Chapter 15

I knows that an' I told him that. Ain't that natural, I axes him, that the child was born in our room? An' he says that ain't natural at all. Well then, says I, for all I cares, maybe it was up in the loft with the rats an' mice! I got mad like 'cause he said maybe the child wasn't born here at all. Then he yells at me: What kind o' talk is that? What? says I. I takes an interest in wages an' earnin' an' not in talk--not me, Mr. Registrar! An' now I'm to give him the exack day an' hour ...

MRS. JOHN

An' didn't I write it all out for you on a bit o' paper?

JOHN

When a man's mad he's forgetful. I believe if he'd up and axed me: Is you Paul John, foreman-mason? I'd ha' answered: I don' know. Well an' then I'd been a bit jolly too an' taken a drink or two with Fritz. An' while we was doin' that who comes along but Schubert an' Karl an' they says as how I has to set up on account o' bein' a father now. Those fellers, they didn't let me go an' they was waitin' downstairs in front o' the public registry. An' so I kept thinkin' o' them standin' there. So when he axes me on what day my wife was delivered, I didn't know nothin' an' just laughed right in his face.

MRS. JOHN

I wish you'd first attended to what you had to an' left your drinkin' till later.

JOHN

It's easy to say that! But if you're up to them kind o' tricks in your old age, mother, you can't blame me for bein' reel glad.

MRS. JOHN

All right. You go on to the registry now an' say that your child was borne by your wife in your dwellin' on the twenty-fifth o' May.

JOHN

Wasn't it on the twenty-sixth? 'Cause I said right along the twenty-sixth. Then he must ha' noticed that I wasn't quite sober. So he says: If that's a fac', all right; if not, you gotta come back.

MRS. JOHN

In that case you'd better leave it as it is.

_The door is opened and SELMA KNOBBE pushes in a wretched perambulator which presents the saddest contrast to MRS. JOHN'S. Swaddled in pitiful rags a newly born child lies therein._

MRS. JOHN

Oh, no, Selma, comin' into my room with that there sick child--that was all right before. But that can't be done no more.

SELMA

He just gasps with that cough o' his'n. Over at our place they smokes all the time.

MRS. JOHN

I told you, Selma, that you could come from time to time and get milk or bread. But while my little Adelbert is here an' c'n catch maybe consumption or somethin', you just leave that poor little thing at home with his fine mother.

SELMA

[_Tearfully._] Mother ain't been home at all yesterday or to-day. I can't get no sleep with this child. He just moans all night. I gotta get some sleep sometime! I'll jump outa the window first thing or I'll let the baby lie in the middle o' the street an' run away so no policeman can't never find me!

JOHN

[_Looks at the strange child._] Looks bad! Mother, why don't you try an' do somethin' for the little beggar?

MRS. JOHN

[_Pushing SELMA and the perambulator out determinedly._] March outa this room. That can't be done, Paul. When you got your own you can't be lookin' out for other people's brats. That Knobbe woman c'n look after her own affairs. It's different with Selma. [_To the girl._] You c'n come in when you want to. You c'n come in here after a while an' take a nap even.

[_She locks the door._

JOHN

You used to take a good deal o' interest in Knobbe's dirty little brats.

MRS. JOHN

You don' understan' that. I don' want our little Adelbert to be catchin' sore eyes or convulsions or somethin' like that.

JOHN

Maybe you're right. Only, don't go an' call him Adelbert, mother. That ain't a good thing to do, to call a child by the same name as one that was carried off, unbaptised, a week after it was born. Let that be, mother. I can't stand for that, mother,

_A knocking is heard at the door. JOHN is about to open._

MRS. JOHN

What's that?

JOHN

Well, somebody wants to get in!

MRS. JOHN

[_Hastily turning the key in the lock._] I ain't goin' to have everybody runnin' in on me now that I'm sick as this. [_She listens at the door and then calls out:_] I can't open! What d'you want?

A WOMAN'S VOICE

[_Somewhat deep and mannish in tone._] It is Mrs. Hassenreuter.

MRS. JOHN

[_Surprised._] Goodness gracious! [_She opens the door._] I beg your pardon, Mrs. Hassenreuter! I didn't even know who it was!

_MRS. HASSENREUTER has now entered, followed by WALBURGA. She is a colossal, asthmatic lady aver fifty. WALBURGA is dressed with greater simplicity than in the first act. She carries a rather large package._

MRS. HASSENREUTER

How do you do, Mrs. John? Although climbing stairs is ... very hard for me ... I wanted to see how everything ... goes with you after the ... yes, the very happy event.

