Only as the sun rose did Michael Petroff lie down to rest.
A period of transition in a nation's life is not the best foundation upon which to rear a new literature. The change of religious, moral, I social and political standards from their well-established and time-honored base to new and untried planes does not favor the development of minds, well-defined and well-balanced, and of characters, able to translate a clear purpose into consistent achievement.
Germany passed through such a change toward the end of the nineteenth century. The unification of the Empire with its era of material prosperity and progress strengthened the roots of national consciousness; the gospel of the superman with its absolute ego-cult stimulated individual self-assertion; the wave of altruism which swept across the world at the same time roused the slumbering sense of social responsibility. These three forces—national consciousness, individual self assertion, social responsibility—profoundly affected the character of the young generation growing up in the newly reestablished Empire. Embracing each of these principles in turn, theorizing about them, the young men and women of the time became unsettled. With the gradual realization of the seriousness of the underlying ideas grew the desire to experiment with them in life, to prove them by practice. In the attempt to live these new ideals the individual became involved in a conflict with the old conscience that no philosophy had yet been able to argue away, and the road out of this dilemma lay along the line of least resistance, which consisted in drifting with the changing tides. The result was the gradual evolution of a type of hero which modified the drama of the country. While the hero of old encountered and conquered obstacles mainly of external circumstance and complication, the hero of the present is the victim of doubts and moods rooted within himself, defeating his purpose and paralyzing his will.
The modern German drama deals with these conditions and characters. The writers whose creative instinct awoke in the seventies stood upon the firm ground of old traditions and were inspired by the optimism of the national renascence. The writers who responded to the same instinct in the eighties stood on the plane of a philosophy which had undermined the old traditions and conventions and had not yet crystallized into constructive principles that could safely guide the individual through life. Their souls wavered between self-realization and self-renunciation; their minds eagerly followed the example of Ibsen inquiring into individual motives and responsibilities, and their eyes were at the same time opened to the economic struggle of the masses which had roused the social conscience. A world unknown to the poets of the previous generation, or ignored by them, had come within the range of vision; it engaged not only the humanitarian's sympathy and the philosopher's speculation, but the artist's interest. It was studied for its scientific meaning and exploited for its esthetic possibilities.
The floodgates of a literature rich in stimulating ideas were opened and the new subject-matter demanded a new manner, a new style. The influence of Darwin was not lost upon the young generation. The significance of circumstance and environment in the making of man led to a minute painting of the milieu, of the external setting of each individual life at every moment of its existence in drama or fiction. The language of the characters became the language of their class in ordinary life. The action was immediately and directly transferred to the written page and became a record of unadorned reality. The cry for truth became one of the party cries of the period. Naturalistic fiction and naturalistic drama came into being.
Within the brief space of less than twenty-five years were born three men whose literary personalities represent this development of German drama. Ernst von Wildenbruch in the main held fast to the traditions of the past, which he treated in historical plays in the manner of a poet who had matured in the period of Germany's unification and was inspired with the consciousness of national renascence. Hermann Sudermann, who rose on the horizon just as the old traditions began to weaken, chose to ignore the past, took his cue from the social note of the present, but sought a compromise with the old forms and with the taste of the great mass of the people. Gerhart Hauptmann, the youngest of the three, discarded all precedent and built upon new foundations with new material in a new manner. By the success which he gained in spite of his uncompromising attitude, he became the leader of the young generation.
The intellectual atmosphere in the decade that witnessed the advent of Sudermann and Hauptmann was extraordinarily alive and stimulating and the drama was chosen by an amazing number of young aspirants to literary fame as the vehicle of the message they had for the world. The plays of the period suggest the fermentation going on in the young brains, the unsettling of old and the dawn of new creeds, religious, social and esthetic. The clash of two generations became one of the most popular themes. Cæsar Flaischlen, a Suabian, handled it most thoughtfully and effectively inMartin Lehnhardt. Though the author modestly called it "dramatic scenes," it was a play presenting with spirited rhythm a phase of the spiritual revolution and moral revaluation then taking place, and in the orthodox uncle and the radical nephew he created two figures full of real dramatic life. The well-to-do and well-satisfied middle-class with its somewhat shopworn ideals was a popular topic with these young men who lustily set about to demolish the Mosaic and other codes of life. Otto Erich Hartleben was hailed as the Juvenal of the society of his time, flaying it mercilessly in satirical comedies likeEducation for Marriage,The Moral Requirement, andRose-Monday.
Whatever were the shortcomings of these young hot-spurs, there is no doubt that there were among them earnest seekers for new values of life and letters. Many were contented with pathetic seriousness and doubtful results to imitate their successful and popular model, Gerhart Hauptmann. Some made no attempt at concealing that they walked closely in the footsteps of their master. Nor did the critics of the new school esteem them any less for being followers and imitators rather than creators of independent merit. Among these youths, Georg Hirschfeld, a born Berliner, was the most promising. He was of a type abundant in every metropolis having an intense intellectual life: sensitive, impressionable, with an amazing talent for absorption and adaptation and a facile gift of language. The reception accorded to his drama.The Mothers(1896), which was frankly reminiscent of Sudermann's contrast between the front and the rear house and of Hauptmann's dialogue of real life, was so generous, that it gave the author, then barely twenty-three, a position quite out of proportion to his achievement. His efforts at following up the easily won success made him a pathetic figure in the drama of that decade. He experienced failure upon failure and has now, after the publication of some stories of varying merit and the stage success of a clever comedy directed against the esthetes—Mieze and Maria—once more dropped out of sight.
A far more robust figure came to the fore in Max Halbe, a West Prussian and an individuality deeply rooted in the soil of his forefathers. That soil and his close kinship with nature gave Halbe a firmer foundation than the shifting quicksands of metropolitan life offered. These were the premises upon which he set out to build. But he would not have been a child of his time had he not seen life through the temperament of his generation. With all his sturdy mental and moral fibre he could not withstand the torrential current of skepticism and revaluation that swept through the intellectual world and uprooted its spiritual mainstays. Though the action of his plays was based upon eternal conflicts of the human tragi-comedy—the irreconcilable contrast between two generations, between two orders of life, between love and duty—his characters are of the new type, his unheroic heroes are like the men he saw about him, reeds swayed by the breath of the Zeitgeist, and true to the naturalistic creed of his generation they were represented by him without any attempt at idealization.
