The Awakening of Spring

Moritz

I have often thought that if I have children, boys and girls, I will let them occupy the same room; let them sleep together in the same bed, if possible; let them help each other dress and undress night and morning. In hot weather, the boys as well as the girls, should wear nothing all day long but a short white woolen tunic with a girdle.–It seems to me that if they grew up that way they would be easier in mind than we are under the present regulations.

Melchior

I believe so decidedly, Moritz!–The only question is, suppose the girls have children, what then?

Moritz

How could they have children?

Melchior

In that respect I believe in instinct. I believe, for example, that if one brought up a male and a female cat together, and kept both separated from the outside world–that is, left them entirely to their own devices–that, sooner or later, the she cat would become pregnant, even if she, and the tom cat as well, had nobody to open their eyes by example.

Moritz

That might happen with animals–

Melchior

I believe the same of human beings. I assure you, Moritz, if your boys sleep in the same bed with the girls, and the first emotion of manhood comes unexpectedly to them—I should like to wager with anyone–

Moritz

You may be right—but after all–

Melchior

And when your girls reached the same age it would be the same with them! Not that the girls exactly—one can't judge that the same, certainly—at any rate, it is supposable—and then their curiosity must not be left out of account.

Moritz

A question, by the way–

Melchior

Well?

Moritz

But you will answer?

Melchior

Naturally!

Moritz

Truly?!

Melchior

My hand on it.–Now, Moritz?

Moritz

Have you written your composition yet??

Melchior

Speak right out from your heart!–Nobody sees or hears us here.

Moritz

Of course, my children will have to work all day long in yard or garden, or find their amusement in games which are combined with physical exercise. They must ride, do gymnastics, climb, and, above all things, must not sleep as soft as we do. We are weakened frightfully.–I believe one would not dream if one slept harder.

Melchior

From now until fall I shall sleep only in my hammock. I have shoved my bed back of the stove. It is a folding one. Last winter I dreamed once that I flogged our Lolo until he couldn't move a limb. That was the most gruesome thing I ever dreamed.–Why do you look at me so strangely?

Moritz

Have you experienced it yet?

Melchior

What?

Moritz

How do you say it?

Melchior

Manhood's emotion?

Moritz

M—'hm.

Melchior

Certainly!

Moritz

I also – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Melchior

I've known that for a long while!–Almost for a year.

Moritz

I was startled as if by lightning.

Melchior

Did you dream?

Moritz

Only for a little while—of legs in light blue tights, that strode over the teacher's desk—to be correct, I thought they wanted to go over it. I only saw them for an instant.

Melchior

George Zirschnitz dreamed of his mother.

Moritz

Did he tell you that?

Melchior

Out there on the gallow's road.

Moritz

If you only knew what I have endured since that night!

Melchior

Qualms of conscience?

Moritz

Qualms of conscience??–The anguish of death!

Melchior

Good Lord–

Moritz

I thought I was incurable. I believed I was suffering from an inward hurt.–Finally I became calm enough to begin to jot down the recollections of my life. Yes, yes, dear Melchior, the last three weeks have been a Gethsemane for me.

Melchior

I was more or less prepared for it when it came. I felt a little ashamed of myself.–But that was all.

Moritz

And yet you are a whole year younger than I am.

Melchior

I wouldn't bother about that, Moritz. All my experience shows that the appearance of this phantom belongs to no particular age. You know that big Lämmermeier with the straw-colored hair and the hooked nose. He is three years older than I am. Little Hans Rilow says Lämmermeier dreams now only of tarts and apricot preserves.

Moritz

But, I ask you, how can Hans Rilow know that?

Melchior

He asked him.

Moritz

He asked him?–I didn't dare ask anybody.

Melchior

But you asked me.

Moritz

God knows, yes!–Possibly Hans, too, has made his will.–Truly they play a remarkable game with us. And we're expected to give thanks for it. I don't remember to have had any longing for this kind of excitement. Why didn't they let me sleep peacefully until all was still again. My dear parents might have had a hundred better children. I came here, I don't know how, and must be responsible because I didn't stay away.–Haven't you often wondered, Melchior, by what means we were brought into this whirl?

Melchior

Don't you know that yet either, Moritz?

Moritz

How should I know it? I see how the hens lay eggs, and hear that Mamma had to carry me under her heart. But is that enough?–I remember, too, when I was a five year old child, to have been embarrassed when anyone turned up the décolleté queen of hearts. This feeling has disappeared. At the same time, I can hardly talk with a girl to-day without thinking of something indecent, and—I swear to you, Melchior—I don't know what.

