SCENE VII.--_The graveyard, in a clear November night. On bush and

tree rustles the withered foliage. Jagged clouds speed by under the moon._--MELCHIOR _clambers over the wall above_ MORITZ’S _grave--set much farther up-stage than in Scene II--and jumps down, knocking over_ MORITZ’S _cross_.

MELCHIOR--The pack won’t follow me into this place.--While they’re searching brothels, I can catch my breath and see how far I’ve gotten....

Coat in tatters, pockets empty,--even from the most harmless I have something to fear.--During the day I must try to get farther on in the wood....

I have kicked down a cross.--The little flowers would have been frozen to-night!--All around the earth is bare....

In the realm of the dead!

To climb out of the skylight was not so hard as the road before me.--This was the only thing that I was not prepared for....

I hang above the abyss--everything swallowed up and gone!--Oh, that I had stayed back there!

Why she thru my fault?--Why not the guilty one!--Inscrutable Providence!--I would have broken stones and gone hungry...!

What is left now to keep me straight?--Crime will follow on crime. I am abandoned to the mire. Not even the strength left to wind things up....

I was not bad!--I was not bad!--I was not bad!...

Never has mortal wandered over graves so filled with envy!--Pah! I should never screw up the courage!--Oh, if insanity would but seize on me--this very night!

I must look over there among the latest ones.--The wind whistles past every stone with a different note--a heart-chilling symphony! The rotten wreaths blow apart and dangle on their long strings piecemeal round the marble crosses--a forest of scarecrows!--Scarecrows on all the graves, each more horrible than the next, house-high, putting the devils to flight.--The golden letters glitter so coldly.... The weeping willow moans, and gropes with gigantic fingers over the inscriptions!...

A praying cherub--a bare slab----

Now a cloud casts its shadow down here.--How fast it flies, crying!--like a host pursued it rushes up in the east.--Not a star in the sky!----

Evergreen round the plot?--Evergreen?--a girl?...

And I am her murderer!--I am her murderer!--Despair is left me--only despair!--I may not cry here. I must get away--away! [MORITZ STIEFEL, _with his head under his arm, comes stumping over the graves_.]

MORITZ--One moment, Melchior. It may be long before the chance recurs. You’ve no idea how everything depends on the time and place....

MELCHIOR--Where did =you= come from?

MORITZ--From over there--from the wall. You knocked down my cross. I lie by the wall.--Give me your hand, Melchior....

MELCHIOR--You are =not= Moritz Stiefel!

MORITZ--Give me your hand. I’m certain sure you’ll thank me. It’ll never be so easy for you again. This is a rarely fortunate meeting.--I came up especially----

MELCHIOR--Don’t you sleep?

MORITZ--Not what you call sleeping.--We sit on church steeples, on lofty gables,--wherever we want....

MELCHIOR--Ever restless?

MORITZ--For fun.--We scoot around young birch-trees, round lonely forest shrines. Over gatherings of people we hover, over sites of misfortune, over gardens and festival places. In the dwelling-houses we crouch in the chimney-corner and behind the bed-curtains.--Give me your hand!--We have little to do with each other but we see and hear everything that happens in the world. We know that everything is folly that men strive for and achieve,--and laugh at it.

MELCHIOR--What good does that do?

MORITZ--What’s it need to do?--We are out of reach--nor good nor evil can touch us any more. We stand high, high above the earth-folk, each for himself alone. We have nothing to do with each other because that bores us. None of us still has anything at heart whose loss he could feel. We are equally immeasurably far above both grief and rejoicing. We are content with ourselves, and that is all!--The living we despise beyond words: we can hardly pity them. They amuse us with their doings, because, being alive, they are not really to be pitied. We smile, each to himself, over their tragedies, and meditate.--Give me your hand! If you will give me your hand, you will fall over with laughing at the emotion with which you give me your hand....

MELCHIOR--Doesn’t that disgust you?

MORITZ--We stand too high above it for that. We smile!--At my funeral I was among the mourners. I got a lot of entertainment from it. That is sublimity, Melchior! I made more noise than any of them, and slipped off to the wall to hold my sides for laughter. Our unapproachable sublimity is in fact the only standpoint that lets us assimilate the dirt.... I suppose I was laughed at too before I soared aloft!

MELCHIOR--I have no desire to laugh at myself.

MORITZ-- ... The living as such are truly not to be pitied.--I admit I should never have thought so either. And now it’s beyond my comprehension how one can be so naïve. Now I see thru the fraud so clearly that not the tiniest cloud is left.--How can you hesitate, Melchior? Give me your hand. In a turn of the head you’ll be standing sky-high above yourself.--Your living is a grievous omission, a sin of negligence....

MELCHIOR--Can you dead forget?

