^oet ILort 3$layS AND PIPPA DANCES GERHART HAUPTMANN Richard G. Badger, Publishery Bosion LIB.^ARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE VOLUME XVIII ' AUTUMN I907 NUMBER III AND PIPPA DANCES* {A mystical tale of the glass-works, in four acts) By Gerhart Hauptmann Translated from the German by Mary Harned CHARACTERS Tagliazoni, skilled Italian glass-worker PiPPA, his daughter The Manager of the glass-works Old Huhn, a former glass-blower Michael Hellriegel, a travelling journeyman Wann, a mythical personality Wende, landlord of the tavern at Redwater Glen The Bar-maid, in the same tavern Schaedler, ) 1 • . > master eiass-pamters Anton, j ^ ^ First, second, third, fourth woodmen Jonathan, deaf and dumb servant to Wann Glass-blowers and glass-painters, guests at the tavern A goitrous player on the ocarina The scene is laid in the Silesian mountains, in midwinter ACT I The bar-room in old Wende' s tavern at Redwater Glen. To the right and in the background, doors, the latter leading into the entrance hall. In the corner, right, the stove of glazed tiles; left, the bar. Very small windows benches against the walls, ceiling of dark timbers. Three tables to the left, all occupied. The nearest to the bar is occupied by woodmen. They are drinking schnaps and beer and smoking pipes. At the second table a little further forward, are seated better dressed people: the master glass-painters, *Pippa tanzt. Ein Glashiitten-marchen in 4 akten von Gerhart Hauptmann. Copyrif^ht 1906 by S. Fischer Verlag. Copyright 1907 by the Poet Lore Company. 290 AND PIPPA DANCES SchaedUr and Anton, a fnv others and an Italian about fifty years of age, named Tagliazoni\ an msolenf-looking tnan. They are playing cards. At the table nearest the front of the stage, the Manager of the glass-works has seated himself; he is a tall, slender, keen-looking man with a small head, and is about forty years of age. He wears ri ding-boots, trousers, and jacket. A half bottle of champagne stands in front of him, and a fine, pointed wine glass filled with the champagne. On the table near them lies a riding- whip. It is after midnight. Outside, the iveather is bitter cold. A few lamps spread a meager light. Moonlight penetrates through the windows into the smoky room. The old landlord fVende and a country bar-maid senr the guests. ff'ende {gray haired, with an impassive, serious face, says to the Man- ager). Another half bottle, sir ? The Manager. — What else, Wende ? — A whole one! — Has my mare been well rubbed down ? Wende. — I saw to it myself. An animal like that deserves good care; it looked like a white horse it was so covered with foam. The Manager. — Hard riding! Wende. — Government horse. The Manager. — She has good blood in her! Several times she stuck in the snow up to her belly. Pushed through, every time! Wende {mildly ironical). — A faithful old customer, our manager. The Manager {drums on the table, laughs noisily). — It is queer, isn't it .? A r\vo hour ride through the woods, in January, old fellow — ludicrous devotion! Are my trout nearly ready .f* Wende. — A good thing is worth waiting for! The Manager. — True, true, true! But don't be disagreeable! — Is it my fault that you are here in this half Bohemian, half German thieves' den, Wende ? Wende. — Of course not, sir! At the most it could only be your fault if I have to get out of here. The Manager. — You old grumbler, stop talking! Wende. — Just look out the window there! The Manager. — I know it all without looking, our old rival factory all in ruins. One of these days it will be sold for the material in it, just so that they won't be forever starting up the furnaces again. — What have you to complain of? Business is very good here! The men come here anyhow, if it does take them two or three hours, and leave their money here, heaps of it. Wende. — How long is the trouble going to last ^ When the glass-works GERHART HAUPTMANN 291 near here were running their two furnaces, we were sure of eating our bread in peace — now we are reduced to living like hogs. The Manager. — Oh, you old sore-head! Go see to it that I get my wine! {Wende goes away shrugging his shoulders. At the table where the players are an altercation has arisen.) Tagliazoni {violently). — Non, signore! non, signore! impossible! I did put down a gold piece. Non, signore! You are mistaken! Non, signore — Master Schaedler. — Hold on there! That's a damned lie! Tagliazoni. — Non, signore! by Bacco! Thieves! Thieves! Murderers! I'll kill you! Master Anton {to Schaedler). — There lies your money! Master Schaedler {discovers the missing gold piece). — That was lucky for you, you damned, lousy hedgehog! The Manager {calling across to the players). — See here, you scoundrels, when are you going to stop this ? Master Anton. — When our manager rides home. The Manager. — By that time very Hkely you'll run behind my nag naked, for you'll have gambled the shirts off your backs. Master Anton. — We'll see about that, sir! The Manager. — This all comes from the count's allowing you to make such a sinful amount of money. I shall have to cut your wages on piece work. The more you have, the more you squander! Master Anton. — The count earns money, the Manager earns money, and the master-painters have no wish to starve either. Tagliazoni [has shuffled the cards and now begins a new game. Near each player lie actual piles of gold). — Enough! Let us begin now. The Manager. — Where is your daughter today .'' Tagliazoni. — Asleep, signore! Time for her to be, it seems to me. The Manager. — Of course! Quite right! Yes, yes! {He IS silent, apparently slightly embarrassed. In the meantime, fVende himself places the trout before him and directs the bar-maid who brings in the potatoes and the bottle of champagne at the same time.) The Manager {with a sigh). — It's abominably dull here at your place today, Wende. I spend such a lot of money and get nothing for it. fVende {stops short m his zealous efforts for his guest and says churl- ishly). — Well, in future you better go elsewhere. The Manager {turns round and looks through the little window behind him). — Who's this coming jingling over the snow? — It sounds as if he were stamping over broken glass. 292 AND PIPPA DANCES fVenJt- — Well, there's plenty of broken glass around the old tumble- down glass-house. The Manager. — A gigantic shadow! Who can it possibly be ? Wende {breathes on the window). — Most likely it's Huhn, the old glass-blower. Another of the ghosts from the old glass-works that can neither live nor die. — You, with your Sophienau works, have ruined business here sure enough; why don't you carry this on as a branch estab- lishment .'' The Manager. — Because there's no profit in it, and it costs a devilish lot of money. {Continuing to look out of the window.) Thermometer at zero! Clear! Bright as broad day-light! The heavens so full of stars they drive you mad! Blue, everything blue! {He turns and bends over his plate.) Even the trout — Lord, how the little wretches stretch their mouths! {A gigantic ?nan enters. He has long, red hair, red, bushy eyebrows and red beard, and is coveied from top to toe with rags. He puts off his heavy icooden clogs, stares around with red-rimmed, watery eyes, at the same time muttering to himself and opening and closing moist, puffy lips.) The Manager {eating the trout evidently without appetite). — Old Huhn! He is muttering something to himself. Get old Huhn a good stiff grog, Wende! — W^ell, w^hy do you keep your eyes fastened on me .'' {Still muttering to himself and staring at the Manager, old Huhn has pushed himself behind an empty table standing against the right wall between the stove and the door.) First Woodman. — He won't believe it, that there's no more work here in Redwater Glen. Second Woodman. — They say he often comes round and haunts the old place over there at all hours of the night alone. First Woodman. — He makes himself a fire there, in a chilled furnace, and stands in front of his old furnace door and blows great big glass balls. Second Woodman. — His lungs are like a pair of bellows. No one else could ever come up to him at that, I know! Third Woodman. — What's old Jacob doing, Huhn? That's his way; he never talks to a human being but he has a jackdaw at home and he talks to him the whole day long. The Manager. — Why is the fellow idle, why doesn't he come to us ? He could have work at the Sophienau furnaces. First Woodman. — That's too far out in the great world for him. The Manager. — When you look at the old man and think of Paris, you don't believe in Paris. GERHART HAUPTMANN 293 Wende {seats himself modestly at the Manager s table). — Have you been to Paris again ? The Manager. — I came back just three days ago. Got some big orders! Wende. — Well, that was worth while. The Manager. — Worth while! — You spend money and get some: only more! — Ever}'thing seems crazy when you get to Paris, Wende: restaurants all Hghted up! duchesses in gold and silk and Brussels lace! the ladies of the Palais-Royal! on the tables our glasses, the finest crystal; things which perhaps a hairy giant like that one made! — Thunderation, what a sight it is! To see a real slender, deHcate hand Hft one of these glass flowers, one of these precious ice flowers over the bare bosom to the hot, painted hps, with passionate glances: — you wonder that the glasses don't melt away under such a sinful glance.— Your health! {He drinks.) Your health, Wende! The things that come from our works are not recognizable there. The Bar-maid {setting the grog down in front of old Huhn). — Don t touch it! Hot! {Old Huhn picks up the glass and gulps down the grog without further ado.) The Manager {noticing this). — Good Lord, preserve us! {The woodmen burst out laughing.) First Woodman. — Just pay for another half quart and you can see him swallow glowing coals. Second Woodman. — He hits a oeer mug — breaks it to pieces, nibbles at the broken bits as if they were sugar and swallows them. Third Woodman. — But you should just see him dance with the litttle Italian girl when blind Francis plays the ocarina. The Manager. — Come, Francis, bring out your ocarina! {Calls to Tagliazoni). Ten lire, if Pippa dances. Tagliazoni {playing). — It won't go. Impossible, signore padrone. The Manager. — Twenty lire! — Thirty — } — Tagliazoni. — No! Wende. — She is having such a good sleep, sir. The Manager {without waverings suddenly vehement). — Forty.? — Do let a little of hell loose for awhile! It's so dull here! What do I come here for? Not even a lousy Gypsy girl! I'll not set foot again in this smugglers' nest! {Offering more.) Fifty lire! Tagliazoni {continues playing, says obstinately over his shoulder).— No! no! no! no! no! no! 294 AND PIPPA DANCES The Manager. — A huiulrod lire! Tagliazotii {curtly). — A hundred, yes! [He twists himself around, and skillfully catches a blue banknote which the Manager tosses to him). The Manager {losing something of his equanimity). — Has my lioness had an\thing to eat? The Bar-maid. — Certainly, sir, the dog has eaten. The Manager {roughly). — Be quiet. The Bar-maid. — When you ask a question, I certainly have to answer. The Manager {curtly, tvith suppressed anger). — Be still, hold your dirty tongue! — Don't smoke such asafoetida, you pack! — How is the child to breathe here. Tagliazoni {has risen and gone to the hall door from which he calls harshly to the upper part of the house).— Fippzl Pippa! Come down here right-away! Pippa! Come here! — Come along! The Manager (rises itidignantly). — Hold your tongue, let her sleep, you Dago scoundrel! Tagliazoni. — Pippa! The Manager. — Keep your money, fellow, and let her sleep! Keep your money, fellow, I don't want her! Tagliazoni. — As you wish. Thank you, signore! — {fVith a fatalistic shrug of the shoulders he takes his place again uncon- cernedly at the card-table.) The Manager. — Saddle my horse, Wende! Get the nag out of the stable! {Pippa appears in the doorway; she leans sleepily and timidly against the door-post.) The Manager {notices her and says with some embarrassment). — Here she is, now! — Pshaw, Pippa, go and have your nap out! — Or haven't you been asleep ? — Come, wet your lips, moisten your lips, here's some- thing for you. {Pippa comes obediently to the table and sips from the glass of cham' pagne.) The Manager {holding toward her the richly ornamented glass, from which he drinks). — Slender convolvulus! Slender convolvulus! It, too, is a Venetian! — Does it taste good to you, Httle one ? — Pippa. — Thank you, it is sweet! The Manager. — Do you want to sleep again, now ? Pippa. — No. GERHART HAUPTMANN 295 The Manager. — Are you very cold ? Pippa. — I am cold here, most of the time. The Manager. — Make a roaring fire, there! — It does not surprise me in the least that you are so cold, you delicate, graceful tendril, you! Come, sit down, put my cloak around you! You must have sprung from the glass furnaces; at least, I dreamed you had, yesterday. Pippa. — Brr! I like to sit close to the glass furnaces. The Manager. — In my dream, you liked best to sit right in them. You see, I am a foolish fellow! An old ass of a manager, who, instead of casting up accounts, dreams. When the white-hot glow breaks from the furnace doors, I often see you before me, quivering salamanderlike in the glowing. air. Only as the furnace light grows dim, do you slowly vanish. Old Huhn. — I too, have had beautiful dre^s before the furnace doors. The Manager. — What is that monster mutterlig, now "t {Pippa turns her little head persistently and looks at the old man, and at the same time, pushes her heavy, fair, unbound hair over her shoulder with her right hand.) Old Huhn. — Shall we dance again, little spirit ^. The Manager {roughly). — What are you talking about! I no longer care for the dancing! {Aside, to Pippa.) I am satisfied just to have you here, charming child! The Bar-maid {behind the bar, to the inn-keeper). — Now the Manager is in a good humor again. Wende. — Well, if he is, what business is it of yours 1 The Manager. — Tired! Go sleep, poor thing! You belong in courts with the fountains! — And you have to stay in this gin shop. Shall I take you, just as you are, lift you on my black horse and ride away with you ? {Pippa shakes her head slowly no.) The Manager. — So you like it better here .? Well, at any rate, you are shaking your little head no again. — How long have you been living in this house .'' Pippa (reflects, stares at him blankly). — I don't know. The Manager. — And before you came here, where did you live ? Pippa (reflects, laughs at her ignorance). — It was — Why, haven't I always been here .'' The Manager. — You? in the midst of dumb and talking tree trunks! Pippa.— What .? The Manager. — In this frozen, snow-bound land of barbarians ? — 296 AND PIPPA DANCES {Calling across to TogUazoni.) Where did you say her mother came from ? Tagliazoni {over his shoiilJrr). — Yes, signore! Pieve di Cadore. The Manager. — Pieve di Cadore, is that so ? That is on the other side of the great water-shed. Tagliazoni {laughing). — We are relatives of the great Tiziano, signore. The Manager. — Well, little one, then, perhaps we too, are kindred, for he looks like my uncle, the Commissioner of Woods and Forests. So you really belong half and half here too; but the wind blows your gold hair elsewhere! {A goitrous, tattered little man comes in, playing the ocarina, and plants himself in the middle of the room. He is greeted with a halloo by the wood- men who are sitting round one of the tables smoking and drinking schnaps.) First Woodman. — Huhn must dance! Second Woodman. — The little one must dance! Third Woodman. — ^^ If she'll dance, I'll give a nickel toward it. Fourth Woodman. — Just look what faces Huhn is making! The Manager. — There's not going to be any dancing, you clod- hoppers! Do you understand me? First Woodman. — You wanted it yourself, sir! The Manager. — The devil take me! Well, now I don't want it! {Huhn rises to his full height and starts to come out from behind the table, but never takes his eyes from Pip pa, staring at her feverishly all the time.) The Manager. — Sit down, Huhn! Wende {comes forward resolutely and determinedly and seizes Huhns arm). — Sit down! Not a twitch! — You'll stamp through my floor next thing. {To the ocarina player). Stop your silly tootling. {Huhn remains standing, staring stupidly as before. The ocarina is silent.) {The card players have finished another game. Tagliazoni pockets a little pile of gold. Master-painter Anton jumps up suddenly and thumps the table with his fist, so that the gold pieces roll all round the room.) Master-painter Anton. — There's someone among us who's cheating! Tagliazoni.— Who .? I .? I ? Tell us! Who .? Master-painter Anton. — I don't say who it is! I only say someone is! There's some trickery here. First Woodman. — Well, any one who plays with these Italians may expect a little of the black art thrown in. Master-painter Schaedler. — My money has disappeared, the last piece of my money is missing. GERHART HAUPTMANN 297 First Woodman.— Just look out, the lamp's going out in a minute! He'll probably put up some nice little game on you. The Manager.— Well, don't let rascals hold the bank! Tagliazom {scooping in the money unconcernedly, turning half round to the manager).— Ahro\ The others are rascals, not I. Enough! Let's go to bed! Pippa, go on! Come along! Master-painter Anton.— \\hd.t^ Now he wants to go to bed, now, when he has gotten our money away from us ? You'll stay here! There's going to be some more playing now! Tagliazoni.— Oh, very weW. Why not ? Til play with you! As you wish! As you wish, signori! {The bar-maid, the inn-keeper, the ocarina player, one of the glass painters and one of the woodmen pick up the gold pieces from the floor.) _ Second Woodman {at the table).— I won't help look for money m this place, because later, they're sure to say some of it is missmg. t -5 {Michael Hellriegel, a travelling journeyman, about twenty-three years old, enters from the hall; he carries a thin visor cap, and a small knapsack with a brush buckled on it; his coat as well as his vest and trousers are still fairly respectable, his shoes, on the contrary, are worn out. The effects of a long and fatiguing walking tour are plainly shown in the wan and exhausted looks and movements of the youth. His features are delicate, not common- place, indeed almost distinguished. On his upper lip there is the soft down of a first mustache. There is a suggestion of the visionary and also a sug- gestion of sickliness in the slender figure.) The Bar-maid.— Oh, Lord, here's a journeyman yet, at this time of night! Ill Hellriegel {stands in the circle of light cast by the lamps, blinded by the biting smoke, winking and looking out feverishly from under his long lashes; he twists his cap with his hands and makes an effort to conceal how much his hands and feet ache with the frost).— Is there a night's lodgmg here for a travelling journeyman ? ... The Manager.— A queer fellow, Pippa, isn't he? {Humming ironi- cally.) To those whom God wishes to show great favor, he sends — and so on. This fellow sings, too, when he has his wits about him. I bethmi thirteen bottles of champagne, he even has poems of his own in his knapsack! Pippa {rises mechanically, and with a certain embarrassment, looks now at the lad, now helplessly at the rest of the men around her; suddenly she runs up to the Manager).— Vndronal Padrone! the stranger is weeping! The Manager. — Weak and Hne Is not in my line! 298 AND PIPPA DANCES Mastfr-paititer SchacJlcr {comes over from the cord table and stands in a military position before tJie^lauager). — I am a man of honor, sir! The Manager. — Well, what then ? Why do you say that to me now, after niidnieht, in this Iser mountain tavern ? Master-pai titer Schaedler {luipes the cold sweat from his forehead). — I am an irreproachable master-workman. The Manager. — W^ell, what of it ? Master-painter Schaedler. — I would like to have some money advanced me. The Manager. — Do you think I drag the office safe around with me in mv riding-coat ? Master-painter Schaedler. — On your own account! — The Manager. — On my own account I'll not think of it! I should only help to ruin you completely. Master-painter Schaedler. — That dog has fleeced everyone of us. The Manager. — Why do you play with him .? Have nothing more to do with the scoundrel. Master-painter Schaedler.— We'll have something to do with him later, all right! The Manager. — You have a wife and children at home — Master-painter Schaedler. — We all have them, sir, but when the devil gets loose here — The Manager. — No! I'll not back you up in any such madness. {Schaedler shrugs his shoulders and betakes himself to Wende, who is behind the bar. It is seen that he urges him to advance htm the money, that Wende refuses for a long time, but finally yields. The purneyman, in the meanwhile, drinks greedily the hot grog which the bar-maid has put on the bench in front of him. Now she brings him food, and he eats.) The Manager (raises his glass and says to the lad). — Well, you belated swallow! Your health! {Hellriegel rises, in courteous acknowledgment, his glass in his hand, drinks and sits down again.) : The Manager. — Your castle in the air is still pretty far away. Hellriegel {who is about to sit down, jumps up again). — But I have the wish to do and perseverance! The Manager. — And you spit blood! Hellriegel. — A little doesn't matter! The Manager. — No. If you only knew what you wished to do. Why do you constantly start up so strangely, just as if you had felt an electric shock ? GERHART HAUPTMAN >^ 299 Hellriegel. — Often I seem to be actually hurled on with impatience. The Manager. — Like a child in a dark room, eh ? When dear mamma on the other side of the door is lighting the first candles on the Christmas tree? Right now, right now! But Rome wasn't built in a day! Hellriegel. — Everything must be changed. — The whole world! The Manager. — And first of all, your highness! {To Pippa.) This is a stupid fellow, child, one of the very clever kind that we used to see only in preserving glasses! {To Hellriegel.) "And shouldst thou take the wings of the dawn — " briefly, your journey has its difficulties. {To Pippa). Gallop, gallop, over stick and stone {he tries to draw her down on his knees, she resists and looks at Hellriegel. Hellriegel starts up and grows red in the face). Hellriegel. — I would like to be permitted a direct remark! The Manager. — Has something new come into your head ? Hellriegel. — Not just at this minute. The Manager. — Well, perhaps confusion will. {Michael looks at the Manager vacantly and forgets to sit down.) Wende. — Why not ? for money and fair words. {As the lad looks round and finds no vacant seat.) Sit on the schnaps keg here, and count out your money on the stove-bench. If there's anything else you want — there's room enough there. First Woodman. — Where are you going so late, journeyman ? The Manager. — Into the land where milk and honey flow! Hellriegel {bowing humbly, first to the woodman, then to the Manager). — I was anxious to get over the mountains into Bohemia. The Manager. — What is your trade? Hellriegel. — The art of glass-making. Second Woodman. — He doesn't seem to be quite right in his head. To climb over the mountains in such bitter cold weather, and here, where there is no road and no foot-path ? Does he want to be a snowman over there, and die miserably trying to be one ? Wende. — That's his afi^air, it doesn't concern us! Third Woodman. — You certainly don't come from the mountains, Johnny ? You can't know anything of the winters here ? {Hellriegel has listened with modest courtesy; now he hangs up his cap decorously, takes off his little knapsack and puts it and his stick to one side. He then takes his seat on the keg, as directed, shudders, bites his teeth together and runs his fingers, spread apart, through his hair.) The Manager. — If your papers are all right, why do you want to go over into Bohemia ? Wc make glass here in Silesia, too. 300 AND PIPPA DANCES HeUriegel {jumps up). — I would like to learn something unusual! The Motwgcr. — Pshaw, you don't say so! And what might that be? To make clear water into balls with just your hands, perhaps ? {Hfllriegfl shrugs his shoulders.) The Mouager. — Well, we can do that here, too, with snow! HeUriegel. — Snow is not water. I want to see the world. The Manager. — Aren't you in the world here with us ? HeUriegel. — I am looking for something. The Manager. — Have you lost anything .f" HeUriegel. — No! I think, that I can attain to something. {Half standing and propping himself up tuearily, he looks around with wide-open^ astonished eyes.) I really don't know just where I am , The Manager. — Yes, yes, that's the way! In the morning brimful of joy, in the evening not a sound bone in your body. HeUriegel. — Am I — am I in Bohemia now, good landlord } First Woodman {laughing). — Are you } Does it seem a bit Bohemian to you here } {HeUriegel has sunk hack on the little keg, his arms are spread out on the stove-hench, his hands under his forehead^ he conceals his face and groans su rrepti ti ously. ) Third Woodman. — He hasn't been away from his mother more than three days! {Pippa, who has been standing at the Manager s table, has watched the newcomer continually. She now goes over to him, and sits, apparently absorbed in thought, on the bench, not far from the place where his head rests, her hands in her lap, thoughtfully swinging her legs back and forth, and looking down on him out of the corners of her eyes.) iPippa picks up a little leather strap and strikes the Manager sharply across his hand.) The Manager. — Ow! {Pippa laughs and looks at HeUriegel, who, his eyes fastened on her, has forgotten everything around him. His lips move, though no sound comes from them.) The Manager {holding out his hand). — Do it again, Pippa! {Pippa strikes him.) Ow, but that was hard! All good things go by threes; now the third time! {She strikes with all her might, laughing.) There! Now I am instructed and punished. If at any time another little bird falls out of the nest, at least I know what I have to do. {In the meantime old Huhn, who had sat down again, lies bent over he table, his arms stretched way out, and beckons Pippa to him with his GERHART HAUPTMANN 301 thick, hairy finger. As she does not come or pay any attention to him, after he has watched the play between her, the Manager and Hellriegel long enough y he rises and dragging his feet along, goes up to the journeyman, stares at him, lifts his long gorilla-like arms which have been hanging limply at his side, and puts his outspread hands on the lad's breast, pushing htm slowly back onto his keg; then he turns round, beckons slyly to Pippa and lifts his elbows in a peculiar fashion, reminding one of an eagle balancing on the perch of a cage; at the same time he steps out inviting her to dance with him.) The Manager. — What has gotten into your head, you old dromedary ? The Woodmen {all shout at the same time). — Dance, litttle one! Dance, Httle one! The Bar-maid {takes a small tambourine from the shelves where the brandy-bottles stand, and throws it to Pippa, who catches it). — There, Httle chit, don't have to be coaxed, don't put on airs; you're no candy princess! {Pippa looks first at the Manager, then at Hellriegel, and finally, with a spiteful look she measures the giant from head to foot. Suddenly beginning, she at once makes the little drum jingle and glides dancing up to Huhn, at the same time intending to elude him and dance past him. The ocarina starts up and the old man, too, begins to dance. The dance consists in some- thing huge and awkward trying to catch something agile and beautiful; as if a bear were to try to catch a butterfly which flitted around him like a bit of opalescence. Whenever the little one eludes him, she laughs a bell-like laugh. She saves herself several times, whirling round and round, and in so doing her red-gold hair becomes wrapped around her. When pursued, the noises she makes in her throat are just childish squeals, which sound like ai. The old man hops about grotesquely and ridiculously like a captive bird of prey. He lies in wait for her, misses her, and begins to pant, growing more and more excited and muttering louder and louder. Pippa dances more and more ecstatically. The woodmen have risen. The card-players have discontinued their game and watch the dance intently. Tagliazoni, whom the proceedings do not interest, takes advantage of the opportunity to scoop in money and to manipulate his cards. Without his noticing it, he is carefully watched by Master-painter Schaedler. Now it seems as if Pippa could no longer escape the monster; she screams, and at the same moment Schaedler seizes Tagliazoni by the left wrist with both his fists.) Master-painter Schaedler {above all the other noise). — Stop! Tagliazoni. — What is the matter, signore ? Master-painter Schaedler. — Matter here, matter there: there's cheating being done! Now we have the scoundrel in the trap! Tagliazoni. — He is mad! Diavolo! I am a son of Murano. Does he know la casa di coltelli ? 302 AND PIPPA DANCES Alastcr-pamter Schacdh'r. — Cold hell or hot hell, neither of them can help you here! Anton, hold him fast over there, now he'll be paid back all right! {Master-painter Anton holds Tagliazoni^s other hand firmly.) He has smuggled in extra cards and on these two here has put his mark. {Every one present^ except Hellriegel and Pippa, who stand in the corner pale and breathing heavily, presses round the card table.) The Manager. — Tagliazoni, didn't I tell you not to push things too far! Tagil azoni. — Let me go, or I bites you in the face! Master-painter ScJiaedler.