Scene Seventh
A clear November night. The dry foliage of the bushes and trees rustles. Torn clouds chase each other beneath the moon——Melchior clambers over the churchyard wall.
Melchior.
(Springing down inside.)
The pack won’t follow me here.——While they are searching the brothels I can get my breath and discover how much I have accomplished.
Coat in tatters, pockets empty——I’m not safe from the most harmless.——I must try to get deeper into the wood to-morrow.
I have trampled down a cross——Even to-day the flowers are frozen!——The earth is cold all around——
In the domain of the dead!——
To climb out of the hole in the roof was not as hard as this road!——It was only there that I kept my presence of mind——
I hung over the abyss——everything was lost in it, vanished——Oh, if I could have stayed there.
Why she, on my account!——Why not the guilty!——Inscrutable providence!——I would have broken stones and gone hungry!——What is to keep me straight now?——Offense follows offense. I am swallowed up in the morass. I haven’t strength left to get out of it——
I was not bad!——I was not bad!——I was not bad!——No mortal ever wandered so dejectedly over graves before.——Pah!——I won’t lose courage! Oh, if I should go crazy——during this very night!
I must seek there among the latest ones!——The wind pipes on every stone in a different key——an anguishing symphony!——The decayed wreaths rip apart and swing with their long threads in bits about the marble crosses——A wood of scarecrows!——Scarecrows on every grave, each more gruesome than the other——as high as houses, from which the devil runs away.——The golden letters sparkle so coldly——The weeping willows groan and move their giant fingers over the inscriptions——
A praying angel——a tablet.
The clouds throw their shadows over it.——How the wind hurries and howls!——Like the march of an army it drives in from the east.——Not a star in the heavens——
Evergreen in the garden plot?——Evergreen?——A maiden——
HERE RESTS IN GOD
Wendla Bergmann, born May 5, 1878,
died from Cholorosis,
October 27, 1892.
Blessed are the Pure of Heart
And I am her murderer. I am her murderer!——Despair is left me——I dare not weep here. Away from here!——Away——
Moritz Stiefel.
(With his head under his arm, comes stamping over the graves.)
A moment, Melchior! The opportunity will not occur so readily again. You can’t guess what depends upon the place and the time——
Melchior.
Where do you come from?
Moritz.
From over there——over by the wall. You knocked down my cross. I lie by the wall.——Give me your hand, Melchior.——
Melchior.
You are not Moritz Stiefel!
Moritz.
Give me your hand. I am convinced you will thank me. It won’t be so easy again! This is an unusually fortunate encounter.——I came out especially——
Melchior.
Don’t you sleep?
Moritz.
Not what you call sleep.——We sit on the church-tower, on the high gables of the roof——wherever we please.——
Melchior.
Restless?
Moritz.
Half happy.——We wander among the Mayflowers, among the lonely paths in the woods. We hover over gatherings of people, over the scene of accidents, gardens, festivals.——We cower in the chimneys of dwelling-places and behind the bed curtains.——Give me your hand.——We don’t associate with each other, but we see and hear everything that is going on in the world. We know that everything is stupidity, everything that men do and contend for, and we laugh at it.
Melchior.
What good does that do?
Moritz.
What good does it have to do?——We are fit for nothing more, neither good nor evil. We stand high, high above earthly beings—each for himself alone. We do not associate with each other, because it would bore us. Not one of us cares for anything which he might lose. We are indifferent both to sorrow and to joy. We are satisfied with ourselves and that is all. We despise the living so heartily that we can hardly pity them. They amuse us with their doings, because, being alive, they are not worthy of compassion. We laugh at their tragedies—each by himself——and make reflections upon them.——Give me your hand! If you give me your hand, you will fall down with laughter over the sensation which made you give me your hand.
Melchior.
Doesn’t that disgust you?
Moritz.
We are too high for that. We smile!——At my burial I was among the mourners. I had a right good time. That is sublimity, Melchior! I howled louder than any and slunk over to the wall to hold my belly from shaking with laughter. Our unapproachable sublimity is the only viewpoint which the trash understands——They would have laughed at me also before I swung myself off.
