Chapter X: Act ONE

_Scene:_ Parlors of Herr and Frau Holthoff at their home in Berlin.

[An informal conference of the leading members of the Allied
Workingmen's Clubs. Present various ladies and gentlemen, some
seated, others standing, talking.]

_Enter DOCTOR HAENLE_

HERR HOLTHOFF. Hello, Comrade Haenle! I am very glad to see you here.

DOCTOR HAENLE. Not more glad than I am to be here.

[They shake hands cordially, all around.]

HERR HOLTHOFF. [_To his wife_] My dear, you see Doctor Haenle has come--I win my bet!

DOCTOR HAENLE. I hope you two have not been gambling!

FRAU HOLTHOFF. Yes, Doctor, we made a bet, and I am delighted to lose!

DOCTOR HAENLE. You mystify me!

HERR HOLTHOFF. Well, the fact is that Madame had a dream in which you played a part; she thought you had been--what is that word, my dear?

FRAU HOLTHOFF. Expatriated.

HERR HOLTHOFF. Yes, expatriated--sent out of the country for the country's good.

DOCTOR HAENLE. It would be a great compliment!

HERR HOLTHOFF. Very true; you could then join our own Richard Wagner in Switzerland!

DOCTOR HAENLE. Could I but write such songs as he does, I would relish the fate!

FRAU HOLTHOFF. But the people who sent him into exile never guessed that they were giving him the leisure to write immortal music.

DOCTOR HAENLE. People who persecute other people never know what they do.

HERR HOLTHOFF. It isn't so bad to be persecuted, but it is a terrible thing to persecute.

DOCTOR HAENLE. It is often a good thing for the persecuted, provided he can spare the time--how does that strike you, Herr Marx?

KARL MARX. I fully agree in the sentiment. There seems to be an Eternal Spirit of Wisdom that guides man and things, and this Spirit cares only for the end.

FRAU HOLTHOFF. Nature's solicitude is for the race, not the individual.

KARL MARX. Exactly so!

HERR HOLTHOFF. Get that in your forthcoming book, Brother Marx, and give credit to the Madame.

KARL MARX. I surely will. Most of my original thoughts I get from my friends.

HERR HOLTHOFF. You may not be so grateful when the book is published.

KARL MARX. You mean I may sing the Pilgrims' Chorus with Richard across the border?

HERR HOLTHOFF. Yes; the government is growing very sensitive.

DOCTOR HAENLE. Which has nothing to do with the publication of _Das Kapital_--eh, Herr Marx?

KARL MARX. Not the slightest. The book will live, regardless of the fate of the author.

FRAU HOLTHOFF. You do not seem very sanguine of immediate success of the workingmen's party!

KARL MARX. We will succeed when the ditches are even full of our dead--then progress can pass.

FRAU HOLTHOFF. And that time has not come?

KARL MARX. I hope we are great enough not to deceive ourselves. We work for truth: whether this truth will be accepted by the many this year, or next, or the next century, we can not say, but that should not deter us from our best endeavors.

HELENE VON DONNIGES. [_Golden-haired, enthusiastic, needlessly pink and gorgeously twenty_] Men fight for a thing and lose, and the men they fought fight for the same thing under another name, and win! [_All turn and listen_] Life is in the fight, not the achievement. Oh, I think it would be glorious to suffer, to be misunderstood, and fail; and yet know in our hearts that we were right--absolutely right--and that the wisdom of the ages will endorse our acts and on the tombs of some of us carve the word "Savior"!

KARL MARX. Grand, magnificent! That sounds just like Lassalle.

HELENE. There; that is the third time I have been told I talk just like Lassalle--a person I have never seen.

DOCTOR HAENLE. Then you have something to live for.

HELENE. Perhaps, but I echo no man. When one speaks from one's heart it is not complimentary to have people suavely smile and say, "Goethe," "Voltaire," "Shakespeare," "Rousseau," "Lassalle"!

FRAU HOLTHOFF. Just see the company in which she places our Ferdinand!

HELENE. [_Wearily_] Oh, I am not trying to compliment Lassalle. The fact is, I dislike the man. His literary style is explosive; about all he seems to do is to paraphrase dear Karl Marx. Besides, he is a Jew----

KARL MARX. Gently--I am a Jew!

HELENE. But you are different. Lassalle is aggressive, pushing, grasping--he has ego plus, and [_With relaxing tension_] all I want to say is that I am aweary of being accused of quoting Lassalle--that I do not know Lassalle, and what is more, I----

FRAU HOLTHOFF. Oh, you'll talk differently when you see him!

HELENE. But surely you, too, do not make genius exempt from the moral code?

DOCTOR HAENLE. Oh, some one has been telling you about Madame Hatzfeldt----

HELENE. I know the undisputed facts.