MORITZ--We can do everything. Give me your hand! We can be sorry for the young, for the way they take their timidity for idealism, and the old, whose stoical superiority comes near to breaking their hearts. We see the Kaiser shake for dread of a street-song, and the beggar for dread of the trump of doom. We look straight thru the actor’s make-up, and see the poet in the dark don his. We behold the contented man in his beggary, and in the weariness of his burdened soul the capitalist. We observe people in love, and see them blush before each other in the presentiment that they are frauds defrauded. Parents we see bringing children into the world in order that they may call to them “How fortunate you are to have such parents!”--and we see the children go forth and do the like. We can eavesdrop on the innocent in their lonely cravings, and the five-groschen drab at her reading of Schiller.... God and the devil we see making fools of themselves before each other, and cherish in our hearts the unshakable conviction that both are drunk.... A quiet--a content--Melchior!--You need only reach me your little finger.--You may get to be snow-white before such a favorable moment appears to you again.

MELCHIOR--If I shake hands on it, Moritz, it will be from self-contempt. I see myself proscribed. What lent me courage, lies in the grave. I can no longer think myself worthy of noble impulses--and perceive nothing, nothing, that might yet stand in the way of my descent.--I am, in my own opinion, the most detestable creature in the universe....

MORITZ--What are you waiting for? [A MUFFLED GENTLEMAN _enters, and addresses_ MELCHIOR.]

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--The fact is, you’re shivering with hunger. You’re in no sort of condition to decide.--[_To_ MORITZ.] Go.

MELCHIOR--Who are you?

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--That will come out.--[_To_ MORITZ.] Vanish!--What have you here to do?--Why haven’t you got your head on?

MORITZ--I shot myself.

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--Then stay where you belong! You’re altogether done with. Don’t bother us here with your charnel stench. Inconceivable--why, just look at your fingers! Pah, what the devil! they’re crumbling down already!

MORITZ--Don’t send me away, please!...

MELCHIOR--Who are you, good sir?

MORITZ--Don’t send me away, I beg you! Let me take part in things here a little while yet. I will not oppose you in anything.--It’s so chilly down there!

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--Then why do you brag about =sublimity=?--You know well enough that that’s humbug--sour grapes! Why do you wilfully =lie=, you coinage of the brain?--If you value the favor so highly, stay for all of me; but look out for any more hot-air boasting, my friend, and kindly keep your rotting hand out of the game!

MELCHIOR--Are you going to tell me who you are, or not?

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--No.--I propose that you entrust yourself to me. First, I should see to your getting away.

MELCHIOR--You are--my father?!

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--Would you not recognize your worthy father by his voice?

MELCHIOR--No.

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--The gentleman, your father, is seeking comfort at this moment in the capable arms of your mother.--I open the world to you. Your momentary want of balance springs from your wretched situation. With a hot supper in your belly, you can laugh at it.

MELCHIOR--[_To himself._] They can’t both be the devil!--[_Aloud._] After what I have been guilty of, no hot supper can give my peace of mind back to me!

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--That depends on the supper!--So much I can tell you: that the little girl would have borne her child first rate! She was perfectly built. She simply succumbed to Mother Schmidtin’s abortives.--I will take you among men. I will give you an opportunity to expand your horizon beyond your wildest dreams. I will make you acquainted with everything interesting, without exception, that the world has to offer.

MELCHIOR--Who are you? Who are you?--I can’t consign myself to a person I don’t know!

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--You’ll never learn to know me unless you entrust yourself to me.

MELCHIOR--Do you think so?

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--Fact!--And anyway you have no choice.

MELCHIOR--I can at any moment give my friend here my hand.

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--Your friend is a charlatan. Nobody smiles, who has one penny left in his pocket. The sublimated humorist is the wretchedest, most pitiable creature in creation!

MELCHIOR--Let the humorist be what he will. Tell me who =you= are, or I’ll give the humorist my hand!

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--Well?!

MORITZ--He is right, Melchior. I have been putting on airs. Let him treat you, and make full use of him. No matter how muffled he may be, he is, at least, that!

MELCHIOR--Do you believe in God?

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--That depends.

MELCHIOR--Do you want to tell me who discovered gunpowder?

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--Berthold Schwarz--alias Constantine Anklitzen--round 1330, a Franciscan monk at Freiburg-im-Breisgau.

MORITZ--What would I give to have had him let it alone!

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--You would merely have hanged yourself!

MELCHIOR--What do you think about morality?

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--Look here!--am I your schoolboy?

MELCHIOR--Ask me what you are!

MORITZ--Don’t quarrel!--Please don’t quarrel! What good will come of that?--What are we sitting, one dead and two live men, here together in the churchyard at two in the morning for, if we want to fall out like tipplers!--It was for my pleasure that I was allowed to remain and witness the proceedings. If you want to quarrel, I’ll take my head under my arm and go.