MRS. JOHN

I'm gettin' along again kind o' half way.

MRS. HASSENREUTER

That is probably your husband, Mrs. John? Well, one must say, one is bound to say, that your dear wife, in the long time of waiting--never complained, was always cheery and merry, and did her work well for my husband upstairs.

JOHN

That's right. She was mighty glad, too.

MRS. HASSENREUTER

Well, then we'll have the pleasure--at least, your wife will have the pleasure of seeing you at home oftener than heretofore.

MRS. JOHN

I has a good husband, Mrs. Hassenreuter, who takes care o' me an' has good habits. An' because Paul was workin' out o town you musn't think there was any danger o' his leavin' me. But a man like that, where his brother has a boy o' twelve in the non-commissioned officers' school ... it's no kind o' life for him havin' no children o' his own. He gets to thinkin' queer thoughts. There he is in Hamburg, makin' good money, an' he has the chance every day and--well--then he takes a notion, maybe, he'd like to go to America.

JOHN

Oh, that was never more'n a thought.

MRS. JOHN

Well, you see, with us poor people ... it's hard-earned bread that we eats ... an' yet ... [_lightly she runs her hand through JOHN'S hair_] even if there's one more an' you has more cares on that account--you see how the tears is runnin' down his cheeks--well, he's mighty happy anyhow!

JOHN

That's because three years ago we had a little feller an' when he was a week old he took sick an' died.

MRS. HASSENREUTER

My husband has already ... yes, my husband did tell me about that ... how deeply you grieved over that little son of yours. You know how it is ... you know how my good husband has his eyes and his heart open to everything. And if it's a question of people who are about him or who give him their services--then everything good or bad, yes, everything good or bad that happens to them, seems just as though it had happened to himself.

MRS. JOHN

I mind as if it was this day how he sat in the carridge that time with the little child's coffin on his knees. He wouldn't let the gravedigger so much as touch it.

JOHN

[_Wiping the moisture out of his eyes._] That's the way it was. No. I couldn't let him do that.

MRS. HASSENREUTER

Just think, to-day at the dinner-table we had to drink wine--suddenly, to drink wine! Wine! For years and years the city-water in decanters has been our only table drink ... absolutely the only one. Dear children, said my husband.--You know that he had just returned from an eleven or twelve day trip to Alsace. Let us drink, my husband said, the health of my good and faithful Mrs. John, because ... he cried out in his beautiful voice ... because she is a visible proof of the fact that the cry of a mother heart is not indifferent to our Lord.--And so we drank your health, clinking our glasses! Well, and here I'm bringing you at my husband's special ... at his very special and particular order ... an apparatus for the sterilisation of milk.--Walburga, you may unpack the boiler.

_HASSENREUTER enters unceremoniously through the outer door which has stood ajar. He wears a top-hat, spring overcoat, carries a silver-headed cane, in a word, is gotten up in his somewhat shabby meek-day outfit. He speaks hastily and almost without pauses._

HASSENREUTER

[_Wiping the sweat from his forehead._] Berlin is hot, ladies and gentlemen, hot! And the cholera is as near as St. Petersburg! Now you've complained to my pupils, Spitta and Kaeferstein, Mrs. John, that your little one doesn't seem to gain in weight. Now, of course, it's one of the symptoms of the general decadence of our age that the majority of mothers are either--unwilling to nurse their offspring or incapable of it. But you've already lost one child on account of diarrhoea, Mrs. John. No, there's no help for it: we must call a spade a spade. And so, in order that you do not meet with the same misfortune over again, or fall into the hands of old women whose advice is usually quite deadly for an infant--in order that these things may not happen, I say, I have caused my wife to bring you this apparatus. I've brought up all my--children, Walburga included, by the help of such an apparatus ...Aha! So one gets a glimpse of you again, Mr. John! Bravo! The emperor needs soldiers, and you needed a representative of your race! So I congratulate you with all my heart.

[_He shakes JOHN'S hand vigorously._

MRS. HASSENREUTER

[_Leaning over the infant._] How much ... how much did he weigh at birth?

MRS. JOHN

He weighed exactly eight pounds and ten grams.

HASSENREUTER

[_With noisy joviality._] Ha, ha, ha! A vigorous product, I must say! Eight pounds and ten grams of good healthy, German national flesh!

