[_Sniffing._] Fine as spice, you might say.
ANSORGE
Come, then, Moritz, tell us your opinion, you that's been out and seen the world. Is things at all like to improve for us weavers, eh?
JAEGER
They would need to.
ANSORGE
We're in an awful state here. It's not livin' an' it's not dyin'. A man fights to the bitter end, but he's bound to be beat at last--to be left without a roof over his head, you may say without ground under his feet.
As long as he can work at the loom he can earn some sort o poor, miserable livin'. But it's many a day since I've been able to get that sort o' job. Now I tries to put a bite into my mouth with this here basket-mak-in'. I sits at it late into the night, and by the time I tumbles into bed I've earned three-halfpence. I puts it to you as knows things, if a man can live on that, when everything's so dear? Nine shillin' goes in one lump for house tax, three shillin' for land tax, nine shillin' for mortgage interest--that makes one pound one. I may reckon my year's earnin' at just double that money, and that leaves me twenty-one shillin' for a whole year's food, an' fire, an' clothes, an'
shoes; and I've got to keep up some sort of a place to live in. An'
there's odds an' ends. Is it a wonder if I'm behindhand with my interest payments?
OLD BAUMERT
Some one would need to go to Berlin an' tell the King how hard put to it we are.
JAEGER
Little good that would do, father Baumert. There's been plenty written about it in the news-papers. But the rich people, they can turn and twist things round ... as cunning as the devil himself.
OLD BAUMERT
[_Shaking his head._] To think they've no more sense than that in Berlin.
ANSORGE
And is it really true, Moritz? Is there no law to help us? If a man hasn't been able to scrape together enough to pay his mortgage interest, though he's worked the very skin off his hands, must his house be taken from him? The peasant that's lent the money on it, he wants his rights--what else can you look for from him? But what's to be the end of it all, I don't know.--If I'm put out o' the house ... [_In a voice choked by tears._] I was born here, and here my father sat at his loom for more than forty year. Many was the time he said to mother: Mother, when I'm gone, keep hold o' the house. I've worked hard for it. Every nail means a night's weavin', every plank a year's dry bread. A man would think that ...
JAEGER
They're just as like to take the last bite out of your mouth--that's what they are.
ANSORGE
Well, well, well! I would rather be carried out than have to walk out now in my old days. Who minds dyin'? My father, he was glad to die. At the very end he got frightened, but I crept into bed beside him, an' he quieted down again. Think of it; I was a lad of thirteen then. I was tired and fell asleep beside him--I knew no better--and when I woke he was quite cold.
MOTHER BAUMERT
[_After a pause._] Give Ansorge his soup out o' the oven, Bertha.
BERTHA
Here, father Ansorge, it'll do you good.
ANSORGE
[_Eating and shedding tears._] Well, well, well!
[_OLD BAUMERT has begun to eat the meat out of the saucepan._
MOTHER BAUMERT
Father, father, can't you have patience an' let Bertha serve it up properly?
OLD BAUMERT
[_Chewing._] It's two years now since I took the sacrament. I went straight after that an' sold my Sunday coat, an' we bought a good bit o'
pork, an' since then never a mouthful of meat has passed my lips till to-night.
JAEGER
_We_ don't need no meat! The manufacturers eats it for us. It's the fat o' the land _they_ lives on. Whoever don't believe that has only to go down to Bielau and Peterswaldau. He'll see fine things there--palace upon palace, with towers and iron railings and plate-glass windows. Who do they all belong to? Why, of course, the manufacturers! No signs of bad times there! Baked and boiled and fried--horses and carriages and governesses--they've money to pay for all that and goodness knows how much more. They're swelled out to burstin' with pride and good livin'.
ANSORGE
Things was different in my young days. Then the manufacturers let the weaver have his share. Now they keeps everything to theirselves. An'
would you like to know what's at the bottom of it all? It's that the fine folks nowadays believes neither in God nor devil. What do they care about commandments or punishments? And so they steals our last scrap o' bread, an' leaves us no chance of earnin' the barest living. For it's their fault. If our manufacturers was good men, there would be no bad times for us.
JAEGER
Listen, then, and I'll read you something that will please you. [_He takes one or two loose papers from his pocket._] I say, August, run and fetch another quart from the public-house. Eh, boy, do you laugh all day long?
MOTHER BAUMERT
No one knows why, but our August's always happy--grins an' laughs, come what may. Off with you then, quick! [_Exit AUGUST with the empty brandy-bottle._] You've got something good now, eh, father?
OLD BAUMERT
[_Still chewing; his spirits are rising from the effect of food and drink._] Moritz, you're the very man we want. You can read an' write. You understand the weavin' trade, and you've a heart to feel for the poor weavers' sufferin's. You should stand up for us here.
JAEGER
I'd do that quick enough! There's nothing I'd like better than to give the manufacturers round here a bit of a fright--dogs that they are! I'm an easy-goin' fellow, but let me once get worked up into a real rage, and I'll take Dreissiger in the one hand and Dittrich in the other, and knock their heads together till the sparks fly out o' their eyes.--If we could only arrange all to join together, we'd soon give the manufacturers a proper lesson ... we wouldn't need no King an' no Government ... all we'd have to do would be to say: We wants this and that, and we don't want the other thing. There would be a change of days then. As soon as they see that there's some pluck in us, they'll cave in. I know the rascals; they're a pack o' cowardly hounds.
MOTHER BAUMERT
There's some truth in what you say. I'm not a bad woman. I've always been the one to say as how there must be rich folks as well as poor. But when things come to such a pass as this ...
JAEGER
The devil may take them all, for what I care. It would be no more than they deserves.
[_OLD BAUMERT has quietly gone out._
BERTHA