Chapter VIII (1)

These works, viewed in their totality, take on a higher significance than resides in the literary power of any one of them. Hauptmann's career began in the years when the natural sciences, not content with their proper triumphs, threatened to engulf art, philosophy and religion; in the years when a keen and tender social consciousness, brooding over the temporal welfare of man, lost sight of his eternal good. And so Hauptmann begins by illustrating the laws of heredity and pleading, through a creative medium, for social justice. The tacit assumptions of these early plays are stringently positivistic: body and soul are the obverse and reverse of a single substance; earth is the boundary of man's hopes.

With _The Assumption of Hannele_ a change comes over the spirit of his work. A thin, faint voice vibrates in that play--the voice of a soul yearning for a warmer ideal. But the rigorous teachers of Hauptmann's youth had graven their influence upon him, and the new faith announced by Heinrich in _The Sunken Bell_ is still a kind of scientific paganism. In _Michael Kramer_ (1900), however, he has definitely conquered the positivistic denial of the overwhelming reality of the ultimate problems. For it is after some solution of these that the great heart of Kramer cries out. In _Henry of Aue_ the universe, no longer a harsh and monstrous mechanism, irradiates the human soul with the spirit of its own divinity. These utterances are, to be sure, dramatic and objective. But the author chooses his subject, determines the spirit of its treatment and thus speaks unmistakably.

Nor is directer utterance lacking, "The Green Gleam," Hauptmann writes in the delicately modelled prose of his _Griechischer Fruehling_, "the Green Gleam, which mariners assert to have witnessed at times, appears at the last moment before the sun dips below the horizon.... The ancients must have known the Green Gleam.... I do not know whether that be true, but I feel a longing within me to behold it. I can imagine some Pure Fool, whose life consisted but in seeking it over lands and seas, in order to perish at last in the radiance of that strange and splendid light. Are we not all, perhaps, upon a similar quest? Are we not beings who have exhausted the realm of the senses and are athirst for other delights for both our senses and our souls?" The author of _Before Dawn_ has gone a long journey in the land of the spirit to the writing of these words, and of still others in _Gabriel Schilling's Flight_: "Behind this visible world another is hidden, so near at times that one might knock at its gate...." But it is the journey which man himself has gone upon during the intervening years.

Thus Hauptmann's work has not only created a new technique of the drama; it has not only added unforgettable figures to the world of the imagination: it has also mirrored and interpreted the intellectual history of its time. His art sums up an epoch--an epoch full of knowledge and the restraints of knowledge, still prone, so often, before the mechanical in life and thought; but throughout all its immedicable scepticism full of strange yearnings and visited by flickering dreams; and even in its darkest years and days still stretching out hands in love of a farther shore. Once more the great artist, his vision fixed primarily upon his art, has most powerfully interpreted man to his own mind.

LUDWIG LEWISOHN.

BEFORE DAWN

_The first performance of this drama took place on October 20 in the
Lessing Theatre under the management of the Free Stage society. I
take the occasion of the appearance of a new edition to express my
hearty thanks to the directors of that society and, more especially,
to Messrs. Otto Brahm and Paul Schlenther. May the future prove that,
by defying petty considerations and by helping to give life to a work
that had its origin in pure motives, they have deserved well of
German art.

GERHART HAUPTMANN

Charlottenburg, October 20, 1889_

_ACTING CHARACTERS_

KRAUSE, _Farmer._

MRS. KRAUSE, _his second wife._

HELEN, MARTHA, _KRAUSE'S daughters by his first marriage._

HOFFMANN, _Engineer, MARTHA'S husband._

WILHELM KAHL, _MRS. KRAUSE'S nephew._

MRS. SPILLER, _MRS. KRAUSE'S companion._

ALFRED LOTH.

DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG.

BEIPST, _Workingman on KRAUSE'S farm._

GUSTE, LIESE, MARIE _Maid-servants on KRAUSE'S farm._

BAER, _called "Hopping Baer."_

EDWARD, _HOFFMANN'S servant._

MIELE, _MRS. KRAUSE'S housemaid._

THE COACHMAN'S WIFE.

GOLISCH, _a Cowherd._

A PACKET POST CARRIER.

THE FIRST ACT

_The room is low: the floor is covered with excellent rugs. Modern
luxury seems grafted upon the bareness of the peasant. On the wall,
behind the dining-table, hangs a picture which represents a waggon
with four horses driven by a carter in a blue blouse._

_MIELE, a vigorous peasant girl with a red, rather slow-witted face,
opens the middle door and permits ALFRED LOTH to enter. LOTH is of
middle height, broad-shouldered, thick-set, decided but somewhat
awkward in his movements. His hair is blond, his eyes blue, his small
moustache thin and very light; his whole face is bony and has an
equably serious expression. His clothes are neat but nothing less
than fashionable: light summer overcoat, a wallet hanging from the
shoulder; cane._

MIELE

Come in, please. I'll call Mr. Hoffmann right off. Won't you take a seat?

[_The glass-door that leads to the conservatory is violently thrust
open, and a peasant woman, her face bluish red with rage, bursts in.
She is not much better dressed than a washerwoman: naked, red arms,
blue cotton-skirt and bodice, red dotted kerchief. She is in the
early forties; her face is hard, sensual, malignant. The whole figure
is, otherwise, well preserved._

MRS. KRAUSE

[_Screams._] The hussies!... That's right!... The vicious critters!... Out with you! We don't give nothin'!... [_Half to MIELE, half to LOTH._] He can work, he's got arms. Get out! You don't get nothin' here!

LOTH

But Mrs.... Surely you will ... my name is Loth ... I am ... I'd like to ... I haven't the slightest in....

MIELE

He wants to speak to Mr. Hoffmann.

MRS. KRAUSE

Oho! beggin' from my son-in-law. We know that kind o' thing! He ain't got nothin'; everything he's got he gets from us. Nothin' is his'n.

[_The door to the right is opened and HOFFMANN thrusts his head in._

HOFFMANN

Mother, I must really beg of you! [_He enters and turns to LOTH._] What can I ... Alfred! Old man! Well, I'll be blessed. You? That certainly is ... well, that certainly is a great notion!

