The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Ix Part 129

SCENE VIII

ROBERT, WILLIAM, _then two men with a covered stretcher, which they put down. The men go away_.

STEIN.

Robert!

[_Going toward him_.]

Do you see, Ulrich? He lives!

ROBERT (_embracing him, pale and distracted_).

Father! Father!

STEIN.

What has happened to you?

ROBERT.

Would that the murderer had killed me! Father Ulrich, be a man!

FORESTER (_making a supreme effort to collect his energies_).

Go on! I will see whether I am a man.

[ROBERT _removes the covering_.]

STEIN.

Great G.o.d!

SOPHY (_who, supported by_ ANDREW _and the_ PASTOR, _has fallen upon her knees by the stretcher_).

Mary!

ANDREW.

Oh, G.o.d! It is Mary!

STEIN.

How did this happen? Explain it, Robert.

PASTOR.

It is dreadfully clear to me.

ROBERT (_with difficulty maintaining his self-possession_).

She was praying: "G.o.d, let me belong only to my father." I was about to say to her: "Mary, you are going to give me up?" Then she rushed upon me, as if she wished to protect me with her own body, made a sign and called in the direction of the forest. I saw no one; I did not understand her; I was about to ask: "What is the matter, Mary?"

when--the report of a gun--she sank down in my arms; I threw myself over her; a bullet had penetrated her heart.

SOPHY.

That was her dream.

STEIN (_holds_ ROBERT _in his embrace, almost simultaneously_).

She died for you!

FORESTER.

She saw me aim at him, and ran purposely into the course of my bullet. I wanted to judge and--have judged myself. Crime and punishment at the same moment! I was praying: "G.o.d have mercy on his poor soul!" I prayed for myself, and the owls screeched Amen, and meant me!

ROBERT (_recoils, horrified_).

Almighty G.o.d--he himself!--

STEIN.

You did not do it consciously. A fearful madness urged you against your will.

PASTOR.

Do not be so obstinate, man; G.o.d does not measure the deed according to a superficial standard. Innocence and crime are at the extreme poles of human nature. But often it is merely a quicker pulse that separates the innocent from the criminal.

FORESTER.

Give me words of life instead of your cobwebs of the brain--no If and no But. Tell me something, so that I must believe it! Your words do not convince me. Why do you offer consolation to my head? Offer consolation to my heart, if you can. Can you with your consolation restore my child to life, so that she will rush into my arms? In that case keep on consoling me. Every word that fails to restore my child to life slays her once more.

STEIN.

Flee to America; I will procure pa.s.sports for you; all my money is yours. Your wife and your children are mine!

FORESTER.

Do you hear, Andrew, what that man there is saying? He wants to give you money. Buy a hand-organ with it. Go about to the fairs, and sing of the old murderer who shot his child--for no reason, for no reason at all in the world. You need no picture. Take the old woman there along with you.

No painter can paint the story as it stands written upon her face.

Praise the child. Represent her more beautiful than she was--if you can--as you imagine the most beautiful angel, and then say: "And yet she was a thousand times more beautiful!" And represent the old murderer so that people will shed a waterfall of tears for the child, and that every street-urchin will shake his fist at the old fellow. And he who hears this story and does not give you with chattering teeth his last penny, though he had ten starving children at home, and does not pray to G.o.d for the child and curse the old murderer that shot her, must have a heart like the old murderer's who committed the deed. Do not say: "The man was honest throughout his life and avoided evil and believed in a G.o.d, and did not permit the least taint upon his honor." If you do, they will not believe you. Say: He looked like a wolf; do not say: His beard was white when he committed the crime. If you do, no one will give you anything; none will believe that one can be so old and yet such an abandoned villain. And on the lower part of your organ have a picture painted--how the old murderer blows out his brains and walks as a ghost during the night--and on the spot where the crime was perpetrated he sits moaning at midnight with his fiery eyes and white beard--and there no breeze wafts coolness, and there no dew falls and no rain--there grow poisonous weeds--the spot is accursed like himself--and the animal that accidentally strays there bellows with fear--and man is shaken as with the ague. And have an angel painted from whose mouth proceeds a scroll on which is written: "There sits he whom G.o.d has marked. Abel was a man, and Cain was only his brother; but this was a child, and he that slew her was her father. For Cain, there is still a hope of salvation, but for the old murderer of his child, none--none--none!" Oh! Some comfort!

Some comfort! Only a shadow of comfort! For this I would give my salvation, if I had any hope of salvation. I will ask G.o.d whether there is any comfort for me!

[_He takes the Bible and reads, at first trembling in every limb, with panting breath_.]

"And he that killeth any--"