Chapter 4

But what can I do--a man--a mere man? And, furthermore, you know my mother-in-law! Don't you?

HELEN

[_Bitterly._] I do.

HOFFMANN

Where is she now?

HELEN

Spiller has been getting her up in grand style ever since Mr. Loth came. She will probably go through one of her performances at supper.

HOFFMANN

[_Once more absorbed in his own thoughts and pacing the room, violently._] This is the last time, I give you my word, that I'm going to await such things in this house--the last time, so help me!

HELEN

Yes, you're lucky. You can go where you please.

HOFFMANN

In my house the wretched relapse into that frightful vice would most certainly not have occurred.

HELEN

Don't make me responsible for it. She did not get the brandy from me! Get rid of the Spiller woman, I tell you. Oh, if only I were a man!

HOFFMANN

[_Sighing._] Oh, if only it were over and done with!--[_Speaking from the door to the right._] Anyhow, sister, do me the favour and have the supper-table really appetising. I'll just attend to a little matter meanwhile.

HELEN

[_Rings the electric bell. MIELE enters._] Miele, set the table, and tell Edward to put champagne on ice and open four dozen oysters.

MIELE

[_With sullen impudence._] You c'n tell him yer-self. He don't take orders from me. He's always sayin' he was hired by Mr. Hoffmann.

HELEN

Then, at least, send him in to me.

[_MIELE goes. HELEN steps in front of the mirror and adjusts various details in her toilet. In the meantime EDWARD enters._

HELEN

[_Still before the mirror._] Edward, put champagne on ice and open oysters. Mr. Hoffmann wishes it.

EDWARD

Very well, Miss.

[_As EDWARD leaves, a knocking is heard at the middle door._

HELEN

[_Startled._] Dear me! [_Timidly._] Come in! [_Louder and more firmly._] Come in!

LOTH

[_Enters without bowing._] Ah, I beg pardon. I didn't mean to intrude. My name is Loth.

_HELEN bows. Her gesture smacks of the dancing school._

HOFFMANN

[_His voice is heard through the closed door._] My dear people: don't be formal! I'll be with you in a moment. Loth, my sister-in-law, Helen Krause! And, sister, my friend, Alfred Loth! Please consider yourselves introduced.

HELEN

Oh, what a way of....

LOTH

I don't take it ill of him. As I have often been told, I am myself more than half a barbarian when correct manners are concerned. But if I intruded upon you, I....

HELEN

Not in the least; oh, not in the least, believe me. [_A pause of constraint._] Indeed, indeed, it is most kind of you to have looked up my brother-in-law. He often complains that ... rather, regrets that the friends of his youth have forgotten him so entirely.

LOTH

Yes, it just happened so this time. I've always been in Berlin and thereabouts and had no idea what had become of Hoffmann. I haven't been back in Silesia since my student days at Breslau.

HELEN

And so you came upon him quite by chance.

LOTH

Yes, quite--and, what is more, in the very spot where I've got to pursue my investigations.

HELEN

Investigations in Witzdorf! In this wretched little hole. Ah, you're jesting. It isn't possible.

LOTH

You say: wretched? Yet there is a very unusual degree of wealth here.

HELEN

Oh, of course, in that respect....

LOTH

I've been continually astonished. I can assure you that such farms are not to be found elsewhere; they seem literally steeped in abundance.

HELEN

You are quite right. There's more than one stable here in which the cows and horses feed from marble mangers and racks of German silver! It is all due to the coal which was found under our fields and which turned the poor peasants rich almost in the twinkling of an eye. [_She points to the picture in the background._] Do you see--my grandfather was a freight carter. The little property here belonged to him, but he could not get a living out of his bit of soil and so he had to haul freight. That's a picture of him in his blue blouse; they still wore blouses like that in those days. My father, when he was young, wore one too.--No! When I said "wretched" I didn't mean that. Only it's so desolate here. There's nothing, nothing for the mind. Life is empty ... it's enough to kill one.

