only, unfortunately, she came into the world without a head. She could not eat, not drink, not kiss. She could only communicate with her courtiers by using her soft little hand. With her dainty feet she stamped declarations of war and orders for executions. Then, one day, she was besieged by a King, who, by chance, had two heads, which, year in and year out, disputed with one another so violently that neither could get a word in edgewise. The Court Conjurer-in-chief took off the smallest of these heads and set it upon the Queen's body. And, behold, it became her extraordinarily well! Therefore, the King and the Queen were married, and the two heads disputed no longer, but kissed each other upon the brow, the cheeks and the mouth, and lived thereafter through long, long years of joy and peace.——Delectable nonsense! Since vacation I can't get the headless Queen out of my mind. When I see a pretty girl, I see her without a head——and then presently, I, myself appear to be the headless Queen.——It is possible that someone may be set over me yet.
(Frau Gabor comes in with the steaming tea, which she sets before Melchior and Moritz on the table.)