Volume 9 / Act 1 — SCENE IV

The FORESTER; ROBERT. The FORESTER, when they are alone becomes embarrassed, and walks up and down for some time.

ROBERT.

You wished to say—

FORESTER.

Quite right—

[Wipes the perspiration from his forehead.]

Well; sit down, Mr. Stein.

ROBERT.

These preparations—

[FORESTER points to a chair at the end of the table. ROBERT seats himself.]

FORESTER (takes the Bible from the shelf, seats himself opposite)

ROBERT,(puts on his spectacles, opens the book and clears his throat).

Proverbs, chapter 31, verse 10: "Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life." [7]

[Short pause; then he calls brusquely toward the window, while he remains seated.]

William, be careful out there! And then further on, verse 30. You'll trample down all the boxweed, confound you! "Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised."—Robert!

ROBERT (starting).

Father Ulrich—

FORESTER.

Again, Ecclesiasticus, verse so and so—Mr. Stein—

ROBERT.

Once more "Mister."

FORESTER.

I see I shall have to use the familiar form of address. Otherwise I shall not be able to speak my mind.—Robert—

ROBERT.

You are so solemn!

FORESTER.

Solemn? Perhaps so. But this affair is enough to make one solemn. I am not a heathen.

[Strikes an attitude.] So you are decided with God's help, Robert—

ROBERT. Well—

FORESTER.

Hang it!—Don't look at me that way!—You intend to marry, Robert?

ROBERT (rises, surprised).

Why, you know that—

FORESTER.

That's true. But there must be some sort of introduction. Never mind, sit down. However, you must give me a chance to finish what I have to say. On other occasions I am not afraid to talk, but now that I am about to preach a sermon, it strikes me just as if I were to see the pastor in his cassock trying to chase a hare.

[Relieved.]

Now, then; at last I have struck the trail. Suppose a stag from Lützdorf is roaming about. You understand, Robert? Now give me your attention. This fork here represents the stag. Right here, do you see? Here is the salt-cellar: that's you. And the wind blows from the direction of that plate. What are you going to do now in order to stalk the stag? Hey?

[Trying to assist him.]

You—well?

ROBERT.

I must—

FORESTER (nodding assent).

You must—

[Makes a pantomime.]

ROBERT.

I must get to the windward of him.

FORESTER.

Get to the windward. Correct. Do you begin to see what I am driving at? You must get to the windward of him. That's it! Do you see now? That is the reason why I had to have a talk with you.

[Solemnly.]

You must get to the windward of the stag.

[Rises.]

And now—make her happy—Robert—my Mary.

[About to go.]

ROBERT.

But what has all this to do with Mary?

FORESTER.

Why, you have not yet understood me? Look here! The stag must not have an inkling that you are very anxious about him; and much less a woman. You make too much fuss about the women. Children must not know how dearly one loves them; anything but that! But women even less so. In reality, they are nothing but grown-up children, only more shrewd. And the children are already shrewd enough.—Sit down, Robert, I must tell you something.

[They sit at the edge of the table, facing the audience.]

When that Mary of mine was four years old—no taller than this—I once came home later than usual. "Where is Mary?" I ask. One child says: "In her room;" the other: "In front of the house. She'll be here pretty soon." But one guess was as far from the truth as the other. Evening comes, night comes—Mary does not appear. I go outside. In the garden, in the adjoining shrubbery, on the rocks of the dell, in the whole forest—not a trace of Mary. In the meantime my wife is looking for her at your house, then at every house in the village, but nowhere can she find a trace of Mary. Can it be possible that some one should have kidnapped her? Why, she was as beautiful as a wax-doll, my Mary. The whole night I never touched my bed. Even at that time Mary was everything to me. The next morning I alarm the entire village. Not a person fails to respond. All were passionately fond of Mary. At least I wished to bury the corpse. In the dell, you know, the thicket of firs—under the cliffs where on the other side of the brook the old footpath runs high along the rocks-next to it the willows. This time I crawl through the whole thicket. In the midst of it is the small open meadows; there at last I see something red and white. Praised be heaven! It is she—and neither dead nor ill, no, safe and sound in the green grass; and after her sleep her little cheeks were as red as peonies, Robert. But—

[He looks about him and lowers his voice.]

