Out o' prison—where else?
BECKER
[Laughs wildly.] Do you think I'd mind that? There's bread to be had there anyhow!
[Goes out.
OLD BAUMERT
[Has been cowering on a low stool, painfully beating his brains; he now gets up.] It's true, Gustav, as I've had a drop too much. But for all that I knows what I'm about. You think one way in this here matter; I think another. I say Becker's right: even if it ends in chains an' ropes—we'll be better off in prison than at home. You're cared for there, an' you don't need to starve. I wouldn't have joined 'em, Gustav, if I could ha' let it be; but once in a lifetime a man's got to show what he feels. [Goes slowly towards the door.] Good-bye, Gustav. If anything happens, mind you put in a word for me in your prayers.
[Goes out.
[The rioters are now all gone. The entry-room, gradually fills again with curious onlookers from the different rooms of the house. OLD HILSE knots at his web. GOTTLIEB has taken an axe from behind the stove and is unconsciously feeling its edge. He and the old man are silently agitated. The hum and roar of a great crowd penetrate into the room.
MOTHER HILSE
The very boards is shakin', father—what's goin' on? What's goin' to happen to us?