Clara.
Oh my poor mother! It is too shameful!
Wolfram.
God knows, I’d sacrifice the trinkets if I could undo what’s done. But I’m not to blame. Much as I honour your father, it was natural for me to suspect your brother. He had polished the desk, and the jewels disappeared with him. I noticed it almost immediately, because I had to get some papers out of the very drawer they were in. But I had no intention of taking severe steps against him. I informed bailiff Adam, and asked him to investigate the matter secretly; but he would not hear of caution. He said it was his duty to report the case at once and he was going to do it. Your brother was a boozer and a borrower, and had so much weight with the mayor that he could get him to do anything he wanted. The man seems to be incensed against your father in the extreme. I don’t know why. I simply couldn’t calm him down. He stuffed his fingers in his ears and shouted as he ran, “If you’d made me a present of the jewels I wouldn’t be as pleased as I am now!”
Clara.
The bailiff once set his glass down beside father’s in the inn, and nodded to him to clink with him. Father pulled his away and said: “People in red coats with blue facings used once to have to drink out of wooden cans, and they used to have to stand outside at the window, or, if it rained, in the doorway; and they had to take their hats off, when the landlord served them, and if they wanted to clink with any one, they waited till old Fallmeister came along.” O God, O God! Anything can happen in this world! Mother paid for that with her death.
Wolfram.
Offend no one, and bad men least of all. Where’s your father?
Clara.
Gone to see the wood-cutter in the hills.