The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann Volume I Part 137

FIELITZ

You get outta this here shop. Go on now!

MRS. FIELITZ

[_Briefly and contemptuously._] Who d'you think'll come in here now? It's past six.

FIELITZ

You get outta the shop with that trash o' yours.

MRS. FIELITZ

I wish you wouldn't act so like a fool. What's wrong about this here little box, eh? A little box like this ain't no harm.

FIELITZ

[_Working with enraged violence._] It's somethin' good, ain't it now?

MRS. FIELITZ

[_Still thoughtfully and half in jest._] The sawdust comes up to here ...

An' then they go an' put a candle plumb in the middle here ...

FIELITZ

Look here, ma, you're too smart for me! If that there smartness o' yours keeps on, I see myself in gaol one o' these days.

MRS. FIELITZ

[_Harshly._] I s'ppose you can't listen a bit when a person talks to you.

You might pay some attention when I talks to you. Things like that interest a body.

FIELITZ

I takes an interest in my boots, an' I don't take no interest in nothin'

else.

MRS. FIELITZ

That's it! O Lordy! That'd be a nice state for us. We'd all go an' starve together. Your cobblin'--there's a lot o' good in that!--They puts the candle in here. Y'understand? This here little box ain't big enough neither. That one over there would be more like. Let's throw them children's shoes out.

[_She turns a box full of children's shoes upside down._

FIELITZ

[_Frightened._] Don't you go in for no nonsense, y'understand?

MRS. FIELITZ

An' then when they've lit the candle--... then they stands it up in the middle o' the box, so's it can't burn the top, o' course. Then you puts it, reel still, up in some attic--Grabow didn't do that different neither--right straight in a heap o' old trash--an' then you goes quiet to Berlin, an' when you comes back ...

FIELITZ

Ssh! Somebody's comin'! Ssh!

MRS. FIELITZ

An' the devil hisself can't go an' prove nothin' against you.

[_A protracted silence._

FIELITZ

If it was as simple as all that! But that ain't noways as easy as you thinks. First of all there's got to be air-holes in here. O' course this here awl--: that'll do for a drill. That thing's got to have a draught, if you want it to catch! If there ain't no draught, it just smothers!

Fire's gotta have a draught or it won't burn. Somebody's got to lend a hand here as knows somethin'.

MRS. FIELITZ

Well, that'd be an easy thing for you!

FIELITZ

[_Forgetting his point of view in his growing zeal._] There's gotta be a draught here an' another here! An' it's all gotta be done just right! An'

then sawdust an' rags here. An' then you go an' pour some kerosene right in.--There ain't nothin' new in all that. I was out in the world for six years.

MRS. FIELITZ

Well, exactly. That's what I been sayin'.

FIELITZ

You c'n do that with a sponge an' you c'n do that with a string. All you gotta do is to steep 'em good an' hard in saltpetre. An' you c'n light that with burning gla.s.ses. It c'n be done twenty steps away!--All that's been done before now. There ain't nothin' new in all that to me. I know all about it.

MRS. FIELITZ

An' Grabow's built up again. If he hadn't gone an' taken his courage in both hands, he'd ha' been in the street long ago.

FIELITZ

That's all right, if a man's in trouble like water up to his neck an' is goin' to be drowned. Maybe then ...

MRS. FIELITZ

An' there's many as lets the time slip till he is drowned.

[_The doorbell rings._