The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - LightNovelsOnl.com
You're reading novel online at LightNovelsOnl.com. Please use the follow button to get notifications about your favorite novels and its latest chapters so you can come back anytime and won't miss anything.
OLD BAUMERT
[_A little intimidated, coaxingly._] I was bringin' you a chicken, Gustav. I thought it would make a drop o' soup for mother.
OLD HILSE
[_Embarra.s.sed, almost friendly._] Well, you can tell mother yourself.
MOTHER HILSE
[_Who has been making efforts to hear, her hand at her ear, motions them off._] Let me alone. I don't want no chicken soup.
OLD HILSE
That's right, mother. An' I want none, an' least of all that sort. An'
let me say this much to you, Baumert: The devil stands on his head for joy when he hears the old ones jabberin' and talkin' as if they was infants. An' to you all I say--to every one of you: Me and you, we've got nothing to do with each other. It's not with my will that you're here. In law an' justice you've no right to be in my house.
A VOICE
Him that's not with us is against us.
JAEGER
[_Roughly and threateningly._] You're on the wrong track, old chap, I'd have you remember that we're not thieves.
A VOICE
We're hungry men, that's all.
FIRST YOUNG WEAVER
We wants to _live_--that's all. An' so we've cut the rope we was hung up with.
JAEGER
And we was in our right! [_Holding his fist in front of the old man's face_.] Say another word, and I'll give you one between the eyes.
BECKER
Come, now, Jaeger, be quiet. Let the old man alone.--What we say to ourselves, father Hilse, is this: Better dead than begin the old life again.
OLD HILSE
Have I not lived that life for sixty years an' more?
BECKER
That doesn't help us--there's _got_ to be a change.
OLD HILSE
On the Judgment Day.
BECKER
What they'll not give us willingly we're goin' to take by force.
OLD HILSE
By force. [_Laughs._] You may as well go an' dig your graves at once.
They'll not be long showin' you where the force lies. Wait a bit, lad!
JAEGER
Is it the soldiers you're meanin'? We've been soldiers too. We'll soon do for a company or two of 'em.
OLD HILSE
With your tongues, maybe. But supposin' you did--for two that you'd beat off, ten'll come back.
VOICES
[_Call through the window._] The soldiers are comin! Look out!
[_General, sudden silence. For a moment a faint sound of fifes and drums is heard; in the ensuing silence a short, involuntary exclamation:_ "The devil! I'm off!" _followed by general laughter._
BECKER
Who was that? Who speaks of runnin' away?
JAEGER
Which of you is it that's afraid of a few paltry helmets? You have me to command you, and I've been in the trade. I knows their tricks.
OLD HILSE
An' what are you goin' to shoot with? Your sticks, eh?
FIRST YOUNG WEAVER
Never mind that old chap; he's wrong in the upper storey.
SECOND YOUNG WEAVER
Yes, he's a bit off his head.
GOTTLIEB
[_Has made his way unnoticed among the rioters; catches hold of the speaker._] Would you give your impudence to an old man like him?