MELCHIOR--You’re still the same old runaway!

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--The ghost isn’t so wrong. One shouldn’t ignore one’s dignity.--By morality I understand the real product of two imaginary quantities. The imaginary quantities are should and would.[7] The product is called morality, and its reality is unquestionable.

MORITZ--Oh, if you had only told me that sooner! My morality harried me to death. For my dear parents’ sake I clutched at deadly weapons. “Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land.” In my case the text has phenomenally stultified itself!

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--Indulge in no illusions, my dear friend. Your precious parents would no more have died of it than you. Strictly speaking, they would in fact have stormed and blustered merely from the necessities of health.

MELCHIOR--You may be right so far:--but I can tell you positively, good sir, that if I had given Moritz my hand just now without more ado, the blame would have rested simply and solely on my morality.

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--But that’s just the reason you’re =not= Moritz!

MORITZ--All the same I don’t believe the difference is so material--at least, not so conclusive, that you might not perchance have met me too, esteemed Unknown, as I trotted that time through the alder-thickets with the pistol in my pocket.

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--And don’t you remember me? Why, even at the final moment, you still were standing between =Death= and =Life=.--But here, in my opinion, is not exactly the place to prolong so deeply probing a debate.

MORITZ--It is indeed growing cold, gentlemen!--Though they did dress me in my Sunday suit, I have on under it neither shirt nor drawers.

MELCHIOR--Good-bye, dear Moritz. Where this person is taking me, I don’t know; but he is somebody----

MORITZ--Don’t lay it up against me, Melchior, that I tried to make away with you! It was old attachment.--I’d be willing to have to wail and weep all my life if I could now accompany you out of here once more!

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--In the end, each has his share--=you= the consoling consciousness of having nothing--=thou= the enervating doubt of everything.--[_To_ MORITZ.] Farewell.

MELCHIOR--Farewell, Moritz! Accept my cordial thanks for appearing to me once more. How many glad, untroubled days have we not spent with one another in these fourteen years! I promise you, Moritz, let chance what will,--tho in the years to come I turn ten times a different man,--be my path upwards or downwards,--you I shall never forget----

MORITZ--Thanks, thanks, dear friend.

MELCHIOR--And when some day I am an old man, grizzle-haired, then perhaps it will be =you= that once again stand closer to me than all those living with me.

MORITZ--I thank you.--Luck to your journey, gentlemen.--Lose no more time!

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--Come, child! [_He links arms with_ MELCHIOR, _and makes off with him over the graves_.]

MORITZ--Here I sit now with my head in my arm.--The moon hides her face, unveils again, and looks not a hair the wiser.--So now I’ll turn back to my little plot, straighten the cross up that the madcap kicked so recklessly down on me, and when all is in order I’ll lay myself out on my back again, warm myself with decay, and smile....

CURTAIN

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Asperula odorata._

[2] In the original, P.... and V...., with four dots, not five, after the V.

[3] Literally, a cut-up noodle.

[4] Sonnenstich means sunstroke: one pictures a round, red face enringed with bristling gray hair, and an explosive manner.

[5] This sentence, in the lack of any authentic stage-direction, remains dark. “The Langenscheidt” is evidently a book, but why is it here suddenly referred to, or what is done with it?

[6] Note Wedekind’s subtlety: Mr. Gabor doesn’t remember Wendla’s precise age, and makes her as old as he can, to minimize Melchior’s transgression,--well before the days of Freud.

[7] In German, _sollen_ and _wollen_, verbs representing =duty= and =desire=.

EARTH-SPIRIT

(ERDGEIST)

A Tragedy in Four Acts

“I was created out of ranker stuff By Nature, and to the earth by Lust am drawn. Unto the spirit of evil, not of good, The earth belongs. What deities send to us From heaven are only universal goods; Their light gives gladness, but makes no man rich; In their domain no pelf is seized and held. The stone of price, all-treasured gold, from false And evil-natured powers must be won, Who riot underneath the light of day. Not without sacrifice their favor is gained, And no man liveth who from serving them Hath extricated undefiled his soul.”

[Spoken by Wallenstein in Schiller’s _Wallenstein’s Death_, Act II.]

