ROBERT.

Boaster!

GEORGE.

Coward!

OTTO.

I'd like to see you shoot yourself!

LAEMMERMEIER.

Box his ears.

MELCHIOR.

(_Gives him a cuff._)

Come, Moritz, let's go to the forester's house!

GEORGE.

Do you believe his nonsense?

MELCHIOR.

What's that to you? Let them chatter, Moritz! Come on, let's go to town.

(_Professors Hungergurt and Knochenbruch pa.s.s by._)

KNOCHENBRUCH.

It is inexplicable to me, my dear colleague, how the best of my scholars can fail the very worst of all.

HUNGERGURT.

To me, also, professor.

SCENE FIFTH.

_A sunny afternoon--Melchior and Wendla meet each other in the wood._

MELCHIOR.

Is it really you, Wendla?----What are you doing up here all alone?----For three hours I've been going from one side of the wood to the other without meeting a soul, and now you come upon me out of the thickest part of it!

WENDLA.

Yes, it's I.

MELCHIOR.

If I didn't know you were Wendla Bergmann, I would take you for a dryad, fallen out of your tree.

WENDLA.

No, no, I am Wendla Bergmann.----How did you come here?

MELCHIOR.

I followed my thoughts.

WENDLA.

I'm hunting waldmeister.[1] Mamma wants to make Maybowl. At first she intended coming along herself, but at the last moment Aunt Bauer dropped in, and she doesn't like to climb.----So I came by myself.

MELCHIOR.

Have you found your waldmeister?

WENDLA.

A whole basketful. Down there under the beach it grows as thick as meadow clover. Just now I am looking for a way out. I seem to have lost the path. Can you tell me what time it is?

MELCHIOR.

Just a little after half-past four. When do they expect you?

WENDLA.

I thought it was later. I lay dreaming for a long time on the moss by the brook. The time went by so fast, I feared it was already evening.

MELCHIOR.

If n.o.body is waiting for you, let us linger here a little longer.

Under the oak tree there is my favorite place. If one leans one's head back against the trunk and looks up through the branches at the sky, one becomes hypnotized. The ground is warm yet from the morning sun.----For weeks I've been wanting to ask you something, Wendla.

WENDLA.

But I must be home at five o'clock.

MELCHIOR.

We'll go together, then. I'll take the basket and we'll beat our way through the bushes, so that in ten minutes we'll be on the bridge!----When one lies so, with one's head in one's hand, one has the strangest thoughts.----

(_Both lie down under the oak._)