Act Three

9

HALLE

Patus. Fritz

FRITZ: See how charmingly she has copied it out of the book of Klopstock poems that I gave her.

Oh thou, to find thee I learned to love,

Which has exalted my swelling heart,

And now in ever sweeter dreams

Is wafting me to paradise

And then

Great, O Mother Nature, is the glory of thy invention

On every field and meadow...

Now she is doing nature-drawing! But what are you stewing over?

PATUS: That it is of philosophical interest that a woman can love a certain man A and yet desire and gratify man B.

FRITZ: Are you referring to an actual case?

PATUS: A hypothetical one. Now, what is the answer?

In the assessment is it the body , or the soul, that counts? A question in re philosophia

FRITZ: I suppose you would have me say the soul. But why are you shaking? Does this concern you?

PATUS: Oh, Berg, there are times when I think Ive had it with philosophy. (He burst into tears) Oh, Bollwerk, Bollwerk! Why did you have to meet Fraulein Rehhaar for me? Why did you go to the coconut-shie with her to prepare the ground for me? If only I had a jacket. It was for me, for me, you caressed her, got her pregnant for me.

FRITZ: So thats it. Has Bollwerk confessed it? Poor Patus!

PATUS: Poor Patus! And poorer still, without the means at least to help the unhappy girl. Your refusal to compromise with Professor Wolffen has got you into trouble, Patus the Flop! Now without the means to do your duty.

FRITZ: What duty?

PATUS: Cant you see? The surgeon wants 20 talers.

FRITZ: Not from you! You werent the one who...

PATUS: But is was for me that it happened, why else? Its me she loves. If he hadnt gone to meet her on my behalf, she would never have...Her tear-drenched face haunts my sleep. As when Bollwerk brought her to me and she seized my hand and murmured We always spoke only of you. How can I abandon her?

FRITZ: (Hugs him) I understand. Oh, generous Patus. What will you do? What shall we do? Yes, we. Am I not your friend? I too am dutybound. My purse is at your disposal.

PATUS: Fritz, my dear Fritz, can this be true? Can the earth be populated with a whole breed of philosophers?

FRITZ: (Gives him money) Take it. I had it on me because I was going to Insterburg for the holidays.

PATUS: Then no way can I take it. Your Gustchen! How she must be in need of you. And no Fritz shows up to take her in arms! He gives his travel money away for Fraulein Rehhaar.

FRITZ: Come on, Patus, do not think this is a rush of feeling. Let logic decide! My girl is expecting me in the holidays: she confesses as much in her letter. (He reads) In the Easter holidays you will find a much bolder Juliet. I must confess to you, dear Patus, this passage of the letter has left me worried. No, believe me, it is better therefore that I do not travel to Intersburg this year. I fear I am unable to play the chaste Joseph any more. I, too, have matured in this Halle of yours.

PATUS: How shall I ever repay you, brother?

FRITZ: Lead me deeper into your subversive Immanuel Kant during this holidays and Ill have got the better half of the bargain.

PATUS: You can be sure of one thing: he is subversive in theory only.

The doorbells rings. Patus runs to the window.

Its them!

Bollwerk and Fraulein Rehhaar come in.

BOLLWERK: Were back. The old woman who will do it wants 30 talers. Fraulein is feeling unwell. A glass of water would help.

PATUS: Dear, adorable child, you find me and my friend here he knows everything -  full of compassion.

BOLLWERK: Hopefully well be offered a few readies along with compassion.

PATUS: Everything will be sorted out for the best. But first that glass of water.

BOLLWERK: Sorted out? Youre coughing up? Youve got the money? Will you stop running around! HAVE YOU GOT IT?

PATUS: Fraulein Rehhaar. You must not be left  for a moment longer in uncertainty. Duty will be done without reservation and without delay.

BOLLWERK: 20 talers.

PATUS: (Counts the money on the table) Liquidity that comes from the profound influences of philosophy! 20 talers.