[_HOFFMANN is thirty-three years old, slender, tall, thin. In his
dress he affects the latest fashion, his hair is carefully tended; he
wears costly rings, diamond-studs in his shirt-front and charms on
his watch chain. His hair and moustache are black; the latter is
luxurious and is most scrupulously cared for. His face is pointed,
bird-like, the expression blurred, the eyes dark, lively, at times
restless._

LOTH

It's by the merest accident, you know ...

HOFFMANN

[_Excited._] Nothing pleasanter could have ... Do take your things off, first of all! [_He tries to help him off with his wallet._]--Nothing pleasanter or more unexpected could possibly--[_he has relieved LOTH of his hat and cane and places both on a chair near the door_]--could possibly have happened to me just now--[_coming back_]--no, decidedly, nothing.

LOTH

[_Taking off his wallet himself._] It's by the merest chance that I've come upon you.

[_He places his wallet on the table in the foreground._

HOFFMANN

Sit down. You must be tired. Do sit down--please! D'you remember when you used to come to see me you had a way of throwing yourself full-length on the sofa so that the springs groaned. Sometimes they broke, too. Very well, then, old fellow. Do as you used to do.

[_MRS. KRAUSE'S face has taken on an expression of great
astonishment. She has withdrawn. LOTH sits down on one of the chairs
that stand around the table in the foreground._

HOFFMANN

Won't you drink something? Whatever you say? Beer? Wine? Brandy? Coffee? Tea? Everything's in the house.

[_HELEN comes reading from the conservatory. Her tall form, somewhat
too plump, the arrangement of her blond, unusually luxuriant hair,
the expression of her face, her modern gown, her gestures--in brief,
her whole appearance cannot quite hide the peasant's daughter._

HELEN

Brother, you might.... [_She discovers LOTH and withdraws quickly._] Oh, I beg pardon.

[_Exit._

HOFFMANN

Stay here, do!

LOTH

Your wife?

HOFFMANN

No; her sister. Didn't you hear how she addressed me?

LOTH

No.

HOFFMANN

Good-looking, eh? But now, come on. Make up your mind. Coffee? Tea? Grog?

LOTH

No, nothing, thank you.

HOFFMANN

[_Offers him cigars._] Here's something for you then. No!... Not even that?

LOTH

No, thank you.

HOFFMANN

Enviable frugality! [_He lights a cigar for himself and speaks the while._] The ashes ... I meant to say, tobacco ... h-m ... smoke of course ... doesn't bother you, does it?

LOTH

No.

HOFFMANN

Ah, if I didn't get that much ... Good Lord, life anyhow!--But now, do me a favour; tell me something. Ten years--you've hardly changed much, though--ten years, a nasty slice of time. How's Schn ... Schnurz? That's what we called him, eh? And Fips, and the whole jolly bunch of those days? Haven't you been able to keep your eye on any of them?

LOTH

Look here, is it possible you don't know?

HOFFMANN

What?

LOTH

That he shot himself.

HOFFMANN

Who? Who's done that sort o' thing again?

LOTH

Fips. Friedrich Hildebrandt.

HOFFMANN

Oh come, that's impossible.

LOTH

It's a fact. Shot himself in the Grunewald, on a very beautiful spot on the shore of the Havelsee. I was there. You have a view toward Spandau.

HOFFMANN

Hm. Wouldn't have believed it of him. He wasn't much of a hero in other ways.

LOTH

That's the very reason why he shot himself.--He was conscientious, very conscientious.

HOFFMANN

Conscientious? I don't see.

LOTH

That was the very reason ... otherwise he would probably not have done it.

HOFFMANN

I'm still in the dark.

LOTH

Well, you know what the colour of his political views was?

HOFFMANN

Oh, yes--green.

LOTH

Put it so, if you want to. You'll have to admit, at all events, that he was a very gifted fellow. And yet for five years he had to work as a stucco-worker, and for another five years he had to starve along, so to speak, on his own hook, and in addition he modelled his little statues.

HOFFMANN

And they were revolting. I want to be cheered by art ... No, that kind of art wasn't a bit to my taste.

LOTH

Not exactly to mine either. Certain ideas had bitten themselves into his mind. However, last spring there was a competition for a monument. Some two-penny princeling was to be immortalised, I believe. Fips competed and--won. Shortly afterward, he killed himself.

HOFFMANN

I don't see that that throws any ray of light on his so-called conscientiousness. I call that sort of thing silly and highfalutin.

LOTH

That is the common view.

HOFFMANN

I'm very sorry, but I'm afraid I can't help sharing it.

LOTH

Well, it can make no difference to him now, what....

HOFFMANN

Oh, anyhow, let's drop the subject. At bottom I'm just as sorry for him as you can be. But now that he is dead, the good fellow, tell me something of yourself. What have you been doing? How has the world used you?

LOTH

It has used me as it was my business to expect. Didn't you hear anything about me at all? From the papers, I mean?

HOFFMANN

[_Somewhat embarrassed._] Not that I know of.

LOTH

Nothing of that business at Leipzig?

HOFFMANN

Ah, yes, that! Yes, yes ... I believe so ... but nothing definite.

LOTH

Well, then, the matter was as follows--

HOFFMANN

[_Laying his hand on LOTH'S arm._] Before you begin, won't you take anything at all?

LOTH

Perhaps later.

HOFFMANN

Not even a little glass of brandy?

LOTH

No; that least of all.

HOFFMANN

Well, then I'll take a little ... There's nothing better for the stomach. [_He gets a bottle and two little glasses from the sideboard and places them on the table before LOTH._] Grand champagne, finest brand. I can recommend it. Won't you really?

LOTH

No, thank you.

HOFFMANN

[_Tilting the contents of the glass into his mouth._] Ah-h--well, now I'm all ears.

LOTH

To put it briefly, I got into a nasty mess.

HOFFMANN

The sentence was two years, wasn't it?

LOTH

Quite right. You seem to be informed after all. Yes, I was sentenced to two years' imprisonment, and afterwards they expelled me from the university too. And at that time I was just--twenty-one. However, during those two years I wrote my first book on economics. In spite of that I couldn't truthfully say that it was very good fun to be behind the bars.

