MRS. JOHN

I c'n tell you what she was! She was a common, low wench! She had dealin's with a Tyrolese feller that didn't want to have nothin' more to do with her an' she had a child by him. An' she'd ha' liked to kill that child while it was in her own womb. Then she came to fetch it with that Kielbacke what's been in prison eighteen months as a professional baby-killer. Whether she had any dealin's with Bruno, I don' know! Maybe so an' maybe not! An' anyhow, I don' see how it concerns me what Bruno's gone an' done.

Ha.s.sENREUTER

So you _did_ know the girl in question, Mrs. John?

MRS. JOHN

How so? I didn't know her a bit! I'm only sayin' what everybody as knows says about that there girl.

Ha.s.sENREUTER

You're an honourable woman: you're an honourable man, Mr. John. This matter with your wayward brother is terrible enough as a fact, but it ought not seriously to undermine your married life. Stay honest and ...

JOHN

Not a bit of it! I don't stay with such people; not anywhere near 'em.

[_He brings his fist down on the table, taps at the walls, stamps on the floor._] Listen to the crackin'! Listen, how the plasterin' comes rumblin' down behind the wall-paper! Everything rotten here, everythin's worm eaten! Everythin's undermined by varmint an' by rats an' by mice.

[_He see-saws on a loose plank in the floor._] Every thin' totters! Any minute the whole business might crash down into the cellar.--[_He opens the door._] Selma! Selma! I'm goin' to pull outa here before the whole thing just falls together into a heap o' rubbish!

MRS. JOHN

What do you want o' Selma?

JOHN

Selma is goin' to take that child an' I'll go with 'em on the train an'

take it out to my sister.

MRS. JOHN

You'll hear from me if you try that! Oh, you jus' try it!

JOHN

Is my child to be brought up in surroundin's like this, an' maybe some day be driven over the roofs with Bruno an' maybe end in the penitentiary?

MRS. JOHN

[_Cries out at him._] That ain't your child at all! Y'understan'?

JOHN

'S that so? Well, we'll see if an honest man can't be master o' his own child what's got a mother that's gone crazy an' is in the hands of a crowd o' murderers. I'd like to see who's in the right there an' who's the stronger. Selma!

MRS. JOHN

I'll scream! I'll tear open the windows! Mrs. Ha.s.senreuter, they wants to rob a mother o' her child! That's my right that I'm the mother o' my child! Ain't that my right? Ain't that so, Mrs. Ha.s.senreuter? They're surroundin' me! They wants to rob me o' my rights! Ain't it goin' to belong to me what I picked up like refuse, what was lyin' on rags half-dead, an' I had to rub it an' knead it all I could before it began to breathe an' come to life slowly? If it wasn't for me, it would ha'

been covered with earth these three weeks!

Ha.s.sENREUTER

Mr. John, to play the part of an arbitrator between married people is not ordinarily my function. It's too thankless a task and one's experiences are, as a rule, too unhappy. But you should not permit your feeling of honour, justly wounded as, no doubt, it is, to hurry you into acts that are rash. For, after all, your wife is not responsible for her brother's act. Let her have the child! Don't increase the misery of it all by such hardness toward your wife as must hurt her most cruelly and unnecessarily.

MRS. JOHN

Paul, that child's like as if it was cut outa my own flesh! I bought that child with my blood. It ain't enough that all the world's after me an'

wants to take it away from me; now you gotta join 'em an' do the same!

That's the thanks a person gets! Why, it's like a pack o' hungry wolves aroun' me. You c'n kill me! But you can't touch my baby!

JOHN

I comes home, Mr. Ha.s.senreuter, only this mornin'. I comes home with all my tools on the train, jolly as c'n be. I broke off all my connections in Hamburg. Even if you don' earn so much, says I to myself, you'd rather be with your family, an' take up your child in your arms a little, or maybe take it on your knee a little! That was about the way I was thinkin'!

MRS. JOHN

Paul! Here, Paul! [_She goes close up to him._] You c'n tear my heart out if you want to!

[_She stares long at him, then runs behind the part.i.tion, whence her loud weeping is heard._

_SELMA enters from the hall. She is dressed in mourning garments and carries a little wreath in her hand._

SELMA

What is I to do? You called me, Mr. John.

JOHN

Put on your cloak, Selma. Ax your mother if you c'n go an' take a trip with me to Hangelsberg. You'll earn a bit o' money doin' it. All you gotta do is to take my child on your arm an' come along with me.

SELMA

No, I ain' goin' to touch that child no more.

JOHN

Why not?

SELMA

No; I'm afraid, Mr. John! I'm that scared at the way mama an' the police lieutenant screamed at me.

MRS. JOHN

[_Appears._] Why did they scream at you?

SELMA