Kunze. For man's life on earth is like unto the grass of the field, on which the wind bloweth. It flourisheth for a season and withereth and no one remembereth it. So also the children of men.
Dr. Bodenstein. This goblet to the departed, one and all! (He drinks again.)
Paul. The departed on these walls! I drink to you! (He raises his glass to the portraits on the walls. All have risen meanwhile, and broken up into new groups. Confusion of voices in the background.)
Schrock and Raabe (have intonated the Gaudeamus. At first softly, then more distinctly the following stanza is sung):
Ubi sunt qui ante nos
In mundo fuere?
Vadite ad superos,
Transite ad inferos,
Ubi jam fuere.
FORDING THE WATER
Glyszinski (has joined in lustily at the end, and repeats alone). Ubi jam fuere!
[Mertens, von Tiedemann, Mrs. Schnaase, Mrs. von Tiedemann stand in the foreground where they have been conversing in an undertone.]
Mertens (in an undertone). Now the pot is boiling!