— Spit and bite as much as you want, but you'll have to hand out our money again, you scoundrel! All of the players. — Yes sir, every penny, every scrap of the money! Tagliazoni. — Curse it! I does nothings of the sort! Damned German beasts, you crazy, bad, low-down beasts! What has I to do with you, you Germans. First Woodman. — Knock his skull in for him, the ass! Second Woodman. — Hit him on the noddle with the wagon-shaft, so that he sees blue sulphur before his eyes! You can't answer these Dagos any other way in German. Wende. — Be quiet, you men; I won't have this! Master-painter Schaedler. — Pull the cards out of his fingers, Wende! Tagliazoni. — I murders you all, every one of you! Master-painter Anton {resolutely). — Good! Second Woodman. — Look at all the rings the blackguard has on his hands! Tagliazoni. — Padrone, I calls you to witness! I am treacherously attacked here; I makes no new contract! I works no more, not a bit more. I lets the work standing as it is, right now! Carabinieri! Police! Beastly foolishness! First Woodman. — Roar away, you; there are no police here! Second Woodman. — Far and wide there's nothing but snow and pine trees. Tagliazoni. — I call — call the poHce! Brigands! Signore Wende! Pippa! run! The Manager. — I advise you to give in to them, man! If you don't I can't answer for the consequences. Tagliazoni. — Ugly beasts! Enough of this! {Unexpectedly, as quick as lightning, Tagliazoni frees himself, draws out a dagger and takes refuge behind a table. For a moment his assailants are stunned.) Third Woodman. — A knife! Lay him out, the dog! GERHART HAUPTMANN 303 All {speaking at once). — Now, he must be killed! Now it's all up with him! The Manager. — Don't you smash up Tagliazoni for me! I need him too much in the glass-works! Don't do anything you'll be sorry for to- morrow ! {Tagliazoni now recognizes instinctively the frightful danger of the moment and rushes past his assailants out of the door. The card-players and woodmen plunge after him, calling: "Down, down, down with him\" As they go out, the glitter of several knives is seen.) The Manager. — I hope they won't kill the fellow off for me, yet awhile! Wende. — If they do, they'll shut up my shop for me. The Bar-maid {looking out of an open window). — They're running like mad over into the wood; he's fallen! He's up again! They're still after him! The Manager.— I'll set the great Danes loose, and scatter the gang. Wende. — I won't be responsible for anything! I won't answer for anything. The Manager. — What is that ? The Bar-maid. — One of them is left behind, lying in the snow. The others are keeping on into the woods. {A fearful, marrow-penetrating scream is heard, deadened by distance.) Wende. — Close the window, the lamp is going out! {The lamp goes out in fact, the bar-maid slams the window to.) The Manager. — That doesn't sound well. Come with me, Wende! Wende. — I won't be responsible for anything! I won't answer for anything. {He and the Manager, the latter preceding, go out.) The Bar-maid {in her perplexity says roughly to Hellriegel). — Get up there! Help! Help! Fall to and help! Everybody ought to help here! The damned card playing! {She gathers up the cards from the table and flings them into the fire.) You must go, they've murdered a man! He brings bad luck and won't even help to make it good! {Hellriegel jumps up, and half of his own accord, half pulled and half pushed by the bar-maid, he stumbles through the hall door. He and the bar-maid go out. {Huhn still stands in almost the same position as he did when the dance was so suddenly i ntcrrupted by the outbreak of the brawl. His eyes have folloived the proceedings watchfully, uneasily. Now he tries to peer into the darkness, turning slowly round and round. He does not, however, discover Pip pa, who, cowering with horror, is sitting on the ground, squeezed into a corner. He draws out some matches, strikes them and lights the lamp. He looks 304 AND PIPPA DANCES around again and discovers the child. Standing in the middle of the roorUy he beckons to her with horrible friendliness. Pippa looks at him dumbly^ like a bird that has fallen out of the nest and been taken captive. As he comes toward her, she zrhimpers softly. The little window is pushed open from outside and the Manager s voice calls in.) The Manager s voice. — Pippa, Pippa! She cannot stay here. I will take her with me. {The Afanager has hardly left the window when Huhn plunges toward the child, who has jumped up, catches her, and lifts her up in his arms; whereupon Pippa gives a short, sighing little cry and faints, and Huhn says at the same time.) Huhn. — After all, he didn't get you! {ff'ith this he hurries out of the door.) The Manager s voice {again at the window). — Pippa, Pippa, are you still in there .? Don't be afraid, no one shall touch a hair of your head! {The bar-maid comes back.) The Bar-maid. — Not a soul here ? Not a soul comes back, and out there lies a man bleeding to death. ACT II The interior of a solitary hut in the mountains. The large, low room is neglected to a degree not to be surpassed. The ceiling is black from smoke and age. One beam is broken, the rest are bent, and where it has been absolutely necessary they have been propped up with unhewn tree trunks. Little boards have been pushed under these. The floor is of clay, worn into ridges and hollows, only around the broken-down stove is it paved with bricks. A blackened and charred bench runs along the wall under the three small quad- rangular window openings, of which two are filled up with straw, mosSy leaves and boards; the third contains a window with three dirty panes, and instead of the fourth, boards and moss again. By the same wall, in the corner near the stove, but farther forward, the mended table. In the back wall, a door. Through the door can be seen the dark hallway with beams propped up like those in the room, and a slanting, ladder-like stairway leading to the garret. A low board partition enclosing a space filled with birch, beech and oak leaves on which he a few rags of clothing and bed-covers is old Huhns resting place for the night, for the hut belongs to him. On the wall hang an old firearm, a ragged slouch hat, pieces of clothing and several little pictures cut from periodicals. A great many leaves are lying on the floor. In the corner is a pile of potatoes; bunches of onions and dried mushrooms hang GERHART HAUPTMANN 305 from the ceiling. One single ray of bright light from the clear moonlit night without penetrates through the window. Suddenly it grows bright in the hallway. Loud sneezing and heavy breathing are heard. Immediately after old Huhn is seen., still carrying Pippa in his arms. He enters the room and lays Pippa down on the bed of leaves, covering her with the rags that are lying there. Then he brings forth from a corner an old stand for burning pine chips in, he puts the chips in and lights them; he is very much excited and while doing this stares in the direction of the child. The first blasts of an approaching storm are heard. Snow zvhirls through the hallway. Huhn now takes a bottle from a shelf and pours some brandy down Pippa* s throat. She breathes heavily^ he covers her more carefully, hurries over to the stove and with the heaps of brushwood lying around, he builds a fire. Huhn {rises suddenly, listens at the door, and calls with insane haste and secrecy). — Come down, come down, old Jacob! — Old Jacob, I have brought something with me for you. {He listens for the answer and laughs to himself.) Pippa {moans, revived by the stimulant; suddenly she draws herself up into a sitting posture, looks around her in horror, presses her hands in front of her eyes, takes them away again, moans, jumps up and like a frightened bird runs blindly against the wall of the room). — Mrs. Wende, Mrs. Wende, where can I be ? {Clawing at the wall in her horror, she looks behind her, sees Huhn, and in a new attack of despairing terror, she runs blindly, now here, now there, against the walls). I am smothering! Help me! Don't bury me! Father! Padrone! Oh dear, oh dear! Help! Mrs. Wende, I am dreaming! Huhn {trots up to her, and immediately she reaches out her hands to ward him off in speechless horror). — Be still, be still! Old Huhn won't do anything to you! — And as far as that is concerned, old Jacob is kindly in his way, too. {As Pippa, who is completely paralyzed, does not change her defensive position, he takes a few uncertain steps toward her, but suddenly stands still again, deterred by her expression of unconscious horror). — O, this won't do! — Well .^ — Say something! — Don't bruise yourself so against the walls! — It is fine in here with me; outside death lurks! {He stares at her for awhile searchingly and expectantly, suddenly a thought occurs to htm.) Wait a minute! — Jacob, bring down the goat! — Jacob — I — Goats' milk warms! Goats' milk will be good. {He imitates the loud and low bleating of a sleepy flock of goats and sheep in the stables.) Ha, baa, ba! — Listen, they are coming down the steps. Jacob, Jacob, bring them in I {Pippa' s glance has fallen on the door and recognized it; she starts in 3o6 AND PIPPA DANCES end rushes toivarJ it instinctively, in order to slip away. Huhn steps in her -zcay.) Huhn. — I will not catch you! I will not touch you, little girl! Yet with me you must — with me you must remain. Pippa. — Mrs. Wende! Mrs. Wende! {She stands still and buries her face m her hands.) Huhn. — Don't be afraid! — Something has been — and something will be! — Snares are frequently set in spring — and the yellow-hammers are not caught until winter! {He takes a deep draught from the brandy bottle.) {At this moment, a goat sticks its head in at the door.) Huhn. — Wait a minute, Jacob, let Liesla stand outside there! She will give me a drop of milk, she will! {He picks up a little stool, trots into the hallway and milks the goat, placing himself so that he blocks up the doonvay at the same time. In the meantime, Pippa seems to have grown a little more composed. In her crying and moaning there is a note of helpless resignation; she feels the chill again and is drawn toward the bright spot on the wall, the reflection of the fire in the stove; there she seems to thaw out so as to be able to think, and kneeling on the ground, she stares into the crackling blaze.) Pippa. — O, santa Maria, madre di dio! O, madre Maria! O, santa Anna! O, mia santa madre Maria! {Old Huhn finishes his milking and enters the room again. Pippa's distress and fear rise immediately, but he goes toward her, puts the little jug of milk down at some distance from her and moves back again.) Huhn. — Drink the goats milk, you little gold darling, you! {Pippa looks at Huhn doubtfully and summons up sufficient courage to drink %vith eager haste from the little jug that has been set before her.) Huhn. — That's the way babies, too, suck in their milk! Old Huhn {slapping his knees with both hands breaks out into a hoarse, triumphant laughter). — Now she has drunk her fill, now her strength will come back to her! {At this, he takes himself off, pulls forth a little sack from behind the stove, shakes out some crusts of bread onto the table, draws from the oven a part of a broken iron pot in which are potatoes, and puts these with the crusts; drinks, puts the brandy bottle also on the table and sits down himself to his meal on the bench behind the table. A fresh blast of wind comes against the house with great force: with wild defiance, Huhn answers it, as it were.) Oh, very well, you can come, keep right on coming, for all I care; just try, try and see whether you can get her away from here! GERHART HAUPTMANN 307 Pippa. — Huhn, old Huhn, let me go away! I know you, I'm sure it's you: you are father Huhn! What has happened? Why am I here with you ? Huhn. — Because that's the way things happen in this world, some- times. Pippa. — What happens this way ? What do you mean ? Huhn. — What a man hasn't, he has to get for himself! Pippa. — What do you mean ? I don't understand you! Huhn. — Don't touch me, or my heart will beat itself out of my body! {He grows pale, trembles, breathes hard and moves away because Pippa touches his hand with her lips.) Pippa {starts hack, runs away and throws herself against the closed ^oor).— Help! Help! Huhn. — Useless! No one can get through there! You are to stay with me, and it's fine here, if you lived with the emperor — you wouldn't find things any finer! And you must listen to me, you must be obedient. Pippa. — Father Huhn, Father Huhn, you won't do anything to me, will you .^ Huhn {shaking his head decidedly). — And no one else shall touch a hair of your head! No father and no manager. You are safe here and you are mine. Pippa. — Am I to be buried here, forever .? Huhn. — A caterpillar, a chrysalis, a butterfly! Wait awhile: you will soon open this grave for us. Listen, listen, the devil is coming! Stoop down! The devil is coming down from the mountains! You hear how the little children are crying out there, now. They are standing naked on the cold stones in the hallway and wailing. They are dead! Because they are dead, they are frightened. Stoop down, put your little hood on; or he will seize you by the hair with his fist and (God have mercy on you) out into the whirlwind you will have to go. Come here, I'll hide you! I'll wrap you up! Just listen, how the wind howls and spits and miaus; down it comes from the roof with the few wisps of straw there! For all I care, keep on pulling until \{)u have everything off the roof. — Now, he has gone by! That was a ghost, wasn't it ^ I am a ghost and you are a ghost, all the world are ghosts and nothing but ghosts! But sometime, perhaps, it will be different. {A wild wave of storm has raged by. Again Pippa's face shows a horror that almost robs her of consciousness. Huhn still stands m the middle of the room even m the deep and uncanny silence that follows. And now a voice IS heard outside, and a distinct knocking, at first on one of the nailed-up o8 AND PIPPA DANCES u-i nJou'S, later on one of the glass panes which is darkened by a shadow. Huhn starts convulsively and stares at the new apparition.) A voice {from without, muffled). — Halloo, ho there! Confound it, that was an infernal morning breeze! wasn't it? Does anyone live here? My ver)- best God bless you! Do me no harm, and I'll do you none! Just give me some hot coffee and let me sit by your stove-door until daylight! Yours most humbly, a frozen journeyman! Huhn {rii^id with rage).— Who wants anything here ? Who's hanging around old Huhn's little house? What man? What spirit? I'll help \ou to get away from here. {He seizes a heavy club and plunges out of the door.) . .... {fp'ith a sigh Pip pa closes her eyes. Now it seems as if something like a ringing current of air breathed through the dark room. Then, while the musicy ever increasing in volume, ebbs and flows, Michael Hellriegel appears in the doonvay. Nervously and cautiously he moves into the circle of li^ht made by the burning chips, his eyes searching the darkness distrust- ' Hellriegel. — This is certainly a rather harmonious murderers' den! Hello, is anybody at home ? It must be a meal-worm that's playing the harmonica ? Hello, is anyone at home ? {He sneezes.) That seems to be musical hellebore. {Pippa sneezes too.) Was that I or was it some- one else ? Pip pa {half asleep).— Someone must be — playing the harmonica — here ? . . Hellriegel {listening, without seeing Pippa).— You are quite right, it is a meal-worm in my opinion! "Go to sleep, dear little babe; what is rustling in the straw ?" If a rat gnaws at night, you think it is a saw-mill, and if a little draught blows through a crack in the door and rubs two dried beech leaves together, you think at once that you hear a beautiful maiden whispering softly or sighing for her deliverer! Michael Hellriegel, you are very clever! You hear the grass growing even in winter! But, I tell you, you better take care of the things in your head; your mother is right: don't let your fancy run over like a milk pan! Don't believe firmly and absolutely in everything that is not true, and don't run a hundred miles and more after a flying cobweb! Good evening! My name is Michael Lebrecht Hellriegel! {He listens awhile, there is no answer.) I begin to be surprised that nobody answers me, because there is a first- class fire in the stove — and because one is certainly led to expect some- thing decidedly unusual here — the place has that look. If, for example, I should see a parrot here, sitting on a pot on the stove, stirring sausage broth GERHART HAUPTMANN 309 with a cooking spoon, and he should scream at me: rascal, pickpocket, horse-thief; that would really be the least that I should expect. I waive any claim to a man-eater; or if I have one, then there must be an enchanted princess too, whom an inhuman and accursed monster keeps in a cage: the pretty little dancing girl, for instance, — Hold, something clever has just occurred to me: I bought an ocarina! I bought the ocarina of the scurvy old fellow at the tavern who played for the dancing, paid for it with my last dollar — which was also very clever! Why do I want it — I don't really know, myself! Perhaps because the name sounds so queer, or I imagine that the little red-haired nixie is inside of it and wherever possible, she slips out and dances when anyone plays on it ? I am going to make the experiment, right now. [Michael Hellriegel puts the ocarina to his mouth, looks round inquiringly and plays. At the first notes, Pippa rises, her eyes closed, trips into the center of the room and assumes a dancing pose.) Pippa. — Yes, father, I am coming! Here I am! {Michael Hellriegel takes the ocarina from his mouth, stares at her with open mouth, dumbfounded with surprise.) Hellriegel. — There, Michael, that's what you get out of this business! Now you are stark mad! Pippa (opens her eyes, as if awakening). — Is there someone here .? Hellriegel. — No, that is nobody but me, if you will permit me. Pippa. — Who is talking then .'' And where am I ? Hellriegel. — In my tired brain, tired from a sleepless night! Pippa (remembers having seen Hellriegel in the tavern in the woods, and flies into his arms). — Help me! Help me! Save me! (Hellriegel stares down at the magnificent Titian-red hair of the little head that has hidden itself on his shoulder. He does not move his arms as Pippa holds hers clasped tightly around him.) Hellriegel. — If now, I — if, now, I — for instance: I suppose, if I had my arms free, in spite of the fact that mother doesn't like to see me do it, I should write a short memorandum in my little book; it is even possible it might be in verse. But I can not get my hands free! My imagination has bound me so tightly! It has bound me — woe betide me! — so tightly and so confoundedly queerly that my heart thumps in my throat and makes a bunch of red hair in front of me! Pippa. — Help me! Help me! Rescue me! Save me from that old monster, that awful creature! Hellriegel. — What may your name be ? Pippa.— Pippa! 310 AND PIPPA DANCES Htllrit'gt'l. — Right, of course! I heard the fellow with the riding- boots call you that. Then the fellow went away; he made himself scarce. \\ hen the\' massacred the Dago dog, he preferred to be somewhere else. And \ou were gone, too, when I — that is to say, when we came back with the dying Italian; at least, I didn't find you downstairs and I didn't go up into his sleeping quarters with them. I would have liked to ask him about vou, but he had forgotten his Italian! — Pip pa. — Come away, come away from here! Oh, don't leave me! Hcllriegel. — No! You may be quite at ease as to that, we two will never leave each other again. He who once has a bird as I have, doesn't readily let it fly away again. So, Pippa, sit down, compose yourself, and we will consider the situation seriously for the moment, as if there were no screws loose! {He frees himself gently; with knightly grace and modesty he takes Pippa's little finger hePiveen his first finger and thumb and leads her into the circle of light cast by the stove to a little stool on which she seats herself.) Hellriegel [standing before Pippa making fantastic gesticulations). — So a dragon kidnapped you — I thought so, right away, up there in the tavern — spirited you away from the Dago magician; and because I am a travelling artist, I was at once sure that I was to rescue you; and forth- with I too ran out into the open, wholly without end or aim. Pippa. — Where did you come from ^. Who are you .'* Hellriegel. — A son of the widow Hellriegel, the fruit-woman. Pippa. — And where do you come from ^. Hellriegel. — Out of our Lord's great sausage boiler! Pippa {laughs heartily). — But you talk so strangely! Hellriegel. — I have always distinguished myself in that way. Pippa. — But see here, I am certainly made of flesh and blood! and that crazy old Huhn is an old, discharged glass-blower, nothing more. His goiter and his balloon cheeks probably come from the blowing; and there are no fiery dragons any more. Hellriegel. — You don't say so! Why not.'' Pippa. — Hurry! Bring me back to Mother Wende! Come along with me; I know the way to the Redwater tavern. I'll guide you! We won't lose our way! {As Hellriegel shakes his head no.) Or, are you going to leave me alone again } Hellriegel {denying this vigorously). — I will not sell my ocarina! Pippa {laughs, pouts, presses closely and anxiously up to him). — What is this about the ocarina ^. Why won't you say anything sensible } You talk nonsense all the time! Really, you are so stupid, Signore Hellriegel! GERHART HAUPTMANN 311 {Kissing him fondly, half weeping.) I don't understand you at all, you are so stupid! Hellriegel. — Wait a minute! I begin to see more clearly, now! {He takes her head in his hands, looks intently into her eyes, and with calm decision, presses his lips long and passionately agmnst hers). — Michael does not let himself be made a fool of! {fVithout separating, they look at each other with embarrassment and something of uncertainty.) Hellriegel. — Something is happening inside of me, little Pippa, a strange change! Pippa. — Oh, good — Hellriegel {finishing). — Michael. Pippa. — Michael, what are you doing ? Hellriegel. — I am quite perplexed, myself! Please excuse me from the answer! Aren't you angry with me for doing it? Pippa. — No. Hellriegel. — Perhaps we could do it again then, right now ? Pippa. — Why should we ? Hellriegel. — Because it is so simple! It is so simple and is so mad and so — so altogether lovely, it is enough to drive one crazy. Pippa. — I think, good Michael, you are that already. Hellriegel {scratching himself behind the ear). — If I could just be sure of that! I say there is nothing sure in this world! Do you know, another idea has just occurred to me! Let us take plenty of time! We'll go to the bottom of the matter, this time! Come, sit down here, here near me. So, first of all, this is a hand here! Permit me, we will come at once to the main thing: whether there is a main-spring in the clock-works. {He puts his ear to her chest, like a physician.) You are certainly alive, you certainly have a heart, Pippa! Pippa. — But, Michael, did you doubt that .? — Hellriegel. — No, Pippa! — But if you are alive — then I must get my breath. {Actually struggling for breath, he steps back from her.) Pippa. — Michael, indeed we haven't any time! Listen to that heavy breathing outside, and how someone is stamping round and round the house! He has passed the window three times, now. He will strike you down dead, if he finds us here, Michael. Look, he is staring in here again! Hellriegel. — O you poor little princess " I-am-afraid"! Ah, you don't yet know my mother's son! Don't let that old gorilla bother you! If you wish, a boot shall fly at his head! — Pippa.— No, Michael, don't do that, Michael! 312 AND IMPPA DANCES Hfllrit'crfl. — Certainl)! — Or as far as I am concerned, we will begin the new lite some other way. First of all, we will establisii ourselves calmly and sensibly in the world. We will cleave to reality, Pippa, won't we ? Y'ou to me and I to you! But no: I dare hardly say that aloud because you are like a blossom on a pliant stem, so fragrant and so fragile! Enough child, no day-dreaming! {Takes off his knapsack and iinbi4ckles it.) Here in my knapsack is a box. Now, pay attention; Michael Hellriegel broujiht with him into the world a real inheritance of mother wit, for use in all cases. (//<■ lioUs out a very small box.) Practical! In here are three practical things: first of all, this is an enchanted tooth-pick, you see: fashioned like a sword; with it you can stab to death giants and dragons! Here, in this little flask, I have an elixir, and with this, we'll pay off the filthy fellow; it is a so-called sleeping potion and is indispen- sable for use against giants and magicians! You don't recognize what this little ball of yarn here is, but if you tie one end fast here, the little roll will immediately tumble down in front of you, and skip along ahead of you, like a little white mouse, and if you will only follow the yarn on and on, you will come straight into the promised land. One more thing, here is a little doll's table; but that isn't of much consequence, Pippa: it is just a "Little table — set — thyself." Am I not a clever fellow? You have confidence in me now, haven't you ? Pippa Michael, I don't see any of those things! Hellriegel. — Just wait, I shall have to open your eyes for you before you can! Pippa. — I believe it all! Hide yourself, the old man is coming! Hellriegel. — Tell me, Pippa, w^here were you born ? Pippa. — I believe, in a city by the water. Hellriegel. — You see, I thought so right away! Was it as windy there as here .? And were there generally clouds in the sky there too .? Pippa. — I have never seen any there, Michael, and day after day, the dear sun shone! Hellriegel. — So ! That's the kind of person you are I Do you think my mother would believe that .'' — Now, tell me, just once, do you believe in me ? Pippa. — Ten thousand times, Michael, in all things. Hellriegel. — Beautiful! Then we will cross the mountains — and of course that's only a little thing to do! I know every highway and byway here — and on the other side spring will have begun! Pippa. — O, no, no, no! I can not go with you! My father is very wicked, he will shut me up again for three days, and give me nothing but water and bread to eat! GERHART HAUPTMANN 313 Hellriegel. — Well, Pippa, your father is very kind now; his manner is ven' quiet now; he is astonishingly meek! I marvelled that he was so patient, quite cool-headed, not at all like an Italian. Soft! He will never again hurt a fly! Do you understand just what it is I would say, little Pippa! Your father has played and won so long, and now at last, he has lost. After all, everybody loses in the end, Pippa! That is, so to speak — your father is dead. Pippa {more laughing than lueeping, flings her arms around Michael Hellriegel' s neck). — Dear me! Then I have nobody left to me in the world, nobody but you! Hellriegel. — And that is quite enough, Pippa! I sell myself to you skin and bones, from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, just as I am! — And huzza! Huzza! Now we shall wander as we please. Pippa. — You will take me with you, you will not leave me ? Hellriegel. — I, leave you ? I, not take you with me ^ And now, I will guide you; now, rely on me! You shall not hit your foot against a stone! Hear, how the glass rings on the mountain pines! Do you hear ? The long cones jingle. It is only a little while before daylight but bitter cold. I will wrap you up, I will czrry you; we will warm each other, won't we? And you'll be surprised at how fast we get away! Already a litttle bit of light is creeping in here! Look at the tips of my fingers; there is even now a bit of sunlight on them. A bit that can be eaten, it must be licked off! You can't forego that and keep hot blood! Do you, too, hear birds singing, Pippa ^ Pippa. — Yes, Michael. Hellriegel. — Peep, peep! That may be a mouse, a yellow hammer or a door hinge — it doesn't make any difference which; all notice something! The old house creaks through and through! Many times my spirit becomes absolutely exalted to the skies when the tremendous event occurs and the ocean of light pours forth from the hot, golden pitcher! — Pippa. — Don't you hear voices calling, Michael ^ Hellriegel. — No, I hear only one voice; that sounds like a steer bellowing in the pasture! Pippa.