MRS. HASSENREUTER

Look at his eyes! And his little nose! His father over again! Why, the little fellow is really, really, the very image of you, Mr. John.

HASSENREUTER

I trust that you will have the boy received into the communion of the Christian Church.

MRS. JOHN

[_With happy impressiveness._] Oh, he'll be christened properly, right in the parochial church at the font by a clergyman.

HASSENREUTER

Right! And what are his baptismal names to be?

MRS. JOHN

Well, you know the way men is. That's caused a lot o' talk. I was thinkin' o' "Bruno," but he won't have it!

HASSENREUTER

Surely Bruno isn't a bad name.

JOHN

That may be. I ain't sayin' but what Bruno is a good enough name. I don't want to give no opinion about that.

MRS. JOHN

Why don't you say as how I has a brother what's twelve years younger'n me an' what don't always do just right? But that's only 'cause there's so much temptation. That boy's a good boy. Only you won't believe it.

JOHN

[_Turns red with sudden rage._] Jette ... you know what a cross that feller was to us! What d'you want? You want our little feller to be the namesake of a man what's--I can't help sayin' it--what's under police soopervision?

HASSENREUTER

Then, for heaven's sake, get him some other patron saint.

JOHN

Lord protect me from sich! I tried to take an interest in Bruno! I got him a job in a machine-shop an' didn't get nothin' outa it but annoyance an' disgrace! God forbid that he should come aroun' an' have anythin' to do with this little feller o' mine. [_He clenches his fist._] If that was to happen, Jette, I wouldn't be responsible for myself!!

MRS. JOHN

You needn't go on, Paul! Bruno ain't comin'. But I c'n tell you this much for certain, that my brother was good an' helpful to me in this hard time.

JOHN

Why didn't you send for me?

MRS. JOHN

I didn't want no man aroun' that was scared.

HASSENREUTER

Aren't you an admirer of Bismarck, John?

JOHN

[_Scratching the back of his head._] I can't say as to that exackly. My brothers in the masons' union, though, they ain't admirers o' him.

HASSENREUTER

Then you have no German hearts in your bodies! Otto is what I called my eldest son who is in the imperial navy! And believe me [_pointing to the infant_] this coming generation will well know what it owes to that mighty hero, the great forger of German unity! [_He takes the tin boiler of the apparatus which WALBURGA has unpacked into his hands and lifts it high up._] Now then: the whole business of this apparatus is mere child's play. This frame which holds all the bottles--each bottle to be filled two-thirds with water and one-third with milk--is sunk into the boiler which is filled with boiling water. By keeping the water at the boiling-point for an hour and a half in this manner, the content--of the bottles becomes free of germs. Chemists call this process sterilisation.

JOHN

Jette, at the master-mason's house, the milk that's fed to the twins is sterilised too.

_The pupils of HASSENREUTER, KAeFERSTEIN and DR. KEGEL, two young men between twenty and twenty-five years of age, have knocked at the door and then opened it._

HASSENREUTER

[_Noticing his pupils._] Patience, gentlemen. I'll be with you directly. At the moment I am busying myself with the problems of the nourishment of infants and the care of children.

KAeFERSTEIN

[_His head bears witness to a sharply defined character: large nose, pale, a serious expression, beardless, about the mouth a flicker of kindly mischievousness. With hollow voice, gentle and suppressed._] You must know that we are the three kings out of the East.

HASSENREUTER

[_Who still holds the apparatus aloft in his hands._] What are you?

KAeFERSTEIN

[_As before._] We want to adore the babe.

HASSENREUTER

Ha, ha, ha, ha! If you are the kings out of the East, gentlemen, it seems to me that the third of you is lacking.

KAeFERSTEIN

The third is our new fellow pupil in the field of dramaturgic activity, the _studiosus theologiae_, who is detained at present at the corner of Blumen and Wallnertheater streets by an accident partly sociological, partly psychological in its nature.

DR. KEGEL

We made all possible haste to escape.

HASSENREUTER

Do you see, a star stands above this house, Mrs. John! But do tell me, has our excellent Spitta once more made some public application of his quackery for the healing of the so-called sins of the social order? Ha, ha, ha, ha! _Semper idem!_ Why, that fellow is actually becoming a nuisance!

KAeFERSTEIN

A crowd gathered in the street for some reason and it seems that he discovered a friend in the midst of it.

HASSENREUTER

According to my unauthoritative opinion this young Spitta would have done much better as a surgeon's assistant or Salvation Army officer. But that's the way of the world: the fellow must needs want to be an actor.

