Chapter 21

I'll scream! I'll tear open the windows! Mrs. Hassenreuter, they wants to rob a mother o' her child! That's my right that I'm the mother o' my child! Ain't that my right? Ain't that so, Mrs. Hassenreuter? They're surroundin' me! They wants to rob me o' my rights! Ain't it goin' to belong to me what I picked up like refuse, what was lyin' on rags half-dead, an' I had to rub it an' knead it all I could before it began to breathe an' come to life slowly? If it wasn't for me, it would ha' been covered with earth these three weeks!

HASSENREUTER

Mr. John, to play the part of an arbitrator between married people is not ordinarily my function. It's too thankless a task and one's experiences are, as a rule, too unhappy. But you should not permit your feeling of honour, justly wounded as, no doubt, it is, to hurry you into acts that are rash. For, after all, your wife is not responsible for her brother's act. Let her have the child! Don't increase the misery of it all by such hardness toward your wife as must hurt her most cruelly and unnecessarily.

MRS. JOHN

Paul, that child's like as if it was cut outa my own flesh! I bought that child with my blood. It ain't enough that all the world's after me an' wants to take it away from me; now you gotta join 'em an' do the same! That's the thanks a person gets! Why, it's like a pack o' hungry wolves aroun' me. You c'n kill me! But you can't touch my baby!

JOHN

I comes home, Mr. Hassenreuter, only this mornin'. I comes home with all my tools on the train, jolly as c'n be. I broke off all my connections in Hamburg. Even if you don' earn so much, says I to myself, you'd rather be with your family, an' take up your child in your arms a little, or maybe take it on your knee a little! That was about the way I was thinkin'!

MRS. JOHN

Paul! Here, Paul! [_She goes close up to him._] You c'n tear my heart out if you want to!

[_She stares long at him, then runs behind the partition, whence her loud weeping is heard._

_SELMA enters from the hall. She is dressed in mourning garments and carries a little wreath in her hand._

SELMA

What is I to do? You called me, Mr. John.

JOHN

Put on your cloak, Selma. Ax your mother if you c'n go an' take a trip with me to Hangelsberg. You'll earn a bit o' money doin' it. All you gotta do is to take my child on your arm an' come along with me.

SELMA

No, I ain' goin' to touch that child no more.

JOHN

Why not?

SELMA

No; I'm afraid, Mr. John! I'm that scared at the way mama an' the police lieutenant screamed at me.

MRS. JOHN

[_Appears._] Why did they scream at you?

SELMA

[_Crying vociferously._] Officer Schierke even slapped my face.

MRS. JOHN

Well, I'll see about that ... he oughta try that again.

SELMA

I can't tell why that Polish girl took my little brother away. If I'd known that my little brother was goin' to die, I'd ha' jumped at her throat first. Now little Gundofried's coffin stands on the stairs. I believe mama has convulsions an' is lyin' down in Quaquaro's alcove. An' me they wants to take to the charity organisation, Mrs. John.

[_She weeps._

MRS. JOHN

Then you c'n be reel happy. They can't treat you worse'n you was treated at home.

SELMA

An' I gotta go to court! An' maybe they'll take me to gaol!

MRS. JOHN

On account o' what?

SELMA

Because they says I took the child what the Polish girl had up in the loft an' carried it down to you.

HASSENREUTER

So a child actually was born up there.

SELMA

Certainly.

HASSENREUTER

In _whose_ loft?

SELMA

Why, where them actors lives! It ain't none o' my business! How is I to know anythin' about it? All I c'n say is ...

MRS. JOHN

You better hurry on about your business now, Selma! You got a clean conscience! You don' has to care for what people jabber.

SELMA

An' I don' want to betray nothin' neither, Mrs. John.

JOHN

[_Grasps SELMA, who is about to run away, and holds her fast._] Naw, you ain't goin'! Here you stays! The truth! "I don' want to betray nothin'," you says. You heard that, too, Mrs. Hassenreuter? An' Mr. Spitta an' the young lady here heard it too. The truth! You ain't goin' to leave this here spot before I don' know the rights o' this matter about Bruno an' his mistress, an' if you people did away with that child!

MRS. JOHN

Paul, I swear before God that I ain't done away with it!

JOHN

Well ...? Out with what you know, girl! I been seein' for a long time that there's been some secret scheming between you an' my wife. There ain't no use no more in all that winkin' an' noddin'. Is that child dead or alive?

SELMA

No, that child is alive all right.

HASSENREUTER

The one, you mean, that you carried down here under your apron or in some such way?

JOHN

If it's dead you c'n be sure that you an' Bruno'll both be made a head shorter'n you are!

SELMA

I'm tellin' you the child is alive.

HASSENREUTER

But you said at first that you hadn't brought down any child at all.