I hope she is not listening.

[Draws closer to ROBERT; whenever he forgets himself, he immediately lowers his voice.]

I say: "Is it you, really?" "Of course," she says, and rubs her eyes so that they sparkle. "And you are alive," I say; "and did not die," I say, "of hunger and fear?" I say. "Half a day and a whole, night alone in the forest, in the very thickest of the forest! Come," I say, "that in the meantime mother may not die of anxiety," I say. Says she: "Wait a while, father." "But, why and for what?" "Till the child comes again," says she. "And let us take it with us, please, father. It is a dear child." "But who, in all the world, is this child?" I ask. "The one that came to me," says she, "when I ran away from you a little while ago after the yellow butterfly, and when all at once I was quite alone in the forest and wanted to cry and call after you, and who picked berries for me and played with me so nicely." "A little while ago?" I say. "Did not the night come since then?" I say. But she would not believe that. We looked for the child and—naturally did not find it. Men no longer have faith in anything, but I know what I know. Do you understand, Robert? Say nothing. It seems to me I were committing a sacrilege if I should say it right out. There, shake hands with me without saying anything. All right, Robert.—For heaven's sake, don't let her hear what we are saying about her.

[Goes softly to the door; looks out.] MARY (outside).

Do you want anything, father?

FORESTER (nods secretly toward ROBERT, then brusquely).

Nothing. And don't you come in again before I—

[Comes back; speaks just above a whisper.]

Do you see? That's the way to treat her. You make far too much fuss about that girl. She is [still more softly] a girl that any father might be proud of, and I think she is going to be a wife after God's own heart. I have such a one. Do you see, I don't mind telling you, because I know you are not going to repeat it to her. For she must not know it; otherwise all my pains would go for nothing. And pains it certainly cost me till I got her so far; pains, I tell you. I advise you not to spoil my girl, whom I have gone to so much trouble to bring up properly.

ROBERT.

You may think,—but I don't understand you at all.

FORESTER.

There's just the rub! You don't do it purposely. But, confound it! Don't make such a fuss over the girl, do you hear? If you go on this way, she will have you in her pocket within a month. The women always want to rule; all their thoughts and aspirations tend to that end, without being themselves aware of it. And when they finally do rule, they are unhappy in spite of it; I know more than one instance of this. I only look inside the door, and I know for certain what sort of figure the man cuts. I only look at the cattle. If the dog or the cat is not well trained, neither are the children; and the wife still less. Hey? My wife does not yet know me as far as that here [points to his heart] is concerned. And if she should ever get hold of that secret—then good-by, authority! The wife may be an angel, but the man must act like a bear. And especially a huntsman. That's part of the business, just as much as the moustache and the green coat.

ROBERT.

But could it not be possible that—

FORESTER (eagerly). No, Robert. Once and for all, no! There is no way out of it. Either he trains her, or she trains him.—For example; let me give you only one instance how to go about it. My wife cannot see any human being suffer; now the poor wretches come in troops, and I should like to know what is to come of it all, if I were to praise her to her face. Therefore I grumble and swear like a trooper, but at the same time I gradually withdraw, so that she has full liberty. And when I notice that she is through, then I come along again, as if by accident, and keep on grumbling and swearing. Then people say: "The Hereditary Forester is harder on the poor than the devil himself, but his wife and his girl, they are angels from heaven." And they say this so that I should hear it; and hear it I do. But I pretend not to notice it, and laugh in my sleeve; and to keep up appearances I bluster all the more.—It seems the guests are arriving. Robert, my wife, and my girl, my Mary—if I at some time—you understand me, Robert. Give me your hand. God is looking down on us.

[Wipes his eyes.]

The deuce! Confound it! Don't let the cat out of the bag to the women—and you rule her as it ought to be.

[He turns around to hide his emotion, with gestures expressive of his vexation that he cannot control himself. At the door he encounters the following]: