The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - LightNovelsOnl.com
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HEINZEL
I'm not comin'. What for? To swill cold water? I needn't go no farther than the spring for that. Or for the sake of a little coffee.
HAHN
An' prayin' an' singin' for dessert. An' mebbe, there's no tellin', the parson from Jenkau will come over an' see if we know the ten commandments.
HEINZEL
Or the seven beat.i.tudes on top o' that! That'd be a fine state of affairs. I've long forgot it all.
KLEINERT
You folks had better stop teasin' August. I'm tellin' you now, if I had a girl of my own, I wouldn't be wantin' no better son-in-law. He knows his business! You always know where to find him.
_The working men and women have scattered themselves at ease in a semicircle and are eating their evening meal; coffee in tin pots and great wedges of bread from which they cut pieces with their clasp-knives._
OLD MRS. GOLISCH
There comes Rosie Bernd around from behind the farm.
GOLISCH
Look an' see, will you, how that girl can jump.
KLEINERT
She can lift a sack o' wheat and drag it to the very top o' the barn.
This very mornin' I saw her with a great heavy chest o' drawers on a wheelbarrow, trundlin' it over to the new house. That there girl has got sap an' strength. She'll take care o' her household.
HAHN
If I could get along in the world like August in other respecks, my faith, I wouldn't a bit mind tryin'; I'd see what bein' pious can do for a man.
GOLISCH
You've got to know how to run after good fortune; then you'll get hold of it.
HAHN
When you consider how he used to go around from village to village with a sack full o' tracts; an' how, after that, he used to be writin' letters for people ... an' now, to-day, he's got the finest bit o' property an'
can marry the handsomest girl in the county.
_ROSE BERND approaches. In a basket she is carrying the evening meal for AUGUST and OLD BERND._
ROSE
A good afternoon to you.
SEVERAL VOICES
Good evenin'!--Good evenin'! Many thanks!
GOLISCH
You're lettin' your sweetheart starve, Rosie.
ROSE
[_Merrily unpacking the food._] Don't you worry! He don't starve so easy as that.
HEINZEL
You must be feedin' him well, Rosie, or he'll put on no flesh.
GOLISCH
That's true. He'll be a sight too lean for you, la.s.s.
BERND
Where have you been keepin' yourself so long? We've been waitin' this half hour.
AUGUST
[_In a subdued but annoyed voice._] An' now the whole crowd is here again! An' we might have been through this long time.
OLD MRS. GOLISCH
Let him scold, la.s.s, an' don't mind it.
ROSE
Who's scoldin'? There's no one here to scold. August wouldn't do it in a lifetime.
OLD MRS. GOLISCH
Even so! But that's right: you shouldn't care nothin' about it.
HEINZEL
'Cause, if he don't scold now, that'll be comin' later.
ROSE
I'm not afraid o' that ever comin'.
GOLISCH