JOHN

An' you pretend to know nothin' o' that whole business, mother? [_MRS. JOHN stares at him; SELMA gazes helplessly and confusedly at MRS. JOHN._] Mother, you got rid o' the child o' Bruno an' that Polish wench an' then, when people came after it, you went an' substitooted that little crittur o' Knobbe's.

WALBURGA

[_Very pale and conquering her repugnance._] Tell me, Mrs. John, what happened on that day when I so foolishly took flight up into the loft at papa's coming? I'll explain that to you later, papa. On that occasion, as became clear to me later, I saw the Polish girl twice: first with Mrs. John and then with her brother.

HASSENREUTER

You, Walburga?

WALBURGA

Yes, papa. Alice Ruetterbusch was with you that day, and I had made an engagement to meet Erich here. He came to see you finally but failed to meet me because I kept hidden.

HASSENREUTER

I can't say that I have any recollection of that.

MRS. HASSENREUTER

[_To her husband._] The girl has really passed more than one sleepless night on account of this matter.

HASSENREUTER

Well, Mrs. John, if you are inclined to attach any weight to the opinion of a former jurist who exchanged the law for an artistic career only after having been plucked in his bar examination--in that case let me assure you that, under the circumstances, ruthless frankness will prove your best defense.

JOHN

Jette, where did you put that there child? The head detective told me--I jus' remember it now--that they're still huntin' aroun' for the child o' the dead woman! Jette, for God's sake, don't you have 'em suspect you o' layin' hands on that there newborn child jus' to get the proofs o' your brother's rascality outa the world!

MRS. JOHN

_Me_ lay hands on little Adelbert, Paul?

JOHN

Nobody ain't talkin' o' Adelbert here. [_To SELMA._] I'll knock your head off for you if you don' tell me this minute what's become o' the child o' Bruno an' the Polish girl!

SELMA

Why, it's behind your own partition, Mr. John!

JOHN

Where is it, Jette?

MRS. JOHN

I ain't goin' to tell that.

_The child begins to cry._

JOHN

[_To SELMA._] The truth! Or I'll turn you over to the police, y'understan'? See this rope? I'll tie you hand and foot!

SELMA

[_Involuntarily, in the extremity of her fear._] It's cryin' now! You know that child well enough. Mr. John.

JOHN

Me?

[_Utterly at sea he looks first at SELMA, then at HASSENREUTER. Suddenly a suspicion flashes upon him as he turns his gaze upon his wife. He believes that he is beginning to understand and wavers._

MRS. JOHN

Don't you let a low down lie like that take you in, Paul! It's all invented by the fine mother that girl has outa spite! Paul, why d'you look at me so?

SELMA

That's low of you, mother John, that you wants to make me out so bad now. Then I won't be careful neither not to let nothin' out! You know all right that I carried the young lady's child down here an' put it in the nice, clean bed. I c'n swear to that! I c'n take my oath on that!

MRS. JOHN

Lies! Lies! You says that my child ain't my child!

SELMA

Why, you ain't had no child at all, Mrs. John!

MRS. JOHN

[_Embraces her husband's knees._] Oh, that ain't true at all!

JOHN

You leave me alone, Henrietta! Don' dirty me with your hands!

MRS. JOHN

Paul, I couldn't do no different. I had to do that, I was deceived myself an' then I told you about it in my letter to Hamburg an' then you was so happy an' I couldn't disappoint you an' I thought: it's gotta be! We c'n has a child this way too an' then ...

JOHN

[_With ominous calmness._] Lemme think it over, Jette. [_He goes to the chest of drawers, opens a drawer and flings the baby linen and baby dresses that he finds therein into the middle of the room._] C'n anybody understan' how week after week, an' month after month, all day long an' half the nights she could ha' worked on this trash till her fingers was bloody?

MRS. JOHN

[_Gathers up the linen and the dresses in insane haste and hides them carefully in the table drawer and elsewhere._] Paul, don' do that! You c'n do anythin' else! It's like tearin' the last rag offa my naked body!

JOHN

[_Stops, grasps his forehead and sinks into a chair._] If that's true, mother, I'll be too ashamed to show my face again.

[_He seems to sink into himself, crosses his arms over his head and hides his face._

HASSENREUTER

Mrs. John, how could you permit yourself to be forced into a course of so much error and deception? You've entangled yourself in the most frightful way! Come, children! Unhappily there is nothing more for us to do here.

JOHN

[_Gets up._] You might as well take me along with you, sir.

MRS. JOHN

Go on! Go on! I don' need you!

JOHN

[_Turning to her, coldly._] So you bargained for that there kid someway an' when its mother wanted it back you got Bruno to kill her?

MRS. JOHN

You ain't no husband o' mine! How could that be! You been bought by the police! You took money to give me up to my death! Go on, Paul, you ain't human even! You got poison in your eyes an' teeth like wolves'! Go on an' whistle so they'll come an' take me! Go on, I says! Now I see the kind o' man you is an' I'll despise you to the day o' judgment!

[_She is about to run from the room when policeman SCHIERKE and QUAQUARO appear._

SCHIERKE

Hold on! Nobody can't get outa this room.

JOHN

Come right in, Emil! You c'n come in reel quiet, officer. Everything in order here an' all right.

QUAQUARO

Don't get excited, Paul! This here don' concern you!

JOHN

[_With rising rage._] Did you laugh, Emil?

QUAQUARO

Man alive, why should I? Only Mr. Schierke is to take that there little one to the orphan house in a cab.

SCHIERKE

Yessir! That's right. Where is the child?

JOHN

How is I to know where all the brats offa junk heaps that witches use in their doin's gets to in the end? Watch the chimney! Maybe it flew outa there on a broomstick.

MRS. JOHN

Paul!--Now it _ain't_ to live! No, outa spite! Now it don' _has_ to live! Now it's gotta go down under the ground with me!

[_With lightning-like rapidity she has run behind the partition and reappears at once with the child and makes for the door. HASSENREUTER and SPITTA throw themselves in front of the desperate woman, intent on saving the child._

HASSENREUTER

Stop! I'll interfere now! I have the right to do so at this point! Whomever the little boy may belong to--so much the worse if its mother has been murdered--it was born on my premises! Forward, Spitta! Fight for it, my boy! Here your propensities come properly into play! Go on! Careful! That's it! Bravo! Be as careful as though it were the Christ child! Bravo! That's it! You yourself are at liberty, Mrs. John. We don't restrain you. You must only leave us the little boy.

_MRS. JOHN rushes madly out._

SCHIERKE

Here you stays!

MRS. HASSENREUTER

The woman is desperate. Stop her! Hold her!

JOHN

[_With a sudden change._] Look out for mother! Mother! Stop her! Catch hold o' her! Mother! Mother!

_SELMA, SCHIERKE and JOHN hurry after MRS. JOHN. SPITTA, HASSENREUTER, MRS. HASSENREUTER and WALBURGA busy themselves about the child, which lies on the table._

HASSENREUTER

[_Carefully wrapping the infant._] The horrible woman may be desperate for all I care! But for that reason she needn't destroy the child.

MRS. HASSENREUTER

But, dearest papa, isn't it quite evident that the woman has pinned her love, silly to the point of madness as it is, to this very infant? Thoughtless and harsh words may actually drive the unhappy creature to her death.

HASSENREUTER

I used no harsh words, mama.

SPITTA

An unmistakable feeling assures me that the child has only now lost its mother.

QUAQUARO

That's true. Its father ain't aroun' an' don' want to have nothin' to do with it. He got married yesterday to the widow of a man who owned a merry-go-roun'! Its mother was no better'n she should be! An' if Mrs. Kielbacke was to take care of it, it'd die like ten outa every dozen what she boards. The way things has come aroun' now--it'll have to die too.

HASSENREUTER

Unless our Father above who sees all things has differently determined.

QUAQUARO

D'you mean Paul, the mason? Not now! No sir! I knows him! He's a ticklish customer where his honour is concerned.

MRS. HASSENREUTER

Just look how the child lies there! It's incomprehensible! Fine linen--even lace! Neat and sweet as a doll! It makes one's heart ache to think how suddenly it has become an utterly forlorn and forsaken orphan.

SPITTA

Where I judge in Israel ...

HASSENREUTER

You would erect a monument to Mrs. John! It may well be that many an element of the heroic, much that is hiddenly meritorious, lurks in these obscure fates and struggles. But not even Kohlhaas of Kohlhaasenbrueck with his mad passion for justice could fight his way through! Let us use practical Christianity! Perhaps we could permanently befriend the child.

QUAQUARO

You better keep your hands offa that!

HASSENREUTER

Why?

QUAQUARO

Unless you're crazy to get rid o' money an' are anxious for all the worries an' the troubles you'll have with the public charities an' the police an' the courts.

HASSENREUTER

For such things I have no time to spare, I confess.

SPITTA

Won't you admit that a genuinely tragic fatality has been active here?

HASSENREUTER

Tragedy is not confined to any class of society. I always told you that!

_SELMA, breathless, opens the outer door._

SELMA

Mr. John! Mr. John! Oh, Mr. John!

MRS. HASSENREUTER

Mr. John isn't here. What do you want, Selma?

SELMA

Mr. John, you're to come out on the street!

HASSENREUTER

Quiet, quiet now! What is the matter?

SELMA

[_Breathlessly._] Your wife ... your wife ... The whole street's crowded ... 'buses an' tram-cars ... nobody can't get through ... her arms is stretched out ... your wife's lyin' on her face down there.

MRS. HASSENREUTER

Why, what has happened?

SELMA

Lord! Lord God in Heaven! Mrs. John has killed herself.

THE END