KARL MARX. Which are that at nineteen years of age Ferdinand Lassalle became the legal counsel for Madame Hatzfeldt; that he fought her case through the courts for nine years; that he lost three times and finally won.

HELENE. And then became a member of the Madame's household.

KARL MARX. If so, with the Madame's permission.

HELENE. [_Sarcastically_] Certainly.

FRAU HOLTHOFF. That thirty years' difference in their ages ought to absolve him.

DOCTOR HAENLE. To say nothing of the fee he received!

KARL MARX. The fee?

DOCTOR HAENLE. One hundred thousand thalers.

FRAU HOLTHOFF. Capital; also, _Das Kapital_!

KARL MARX. I have made a note of it. A lawyer gets a single fee of one hundred thousand thalers--this under the competitive system--a hundred years of labor for the average workingman!

FRAU HOLTHOFF. A lawyer at nineteen--studying on one case, knowing its every aspect and phase, pursuing the case for nine years, and opposed by six of the ablest, oldest and most influential legal lights in Germany, and gaining a complete victory!

KARL MARX. I've heard of successful authors of a single book, but I never before heard of a great lawyer with but one case!

FRAU HOLTHOFF. Oh, Lassalle has had many cases offered him, but he refused them all so as to devote himself to the People _versus_ Entailed Nobility.

KARL MARX. You mean Entrenched Alleged Royalty.

FRAU HOLTHOFF. Yes. I accept the correction--and this case he will win, just as he did the other.

HELENE. You had better say his body will go to fill up the sunken roadway!

DOCTOR HAENLE. Good! that was your idea of success a few moments ago.

HELENE. I see--more of Lassalle.

FRAU HOLTHOFF. Oh, you two were just made for each other!

DOCTOR HAENLE. You both have the fire, the dash, the enthusiasm, the personality, the beautiful unreasonableness, the----

HELENE. Go on!

KARL MARX. He is the greatest orator in Europe!

FRAU HOLTHOFF. And the handsomest man!

HELENE. Nonsense!

DOCTOR HAENLE. You shall see!

HELENE. Shall I?

DOCTOR HAENLE. You certainly shall. Indeed, Lassalle may be here this evening. He spoke in Dresden last night, and was to leave at once, after the address. His train was due--let me see--[_consults watch_] half an hour ago. I told him if he came to drive straight here.

HELENE. [_Slightly agitated_] I must go--I promised papa I would be home at ten.

KARL MARX. And your papa would never allow you to stay out after ten, any more than he would forgive you if he knew you visited with people who harbored Ferdinand Lassalle?

HELENE. My father is a busy man--a Monarchist of course--and he has no time for the New Thought.

DOCTOR HAENLE. He leaves that to you?

HELENE. Yes, he indulges me--he says the New Thought does him no harm and amuses me! See if my carriage is waiting, please. Thank you----

[Frau Holthoff starts to help Helene on with her wraps. Knocking is
heard at the door. Herr Holthoff goes into the hall to answer
knock.]

HERR HOLTHOFF. [_Outside_] Well, well, Ferdinand the First, Ferdinand himself!

[Commotion--all move toward door]

_Enter HERR HOLTHOFF with LASSALLE_

[Lassalle is tall, slender, nervous, active, intelligent,
commanding. All shake hands, and he and Karl Marx embrace and kiss
each other on the cheek. Helene stares, slips down behind the sofa,
and seated on an ottoman reads intently with her nose in a book.
The rest talk and move toward the center of the stage, gathering
around Lassalle, who affectionately half-embraces all--with remarks
from everybody: "How well you look!" "And the news from Dresden!"
"Did the police molest you?" "Was it a big audience?" etc. Lassalle
seats himself on sofa with back to Helene, who is immediately
behind him.]

LASSALLE. We will win when fifty-one per cent of the voters declare themselves. You see Nature never intended that ninety per cent of the people should slave for the other ten per cent. The world must see that we all should work--that to succeed we must work for each other. We have thought that educated men should not work, and that men who work should not be educated. We have congested work and congested education and congested wealth. The good things of the world are for all, and if there were an even distribution there would be no want, no wretchedness. The rich for the most part waste and destroy, and of course the many have to toil in order to make good this waste. When we can convince fifty-one per cent of the people that righteousness is only a form of self-preservation, that mankind is an organism and that we are all parts of the whole, the battle will be won. [_Rises and paces the floor, still talking_] I spoke last night to five thousand people, and the way they listened and applauded and applauded and listened, revealed how hungry the people are for truth. The hope of the world lies in the middle class--the rich are as ignorant as the poverty-stricken. A way must be devised to reach the rich--I can do it. Inaction, idleness, that is the curse. Life is fluid, and only running water is pure. Stagnation is death. Turbulent Rome was healthy, but quiescent Rome was soft, feverish, morbid, pathological. Now, take Hamlet--what man ever had more opportunities? Heir to the throne--beauty, power, youth, intellect--all were his! What wrecked him? Why, inaction; he sat down to muse, instead of being up and doing. He wrangled, dawdled, dreamed, followed soothsayers, and consulted mediums until his mind was mush----

HELENE. [_Rising quickly_] Mad from the beginning!

