It is about four o'clock in the morning. The windows in the inn are still lit. Through the gateway comes in the twilight of a pallid dawn which, in the course of the action, develops into a ruddy glow, and this, in its turn, gradually melts into bright daylight. Under the gateway, on the ground, sits BEIPST and sharpens his scythe. As the curtain rises, little more is visible than his dark outline which is defined against the morning sky, but one hears the monotonous, uninterrupted and regular beat of the scythe hammer on the anvil. For some minutes this is the only sound audible. Then follows the solemn silence of the morning, broken by the cries of roysterers who are leaving the inn. The inn-door is slammed with a crash. The lights in the windows go out. A distant barking of dogs is heard and a loud, confused crowing of cocks. On the path from the inn to the house a dark figure becomes visible which reels in zigzag lines toward the farmyard. It is FARMER KRAUSE, who, as always, has been the last to leave the inn.
FARMER KRAUSE
[Has reeled against the fence, clings to it for support with both hands, and roars with a somewhat nasal, drunken voice back at the inn.] The garden'sh mine … the inn'sh mi-ine … ash of a' inn-keeper! Hi-hee! [After mumbling and growling unintelligibly he frees himself from the fence and staggers into the yard, where, luckily, he gets hold of the handles of a plough.] The farm'sh mi'ine. [He drivels, half singing.] Drink … o … lil' brother, drink … o … lil' brother … brandy'sh good t' give courash. Hi-hee—[roaring aloud]—ain' I a han'some man … Ain' I got a han'some wife?… Ain' I got a couple o' han'some gals?
HELEN
[Comes swiftly from the house. It is plain that she has only slipped on such garments as, in her hurry, she could find.] Papa!… dear papa!! Do come in! [She supports him by one arm, tries to lead him and draw him toward the house.] Oh, do come … do please come … quick … quick … Come, oh, do, do come!
FARMER KRAUSE
[Has straightened himself up and tries to stand erect. Fumbling with both hands he succeeds, with great pains, in extracting from his breeches-pocket a purse bursting with coins. As the morning brightens, it is possible to see the shabby garb of KRAUSE, which is in no respects better than that of the commonest field labourer. He is about fifty years old. His head is bare, his thin, grey hair is uncombed and matted. His dirty shirt is open down to his waist. His leathern breeches, tied at the ankles, were once yellow but are now shiny with dirt. They are held up by a single embroidered suspender. On his naked feet he wears a pair of embroidered bedroom slippers, the embroidery on which seems to be quite new. He wears neither coat nor waist-coat and his shirtsleeves are unbuttoned. After he has finally succeeded in extracting the purse, he holds it in his right hand and brings it down repeatedly on the palm of his left so that the coins ring and clatter, At the same time he fixes a lascivious look on his daughter.] Hi-hee! The money'sh mi-ine! Hey? How'd y' like couple o' crownsh?
HELEN
Oh, merciful God! [She makes repeated efforts to drag him with her. At one of these efforts he embraces her with the clumsiness of a gorilla and makes several indecent gestures. HELEN utters suppressed cries for help.] Let go! This minute! Let go-o!! Oh, please, papa, Oh-o!! [She weeps, then suddenly cries out in an extremity of fear, loathing and rage:] Beast! Swine!
[She pushes him from her and KRAUSE falls to his full length on the ground. BEIPST comes limping up from his seat under the gateway. He and HELEN set about lifting KRAUSE.
FARMER KRAUSE
[Stammers.] Drink … o … lil' brothersh … drrr …
[KRAUSE is half-lifted up and tumbles into the house, dragging BEIPST and HELEN with him. For a moment the stage remains empty. In the house voices are heard and the slamming of doors. A single window is lit, upon which BEIPST comes out of the house again. He strikes a match against his leathern breeches in order to light the short pipe that rarely leaves his mouth. While he is thus employed, KAHL is seen slinking out of the house. He is in his stocking feet, but has slung his coat loosely over his left arm and holds his bedroom slippers in his left hand. In his right hand he holds his hat and his collar in his teeth. When he has reached the middle of the yard, he sees the face of BEIPST turned upon him. For a moment he seems undecided; then he manages to grasp his hat and collar also with his left hand, dives into his breeches' pocket and going up to BEIPST presses a coin into the latter's hand.