HOFFMANN

Lord, what idiots we were! It's queer. And we had really taken the thing into our heads in good earnest. I can't help thinking, old man, that it was sheer puerility. The idea! A dozen green kids like ourselves to go to America and found ... _we_ found ... a model state. Delicious notion!

LOTH

Puerility? Ah well, in some ways no doubt it was. We certainly underestimated the difficulty of such an undertaking.

HOFFMANN

And that you really did go to America, in all seriousness, and with empty hands ... Why, think, man, what it means to acquire land and foundation for a model state with empty hands. That was almost cr ... At all events it was unique in its naivete.

LOTH

And yet I'm particularly satisfied with the result of my American trip.

HOFFMANN

[_Laughing with a touch of boisterousness._] Cold water treatment. That was an excellent result, if that's what you mean....

LOTH

It may well be that I cooled down quite a little. But that process is hardly peculiar to myself. It is one which every human being undergoes. But it's a far cry from that to failing to realise the value of those ... well, let's call them, our hotheaded days. And it wasn't so frightfully simple-minded, as you represent it.

HOFFMANN

Well, I don't know about that.

LOTH

All you have to do is to think of the average silliness that surrounded us in those days: the fraternity goings on at the universities, the swilling, the duelling. And what was all the noise about? It was about Hecuba, as Fips used to say. Well, we at least, didn't make a fuss about Hecuba; we had our attention, fixed on the highest aims of humanity. And, in addition to that, those silly times cleared me thoroughly of all prejudices. I took my leave of sham religion and sham morality and a good deal else....

HOFFMANN

I'm perfectly prepared to admit that much. If, when all's said and done, I am an open-minded, enlightened man to-day, I owe it, as I wouldn't dream of denying, to the days of our intercourse! I am the last man to deny that. In fact I'm not in _any_ respect a monster. Only you mustn't try to run your head through a stone wall.--You mustn't try to force out the evils under which, more's the pity, the present generation suffers, only to replace them by worse ones. What you've got to do is--to let things take their natural course. What is to be, will be! You've got to proceed practically, practically! And you will recall that I emphasised that just as much in those days as now. And that principle has paid. And that's just it. All of you, yourself included, proceed in a most unpractical way.

LOTH

I wish you'd explain just how you mean that.

HOFFMANN

It's as simple as ... You don't make use of your capabilities. Take yourself, for instance: a fellow with your knowledge, energy and what not! What road would have been closed to you? Instead of going ahead, what is it you do? You _compromise_ yourself, at the very start, to _such_ a degree, that ... well, honestly, old man, didn't you regret it once in a while?

LOTH

I can't very well regret the fact that I was condemned innocently.

HOFFMANN

As to that, of course, I can't judge.

LOTH

You will be able to do so at once when I tell you that the indictment declared that I had called our club, "Vancouver Island," into being purely for purposes of party agitation. In addition I was said to have collected funds for party purposes. Now you know very well that we were thoroughly in earnest in regard to our ambitions of founding a colony. And, as far as collecting money goes--you have said yourself that we were all empty-handed together. The indictment was a misrepresentation from beginning to end, and, as a former member, you ought to....

HOFFMANN

Hold on, now. I wasn't really a member. As to the rest, of course, I believe you. Judges are, after all, only human. You must consider that. In any event, to proceed quite practically, you should have avoided the very _appearance_ of that sort of thing. Take it all in all: I have wondered at you often enough since then--editor of the _Workingmen's Tribune_, the obscurest of hole and corner sheets--parliamentary candidate of the dear mob! And what did you get out of it all? Don't misunderstand me! I am the last man to be lacking in sympathy with the common people. But _if_ something is to be effected, it must be effected from above. In fact that's the only way in which anything can be done. The people never know what they really need. It's this trying to lift things from beneath that I call--running your head through a stone wall.

LOTH

I'm afraid I don't get a very clear notion of your drift.

HOFFMANN

What I mean? Well now, look at me! My hands are free: I am in a position to do something for an ideal end.--I think I can say that the practical part of my programme has been pretty well carried out. And all you fellows, always with empty hands--what can you do?

LOTH

True. From what one hears you are in a fair way to become a Rothschild.

HOFFMANN

[_Flattered._] You do me too much honour--at least, for the present. Who said that, anyhow? A man sticks to a good thing, and that, naturally, brings its reward. But who was it said that?

LOTH

It was over there in Jauer. Two gentlemen were conversing at the next table.

HOFFMANN

Aha! H-m. I have enemies. And what did they have to say?

LOTH

Nothing of importance. But I heard from them that you had retired for the present to the estate of your parents-in-law.

HOFFMANN

People have a way of finding things out; haven't they? My dear friend, you'd never believe how a man in my position is spied on at every step. That's another one of the evils of wealth ... But it is this way, you see: I'm expecting the confinement of my wife in the quiet and the healthy air here.

LOTH

What do you do for a physician? Surely in such cases a good physician is of the highest importance. And here, in this village....

HOFFMANN

Ah, but that's just it! The physician here is an unusually capable one. And, do you know, I've found this out: in a doctor, conscientiousness counts for more than genius.

LOTH

Perhaps it is an essential concomitant of a physician's genius.

HOFFMANN

Maybe so. Anyhow, our doctor _has_ a conscience. He's a bit of an idealist--more or less our kind. His success among the miners and the peasants is simply phenomenal! Sometimes, I must say, he isn't an easy man to bear, he's got a mixture of hardness and sentimentality. But, as I said before, I know how to value conscientiousness; no doubt about that. But before I forget ... I do attach some importance to it ... a man ought to know what he has to look out for ... Listen!... Tell me ... I see it in your face. Those gentlemen at the next table had nothing good to say of me? Tell me, please, what they did say.

LOTH

I really ought not to do that, for I was going to beg one hundred crowns of you, literally beg, for there is hardly any chance of my ever being able to return them.

HOFFMANN

[_Draws a cheque-book from his inner pocket, makes out a cheque and hands it to LOTH._] Any branch of the Imperial Bank will cash it ... It's simply a pleasure....

LOTH

Your promptness surpasses all expectation. Well, I accept it with, gratitude, and you know--it could be worse spent.

HOFFMANN

[_Somewhat rhetorically._] A labourer is worthy of his hire. But now, Loth, have the goodness to tell me what the gentlemen in question....

