Why not to-day?

MRS. JOHN

Because no good'd come of it this day. Wait till to-morrow, five o'clock in the afternoon.

PAULINE

That's it. My landlady says it was written that way, that a gentleman from the city'll be here to-morrow afternoon five o'clock.

MRS. JOHN

[_Pushing PAULINE out and herself going out of the room with her, in the same detached tone._] All right. Let him come, girl.

_MRS. JOHN has gone out into the hall for a moment. She now returns without PAULINE. She seems strangely changed and absent-minded. She takes a few hasty steps toward the door of the part.i.tion; then stands still with an expression of fruitless brooding on her face. She interrupts herself in this brooding and runs to the window. Having reached it she turns and on her face there reappears the expression of dull detachment. Slowly, like a somnambulist, she walks up to the table and sits down beside it, leaning her chin on her hand. SELMA k.n.o.bBE appears in the doorway._

SELMA

Mother's asleep, Mrs. John, an' I'm that hungry. Might I have a bite o'

bread?

_MRS. JOHN rises mechanically and cuts a slice from the loaf of bread with the air of one under an hypnotic influence._

SELMA

[_Observing MRS. JOHN'S state of mind._] It's me! What's the matter, Mrs.

John? Whatever you do, don't cut yourself with the bread knife.

MRS. JOHN

[_Lets the loaf and the bread-knife slip involuntarily from her hand to the table. A dry sobbing overwhelms her more and more._]

Fear!--Trouble!--You don' know nothin' about that!

[_She trembles and grasps after some support._

THE THIRD ACT

_The same decoration as in the first act. The lamp is lit. The dim light of a hanging lamp illuminates the pa.s.sage._

_Ha.s.sENREUTER is giving his three pupils, SPITTA, DR. KEGEL and KaFERSTEIN instruction in the art of acting. He himself is seated at the table, uninterruptedly opening letters and beating time to the rhythm of the verses with a paper cutter. In front of him stand, facing each other, KEGEL and KaFERSTEIN on one side, SPITTA on the other, thus representing the two choruses in Schiller's "Bride of Messina." The young men stand in the midst of a diagram drawn with chalk on the floor and separated, like a chess-board, into sixty-four rectangles. On the high stool in front of the office desk WALBURGA is sitting. Waiting in the background stands the house steward QUAQUARO, who might be the manager of a wandering circus and, in the capacity of athlete, its main attraction. His speech is uttered in a guttural tenor. He wears bedroom slippers. His breeches are held up by an embroidered belt. An open shirt, fairly clean, a light jacket, a cap now held in his hand, complete his attire._

DR. KEGEL AND KaFERSTEIN

[_Mouthing the verses sonorously and with exaggerated dignity._]

"Thee salute I with reverence, Lordliest chamber, Thee, my high rulers'

Princeliest cradle, Column-supported, magnificent roof.

Deep in its scabbard ..."

Ha.s.sENREUTER

[_Cries in a rage._] Pause! Period! Period! Pause! Period! You're not turning the crank of a hurdy-gurdy! The chorus in the "Bride of Messina"

is no hand-organ tune! "Thee salute I with reverence!" Start over again from the beginning, gentleman! "Thee salute I with reverence, Lordliest chamber!" Something like that, gentlemen! "Deep in its scabbard let the sword rest." Period! "Magnificent roof." I meant to say: Period! But you may go on if you want to.

DR. KEGEL AND KaFERSTEIN

"Deep in its scabbard Let the sword rest, Fettered fast by your gateway Moveless may lie Strife's snaky-locked monster.

For ..."

Ha.s.sENREUTER

[_As before._] Hold on! Don't you know the meaning of a full stop, gentlemen? Haven't you any knowledge of the elements? "Snaky-haired monster." Period! Imagine that a pile is driven there! You've got to stop, to pause. There must be silence like the silence of the dead!

You've got to imagine yourself wiped out of existence for the moment, Kaferstein. And then--out with your best trumpeting chest-notes! Hold on!

Don't lisp, for G.o.d's sake. "For ..." Go on now! Start!

DR. KEGEL AND KaFERSTEIN

"For this hospitable house's Inviolable threshold Guardeth an oath, the Furies' child...."

Ha.s.sENREUTER

[_Jumps up, runs about and roars._] Oath, oath, oath, oath!!! Don't you know what an oath is, Kaferstein? "Guardeth an oath!!--the Furies'

child." This oath is said to be the child of the Furies, Dr. Kegel!

You've got to use your voice! The audience, to the last usher, has got to be one vast quivering gooseflesh when you say that! One shiver must run through every bone in the house! Listen to me: "For this house's ...

threshold Guardeth an oath!!! The Furies' child, The fearfullest of the infernal deities!"--Go ahead! Don't repeat these verses. But you can stop long enough to observe that an oath and a Munich beer radish are, after all, two different things.

SPITTA

[_Declaims._]

"Ireful my heart in my bosom burneth...."

Ha.s.sENREUTER

Hold on! [_He runs up to SPITTA and pushes and nudges the latter's arms and legs in order to produce the desired tragic pose._]--First of all, you lack the requisite statuesqueness of posture, my dear Spitta. The dignity of a tragic character is in nowise expressed in you. Then you did not, as I expressly desired you to do, advance your right foot from the field marked ID into that marked IIC! Finally, Mr. Quaquaro is waiting; so let us interrupt ourselves for a moment. So; now I'm at your service, Mr. Quaquaro. That is to say, I asked you to come up because, in making my inventory, it became clear that several cases and boxes cannot be found or, in other words, have been stolen. Now, before lodging information with the authorities which, of course, I am determined to do, I wanted first to get your advice. I wanted to do that all the more because, in place of the lost cases, there was found, in a corner of the attic, a very peculiar mess--a find that could appropriately be sent to Dr. Virchow. First there was a blue feather-duster, truly prehistoric, and an inexpressible vessel, the use of which, quite harmless in itself, is equally inexpressible.

QUAQUARO

Well, sir, I can climb up there if you want me to.

Ha.s.sENREUTER

Suppose you do that. Up there you'll meet Mrs. John, whom the find in question has disquieted even more than it has me. These three gentlemen, who are my pupils, won't be persuaded that something very like a murder didn't take place up there. But, if you please, let's not cause a scandal!

KaFERSTEIN