FRL REHHAAR: You are very kind, dear Herr Patus. Seeing as you didnt get anything out of it for yourself.

BOLLWERK: I wouldnt say that. But à la bonne heure. Embrace her, honest Patus. You have earned it.

PATUS: (Bows low) Your servant, Fraulein Rehhaar.

Bollwerk and Fraulein Rehhaar go

He is a good chap at heart, is Bollwerk. Why else would he be so crude? Hes eating his own heart out. (Gives purse back to Fritz) Your action was in line with Immanuel Kant, Brother Berg. (Thumbs through a book) Act only upon those maxims that you would wish also to become a universal law Writings on Moral, Part One: Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Moral, Chapter Two.

Act three

10

GUSTCHEN´S ROOM IN INSTERBURG.

Gustchen and Läuffer (lying in bed)

LÄUFFER: your father was the one to blame right from the start. Did he have to scrimp on a teacher for you? And in the same stingey breath did he have to dock me too? Now hes talking about a measly 120 talers next year. I have to leave this job.

GUSTCHEN: What about me, then?

LÄUFFER: Get yourself sent to my fathers parish in Ingelshausen.

GUSTCHEN: My uncle, the Privy Councillor, would never allow my father to send me to stay under your fathers roof.

LÄUFFER: Good old chartered aristocratic pride.

GUSTCHEN: (takes his hand) Dont get angry, my little hero. (Kisses him) OH, my tutor, how does your pupil look now? Pale like death?

LÄUFFER: Perfectly healthy. Like a fish in water. Im the one who needs the advice. Your honorable brother slapped me again yesterday.

GUSTCHEN: But you suffered it for my sake.

LÄUFFER: Do I need to have a bad conscience about not having held myself back? Im far too succulently fed to be a slave. Celery, turkey, chocolate. How can a body so pampered with pleasure possibly help succumbing to sin?

GUSTCHEN: Hush! Thats not the language of love! It was fate, my lovely tutor.

LÄUFFER: (As she lifts his hand to her lips from time to time) Let me think! (Sits thinking)

GUSTCHEN: (As before with his hand) Oh, Romeo. If only this little hand were yours. Why have you forsaken me, ignoble Romeo! Can you not see that your Juliet dies for you? hated, despised, rejected by her family, by the whole world.

Presses his hand to her eyes

Oh, cruel Romeo!

LÄUFFER: (Looks up) What are you wittering about now?

GUSTCHEN: It is a monologue from a tragedy that I like to recite when Im upset.

LÄUFFER: I dont like tragedies.

GUSTCHEN: Oh, Halle, worlds afar. Perhaps the blame is not all yours. Your father forbids us to write to each other, but love transcends all laws. You werent even thinking of me.

LÄUFFER: (Suspicious) And I thought I was giving you quite a lot of pleasure in bed.

GUSTCHEN: (Fervently kissing his hands) Oh, heavenly Romeo!

LÄUFFER: (Coarsely) I am not Romeo. I am Läuffer, if you dont mind.

Gustchen turns to the wall and cries

LÄUFFER: (Remorsefully kisses her hand and watches her for a few moments) The same thing could happen to me as happened to Abelard. You must know the novel. Tell me, my lady, what you know about Abelard and Heloise.

GUSTCHEN: When it became known that Abelard and his Heloise had secretly married, her uncle Monsignore Fulbert, Canon of Paris, set police onto him and they tore out his manhood.

LÄUFFER: I heard footsteps in the hall.

GUSTCHEN: My fatherOh, Godyouve stayed too long.

Läuffer runs off

Oh, Fritz!

Act three

12

A VILLAGE SCHOOL NEAR INSTERBURG.

Wenzeslaus. Läuffer. Lise.

WENZESLAUS: (Sits at a table, spectacles on his nose. He draws lines violently with a ruler) Whos there? What is it?

LÄUFFER: (Rushes in breathless)  Shelter! Shelter! Esteemed schoolmaster, sir, shelter! Theyre out to kill me.

WENZESLAUS: And who are you?

