Chapter 19

[_Bangs his fist on the table._] Well, damn it all, it'd be a idjit's trick to have said that.

SPITTA

Permit me, but she did say that. I take it you're talking of the incident with the two women that took place upstairs at manager Hassenreuter's?

JOHN

Did you see that? Was you there when the Knobbe woman an' the other one was disputin' about the little crittur?

SPITTA

Yes, certainly. I was present throughout.

SELMA

I tell you all I knows. An' I couldn't say no more if officer Schierke or the tall police lieutenant hisself was to examine me for hours an' hours. I don' know nothin'. An' what I don' know I can't tell.

JOHN

The lieutenant examined you?

SELMA

They wanted to take mama to the lock-up because people went an' lied. They said that our little baby was starved to death.

JOHN

Aha! 's that so? Well, Selma, s'pose you go over there an' cook a little coffee.

_SELMA goes over to the stove where she prepares coffee for JOHN. JOHN himself goes up to his working table, takes up the compass. Then he draws lines, using a piece of rail as a ruler._

SPITTA

[_Conquering his diffidence and shame._] I really hoped to meet your wife here, Mr. John. Someone told me that your wife has been in the habit of lending out small sums to students against security. And I am somewhat embarrassed.

JOHN

Maybe that's so. But that's mother's business, Mr. Spitta.

SPITTA

To be quite frank with you, if I don't get hold of some money by to-night, the few books and other possessions I have will be attached for rent by my landlady and I'll be put into the street.

JOHN

I thought your father was a preacher.

SPITTA

So he is. But for that very reason and because I don't want to become a preacher, too, he and I had a terrible quarrel last night. I won't ever accept a farthing from him any more.

JOHN

[_Busy over his drawing._] Then it'll serve him right if you starve or break your neck.

SPITTA

Men like myself don't starve, Mr. John. But if, by any chance, I were to go to the dogs--I shouldn't greatly care.

JOHN

No one wouldn't believe how many half-starved nincompoops there is among you stoodents. But none o' you wants to put your hand to some reel work.--[_The distant sound of thunder is heard. JOHN looks out through the window._]--Sultry day. It's thunderin' now.

SPITTA

Yon can't say that of me, Mr. John, that I haven't been willing to do real work. I've given lessons, I've addressed envelopes for business houses! I've been through everything and in all these attempts I've not only toiled away the days but also the nights. And at the same time I've ground away at my studies like anything!

JOHN

Man alive, go to Hamburg an' let 'em give you a job as a bricklayer. When I was your age I was makin' as much as twelve crowns a day in Hamburg.

SPITTA

That may be. But I'm a brain worker.

JOHN

I know that kind.

SPITTA

Is that so? I don't think you do know that kind, Mr. John. I beg you not to forget that your Socialist leaders--your Bebels and your Liebknechts--are brain workers too.

JOHN

All right. Come on, then! Let's have some breakfast first. Things look mighty different after a man's had a good bite o' breakfast. I s'pose you ain't had any yet, Mr. Spitta?

SPITTA

No, frankly, not to-day.

JOHN

Well, then the first thing is to get somethin' warm down your throat.

SPITTA

There's time enough for that.

JOHN

I don' know. You're lookin' pretty well done up. An' I passed the night on the train too. [_To SELMA, who has brought in a little linen bag filed with rolls._] Hurry an' bring another cup over here. [_He has seated himself at his ease on the sofa, dips a roll into the coffee and begins to eat and drink._]

SPITTA

[_Who has not sat down yet._] It's really pleasanter to pass a summer night in the open if one can't sleep anyhow. And I didn't sleep for one minute.

JOHN

I'd like to see the feller what c'n sleep when he's outa cash. When a man's down in the world he has most company outa doors too. [_He suddenly stops chewing._]--Come here, Selma, an' tell me exackly just how it was with that there girl an' the child that she took outa our room here.

SELMA

I don' know what to do. Everybody axes we that. Mama keeps axin' me about it all day long; if I seen Bruno Mechelke; if I know who it was that stole the costumes from the actor's loft up there! If it goes on that way ...

JOHN

[_Energetically._] Girl, why didn't you cry out when the gentleman and the young lady took your little brother outa his carridge?

SELMA

I didn't think nothin' 'd happen to him excep' that he'd get some clean clothes.

JOHN

[_Grasps SELMA by the wrist._] Well, you come along with me now. We'll go over an' see your mother.

_JOHN and SELMA leave the room. As soon as they are gone SPITTA begins to eat ravenously. Soon thereafter WALBURGA appears. She is in great haste and strongly excited._

WALBURGA

Are you alone?

