The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Ix Part 114

MARY.

"You will never again see your Robert."

SOPHY (_coughs, just as the_ FORESTER _is turning away from the window_).

From the Bible, Mary.

MARY.

"As he hath caused a blemish in a man, so it shall be done to him again.

Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger as for one of your own country: for I am the Lord, your G.o.d."

FORESTER (_has become attentive; stops_).

What is that there about law?

MARY.

"Ye shall have one manner of law--"

FORESTER.

"Ye shall have one manner"--Where is that?

MARY.

Here, father. Up there at the left.

FORESTER.

Put a mark there where that begins, what you have read there about the law. Do you see now that I am right? Even if I have to put up with injustice? That my old heart here is no liar? "Ye shall have one manner of law"--not a special one for officials of the State. At that time the Law was still sound; then it did not live in dusty, moldy offices. It was administered under the gates in the open air, as we read there. If I had my way, the courts ought to have sessions in the forest; in the forest man's heart remains sound; there one knows what is right and what is wrong without Ifs and Buts. With their secret tricks they have put a string of Ifs and Buts to it; in their dusty, moldy offices it has become sick and blunt and withered, so that they can turn and twist it as they like. And now what is right must be put in writing and have a seal to it, otherwise it is not to be recognized as right. Now they have deprived a man's word of all value and degraded it, since one is only bound by what one has sworn to, what one has under seal and in writing.

Out of the good old right they have made a turn-coat, so that an old man, whose honor was never sullied by the slightest blemish, must stand as a rascal before men--because they in their offices have two rights instead of one.

[_Sits down and drinks_.]

SOPHY.

The night is advancing further and further, and Andrew does not come.

And with such talk one becomes doubly frightened. If you went to Robert--

MARY.

To Robert? What, in the world, are you thinking of, mother?

SOPHY.

That it is G.o.d's finger--that letter of Robert's.

MARY.

I am to go to Robert? Now? To the Dell?

SOPHY.

What is to prevent it? You are not afraid.

MARY.

The idea of being afraid!

[_Proudly_.]

Ulrich's daughter!

SOPHY.

How often have you not been out at a more advanced hour of the night!

MARY.

But then father knew it. If I have father's permission and yours, I know that an angel stands behind every tree. And father said: "If I am mistaken in Mary"--

SOPHY.

I cannot slip away, without his noticing it, as well as you can. The matter might still have taken a favorable turn, but it was not to be. And your dream? You felt so light, the sky became so blue--you see, in the Dell by the spring under the willows, there the sorrow that weighs on you and on us all is to end.

MARY (_shaking her head_).

Do you really think so, mother?

SOPHY.

If you would go. We might then remain with father, Robert would try once more to persuade his father, uncle Wilkens also would yield, and when you wear the bridal wreath a second time it would be even more becoming to you.

MARY.

I am to deceive my father, mother? In that case I believe no good could ever come to me again in this world.

SOPHY.

You would have the satisfaction of knowing that you went for his sake.

Perhaps if, tomorrow, he must go forth into misery, or if they confine him in the tower, or if something still worse happens--

MARY.

To father?

SOPHY.