_MIELE and EDWARD pass to and fro, busy laying the table to the right in the background._

LOTH

Aren't there balls or parties once in a while?

HELEN

Not even that! The farmers gamble, hunt, drink ... What is there to be seen all the long day? [_She has approached the window and points out._] _Such_ figures, mainly.

LOTH

H-m! Miners.

HELEN

Some are going to the mine, some are coming from the mine: all day, all day ... At least, I seem always to see them. Do you suppose I even care to go into the street alone? At most I slip through the back gate out into the fields. And they are such a rough set! The way they stare at one--so menacing and morose as if one were actually guilty of some crime. Sometimes, in winter, when we go sleighing, they come in the darkness, in great gangs, over the hills, through the storm, and, instead of making way, they walk stubbornly in front of the horses. Then, sometimes the farmers use the handles of their whips; it's the only way they can get through. And then the miners curse behind us. Ugh! I've been so terribly frightened sometimes!

LOTH

And isn't it strange that I have come here for the sake of these very people of whom you are so much afraid.

HELEN

Oh, surely not....

LOTH

Quite seriously. These people interest me more than any one else here.

HELEN

No one excepted?

LOTH

No one.

HELEN

Not even my brother-in-law?

LOTH

No! For my interest in these people is different and of an altogether higher nature. But you must forgive me ... You can't be expected to follow me there.

HELEN

And why not? Indeed, I understand you very well ... [_She drops a letter inadvertently which LOTH stoops to pick up._] Don't bother ... it's of no importance; only an indifferent boarding-school correspondence.

LOTH

So you went to boarding-school?

HELEN

Yes, in Herrnhut. You mustn't think that I'm so wholly ... No, no, I do understand.

LOTH

You see, these workingmen interest me for their own sake.

HELEN

To be sure. And a miner like that is very interesting, if you look upon him in that way. Why, there are places where you never see one; but If you have them daily before your eyes ...

LOTH

Even if you have them daily before your eyes, Miss Krause. Indeed. I think that is necessary if one is to discover what is truly interesting about them.

HELEN

Dear me! If it's so hard to discover--I mean what is interesting about them!

LOTH

Well; it is interesting, for instance that these people, as you say, always look so menacing and so morose.

HELEN

Why do you think that _that_ is particularly interesting?

LOTH

Because it is not the usual thing. The rest of us look that way only sometimes and by no means always.

HELEN

Yes, but why do they always look so ... so full of hatred and so surly? There must be some reason for that.

LOTH

Just so. And it is this very reason that I am anxious to discover.

HELEN

Oh, don't!... Now you're making fun of me! What good would it do you, even if you knew that?

LOTH

One might perhaps find ways and means to remove the cause that makes these people so joyless and so full of hatred; one might perhaps make them happier.

HELEN

[_Slightly confused._] I must confess freely that now ... And yet perhaps just now I begin to understand you a little. Only it is so strange, so new, so utterly new ...

HOFFMANN

[_Entering through the door at the right. He has a number of letters in his hand._] Well, here I am again.--Edward, see to it that these letters reach the post-office before eight o'clock. [_He hands the letters to the servant, who withdraws._] Well, dear people, now we can eat! Outrageously hot here! September and such heat! [_He lifts a bottle of champagne from the cooler. _] Veuve Cliquot! Edward knows my secret passions! [_He turns to LOTH._] You've had quite a lively argument, eh? [_Approaches the table, which has now been laid and which groans under delicacies. Rubbing his hands._] Well, that looks very good indeed! [_With a sly look in LOTH'S direction._] Don't you think it does?--By the way, sister! We're going to have company: William Kahl. He has been seen in the yard.

_HELEN makes a gesture of disgust._

HOFFMANN

My dear girl! You almost act as if I ... How can I help it? D'you suppose I invited him? [_Heavy steps are heard in the outer hall._] Ah! "Misfortune strides apace!"