LOTH

I dare say they talked nonsense.

HOFFMANN

Tell me in spite of that, please. I'm simply interested, quite simply interested--that's all.

LOTH

They discussed the fact that you had violently forced another man out of his position here--a contractor named Mueller.

HOFFMANN

_Of_ course! The same old story.

LOTH

The man, they said, was betrothed to your present wife.

HOFFMANN

So he was. And what else?

LOTH

I tell you these things just as I heard them, for I assume that it is of some importance to you to be acquainted with the exact nature of the slander.

HOFFMANN

Quite right. And so?

LOTH

So far as I could make out this Mueller was said to have had the contract for the construction of a stretch of mountain railroad here.

HOFFMANN

Yes, with a wretched capital of ten thousand crowns. When he came to see that the money wouldn't go far enough, he was in haste to make a catch of one of the Witzdorf farmers' daughters; the honour was to have fallen to my wife.

LOTH

They said that he had his arrangement with the daughter, and you had made yours with the father.--Next he shot himself, didn't he?--And you finished the construction of his section of the road and made a great deal of money out of it?

HOFFMANN

There's an element of truth in all that. Of course, I could give you a very different notion of how those things hung together. Perhaps they knew a few more of these edifying anecdotes.

LOTH

There was one thing, I am bound to tell you, that seemed to excite them particularly: they computed what an enormous business you were doing in coal now, and they called you--well, it wasn't exactly flattering. In short they asserted that you had persuaded the stupid farmers of the neighbourhood, over some champagne, to sign a contract by which the exploitation of all the coal mined on their property was turned over to you at a ridiculously small rental.

HOFFMANN

[_Touched on the raw, gets up._] I'll tell you something, Loth ... Pshaw, why concern oneself with it at all. I vote that we think of supper. I'm savagely hungry--yes, quite savagely.

[_He presses the button of an electric connection, the wire of which
hangs down over the sofa in the form of a green cord. The ringing of
an electric bell is heard._

LOTH

Well, if you want to keep me here, then have the kindness ... I'd like to brush up a bit first.

HOFFMANN

In a moment--everything that's necessary ... [_EDWARD, a servant in livery, enters._] Edward, take this gentleman to the guest chamber.

EDWARD

Very, well, sir.

HOFFMANN

[_Pressing LOTH'S hand._] I wonder if you'd mind coming down to supper in about fifteen minutes--at most.

LOTH

That's ample time. See you later.

HOFFMANN

Yes, see you later.

[_EDWARD opens the door and lets LOTH precede him. Both go out.
HOFFMANN scratches the back of his head, looks thoughtfully at the
floor and then approaches the door at the right. He has just touched
the knob when HELEN, who has entered hastily by the glass door, calls
to him._

HELEN

Brother! Who was that?

HOFFMANN

That was one of my college chums, in fact, the oldest of them, Alfred Loth.

HELEN

[_Quickly._] Has he gone again?

HOFFMANN

No; he's going to eat supper with us. Possibly ... yes, possibly he may spend the night here.

HELEN

Heavens! Then I shan't come to supper.

HOFFMANN

But Helen!

HELEN

What is the use of my meeting cultivated people! I might just as well get as boorish as all the rest here!

HOFFMANN

Oh, these eternal fancies! In fact you will do me a real favour if you will order the arrangements for supper. Be so kind. I'd like to have things a bit festive, because I believe that he has something up his sleeve.

HELEN

What do you mean by that: has something up his sleeve?

HOFFMANN

Mole's work ... digging, digging.--You can't possibly understand that. Anyhow, I may be mistaken, for I've avoided touching on that subject so far. At all events, have everything as inviting as possible. That's the easiest way, after all, of accomplishing something with people ... Champagne, of course. Have the lobsters come from Hamburg?

HELEN

I believe they came this morning.

HOFFMANN

Very well. Then--lobsters! [_A violent knocking is heard._] Come in!

PARCEL POST CARRIER

[_Enters with a box under his arm. His voice has a sing-song inflection._] A box.

HELEN

Where from?

PARCEL POST CARRIER

Ber-lin.

HOFFMANN

Quite right. No doubt the baby's outfit from Hertzog. [_He looks at the package and takes the bill._] Yes, these are the things from Hertzog.

HELEN

This whole box full. Oh, that's overdoing!

_HOFFMANN pays the carrier._

PARCEL POST CARRIER

[_Still in his sing-song._] I wish you a good evening.

[_Exit._

HOFFMANN

Why is that overdoing?

HELEN

Why, because there's enough here to fit out at least three babies.

HOFFMANN

Did you take a walk with my wife?

HELEN

What am I to do if she's so easily tired?

HOFFMANN

Nonsense! Easily tired! She makes me utterly wretched! An hour and a half ... I wish, for goodness' sake, she would do as the doctor orders. What is the use of having a doctor, if....

HELEN

Then put your foot down and get rid of that Spiller woman! What am I to do against an old creature like that who always confirms her in her own notions!

HOFFMANN

But what can I do--a man--a mere man? And, furthermore, you know my mother-in-law! Don't you?

HELEN

[_Bitterly._] I do.

HOFFMANN

Where is she now?

HELEN

Spiller has been getting her up in grand style ever since Mr. Loth came. She will probably go through one of her performances at supper.

HOFFMANN

[_Once more absorbed in his own thoughts and pacing the room, violently._] This is the last time, I give you my word, that I'm going to await such things in this house--the last time, so help me!

HELEN

Yes, you're lucky. You can go where you please.

HOFFMANN

In my house the wretched relapse into that frightful vice would most certainly not have occurred.

HELEN

Don't make me responsible for it. She did not get the brandy from me! Get rid of the Spiller woman, I tell you. Oh, if only I were a man!

HOFFMANN

[_Sighing._] Oh, if only it were over and done with!--[_Speaking from the door to the right._] Anyhow, sister, do me the favour and have the supper-table really appetising. I'll just attend to a little matter meanwhile.

HELEN

[_Rings the electric bell. MIELE enters._] Miele, set the table, and tell Edward to put champagne on ice and open four dozen oysters.

MIELE

[_With sullen impudence._] You c'n tell him yer-self. He don't take orders from me. He's always sayin' he was hired by Mr. Hoffmann.

