The room is low: the floor is covered with excellent rugs. Modern luxury seems grafted upon the bareness of the peasant. On the wall, behind the dining-table, hangs a picture which represents a waggon with four horses driven by a carter in a blue blouse.
MIELE, a vigorous peasant girl with a red, rather slow-witted face, opens the middle door and permits ALFRED LOTH to enter. LOTH is of middle height, broad-shouldered, thick-set, decided but somewhat awkward in his movements. His hair is blond, his eyes blue, his small moustache thin and very light; his whole face is bony and has an equably serious expression. His clothes are neat but nothing less than fashionable: light summer overcoat, a wallet hanging from the shoulder; cane.
MIELE
Come in, please. I'll call Mr. Hoffmann right off. Won't you take a seat?
[The glass-door that leads to the conservatory is violently thrust open, and a peasant woman, her face bluish red with rage, bursts in. She is not much better dressed than a washerwoman: naked, red arms, blue cotton-skirt and bodice, red dotted kerchief. She is in the early forties; her face is hard, sensual, malignant. The whole figure is, otherwise, well preserved.
MRS. KRAUSE
[Screams.] The hussies!… That's right!… The vicious critters!… Out with you! We don't give nothin'!… [Half to MIELE, half to LOTH.] He can work, he's got arms. Get out! You don't get nothin' here!
LOTH
But Mrs…. Surely you will … my name is Loth … I am … I'd like to … I haven't the slightest in….
MIELE
He wants to speak to Mr. Hoffmann.
MRS. KRAUSE
Oho! beggin' from my son-in-law. We know that kind o' thing! He ain't got nothin'; everything he's got he gets from us. Nothin' is his'n.
[The door to the right is opened and HOFFMANN thrusts his head in.
HOFFMANN
Mother, I must really beg of you! [He enters and turns to LOTH.] What can I … Alfred! Old man! Well, I'll be blessed. You? That certainly is … well, that certainly is a great notion!
[HOFFMANN is thirty-three years old, slender, tall, thin. In his dress he affects the latest fashion, his hair is carefully tended; he wears costly rings, diamond-studs in his shirt-front and charms on his watch chain. His hair and moustache are black; the latter is luxurious and is most scrupulously cared for. His face is pointed, bird-like, the expression blurred, the eyes dark, lively, at times restless.
LOTH
It's by the merest accident, you know …
HOFFMANN
[Excited.] Nothing pleasanter could have … Do take your things off, first of all! [He tries to help him off with his wallet.]—Nothing pleasanter or more unexpected could possibly—[he has relieved LOTH of his hat and cane and places both on a chair near the door]—could possibly have happened to me just now—[coming back]—no, decidedly, nothing.
LOTH
[Taking off his wallet himself.] It's by the merest chance that I've come upon you.
[He places his wallet on the table in the foreground.
HOFFMANN
Sit down. You must be tired. Do sit down—please! D'you remember when you used to come to see me you had a way of throwing yourself full-length on the sofa so that the springs groaned. Sometimes they broke, too. Very well, then, old fellow. Do as you used to do.
[MRS. KRAUSE'S face has taken on an expression of great astonishment. She has withdrawn. LOTH sits down on one of the chairs that stand around the table in the foreground.
HOFFMANN
Won't you drink something? Whatever you say? Beer? Wine? Brandy? Coffee? Tea? Everything's in the house.
[HELEN comes reading from the conservatory. Her tall form, somewhat too plump, the arrangement of her blond, unusually luxuriant hair, the expression of her face, her modern gown, her gestures—in brief, her whole appearance cannot quite hide the peasant's daughter.
HELEN
Brother, you might…. [She discovers LOTH and withdraws quickly.] Oh, I beg pardon.
[Exit.
HOFFMANN
Stay here, do!
LOTH
Your wife?
HOFFMANN
No; her sister. Didn't you hear how she addressed me?
LOTH
No.
HOFFMANN
Good-looking, eh? But now, come on. Make up your mind. Coffee? Tea? Grog?
LOTH
No, nothing, thank you.
HOFFMANN
[Offers him cigars.] Here's something for you then. No!… Not even that?
LOTH
No, thank you.
HOFFMANN
Enviable frugality! [He lights a cigar for himself and speaks the while.] The ashes … I meant to say, tobacco … h-m … smoke of course … doesn't bother you, does it?
LOTH
No.
HOFFMANN
Ah, if I didn't get that much … Good Lord, life anyhow!—But now, do me a favour; tell me something. Ten years—you've hardly changed much, though—ten years, a nasty slice of time. How's Schn … Schnurz? That's what we called him, eh? And Fips, and the whole jolly bunch of those days? Haven't you been able to keep your eye on any of them?
LOTH
Look here, is it possible you don't know?
HOFFMANN
What?
LOTH
That he shot himself.
HOFFMANN
Who? Who's done that sort o' thing again?
LOTH
Fips. Friedrich Hildebrandt.
HOFFMANN
Oh come, that's impossible.
LOTH
It's a fact. Shot himself in the Grunewald, on a very beautiful spot on the shore of the Havelsee. I was there. You have a view toward Spandau.
HOFFMANN
Hm. Wouldn't have believed it of him. He wasn't much of a hero in other ways.
LOTH
That's the very reason why he shot himself.—He was conscientious, very conscientious.
HOFFMANN
Conscientious? I don't see.
LOTH
That was the very reason … otherwise he would probably not have done it.
HOFFMANN
I'm still in the dark.
LOTH
Well, you know what the colour of his political views was?
HOFFMANN
Oh, yes—green.
LOTH
Put it so, if you want to. You'll have to admit, at all events, that he was a very gifted fellow. And yet for five years he had to work as a stucco-worker, and for another five years he had to starve along, so to speak, on his own hook, and in addition he modelled his little statues.
