Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit) Part 14

SCHWARZ. (Rises; beside himself.) She--?

SCHoN. (Takes him by the shoulder.) No, that's not the way! (Forces him to sit.) We must speak with each other very seriously here.

SCHWARZ. What does she do?

SCHoN. First count on your fingers what you have to thank her for, and then--

SCHWARZ. What does she do--man!!

SCHoN. And then make yourself responsible for your faults, and no one else.

SCHWARZ. With whom? With whom?

SCHoN. If we should shoot each other--

SCHWARZ. Since when, then?

SCHoN. (Evasive.) --I don't come here to make scandal, I come to save you from the scandal.

SCHWARZ. You have misunderstood her.

SCHoN. (Embarra.s.sed.) That will not do for me. I can't see you go on living in blindness. The girl deserves to be a respectable woman. Since I have known her she has improved as she developed.

SCHWARZ. Since you have known her? Since when have you known her then?

SCHoN. Since about her twelfth year.

SCHWARZ. (Bewildered.) She told me nothing about that.

SCHoN. She sold flowers in front of the Alhambra Cafe. Every evening between twelve and two she pressed in among the guests, bare-footed.

SCHWARZ. She told me nothing of that.

SCHoN. She did right there. I'm telling you, so you may see that you have not to do with moral degeneracy. The girl is, on the contrary, of extraordinarily good disposition.

SCHWARZ. She said she had grown up with an aunt.

SCHoN. That was the woman I gave her to. She was her best pupil. The mothers used to make her an example to their children. She has the feeling for duty. It is simply and solely your mistake if you have till now neglected to take her on her best sides.

SCHWARZ. (Sobbing.) O G.o.d!--

SCHoN. (With emphasis.) No O G.o.d!! Nothing of the happiness you have cost can be changed. Done is done. You over-rate yourself against your better knowledge if you persuade yourself you will lose. You stand to gain. But with "O G.o.d" nothing is gained. A greater friendliness I have not yet shown you: I speak plainly and offer you my help. Don't show yourself unworthy of it!

SCHWARZ. (From now on more and more broken up.) When I first knew her, she told me she had never loved.

SCHoN. When a widow says that--! It does her credit that she chose you for a husband. Make the same claims on yourself and your happiness is without a blot.

SCHWARZ. She says he made her wear short dresses.

SCHoN. But he married her! That was her master-stroke. How she brought the man to it is beyond me. You really must know it now: you are enjoying the fruits of her diplomacy.

SCHWARZ. How did she get to know Dr. Goll then?

SCHoN. Through me! It was after my wife's death, when I was making the first advances to my present fiancee. She stuck herself in between. She had fixed her mind on becoming my wife.

SCHWARZ. (As if seized with a horrible suspicion.) And then when her husband died?

SCHoN. You married half a million!!

SCHWARZ. (Wailing.) O, to have stayed where I was! To have died of hunger!

SCHoN. (Superior.) Do you think, then, that _I_ make no compromises?

Who is there that does not compromise? You have married half a million.

You are to-day one of the foremost artists. That can't be done without money. You are not the man to sit in judgment on her. You can't possibly treat an origin like Mignon's according to the notions of bourgeois society.

SCHWARZ. (Quite distraught.) Who are you speaking of?

SCHoN. Of her father! You're an artist, I say: your ideals are on a different plane from those of a wage-worker.

SCHWARZ. I don't understand a word of all that.

SCHoN. I am speaking of the inhuman conditions out of which, thanks to her good management, the girl has developed into what she is!

SCHWARZ. Who?

SCHoN. Who? Your wife.

SCHWARZ. =Eve?=

SCHoN. I called her Mignon.

SCHWARZ. I thought her name was Nellie?

SCHoN. Dr. Goll called her so.

SCHWARZ. I called her Eve--

SCHoN. What her real name is I don't know.

SCHWARZ. (Absently.) Perhaps she knows.

SCHoN. With a father like hers, she is, with all her faults, a miracle.

I don't understand you--

SCHWARZ. He died in a madhouse--?

SCHoN. He was here just now!