Halbe made his debut in 1889 with the tragedy of a peasant parvenu. The play was fashioned according to old formulas, but of charming local color and with more than a touch of the new type in one of the characters. This was followed in 1890 byFree Love, the hero of which is one of those individuals unable to reconcile their convictions with their actions—a conflict which becomes a source of torture to themselves and those about them. TheIce-Floe(1892) was a powerful drama, in which the sudden thaw, destroying what has been, but bringing with it a breath of the spring and the new life to come, admirably symbolized the passing of the old order. But it was not until the following year, which saw the publication of hisYouth, that Halbe attracted serious attention outside of the circles of that Young Germany which has become identified with the literary revolution.Youthwas of a human significance and of an artistic calibre which could not well be ignored. This work presented the old theme of youth, love and sin in the provincial setting that he knew so well; the characters were taken from real life and portrayed with striking truthfulness. But over it all was the atmosphere of spring, of sunshine and blossoms and thundershowers that quicken the germs in the womb of the earth. This was suggested with a delicacy and a chastity rare in the literature of that period of storm and stress.Youthwas the work of a true poet and would have been hailed as such even had the author been born into a period less generous in its bestowal of praise upon the works of the "coming men."
InMother Earth, published in 1897, Max Halbe shows himself at his best both in spirit and in manner. The hero of that play is estranged from his paternal hearth, with its ancestral traditions and from the simple rural life and the innocent tender love of his youth. For he has gone to Berlin, has drifted into the circles of the intellectuals, married the brilliant and advanced daughter of a professor and become actively interested in feminist propaganda. Subconsciously, however, this life does not satisfy him, and when on the death of his father he returns to the old home and feels once more its charm, he realizes that he has forfeited real happiness for a vague and alien ideal. In this work with its firmly knit and logically evolved action Max Halbe reached a climax in his development. Since its production his star has been steadily declining and the thirteen or more works that have since come from his pen have not added to his reputation. Embittered by his failures, he chose some years ago to attack his rivals and critics in a satirical comedy.The Isle of the Blessed, but he had miscalculated the effect of the poorly disguised personal animosities upon an audience not sufficiently interested in the author's friendships and enmities. He has, however, not become sadly resigned to his fate, like Hirschfeld, but continues to court the favor of the stage with the tenacity of a man disappointed in his hopes but unwilling to admit his defeat.
An important aspect of the social and esthetic programme of the new school was the unflinching frankness with which it faced a problem belonging to intimate life and barring public discussion, yet closely connected with the economic conditions of society: the problem of sex. The curious revival of pagan eroticism in lyric poetry and the growing tendency toward a scientific cynicism in fiction were supplemented by attempts to handle sex from the standpoint of modern psychology and social ethics in drama. With works of that class has the name of Frank Wedekind become inseparably associated. He is the most positive intellect among the writers of Young Germany and their most radical innovator in regard to form. He is a fanatic of truth and deals only with facts; discarding the mitigating accessories of themilieu, he places those facts before us in absolute nudity. This would make him the most consistent naturalist; but when facts are presented bald and bare, they do not make the impression of reality, but rather of grotesque caricature. Hence Wedekind has sometimes been compared with early English dramatists and classed with romanticists like Lenz, Grabbe and Heine. He himself has no esthetic theories whatever that could facilitate his being enrolled under some fetching label. Nor has he any ethical principles, some critics allege, if they do not curtly call him immoral. Yet his work, from the appearance ofSpring's Awakening(1891) to hisStone of Wisdom, (1909) and his most recent works, proves him to be concerned with nothing but the moral problem. He treats social morality with mordant irony from an a-moral standpoint. The distinction between a-moral and immoral must be borne in mind in any attempt to interpret the puzzling and paradoxical personality of the author and to arrive at an approximate understanding of the man behind his work.
In_the_Shade
IN THE SHADE
That Wedekind is not only an author, but an actor as well, has in no small degree complicated his case. The pose seems so inseparably connected with the art of the actor, that his intransigent policy in sex matters and his striking impersonations of the characters in his plays have been interpreted as the unabashed bid for notoriety of a clever poseur. But his acting could hardly have made palatable to theatre audiences topics tabooed in polite conversation and with appalling candor presented by him on the stage. Neither his quality as actor nor his quality as author could account for the measure of popularity his plays have attained. It would rather indicate that the German public was ready for open discussion of the problems involved and that Wedekind's frankness and honesty, his lapses into diabolical grimace and grotesque hyperbole notwithstanding, met a demand of his time. Nor did he restrict himself to that one particular problem. His irony spared no institution, no person: lèse-majesté was one of his offenses; nor did he spare himself. Born into a generation which took itself very seriously, he created the impression as if he at least were not taking himself too seriously. Yet a survey of his work, regardless of the comparisons and conclusions it may suggest, tends to substantiate the claim that Frank Wedekind is not only an uncompromising destroyer of antiquated sentiment and a fanatic of positive life, but a grim moralist. It is easy to recognize him in some of his characters, and these figures, like the banished king inThus is Life, the secretary Hetman inHidalla, the author Lindekuh inMusik, and others, are always the tragic moralists in an immoral world. There is something pathetic in the perseverance with which he is ever harping on the one string.
For although he is now one of the more popular writers of his generation, his attitude has not changed much in the course of his career. The man who hurled into the worldSpring's Awakening, is still behind the social satirist who has become a favorite with theatre audiences through his clever portrayal of a crook inThe Marquis of Keithand of the popular stage favorite inThe Court Singer. He is little concerned with the probability of the plot; his situations will not bear the test of serious scrutiny. They are only the background from which the figure of the hero stands out in strong relief. The popular tenor, who is an amusing combination of the artist and the businessman, is one of the characters in the plays of Wedekind that have little or no trace in them of the author himself. He is seen with astonishing objectivity and presented with delectable sarcasm. The story of the famous singer, who between packing his valise to take the train for his next engagement, studying a new role, running over numerous letters from admirers, makes love to the one caller he cannot get rid of, a woman who chooses that inopportune moment to shoot herself before his eyes, is a typical product of his manner, and a grotesque satire upon the cult of histrionic stars practised by both sexes.
