The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Ix Part 23

Clara?

[_He grasps the table._]

CARL.

She went to draw water, and they found her handkerchief!

SECRETARY.

 

Scoundrel, I know now why your bullet hit the mark! It is she!

ANTONY.

Go and find out!

[_He, sits down._]

I cannot!

[_Exit CARL._]

And yet--

[_Rises again._]

If [_to the SECRETARY_] I understood you correctly, everything is all right!

CARL (_reenters_).

Clara! Dead! Her head terribly crushed on the edge of the well, as she--Father, she did not fall in, she jumped in! A maid saw her!

ANTONY.

Let her think before she speaks! It is not light enough for her to have distinguished things with certainty! SECRETARY. Do you doubt it? You would like to, but you cannot! Think only of what you said to her! You pointed out to her the road to death! I, I alone am to blame that she did not turn back! When you suspected her misery, you thought only of the tongues that would hiss at you, but not of the worthlessness of the snakes to which they belonged! Then you uttered a word that drove her to despair! And I, instead of catching her in my arms when her heart was bursting with nameless anguish before me, thought only of the scoundrel who could make light of it. And now I pay with my life for having made myself so dependent upon a man who was worse than I! And you too, who stand there so stolidly, you too will say one day: Daughter, I would to G.o.d you had not spared me the head-shaking and shoulder-shrugging of the Pharisees about me! It crushes me more deeply that you cannot sit by my death-bed and wipe the sweat of anguish from my brow!

ANTONY.

She spared me nothing! People have seen it!

SECRETARY.

She did the best she could! You did not deserve to have her act succeed!

ANTONY.

Or she did not!

[_Tumult outside._]

CARL. They are coming with her!

[_Starts to go._]

ANTONY (_immovable, as to the end; calls after him_).

Into the back room, where your mother stood!

SECRETARY.

Away to meet her!

[_He attempts to rise, but falls back._]

Oh, Carl!

CARL (_helps him up and leads him away_).

ANTONY.

I no longer understand the world!

[_Stands brooding._]

SIEGFRIED'S DEATH

A TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS

By FRIEDRICH HEBBEL

DRAMATIS PERSONae

KING GUNTHER

HAGEN TRONJE

DANK WART

VOLKER

GISELHER