SCHMAROWSKI
Mr. Fielitz will have to be!
MRS. FIELITZ
He’s still thinkin’ about that corner shop o’ his. Can’t you keep a bit o’ space for it?
SCHMAROWSKI
Can’t be done! How’d I end if I begin that way? You got sense enough to see that yourself. No. There wasn’t no such agreement. We can’t be thinkin’ o’ things like that.–A banker is comin’ to this dinner, Mrs. Fielitz, an’ I ought to know what to expect exactly. Everything is bein’ straightened out now. If I’m left to stick in the mud now…!
MRS. FIELITZ
I’ll see to it. Don’t bother.
SCHMAROWSKI
Very well. An’ now there’s something else. Have you heard anything from Rauchhaupt again?
MRS. FIELITZ
Yes, I hears that he don’t want to hold his tongue an’ that he goes about holdin’ us up to contempt. That’s the same thing like with Wehrhahn. I never did nothin’ but kindnesses to Rauchhaupt. An’ now he comes here day in an’ day out an’ makes a body sick an’ sore with his old stories that never was nowhere but in his head. Maybe … my goodness … a man like that … he c’n go an’ keep on an’ on, till, in the end … well, well …
SCHMAROWSKI
Don’t be afraid, Mrs. Fielitz. Things don’t go no further now that the noise is quieted down.–By the way, I see that the carpenters are assemblin’. I got to go over there an’ rattle off my bit o’ speech. It’s just this: if Rauchhaupt should come in again, you just question him carefully a little. There’s a new affair bein’ started. Got a political side to it. Immense piece o’ business. ‘Course I got my finger in that pie, as I has in all the others now. We’d like to get Rauchhaupt’s land … He bought it for a song in the old days. If we c’n get it–the whole of it an’ not parcelled–there’d be a cool million in it.
MRS. FIELITZ
An’ here I got two savin’s bank books.
SCHMAROWSKI
Thank you. Just what I need. There are times when a man can’t be sparin’ o’ money …
MRS. FIELITZ
The girl is comin’. Hurry an’ slip ’em into your pocket.
_SCHMAROWSKI hastily puts the bankbooks into his pocket, nods to MRS. FIELITZ and withdraws rapidly._
MRS. FIELITZ
[_Half rising from her chair and looking anxiously out through the window._] If only they don’t go’ an’ make trouble this day. There’s a great crowd o’ people standin’ around.
_LEONTINE returns with the three bottles of wine and the glasses._
LEONTINE
Mama! Mama! He’s downstairs again. That fool of a Rauchhaupt is down there.
MRS. FIELITZ
[_Frightened._] Who?
LEONTINE
Rauchhaupt. He’s comin’ in right behind me.
[_She places the bottles and glasses on the table._
MRS. FIELITZ
[_With sudden determination._] Let him! He c’n come up for all I cares. I’ll tell him the reel truth for onct.
[_RAUCHHAUPT puts his head in at the door._
RAUCHHAUPT
Is I disturbing you, Mrs. Fielitz?
MRS. FIELITZ
No, you ain’t disturbin’ me.
RAUCHHAUPT
Is I disturbin’ anybody else then?
MRS. FIELITZ
I don’t know about that. It depends.
RAUCHHAUPT
[_Enters. His appearance is not quite so neglected as formerly._] My congratulations. I’m comin’ in to see if things is goin’ right again.
MRS. FIELITZ
[_With forced joviality._] You got a fine instinct for them things, Rauchhaupt.
RAUCHHAUPT
[_Staring at her, emphatically._] That I has, certainly! That I has!–I just met Dr. Boxer, too. He’s goin’ to come up and see you in a minute, too. An’ I axed him about a certain matter, too.
MRS. FIELITZ
What kind o’ thing was that?
RAUCHHAUPT
About that time, you know! They says that he said somethin’ to Langheinrich that time an’ Langheinrich said somethin’ to him, too.