While the initiative in the literary revolution of which Halbe and Wedekind are such striking examples was taken by Northern Germany and centred in Berlin, Austria was not slow in adding a note of its own by giving the German drama of the period two of its most interesting individualities. Both Arthur Schnitzler and Hugo von Hofmannsthal—to whom might be added the clever and versatile Hermann Bahr—reflect the complex soul of their native city, Vienna; for if Austria is acknowledged to be a most curious racial composite, Vienna contains its very essence. Situated at the parting of the ways for the South and the Orient, it has ever been a much-coveted spot. After the conquest of the original Celtic settlement by the Romans, Teutons, Huns, and Turks have successively fought for its possession and have left their imprint upon its physiognomy. Intermarriage with the neighboring Czechs and Magyars, the affiliations of the court with Spain, Italy, and France, and the final permeation of all social strata by the Hebrew element, have produced what may be called the Viennese soul. Political conditions, too, have influenced it: to maintain peace in a country which is a heterogeneous conglomerate of states rather than an organic growth, requires a diplomacy the chief aim of which is to prevent anything from happening. This attitude of the Viennese court and its vast machinery of functionaries slowly affected other classes, until the people of Vienna as a body seem to refrain from anything that means action. It is this passive fatalism which has hampered the intellectual development of Vienna. Oldest in culture among the German-speaking cities of Europe it has never been and is not likely ever to be a leader.
Minds that entered upon this local heritage were only too ready to receive the seeds of skepticism abundant in the spiritual atmosphere of the century's end. But Nietzsche's gospel of the Superman, Ibsen's heretical analysis of human motives and Zola's cry for truth did not affect the young generation of Vienna intellectuals as they did those of Paris or Berlin, where the revision of old standards of life and letters was promptly followed by daring experiments with new ideals. Young Vienna heard the keynotes of the new time, but it was content to evolve a new variety of an old tune. Time-honored pessimism, world-sorrow, gave way to a sophisticated and cynical world-weariness which is symptomatic of decadence. Widely different as their individualities present themselves, between the pages of their books and on the stage, both Schnitzler and Hofmannsthal reflect that attitude of mind.
In the work of Arthur Schnitzler the Hebrew element predominates; it has quickened the somewhat inert Vienna blood and finds expression in analytical keenness and sharpness of vision, a wit of Gallic refinement and a language of sparkling brilliancy. Schnitzler's profession, too, has not been without some influence upon his poetical work. A physician facing humanity daily not in strength and health, but in weakness and disease, cannot divest himself of a certain pessimistic bias. Brought up and practising in a city like Vienna, he cannot escape the cynicism which belongs alike to the man of the world as to the doctor before whom all veils and pretenses are discarded. It is difficult, indeed, to banish the idea that the consultation-room of Arthur Schnitzler, Dr. med., is the confessional which furnishes material to Arthur Schnitzler, author. For the modern physician is not concerned with his patient's body only, but also with his soul. He must be a psychologist as well, and the success of his diagnosis depends upon his skill to unravel the intricate interrelations between both. That Schnitzler is such a physician admits of no doubt. His perspicacity as diagnostician lends subtlety to his analysis and portrayal of characters. While his professional bias may in a manner limit the range of his vision, his professional knowledge and experience are strong assets of the dramatist Schnitzler.
The world that he knows best is the modern society of Vienna. His heroes are mostly men engaged in a quest for the joys of life, but never attaining whole-hearted enjoyment, because of their innate streak of world-weariness. When the hero of hisAnatol(1893) calls himself "light-hearted pessimist," Schnitzler creates a term which fits as well his Fedor inMärchen(1894), his Fritz inLiebelei(1895), and other specimens of a type related to the heroes of Musset and other Frenchmen. His women, too, have a streak of French blood, both his "sweet girls" and his married heroines; but unmistakably Austrian and Viennese is their willingness to resign rather than to resist. Frau Gabriele give Anatol flowers to take to his sweetheart and bids him tell her: "These flowers, my ... sweet girl ... a woman sends you, who can perhaps love as well as you, but had not the courage ..." The playlets collectively calledAnatolare only scenes and dialogues between two men or a man and a woman exchanging confidences. Limited as he seems in his choice of themes and types, both by temperament and association, it is amazing with what virtuosity Schnitzler varies almost identical situations and characters until they are differentiated from one another by some striking individual touch and when presented on the stage act with a new and potent charm.
For that just balance of contents and form which makes for perfection, Schnitzler's renaissance dramaThe Veil of Beatriceis the most noteworthy specimen. But in all his work his style is his greatest achievement. It is of a rare spontaneity, vivacity and grace—qualities that make his dialogue appear an impromptu performance rather than a carefully planned structure. It abounds in paradoxes that do not blind the vision, but reveal vistas, and that do not impress as high lights added for effect, but as organic parts of the whole. It scintillates with wit, though it lacks humor. It is the just medium of expression for his characters, those types of modern intellectuals, affected by the corrosive skepticism of the period and in turn buoyed by the light-hearted temperament and depressed by the passive melancholy that are indigenous to Vienna. It is this literary excellence that renders works likeLiterature(1902) andThe Green Cockatoo(1899) enjoyable to readers to whom their spirit may be absolutely foreign. It is their polish that robs their cynicism of its sting and brings into relief only their formal beauty.Literaturedeals effectively with the literary exploitation of intimate personal experience: it presents characters which with due local modification can be found in every intellectual centre and is a little masterpiece of irony. InThe Green Cockatoothe poet has seen his theme in a sort of phantasmagorical perspective; he plays with reality and appearance in a play within a play which is unique in literature. He makes his spectators feel the hot breath of the French Revolution without burdening them with the ideas that were back of it. It is the most solidly constructed of his works and the one most sure of success on any stage. Exquisite as is the art of Schnitzler, it is deeply rooted in life and does not approach that art for art's sake which was one of the striking phenomena of that period.
Yet the atmosphere of Vienna and the leisurely pace of its life seem to favor the development of an art that has little or no connection with the pressing realities of the day and is bent upon seeking the beauty of the word rather than the truth of its message. Such a movement had been inaugurated in German letters in 1890 by Stefan George, who gathered about him a small group of collaborators in the privately circulated magazineBlätter für die Kunst. It stood for a remoteness from reality which formed a strong contrast to the naturalistic creed and for a formal craftsmanship which set out to counteract the grooving tendency to break away from the fetters of conventional forms. The work of the group bordered often upon archaic preciosity, yet its influence was wholesome in holding up the ideal of a formalism which is after all one of the basic conditions of art. Though not a native of Vienna, Stefan George settled there after launching the movement and found among its young intellectuals not a few disciples that have since followed in his wake. There is something about an art for art's sake that appeals to an aristocracy of birth and breeding; it touched a responsive chord in the soul of Hugo von Hofmannsthal,[A] whose earlier work distinctly shows its influence and who to that influence still owes his admirable mastery of form.