— It's old Huhn! It's terrible! Hellriegel. — But what he's calling is very strange! Pippa. — There he stands, Michael, don't you see him .? Hellriegel (standing with Pippa at the window). — Yes, it seems to be some frightful wood god — his beard and his eyelashes full of icicles, his outspread hands extended upwards; he stands there and does not move, his closed eyes turned toward the East! 314 AND PIPPA DANCES Pippa. — Now the first rays of the morning shine on him! Hi'llriegcl. — And again he cries out! Pippa. — Do you understand what he is calling ? Hellricgel. — It sounded like — it sounds like — like — a proclamation. \yA pccithar call in slow and pourrful crescendo becomes audible; it is uttered hy old Hithn, and sounds like jumalai.) Hellriegel. — It sounds to me like ju — jumalai. Pippa. — jumalai ? What does that mean .'' Hellriegel. — I don't know, little Pippa, just exactly what. But it seems to me it means: Joy for all! {The call, Jumalai, is repeated louder, while the room grows lighter.) Pippa. — Are you weeping, Michael ? Hellriegel. — Come, little Pippa, you misunderstand! {Closely intertivined, Pippa and Hellriegel move out of the door. The curtain falls, and the music, which began with the light on HellriegeVs finger, swells forth and depicts as it increases the mighty rising of the winter sun.) ACT III The interior of a snow-bound cabin on the crest of the mountains. A large, low, comfortable room enclosed in timbered walls and with a timbered ceiling is seen. There are three small, well protected double windows in the left wall; under them runs a bench which is fastened to the wall. The back wall is broken by a little door which leads into the hallway. Gayly painted peasant cupboards form a comfortable-looking corner, left. Clean, carefully arranged cooking utensils and bright-colored plates adorn the upper, open half of one of the cupboards. To the right of the door is the usual large stove of glazed tiles with its bench. The fire crackles cheerily in it. The stove-bench meets the bench fastened to the right wall. In the corner thus formed stands a large, massive, brown peasant^s table; over it hangs a lamp; gayly painted wooden chairs surround it. The brass pendulum of a large. Black-forest clock near the door swings slowly. Thus far the room shows a character peculiar to the dwellings of the mountaineers of the better class. Unusual, IS a table in the foreground, left, with a reading desk, on which is an old book, open; the table is covered with all sorts of other books and strange objects, such as a lamp between cobblers' magnifying globes, a glass- blower s lamp with glass tubes, old medicine bottles, a stuffed king-fisher, etc.; beside these, against the walls, are a number of objects that have been unearthed: stone knives, hammers and spear-heads, belonging to the so- called stone age; and a collection of common hammers for geological purposes. More unusual still is a delicately made model of a Venetian gondola, which GERHART HAUPTMANN 315 rests on a stand in front of the reading desky as well as other models of ancient , mediaeval and modern vessels for river and ocean navigation^ which hang from the ceiling, — and a large telescope with its stand. On the deal floor lie splendid oriental carpets. The little windows in the room glow in the light of the setting sun, which light also makes all the objects in the room stand out sharp and fantastically. There is a door in the right wall. {Jonathan, an unkempt deaf mute of about thirty, is washing plates in a small wooden tub which stands on two stools near the stove. Someone knocks several times at the hall door. The deaf mute does not turn, and so the door is opened and the Manager appears, masquerading as a mountaineer, his gun hung over his shoulder, and snow shoes under his arm.) The Manager. — Jonathan, is your master in the house? Jonathan! You booby, answer me! The devil take you if he is not at home! What ? Perhaps he has gone out to pick ice flowers, or to catch white moths with butterfly nets? Brr, it's beastly cold out-of-doors! Jonathan! {Much startled, Jonathan turns in alarm and delight, dries his hands on his blue apron and kisses the Manager s right hand.) The Manager. — Is the old man at home ? Jonathan, old Wann ? (Jonathan utters some sounds and makes gestures.) You thick-headed scoundrel, you; express yourself more plainly! (Jonathan takes greater pains, points vehemently out of the window as a sign that his master has gone out; then runs to the clock, which points to quarter of five; shows with his finger that his master had intended to return at half past four; shrugs his shoulders in surprise that he has not come back yet; hastens back to the window, presses his nose against it, shades his eyes with his hand and looks- out). Very good, I've taken that all in! He has gone out and will return immediately, really ought to be back here now! {The mute goes wow, wow, wow, imitating a dog.) Just so, he took his two St. Bernard dogs with him, I understand. Beautiful! Wanted to give himself and the dogs some exercise! Brush me ofl, knave, I am going to stay here! {Js he looks just like a snowman, he steps back into the hall, stamps and beats the snow off himself, the deaf mute helping zealously.) {Meanwhile a dignified old man enters almost noiselessly by the door to the right. He is tall and broad-shouldered, and long, flowing, white hair covers his powerful head. His stern, beardless face is covered as it were with runes. Bushy eyelashes overshadow his large, protruding eyes. The man seems to be ninety years old or more, but in him old age is as it were strength, beauty and youth raised to a higher power. His dress is a blouse of coarse linen u'lth wide sleeves, which reaches below his knees. He ivears rounded, red woolen, laced shoes, and a leather girdle around his loins. In 3i6 AND PIPPA DANCES this girdle, uheti /if f titers, rests his large, splendidly formed right hand. It is fVann.^ [fyanu directs an attentive and smiling glance into the hall, strides quietly through the room, and seats himself behind the table at the reading desk. He rests his elboics on the table, running his fingers thoughtfully through his hair, ivhose white locks flow over the open folio on which he keeps his exes fixed. Having peeled off his overcoat, the Manager enters again. He does not notice fVann at first.) The Manager.— O, you gazelles — sweet twins! So, now we will make ourselves^as comfortable as possible here while we are waiting for the old slv-boots! fy^nn.— l think, too, we will; and whilst so doing we'll drink some black Falernian. 'The Manager (jwr/)nW).— Damn it! Where did you come from so suddenly ? fVann {smiling). — Ah, the man who knew just exactly whence, my dear sir! Welcome to this green land! Jonathan! The Manager. — Quite true! Everything is green and blue before vour eyes after you have slid down and clambered up for four hours! I had on black glasses, but in spite of that, my organ of vision seems to me like a pond, to whose bottom I have sunk and over which, above me, little colored islands are constandy swimming. ff^ann. — And you would like to get up on one of them ? Had I better hunt up a fishing line ? The Manager. — What for ? ff^ann.— Oh, just something that shot through my head. At all events, vou are a master hand at snow-shoeing and as daring as a stag, for instance, is mainly, only in November; and the sparrow-hawk is, only when he is engaged in the pursuit of a victim and the heat of the chase has made him blind and deaf to all dangers; it struck me with amazement when I saw you slide down Hke a bird from the top of the Skull-cap. And as you are human, I hit upon a third human possibility: you might, perhaps, wish to sweat out some sort of disease. The Manager. — What doesn't the man think of who, summer and winter, in all kinds of weather, has nothing more to do in all the world than go walking on the milky way. Wann {laughing). — I admit that I often ride my hobby-horse a little high and that by so doing I have grown something far-sighted; but I also see very well near by! For example, this lovely child of Murano here, and the beautiful crystal decanter full of black wine that Jonathan is bringing us for our comfort. GERHART HAUPTMANN 317 (Jonathan brings in on a large silver tray two magnificent, large, old Venetian goblets and a cut-glass decanter full of wine and places them on the table. Wann himself fills the glasses carefully. Each of the men takes one of them and lifts it up solemnly toward the still faintly glimmering window.) The Manager. — Montes chr)^socreos fecerunt nos dominos! {Gold- bearing mountains have made us lords!) Do you know how you often impress me, Wann, as one of those mythical, gold-hunting fellows, whom the sauer-kraut-gobbling, piggishly-filthy, common rabble of our mountains call foreigners ? Wann. — Indeed ? And how might that be, my dear fellow ? The Manager. — One who possesses an Arabian fairy palace of gold and jasper in Venice, in the midst of the waters, who yet takes up his abode here among us, and acts as if he couldn't count up to three and eats any old moldy crust of bread. Wann. — Your health! Let's drink on that, my dear fellow! {They drink to each other and then laugh heartily.) Wann.— So, that's what you think of me! Well, setting aside the bread crusts, for mv conscience is quite clear of that hypocrisy, there is, perhaps, a grain of truth in the surmise. If I am not exactly one of those Venetian manikins with their magic power, who sometimes appear to the woodmen and other dreamers, who possess gold caves, grottoes and castles in the interior of the earth, still, I do not deny that these mountains do in a certain sense actually contain gold for me! The Manager. — Dear me, if one could but be as resigned as you are to such quiet enjoyment of life in the midst of snow and ice. Master Wann! No anxiety about your daily bread, no business, no wife — way above all sorts of follies which still give people of our sort the headache; and so absorbed in scholarly pursuits that you don't see the forest for the trees: it is a really ideal state! Wann. — I see, my portrait still varies at times in your managerial soul. At times, I am to you a mythical personality who has a house in Venice, then again, an old retired major who squanders his old age income harmlessly. The Manager. — Well, God knows it is not just exactly easy to form the right conception of you! ^fl««.— Jonathan, light the lamps! It is to be hoped that you can see through me somewhat better in the light! {J short pause occurs, in ivhich the Manager s uneasiness increases.) The Manager.— What are you really waiting for up here, year in, year out, Wann ? 3i8 AND PIPPA DANCES fVatiu. — For main things! The Manager. — Tliev are, for example ? ff'ann. — All tiiat the compass-card brings: clouds, perfumes, crystals of ice; for the ntnseless double lightnings of the great Pan-fires; for the little flames that leap up from the hearth; for the songs of the dead in the water-fall; for mv own happy end; for the new beginning and the entrance into a different, musical, cosmic brotherhood. The Manager. — And, in the meantime, are you never bored up here, all alone ? ff'aiin. — Why should 1 be? If thou wilt be alone thou wilt be wholh thine own. And boredom exists only where God is not! The Manager. — That would not satisfy me, my master! I always need external stimulation. JVann. — Well, it seems to me that that which sustains in its roaring the delight of a great veneration is also external. The Manager. — Yes, yes, all very well! But for me, now that I am so old, there must always be something youthful, gay, lively in the game. Wann. — As, for example, these lady-bugs here. All winter long I have them here on my table for company, in the midst of all sorts of play- things, just observe a little beast like this for awhile. When I do I actually hear the spheres thunder! If it strikes you, you are deaf. The Manager. — This tack, I don't understand. fVann. — It is quite simple: the little beast on my finger does not divine me, does not divine you. And yet we are there, and the world around us, which it, confined within its own sphere, is not able to conceive. Our world lies outside of its consciousness. Think of what lies outside of ours! For example, is your eye able to tell you how the brook murmurs and the cloud rumbles .? That this is so, you would never learn, if you had not the sense of hearing. And again, if you had the finest sense of hearing, you would still know nothing to all eternity of the magnificent outbursts of light in the firmament. The Manager. — Thank you, for the private lecture! I would rather have it some other time! I can't sit still today. I hinted at something quite different — tVann {lifts his glass). — To the lovely child of Murano, probably! The Manager. — Well, if I did ! How did you know it ? fVann. — Of what use is an observatory three thousand feet above the sea in central Germany "^ Of what use is a telescope with a lens made by yourself, if you can't look down sometimes on this old sublunary world and keep a strict eye on its children .'' And finally, the man whose shoe doesn't pinch — doesn't go to the cobbler! GERHART HAUPTMANN 319 The Manager. — Good! If you really are such a confounded physicist, putting your cobbHng aside for the time, I admit that the shoe pinches me in several places — then please tell me, what happened last night in old Wende's tavern ? Wann. — An Italian was stabbed! The Manager. — Then why do you consult the book ? Wann. — A registrar is certainly needed in the end! The Manager. — And are the details noted in the book, too ? Wann. — For the time being, no. The Manager. — Well then, your telescope and your proud folios amount to nothing! — I can't forgive myself for this business! Why didn't I watch more closely! I wanted to buy her from the dog, ten times — ! — That's what happens, when one is really tender-hearted once in awhile. {lie jumps up and walks around the room very much agitated; finally he stops behind the telescope, turns it around on its stand and directs it toward the different night-darkened windows one after the other.) (The wind whistles.) The Manager. — Senseless, how I always feel up here, as if I were in a ship's cabin in a storm on the great ocean! Wann. — Doesn't that also express most accurately the situation into which we are born ^. The Manager. — That may be! But with phrases of this kind nothing will ever be gotten at. This doesn't pull me out of my particular dilemma! It would be different if one could see anything through your telescope; — but alas, I notice that that, too, it gives but a misrepresentation of facts! Wann. — But it is pitch dark night, dear sir! The Manager. — By daylight, I don't need a thing like that! {He leaves the telescope, walks back and forth again and finally stops in front of Wann.) Wann. — Well, out with it! Whom are you seeking? The Manager. — Her! Wann. — You lost sight of her after the affair ? The Manager. — I hunt for her but do not find her! I have had enough of this nonsense, Master Wann! If you are one of these crazy quack-salvers, pull the thorn out for me! I can not live and I can not die. 1 ake a scalpel in your hand and search for the poisoned arrow-head which is sticking somewhere in my cadaver and forcing itself further in with every minute. I am tired of the distress and irritation, of the sleeplessness and poor appetite. I should be willing to become a papal singer, just to be rid for one moment f)f this accursed longing which torments me. J 20 AND PIPPA DANCES [He sinks down oil a chair ^ breathing heavily^ and wipes the sweat from his forehead. fVann rises with some cerenioniousness.) Jf'ann. — And voii are in earnest about the cure ? You will really give yourself into my hands ? The Manager. — Of course I will! What else did I come here for? Wann. — And vou will hold still even if it is necessary to pull from vour soul witli a jerk the whole ot the evil growth with all the roots that branch out into the very tips of your toes ? The Manager. — And if it be horse physic! Wann. — Well, then be so kind as to pay attention, my dear fellows. Now I clap my hands the first time! {He does it.) If the graybeard could not do more than the man, what were the meaning of old age ? (He draiL's forth a long, silken cloth.) Now I clap my hands the second time. {He does it.) Afterward I bind this cloth over my mouth, as the Parsee does when he prays — The Manager {impatiently). — And then I shall go my way, for I see you are mocking me. Master Wann! JVann. and then: incipit vita nova {the new life begins), dear sir! {He slips the bandage over his mouth and claps his hands vigorously.) {Immediately, as if called there by magic, Pippa, half frozen and strug- gling for breath, rushes in; a cloud of fog penetrates the room after her entrance.) Pippa {rushes forward, crying out hoarsely). — Save him! Save him! Help, you men! Thirty steps from here, Michael is dying in the snow! He is lying there, suffocating! He cannot stand up! Bring light! He is freezing to death; he can go no further! The night is fearful! Come with me, come with me! The Manager {stares in boundless amazement, now at Pippa, now at his host). — Are you the devil himself, Wann : fVann. — The cure is beginning. Don't plead any weariness! A rope! Tie that end fast here, Jonathan! [Pippa seizes Wann by the hand and drags him out. The Manager follows as if stupefied. The room is empty and the storm roars through the hall, sweeping clouds of snow through with it. All at once the head of old Huhn is visible in the hall door. After the old man has assured himself that there is no one in the room, he steals in. He stares at the objects in the room, and when the voice of the returning Wann is heard, he hides himself behind the stove.) Wann [still in the hallway, drawing the others after him along the rope). — Bolt the doors securely, Jonathan! — GERHART HAUPTMANN 321 {Now the half-frozen Michael Hellriegel, supported by Wann and the Manager, is seen. He is brought into the room and laid on the bench by the stove; Pippa draws his shoes off and the Manager rubs his chest.) Wann {to Jonathan). — A cup full of hot black coffee mixed with cognac! The Manager. — Thunder and hail! It's cold enough to freeze your mouth shut! The air outside there stings like needles and butcher knives! Wann. — Yes, it is a night! You know, at least, when you gasp for breath in these black Hades-flames that you are a fighter and still a long distance away from the paradises of light. Only one little spark from there has found the way! Bravely, little one, hast thou fought thy way through! Pippa. — Michael, signore, Michael, not I. Wann. — How do you feel, sir ? The Manager. — What kind of a man you are, I know not! But in other respects, I am as amused as if I w^ere at a hanging! After all, it is just as wonderful that a fly should soil my shirt collar, as that you or anyone else should bring about such an occurrence. Wann. — Instead of one there has grown to be two of them! The Manager. — Thank you! Even my brain can still grasp that! To be sure, my suspicions rested on Huhn, and then ? instead of him it is a simpleton! Jonathan, my snow-shoes, quick! Wann. — Going already ? The Manager. — Two are enough! The third, too many! True it is in a way new to me to carry out generosity to its highest power, but it is not the right vocation for me permanently! Don't you think so, too, little Pippa ? Pippa {weeping softly, is drying and rubbing Michael's feet with her hair). — What is it, signore ? The Manager. — You know me, don't you ? {Pippa shakes her head no). Haven't you seen me somewhere before? {Pippa again shakes her head in dental.) Didn't some good uncle bring you for three or four years sugar-plums, pretty corals and silk ribbons ? {Pippa shakes her head confidently, in denial of this.) Bravo! I thought so! Didn't you have a father, who is dead ? {Pippa shakes her head.) Wann.— Do you notice anything, sir ? The Manager. — Do I notice anything! Wann. — What a powerful old magician has taken a part in this? The Manager." Of course, that's understood! Jolly Chinese puzzle, that's the world! {Tapping on Michael's forehead with his third finger.) You, in here, when you waken, knock again at heaven's gate, perhaps the 322 AND PIPPA DANCES good God will sav: come in! Good-by! Rub Michael back to life! {In the' hdll.) I wish \ou may all sup well! I have been helped! I am cured! Hurrah! Mav the devil himself unbar hell! {The opening of the housc-Joor is heard and then the Manager s hurrah^ repeated several times out-of-doors.) HiUriegel [opens his eyes, jumps up and at the same time ealls out). — Hurrah! Hurrah, there we have it, little Pippa! Wann [steps back, astonished and amused). — Eh! What is it that we have, if I may ask ? Hellriegel. — Oh, so we are not alone, little Pippa! Tell me, where did the old man come from so suddenly ? Pippa {timidly, aside). — Oh, I didn't know what else to do! Hellriegel. — But, wasn't it splendid! Isn't it a delight to you, to climb up like that through storm and winter ? To go merrily forward hand in hand ? Wann. — Where are you journeying, if one may ask ? Hellriegel. — Ah, old man! Who is going to be so curious ? Do I ask you why you muffle yourself up, up here, keep yourself w^arm and eat baked apples ? Wann. — This is certainly a devil of a fellow that you have here, dear child! Hellriegel. — To wander always and never to think of the goal! It is deemed too near or it is deemed too far. Besides I surely feel my bones tingling. Pippa {timidly). — Michael, couldn't we perhaps be a little grateful to the friendly old man, or do you think not ? Hellriegel. — Why should we be ^ Pippa. — Why he saved us from freezing! Hellriegel. — Freezing ? Michael wall take good care not to do that yet awhile! If we had just missed this place of refuge, well, we would now be ten good miles further on our way. Think, Pippa, ten miles nearer the goal! When a man possesses the magic ball of twine and has received unequivocal signs from above, in great numbers, that he is called to some- thing — called to discover at the very least kneadable glass! Wann. — You laugh, my little one: do you believe that he is .^ {Pippa looks up at Wann with belief in her eyes and nods her head emphatically in the affirmative.) Indeed .'' Well, he certainly speaks in a way that awakens belief. Now, have a good talk together, I won't disturb you! {He takes his seat behind his book-table, but watches the two surreptitiously; at the same time turning over the leaves of the large volume.) GERHART HAUPTMANN 323 Pippa {confidentially). — Look around, Michael, see where we are! Hellriegel. — In just the right place, it this moment occurs to me. The yarn has led us just right. Didn't you notice how it drew us ever forward and out of the storm ? Pippa. — But that was the old man's rope, Michael! Hellriegel — Eh, it is not as you imagine it, little one! In the first place, we had to come here in any case. To begin with, I saw the light all the time we were climbing. But even if I had not seen the light, an irresistible power within me dragged and tugged me onward toward this protecting roof! Pippa. — I am so glad that we are safe, and yet, I am still a little bit afraid! Hellriegel. — What are you afraid of.? Pippa. — I don't know what! I wonder whether the doors are shut tight .? tVann {who has heard this). — They are locked tight! Pippa {says to Wann simply and innocently). — Oh sir, you are good, I see it in your face! But for all that — we must go on — mustn't we, Michael .? fVann. — Why must you ? Who is on your trail .? Hellriegel. — No one! At least no one who causes us any concern! But if you want to go away from here, then come, little Pippa! fVann. — Do you really think I shall let you go away ^. Hellriegel. — Certainly! How would you keep us here.? Wann. — I am not wanting in means! I do not ask you whither you are going; whither you are bound with this frightened little moth that has flown against my lamp; but through this night, you shall remain here. Hellriegel {planting himself in the rniddle of the room, his legs spread apart). — Hello! Hello! Here is still another! fVann. — Who knows what sort of a bird you are! Perhaps one who undressed to learn shivering: have patience, you will learn it soon enough! Hellriegel. — Don't get angry, dear uncle, the house is still standing, as my little mother says. But whether we go or stay is our affair! fVann. — You must have very big notions of yourself in your knapsack! Hellriegel. — Indeed .? Do 1 look as though I had something of that sort in my pack! It is (juite possible! Think of it! Well, enough of that! My knapsack answers pretty well, though there are other things in it than a few paltry notions. So if my cap sets that way, we will go; and you can keep us here as little as you could two swans who journey under a mackerel sky like two points travelling toward the South. 3i+ AND PIPPA DANCES JFann. — I grant you that, young cloud-dweller! But sometimes I succeed in enticing those birds to my little trough, and that, for example, is what I have done to you. (Jonathan sets out the table near the stove with southern fruits, steaming wine and cakes.) Ht'llriegel. — The little trough! We are not hungry, we will not eat! Michael is not dependent on anything like that! Wann. — Since when isn't he ? Hellriegel. — Since — since he found river-gold in mud! fVann {to Pip pa).— And you ? Pippa. — I am not hungry either! fVann.— No ? Pippa {aside to Michael). — You have your table set thyself, of course! Wann. — So you won't do me the honor ? Hellriegel. — I notice that you, too, are one of those who have not the slightest suspicion of who Michael Hellriegel is. What do I care; and what good would it do to discuss it with you ? You must know that the archangel Michael is a hero and conqueror of dragons; you do not doubt that. Now, however, I simply need to go on and for all I care swear ten oaths, I have witnessed miracle upon miracle since yesterday and have come oft' victorious from an adventure just as astonishing, and you will say: why not, here is a man who plays the ocarina. I need only to tell about my knapsack — fVann. — O, Michael, you delightful child of God! Had I suspected that it was you, I have been following with my telescope since daybreak, todav, and enticing to my little bowl filled with hot blood for souls' food; I had decorated my hut festively and received you — that you might see that I, too, am something of a musician — received you with quintets and roses! Be peaceful, Michael, be friendly! And I advise you to eat a little something! Well filled though you may be with heaven's blue, only the soul can be satisfied with that; never the body of a big, tall fellow like you! Hellriegel (goes up to the table, takes a plate from it, eats eagerly and says in an aside to Pippa). — The food goes against me, I don't want it! I just eat it to get away politely — Wann. — Eat, Michael, eat, don't argue about it! It doesn't do any good to dispute with the Lord God because you have to breathe and eat and swallow! Afterward you float and flutter so much the more beautifully! Pippa {steals over to Wann, while Michael is absorbed in eating, and whispers to him with great delight). — I am so glad Michael is eating. Wann. — He is eating in his sleep, so don't waken him! or he will let his knife and fork fall, will plunge three thousand feet high in the air and probably break his neck and legs. GERHART HAUPTMANN 325 {He takes from the table carefully, tn both hands, a^ model of a Venetian gondola.) Wann. — Can you tell me what this represents ? Pip pa. — No. Wann. — Think! Has there never glided through your^.dreams a black vessel like this ? Pippa {quickly). — Yes, sometime, a long time ago, I remember! fVann. — Do you know, too, what a powerful tool it is ? Pippa {meditatively). — I know only, that once I used to glide between houses, at night, in a barque like that. Wann. — That's it! {To Michael). Now, for all I care, you can prick up your ears, too, so that little by little, you may arrive at the knowledge that there is someone here beside yourself who understands something of aeronautics and many other things. Hellriegel. — Well, out with what you have to say! fVann. — Well then, this little craft created the mystical city between two skies, that is the city at the heart of the earth, wherein you too, good child, were born. For you come out of a mystery and will return into it again. Hellriegel. — Hop! There comes something flying! Hop! Again, another picture! a rat! a salt-herring, a girl! a miracle! Gather them all together: an ocarina! Always hop, hop, hop! When I went away from my mother, on a tramp, well as I was prepared for all sorts of hocus-pocus and though I went to meet it skipping with joy, still even now the cold sweat often comes out on my forehead. {With his knife and fork in his fists, he stares thoughtfully straight in front of him.) So he knows the city where we wish to go! Wann. — Of course I know it, and — if you had confidence in me — I could do something for you and with advice and suggestion point out to you the way thither. In the end, who knows, perhaps something more than that! For, to tell you the truth, when I observe you very carefully, doubts do come to me whether you really do float in the sky so high, so secure and so certain of your goal! You have something in you, how shall I say it, something of birds who have been beaten out of their course, and are driven helplessly in the direction of the North Pole. At the mercy of every wind, so to speak! Don't start, Michael, don't become excited! You won't own up to it that you are horribly played out and tired, nor will you own up to the undefined fear, the dread that still takes possession of you at times, although you have in a measure escaped the terrors of a winter-night flight. {At the mention of flight and fear, Hellriegel springs up and Pippa and 320 AND PIPPA DANCES he look at each other anxiously. Now, he moves uneasily toward the door of the room and listens into the hall.) Hellriegel. — Just be calm, Michael! That's the main thing! I take it that the doors are properly locked and bolted ? — Then at any rate we have nothing to fear! {He eomes back.) For all I know — it may be that perhaps you are something unusual! In any case, you may be sure we are going to eat oranges tomorrow afternoon in the beautiful water- and glass- makers' city, where the water bursts forth into glass blossoms; in the city of whose ever}- little bridge, flight of steps and narrow street, I have dreamed accurately all my life long — in any case, you may be sure — but for all I care: how far have we still to go? Wann. — That depends, Michael, on how you travel. Hellriegel. — Let us say in practical fashion. Wann {smiling). — Then you will probably never get there. But if you travel in this little vessel in which the first pile-drivers rode out into the lagunes and out of which, as out of a floating incense bowl, fantastic smoke, Venice, the artist's dream, arose, in which the show)s stone city was precipitated as a crystal is in lye, — Yes, if you travel in this little vessel and by means of the miracle that you have experienced, then you can at once see everything your longing soul aspires to see. Hellriegel. — Hold! I must first engage in a silent communion with my own thoughts. But give me the thing in my hand! {He takes the little boat and holds it in his hands.) So I am to travel in this nut-shell ? Oh yes! How wise our old host is after all, and what an ass is Michael! But just how do you accomplish the getting into this ? O please, I am no spoil-sport! Now I see through the matter: I am only afraid I shall lose my way in the little boat! If I am really to go this way, then I would prefer to take with me my two sisters, my six older brothers, my uncles and the rest of my relatives, who, thank God, are all tailors. Wann. — Courage, Michael! When you are once out of the harbor, there is no going back: you must go on, out into the high billows. And you {to Pippa) must give him the magic wind for his sails! Hellriegel. — That pleases me, that will be a queer voyage! Wann {guiding Pip pa's little finger around the edge of a Venetian glass). — Sail away, sail away, little gondoletta! Repeat it after me. Pippa. — Sail away, sail away, little gondoletta! Wann. — From night of winter, from ice and snow, Away from storm-shaken cabins go! GERHART HAUPTMANN 327 Pip pa (laughing). — From night of winter, from ice and snow, Away from storm-shaken cabins go! Warm. — Sail away, sail away, little gondoletta! {From the glass whose edge Pippa is rubbing there comes a low tone which grows louder and louder until other tones join with it and the harmony then formed swells and grows into a short but powerful musical storm, which suddenly recoils and becomes silent. Michael Hellriegel falls into a hypnotic sleep, tuith his eyes open.) fVann. — Now Michael solitary sails above the clouds, Silent the journeying, for at that lofty height Sound dieth, since it findeth no resistance there. Where art thou ? Hellriegel. — Proudly I sail through the dawn's red glow! Wann. — And on what wonders new and strange dost thou now gaze ? Hellriegel. — On more than soul of man can ever grasp, I gaze. And over hyacinthine seas I wing my flight! Wann. — Only thy ship is sinking downward now! — or no ? Hellriegel. — I know not. All the mountains of the earth, it seems, Mount up to me. Gigantic towers up the world. Wann.