Chapter 14

HASSENREUTER

Mrs. John!--I'll see if she is in the loft up there. [_He mounts the stairs and rattles at the trap-door._] Locked! And of course the wretched creature has the key tied to her apron. [_He beats enragedly against the trap-door with his fist._] John! John!

JETTEL

[_Somewhat impatient._] Can't we manage without this Mrs. John?

HASSENREUTER

What? Do you think that I, in my dress suit and with all my decorations, just back from His Highness, can go through my three hundred boxes and cases just to rout out the wretched rags that you are pleased to need for your engagement here?

JETTEL

I beg your pardon. But I'm not wont to appear in rags on my tours.

HASSENREUTER

Man alive, then play in your drawers for all I care! It wouldn't worry me! Only don't quite forget who's standing before you. Because the court actor Jettel is pleased to emit a whistle--well, that's no reason why the manager Harro Hassenreuter should begin to dance. Confound it, because some comedian wants a shabby turban or two old boots, is that any reason why a _pater familias_ like myself must give up his only spare time at home on Sunday afternoon? I suppose you expect me to creep about on all fours into the corners here? No, my good fellow, for that kind of thing you'll have to look elsewhere!

JETTEL

[_Quite calmly._] Would you mind telling me, if possible, who has been treading on your corns?

HASSENREUTER

My boy, it's scarcely an hour since I had my legs under the same table with a prince; _post hoc, ergo propter hoc!_--On your account I got into a confounded bus and drove out to this, confounded bole, and so ... if you don't know how to value my kindness, you can get out!

JETTEL

You made an appointment with use for four o'clock. Then you let me wait one solid hour in this horrible tenement, in these lovely halls with their filthy brats! Well, I waited and didn't address the slightest reproach to you. And now you have the good taste and the good manners to use me as a kind of a cuspidor!

HASSENREUTER

My boy ...

JETTEL

The devil! I'm not your boy! You seem to be kind of a clown that I ought to force to turn sommersaults for pennies!

[_Highly indignant, he picks up his hat and cane and goes._

HASSENREUTER

[_Starts, breaks out into boisterous laughter and then calls out after JETTEL:_] Don't make yourself ridiculous! And, anyhow, I'm not a costumer!

_The slamming of the outer door is heard._

HASSENREUTER

[_Pulls out his watch._] The confounded idiot! The damned mutton head.--It's a blessing the ridiculous ass went! [_He puts the match back into his pocket, pulls it out again at once and listens. He walks restlessly to and fro, then stops, gases into his top-hat, which contains a mirror, and combs his hair carefully. He walks over to the middle door and opens a few of the letters that lie heaped up there. At the same time he sings in a trilling voice:_

"O Strassburg, O Strassburg, Thou beautiful old town."

_Once more he looks at his watch. Suddenly the doorbell at his head rings._] On the minute! Ah, but these little girls can be punctual when they really care about it! [_He hurries out into the hall and is heard to extend a loud and merry welcome to someone. The trumpet notes of his voice are soon accompanied by the bell-like tones of a woman's speaking. Very soon he reappears, at his side an elegant young lady, ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH._]--Alice! My little Alice! Come here where I can see you, little girl! Come here into the light! I must see whether you're the same infinitely delightful, mad little Alice that you were in the great days of my career in Alsace? Girl, it was I who taught you to walk! I held your leading strings for your first steps. I taught you how to talk, girl! The things you said! I hope you haven't forgotten!

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

Now, look here! You don't believe that I'm an ungrateful girl?

HASSENREUTER

[_Draws up her veil._] Why, girlie, you've grown younger instead of older.

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

[_Flushed with delight._] Well, a person would just have to be like everything to say that you had changed to your disadvantage! But, do you know--it's awful dark up here really and--Harro, maybe you wouldn't mind opening a window a little--oh, the air's a bit heavy, too,

HASSENREUTER

"Pillicock sat on Pillicock-hill" "But mice and rats and such small deer Have been Tom's food for seven long year."

In all seriousness I have passed through dark and difficult times! In spite of the fact that I preferred not to write you of it, I have no doubt that you are informed.

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

But it wasn't extra friendly, you know, for you not to answer one little word to the long, nice letter I wrote you.

