But, man alive, you want to become an actor--you, with your round shoulders, with your spectacles and, above all, with your hoa.r.s.e and sharp voice. It's impossible.

SPITTA

If such fellows as I exist in real life, why shouldn't they exist on the stage too? And I am of the opinion that a smooth, well-sounding voice, probably combined with the Goethe-Schiller-Weimar school of idealistic artifice, is harmful rather than helpful. The only question is whether you would take me, just as I am, as a pupil?

Ha.s.sENREUTER

[_Hastily draws on his overcoat._] I would not. In the first place my school of acting is only one of the schools of idealistic artifice which you mention. In the second place I wouldn't be responsible to your father for such an action. And in the third place, we quarrel enough as it is--every time you stay to supper at my house after giving your lessons.

If you were my pupil, we'd come to blows. And now, Spitta, I must catch the car.

SPITTA

My father is already informed. In a letter of twelve pages, I have given him a full history of the change that has taken place within me....

Ha.s.sENREUTER

I'm sure the old gentleman will feel flattered! And now come along with me or I'll go insane!

_Ha.s.sENREUTER forcibly takes SPITTA out with him. The door is heard to slam. The room grows silent but for the uninterrupted roar of Berlin, which can now be clearly heard. The trap-door to the loft is now opened and WALBURGA Ha.s.sENREUTER clambers down in mad haste, followed by MRS. JOHN._

MRS. JOHN

[_Whispering vehemently._] What's the matter? Nothin' ain't happened.

WALBURGA

Mrs. John, I'll scream! I'll have to scream in another second! Oh, for heaven's sake, I can't help it much longer, Mrs. John!

MRS. JOHN

Stuff a handkerchief between your teeth! There ain't nothin'! Why d'you take on so?

WALBURGA

[_With chattering teeth, making every effort to suppress her sobs._] I'm frightened! Oh, I'm frightened to death, Mrs. John!

MRS. JOHN

I'd like to know what you're so scared about!

WALBURGA

Why, didn't you see that horrible man?

MRS. JOHN

That ain't nothin' so horrible. That's my brother what sometimes helps me clean up your pa's things here.

WALBURGA

And that girl who sits with her back to the chimney and whines?

MRS. JOHN

Well, your mother didn't act no different when you was expected to come into the world.

WALBURGA

Oh, it's all over with me. I'll die if papa comes back.

MRS. JOHN

Well then hurry and get out an' don' fool roun' no more!

[_MRS. JOHN accompanies the horrified girl along the pa.s.sage, lets her out, and then returns._

MRS. JOHN

Thank G.o.d, that girl don' know but what the moon _is_ made o' cheese!

[_She takes the uncorked bottle, pours out a gla.s.s full of wine and takes it with her to the loft into which she disappears._

_The room is scarcely empty when Ha.s.sENREUTER returns._

Ha.s.sENREUTER

[_Still in the door. Singing._] "Come on down, O Madonna Teresa!" [_He calls:_] Alice! [_Still in the door._] Come on! Help me put up my iron bar with a double lock before the door, Alice! [_He comes forward._] Any one else who dares to interrupt our Sunday quiet--_anathema sit!_ Here!

You imp! Where are you, Alice? [_He observes the bottle and lifts it against the light._] What? Half empty! The little scamp! [_From behind the door of the library a pleasant woman's voice is heard singing coloratura pa.s.sages._] Ha, ha, ha, ha! Heavens and earth! She's tipsy already.

THE SECOND ACT

_MRS. JOHN'S rooms on the second floor of the same house in the attics of which Ha.s.sENREUTER has stored his properties. A high, deep, green-tinted room which betrays its original use as part of a barracks. The rear wall shows a double door which gives on the outer hall. Above this door there hangs a bell connected by a wire with the k.n.o.b outside. To the right of the door a part.i.tion, covered with wall-paper, projects into the room. This part.i.tion takes a rectangular turn and extends to the right wall. A portion of the room is thus part.i.tioned off and serves as sleeping-chamber. From within the part.i.tion, which is about six feet high, cupboards are seen against the wall._

_Entering the room from the hall, one observes to the left a sofa covered with oil-cloth. The back of the sofa is pushed against the part.i.tion wall. The latter is adorned with small photographs: the foreman-mason JOHN as a soldier, JOHN and his wife in their wedding garb, etc. An oval table, covered with a faded cotton cloth, stands before the sofa. In order to reach the entrance of the sleeping-chamber from the door it is necessary to pa.s.s the table and sofa. This entrance is closed by hangings of blue cotton cloth.

Against the narrow front wall of the part.i.tion stands a neatly equipped kitchen cabinet. To the right, against the wall of the main room, the stove. This corner of the room serves the--purposes of kitchen and pantry. Sitting on the sofa, one would look straight at the left wall of the room, which is broken by two large windows. A neatly planed board has been fastened to the nearer of the windows to serve as a kind of desk. Upon it are lying blue-prints, counter-drawings, an inch-measure, a compa.s.s and a square. A small, raised platform is seen beneath the farther window. Upon it stands a small table with gla.s.ses. An old easy chair of cane and a number of simple wooden chairs complete the frugal equipment of the room, which creates an impression of neatness and orderliness such as is often found in the dwellings of childless couples._

_It is about five o'clock of an afternoon toward the end of May. The warm sunlight shines through the windows._

_The foreman-mason JOHN, a good-natured, bearded man of forty, sits at the desk in the foreground taking notes from the building plans._

_MRS. JOHN sits sewing on the small platform, by the farther window.

She is very pale. There is something gentle and pain-touched about her, but her face shows an expression of deep contentment, which is broken only now and then by a momentary gleam of restlessness and suspense. A neat new perambulator stands by her side. In it lies a newborn child._

JOHN