The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann Volume Ii Part 90

Very soon he reappears, at his side an elegant young lady, ALICE RuTTERBUSCH._]--Alice! My little Alice! Come here where I can see you, little girl! Come here into the light! I must see whether you're the same infinitely delightful, mad little Alice that you were in the great days of my career in Alsace? Girl, it was I who taught you to walk! I held your leading strings for your first steps. I taught you how to talk, girl! The things you said! I hope you haven't forgotten!

ALICE RuTTERBUSCH

Now, look here! You don't believe that I'm an ungrateful girl?

Ha.s.sENREUTER

[_Draws up her veil._] Why, girlie, you've grown younger instead of older.

ALICE RuTTERBUSCH

[_Flushed with delight._] Well, a person would just have to be like everything to say that you had changed to your disadvantage! But, do you know--it's awful dark up here really and--Harro, maybe you wouldn't mind opening a window a little--oh, the air's a bit heavy, too,

Ha.s.sENREUTER

"Pillic.o.c.k sat on Pillic.o.c.k-hill"

"But mice and rats and such small deer Have been Tom's food for seven long year."

In all seriousness I have pa.s.sed through dark and difficult times! In spite of the fact that I preferred not to write you of it, I have no doubt that you are informed.

ALICE RuTTERBUSCH

But it wasn't extra friendly, you know, for you not to answer one little word to the long, nice letter I wrote you.

Ha.s.sENREUTER

Ha, ha, ha! What's the use of answering a little girl's letter if one has both hands full taking care of oneself and can't possibly be of the slightest use to her? Pshaw! _E nihilo nihil fit!_ In the vernacular: You can't get results out of nothing! Moth and dust! Dust and moths! And that's all my efforts for German culture in the west profited me!

ALICE RuTTERBUSCH

So you didn't turn over your collection of properties to manager Kunz.

Ha.s.sENREUTER

"O Stra.s.sburg, O Stra.s.sburg, Thou beautiful old town!"

No, little one, I didn't leave my properties in Stra.s.sburg! This ex-waiter, ex-innkeeper and lessee of disreputable dance halls, this idiot, this imbecile who succeeded me, didn't happen to want my stuff.

No, I didn't leave my collection of properties there, but what I did have to leave there was forty thousand crowns of hard-earned money left me from my old touring days as an actor, and, in addition, fifty thousand crowns which formed the dowry of my excellent wife. However, it was a piece of good luck, after all, that I kept the properties. Ha, ha, ha!

These fellows here ... [_he touches one of the mailed figures_] ...

surely you remember them?

ALICE RuTTERBUSCH

Could I forget my pasteboard knights?

Ha.s.sENREUTER

Very well, then: it was these pasteboard knights and all the other trash that surrounds them, that actually, after his hegira, kept the old rag-picker and costumer, Harro Eberhard Ha.s.senreuter, above water. But let's speak of cheerful things: I saw with pleasure in the paper that his Excellency has engaged you for Berlin.

ALICE RuTTERBUSCH

I don't care a great deal about it! I'd rather play for you, and you must promise me, whenever you undertake the management of a theatre again--you will promise, won't you?--that you'll let me break my contract right away? [_The MANAGER laughs heartily._] I had to be annoyed quite enough for three long years by the barn-stormers of the provinces. Berlin I don't like, and a court theatre least of all. Lord, what people and what a profession it is! You know I belong to your collection--I've always belonged to it!

[_She stands up primly among the pasteboard knights._

Ha.s.sENREUTER

Ha, ha, ha, ha! Well then, come to my arms, faithful knight!

[_He opens his arms wide, she flies into them, and they now salute each other with long, continuous kisses._

ALICE RuTTERBUSCH

Go on, Harro. Now tell me. How is your wife?

Ha.s.sENREUTER

Teresa gets along very well except that she gets fatter every day in spite of sorrow and worries.--Girl, girl, how fragrant you are! [_He presses her to him._] Do you know that you're a devilish dangerous person?

ALICE RuTTERBUSCH

D'you think I'm an idiot? Of course I'm dangerous!

Ha.s.sENREUTER

Well, I'll be ...!

ALICE RuTTERBUSCH

Why, do you think if I didn't know it was dangerous, dangerous for us both, I'd make an appointment with you out here in this lovely neighbourhood, under this stuffy roof? By the way, though, since I'm always bound to have the queerest luck if ever I do go a bit on questionable ways, whom should I meet on the stairs but Nathanael Jettel?

I almost ran into the gentleman's arms! He'll take good care that my visiting you doesn't remain our secret.

Ha.s.sENREUTER

I must have made a mistake in writing down the date. The fellow insists on a.s.serting--ha, ha, ha!--that I made an engagement with him for this very afternoon.

ALICE RuTTERBUSCH

And that wasn't the only person I met on the six flights. And as for the dear little children that roll about on the stairs here! What they called out after me was unparliamentary to a degree--such vulgarities as I've never heard from such little beggars in my life.

Ha.s.sENREUTER

[_Laughs, then speaks seriously._] Ah, yes! But one gets accustomed to that. You could never write down all the life that sweeps down these stairs with its soiled petticoats--the life that cringes and creeps, moans, sighs, sweats, cries out, curses, mutters, hammers, planes, jeers, steals, drives its dark trades up and down these stairs--the sinister creatures that hide here, playing their zither, grinding their accordions, sticking in need and hunger and misery, leading their vicious lives--no, it's beyond one's power of recording. And your old manager, last but not least, runs, groans, sighs, sweats, cries out and curses with the best of them. Ha, ha, ha, girlie! I've had a pretty wretched time.

ALICE RuTTERBUSCH

Oh, by the way, d'you know whom I ran into just as I was making for the railroad station at the Zoological Garden? The good old Prince Statthalter! And straight off, cool as a cuc.u.mber--that's my way you know--I tripped along next to him for twenty minutes and got him absorbed in a conversation. And then something happened, Harro, upon my honour, just as I'm going to tell you--literally and truly: Suddenly on the bridle-path His Majesty came riding along with a great suite. I thought I'd sink into the earth with embarra.s.sment. And His Majesty laughed right out and threatened his Serenity playfully with his finger. But I was delighted, you may believe me. The main thing comes now, however. Just think! His Serenity asked me whether I'd be glad to go back to Stra.s.sburg if the manager Ha.s.senreuter were to a.s.sume direction of the theatre there again. Well, you may know that I almost jumped for joy!

Ha.s.sENREUTER