Melchior

I will tell you everything. I have gotten it partly from books, partly from illustrations, partly from observations of nature. You will be surprised; it made me an atheist. I told it to George Zirschnitz! George Zirschnitz wanted to tell it to Hans Rilow, but Hans Rilow had learned it all from his governess when he was a child.

Moritz

I have gone through Meyer's Little Encyclopedia from A to Z. Words—nothing but words and words! Not a single plain explanation. Oh, this feeling of shame!–What good to me is an encyclopedia that won't answer me concerning the most important question in life?

Melchior

Did you ever see two dogs running together about the streets?

Moritz

No!–Don't tell me anything to-day, Melchior. I have Central America and Louis the Fifteenth before me. And then the sixty verses of Homer, the seven equations and the Latin composition.–I would fail in all of them again to-morrow. To drudge successfully I must be as stupid as an ox.

Melchior

Come with me to my room. In three-quarters of an hour I will have the Homer, the equations and two compositions. I will put one or two harmless errors in yours, and the thing is done. Mamma will make lemonade for us again, and we can chat comfortably about propagation.

Moritz

I can't–I can't chat comfortably about propagation! If you want to do me a favor, give me your information in writing. Write me out what you know. Write it as briefly and clearly as possible, and put it between my books to-morrow during recess. I will carry it home without knowing that I have it. I will find it unexpectedly. I cannot but help going over it with tired eyes–in case it is hard to explain, you can use a marginal diagram or so.

Melchior

You are like a girl.–Nevertheless, as you wish. It will be a very interesting task for me.–One question, Moritz?

Moritz

Hm?

Melchior

Did you ever see a girl?

Moritz

Yes!

Melchior

All of her?

Moritz

Certainly!

Melchior

So have I!–Then we won't need any illustrations.

Moritz

During the Schützenfest in Leilich's anatomical museum! If it had leaked out I should have been hunted out of school.–Beautiful as the light of day, and–oh, so true to nature!

Melchior

I was at Frankfurt with Mamma last summer–Are you going already, Moritz?

Moritz

I must work.–Good-night.

Melchior

'Till we meet again.

SCENE THIRD

Thea, Wendla and Martha come along the street arm in armMartha

How the water gets into one's shoes!

Wendla

How the wind blows against one's cheeks!

Thea

How one's heart thumps!

Wendla

Let's go out there to the bridge. Ilse says the stream is full of bushes and trees. The boys have built a raft. Melchi Gabor was almost drowned yesterday.

Thea

Oh, he can swim!

Martha

I should think so, child!

Wendla

If he hadn't been able to swim he would have been drowned!

Thea

Your hair is coming down, Martha, your hair is coming down.

Martha

Pooh!–Let it come down! It bothers me day and night. I may not wear short hair like you; I may not wear my hair down my back like Wendla; I may not wear bangs, and I must always do my hair up at home–all on account of my aunt!

Wendla

I'll bring the scissors with me to-morrow to devotions. While you are saying, “Blessed are they who do not stray,” I will clip it off.

Martha

For heaven's sake, Wendla! Papa would beat me black and blue, and Mamma would lock me up in the coal hole for three nights.

Wendla

What does he beat you with, Martha?

Martha

It often seems to me as if they would miss something if they didn't have an ill-conditioned brat like me.

Thea

Why, girl!

Martha

Are you ever allowed to put a blue ribbon through the top of your chemise?

Thea

A pink ribbon! Mamma thinks a pink ribbon goes well with my big dark eyes.

Martha

Blue suits me to a T!–Mamma pulled me out of bed by the hair. I fell with my hands out so on the floor.–Mamma prayed night after night with us–

Wendla

In your place I should have run away long ago.

Martha

There you have it! The reason I am going away!–There you have it!–They will soon see–oh, they will soon see! At least I shall never be able to reproach my mother–

Thea

H'm, h'm.–

Martha

Can you imagine, Thea, what Mamma meant by it?

Thea

I can't–can you, Wendla?

Wendla

I should simply have asked her.

Martha

I lay on the floor and shrieked and howled. Then Papa came in. Rip–he tore off my chemise. Out of the door I went. There you have it!–I only wanted to get out in the street that way–

Wendla

But that is not so, Martha.

Martha

I froze. I was locked up. I had to sleep all night in a sack.

Thea

Never in my life could I sleep in a sack!

Wendla

I only wish I could sleep once for you in your sack.

Martha

If only one weren't beaten!

Thea

But one would suffocate in it!

Martha

Your head is left outside. It's tied under your chin.

Thea

And then they beat you?

Martha

No. Only when there is special occasion.

Wendla

What do they beat you with, Martha?