HASSENREUTER

Ha, ha, ha! What's the use of answering a little girl's letter if one has both hands full taking care of oneself and can't possibly be of the slightest use to her? Pshaw! _E nihilo nihil fit!_ In the vernacular: You can't get results out of nothing! Moth and dust! Dust and moths! And that's all my efforts for German culture in the west profited me!

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

So you didn't turn over your collection of properties to manager Kunz.

HASSENREUTER

"O Strassburg, O Strassburg, Thou beautiful old town!"

No, little one, I didn't leave my properties in Strassburg! This ex-waiter, ex-innkeeper and lessee of disreputable dance halls, this idiot, this imbecile who succeeded me, didn't happen to want my stuff. No, I didn't leave my collection of properties there, but what I did have to leave there was forty thousand crowns of hard-earned money left me from my old touring days as an actor, and, in addition, fifty thousand crowns which formed the dowry of my excellent wife. However, it was a piece of good luck, after all, that I kept the properties. Ha, ha, ha! These fellows here ... [_he touches one of the mailed figures_] ... surely you remember them?

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

Could I forget my pasteboard knights?

HASSENREUTER

Very well, then: it was these pasteboard knights and all the other trash that surrounds them, that actually, after his hegira, kept the old rag-picker and costumer, Harro Eberhard Hassenreuter, above water. But let's speak of cheerful things: I saw with pleasure in the paper that his Excellency has engaged you for Berlin.

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

I don't care a great deal about it! I'd rather play for you, and you must promise me, whenever you undertake the management of a theatre again--you will promise, won't you?--that you'll let me break my contract right away? [_The MANAGER laughs heartily._] I had to be annoyed quite enough for three long years by the barn-stormers of the provinces. Berlin I don't like, and a court theatre least of all. Lord, what people and what a profession it is! You know I belong to your collection--I've always belonged to it!

[_She stands up primly among the pasteboard knights._

HASSENREUTER

Ha, ha, ha, ha! Well then, come to my arms, faithful knight!

[_He opens his arms wide, she flies into them, and they now salute each other with long, continuous kisses._

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

Go on, Harro. Now tell me. How is your wife?

HASSENREUTER

Teresa gets along very well except that she gets fatter every day in spite of sorrow and worries.--Girl, girl, how fragrant you are! [_He presses her to him._] Do you know that you're a devilish dangerous person?

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

D'you think I'm an idiot? Of course I'm dangerous!

HASSENREUTER

Well, I'll be ...!

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

Why, do you think if I didn't know it was dangerous, dangerous for us both, I'd make an appointment with you out here in this lovely neighbourhood, under this stuffy roof? By the way, though, since I'm always bound to have the queerest luck if ever I do go a bit on questionable ways, whom should I meet on the stairs but Nathanael Jettel? I almost ran into the gentleman's arms! He'll take good care that my visiting you doesn't remain our secret.

HASSENREUTER

I must have made a mistake in writing down the date. The fellow insists on asserting--ha, ha, ha!--that I made an engagement with him for this very afternoon.

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

And that wasn't the only person I met on the six flights. And as for the dear little children that roll about on the stairs here! What they called out after me was unparliamentary to a degree--such vulgarities as I've never heard from such little beggars in my life.

HASSENREUTER

[_Laughs, then speaks seriously._] Ah, yes! But one gets accustomed to that. You could never write down all the life that sweeps down these stairs with its soiled petticoats--the life that cringes and creeps, moans, sighs, sweats, cries out, curses, mutters, hammers, planes, jeers, steals, drives its dark trades up and down these stairs--the sinister creatures that hide here, playing their zither, grinding their accordions, sticking in need and hunger and misery, leading their vicious lives--no, it's beyond one's power of recording. And your old manager, last but not least, runs, groans, sighs, sweats, cries out and curses with the best of them. Ha, ha, ha, girlie! I've had a pretty wretched time.

