The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann Volume I Part 97

Well, I'm tellin' you. I'm straight from Gruenau. An' there I heard it for certain. They shot Fritz Weber. They just about filled his breeches with lead.

MRS. WOLFF

What are you goin' to give? That's the main thing.

WULKOW

[_Feeling the stag._] The trouble is I got four o' them bucks lyin' at home now.

MRS. WOLFF

That ain't goin' to make your boat sink.

WULKOW

An' I don't want her to do that. That wouldn't be no joke. But what's the good if I get stuck with the things here. I've gotta get 'em in to Berlin. It's been hard enough work on the river all day, an' if it goes on freezin' this way, there'll be no gettin' along to-morrow. Then I c'n sit in the ice with my boat, an' then I've got these things for fun.

MRS. WOLFF

[_Apparently changing her mind._] Girl, you run down to Schulze. Say how-dee-do an' he's to come up a while, cause mother has somethin' to sell.

WULKOW

Did I say as I wasn't goin' to buy it?

MRS. WOLFF

It's all the same to me who buys it.

WULKOW

Well, I'm willin' to.

MRS. WOLFF

Any one that don't want it can let it be.

WULKOW

I'll buy this feller! What's he worth?

MRS. WOLFF

[_Touching the venison._] This here piece weighs a good thirty pounds.

Every bit of it, I c'n tell you. Well, Adelaide! You was here. We could hardly lift it up.

ADELAIDE

[_Who had not been present at all._] I pretty near sprained myself liftin' it.

WULKOW

Thirteen s.h.i.+llin's will pay for it, then. An' I won't be makin' ten pence on that bargain!

MRS. WOLFF

[_Acts amazed. She busies herself at the oven as though she had forgotten WULKOW'S presence. Then, as though suddenly becoming aware of it again, she says:_] I wish you a very pleasant trip.

WULKOW

Well. I can't give more than thirteen!

MRS. WOLFF

That's right. Let it alone.

WULKOW

I'm just buyin' it for the sake o' your custom. G.o.d strike me dead, but it's as true as I'm standin' here. I don't make _that_ much with the whole business. An' even if I was wantin' to say: fourteen, I'd be puttin' up money, I'd be out one s.h.i.+llin'. But I ain't goin' to let that stand between us. Just so you see my good intentions, I'll say fourteen....

I can't give no more. I'm tellin' you facts.

MRS. WOLFF

That's all right! That's all right! We c'n get rid o' this stag. We won't have to keep it till morning.

WULKOW

Yes, if only n.o.body don't see it hangin' here. Money wouldn't do no good then.

MRS. WOLFF

This stag here, we found it dead.

WULKOW

Yes, in a trap. I believe you.

MRS. WOLFF

You needn't try to get around us that way. That ain't goin' to do _no_ good! You want to gobble up everythin' for nothin'! We works till we got no breath. Hours an' hours soakin' in the snow, not to speak o' the risk, there in the pitch dark. That's no joke, I tell you.

WULKOW

The only trouble is that I got four of 'em already. Or I'd say fifteen s.h.i.+llin's quick enough.

MRS. WOLFF

No, Wulkow, we can't do business together today. You c'n be easy an' go a door further. We just dragged ourselves across the lake ... a hairbreadth an' we would've been stuck in the ice. We couldn't get forward an' we couldn't get backward. You can't give away somethin' you got so hard.