HELEN

Then, at least, send him in to me.

[_MIELE goes. HELEN steps in front of the mirror and adjusts various
details in her toilet. In the meantime EDWARD enters._

HELEN

[_Still before the mirror._] Edward, put champagne on ice and open oysters. Mr. Hoffmann wishes it.

EDWARD

Very well, Miss.

[_As EDWARD leaves, a knocking is heard at the middle door._

HELEN

[_Startled._] Dear me! [_Timidly._] Come in! [_Louder and more firmly._] Come in!

LOTH

[_Enters without bowing._] Ah, I beg pardon. I didn't mean to intrude. My name is Loth.

_HELEN bows. Her gesture smacks of the dancing school._

HOFFMANN

[_His voice is heard through the closed door._] My dear people: don't be formal! I'll be with you in a moment. Loth, my sister-in-law, Helen Krause! And, sister, my friend, Alfred Loth! Please consider yourselves introduced.

HELEN

Oh, what a way of....

LOTH

I don't take it ill of him. As I have often been told, I am myself more than half a barbarian when correct manners are concerned. But if I intruded upon you, I....

HELEN

Not in the least; oh, not in the least, believe me. [_A pause of constraint._] Indeed, indeed, it is most kind of you to have looked up my brother-in-law. He often complains that ... rather, regrets that the friends of his youth have forgotten him so entirely.

LOTH

Yes, it just happened so this time. I've always been in Berlin and thereabouts and had no idea what had become of Hoffmann. I haven't been back in Silesia since my student days at Breslau.

HELEN

And so you came upon him quite by chance.

LOTH

Yes, quite--and, what is more, in the very spot where I've got to pursue my investigations.

HELEN

Investigations in Witzdorf! In this wretched little hole. Ah, you're jesting. It isn't possible.

LOTH

You say: wretched? Yet there is a very unusual degree of wealth here.

HELEN

Oh, of course, in that respect....

LOTH

I've been continually astonished. I can assure you that such farms are not to be found elsewhere; they seem literally steeped in abundance.

HELEN

You are quite right. There's more than one stable here in which the cows and horses feed from marble mangers and racks of German silver! It is all due to the coal which was found under our fields and which turned the poor peasants rich almost in the twinkling of an eye. [_She points to the picture in the background._] Do you see--my grandfather was a freight carter. The little property here belonged to him, but he could not get a living out of his bit of soil and so he had to haul freight. That's a picture of him in his blue blouse; they still wore blouses like that in those days. My father, when he was young, wore one too.--No! When I said "wretched" I didn't mean that. Only it's so desolate here. There's nothing, nothing for the mind. Life is empty ... it's enough to kill one.

_MIELE and EDWARD pass to and fro, busy laying the table to the right
in the background._

LOTH

Aren't there balls or parties once in a while?

HELEN

Not even that! The farmers gamble, hunt, drink ... What is there to be seen all the long day? [_She has approached the window and points out._] _Such_ figures, mainly.

LOTH

H-m! Miners.

HELEN

Some are going to the mine, some are coming from the mine: all day, all day ... At least, I seem always to see them. Do you suppose I even care to go into the street alone? At most I slip through the back gate out into the fields. And they are such a rough set! The way they stare at one--so menacing and morose as if one were actually guilty of some crime. Sometimes, in winter, when we go sleighing, they come in the darkness, in great gangs, over the hills, through the storm, and, instead of making way, they walk stubbornly in front of the horses. Then, sometimes the farmers use the handles of their whips; it's the only way they can get through. And then the miners curse behind us. Ugh! I've been so terribly frightened sometimes!

LOTH

And isn't it strange that I have come here for the sake of these very people of whom you are so much afraid.

HELEN

Oh, surely not....

LOTH

Quite seriously. These people interest me more than any one else here.

HELEN

No one excepted?

LOTH

No one.

HELEN

Not even my brother-in-law?

LOTH

No! For my interest in these people is different and of an altogether higher nature. But you must forgive me ... You can't be expected to follow me there.

HELEN

And why not? Indeed, I understand you very well ... [_She drops a letter inadvertently which LOTH stoops to pick up._] Don't bother ... it's of no importance; only an indifferent boarding-school correspondence.

LOTH

So you went to boarding-school?

HELEN

Yes, in Herrnhut. You mustn't think that I'm so wholly ... No, no, I do understand.

LOTH

You see, these workingmen interest me for their own sake.

HELEN

To be sure. And a miner like that is very interesting, if you look upon him in that way. Why, there are places where you never see one; but If you have them daily before your eyes ...

LOTH

Even if you have them daily before your eyes, Miss Krause. Indeed. I think that is necessary if one is to discover what is truly interesting about them.

HELEN

Dear me! If it's so hard to discover--I mean what is interesting about them!

LOTH

Well; it is interesting, for instance that these people, as you say, always look so menacing and so morose.

HELEN

Why do you think that _that_ is particularly interesting?

LOTH

Because it is not the usual thing. The rest of us look that way only sometimes and by no means always.

HELEN

Yes, but why do they always look so ... so full of hatred and so surly? There must be some reason for that.

LOTH

Just so. And it is this very reason that I am anxious to discover.

HELEN

Oh, don't!... Now you're making fun of me! What good would it do you, even if you knew that?

LOTH

One might perhaps find ways and means to remove the cause that makes these people so joyless and so full of hatred; one might perhaps make them happier.

HELEN

[_Slightly confused._] I must confess freely that now ... And yet perhaps just now I begin to understand you a little. Only it is so strange, so new, so utterly new ...

HOFFMANN

[_Entering through the door at the right. He has a number of letters in his hand._] Well, here I am again.--Edward, see to it that these letters reach the post-office before eight o'clock. [_He hands the letters to the servant, who withdraws._] Well, dear people, now we can eat! Outrageously hot here! September and such heat! [_He lifts a bottle of champagne from the cooler. _] Veuve Cliquot! Edward knows my secret passions! [_He turns to LOTH._] You've had quite a lively argument, eh? [_Approaches the table, which has now been laid and which groans under delicacies. Rubbing his hands._] Well, that looks very good indeed! [_With a sly look in LOTH'S direction._] Don't you think it does?--By the way, sister! We're going to have company: William Kahl. He has been seen in the yard.

