Magda Part 43

VON KELLER.

Not at all. I have only done my duty.

[_Exit, with a bow_.

MAGDA.

[_Stretching herself_.] So! Now I'm the old Magda again. [Schwartze _locks the three doors silently_.] Do you think, father, that I shall become docile by being shut up?

SCHWARTZE.

So! Now we are alone. No one sees us but He who sees us--there [_pointing upward_] Quiet yourself, my child. We must talk together.

MAGDA.

[_Sits down_.] Good! We can come to an understanding, then,--my home and I.

SCHWARTZE.

Do you see that I am now quite calm?

MAGDA.

Certainly.

SCHWARTZE.

Quite calm, am I not? Even my arm does not tremble. What has happened, has happened. But just now I gave your betrothed--

MAGDA.

My betrothed?-- Father dear!

SCHWARTZE.

I gave your betrothed my word of honor. And that must be kept, don't you see?

MAGDA.

But if it is not in your power, my dear father.

SCHWARTZE.

Then I must die,--then I must simply die. One cannot live on when one-- You are an officer's daughter. Don't you understand that?

MAGDA.

[_Compa.s.sionately_.] My G.o.d!

SCHWARTZE.

But before I die, I must set my home in order, must I not? Every one has something which he holds sacred. What is sacred to your inmost soul?

MAGDA.

My art.

SCHWARTZE.

No, that is not enough. It must be more sacred.

MAGDA.

My child.

SCHWARTZE.

Good! Your child,--your child,--you love it? [Magda _nods_.] You wish to see it again? [_She nods_.] And--yes--if you made an oath upon its head [_makes a motion as if he laid his hand upon a child's head_], then you would not perjure yourself? [Magda _shakes her head, smiling_.]

That's well. [_Rising_.] Either you swear to me now, as upon his head, that you will become the honorable wife of his father, or--neither of us two shall go out of this room alive. [_Sinks back on the seat_.]

MAGDA.

[_After a short silence_.] My poor, dear papa! Why do you torture yourself so? And do you think that I will let myself be constrained by locked doors? You cannot believe it.

SCHWARTZE.

You will see.

MAGDA.

[_In growing excitement_.] And what do you really want of me? Why do you trouble yourself about me? I had almost said, what have you all to do with me?

SCHWARTZE.

That you will see.

MAGDA.

You blame me for living out my life without asking you and the whole family for permission. And why should I not? Was I not without family?

Did you not send me out into the world to earn my bread, and then disown me because the way in which I earned it was not to your taste?

Whom did I harm? Against whom did I sin? Oh, if I had remained the daughter of the house, like Marie, who is nothing and does nothing without the sheltering roof of the home, who pa.s.ses straight from the arms of her father into the arms of her husband; who receives from the family life, thought, character, everything,--yes, then you would have been right. In such a one the slightest error would have ruined everything,--conscience, honor, self-respect. But I? Look at me. I was alone. I was as shelterless as a man knocked about in the world, dependent on the work of my own hands. If you give us the right to hunger--and I have hungered--why do you deny us the right to love, as we can find it, and to happiness, as we can understand it?

SCHWARTZE.

You think, my child, because you are free and a great artist, that you can set at naught--

MAGDA.

Leave art out of the question. Consider me nothing more than the seamstress or the servant-maid who seeks, among strangers, the little food and the little love she needs. See how much the family with its morality demand from us! It throws us on our own resources, it gives us neither shelter nor happiness, and yet, in our loneliness, we must live according to the laws which it has planned for itself alone. We must still crouch in the corner, and there wait patiently until a respectful wooer happens to come. Yes, wait. And meanwhile the war for existence of body and soul is consuming us. Ahead we see nothing but sorrow and despair, and yet shall we not once dare to give what we have of youth and strength to the man for whom our whole being cries? Gag us, stupefy us, shut us up in harems or in cloisters--and that perhaps would be best. But if you give us our freedom, do not wonder if we take advantage of it.