Rot! Stop botherin' me. Leave me in peace an' don't go showin' off that way! I got enough trouble to go through. The doctor tells a person not to get excited, 'cause you might go just like that! An' a man like you … We don't know where to lie down! We don't know where we're goin' to sleep to-night! We're lyin' in the street, you might say, half dead an' all broken up …
RAUCHHAUPT
Woman! Woman! Can you look at me?
MRS. FIELITZ
Leave me alone an' go where you belongs. I don't let nobody treat me like that! I c'n look at you all right! Why not? I c'n look at you three days an' three nights an' see nothin' but a donkey before me! If this here thing is put off on your boy now, whose fault is it mostly? How did you go an' talk about the boy? You says, says you: he steals, he sets fire to your straw shed—an' now you're surprised that things turns out this way! You beat this here poor boy … he used to come runnin' over to me with so many blue spots on his body that there wasn't a place on him that wasn't sore. An' now you acts all of a sudden like a crazy man!
WEHRHAHN has motioned the officers who grasp GUSTAV more firmly and lead him toward the door. RAUCHHAUPT observes this and jumps with lightning-like rapidity in front of GUSTAV, placing his hands on the latter's shoulders and holding him fast.
RAUCHHAUPT
Can't be done! I can't allow that, your honour. My Gustav ain't no criminal! I lived along reel quiet all to myself an' now I got into this here conspiracy. There's got to be proofs first of all! [To LANGHEINRICH.] Could it ha' been he, d'you think? [LANGHEINRICH shrugs his shoulders.] Them's all a crowd o' thieves around here—that's what … Gustav, don't you cry! They can't, in God's name—they can't do nothin' to you …
WEHRHAHN
Hands off! Or … Hands off!