The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann Volume Ii Part 27

HENSCHEL

Are you goin' to go on this way?

MRS. HENSCHEL

Go on how?

HENSCHEL

With the child!

MRS. HENSCHEL

I'm not goin' to bite her; there's no fear!

[_She takes the still weeping child into the little room to bed._

HENSCHEL

[_Speaking after her._] She's not here to be bitten. I needn't ha'

brought her, you know!

[_A brief pause, after which HANNE returns._

HENSCHEL

A man can't never know how to please you. There's no gettin' along with women folks. You always acted as if....

MRS. HENSCHEL

[_With tears of rage._] That's a lie if you want to know it!

HENSCHEL

What's a lie!

MRS. HENSCHEL

[_As above._] I never bothered you about Berthel. I never so much as mentioned her to you!

HENSCHEL

I didn't say you had. Why d'you howl so? On that account, because you didn't say nothin', I wanted to help you in spite o' your silence.

MRS. HENSCHEL

But couldn't you ha' asked? A man ought to say somethin' before he does a thing like that!

HENSCHEL

Well now, I'll tell you somethin': This is Sat.u.r.day night. I hurried all I could so's to be at home again. I thought you'd meet me different! But if it's not to be, it can't be helped. Only, leave me in peace! You understand!

MRS. HENSCHEL

n.o.body's robbin' you o' your peace.

HENSCHEL

D'you hear me? I want my peace an' that's all. You brought me to that point. I didn't think nothin' but what was good doin' this thing. Gustel is dead. She won't come back no more. Her mother took her to a better place. The bed is empty, an' we're alone. Why shouldn't we take care o'

the little la.s.s? That's the way I thinks an' I'm not her father! You ought to think so all the more, 'cause you're the child's mother!

MRS. HENSCHEL

There you are! You're beginnin' to throw it up to me this minute!

HENSCHEL

If you don't stop I'll go to Wermelskirch an' not come back all night!

D'you want to drive me out o' the house?--I'm always hopin' things'll be different, but they gets worse ... worse! I thought maybe if you had your child with you, you'd learn a little sense. If these goin's on don't end soon ...

MRS. HENSCHEL

All I say is this: If she stays in the house an' if you tell people that she's mine ...

HENSCHEL

They all know it! I don't have to tell 'em.

MRS. HENSCHEL

Then you c'n take your oath on it--I'll run away!

HENSCHEL

Run, run all you can--all you want to! You ought to be ashamed o'

yourself to the bottom o' your heart!

THE CURTAIN FALLS.

THE FOURTH ACT

_The tap room in WERMELSKIRCH'S public house. A flat, whitewashed room with a door leading to the inner rooms of the house on the left.

The rear wall of this room is broken, toward its middle. The opening leads to a second, smaller, oblong room. On the right wall of this second room there is a gla.s.s door leading out into the open and, farther forward, a window. On the rear wall of the main room the bar is situated, filled with square whisky-bottles, gla.s.ses, etc. The beer is also on draught there. Highly varnished tables and chairs of cherry wood are scattered about the room. A red curtain divides the two rooms. In the oblong rear room are also chairs and tables and, in the extreme background, a billiard table. Lithographs, representing mainly hunting scenes, are hung on the walls._