MRS. FIELITZ
I ain’t concerned with them affairs o’ yours. Leontine! Go an’ get a piece o’ sausage so that they c’n have a bite o’ food when they comes over afterwards.
RAUCHHAUPT
The world don’t stop movin’.
MRS. FIELITZ
No, it don’t. That’s so.
LEONTINE
Wouldn’t you like for me to stay here now?
RAUCHHAUPT
Yon better be goin’ an’ buy some silk stockin’s.
MRS. FIELITZ
What’s the meanin’ o’ that?
RAUCHHAUPT
That don’t mean, nothin’ much. You might think she was a countess–standin’ there at Mrs. Boxer’s:–Adelaide, I mean, what’s now Mrs. Schmarowski. There she stood in the shop an’ chaffered about a yellow petticoat. She’s a great lady nowadays an’ one as wears red silk stockin’s.
LEONTINE
People like us don’t hardly have enough to buy cotton, ones.
[_Exit._
MRS. FIELITZ
I wonder what people will say about Adelaide in the end?
RAUCHHAUPT
That ain’t just talkin’. Them’s facts. T’other day the beer waggon unloaded some beer at Mrs. Kehrwieder’s–Mrs. Kehrwieder that’s a washerwoman hereabouts. Well, my lady comes rustlin’ up–that’s what she does–an’ turns up her nose–she ain’t no beastly snob, oh, no!–an’ then she asks Mrs. Kehrwieder: is it reely true that the poor drinks beer?
MRS. FIELITZ
You needn’t come to me with your rot an’ your gossip.
RAUCHHAUPT
Anyhow, what I was goin’ to tell you is this: I’m on a new scent!
MRS. FIELITZ
What kind of a scent is that you’re on?
RAUCHHAUPT
Mum’s the word! I gotta be careful. I can’t say nothin’; I don’t pretend to know nothin’. But I kept my eyes open pretty wide, I tell you. There’s detectives workin’, too. I been to Wehrhahn, too, an’ he told me to go right on!
MRS. FIELITZ
[_Knitting._] O Lordy! Wehrhahn. He’s goin’ to do you a lot o’ good, ain’t he? It’ll cost some more o’ your money–that’s what!
RAUCHHAUPT
Mrs. Fielitz, the things we has found out, I’ll show ’em up clear as day, I tell you. You c’n get hold o’ the smallest secret. The public prosecutor hisself pricked up his ears. An’ the way you does it is this: first you draws big circles, Mrs. Fielitz, an’ then you draws littler ones an’ littler ones an’ then–then somebody is caught! Who? Why, them criminals what set fire to the house. O’ course I don’t mean you, Mrs. Fielitz.
MRS. FIELITZ
I’d give the matter a rest if I was you. Nothin’ ain’t goin’ to come out.
RAUCHHAUPT
How much you bet, Missis? I’ll take you up.
MRS. FIELITZ
If nothin’ didn’t come out at first …
RAUCHHAUPT
How much you bet, Missis? Come now, an’ bet. All a body’s gotta be is patient. You ordered Gustav to come over at eleven o’clock with the seeds. An’ just then Mrs. Schulze passed by your door. No, I don’t take my nose off the scent.
MRS. FIELITZ
Now I’ll tell you something Rauchhaupt. I don’t care nothin’ about your nose. But I tell you, if you don’t stop but go on sniffin’ around here all the blessed time…. I tell you, some day my patience’ll be at an end!
RAUCHHAUPT
Why don’t you go an’ sue me, Mrs. Fielitz?
MRS. FIELITZ
For my part you c’n say right out what you has to say. Then a person’ll know what to answer you. But don’t go plannin’ your stinkin’ plans with that Schulze woman! I put that there woman outta here! She comes here an’ tries to talk me into lettin’ Leontine come over to her. The constable, he’d like that pretty well. My girl ain’t that kind, though. An’ now, o’ course, the old witch’d like to give us a dig. Before that she wanted to do the same to you!–I don’t know anyhow what you’re makin’ so much noise about! I don’t see as anythin’ bad has happened to that boy o’ yours! He’s taken care of. He’s got a good home! He gets nursin’ an’ good food!
