Chapter 16

_I_ despise anyone? Dear child, I can't think of anything less fitting for me! Look here: I'll set you an example in the matter of frankness. A sister of mine, six years older than I, was governess in a noble family. Well, a misfortune happened to her and ... when she sought refuge in the house of her parents, my Christian father put her out of doors! I believe he thought that Jesus would have done the same. And so my sister gradually sank lower and lower and some day we can go and visit her in the little suicides' graveyard near Schildhorn where she finally found rest.

WALBURGA

[_Puts her arms around SPITTA._] Poor boy, you never told me a word of that.

SPITTA

Circumstances have changed now and I speak of it. I shall speak of it to papa too even if it causes a breach between us.--You're always surprised when I get excited, and that I can't control myself when I see some poor devil being kicked about, or when I see the rabble mistreating some poor fallen girl. I have actual hallucinations sometimes. I seem to see ghosts in bright daylight and my own sister among them!

_PAULINE PIPERCARCKA enters, dressed as before. Her little face seems to have grown paler and prettier._

PAULINE

Good mornin'.

MRS. JOHN

[_From behind the partition._] Who's that out there?

PAULINE

Pauline, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

Pauline? I don't know no Pauline.

PAULINE

Pauline Pipercarcka, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

Who? Oh, well then you c'n wait a minute, Pauline.

WALBURGA

Good-bye, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

[_Emerges from behind the partition and carefully draws the hangings._] That's right. I got somethin' to discuss with this here young person. So you young folks c'n see about getting out.

_SPITTA and WALBURGA leave hastily. MRS. JOHN locks the door behind them._

MRS. JOHN

So it's you, Pauline? An' what is it you want?

PAULINE

What should I be wantin'? Somethin' jus' drove me here! Couldn't wait no longer. I has to see how everythin' goes.

MRS. JOHN

How what goes? What's everythin'?

PAULINE

[_With a somewhat bad conscience._] Well, if it's well; if it's gettin' on nicely.

MRS. JOHN

If what's well? If what's gettin' on nicely?

PAULINE

You oughta know that without my tellin'.

MRS. JOHN

_What_ ought I to know without your tellin' me?

PAULINE

I wants to know if anythin's happened to the child!

MRS. JOHN

What child? An' what could ha' happened? Talk plainly, will you? There ain't a word o' your crazy chatter that anybody c'n understand!

PAULINE

I ain't sayin' nothin' but what's true, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

Well, what is it?

PAULINE

My child ...

MRS. JOHN

[_Gives her a terrific box on the ear._] Say that again an' I'll bang my boots about your ears so that you'll think you're the mother o' triplets. An now: get outa here! An' don' never dare to show your face here again!

PAULINE

[_Starts to go. She shakes the door which is locked._] She's beaten me! Help! Help! I don' has to--stand that! No! [_Weeping._] Open the door! She's maltreated me, Mrs. John has!

MRS. JOHN

[_Utterly transformed, embraces PAULINE, thus restraining her._] Pauline! For God's sake, Pauline! I don' know what could ha' gotten into me! You jus' be good now an' quiet down an' I'll beg your pardon. What d'you want me to do? I'll get down _on_ my knees if you wants me to! Anythin'! Pauline! Listen! Let me do _some_thin'!

PAULINE

Why d'you go 'n hit me in the face? I'm goin' to headquarters and say as how you slapped me in the face. I'm goin' to headquarters to give notice!

MRS. JOHN

[_Thrusts her face forward._] Here! You c'n hit me back--- right in the face! Then it's all right; then it's evened up.

PAULINE

I'm goin' to headquarters ...

MRS. JOHN

Yes, then it's evened up. You jus' listen to what I says: Don't you see it'll be evened up then all right! What d'you want to do? Come on now an' hit me!

PAULINE

What's the good o' that when my cheek is swollen?

MRS. JOHN

[_Striking herself a blow on the cheek._] There! Now my cheek is swollen too. Come on, my girl, hit me an' don' be scared!--- An' then you c'n tell me everythin' you got on your heart. In the meantime I'll go an' I'll cook for you an' me, Miss Pauline, a good cup o' reel coffee made o' beans--none o' your chicory slop, so help me!

PAULINE

[_Somewhat conciliated._] Why did you has to go an' be so mean an' rough to a poor girl like me, Mrs. John?