HOFFMANN
And they were revolting. I want to be cheered by art … No, that kind of art wasn't a bit to my taste.
LOTH
Not exactly to mine either. Certain ideas had bitten themselves into his mind. However, last spring there was a competition for a monument. Some two-penny princeling was to be immortalised, I believe. Fips competed and—won. Shortly afterward, he killed himself.
HOFFMANN
I don't see that that throws any ray of light on his so-called conscientiousness. I call that sort of thing silly and highfalutin.
LOTH
That is the common view.
HOFFMANN
I'm very sorry, but I'm afraid I can't help sharing it.
LOTH
Well, it can make no difference to him now, what….
HOFFMANN
Oh, anyhow, let's drop the subject. At bottom I'm just as sorry for him as you can be. But now that he is dead, the good fellow, tell me something of yourself. What have you been doing? How has the world used you?
LOTH
It has used me as it was my business to expect. Didn't you hear anything about me at all? From the papers, I mean?
HOFFMANN
[Somewhat embarrassed.] Not that I know of.
LOTH
Nothing of that business at Leipzig?
HOFFMANN
Ah, yes, that! Yes, yes … I believe so … but nothing definite.
LOTH
Well, then, the matter was as follows—
HOFFMANN
[Laying his hand on LOTH'S arm.] Before you begin, won't you take anything at all?
LOTH
Perhaps later.
HOFFMANN
Not even a little glass of brandy?
LOTH
No; that least of all.
HOFFMANN
Well, then I'll take a little … There's nothing better for the stomach. [He gets a bottle and two little glasses from the sideboard and places them on the table before LOTH.] Grand champagne, finest brand. I can recommend it. Won't you really?
LOTH
No, thank you.
HOFFMANN
[Tilting the contents of the glass into his mouth.] Ah-h—well, now I'm all ears.
LOTH
To put it briefly, I got into a nasty mess.
HOFFMANN
The sentence was two years, wasn't it?
LOTH
Quite right. You seem to be informed after all. Yes, I was sentenced to two years' imprisonment, and afterwards they expelled me from the university too. And at that time I was just—twenty-one. However, during those two years I wrote my first book on economics. In spite of that I couldn't truthfully say that it was very good fun to be behind the bars.
HOFFMANN
Lord, what idiots we were! It's queer. And we had really taken the thing into our heads in good earnest. I can't help thinking, old man, that it was sheer puerility. The idea! A dozen green kids like ourselves to go to America and found … we found … a model state. Delicious notion!
LOTH
Puerility? Ah well, in some ways no doubt it was. We certainly underestimated the difficulty of such an undertaking.
HOFFMANN
And that you really did go to America, in all seriousness, and with empty hands … Why, think, man, what it means to acquire land and foundation for a model state with empty hands. That was almost cr … At all events it was unique in its naÏvetÉ.
LOTH
And yet I'm particularly satisfied with the result of my American trip.
HOFFMANN
[Laughing with a touch of boisterousness.] Cold water treatment. That was an excellent result, if that's what you mean….
LOTH
It may well be that I cooled down quite a little. But that process is hardly peculiar to myself. It is one which every human being undergoes. But it's a far cry from that to failing to realise the value of those … well, let's call them, our hotheaded days. And it wasn't so frightfully simple-minded, as you represent it.
HOFFMANN
Well, I don't know about that.
LOTH
All you have to do is to think of the average silliness that surrounded us in those days: the fraternity goings on at the universities, the swilling, the duelling. And what was all the noise about? It was about Hecuba, as Fips used to say. Well, we at least, didn't make a fuss about Hecuba; we had our attention, fixed on the highest aims of humanity. And, in addition to that, those silly times cleared me thoroughly of all prejudices. I took my leave of sham religion and sham morality and a good deal else….
HOFFMANN
I'm perfectly prepared to admit that much. If, when all's said and done, I am an open-minded, enlightened man to-day, I owe it, as I wouldn't dream of denying, to the days of our intercourse! I am the last man to deny that. In fact I'm not in any respect a monster. Only you mustn't try to run your head through a stone wall.—You mustn't try to force out the evils under which, more's the pity, the present generation suffers, only to replace them by worse ones. What you've got to do is—to let things take their natural course. What is to be, will be! You've got to proceed practically, practically! And you will recall that I emphasised that just as much in those days as now. And that principle has paid. And that's just it. All of you, yourself included, proceed in a most unpractical way.
LOTH
I wish you'd explain just how you mean that.
HOFFMANN
It's as simple as … You don't make use of your capabilities. Take yourself, for instance: a fellow with your knowledge, energy and what not! What road would have been closed to you? Instead of going ahead, what is it you do? You compromise yourself, at the very start, to such a degree, that … well, honestly, old man, didn't you regret it once in a while?
LOTH
I can't very well regret the fact that I was condemned innocently.
HOFFMANN
As to that, of course, I can't judge.
LOTH
You will be able to do so at once when I tell you that the indictment declared that I had called our club, "Vancouver Island," into being purely for purposes of party agitation. In addition I was said to have collected funds for party purposes. Now you know very well that we were thoroughly in earnest in regard to our ambitions of founding a colony. And, as far as collecting money goes—you have said yourself that we were all empty-handed together. The indictment was a misrepresentation from beginning to end, and, as a former member, you ought to….
HOFFMANN
Hold on, now. I wasn't really a member. As to the rest, of course, I believe you. Judges are, after all, only human. You must consider that. In any event, to proceed quite practically, you should have avoided the very appearance of that sort of thing. Take it all in all: I have wondered at you often enough since then—editor of the Workingmen's Tribune, the obscurest of hole and corner sheets—parliamentary candidate of the dear mob! And what did you get out of it all? Don't misunderstand me! I am the last man to be lacking in sympathy with the common people. But if something is to be effected, it must be effected from above. In fact that's the only way in which anything can be done. The people never know what they really need. It's this trying to lift things from beneath that I call—running your head through a stone wall.