SPITTA

For the moment, yes. Good morning, Walburga.

WALBURGA

Am I too late? It was only by the greatest cunning, by the greatest determination, by the most ruthless disregard of everything that I succeeded in getting away from home. My younger sister tried to bar the door. Even the servant girl! But I told mama that if they wouldn't let me out through the door, they might just as well bar the window, else I'd reach the street through it, although it's three stories high. I flew. I'm more dead than alive. But I am prepared for anything. How was it with your father, Erich?

SPITTA

We have parted. He thought that I was going out to eat husks with the swine as the Prodigal Son did, and told me not to take it into my mind ever again to cross the threshold of my father's house in my future capacity as acrobat or bareback rider, as he was pleased to express it. His door was not open to such scum! Well, I'll fight it down! Only I'm sorry for my poor, dear mother.--You can't imagine with what abysmal hatred a man of his kind considers the theatre and everything connected with it. The heaviest curse is not strong enough to express his feelings. An actor is, to his mind, _a priori_, the worst, most contemptible scamp imaginable.

WALBURGA

I've found out, too, how papa discovered our secret.

SPITTA

My father gave him your picture.

WALBURGA

O Erich, if you knew with what awful, with what horrible names papa overwhelmed me in his rage. And I had to be silent through it all. I might have said something that would have silenced all his lofty moral discourses and made him quite helpless before me. I was almost on the point of saying it, too. But I felt so ashamed for him! My tongue refused to form the words! I couldn't say it, Erich! Finally mama had to intervene. He struck me! For eight or nine hours he locked me in a dark alcove--to break my stubbornness, as he put it, Erich. Well, he won't succeed! He won't break it!

SPITTA

[_Taking WALBURGA into his arms._] You dear, brave girl! I am beginning to see now what I possess in having your love, what a treasure you are! [_Passionately._] And how beautiful you look, Walburga!

WALBURGA

Don't! Don't!--I trust you, Erich; that's all.

SPITTA

And you shall not be disappointed, dearest. You see, a man like me in whom everything is still in a ferment, who feels that he was born to achieve something great and significant but something which, for the present, he can make sufficiently clear neither to himself nor to the world--such a man has, at twenty, every man's hand against his and is a burden and a laughing-stock to all the world. But believe me: it will not always be so! The germs of the future lie in us! The soil is being loosened even now by the budding shoots! Unseen to-day, _we_ are the harvest of the future! We _are_ the future! And the time will come when all this great and beautiful world will be ours!

WALBURGA

Ah, go on, Erich! What you say heals my heart.

SPITTA

Walburga, I did more, last night! I flung straight out into my father's face, just as I felt it, my accusation of the crime committed against my sister. And that made the break definite and unbridgeable. He said stubbornly: He had no knowledge of such a daughter as I was describing. Such a daughter had no existence in his soul, and it seemed to him that his son would also soon cease to exist there. O these Christians! O these servants of the good shepherd who took the lost lamb with double tenderness into his arms! O thou good Shepherd, how have your words been perverted; How have your eternal truths been falsified into their exact contrary. But to-day when I sat amidst the flash of lightning and the roll of thunder in the _Tiergarten_ and certain Berlin hyaenas were prowling about me, I felt the crushed and restless soul of my sister close beside me. How many nights, in her poor life, may she not have sat shelterless on such benches, perhaps on this very bench in the _Tiergarten_, in order to consider in her loneliness, her degradation, her outcast estate, how, two thousand years after the birth of Christ, this most Christian world is drenched with Christianity and with the love of its fellow-men! But whatever she thought, this is what I think; the poor harlot, the wretched sinner who is yet above the righteous, who is weighed down by the sins of the world, the poor outcast and her terrible accusation shall never die in my soul! And into this flame of our goals we must cast all the wretchedness, all the lamentations of the oppressed and the disinherited! Thus shall my sister stay truly alive, Walburga, and effect noble ends before the face of God through the ethical impulse that lends wings to my soul, and that will be more powerful than all the evil, heartless parson's morality in the world.

WALBURGA

You were in the _Tiergarten_ all night, Erich? Is that the reason why your hands are so icy cold, and why you look so utterly worn out? Erich, you must take my purse! No, please, you must! Oh, I assure you what is mine is yours! If you don't feel that, you don't love me. Erich, you're suffering! If you don't take my few pennies, I'll refuse all nourishment at home! By heaven, I'll do it, I'll do it, unless you're sensible about that!