MRS. JOHN

That's it'--that's jus' what I'd like to know my own self! Come on, Pauline, an' sit down! So! It's all right, I tells you! Sit down! It's fine o' you to come an' see me! How many beatin's didn't I get from my poor mother because sometimes I jus' seemed to go crazy an' not be the same person no more. She said to me more'n onct: Lass, look out! You'll be doin' for yourself some day! An' maybe she was right; maybe it'll be that way. Well now, Pauline, tell me how you are an' how you're gettin' along?

PAULINE

[_Laying down bank-notes and handfuls of silver, without counting them, on the table._] Here is the money: I don't need it.

MRS. JOHN

I don' know nothin' about no money, Pauline.

PAULINE

Oh, you'll know about the money all right! It's been jus' burnin' into me, that it has! It was like a snake under my pillow ...

MRS. JOHN

Oh, come now ...

PAULINE

Like a snake that crept out when I went to sleep. An' it tormented me an' wound itself aroun' me an' squeezed me so that I screamed right out an' my landlady found me lyin' on the bare floor jus' like somebody what's dead.

MRS. JOHN

You jus' let that be right now, Pauline. Take a bit of a drink first of all! [_She pours out a small glassful of brandy._] An' then come an' eat a bite. It was my husband's birthday yesterday.

[_She gets out some coffee-cake of which she cuts an oblong piece._

PAULINE

Oh, no, I don' feel like eatin'.

MRS. JOHN

That strengthens you; that does you good; you oughta eat that! But I is pleased to see, Pauline, how your fine constitootion helped you get back your strength so good.

PAULINE

But now I want to have a look at it, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

What's that? What d'you want to have a look at?

PAULINE

If I could ha' walked I'd ha' been here long ago. I want to see now what I come to see!

_MRS. JOHN, whose almost creeping courtesies have been uttered with lips aquiver with fear, pales ominously and keeps silent. She goes to the kitchen cabinet, wrenches the coffee handmill out and pours beans into it. She sits down, squeezes the mill between her knees, grasps the handle, and stares with a consuming expression of nameless hatred over at PAULINE._

MRS. JOHN

Eh? Oh, yes! What d'you want to see? What d'you want to see now all of a sudden? That what you wanted to throttle with them two hands o' yours, eh?

PAULINE

Me?

MRS. JOHN

D'you want to lie about it? _I'll_ go and give notice about you!

PAULINE

Now you've tormented me an' jabbed at me an' tortured me enough, Mrs. John. You followed me up; you wouldn't leave me no rest where I went. Till I brought my child into the world on a heap o' rags up in your loft. You gave me all kinds o' hopes an' you scared me with that rascal of a feller up there! You told my fortune for me outa the cards about my intended an' you baited me an' hounded me till I was most crazy.

MRS. JOHN

An' that's what you are. Yes, you're as crazy as you c'n be. _I_ tormented you, eh? Is that what I did? I picked you up outa the gutter! I fetched you outa the midst of a blizzard when you was standin' by the chronometer an' stared at the lamplighter with eyes that was that desperate scared! You oughta seen yourself! An' I hounded you, eh? Yes, to prevent the police an' the police-waggon an' the devil hisself from catchin' you! I left you no rest, eh? I tortured you, did I? to keep you from jumpin' into the river with the child in your womb! [_Mocking her._] "I'll throw myself into the canal, mother John! I'll choke the child to death! I'll kill the little crittur with my hat pin! I'll go an' run to where its father plays the zither, right in the midst o' the saloon, an' I'll throw the dead child at his feet!" That's what you said; that's the way you talked--all the blessed day long and sometimes half the night too till I put you to bed an' petted you an' stroked you till you went to sleep. An' you didn't wake up again till next day on the stroke o' twelve, when the bells was ringin' from all the churches, Yes, that's the way I scared you, an' then gave you hope again, an' didn't give you no peace! You forgot all that there, eh?

PAULINE

But it's my child, Mrs. John ...

MRS. JOHN

[_Screams._] You go an' get your child outa the canal!

[_She jumps up and walks hastily about the room, picking up and throwing aside one object after another._

PAULINE

Ain't I goin' to be allowed to see my child even?

MRS. JOHN

Jump into the water an' get it there! Then you'll have it! I ain't keepin' you back. God knows!

PAULINE

All right! You c'n slap me, you c'n beat me, you c'n throw things at my head if you wants to. Before I don' know where my child is an' before I ain't seen it with my own eyes, nothin' an' nobody ain't goin' to get me away from this place.

MRS. JOHN

[_Interrupting her._] Pauline, I put it out to nurse!