LÄUFFER:  I am tutor at the castle. Major Berg and all his servants are after me. They want to shoot me.

WENZESLAUS: Calm down! Sit yourself down, next to me. You are safe with me, my hand on it... Now, tell me all about it while I write  out this exercise.

LÄUFFER: Let me get my breath back first.

WENZESLAUS: Right, you collect yourself, but tell me, tutor.

He sets ruler aside, takes off spectacles looks at Läuffer a while.

By the unlucky star is your master so angry with you? Pass me the little and box there You see, I have to rule out the lines for my boys myself; theres nothing the lads find harder to learn than: Write straight. Write neat. No waste. No haste. I always say to them, write nice and straight because that has an influence on all things: manners, knowledge, everything, my dear tutor. I always say: the man who cannot write straight cannot lice his life straight.

-         Now, where were we? Would you put these sheets over there?

LÄUFFER: (Who has done as requested) Might I beg a glass of water?

WENZELAUS: Water? You shall have beer. Now what were we talking about?

LÄUFFER: About writing nice and straight.

WENZESLAUS: No! About the Major! Ha, ha, ha. But did you know Herr... What is your name?

LÄUFFER: My name!... my name is... Mandel.

WENZESLAUS:  Herr Mandel you had to think about that one! Well, we all have our little lapses from time to time.

LÄUFFER: My God, Count Wermut!

WENZESLAUS: (Severely) Pass the little sand box again.

Läuffer brings it: He is shaking. Enter Count Wermut with servants carrying pistols. Läuffer leaps into a little room at the back

Nervi corrupti.

WERMUT: Im after a certain Läuffer. A student in a brown braided jacket.

WENZESLAUS: Sir, it is customary in our village to remove ones hat when entering a room wishing to speak to the master of the house.

WERMUT: This matter is pressing. Is he here or not?

WENZESLAUS: What is his crime that you come after him, gun in hand?

Wermut goes to open the little door of the room where Läuffer is hiding. Wenzeslaus stands in front of the door

Hold, sir! This room is mine and if you do not clear out of my house immediately I shall ring the bell and half dozen beefy farmlands will come and beat you and your ironwear to a soggy pulp, sir! If you will behave like a highwayman, then you must be treated like one, sir! And to ensure that you dont get lost and that you find your way out as easily as you found your way in...

He gabs Wermuts hand and leads hmm to the door

LÄUFFER: (peeps out of the other room) Oh, lucky man! How I envy you! How I admire you...

WENZESLAUS: Now, sit down and recover from your fright with some knackwurst and salad. Lise!

Enter Lise

Fetch Herr Mandel a jug of beer.

Exit Lise

That is my ward So, while youre waiting for your beer you can help me with the lne-ruling. That way you will earn your supper, thats good for the morale.

Läuffer sits and rules lines

Who on earth was that crude lout who was after you?

LÄUFFER: That is Count Wermut, the Majors future son-in-law; he is jealous of me because the young lady cannot bear him, thats all.

WENZESLAUS: And what would the young lady want with you, Monsier Casanove? Just you banish all those cares from your mind and eat your knackwurst. Go on! Make a start. But no greasespots!! And dont  forget to rule straight if you dont mind! Quite a margin between the Majors table and mine, eh? But when Schoolmaster Wenzeslaus eats his sausage his clear conscience would send every morsel he guzzled back up into his mouth.

LÄUFFER: Oh, and thats just the half of it. You have no idea of your advantages. Have you ever seen a slave in a braided coat? Oh, freedom, glorious freedom!

WENZESLAUS: (Motioning him back to his line-ruling) Fancy that oaf wanting to get into my room just now without even asking my permission. Just let him come back, with s many Majors as he likes. Why, damn it all, youve finished your sausage and the beers still not here. Youll smoke  a pipe with me?

LÄUFFER: Ill have a go. Ive never smoked in my life.