_HELEN makes a gesture of disgust._

HOFFMANN

My dear girl! You almost act as if I ... How can I help it? D'you suppose I invited him? [_Heavy steps are heard in the outer hall._] Ah! "Misfortune strides apace!"

_KAHL enters without having first knocked. He is twenty-four years
old: a clumsy peasant who is evidently concerned, so far as possible,
to make a show not only as a refined but, more especially, as a
wealthy man. His features are coarse; his predominant expression is
one of stupid cunning. He wears a green jacket, a gay velvet
waist-coat, dark trousers and patent-leather top-boots. His
head-covering is a green forester's hat with a cock's feather. His
jacket has buttons of stag's horn and stag's teeth depend from his
watch-chain. He stammers._

KAHL

G-good evening everybody!

[_He sees LOTH, is much embarrassed and, standing still, cuts a
rather sorry figure._

HOFFMANN

[_Steps up to him and shakes hands with him encouragingly._] Good evening, Mr. Kahl.

HELEN

[_Ungraciously._] Good evening.

KAHL

[_Strides with heavy steps diagonally across the room to HELEN and takes her hand._] Evenin' t'you, Nellie.

HOFFMANN

[_To LOTH._] Permit me to introduce our neighbour's son, Mr. Kahl.

[_KAHL grins and fidgets with his hat. Constrained silence._

HOFFMANN

Come, let's sit down, then. Is anybody missing? Ah, our mama! Miele, request Mrs. Krause to come to supper.

[_MIELE leaves by the middle door._

MIELE

[_Is heard in the hall, calling out._] Missus! Missus!! You're to come down--to come'n eat!

[_HELEN and HOFFMANN exchange a look of infinite comprehension and
laugh. Then, by a common impulse, they look at LOTH._

HOFFMANN

[_To LOTH._] Rustic simplicity!

_MRS. KRAUSE appears, incredibly overdressed. Silk and costly jewels.
Her dress and bearing betray hard arrogance, stupid pride and
half-mad vanity._

HOFFMANN

Ah, there is mama! Permit me to introduce to you my friend Dr. Loth.

MRS. KRAUSE

[_Half-curtsies, peasant-fashion._] I take the liberty! [_After a brief pause._] Eh, but Doctor, you mustn't bear me a grudge, no, you mustn't at all. I've got to excuse myself before you right away--[_she speaks with increasing fluency_]--excuse myself on account o' the way I acted a while ago. You know, y'understan', we' get a powerful lot o' tramps here right along ... 'Tain't reasonable to believe the trouble we has with them beggars. And they steals exackly like magpies. It ain't as we're stingy. We don't have to be thinkin' and thinkin' before we spends a penny, no, nor before we spends a pound neither. Now, old Louis Krause's wife, she's a close one, worst kind you see, she wouldn't give a crittur that much! Her old man died o' rage because he lost a dirty little two-thousand, playin' cards. No, we ain't that kind. You see that sideboard over there. That cost me two hundred crowns, not countin' the freight even. Baron Klinkow hisself couldn't have nothin' better.

_MRS. SPILLER has entered shortly after MRS. KRAUSE. She is small,
slightly deformed and gotten up in her mistress's cast-off garments.
While MRS. KRAUSE is speaking she looks up at her with a certain
devout attention. She is about fifty-five years old. Every time she
exhales her breath she utters a gentle moan, which is regularly
audible, even when she speaks, as a soft_--m.

MRS. SPILLER

[_In a servile, affectedly melancholy, minor tone. Very softly._] His lordship has exactly the identical sideboard--m--.

HELEN

[_To MRS. KRAUSE._] Mama, don't you think we had better sit down first and then--

MRS. KRAUSE

[_Turns with lightning-like rapidity to HELEN and transfixes her with a withering look; harshly and masterfully._] Is that proper?

[_She is about to sit down but remembers that grace has not been
said. Mechanically she folds her hands without, however, mastering
her malignity._

MRS. SPILLER

Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest. May thy gifts to us be blest.

[_All take their seats noisily. The embarrassing situation is tided
over by the passing and repassing of dishes, which takes some time._

HOFFMANN

[_To LOTH._] Help yourself, old fellow, won't you? Oysters?

LOTH

I'll try them. They're the first I've ever eaten.

MRS. KRAUSE

[_Has just sucked down an oyster noisily._] This season, you mean.

LOTH

No, I mean at all.

[_MRS. KRAUSE and MRS. SPILLER exchange a look._

HOFFMANN

[_To KAHL, who is squeezing a lemon with his teeth._] Haven't seen you for two days, Mr. Kahl. Have you been busy shooting mice?

KAHL

N-naw ...

HOFFMANN

[_To LOTH._] Mr. Kahl, I must tell you, is passionately fond of hunting.

KAHL

M-m-mice is i-infamous amphibies.

HELEN

[_Bursts out._] It's too silly. He can't see anything wild or tame without killing it.

KAHL

Las' night I sh-shot our ol' s-sow.

LOTH

Then I suppose that shooting is your chief occupation.

MRS. KRAUSE

Mr. Kahl, he just does that fer his own private pleasure.

MRS. SPILLER

Forest, game and women--as his Excellency the Minister von Schadendorf often used to say.

KAHL

'N d-day after t-t'morrow we're g-goin' t' have p-pigeon sh-sh-shooting.

LOTH

What is that--pigeon shooting?

HELEN

Ah, I can't bear such things. Surely it's a very merciless sport. Rough boys who throw stones at window panes are better employed.

HOFFMANN

You go too far, Helen.

HELEN

I don't know. According to my feeling it's far more sensible to break windows, than to tether pigeons to a post and then shoot bullets into them.

HOFFMANN

Well, Helen, after all, you must consider ...

LOTH

[_Using his knife and fork with energy._] It is a shameful barbarity.

KAHL

Aw! _Them_ few pigeons!

MRS. SPILLER

[_To LOTH._] Mr. Kahl, you know, has m-more than two-hundred of them in his dove-cote.

LOTH

All hunting is barbarity.

HOFFMANN

But an ineradicable one. Just now, for instance, five hundred live foxes are wanted in the market, and all foresters in this neighbourhood and in other parts of Germany are busy snaring the animals.

