MARTHEL
[_Has started the fire to burning and now brings ROSE an earthenware bowl of potatoes and a paring knife._] Oh, but Rosie, I'm that frightened! You look so ...!
ROSE
How does I look? Tell me that? How? Has I got spots on my hands? Is it branded over my eyes? Everythin's kind o' ghastly to me this day.
[_Laughing a ghastly laugh._] Lord! I can't see the face o' you! Now I see one hand! Now I see two eyes! Just dots now! Martha, maybe I'm growin' blind!
MARTHEL
Rosie, did somethin' happen to you?
ROSE
God protect you from what's happened to me.... You'd better be wishin'
yourself an early death! Because, even if a body dies to this world, they do say that he passes into rest. Then you don't have to live an' draw breath no more.--How did it go with little Kurt Flamm? I've clean forgot ... I'm dizzy ... I'm forgettin' ... I've forgotten everythin' ... life's that hard ... If I could only keep on feelin' this way ... an' never wake up again ...! What's the reason o' such things comin' to pass in this world?
MARTHEL
[_Frightened._] If only father would come home!
ROSE
Martha, come! Listen to me! You mustn't tell father that I was here or that I am here ... Martha, sure you'll promise me that, won't you?...
Many a thing I've done for the love o' you ... Martha! You haven't forgotten that, nor you mustn't forget it, even if things grows dark around me now.
MARTHEL
Will you drink a bit of coffee? There's a drop left in the oven.
ROSE
An' don't be frightened! I'll go upstairs in the room an' lie down a wee bit ... just a bit. Otherwise I'm all right ... otherwise there's nothin'
that ails me.
MARTHEL
An' I'm not to say nothin' to father?
ROSE
Not a word!
MARTHEL
An' not to August neither?
ROSE
Not a syllable! Lass, you've never known your mother an' I've raised you with fear an' heartache.--Many's the night I've watched through in terror because you was ill! I wasn't as old as you when I carried you about on my arm till I was near breakin' in two! Here you was--at my breast! An'
if you go an' betray me now, 'tis all over between us!
MARTHEL
Rosie, 'tis nothin' bad is it ... nothin' dangerous, I mean?
ROSE
I don't believe it is! Come, Martha, help me a bit, support me a bit!...
A body is left too lonely in this world ... too deserted! If only a body wasn't so lonely here ... so lonely on this earth!
[_ROSE and MARTHEL pass out through the hall door._
_For some moments the room remains empty. Then old BERND appears in the kitchen. He puts down his basket and the potato hoe and looks about him, earnestly and inquiringly. Meanwhile MARTHEL re-enters the living-room from the hall._
MARTHEL
Is it you, father?
BERND
Is there no hot water! You know I have to have my foot bath! Isn't Rose here yet?
MARTHEL
She isn't here yet, father!
BERND
What? Hasn't she come back from court yet? That isn't possible hardly!
'Tis eight o'clock. Was August here?
MARTHEL
Not yet.
BERND
Not yet either? Well, maybe she's with him then.--Have you seen that great cloud, Marthel, that was comin' over from the mountain about six o'clock, maybe?
MARTHEL
Yes, father; the world got all dark!
BERND
There'll come a day o' greater darkness than this! Light the lamp on the table for me an' put the Good Book down next to it. The great thing is to be in readiness. Marthel, are you sure you keep thinkin' o' the life eternal, so that you can stand up before your Judge on that day? Few is the souls that think of it here! Just now as I was comin' home along the water's edge, I heard some one cryin' out upon me from behind, as they often does. "Bloodsucker!" cried he. An' was I a bloodsucker when I was overseer on the domain? Nay, I did my duty,--that was all! But the powers of evil is strong! If a man is underhanded, an' closes his eyes to evil, an' looks on quietly upon cheatin'--then his fellows likes him well.--But I leans upon the Lord Jesus. We human bein's all need that support.
'Tisn't enough just to do good works! Maybe if Rose had given more thought to that, maybe we'd ha' been spared many a visitation an' a deal o' heaviness an' bitterness. [_A CONSTABLE appears in the doorway._]