MELCHIOR.

George Zirschnitz dreamed of his mother.

MORITZ.

Did he tell you that?

MELCHIOR.

Out there on the gallow's road.

MORITZ.

If you only knew what I have endured since that night!

MELCHIOR.

Qualms of conscience?

MORITZ.

Qualms of conscience??----The anguish of death!

MELCHIOR.

Good Lord----

MORITZ.

I thought I was incurable. I believed I was suffering from an inward hurt.----Finally I became calm enough to begin to jot down the recollections of my life. Yes, yes, dear Melchior, the last three weeks have been a Gethsemane for me.

MELCHIOR.

I was more or less prepared for it when it came. I felt a little ashamed of myself.----But that was all.

MORITZ.

And yet you are a whole year younger than I am.

MELCHIOR.

I wouldn't bother about that, Moritz. All my experience shows that the appearance of this phantom belongs to no particular age. You know that big Lammermeier with the straw-colored hair and the hooked nose.

He is three years older than I am. Little Hans Rilow says Lammermeier dreams now only of tarts and apricot preserves.

MORITZ.

But, I ask you, how can Hans Rilow know that?

MELCHIOR.

He asked him.

MORITZ.

He asked him?----I didn't dare ask anybody.

MELCHIOR.

But you asked me.

MORITZ.

G.o.d knows, yes!----Possibly Hans, too, has made his will.----Truly they play a remarkable game with us. And we're expected to give thanks for it. I don't remember to have had any longing for this kind of excitement. Why didn't they let me sleep peacefully until all was still again. My dear parents might have had a hundred better children. I came here, I don't know how, and must be responsible because I didn't stay away.----Haven't you often wondered, Melchior, by what means we were brought into this whirl?

MELCHIOR.

Don't you know that yet either, Moritz?

MORITZ.

How should I know it? I see how the hens lay eggs, and hear that Mamma had to carry me under her heart. But is that enough?----I remember, too, when I was a five year old child, to have been embarra.s.sed when anyone turned up the decollete queen of hearts. This feeling has disappeared. At the same time, I can hardly talk with a girl to-day without thinking of something indecent, and--I swear to you, Melchior--I don't know what.

MELCHIOR.

I will tell you everything. I have gotten it partly from books, partly from ill.u.s.trations, partly from observations of nature. You will be surprised; it made me an atheist. I told it to George Zirschnitz! George Zirschnitz wanted to tell it to Hans Rilow, but Hans Rilow had learned it all from his governess when he was a child.

MORITZ.

I have gone through Meyer's Little Encyclopedia from A to Z.

Words--nothing but words and words! Not a single plain explanation.

Oh, this feeling of shame!----What good to me is an encyclopedia that won't answer me concerning the most important question in life?

MELCHIOR.

Did you ever see two dogs running together about the streets?

MORITZ.

No!----Don't tell me anything to-day, Melchior. I have Central America and Louis the Fifteenth before me. And then the sixty verses of Homer, the seven equations and the Latin composition.----I would fail in all of them again to-morrow. To drudge successfully I must be as stupid as an ox.

MELCHIOR.

Come with me to my room. In three-quarters of an hour I will have the Homer, the equations and two compositions. I will put one or two harmless errors in yours, and the thing is done. Mamma will make lemonade for us again, and we can chat comfortably about propagation.

MORITZ.

I can't----I can't chat comfortably about propagation! If you want to do me a favor, give me your information in writing. Write me out what you know. Write it as briefly and clearly as possible, and put it between my books to-morrow during recess. I will carry it home without knowing that I have it. I will find it unexpectedly. I cannot but help going over it with tired eyes----in case it is hard to explain, you can use a marginal diagram or so.

MELCHIOR.