CHARACTERS

DR. SCHÖN, _newspaper owner and editor_ ALVA, _his son, a writer_ DR. GOLL, M.D. SCHWARZ, _an artist_ PRINCE ESCERNY, _an African explorer_ ESCHERICH, _a reporter_ SCHIGOLCH, _a beggar_ RODRIGO, _an acrobat_ HUGENBERG, _a schoolboy_ FERDINAND, _a coachman_ LULU COUNTESS GESCHWITZ HENRIETTE, _a servant_

PROLOGUE

[_At rise is seen the entrance to a tent, out of which steps an animal-tamer, with long, black curls, dressed in a white cravat, a vermilion dress-coat, white trousers and white top-boots. He carries in his left hand a dog-whip and in his right a loaded revolver, and enters to the sound of cymbals and kettledrums._]

Walk in! Walk in to the menagerie, Proud gentlemen and ladies lively and merry. With avid lust or cold disgust, the very Beast without Soul bound and made secondary To human genius, to stay and see! Walk in, the show’ll begin!--As customary, One child to each two persons comes in free.

Here battle man and brute in narrow cages, Where one in mockery his long whip lashes, The other, growling as when thunder rages, Against the man’s throat murderously dashes,-- Where now the crafty, now the strong prevails, Now man, now beast, against the flooring quails. The animal rears,--the human on all fours! One ice-cold look of dominance--The beast submissive bows before that glance, And the proud heel upon his neck adores.

Bad are the times! Ladies and gentlemen Who once before my cage in thronging crescents Crowded, now honor operas, and then Ibsen, with their so highly valued presence. My boarders here are so in want of fodder That they reciprocally devour each other. How well off at the theater is a player, Sure of the meat upon his ribs, no matter How terrible the hunger round his platter, And colleagues’ inner cupboards yawning bare!-- But if to heights of art we would aspire, We may not reckon merit by its hire.

What see you, whether in light or sombre plays? =House-animals=, whose morals all must praise, Who vent pale spites in vegetarian ways, And revel in a singsong to-and-fro Just like those others--in the seats below. This hero has a head by one dram swirled; That, is in doubt whether his love be right; A third you hear despairing of the world,-- Full five acts long you hear him wail his plight, And no man ends him with a merciful sleight! But the =real= beast, the =beautiful=, =wild= beast, Your eyes on =that=, _I_, ladies, only, feast!

You see the Tiger, that habitually Devours whatever falls before his bound; The Bear, who, gluttonous from the first sally, Sinks at his late night-meal dead to the ground; You see the Monkey, little and amusing, From sheer ennui his petty powers abusing,-- He has some talent, of all greatness scant, So, impudently, coquettes with his own want! Upon my soul, within my tent and trammel-- See, right behind the curtain, here--’s a Camel! And all my creatures fawn about my feet When my revolver cracks-- [_He shoots into the audience._] Behold! Brutes tremble all around me. I am cold: The =man= stays cold,--you, with respect, to greet.

Walk in!--You hardly trust yourselves in here?-- Then very well, judge for yourselves! Each sphere Has sent its crawling creatures to your telling: Chameleons and serpents, crocodiles, Dragons, and salamanders chasm-dwelling,-- I know, of course, you’re full of quiet smiles And don’t believe a syllable I say.--

[_He lifts the entrance-flap and calls into the tent._]

Hi, Charlie!--bring our =Serpent= just this way!

[_A stage-hand with a big paunch carries out the actress of_ =LULU= _in her Pierrot costume, and sets her down before the animal-tamer_.]

She was created to incite to sin, To lure, seduce, corrupt, drop poison in,-- To murder, without being once suspected. [_Tickling_ LULU’S _chin_.] My pretty beast, only be =unaffected=, Not vain, not artificial, not perverse, Even if the critics therefore turn adverse. Thou hast no right to spoil the shape most fitting, Most =true=, of =woman=, with meows and spitting! Nor with buffoonery and wry device To foul the =childish simpleness= of =Vice= Thou shouldst--to-day I speak emphatically-- Speak =naturally= and not unnaturally, For the first principle, of earliest force In every art, has been Be matter-of-course!

[_To the public._] There’s nothing special now to see in her, But wait and watch what later will occur! She coils about the Tiger stricter--stricter-- He roars and groans!--Who’ll be the final victor?-- Hop, Charlie, march! Carry her to her cage,

[_The stage-hand picks up_ LULU _slantwise in his arms; the animal-tamer pats her on the hips_.]

Sweet innocence--my dearest appanage!

[_The stage-hand carries_ LULU _back into the tent_.]

And now the best thing yet remains to say: My poll between the teeth of a beast of prey! Walk in! The show’s not new, yet every heart Takes pleasure in it still! I’ll wrench apart This wild beast’s jaws--I dare--and he’ll not dare To close and bite! Let him be ne’er so fair, So wild and brightly flecked, he feels respect For my poor poll! I offer it him direct: One =joke=, and my two temples crack!--but, lo, The lightning of my eyes I will forego, Staking my =life= against a =joke=! and throw My whip, my weapons, down. I am in my skin! I yield me to this beast!--His name do ye know? --The honored public! that has just walked in!

[_The animal-tamer steps back into the tent, accompanied by cymbals and kettledrums._]