Chapter 13

_Enter, the_ SECRETARY.

SECRETARY.

Good day!

CLARA (_seizes a chair to keep from falling_).

He! Oh, if only _he_ had not come back!

SECRETARY. Your father is not at home?

CLARA.

No!

SECRETARY.

I bring you good news. Your brother--No, Clara, I cannot talk to you in this formal way. All these tables, chairs, and cupboards that I know so well--Good day, old friend!

[_He nods to a cup-board._]

How are you? You have not changed a bit!--around which we used to romp as children--it seems to me they will put their heads together and deride me as a fool, unless I quickly assume another tone. I must "thou" you, as I used to do! If you do not like it, just say to yourself: The big boy is dreaming, I will awaken him, I will step in front of him and draw myself up to my full height [_With gestures_], and let him see that it is no longer a little child that stands before him--[_He points to a scratch on the door_]--that shows how big you were at eleven!--but a very proper, grown-up girl, who could reach the sugar when it is upon the sideboard! Surely you remember! That was the place, the firm fortress, where it was safe from us even without being locked up. We used to amuse ourselves by slapping flies, when it stood there, because we could not endure to see them flying around happily and enjoying what we ourselves were unable to reach.

CLARA.

I should think people would forget about such things when they had hundreds and thousands of books to study.

SECRETARY.

Indeed they do forget it! To be sure, what does one not forget over Justinian and Gaius? Small boys who persistently resist their A B C's know very well why they do it; they have a presentiment that if they do not apply themselves too hard to the primer they will never have to struggle with the Bible. But it is a downright shame! People deceive the innocent souls! They are shown the red rooster with the basket full of eggs on the last page, so that of their own accord they say: "Ah!" And then there is no more holding back; they go tearing down the hill to Z, and so forth and so forth, until all of a sudden they find themselves in the midst of the _Corpus Juris_, and are horrified when they realize what a wilderness the accursed twenty-four letters have enticed them into--the letters, which, in the beginning, formed themselves, in a merry dance, only into nice-tasting and nice-smelling words such as "cherry" and "rose."

CLARA.

And [_Absent-mindedly, and without interest_]--what happens then?

SECRETARY.

That depends upon the difference of temperament. Some work themselves through. Those usually come forth into daylight again after three or four years, but looking somewhat thin and pale; however, one must not blame them for that; I myself am one of that kind. Others lie down in the middle of the forest; they intend merely to rest themselves, but they seldom get up again. I myself have a friend who has been drinking his beer for three years already in the shade of the _Lex Julia_; he selected the place on account of its name--it recalls pleasant memories. Still others give up in despair and turn back; those are the stupid ones; people let them out of one thicket only on condition that they will run at full speed into another. And then there are some who are still worse, and who don't get anywhere!

[_To himself._]

How one chatters when one has something in his mind and does not know how to bring it out!

CLARA.

Everything is bright and cheerful today; that's because it is such beautiful weather.

SECRETARY.

Yes, in weather like this the owls fall out of their nests, the bats kill themselves because they feel the devil has created them, the mole burrows so deep into the earth that he cannot find his way out again and must pitifully suffocate unless he bores through to the other side and emerges again in America. Today every ear of corn shoots up twice as high, and every poppy grows twice as red as usual, even if only out of shame at not having been so at first. Shall man remain behind? Shall he defraud the dear Lord of the only reward which His world offers Him--a happy face and a bright eye, which mirrors and at the same time transfigures all this gloriousness? Truly, when I see one of these recluses sneaking out of his door in the morning, his brow furrowed with wrinkles, and staring at the sky as if it were a vault of blotting-paper, I often think to myself: It is going to rain soon; God will have to let down the curtain of clouds, so that that sour face will not irritate Him. They ought to take legal action against fellows like that on the ground that they are thwarters of merry parties and destroyers of harvest weather. How are you going to render thanks for your life if not by living? Sing joyously, bird, or else you will not deserve your voice!

CLARA.

Oh, that is true, so true! It almost makes me cry!

SECRETARY.

It was not meant for you. That for eight days you have been breathing more heavily than you used to, I well understand--I know your father. But, God be praised! I can make your heart free again, and for that very purpose I am here. You shall see your brother again this very evening, and people shall point their fingers, not at him, but at those who cast him into prison. Does that deserve a kiss, a sisterly kiss, if it cannot be any other kind? Or shall we play blindman's buff for it?--If I do not catch you in ten minutes, I am to go away without the kiss and take a box on the ear into the bargain.

CLARA (_to herself_).

I feel as if I had suddenly grown to be a thousand years old, and time were standing still with me. I can go neither backwards nor forwards! Oh, all this brazen sunshine and cheerfulness round about me!

SECRETARY.

You do not answer me. To be sure, I forgot--you are engaged. Oh, girl! Why did you do that to me? And yet have I any right to complain? She is like all that is dear and good, and all that is dear and good should have made me think of her. And yet to me she was for years as if she no longer existed in the world! For that reason she--If it only were a fellow before whom one had to cast down one's eyes! But this Leonard--

CLARA (_suddenly, when she hears the name_).

I must go to him. That is just it--I am no longer the sister of a thief!--Oh, God! what shall I do? Leonard will, he must! He needs only not to be a fiend! Everything will be as it used to be [_Shudders_]--as it used to be!

[_To the SECRETARY._]

Do not be offended, Frederick!--Why are my legs so heavy all of a sudden?

