The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Ix Part 102

FREI (_rattles his gla.s.s on the table_).

Let me have another one, host. And it is a favor that I now drink in your place, when you still charge for it. In a week from now you will have to provide the stuff, and no honest man need pay you a penny for it, I tell you.

LINDENSCHMIED (_from this point on incessantly casting furtive glances sometimes at_ ANDREW, _sometimes at the gun_).

If he would only go to sleep--that fellow!

[_Leaning across the table, secretly to_ FREI.]

There in the Dell, you say?--And are you quite sure, Frei, that nothing will be punished any longer?

FREI.

Superst.i.tion, I tell you! If you do something, and they hang you, you may call me a rascal for the rest of your life. Look here! What formerly was called fidelity and honesty, that's a tale with which old grannies used to humbug us. And a fellow that keeps his word is a scoundrel; such a one I would not trust as far as the door. The common people are essentially honest, because they are the common people. You ought to hear those gentlemen over there talk; there was a professor among them; he ought to know.

LINDENSCHMIED (_leads him aside_).

But what about conscience? And about the hereafter?

FREI.

All superst.i.tion! Nothing else, let me tell you.

LINDENSCHMIED.

That's what I always thought. But formerly a person was not allowed to say such things.

FREI.

They humbugged people with heaven and h.e.l.l, so that our n.o.ble and gracious master might keep his hares all to himself. They have drummed a conscience into poor people in their childhood, so that they should submit patiently when the rich are living in luxury and extravagance.

LINDENSCHMIED.

And he is in the Dell?

[HOST _becomes attentive._]

FREI.

Who?

LINDENSCHMIED.

That--

[_b.u.t.tons his coat._]

FREI.

Where are you going?

LINDENSCHMIED.

To pay debts before another day comes.

[_While he watches_ ANDREW _furtively, he fumbles with his left hand in his vest-pocket, in order to pay the host_.]

Why, I can't get it out with--

FREI.

The fingers of your left hand are stiff.

LINDENSCHMIED (_with a pantomime_).

Those of my right will soon become crooked.

FREI.

Have you had a stroke?

LINDENSCHMIED (_laughing hoa.r.s.ely_).

Yes, a leaden one. Two ounces of powder and three of buckshot.

[_Constantly speaks in a subdued voice, so as not to awaken_ ANDREW.]

A memorandum from that fellow in the Dell.

FREI.

From G.o.dfrey?

LINDENSCHMIED.

Because I coined money out of the deer belonging to the owner of Strahlau. There was enough uncoined money running about in the forest.

FREI.

Let me have another one, host.

[_Holds out his gla.s.s._]

LINDENSCHMIED (_lost in thought, alone in the foreground_).

Six times I ran out where he was to pa.s.s; but he did not come. At that time conscience was still the fashion. Then I thought: "It is not to be now," and postponed it to some time when he should come along by accident, so that I should be obliged to see that it was to be. For whole nights it choked me like a nightmare and wasted my body, that I should not lay hands on him, and now--ha! ha! ha!

[_Gives a short convulsive laugh, thus rousing himself out of his thoughts; looks around embarra.s.sed._]