Melchior.
I have no desire to laugh at myself.
Moritz.
The living, as such, are not really worth compassion!——I admit I should not have thought so either. And now it is incomprehensible to me how one can be so naïve. I see through the fraud so clearly that not a cloud remains.——Why do you want to loiter now, Melchior! Give me your hand! In the turn of a head you will stand heaven high above yourself.——Your life is a sin of omission——
Melchior.
Can you forget?
Moritz.
We can do everything. Give me your hand! We can pity the young, who take their timidity for idealism, and the old, who break their hearts from stoical deliberation. We see the Kaiser tremble at a scurrilous ballad and the lazzaroni before the youngest policeman. We ignore the masks of comedians and see the poet in the shadow of the mask. We see happiness in beggars’ rags and the capitalist in misery and toil. We observe lovers and see them blush before each other, foreseeing that they are deceived deceivers. We see parents bringing children into the world that they may be able to say to them: “How happy you are to have such parents!”——and see the children go and do likewise. We can observe the innocent girl in the qualms of her first love, and the five-groschen harlot reading Schiller.——We see God and the devil blaming each other, and cherish the unspeakable belief that both of them are drunk——Peace and joy, Melchior! You only need to reach me your little finger. You may become snow-white before you have such a favorable opportunity again!
Melchior.
If I gave you my hand, Moritz, it would be from self-contempt.——I see myself outlawed. What lent me courage lies in the grave. I can no longer consider noble emotions as worthy.——And see nothing, nothing, that can save me now from my degradation.——To myself I am the most contemptible creature in the universe.
Moritz.
What delays you?——
(A masked man appears.)
The Masked Man.
(To Melchior.)
You are trembling from hunger. You are not fit to judge. (To Moritz.) You go!
Melchior.
Who are you?
The Masked Man.
I refuse to tell. (To Moritz.) Vanish!——What business have you here!——Why haven’t you on your head?
Moritz.
I shot myself.
The Masked Man.
Then stay where you belong. You are done with! Don’t annoy us here with your stink of the grave. It’s inconceivable!——Look at your fingers! Pfu, the devil! They will crumble soon.
Moritz.
Please don’t send me away——
Melchior.
Who are you, sir??
Moritz.
Please don’t send me away. Please don’t. Let me stay here a bit with you; I won’t disturb you in anything——It is so dreadful down there.
The Masked Man.
Why do you gabble about sublimity, then?——You know that that is humbug——sour grapes! Why do you lie so diligently, you chimera? If you consider it so great a favor, you may stay, as far as I am concerned. But take yourself to leeward, my dear friend——and please keep your dead man’s hand out of the game!
Melchior.
Will you tell me once for all who you are, or not?
The Masked Man.
No——I propose to you that you shall confide yourself to me. I will take care of your future success.
Melchior.
You are——my father?
The Masked Man.
Wouldn’t you know your father by his voice?
Melchior.
No.
The Masked Man.
Your father seeks consolation at this moment in the sturdy arms of your mother.——I will open the world to you. Your momentary lack of resolution springs from your miserable condition. With a warm supper inside of you, you will make fun of it.
Melchior.
(To himself.)
It can only be the devil! (Aloud.) After that of which I have been guilty, a warm supper cannot give me back my peace!
The Masked Man.
That will follow the supper!——I can tell you this much, the girl had better have given birth. She was built properly. Unfortunately, she was killed by the abortives given by Mother Schmidt.——I will take you out among men. I will give you the opportunity to enlarge your horizon fabulously. I will make you thoroughly acquainted with everything interesting that the world has to offer.
Melchior.
Who are you? Who are you?——I can’t trust a man that I don’t know.
The Masked Man.
You can’t learn to know me unless you trust me.
Melchior.
Do you think so?
The Masked Man.
Of course!——Besides, you have no choice.
Melchior.