LOTH
I'm afraid I don't get a very clear notion of your drift.
HOFFMANN
What I mean? Well now, look at me! My hands are free: I am in a position to do something for an ideal end.—I think I can say that the practical part of my programme has been pretty well carried out. And all you fellows, always with empty hands—what can you do?
LOTH
True. From what one hears you are in a fair way to become a Rothschild.
HOFFMANN
[Flattered.] You do me too much honour—at least, for the present. Who said that, anyhow? A man sticks to a good thing, and that, naturally, brings its reward. But who was it said that?
LOTH
It was over there in Jauer. Two gentlemen were conversing at the next table.
HOFFMANN
Aha! H-m. I have enemies. And what did they have to say?
LOTH
Nothing of importance. But I heard from them that you had retired for the present to the estate of your parents-in-law.
HOFFMANN
People have a way of finding things out; haven't they? My dear friend, you'd never believe how a man in my position is spied on at every step. That's another one of the evils of wealth … But it is this way, you see: I'm expecting the confinement of my wife in the quiet and the healthy air here.
LOTH
What do you do for a physician? Surely in such cases a good physician is of the highest importance. And here, in this village….
HOFFMANN
Ah, but that's just it! The physician here is an unusually capable one. And, do you know, I've found this out: in a doctor, conscientiousness counts for more than genius.
LOTH
Perhaps it is an essential concomitant of a physician's genius.
HOFFMANN
Maybe so. Anyhow, our doctor has a conscience. He's a bit of an idealist—more or less our kind. His success among the miners and the peasants is simply phenomenal! Sometimes, I must say, he isn't an easy man to bear, he's got a mixture of hardness and sentimentality. But, as I said before, I know how to value conscientiousness; no doubt about that. But before I forget … I do attach some importance to it … a man ought to know what he has to look out for … Listen!… Tell me … I see it in your face. Those gentlemen at the next table had nothing good to say of me? Tell me, please, what they did say.
LOTH
I really ought not to do that, for I was going to beg one hundred crowns of you, literally beg, for there is hardly any chance of my ever being able to return them.
HOFFMANN
[Draws a cheque-book from his inner pocket, makes out a cheque and hands it to LOTH.] Any branch of the Imperial Bank will cash it … It's simply a pleasure….
LOTH
Your promptness surpasses all expectation. Well, I accept it with, gratitude, and you know—it could be worse spent.
HOFFMANN
[Somewhat rhetorically.] A labourer is worthy of his hire. But now, Loth, have the goodness to tell me what the gentlemen in question….
LOTH
I dare say they talked nonsense.
HOFFMANN
Tell me in spite of that, please. I'm simply interested, quite simply interested—that's all.
LOTH
They discussed the fact that you had violently forced another man out of his position here—a contractor named Mueller.
HOFFMANN
Of course! The same old story.
LOTH
The man, they said, was betrothed to your present wife.
HOFFMANN
So he was. And what else?
LOTH
I tell you these things just as I heard them, for I assume that it is of some importance to you to be acquainted with the exact nature of the slander.
HOFFMANN
Quite right. And so?
LOTH
So far as I could make out this Mueller was said to have had the contract for the construction of a stretch of mountain railroad here.
HOFFMANN
Yes, with a wretched capital of ten thousand crowns. When he came to see that the money wouldn't go far enough, he was in haste to make a catch of one of the Witzdorf farmers' daughters; the honour was to have fallen to my wife.
LOTH
They said that he had his arrangement with the daughter, and you had made yours with the father.—Next he shot himself, didn't he?—And you finished the construction of his section of the road and made a great deal of money out of it?
HOFFMANN
There's an element of truth in all that. Of course, I could give you a very different notion of how those things hung together. Perhaps they knew a few more of these edifying anecdotes.
LOTH
There was one thing, I am bound to tell you, that seemed to excite them particularly: they computed what an enormous business you were doing in coal now, and they called you—well, it wasn't exactly flattering. In short they asserted that you had persuaded the stupid farmers of the neighbourhood, over some champagne, to sign a contract by which the exploitation of all the coal mined on their property was turned over to you at a ridiculously small rental.
HOFFMANN
[Touched on the raw, gets up.] I'll tell you something, Loth … Pshaw, why concern oneself with it at all. I vote that we think of supper. I'm savagely hungry—yes, quite savagely.
[He presses the button of an electric connection, the wire of which hangs down over the sofa in the form of a green cord. The ringing of an electric bell is heard.
LOTH
Well, if you want to keep me here, then have the kindness … I'd like to brush up a bit first.
HOFFMANN
In a moment—everything that's necessary … [EDWARD, a servant in livery, enters.] Edward, take this gentleman to the guest chamber.
EDWARD
Very, well, sir.
HOFFMANN
[Pressing LOTH'S hand.] I wonder if you'd mind coming down to supper in about fifteen minutes—at most.
LOTH
That's ample time. See you later.
HOFFMANN
Yes, see you later.
[EDWARD opens the door and lets LOTH precede him. Both go out. HOFFMANN scratches the back of his head, looks thoughtfully at the floor and then approaches the door at the right. He has just touched the knob when HELEN, who has entered hastily by the glass door, calls to him.
HELEN
Brother! Who was that?
HOFFMANN
That was one of my college chums, in fact, the oldest of them, Alfred Loth.
HELEN
[Quickly.] Has he gone again?
HOFFMANN
No; he's going to eat supper with us. Possibly … yes, possibly he may spend the night here.
HELEN
Heavens! Then I shan't come to supper.
HOFFMANN
But Helen!