WENZESLAUS: Of course, you gentlemen think it stains the teeth, dont you? I have smoke since before I was weaned from my mothers breast; mistook the pipe-stem for the nipple! Ha, ha, ha. An antidote for bad air and bad desires alike. My daily routine is like this: First thing, cold water and a pipe, then school until eleven, then another pipe until the soup is ready, as prepared by my Lise as well as any of your fancy French cooks, then another pipe, school again till four, and exercise-preparation until supper, ordinarily I eat something cold, sausage and salad, a piece of cheese or whatever the good Lord provides, and then a final pipe before bad.

LÄUFFER: The Lord protect me. Ive ended up in a tobacco-den!

WENZESLAUS: Thats how I get fat and fit, live contented and never think of dying.

LÄUFFER: What about a wage? That was a stupid question, Herr Mandel!  Forgive me, but What about a wage? I receive the wage of God, a clear conscience! Do you realise the importance of being a teacher? (He struts awesomely to and fro) I shape human beings in my own image. True German heroes! Healthy minds in healthy bodies, not alien apes. You might think half intellectual giants, half good subordinates. So what does that leave us? Subordinate giants giant subordinates?

He stops to think

Either way, always aim for the stars, thats what I say. But woe betide anyone who kicks against the pricks. Dont you want to smoke? Go on, have smoke. First you must conquer yourself no, I dont mean you, I mean the German hero in you then you can conquer the world. Ill take the cane to you if you... Tut, tut, tut.

He snatches the quill from Läuffer, who has been picking his teeth with it

Whats all this, then? A grown man and still not learnt how to take care of his body?! Teeth-picking is suicide! Now, when you get something between your teeth (He takes some water, swills it round his mouth and srays it out) Thats what you do, if you want to keep your teeth healthy. Now you. Go on.

Läuffer does the same

LÄUFFER: This guy is going to lecture me to death.

WENZESLAUS: Dont like the tobacco taste? Ill wager that after youve spent another couple of days under the supervision of old Wenzeslaus, you wont recognise yourself. With no reference itll be all over for you with playing the tutor. And theres no hope of a place at the village school now that the King has given all the teaching jobs to war-disabled sergeants. Oh, yes, yes.

Now, Im assuming you Latin is poor, but if youre a tutor your handwriting cant be bad, so you could lend me a hand in the evenings now that I must start to spare my eyes, why you could write out the exercises for the boys, but youll have to work hard, Im telling you.

LÄUFFER: The humiliation!

The Major, Privy Councillor, Count Wermut enter with servants

MAJOR: (Pistols drawn) What the devil! Theres the coward in the cabbage-patch!

He shoots and hits Läuffer in the arm. Läuffer falls off his chair. Councillor tries to hold him back

COUNCILLOR: Brother!

Major pushes him away angrily

MAJOR: What? Are you dead? No news of my daughter?!

WENZESLAUS: Gentlemen! Has the Day of Judgement come or what? Whats going on? (He seizes the sausage-knife) Ill teach you to assault a Christian man in his own house.

LÄUFFER: Dont do it! I implore you. Its the Major. I deserve it because of his daughter.

COUNCILLOR: I there a doctor in the village, honest Schoolmaster? The man is wounded in the arm and I want to have it put right.

WENZESLAUS: Have it put right! Highwaymen! Do you think you can just go around shooting people because youve got the money to have it put right?! He is my assistant, been in my house for a year now, a quiet, peace-loving, hardworking fellow; and you come along and shoot my assistant in my house! This will not go um-revenged.

COUNCILLOR: (Indicates a servant to bandage Läuffers arm) Why lie, my dear man? We know the whole story.

(to Major) I shall send my Fritz to Italy; he must never get to hear all this-

(to Wenzeslaus) The man could bleed to death, run and get the doctor.

WENZESLAUS: What? If you make the wounds, you can tend them, you vagabonds. Im not running for any doctor. Im running to sound the bell.

He exits.

The servants et Läuffer on a chair. Läuffer comes round

MAJOR: Right, you! Before we use the red-hot pincers...Wheres my daughter?

