The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Ix Part 2

SCENE II

CARL (_enters_).

Good morning, mother! Well, Clara, I suppose you might put up with me, if I were not your brother?

CLARA.

A gold chain? Where did you get that?

CARL.

Why do I sweat so? Why do I work two hours longer than the others every evening? You are impertinent!

MOTHER.

A quarrel on Sunday morning? Shame on you, Carl!

CARL.

Mother, haven't you got a gulden for me?

MOTHER.

I haven't any money except for the housekeeping!

CARL.

Well, give me some of that then! I won't grumble if you make the pancakes thinner for the next two weeks. You have often done so before!

I know that all right! When you were saving up for Clara's white dress, we didn't have anything decent to eat for a month. I shut my eyes, but I knew right well that a new hair ribbon or some other bit of finery was on the way. So let me get something out of it too, for once!

MOTHER.

You are absolutely shameless!

CARL.

I haven't much time, else--[_He starts to go_.]

MOTHER.

Where are you going?

CARL.

I won't tell you, and then, when the old growler asks you where I am, you can answer without blushing that you don't know. Anyway I don't need your gulden--it is best not to draw all your water from one well.

[_To himself_.]

Here at home they always think the worst things they can about me; why shouldn't I take pleasure in keeping them worried? Why should I say that, since I don't get my gulden, I shall have to go to church, unless a friend helps me out of my predicament?

SCENE III

CLARA.

What does he mean by that?

MOTHER.

Oh, he grieves me terribly! Yes, yes, your father is right! Those are the consequences! He is just as insolent now in demanding a gulden as he was cunning in pleading for a piece of sugar when he was a little curly-headed baby. I wonder if he would not demand the gulden now, if I had refused him the sugar then? That often hurts me! And I think he doesn't even love me! Did you ever once see him cry during my illness?

CLARA.

I didn't see him very often at best--almost never except at the table.

He had more appet.i.te than I!

MOTHER (_quickly_).

That was natural! He had to work so hard!

CLARA.

To be sure! And how strange men are! They are more ashamed of their tears than they are of their sins! A clenched fist--why not exhibit that? But red eyes!--And father too! The afternoon they opened your vein and no blood came, he sobbed at his work-bench until it moved my very soul! But when I went up to him and stroked his cheeks, what did he say?

"See if you can't get this accursed splinter out of my eye! I have so much to do and can't accomplish anything!"

MOTHER (_smiling_).

Yes! yes!--I never see Leonard any more, by the way. How does that happen?

CLARA.

Let him stay away!

MOTHER.

I hope you are not seeing him anywhere else, except here at the house!

CLARA.

Is it because I stay out too long when I go to the well in the evening that you have reason to suspect that?

MOTHER.

No, not that. But it was just for that reason that I gave him permission to come here to the house, so that he wouldn't lie in wait for you out there in the dark. My mother would never allow that, either!

CLARA.

I don't see him at all!