[Lassalle and the two men to whom he was talking jump, turn,
stare.]

HELENE. Mad from the beginning, I say!

[The two friends at once quit Lassalle and move off arm in arm
talking, leaving Lassalle and Helene eyeing each other across the
sofa. Her eyes flash defiance; he relaxes, smiles, paying no
attention to her contradiction concerning Hamlet. He kneels on the
sofa and leans toward her.]

LASSALLE. Ah, this is how you look! This is you! Yes, yes, it is as I thought. It is all right!

FRAU HOLTHOFF. [_Bustling forward_] Oh, I forgot you had not met--allow me to introduce----

LASSALLE. [_Waving the Frau away, walks around the sofa taking Helene by the arm_] What is the necessity of introducing us! People who know each other do not have to be introduced. You know who I am, and you are Brunhilde, the Red Fox.

[Leads her around and seats her on the sofa and takes his place
beside her, with one arm along the back of the sofa. Helene leans
toward him, and flicks an imaginary particle of dust from his
coat-collar.]

HELENE. You were talking about your success in Dresden!

[Lassalle proceeds to talk to her most earnestly. She listens, nods
approval, sighs, and clasps her hands. The others in the room
gather at opposite sides of the room and talk, but with eyes
furtively turned now and then toward the couple, who are lost to
the world, interested but in each other, and the great themes they
are discussing.]

LASSALLE. I knew we must meet. Fate decreed it so. You are the Goddess of the Morning and I am the Sun-God.

HELENE. You are sure then about your divinity?

LASSALLE. Yes, through a belief in yours.

HELENE. I knew I would meet you. I felt that I must, in order to get you out of my mind. I am betrothed, you know----

LASSALLE. I know--to me, from the foundation of the world.

HELENE. I am betrothed to Prince Yanko Racowitza. You never heard of him, of course. He is out of your class, because he is good, and gentle, and kind, and of noble blood. And you are a demagogue, and a demigod, and a Jew, and a Mephisto! I told Yanko I would not wed him until I saw you. He has been trying to meet you, to introduce us.

LASSALLE. That you might be disillusioned!

HELENE. Precisely so.

LASSALLE. How interesting! And how superfluous in your fairy prince.

HELENE. He is an extraordinary man, for he said I should see you and him both, see you together and take my choice.

LASSALLE. Good! He is a Christian, and does as he would be done by. I am a Christianized Jew, and I will bejew all Christendom. Your prince is a useless appendenda, and I would kill him, were it not that I am opposed to duelling. I fought one duel--or did not fight it, I should say. I faced my man, he fired and missed. I threw my pistol into the bushes and held out my hand to the late enemy. He reeled toward me and fell into my arms, pierced by his emotions. He is now my friend. Had I killed him, the vexed question between us would still be unsettled. I believe in brain, not brawn--soul, not sense. Let us meet your prince, and when he sees you and me together, he will know we are one, and dare not withhold his blessing which we do not need. He shall be our page. Win people and use them, I say--use them! You and I working together can win and use humanity for humanity's good. We talk with the same phrases. You say, "Two wishes make a will"--so do I. We read the same books, are fed at the same springs. Our souls blend together; great thoughts are children, born of married minds----

HELENE. My carriage is at the door--I surely must go!

LASSALLE. I'll order your coachman to go home; we will walk.

[Strides to the door, and gives the order and in an instant
returns, picks up Helene's wraps and proceeds affectionately to
help her on with overshoes, cloak and hat.]

LASSALLE. The fact is that life lies in mutual service--any other course is merely existence. Those who do most for others enjoy most. Well, good-night, dear Karl Marx, [_Shakes hands_] and you, Doctor Haenle--what would life be to me without you! Good-night, Herr Holthoff and dear Frau Holthoff!

[Kisses the Frau's hand. Helene helps him on with overcoat and
hands him his hat. They disappear through the right entrance, arm
in arm, faces turned toward each other, talking earnestly. As they
go through the door, Lassalle lifts his hat to the company and
says, "Good-night, everybody." Those on the stage turn and stare at
one another in amazement. Doctor Haenle breaks the silence with a
laugh.]

DOCTOR HAENLE. Well, well, well!

HERR HOLTHOFF. She is carried off on the back of a centaur.

KARL MARX. A whirlwind wooing!

FRAU HOLTHOFF. Affinities!

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