RAUCHHAUPT
No, no, that don’t do me no good inside. I don’t let that there rest on me–not on me an’ not on Gustav. Can’t be done! That keeps bitin’ into me. I can’t let that go. It cost me ten years o’ my life. I knows that! I knows what I went through that time when I tried to hang myself. I ain’t never goin’ to get over that, ‘s long’s I live! I’ll find out who was at the bottom of it all! I made up my mind to that!
FIELITZ
Good Lord, an’ why not? Go ahead an’ do it! Keep peggin’ away at it. What business is it o’ mine? Has I got to have myself excited this way all the time when, the doctor told me how bad it is for me….
RAUCHHAUPT
Missis, there ain’t a soul as knows what that was. I knows it. I just ran home, blind…. couldn’t see nothin’! I didn’t know nothin’ no more o’ God or the world. I just kept pantin’ for air! An’ then there I lay–like a dead person on the bed. They rubbed me with towels an’ they brushed me with brushes, an’ sprayed camphor all over me an’ such stuff! Then I came back to life.
MRS. FIELITZ
How many hundreds o’ times has you been tellin’ me that? I knows, Rauchhaupt, that you went off o’ your head. Well, what about that? Look at me! My hair didn’t get no blacker from that there business; I didn’t get no stronger from it neither. Who’s worse off right now–you or me? That’s what I’d like to know. You got your health; you’re lookin’ prosperous! An’ me? What am I to-day? An’ how does I look? Well, then, what more d’you want?–I dreamed o’ my own funeral, already!–What do you want more’n that? I ain’t goin’ to bother nobody much longer. There ain’t much good to be got by houndin’ me!… An’ that’s the truth.–An’ anyhow, you’re a foolish kind o’ a man, Rauchhaupt. You’re so crazy, nobody wouldn’t hardly believe it. First you was always wantin’ to get rid o’ the boy …
RAUCHHAUPT
Oh, you don’t know Gustav, that you don’t! What that there boy could do when I had him … an’ the way he was kind to children an’ such like! An’ the way he c’n sing! An’ the thoughts he’s got in his head! That there time when he ran away from the asylum, he went an’ he sat down in front o’ the church where he was always listenin’ to the bells, an’ there he sat reel still, waitin’. You ought to ha’ seen the boy then, Mrs. Fielitz, the way all that shows in his face. That’s somethin’! Only thing is, he can’t get it out the way the likes o’ us c’n do it.
MRS. FIELITZ
Rauchhaupt, I had worse things ‘n that. Yes. I lost a boy–an’ he was the best thing I had in this world. Well, you see? You c’n go an’ stare at me now! My life–it ain’t been no joke neither.–Go right on starin’ at me! Maybe you’ll lose your taste for this kind o’ thing the way you did onct before.
RAUCHHAUPT
Mrs. Fielitz, I’m a peaceable man, but that there … I’m peaceable, Missis. I never liked bein’ a constable, but …
MRS. FIELITZ
Well, then! Everybody knows that! On that very account! An’ now there ain’t nobody as bad as you! You’re actin’ like a reg’lar bloodhound! Why? You’ve always been as good as gold, Rauchhaupt! Every child in the place knows that! An’ now, what’s all this about?–You c’n go an’ open one o’ them there bottles. Why shouldn’t we go an’ drink a bit o’ a drop together? [_RAUCHHAUPT wipes his eyes and then walks across to draw the cork of one of the bottles._]–Fightin’ c’n begin again afterwards. I s’ppose life ain’t no different from that.–An’ we can’t change it. There ain’t nothin’ but foolishness around. An’ when you want to go an’ open people’s eyes–you can’t do it! Foolishness–that’s what rules this world.–What are we: you an’ me an’ all of us? We has had to go worryin’ and workin’ all our lives–every one of us has! Well, then! We ought to know how things reely is! If you don’t join the scramble–you’re lazy: if you do–you’re bad.–An’ everythin’ we does get, we gets out o’ the dirt. People like us has to turn their hands to anythin’! An’ they, they tells you: be good, be good! How? What chanct has we got? But no, we don’t even live in peace with each other.–I wanted to get on–that’s true. An’ ain’t it natural? We all wants to get out o’ this here mud in which we all fights an’ scratches around … Out o’ it … away from it … higher up, if you wants to call it that … Is it true as you’re wantin’ to move away from here, Rauchhaupt?