LOTH

What are all those foxes wanted for?

HOFFMANN

They are sent to England, where they will enjoy the honour of being hunted from their very cages straight to death by members of the aristocracy.

LOTH

Mohammedan or Christian--a beast's a beast.

HOFFMANN

May I pass you some lobster, mother?

MRS. KRAUSE

I guess so. They're good this here season.

MRS. SPILLER

Madame has such a delicate palate.

MRS. KRAUSE

[_To LOTH._] I suppose you ain't ever et lobsters neither, Doctor?

LOTH

Yes, I have eaten lobsters now and then--in the North, by the sea, in Warnemuende, where I was born.

MRS. KRAUSE

[_To KAHL._] Times an' times a person don't know what _to_ eat no more. Eh, William.

KAHL

Y-y're r-right there, cousin, G-God knows.

EDWARD

[_Is about to pour champagne into LOTH'S glass._] Champagne, sir.

LOTH

[_Covers his glass with his hand._] No, thank you.

HOFFMANN

Come now, don't be absurd.

HELEN

What? Don't you drink?

LOTH

No, Miss Krause.

HOFFMANN

Well, now, look here, old man. That is, you must admit, rather tiresome.

LOTH

If I were to drink I should only grow more tiresome.

HELEN

That is most interesting, Doctor.

LOTH

[_Untactfully._] That I grow even more tiresome when I drink wine?

HELEN

[_Somewhat taken aback._] No, oh, no. But that you do not drink ... do not drink at all, I mean.

LOTH

And why is that particularly interesting?

HELEN

[_Blushing._] It is not the usual thing.

[_She grows redder and more embarrassed._

LOTH

[_Clumsily._] You are quite right, unhappily.

MRS. KRAUSE

[_To LOTH._] It costs us fifteen shillin's a bottle. You needn't be scared to drink it. We gets it straight from Rheims; we ain't givin' you nothin' cheap; we wouldn't want it ourselves.

MRS. SPILLER

Ah, you can believe--m-me, Doctor: if his Excellency, the Minister von Schadendorf, had been able to keep _such_ a table ...

KAHL

I couldn't live without my wine.

HELEN

[_To LOTH._] Do tell us why you don't drink?

LOTH

I'll do that very gladly, I ...

HOFFMANN

Oh, pshaw, old fellow. [_He takes the bottle from the servant in order to press the wine upon LOTH._] Just think how many merry hours we used to spend in the old days ...

LOTH

Please don't take the trouble ...

HOFFMANN

Drink to-day--this one time.

LOTH

It's quite useless.

HOFFMANN

As a special favour to me.

[_HOFFMANN is about to pour the wine; LOTH resists. A slight conflict
ensues._

LOTH

No, no ... as I said before ... No!... no, thank you.

HOFFMANN

Don't be offended, but that, surely, is a mere foolish whim.

KAHL

[_To MRS. SPILLER._] A man that don't want nothin' has had enough.

[_MRS. SPILLER nods resignedly._

HOFFMANN

Anyhow, if you let a man have his will what more can you do for him. But I can tell you this much: without a glass of wine at dinner ...

LOTH

And a glass of beer at breakfast ...

HOFFMANN

Very well; why not? A glass of beer is a very healthy thing.

LOTH

And a nip of brandy now and then ...

HOFFMANN

Ah, well, if one couldn't get that much out of life! You'll never succeed in making an ascetic of me. You can't rob life of every stimulus.

LOTH

I'm not so sure of that. I am thoroughly content with the normal stimuli that reach my nervous system.

HOFFMANN

And a company that sit together with dry throats always has been and always will be a damnably weary and boresome one--with which, as a rule, I'd care to have very little to do.

MRS. KRAUSE

An' all them aristocrats drinks a whole lot.

MRS. SPILLER

[_Devoutly confirming her mistress' remark by an inclination of her body._] It is easy for gentlemen to drink a great deal of wine.

LOTH

[_To HOFFMANN._] My experience is quite to the contrary. As a rule, I am bored at a table where a great deal is drunk.

HOFFMANN

Oh, of course, it's got to be done in moderation.

LOTH

What do you call moderation?

HOFFMANN

Well, so long as one is in possession of one's senses ...

LOTH

Aha! Then you do admit that, in general, the consumption of alcohol does endanger the possession of one's senses? And for that reason, you see, I find tavern parties such a bore.

HOFFMANN

Are you afraid of losing possession of your senses so easily?

KAHL

T'-t'other d-day I drank a b-bottle o' R-Rhine-wine, _an'_ another o' ch-champagne. An' on top o' that an-n-nother o' B-Bordeaux--an' I wan't drunk by half.

LOTH

[_To HOFFMANN._] Oh no. You know well enough that it was I who took you fellows home when you'd been taking too much. And I still have the same tough old system. No, I'm not afraid on that account.

HOFFMANN

Well, then, what is it?

HELEN

Yes, why is it really that you don't drink? Do tell us!

LOTH

[_To HOFFMANN._] In order to satisfy you then: I do not drink to-day, if for no other reason but because I have given my word of honour to avoid spirituous liquors.

HOFFMANN

In other words, you've sunk to the level of a temperance fanatic.

LOTH

I am a total abstainer.

HOFFMANN

And for how long, may one ask, have you gone in for this--

LOTH

For life.

HOFFMANN

[_Throws down his knife and fork and half starts up from his chair._] Well, I'll be ... [_He sits down again._] Now, frankly, you must forgive me, but I never thought you so--childish.

LOTH

You may call it so if you please.

HOFFMANN

But how in the world did you get into that kind of thing?

HELEN

Surely, for such a resolution you must have a very weighty cause--it seems so to me, at least.