[Footnote A: For Hofmannsthal, compare Vol. XVII, pp. 482-527.]
Hofmannsthal's descent from an old nobility that had passed the zenith of its power and was but little modified by a strain of the more democratic Hebrew blood, seemed to predestine him for the part he has played in the literature of the present. He made his debut as a mere youth of seventeen, when in 1891 he published the dramatic studyYesterday, giving evidence of an amazingly precocious mind and a prematurely developed formal talent. Gifted writers of that kind are usually doomed to remain prodigies whatever may be their medium of expression. Coming into their heritage, which is the accumulated knowledge and experience of their ancestors, before they have acquired a direct and profound grasp of life, they seem to enter the world full-fledged, while it is only that ancestral heritage that works through the impressions of the youthful brain and gives them the color of age. Knowing and satiated when the mind is most receptive, such individualities rarely develop beyond their first brilliant phase. Hugo von Hofmannsthal was for a long time considered a perfect specimen of that type. For the hero of that first work, as of every work published by him during the first decade of his career, was his double, was Hofmannsthal himself. All the virtuosity of style could not conceal the paucity of invention in subject matter and in the creation of real living characters. Even in that charming Oriental playThe Marriage of Sobeide(1899) andThe Mine of Falun(1906) the personality of the author obtrudes itself upon the vision of the reader.
These works, however, marked a transition. For with his thirtieth year Hofmannsthal entered upon a new period and a new manner. The study of the antique Greek drama and of early English dramatists diverted him from the self-absorption and self-reflection of his previous work, and may have brought home to him the necessity of finding a more fertile source for his art than his own individual soul. The extraordinary success of Wilde'sSalomeopened possibilities of applying the pathological knowledge of the present to the interpretation of the past. He chose for this momentous departure theElectraof Sophocles (1903). Taking from the Greek poet the mere skeleton of the story, he modified the characters according to his own vision and the psychopathic viewpoint of the time—a liberty which some critics justified, others branded as an unpardonable license. But the work was a turning-point for Hofmannsthal, for he has since begun to face life more directly and squarely and though he has not reached a wholesome reading of it, he has at least struck new and powerful notes that contrast strongly with the spirit of his previous works. Enforced by the music of Richard Strauss, whose naturalism is the immediate expression of his robust virility, Hofmannsthal'sElectrahas made the name of the author known throughout the world. To his association with the sturdy Bavarian composer is also due the comedyDer Rosenkavalier(1911), which with its daring situations and touches of drastic burlesque harks back to the spirit of the comedy of Molière's time, though in its way it is also a product of the reaction against the puerile and commonplace inoffensiveness of mid-century letters inaugurated by Young Germany. Since his association with Richard Strauss has weaned Hofmannsthal from the somewhat effete estheticism and pessimism of his youth, it is a matter of interesting conjecture what further effect it may have upon his development.
It seems to follow with the inevitableness of a physical law, that the alternate swing of the pendulum between a naturalism which set above everything the material fact and the cry for truth, and a subtle estheticism which set the word above the spirit, would in the end usher in an art that had profited by and learned to avoid both extremes. There was little surprise when the Royal Schiller prize, which had not been awarded for some years, was in 1908 divided between Karl Schönherr[A] for his playErdeand Ernst Hardt forTristram the Jester. For Schönherr, the Tyrolese, had drawn his inspiration from the source which ever Antæsus-like renews the strength of humanity, and Hardt had drawn upon the rich source of racial lore. But when a jury consisting of men like Dr. Jacob Minor, Dr. Paul Schlenther, Hermann Sudermann, Carl Hauptmann and others within a few weeks after that contest awarded the popular Schiller prize also to Hardt and for the same play, with a competitor like Hofmannsthal in the race, it seemed safe to argue that this unanimity indicated a turn of the tide. Both Schönherr and Hardt stand for that sane eclecticism which seems destined to pilot German drama out of the contrary currents to which it has long been a prey toward a type more in harmony with the classical ideal.
[Footnote A: For Schönherr, compare Vol. XVI, pp. 410-479.]
Though comparatively unknown when he issued as victor from those contests and suddenly obtained a measure of celebrity, Hardt was by no means a novice in the world of letters. The first book bearing his name,Priests of Death(1898), contained some stories of an epic dignity and a dramatic rhythm that challenged attention and secured interest for the works that followed. These were another volume of fiction, one of poetry, some plays and a number of translations from Taine, Flaubert, Balzac, and other French writers, which are remarkable specimens of his ability to grasp the spirit of a foreign world and to convey its essence through the medium of his native tongue. It seems natural that his familiarity with French literature had some influence upon the character of his prize drama, since he had chosen for its topic a story belonging alike to German and Gallic lore. To re-create the story of Tristan and Isolde upon the foundation of the German source would have challenged comparison not only with the cherished epic of Master Gottfried of Strassburg, but also with the music-drama of Richard Wagner, who had treated it with something like finality,—at least for the present generation. By going back to the old French legend and to J. Bédier's bookLe roman de Tristan et Yseult(1900), the author was able to present that most tragic of all love-stories from a different angle. By complicating the plot through the introduction of the second Isolde, jealousy became the secondary, though hardly less powerful theme. This deviation from the comparatively simple plot of the German story is of course more difficult of comprehension upon the stage. It is not easy to convince an audience that jealousy of Isolde White-hand, whom Tristan had married after being banished from Cornwall, blinds Isolde Blond-hair into refusing to recognize him when he returns and pleads his case before her in the disguise of Tristram the Jester. Cavilling critics were quick to discover and to expatiate upon this weakness of the play. But the fine lines upon which it is built and the plastic figures standing out against the medieval background, the glowing color, radiant lights and brooding shadows of its atmosphere, and lastly, the language, the verse-form admirably adapted to the subject,—all this together makes of the drama a work coming very near that perfect balance of contents and form which is the ideal of art.