— And now .'' Hellriegel. — Now I am sinking downward noiselessly, And now my skiff 'mid gardens rushes silently. Wann. — Thou call'st these gardens that thou see'st .'' Hellriegel. — Yes! but of stone. The marble blossoms all are mirrored in blue plains. And the white columns tremble in the emerald ground. 328 AND PIPPA DANCES Jf'aun. — Halt there, good ferr)man. And tell us where thou art! Hellrit'gel— On stair^va^'s now I set my foot, on tapestries, And in a hall of coral now I tread my way! And now, at golden portals do I knock three times! Wann.— And tell me, on the knocker what words readest thou ? Hellriegel. — Montes chrysocreos fecerunt nos dominos! {Gold-hearing mountains have made us lords!) Wann. — What happens when the echoes of thy knocking cease ? {Michael Hellriegel does not answer^ instead he begins to groan as if he had nightmare.) Pippa. — Oh, waken him, please waken him, dear, wise, old man! Wann {as he takes the little boat out of Michael's hands). — Enough! To this secluded cabin come once more. Return again to us, snowbound and exiled here. And quake and shake the golden spoils of voyages Into our laps, while we sit here repining. {Michael Hellriegel wakens, looks around perplexedly, and tries to remember.) Hellriegel. — Hello! Why does that confounded old grunting-ox, Huhn, stand at the gate, threaten me and refuse to let me enter '^. Just slip the golden key out to me through the grating, Pippa! I will steal in through a little side door! Where? Pippa! Confound it! No! Where am I .? Par- don me, old man, it is better not to swear when anything of this kind — when after all, you have been hoaxed! Into what sort of an infernal box have I slid t Hang it all, what is going on here .'' Where is Pippa t Have you still theigolden key } Here! give it here! We will open the door quickly! Pippa. — Wake up, Michael! You are just dreaming! Try to think! Hellriegel. — But I would rather be a dreamer than wake up in such a mean w^ay, fourteen miles deep down in the puddle. I can't see my hand before my eyes here! What does it mean? Who is pressing his thumbs into my throat ? Who is crushing the happiness out of my breast with a mountain-load of fear ? fVann. — Have no fear! no fear at all, good Michael! Everything in this house is in my power, and there is nothing in it that can harm you. GERHART HAUPTMANN 329 Hellriegel. — But why, oh why, Master, did you call me back so soon into this grave-hole ? Why didn't that ragged, old wild beast let me into my magic, water-castle ? It was the very one I have always wished for, the very same one! I recognized it perfectly as the one I dreamed of when I was a little boy and sat in front of the stove, — and Pippa looked out of the window, — and the water played delightfully, like roulades on the flute, around the walls below her! Let us make the journey once again! Make us a present of your charming little gondola, and without hesitating — I offer you for it my whole knapsack with all its precious contents! Wann. — No, Michael, not yet! Have patience! For the present, you are much too hotblooded to suit me! And I beg you both to still your beating hearts and not to be afraid. Believe me there will be another day tomorrow. There are many guest chambers in my house, I beg you, tarry until morning with me! Grant me the pleasure of harboring for one night perfect, young hope! Tomorrow, you shall journey on, and God be with you! Jonathan show the stranger upstairs! Hellriegel. — We belong together, we will not be separated! fVann. — Arrange it as you wish to or will, good Michael, sleep will always take her out of your hands and you will have to leave her to her fate and God! {Hellriegel takes Pippa in his arms. He looks at her and sees that she has almost lost consciousness from her great fatigue: so, as she has fallen asleep, he lays her down on the bench by the wall.) Hellriegel. — And you stand security for her } fVann. — Solemnly! Hellriegel {kisses Pippa on the forehead). — Until morning, then! Wann. — Sleep well! Good night! And far away on the Adriatic dreams a house that waits for new and youthful guests. {Jonathan stands in the door with a light. Hellriegel tears himself away and disappears with him in the hallway. Wann looks at Pippa for awhile gravely and thoughtfully; then he says): Wann. — Into my winter cabin, magic forced his way. My wisdom's wall of ice, he broke through robber-like. By gold enticed. A shelter safe I furnished him From out my soul paternal, with old malice full. Who is the fop that he should wish to make his own This child divine who makes my vessels sail tor me — They creak and crack and swing so gently to and fro. The old dry hulls archaeologically hung! — 330 AND PirPA DANCES Why then do I put liini, this Michael, in m\ ship, Instead of saihng forth myself, triuniphantlv, Forth in my galleon, commanding my whole fleet, To subjugate abandoned heayens once again. O, ice on my old forehead, ice in my old blood! You tha\y before a sudden breath of happiness. Thou holy breath, O, kindle not in my old breast Consuming Hres of greed, of avarice and wild lusts, Till I must swallow mine own children, Saturn-like. Sleep! Oyer your sleep I watch, for you I guard What fleets away. As pictured forms ye float by me, So long as my own soul remains a picture still, Not Being, — not clear, viewless element alone. Moulder, ye hulls! for journeys new I have no thirst. (Hf has raised the sleeping girl, supported her and led her slowly and with fatherly solicitude into the chatnber to the right. After he and Pippa have disappeared, Huhn conies out from behind the stove and stands in the middle of the room, his gaze fixed on the chamber door. JVann comes out of the chamber backward, pulls the door shut after him, and speaks without noticing Huhn. He turns toward the models of the ships and in so doing sees Huhn. At first, doubting the reality of the vision, he holds his hands above his eyes to investigate; when he lets it drop, his every muscle tightens and both men measure each other with eyes filled with hatred.) fVann {slowly, quivering with rage). — No — road — passes — through — here! — Huhn {in the same manner). — No — word — passes — muster — here! — Wann. — Come on! {Huhn pushes forward and they stand opposite each other in wrestlers* positions.) Huhn. — This is all mine! — all mine, all mine, all mine! Wann. — You black, bloodthirsty bundle! Night-born lump of greed, You yet gasp forth some sounds that seem like words! {Old Huhn attacks him and they wrestle; suddenly old Huhn utters a frightful shriek and immediately afterward hangs defenceless in fVanns arms. Wann lets the gasping old man sink gently to the floor.) Wann. — Thus must it come to pass, giant uncouth! O thou Sick, wild, strong animal! — Break open stables then! GERHART HAUPTMANN 331 Here is no provender for prowling beasts of prey — Here in this snowbound house of God! ACT IV (This act immediately follows the third act, in the same room. Old Huhn lies on the bench by the stove, the sound of the death-rattle in his throat is loud and horrible. His chest is bare, his long rust-red hair falls to the ground. Old fVann stands by him, upright, his left hand laid on Huhns breast. Pippa, shy and trembling, an expression of great fear on her face, comes out of the door to the right.) Wann. — Come in, you little trembling flame, you, come right in! There is now no further danger for you, if you are a little cautious! Pippa. — I knew it! O, I knew and felt it, signore! Hold him down! Bind him fast! Wann. — So far as he can be bound, I can bind him. Pippa. — Is it old Huhn, or isn't it ? Wann. — The torture disfigures his face. But if you look at him more closely — Pippa. — Then he looks almost like yourself! Wann. — I am a human being and he wants to be: how did you happen to notice it ? Pippa. — I do not know, signore! (Hellriegel appears in the hall door, frightened.) Hellriegel. — Where is Pippa ? I had a foreboding that the lousy idiot would be at our heels! Pippa! God be thanked that you are again under my protection! Wann. — Nobody touched a hair of her head even when you were not here! Hellriegel. — It is better, however, for me to be here! Wann. — May it please Heaven! Fetch me in a bucket full of snow! Bring snow! We will lay snow on his heart, so that the poor, captive beast, beating its wings in his breast, may be calmed! Hellriegel. — Is he hurt ? Wann. — It may well be! Hellriegel. — What do we gain by it if he recovers his strength ? He will strike around him with his fists and beat us all three into mincemeat! Wann. — Not me! and not anyone else, if you are sensible! Pippa. — It is he, I am sure of it! It is the old glass-blower, Huhn! 332 AND PIPPA DANCES ff'arin. — Do you recognize him, now: the guest who came so late, to await here a higher than he ? Come close to him, little one, don't be afraid, \our pursuer is now himself the pursued! {HcUnegel brings in a bucket full of snow.) What did you see out there, Michael ? You are as white as a sheet! H flirt egd. — I did not know what it was! {IVhile the ice is being laid on Huhns breast.) It isn't the old mountain with the forest of hair that danced and jumped around with you in the tavern and from whom fortu- nately I carried you off; it isn't he at all. Pippa. — Look at him more closely, I am sure it is he! JVann. — But he has become our brother! Pippa. — Was it the matter with you, Michael ? How you do look! JVann. — What did you see outside there that made you as white as a sheet ? Hellriegel. — Well, for all I care: I saw pretty little things! It was, so to speak, like a wall of snapping, fishmouthed women's visages, pretty terrifying, pretty dreadful! I wouldn't like to have them here in the room. That's the way, when you go from a bright light into the dark! — fVann. — You will yet learn shivering! Hellriegel. — At all events, it is no pleasure to be outside there. Ap- parently the ladies have sore throats — you see it in their swollen, twitching, violet-black throats! And for what other reason were their necks wound round with a thick neckerchief of long, slavering worms! fVann. — Pshaw, Michael, you are looking around for protection! Hellriegel. — If only those tricksy little angels don't squeeze through the wall! JVann. — Michael, couldn't you go out of doors once more, and call into the dark in a loud voice, that he is to come .? Hellriegel. — No! That's going too far for me, I won't do that! JVann. — You are afraid of the lightning that is to save ? Then prepare yourself to hear God's praise howled in a manner to freeze the marrow in your bones, since not otherwise is the invasion of the pack to be prevented! (Such a shriek of pain comes from old Huhn that Pippa and Hellriegel break into a sympathetic weeping and, carried away by their sympathy, they impulsively hasten to him to bring him help.) JVann. — No hurry! It is useless! Here is no pity! Here the poi- sonous tooth and the white-hot wind rage, so long as he rages! Here typhonic powers press out the piercing scream of torture, the torture of frantic recognition of God. Blind, without compassion, they stamp it out of the soul howling, yet speechless with horror. GERHART HAUPTMANN 333 Hellnegel. — Can't you relieve him, then, old man ? Wann. — Not without him whom you do not choose to call. Pip pa {trembling). — Why is he so stretched on the rack? I have feared him, and have hated him, but why is he pursued with such wrath and merciless hatred ? — I do not ask it! Huhn. — What do you want? Let go! Let go! Don't strike your fangs into my neck! Let go! Let go! Don't tear the bones from out my loins! Don't tear my body open! Don't rend me, don't rend my soul in pieces! Hellnegel. — Great heavens! What if this should be a trial of strength; if the great fish-blooded one thinks to impress anyone with this — at all events, he doesn't impress me! or at most only with his force! Has he no more respect for his creation, or can't he help striking something low and small every moment ? And in such a peculiar way, which it is to be hoped is not the only fun there is for him in the matter. Wann. — The principal thing now is really, Michael, that one of us should go and find out where he, whom we await so longingly, is staying. Your talking, you know, brings us no further. Hellriegel. — You go out! I shall stay here. Wann. — Good! {To Pippa.) But don't dance with him! Hellriegel. — O Heavens! When anyone can make jests in such a critical situation, what is one to say to such a disaster ? Wann. — Take care whom you trust! At all events, give heed to the child! {Wann goes out through the hall.) Pippa. — Oh, if we were only away from here, Michael! Hellriegel. — I have wished that too! God be thanked, that at all events we are now at the top! Tomorrow, at daybreak, we can rush down the southern slope — for all I care, we can go on sleds, that would be fine! Then we shall be out of this region of foreigners and assassins and grunting baboons, forever! Pippa. — Oh, if he only wouldn't scream again! Hellriegel. — Let him scream! V.ven if he does, it is still better inside here: the silence outside screams more horribly. Huhn {with heavy tongue). — Murder! Murder! Pippa. — He has spoken again! 1 believe the old toy-dealer has injured him in some way! Hellriegel. — Cling to me! Press close to my heart. Pippa. - O Michael, you pretend to be so calm, and your heart beats so fiirioiislv! Hellriegel. — Like your own! 334 AND PIPPA DANCES Pippa. — And his! I hear his beating, too! How hard it labors! It seems strained to the utmost! Hfllncgel. — Is it that ? Is it really a heart that pounds like that ? Pippa. — What else can it be ? Just listen, what else can be pounding like that ? I don't know why, but I feel it all through me, so painfully — it hurts me clear down to the tips of my toes — at every stroke, it seems as it I must help it. Hellriegel. — Look, a chest like a cannibal's! Doesn't it look like a bellows all covered with matted red hair ? And as if it ought always to be blowing something like a small forge fire. Pippa. — O, how the poor little captive bird keeps jumping against his ribs in its fright! Shall I lay my hand on him for a minute, Michael .? Hellriegel. — You have my permission! There can be nothing in all the world which would be so miraculously effectual 1 Pippa (laying her hand on Huhns heart). — I hadn't the least idea that under all his rags, old Huhn was as white as a young girl! — Hellriegel. — There you see it does work! He is quieter already! And now we will give him a little wine besides, so that he may meet death sleeping peacefully. (^He goes to the table to pour out some wine. Pippa allows her hand to remain on Huhn's breast.) Huhn. — Who lays her little hand on my breast .'' I sat within my house — in the darkness — we sat in the darkness! The world was cold! Daylight came no more, the morning never came! We sat there round a cold glass furnace! And the people came there, yoop, yoop — They came there from far away, creeping across the snow! They came from far awav because they were hungry: they wanted to have a little bit of light on their tongues, they wanted to absorb a little bit of warmth into their benumbed bones! It is true! And they lay around the glass-works all night! I heard them groan; I heard them moan. And then I rose and poked around in the ash pits — all at once there arose a single little spark — a tiny spark arose out of the ashes! O Jesus, what shall I do with the little spark that has all at once risen again out of the ashes .'' Shall I make you a servant, little spark, shall I capture you ^ Shall I strike at you, little spark t Shall I dance with you, tiny little spark } Hellriegel. — Say yes, say yes, don't oppose him! But tell us, you, the rest of your story! Here, first take a swallow, old Mr. What's-your- name! Today, you — tomorrow, me! We will hold together, because in my inmost heart, I too am something of a snowbound, ghostly glass-maker. Huhn {after he has drunken). — Blood! Black blood tastes good! GERHART HAUPTMANN 335 But, what the^wise man^'makes, I make too! I too make glass! Oh dear, yes, what is there that I haven't brought out of the glass furnaces! Beads! Precious stones! Magnificent goblets! Ever in with the blowpipe and one blast into it! Enough of that! I will dance with you, little spark! Wait a moment: I'll start up my furnace again! How the white heat breaks from the doors! No one ever comes up to old Huhn! Did you see her dancing round in the air over the fire ? Hellriegel. — Whom do you mean ? Huhn. — Whom ? W^ho would it be ? He doesn't know, he doesn't, that the girl springs from the glass furnaces! Hellriegel {chuckling). — Just listen, Pippa, you spring from the glass furnaces ! Pippa. — Oh, Michael, I feel like weeping. Huhn. — Dance, dance! that it may grow a little lighter! Go here, go there, that the people may get light! Kindle the fire, kindle the fire! We will go to work! Hellriegel. — Just listen! When such an opportunity offers, I would really like to join vou! The devil take me, if I wouldn't, and not with just a journeyman's piece of work — Huhn. — We stood around our glass furnaces and around about us out of the starless night crept fear! {He gasps harder.) Mice, dogs, beasts and birds crept into the fire. It grew smaller and smaller and was going out! We said to each other and said constantly — O Jesus, the terror of it — into the little fire! Then it fell apart! Then we screamed! A little blue light came again! Then we screamed again! And then it was out! I sat in mv house, over my cold fire! I saw nothing! I poked around in the ashes! All at once a little spark flew up, a single little spark flew up in front of me. Shall we dance again, little spark ? Pippa {fleeing to Michael). — Michael, are you still there? Hellriegel. — Yes, of course! Do you think that Michael is inclined to be a shirker .'* This old man, however, is something more than a dis- charged glass-blower, God knows! Just see, what a bloody, agonizing spasm is shown in his face! Pippa. — And how his heart wrestles, and how it pounds! Hellriegel. — Like an eternal forge-dance with the forge-hammer. Pippa. — And at every stroke, I feel my own breast t(nn and burned! Hellriegel. — I do too! I feel it tremendously through all my bones, and it tugs at me until it seems I must work and pound with it! Pippa. — Listen, Michael, it seems exactly as if the same stroke struck deep down and knocked on the earth. 336 AND PIPPA DANCES HtUriegel. — You are right, the same terrihle blow of the forge-hammer strikes deep down! Huhn. — Sliall I dance with you, httle spirit ? {UndcrgroumL thunderous rutnblings.) Pippa. — Michael, did you hear that rumbling underground ? Htllrifgcl. — No! Come! ^ ou had better take your hand away from his heart. If everything is going to rock, and the earth is going to tremble and we are going to shoot out like an involuntary meteor, who knows whither into space, then it is certainly better for us to clamp ourselves together, shortly, into an indissoluble knot. I am only joking! Pippa. — Oh, Michael, don't joke now! HeUricgel. — Tomorrow, we will both joke about this! Pippa. — Do you know, I feel almost as if I were only a single spark and as if I hovered around, lost and quite alone, in endless space! Hellriegel. — A dancing star in the heavens, Pippa! and why not .f* Pippa (whispering). — Michael, Michael, dance with me! Hold me fast, Michael, I don't want to dance! Michael, Michael, dance with me! Hellriegel. — I will do it, so help me God, as soon as we are out of this scrape! Think of something beautiful! As soon as this night is over, I have promised mvself: that from then on, you shall walk only on roses and tapestries. And we shall laugh, as soon as we are down there, in the little water-palace — we shall go there, I assure you— and then I shall lay you in your little silken bed ■ — and then I shall bring you sweetmeats all the time — and then I shall cover you up and tell you creepy stories — and then you will burst out laughing, so sweetly, that the delicious sound will be pain to me. And then you will sleep, and I shall play all night long, softly, softly, on a glass harp. P//)/)fl.— Michael! Hellriegel. — Yes, Pippa! Pippa. — Where are you r Hellriegel. — Here beside you! I hold you tightly clasped! Huhn. — Shall we dance again, little spirit .? Pippa. — Hold me, Michael — don't let me go! He drags me to him! — I am being dragged! If you let me go I must dance! I must dance! — or else I shall die! Let me go! Hellriegel. — Really .? Well, I think it will be well, in the midst of all these, in a way really nightmarish things, to bethink myself of my brave old Swabian blood! If all your limbs twitch to do it, why shouldn't you dance this last dance with a poor wretch who attaches so much value to your doing it ! In my opinion there can't be anything so bad in that. Not GERHART HAUPTMANN 337 for nothing, have there been jolly fellows who have conjured away Satan's hell-fire from under his tail and lighted their pipes with it. Why shouldn't one strike up a tune for him to dance ? {He takes out his ocarina.) Rum- pum-pum, rum-pum-pum! How does the time go? Very well, for all I care, get ready to dance, sweet Pippa. If it must be — we dare not be particular about the place and the hour in this world! {Trills and runs on the ocarina.) Dance away, and dance till you are tired! It is far from being the worst thing you can do : to be joyous with one who is mortally afflicted. [To the tones of the ocarina, which Michael plays, Pippa makes some slow, painful dance movements, that have something convulsive about them. Little by little the dance grows wilder and more bacchanalian. A rhythmic trembli ng stirs the body of old Huhn. In addition to this, he drums frantically with his fists, keeping time with Pippa's dance rhythm. At the same time he seems to be shaken by a terrible chill, like some one coming out of a cutting wind into the warmth. From the depths of the earth muffled sounds force their way up: rumblings of thunder, triangles, cymbals and kettle-drums. Finally Wann enters through the hall door.) Huhn. — I am making a little glass! I am making it. {Fastening a look of hate on fVann.) I shall make it and knock it to pieces again! Come — with — we — into — the dark — little spark. {He crushes the drinking glass which he still holds in his hand, and the pieces clatter to the floor.) {Pippa shivers and then grows suddenly rigid.) Pippa. — Michael! {She reels and Wann catches her in his arms. She is dead.) Wann. — Have you achieved your purpose in spite of me, old corybant .? Hellriegel (stops playing on his ocarina for a few seconds). — Good! Stop a moment to get your breath, Pippa! Huhn {with an effort, looks Wann full in the eyes, triumphantly. Then there comes from his lips with difficulty, but powerfully, the call) — Jumalai ! ! ! {Immediately after it he sinks back and dies.) Hellriegel {is about to begin playing on his ocarina again). — What was that.? I have it! I heard that cry, yesterday morning! What do you say to that, old wizard ? But anyhow, it is well that you have come, for otherwise we would have galloped away, over knives and pieces of broken glass into the unknown, on and on, who knows where! Have you found him at last .? Wann. — Most certainly! Hellriegel {after a trill). — Well, where did you find him .? ^^S AND ril'PA DANCES Wann. — I found him behind a snovv-driFt. He was tired. He said his load of work was too enormous. I had to persuade him a long while. (Looking down oti Pippa.) And now it seems that he misunderstood me. Ht'llriegel [after a trill). — But at least he is coming now.'' If'ann. — Didn't vou see him ? He came in just before me! Ht'llriegel. — I didn't see anything, to be sure, but I felt something when the old man yelled out his silly foreign word, something that still hums in my bones. fVann. — Do you hear the echo still making a hubbub outside .'' Hellriegel {goes up close to Huhn, curiously). — Truly! The old cloven hoof will stamp no more. I must say, a weight has fallen from my soul! I hope that at last the old hippopotamus is in a safe place. Tell me, you probably injured his backbone for him, didn't you ? But perhaps that wasn't really necessary, although it is possible that it may have saved us. fVann. — Yes, Michael, if you are saved, it would certainly have been difficult to accomplish it in any other way. Hellriegel. — Yes, thank God, I feel that we are over the worst of it. For that reason I won't mope any longer because the old man — he is really past the time for boyish tricks! — because the old man has died of his love affair, and can not have what I possess. Every man for himself and God for us all! In what way does the affair concern me after all! Pippa! ! How does it happen that you have two lights to the right and left of you, one on each shoulder } fVann {with Pippa in his arms). — Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur mihi! [Behold a god stronger than /, who when he comes will have dominion over me!) Hellriegel. — I don't understand that! {With his head bent forward he gazes searchingly for a few seconds at Pippa as she lies in Wanns arms.) Oh, now something tugs so as my breast again, now I am again shaken with impatience, so painfully sweet that it seems as if I must be at the same time here on this spot and millions of years away. Everything is rosy-red round about me! {He plays, then interrupts himself and says) Dance, child! Rejoice! Rejoice, for with the help of the never-ceasing light in my breast, we have found the way through the gloomy labyrinth, and when you have tired of leaping and feel calm in the certainty of happi- ness, then we will immediately {to fVann) with your permission, glide down over the clear snow, at if we went by post, into spring's ravine, down there. Wann. — Yes, if you see spring's ravine down there, good Michael, certainly! GERHART HAUPTMANN 339 Hellrtegel {with the motions of a blind man who sees only what is within himself; standing at the pitch-dark luindow). — Ho, I see it well, spring's ravine! I am not blind! A child can see it! From your cabin, you ancient inn-keeper, you can overlook the whole land — for a distance of fifty miles. I absolutely will not sit here any longer, like the spirit in the glass bottle, lying corked at the bottom of the sea. Once upon a time — just give us the golden key and let us go away! PFann. — When the sun shines forth suddenly in winter, it is apt to make people blind! Hellriegel. — Or give them the all-seeing eye! I could almost believe myself in a dream: so mysteriously am I charmed by the mountains, white in the light of the morning's flaming splendor, and by the enchanting haze over the peninsulas, inlets and gardens of the ravine, and really, it seems as if I were on another star! fVann. — That's the way it always is when the mountains are bathed in the light of the great Pan's games with the fires of St. Elmo. Hellriegel. — Pippa! fVann. — She is even now, again, far from us on her own pilgrimage! And he, the restless barbarous old giant is again pursuing her. {He lays Pippa down on the bench. Afterward he calls.) Jonathan! Again the invisible hand that reaches through walls and roofs has frustrated my schemes and made them his booty. Jonathan! He is even now cold! The glowing crater is extinguished. What does the hunter hunt .? It is not the animal that he slays! What does the hunter hunt .? Who can answer me } Hellriegel (at the black window). — Pippa, just look down there, the tongues of land are covered with golden cupolas — and do you see: there is our water-palace — and the golden steps that lead up to it! fVann. — Then rejoice! Rejoice over what you see, Michael, and over what is hidden from you! Hellriegel. — The sea! Oh, there is another, upper sea forming: this other sea gives back to the lower sea millions of twinkling stars! O Pippa — and look, still a third sea forms! There is an infinite mirroring and immer- sion of light in light! We swim through it all, between ocean and ocean, on our rustling gold galley! JVann. — Then, of course, you will no longer need my little vessel! Throw back the shutters, Jonathan! (Jonathan, ivho has looked in, opens the house door and the first faint gleam of morning comes m through the hall ) Hellriegel. — Pippa! 