MRS. HASSENREUTER

Mr. Spitta, the children's tutor, wants to become an actor?

HASSENREUTER

That is exactly the plan he has proposed to me, mama.--But now, if you bring incense and myrrh, dear Kaeferstein, out with them! You observe what a many sided man your teacher is. Now I help my pupils, thirsty after the contents of the Muses' breasts, to the nourishment they desire--_nutrimentum spiritus_--again I....

KAeFERSTEIN

[_Rattles a toy bank._] Well, I deposit this offering, which is a fire-proof bank, next to the perambulator of this excellent offspring of the mason, with the wish that he will rise to be at least a royal architect.

JOHN

[_Having put cordial glasses on the table, he fetches and opens a fresh bottle._] Well, now I'm goin' to uncork the _Danziger Goldwasser_.

HASSENREUTER

To him who hath shall be given, as you observe, Mrs. John.

JOHN

[_Filling the glasses._] Nobody ain't goin' to say that my child's unprovided for, gentlemen. But I takes it very kindly o' you, gentlemen! [_All except MRS. HASSENREUTER and WALBURGA lift up their glasses._] To you health! Come on, mother, we'll drink together too.

[_The action follows the words._

HASSENREUTER

[_In a tone of reproof._] Mama, you must, of course, drink with us.

JOHN

[_Having drunk, with jolly expansiveness._] I ain't goin' to Hamburg no more now. The boss c'n send some other feller there. I been quarrelin' with him about that these three days. I gotta take up my hat right now an' go there; he axed me to come roun' to his office again at six. If he don' want to give in, he needn't. It won't never do for the father of a family to be forever an' a day away from his family ... I got a friend--why, all I gotta do's to say the word 'n I c'n get work on the layin' o' the foundations o' the new houses o' Parliament. Twelve years I been workin' for this same boss! I c'n afford to make a change some time.

HASSENREUTER

[_Pats JOHN'S shoulder._] Quite of your opinion, quite! Our family life is something that neither money nor kind words can buy of us.

_ERICH SPITTA enters. His hat is soiled; his clothes show traces of mud. His tie is gone. He looks pale and excited and is busy wiping his hands with his handkerchief._

SPITTA

Beg pardon, but I wonder if I could brush up here a little, Mrs. John?

HASSENREUTER

Ha, ha, ha! For heaven's sake, what have you been up to, my good Spitta?

SPITTA

I only escorted a lady home, Mr. Hassenreuter--nothing else!

HASSENREUTER

[_Who has joined in the general, outburst of laughter called forth by SPITTA'S explanation._] Well now, listen here! You blandly say: Nothing else! And you announce it publicly here before all these people?

SPITTA

[_In consternation._] Why not? The lady in question, was very well dressed; I've often seen her on the stairs of this house, and she unfortunately met with an accident on the street.

HASSENREUTER

You don't say so? Tell us about it, dear Spitta! Apparently the lady inflicted spots on your clothes and scratches on your hands.

SPITTA

Oh, no. That was probably the fault of the mob. The lady had an attack of some kind. The policeman caught hold of her so awkwardly that she slipped down in the middle of the street immediately in front of two omnibus horses. I simply couldn't bear to see that, although I admit that the function of the Good Samaritan is, as a rule, beneath the dignity of well-dressed people on the public streets.

_MRS. JOHN wheels the perambulator behind the partition and reappears with a basin full of water, which she places on a chair._

HASSENREUTER

Did the lady, by any chance, belong to that international high society which we either regulate or segregate?

SPITTA

I confess that that was quite as indifferent to me in the given instance, as it was to one of the omnibus horses who held his left fore foot suspended in the air for five, six or, perhaps, even eight solid minutes, in order not to trample on the woman who lay immediately beneath it. [_SPITTA is answered by a round of laughter._] You may laugh! The behaviour of the horse didn't strike me as in the least ludicrous. I could well understand how some people applauded him, clapped their hands, and how others stormed a bakery to buy buns with which to feed him.

MRS. JOHN

[_Fanatically._] I wish he'd trampled all he could! [_MRS. JOHN'S remark calls forth another outburst of laughter._] An' anyhow! That there Knobbe woman! She oughta be put in some public place, that she ought, publicly strapped to a bench an' then beaten--beaten--that's what! She oughta have the stick taken to her so the blood jus' spurts!

