The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann Volume Ii Part 37

Say somethin', won't you?

HENSCHEL

Up there!... That's where they are!

MRS. HENSCHEL

You're dreaming, eh? You, Wilhelm, wake up! Lay down in your bed an' go to sleep. There's nothin' but clouds up there!

HENSCHEL

Anybody that has eyes c'n see what there is!

MRS. HENSCHEL

An' anybody that gets confused in his mind goes crazy.

HENSCHEL

I'm not confused.

MRS. HENSCHEL I'm not sayin' that you are! But if you go on actin' this way, you will be!

[_She shivers, pulls on a jacket, and stirs the ashes in the oven with a poker._

HENSCHEL

What time is it?

MRS. HENSCHEL

A quarter of two.

HENSCHEL

You've got a watch hangin' to you; it used to hang behind the door.

MRS. HENSCHEL

What fancies is you goin' to have next? 'Tis hangin' where it always did.

HENSCHEL

[_Rising._] I think I'll go over to the stables a bit.

MRS. HENSCHEL

I tells you to go to bed, or I'll raise an alarm. You got nothin' to do in the stable now! 'Tis night, an' in bed is where you belong!

HENSCHEL

[_Remains standing quietly and looking at HANNE._] Where's Gustel?

MRS. HENSCHEL

What are you botherin' for? She's lyin' in bed asleep! What are you always worritin' over the girl for? She don't lack for nothin'! I don't do nothin' to her!

HENSCHEL

She don't lack for nothin'. She's gone to bed. She's gone to sleep betimes--Gustel has. I don't mean Berthel.

MRS. HENSCHEL

[_Wailing, stuffs her ap.r.o.n into her mouth._] I'll run away! I won't stay here!

HENSCHEL

--Go to bed, go! I'll come too. Your cryin' can't help no more now. 'Tis our Lord alone knows whose fault it is. You can't help it; you don't need to cry.--Our Lord an' me--we two, we knows.

_[He turns the key in the door._

MRS. HENSCHEL

[_Hastily turning it back again._] Why d'you lock the door? I won't stand bein' locked in.

HENSCHEL

I don't rightly know why I turned the key.

MRS. HENSCHEL

Them people has gone an' addled your brains for you! They'll have to answer some day for the things they've put into your head! I took as good care o' your girl as I did o' my own. She wouldn't ha' died o' that! But I can't wake the dead. If a body is to die, she dies--in this world.

There's no holdin' people like that; they has to go. There never was much strength in Gustel--you know that as well as I. Why do you go axin' me an' lookin' at me as if I done G.o.d knows what to her!

HENSCHEL

[_Suspiciously._] Maybe you did somethin'. 'Tis not impossible.

MRS. HENSCHEL

[_Beside herself._] Oh, if somebody'd foretold this--I'd ha' gone beggin'

my bread first. No, no, O my goodness, if I'd ha' known that! To have to listen to things like that! Didn't I want to go? An' who kept me back?

Who held me fast in the house here? I could ha' made my livin' any time!

I wasn't afraid; I could always work. But you didn't let up. Now I got my reward. Now _I_ got to suffer for it!

HENSCHEL

'Tis true, maybe, that you has to suffer for it. Things comes _as_ they come. What c'n a body do?