Martha

Oh, with anything that is handy.–Does your mother think it's naughty to eat a piece of bread in bed?

Wendla

No! no!

Martha

I believe they enjoy it–even if they don't say so. If I ever have children I will let them grow up like the weeds in our flower garden. Nobody worries about them and they grow so high and thick–while the roses in the beds grow poorer and poorer every summer.

Thea

If I have children I shall dress them all in pink. Pink hats, pink dresses, pink shoes. Only the stockings–the stockings shall be black as night! When I go for a walk they shall march in front of me.–And you, Wendla?

Wendla

How do you know that you will have any?

Thea

Why shouldn't we have any?

Martha

Well, Aunt Euphemia hasn't any.

Thea

You goose, that's because she isn't married.

Wendla

Aunt Bauer was married three times and she didn't have a single one.

Martha

If you have any, Wendla, which would you rather have, boys or girls?

Wendla

Boys! boys!

Thea

I, too, boys!

Martha

So would I. Better twenty boys than three girls.

Thea

Girls are tiresome.

Martha

If I weren't a girl already I certainly wouldn't want to be one.

Wendla

That's a matter of taste, I believe, Martha. I rejoice every day that I am a girl. Believe me, I wouldn't change places with a king's son.–That's the reason why I only want boys!

Thea

But that's crazy, pure craziness, Wendla!

Wendla

But it must be a thousand times more exciting to be loved by a man than by a girl!

Thea

But you don't want to assert that Forest Inspector Pfälle loves Melitta more than she does him.

Wendla

That I do, Thea. Pfälle is proud. Pfälle is proud because he is a forest inspector—for Pfälle has nothing.–Melitta is happy because she gets ten thousand times more than she is.

Martha

Aren't you proud of yourself, Wendla?

Wendla

That would be silly.

Martha

In your place I should be proud of my appearance.

Thea

Only look how she steps out–how free her glance is—how she holds herself, Martha. Isn't that pride?

Wendla

Why not? I am so happy to be a girl; if I weren't a girl I should break down the next time–

(Melchior passes and greets them.)Thea

He has a wonderful head.

Martha

He makes me think of the young Alexander going to school to Aristotle.

Thea

Oh dear, Greek history!–I only know how Socrates lay in his barrel when Alexander sold him the ass' shadow.

Wendla

He stands third in his class.

Thea

Professor Knochenbruch says he can be first if he wants.

Martha

He has a beautiful brow, but his friend has a soulful look.

Thea

Moritz Stiefel?–He's a stupid!

Martha

I've always gotten along well with him.

Thea

He disgraces anybody who is with him. At Rilow's party he offered me some bon-bons. Only think, Wendla, they were soft and warm. Isn't that–? He said he had kept them too long in his trouser's pocket.

Wendla

Only think, Melchi Gabor told me once that he didn't believe anything–not in God, not in a hereafter–in anything more in this world.

SCENE FOURTH

A park in front of the grammar school. Melchior, Otto, George, Robert, Hans Rilow and LämmermeierMelchior

Can any of you say where Moritz Stiefel is keeping himself?

George

It may go hard with him!–Oh, it may go hard with him!

Otto

He'll keep on until he gets caught dead to rights.

Laemmermeier

Lord knows, I wouldn't want to be in his skin at this moment!

Robert

What cheek! What insolence!

Melchior

Wha–Wha–what do you know?

George

What do we know?–Now, I tell you–

Laemmermeier

I wish I hadn't said anything!

Otto

So do I–God knows I do!

Melchior

If you don't at once–

Robert

The long and the short of it is, Moritz Stiefel has broken into the Board Room.

Melchior

Into the Board Room–?

Otto

Into the Board Room. Right after the Latin lesson.

George

He was the last. He hung back intentionally.

Laemmermeier

As I turned the corner of the corridor, I saw him open the door.

Melchior

The devil take–

Laemmermeier

If only the devil doesn't take him.

George

Perhaps the Rector didn't take the key.

Robert

Or Moritz Stiefel carries a skeleton key.

Otto

That may be possible.

Laemmermeier

If he has luck, he'll only be kept in.

Robert

Besides getting a demerit mark in his report!

Otto

If this doesn't result in his being kicked out.

Hans Rilow

There he is!

Melchior

White as a handkerchief.

(Moritz comes in in great agitation.)Laemmermeier

Moritz, Moritz, what have you done!

Moritz

Nothing–nothing–

Robert

You're feverish!

Moritz

From good fortune–from happiness–from jubilation–

Otto

You were caught!

