The whole room displays picturesque disorder, Trumpery of all kinds--weapons, goblets, cups--is scattered about. It is Sunday toward the end of May._

_At the table in the middle of the room are sitting, MRS. JOHN (between thirty-five and forty) and a very young servant girl, PAULINE PIPERCARCKA. PAULINE, vulgarly overdressed--jacket, hat, sunshade--sits straight upright. Her pretty, round little face shows signs of long weeping. Her figure betrays the fact that she is approaching motherhood. She draws letters on the floor with the end of her sunshade._

MRS. JOHN

Well, sure now! That's right! That's what I says, Pauline.

PAULINE

All right. So I'm goin' to Schlachtensee or to Halensee. I gotta go and see if I c'n meet him!

[_She dries her tears and is about to rise._

MRS. JOHN

[_Prevents PAULINE from getting up._] Pauline! For G.o.d's sake, don't you be doin' that! Not that there, for nothin' in the world! That don't do nothin' but raise a row an' cost money an' don't bring you in nothin'.

Look at the condition you're in! An' that way you want to go an' run after that there low lived feller?

PAULINE

Then my landlady c'n wait an' wait for me to-day. I'll jump into the Landwehr ca.n.a.l an' drownd myself.

MRS. JOHN

Pauline! An' what for? What for, I'd like to know? Now you just listen to me for a speck of a minute, just for G.o.d's sake, for the teeniest speck of one an' pay attention to what I'm goin' to propose to you! You know yourself how I says to you, out on Alexander square, right by the chronomoneter--says I to you right out, as I was comin' out o' the market an' sees your condition with half an eye. He don't want to acknowledge nothin', eh? That's what I axed you right out!--That happens to many gals here, to all of 'em--to millions! An' then I says to you ... what did I say? Come along, I says, an' I'll help you!

PAULINE

O' course, I don't never dare to show myself at home lookin' this way.

Mother, she'd cry it out at the first look. An' father, he'd knock my head against the wall an' throw me out in the street. An' I ain't got no more money left neither--nothin' but just two pieces o' gold that I got sewed up in the linin' o' my jacket. That feller didn't leave me no crown an' he didn't leave me no penny.

MRS. JOHN

Miss, my husband, he's a foreman mason. I just wants you to pay attention ... just for heaven's sake, pay attention to the propositions that I'm goin' to make to you. They'll help us both. You'll be helped out an' the same way I'll be. An' what's more, Paul, that's my husband, he'll be helped, because he'd like, for all the world, to have a child, an' our only one, little Adelbert, he went an' died o' the croup. Your child'll be as well taken care of as an own child. Then you c'n go an' you c'n look up your sweetheart an' you c'n go back into service an' home to your people, an' the child is well off, an' n.o.body in the world don't need to know nothin'.

PAULINE

I'll do it just outa spite--that's what! An' drownd myself! [_She rises._] An' a note, a note, I'll leave in my jacket, like this: You drove your Pauline to her death with your cursed meanness! An' then I'll put down his name in full: Alois Theophil Brunner, instrument-maker. Then he c'n see how he'll get along in the world with the murder o' me on his conscience.

MRS. JOHN

Wait a minute, Miss! I gotta unlock the door first.

_MRS. JOHN acts, as though she were about to conduct PAULINE to the door._

_Before the two women reach the pa.s.sage, BRUNO MECHELKE enters with slow and suspicious demeanour by the door at the left and remains standing in the room. BRUNO is short rather than tall, but with a powerful bull's neck and athletic shoulders. His forehead is low and receding, his close-clipped hair like a brush, his skull round and small. His face is brutal and his left nostril has been ripped open sometime and imperfectly healed. The fellow is about nineteen years old. He bends forward, and his great, lumpish hands are joined to muscular arms. The pupils of his eyes are small, black and piercing.

He is trying to repair a rat trap._

_BRUNO whistles to his sister as he would to a dog._

MRS. JOHN

I'm comin' now, Bruno! What d'you want?

BRUNO

[_Apparently absorbed by the trap._] Thought I was goin' to put up traps here.

MRS. JOHN

Did you put the bacon in? [_To PAULINE._] It's only my brother. Don't be scared, Miss.

BRUNO

[_As before._] I seen the Emperor William to-day. I marched along wi' the guard,

MRS. JOHN

[_To PAULINE, who stands fearful and moveless in BRUNO'S presence._]

'Tain't nothin' but my brother. You c'n stay.--[_To BRUNO._] Boy, what're you lookin' that way for again? The young lady is fair scared o' you.

BRUNO

[_As before, without looking up._] Brrr-rr-rr! I'm a ghost.

MRS. JOHN

Hurry an' go up in the loft an' set your traps.

BRUNO

[_Slowly approaching the table._] Aw, that business ain't no good 'cept to starve on! When I goes to sell matches, I gets more outa it.

PAULINE

Good-bye, Mrs. John.

MRS. JOHN

[_Raging at her brother._] Are you goin' to leave me alone?

BRUNO

[_Knuckling under._] Aw, don' go on so. I'm leavin'.

_Obediently he withdraws into the adjoining room. MRS. JOHN locks the door behind him with a determined gesture._

PAULINE