That policy has never done you any harm with me.

MRS. WOLFF

No, not with you, your honour. You c'n stand bein' spoken to honest.

n.o.body don't need to be sneaky 'round you.

WEHRHAHN

In short: Fleischer is a man of honour.

MRS. WOLFF

That he is! That he is!

WEHRHAHN

Well, you remember my words of to-day.

MRS. WOLFF

An' you remember mine.

WEHRHAHN

Very well. The future will show. [_He stretches himself, gets up, and stamps his feet gently on the floor. To WULKOW._] This is our excellent washerwoman. She thinks that all people are like herself. [_To MRS.

WOLFF._] But unfortunately the world is differently made. You see human beings from the outside; a man like myself has learned to look a little deeper. [_He takes a few paces, then stops before her and lays his hand on her shoulder._] And as surely as it is true when I say: Mrs. Wolff is an honest woman; so surely I tell you: this Dr. Fleischer of yours, of whom we were speaking, is a thoroughly dangerous person!

MRS. WOLFF

[_Shaking her head resignedly._] Well, then I don't know no more what to think ...

THE CURTAIN FALLS

THE CONFLAGRATION

PERSONS:

FIELITZ, _Shoemaker and Spy. Near sixty years old._

MRS. FIELITZ, _formerly MRS. WOLFF, his wife. Of the same age._

LEONTINE, _her oldest daughter by her first marriage; unmarried; near thirty._

SCHMAROWSKI, _Architect._

LANGHEINRICH, _Smith. Thirty years old._

RAUCHHAUPT, _retired Prussian Constable._

GUSTAV, _his oldest son, a congenital imbecile._

MIEZE, LOTTE, TRUDE, LENCHEN, LIESCHEN, MARIECHEN, TIENCHEN, HANNCHEN, _his daughters._

DR. BOXER, _a vigorous man of thirty-six. Physician. Of Jewish birth._

VON WEHRHAHN, _Justice._

EDE, _Journeyman at LANGHEINRICH'S._

GLASENAPP, _Clerk in the Justice's Court._

SCHULZE, _Constable._

MRS. SCHULZE, _his aunt._

TSCHACHE, _Constable._

A FIREMAN.

A BOY.

JANITOR OF THE COURT.

VILLAGE PEOPLE.

Scene: Anywhere in the neighbourhood of Berlin.

THE FIRST ACT

_The work shop of the shoemaker FIELITZ. A low room with blue tinted walls. A window to the right. In each of the other walls a door.

Under the window at the right a small platform. Upon it a cobbler's bench and a small table. On the latter a stand upholding three spheres of gla.s.s filled with water. Near them stands an unlit coal-oil lamp. In the corner, left, a brown tile oven surrounded by a bench and kitchen utensils of various kinds._

_SHOEMAKER FIELITZ is still crouching over his work. On the platform and around it old shoes and boots of every size are heaped up.

FIELITZ is hammering a piece of leather into flexibility._

_MRS. FIELITZ (formerly MRS. WOLFF) is thoughtfully turning over in her hands a little wooden box and a stearin candle. It is toward evening, at the end of September._