RAUCHHAUPT
Yes, Mrs. Fielitz, I been havin’ that in my mind. An’ why? Dr. Boxer an’ me, we knows why. [_He groans sorrowfully._] It ain’t only on account o’ my wantin’ to be nearer to Gustav. No, no! I don’t feel well in this here neighbourhood no more. Everybody looks at me kind o’ queer nowadays.
[_The bottle has now been uncorked and RAUCHHAUPT fills two glasses._
MRS. FIELITZ
That’s another thing. Why does we care what people think?
RAUCHHAUPT
No, no! When a man has done what I has–that’s different. When a man’s gone that length–an’ a former officer at that–that he’s gone an’ taken a rope an’ tried…. I don’t understand, Missis, I don’t understand how I could ha’ done that.–But they cut me down … that they did.
[_He drinks._
MRS. FIELITZ
Is it reely true what people says about it?
RAUCHHAUPT
You see, it got out, an’ people knows! An’ that–me bein’ a former officer–when I think o’ that! No, no rain an’ no wind can’t wash that blot off o’ me.
[_He drinks._
MRS. FIELITZ
I say: let’s drink to our health. I don’t care about people nor what they thinks.–But if, maybe, you do want to sell some day–who knows?… I c’n talk to Schmarowski. You two might agree.
_DR. BOXER, EDE and LEONTINE enter._
DR. BOXER
You’re having a very jolly time here, Mrs. Fielitz.
MRS. FIELITZ
Just to-day. It’s an exception; that it is!
EDE
Young lady! Hey, there! You want to see somethin’? Langheinrich is dancin’ around on the church-steeple!
_MRS. FIELITZ rises with difficulty and looks out._
LEONTINE
I can’t bear to look at things like that even.
EDE
Let him fall! He won’t fall nowhere but on his feet; he’s just like a cat.
DR. BOXER
[_Softly and half-humorously threatening RAUCHHAUPT._] Stop exciting my patient all the time. A deuce of a lot of good all my doctoring will do then!
MRS. FIELITZ
You c’n leave the man be, Doctor. People has put him up to things. Otherwise he’s the best feller in the world.
DR. BOXER
Very well, then! And beyond that, Mrs. Fielitz, how do you feel?
MRS. FIELITZ
Well enough. ‘Tis true,–[_she points to her breast_]–somethin’s cracked inside o’ here. But then! Everybody’s gotta get out o’ the world sometime. I’ve lived quite a while!
DR. BOXER
You musn’t talk so much! You must keep still longer. [_To RAUCHHAUPT._] I’ve got an invitation for you. Mr. Schmarowski saw you going in here, and so he stopped me and asked me to say that he’d like to have you come over to the dinner!
MRS. FIELITZ
Rauchhaupt–well, o’ course. Why not?
RAUCHHAUPT
An’ I won’t go givin’ nothin’ away yet.
MRS. FIELITZ
And you, Doctor?
DR. BOXER
[_Quickly._] Heaven forbid! Not I?
MRS. FIELITZ
An’ why not? Do you bear him a grudge about anythin’?
DR. BOXER
I? Bear a grudge? I never do that. But, do you see, I’m a lost man as far as all this is concerned. I don’t deny that it amuses me to watch all these doings here, but I can’t join in them. I’ll never learn to do that.–I will probably go away again, too.
MRS. FIELITZ
An’ give up such a good practice?
DR. BOXER
Sea-faring–that gives a man true health. That is the best practice for one, Mrs. Fielitz, who is in some respects so little practical.
