The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - novelonlinefull.com
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Robert!
FORESTER (_almost simultaneously_).
Shoot me!
STEIN (_has seized the gun_).
You murderer!
[_The_ PASTOR _arrests his arm_.]
ANDREW.
You shot Robert, father? Robert lives!
STEIN.
He lives?
PASTOR.
He lives?
FORESTER.
He lives?
ANDREW.
He lives, as surely as I live!
FORESTER.
It was only a dream? Can it be that I am not a murderer? That I am an honorable man?
PASTOR.
That you are, Ulrich. Drive away that unfortunate delusion.
STEIN.
Man alive, to what might you have provoked me!
[_Puts away the gun_.]
FORESTER.
You saw him? When did you see him, Andrew? Now, Andrew? Just now, Andrew?
ANDREW.
Just now, as I was coming home, I met two men from the mill with a stretcher. Robert had just called them out of their beds; they were going to the Dell; Robert had gone ahead of them.
FORESTER.
To the Dell?
PASTOR.
With a stretcher?
STEIN.
What can be behind all this?
FORESTER (_has gone to the door of_ MARY'S _room; releases the latch_).
Thanks be to G.o.d!
[_Listening_.]
I hear her breathing. Oh, she sleeps a peaceful sleep. I am oppressed with a world of cares, and she takes them from my heart with her breath.
Do you hear, Pastor, do you hear?
STEIN.
The unfortunate man! His delusion is returning.
PASTOR (_after an anxious pause, during which the_ FORESTER _has not taken his eyes from the_ PASTOR'S _face_).
I hear nothing. That is your own heavy breathing that you hear.
FORESTER (_begins to collapse again_).
My own heavy breathing that I hear--
[_Summons up courage, opens the door_.]
My eyes deceive me? Where she is not, there I see her; and where she is, there I do not see her. Pastor, for G.o.d's sake, tell me: "There lives Mary."
[_He has convulsively clutched the_ PASTOR'S _arm_.]
PASTOR.
I do not see her. The bed there is untouched, the windows open--your wife--
FORESTER (_rushes into the room_).
Woman! Woman! Poor, poor woman!
