GOTTLIEB (alone).
They are going away—and I am alone. We all three have our lodgings. Lorenz, of course, can till the ground with his horse, Barthel can slaughter and pickle his ox and live on it a while—but what am I, poor unfortunate, to do with my cat? At the most, I can have a muff for the winter made out of his fur, but I think he is even shedding it now. There he lies asleep quite comfortably—poor Hinze! Soon we shall have to part. I am sorry I brought him up, I know him as I know myself—but he will have to believe me, I cannot help myself, I must really sell him. He looks at me as though he understood. I could almost begin to cry.
[He walks up and down, lost in thought.]
MÜLLER.
Well, you see now, don't, you, that it's going to be a touching picture of family life? The peasant is poor and without money; now, in the direst need, he will sell his faithful pet to some susceptible young lady, and in the end that will be the foundation of his good fortune. Probably it is an imitation of Kotzebue's Parrot; here the bird is replaced by a cat and the play runs on of itself.
FISCHER.
Now that it's working out this way, I am satisfied too.
HINZE, the tom-cat (rises, stretches, arches his back, yawns, then speaks).
My dear Gottlieb—I really sympathize with you.
GOTTLIEB (astonished).