It is a rather circuitous path which German drama has traveled since the memorable performance of Gerhart Hauptmann's playBefore Sunrisein 1889. It has outgrown the one-sided naturalism which had seemed the only medium of translating life directly into literature. It has turned aside from the orphic symbolism and verbal artistry rooted only in literature and having nothing in common with life. Men like Karl Schönherr, Carl Hauptmann, and others have found in the native soil and its people and in the problems that confront that people at all times as rich a source of thematic material as previous generations of poets had found in the historic past. Men like Ernst Hardt and others have infused new life into the old legends of racial lore. As German drama is completing this cycle of its development it gives hopeful evidence of returning to the safe middle course of normal growth toward a new type, indigenous to the soil and the soul of the country.
Paul Warkentin,publisher of a feminist journal
Hella Warkentin-Bernhardy,his wife
Dr. von Glyszinski
Heliodor von Laskowski,owner of the estate Klonowken
Antoinette,his wife
Aunt Clara
von Tiedemann,estate owner
Mrs. von Tiedemann
Raabe, Senior,estate owner
Schnaase,estate owner
Mrs. Schnasse
Raabe, Junior,student
Dr. Bodenstein,physician
Mertens,manager of a factory
Josupeit,rentier
Mrs. Borowski,widow of a teacher
Kunze,organist
Schrock,licentiate
Zindel,inspector
Lene,chambermaid
Fritz,coachman
Time: The present. Place: Estate Ellernhof.
Ancient hall of the manor. Broad and spacious. Low ceiling. In the rear wall, toward the garden, the bare trees of which are visible, three wide windows with white crossbars. Chair at both ends of each window. A folding card table between the chairs of the middle window. An Empire commode in each space between the windows. In the centre of the two lateral walls, folding doors, the one at the left leading into another room, the one at the right into the vestibule. On the left, in the foreground, a sofa which is well preserved and gives evidence of former elegance, and similar chairs with stiff backs and light variegated covers, grouped around a large oval table. Opposite this in the foreground at the right, an old-fashioned fireplace, before which three similar chairs are placed. In the background at the right, near the window, a spinet with a chair before it. In the corresponding place on the left near the window a tall, gilt framed mirror resting on a cabinet base. An old fashioned chandelier, ornate with gilt and glass, is suspended in the centre of the hall. A number of pictures, men and women in the fashions of the last one hundred years, cover the walls. Painted board floor. Rugs only before sofa and spinet. Furniture in light mahogany. Wall paper of gilt design. Solid, but faded finery of the twenties and thirties of the nineteenth century with a few more recent additions. The general character of the hall is bright and inviting, nevertheless serious and somewhat shut in by the low ceiling, giving the large room an air of emptiness, for the scant furniture along the walls seems to be lost. A mixture of a dancing hall and an ancestral portrait gallery. At present it looks gloomy, almost spectral. It is an early morning near the end of December. As yet not a ray of sunlight comes in through the heart-shaped apertures of the shutters, which are hung on the outside and are fastened on the inside by means of thumbscrews. A lamp stands at the extreme end of the room on one of the commodes. Beyond its radius deep shadows gather on every side. In the foreground logs are burning brightly in the fireplace. An indistinct light falls past the chairs over the foreground. From the other side, the light of a candle falls upon the sofa table which is covered with a white cloth. It also illumines only the immediate vicinity. Dusk predominates in the spacious hall. At every passing and repassing great shadows flit back and forth.
Aunt Clarastands on a chair under the chandelier and slowly revolves it, scrutinizing it, and causing the glass prisms to tinkle.
Inspector Zindelin a fur coat and cap stands at the door on the right and is about to go out.
Aunt Clara(with a heavy gray cloth wrapped about her head, speaks down from the chair). Yes, just go and see, Zindel, whether they are coming; see whether you can hear anything.
Inspector Zindel. Just so, Miss. I shall be back right off. (He opens the door and runs intoLene, who is about to enter with a tray full of dishes for the morning coffee.) Whoa! Look out! Don't knock anything over! (Partly to himself.) Or the old man will play us the trick and wake up again. (He goes out, and closes the door behind him.)
Aunt Clara(speaking down from the chair). Is it you, Lene?
Lene(has come forward with the dishes, shrinks so that the tray and dishes clatter). Heavens and all the saints! Why, I didn't see you at all, Miss! Why, I was so frightened! (She draws several deep breaths, places the tray beside the candle on the white cloth of the sofa table, and begins to arrange the cups.)
Aunt Clara(as before). Why in the world are you frightened? You see, don't you, that I am attending to the chandelier, am doing your work again?
Lene(busy at the table). Expect a person not to get scared, when all of a sudden a voice like that comes out of the dark, when, on top of it all, a dead man's in the house. As a rule I'm not afraid, but I won't dare to go to the back part of the house alone any more, it's just as if Mr. Warkentin would turn up right before you.
Aunt Clara. Stuff and nonsense, I suppose you kept the candle burning the whole night in your room again? I am likely to come and get your candle one of these days.
Lene. Why Miss Clara is afeared herself. She won't go a step without a light. Ain't it true, Miss Clara, you're a little afeared too. You only won't let on.
Aunt Clara. I shall afear your back before long! I have closed the eyes of many in my day. That's nothing new to me.
Lene(interested). But all of a sudden, like Mr. Warkentin?
Aunt Clara. When they get to be about seventy, one knows how it goes, old widower Fritz in Kobieken went that way too. Fell over and was gone, it's the best kind of a death. That comes just as it comes.... Have you arranged the cups?
Lene. Everything in order. (Counting.) The young master, the lady (correcting herself), no, the lady on the sofa and the young master here (points to a chair), Miss Clara here and the fourth cup ... I suppose some one else is coming with the young master?
Aunt Clara. Yes, and don't ask so many questions! Come here and hold the light, I want to light the chandelier.
Lene(comes with the candle). Light the chandelier? Why, it's almost daytime.
Aunt Clara. Do as I say. When the young master arrives, it will still be dark.
Lene(hands the candle up to her). Wonder whether the young master'll stay long?
Aunt Clara(has lighted the lights of the chandelier, one after another). Wait and see. (About to get down.)
Lene(extends her hand to her). Now don't you fall, Miss!