340 AND PIPPA DANCES fFann. — Here she is, take each other's hands! {He goes up to Michaely iL'ho is standing with the expression of a blind seer on his face, and makes motions as if Pippa stood near him and as if he laid Michael' s hand in hers.) There! I marr\' you! I marry you to this shadow! He who is married to shadows marries you to this one! Hellriegel. — Not bad, Pippa, you are a shadow! Wann. — Go forth, go out with her into the wide world — to your water-palace, I meant to say! And here you have the key to it! That monster can no longer prevent your entering! And outside a sleigh with two curved horns stands ready — Hellriegel [ivith great tears on his cheeks). — And there I shall make water into balls! Wann. — You are doing it now with your eyes! Now go! Don't forget your ocarina! Hellriegel. — O no! I shall not forget my sweet, beloved little wife! fVann. — For it may yet be possible, that sometime you will have to plav and sing here and there before people's doors. But don't lose your courage because of that. For in the first place, you have the little key to the palace, and when it grows dark, you have this torch which Pippa may carry on before you; and then you \\'\\\ surely and certainly come to the place where joy and peace await you. Only sing and play bravely and do not despair. Hellriegel. — Hurrah! I sing the song of the blind! JVann. — What do you mean by that ? Hellriegel. — I sing the song of the blind people who do not see the ereat o-olden stairs! fVann. — So much the higher will you mount the scala d'oro, the scala dei Giganti! Hellriegel. — And I sing the song of the deaf! JVann. — Those who do not hear the stream of the universe flowing! Hellriegel. — Yes ! Wann. — Be sure you do it! But, Michael, when they are not touched and when they threaten you with hard words or with stone-throwing, which is pretty sure to happen, then tell them how rich you are — a prince on a journey with his princess! Talk to them of your water-palace and beg them for God's sake to direct you to the next milestone on your road! Hellriegel {chuckling). — And Pippa shall dance! Wann. — And Pippa dances! (It has now become broad daylight. Wann puts a cane into the hand of the blind and helpless Michael^ puts his hat on and leads him to the outside GERHART HAUPTMANN 341 door, feeling his way, hut chuckling softly and happily. Now Michael puts the ocarina to his mouth and plays a heart-hreakingly sad melody. In the hall, Jonathan takes charge of the blind man and fVann comes back. He listens to the ocarina, as the melody dies away farther and farther into the distance, takes the little gondola from the table, looks at it and says with pained renunciation in his tones). — Sail away, sail away, little gondoletta! THE LITERATURE OF PORTUGAL By Isabel Moore I SINCE the time of Robert Southey almost no attention has been paid to the hterature of Portugal. Yet Portugal, the 'medulla Hispanica' (marrow of Spain, as it has been called) has not only a vast but an exceedingly beautiful literature, entirely distinctive from the Spanish of which it is so often and erro- neously considered a part. Like the country itself, the liter- ature has been peculiarly insecure and yet peculiarly lasting. Long, long ago — when the Spanish Peninsular was in the making — a certain Alfonso, ruler of Leon, conquered his brothers, Garcia of Galicia and Coimbra, and Sancho of Castile, and was himself crowned king of Castile, Leon, Galicia and Coimbra. His father was Don Fernando who conferred the honor of knighthood, in the great Mosque of Coimbra, upon Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, the redoutable Cid, Champion of Christendom and hero of Spanish Mediaeval history. And Alfonso — after he had adjusted his domestic supremacy to his liking — had proceeded to the conflict against his religious and territorial foes, the Moors, who, since the defeat of Roderick the Goth in the Battle of the Guadelette, had ravaged the Peninsular. He was successful to the extent of winning Santarem and Lisbon from the Lusitanian Moors, but was finally in such straits and met with such crushing reverses that he called upon other Christian princes to help him. Among those to respond, was Count Henry of Burgundy, to whom Alfonso gave the countries of Oporto and Coimbra in 1095 as a reward for his services and assistance. And with this grant of lands began the Kingdom of Portugal. Alfonso Henriques, the first King of Portugal, was the son of this French Prince; and the establishment of a Burgundian dynasty introduced French words into the Coimbrian dialect, such as never found their way into the Galician: — although, in the main, the dialects remained for a long time practically the same. It was only in Coimbra, however, after it became an integral part of Portugal, that there was a Court; and, therefore, it was in Coimbra that the common dialect acquired a separate and distinctive literature: taking precedence and wielding together the different elements that went to the forming of the Portuguese national language. 342 ISABEL MOORE 343 Though, until the existence of Portugal as a nation, we cannot consider her Hterature as separated from the CastiUan, there is every probability that songs were sung in the Portuguese dialect long before they were in the Castilian. The oldest Portuguese poetry of which we have authentic record, however, are three curious fragments given by Manuel de Faria, by Sousa in his Europe Portuguesa, written by Gonzalo Hermiguez and Egaz Moniz Coelho; two poets who are said to have lived during the reign of Alfonso Henriques, although some authorities maintain they came a little later. Ticknor, however, is confident that their verse can not be placed later than 1200, and says: 'Both show that the Galician in Portugal, under less favorable circumstances than those which accompanied the Castilian in Spain, rose at the same period to be a wTitten language and possessed, perhaps quite as early, the materials for forming an independent literature.' Alfonso Henriques, himself, was a poet as well as an able ruler, though none of his verse has survived for our estimation; and Spain and Portugal have in common the still extant fragment of a poem said to have been found in 1 187, in a condition so injured by time that little more than thirty lines were legible, ascribed to Roderick the Last of the Goths: — coeval, then, with the Arab conquest of the Peninsular in the beginning of the eighth century. It is a cause for wonder that Arabian poetry left no more trace than it seems to have done on Spanish versification, and no trace at all — that is descernible in our day, at least — on the Portuguese. Probably it enriched the Peninsular dialects somewhat but, apparently, not much. It has been claimed that the Spanish ballads are imitations of the Arabian; and, of course, as it was inevitable that there should be, there were many Spanish border ballads concerned with Moorish-Spanish international episodes and incidents. But this was more particularly the case after the Fall of Grenada, when cause for rejoicing over a vanquished foe most naturally found expression. That there was little interchange of imitation is readily proved by the internal simplicity of each. The Spanish ballads, particularly, are so simple in form and so direct in feeling that they could hardly be anything but the almost personal result of a popular need. Furthermore, it is easy to believe that a chivalrous and energetic people would naturally evolve their own ballad expression as they would their own architectural or political expression; and the evidence to corroborate this natural belief is the fact that not one single Arabic original has been found in the great mass of Spanish ballads. Although Arabian poetry is almost entirely lyrical — and the lyrical appeal was peculiarly poignant to the early Spanish, and is to the Portuguese of all time — each nation held to a most ardent appre- 344 THE LITERATURE OF PORTUGAL elation of the beauty of its own speech. This was, doubtless, a most desirable state of affairs, ccMitnbutmii to the consolidation of what may be called national individualism in the poetry of Spain and Portugal; yet we cannot but regret to a degree that such a delightful possession of the Arabs, for example, as the 'trembling meter' — iambics, rhyming in the same syllable throughout: a measure which, according to the Arabs, resembles the trot of a camel — found no place in either Spanish or Portuguese verse. 'The beautiful poetry with which Allah has adorned the Muslim' is a thing apart; requiring independent appreciation and consideration. The twelfth century has been likened unto a dusky dawn in which could be heard a few twittering birds that have awakened before their mates. There had come into existence what has been called 'a state of European consciousness.' All civilized Europe awoke, and every creature proceeded to produce after his kind. The Troubadour movement was the first symmetrical expression in Art of Chivalry — that adventurous service of God and woman — as the Crusades were its first expression in action. Love of external nature, elemental emotion, simple sentiment, were the well-springs of their lyric utterance; bubbling up into being from long-hidden, tranquil depths of feeling. And, as the Romance languages — composed of the Latin and the Teutonic tongues — in the first place all sprang from popular and not from classic Latin, so, likewise, in turn, the Troubadours found their expression in the homely speech of the common people after the bar- baric invasions had led to the complete destruction of the Latin culture. ' They rank, ' writes one modern critic, ' in the scale between music and usual verse.' And, again: 'Their words are like musical notes, not so much signs of thought as symbols of feeling, which almost defy an arbitrary interpre- tation and must be rendered in part by the temperament of the performer.' That was it: — the Troubadours were the temperamental element of their age, whether of noble birth or of humble origin. St. Francis of Assisi himself, the typical saint of the Middle Ages, was at heart a bit of a tempera- mental tramp as he went from village to village with a number of friars, singing the Canticle of the Sun. Most truly did William of Poitiers — the reputed father of Provencal song — express the impulse of the day in his verse beginning: 'Desire of song hath taken me!' 'Desire of song,' — yea, verily. And the 'desire' would not, could not, be denied. It found its voice, first of all and for the longest period, in fair Provence, that 'home of song,' where from 1 194-1209 the Court of Raimon VI of Toulouse was thronged with poets. It flourished in France from 1080 on. Alfonso II of Arragon, who died in Portugal while trying ISABEL MOORE 345 to arrange a general league against the Moors, was the Troubadour-King in whose reign Troubadour poetry reached its finest outburst in Arragon. Alfonso X of Castile was a devoted patron of the Gaya Sciencia. His Cantigas in honor of the Madonna — strange minglings with regard to the All-Mother of the original Pagan and overlaid Christianity — we still have to the number of four hundred and one. They are in the Galician dialect, bearing somewhat the impress of the Provencal, and are the oldest extant specimens of Galician verse as distinct from the Portuguese with, possibly, the exception of the ballad called 'The Fight of the Figwood.' It has been said that Portugal did not, strictly speaking, belong to the Troubadour world, and it is true that the name and poem of only one undoubtedly Portuguese Troubadour of the earliest period has survived — Joao de Penda ( 1 145-1204). But, although the individual record is meager, Portugal in reality became even more Provencal that Castile, lor in Castile there soon sprang up a strong French influence. The Troubadours — most of them — spent their lives visiting different Courts, and the Court of Portugal was so pleasant and welcoming that they frequently lingered there for a long time. Of these wandering minstrels who reached Portugal, the French Marcabrun is the most famous of this early period. He visited Portugal in 1147, while Alfonso Henriques was in the prime of his glory, and is said to have been the first of the French Troubadours to cross the Pyrenees. The similarity in the literary languages of Castile and Portugal undoubtedly led to considerable intercourse between the two countries, and it is on record that the later Portuguese Troubadours, Pero Gomez Barroso, Payo Gomez Charrinho and Concalo Fames do Vidal, were received with honors at the Castilian Court. Among the Galician poets who frequented the Court of Portugal during the reign of Sancho I (1185-1211) were Alfonso Gomez, Fernam Con^alves de Senabria and Joao Scares de Paiva; whose famous Proven9al rivals were Peire Valeria, Gavandan o Velho and Peire Vidal, — the Peire Vidal of whom it was said that 'he was the best singer in^^the world and a good finder; and that he was the most foolish man in the world because he thought everything tiresome except verse.' And it is interesting evidence of the community of feeling in the Troubadour world to remember that Bonifaci Calvo, a Troubadour of Genoa, lived at the Castilian Court for a long period, and that two of his seventeen extant poems are in the Portuguese language; and that another Italian, Sordel — Brown- ing's Sordello - visited the Courts of the Peninsluar in 1260, meeting everywhere with courteous welcome. In Portugal he gained an honor accorded no other foreign troubadour: — a place in their song books. * As much — no more — one lives as one enjoys,' he sang. 346 THE LITERATURE OF PORTUGAL It is quite possible that the Portuguese preceded the CastiHans in epic or heroic poetry as well as in lyric verse. An earlier Castilian Alfonso than he of the Cantigas — Alfonso III — had fostered the Franco-Provencal school in his kmgdom b^• bringing with hiin from France, Trouveres as well as Troubadours. Among these was Alfonso Lopez de Bayan, who wrote the first grsta in the Portuguese language, a gesta de Maldizer. But, although such names as Rodriguez Lobo, Eloi de Sa Sotonayor and Pires de Rebello — of a little later day — made this form of verse illustrious, the heroic romance never became thoroughly naturalized in Portugal and chiefly found its way through Spain. Narrative romance never seems to have been so esteemed by the Portuguese as by their Castilian neighbors. In 1208 came the Albigensian Crusade in which Folquet de Marseilla, himself once a Troubadour but since become Abbott of La Thoronet, assisted Simon de Montfort against Toulouse in the siege that resulted in the decisive battle of 1213 in which the Midi were conquered. 'The stream must fall into the sea,' as Mistral sang of this event. Tides of fugitives fled beyond the Pyrenees. Echoes of the Troubadour world reverberated the length of Castile and Galicia and Portugal. Spain — used in a generic sense — was their refuge and their dream. The Court of Dom Sancho II of Portugal, particularly, was filled with gay and young knights and trou- badours who had been under the most direct Provencal influence. But the times were rapidly changing: the old order giving place to the new. Men's ideas were expanding and becoming big with other plans that found expression in other forms. Dante, when he came, was a typical troubadour spiritualized. /// Paradiso is the culmination of the troubadour feeling, as in Boccacio culminated the art of the Trouveres. Yet, though the troubadour spirit has now become itself a fugitive, there are even unto this day survivals and even revivals, and will ever be, so long as lyric poetry lives in human hearts: lyric poetry being the very quintessence of human sympathy and love and hope and the joy of life and the worship of nature. No matter that it only lingers in the secret places: that the form is changed: that it is overshadowed by the big worldly things of men. It is with the troubadour spirit, as found among the folk-tales and folk-songs of a people, as it was with the little maid in the old Portuguese folk-tale, who sings: * Prince of love, I have come many leagues To see thee, O my Lord! My shoes are torn; My staff is travel-worn; Yet here I am come back to thee!' ISABEL MOORE 347 II The Kingdom of Portugal was, however, rather to one side of the track of change and the old spirit Hngered there for some time after the reign of Sancho II, although with the passing of the thirteenth century the poHtical conditions changed entirely from a period of war and territorial expansion to one of consolidation, preluding the Idade d'Ouro of heroic exploration and Asiatic conquest. It was a certain poised period: a stopping to take breath before a new and vigorous burst of enterprise: a lying fallow unto the end of renewed life and activity. During the fourteenth century there were hardly any writers of verse in Portugal except members of the royal family; and of these, by far the most illustrious was the earliest, Dom Dinez (1279-1325) 'Brave Dinez'as Camoens called him. He was a lover of letters and a true poet, promoting the literature of his country in much the same fashion as did his contempo- rar)', Alfonso X, that of Castile. Not only did he found the great University that afterwards moved from Lisbon to Coimbra, but he and his poetic courtiers developed the Portuguese dialect into a beautiful and flexible literary^ language. His own verse shows the influence of the Troubadours rather than that of the Trouveres who had come into evidence at his father's Court: but, as time went on, he more and more threw off^ the trammels of the Provencal forms and, perceiving the beauty of his people's lyrics, wrote some quaint and graceful ' Pastorellas' in which — as in almost all pastoral poetr>' — the buccolic touch is easily conformable to the primitive religious feeling of the people. The poems of Dom Dinez are to be found only in old manuscripts. They are collected into Cancioneiros, two in number, the first containing his Cantigas to the Virgin — another touch in common with his Castilian contemporary — and the second his temporal works. Besides Dom Dinez, of the royal poets, his son, Alfonzo IV, wrote verse that has never been printed, and the sonnet in praise of Vasco de Lobeira is said to have been written by him, although some authorities attribute it to Pedro, the son of John the Great. This Lobeira deserves particular mention because there is little doubt that he gave to the literary world the first version of Amadis of Gaul, though the earliest version we now have is the Spanish of Garci-Ordonez de Montalvo which was written about 1495. There is proof that the story of Amadis existed as early as 1325 and, until the end of the sixteenth centur)-, a manuscript copy of Lobeira's work was in the possession of the Dukes of Aveiro at Lisbon. It was probably in verse, bur this is nor known wirh cerrainry and it has been lost sight ot since the middle of the eighteenth century. Rather curiously, the last of the line 348 THE LITERATURE OF PORTUGAL of the A modi s romances, as well as the first, is attrihuted to a Portuguese and was entitled ' Penalava.' It is supposed to have dealt with the last exploits and death of Lisuarte, King of Greece; but, if it ever really existed, no copy of it seems ever to have been seen. The second series of great Spanish romances — that of the Pal- merins — was for a long time supposed to have had a Portuguese origin. This was an error, however, arising from a misunderstanding of a state- ment on the part of its translator from the Spanish. But the Seventh, Eighth and Ninth (the Ninth being the last) of the Palmerin sequence were written by Portuguese; the Eighth and Ninth by Balth; Gon^alvez Lobato, and the Seventh (which has never been translated into any other language) by Diogo Fernandez. It was King Alfonzo IV (1325-1357), son and successor of Dom Dinez, whose forces, united with those of Alfonzo of Castile, won the great victory over the Moors in the battle of the Salado that was the inspiration of the first Portuguese epic by Alfonzo Giraldes, the forerunner of Camoens. The year 1348 of his reign was marked by the Black Death; and the next to the last of his reign by the tragedy of Inez de Castro, which has been the subject of manv poems in many tongues. The whole stor)- of Inez de Castro is one of fierce passions of love and hate, of cruelty and of tenderness, and of a wild disloyalty that was superbly loyal. She was a Castilian in the suite of Beatrice of Castile, wife of Alfonzo IV, with whom their son, Dom Pedro, fell deeply in love. Inez became the mistress of Pedro, living in a house of Coimbra, of which a few ruined walls are all that now remain. Tradition says that Pedro visited her through a conduit that ran from the Fonte dos Amores (Fountain of Love) that was in the Oumta das Lagrimas (Garden of Tears). Constancia, the wife of Pedro, died of grief; and, the affair coming to the knowledge of the King Inez de Castro was murdered by his order. Such is the briefest possible outline of the epiosde; and, it must be admitted, that in outline it is in no way distinctive from the usual amours of princes. But the sequel is what raises it above their level and places it, humanly, among the great love tragedies of the world. No passing fancy had it been on the part of Dom Pedro. His first act on ascending the throne, two years later, was to punish the murderers of Inez. Alvero Gonsalves and Pedro Coelho were slowly tortured to death before the eyes of Dom Pedro in front of the royal palace of Coimbra; but the third, Pacheco, succeeded in escaping to England. The marriage with Inez was then pronounced vahd. Her body was disinterred; taken from the royal monastery of Alcoba^a; and placed on a magnificent throne, elevated on ISABEL MOORE 349 many steps, in front of the great altar of the Cathedral of Coimbra. Her robes were regal; a veil concealed her visage; a crown was on her head; her hands were gloved, one grasping a scepter. Pedro stood on the right side of the throne, in complete armour and bare-headed. The heralds proclaimed the titles of Inez and called upon all true subjects to do honor to their Queen. The two young princes, her sons, advanced and, it is said, at first shrank back; but sustained and encouraged by the monks knelt on the steps and kissed the dead hand that was raised and extended to them by the officiating Bishops. The clergy, Ministers of State, officers of the Palace, ladies of the Court, hereditary' nobles of the land, followed. Not a word was spoken, not a sound heard, until the trumpets proclaimed that the royal ordi- nance was accomplished and the Queen Consort of Portugal acknowledged by her subjects. Then, attended by ever^- symbol of sovereignty, the dead body of Inez de Castro was conducted from Coimbra back to the Alcobaca Monastery — fifty-two miles — the road all the way being lined with people on both sides, who bore lighted torches. The funeral procession was led by Dom Pedro and his sons; attended by all the great of the kingdom, the gentlemen dressed in long mourning robes, the ladies in white mourning veils. Once again was Inez de Castro taken from her grave. The second time was by the French soldiers, during the Peninsular War, who dragged her body and Pedro's forth in the mercenary hope of discovering concealed treasure. Pedro was a mere skeleton in royal robes; but Inez had been so skillfully embalmed that, it has been recorded, 'her beautiful face was entirely unchanged, and her magnificent hair of a light lustrous auburn, which had been the marvel of the whole nation during her life, so enriched in length and volume that it covered her whole figure even to her feet and excited the wonder and admiration of the very spoilers who tore away the rich jewels by which her death garments were clasped.' This story has been an inspiration to many literatures; and the best literary version — with the exception of Camoens' episode and, possibly, the dramas of the Spaniard, Bermudez — is the Portuguese tradegy 'Castro' by Dr. Antonio Ferreira, which is also the first Portuguese version. In it is a Hymn to Love that is most lyrically beautiful and that, perhaps, belongs here as illustrative of the subject that was its inspiration, although Ferreira belongs to a later period and to a distinct school. It closes the First Act of the drama, and Bouterwek gives the following two stanzas: 'Quando Amor naceo, Claros rayos ao Sol, luz as estrellas. O Ceo resplandecco, 350 THE LITERATURE OF PORTUGAL EJde sua luz vencida A escuridao mostrow ascousas bellas. Aquella, que subida Esta na terceira esphera, Do bravo nar nascida Amor ao Mundo da, doce amor gera. For Amor s'orna a terra D'agoas e de verdura, As arvores da folhas, cor as flores. Em doce paz a guerra, A dureza em brandura. E mil odios converte em mil amores Quanta vidas a dura: Morte desfaz, renova: A fermosa pintura Do mundo, Amor a tem inteira, e nova.' Dom Fedro himself wTote verse in both the Castilian and the Fortu- guese. He used, almost entirely, the measure of the Italian canzone, indi- cating that the Italian influence w^as felt at an early period in Portugal; although, as a matter of fact, it was at that time but very slight. With Dom Pedro passed the period of the royal poets. Royalty continued to encourage literature with varying degrees of enthusiasm, but the rulers who loved best the enterprises of discovery seem to have had little time for song or inclination for song. M. E. M. has made the following translations of three Cantigas by Dom Pedro I: I 'When shall my love be blest? When shall my grief be o'er ^ When shall my fears find rest, Ne'er to awaken more ? Doubt lets not grief depart; Fear is still abiding; Changeful Fate checks my heart From its warm confiding. Vainly doth Hope bestow A sunny smile on me: ISABEL MOORE ^u Ne'er doth my deep love know Blessed Certainty.' * Long-sighed for Peace! that all my pain Cans't soothly end, Hope would not smile on me in vain Wert thou my friend. Be but my friend! So wilt thou turn My pain to pleasure; And for the trials I have borne Due guerdon measure. Firm Faith can conquer Grief — e'en now My griefs shall end; And grim Despair will die, // thou Wilt be mv friend.' 3 'First of Earth's Fair! how duly thine Is the best homage of the heart; I speak thy name as word divine. To me the joy of life thou art. Now by thy worth, thy charms, I give Thee all my love; so full, so free, That, self-unloving, now I live Forgetting self, to think of thee. Faith, in thine eyes, doth far outshine All that Earth's brightest joys impart; So, my life's wealth! like one divine I'll shrine thee in my faithful heart.' How accurate in feeling these translations are, the present writer does not know, nor who M. E. M. was. The originals are very difficult of access and there has been no opportunity to compare them with the translations. There are certain indications that the spontaneity of feeling has been sacri- 352 THE LITERATURE OF PORTUGAL ficed to the necessities of English verse, but this may not be so. Only, all translations should be approached with a chastened and careful spirit, to invalidate, so far as possible, the Italian saving that 'A translation is a betra\al!' 'Of all species of poetry,' savs Sismondi, 'perhaps the lyric and bucolic are least susceptible of being rendered into another tongue. They lose the very essence oi their beauty.' There is a poetical lament in Spanish of Dom Pedro's that comes to us out of the Past in a great cry of anguish, an almost literal translation of which is: * Blood of my heart, heart that belonged to me, heart that hath thus been stricken, who could dare strike thee ? His heart I will tear out!' There is a certain direct and personal wail of love and rage and revenge in this — barbaric and passionate — that brings Dom Pedro the man, and even Dom Pedro the poet, possibly Dom Pedro the King, — into a more intimate sympathy with the universality of human suffering. The form seems to have not been considered: there is none of the objectivity to which verse, even direct and emotional verse, is usually bound: and, consequently, on Carlvle's principle 'see deeply enough and you see musically' — the spontaneous form is essentially and inevitably poetic. Ill 'Sail toward the setting sun until you come to an island' was the instruction given by Prince Henry of Portugal to one of the early explorers: and that is what the Portuguese proceeded to do, only they went in the direction of the rising sun also, and came to continents as well as islands. Portugal's 'Idade d'Ouro' was her period of maritime greatness and coin- cided, in essential points, with the similar period in Spain. Both nations became too intent on affairs of action to be immediately creative in literature. With the exception of the old ballads that continued to be sung in the hearts of the common people, there was no verse to speak of written; and that of the earlier times did not receive the attention that it merited. Both the Castilian Court under Ferdinand and Isabella, and the Portuguese Court under John the Great were filled with the noteworthy men of the day: warriors, statesmen, discoverers, inventors; and, so far as it existed, the literary movement was also patronized by these sovereigns; but, in Portugal certainlv, it was not until the succeeding reign of Dom Emmanuel that it consisted of anything except such fugitive ballad literature as already existed and historical chronicles. But, as Prince Henry the Navigator had prepared the way for the illustrious discoveries of the reign of Dom John II, so, in ISABEL MOORE 353 turn, did Dom John II prepare the way for the Hterary glories of the reign of Emmanuel. The ston/' of nations shows that a Golden Age of literature is apt to follow ver\' closely a Golden Age of national glory and accomplish- ment; and the growth ot Portuguese greatness as a whole was an unbroken crescendo of achievement. Emmanuel himself (1495-1521) did little to encourage the literar)' activity of his country; but the inevitable outburst came to its fulfillment during his time. Rather curiously, perhaps, its two forerunners were also echoes of the age just passed. Christoval Falcao is the earlier, and most of his poems belong to the class of the Castilian viUancicos and consist chiefly of Cantigas or glossed mottoes called Esparcas. Like most poets — and, indeed, some ordinary mortals — he had his vital love affair; becoming enamored of the young and beautiful Maria Brandam, daughter of Diogo Brandam, the Royal Treasurer, and likewise a graceful and pathetic poet. The lovers were separated by her family, and the lady placed in a Convent from which she eloped with Falcao and reached in safety the town of Elvas, not far from Falcao's native Pontalegre, where they were privately married. He thus incurred not only the enmity of her faimly, but of the Church, for eloping with the inmate of a Convent; and for five years was imprisoned upon false charges. During this imprisonment, he wrote various Cantigas and also, to his Maria, a poetic epistle superscribed: *A Letter of Chrisfal, which, while a prisoner, he addressed to a Lady whom he had privately married, contrary to the will of her relatives.' His longest, principal, and probably first, composition was, however, an eclogue of ninety stanzas interspersed with cantigas. It is entitled 'Los Amores de Chrisfal' and is a history of the love passages between himself and his beloved, whom he celebrated by her own name. A pretty touch is at the end, when a nymph, who has heard the complaints of Chrisfal, inscribes them on a poplar tree, in order that they may grow with the tree to a height beyond the reach of vulgar ideas. M. E. M. gives this translation: 'The Shepherd sang his sad farewell. A wood-nymph, listening to his vow. Caught up the fond words as ihey fell And carved them on a poplar bough. It was a }oung and growing tree; And there she wrote the words of love That rising with it, they might be Placed high this sordid earth above: — Where no low thought could e'er attain To desecrate the poet's strain!' 