MELCHIOR.

Why shouldn't I go walking in the dark?

ERNEST.

Central America!----Louis the Fifteenth!----Sixty verses of Homer!----Seven equations!

MELCHIOR.

d.a.m.n the work!

GEORGE.

If only Latin composition didn't come to-morrow!

MORITZ.

One can't think of anything without a task intervening.

OTTO.

I'm going home.

GEORGE.

I, too, to work.

ERNEST.

I, too, I too.

ROBERT.

Good-night, Melchior.

MELCHIOR.

Sleep well! (_All withdraw save Moritz and Melchior._) I'd like to know why we really are on earth!

MORITZ.

I'd rather be a cab-horse than go to school!----Why do we go to school?----We go to school so that somebody can examine us!----And why do they examine us?----In order that we may fail. Seven must fail, because the upper cla.s.sroom will hold only sixty.----I feel so queer since Christmas.----The devil take me, if it were not for Papa, I'd pack my bundle and go to Altoona to-day!

MELCHIOR.

Let's talk of something else----

(_They go for a walk._)

MORITZ.

Do you see that black cat there with its tail sticking up?

MELCHIOR.

Do you believe in omens?

MORITZ.

I don't know exactly. They come down to us. They don't matter.

MELCHIOR.

I believe that is the Charybdis on which one runs when one steers clear of the Scylla of religious folly.----Let's sit down under this beech tree. The cool wind blows over the mountains. Now I should like to be a young dryad up there in the wood to cradle myself in the topmost branches and be rocked the livelong night.

MORITZ.

Unb.u.t.ton your vest, Melchior.

MELCHIOR.

Ha!----How clothes make one puff up!

MORITZ.

G.o.d knows, it's growing so dark that one can't see one's hand before one's eyes. Where are you?----Do you believe, Melchior, that the feeling of shame in man is only a product of his education?

MELCHIOR.

I was thinking over that for the first time the day before yesterday.

It seems to me deeply rooted in human nature. Only think, you must appear entirely clothed before your best friend. You wouldn't do so if he didn't do the same thing.----Therefore, it's more or less of a fashion.

MORITZ.

I have often thought that if I have children, boys and girls, I will let them occupy the same room; let them sleep together in the same bed, if possible; let them help each other dress and undress night and morning. In hot weather, the boys as well as the girls, should wear nothing all day long but a short white woolen tunic with a girdle.----It seems to me that if they grew up that way they would be easier in mind than we are under the present regulations.

MELCHIOR.

I believe so decidedly, Moritz!----The only question is, suppose the girls have children, what then?

MORITZ.

How could they have children?

MELCHIOR.

In that respect I believe in instinct. I believe, for example, that if one brought up a male and a female cat together, and kept both separated from the outside world----that is, left them entirely to their own devices----that, sooner or later, the she cat would become pregnant, even if she, and the tom cat as well, had n.o.body to open their eyes by example.