_KAHL enters without having first knocked. He is twenty-four years old: a clumsy peasant who is evidently concerned, so far as possible, to make a show not only as a refined but, more especially, as a wealthy man. His features are coarse; his predominant expression is one of stupid cunning. He wears a green jacket, a gay velvet waist-coat, dark trousers and patent-leather top-boots. His head-covering is a green forester's hat with a cock's feather. His jacket has buttons of stag's horn and stag's teeth depend from his watch-chain. He stammers._

KAHL

G-good evening everybody!

[_He sees LOTH, is much embarrassed and, standing still, cuts a rather sorry figure._

HOFFMANN

[_Steps up to him and shakes hands with him encouragingly._] Good evening, Mr. Kahl.

HELEN

[_Ungraciously._] Good evening.

KAHL

[_Strides with heavy steps diagonally across the room to HELEN and takes her hand._] Evenin' t'you, Nellie.

HOFFMANN

[_To LOTH._] Permit me to introduce our neighbour's son, Mr. Kahl.

[_KAHL grins and fidgets with his hat. Constrained silence._

HOFFMANN

Come, let's sit down, then. Is anybody missing? Ah, our mama! Miele, request Mrs. Krause to come to supper.

[_MIELE leaves by the middle door._

MIELE

[_Is heard in the hall, calling out._] Missus! Missus!! You're to come down--to come'n eat!

[_HELEN and HOFFMANN exchange a look of infinite comprehension and laugh. Then, by a common impulse, they look at LOTH._

HOFFMANN

[_To LOTH._] Rustic simplicity!

_MRS. KRAUSE appears, incredibly overdressed. Silk and costly jewels. Her dress and bearing betray hard arrogance, stupid pride and half-mad vanity._

HOFFMANN

Ah, there is mama! Permit me to introduce to you my friend Dr. Loth.

MRS. KRAUSE

[_Half-curtsies, peasant-fashion._] I take the liberty! [_After a brief pause._] Eh, but Doctor, you mustn't bear me a grudge, no, you mustn't at all. I've got to excuse myself before you right away--[_she speaks with increasing fluency_]--excuse myself on account o' the way I acted a while ago. You know, y'understan', we' get a powerful lot o' tramps here right along ... 'Tain't reasonable to believe the trouble we has with them beggars. And they steals exackly like magpies. It ain't as we're stingy. We don't have to be thinkin' and thinkin' before we spends a penny, no, nor before we spends a pound neither. Now, old Louis Krause's wife, she's a close one, worst kind you see, she wouldn't give a crittur that much! Her old man died o' rage because he lost a dirty little two-thousand, playin' cards. No, we ain't that kind. You see that sideboard over there. That cost me two hundred crowns, not countin' the freight even. Baron Klinkow hisself couldn't have nothin' better.

_MRS. SPILLER has entered shortly after MRS. KRAUSE. She is small, slightly deformed and gotten up in her mistress's cast-off garments. While MRS. KRAUSE is speaking she looks up at her with a certain devout attention. She is about fifty-five years old. Every time she exhales her breath she utters a gentle moan, which is regularly audible, even when she speaks, as a soft_--m.

MRS. SPILLER

[_In a servile, affectedly melancholy, minor tone. Very softly._] His lordship has exactly the identical sideboard--m--.

HELEN

[_To MRS. KRAUSE._] Mama, don't you think we had better sit down first and then--

MRS. KRAUSE

[_Turns with lightning-like rapidity to HELEN and transfixes her with a withering look; harshly and masterfully._] Is that proper?

[_She is about to sit down but remembers that grace has not been said. Mechanically she folds her hands without, however, mastering her malignity._

MRS. SPILLER

Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest. May thy gifts to us be blest.

[_All take their seats noisily. The embarrassing situation is tided over by the passing and repassing of dishes, which takes some time._

HOFFMANN

[_To LOTH._] Help yourself, old fellow, won't you? Oysters?