HELEN
What is the use of my meeting cultivated people! I might just as well get as boorish as all the rest here!
HOFFMANN
Oh, these eternal fancies! In fact you will do me a real favour if you will order the arrangements for supper. Be so kind. I'd like to have things a bit festive, because I believe that he has something up his sleeve.
HELEN
What do you mean by that: has something up his sleeve?
HOFFMANN
Mole's work … digging, digging.—You can't possibly understand that. Anyhow, I may be mistaken, for I've avoided touching on that subject so far. At all events, have everything as inviting as possible. That's the easiest way, after all, of accomplishing something with people … Champagne, of course. Have the lobsters come from Hamburg?
HELEN
I believe they came this morning.
HOFFMANN
Very well. Then—lobsters! [A violent knocking is heard.] Come in!
PARCEL POST CARRIER
[Enters with a box under his arm. His voice has a sing-song inflection.] A box.
HELEN
Where from?
PARCEL POST CARRIER
Ber-lin.
HOFFMANN
Quite right. No doubt the baby's outfit from Hertzog. [He looks at the package and takes the bill.] Yes, these are the things from Hertzog.
HELEN
This whole box full. Oh, that's overdoing!
HOFFMANN pays the carrier.
PARCEL POST CARRIER
[Still in his sing-song.] I wish you a good evening.
[Exit.
HOFFMANN
Why is that overdoing?
HELEN
Why, because there's enough here to fit out at least three babies.
HOFFMANN
Did you take a walk with my wife?
HELEN
What am I to do if she's so easily tired?
HOFFMANN
Nonsense! Easily tired! She makes me utterly wretched! An hour and a half … I wish, for goodness' sake, she would do as the doctor orders. What is the use of having a doctor, if….
HELEN
Then put your foot down and get rid of that Spiller woman! What am I to do against an old creature like that who always confirms her in her own notions!
HOFFMANN
But what can I do—a man—a mere man? And, furthermore, you know my mother-in-law! Don't you?
HELEN
[Bitterly.] I do.
HOFFMANN
Where is she now?
HELEN
Spiller has been getting her up in grand style ever since Mr. Loth came. She will probably go through one of her performances at supper.
HOFFMANN
[Once more absorbed in his own thoughts and pacing the room, violently.] This is the last time, I give you my word, that I'm going to await such things in this house—the last time, so help me!
HELEN
Yes, you're lucky. You can go where you please.
HOFFMANN
In my house the wretched relapse into that frightful vice would most certainly not have occurred.
HELEN
Don't make me responsible for it. She did not get the brandy from me! Get rid of the Spiller woman, I tell you. Oh, if only I were a man!
HOFFMANN
[Sighing.] Oh, if only it were over and done with!—[Speaking from the door to the right.] Anyhow, sister, do me the favour and have the supper-table really appetising. I'll just attend to a little matter meanwhile.
HELEN
[Rings the electric bell. MIELE enters.] Miele, set the table, and tell Edward to put champagne on ice and open four dozen oysters.
MIELE
[With sullen impudence.] You c'n tell him yer-self. He don't take orders from me. He's always sayin' he was hired by Mr. Hoffmann.
HELEN
Then, at least, send him in to me.
[MIELE goes. HELEN steps in front of the mirror and adjusts various details in her toilet. In the meantime EDWARD enters.
HELEN
[Still before the mirror.] Edward, put champagne on ice and open oysters. Mr. Hoffmann wishes it.
EDWARD
Very well, Miss.
[As EDWARD leaves, a knocking is heard at the middle door.
HELEN
[Startled.] Dear me! [Timidly.] Come in! [Louder and more firmly.] Come in!
LOTH
[Enters without bowing.] Ah, I beg pardon. I didn't mean to intrude. My name is Loth.
HELEN bows. Her gesture smacks of the dancing school.
HOFFMANN
[His voice is heard through the closed door.] My dear people: don't be formal! I'll be with you in a moment. Loth, my sister-in-law, Helen Krause! And, sister, my friend, Alfred Loth! Please consider yourselves introduced.
HELEN
Oh, what a way of….
LOTH
I don't take it ill of him. As I have often been told, I am myself more than half a barbarian when correct manners are concerned. But if I intruded upon you, I….
HELEN
Not in the least; oh, not in the least, believe me. [A pause of constraint.] Indeed, indeed, it is most kind of you to have looked up my brother-in-law. He often complains that … rather, regrets that the friends of his youth have forgotten him so entirely.
LOTH
Yes, it just happened so this time. I've always been in Berlin and thereabouts and had no idea what had become of Hoffmann. I haven't been back in Silesia since my student days at Breslau.
HELEN
And so you came upon him quite by chance.
LOTH
Yes, quite—and, what is more, in the very spot where I've got to pursue my investigations.
HELEN
Investigations in Witzdorf! In this wretched little hole. Ah, you're jesting. It isn't possible.
LOTH
You say: wretched? Yet there is a very unusual degree of wealth here.
HELEN
Oh, of course, in that respect….
LOTH
I've been continually astonished. I can assure you that such farms are not to be found elsewhere; they seem literally steeped in abundance.
HELEN
You are quite right. There's more than one stable here in which the cows and horses feed from marble mangers and racks of German silver! It is all due to the coal which was found under our fields and which turned the poor peasants rich almost in the twinkling of an eye. [She points to the picture in the background.] Do you see—my grandfather was a freight carter. The little property here belonged to him, but he could not get a living out of his bit of soil and so he had to haul freight. That's a picture of him in his blue blouse; they still wore blouses like that in those days. My father, when he was young, wore one too.—No! When I said "wretched" I didn't mean that. Only it's so desolate here. There's nothing, nothing for the mind. Life is empty … it's enough to kill one.
MIELE and EDWARD pass to and fro, busy laying the table to the right in the background.
