The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Ix Part 20

Now we can start in again--planing, sawing, hammering, and, in between, eating, drinking, and sleeping, so that we can go on planing, sawing, and hammering, and on Sundays do a bit of praying into the bargain! I thank Thee, O Lord, that I may plane, saw, and hammer!

[_Drinks._]

Long live every good dog that is tied to a chain, and yet does not snap at everything around him!

[_He drinks again._]

And once more: Here's to his health!

CLARA.

Carl, do not drink so much! Father says the devil lurks in wine!

CARL.

And the priest says G.o.d lurks in wine! [_He drinks._] Let us see who is right! The bailiff was here at the house--how did he behave himself?

CLARA.

As if he had been in a den of thieves. No sooner had he opened his mouth than mother fell over and was dead!

CARL.

Good! If you hear tomorrow that the fellow has been found dead, then do not curse the murderer!

CLARA.

Surely you are not going to--

CARL.

Am I his only enemy? Has he not been often attacked already? Among so many it might be difficult to find the right man to attribute the deed to, unless he left his cane or hat on the spot! [_He drinks._] Whoever it is: Good success to him!

CLARA.

Brother, you talk--

CARL.

Don't you like it? Never mind! You will not see me very much longer!

CLARA (_shudders with terror_).

No!

CARL.

No? So you know already that I am going to sea? Do my thoughts crawl around on my forehead, that you can read them so easily? Or did the old man fly into a pa.s.sion in his old way and threaten to shut me out of the house? Bah! That would be very much the same thing as if the jailer had sworn to me: You shall not stay in prison any longer--I am going to shove you out into the open again!

CLARA.

You do not understand me!

CARL (_sings_).

A ship lies in the offing, A-sporting with the winds.

Yes indeed, there is nothing to bind me to the bench here any longer!

Mother is dead, there is no longer any one to stop eating fish after every storm, and that has been my wish from boyhood. Away! I shall not prosper here--at least not until I know for sure that luck no longer favors the brave fellow who stakes his life on the game, who throws back onto the table the copper coin that he has received from the great treasure, in order to see whether luck will pocket it or return it to him gilded!

CLARA.

And are you going away to leave your father all alone? He is sixty years old!

CARL.

Alone? Aren't you going to be left?

CLARA.

I?

CARL.

You! His pet child! What sort of weeds are growing in your head that you ask me that? By going, I leave his joy with him and free him of his everlasting annoyance! Why shouldn't I do it? Once and for all we cannot get along together. He can't get things contracted enough to suit him. He would like to close his fist and creep inside it. I would like to strip off my skin like a baby's coat--if it were only practicable!

[_Sings_]

The anchor they are heaving, I trow they'll soon be leaving, Now look! Away she spins.

Tell me yourself: Did he doubt my guilt for a single instant? And did he not find the usual consolation in his over-wise: "Just as I expected!"

"I have always thought so!" "It could not end in any other way!" If it had been you, he would have killed himself! I should like to see him if you were to suffer a woman's fate! It would be to him as if he himself had become pregnant--and by the devil besides!

CLARA.

Oh, what anguish! Yes, I must go! Away!

CARL.

What do you mean by that?

CLARA.

I must go into the kitchen! What else should I mean?

[_Clasping her forehead._]

Yes! That too! Just to hear that I came home again!