Aunt Clara(gets down from the chair carefully). Now then!... One does realize, after all, that the years are coming on! When I was of your age, I jumped from the straw stack. You girls of today! you have no sap, no vim! A girl as strong as a bear, and afraid of going to pieces.
Lene(admiring the chandelier). Oh my, but now it's beautiful, Miss Clara! The young master will be pleased when he comes.
[Aunt Clarastands before the chandelier with folded hands, engrossed in thought. The hall is now brightly illumined. Only the remotest corners remain in a shadow.]
Inspector Zindel(comes in again from the right with a lighted lantern, stops in astonishment). The deuce, Miss Clara! You're up to the business. I do say, the world must come to an end, in grand style! (He puts down the lantern beside the fireplace.)
Lene. Anything else to do, Miss?
Aunt Clara(absent-minded). You may go now. If I need you I'll call.
Lene(departing). All right, Miss, the water's been put on for the coffee. (Goes off to the right.)
Inspector Zindel. I was out on the road. Miss. Not a sound yet.
Aunt Clara(starts from her dreams and points to the chandelier). For ten years it has not been lighted, Zindel! Ever since Paul has been gone!
Inspector Zindel(approaching from the fireplace, mysteriously). Do you know, Miss Clara?
Aunt Clara(with a start). Goodness!... What is it?
Inspector Zindel. I say, Miss Clara? You'll put in a good word for me with the young master? A fellow does want to know where he's at.
Aunt Clara. Yes, yes. (Listens toward the outside.)
Inspector Zindel. Especially now that the old master is dead, and the young master doesn't know about things, all of the work is on a fellow's shoulders, you see.
Aunt Clara(still listening). Don't you hear something, Zindel? It seems to me?
Inspector Zindel(is startled and listens also). Where, pray tell?...
[Brief silence.]
Aunt Clara(taking her hand from her ear). No, nothing. It only seemed to me....
Inspector Zindel. Heavens, Miss Clara!... Where was it—? (He walks up and down restlessly.)
Aunt Clara(has sat down in a chair at the table before the sofa). Now they may be here at any time. What time is it, Zindel?
Inspector Zindel. Almost seven. Miss. The Berlin train arrives at ten minutes after six.
Aunt Clara. You were outside, Zindel, weren't you; didn't you hear a carriage on the road?
Inspector Zindel(warms his hands at the fireplace). The wind's from the other way, Miss. One can hear nothing. And it's cold as the deuce! They'll be nice and cold on the way.
Aunt Clara. I do not know how it comes, but the day seems unwilling to break this morning. How does it look outside?
Inspector Zindel. Dark, pitch dark. Not a star, nothing. Only over toward the Sobbowitz woods, it's beginning to dawn a bit.
Aunt Clara(yawning). Of course, that's where the sun must rise.
Inspector Zindel(also yawning). We'll not get much of a peep at it today. It's going to be a gloomy day.
Aunt Clara. Possibly it will snow.
Inspector Zindel. May be, why it's time. Christmas without snow, I can't remember such a thing for the last few years.
Aunt Clara. No night has ever turned out as long as the present one for me. I haven't closed an eye. I heard the clock strike every time. And all the things that I saw and heard!
Inspector Zindel. (approaching again). Don't tell it, Miss!
Aunt Clara. I continually saw the dead man, but he was alive and opened the door and came toward me. And yet I knew he was dead. And when I was about to scream, the clock struck and all was gone.
[Outside a clock strikes. It has the silvery sound of old chimes. Both are startled.]
Inspector Zindel. Thunderation! You can put it over a fellow. (He goes back to the fireplace.)
Aunt Clara(counts the strokes, first in an undertone, then louder, and meanwhile rises). Five ... six ... seven ... It has struck seven, Zindel. They will surely be here any moment. (She listens again.) I believe I hear something now.
Inspector Zindel(at the fireplace, seizes the lantern). Here they are. You can hear the carriage on the road.
Aunt Clara(busily). After all they came sooner than we expected! Hurry, Zindel, they are driving up now.
Inspector Zindel(already at the door on the right, swinging the lantern). This minute, Miss Clara ...!
[Goes off.]
Aunt Clara(also on the way to the door, stops a moment and folds her hands). If he reallyishere, praise and thanks to God!
Lene(appears in the door at the right). They are coming, Miss Clara, they are coming!
Aunt Clara(busy again). Why are you still there? Out with you and help the guests take off their wraps!
Lene. Why, I'm doing that very thing, Miss!
[Goes off.]
Aunt Clara(calling after her). And keep the coffee in readiness, when I ring.
[She also goes out at the right, leaves the door slightly open behind her. Voices are heard outside. Brief silence. Then the door is opened wide.Paul,Hella,von Glyszinski,Aunt Claraappear in the door.Paulhas taken off his coat and hat outside.Hellawears a fur coat and toque.Glyszinskiwears a hat and heavy winter overcoat, turned up over his ears.]
GlyszinskiWell, if it's all right with you, I prefer to go to my room for the present.
Paul. As you please. Aunt Clara will show you the way upstairs. Won't you, Auntie?
Aunt Clara. Yes, I'll be glad to show the gentleman up.
Paul(smiling). Or aren't the guest-rooms upstairs any more?
Aunt Clara(reproachfully). Why, my boy, we should certainly not think of changing the rooms around. They are very satisfactory and then they've been there so long.
Paul(as before). Why, of course. They have been there so long!
Glyszinski. Shall we go?
Aunt Clara(places her hand onPaul'sshoulder). You will find, Paul, everything here is pretty much as of old. Just make yourself comfortable! I shall be back directly. (ToGlyszinski. ) Please, will you come this way? (She points toward the outside. The two go out. The door is closed behind them.)
Paul(who, until now, has not faced the hall, remains standing in astonishment). Well, the chandelier in full splendor. (Meditating.) The old chandelier. Heavens, how sacred it was to me when I was a boy. It was fine of Aunt Clara to light the chandelier.
Hella(meanwhile has slowly walked through the hall, scrutinizing various things, sits down on the arm of a chair near the sofa, still wearing her cloak and toque and keeping her muff in her hand as if she were on the point of departing again at once. She smiles a trifle sarcastically). Yes, for a bright morning, the chandelier suggests this, that and what not.
Paul(fixing his eyes upon her calmly). To me the morning seemed pretty dark, as we were riding along. Didn't it to you?
