The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Iv Part 30

HINZE (_with cane, knapsack, and bag_).

Splendid weather! It's such a beautiful, warm day; afterward I must lie down a bit in the sun. (_He spreads out his bag._) Well, fortune, stand by me. Of course, when I think that this capricious G.o.ddess of fortune so seldom favors shrewdly laid plans, that she always ends up by disgracing the intelligence of mortals, I feel as though I should lose all my courage. Yet, be quiet, my heart; a kingdom is certainly worth the trouble of working and sweating some for it! If only there are no dogs around here; I can't bear those creatures at all; it is a race that I despise because they so willingly submit to the lowest servitude to human beings. They can't do anything but either fawn or bite; they haven't fashionable manners at all, a thing which is so necessary in company. There's no game to be caught. (_He begins to sing a hunting song: "I steal through the woods so still and wild," etc. A nightingale in the bush near-by begins to sing._) She sings gloriously, the songstress of the grove; but how delicious she must taste! The great people of the earth are, after all, right lucky in the fact that they can eat as many nightingales and larks as they like; we poor common people must content ourselves with their singing, with the beauty in nature, with the incomprehensibly sweet harmony.

It's a shame I can't hear anything sing without getting a desire to eat it. Nature! Nature! Why do you always destroy my finest emotions by having created me thus! I feel almost like taking off my boots and softly climbing up that tree yonder; she must be perching there.

(_Stamping in the pit._) The nightingale is good-natured not to let herself be interrupted even by this martial music; she must taste delicious; I am forgetting all about my hunting with these sweet dreams. Truly, there's no game to be caught. Why, who's there?

[_Two lovers enter._]

HE.

I say, my sweet life, do you hear the nightingale?

SHE.

I am not deaf, my good friend.

HE.

How my heart overflows with joyousness when I see all harmonious nature thus gathered about me, when every tone but reechoes the confession of my love, when all heaven bows down to diffuse its ether over me.

SHE.

You are raving, my dear!

HE.

Do not call the most natural emotions of my heart raving. (_He kneels down._) See, I swear to you, here in the presence of glad heaven--

HINZE (_approaching them courteously_).

Kindly pardon me--would you not take the trouble to go somewhere else? You are disturbing a hunt here with your lovely affection.

HE.

Be the sun my witness, the earth--and what else? Thou, thyself, dearer to me than earth, sun, and all the elements. What is it, good friend?

HINZE.

The hunt--I beg most humbly.

HE.

Barbarian, who are you, to dare to interrupt the oaths of love?

You are not of woman born, you belong outside humanity.

HINZE.

If you would only consider, sir--

SHE.

Then wait just a second, good friend; you see, I'm sure, that my lover, lost in the intoxication of the moment, is down on his knees.

HE.

Dost thou believe me now?

SHE.

Oh, didn't I believe you even before you spoke a word? (_She bends down to him affectionately._) Dearest! I love you! Oh, inexpressibly!

HE.

Am I mad? Oh, and if I am not, why do I not become so immediately with excess of joy, wretched, despicable creature that I am? I am no longer on the earth; look at me well, dearest, and tell me: Am I not perhaps standing in the sun?

SHE.

You are in my arms, and they shall never release you either.

HE.

Oh, come, this open field is too narrow for my emotions, we must climb the highest mountain, to tell all nature how happy we are.

[_Exit the lovers, quickly and full of delight. Loud applause and bravos in the pit._]

WIESENER (_clapping_).

The lover thoroughly exhausted himself. Oh, my, I gave myself such a blow on the hand that it swelled right up.

NEIGHBOR.

You do not know how to restrain yourself when you are glad.

WIESENER.

Yes, I am always that way.

FISCHER.

Ah!--that was certainly something for the heart; that makes one feel good again!

LEUTNER.

Really beautiful diction in that scene!

MuLLER.

But I wonder whether it is essential to the whole?