LOTH

I'll try them. They're the first I've ever eaten.

MRS. KRAUSE

[_Has just sucked down an oyster noisily._] This season, you mean.

LOTH

No, I mean at all.

[_MRS. KRAUSE and MRS. SPILLER exchange a look._

HOFFMANN

[_To KAHL, who is squeezing a lemon with his teeth._] Haven't seen you for two days, Mr. Kahl. Have you been busy shooting mice?

KAHL

N-naw ...

HOFFMANN

[_To LOTH._] Mr. Kahl, I must tell you, is passionately fond of hunting.

KAHL

M-m-mice is i-infamous amphibies.

HELEN

[_Bursts out._] It's too silly. He can't see anything wild or tame without killing it.

KAHL

Las' night I sh-shot our ol' s-sow.

LOTH

Then I suppose that shooting is your chief occupation.

MRS. KRAUSE

Mr. Kahl, he just does that fer his own private pleasure.

MRS. SPILLER

Forest, game and women--as his Excellency the Minister von Schadendorf often used to say.

KAHL

'N d-day after t-t'morrow we're g-goin' t' have p-pigeon sh-sh-shooting.

LOTH

What is that--pigeon shooting?

HELEN

Ah, I can't bear such things. Surely it's a very merciless sport. Rough boys who throw stones at window panes are better employed.

HOFFMANN

You go too far, Helen.

HELEN

I don't know. According to my feeling it's far more sensible to break windows, than to tether pigeons to a post and then shoot bullets into them.

HOFFMANN

Well, Helen, after all, you must consider ...

LOTH

[_Using his knife and fork with energy._] It is a shameful barbarity.

KAHL

Aw! _Them_ few pigeons!

MRS. SPILLER

[_To LOTH._] Mr. Kahl, you know, has m-more than two-hundred of them in his dove-cote.

LOTH

All hunting is barbarity.

HOFFMANN

But an ineradicable one. Just now, for instance, five hundred live foxes are wanted in the market, and all foresters in this neighbourhood and in other parts of Germany are busy snaring the animals.

LOTH

What are all those foxes wanted for?

HOFFMANN

They are sent to England, where they will enjoy the honour of being hunted from their very cages straight to death by members of the aristocracy.

LOTH

Mohammedan or Christian--a beast's a beast.

HOFFMANN

May I pass you some lobster, mother?

MRS. KRAUSE

I guess so. They're good this here season.

MRS. SPILLER

Madame has such a delicate palate.

MRS. KRAUSE

[_To LOTH._] I suppose you ain't ever et lobsters neither, Doctor?

LOTH

Yes, I have eaten lobsters now and then--in the North, by the sea, in Warnemuende, where I was born.

MRS. KRAUSE

[_To KAHL._] Times an' times a person don't know what _to_ eat no more. Eh, William.

KAHL

Y-y're r-right there, cousin, G-God knows.

EDWARD

[_Is about to pour champagne into LOTH'S glass._] Champagne, sir.

LOTH

[_Covers his glass with his hand._] No, thank you.

HOFFMANN

Come now, don't be absurd.

HELEN

What? Don't you drink?

LOTH

No, Miss Krause.

HOFFMANN

Well, now, look here, old man. That is, you must admit, rather tiresome.

LOTH

If I were to drink I should only grow more tiresome.

HELEN

That is most interesting, Doctor.

LOTH

[_Untactfully._] That I grow even more tiresome when I drink wine?

HELEN

[_Somewhat taken aback._] No, oh, no. But that you do not drink ... do not drink at all, I mean.

LOTH

And why is that particularly interesting?

HELEN

[_Blushing._] It is not the usual thing.

[_She grows redder and more embarrassed._

LOTH

[_Clumsily._] You are quite right, unhappily.

MRS. KRAUSE

[_To LOTH._] It costs us fifteen shillin's a bottle. You needn't be scared to drink it. We gets it straight from Rheims; we ain't givin' you nothin' cheap; we wouldn't want it ourselves.

