The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Ix Part 14

[_To himself._]

How one chatters when one has something in his mind and does not know how to bring it out!

CLARA.

Everything is bright and cheerful today; that's because it is such beautiful weather.

SECRETARY.

Yes, in weather like this the owls fall out of their nests, the bats kill themselves because they feel the devil has created them, the mole burrows so deep into the earth that he cannot find his way out again and must pitifully suffocate unless he bores through to the other side and emerges again in America. Today every ear of corn shoots up twice as high, and every poppy grows twice as red as usual, even if only out of shame at not having been so at first. Shall man remain behind? Shall he defraud the dear Lord of the only reward which His world offers Him--a happy face and a bright eye, which mirrors and at the same time transfigures all this gloriousness? Truly, when I see one of these recluses sneaking out of his door in the morning, his brow furrowed with wrinkles, and staring at the sky as if it were a vault of blotting-paper, I often think to myself: It is going to rain soon; G.o.d will have to let down the curtain of clouds, so that that sour face will not irritate Him. They ought to take legal action against fellows like that on the ground that they are thwarters of merry parties and destroyers of harvest weather. How are you going to render thanks for your life if not by living? Sing joyously, bird, or else you will not deserve your voice!

CLARA.

Oh, that is true, so true! It almost makes me cry!

SECRETARY.

It was not meant for you. That for eight days you have been breathing more heavily than you used to, I well understand--I know your father.

But, G.o.d be praised! I can make your heart free again, and for that very purpose I am here. You shall see your brother again this very evening, and people shall point their fingers, not at him, but at those who cast him into prison. Does that deserve a kiss, a sisterly kiss, if it cannot be any other kind? Or shall we play blindman's buff for it?--If I do not catch you in ten minutes, I am to go away without the kiss and take a box on the ear into the bargain.

CLARA (_to herself_).

I feel as if I had suddenly grown to be a thousand years old, and time were standing still with me. I can go neither backwards nor forwards!

Oh, all this brazen suns.h.i.+ne and cheerfulness round about me!

SECRETARY.

You do not answer me. To be sure, I forgot--you are engaged. Oh, girl!

Why did you do that to me? And yet have I any right to complain? She is like all that is dear and good, and all that is dear and good should have made me think of her. And yet to me she was for years as if she no longer existed in the world! For that reason she--If it only were a fellow before whom one had to cast down one's eyes! But this Leonard--

CLARA (_suddenly, when she hears the name_).

I must go to him. That is just it--I am no longer the sister of a thief!--Oh, G.o.d! what shall I do? Leonard will, he must! He needs only not to be a fiend! Everything will be as it used to be [_Shudders_]--as it used to be!

[_To the SECRETARY._]

Do not be offended, Frederick!--Why are my legs so heavy all of a sudden?

SECRETARY.

You will--

CLARA.

To Leonard! Where else should I go? Only that one road lies before me in this world!

SECRETARY.

You love him, then! Well--

CLARA (_wildly_).

Love him? It is either he or death! Does anybody wonder that I choose him? I would not do it had I only myself to consider!

SECRETARY.

He or death? Girl, thus speaks Despair, or--

CLARA.

Do not make me frantic! Do not mention that word again! You! It is you I love! There! I cry it out to you as if I were already wandering on the other side of the grave, where no one blushes any more, where cold and naked forms glide past one another, because the fearful, holy presence of G.o.d has entirely consumed in every one all thought of others.

SECRETARY.

Me? Still me? Clara, I divined it when I saw you out in the garden.

CLARA.

Did you? Oh, the other too!

[_Gloomily, as if she were alone._]

He stepped up in front of me--he or I!--Oh, my heart, my accursed heart!

In order to prove to him, prove to myself, that it was not so, or to stifle it if it were so, I did what now [_Breaks out into tears_]--G.o.d in Heaven! I would have pity on myself, were I Thou, and Thou I!

SECRETARY.

Clara, be my wife! I came to look once more into your eyes in the old way. Had you not understood the look I should have gone away again without speaking. Everything that I am and have I now offer to you. It is little, but it may grow to be more. I should have been here long ago, but your mother was sick, and then she died.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Alfred Rethel DEATH PLAYING THE FINALE]

CLARA (_laughs crazily_).

SECRETARY.

Take courage, girl! The fellow has your word--that worries you. And, to be sure, it is a d.a.m.nable thing! How could you--

CLARA.

Oh, ask me everything that conspires to drive a poor girl crazy! Scorn and derision from all sides when you went to the University, and did not let me hear from you.--"She still thinks of him!" "She thinks that child's play was meant seriously!" "Does she receive any letters from him?"--And then, too, my mother: "Stay with people of your cla.s.s!"

"Pride never succeeds!" "Leonard is a very nice fellow; everybody is surprised that you look at him over your shoulder so!" And added to all the rest, my own heart: "If he has forgotten you, show him that you too--" Oh, G.o.d!

SECRETARY.

I am to blame. I realize it. Well, what is difficult is not necessarily impossible. I will get him to release you. Perhaps--

CLARA.

Release me? There!