Volume 9 / Act 5 — SCENE VIII

ROBERT, WILLIAM, then two men with a covered stretcher, which they put down. The men go away.

STEIN.

Robert!

[Going toward him.]

Do you see, Ulrich? He lives!

ROBERT (embracing him, pale and distracted).

Father! Father!

STEIN.

What has happened to you?

ROBERT.

Would that the murderer had killed me! Father Ulrich, be a man!

FORESTER (making a supreme effort to collect his energies).

Go on! I will see whether I am a man.

[ROBERT removes the covering.]

STEIN.

Great God!

SOPHY (who, supported by ANDREW and the PASTOR, has fallen upon her knees by the stretcher).

Mary!

ANDREW.

Oh, God! It is Mary!

STEIN.

How did this happen? Explain it, Robert.

PASTOR.

It is dreadfully clear to me.

ROBERT (with difficulty maintaining his self-possession).

She was praying: "God, let me belong only to my father." I was about to say to her: "Mary, you are going to give me up?" Then she rushed upon me, as if she wished to protect me with her own body, made a sign and called in the direction of the forest. I saw no one; I did not understand her; I was about to ask: "What is the matter, Mary?" when—the report of a gun—she sank down in my arms; I threw myself over her; a bullet had penetrated her heart.

SOPHY.

That was her dream.

STEIN (holds ROBERT in his embrace, almost simultaneously).

She died for you!

FORESTER.

She saw me aim at him, and ran purposely into the course of my bullet. I wanted to judge and—have judged myself. Crime and punishment at the same moment! I was praying: "God have mercy on his poor soul!" I prayed for myself, and the owls screeched Amen, and meant me!

ROBERT (recoils, horrified).

Almighty God—he himself!—

STEIN.

You did not do it consciously. A fearful madness urged you against your will.

PASTOR.

Do not be so obstinate, man; God does not measure the deed according to a superficial standard. Innocence and crime are at the extreme poles of human nature. But often it is merely a quicker pulse that separates the innocent from the criminal.

FORESTER.

Give me words of life instead of your cobwebs of the brain—no If and no But. Tell me something, so that I must believe it! Your words do not convince me. Why do you offer consolation to my head? Offer consolation to my heart, if you can. Can you with your consolation restore my child to life, so that she will rush into my arms? In that case keep on consoling me. Every word that fails to restore my child to life slays her once more.

STEIN.

Flee to America; I will procure passports for you; all my money is yours. Your wife and your children are mine!

FORESTER.

Do you hear, Andrew, what that man there is saying? He wants to give you money. Buy a hand-organ with it. Go about to the fairs, and sing of the old murderer who shot his child—for no reason, for no reason at all in the world. You need no picture. Take the old woman there along with you. No painter can paint the story as it stands written upon her face. Praise the child. Represent her more beautiful than she was—if you can—as you imagine the most beautiful angel, and then say: "And yet she was a thousand times more beautiful!" And represent the old murderer so that people will shed a waterfall of tears for the child, and that every street-urchin will shake his fist at the old fellow. And he who hears this story and does not give you with chattering teeth his last penny, though he had ten starving children at home, and does not pray to God for the child and curse the old murderer that shot her, must have a heart like the old murderer's who committed the deed. Do not say: "The man was honest throughout his life and avoided evil and believed in a God, and did not permit the least taint upon his honor." If you do, they will not believe you. Say: He looked like a wolf; do not say: His beard was white when he committed the crime. If you do, no one will give you anything; none will believe that one can be so old and yet such an abandoned villain. And on the lower part of your organ have a picture painted—how the old murderer blows out his brains and walks as a ghost during the night—and on the spot where the crime was perpetrated he sits moaning at midnight with his fiery eyes and white beard—and there no breeze wafts coolness, and there no dew falls and no rain—there grow poisonous weeds—the spot is accursed like himself—and the animal that accidentally strays there bellows with fear—and man is shaken as with the ague. And have an angel painted from whose mouth proceeds a scroll on which is written: "There sits he whom God has marked. Abel was a man, and Cain was only his brother; but this was a child, and he that slew her was her father. For Cain, there is still a hope of salvation, but for the old murderer of his child, none—none—none!" Oh! Some comfort! Some comfort! Only a shadow of comfort! For this I would give my salvation, if I had any hope of salvation. I will ask God whether there is any comfort for me!

[He takes the Bible and reads, at first trembling in every limb, with panting breath.]

"And he that killeth any—"

PASTOR.

No further, Ulrich. Let me show you words of life, words of humanity: "'As I live,' saith the Lord God, 'I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live.'"

FORESTER (who keeps a firm hold of the Bible, and breaks away from the PASTOR, almost simultaneously).

Leave me alone, you inhuman creatures, with your humanity!

[He continues reading. With every word his manner becomes more calm and certain, the sound of his voice stronger.]

"And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death."

[Lays down the Bible.]

STEIN.

Does he find solace in these words?

PASTOR.

Let him have such comfort as consoles him.

FORESTER (takes up the Bible again; his manner assumes an expression of joyousness).

That is certainty, that is promise, that convinces me—no But and no If. "And he that killeth a man shall surely be put to death." That means: Then it is expiated, then it is wiped out, and he is pure once more.

[Puts on his hat and buttons his coat.]

I am going before the magistrate.

[About to go.]

STEIN.

And you think they are going to put you to death?

[FORESTER stops and turns around.]

PASTOR.

People more guilty than you have been pardoned.

FORESTER.

Pardoned to be imprisoned—hey? Like Leutner? He—Indeed, they don't judge right in those courts, not as it is written here. I know very well—but—never mind!—All right!—

[Takes his gun.]

STEIN.

What do you intend to do?

FORESTER.

Nothing, I must take along the rifle with which the deed was done. O, they are particular about that! Farewell, Andrew, William. Take good care of your mother.

[Shakes hands with everybody.]

Stein, Pastor, Robert, Sophy—she has fainted. God will soon let her come after me. Bury my child. Have the bells ring; lay her bridal wreath upon her coffin. O, I am an old woman! When we meet again I shall be a murderer no longer.

[Makes with his hand a sign of farewell.]

STEIN.

You want—

FORESTER (turns around at the door).

My sight—and then—[Points upward to heaven.]—to meet my child.

[Exit. Short pause, during which the others look after him with surprise and emotion.]

STEIN (seized with a sudden apprehension).

If the other barrel is still loaded—quick—after him—

[Outside the door a shot is heard.]

Too late! I suspected it!

ANDREW, WILLIAM (rushing out).

Father!

ROBERT (in the open door, rooted to the spot through horror and pain at what he sees).

He has his right!

STEIN (also at the door).

A second time his own judge!

PASTOR (stepping to the others).

May God do unto him according to his faith.

[Exeunt.]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 7: Translation of the King James version.]