LOTH
Aren't there balls or parties once in a while?
HELEN
Not even that! The farmers gamble, hunt, drink … What is there to be seen all the long day? [She has approached the window and points out.] Such figures, mainly.
LOTH
H-m! Miners.
HELEN
Some are going to the mine, some are coming from the mine: all day, all day … At least, I seem always to see them. Do you suppose I even care to go into the street alone? At most I slip through the back gate out into the fields. And they are such a rough set! The way they stare at one—so menacing and morose as if one were actually guilty of some crime. Sometimes, in winter, when we go sleighing, they come in the darkness, in great gangs, over the hills, through the storm, and, instead of making way, they walk stubbornly in front of the horses. Then, sometimes the farmers use the handles of their whips; it's the only way they can get through. And then the miners curse behind us. Ugh! I've been so terribly frightened sometimes!
LOTH
And isn't it strange that I have come here for the sake of these very people of whom you are so much afraid.
HELEN
Oh, surely not….
LOTH
Quite seriously. These people interest me more than any one else here.
HELEN
No one excepted?
LOTH
No one.
HELEN
Not even my brother-in-law?
LOTH
No! For my interest in these people is different and of an altogether higher nature. But you must forgive me … You can't be expected to follow me there.
HELEN
And why not? Indeed, I understand you very well … [She drops a letter inadvertently which LOTH stoops to pick up.] Don't bother … it's of no importance; only an indifferent boarding-school correspondence.
LOTH
So you went to boarding-school?
HELEN
Yes, in Herrnhut. You mustn't think that I'm so wholly … No, no, I do understand.
LOTH
You see, these workingmen interest me for their own sake.
HELEN
To be sure. And a miner like that is very interesting, if you look upon him in that way. Why, there are places where you never see one; but If you have them daily before your eyes …
LOTH
Even if you have them daily before your eyes, Miss Krause. Indeed. I think that is necessary if one is to discover what is truly interesting about them.
HELEN
Dear me! If it's so hard to discover—I mean what is interesting about them!
LOTH
Well; it is interesting, for instance that these people, as you say, always look so menacing and so morose.
HELEN
Why do you think that that is particularly interesting?
LOTH
Because it is not the usual thing. The rest of us look that way only sometimes and by no means always.
HELEN
Yes, but why do they always look so … so full of hatred and so surly? There must be some reason for that.
LOTH
Just so. And it is this very reason that I am anxious to discover.
HELEN
Oh, don't!… Now you're making fun of me! What good would it do you, even if you knew that?
LOTH
One might perhaps find ways and means to remove the cause that makes these people so joyless and so full of hatred; one might perhaps make them happier.
HELEN
[Slightly confused.] I must confess freely that now … And yet perhaps just now I begin to understand you a little. Only it is so strange, so new, so utterly new …
HOFFMANN
[Entering through the door at the right. He has a number of letters in his hand.] Well, here I am again.—Edward, see to it that these letters reach the post-office before eight o'clock. [He hands the letters to the servant, who withdraws.] Well, dear people, now we can eat! Outrageously hot here! September and such heat! [He lifts a bottle of champagne from the cooler. ] Veuve Cliquot! Edward knows my secret passions! [He turns to LOTH.] You've had quite a lively argument, eh? [Approaches the table, which has now been laid and which groans under delicacies. Rubbing his hands.] Well, that looks very good indeed! [With a sly look in LOTH'S direction.] Don't you think it does?—By the way, sister! We're going to have company: William Kahl. He has been seen in the yard.
HELEN makes a gesture of disgust.
HOFFMANN
My dear girl! You almost act as if I … How can I help it? D'you suppose I invited him? [Heavy steps are heard in the outer hall.] Ah! "Misfortune strides apace!"
KAHL enters without having first knocked. He is twenty-four years old: a clumsy peasant who is evidently concerned, so far as possible, to make a show not only as a refined but, more especially, as a wealthy man. His features are coarse; his predominant expression is one of stupid cunning. He wears a green jacket, a gay velvet waist-coat, dark trousers and patent-leather top-boots. His head-covering is a green forester's hat with a cock's feather. His jacket has buttons of stag's horn and stag's teeth depend from his watch-chain. He stammers.
KAHL
G-good evening everybody!
[He sees LOTH, is much embarrassed and, standing still, cuts a rather sorry figure.
HOFFMANN
[Steps up to him and shakes hands with him encouragingly.] Good evening, Mr. Kahl.
HELEN
[Ungraciously.] Good evening.
KAHL
[Strides with heavy steps diagonally across the room to HELEN and takes her hand.] Evenin' t'you, Nellie.
HOFFMANN
[To LOTH.] Permit me to introduce our neighbour's son, Mr. Kahl.
[KAHL grins and fidgets with his hat. Constrained silence.
HOFFMANN
Come, let's sit down, then. Is anybody missing? Ah, our mama! Miele, request Mrs. Krause to come to supper.
[MIELE leaves by the middle door.
MIELE
[Is heard in the hall, calling out.] Missus! Missus!! You're to come down—to come'n eat!
[HELEN and HOFFMANN exchange a look of infinite comprehension and laugh. Then, by a common impulse, they look at LOTH.
HOFFMANN
[To LOTH.] Rustic simplicity!
MRS. KRAUSE appears, incredibly overdressed. Silk and costly jewels. Her dress and bearing betray hard arrogance, stupid pride and half-mad vanity.
HOFFMANN
Ah, there is mama! Permit me to introduce to you my friend Dr. Loth.