LÄUFFER: If only Herr Major had given me that horse to ride to Königsberg, as was agree.

MAJOR: Whats the horse got to do with it, you villain? Where is my daughter?

LÄUFFER: I dont know.

MAJOR: You dont know?

Major draws his pistols. Lise enters with beer

LISE: Dont shoot. Oh, poor Herr Mandel.

She throws herself in front of Läuffer. Councillor seizes the pistols and fires it out of the window

COUNCILLOR: (to Major) Are we going to have to chain you up?

(to Läuffer) Answer!

LÄUFFER: I have not seen her since I fled from your house; I swear before God, whose judgement I may soon face.

MAJOR: (Trying to grab him again) What? Another charge of powder gone to waste! I wish now it had gone straight through your body since youre no use to us, you mangey cur.

COUNCILLOR: Berg!

LISE: Are you Herr Major von Berg? Gracious sir! There was a young lady in the tavern who ordered some coffee. When she paid she said to the landlord, If my father comes and asks for me, do not tell him that I went to the pond by the elm trees. But tell, him, good people, that I send him my love.

MAJOR: By the pond! To the pond, the pond!

Exits

COUNCILLOR: The man cant swim.

WERMUT: I wish I could.

COUNCILLOR: I darent let him out of my sight. (Throws a purse o Läuffer) Get yourself seen to. But remember that you have hurt the Major far worse than he you.

Councillor and Wermut go off hurriedly

LÄUFFER: (Bitter) What has the horse go to do with it! What about my sex life?

Act Three

13

Close By Insterburg

Gustchen ( by a pond surrounded by thicket). Major. Privy Councillor. Count Wermut. Servants.

Gustchen: Nobody is coming. Do I really have to die here? Oh, Fritz, why didnt you come home in the holidays? Then I was still a... Now the clouds are hiding the moon. Soon no-one will ever be able to find me.

Major: (from afar) Gustel! Gustel!

Quickly Gustchen takes off her shoes and slowly wades into the pond, still looking back over her shoulder

Major: (followed by Councillor and Wermut) Hey. Hola! Something moving in the pond. A womans shape! After her, Berg. There you will find Gustchen or else Hell.

Major wades in after her

Councillor: God in Heaven. Hell drown as well!

Wermut: Lets just hope its shallow.

Councillor: (to the servants, who are carrying long poles) After him, boys! I think hes caught the girl... over there... behind the ticket... cant you see? Now hes wading into the deep water!!! Let us try and keep a clear head. But on the other hand who can help but be affected by human distress.

The servants probe the pond with the poles

Major: (off) Help! Help! Ive got her!

Councillor: (to Wermut) The tragedy in all this, the very tragedy is that he may well be saving two lives, the unhappy man.

Wermut: (to Councillor) One feels so impotent. These coarse fellows are so much better equipped for these things.

Major: Hellfire and brimstone! The plague upon you all! Pass me one of those damned poles!

Councillor nudges one of the servants in the back, which makes him fall into the water

Councillor: Get in there, man. Dont hold back.

Major carries Gustchen onto the stage

Major: There! (Sets her down and kneels at her side) Gustel! What can I get you? You only had to breathe the word to me. I would have bought the louse title and you could have crawled into be together. For God sakes, help her. Do something! Shes only unconscious.

Councillor: What can be keeping tha blasted village doctor?

Gustchen: (in a weak voice) Father!

Major: What can I get you?

Gustchen: Forgivennes.

Major: Forgiveness be damned- you, youve spoilled brat (she faints again) No, no, no , dont faint; I forgive you but you must forgive me ! Ive left a bullet in the bastards brains.

Councillor: I think we should get her away from here.

Major: Leave her! What concern is she of yours? You worry about your own flesh and blood at home. (lifts her up) There, my girl I ought to wade back inti the pond with you. (He swings her in the directions of the pond) but we wont try to swim until weve learnt how to... (he presses her to his heart) You wanton bitch!

He carries her off.

Interval