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

Oh, by the way, d'you know whom I ran into just as I was making for the railroad station at the Zoological Garden? The good old Prince Statthalter! And straight off, cool as a cucumber--that's my way you know--I tripped along next to him for twenty minutes and got him absorbed in a conversation. And then something happened, Harro, upon my honour, just as I'm going to tell you--literally and truly: Suddenly on the bridle-path His Majesty came riding along with a great suite. I thought I'd sink into the earth with embarrassment. And His Majesty laughed right out and threatened his Serenity playfully with his finger. But I was delighted, you may believe me. The main thing comes now, however. Just think! His Serenity asked me whether I'd be glad to go back to Strassburg if the manager Hassenreuter were to assume direction of the theatre there again. Well, you may know that I almost jumped for joy!

HASSENREUTER

[_Throws off his overcoat and stands with his decorations displayed._] You probably couldn't help noticing that His Serenity had had a most excellent breakfast. Aha! We had breakfast together! We attended an exquisite little stag party given by Prince Ruprecht out in Potsdam. I don't deny, therefore, that a turn for good may take place in the miserable fate of your friend.

ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH

Sweetheart, you look like a statesman, like an ambassador!

HASSENREUTER

Ah, don't you know this breast covered with high and exalted decorations? Klaerchen and Egmont! Here you can drink your fill! [_They embrace each other anew._] _Carpe diem!_ Enjoy the passing hour! Ah, my little Miss Simplicity, champagne is not recorded at present on the repertory of your old manager, inspirer and friend. [_He opens a wooden case and draws forth a bottle of wine._] But this old cloister vintage isn't to be sneezed at either! [_He pulls the cork. At the same moment the door bell rings._] What? Sh! I wonder who has the monstrous impudence to ring here on Sunday afternoon? [_The bell rings with increased violence._] Confound it all--the fellow must be a lunatic. Little girl, suppose you withdraw into the library. [_ALICE hurries into the library. The ringing is repeated. He hurries to the door._] Either be patient or go to the devil. [_He is heard opening the door._] Who? What? "It is I, Miss Walburga." What? I am not Miss Walburga. I am not the daughter. I am the father. Oh, it's you, Mr. Spitta! Your very humble servant. I'm only her father--only her father! What is it that you want?

_HASSENREUTER reappears in the passage accompanied by ERICH SPITTA, a young man of twenty-one, spectacled, with keen and not undistinguished features, SPITTA passes as a student of theology and is correspondingly dressed. He does not hold himself erect and his development shows the influence of over-study and underfeeding._

HASSENREUTER

Did you intend to give my daughter one of your private lessons here in my storeroom?

SPITTA

I was riding past on the tram-car and I really thought I had seen Miss Walburga hurry into the doorway downstairs.

HASSENREUTER

No possibility of such a thing, my dear Spitta. At this moment my daughter Walburga is attending a ritualistic service with her mother in the Anglican church.

SPITTA

Then perhaps you'll forgive my intrusion. I took the liberty of coming upstairs because I thought that Miss Walburga might not find it unpleasant or useless to have an escort home through this neighbourhood.

HASSENREUTER

Very good! Very excellent! But she isn't here. I regret it. I'm here myself by the merest chance--on account of the mail. And in addition, I have other pressing engagements. Can I do anything else for you?

_SPITTA polishes his glasses and betrays signs of embarrassment._

SPITTA

One doesn't grow used to the darkness at once.

HASSENREUTER

Perhaps you stand in need of the tuition due you. Sorry, but unfortunately I have the habit of going out with only some small change in my waistcoat pocket. So I must ask you to have patience until I am at home again.

SPITTA

Not the least hurry in the world.

HASSENREUTER

Yes, it's easy for you to say that. I'm like a hunted animal, my dear fellow ...

SPITTA

And yet I would like to beg for a minute of your precious time. I can't but look upon this unexpected meeting as a kind of providential arrangement. In short: may I put a question to you?

HASSENREUTER

[_With his eyes on his watch, which he has just been winding._] One minute exactly. By the watch, my good fellow!

SPITTA

Both my question and your answer need hardly take that long.

HASSENREUTER

Well, then!

SPITTA

Have I any talent for the stage?