354 THE LITERATURE OF PORTUGAL Notices of Falcao are few and his works rare. His simplicity has been likened to that of a Grecian statue, 'equally unclad, but equally chaste and pure.' One of his little versifications is an odd specimen of antithesis and repetition: 'Then let the end begin its ending; Since end, beginning works within: — I know not how my fate is tending, Whether to end or to begin!' A greater than Falcao was Bernardim Ribeyro. Indeed, he is the most celebrated of the Portuguese poets of the fifteenth century; and his Eclogues, preceding those of Juan del Enzina of Castile, who lived about the same time — have the original touch of representing pastoral life as the poetic model of human life, and as the ideal point from which every passion and sentiment ought to be viewed. He is said to have been in love with the Infanta Dona Beatrice; and, under cover of little pastoral pictures, reveals certain events and romantic situations of the Lisbon Court. Not only was Ribeyro a married man at the time, but the King's daughter could never become anything to him except his ideal, the inspiration of his verse; she seems, however, to have served this purpose satisfactorily to one of the most temperamental of poets. Several of Ribeyro's poems were the direct result of his hopeless passion; the most beautiful being that beginning: * My sorrows led me forth one day,' and, possibly this was the day when he witnessed the departure of the Infanta to be married to the Duke of Savoy; an occasion that the historian Resende calls 'a very lustrous affair.' But, aside from the merit of Ribeyro's Eclogues, and the interest attached to them as being the oldest examples of the eclogue in either Spanish or Portuguese verse, the graceful little prose fragment left by him unfinished and published about 1500, is even more worthy of preservation and recognition. It is entitled ' Menina e Mouca,' "small and young," or — not quite so literally in form but more literally in meaning — 'A Young and Innocent Maid.' It is a specimen of romantic prose that is both pastoral and chivalric, and that can be most favorably compared with the 'Rosylinde' of Thomas Lodge, which served Shakespeare in his creation of 'As You Like It.' There is what is called the new edition of 'Meninae Mouca,' published by a descendant of the poet, in Lisbon, 1785. But the old edition of 1559 is by far the more interesting and valuable because the Appendix includes the Eclogue and Falcao's ' Chrisfal,' as well as a collection of poems by other early Portuguese authors. For both Falcao and Ribeyro had their followers and imitators. And this early group devoted itself to ISABEL MOORE 355 the lyric expression of its nativiry, only very slightly touched by the passion for Latin versification that prevailed in the Spanish Peninsular as well as in Italy toward the close of the fifteenth century. They were free from any desire to model their verse after antique classic forms; and, though they occasionally wrote Latin verse, the vernacular tongue and forms not only were not despised nor neglected, but were actually all-sufficient. Portugal is without doubt the native home of romantic pastoral poetry. In Portugal it became truly national. The Portuguese are given to the utterance of their emotions. 'They are a gesticulating people, and have a heart: — and wear it on their sleeve,' has been justly said of them. The step that leads directly on from national characteristics to national literature, has been aptlv noted by Bouterwek, who says: 'They pastoralize their emotions, whether of joy or sorrow.' IV The introduction of the Italian influence upon Portuguese literature was unaccompanied by any remarkable struggle or sensation: but it is of vast importance because of its influence on those poets who formed what is called the Classic School of Portuguese literature, two of whom, and the principal two, gave certain personal touches of style to Castilian literature in return for the Italian influence which doubtless reached Portugal through Castilian sources. Indeed, to George Montemayor (1520-1561) is attributed the introduction into Spain of the prose pastoral: and both Montemayor and Sa de Miranda belong to Castilian literature almost as much as they do to Portuguese. At this time the Castihan was held in such Hterary esteem in Portugal that many Portuguese poets, without undervaluing their mother-tongue, frequently wrote in the Castilian, so as to be regarded as masters of the poetic art. One sonnet of Montemayor's can be read as either Spanish or Portuguese, so versatile did he become in writing the two languages at once. Yet, though six out of his eight Eclogues are in the Castilian, his pastorals are not all in the manner of Boscan and Garcilasse, but sometimes favor the ancient short meter and have great simplicity of style. George Montemayor was born near Coimbra and became a common soldier with a gift of music and having a fine voice as well as being a poet. Marfida, a Castilian lady fi)r whom he seems really to have cared, was also the divinity of his verse: but, after the manner of such divinities, she married somebody else, and thus — as in the case of Ribcyro — his theme came readilv to hand. 'Dis "Diana" (" Diana Enamorada"),' says Bonter- 356 THE LITERATURE OF PORTUGAL wek, 'is the soul of himself. He succeeds in conveying the joys and sorrows of his own heart in forms of general interest.' In this unfinished pastoral there is a series of Uric poems, parti}' in the Italian and partly in the Castilian stvle, of one of which Sismondi gives the following translation: * Never beloved, but still to love a slave, Still shall I love, though hopeless is my suit; I suffer torments, which I never gave, And my unheeded sighs no ear salute: Complaint is sweet though we no favor know, I reaped but shame in shimmering love's pursuit: Forsetfulness alone I suffer not — Alas! unthought of, can we be forgot?' His Diana really lived: a rich and beautiful woman of Valencia, and is spoken of by Lope de Vega in his 'Dorotea.' Sa de Miranda (1494-1558) wrote so much in the Castilian and had so marked an influence on the Castilian School that he is often considered as a Castilian poet: but, in reality, with the exception of the pastoral poems, the greater part of his verse is in the Portuguese language. He wrote eight Eclogues in Castilian and only two in Portuguese: of the first of which he tells us that it is 'A Pastoral Dialogue in tercets concerning love and in- difference, happiness and unhappiness.' He wrote sonnets in both Castilian and Portuguese; the best of which in the latter language are considered to be those to Diogo Bernades and to Dom Manuel of Portugal. He wrote a beautiful Elegy on the death of his son. Under the general heading of 'Poesias Varias' he produced innumerable sonnets, elegies, redondiihas, cantigas, sextinas, esparsas, that are all exceedingly simple and graceful; and two comedies, 'Os Estrangeiros' and 'Os Vilhalpandos first printed, in Lisbon (1595) by Manoel de Lyra. His popular songs are in the more ancient forms of Portuguese versification. They repeat the idea of the motto, differently turned and applied, but with its text not literally inter- woven with the variations: and this is precisely the difference that dis- tinguishes the older Portuguese cantigas from the Spanish villancicos. Sa de Miranda spent most of his life on his estate of Tapada near Ponte de Lima. He was particularly fond of country life and, best of all, country life in his own country. Its romantic pastoral world was the native one for his muse, and, whether he used the Castilian language of the Portuguese, the scenes of his pastorals were always laid in Portugal. He wrote with so little regard for the accepted rules of versification and with so individual a style as to be the despair of critics. He tried all forms as well as dis- regarded all forms. Sometimes his pastorals are like the Italian canzoni, ISABEL MOORE 357 and sometimes like the Latin ode. His style has been ridiculed as 'the Luso-Hispano-Italiano blending.' Aside from the eminence attained by this Classic School in itself, however, the influence of the Italian upon Portu- guese versification can never be deplored even by the most patriotic, for w^hat the Italian enabled Montemayor and Miranda and the others of the group to do, was to perfect and refine the possibilities of the old Portuguese style into more beautiful and completed forms. It is sometimes said that with Sa de Miranda the literary history of the Portuguese drama commenced. Certainly, in spite of the emotional tendencies of the Portuguese, no special effort at dramatic writing is to be found in Portugal, as there is not in Spain, until the latter half of the fifteenth century: and Juan de la Enzina must be regarded as the founder of the Portuguese as well as of the Castilian drama. But Gil Vicente is really the Portuguese author most closely concerned with the establishment of the national theater. He was born, probably, twenty years before the close of the fifteenth century, during the reign of Emmanuel; but Emmanuel's son and successor, Dom John III, was the acknowledged patron of Gil Vicente and he was a contemporary of Torres Naharro in Spain, who did practically the same for the Spanish drama as Vicente did for the Portuguese. Like Montemayor and Miranda, he is to be numbered among the Spanish writers as well as among those of his native land for, of all his plays, ten are in the Castilian language and fifteen partly so, while seventeen are entirely Portu- guese. In the judgment of Bouterwek, the farces of Gil Vicente are the best of his productions; and he certainly is the representative of the Portu- guese classic humor. The reign of John HI saw the full flower of the Classic School. Dr. Antonio Ferreira (1528-1564), another of the group, began his literary eff'orts by avowing a great loyalty to his mother-tongue. He even once declared that he would write in no other language. But he was hardly as national as he intended to be. The influence of the Italian was irradicable; and, although he did much to maintain the independent spirit of his coun- try's literature, his predilection for classic forms was too strong for him to withstand. His genius had dignity, but neither sublimity nor great origi- nality. His taste was sound, but his fancv circumscribed. There was *a tinge of pedantry, a sort of Latinized air, in his writings, which prevented his being a popular poet or, indeed, what is much more vital, a great poet !' Of his 113 sonnets, the best are those addressed to 'The Lady of His Thoughts'; particularly the one beginning: 'Who hath seen burning snow, or fire, like mine.'' Cold while it flames! what living man e'er stood Within Death's gate, singing in joyous mood ?' 358 THE LITERATURE OF PORTUGAL His odes, not being lyric or truly dramatic, are not so fine as his sonnets; yet he set an example to writers of odes in his own language in much the same way as did his Spanish contemporary, Luis de Leon, to his country- men. Ihe elegies of Ferreira are considered to be very beautiful; and, up to the time of their appearance, were a new form in Portuguese com- position, with the exception of one by Sa de Miranda. That on May is as toUows: \'em Mayo de mil hervas, de mil flores As frontes coroado, e riso, e canto, Com Venus, com Cupido, cos Amores. Venca o prazer a dor, o riso ao pranto Vase longe daqui cuidado duro, Em quanto o ledo mez de Venus canto. Eis mais alva a menham, mais claro, e puro Do Sol o rayo: eis correm mais fermosas Nuvens afugentando o ar grosso e escuro. Sae a branda Diana entre as lumiosas Estrellas tal, qual ja ao pastor fermoso Veo pagar mil horas saudosas, Mar brando, sereno ar, campo cheiroso, Foge a Tristeza, o Prazer folto voa, O dia mais dourado, e vagaroso. Tecendo as Gracas vao nova coroa De Mythro a May, ao filho mil Spiritos. O fogo resplandece, a al jaba soa. Mil versos, e mil vozes, e mil gritos Todas de doo amor, e de brandura Huns s'ouvem, huns nos troucos ficam escritos. Ali soberba vem a Fermosura, Apos ella a AfFeicao cega, e cativa, Quanto huma mais chorosa, outra mais dura. Ah manda Amor assi; assi quer ue viva Contente a triste, do que sen Deos manda, De seja inda mais dor, pena mais viva. Mas quanto o mo^o encruece, a may abranda, Ella a peconha, e o fogo Ihe tempera: Assi senhora de mil almas anda. Ali o Engano em seu mal cego espera Hum' hora doce; ali o Encolhimento Sem causa de si mesmo desespera. Aos olhos vem atado a Pensamento. ISABEL MOORE 359 Nao voa a mail quali tem presente, E em tanto mal, tudo he contentamento. E riso, em festa corre a leda gente, Tras o fermoso fogo em que sem pr'arde, Cada hum, quanto mais arde, mais contente. Manda Venus ao Sol menham e tarde. Que sens crespos cabellos loure, e estenda, Qu'em vir s' apresse, qu' em se tornar tarde. Ao brando Norte, que assopre, e defenda Do ardor da sesta a branda companhia, Em quanto alcam de myrtho fresca tenda, Corre por toda parte clara, e fria Agoa; cae doce sombra do alto Louro, Canta toda ave canto d'alegria; Ella a neve descobre, e solta o ouro; Banham-na as Gracas na mais clara fonte; Aparece d' Amor rico thesouro, Caem mil flores da dourada fronte, Arde d'Amor o bosque, arda a altra serra, Aos olhos reverdence o campo, e o monte. Despende Amor sens tiros, nenhum erra, Mil de baixo metal, algum do fino. Fica de saus despojos chea a terra. Vencida d'huma molher, e d'hum minino. But the real fame of Dr. Antonio Ferreira rests on his tragedy of 'Castro,' for which he had no other model than the ancients and, possibly Trissino's 'Sophonisba,' the first tragedy of modern times. It is difficult in plot, but written in very beautiful language, with what may be called a Greek Chorus of Coimbrian women: and, to fully appreciate the importance of the epoch marked by its appearance, we must remember that at this time neither France nor England knew anything of the drama beyond the mysteries and moralities. Yet others of the Classic School of Miranda were Diogo Bernardes, the * Poet of Lima' and his brother Agostinho Bernardes who finally became a hermit of the Arrabida. Southey considered Diogo Bernardes one of the best of the Portuguese Poets. His life was a romance. He was a native of Ponte de Lima and particularly loved the scenery of the river Lima, his most characteristic work being, perhaps, the poem *0 Lyma, first published in 1596. 'Lone by soft murmuring Lyma oft I stray,' he sings. 360 THE LITERATURE OF PORTUGAL He went to Lisbon, and there, 'Where the Tatius loses tide and name And freshness, Love robbed me of my Hfe's best days'; he says in an epistle to his intimate, Ferreira. From his captivity to the Moors in Africa, he writes: Still lovely to my troubled thoughts shall seem My own regretted Lyma, dear for ever; E'en if Oblivion's spell be in its stream, It hath no power on me, forgetting never, Its soft low murmur could not lull to rest, Remembrance, ever wakeful, in my breast!' The river Lima is the Lethe of the ancient world, and there is an interest- intr legend of it about Decimus Brutas and his superstitious soldiery. In later years Bernardes wrote a good deal of devotional verse. That addressed to the Virgin partakes curiously of the love song element. He becomes for the time most romantically spiritual; and the Virgin is his 'Lady' in all human attributes as well as being his divinity. One of his songs not addressed to the Virgin, but to his Soul, is written in the old national Portuguese Endechas, a kind of plaintive verse: 'Soul, why self-deceiving. Self-forgetting be ? To mortal life thus giving Triumphs over thee. Life maltreats, betrays thee, Yet thou lov'st it — why E'en for that which slays thee Dost thou gladly die ^. All that Life, requiring. Seeks, or can obtain. Given to its desiring Were but brief and vain. Whence proceeds the erring And perverted will; To certain good preferring But too certain ill ? Joys, like flowers late blooming (Born of quick decay) ISABEL MOORE 361 Pinions like assuming, Pass like winds away.' For a long time Diogo Bernardes was under a cloud among literary people on account of having been accused of plagerism from Camoens. There seems, however, to be no particular foundation for this, and late students have exonerated him. What we do know with certainty — and what may have given rise to the accusation — is, that, when Camoens' first poems appeared, Bernardes was the only one of the classicists who publicly avow^ed his high appreciation of them. Jeronymo Cortreal and Pedro Andrade Caminha were two others of the Classic School, though little more than imitators of Ferreira. Francisco Manuel do Nascimento was another, who developed much more individuality of style. And one interesting human thing to note about this group of Portuguese writers is that there remains now no record to show that there ever existed among them any literary jealousy. They seem to have been all friends and co-workers. The last of the distinctive classicists was Rodriguez Lobo, born in Leiria about the middle of the sixteenth century. So great a scholar was he and so lasting an influence had he on romantic prose that he has been ranked next to Camoens and Miranda. Little is known of him personally except that he lived in retirement in Santarem and met his death by drowning in the Tagus which he loved and so often had cele- brated in verse. He wrote ten eclogues in Portuguese and about a hundred romances in Spanish and founded that excessive accumulation of pastoral poetry existing in Portugal, doing all in his power to fix the national taste in that direction. His 'Court in the Country' was the first book of classic prose to be produced in Portugal; and he also wrote three connected pastoral romances that are pronounced by Bouterwek to be 'the most luxuriant blossoms of this old branch of Portuguese poetry.' They are very long; set in a framework of prose; and entitled 'Primavera' ('Spring') 'O Pastor Peregrine' ('The Wandering Shepherd'), and 'O Desengando' ('The Disenchanted'). They contain several beautiful lyrics: the following being from 'Primavera' (translated by M. E. M.). 'Now the wished-for sun is bringing Life to day, and tints to earth; Leads the shepherd, gaily singing, To his flocks that wait him, forth. Now chill night succeeds, and chases Golden luster from the skies; Bright-eyed dawn the night replaces While its radiance glads our eyes. 362 THE LITERATURE OF PORTUGAL Learn we thus (and not in vain) Suns hut set to rise again. One day flies — the rest that follow Rtnch us, but are mocking fleet; Laugliing at my hopes so hollow, And my visions false, yet sweet. Still, howe'er, my fate may thwart me Unconvinced, unchanged, I live; From those dreams I cannot part me That such dear delusions give; Hoping vet in countless years One bright day unstained with tears.' There are other poets of this period who do not belong to the Classic School, notably, Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcellos, Rodriguez de Castro, Gabriel Pereira de Castro, and Lobe de Soropito. Vasconcellos wrote several comedies and a romance of the Round Table, Rodriguez de Castro lived in Italy a good deal and wrote sonnets, odes and eclogues; Gabriel de Castro wrote the heroic poem 'Ulissea'; and Soropito's chief claim to dis- tinction is that he published the miscellaneous poems of Camoens. Such epics as 'Ulissea' and the 'Malacca Conquestada' of Francesco de Sa de Menzes gave rise, to a certain extent, to the authentic histories which came into evidence about this time. The 'Asia' of John de Barras was the first great work containing genuine information relating to the Portuguese possessions in Asia. Lopez de Castenheda and Antonio Bocarro gave histories of the Portuguese conquests of India. Alfonso Albuquerque wrote his Commentaries: Damio de Goez compiled his account of the reign of Dom Emanuel: Bernardo de Brito wrote his *Mon- archia Lusitana': Jerome Osorio wrote his history: and last but by no means least, Manuel de Faria e Sousa wrote his 'Europa Portuguesa.* Although he was the author of 'Divinas y Humanas Elores,' he was a finer historian than poet; and also produced a valued commentary on the miscellaneous poems of Camoens. With him pastoral poetry went into its grotesque state, as will be seen was inevitable from his remark to the effect that 'the only (observe the only) things required in poetry are invention, imager)', pathos, and a display of ever}' kind of knowledge.' It is interesting to compare this wich the opinion of the Marquis of Santillana who, in his remarkable and well-known letter, speaks of poetry as 'an invention of useful things which, being enveloped in a beautiful veil, are arranged, exposed and concealed, according to a certain calculation, measurement and weight.' To such straits had poetry come! Although the influence of the Classic ISABEL MOORE 363 School lingered long in Portuguese literature, it became extinct about the close of the sixteenth century, and all Portuguese literature was about to be stricken temporarily dumb. The wave of national prosperity, material and intellectual, was receding. Several events had transpired that were lost sight of at the immediate time, but that had a most disastrous effect on the national life. In 1540 the Jesuits had been introduced. During the reign of John III the Inquisition had been established, with the Holy Office in Lisbon. The Jews were finally expelled from the Peninsular. The growth of the absolute monarchial principle; the evils of the slave trade; and the depopulation due to the emigrations to the newly established colonies; had all sapped the vigor of the kingdom. Then came the misplaced ambition of Dom Sebastian to conquer Africa and his complete defeat in 1578: with the entailed Spanish Captivity (1580-1640). It had long been a veritable 'castle in Spain' with Philip II to subjugate Portugal and, Sebastian's death having left the Portuguese throne open to various pretenders, he now availed himself of his neighbor to accomplish his desires. A few there were who foresaw the utter downfall of Portuguese greatness and independence; who could stand aside and objectively view the unhappy trend of coming events. Camoens was one of these; and, just before the grip of Spain killed the material prosperity and lyric life of the Portuguese people, he lifted up his voice — like the fabled song of the expiring swan — and gave to all the world his great poem 'Os Lusiads.' V Camoens can no more be dealt with in short space than can Shakespeare. He is the climactic arrival; the whole that contains the lesser parts; the last of the adventurous spirits; the master of Portuguese literature. Briefly, Luiz de Camoens came of a good Galician family and was born in Lisbon, in the 'Mouraria' or Moorish part of the city, in 1524. His university days were spent in Coimbra, where an uncle of his was the principal Chancellor of the University. They were probably the happiest years of his life. Then came his love affair. On a Good Friday, in the Church of Christ's Wounds in Lisbon, on April nth, 1542, he first beheld Dona Caterina de Ataide, one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting. Laws at that time were 'very severe upon anyone who encouraged amours within the palace' and because of some misdemeanor in connection with his love affair, Camoens was banished from Court. This formed a pretext for the family of the lady to terminate all intercourse between them; but, in the hour of parting, Caterina confessed her love. It was natural that in his 364 THE LITERATURE OF PORTUGAL banishment he should seek the countn^ of the 'Rihatejo' or banks of the Tamils above Lisbon, for his mother Dona Anna de Sae Macedo, was of the noMe family of the Macedos of Santaren. From his retirement he sought and obtained permission to accompany King John III agamst the African Moors, in which expedition Camoens lost his right eye from splinters from the deck of the ship on which he was stationed. His conduct was so brave, that he was at last recalled to Court: — only to learn of the death — at the age of twenty — of his Caterina. After this he became a voluntary wanderer and exile. The so-called cave in which Camoens is said to have written his crreat poem of the Lusiads is still shown in Macao, in Portuguese India, in a'^garden just above the church of St. Antonio. From it there is a view of the sea and the dim outhnes of fair islands. To the south and west lies the Inner Harbor; to the north the Barrier and small walled town. In 1569 Camoens returned to his native land, to find the Plague raging in Lis- bon. He survived his return eight years, 'living in the knowedge of many and the society of few' and dying at the age of fifty-five. Of his country's sad estate he had so clear a vision that he wrote to his friend. Dr. Francesco de Almeida, a few days before his death: 'You will all see that I so loved my mother country-, that I came back, not only to die in it, but with it.* And only one year after his death, Philip II of Spain was proclaimed King of Portugal. It is recorded that on his entrance into Lisbon, Philip asked for Camoens and was grieved at hearing of his death. The last days of Camoens, like those of many another gifted man, were spent in neglect and poverty. Antonio, his Javanese servant, remained with him to the end, actually begging in the streets for bread: and the winding sheet in which he was wrapped was obtained in alms from the house of D. Francesco de Portugal. On his gravestone in the Francescan Convent Church of Sta. Anna is carved: 'Here lies Luiz Camoens: Prince of the Poets of his time. He lived poor and miserable, and so he died.' In the first edition of the Lusiads there was a note, written by one who was present at his death-bed. The book was left by this person, F. Josepe Judio, in the convent of the bare-footed Carmelites at Guadalaxara, and is now in Lord Holland's collection. It reads: 'What can be more lamentable a thing than to see so great a genius ill rewarded! I saw him die in a hospital at Lisbon, without a winding sheet to cover him, after having triumphed in India and sailed 5500 leagues by sea. What a great lesson for those who weary themselves day and night in studying without profit, as a spider is weaving its web to catch flies.' As a rule, the Portuguese do not seem to think so much of the minor ISABEL MOORE 365 poems of Camoens. They are apt to neglect his smaller compositions and to undervalue their originality of sentiment and the beauty of their expres- sion. But, as Viscount Strangford has truly pointed out, the real circum- stances of Camoens' life are mostly to be found in his own minor com- positions: and Robert Southey is of the opinion 'that to most imaginations, Camoens will never appear so interesting as when he is bewailing his first love. It is in these moments that he is most truly a poet.' Southey has himself translated one of the sonnets of this emotion: 'Meet spirit, who so early didst depart. Thou art at rest in Heaven: 1 linger here And feed the lonely anguish of my heart; Thinging of all that made existence dear. All lost! If in that happy world above Remembrance of this mortal world endure. Thou wilt not then forget the perfect love Which still thou seest in me, — O spirit pure! And, if the irremediable grief, The woe, which never hopes on earth relief. May merit aught of thee; prefer thy prayer To God, who took thee early to his rest, That it may please him soon among the blest To summon me, dear maid, to meet thee there.' Another poem on the death of D. Caterina is as follows: 'Those charming eyes, within whose starry sphere Love whilom sat and smiled the hours away. Those braids of light that shamed the beams of day, That hand benignant, and that heart sincere; Those Virgin cheeks, which did so late appear Like snow-banks, scattered with the blooms of May, Turned to a little cold and worthless clay, Are gone — forever gone — and perish here: But not unbathed by Memory's warmest tear! Are gone — forever gone — and perish here: But not unbathed by Memory's warmest tear! Death! thou hast torn, in one unpitying hour, That fragrant plant, to which, while scarce a flower. The mellower fruitage of its prime was given; Love saw the deed — and, as he lingered near, Sighed o'er the ruin, and returned to heaven!' 366 THE LITERATURE OF PORTUGAL And yet a third has an unmistakably direct bearing on his ' affair of the heart. ' 'Sweeth' \vas heard the anthem's choral strain, And myriads bow'd before the sainted shrine* In solemn reverence to their Sire divine, Who gave the Lamb for guilty mortals slain; When, in the midst of God's eternal fane, Ah, little weening of his fell design! Love bore the heart (which since hath ne'er been mine) To one who seemed of heaven's elected train: For sanctity of place or time were vain, 'Gainst that blind archer's soul-consuming power- Which scorns and soars all circumstance above, O, lady! since I've worn thy gentle chain How oft have I deplored each wasted hour When I was free: — and had not learned to love!' Two of what may be called his nature sonnets are peculiarly indicative of Camoens' temperamental nature, the one beginning: *Mondego, thou, whose waters cold and clear Gird those green banks where fancy fain would stay,' and the lyric cry that has been translated by Richard Garnett: *0, for a solitude so absolute, Rapt from the spite of Fate so far away, That foot of man hath never entered, nay, Untrodden by the foot of every brute: Some wood of aspect lowering and mute, Or lonely glen not anywhere made gay, With plot of pleasant green, or water's play; Such haunt, in fine, as doth my anguish suit! Thus is the entrail of the mountain locked. I, sepulchred in life, alive in death. Freely might breathe my plaint: perceiving there The grief whose magnitude nought measureth Less by the brilliance of the bright day mocked, Soothed by the dark day more than otherwise,' There are many random lines throughout his writings that give insight to Camoens the man as well as to Camoens the poet. Observe, as examples : 'In lonely cell bereaved of liberty, Error's meet recompense, long time I spent: Then o'er the world disconsolate I went. Bearing the broken chain that left me free.' Sonnet 5. ISABEL MOORE 367 'But my disastrous star whom now I read: — Blindness of death, and doubtfulness of life, Have made me tremble when I see a joy,' Sonnet 5. 'All things from hand to hand incessant pass.' Sonnet 195. 'And wind hath taken what to wind was given.' Sonnet 173. 'Thought built me castles soaring from the ground, That ever, when the cope-stone should be laid, Crumbled and lay upon the earth as dust.' Sonnet 177. 'Ocean I roamed and isle and continent, Seeking some remedy for life unsweet. But he whom fortune will not frankly meet. Vainly by venture woos her to his bent.' Sonnet 100. 'Summoning the number of the wasted days; They pass like shadows on the silent ways, Nor fruit of them doth their slow march reveal. Save this — they are no more!' Sonnet 355 (Composed in prison). 'But the free soul, how far soe'er it range, Thought-winged, flies lightly over land and sea. And in your current doth her plumage lave.' Sonnet 133. *Yet am I storing up in sunny hour Sweet thought of thee against the cloudy day.' Sonnet 136 (On revisiting Cintra, after the death of Caterina). 