The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Ix Part 76

FREI } LINDENSCHMIED} _Poachers_.

KATHARINE }

BASTIAN, _Stein's valet_.

_Two porters._

_The scene is alternately the forester's house at Dusterwalde and Stein's mansion at Waldenrode; once, in Act III, the Frontier Inn and the Dell._

THE HEREDITARY FORESTER (1850)

TRANSLATED BY ALFRED REMY, A.M.

Professor of Modern Languages, Brooklyn Commercial High School.

ACT I

_The_ FORESTER'S _house at Dusterwalde_.

_In the back of the room a folding door and a closet; at either side ordinary doors. On the right, a window; on the left, in the rear, the stove; more to the front a cuckoo-clock; then a rack where several rifles are hanging, among them two double-barreled ones, hunter's bags and similar utensils; and a book shelf on which are a Bible and hymn-books._

SCENE I

_Behind the scenes musicians are heard playing._ WEILER, _looking about him, slowly through the centre door; the_ FORESTER'S _wife at the same time from the left with an air of being very busy. Then_ ANDREW, WILLIAM, _and finally_ MARY.

SOPHY. There, the musicians have come already. I wonder where I put the cellar-key. The musicians must have something to drink. You here, Weiler?

WEILER.

Yes, I'm here. But where is the old man--the forester?

SOPHY.

My husband? Isn't he outside?

WEILER.

I want to see him about the wood-cutters.

SOPHY.

Can't you wait?

WEILER.

Wait? Bless you, no. I have my hands full.

SOPHY.

Then get along with you!

WEILER (_quietly filling his short clay pipe with tobacco_).

Yes.

SOPHY.

Is he perhaps already with Herr Stein--

WEILER.

Yes; the sand was already strewn on Tuesday. And the garlands outside at the door. If I do not mistake we are today celebrating the engagement of Miss Mary to Mr. Robert Stein? Then they will be even more chummy when he can say "my father-in-law, Mr. Stein." And that is by no means all.

Now Stein has also bought the estate where Ulrich is forester. The fat lawyer from town fixed up the deeds yesterday. And this morning Stein got out of bed as proprietor of Dusterwalde.

SOPHY.

The table here--

WEILER (_while they carry the table together, on the left_).

Won't Ulrich have an easy time of it, now that his old friend has become his master, and is going to be his father-in-law into the bargain!

SOPHY.

Nearer the stove. We must get in one more table.

WEILER (_chuckling to himself_).

Regular ale-house politicians those two, Stein and Ulrich. Every day they have a row.

SOPHY.

What are you talking there about a row? They're only fooling.

[_Exit in a hurry; reenters immediately afterward_.]

WEILER (_going as far as the door, gesticulating behind her_).

Fooling? Don't you believe it! The one is hot-headed, the other obstinate. Ever since there was talk of buying the estate, the clearing of the forest has been the daily apple of discord. Rich people always pretend to know something, even if they don't know the first thing. Now Stein thinks that by cutting down every other row of trees in the forest the first would have more light and room for growing. Maybe G.o.dfrey has hunted that up in some old book. But when he comes with that theory to Ulrich he strikes the wrong man. Only day before yesterday I thought they were going to eat each other up, so that nothing would remain of either of them. Stein says: "The forest will be _cleared_." The forester: "The forest will _not_ be cleared." Stein: "But it _shall_ be cleared." The forester: "It _shall not_ be cleared." Stein jumps up, b.u.t.tons his coat, two b.u.t.tons at a time, knocks down two chairs, and is gone. Well, I thought, that is the end of the friendship! But Lord bless my soul! That happened the night before last, and early yesterday morning--it was scarcely dawn--who comes whistling from the castle and knocks at the forester's window, as though nothing had happened? That's Stein. And who has already been waiting for a quarter of an hour and grunts forth from under his white moustache, "I'm coming?" That's Ulrich. And now both of them, without asking each other's pardon, go together out into the forest, as though there never had been a quarrel!

n.o.body takes any notice of it any longer. At night they quarrel, in the morning they go together into the forest, as though it could not be otherwise. But does he treat his boy any differently? Robert? Does he?

Didn't he want to leave home half a dozen times? And afterward he is too good. Queer business that!

[During the last words he has retreated step by step before the table which ANDREW and WILLIAM are carrying in and placing against the table which already stands on the left in the direction from the footlights to the back of stage.]