The Piper - novelonlinefull.com
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He is a Nothing, by the statute-book; And, by the book, so let him live or die, Like to a masterless dog!
[The PIPER stands motionless with head up-raised, not looking at KURT. The people, half-cowed, half-doubting, murmur and draw back. Lights appear in the Minster; the music continues.
KURT and JACOBUS lead in the people. JACOBUS picks up the money-purse and takes it with him.
VOICES [laughing, drunkenly]
One thousand guilders to a 'masterless dog'!
[Others laugh too, pa.s.s by, with pity and derision for the PIPER, and echoes of 'MASTERLESS DOG!' Exeunt WOMEN and MEN to the Minster. Only the children are left, dancing round the motionless figure of the PIPER.
CHILDREN Oh, pipe again! Oh, pipe and make us dance!
Oh, pipe and make us run away from school!
Oh, pipe and make believe we are the mice!
[He looks down at them. He looks up at the houses. Then he signs to them, with his finger on his lips; and begins, very softly, to pipe the Kinder-spell. The old CLAUS and URSULA in the windows seem to doze.
The children stop first, and look at him, fascinated; then they laugh, drowsily, and creep closer,--JAN always near.
They crowd around him. He pipes louder, moving backwards, slowly, with magical gestures, towards the little by-streets and the closed doors. The doors open, everywhere.
Out come the children: little ones in night gowns; bigger ones, with playthings, toy animals, dolls. He pipes, gayer and louder.
They pour in, right and left. Motion and music fill the air.
The PIPER lifts JAN to his shoulder (dropping the little crutch) and marches off, up the street at the rear, piping, in the midst of them all.
Last, out of the Minster come tumbling two little acolytes in red, and after them, PETER the Sacristan. He trips over them in his amazement and terror; and they are gone after the vanishing children before the church-people come out.
The old folks lean from their windows.
OLD URSULA The bell, the bell! the church bell! They're bewitched!
[Peter rushes to the bell-rope and pulls it. The bell sounds heavily. Reenter, from the church, the citizens by twos and threes and scores.
OLD URSULA I told ye all,--I told ye!--Devils' bargains!
[The bell]
[KURT, JACOBUS, and the others appear.]
KURT Peter the Sacristan! Give by the bell.
What means this clangor?
PETER the Sacristan They're bewitched! bewitched!
[Still pulling and shouting.]
URSULA They're gone!
KURT Thy wits!
OLD CLAUS They're gone--they're gone--they're gone!
PETER the Sacristan The children!
URSULA --With the Piper! They're bewitched!
I told ye so.
OLD CLAUS --I saw it with these eyes!
He piped away the children.
[Horror in the crowd. They bring out lanterns and candles.
VERONIKA holds up the forgotten crutch'
VERONIKA Jan--my Jan!
KURT [to her]
Thy boy! But mine, my three, all fair and straight.--
AXEL'S WIFE [furiously to him]
'T was thy false bargain, thine; who would not pay The Piper.--But we pay!
PETER the Sacristan Bewitched, bewitched!
The boys ran out--and I ran after them, And something red did trip me--'t was the Devil.
The Devil!
OLD URSULA Ah, ring on, and crack the bell: Ye'll never have them back.--I told ye so!
[The bell clangs incessantly]
Curtain
ACT II
SCENE I: Inside 'the Hollow Hill.'
A great, dim-lighted, cavernous place, which shows signs of masonry.
It is part cavern and part cellarage of a ruined, burned-down and forgotten old monastery in the hills.--The only entrance (at the centre rear), a ramshackle wooden door, closes against a flight of rocky steps.--Light comes from an opening in the roof, and from the right, where a f.a.ggot-fire glows under an iron pot.--The scene reaches (right and left) into dim corners, where sleeping children lie curled up together like kittens.
By the fire sits the PIPER, on a tree-stump seat, st.i.tching at a bit of red leather. At his feet is a row of bright-colored small shoes, set two and two. He looks up now and then, to recount the children, and goes back to work, with quizzical despair.
Left, sits a group of three forlorn Strollers. One nurses a lame knee; one, evidently dumb, talks in signs to the others; one is munching bread and cheese out of a wallet. All have the look of hunted and hungry men. They speak only in whispers to each other throughout the scene; but their hoa.r.s.e laughter breaks out now and then over the bird-like ignorance of the children.
A shaft of sunlight steals through the hole in the roof. JAN, who lies nearest the PIPER, wakes up.
JAN Oh!
[The PIPER turns]
Oh, I thought. . . I had a dream!
PIPER [softly]
Ahe?