'Confessing with a silent tear That heaven and hell are wondrous near!' Canzonet. 'It was a little smile that stole The cherish'd sweets of rest.' Canzonet. Camocns wrote many of his minor poems in Spanish, and some in a blend of the two languages when he walks — as he expresses it — 'with one foot in Portugal and the other in Spain.' The sonnets have been translated by many different scholars and poets. His lyrics fall into two main classes, 368 THE LITERATURE OF PORTUGAL accorclinn to Burton, those written in Italian meters and those in the trochaic hnes and strophic forms of the Peninsular. The first class is contained in the 'Parnasso,' which comprises 358 sonnets, 22 canzones, 27 elegies, 12 odes, 8 octaves, 15 idvls, — all of which tesify to the strong influence of the Italian School and, especially, of Petrarch. The second class is contained in the 'Cancioneiro,' or song book, and includes more than 150 compositions in the national peninsular manner. He never prepared an edition of his ' Rimas' and the manuscript he is said to have arranged during his sojourn in Mozambique from 1567 to 1569 is said to have been stolen. In 1595 Fernao Rodrigues Lobo Soropita collected from Portugal and India, and published in Lisbon, a volume of 172 songs by Camoens, four of which are not by Cameons and others of which are doubtful. All Camoens' lyrics have been translated into German by Dr. Wilhelm Storck of the University of Munster: and in English there are innumerable versions. But, as w^e all know, ' translation for the most part is an expedient equally fallacious and impotent.' And Lord Byron observed that 'it is to be remarked that the things given to the public as poems of Camoens' are no more to be found in the original Portuguese than in the Songs of Solomon.' This holds particularly good with regard to the versions given by Lord Viscount Strangford, the British Plenipotentiary at Lisbon during the War of the Spanish Succession. Burton says amusingly: 'There is, how- ever, nothing objectionable in his excerpts from Camoens' except their perfect inadequacy.' Strangford, indeed, cannot be called a translator. He was an adapter. Camoens suggested to him a motif for his own gallant and amorous experi- ences. Says Strangford of the minor poetry of Camoens': 'The general characteristic is ease: not the studied carelessness of modern refinement, but the graceful and charming simplicity of a Grecian muse.' This ease — the first kind — Strangford presumes upon and applies to his own renderings of Cameons' meanings, the most flagrant example being, perhaps, 'The Lady who Swore by Her Eyes.' It is a very pleasing little poem — as Strangford's. It is also very pleasing in the Portuguese of Camoens'. But they are very, ver)^ different from each other. Camoens somewhat admits of this sort of juggling. In his minor verse he has the simplicity of the Troubadours with the elegance of the Italian School. He was fond of the Troubadour poetry; and, in the days of his young manhood, there was a certain Peninsular revival of interest in the Troubadour forms, brought about through the Counts of Barcelona be- coming by marriage Counts of Provence. ISABEL MOORE 369 Strangford's little volume of translations was most severely criticised, shortly after it appeared, in the Edinburgh Review (1803) and a literal version given of one of the poems by Camoens with Strangford's paraphrase. Camoens reads: 'When the sun, overcast, is showing to the world a tranquil and dubious light, to go along a beautiful meadow, figuring to myself my enemy — here have I seen her composing her tresses — here, with her face upon her hand, so beautiful — here talking cheerfully — there thoughtful — now standing still — now walking — here was she seated — there she beheld me, as she raised those eyes, so indifferent — here somewhat she moved — there secure — here she grew sorrowful — there she smiled. — And, in short, in these wear}' thoughts I pass this vain life, which lasts forever.' Camoens seems to have taken this from Petrarch; and Strangford thinks that Petrarch may be indebted for the idea to Ovid. Strangford's rendering is: 'When day has smiled a soft farewell, And night-drops bathe each shutting bell, The shadows sail along the green, And birds are still, and woods serene, I wander silently. And while my lone step prints the dew. Dear are the dreams that bless my view, To memory's eye the maid appears, For whom have sprung my sweetest tears, So oft, so silently. I see her as, with graceful care, She binds her braids of sunny hair; I feel her harp's melodious thrill Strike to my heart; — and thence be still. Re-echoed faithfully. I meet her mild and quiet eye, Drink the warm spirit of her sigh, See young love beating in her breast And wish to mine its pulses prcst. God knows how fervently! 370 THE LITERATURE OF PORTUGAL Such are my hours of dear delight, And noon hut makes me wish for night, And think how swift the minutes flew When, last among the dropping dew, I wandered silently.' Pleasing as such versification may be in itself, there can be no apology adequate to excuse calling it a translation, and the only explanation of such a proceeding is that in the early part of the nineteenth century, when the attention o\' all Europe was fixed on the Spanish Peninsular because of the Napoleonic wars, Portugal became the literary fashion in England, and, because hitherto so unknown, English writers felt that almost any extrava- gance might be perpetrated in her name. On a par with Strangford's so- called translations, is Mrs. Browning's extravaganza of emotion which she called 'Sonnets from the Portuguese,' and which never had any origin in Portuguese literature, save that the Portuguese have ever written sonnets and are impassioned in their love. A translation by Strangford that is much more accurate in both feeling and expression than the foregoing, is this Canzonet: 'I whispered her my last adieu, I gave a mournful kiss; Cold showers of sorrow bathed her eyes, And her poor heart was torn with sighs; Yet strange to tell — 'twas then I knew Most perfect bliss. For love, at other times suppress'd. Was all betrayed at this — I saw him weeping in her eyes, I saw him breathe amongst her sighs. And every sob which shook her breast Thrilled mine with bliss. The sigh which keen affection clears, How can it judge amiss ? To me it pictured hope; and taught My spirit this consoling thought, That Love's sun, though it rise in tears, May set in bliss!' And a Rondeau, that seems to have been suggested by a hint from the Troubadour Ausian March, is too charming to be omitted, even in ISABEL MOORE 371 Strangford's translation — indeed, how far because of Strangford's trans- lation, is an open question. 'Just like Love is yonder rose, Heavenly fragrance round it throws; Yet tears its dewy leaves disclose. And in the midst of briars it blows, Just like Love. Culled to bloom upon the breast, Since rough thorns the stem invest They must be gathered with the rest And, with it, to the heart be press'd, Just like Love. And when rude hands with twin-buds sever, They die — and they shall blossom never — Yes, the thorns be sharp as ever, Just like Love. Strangford never translated the Lusiad, except a few stanzas. This great poem deals with the adventures of Vasco de Gama and is, almost incidentally an epitome of the achievements of the Portuguese nation. Camoens dedi- cated it to Dom Sebastian. The three greatest episodes in it are the Legend of the Floating Island, The Spirit of the Cape and Inez de Castro. La Harpe, who figures as one of the French translators of the Lusiads, says that, although it lacks 'action, character and interest' as a whole, he prefers its well-known episode of Dona Inez de Castro to the whole of 'Paradise Lost.' Voltaire has also criticised the machinery of the Lusiads. But Voltaire has also made Cameons born a Spaniard and a comrade of Vasco de Gama who, as a matter of fact, died before Camoens was born. Southey, although a Spanish scholar, was better acquainted with Mickle's poor English heroic couplets than with the Portuguese of the Lusiads. La Harpe did not know Portuguese at all (so says Sir Richard Burton), his so-called translation being nothing more than a new rendering of the literal version by D'Hermilly: and Voltaire knew the Lusiads only through Mickle's translation. Adamson says (in 1820) that there are one Hebrew translation of the Lusiads, five Latin, six Spanish, four Italian, three French, four German, and two English. The oldest English version is by Sir Richard Fanshaw (1655) who was the English Embassador sent to Lisbon to arrange for the marriage of Cliarlcs II of England with Catherine of Braganza. By the time of the third Centennial Celebration in Portugal of the death 372 THE LTTP:RATURE OF PORTUGAL of Camocns (i 580-1880) there were seven complete English translations. At this time, also, there was brought out in Lisbon the best complete edition ot Camoens' works, tlie ' Bibliotheca Camoneana,' by Juromenha, in seven volumes. It contains a list ot all works upon, and translations of, Camoens. Of the various translations of Camoens Burton says 'all are meager in the e.xtreme, thev follow like a flock of sheep, they reflect one another like a band o( Chinamen.' Sir Richard Burton's own translations of the Lusiads and the Lyrics of Camoens deserve h\ far the most consideration, as being entirely scholarly. It so happened that his own personal tra\els formed, as he says, 'a running and realistic commentary upon the Lusiads.' And again, 'I have not only visited almost every place named in the Epos of Commerce; in many I spent months and even years.' Burton speaks of *my Master, Camoens' and finds in him much of the Orient; its 'havock and its all splendor. And — regarding his translation — he naively remarks that 'after all, to speak without due modesty, my most cogent reason for printing this trans- lation of my Master is, simply, because I prefer it to all that have appeared.' ^'et with all our faith in Richard Burton, we feel the need — when reading his Camoens — of his wife's strenuous assertions: not that they convince us; indeed, their very insistance merely confirms our worst fears: but we need something to explain at least why certain mannerisms were allowed to interfere with usual lucidity of feeling and expression of the original text. She says: 'This translation is not a literary tour de force done against time or to earn a reputation: it is the result of a daily act of devotion of twenty years.' So far, so good. The scholarly devotion of Burton has never been questioned. But, 'Whenever my husband has appeared to coin words, or to use impossible words, they are the exact rendering of Camoens; in every singularity or seeming eccentricity the Disciple has faithfully followed his Master: — his object having been not simply to write good verse, but to give a literal word for word rendering of his favorite hero. And he has done it to the letter, not only in the words, but in the meaning and intention of Camoens.' And again, 'To the unaesthetic, to non-poets, non-linguists, non-musicians, non-artists. Burton's Lusiads will be an unknown land, an unknown tongue,' Even in the face of such an impeachment, one cannot refrain from questioning the 'literal word for word rendering,' and — what is of far greater importance — the 'meaning and intention of Camoens' in certain lines. Not to be too prolix on the subject it is but neressary to compare the following lines from the sonnets: ISABEL MOORE 373 'Amor, com a esperanca ja perdida.' — Camoens. (Amor, with Esperance now for aye forlore.) — Burton. 'Com grandes esperancas ja cantey.' — Camoens. (While ere I sang my song with hope so high.) — Burton. 'Amor, que o gesto humano na Alma Enscreve.' — Camoens. (Amor, who human geste on soul doth write.) — Burton. 'Tanto de meu estado mecho incerto.' — Camoens. (I find so many doubts my state enfold.) — Burton. 'Transforma se o amador na cousa amada.' — Camoens. (Becomes the Lover to the Loved transformed.) — Burton. But enough about Burton's methods. One either likes Burton or one does not. With regard to our consideration of Camoens himself, we must always remember that the epic was in its infancy. Trissino had attempted the liberation of Italy from the Goths, but with poor success. Ariosto and his followers had thrown enchantment around the fictions of Chivalry. Tasso's 'Jerusalem Delivered' had appeared only the year before 'Os Lusiads.' Verily, Camoens was, as Gerald Massey said: 'the poet of weary wanderers In perilous lands; and wide-sea voyagers.' VI By the end of the sixteenth century the most brilliant period of Portu- guese poetry had passed away. The Spanish Captivity was like a death- blow, yet Portuguese literature could not die. When Philip II of Spain annexed Portugal, it had produced Vasco de Gama and Alfonso de Albur- querque; and its language had been developed from a Romance dialect into a literary language by Miranda and Camoens. There was too much individual strength for Portugal to become lost in Spain. The period (1580-1640) was one of deep national depression and humiliation: but it did not become the permanent established order. When, at last, the revolt against Spanish oppressic)n had been victorious and the Portuguese dynasty resumed its sway with John V, the first of the House of Braganza, the treaty of offense and defense between Portugal and her ol dally, I'^iigland, was renewed; and the crushed national life of Portugal again lifted up its head. In hterature, her people turned naturally to the period of their past greatness, and followers of Camoens imitated his great works. A few Chronicles were written. But the new life was sluggish. One of the forms 374 THE LITERATURE OF PORTUGAL it took was a sort of buffoonery in the sonnet writing: and, while most of this composition is weak and ridiculous, the burlesquing of the old pastoral poetrv bv Freire de Andrade is said to be often witty and just. This crazy and bombastic writing was called by Matheus Ribeyro the ' Posia Incuravel.' But Portugal produced no Cervantes. Though much was written, not much was written that was fine. Poetry gained little from the recrudescence. Lyric art in the old national syllabic meters was entirely abandoned. Patriotic feeling again found its way into Portuguese life and letters, but, in the verse of Ribeiro de Macedo and Correa de la Cerda, it became verily ' flat, stale and unprofitable.' This also applies to the verse of Violante de Ceo, a nun in the Convent da Rosa in Lisbon and the first woman whose name occurs in the annals of Portuguese literature. Alveres da Cunha and Jeronymo Bahia also wrote a corrupt form of versifi- cation. There are, however, a few exceptions to the general deplorable condition; notably, Barbosa Barcellar (1610-1663) who produced some good sonnets in the style of Camoens, his most remarkable writings being a kind of elegy of romantic aspiration called Saudades. But the Poetic Muse lay gasping for breath. She could not seem to recover from her bondage. In addition to this enfeebled state, was the fact that a strong tide of French influence set in among Portuguese men of letters and the life of the Court. Poor Portugal! So many foreign in- fluences had been brought to bear upon her at various times; and yet, while recognizing and to a degree accepting each, she had, nevertheless, held her own individuality aloof. Now, however, exhausted and almost desperate, she succumbed just when she was on the eve of a new birthright. From the Gothic and Romanic she had arisen; borne herself triumphantly in the presence of the Arabian, the Italian, the Castilian; now to droop quickly before the French. This French influence is the characteristic of this period of Portuguese poetry. Toward the end of the seventeenth century there was a total decay of even the half-hearted attempts of the sonneteers and the satirists. The first part of the eighteenth century saw a slightly improved state of things. Although the divinely creative instinct had gone, apparently never to return, an historical and, to a certain extent, literary revival did take place. The so-called Age of Sonnets was succeeded by the Age of Academies. But when did Academies ever produce poetry .? In 1720 the Academy of History was founded in Lisbon by John V, during the reign of whose son, Joseph Emmanuel (1750-1777), lived the the Marquis of Pombal, who was a patron of literature and music. Pombal ISABEL MOORE 375 founded the Acadia de Lishoa in 1757, two years after the great earthquake that demoHshed the greater part of Lisbon and which Voltaire describes so graphically in 'Candide.' He it was, too, who expelled the Jesuits, thereby removing — for a time at least — one incubus off the heaving breast of his mother country. The Arcadia de Lisboa was followed by the Academia Real des Sciences in 1779, which published many of the old Portuguese Chronicles. In 17 14 an Academia Portugueza had been formed on the model of the French Academy with a view to improve the taste for poetry; and offered prizes to serve this end. Other Academies, on the Italian plan, followed. There was undoubtedly a great spirit of advance- ment abroad, but it worked for the most part through the Academicians. Among the earlier were Antonio Diniz da Cruz e Silva, who took the name of Elpino Monacrense, and whose best work is his translation of the Pindaric Odes: Joao Xavier de Matos, who translated a play by M. I'Abbe Genest and called it 'Penelope' and who wrote a play 'Viriacia': Sebastao Francisco Mendo Trigozo, who translated Racine; Hippolyto, who trans- lated Euripides: Domingos dos Reis Quinta, who wrote a three-act tragedy on Inez de Castro and was well-known; Pedro Antonio Correa Garcao, who wrote, odes, satires, epistles, sonnets and two dramas, and won the distinciton of being the first of the moderns to appreciate the purity of his native language: and Francesco Manoel de Nascimento who took the name of Elysio on joining the Academicians and who, escaping the earthquake and the Inquisition, was exiled to France. Among the historians who lived at this time were Alessandro Herculano, whose history of Portugal is regarded as the highest authority, the Visconde de Santarem, and Augusto Rebello da Silva. Among the dramatists was Manoel Maria Barbosa du Bocage, who wrote the tragedies of * Viriato,' * Alfonso Henriques ' and ' Vasco da Gama.' Among the poets were Luis Augusto Palmeirim, Jose Soares de Passos, Jose da Silva, Mendes Leal, Antonio Feliciano de Castildo, Fran- cesco de Pina de Mello, Joaquim Fortunado de Valdares Gamboa, Nicolao Tolentino de Almeida, Joao Baptista Gomes, Louren^o Caminha, and Paulino Cabral de Vasconcellos. Two others — Joao Baptista de Almeida Garrett and D. Francesco Xavier de Menzes, Conde of Ericeira — stood head and shoulders above their compeers. The former wrote a ten-canto poem on Camoens and intended to collect the popular romance poetry of Portugal as Scott did the minstrelsy of the Border, but failed to do so, although he left an interesting letter on the subject in his romance of 'Adozindo': and the latter was altogether the most voluminous writer and most brilhant literary character of his time, succeeding more than his contemporaries in keeping free from the French influence, holding aloof 376 THE LITERATURE OF PORTUGAL and following more the traditions of the sixteenth century of Portuguese literature. Durini:; the latter half of the eighteenth century conditions became even better. Francisco Vasconcellos, a native of Madeira, belonged to this period. Diogo de Monroy e Vasconcellos, 'Fhomas de Sousa, Luis Simoes de A/.evado, Diogo Camacho, Jacinto Freire de Andrade, Simao Torezao Coelho, Duarte Ribeiro de Macedo, Fernam Correa de la Cerda, Antonio Telles da Silva and Nunes da Silva, some of whose songs and sonnets are reallv worthier of a better day, are all named of writers who have sought accomplishment. ^'et, in spite of their vast endeavor and past achievement, we cannot but realize the truth of what one who knows and loves the Portuguese, has written : 'Portuguese poetry is like a time-honored olive that in its prime was rich in luxuriant leaves and fair fruit, but is now drooping to decay; its foliage thinned, its fruit degenerated, and giving no sign of throwing up vigorous sapplings from its roots. . . It is, however, sometimes pleasant to let memory recall, in its declining age, the flourishing time of the good old tree.' HILLIGENLEI By Warren Washburn Florer THE earlier writings of Gustav Frenssen, the pastor poet of Germany, have influenced thousands of German homes, because the German people understand them. Frenssen's books sing of nature and human life, grand, strong, and true; of confidence in man, in the eternal powers, in God. Thev sing of a simple, original Christianity — the religion of Christ, the Man of Galilee. In these writings, the essential source of which is experience with men, with their sorrows, their sufferings, their needs, and their hopes, Frenssen fearlessly attacked the sins, the customs, and the laws of family, church, state, which lay as a heavy weight upon humanity. The language of these writings is simple, direct, and natural. The characters are natural, consistent men and women, therefore psychologically true. They show development of observation and personality, and there- fore growth. They betray a search for the truth, sometimes uncertain in its results, therefore at times obscurity is evident. This is especially noticeable in the means employed to throw light on the characters, as is seen in the stories taken too often from the fable world. But withal they are powerful books and their very weaknesses give hopes of future develop- ment. After four years of additional observation, research and seeking after the truth, Frenssen gives his 'larger parish' 'Hilligenlei,' the theme of which is a search in the mires and struggles, hopes and aspirations of humanity, for a Holy Land. (Hilligenlei means Holy Land.) One still hears the echo of the critics, each one striking the note corresponding to his education and character, therefore to his attitude to literature and the problems of humanity, especially to religion which is the foundation of the book. Perhaps no book in the history of German literature has evoked such a storm of criticism. Frenssen unfolds in this epochmaking work many phases of life of the entire German people. It contains so much that the reader is unable to grasp the content, and often one loses the numerous threads of action which permeate the book. In fact these threads are at times apparently broken, or at least disconnected. One becomes lost in the network of the experiences of Kai Jans and the other leading characters. However, there is evident a mastery of character development in the powerful Pe Ontjes Lau, in the 377 378 HILLIGENLEI brilliant, but deceptive Tjark Dusenschon, in the proud and passionate Anna Boje, and in the beautiful friend of Kai Jans — Heinke Boje. The character of Kai jans is not intended to be 'fertig.' His entire life is a restless search for the Holy. It is a manifold development. He is uncertain, introspective and lacks confidence. He sees his lofty con- ception of human nature marred at every turn by the actions of men and the cruelty of man to man. In the portrayal of Kai Jans, Frenssen shows strength and consistency, not literar}' weakness. The reader who considers 'Schwung,' freely translated "well-rounded sentences,' as an essential characteristic of good style will take exception to the simple, direct language. He will criticize also the figures and meta- phors employed to interpret ideas and characters. An undesirable feature, indeed, is the copious use of adjectives in description. A lack of discrimi- nation in the language used by the different characters is a decided weakness. This causes a certain smoothness of style, but it is obtained at the cost of individuality. Men are unfortunately not interested in child life, which is but man's life in miniature, and so the introductory chapters may seem monotonous. Men are not interested in the accounts of the life of Christ in the New Testament, so the 'manuscript' with all its beauties and power may prove to be tedious. Again one may smile at the fictitious village Hilligenlei, with its peculiar characters, classes, institutions and episodes, but it is true to nature. One may observe similar incidents and conditions in one's own town. Those who do not know, as Goethe said in defense of his Clarchen, that there is a class between a 'Gottin' and a 'Dime,' will find many a choice morsel to roll under their tongues in this book which treats naive human impulses of strength and purity. Many who have experienced but little of the world will deem much which is so commonplace as impossible, firmly convinced that only that is possible which they meet in their narrow walks of life. The life which Frenssen unfolds to them will be but a Marchen. It is true that Frenssen has treated Sinnengier, not because he 'delighted to depict the errors and sin of youth and men, but out of pity, in order that one might be able to see the healthy and the natural.' The poet reformer unveils a picture of social conditions which is appalling, and, if true, will eventually lead, unless improved, to a disintegration of German society and government, for these conditions are gnawing at the very foundation of all society and government — the home. Frenssen's purpose is to uplift humanity. Strengthened by the con- ception that art has a moral purpose, he continues to attack the conditions WARREN WASHBURN FLORER 379 which tend to dull the moral sense of the people and to retard a healthy development of the individual. Frenssen's ideal is that men and women should enjoy the good and strong impulses of nature given them by the eternal powers; should live a natural, therefore a moral life; should always endeavor to search for a Holy Land, even through the valley of the shadow of death. The rod and staff of comfort are wanting, because the people have no religion. Yea, even worse, the youth laugh at religion and have no respect for Christ. Hilligenlei will not appeal to the average novel reader of our country. It offers too serious food for thought and reflection. As a work of art it will not satisfy many aesthetic readers. As in Germany it will evoke the same opposition from the orthodox pastors of the land. But to men interested in the progress of man and in the evolution of social conditions it will prove to be a book full of rich treasures, a book which, if heeded, will be a boon to our country, inasmuch as it treats conditions which are already influencing American life. At the very first the poet treats the old problem of society and literature, the preying upon the natural instincts of human nature, the result of which is too often illegitimate offspring. This offspring robbed of its natural rights is either bitter or unscrupulous. Likewise the poet condemns 'Sitte' (conventional morality) as one of the enemies of home life and the primary cause of the Jungweibernot throughout the land. The dire influences of the saloon upon the inhabitants of Hilligenlei and upon the workmen in Berlin are depicted. In Hilligenlei one finds the saloon the moving factor in the affairs of the village. Here are as- sembled both old and young men. One beholds the hundreds who pass on the highways of Slesvig-Holstein, lazy and intoxicated. One witnesses the untimely death of the teacher Boje, just because a man was drunk. The sad faces of women and children relate the influences of drink, drink which fills the asylums and prisons, and poisons the morals and health of countless thousands. The young men, corrupted by these conditions, have false conceptions of happiness and success. They strive for mere honor and money. The principle of Tjark Dusenschon, 'one must take money wherever one can get it,' the principle of graft, is true for hundreds of young men of this generation and is encouraged by business men and by society. However, in this age of unsafe finance, one hears the wise words of the merchant who never fi)rgot the highest standard of his profession. He cared that no goods should perish and that the wares of the earth should be distributed over the entire world for the welfare of all, that they should become useful to men, ward off need and increase the joys of life. 38o HILLIGENLKI Frenssen treats the conflicts of the rich and the poor. He traces the underlying causes of the existing hatred and distrust, for example, the excessive riches on one side, and on the other abject poverty, as seen in the tenements of large cities. He believes that men are the real cause of sins and sufferings in that they deprive their fellowmen of land and force them to live in the pitiless, narrow streets. At the same time he cannot under- stand why the men do not desire to go out into the country, into Holy land, where the fresh air is like unto the breath of God, where the sunny houses are situated in the open fields and on forest edges, where men have strong, clear eyes and loft}', peaceful thoughts. He knows what stands in the way of the progress of the workingmen. They avoid and hector one another. In no class is there so much jealousy as in the workingman's class. The life they lead drives earnestness out of the daily work and reverence out of life. There is no desire to progress. Looking for relief, they stare upon the officials and academicians. They should know that active energy can further their cause more than plodding learning. Frenssen rightly discerns the importance of the economic revolution of Germany. A revolution which is affecting all classes, yes, springing from all classes. A revolution evident in every artery of German life. Along with this great economic revolution comes the worst religious confusion at the very time when scientific investigation has undermined the dogmas of churches. Men are without religion, and therefore bitter and discontented. He emphasizes the confusion in the entire domain of morals, in art, in edu- cation and how, as in every century, there passes a spirit of unrest through the people — a fever, but a fever which leads to health. He has caught the longing of the people to rejuvenate the three powerful forces which it begets — government, religion, morality. He has observed a will, a wish, permeating the people to come to nature, to a simple religion, to social justice, to a noble Germanic humanity. Frenssen holds, however, that a regeneration is impossible as long as the foundation upon which it must rest is false. For him this foundation is religion, the faith of Christ, the man. In 'Jorn Uhl' Frenssen attacks the pastors in the pulpit because they do not know life and the needs of the hearers. In 'Hilligenlei* he reveals the attitude of the people toward religion. This attitude is a pitiful one and has its natural causes. One may shudder, but it is true, not only for Hilligenlei and Berlin, but for America. The children make God the servant of their own will, and half of them do not believe what is said in the confirmation class. The words of Anna Boje, as a child, are touching and natural: 'I believe everything because the pastor says it. But, do you know what makes me sad .? God is really WARREN WASHBURN FLORER 381 a triune God, not so ? Sometimes I am so afraid, because at night I am so tired and do not keep the right order. I beHeve I pray least to the Holy Ghost, and he certainly is angry with me.' Even the common workingmen question the teachings about the Virgin Mary, deeming them impossible. They do not respect the teachings of Christ because the church does not represent the Savior as human, but as a golden image. Again, the church seems to be on the side of the rich and has not a v^^ord or deed for the poor. All progressive elements among the people — the w^orkingmen, the seamen, the merchants, the students, the scholars and the artists question the dogmas of the church. The entire folk is falling away from the old faith of the church. The foundation of life is false, because the people have no faith. The minds of men go restlessly from one meaning to another. The priests have a false control over men, and error reigns supreme. Frenssen relates of one, who in the midst of these conditions, restless and full of hope, is searching for the Holy. He thus advances another step. In * J'"rn Uhl' he demonstrated that the trials our people undergo for us are worth the trouble' and that simple, deep life is worth relating and struggling for. Here amidst all these struggles is an additional one, a search for the Holy from childhood on, the task of Kai Jans, the task of Gustav Frenssen. Step by step Frenssen, with almost laborious painstaking, prepares Kai Jans to write the life of Christ. Kai Jans experiences the need and oppression of a long life and of the entire nation. The poet equips him with those pictures of life which Christ must have witnessed from childhood on, in the country, in the village, and in the city. He initiates him into the advance guard of higher criticism. But with all his learning Kai Jans retains his childlike faith and simple heart. He also experiences the secret of the most beautiful of God's nature, the love of a pure girl. But, in order to write the life of Christ, which is a drama, Kai Jans is not permitted to be happy in this love. Otherwise his Frau Sorge would leave him, and therewith his interest in humanity as a whole. Peculiar admixture — this preparation for 'The Life of Christ, represented according to German investigations — the foundation of German regeneration.' The ' manuscript,' the twenty-sixth chapter, which is absolutely necessary as an organic part of the novel, is the storm center of criticism. It has been attacked by hardshcllcd orthodoxy, higher criticism and atheism. It has been received with misgivings and exultant joy. Witlial it is a natural product of the religious reformation which is abroad in (jirmany. Thou- sands of Germans have read this life of Christ as Hcinke Boje did. 