Hella. Oh yes, you are right. It was even disagreeably dark. I kept on fearing we should fall into the ditch. I don't like to ride in a strange region by night.
[Brief silence.]
Paul(facingHella, shaking his head). I do not see what objections you can have to the chandelier.
Hella(meeting his eye calmly). None whatever, Paul.
Paul. Aunt Clara's intentions were certainly good. One does realize that one was expected. (He turns away and takes several steps through the hall.)
Hella. But you know that I do not like such occasions. That is simply my disposition. I cannot make myself over.
Paul. I certainly do not demand that. (Turns on his heel and approaches again.) Or have I not always allowed you to have your own way!
Hella(also compromising). Certainly, certainly, up to the present wehaveagreed on this point.
Paul. And shall continue in the future. (He extends his right hand toHella. )
Hella(grasps his hand and looks into his face squarely). I am true to my old self, Paul, remain so too.
Paul. Simply because each one of us has freely gone his own way, nothing has been able to separate us. That is the reason why we have kept together so firmly, all of these years. Don't you think so too?
Hella. It seems to me that I held that point of view long before we were acquainted.
Paul(seriously) Rather say, with that point of view, we found each other. For this point of view, I sacrificed my home, Hella!
Hella. Yes, therefore it surprises me all the more, that you suddenly seem to be forgetting all about that ...
Paul. In what respect?
Hella(continuing). That you behave like a school boy who is coining home for his vacation.
Paul(is silent for a moment, then continues). Hella!... My father is lying there on his bier. (He points toward the right.) I did not see him again!
Hella. Was it your fault? He forbade you his house! This house!
Paul(without listening to her). I have not been able to come to an understanding with him. I shall never come to an understanding with him! Do you realize what that means? (He turns away.)
[Hellashrugs her shoulders and remains silent. Pause.]
Paul(has walked through the hall with heavy steps, then becomes composed and speaks in a more unconcerned manner). Will you take off your things, Hella? (rises, wavering). I don't know, I am cold.
Paul(near her). But how can you be cold. The fire is roaring in the fireplace. Our good aunt has made such perfect preparations. Who knows when she got up in order that we might be comfortable. (He goes to the fireplace and throws wood into it.) (leaning on the chair, taciturnly). It is probably due to the night ride.
Paul(approaches her). Well, come along! I'll help you!... You will surely not remain in your furs. (He helps her. She takes off her hat and cloak and goes to the fireplace not without hesitation.)
Paul(following her with his eyes, gloomily). You are acting as if you preferred to leave again at once? (turning fully toward him). Frankly, Paul, that is what I should like to do.
Paul(flaring up). Hella! (Calm again, coldly.) I simply do not understand you! (has sat down at the fireplace, holds her feet up to the fire). I do not understand you, and you do not understand me! That is as broad as it is long.
Paul(shrugging his shoulders). I don't know how you can think of going away under the present circumstances.
Hella. Quite simple. I do not demand that you shall go with me. You can remain here as long as you are needed, order your affairs, look about for a purchaser of the estate, and when good luck favors you in finding him, you can come on. For the present I may as well precede you to Berlin. You know that editing cannot be put off, the next number must be out in a week.Bothof uscannot be absent. At leastIam indispensable.
Paul. And for this purpose you made a trip of eight hours from Berlin to this place? Hella! (He places his hand on her shoulder.)
Hella. Yes, this unfortunate trip!
Paul(with a deep breath). Unfortunate trip, yes indeed!
Hella. For I must tell you, Paul ...
Paul. Yes?
Hella. I have a feeling that I am not quite suited to this place.
Paul(bitterly). Aha! That is at the bottom of this insistence about the new number ofWomen's Rights, which is all but complete even now.
Hella(unswervingly). I have a feeling that I am not adapted to this environment, and my feelings have rarely deceived me.
Paul. Oh, your feelings, Hella! Your feelings! If you had only followed them solely, many matters would stand better today! Believe me.
Hella. I follow my feelings entirely too much, or I should have remained in Berlin and should not sit here in the presence of peasants where I have nothing at stake.
Paul. But I have, Hella! I have very much at stake here. After all a man does not abandon his inheritance point blank. Do not forget that.
Hella(straightening up). Of what concern is that to me! Sell it, why don't you! It's nothing but a dead weight to you anyhow.
Paul. Why, I agree with you, Hella. And I am in favor of selling the estate. But not today nor tomorrow. Such things call for deliberation.
Hella. But I simply cannot wait that long. Just confess it, Paul, my place is in the world. You surely don't expect me to desert my post. Our whole cause is hazarded, if I throw up the game now. Particularly at this moment. You are demanding too much!... Do you expect me to give up my life work, simply because you cannot break away from your clod, on account of a stupid loyalty?
Paul(controlling himself). It seems to me, Hella, that we have a careerin common. You are acting as if you alone had a career.
Hella. We have had, up to this day. You are the one who is retreating! Not I!
Paul(becoming excited). Hella! You have been my friend! My comrade in stress and tribulation, I may say. We have builded our life on our own resources, our new life, when the old life had renounced us. We have stood together in the combat, for ten years! Are you willing to forget that now? (Has stepped up to her and seized both of her hands.)
Hella(tries to disengage herself). Goodness, Paul ...
Paul(fixing his eyes upon her). For years you have come to me with your wishes. Now I am coming to you! Now your friendship is to assert itself. Answer me!
Hella(convinced against her will, is forced to smile). Do not fall into tragedy, Paul!
Paul(unswervingly). You are to tell me whether you can leave me alone at this time, whether you can bring yourself to that point. Only a word!
Hella. Am I not here? What else do you expect? And I shall remain here. At least for the immediate present.
Paul(shaking her hands vigorously). Oh, then all will turn out well! You will remain here! Thank you for that! (Breaking out in joy.) Now everything may turn out well after all. (He walks to and fro in suppressed excitement.) Mad as it may sound, Hella, under these circumstances. (He stops, facing her.) I am almost merry! (He continues to pace up and down.)
Hella(scrutinizes him and shakes her head). Paul! Paul! Childishness! From one extreme to the other! When will you come to reason. Take an example in me!
Paul(stopping in the centre of the hall, sweeping his hand around). Hella!... This is the soil which nurtured my youth. Do you expect me not be happy?
