HASSENREUTER
Walburga! I'm afraid Mr. Spitta is taking us for each other. Mr. Spitta, you're about to give a lesson! Walburga, you and your teacher are free to retire to the library.--If human arrogance and especially that of very young people could be crystallised into one formation--humanity would be buried under that rock like an ant under the granite masses of an antediluvian mountain range!
SPITTA
But I wouldn't in any wise be refuted thereby.
HASSENREUTER
Man, I tell you that I've not only passed through two semesters of formal study, but I have grown grey in the practice of the actor's art! And I tell you that Goethe's catechism for actors is the alpha and the omega of my artistic convictions! If you don't like that--get another teacher!
SPITTA
[_Pursuing his argument calmly._] According to my opinion, Goethe with his senile regulations for actors denied, in the pettiest way, himself and his whole original nature. What is one to say of his ruling that every actor, irrespective of the quality of the character represented by him, must--these are his very words--show an ogre-like expression of countenance in order that the spectator be at once reminded of the nature of lofty tragedy. Actually, these are his very words!
_KaFERSTEIN and KEGEL make an effort to assume ogre-like expressions._
HASSENREUTER
Get out your note-book, most excellent Spitta, and record your opinion, please, that Manager Hassenreuter is an ass, that Schiller is an ass, Goethe an ass, Aristotle, too, of course--[_he begins suddenly to laugh like mad_]--and, ha, ha, ha! a certain Spitta a--night watchman!
SPITTA
I'm glad to see, sir, that, at least, you've recovered your good humour.
HASSENREUTER
The devil! I haven't recovered it at all! You're a symptom. So you needn't think yourself very important.--You are a rat, so to speak. One of those rats who are beginning, in the field of politics, to undermine our glorious and recently united German Empire! They are trying to cheat us of the reward of our labours! And in the garden of German art these rats are gnawing at the roots of the tree of idealism. They are determined to drag its crown into the mire!--Down, down, down into the dust with you!
_KaFERSTEIN and KEGEL try to preserve their gravity but soon break out into loud laughter, which HASSENREUTER is impelled to join.
WALBURGA looks on in wide-eyed astonishment. SPITTA remains serious._
_MRS. JOHN is now seen descending the stairs of the loft. After a little while QUAQUARO follows her._
HASSENREUTER
[_Perceives MRS. JOHN and points her out to SPITTA with violent gesticulations as if he had just made an important discovery._] There comes your tragic Muse!
MRS. JOHN
[_Approaches, abashed by the laughter of HASSENREUTER, KEGEL and KaFERSTEIN._] Why, what d'you see about me?
HASSENREUTER
Nothing but what is good and beautiful, Mrs. John! You may thank God that your quiet, withdrawn and peaceful life unfits you for the part of a tragic heroine.--But tell me, have you, by any chance, had an interview with ghosts?
MRS. JOHN
[_Unnaturally pale._] Why do you ax that?
HASSENREUTER
Perhaps you even saw the famous soldier Sorgenfrei who closed his career above as a deserter into a better world?
MRS. JOHN
If it was a livin' soul, maybe you might be right. But I ain't scared o'
no dead ghosts.
HASSENREUTER
Well, Mr. Quaquaro, how did it look under the roof there?
QUAQUARO
[_Who has brought down with him a Swedish riding-boot._] Well, I took a pretty good look aroun' an' I came to the conclusion that, at least, some shelterless ragamuffins has passed the night there; though how they got in I ain't sayin'. An' then I found this here boot.--
[_Out of the boot he draws an infant's bottle, topped by a rubber nipple and half filled with milk._
MRS. JOHN
That's easily explained. I was up there settin' things to rights an' I had little Adelbert along with me. But I don' know nothin' about the rest.
HASSENREUTER
Nobody has undertaken to assert that you do, Mrs. John.
MRS. JOHN
When you considers how my little Adelbert came into the world ... an'
when you considers how he died ... nobody c'n come an' tell me nothin'
about bein' a reel mother ... But I gotta leave now, sir ... I can't be comin' up here for two three days. Good-bye! I has to go to my sister-in-law an' let Adelbert enjoy the country air a little.
[_She trots off through the door to the outer hall._
HASSENREUTER
Can you make anything of her wild talk?
QUAQUARO
There's been a screw loose there ever since her first baby came, an' all the more after it took an' died. Now since she's got the second one, there's two screws what's wobbly. Howsoever, she c'n count--that's a fac'. She's got a good bit o' money loaned out at interest on pawned goods.
HASSENREUTER
Well, but what is the injured party--namely, myself--to do?
QUAQUARO