MRS. KRAUSE
[Half-curtsies, peasant-fashion.] I take the liberty! [After a brief pause.] Eh, but Doctor, you mustn't bear me a grudge, no, you mustn't at all. I've got to excuse myself before you right away—[she speaks with increasing fluency]—excuse myself on account o' the way I acted a while ago. You know, y'understan', we' get a powerful lot o' tramps here right along … 'Tain't reasonable to believe the trouble we has with them beggars. And they steals exackly like magpies. It ain't as we're stingy. We don't have to be thinkin' and thinkin' before we spends a penny, no, nor before we spends a pound neither. Now, old Louis Krause's wife, she's a close one, worst kind you see, she wouldn't give a crittur that much! Her old man died o' rage because he lost a dirty little two-thousand, playin' cards. No, we ain't that kind. You see that sideboard over there. That cost me two hundred crowns, not countin' the freight even. Baron Klinkow hisself couldn't have nothin' better.
MRS. SPILLER has entered shortly after MRS. KRAUSE. She is small, slightly deformed and gotten up in her mistress's cast-off garments. While MRS. KRAUSE is speaking she looks up at her with a certain devout attention. She is about fifty-five years old. Every time she exhales her breath she utters a gentle moan, which is regularly audible, even when she speaks, as a soft—m.
MRS. SPILLER
[In a servile, affectedly melancholy, minor tone. Very softly.] His lordship has exactly the identical sideboard—m—.
HELEN
[To MRS. KRAUSE.] Mama, don't you think we had better sit down first and then—
MRS. KRAUSE
[Turns with lightning-like rapidity to HELEN and transfixes her with a withering look; harshly and masterfully.] Is that proper?
[She is about to sit down but remembers that grace has not been said. Mechanically she folds her hands without, however, mastering her malignity.
MRS. SPILLER
Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest. May thy gifts to us be blest.
[All take their seats noisily. The embarrassing situation is tided over by the passing and repassing of dishes, which takes some time.
HOFFMANN
[To LOTH.] Help yourself, old fellow, won't you? Oysters?
LOTH
I'll try them. They're the first I've ever eaten.
MRS. KRAUSE
[Has just sucked down an oyster noisily.] This season, you mean.
LOTH
No, I mean at all.
[MRS. KRAUSE and MRS. SPILLER exchange a look.
HOFFMANN
[To KAHL, who is squeezing a lemon with his teeth.] Haven't seen you for two days, Mr. Kahl. Have you been busy shooting mice?
KAHL
N-naw …
HOFFMANN
[To LOTH.] Mr. Kahl, I must tell you, is passionately fond of hunting.
KAHL
M-m-mice is i-infamous amphibies.
HELEN
[Bursts out.] It's too silly. He can't see anything wild or tame without killing it.
KAHL
Las' night I sh-shot our ol' s-sow.
LOTH
Then I suppose that shooting is your chief occupation.
MRS. KRAUSE
Mr. Kahl, he just does that fer his own private pleasure.
MRS. SPILLER
Forest, game and women—as his Excellency the Minister von Schadendorf often used to say.
KAHL
'N d-day after t-t'morrow we're g-goin' t' have p-pigeon sh-sh-shooting.
LOTH
What is that—pigeon shooting?
HELEN
Ah, I can't bear such things. Surely it's a very merciless sport. Rough boys who throw stones at window panes are better employed.
HOFFMANN
You go too far, Helen.
HELEN
I don't know. According to my feeling it's far more sensible to break windows, than to tether pigeons to a post and then shoot bullets into them.
HOFFMANN
Well, Helen, after all, you must consider …
LOTH
[Using his knife and fork with energy.] It is a shameful barbarity.
KAHL
Aw! Them few pigeons!
MRS. SPILLER
[To LOTH.] Mr. Kahl, you know, has m-more than two-hundred of them in his dove-cote.
LOTH
All hunting is barbarity.
HOFFMANN
But an ineradicable one. Just now, for instance, five hundred live foxes are wanted in the market, and all foresters in this neighbourhood and in other parts of Germany are busy snaring the animals.
LOTH
What are all those foxes wanted for?
HOFFMANN
They are sent to England, where they will enjoy the honour of being hunted from their very cages straight to death by members of the aristocracy.
LOTH
Mohammedan or Christian—a beast's a beast.
HOFFMANN
May I pass you some lobster, mother?
MRS. KRAUSE
I guess so. They're good this here season.
MRS. SPILLER
Madame has such a delicate palate.
MRS. KRAUSE
[To LOTH.] I suppose you ain't ever et lobsters neither, Doctor?
LOTH
Yes, I have eaten lobsters now and then—in the North, by the sea, in Warnemuende, where I was born.
MRS. KRAUSE
[To KAHL.] Times an' times a person don't know what to eat no more. Eh, William.
KAHL
Y-y're r-right there, cousin, G-God knows.
EDWARD
[Is about to pour champagne into LOTH'S glass.] Champagne, sir.
LOTH
[Covers his glass with his hand.] No, thank you.
HOFFMANN
Come now, don't be absurd.
HELEN
What? Don't you drink?
LOTH
No, Miss Krause.
HOFFMANN
Well, now, look here, old man. That is, you must admit, rather tiresome.
LOTH
If I were to drink I should only grow more tiresome.
HELEN
That is most interesting, Doctor.
LOTH
[Untactfully.] That I grow even more tiresome when I drink wine?
HELEN
[Somewhat taken aback.] No, oh, no. But that you do not drink … do not drink at all, I mean.
LOTH
And why is that particularly interesting?
HELEN
[Blushing.] It is not the usual thing.
[She grows redder and more embarrassed.
LOTH
[Clumsily.] You are quite right, unhappily.
MRS. KRAUSE
[To LOTH.] It costs us fifteen shillin's a bottle. You needn't be scared to drink it. We gets it straight from Rheims; we ain't givin' you nothin' cheap; we wouldn't want it ourselves.