SPITTA

Exactly, I've never been deluded into thinking that the so-called Middle Ages were quite over and done with. It isn't so long ago, in the year eighteen hundred and thirty-seven, as a matter of fact, that a widow named Mayer was publicly broken on the wheel right here in the city of Berlin on Hausvogtei Square,--[_He displays fragments of the lenses of his spectacles._] By the way, I must hurry to the optician at once.

JOHN

[_To SPITTA._] You must excuse us. But didn't you take that there fine lady home on this very floor acrost the way? Aha! Well, mother she noticed it right off that that couldn't ha' been nobody but that Knobbe woman what's known for sendin' girls o' twelve out on the streets! Then she stays away herself an' swills liquor an' has all kinds o' dealin's an' takes no care o' her own children. Then when she's been drunk an' wakes up she beats 'em with her fists an' with an umbrella.

HASSENREUTER

[_Pulling himself together and bethinking himself._] Hurry, gentlemen! We must proceed to our period of instruction. We're fifteen minutes behind hand as it is and our time is limited. We must close the period quite punctually to-day. I'm sorry. Come, mama. See you later, ladies and gentlemen.

[_HASSENREUTER offers his arm to his wife and leaves the room, followed by KAeFERSTEIN and DR. KEGEL. JOHN also picks up his slouch hat._

JOHN

[_To his wife._] Good-bye. I gotta go an' see the boss.

[_He also leaves._

SPITTA

Could you possibly lend me a tie?

MRS. JOHN

I'll see what c'n be found in Paul's drawer. [_She opens the drawer of the table and turns pale._] O Lord! [_She takes from the drawer a lock of child's hair held together by a riband._] I found a bit of a lock o' hair here that was cut off the head of our little Adelbert by his father when he was lyin' in the coffin. [_A profound, grief-stricken sadness suddenly comes over her face, which gives way again, quite as suddenly, to a gleam of triumph._] An' now the crib is full again after all! [_With an expression of strange joyfulness, the lock of hair in her hand, she leads the young people to the door of the partition through which the perambulator projects into the main room by two-thirds of its length. Arrived there she holds the lock of hair close to the head of the living child._] Come on! Come on here! [_With a strangely mysterious air she beckons to WALBURGA and SPITTA, who take up their stand next to her and to the child._] Now look at that there hair an' at this! Ain't it the same? Wouldn't you say it was the same identical hair?

SPITTA

Quite right. It's the same to the minutest shade, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

All right! That's all right! That's what I wanted to know.

[_Together with the child she disappears behind the partition._

WALBURGA

Doesn't it strike you, Erich, that Mrs. John's behaviour is rather peculiar?

SPITTA

[_Taking WALBURGA'S hands and kissing them shyly but passionately._] I don't know, I don't know ... Or, at least, my opinion musn't count to-day. The sombre state of my own mind colours all the world. Did you get the letter?

WALBURGA

Yes. But I couldn't make out why you hadn't been at our house in such a long while.

SPITTA

Forgive me, Walburga, but I couldn't come.

WALBURGA

And why not?

SPITTA

Because my mind was not at one with itself.

WALBURGA

You want to become an actor? Is that true? You're going to change professions?

SPITTA

What I'll be in the end may be left to God. But never a parson--never a country parson!

WALBURGA

Listen! I've had my fortune told from the cards.

SPITTA

That's nonsense, Walburga. You mustn't do that.

WALBURGA

I swear to you, Erich, that it isn't nonsense. The woman told me I was betrothed in secret and that my betrothed is an actor. Of course I laughed her to scorn. And immediately after that mama told me that you wanted to be an actor.

SPITTA

Is that a fact?

WALBURGA

It's true--every bit of it. And in addition the clairvoyant said that we would have a visitor who would cause us much trouble.

SPITTA

My father is coming to Berlin, Walburga, and it's undoubtedly true that the old gentleman will give us not a little trouble. Father doesn't know it, but my views and his have been worlds asunder for a long time. It didn't need these letters of his which seem actually to burn in my pocket and by which he answered my confession--it didn't need these letters to tell me that.

WALBURGA

An evil, envious, venomous star presided over our secret meeting here! Oh, how I used to admire my papa! And since that Sunday I blush for him every minute. And however much I try, I can't, since that day, look frankly and openly into his eyes.

SPITTA

Did you have differences with your father too?

WALBURGA

Oh, if it were nothing more than that! I was so proud of papa! And now I tremble to think of even your finding it out. You'd despise us!

SPITTA