SPITTA

[_Chokes down his rising tears and sits down._] I'm nervous; I'm overwrought.

WALBURGA

[_Puts her purse into his pocket._] And you see, Erich, this is the real reason why I asked you to meet me here. To add to all my misfortunes I received yesterday this summons from the court.

SPITTA

[_Regards a document which she hands to him._] Look here? What's behind this, Walburga?

WALBURGA

I'm quite sure that it must have some connection with the stolen goods upstairs in the loft. But it does disquiet me terribly. If papa were to discover this ... oh, what would I do then?

_MRS. JOHN enters, carrying the child in her arms. She is dressed for the street, and looks dusty and harassed._

MRS. JOHN

[_Frightened, suspicious._] Well, what d'you want here? Is Paul home yet? I jus' went down in the street a little with the baby.

[_She carries the child behind the partition._

WALBURGA

Erich, do mention the summons to Mrs. John!

MRS. JOHN

Why, Paul's at home. There's his things!

SPITTA

Miss Hassenreuter wanted very much to talk to you. She received a summons to appear in court. It's probably about those things that were stolen from the loft. You know.

MRS. JOHN

[_Emerging from behind the partition._] What's that? You reelly got a summons, Miss Walburga? Well, then you better look out! I ain't jokin'. An' maybe you're thinkin' o' the black man!

SPITTA

What you're saying there is quite incomprehensible, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

[_Taking up her domestic tasks._] Did you hear that 'way out in the Lauben settlement, beyond the Halle Gate, the lightenin' struck a man an' a woman an' a little girl o' seven this mornin'. It was right under a tall poplar tree.

SPITTA

No, Mrs. John, we didn't hear that.

MRS. JOHN

The rain's splashin' down again.

_One hears a shower of rain beginning to fall._

WALBURGA

[_Nervously._] Come, Erich, let's get out into the open anyhow.

MRS. JOHN

[_Speaking louder and louder in her incoherent terror._] An' I tell you another thing: I was talking to the woman what was struck by lightenin' jus' a short time before. An' she says--now listen to me, Mr. Spitta--if you takes a dead child what's lyin' in its carridge an' pushes it out into the sun ... but it's gotta be summer an' midday ... it'll draw breath, it'll cry, it'll come back to life!--You don't believe that, eh? But I seen that with my own eyes!

[_She circles about the room in a strange fashion, apparently becoming quite oblivious of the presence of the two young people._

WALBURGA

Look, here, Mrs. John is positively uncanny! Let's go!

MRS. JOHN

[_Speaking still louder._] You don' believe that, that it'll come to life again, eh? I tell you, its mother c'n come an' take it. But it's gotta be nursed right off.

SPITTA

Good-bye, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

[_In strange excitement accompanies the two young people to the door. Speaking still more loudly._] You don' believe that! But it's the solemn truth, Mr. Spitta!

_SPITTA and WALBURGA leave the room._

MRS. JOHN

[_Still holding the door in her hand calls out after them._] Anybody that don' believe that don' know nothin' o' the whole secret that I discovered.

_The foreman-mason JOHN appears in the door and enters at once._

JOHN

Why, there you are, mother! I'm glad to see you. What's that there secret you're talkin' about?

MRS. JOHN

[_As though awakening, grasps her head._] Me?--Did I say somethin' about a secret?

JOHN

That you did unless I'm hard o' hearin'. An' it's reelly you unless it's a ghost.

MRS. JOHN

[_Surprised and frightened._] Why d'you think I might be a ghost?

JOHN

[_Pats his wife good-naturedly on the back._] Come now, Jette, don't bite me. I'm reel glad, that I am, that you're here again with the little kid! [_He goes behind the partition._] But it's lookin' a little measly.

MRS. JOHN

The milk didn't agree with him. An' that's because out there in the country the cows is already gettin' green fodder. I got milk here from the dairy company that comes from dry fed cows.

JOHN

[_Reappears in the main room._] That's what I'm sayin'. Why did you have to go an' take the child on the train an' outa town. The city is healthier. That's my notion.

MRS. JOHN

I'm goin' to stay at home now, Paul.

JOHN

In Hamburg everythin' is settled, too. To-day at noon I'm goin' to meet Karl an' then he'll tell me when I c'n start workin' for the new boss!--Look here: I brought somethin' with me, too.

[_He takes a small child's rattle from his breeches pocket and shakes it._

MRS. JOHN

What's that?

JOHN

That's somethin' to bring a bit o' life into the place, 'cause it's pretty quiet inside in Berlin here! Listen how the kid's crowin'. [_The child is heard making happy little noises._] I tell you, mother, when a little kid goes on that way--there ain't nothin' I'd take for it!