MRS. SPILLER
Ah, you can believe—m-me, Doctor: if his Excellency, the Minister von Schadendorf, had been able to keep such a table …
KAHL
I couldn't live without my wine.
HELEN
[To LOTH.] Do tell us why you don't drink?
LOTH
I'll do that very gladly, I …
HOFFMANN
Oh, pshaw, old fellow. [He takes the bottle from the servant in order to press the wine upon LOTH.] Just think how many merry hours we used to spend in the old days …
LOTH
Please don't take the trouble …
HOFFMANN
Drink to-day—this one time.
LOTH
It's quite useless.
HOFFMANN
As a special favour to me.
[HOFFMANN is about to pour the wine; LOTH resists. A slight conflict ensues.
LOTH
No, no … as I said before … No!… no, thank you.
HOFFMANN
Don't be offended, but that, surely, is a mere foolish whim.
KAHL
[To MRS. SPILLER.] A man that don't want nothin' has had enough.
[MRS. SPILLER nods resignedly.
HOFFMANN
Anyhow, if you let a man have his will what more can you do for him. But I can tell you this much: without a glass of wine at dinner …
LOTH
And a glass of beer at breakfast …
HOFFMANN
Very well; why not? A glass of beer is a very healthy thing.
LOTH
And a nip of brandy now and then …
HOFFMANN
Ah, well, if one couldn't get that much out of life! You'll never succeed in making an ascetic of me. You can't rob life of every stimulus.
LOTH
I'm not so sure of that. I am thoroughly content with the normal stimuli that reach my nervous system.
HOFFMANN
And a company that sit together with dry throats always has been and always will be a damnably weary and boresome one—with which, as a rule, I'd care to have very little to do.
MRS. KRAUSE
An' all them aristocrats drinks a whole lot.
MRS. SPILLER
[Devoutly confirming her mistress' remark by an inclination of her body.] It is easy for gentlemen to drink a great deal of wine.
LOTH
[To HOFFMANN.] My experience is quite to the contrary. As a rule, I am bored at a table where a great deal is drunk.
HOFFMANN
Oh, of course, it's got to be done in moderation.
LOTH
What do you call moderation?
HOFFMANN
Well, so long as one is in possession of one's senses …
LOTH
Aha! Then you do admit that, in general, the consumption of alcohol does endanger the possession of one's senses? And for that reason, you see, I find tavern parties such a bore.
HOFFMANN
Are you afraid of losing possession of your senses so easily?
KAHL
T'-t'other d-day I drank a b-bottle o' R-Rhine-wine, an' another o' ch-champagne. An' on top o' that an-n-nother o' B-Bordeaux—an' I wan't drunk by half.
LOTH
[To HOFFMANN.] Oh no. You know well enough that it was I who took you fellows home when you'd been taking too much. And I still have the same tough old system. No, I'm not afraid on that account.
HOFFMANN
Well, then, what is it?
HELEN
Yes, why is it really that you don't drink? Do tell us!
LOTH
[To HOFFMANN.] In order to satisfy you then: I do not drink to-day, if for no other reason but because I have given my word of honour to avoid spirituous liquors.
HOFFMANN
In other words, you've sunk to the level of a temperance fanatic.
LOTH
I am a total abstainer.
HOFFMANN
And for how long, may one ask, have you gone in for this—
LOTH
For life.
HOFFMANN
[Throws down his knife and fork and half starts up from his chair.] Well, I'll be … [He sits down again.] Now, frankly, you must forgive me, but I never thought you so—childish.
LOTH
You may call it so if you please.
HOFFMANN
But how in the world did you get into that kind of thing?
HELEN
Surely, for such a resolution you must have a very weighty cause—it seems so to me, at least.
LOTH
Undoubtedly such a reason exists. You probably do not know, Miss Krause, nor you either, Hoffmann, what an appalling part alcohol plays in modern life … Read Bunge, if you desire to gain an idea of it. I happen to remember the statements of a writer named Everett concerning the significance of alcohol in the life of the United States. His facts cover a space of ten years. In these ten years, according to him, alcohol has devoured directly a sum of three thousand millions of dollars and indirectly of six hundred millions. It has killed three hundred thousand people, it has driven thousands of others into prisons and poor-houses; it has caused two thousand suicides at the least. It has caused the loss of at least ten millions through fire and violent destruction; it has rendered no less than twenty thousand women, widows, and no less than one million children, orphans. Worst of all, however, are the far-reaching effects of alcohol which extend to the third and fourth generation.—Now, had I pledged myself never to marry, I might perhaps drink, but as it is—My ancestors, as I happen to know, were all not only healthy and robust but thoroughly temperate people. Every movement that I make, every hardship that I undergo, every breath that I draw brings what I owe them more deeply home to me. And that, you see, is the point; I am absolutely determined to transmit undiminished to my posterity this heritage which is mine.
MRS. KRAUSE
Look here, son-in-law, them miners o' ours do drink a deal too much. I guess that's true.
KAHL
They swills like pigs.
HELEN
And such, things are hereditary?
LOTH
There are families who are ruined by it—families of dipsomaniacs.
KAHL
[Half to MRS. KRAUSE; half to HELEN.] Your old man—he's goin' it pretty fast, too.
HELEN
[White as a sheet, vehemently.] Oh, don't talk nonsense.
MRS. KRAUSE
Eh, but listen to the impident hussy. You might think she was a princess! You're tryin' to play bein' a grand lady, I s'ppose! That's the way she goes fer her future husband. [To LOTH, pointing to KAHL.] That's him, you know; they're promised; it's all arranged.
HELEN
[Jumping up.] Stop! or … Stop, mother, or I …
MRS. KRAUSE
Well, I do declare! Say, Doctor, is that what you call eddication, eh? God knows, I treat her as if she was my own child, but that's a little too much.