HASSENREUTER

For the love of God, man! Have you gone mad?--Forgive me, my dear fellow, if a case like this excites me to the point of being discourteous. You have certainly given the lie to the saying: _natura non facit saltus_ by the unnatural leap that you've taken. I must first get my breath after that! And now let's put an end to this at once. Believe me, if we were both to discuss the question now we wouldn't come to any conclusion in two or three weeks, or rather, let us say years.--You are a theologian by profession, my good fellow, and you were born in a parsonage. You have all the necessary connections and a smooth road to a comfortable way of life ahead of you. How did you hit upon such a notion as this?

SPITTA

That's a long story of the inner life, Mr. Hassenreuter, of difficult spiritual struggles--a story which, until this moment, has been an absolute secret and known only to myself. But my good fortune led me into your house and from that moment on I felt that I was drawing nearer and nearer to the true aim of my life.

HASSENREUTER

[_Wildly impatient._] That's very creditable to me; that does honour to my family and myself! [_He puts his hands on SPITTA'S shoulders._] And yet I must make it in the form of an urgent request that, at this moment, you refrain from a further discussion of the question. My affairs cannot wait.

SPITTA

Then I will only add the expression of my absolutely firm decision.

HASSENREUTER

But, my dear Spitta, who has put these mad notions into year head? I've taken real pleasure in the thought of you. I've really been quietly envying you the peaceful personage that was to be yours. I've attached no special significance to certain literary ambitions that one is likely to pick up in the metropolis. That's a mere phase, I thought, and will be quite passing in his case! And now you want to become an actor? God help you, were I your father! I'd lock you up on bread and water and not let you out again until the very memory of this folly was gone. _Dixi!_ And now, good-bye, my dear man.

SPITTA

I'm afraid that locking me op or resorting to force of any kind would not help in my case at all.

HASSENREUTER

But, man alive, you want to become an actor--you, with your round shoulders, with your spectacles and, above all, with your hoarse and sharp voice. It's impossible.

SPITTA

If such fellows as I exist in real life, why shouldn't they exist on the stage too? And I am of the opinion that a smooth, well-sounding voice, probably combined with the Goethe-Schiller-Weimar school of idealistic artifice, is harmful rather than helpful. The only question is whether you would take me, just as I am, as a pupil?

HASSENREUTER

[_Hastily draws on his overcoat._] I would not. In the first place my school of acting is only one of the schools of idealistic artifice which you mention. In the second place I wouldn't be responsible to your father for such an action. And in the third place, we quarrel enough as it is--every time you stay to supper at my house after giving your lessons. If you were my pupil, we'd come to blows. And now, Spitta, I must catch the car.

SPITTA

My father is already informed. In a letter of twelve pages, I have given him a full history of the change that has taken place within me....

HASSENREUTER

I'm sure the old gentleman will feel flattered! And now come along with me or I'll go insane!

_HASSENREUTER forcibly takes SPITTA out with him. The door is heard to slam. The room grows silent but for the uninterrupted roar of Berlin, which can now be clearly heard. The trap-door to the loft is now opened and WALBURGA HASSENREUTER clambers down in mad haste, followed by MRS. JOHN._

MRS. JOHN

[_Whispering vehemently._] What's the matter? Nothin' ain't happened.

WALBURGA

Mrs. John, I'll scream! I'll have to scream in another second! Oh, for heaven's sake, I can't help it much longer, Mrs. John!

MRS. JOHN

Stuff a handkerchief between your teeth! There ain't nothin'! Why d'you take on so?

WALBURGA

[_With chattering teeth, making every effort to suppress her sobs._] I'm frightened! Oh, I'm frightened to death, Mrs. John!

MRS. JOHN

I'd like to know what you're so scared about!

WALBURGA

Why, didn't you see that horrible man?

MRS. JOHN

That ain't nothin' so horrible. That's my brother what sometimes helps me clean up your pa's things here.

WALBURGA

And that girl who sits with her back to the chimney and whines?

MRS. JOHN

Well, your mother didn't act no different when you was expected to come into the world.

WALBURGA

Oh, it's all over with me. I'll die if papa comes back.

MRS. JOHN

Well then hurry and get out an' don' fool roun' no more!

[_MRS. JOHN accompanies the horrified girl along the passage, lets her out, and then returns._

MRS. JOHN

Thank God, that girl don' know but what the moon _is_ made o' cheese!

