The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - LightNovelsOnl.com
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[_Takes up the water can again and sets it to his lips._] There ain't much to this!
[_Drinks._
EDE
Things like that makes you thirsty.
_LANGHEINRICH puts the can down._
LANGHEINRICH
You c'n believe me, Doctor: it was fine anyhow.
DR. BOXER
What was it that was go very fine?
LANGHEINRICH
Lord! I don't know! I don't know nothin' much. But when I met Constable Schulze I had a devil of a good time--that's what!
EDE
An' now a gla.s.s o' beer from Grabow over there. That's what I could stand fine just now.
LANGHEINRICH
Hurry! Get three steins! Dr. Boxer will pay for 'em.
_EDE wipes his hands on his ap.r.o.n and goes._
LANGHEINRICH
An' so you want to settle down here now! That ain't no bad idea neither.
Only this: you got to be up to all kinds o' tricks here. An' if you want my advice, Doctor, don't go to people for nothin'.
DR. BOXER
Do you think that I'll be unmolested in other respects?
LANGHEINRICH
Aw, them old stories! Them's all outlawed by now. An' then, nowadays they can't worry people so much no more as they used to do under the old laws.
DR. BOXER
Well, at all events I'll make the attempt ... My political ardour has cooled off. If these people annoy me in spite of that, I'll simply trudge off again. I'll go back to sea, or I'll let myself be engaged ...
LANGHEINRICH
Pretty easy drownin' on water!
DR. BOXER
[_Continuing._] ... Then I'll let myself be engaged to go to Brazil with the Russian Jews.
LANGHEINRICH
What would you get out o' that?
DR. BOXER
Yellow fever, perhaps.
LANGHEINRICH
Anything else. Doctor? That wouldn't be nothin' for me!
DR. BOXER
I believe that.
LANGHEINRICH
Me go an' wear myself out for other people? Not me! No, sir! I don't do nothin' like that. An' why should I? n.o.body don't give me nothin'. I tell you people in this world is a pretty sly set. I've had time to find that out.
DR. BOXER
You're a regular heathen: you're not a Christian at all!
LANGHEINRICH
That kind o' talk don't do much good with me. I'm a Christian just like all the rest is! The people that sit in the new church here ... 'cause they built a new church here now!... if them is Christians, the Lord forgive 'em.
DR. BOXER
That's easily said, Langheinrich. But one ought not to be a Pharisee.
Where is your Christian long-suffering?
LANGHEINRICH
No, I ain't goin' in for long-sufferin'. I'm a sinner myself; that's true all right. But now you take this Dalchow here for instance! It'd take the devil to be long-sufferin' where _he's_ concerned! What did he do with that son o' his. He kicked him out, that's what, by night, in winter.
Then he tied him up and beat him till he couldn't gasp. An' then he apprenticed the little feller to a butcher so that he had to drive out the sheep! An' all the time jabbin' at him an' overworkin' him till in the end the poor little crittur went an' drowned hisself in the lake.
Just shook his head an' kept still an' then dived down an' that was the end.
DR. BOXER
[_Ironically._] I don't see what you've got against Dalchow, Langheinrich? He's a man who seems to understand his business magnificently.
