Comedies by Holberg : Jeppe of the Hill, The Political Tinker, Erasmus Montanus Part 14

(Enter Geske.)

GESKE. Is this where you are, you dawdler? It would be better if you were at work on something, or at least superintending your workmen; for we lose one job after another from your neglect.

HERMAN. Quiet, wife! You will be Madam Burgomaster before you know it. Do you think that I go out just to pa.s.s the time? Ay, I do ten times as much work as all of you in the house: the rest of you work with your hands only; I work with my brain.

GESKE. All crazy people work that way, building castles in the air just as you do, cudgelling their brains with bosh and nonsense, imagining that they are doing something of importance when it is really nothing at all.

GERT. If she were my wife, she would not talk that way more than once.

FRANZ. I see that Gert's vote regards his own advantage more than the welfare of the republic; for people do not need a furrier so much on the voyages to India as on voyages to the North. For my part, I contend that India surpa.s.ses all in importance; in India you can often trade a knife, a fork, or a pair of scissors with the savages for its full weight in gold. We must contrive it so that the plan we put before the council will not smell of self-interest, or else we shall get nowhere with it.

RICHARD. I am of the same opinion as Niels the clerk. Herman. You certainly vote like a brushmaker. Niels the clerk is not here. But what is the woman doing here? Good Heavens, it is my wife!

SCENE 2

Enter Geske.

GESKE. Is this where you are, you dawdler? It would be better if you were at work on something, or at least superintending your workmen; for we lose one job after another from your neglect.

HERMAN. Quiet, wife! You will be Madam Burgomaster before you know it. Do you think that I go out just to pa.s.s the time? Ay, I do ten times as much work as all of you in the house: the rest of you work with your hands only; I work with my brain.

GESKE. All crazy people work that way, building castles in the air just as you do, cudgelling their brains with bosh and nonsense, imagining that they are doing something of importance when it is really nothing at all.

GERT. If she were my wife, she would not talk that way more than once.

HERMAN. Ah, Gert, a statesman must pay no attention to that sort of thing. Two or three years ago I should have made my wife's back smart for such words, but since I have begun to look into works on politics, I have learned to despise such trifles. Qui nesclt simulare, nescit regnare, says an ancient statesman, who was no fool. I think his name was Agrippa, or Albertus Magnus. It is a fundamental principle of all the politics in the world; for he who cannot endure an evil speech from an angry and unreasonable woman is not fit to hold any high office. Self-control is the highest virtue and the jewel which most adorns rulers and magistrates. Therefore I maintain that no one should sit in our council here in the city until he has given proof of his self-control, and made it clear that he can take words of abuse, blows, and boxes on the ear. I am by nature quick-tempered, but I try to overcome it by study. I once read in the preface of a book called The Political Stockfish that when one is overwhelmed with anger he must count twenty, and his anger will pa.s.s.

GERT. It would do me no good to count up to a hundred.

HERMAN. Then you are good for nothing but a subordinate. Henrich, give my wife a mug of ale at the side table.

GESKE. Oh, you beast! Do you think I have come here to drink?

HERMAN. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen--Now, it is all over. Listen, mother, you must not speak so harshly to your husband--it sounds utterly vulgar.

GESKE. Is it aristocratic to beg? Hasn't any woman reason enough to scold when she has such a good-for-nothing for a husband--a man who neglects his house like this, and leaves his wife and children in want?

HERMAN. Henrich, give her a gla.s.s of brandy, for she has worked herself into a pa.s.sion.

GESKE. Henrich, give my husband a couple of boxes on the ear, the scoundrel!

HENRICH. You must do that yourself. I decline such a commission.

GESKE. Then I take it on myself. (Boxes both his ears.)

HERMAN. One, two, three-(counts to twenty, starts to strike her, but begins counting again). Eighteen, nineteen, twenty--If I hadn't been a statesman, you would have caught it that time!

GERT. If you don't keep your wife in check, I will. Get out of here.

Go! Out with you!

[Exit Geske, still scolding.

SCENE 3

GERT. I 'll teach her to keep quiet at home another time. I confess that if it is statesmanlike to let yourself be dragged about by the hair by your wife, I shall never be a statesman.

HERMAN. Oh, qui nescit simulare, nescit regnare; that is easily said, but less easily done. I admit it was a great indignity my wife did me. I believe I shall run after her yet and beat her on the street. But one, two, three, four (and so on), nineteen, twenty.

Now, that's all over. Let us talk of other things.

FRANZ. The women have altogether too much to say here in Hamburg.

GERT. Yes, that is so. I have often thought of bringing forward a proposal on the subject. But it is dangerous to fall out with them.

Still, the proposal has its good points.

HERMAN. What is the proposal?

GERT. It consists of several articles. First, I argue that the marriage contract should not be eternal, but should be made for a term of years, so that if a man were not content with his wife, he could make a new contract with another one. A man ought to be bound, as he is with a rented house, to give a quarter's notice before moving-day, which should be at Easter or Michaelmas. If he were satisfied, the contract could be renewed. Believe me, if such a law were pa.s.sed, there wouldn't be a bad woman to be found in Hamburg.

Every one of them would try to gain favor in her husband's eyes so that her contract might be renewed. Have you good men anything to say against that article? Franz, you smile so knowingly, you surely have something to say against it. Let us hear it!

FRANZ. But couldn't a woman sometimes take the opportunity to separate from a husband who either was cruel to her or was an idler and only ate and drank, and refused to work to support his wife and children? Or she might take a fancy to some one else and make it so hot for her husband that, contrary to his intention, he would let her go. I argue that worse trouble might arise from such an arrangement. There are methods enough for coercing a woman. If every one would count twenty like you, Master Herman, when he got a box on the ear, we should have a fine lot of women. My humble opinion is that the best way when a woman is unruly is for the husband to threaten to sleep alone and share no bed with her till she improves.

GERT. I couldn't stick to that. To many men that would be as much of a hards.h.i.+p as it would be to the woman.

FRANZ. But a man can go elsewhere.

GERT. But a woman can go elsewhere.

FRANZ. Anyhow, Gert, let us hear the other articles.

GERT. I see myself! You just want to scoff some more, Nothing is so good that no fault can be found with it.

HERMAN. Let us talk of other things. People who heard us talk would think we were holding a consistory or a divorce court. I was thinking last night, as I lay awake, how the administration in Hamburg could be best arranged so that certain families whose members are born, as it were, to be burgomasters and councillors could be excluded from the highest positions of authority and complete freedom be introduced. I figured that the burgomasters should be taken in turn, now from one trade-guild, now from another, so that all citizens might share in the government and all cla.s.ses flourish. For instance, when a goldsmith was burgomaster he could look after goldsmiths' interests, and a tailor after tailors', a tinker after tinkers'; and no one should be burgomaster for more than a month, so no one trade should prosper more than another. When the government was arranged like that, we might be called a really free people.

ALL. The proposition is splendid. Master Herman, you talk like a Solomon.

FRANZ. The plan is good enough, but--

GERT. You always come in with a "but." I believe your father was a butler.

HERMAN. Let him express his opinion. What were you going to say?

What does that "but" of yours mean?