MRS. SPILLER

Ah, you can believe--m-me, Doctor: if his Excellency, the Minister von Schadendorf, had been able to keep _such_ a table ...

KAHL

I couldn't live without my wine.

HELEN

[_To LOTH._] Do tell us why you don't drink?

LOTH

I'll do that very gladly, I ...

HOFFMANN

Oh, pshaw, old fellow. [_He takes the bottle from the servant in order to press the wine upon LOTH._] Just think how many merry hours we used to spend in the old days ...

LOTH

Please don't take the trouble ...

HOFFMANN

Drink to-day--this one time.

LOTH

It's quite useless.

HOFFMANN

As a special favour to me.

[_HOFFMANN is about to pour the wine; LOTH resists. A slight conflict ensues._

LOTH

No, no ... as I said before ... No!... no, thank you.

HOFFMANN

Don't be offended, but that, surely, is a mere foolish whim.

KAHL

[_To MRS. SPILLER._] A man that don't want nothin' has had enough.

[_MRS. SPILLER nods resignedly._

HOFFMANN

Anyhow, if you let a man have his will what more can you do for him. But I can tell you this much: without a glass of wine at dinner ...

LOTH

And a glass of beer at breakfast ...

HOFFMANN

Very well; why not? A glass of beer is a very healthy thing.

LOTH

And a nip of brandy now and then ...

HOFFMANN

Ah, well, if one couldn't get that much out of life! You'll never succeed in making an ascetic of me. You can't rob life of every stimulus.

LOTH

I'm not so sure of that. I am thoroughly content with the normal stimuli that reach my nervous system.

HOFFMANN

And a company that sit together with dry throats always has been and always will be a damnably weary and boresome one--with which, as a rule, I'd care to have very little to do.

MRS. KRAUSE

An' all them aristocrats drinks a whole lot.

MRS. SPILLER

[_Devoutly confirming her mistress' remark by an inclination of her body._] It is easy for gentlemen to drink a great deal of wine.

LOTH

[_To HOFFMANN._] My experience is quite to the contrary. As a rule, I am bored at a table where a great deal is drunk.

HOFFMANN

Oh, of course, it's got to be done in moderation.

LOTH

What do you call moderation?

HOFFMANN

Well, so long as one is in possession of one's senses ...

LOTH

Aha! Then you do admit that, in general, the consumption of alcohol does endanger the possession of one's senses? And for that reason, you see, I find tavern parties such a bore.

HOFFMANN

Are you afraid of losing possession of your senses so easily?

KAHL

T'-t'other d-day I drank a b-bottle o' R-Rhine-wine, _an'_ another o' ch-champagne. An' on top o' that an-n-nother o' B-Bordeaux--an' I wan't drunk by half.

LOTH

[_To HOFFMANN._] Oh no. You know well enough that it was I who took you fellows home when you'd been taking too much. And I still have the same tough old system. No, I'm not afraid on that account.

HOFFMANN

Well, then, what is it?

HELEN

Yes, why is it really that you don't drink? Do tell us!

LOTH

[_To HOFFMANN._] In order to satisfy you then: I do not drink to-day, if for no other reason but because I have given my word of honour to avoid spirituous liquors.

HOFFMANN

In other words, you've sunk to the level of a temperance fanatic.

LOTH

I am a total abstainer.

HOFFMANN

And for how long, may one ask, have you gone in for this--

LOTH

For life.

HOFFMANN

[_Throws down his knife and fork and half starts up from his chair._] Well, I'll be ... [_He sits down again._] Now, frankly, you must forgive me, but I never thought you so--childish.

LOTH

You may call it so if you please.

HOFFMANN

But how in the world did you get into that kind of thing?

HELEN

Surely, for such a resolution you must have a very weighty cause--it seems so to me, at least.