[_She takes the uncorked bottle, pours out a glass full of wine and takes it with her to the loft into which she disappears._

_The room is scarcely empty when HASSENREUTER returns._

HASSENREUTER

[_Still in the door. Singing._] "Come on down, O Madonna Teresa!" [_He calls:_] Alice! [_Still in the door._] Come on! Help me put up my iron bar with a double lock before the door, Alice! [_He comes forward._] Any one else who dares to interrupt our Sunday quiet--_anathema sit!_ Here! You imp! Where are you, Alice? [_He observes the bottle and lifts it against the light._] What? Half empty! The little scamp! [_From behind the door of the library a pleasant woman's voice is heard singing coloratura passages._] Ha, ha, ha, ha! Heavens and earth! She's tipsy already.

THE SECOND ACT

_MRS. JOHN'S rooms on the second floor of the same house in the attics of which HASSENREUTER has stored his properties. A high, deep, green-tinted room which betrays its original use as part of a barracks. The rear wall shows a double door which gives on the outer hall. Above this door there hangs a bell connected by a wire with the knob outside. To the right of the door a partition, covered with wall-paper, projects into the room. This partition takes a rectangular turn and extends to the right wall. A portion of the room is thus partitioned off and serves as sleeping-chamber. From within the partition, which is about six feet high, cupboards are seen against the wall._

_Entering the room from the hall, one observes to the left a sofa covered with oil-cloth. The back of the sofa is pushed against the partition wall. The latter is adorned with small photographs: the foreman-mason JOHN as a soldier, JOHN and his wife in their wedding garb, etc. An oval table, covered with a faded cotton cloth, stands before the sofa. In order to reach the entrance of the sleeping-chamber from the door it is necessary to pass the table and sofa. This entrance is closed by hangings of blue cotton cloth. Against the narrow front wall of the partition stands a neatly equipped kitchen cabinet. To the right, against the wall of the main room, the stove. This corner of the room serves the--purposes of kitchen and pantry. Sitting on the sofa, one would look straight at the left wall of the room, which is broken by two large windows. A neatly planed board has been fastened to the nearer of the windows to serve as a kind of desk. Upon it are lying blue-prints, counter-drawings, an inch-measure, a compass and a square. A small, raised platform is seen beneath the farther window. Upon it stands a small table with glasses. An old easy chair of cane and a number of simple wooden chairs complete the frugal equipment of the room, which creates an impression of neatness and orderliness such as is often found in the dwellings of childless couples._

_It is about five o'clock of an afternoon toward the end of May. The warm sunlight shines through the windows._

_The foreman-mason JOHN, a good-natured, bearded man of forty, sits at the desk in the foreground taking notes from the building plans._

_MRS. JOHN sits sewing on the small platform, by the farther window. She is very pale. There is something gentle and pain-touched about her, but her face shows an expression of deep contentment, which is broken only now and then by a momentary gleam of restlessness and suspense. A neat new perambulator stands by her side. In it lies a newborn child._

JOHN

[_Modestly._] Mother, how'd it be if I was to open the window jus' a speck an' was to light my pipe for a bit?

MRS. JOHN

Does you have to smoke? If not, you better let it be!

JOHN

No, I don't has to, mother. Only I'd like to! Never mind, though. A quid'll be just as good in the end.

[_With comfortable circumstantiality he prepares a new quid._

MRS. JOHN

[_After a brief silence._] How's that? You has to go to the public registry office again?

JOHN

That's what he told me, that I had to come back again an' tell him exackly ... that I had to give the exack place an' time when that little kid was born.

MRS. JOHN

[_Holding a needle in her mouth._] Well, why didn't you tell him that right away?

JOHN

How was I to know it? I didn't know, you see.

MRS. JOHN

You didn't know that?

JOHN

Well, I wasn't here, was I?

MRS. JOHN

You wasn't. That's right. If you goes an' leaves me here in Berlin an' stays from one year's end to another in Hamburg, an' at most comes to see me once a month--how is you to know what happens in your own home?

JOHN

Don't you want me to go where the boss has most work for me? I goes where I c'n make good money.

MRS. JOHN

I wrote you in my letter as how our little boy was born in this here room.

JOHN