KAHL
There, you got a crown … but shut yer mouth!
[He hastens across the yard and climbs over the picket fence at the right.
[BEIPST has lit his pipe with a fresh match. He limps to the gate, sits down and begins sharpening his scythe anew. Again nothing is heard for a time but the monotonous hammer blows and the groans of the old man, which he interrupts by short oaths when his work will not go to his liking. It has grown considerably lighter.
LOTH
[Steps out of the house door, stands still, stretches himself, and breathes deeply several times.] Ah! The morning air. [Slowly he goes toward the background until he reaches the gateway. To BEIPST.] Good morning! Up so early?
BEIPST
[Squinting at LOTH suspiciously. In a surly tone.] 'Mornin'. [A brief pause, whereupon BEIPST addresses his scythe which he pulls to and fro in his indignation.] Crooked beast! Well, are ye goin' to? Eksch! Well, well, I'll be …
[He continues to sharpen it.
LOTH
[Has taken a seat between the handles of a cultivator.] I suppose there's hay harvesting to-day?
BEIPST
[Roughly.] Dam' fools go a-cuttin' hay this time o' year.
LOTH
Well, but you're sharpening a scythe?
BEIPST
[To the scythe.] Eksch! You ol'…!
[A brief pause.]
LOTH
Won't you tell me, though, why you are sharpening your scythe if it is not time for the hay harvest?
BEIPST
Eh? Don't you need a scythe to cut fodder?
LOTH
So that's it. You're going to cut fodder?
BEIPST
Well, what else?
LOTH
And is it cut every morning?
BEIPST
Well, d' you want the beasts to starve?
LOTH
You must show me a little forbearance. You see, I'm a city man; and it isn't possible for me to know things about farming very exactly.
BEIPST
City folks! Eksh! All of 'em I ever saw thought they knew it all—better'n country folks.
LOTH
That isn't the case with me.—Can you explain to me, for instance, what kind of an implement this is? I have seen one like it before, to be sure, but the name—
BEIPST
That thing that ye're sittin' on? Why, they calls that a cultivator.
LOTH
To be sure—a cultivator. Is it used here?
BEIPST
Naw; more's the pity. He lets everything go to hell … all the land … lets it go, the farmer does. A poor man would like to have a bit o' land—you can't have grain growin' in your beard, you know. But no! He'd rather let it go to the devil! Nothin' grows excep' weeds an' thistles.
LOTH
Well, but you can get those out with the cultivator, too. I know that the Icarians had them, too, in order to weed thoroughly the land that had been cleared.
BEIPST
Where's them I-ca … what d'you, call 'em?
LOTH
The Icarians? In America.
BEIPST
They've got things like that there, too?
LOTH
Certainly.
BEIPST
What kind of people is them I-I-ca…?
LOTH
The Icarians? They are not a special people at all, but men of all nations who have united for a common purpose. They own a considerable tract of land in America which they cultivate together. They share both the work and the profits equally. None of them is poor and there are no poor people among them.
BEIPST
[Whose expression had become a little more friendly, assumes, during LOTH'S last speech, his former hostile and suspicious look. Without taking further notice of LOTH he has, during the last few moments, given his exclusive attention to his work.] Beast of a scythe!
[LOTH, still seated, first observes the old man with a quiet smile and then looks out into the awakening morning.
Through the gateway are visible far stretches of clover field and meadow. Between them meanders a brook whose course is marked by alders and willows. A single mountain peak towers on the horizon. All about, larks have begun their song, and their uninterrupted trilling floats, now from near, now from far, into the farm yard.
LOTH
[Getting up.] One ought to take a walk. The morning is magnificent.
[The clatter of wooden shoes is heard. Some one is rapidly coming down the stairs that lead from the stable loft. It is GUSTE.
GUSTE
[A rather stout maid-servant. Her neck is bare, as are her arms and legs below the knee. Her naked feet are stuck in wooden shoes. She carries a burning lantern.] Good morning father Beipst!
[BEIPST growls.]
GUSTE
[Shading her eyes with her hand looks after LOTH through the gate.] What kind of a feller is that?
BEIPST
[Embittered.] He can make fools o' beggars … He can lie like a parson … Jus' let him tell you his stories. [He gets up.] Get the wheelbarrows ready, girl!