MRS. JOHN

Have you seen anybody yet?

JOHN

No!--Leastways only Quaquaro early this mornin'.

MRS. JOHN

[_In timid suspense._] Well ...?

JOHN

Oh, never mind! Nothin! There was nothin' to it.

MRS. JOHN [_As before._] What did he say?

JOHN

What d'you think he said? But if you're bound to know--'tain't no use talkin' o' such things Sunday mornin'--he axed me after Bruno again.

MRS. JOHN

[_Pale and speaking hastily._] What do they say Bruno has done again?

JOHN

Nothin'. Here, come'n drink a little coffee, Jette, an' don' get excited! It ain't your fault that you got a brother like that. We don't has to concern ourselves about other people.

MRS. JOHN

I'd like to know what an old fool like that what spies aroun' all day long has always gotta be talkin' about Bruno.

JOHN

Jette, don' bother me about Bruno--You see ...aw, what's the use ... might as well keep still!... But if I was goin' to tell you the truth, I'd say that it wouldn't surprise me if some day Bruno'd come to a pretty bad end right out in the yard o' the gaol, too--a quick end. [_MRS. JOHN sits down heavily beside the table. She grows grey in the face and breathes with difficulty._] Maybe not! Maybe not! Don't take it to heart so right off!--How's the sister?

MRS. JOHN

I don' know.

JOHN

Why, I thought you was out there visitin' her?

MRS. JOHN

[_Looks at him absently._] Where was I?

JOHN

Well, you see, Jette, that's the way it is with you women! You're jus' shakin', but oh no--you don' want to go to no doctor! An' it'll end maybe, by your havin' to take to your bed. That's what comes o' neglectin' nature.

MRS. JOHN

[_Throwing her arms about JOHN'S neck._] Paul, you're goin' to leave me! For God's sake, tell me right out that it's so! Don' fool me aroun' an' cheat me! Tell me right out!

JOHN

What's the matter with you to-day, Henrietta?

MRS. JOHN

[_Pulling herself together._] Don' attend to my fool talk. I ain't had no rest all night--that's it. An' then I got up reel early, an' anyhow, it ain't nothin' but that I'm a bit weak yet.

JOHN

Then you better lie down flat on your back an' rest a little. [_MRS. JOHN throws herself on the sofa and stares at the ceiling._] Maybe you'd better comb yourself a bit afterwards, Jette!--It musta been mighty dusty on the train for you to be jus' covered all over with sand the way you are! [_MRS. JOHN does not answer but continues staring at the ceiling._] I must go an' bring that there little feller into the light a bit.

[_He goes behind the partition._

MRS. JOHN

How long has we been married, Paul?

JOHN

[_Plays with the rattle behind the partition. Then answers_:] That was in eighteen hundred and seventy-two, jus' as I came back from the war.

MRS. JOHN

Then you came to father, didn't you? An' you assoomed a grand position an' you had the Iron Cross on the left side o' your chest.

JOHN

[_Appears, swinging the rattle and carrying the child on its pillow. He speaks merrily._] That's so, mother. An' I got it yet. If you want to see it, I'll pin it on.

MRS. JOHN

[_Still stretched out on the sofa._] An' then you came to me an' you said that I wasn't to be so busy all the time ... goin' up an' down, runnin' upstairs an' downstairs ... that I was to be a bit more easy-goin'.

JOHN

An' I'm still sayin' that same thing to-day.

MRS. JOHN

An' then you tickled me with your moustache an' kissed me right behind my left ear! An' then ...

JOHN

Then it didn't take long for us to agree, eh?

MRS. JOHN

Yes, an' I laughed an', bit by bit, I looked at myself in every one o' your brass buttons. I was lookin' different then! An' then you said ...

JOHN

Well, mother, you're a great one for rememberin' things, I must say!

MRS. JOHN

An' then you said: When we has a boy, an' that'll be soon, he c'n follow the flag into the field too "with God for King an' country."

JOHN

[_Sings to the child, playing with the rattle._]

"To heaven he turns his glances bold Whence gaze the hero sires of old: The Rhine, the Rhine, the German Rhine!"...

Well, an' now that I has a little feller like that I ain't half so keen on sendin' him to the war to be food for powder.

[_He retires with the child behind the partition._

MRS. JOHN

[_Still staring at the ceiling._] Paul, Paul! Seems as if all that was a hundred years ago!

JOHN

[_Reappears from behind the partition without the child._] Not as long ago as all that.