I can reach my hand to my friend here at any moment.
The Masked Man.
Your friend is a charlatan. Nobody laughs who has a pfennig left in cash. The sublime humorist is the most miserable, most pitiable creature in creation.
Melchior.
Let the humorist be what he may; you tell me who you are, or I’ll reach the humorist my hand.
The Masked Man.
What then?
Moritz.
He is right, Melchior. I have boasted. Take his advice and profit by it. No matter how masked he is——he is, at least.
Melchior.
Do you believe in God?
The Masked Man.
Yes, conditionally.
Melchior.
Will you tell me who discovered gunpowder?
The Masked Man.
Berthold Schwarz——alias Konstantin Anklitzen.——A Franciscan monk at Freiburg in Breisgau, in 1330.
Moritz.
What wouldn’t I give if he had let it alone!
The Masked Man.
You would only have hanged yourself then.
Melchior.
What do you think about morals?
The Masked Man.
You rascal, am I your schoolboy?
Melchior.
Do I know what you are?
Moritz.
Don’t quarrel!——Please don’t quarrel. What good does that do?——Why should we sit, two living men and a corpse, together in a churchyard at two o’clock in the morning if we want to quarrel like topers! It will be a pleasure to me to arbitrate between you. If you want to quarrel, I’ll take my head under my arm and go!
Melchior.
You are the same old ’fraid cat as ever.
The Masked Man.
The phantom is not wrong. One shouldn’t forget one’s dignity.——By morals I understand the real product of two imaginary quantities. The imaginary quantities are “shall” and “will.” The product is called morals and leaves no doubt of its reality.
Moritz.
If you had only told me that earlier! My morals hounded me to death. For the sake of my dear parents I killed myself. “Honor thy father and mother that thy days may be long in the land.” The text made a phenomenal fool of me.
The Masked Man.
Give yourself up to no more illusions, dear friend. Your dear parents would have died as little from it as you did. Judged righteously, they would only have raged and stormed from the healthiest necessity.
Melchior.
That may be right as far as it goes.——I can assure you, however, sir, that if I reach Moritz my hand, sooner or later my morals alone will have to bear the blame.
The Masked Man.
That is just the reason you are not Moritz!
Moritz.
But I don’t believe the difference is so material, so compulsive at least, esteemed unknown, but what by chance the same thing might have happened to you as happened to me that time when I trotted through the alder grove with a pistol in my pocket.
The Masked Man.
Don’t you remember me? You have been standing for the moment actually between life and death.——Moreover, in my opinion, this is not exactly the place in which to continue such a profound debate.
Moritz.
Certainly, it’s growing cold, gentlemen! They dressed me in my Sunday suit, but I wear neither undershirt nor drawers.
Melchior.
Farewell, dear Moritz. I don’t know where the man is taking me. But he is a man——
Moritz.
Don’t blame me for seeking to kill you, Melchior. It was old attachment. All my life I shall only be able to complain and lament that I cannot accompany you once more.
The Masked Man.
At the end everyone has his part——You the consoling consciousness of having nothing——you an enervating doubt of everything.—Farewell.
Melchior.
Farewell, Moritz. Take my heartfelt thanks for appearing before me again. How many former bright days have we lived together during the fourteen years! I promise you, Moritz, come what may, whether during the coming years I become ten times another, whether I prosper or fail, I shall never forget you——
Moritz.
Thanks, thanks, dear friend.
Melchior.
——and when at last I am an old man with gray hair, then, perhaps, you will again stand closer to me than all those living about me.
Moritz.
I thank you. Good luck to your journey, gentlemen. Do not delay any longer.
The Masked Man.
Come, child! (He lays his arm upon that of Melchior and disappears with him over the graves.)
Moritz.
(Alone.)
Now I sit here with my head under my arm.——The moon covers her face, unveils herself again and seems not a hair the cleverer.——I will go back to my place, right my cross, which that madcap trampled down so inconsiderately, and when everything is in order I will lie down on my back again, warm myself in the corruption and smile.