Aunt Clara(enters again from the right. She has taken off her head-cloth and wears a black dress). Now then, Paul, here I am again. Have you made yourself at home? Is it warm enough in the hall for both of you? You probably got good and cold on the way. You had the wind to face, didn't you?
Paul(reflecting). Yes, pretty much! I think it was from the east.
Aunt Clara. It did take me rather a long while, didn't it, Paul?
Paul. You probably had some other matters that required attention? (Now that she stands directly before him he looks at her more closely.) And how Aunt Clara has dressed up! (He shakes his finger at her.) Well, well, Auntie. Still so vain, in your years?
Aunt Clara. Why, Paul, this old dress! (She strokes her skirt with her hands.) I have worn it so many years. Don't you remember at all?
Paul. Yes, yes, now ... (Meditates a moment.)
Aunt Clara. I was wearing it when your mother died. That is the time I had it made.
Paul(abruptly). Oh yes. That has been a long time, to be sure!
Aunt Clara. In waiting for you, I had quite forgotten that I still had on my morning dress. So I quickly put on something else.
Hella. That is exactly what I intend to do, dear Miss Clara. (She approaches the two.)
Paul. Yes, Auntie, you see, I don't even know where you have quartered us? Possibly you would show Hella ...?
Aunt Clara. Right next door, dear Mrs. ... Mrs. —— Doctor!
Hella(nodding to her to desist). Well then, please do not go to any trouble.
Paul(toHella, who has picked up her things). May I relieve you of something? Or can I help you in any other way? Unlock the trunk, for instance?
Hella(refusing). Do drop these courtesies, Paul! That kind of thing is certainly not in vogue with us.
Paul(curtly). As you please!
[Hellagoes out with her things through the open door on the left, closing it behind her.]
Paul(toAunt Clara, who has been listening in amazement). So you have lodged us next door? (Hesitating as he points to the right.) Over there, I suppose ...?
Aunt Clara(nodding). Yes, over there, Paul, there ... the body lies.
Paul(gloomily). Shall we not go in. Aunt Clara?
Aunt Clara. Why, not at once, my boy! You certainly must have something to eat first! Refresh yourself a little. I'll just call Lene, and have her bring the coffee! (Starts for the bell-pull.)
Paul(restraining her). I think we had better wait until Hella and the gentleman are ready.
Aunt Clara(looking at him tenderly). Now you're notcoldat all, Paul?
Paul(significantly). No, Auntie, I am not cold here. (With less constraint.) Just look at the fine fire in the fireplace, how it flickers and crackles! I believe it too is glad that I am here again. But who is gladdest of all, well, Auntie, just guess who that may be?
Aunt Clara(shaking her head). Why, I can't know that. I can't guess any more with this old head of mine.
Paul(slyly).Thatshe doesn't know! Oh Auntie, Auntie! Why, you yourself, you good old soul!
Aunt Clara(unaffectedly). I did light the chandelier for you, Paul.
Paul. Of course, the chandelier! Do you suppose I did not notice that you were at the bottom of that, Auntie? Come give me your hand; thank you very much, Auntie!
Aunt Clara(putting her arms around him). I'm going to give you a kiss, my boy. Your wife will take no offense at that. (She kisses him.)
Paul. Oh my wife! That needn't ... (He gently disengages himself from his aunt's embrace and goes to and fro meditating.)
Aunt Clara(following him with her eyes). Do you still remember, Paul, how I would hold you on my knees and rock you when you were a little fellow?
Paul(paces to and fro again). Yes, yes, how all of that comes back again! How it is resurrected from its sleep!... (He sits down before the fireplace in deep thought and stares into the fire.)
Aunt Clara(also goes to the fireplace). Right there, where you are sitting now, my boy, you often read fairy tales to me, about Snow-White and Cinderella and about the wolf and the old grandmother ...
Paul(dreaming). Fairy tales, yes indeed!
Aunt Clara. You sat here, and I here, and you held up your fairy tale book and acted as if you were grown up ...
Paul(smiling). I suppose that's the way one felt too!
Aunt Clara. And papa and mamma were out in society or in the city ...
Paul. Yes, quite so, that's it. For, on the whole, as I remember, I was not in this hall frequently. There was always a little fear mixed up with it. Quite natural! The pictures, the spaciousness, the emptiness and all that! Later that did disappear. The last time that I was in this room, when may it have been ...? (He leans his head on his hand in meditation.)
Aunt Clara. It was Christmas Eve, ten years ago, Paul.
Paul. Christmas Eve ten years ago! You may be right. I remember it was a short time before I had ... the crash with father. I had come home at Christmas just because I imagined that that was the best time to come to an understanding with father about all of those matters, my future and other affairs, and I also recall that I wanted to allow the holidays to pass before I dared to come out with my projects, the founding of my journal and my marriage and all the beautiful surprises! Oh it was postponed as long as possible. One did have an inkling of what it would lead to. Of course no one had an idea how it wouldreallyturn out!
Aunt Clara. No, Paul, no one had an idea that that would be the last Christmas Eve that we should celebrate together. Your father least of all. All of us were as merry as ever. There stood the tree and the chandelier was lighted ...
Paul. Correct, correct! And Antoinette ... wasn't Antoinette present too? Why of course? That's what complicated the matter so terribly for me. There she sits, my father has invited her, I know that he intends her for me, I am to marry her, I'm to become engaged to her right under the Christmas-tree, as nearly as I can tell. The word is expected from me. All of you are waiting, and I ... why I simply can't. I simplycannot, because I have forged quite different plans for my future, because I too have obligations, in short, simply because it is impossible. (He gets up in excitement.) Because itwasimpossible, Aunt Clara! Because I imagined I could not stand it in the country, was destined for something better than a sturdy estate owner and family father, simply because Hella was putting such bees in my bonnet and because, in my stupidity, I believed it all! Just as if the world had been waiting for me to come and set it right! Ridiculous! But at that time I was convinced of it. At that time I had to make a clean breast of it or it would have cost me my life. But, oh, how Ididsuffer in those days!
Aunt Clara. If you had only told me about it, Paul! But I didn't know a thing about it. Not until it was too late ...
Paul(breathing deeply). Yes, then it came quickly. I could not conceal it any longer. It simply burst forth. It can have been only a few days later ...
Aunt Clara. Three days, my boy ...