The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann Volume I Part 22

Well, it is wrong, for instance, that he who toils in the sweat of his brow suffers want while the sluggard lives in luxury. It is wrong to punish murder in times of peace and reward it in times of war. It is wrong to despise the hangman and yet, as soldiers do, to bear proudly at one's side a murderous weapon whether it be rapier or sabre. If the hangman displayed his axe thus he would doubtless be stoned. It is wrong, finally, to support as a state religion the faith of Christ which teaches long-suffering, forgiveness and love, and, on the other hand, to train whole nations to be destroyers of their own kind. These are but a few among millions of absurdities. It costs an effort to penetrate to the true nature of all these things: one must begin early.

HELEN

But how did you succeed in thinking of all this? It seems so simple and yet one never thinks of it.

LOTH

In various ways: the course of my own personal development, conversation with friends, reading and independent thinking. I found out the first absurdity when I was a little boy. I once told a rather flagrant lie and my father flogged me most soundly. Shortly thereafter I took a railroad journey with my father and I discovered that my father lied, too, and seemed to take the action quite as a matter of course. I was five years old at that time and my father told the conductor that I was not yet four in order to secure free transportation for me. Again, our teacher said to us: be industrious, be honourable and you will invariably prosper in life. But the man had uttered folly, and I discovered that soon enough.

My father was honourable, honest, and thoroughly upright, and yet a scoundrel who is alive and rich to-day cheated him of his last few thousands. And my father, driven by want, had to take employment under this very scoundrel who owned a large soap factory.

HELEN

People like myself hardly dare think of such a thing as wrong. At most one feels it to be so in silence. Indeed, one feels it often--and then--a kind of despair takes hold of one.

LOTH

I recall one absurdity which presented itself to me as such with especial clearness. I had always believed that murder is punished as a crime under whatever circ.u.mstances. After the incident in question, however, it grew to be clear to me that only the milder forms of murder are unlawful.

HELEN

How is that possible?

LOTH

My father was a boilermaster. We lived hard by the factory and our windows gave on the factory yard. I saw a good many things there. There was a workingman, for instance, who had worked in the factory for five years. He began to have a violent cough and to lose flesh ... I recall how my father told us about the man at table. His name was Burmeister and he was threatened with pulmonary consumption if he worked much longer in the soap factory. The doctor had told him so. But the man had eight children and, weak and emaciated as he was, he couldn't find other work anywhere. And so he _had_ to stay In the soap factory and his employer was quite self-righteous because he kept him. He seemed to himself an extraordinarily humane person.--One August afternoon--the heat was frightful--Burmeister dragged himself across the yard with a wheelbarrow full of lime. I was just looking out of the window when I noticed him stop, stop again, and finally pitch over headlong on the cobblestones. I ran up to him--my father came, other workingmen came up, but he could barely gasp and his month was filled with blood. I helped carry him into the house. He was a ma.s.s of limy rags, reeking with all kinds of chemicals. Before we had gotten him into the house, he was dead.

HELEN

Ah, that is terrible.

LOTH

Scarcely a week later we pulled his wife out of the river into which the waste lye of our factory was drained. And, my dear young lady, when one knows things of that kind as I know them now--believe me--one can find no rest. A simple little piece of soap, which makes no one else in the world think of any harm, even a pair of clean, well-cared-for hands are enough to embitter one thoroughly.

HELEN

I saw something like that once. And oh, it was frightful, frightful!

LOTH

What was that?

HELEN

The son of a workingman was carried in here half-dead. It's about--three years ago.

LOTH

Had he been injured?

HELEN

Yes, over there in the Bear shaft.

LOTH

So it was a miner?

HELEN

Oh, yes. Most of the young men around here go to work in the mines.

Another son of the same man was also a trammer and also met with an accident.

LOTH

And were they both killed?

HELEN

Yes, both ... Once the lift broke; the other time it was fire damp.--Old Beipst has yet a third son and he has gone down to the mine too since last Easter.

LOTH

Is it possible? And doesn't the father object?

HELEN

No, not at all. Only he is even more morose than he used to be. Haven't you seen him yet?

LOTH

How could I?

HELEN

Why, he sat near here this morning, under the gateway.

LOTH

Oh! So he works on the farm here?

HELEN

He has been with us for years.

LOTH

Does he limp?