PAULINE

That's a lie! Don't I hear it smackin' its lips right behind that there partition. [_The child behind the partition begins to cry. PAULINE hastens toward it. She exclaims with pathetic tearfulness, obviously forcing the note of motherhood a little._] Don' you cry, my poor, poor little boy! Little mother's comin' to you now!

[_MRS. JOHN, almost beside herself, has sprung in front of the door, thus blocking PAULINE'S way._

PAULINE

[_Whining helplessly but with clenched fists._] Lemme go in an' see my child!

MRS. JOHN

[_A terrible change coming over her face._] Look at me, girl! Come here an' look me in the eye!--D'you think you c'n play tricks on a woman that looks the way I do? [_PAULINE sits down still moaning._] Sit down an' howl an' whine till ... till your throat's swollen so you can't give a groan. But if you gets in here--then you'll be dead or I'll be dead an' the child--he won't be alive no more neither.

PAULINE

[_Rises with some determination._] Then look out for what'll happen.

MRS. JOHN

[_Attempting to pacify the girl once more._] Pauline, this business was all settled between us. Why d'you want to go an' burden yourself with the child what's my child now an' is in the best hands possible? What d'you want to do with it? Why don't you go to your intended? You two'll have somethin' better to do than listen to a child cryin' an' takin' all the care an' trouble he needs!

PAULINE

No, that ain't the way it is! He's gotta marry me now! They all says so--Mrs. Keilbacke, when I had to take treatment, she said so. They says I'm not to give in; he has to marry me. An' the registrar he advised me too. That's what he said, an' he was mad, too, when I told him how I sneaked up into a loft to have my baby! He cried out loud that I wasn't to let up! Poor, maltreated crittur--that's what he called me an' he put his hand in his pocket an' gave me three crowns! All right. So we needn't quarrel no more, Mrs. John. I jus' come anyhow to tell you to be at home to-morrow afternoon at five o'clock. An' why? Because to-morrow an official examiner'll come to look after things here. I don't has to worry myself with you no more....

MRS. JOHN

[_Moveless and shocked beyond expression._] What? You went an' give notice at the public registry?

PAULINE

O' course? Does I want to go to gaol?

MRS. JOHN

An' what did you tell the registrar?

PAULINE

Nothin' but that I give birth to a boy. An' I was so ashamed! Oh my God, I got red all over! I thought I'd just have to go through the floor.

MRS. JOHN

Is that so? Well, if you was so ashamed why did you go an' give notice?

PAULINE

'Cause my landlady an' Mrs. Kielbacke, too, what took me there, didn't give me no rest.

MRS. JOHN

H-m. So they knows it now at the public registry?

PAULINE

Yes; they had to know, Mrs. John!

MRS. JOHN

Didn't I tell you over an' over again?

PAULINE

You gotta give notice o' that! D'you want me to be put in gaol for a investergation?

MRS. JOHN

I told you as how I'd give notice.

PAULINE

I axed the registrar right off. Nobody hadn't been there.

MRS. JOHN

An' what did you say exackly?

PAULINE

That his name was to be Aloysius Theophil an' that he was boardin' with you.

MRS. JOHN

An' to-morrow an officer'll be comin' in.

PAULINE

He's a gentlemen from the guardian's office. What's the matter with that? Why don't you keep still an' act sensible. You scared me most to death a while ago!

MRS. JOHN

[_As if absent-minded._] That's right. There ain't nothin' to be, done about that now. An' there ain't so much to that, after all, maybe.

PAULINE

All right. An' now c'n I see my child, Mrs. John?

MRS. JOHN

Not to-day. Wait till to-morrow, Pauline.

PAULINE

Why not to-day?

MRS. JOHN

Because no good'd come of it this day. Wait till to-morrow, five o'clock in the afternoon.

PAULINE

That's it. My landlady says it was written that way, that a gentleman from the city'll be here to-morrow afternoon five o'clock.

MRS. JOHN

[_Pushing PAULINE out and herself going out of the room with her, in the same detached tone._] All right. Let him come, girl.

_MRS. JOHN has gone out into the hall for a moment. She now returns without PAULINE. She seems strangely changed and absent-minded. She takes a few hasty steps toward the door of the partition; then stands still with an expression of fruitless brooding on her face. She interrupts herself in this brooding and runs to the window. Having reached it she turns and on her face there reappears the expression of dull detachment. Slowly, like a somnambulist, she walks up to the table and sits down beside it, leaning her chin on her hand. SELMA KNOBBE appears in the doorway._

SELMA

Mother's asleep, Mrs. John, an' I'm that hungry. Might I have a bite o' bread?

_MRS. JOHN rises mechanically and cuts a slice from the loaf of bread with the air of one under an hypnotic influence._

SELMA

[_Observing MRS. JOHN'S state of mind._] It's me! What's the matter, Mrs. John? Whatever you do, don't cut yourself with the bread knife.

MRS. JOHN

[_Lets the loaf and the bread-knife slip involuntarily from her hand to the table. A dry sobbing overwhelms her more and more._] Fear!--Trouble!--You don' know nothin' about that!

[_She trembles and grasps after some support._

THE THIRD ACT

_The same decoration as in the first act. The lamp is lit. The dim light of a hanging lamp illuminates the passage._

_HASSENREUTER is giving his three pupils, SPITTA, DR. KEGEL and KAeFERSTEIN instruction in the art of acting. He himself is seated at the table, uninterruptedly opening letters and beating time to the rhythm of the verses with a paper cutter. In front of him stand, facing each other, KEGEL and KAeFERSTEIN on one side, SPITTA on the other, thus representing the two choruses in Schiller's "Bride of Messina." The young men stand in the midst of a diagram drawn with chalk on the floor and separated, like a chess-board, into sixty-four rectangles. On the high stool in front of the office desk WALBURGA is sitting. Waiting in the background stands the house steward QUAQUARO, who might be the manager of a wandering circus and, in the capacity of athlete, its main attraction. His speech is uttered in a guttural tenor. He wears bedroom slippers. His breeches are held up by an embroidered belt. An open shirt, fairly clean, a light jacket, a cap now held in his hand, complete his attire._

DR. KEGEL AND KAeFERSTEIN

[_Mouthing the verses sonorously and with exaggerated dignity._]

"Thee salute I with reverence, Lordliest chamber, Thee, my high rulers' Princeliest cradle, Column-supported, magnificent roof. Deep in its scabbard ..."

HASSENREUTER

[_Cries in a rage._] Pause! Period! Period! Pause! Period! You're not turning the crank of a hurdy-gurdy! The chorus in the "Bride of Messina" is no hand-organ tune! "Thee salute I with reverence!" Start over again from the beginning, gentleman! "Thee salute I with reverence, Lordliest chamber!" Something like that, gentlemen! "Deep in its scabbard let the sword rest." Period! "Magnificent roof." I meant to say: Period! But you may go on if you want to.

DR. KEGEL AND KAeFERSTEIN

"Deep in its scabbard Let the sword rest, Fettered fast by your gateway Moveless may lie Strife's snaky-locked monster. For ..."

HASSENREUTER

[_As before._] Hold on! Don't you know the meaning of a full stop, gentlemen? Haven't you any knowledge of the elements? "Snaky-haired monster." Period! Imagine that a pile is driven there! You've got to stop, to pause. There must be silence like the silence of the dead! You've got to imagine yourself wiped out of existence for the moment, Kaeferstein. And then--out with your best trumpeting chest-notes! Hold on! Don't lisp, for God's sake. "For ..." Go on now! Start!

DR. KEGEL AND KAeFERSTEIN

"For this hospitable house's Inviolable threshold Guardeth an oath, the Furies' child...."

HASSENREUTER

[_Jumps up, runs about and roars._] Oath, oath, oath, oath!!! Don't you know what an oath is, Kaeferstein? "Guardeth an oath!!--the Furies' child." This oath is said to be the child of the Furies, Dr. Kegel! You've got to use your voice! The audience, to the last usher, has got to be one vast quivering gooseflesh when you say that! One shiver must run through every bone in the house! Listen to me: "For this house's ... threshold Guardeth an oath!!! The Furies' child, The fearfullest of the infernal deities!"--Go ahead! Don't repeat these verses. But you can stop long enough to observe that an oath and a Munich beer radish are, after all, two different things.

SPITTA

[_Declaims._]

"Ireful my heart in my bosom burneth...."

HASSENREUTER

Hold on! [_He runs up to SPITTA and pushes and nudges the latter's arms and legs in order to produce the desired tragic pose._]--First of all, you lack the requisite statuesqueness of posture, my dear Spitta. The dignity of a tragic character is in nowise expressed in you. Then you did not, as I expressly desired you to do, advance your right foot from the field marked ID into that marked IIC! Finally, Mr. Quaquaro is waiting; so let us interrupt ourselves for a moment. So; now I'm at your service, Mr. Quaquaro. That is to say, I asked you to come up because, in making my inventory, it became clear that several cases and boxes cannot be found or, in other words, have been stolen. Now, before lodging information with the authorities which, of course, I am determined to do, I wanted first to get your advice. I wanted to do that all the more because, in place of the lost cases, there was found, in a corner of the attic, a very peculiar mess--a find that could appropriately be sent to Dr. Virchow. First there was a blue feather-duster, truly prehistoric, and an inexpressible vessel, the use of which, quite harmless in itself, is equally inexpressible.

QUAQUARO

Well, sir, I can climb up there if you want me to.

HASSENREUTER

Suppose you do that. Up there you'll meet Mrs. John, whom the find in question has disquieted even more than it has me. These three gentlemen, who are my pupils, won't be persuaded that something very like a murder didn't take place up there. But, if you please, let's not cause a scandal!

KAeFERSTEIN

When something got lost in my mother's shop in Schneidemuehl, it was always said that the rats had eaten it. And really, when you consider the number of rats and mice in this house--I very nearly stepped on one on the stairs a while ago--why shouldn't we suppose that the cases of costumes were devoured in the same way. Silk is said to be sweet.

HASSENREUTER

Very excellent! Very good! You're relieved from the necessity of indulging in any more notion-shopkeepers' fancies, my good Kaeferstein! Ha, ha, ha! It only remains for you to dish up for us the story of the cavalry man Sorgenfrei, who, according to your assertion, when this house was still a cavalry barracks, hanged himself--spurred and armed--in my loft. And then the last straw would be for you to direct our suspicions toward him.

KAeFERSTEIN

You can still see the very nail he used.

QUAQUARO

There ain't a soul in the house what don't know the story of the soldier Sorgenfrei who put an end to hisself with a rope somewhere under the rooftree.

KAeFERSTEIN

The carpenter's wife downstairs and a seamstress in the second story have repeatedly seen him by broad daylight nodding out of the attic window and bowing down with military demeanour.

QUAQUARO

A corporal, they says, called the soldier Sorgenfrei a windbag an' gave him a blow outa spite. An' the idjit took that to heart.

HASSENREUTER

Ha, ha, ha! Military brutalities and ghost stories! That mixture is original, but hardly to our purpose. I assume that the theft, or whatever it was, took place during those eleven or twelve days that I spent on business in Alsace. So look the matter over and have the goodness, later, to report to me.

_HASSENREUTER turns to his pupils. QUAQUARO mounts the stairs to the loft and disappears behind the trap-door._

HASSENREUTER

All right, my good Spitta: Fire away!

_SPITTA recites simply according to the sense and without any tragic bombast._

"Ireful my heart in my bosom burneth, My hand is ready for sword or lance, For unto me the Gorgon turneth My foeman's hateful countenance. Scarce I master the rage that assails me. Shall I salute him with fair speech? Better, perchance, my ire avails me? Only the Fury me affrighteth, Protectress of all within her reach, And God's truce which all foes uniteth."

HASSENREUTER

[_Who has sat down, supports his head on his hand and listens resignedly. Not until SPITTA has ceased speaking for some moments does he look up, as if coming to himself._] Are you quite through, Spitta? If so, I'm much obliged!--You see, my dear fellow, I've really gotten into a deuce of a situation as far as you are concerned: either I tell you impudently to your face that I consider your method of elocution excellent--and in that case I'd be guilty of a lie of the most contemptible kind: or else I tell you that I consider it abominable and then we'd get into another beastly row.

SPITTA

[_Turning pale._] Yes, all this stilted, rhetorical stuff is quite foreign to my nature. That's the very reason why I abandoned theology. The preacher's tone is repulsive to me.

HASSENREUTER

And so you would like to reel off these tragic choruses as a clerk of court mumbles a document or a waiter a bill of fare?

SPITTA

I don't care for the whole sonorous bombast of the "Bride of Messina."

HASSENREUTER

I wish you'd repeat that charming opinion.

SPITTA

There's nothing to be done about it, sir. Our conceptions of dramatic art diverge utterly, in some respects.

HASSENREUTER

Man alive, at this particular moment your face is a veritable monogram of megalomania and impudence! I beg your pardon, but you're my pupil now and no longer the tutor of my children. Your views and mine! You ridiculous tyro! You and Schiller! Friedrich Schiller! I've told you a hundred times that your puerile little views of art are nothing but an innate striving toward imbecility!

SPITTA

You would have to prove that to me, after all.

HASSENREUTER