MRS. FIELITZ
You ain’t very practical, that’s true.
DR. BOXER
No, I am not.–Listen, listen, how they’re letting themselves go! [_Many voices are heard in enthusiastic shouting._] Great enthusiasm again! In a moment they will raise Schmarowski and carry him on their shoulders. They were about to do it a moment ago. [_A great, confused noise of huzzaing voices floats into the room._] Well, do you see? Isn’t that truly uplifting?
LEONTINE
Mother, look, look who the workin’men is raisin’ up! The workin’men is raisin’ him up!
MRS. FIELITZ
Who?
[_She rises convulsively and stares out._
LEONTINE
Don’t you see who it is?
RAUCHHAUPT
Schmarowski.
EDE
That’s how it is. I couldn’t bear to see that there feller. But now … well … he’s got some sense an’ he’s fightin’ for sensible ideas–against arbitrary an’ police power–now, well, I’ll drink to his health, too.
DR. BOXER
Well, of course, Ede, naturally you will!
_FIELITZ enters highly excited._
FIELITZ
Me … me … me … me … it was me that did it! Go on an’ shout, an’ shout! It’s that there feller that they lifts up! Let ’em. But I don’t make no speeches like that! Character, conscience–them’s the main things. Yes, it was me as paid an’ me as built. But even if Wehrhahn went an’ dropped me–I don’t let go my sound opinions! There’s gotta be order! There’s gotta be morality! I’m for the monarchy right down to my marrow! I don’t envy him that there triumph!
DR. BOXER
Look here, Fielitz! Come over here to the light, will you? I’d like to examine your eyes.–Don’t your pupils move at all?
MRS. FIELITZ
[_Pants swiftly and convulsively, throws her hands high up as if in joy, and cries out half in rapture, half in terror:_] Julius!
LEONTINE
Mama! Mama!
EDE
She’s gone to sleep.
LEONTINE
[_Appealing to the DOCTOR._] Mother is swingin’ her arms around so!
DR. BOXER
Who? Where? Mrs. Fielitz?
LEONTINE
Look! Look!
EDE
[_Laughing._] Is she tryin’ to catch sparrows in the air?
_DR. BOXER has turned from FIELITZ to MRS. FIELITZ._
DR. BOXER
Mrs. Fielitz!
_FIELITZ unconcerned by the events in the room, walks excitedly up and down in the background. RAUCHHAUPT is tensely watching from the window what takes place without._
LEONTINE
What is it? Mother won’t answer at all!
RAUCHHAUPT
I believe they’re goin’ to end by comin’ over here!
DR. BOXER
What is it, Mrs. Fielitz? What are you trying to do? Why do you move your hands about in that way?
MRS. FIELITZ
[_Reaching out strangely with both hands._] You reaches … you reaches … always this way …
DR. BOXER
After what?
MRS. FIELITZ
[_As before._] You always reaches out after … somethin’ …
[_Her arms drop and she falls silent._
LEONTINE
[_To DR. BOXER._] Is she sleepin’?
DR. BOXER
[_Seriously._] Yes, she has fallen asleep. But keep all those people back now.
RAUCHHAUPT
The whole crowd is comin’ over here.
DR. BOXER
[_Emphatically._] Keep them back! Ede! Turn them back at once!
_EDE runs out._
LEONTINE
Doctor, what’s happened to mother?
DR. BOXER
Your mother has …
LEONTINE
What, what?
DR. BOXER
[_Significantly._] Has fallen asleep.
LEONTINE’S
[_Face assumes an expression of horror; she is about to shriek. DR. BOXER takes hold of her vigorously and puts his hand over her mouth. She regains a measure of self-control._] But, Doctor, she was talkin’ just now…?
DR. BOXER
[_Gently draws LEONTINE forward with his left hand and places his right upon the forehead of the dead woman._] So she was. And from now on she takes her fill of silence.
_In the background FIELITZ, careless of what has happened, regards his eyes sharply and intently in a hand mirror._
THE CURTAIN FALLS