LOTH

Undoubtedly such a reason exists. You probably do not know, Miss Krause, nor you either, Hoffmann, what an appalling part alcohol plays in modern life ... Read Bunge, if you desire to gain an idea of it. I happen to remember the statements of a writer named Everett concerning the significance of alcohol in the life of the United States. His facts cover a space of ten years. In these ten years, according to him, alcohol has devoured directly a sum of three thousand millions of dollars and indirectly of six hundred millions. It has killed three hundred thousand people, it has driven thousands of others into prisons and poor-houses; it has caused two thousand suicides at the least. It has caused the loss of at least ten millions through fire and violent destruction; it has rendered no less than twenty thousand women, widows, and no less than one million children, orphans. Worst of all, however, are the far-reaching effects of alcohol which extend to the third and fourth generation.--Now, had I pledged myself never to marry, I might perhaps drink, but as it is--My ancestors, as I happen to know, were all not only healthy and robust but thoroughly temperate people. Every movement that I make, every hardship that I undergo, every breath that I draw brings what I owe them more deeply home to me. And that, you see, is the point; I am absolutely determined to transmit undiminished to my posterity this heritage which is mine.

MRS. KRAUSE

Look here, son-in-law, them miners o' ours do drink a deal too much. I guess that's true.

KAHL

They swills like pigs.

HELEN

And such, things are hereditary?

LOTH

There are families who are ruined by it--families of dipsomaniacs.

KAHL

[_Half to MRS. KRAUSE; half to HELEN._] Your old man--he's goin' it pretty fast, too.

HELEN

[_White as a sheet, vehemently._] Oh, don't talk nonsense.

MRS. KRAUSE

Eh, but listen to the impident hussy. You might think she was a princess! You're tryin' to play bein' a grand lady, I s'ppose! That's the way she goes fer her future husband. [_To LOTH, pointing to KAHL._] That's him, you know; they're promised; it's all arranged.

HELEN

[_Jumping up._] Stop! or ... _Stop_, mother, or I ...

MRS. KRAUSE

Well, I do declare! Say, Doctor, is that what you call eddication, eh? God knows, I treat her as if she was my own child, but that's a little too much.

HOFFMANN

[_Soothingly._] Ah, mother, do me the favour....

MRS. KRAUSE

No-o! I don't see why. Such a goose like that ... That's an end o' all justice ... such a sl...!

HOFFMANN

Oh, but mother, I must really beg of you to control--

MRS. KRAUSE

[_Doubly enraged._] Instead o' sich a crittur takin' a hand on the farm.... God forbid! She pulls her sheets 'way over her ears. But her Schillers and her Goethes and sich like stinkin' dogs--that can't do nothin' but lie; they c'n turn her head. It's enough to make you sick!

[_She stops, quivering with rage._

HOFFMANN

[_Trying to pacify her._] Well, well--she will be all right now ... perhaps it wasn't quite right ... perhaps....

[_He beckons to HELEN, who in her excitement has drawn aside, and the
girl, fighting down her tears, returns to her place._

HOFFMANN

[_Interrupting the painful silence that has followed, to LOTH._] Ah, yes ... what were we talking about? To be sure, of good old alcohol. [_He raises his glass._] Well, mother, let us have peace. Come,--we'll drink a toast in peace, and honour alcohol by being peaceful. [_MRS. KRAUSE, although somewhat rebelliously, clinks glasses with him._] What, Helen, and your glass is empty.... I say, Loth, you've made a proselyte.

HELEN

Ah ... no ... I....

MRS. SPILLER

But, dear Miss Helen, that looks sus--

HOFFMANN

You weren't always so very particular.

HELEN

[_Pertly._] I simply have no inclination to drink to-day. That's all.

HOFFMANN

Oh, I beg your pardon, very humbly indeed ... Let me see, what were we talking about?

LOTH

We were saying that there were whole families of dipsomaniacs.

HOFFMANN

[_Embarrassed anew._] To be sure, to be sure, but ... er....

[_Growing anger is noticeable in the behaviour of MRS. KRAUSE. KAHL
is obviously hard put to it to restrain his laughter concerning
something that seems to furnish him immense inner amusement. HELEN
observes KAHL with burning eyes and her threatening glance has
repeatedly restrained him from saying something that is clearly on
the tip of his tongue. LOTH, peeling an apple with a good deal of
equanimity, has taken no notice of all this._

LOTH

What is more, you seem to be rather blessed with that sort of thing hereabouts.

HOFFMANN

[_Almost beside himself._] Why? How? Blessed with what?

LOTH

With drunkards, of course.

HOFFMANN

H-m! Do you think so ... ah ... yes ... I dare say--the miners....

LOTH

Not only the miners. Here, in the inn, where I stopped before I came to you, there sat a fellow, for instance, this way.

[_He rests both elbows on the table, supports his head, with his
hands and stares at the table._

HOFFMANN

Really?

[_His embarrassment has now reached its highest point; MRS. KRAUSE
coughs; HELEN still commands KAHL with her eyes. His whole body
quivers with internal laughter, but he is still capable of enough
self-command not to burst out._

LOTH

I'm surprised that you don't know this, well, one might almost say, this matchless example of his kind. It's the inn next door to your house. I was told that the man is an immensely rich farmer of this place who literally spends his days and years in the same tap-room drinking whiskey. Of course he's a mere animal to-day. Those frightfully vacant, drink-bleared eyes with which he stared at me!

[_KAHL, who has restrained himself up to this point, breaks out in
coarse, loud, irrepressible laughter, so that LOTH and HOFFMANN, dumb
with astonishment, stare at him._

KAHL

[_Stammering out through his laughter._] By the Almighty, that was.... Oh, sure, sure--that was the ol' man.

HELEN

[_Jumps up, horrified and indignant. She crushes her napkin and flings it on the table._] You are.... [_With a gesture of utter loathing._] Oh, you are....

[_She withdraws swiftly._

KAHL

[_Violently breaking through the constraint which arises from his consciousness of having committed a gross blunder._] Oh, pshaw!... It's too dam' foolish! I'm goin' my own ways. [_He puts on his hat and says, without turning back:_] Evenin'.

MRS. KRAUSE

[_Calls out after him._] Don' know's I c'n blame you, William. [_She folds her napkin and calls_:] Miele! [_MIELE enters._] Clear the table! [_To herself, but audibly._] Sich a goose!

HOFFMANN

[_Somewhat angry._] Well, mother, honestly, I must say....

MRS. KRAUSE

You go and...!

[_Arises; exits quickly._

MRS. SPILLER

Madame--m--has had a good many domestic annoyances to-day--m--. I will now respectfully take my leave.

[_She rises, prays silently with upturned eyes for a moment and then
leaves._