'Fheir thoughts have run to him of whom they have read, to the pure, vigorous 382 HILLIGENLEI man, the most beaiititul ot the children of men. Their faith has dune as a vine to his faith. Many good people have fallen away from the poet of ' Jorn Uhl.' And some who stood in awe before the eternal Son of God have lost this fear and have entered upon evil ways. This chapter has left a deep impression upon the minds of Germany and upon the religious revolution. It is a powerful chapter, full of the very life of Christ, full of Christ's grand teachings. It leads us away from Slesvig-Holstein to the country in which Christ lived, wandered and taught. We feel a faith, pure, strong and good. We see the intense conflicts of that social revolution which has left its impression on the development of humanity. We behold the simple and grand life of Christ. We shudder at the strongly affecting death of Christ. We are carried away in joy and compassion by this drama of life, stripped of wonders and supernatural elements. It leads us to the footsteps and back again to our own decade and to our own life. The heart of the reader beats with the heart of the poet. But, we follow the poet's own advice in ' Jorn Uhl,' read through Matthew and Mark to see whether or not the poet has swallowed a goodly piece of the evangel and misinterpreted another; to see whether the connecting links are not too short. Involuntarily we are searching for the Holy. When one looks upon the 'Life' as a whole, one naturally thinks of Frenssen's criticism of the world's great philosophers and applies it to himself: 'There is much "Dunkles und Kindlich-Wirres' in him.' When one thinks of the poet's criticism of Paul, how under the inspiration of his wonderful vision he made out of Christ a divine being, an eternal wonder- man, one fears that Frenssen is likewise transported by his 'Marchen' of nature and human life. One wishes that Frenssen had rewritten his epitome of the history of hundreds of thousands of years; that he had left to the reason of the reader the firstly and secondly of the preacher and the eliminations of the debater; that he had left to the future his exultant prophecy. If this faith is certain, if this foundation is solid, school children, youih, artists, scholars, pastors, state and Christianity will experience the joys prophesied. Is the foundation which Frenssen gives certain and solid .? We fear not. The writer himself was too uncertain. He was too 'grubelnd.' We miss the inspiration of Paul, the certainty of the angry Luther, the insight of the sceptical old philosopher of Weimar, the exactness of modern scholar- ship, the fullness of life of a forceful man. But as we lay this novel aside, so full of treasures for the future of the German people and literature, we carry with us the encouraging assurance: 'Neues Korn spriesst auf. ' PEER GYNT— AN INTERPRETATION By Jane Dransfield Stone AFTER writing 'Brand, Ibsen went into southern Italy, and threw himself into the composition of 'Peer Gynt.' ' It is wild and formless,' he writes of it ' and written without regard to consequences.' Yet as with all his dramas, it had lain a long time in embryo in the poet's mind. The same mood of indignation against his countrymen, the same criticism of the Norwegian character which had resulted in 'Brand' gave birth also to 'Peer Gynt'; though Ibsen himself scarcely realized this, and said in a letter to Hegel, that if 'the Norwegians of the present day recognize themselves in the character of Peer Gynt, that is the good people's own affair.'* The pure poetry of his creation appealed to him more than its polemic, and he constantly pleaded for the book to be enjoyed as a work of the imagination. He writes, 'I learn that the book created much e.xcitement in Norway.' This does not trouble me in the least; but both there and in Denmark they have discovered much more satire in it than was intended by me. Why can they not read the book as a poem ^ For as such I wrote it.'** The criticism of its art form he met with a prophetic sense of its future justification. 'My book is poetry, and if it is not, then it will be. The conception of poetry shall be made to con- form to the book.'*** Thus it is not strange that two works of such seemingly diverse char- acter should have been produced at the same period of development, and at so short an interval. 'Brand' was published in March, 1866: Peer Gynt' in November, 1867. Yet though similar in ethical bearing, the atmosphere of the two poems is totally different. 'Brand' is deep: 'Peer Gynt' is wide. 'Brand' is cold, clear-cut, and defined. The ice winds of the north blow down through it, chilling us to the soul. 'Peer Gynt' is warm, glowing with color, the strange flowering of a rich imagination. The greatness of the work grows upon one. Upon first reading it, one mav be carried away with the bewildering conceits, the play of wit, the droll situations, the abandonment to the spirit of pure fantasy; but it is only after study that the deeper meanings come to light, and the work is lifted • 24th February, 1868. •• Ibid. ••• To Bjornson, 0th December, 1867. 384 PEER GYNT — AN INTERPRETATION out of its provincial, or Scandinavian aspect to its position as the greatest drama since 'Faust.' So Scandinavian in tone that Ibsen feared it would not be understood out of Norway and Denwark, yet it has made its appeal to all peoples through its deep searching into the human heart. Who and what then is Peer Gynt ? The poem has its roots deep in the folk-lore of the north. Ibsen describes his hero as 'one of those half- mvthical, fanciful characters existing in the annals of the Norwegian peasantry of mo J em times,' and again as a 'real person who lived in Gud- brandsdal, probably at the end of the last, or the beginning of this century. His name is still well-known among the peasants there: but of his exploits not much more is known than is to be found in Asojornsen's 'Norwegian Fairv-Tale Book,' in the section. 'Pictures from the mountains.' 'Thus I have not had ver\' much to build upon, but so much the more liberty has been left me.'* The man Peer Gynt, therefore, is so enshrouded in the mists of oblivion that the character Peer Gynt is far more real and we feel that in him Ibsen has added another to the great living fictitious personages of all time. Peer's character, as always in Ibsen, has marked inherited traits. Descended from a formerly well-to-do family of the upper peasant class. Peer and his mother live in a poverty lighted only by memories of former magnificance. Ibsen says that there is much in the poem reminiscent of his own youth, and consequently in the pictures of the feasts in the hall of the rich old Jon Gynt the poet may be said to have harked back to the time when his father was a wealthy merchant of Skein, and he lived in the midst of a prodigal display. We have his own word, too, that his mother, with necessary exaggerations, served as model for Ase. Perhaps this may account for the kindly touch with which old 'Ase is drawn.' A foolish, fond, scold, loving her son, but never disciplining him, abusing him roundly to his face, but his staunchest ally in his absence, praying in the same breath that he may be punished, and may be saved from punishment. She has impUcit faith in his future and his own dreams of greatness. 'Thou art come of great things. Peer Gynt, And great things shall come of thee.' When we first see Peer, he is a strong young man of twenty, a roman- cing, ragged braggadocio, with a lilt on his tongue, and a gleam in his eye, — a good-for-nothing, who has never learned an honest trade, and cannot even mend the broken window panes in his mother's house. He can tell you a fine tale, however. Listen to that ride of his over Gendean Edge, and his • To F. Hegel, 8th August, 1867. JANE DRANSFIELD STONE 385 wild leap on the buck's back from the mountain-top down into the black tarn so far below. 'Buck from over, buck from under, In a moment clashed together. Scattering foam-flecks all around.' So potent is the spell he cast upon his auditors that you do not wonder his mother believes him until suddenly it dawns upon her that her son's wonderful experience is only the rehearsal of a folk tale she had told him herself, in those days when she crooned fairy tales to him to drown their sense of wretchedness and care. And why does he tell this story ? To save himself a scolding, since for six weeks, in the busiest season of the year, he has been lurking in the mountains on a fruitless hunting trip, returning without gun, without game, and with clothes torn, having lost meantime his chance to win a rich girl, Ingrid of Hegstad, for his bride, since even now the wedding is going on. Even so early in his career, he tries to elude the unpleasant consequences of his own acts, a trait he inherits. 'It's a terrible thing to look fate in the eyes,' says Ase and to her son it becomes constantly harder. Throughout the first act, the picture of Peer is that of a pure romancer, indulging in day-dreams of his own future greatness, when he shall have become emperor of the whole world, exploiting his wonderful adventures before his incredulous companions, reckless, heedless, and daring, but as yet undebased. When Solveig comes in, with her modest downcast glances, and her psalm-book wrapped in a handkerchief, her purity attracts him irresistibly, and could he have been content to have won her gently, he might have found in her then his 'kaiserdom,' might in her have become great. But Solveig rejects his too swift advances. His companions laugh at his tales, and their laughter bites. Scorn and rejection wound his pride, forcing him to do some daring deed. Some of old Ase's tales had been of bride-rape. The least hint is enough, and the act closes with Peer stealing Ingrid from the store-house, shouldering her bodily, and running off with her up the hill, old Ase left scolding below. In the second act a subtle change for the worse comes over Peer. The descent, however, is gradual. He tires of Ingrid, and deserts her, but still remembers Solveig. 'Devil take the tribe of women All but one.' When he plunges into the low amours with the three saeter girls, it is 'Heavy of heart, and wanton of mind. The eyes full of laughter, the throat of tears.' 386 PEER G^NT— AN INTERPRETATION After his escapade with the Dovre king's daughter, however, the Green Clad One, there is httle to hke in Peer except his very human nianoeu- vering always to come out on the top. The Troll philosophy dominates him, even though he repudiates the idea of complete subjection to troUdom. It may be well to pause here, to consider the significance of the troll element ot the play. The Dovre kingdom seems as funny a topsy-turvy world as any creation of Lewis Carrol's, but with far more meaning. Trolls are creatures of purely northern mythology, corresponding in their milder aspects to the English brownies. But Ibsen uses them as the exponents of absolute selfishness — that part of human nature which never rises above itself, sees nothing but as it desires to see it, and has no will but self-will. The Dovre king's motto, 'Troll to thyself be enough,' and the Boyg's 'roundabout' are the keynotes of their philosophy. The Boyg is one of the most interesting and puzzling elements of the play. Archer says that 'the idea of this vague, shapeless, ubiquitous, inevitable, invulnerable thing was what chiefly fascinated the poet's imagi- nation in the legend of Peer Gynt.' When it is killed it is still alive, un- wounded when hurt, is both out and in, forward and back, conquers without force. It is a lion and women in one, yet whatever it is, it is ever itself, and is only vanquished, not by physical might, but troll-fashion, by the power of the spirit, symbolized in the ringing of church bells, and the prayers of women. Recalling 'Brand,' Georg Brandes identifies this mysterious being with the spirit of Compromise. Mr. Wicksteed, viewing it in the light of Scene 12, Act IV, calls it the sphinx-riddle of life. One hesitates to cata- gorize so vague a thing, and to each attentive reader the Boyg must make a different appeal. To me it means St. Paul's carnal mind of man — 'mortal mind' — a Christian Scientist would say — that element in man which is purely human, which baffles his best desires, which suggests that he go 'roundabout' to escape his difficulties, rather than through them, and which is only overcome through spirituality. It ever vaunts itself to be a great /, a great myself, but is in reality nothing. The third act shows further the deterioration in Peer's character, and his inability to face the unpleasant. Banished to the woods as an outlaw in consequence of the bride-rape, Peer has never been forgotten by Solveig, who though rejecting his too swift advances has nevertheless established in her soul an ideal of Peer, which she worships. Thinking it was the real Peer she loves, she forsakes her dear father, mother, and sister, and comes to him in the forest; Peer greets her with joy. 'Solveig! let me look at you — but not too near! Only look at you! Oh, but you are bright and pure, — JANE DRANSFIELD STONE 387 Let me lift you, — Oh, but you are fine and light. Let me carry you Solveig — and I'll never be tired.' But in the midst of his rejoicing, along comes the Green Clad One with an ugly little boy, and tells him that this is his child, 'lame in his leg, as Peer was lame in his soul,' begotten only of lustful thoughts and desires, the way of generation in the Dovre kingdom. She tells Peer he may marry Solveig if he will, but that she is his wife, and must have her seat by his side, though Solveig be there too. In this predicament, what is Peer's course ? Repentance t The word comes to him from long-forgotten years, and has now no meaning. Expiation ? Why, it would take whole years to fight his way through. The Boyg said, 'roundabout,' and the Boyg philosophy conquers. Without a word of explanation, bidding her only wait his return. Peer takes to his heels, leaving the woman who loves him to bear alone the long years of life. Probably it was better for Solveig that he did, never- theless that does not exonerate Peer. Solveig is the beautiful element of the play. Every scene in which she appears is lifted at once into the realm of pure poetry. She is so pure and so good. As Agnes might have been Brand's salvation, bringing peace to his restless soul, could he but have accepted her vision of life, so she, who made it a holy day when one looked at her might have uplifted Peer had he been capable of being true to her. This third act contains another great scene — the death scene of Ase, one of the strangest death scenes in all literature — fantastic, tender, weird, yet infinitely pathetic and real. Poor ugly old Ase! Because her son has been declared an outlaw, all her property, such as she had, has been taken from her by the bailiff. Even the house is hers only until her death, and now she lies on the little hard board bed Peer used as a child, moaning and tossing, and longing to see Peer once more before she dies. Not a word of reproach shall he have from her. It was not his fault. It was the drink at the wedding feast that crazed his head. So Peer enters to look in upon his mother for the last time, before embarking for some foreign land. He sees his mother's condition, but death is horrible to him, as we see in Act V in his interview with the Strange Passenger. He will listen to no word of parting, ignores her request for the comfort of the prayer-book, will chat only of 'this, and that,' and finally, seeing her great distress, mounts a chair, and spirits her away on the 'fleet foot horses' to the world beyond. 'To the castle west of the moon and the castle east of the sun — To Soria-lMoria Castle.' where 'The King and the Prince give a feast.' 388 PEER G\NT-AN INTERPRETATION Here, too. Peer is unable to face the unpleasant. Nevertheless, as he bends over his mother, kissing her thanks for both 'beatings and lullabys,' we rtnd him infinitely more human than Brand, cruelly deserting his mother in her last hour, trom rigid devotion to principle. Between acts three and four nearly thirty years elapse, and when next we see Peer he is a handsome portly gentleman of fifty. AH the glamour of the youthful Peer has vanished. He is still a romancer, but the touch of poetry is gone. He still dreams of becoming 'kaiser' of the whole world, but now on a basis of gold. He has become rich, selling slaves to America, and idols to China. He has picked up learning, and a cosmopolitan dash from every country of Europe. He has grown pious, too, keeping a sort of debit and credit with God, so that for every export of idols to China in the spring, he sent out missionaries in the fall. 'What could I do.'' To stop the trade With China was impossible. A plan I hit on — opened straightway A new trade with the self-same land. I shipped off idols every spring. Each autumn sent forth missionaries. Supplying them with all they needed, As stockings. Bibles, rum, and rice.' Mr. Cotton. — 'Yes, at a profit ? ' Peer. — 'Why, of course. It prospered. Dauntlessly they toiled. For every idol that was sold They got a coolie well baptized, So that the effect was neutralized.' Vam and ridiculous as Peer has become, we laugh at him not with him, as in a series of brilliant kaleidoscopic scenes, we seen him storming on the Moroccan coast, because his sycophant friends have run off with his gold: — treed by monkeys in the desert: — plucked by Anitra, his Ara- bian amour;. — and finally crowned as 'kaiser' in a mad house in Cairo. The Gyntish Self stands complete. Imagining himself master of every situation, he is in reality but the merest will-of-the-wisp, drifting hither and thither on every wind of chance. Yet he considers himself a success, for has he not always been himself.? This 'being one's self is the keynote of the poem. What does Ibsen mean : That to him it was the paramount issue of life, there is little doubt. JANE DRANSFIELD STONE 3^9 He writes to Bjornson — 'So to conduct one's life as to realize one's self — this seems to me the highest attainment possible to a human being. lus the task of one and all of us. but most of us bungle it.'* And again,— * I believe that there is nothing else and nothing better for us all to do than in spirit and in truth to realize our selves.'** And, 'The great thing is to become honest and truthful in deaHng with one's self— not to determme to do this or determine to do that, but to do what one must do because one is one's self.'*** The character of Peer Gynt is the negative working out of this theme. In Peer we see that 'being one's self is not. To Peer, to 'be himself meant to carr)' out each momentary impulse: never to burn a bridge behind him, but always to evade responsibility, to blame not himself for his failures, but circumstances. 'To stand with choice-free foo'; Amid the treacherous snares of Hfe, — To know that ever in the rear A bridge for our retreat stands open This theory has borne me on. And given my w^hole career its color.' More or less we are all of us Peer Gynts. Our lives are not determined by a willed fidelity to an ideal, but like Peer we are tossed here and there by fleeting ambitions and momentary desires. Ibsen has no sympathy with his trifling attitude toward life. In his early plays, especially the historical series, he talks much of fulfilling one's calling, of one's divine mission in life. Is everyone, then, destined to a great career ? The poem has two direct answers to this question. First, in the episode of the poor peasant who cut off his finger, thereby incapacitating himself for military service for which he was drafted, because he knew he was needed at home. 'No patriot was he. Both for church and state A fruitless tree. But there, on the upland ridge. In the small circle where he saw his calling. There he was great, because he was himself.' This is Goethe's 'In der Beschrankung zeigt sich erst der Meister'— and Matthew Arnold's — 'In their own tasks all their powers pouring.' Solveig's faith is also an answer. After the scene in which Peer is fleeced, then deserted by Anitra, for an instant we are transported again to the north, and look upon Solveig, now a middle-aged woman, sitting before the door of the hut Peer had built in the forest and singing as she spins. •8th August, 1882. •• To Theodor Carjiari, 27th June, 1884. »*• To Laura Keller, 11th June, 1870, 390 PEER GYNT— AN INTERPRETATION 'Maybe hoth the winter and spring will pass by, And the next summer too, and the whole of the year: — But thou wilt come one day, that I know full well: And I will await thee as I promised thee of old. [Calls the goats, spins, and sings again.] God strengthen thee, whereso thou goest in the world! God sladden thee, if at his footstool thou stand! Here will I await thee till thou comest agam: And if thou wait up yonder, then there we'll meet, my friend.' In her beautiful fidelity to the ideal Peer within her heart, lies Solveig's greatness, and finall) Peer's salvation. So that we see that Ibsen's idea is neither selfish idealism, as Brand's, nor selfish realism, as Peer Gynt's, but the unselfish working out of the best in us: — the attainment of spiritual liberty, and wholeness of life. The fourth act is clever satire, the fifth pure and great poetry. So slender are the threads, however, that bind it to earth, that the reader is inclined to regard its events as merely symbolic. Such was not Ibsen's intention. Even Mr. Clemens Petersen's statement that the Strange Passenger symbolized terror aroused Isben's anger. 'He (Clemens Peter- sen) says that the Strange Passenger is symbolic of terror. Supposing that I had been about to be executed and that such an explanation would have saved my life, it would never have occurred to me. I never thought of such a thing. I stuck in the scene as a mere caprice. And tell me now, is Peer Gynt himself not a personality complete and individual ? I know that he is.'* Briefly, the fifth act may be outlined as follows: Peer, now a miserly old man, is returning to Norway. Just off the coast he is shipwrecked, and saves his life by knocking the ship's cook off the little boat to which they were both clinging. Peer escapes, and returns to his old home, where he finds himself but a tradition. He seeks the forest, the scene of his outlawry, where he comes upon Solveig still waiting for him, but he flees from her. The Button-Moulder comes along with his casting-ladle, looking for one Peer Gynt, whom his master has ordered him to melt up along with other spoilt goods into something new. Peer resents this 'Gynt-cessation' with all his heart. Either one of two things he must prove to save himself, either that he has always been himself, or that he is an exceptional sinner. Peer. — One question only: What is it, at bottom, this "being one's self".'' » To Bjornson, 9th December, 1867. JANE DRANSFIELD STONE 391 The Button-Moulder. — *To be one self is : to slay oneself. But on you that answer is doubtless lost: And therefore we'll say: to stand forth everywhere With Master's intention displayed like a signboard.' Peer can not claim he has been himself according to this standard: nor can he prove himself a great sinner. The Button-Moulder. — 'You're not one thing nor the other then, only so-so. A sinner of really grandiose style Is nowadays not to be met on the highways. It wants much more than merely to wallow in mire. For both vigor and earnestness go to a sin.' Is there no one in heaven or hell, then, to save him ? In his terror he remem- bers the one against whom he has really sinned. Surely Solveig will have a sin-list for him, but when he throws himself before her to hear his doom, she has no word of blame for him. Peer.— 'Cry out all my sins and my trespasses!' Solveig. — 'In nought hast thou sinned, oh my own only boy!' Peer.— 'Cry aloud my crime!' Solveig. — 'Thou hast made all my life as a beautiful song. Blessed be thou that at last thou hast come!' The Button-Moulder disappears, and the poem ends with Peer lying in Solveig's arms, a saved man. In the fifth act, then, is the birth of the true Peer Gynt. His conception occurs in the conversation with the Strange Passenger during the shipwreck, when there is presented for the first time to his mind the idea of dread, or as Mr. Archer has it in the footnote to his translation of this passage (the translation I should like to state I have used throughout) 'the conviction of sin.' It is the moral sense of the soul's obligation to goodness. Peer does not express this at once, however, and it is found first definitely in his famous comparison of himself to an onion, which like himself is but an infinite number of swathings, with never a kernel. Solveig's fidelity to him makes him realize, but too late, that in her heart had been his kaiser- dom, and the ex(|uisite thread-ball scene in which the thoughts he should have thought, and the deeds he should have done rise to reproach him, 392 PEER G\'NT— AN INTERPRETATION begins with liis own searching analysis of himself as a 'whited sepulchre' with 'earnest shunned' and 'repentance dreaded.' At last he sees that his life has been unworthy of perpetuation. *So unspeakably poor, then, a soul can go Back to nothingness, into the grey of the mist. Thou beautiful earth, be not angry with me That I trampled thy grasses to no avail. Thou beautiful sun, thou hast squandered away Thy glory of light in an empty hut.' Mr. Brandes declares that the thread-ball, and this scene, are out of harmony with the rest of Peer's character, and are consequently to be taken as expressions of Ibsen's own regret. It is true that the old Peer Gynt could not have spoken thus, but the new soul growing within him can, and does. It has been claimed, too, that Peer's final salvation is too romantic an ending to be in accord with Ibsen's usual teachings. The logical place for Peer Gynt seems to be the casting-ladle, yet it must not be forgotten that even Peer was not saved until there had come upon him the realization of his own impotence and need. THE PASSING OF THE GREEN* By Jeannette Marks ERE in the sylvan ragged woods and fields is some natural magic of the wind and of the world, some power incarnate in sound; in the clapping of the little leaves upon the treetop, the harsh noise of blown leaves, the broken song of naked apple boughs, the little voice in the valley and the tiny piping over bare pastures, the windage of the uplands with the great rushing wind and the little rustling wind, the big far-travelling wind and the distant battling wind with its hollow sound of moving waters and its speech of destiny. Here, too, is some natural magic in this transformation from the clear green of spring to the old gold of autumn, in those fields and sunny avenues and endless alleys of marching apple trees, in this glade of yellow ferns and tall white birches crowned with yellow autumn leaves, and in these maple trees, bare now, their spaces filled with the grays and azures of the varying skies. