“Friedensfest” was played in 1890, when Hauptmann was twenty-seven, eight years before these lines were penned. It was preceded by “Vor Sonnenaufgang” in 1889—the first utterance which gave more than local fame to its author—and was succeeded by “Einsame Menschen” in 1891. Of his later works “Die Weber” and “Hannele” have already been translated into English.

In “Friedensfest” and “Einsame Menschen” the influence of Ibsen can be traced more distinctly than in any of Hauptmann’s other works. “Friedensfest” recalls in many respects Ibsen’s “Ghosts,” without any servile copying on the part of the younger author—who has presented his characters with a power and originality, a truth and subtlety peculiarly his own. Moreover he has not been so relentless as Ibsen. Although the “Family Catastrophe,” as he calls it, is gloomy enough, in a sense the play ends more hopefully; the doom has not fallen on the younger members of the Scholz family, with whose hereditary qualities the play chiefly deals, and we are permitted to hope, if we choose, that it may never fall. Hauptmann’s genius shows itself here of a softer and less uncompromising mould than Ibsen’s. We feel that in as far as the play has any tendency, it leans rather towards meliorism than pessimism. Like Ibsen’s later works, however, it is more objective in treatment than “Ghosts”—more a “family document” pure and simple, than a “tendency” drama.

But it is not my business here to tell the story of the play or to attempt any interpretation. I have merely helped to render it into English.

In translating, we have tried to give the broken, elliptical language in which Hauptmann’s characters express themselves, as faithfully as possible—to keep the half-finished sentences and interjaculatory outbursts without losing anything of the meaning of the play. Here and there, the rude colloquialism of the speakers, especially of Mrs Scholz and Friebe, have rendered our task almost impossible. We can only plead that we have done our best.

JANET ACHURCH.

THE COMING OF PEACE

PERSONS

Dr Fritz Scholz, aged 68.
Minna Scholz, his wife, aged 46.
Augusta,	}	their children,	aged 29.
Robert,	}		aged 28.
William,	}		aged 26.
So far as possible the above should show a family likeness.
Mrs Buchner, aged 42.
Ida, her daughter, aged 20.
Friebe, servant to the Scholzs, aged 50.