GUSTE
[Who has been washing her legs at the well gets through before disappearing into the cow stable.] Right away, father Beipst.
LOTH
[Returns and gives BEIPST a tip.] There's something for you. A man can always use that.
BEIPST
[Thawing at once, quite changed and with sincere companionableness.] Yes, yes, you're right there, and I thank ye kindly.—I suppose you're the company of the son-in-law over there? [Suddenly very voluble.] You know, if you want to go walkin' out there, you know, toward the hill, then you want to keep to the left, real close to the left, because to the right, there's clefts. My son, he used to say, the reason of it was, he used to say, was because they didn't board the place up right, the miners didn't. They gets too little pay, he used to say, and then folks does things just hit or miss, in the shafts you know.—You see? Over yonder? Always to the left! There's holes on t'other side. It wasn't but only last year and a butter woman, just as she was, sudden, sunk down in the earth, I don't know how many fathoms down. Nobody knew whereto. So I'm tellin' you—go to the left, to the left and you'll be safe.
[A shot is heard. BEIPST starts up as though he had been struck and limps out a few paces into the open.
LOTH
Who, do you think, is shooting so early?
BEIPST
Who would it be excep' that rascal of a boy?
LOTH
What boy?
BEIPST
Will Kahl—our neighbour's son here … You just wait, you! I've seen him, I tell you. He shoots larks.
LOTH
Why, you limp!
BEIPST
Yes, the Lord pity me. [He shakes a threatening fist toward the fields.] Eh, wait, you … you…!
LOTH
What happened to your leg?
BEIPST
My leg?
LOTH
Yes.
BEIPST
Eh? Somethin' got into it.
LOTH
Do you suffer pain?
BEIPST
[Grasping his leg.] There's a tugging pain in it, a confounded pain.
LOTH
Do you see a doctor about it?
BEIPST
Doctors? Eh, you know, they're all monkeys—one like another. Only our doctor here—he's a mighty good man.
LOTH
And did he help you?
BEIPST
A little, maybe, when all's said. He kneaded my leg, you see, he squeezed it, an' he punched it. But no,'t'ain't on that account. He is … well, I tell you, he's got compassion on a human bein', that's it. He buys the medicine an' asks nothin'. An' he'll come to you any time …
LOTH
Still, you must have come by that trouble somehow. Or did you always limp?
BEIPST
Not a bit of it!
LOTH
Then I don't think I quite understand. There must have been some cause …
BEIPST
How do I know? [Once more he raises a menacing fist.] You jus' wait, you—with your rattling!
KAHL
[Appears within his own garden. In his right hand he carries a rifle by the barrel, his left hand is closed. He calls across.] Good mornin', Doctor!
LOTH walks diagonally across the yard up to KAHL. In the meantime GUSTE as well as another maid-servant named LIESE have each made ready a wheel-barrow on which lie rakes and pitch-forks. They trundle their wheel-barrows past BEIPST out into the fields. The latter, sending menacing glances toward KAHL and making furtive gestures of rage, shoulders his scythe and limps after them. BEIPST and the maids disappear.
LOTH
[To KAHL.] Good morning.
KAHL
D'you want for to see somethin' fine?
[He stretches his closed hand across the fence.
LOTH
[Going nearer.] What have you there?
KAHL
Guess!
[He opens his hand at once.
LOTH
What? Is it really true—you shoot the larks. You good for nothing! Do you know that you deserve to be beaten for such mischief?
KAHL
[Stares at LOTH for some seconds in stupid amazement. Then, clenching his fist furtively he says:] You son of a…!
[And swinging around, disappears toward the right.
[For some moments the yard remains empty.]
HELEN steps from the house door. She wears a light-coloured summer dress and a large garden hat. She looks all around her, walks a few paces toward the gate-way, stands still and gazes out. Hereupon she saunters across the yard toward the right and turns into the path that leads to the inn. Great bundles of various tea-herbs are slung across the fence to dry. She stops to inhale their odours. She also bends downward the lower boughs of fruit trees and admires the low hanging, red-cheeked apples. When she observes LOTH coming toward her from the inn, a yet greater restlessness comes over her, so that she finally turns around and reaches the farm yard before LOTH. Here she notices that the dove-cote is still closed and goes thither through the little gate that leads into the orchard. While she is still busy pulling down the cord which, blown about by the wind, has become entangled somewhere, she is addressed by LOTH, who has come up in the meantime.