Moritz

I am promoted!–Melchior, I am promoted! Oh, I don't care what happens now!–I am promoted!–Who would have believed that I should be promoted!–I don't realize it yet!–I read it twenty times!–I couldn't believe it–Good Lord, it's so!–It's so; I am promoted! (Laughing.) I don't know–I feel so queer–the ground turns around–Melchior, Melchior, can you realize what I've gone through?

Hans Rilow

I congratulate you, Moritz–Only be happy that you got away with it!

Moritz

You don't know, Hans, you can't guess, what depends on it. For three weeks I've slunk past that door as if it were a hellish abyss. To-day I saw it was ajar. I believe that if some one had offered me a million–nothing, oh nothing, could have held me.–I stood in the middle of the room,—I opened the report book–ran over the leaves–found–and during all that time–I shudder–

Melchior

——During all that time?

Moritz

During all that time the door behind me stood wide open. How I got out–how I came down the steps, I don't know.

Hans Rilow

Is Ernest Röbel promoted, too?

Moritz

Oh, certainly, Hans, certainly!–Ernest Röbel is promoted, too.

Robert

Then you can't have read correctly. Counting in the dunce's stool, we, with you and Robert, make sixty-one, and the upper class-room cannot accommodate more than sixty.

Moritz

I read it right enough. Ernest Röbel is given as high a rating as I am—both of us have conditions to work off.–During the first quarter it will be seen which of us has to make room for the other. Poor Röbel!–Heaven knows, I'm not afraid of myself any longer. I've looked into it too deeply this time for that.

Otto

I bet five marks that you lose your place.

Moritz

You haven't anything. I won't rob you.–Lord, but I'll grind from to-day on!–I can say so now–whether you believe it or not–It's all the same now–I–I know how true it is; if I hadn't been promoted I would have shot myself.

Robert

Boaster!

George

Coward!

Otto

I'd like to see you shoot yourself!

Laemmermeier

Box his ears.

Melchior(Gives him a cuff.)

Come, Moritz, let's go to the forester's house!

George

Do you believe his nonsense?

Melchior

What's that to you? Let them chatter, Moritz! Come on, let's go to town.

(Professors Hungergurt and Knochenbruch pass by.)Knochenbruch

It is inexplicable to me, my dear colleague, how the best of my scholars can fail the very worst of all.

Hungergurt

To me, also, professor.

SCENE FIFTH

A sunny afternoon—Melchior and Wendla meet each other in the woodMelchior

Is it really you, Wendla?–What are you doing up here all alone?–For three hours I've been going from one side of the wood to the other without meeting a soul, and now you come upon me out of the thickest part of it!

Wendla

Yes, it's I.

Melchior

If I didn't know you were Wendla Bergmann, I would take you for a dryad, fallen out of your tree.

Wendla

No, no, I am Wendla Bergmann.–How did you come here?

Melchior

I followed my thoughts.

Wendla

I'm hunting waldmeister.1 Mamma wants to make Maybowl. At first she intended coming along herself, but at the last moment Aunt Bauer dropped in, and she doesn't like to climb.–So I came by myself.

Melchior

Have you found your waldmeister?

Wendla

A whole basketful. Down there under the beach it grows as thick as meadow clover. Just now I am looking for a way out. I seem to have lost the path. Can you tell me what time it is?

Melchior

Just a little after half-past four. When do they expect you?

Wendla

I thought it was later. I lay dreaming for a long time on the moss by the brook. The time went by so fast, I feared it was already evening.

Melchior

If nobody is waiting for you, let us linger here a little longer. Under the oak tree there is my favorite place. If one leans one's head back against the trunk and looks up through the branches at the sky, one becomes hypnotized. The ground is warm yet from the morning sun.–For weeks I've been wanting to ask you something, Wendla.

Wendla

But I must be home at five o'clock.

Melchior

We'll go together, then. I'll take the basket and we'll beat our way through the bushes, so that in ten minutes we'll be on the bridge!–When one lies so, with one's head in one's hand, one has the strangest thoughts.–

(Both lie down under the oak.)Wendla

What do you want to ask me, Melchior?

Melchior

I've heard, Wendla, that you visit poor people's houses. You take them food and clothes and money also. Do you do that of your own free will, or does your mother send you?

Wendla

Mother sends me mostly. They are families of day laborers that have too many children. Often the husband can't find work and then they freeze and go hungry. We have a lot of things which were laid away long ago in our closets and wardrobes and which are no longer needed.–But how did you know it?

Melchior

Do you go willingly or unwillingly, when your mother sends you?

Wendla

Oh, I love to go!–How can you ask?

Melchior

But the children are dirty, the women are sick, the houses are full of filth, the men hate you because you don't work–

Wendla

That's not true, Melchior. And if it were true, I'd go just the same!

