Coat in tatters, pockets empty----I'm not safe from the most harmless.----I must try to get deeper into the wood to-morrow.

I have trampled down a cross----Even to-day the flowers are frozen!----The earth is cold all around----

In the domain of the dead!----

To climb out of the hole in the roof was not as hard as this road!----It was only there that I kept my presence of mind----

I hung over the abyss----everything was lost in it, vanished----Oh, if I could have stayed there.

Why she, on my account!----Why not the guilty!----Inscrutable providence!----I would have broken stones and gone hungry!----What is to keep me straight now?----Offense follows offense. I am swallowed up in the mora.s.s. I haven't strength left to get out of it----

I was not bad!----I was not bad!----I was not bad!----No mortal ever wandered so dejectedly over graves before.----Pah!----I won't lose courage! Oh, if I should go crazy----during this very night!

I must seek there among the latest ones!----The wind pipes on every stone in a different key----an anguishing symphony!----The decayed wreaths rip apart and swing with their long threads in bits about the marble crosses----A wood of scarecrows!----Scarecrows on every grave, each more gruesome than the other----as high as houses, from which the devil runs away.----The golden letters sparkle so coldly----The weeping willows groan and move their giant fingers over the inscriptions----

A praying angel----a tablet.

The clouds throw their shadows over it.----How the wind hurries and howls!----Like the march of an army it drives in from the east.----Not a star in the heavens----

Evergreen in the garden plot?----Evergreen?----A maiden----

HERE RESTS IN G.o.d

*Wendla Bergmann, born May 5, 1878, died from Cholorosis, October 27, 1892.*

*Blessed are the Pure of Heart*

And I am her murderer. I am her murderer!----Despair is left me----I dare not weep here. Away from here!----Away----

MORITZ STIEFEL.

(_With his head under his arm, comes stamping over the graves._)

A moment, Melchior! The opportunity will not occur so readily again.

You can't guess what depends upon the place and the time----

MELCHIOR.

Where do you come from?

MORITZ.

From over there----over by the wall. You knocked down my cross. I lie by the wall.----Give me your hand, Melchior.----

MELCHIOR.

You are not Moritz Stiefel!

MORITZ.

Give me your hand. I am convinced you will thank me. It won't be so easy again! This is an unusually fortunate encounter.----I came out especially----

MELCHIOR.

Don't you sleep?

MORITZ.

Not what you call sleep.----We sit on the church-tower, on the high gables of the roof----wherever we please.----

MELCHIOR.

Restless?

MORITZ.

Half happy.----We wander among the Mayflowers, among the lonely paths in the woods. We hover over gatherings of people, over the scene of accidents, gardens, festivals.----We cower in the chimneys of dwelling-places and behind the bed curtains.----Give me your hand.----We don't a.s.sociate with each other, but we see and hear everything that is going on in the world. We know that everything is stupidity, everything that men do and contend for, and we laugh at it.

MELCHIOR.

What good does that do?

MORITZ.

What good does it have to do?----We are fit for nothing more, neither good nor evil. We stand high, high above earthly beings--each for himself alone. We do not a.s.sociate with each other, because it would bore us. Not one of us cares for anything which he might lose. We are indifferent both to sorrow and to joy. We are satisfied with ourselves and that is all. We despise the living so heartily that we can hardly pity them. They amuse us with their doings, because, being alive, they are not worthy of compa.s.sion. We laugh at their tragedies--each by himself----and make reflections upon them.----Give me your hand! If you give me your hand, you will fall down with laughter over the sensation which made you give me your hand.

MELCHIOR.

Doesn't that disgust you?

MORITZ.

We are too high for that. We smile!----At my burial I was among the mourners. I had a right good time. That is sublimity, Melchior! I howled louder than any and slunk over to the wall to hold my belly from shaking with laughter. Our unapproachable sublimity is the only viewpoint which the trash understands----They would have laughed at me also before I swung myself off.

MELCHIOR.

I have no desire to laugh at myself.

MORITZ.

The living, as such, are not really worth compa.s.sion!----I admit I should not have thought so either. And now it is incomprehensible to me how one can be so nave. I see through the fraud so clearly that not a cloud remains.----Why do you want to loiter now, Melchior! Give me your hand! In the turn of a head you will stand heaven high above yourself.----Your life is a sin of omission----

MELCHIOR.

Can you forget?

MORITZ.