LOTH
Good morning, Miss Krause.
HELEN
Good morning. See, the wind has blown the cord up there!
LOTH
Let me help you.
[He also passes through the little gate, gets the cord down and opens the dove-cote. The pigeons flutter out.
HELEN
Thank you so much!
LOTH
[Has passed out by the little gate once more and stands there, leaning against the fence. HELEN is on the other side of it. After a brief pause.] Do you make a habit of rising so early?
HELEN
I was just going to ask you the same thing.
LOTH
I? Oh, no! But after the first night in a strange place it usually happens so.
HELEN
Why does that happen?
LOTH
I have never thought about it. To what end?
HELEN
Oh, wouldn't it serve some end?
LOTH
None, at least, that is apparent and practical.
HELEN
And so everything that you do or think must have some practical end in view.
LOTH
Exactly. Furthermore …
HELEN
I would not have thought that of you.
LOTH
What, Miss Krause?
HELEN
It was with those very words that, day before yesterday, my stepmother snatched "The Sorrows of Werther" from my hand.
LOTH
It is a foolish book.
HELEN
Oh, don't say that.
LOTH
Indeed, I must repeat it, Miss Krause. It is a book for weaklings.
HELEN
That may well be.
LOTH
How do you come across just that book? Do you quite understand it?
HELEN
I hope I do—at least, in part. It rests me to read it. [After a pause.] But if it is a foolish book, as you say, could you recommend me a better one?
LOTH
Read … well, let me see … do you know Dahn's "Fight for Rome"?
HELEN
No, but I'll buy the book now. Does it serve a practical end?
LOTH
No, but a rational one. It depicts men not as they are but such as, some day, they ought to be. Thus it sets up an ideal for our imitation.
HELEN
[Deeply convinced.] Ah, that is noble. [A brief pause.] But perhaps you can tell me something else. The papers talk so much about Zola and Ibsen. Are they great authors?
LOTH
In the sense of being artists they are not authors at all, Miss Krause. They are necessary evils. I have a genuine thirst for the beautiful and I demand of art a clear, refreshing draught.—I am not ill; and what Zola and Ibsen offer me is medicine.
HELEN
[Quite involuntarily.] Ah, then perhaps, they might help me.
LOTH
[Who has become gradually absorbed in his vision of the dewy orchard and who now yields to it wholly.] How very lovely it is here. Look, how the sun emerges from behind the mountain peak.—And you have so many apples in your garden—a rich harvest.
HELEN
Three-fourths of them will be stolen this year just as last. There is such great poverty hereabouts.
LOTH
I can scarcely tell you how deeply I love the country. Alas, the greater part of my harvest must be sought in cities. But I must try to enjoy this country holiday thoroughly. A man like myself needs a bit of sunshine and refreshment more than most people.
HELEN
[Sighing.] More than others … In what respect?
LOTH
It is because I am in the midst of a hard conflict, the end of which I will not live to see.
HELEN
But are we not all engaged in such a conflict?
LOTH
No.
HELEN
Surely we are all engaged in some conflict?
LOTH
Naturally, but in one that may end.
HELEN
It may. Yon are right. But why cannot the other end—I mean the one in which you are engaged, Mr. Loth?
LOTH
Your conflict, after all, can only be one for your personal happiness. And, so far as is humanly speaking possible, the individual can attain this. My struggle is a struggle for the happiness of all men. The condition of my happiness would be the happiness of all; nothing could content me until I saw an end of sickness and poverty, of servitude and spiritual meanness. I could take my place at the banquet table of life only as the last of its guests.
HELEN
[With deep conviction.] Ah, then you are a truly, truly good, man!
LOTH
[Somewhat embarrassed.] There is no merit in my attitude: it is an inborn one. And I must also confess that my struggle in the interest of progress affords me the highest satisfaction. And the kind of happiness I thus win is one that I estimate far more highly than the happiness which contents the ordinary self-seeker.
HELEN
Still there are very few people in whom such a taste is inborn.