LOTH

Undoubtedly such a reason exists. You probably do not know, Miss Krause, nor you either, Hoffmann, what an appalling part alcohol plays in modern life ... Read Bunge, if you desire to gain an idea of it. I happen to remember the statements of a writer named Everett concerning the significance of alcohol in the life of the United States. His facts cover a space of ten years. In these ten years, according to him, alcohol has devoured directly a sum of three thousand millions of dollars and indirectly of six hundred millions. It has killed three hundred thousand people, it has driven thousands of others into prisons and poor-houses; it has caused two thousand suicides at the least. It has caused the loss of at least ten millions through fire and violent destruction; it has rendered no less than twenty thousand women, widows, and no less than one million children, orphans. Worst of all, however, are the far-reaching effects of alcohol which extend to the third and fourth generation.--Now, had I pledged myself never to marry, I might perhaps drink, but as it is--My ancestors, as I happen to know, were all not only healthy and robust but thoroughly temperate people. Every movement that I make, every hardship that I undergo, every breath that I draw brings what I owe them more deeply home to me. And that, you see, is the point; I am absolutely determined to transmit undiminished to my posterity this heritage which is mine.

MRS. KRAUSE

Look here, son-in-law, them miners o' ours do drink a deal too much. I guess that's true.

KAHL

They swills like pigs.

HELEN

And such, things are hereditary?

LOTH

There are families who are ruined by it--families of dipsomaniacs.

KAHL

[_Half to MRS. KRAUSE; half to HELEN._] Your old man--he's goin' it pretty fast, too.

HELEN

[_White as a sheet, vehemently._] Oh, don't talk nonsense.

MRS. KRAUSE

Eh, but listen to the impident hussy. You might think she was a princess! You're tryin' to play bein' a grand lady, I s'ppose! That's the way she goes fer her future husband. [_To LOTH, pointing to KAHL._] That's him, you know; they're promised; it's all arranged.

HELEN

[_Jumping up._] Stop! or ... _Stop_, mother, or I ...

MRS. KRAUSE

Well, I do declare! Say, Doctor, is that what you call eddication, eh? God knows, I treat her as if she was my own child, but that's a little too much.

HOFFMANN

[_Soothingly._] Ah, mother, do me the favour....

MRS. KRAUSE

No-o! I don't see why. Such a goose like that ... That's an end o' all justice ... such a sl...!

HOFFMANN

Oh, but mother, I must really beg of you to control--

MRS. KRAUSE

[_Doubly enraged._] Instead o' sich a crittur takin' a hand on the farm.... God forbid! She pulls her sheets 'way over her ears. But her Schillers and her Goethes and sich like stinkin' dogs--that can't do nothin' but lie; they c'n turn her head. It's enough to make you sick!

[_She stops, quivering with rage._

HOFFMANN

[_Trying to pacify her._] Well, well--she will be all right now ... perhaps it wasn't quite right ... perhaps....

[_He beckons to HELEN, who in her excitement has drawn aside, and the girl, fighting down her tears, returns to her place._

HOFFMANN

[_Interrupting the painful silence that has followed, to LOTH._] Ah, yes ... what were we talking about? To be sure, of good old alcohol. [_He raises his glass._] Well, mother, let us have peace. Come,--we'll drink a toast in peace, and honour alcohol by being peaceful. [_MRS. KRAUSE, although somewhat rebelliously, clinks glasses with him._] What, Helen, and your glass is empty.... I say, Loth, you've made a proselyte.

HELEN

Ah ... no ... I....

MRS. SPILLER

But, dear Miss Helen, that looks sus--

HOFFMANN

You weren't always so very particular.

HELEN

[_Pertly._] I simply have no inclination to drink to-day. That's all.

HOFFMANN

Oh, I beg your pardon, very humbly indeed ... Let me see, what were we talking about?

LOTH

We were saying that there were whole families of dipsomaniacs.

HOFFMANN

[_Embarrassed anew._] To be sure, to be sure, but ... er....