Volume 9 / Act 3 — SCENE XI
Reading edition
SECRETARY (staggers in; he is pale, and is holding a handkerchief against his breast). Where is Clara? [He falls into a chair.] God!—Good evening! Thank Heaven that I had time to get here!—Where is she?
CARL.
She went to—Where is she? Her talk—I am afraid—[Exit.]
[Illustration: DEATH AS FRIEND From a Drawing by Alfred Rethel]
SECRETARY.
She is avenged! The scoundrel is done for! But I too am—Oh, why did it have to be?—God! Now I cannot—
ANTONY.
What's the matter with you? What ails you?
SECRETARY.
It is nearly up with me! Give me your hand on it, that you will not cast off your daughter—do you hear?—will not cast her off, if she—
ANTONY.
That is strange talk! Why should I, pray—Ha! My eyes are opening!—Was I right after all in suspecting?—
SECRETARY.
Give me your hand!
ANTONY.
No!
[He puts both hands into his pockets.]
But I will clear the way for her—she knows that! I have told her so.
SECRETARY (horrified).
You told her!—unhappy girl! Now for the first time I quite understand—
CARL (rushes in).
Father! Father! There is somebody lying in the well! If only it is not—
ANTONY.
The long ladder! Hooks! Ropes! Why do you delay? Quick! Even were it the bailiff!
CARL.
Everything is already there! The neighbors arrived before me! If only it is not Clara!—
ANTONY.
Clara?
[He grasps the table.]
CARL.
She went to draw water, and they found her handkerchief!
SECRETARY.
Scoundrel, I know now why your bullet hit the mark! It is she!
ANTONY.
Go and find out!
[He, sits down.]
I cannot!
[Exit CARL.]
And yet—
[Rises again.]
If [to the SECRETARY] I understood you correctly, everything is all right!
CARL (reënters).
Clara! Dead! Her head terribly crushed on the edge of the well, as she—Father, she did not fall in, she jumped in! A maid saw her!
ANTONY.
Let her think before she speaks! It is not light enough for her to have distinguished things with certainty! SECRETARY. Do you doubt it? You would like to, but you cannot! Think only of what you said to her! You pointed out to her the road to death! I, I alone am to blame that she did not turn back! When you suspected her misery, you thought only of the tongues that would hiss at you, but not of the worthlessness of the snakes to which they belonged! Then you uttered a word that drove her to despair! And I, instead of catching her in my arms when her heart was bursting with nameless anguish before me, thought only of the scoundrel who could make light of it. And now I pay with my life for having made myself so dependent upon a man who was worse than I! And you too, who stand there so stolidly, you too will say one day: Daughter, I would to God you had not spared me the head-shaking and shoulder-shrugging of the Pharisees about me! It crushes me more deeply that you cannot sit by my death-bed and wipe the sweat of anguish from my brow!
ANTONY.
She spared me nothing! People have seen it!
SECRETARY.
She did the best she could! You did not deserve to have her act succeed!
ANTONY.
Or she did not!
[Tumult outside.]
CARL. They are coming with her!
[Starts to go.]
ANTONY (immovable, as to the end; calls after him).
Into the back room, where your mother stood!
SECRETARY.
Away to meet her!
[He attempts to rise, but falls back.]
Oh, Carl!
CARL (helps him up and leads him away).
ANTONY.
I no longer understand the world!
[Stands brooding.]
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