SECRETARY.

You will--

CLARA.

To Leonard! Where else should I go? Only that one road lies before me in this world!

SECRETARY.

You love him, then! Well--

CLARA (_wildly_).

Love him? It is either he or death! Does anybody wonder that I choose him? I would not do it had I only myself to consider!

SECRETARY.

He or death? Girl, thus speaks Despair, or--

CLARA.

Do not make me frantic! Do not mention that word again! You! It is you I love! There! I cry it out to you as if I were already wandering on the other side of the grave, where no one blushes any more, where cold and naked forms glide past one another, because the fearful, holy presence of God has entirely consumed in every one all thought of others.

SECRETARY.

Me? Still me? Clara, I divined it when I saw you out in the garden.

CLARA.

Did you? Oh, the other too!

[_Gloomily, as if she were alone._]

He stepped up in front of me--he or I!--Oh, my heart, my accursed heart! In order to prove to him, prove to myself, that it was not so, or to stifle it if it were so, I did what now [_Breaks out into tears_]--God in Heaven! I would have pity on myself, were I Thou, and Thou I!

SECRETARY.

Clara, be my wife! I came to look once more into your eyes in the old way. Had you not understood the look I should have gone away again without speaking. Everything that I am and have I now offer to you. It is little, but it may grow to be more. I should have been here long ago, but your mother was sick, and then she died.

CLARA (_laughs crazily_).

SECRETARY.

Take courage, girl! The fellow has your word--that worries you. And, to be sure, it is a damnable thing! How could you--

CLARA.

Oh, ask me everything that conspires to drive a poor girl crazy! Scorn and derision from all sides when you went to the University, and did not let me hear from you.--"She still thinks of him!" "She thinks that child's play was meant seriously!" "Does she receive any letters from him?"--And then, too, my mother: "Stay with people of your class!" "Pride never succeeds!" "Leonard is a very nice fellow; everybody is surprised that you look at him over your shoulder so!" And added to all the rest, my own heart: "If he has forgotten you, show him that you too--" Oh, God!

SECRETARY.

I am to blame. I realize it. Well, what is difficult is not necessarily impossible. I will get him to release you. Perhaps--

CLARA.

Release me? There!

[_Throws LEONARD'S letter to him._]

SECRETARY (_reads_).

As cashier, I--your brother--thief--very sorry--but out of consideration for my office, I cannot help it--[_To CLARA._] He wrote you that on the very day your mother died? For he adds his condolence on her sudden death!

CLARA.

I suppose so!

SECRETARY.

The Devil take him! Great God, the cats, snakes and other monsters which, so to speak, slipped through Thy fingers at Creation, so delighted Beelzebub that he imitated Thy patterns--but he finished them off better than Thou didst; he put them in a human skin, and now they stand in rank and file with the rest of Thy humanity, and one does not recognize them until they begin to scratch and sting!

[_To CLARA._]

But it is well, indeed it is fine!

[_He tries to embrace her._]

Come! Forever! With this kiss--

CLARA (_sinks into his arms_).

No, not forever! Only to keep me from falling--but no kiss!

SECRETARY.

Girl, you do not love him, you have your release--

CLARA (_gloomily, straightening herself up again_).

And yet I must go to him, I must throw myself on my knees before him and cry out: "Behold my father's white hairs! Take me!"

SECRETARY.

Unhappy girl! Do I understand you?

CLARA.

Yes!

SECRETARY.

No man can overlook that! Think of having to cast down one's eyes before a man into whose face one would like to spit!

[_He presses CLARA wildly to him._]

Poor, poor girl!

CLARA.

Go now, go!

SECRETARY (_to himself, brooding_).

Or else one would have to shoot the dog who knows of it. Oh, that he had some courage about him! That he would stand up and fight! That one could force him to it! I should not be afraid of missing him!

CLARA.

I beg of you!

SECRETARY (_going_).

As soon as it grows dark!

[_He returns and grasps CLARA's hand._]

Girl, you stand before me--[_He turns away._]

Thousands of your sex would have kept it a secret with shrewd cunning, and only in an hour of sweet forgetfulness would have confided it coaxingly to the ear and soul of their husbands. I feel what I owe you!

CLARA (_alone_).

Oh, my heart, lock yourself up! Crush yourself together so that not another drop of that blood may escape which would kindle again the congealing life in my veins! For a moment a feeling akin to hope arose in you again! Now for the first time I am conscious of it!

[_Laughs._]

No! No man can, overlook that! And if--could you yourself overlook it? Would you have had the courage to grasp a hand that--No! no! Such evil courage you would not have! You would with your own hands have to lock yourself into your hell, if any one tried to open the door from the outside. You are forever--Oh, alas, that the pain is intermittent, that the piercing agony sometimes ceases! That is the reason why it lasts so long! The tortured man imagines he is resting when the torturer merely pauses to get his breath. It is like a drowning man's catching his breath on the waves, when the current that has drawn him under spews him forth again only to seize him once more and draw him down. He has nothing but a double, futile fight for life!--

Well, Clara?--Yes, father, I am going! Your daughter will not drive you to self-destruction! Soon I shall be the wife of that man, or--God! No! I do not go begging for happiness--it is misery, the deepest misery that I beg for! You will give me my misery!--Away! Where is the letter?

[_She takes it._]

Three wells you pass on your way to him! You must not halt at any of them, Clara--you have not yet the right to do that!

[_Exit._]