HOFFMANN
[Soothingly.] Ah, mother, do me the favour….
MRS. KRAUSE
No-o! I don't see why. Such a goose like that … That's an end o' all justice … such a sl…!
HOFFMANN
Oh, but mother, I must really beg of you to control—
MRS. KRAUSE
[Doubly enraged.] Instead o' sich a crittur takin' a hand on the farm…. God forbid! She pulls her sheets 'way over her ears. But her Schillers and her Goethes and sich like stinkin' dogs—that can't do nothin' but lie; they c'n turn her head. It's enough to make you sick!
[She stops, quivering with rage.
HOFFMANN
[Trying to pacify her.] Well, well—she will be all right now … perhaps it wasn't quite right … perhaps….
[He beckons to HELEN, who in her excitement has drawn aside, and the girl, fighting down her tears, returns to her place.
HOFFMANN
[Interrupting the painful silence that has followed, to LOTH.] Ah, yes … what were we talking about? To be sure, of good old alcohol. [He raises his glass.] Well, mother, let us have peace. Come,—we'll drink a toast in peace, and honour alcohol by being peaceful. [MRS. KRAUSE, although somewhat rebelliously, clinks glasses with him.] What, Helen, and your glass is empty…. I say, Loth, you've made a proselyte.
HELEN
Ah … no … I….
MRS. SPILLER
But, dear Miss Helen, that looks sus—
HOFFMANN
You weren't always so very particular.
HELEN
[Pertly.] I simply have no inclination to drink to-day. That's all.
HOFFMANN
Oh, I beg your pardon, very humbly indeed … Let me see, what were we talking about?
LOTH
We were saying that there were whole families of dipsomaniacs.
HOFFMANN
[Embarrassed anew.] To be sure, to be sure, but … er….
[Growing anger is noticeable in the behaviour of MRS. KRAUSE. KAHL is obviously hard put to it to restrain his laughter concerning something that seems to furnish him immense inner amusement. HELEN observes KAHL with burning eyes and her threatening glance has repeatedly restrained him from saying something that is clearly on the tip of his tongue. LOTH, peeling an apple with a good deal of equanimity, has taken no notice of all this.
LOTH
What is more, you seem to be rather blessed with that sort of thing hereabouts.
HOFFMANN
[Almost beside himself.] Why? How? Blessed with what?
LOTH
With drunkards, of course.
HOFFMANN
H-m! Do you think so … ah … yes … I dare say—the miners….
LOTH
Not only the miners. Here, in the inn, where I stopped before I came to you, there sat a fellow, for instance, this way.
[He rests both elbows on the table, supports his head, with his hands and stares at the table.
HOFFMANN
Really?
[His embarrassment has now reached its highest point; MRS. KRAUSE coughs; HELEN still commands KAHL with her eyes. His whole body quivers with internal laughter, but he is still capable of enough self-command not to burst out.
LOTH
I'm surprised that you don't know this, well, one might almost say, this matchless example of his kind. It's the inn next door to your house. I was told that the man is an immensely rich farmer of this place who literally spends his days and years in the same tap-room drinking whiskey. Of course he's a mere animal to-day. Those frightfully vacant, drink-bleared eyes with which he stared at me!
[KAHL, who has restrained himself up to this point, breaks out in coarse, loud, irrepressible laughter, so that LOTH and HOFFMANN, dumb with astonishment, stare at him.
KAHL
[Stammering out through his laughter.] By the Almighty, that was…. Oh, sure, sure—that was the ol' man.
HELEN
[Jumps up, horrified and indignant. She crushes her napkin and flings it on the table.] You are…. [With a gesture of utter loathing.] Oh, you are….
[She withdraws swiftly.
KAHL
[Violently breaking through the constraint which arises from his consciousness of having committed a gross blunder.] Oh, pshaw!… It's too dam' foolish! I'm goin' my own ways. [He puts on his hat and says, without turning back:] Evenin'.
MRS. KRAUSE
[Calls out after him.] Don' know's I c'n blame you, William. [She folds her napkin and calls:] Miele! [MIELE enters.] Clear the table! [To herself, but audibly.] Sich a goose!
HOFFMANN
[Somewhat angry.] Well, mother, honestly, I must say….
MRS. KRAUSE
You go and…!
[Arises; exits quickly.
MRS. SPILLER
Madame—m—has had a good many domestic annoyances to-day—m—. I will now respectfully take my leave.
[She rises, prays silently with upturned eyes for a moment and then leaves.
MIELE and EDWARD clear the table. HOFFMANN has arisen and comes to the foreground. He has a toothpick in his mouth. LOTH follows him.
HOFFMANN
Well, you see, that's the way women are.
LOTH
I can't say that I understand what it was about.
HOFFMANN
It isn't worth mentioning. Things like that happen in the most refined families. It mustn't keep you from spending a few days with us….
LOTH
I should like to have made your wife's acquaintance. Why doesn't she appear at all?
HOFFMANN
[Cutting off the end of a fresh cigar.] Well, in her condition, you understand … women won't abandon their vanity. Come, let's go and take a few turns in the garden.—Edward, serve coffee in the arbour!
EDWARD
Very well, sir.
[HOFFMANN and LOTH disappear by way of the conservatory. EDWARD leaves by way of the middle door and MIELE, immediately thereafter, goes out, carrying a tray of dishes, by the same door. For a few seconds the room is empty. Then enters
HELEN
[Wrought up, with tear-stained eyes, holding her handkerchief against her mouth. From the middle door, by which she has entered, she takes a few hasty steps to the left and listens at the door of HOFFMANN'S room.] Oh, don't go! [Hearing nothing there, she hastens over to the door of the conservatory, where she also listens for a few moments with tense expression. Folding her hands and in a tone of impassioned beseeching.] Oh, don't go! Don't go!
