The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann Volume Ii Part 95

JOHN

[_Wiping the moisture out of his eyes._] That's the way it was. No. I couldn't let him do that.

MRS. Ha.s.sENREUTER

Just think, to-day at the dinner-table we had to drink wine--suddenly, to drink wine! Wine! For years and years the city-water in decanters has been our only table drink ... absolutely the only one. Dear children, said my husband.--You know that he had just returned from an eleven or twelve day trip to Alsace. Let us drink, my husband said, the health of my good and faithful Mrs. John, because ... he cried out in his beautiful voice ... because she is a visible proof of the fact that the cry of a mother heart is not indifferent to our Lord.--And so we drank your health, clinking our gla.s.ses! Well, and here I'm bringing you at my husband's special ... at his very special and particular order ... an apparatus for the sterilisation of milk.--Walburga, you may unpack the boiler.

_Ha.s.sENREUTER enters unceremoniously through the outer door which has stood ajar. He wears a top-hat, spring overcoat, carries a silver-headed cane, in a word, is gotten up in his somewhat shabby meek-day outfit. He speaks hastily and almost without pauses._

Ha.s.sENREUTER

[_Wiping the sweat from his forehead._] Berlin is hot, ladies and gentlemen, hot! And the cholera is as near as St. Petersburg! Now you've complained to my pupils, Spitta and Kaferstein, Mrs. John, that your little one doesn't seem to gain in weight. Now, of course, it's one of the symptoms of the general decadence of our age that the majority of mothers are either--unwilling to nurse their offspring or incapable of it. But you've already lost one child on account of diarrhoea, Mrs. John.

No, there's no help for it: we must call a spade a spade. And so, in order that you do not meet with the same misfortune over again, or fall into the hands of old women whose advice is usually quite deadly for an infant--in order that these things may not happen, I say, I have caused my wife to bring you this apparatus. I've brought up all my--children, Walburga included, by the help of such an apparatus ...Aha! So one gets a glimpse of you again, Mr. John! Bravo! The emperor needs soldiers, and you needed a representative of your race! So I congratulate you with all my heart.

[_He shakes JOHN'S hand vigorously._

MRS. Ha.s.sENREUTER

[_Leaning over the infant._] How much ... how much did he weigh at birth?

MRS. JOHN

He weighed exactly eight pounds and ten grams.

Ha.s.sENREUTER

[_With noisy joviality._] Ha, ha, ha! A vigorous product, I must say!

Eight pounds and ten grams of good healthy, German national flesh!

MRS. Ha.s.sENREUTER

Look at his eyes! And his little nose! His father over again! Why, the little fellow is really, really, the very image of you, Mr. John.

Ha.s.sENREUTER

I trust that you will have the boy received into the communion of the Christian Church.

MRS. JOHN

[_With happy impressiveness._] Oh, he'll be christened properly, right in the parochial church at the font by a clergyman.

Ha.s.sENREUTER

Right! And what are his baptismal names to be?

MRS. JOHN

Well, you know the way men is. That's caused a lot o' talk. I was thinkin' o' "Bruno," but he won't have it!

Ha.s.sENREUTER

Surely Bruno isn't a bad name.

JOHN

That may be. I ain't sayin' but what Bruno is a good enough name. I don't want to give no opinion about that.

MRS. JOHN

Why don't you say as how I has a brother what's twelve years younger'n me an' what don't always do just right? But that's only 'cause there's so much temptation. That boy's a good boy. Only you won't believe it.

JOHN

[_Turns red with sudden rage._] Jette ... you know what a cross that feller was to us! What d'you want? You want our little feller to be the namesake of a man what's--I can't help sayin' it--what's under police soopervision?

Ha.s.sENREUTER

Then, for heaven's sake, get him some other patron saint.

JOHN

Lord protect me from sich! I tried to take an interest in Bruno! I got him a job in a machine-shop an' didn't get nothin' outa it but annoyance an' disgrace! G.o.d forbid that he should come aroun' an' have anythin' to do with this little feller o' mine. [_He clenches his fist._] If that was to happen, Jette, I wouldn't be responsible for myself!!

MRS. JOHN

You needn't go on, Paul! Bruno ain't comin'. But I c'n tell you this much for certain, that my brother was good an' helpful to me in this hard time.

JOHN

Why didn't you send for me?

MRS. JOHN

I didn't want no man aroun' that was scared.

Ha.s.sENREUTER

Aren't you an admirer of Bismarck, John?

JOHN

[_Scratching the back of his head._] I can't say as to that exackly. My brothers in the masons' union, though, they ain't admirers o' him.

Ha.s.sENREUTER

Then you have no German hearts in your bodies! Otto is what I called my eldest son who is in the imperial navy! And believe me [_pointing to the infant_] this coming generation will well know what it owes to that mighty hero, the great forger of German unity! [_He takes the tin boiler of the apparatus which WALBURGA has unpacked into his hands and lifts it high up._] Now then: the whole business of this apparatus is mere child's play. This frame which holds all the bottles--each bottle to be filled two-thirds with water and one-third with milk--is sunk into the boiler which is filled with boiling water. By keeping the water at the boiling-point for an hour and a half in this manner, the content--of the bottles becomes free of germs. Chemists call this process sterilisation.

JOHN