LOTH
Perhaps it isn't wholly inborn. I think that we are constrained to it by the essential wrongness of the conditions of life. Of course, one must have a sense for that wrongness. There is the point. Now if one has that sense and suffers consciously under the wrongness of the conditions in question—why, then one becomes, necessarily, just what I am.
HELEN
Oh, if it were only clearer to me … Tell me, what conditions, for instance, do you call wrong?
LOTH
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 circumstances. 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 mass 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?
HELEN
Yes, quite badly, indeed.
LOTH
Ah—ha! And what was it that happened to his leg?
HELEN
That's a delicate subject. You have met Mr. Kahl?… But I must tell you this story very softly. [She draws nearer to LOTH.] His father, you know, was just as silly about hunting as he is. When wandering apprentices came into his yard he shot at them—sometimes only into the air in order to frighten them. He had a violent temper too, and especially when he had been drinking. Well, I suppose Beipst grumbled one day—he likes to grumble, you know—and so the farmer snatched up his rifle and fired at him. Beipst, you know, used to be coachman at the Kahls.
LOTH
Outrage and iniquity wherever one goes.
HELEN
[Growing more uncertain and excited in her speech.] Oh, I've had my own thoughts often and often … and I've felt so sick with pity for them all, for old Beipst and … When the farmers are so coarse and brutish like—well, like Streckmann, who—lets his farm hands starve and feeds sweetmeats to the dogs. I've often felt confused in my mind since I came home from boarding-school … I have my burden too!—But I'm talking nonsense. It can't possibly interest you, and you will only laugh at me to yourself.
LOTH
But, my dear Miss Krause, how can you think that? Why should I?
HELEN
How can you help it? You'll think anyhow: she's no better than the rest here!
LOTH
I think ill of no one.
HELEN
Oh, you can't make me believe that—ever!
LOTH
But what occasion have I given, you to make you …
HELEN
[Almost in tears.] Oh, don't talk. You despise us; you may be sure that you do. Why, how can you help despising us—[tearfully]—even my brother-in-law, even me. Indeed, me above all, and you have—oh, you have truly good reasons for it!
[She quickly turns her back to LOTH, no longer able to master her emotion, and disappears through the orchard into the background. LOTH passes through the little gate and follows her slowly.
MRS. KRAUSE
[In morning costume, ridiculously over-dressed, comes out of the house. Her face is crimson with rage. She screams.] The low-lived hussy! Marie! Marie!! Under my roof! Out with the brazen hussy!
[She runs across the yard and disappears in the stable. MRS. SPILLER appears in the house-door; she is crocheting. From within the stable resound scolding and howling.
MRS. KRAUSE
[Comes out of the stable driving the howling maid before her.] Slut of a wench!—[The maid almost screams.]—Git out o' here this minute! Pack yer things 'n then git out!
THE MAID
[Catching sight of MRS. SPILLER, hurls her milking stool and pail from her.] That's your doin'! I'll git even with you!
[Sobbing, she runs up the stairs to the loft.
HELEN
[Joining MRS. KRAUSE.] Why, what did she do?
MRS. KRAUSE
[Roughly.] Any o' your business?
HELEN
[Passionately, almost weeping.] Yes, it is my business.
MRS. SPILLER
[Coming up quickly.] Dear Miss Helen, it's nothing fit for the ear of a young lady …
MRS. KRAUSE
An' I'd like to know why not! She ain't made o' sugar. The wench lay abed with the hired man. Now you know it!
HELEN
[In a commanding voice.] The maid shall stay for all that!
MRS. KRAUSE
Wench!
HELEN
Good! Then I'll tell father that you spend your nights just the same way with William Kahl.
MRS. KRAUSE
[Strikes her full in the face.] There you got a reminder!
HELEN
[Deathly pale, but even more firmly.] And I say the maid shall stay! Otherwise I'll make it known—you … with William Kahl … your cousin, my betrothed … I'll tell the whole world.
MRS. KRAUSE
[Her assurance breaking down.] Who can say it's so!
HELEN
I can. For I saw him this morning coming out of your bed-room …
[She goes swiftly into the house.
[MRS. KRAUSE totters, almost fainting. MRS. SPILLER hurries to her with smelling-salts.