MRS. JOHN

Look here, what d'you think? How would it be if you was to take me an' the child an' go to America?

JOHN

Now listen here, Jette! What's gotten into you, anyhow? What is it? Looks as if there was nothin' but ghosts aroun' me here! You know I has a good easy temper! When the workmen heave bricks at each other, I don't even get excited. An' what do they say? Paul has a comfortable nature. But now: what's this here? The sun's shinin'; it's bright daylight! I can't _see_ nothin'; that's a fac'. But somethin's titterin' an' whisperin' an' creepin' aroun' in here. Only when I stretches out my hand I can't lay hold on nothin'! Now I wants to know what there is to this here story about the strange girl what came to the room. Is it true?

MRS. JOHN

You heard, Paul, that the young lady didn't come back no more. An' that shows you, don't it ...

JOHN

I hear what you're sayin'. But your lips is fair blue an' your eyes look as if somebody was tormentin' you.

MRS. JOHN

[_Suddenly changing her attitude_] Yes. Why do you leave me alone year in an' year out, Paul? I sits here like in a cave an' I ain't got a soul to who I c'n say what I'm thinkin'. Many a time I've sat here an' axed myself why I works an' works, why I skimps an' saves to get together a few crowns, an' find good investments for your earnin's an' try to add to 'em. Why? Was all that to go to strangers? Paul, it's you who's been the ruin o' me!

[_She lays her head on the table and bursts out in sobs._

_Softly and with feline stealth BRUNO MECHELKE enters the room at this moment. He has on his Sunday duds, a sprig of lilac in his hat and a great bunch of it in his hand. JOHN drums with his fingers on the window and does not observe him._

MRS. JOHN

[_Has gradually realised BRUNO'S presence as though he were a ghost._] Bruno, is that you?

BRUNO

[_Who has recognised JOHN in a flash, softly._] Sure, it's me, Jette.

MRS. JOHN

Where d'you come from? What d'you want?

BRUNO

I been dancin' all night, Jette! You c'n see, can't you, that I'm dam' jolly?

JOHN

[_Has been staring steadily at BRUNO. A dangerous pallor has overspread his face. He now goes slowly to a small cupboard, takes out an old army revolver and loads it. MRS. JOHN does not observe this._] You! Listen! I'll tell you somethin'--somethin' you forgot, maybe. There ain't no reason on God's earth why I shouldn't pull this here trigger! You scoundrel! You ain't fit to be among human bein's! I told you ... las' fall it was ... that I'd shoot you down if I ever laid eyes on you in my home again! Now go ... or I'll ... shoot. Y'understan'?

BRUNO

Aw, I ain't scared o' your jelly squirter.

MRS. JOHN

[_Who observes that JOHN, losing control of himself, is slowly approaching BRUNO with the weapon and raising it._] Then kill me too, Paul. 'Cause he's my brother.

JOHN

[_Looks at her long, seems to awaken and change his mind._] All right. [_He replaces the revolver carefully in the cupboard._] You're right, anyhow, Jette! It's hell, Jette, that your name's got to be on the tongue of a crittur like that. All right. The powder'd be too good, too. This here little pistol's tasted the blood o' two French cavalry men! Heroes they was! An' I don't want it to drink no dirt.

BRUNO

I ain' doubtin' that there's dirt in your head! An' if it hadn't been that you board with my sister here I'd ha' let the light into you long ago, you dirt eater, so you'd ha' bled for weeks.

JOHN

[_With tense restraint._] Tell me again, Jette, that it's your brother.

MRS. JOHN

Go, Paul, will you? I'll get him away all right! You know's well as I that I can't help it now that Bruno's my own brother.

JOHN

All right. Then I'm one too many here. You c'n bill an' coo. [_He is dressed for the street as it is and hence proceeds to go. Close by BRUNO he stands still._] You scamp! You worried your father into his grave. Your sister might better ha' let you starve behind some fence rather'n raise you an' litter the earth with another criminal like you. I'll be back in half an hour! But I won't be alone. I'll have the sergeant with me!

[_JOHN leaves by the outer door, putting on his slouch hat._

_So soon as JOHN has disappeared BRUNO turns and spits out after him toward the door._

BRUNO

If I ever gets hold o' you!

MRS. JOHN

Why d'you come, Bruno? Tell me, what's the matter?

BRUNO

Tin's what you gotta give me. Or I'll go to hell.

MRS. JOHN

[_Locks and latches the outer door._] Wait till I close the door! Now, what's the matter? Where d'you come from? Where has you been?

BRUNO