Melchior

Why just the same, Wendla?

Wendla

I'd go just the same! It would make me all the happier to be able to help them.

Melchior

Then you go to see the poor because it makes you happy?

Wendla

I go to them because they are poor.

Melchior

But if it weren't a pleasure to you, you wouldn't go?

Wendla

Can I help it that it makes me happy?

Melchior

And because of it you expect to go to heaven! So it's true, then, that which has given me no peace for a month past!—Can the covetous man help it that it is no pleasure to him to go to see dirty sick children?

Wendla

Oh, surely it would give you the greatest pleasure!

Melchior

And, therefore, he must suffer everlasting death. I'll write a paper on it and send it to Pastor Kahlbauch. He is the cause of it. Why did he fool us with the joy of good works.—If he can't answer me I won't go to Sunday-school any longer and won't let them confirm me.

Wendla

Why don't you tell your trouble to your dear parents? Let yourself be confirmed, it won't cost you your head. If it weren't for our horrid white dresses and your long trousers one might be more spiritual.

Melchior

There is no sacrifice! There is no self-denial! I see the good rejoice in their hearts, I see the evil tremble and groan—I see you, Wendla Bergmann, shake your locks and laugh while I am as melancholy as an outlaw.—What did you dream, Wendla, when you lay in the grass by the brook?

Wendla

——Foolishness–nonsense.–

Melchior

With your eyes open?

Wendla

I dreamed I was a poor, poor beggar girl, who was turned out in the street at five o'clock in the morning. I had to beg the whole long day in storm and bad weather from rough, hard-hearted people. When I came home at night, shivering from hunger and cold, and without as much money as my father coveted, then I was beaten–beaten–

Melchior

I know that, Wendla. You have the silly children's stories to thank for that. Believe me, such brutal men exist no longer.

Wendla

Oh yes, Melchior, you're mistaken. Martha Bessel is beaten night after night, so that one sees the marks of it the next day. Oh, but it must hurt! It makes one boiling hot when she tells it. I'm so frightfully sorry for her that I often cry over it in my pillows at night. For months I've been thinking how one can help her.–I'd take her place for eight days with pleasure.

Melchior

One should complain of her father at once. Then the child would be taken away from him.

Wendla

I, Melchior, have never been beaten in my life–not a single time. I can hardly imagine what it means to be beaten. I have beaten myself in order to see how one felt then in one's heart–It must be a gruesome feeling.

Melchior

I don't believe a child is better for it.

Wendla

Better for what?

Melchior

For being beaten.

Wendla

With this switch, for instance! Ha! but it's tough and thin.

Melchior

That would draw blood!

Wendla

Would you like to beat me with it once?

Melchior

Who?

Wendla

Me.

Melchior

What's the matter with you, Wendla?

Wendla

What might happen?

Melchior

Oh, be quiet! I won't beat you.

Wendla

Not if I allow you?

Melchior

No, girl!

Wendla

Not even if I ask you, Melchior?

Melchior

Are you out of your senses?

Wendla

I've never been beaten in my life!

Melchior

If you can ask for such a thing–

Wendla

Please–please–

Melchior

I'll teach you to say please! (He hits her.)

Wendla

Oh, Lord, I don't notice it in the least!

Melchior

I believe you–through all your skirts–

Wendla

Then strike me on my legs!

Melchior

Wendla! (He strikes her harder.)

Wendla

You're stroking me! You're stroking me!

Melchior

Wait, witch, I'll flog Satan out of you!

(He throws the switch aside and beats her with his fists so that she breaks out with a frightful cry. He pays no attention to this, but falls upon her as if he were crazy, while the tears stream heavily down his cheeks. Presently he springs away, holds both hands to his temples and rushes into the depths of the wood crying out in anguish of soul.)

ACT II

SCENE FIRST

Evening in Melchior's study. The window is open, a lamp burns on the table.—Melchior and Moritz on the divanMoritz

Now I'm quite gay again, only a little bit excited.–But during the Greek lesson I slept like the besotted Polyphemus. I'm astonished that the pronunciation of the ancient tongue doesn't give me the earache.–To-day I was within a hair of being late–My first thought on waking was of the verbs in μι–Himmel—Herrgott—Teufel—Donnerwetter, during breakfast and all along the road I conjugated until I saw green.–I must have popped off to sleep shortly after three. My pen made a blot in the book. The lamp was smoking when Mathilde woke me; the blackbirds in the elder bushes under the window were chirping so happily–and I felt so inexpressibly melancholy. I put on my collar and passed the brush through my hair.–One feels it when one imposes upon nature.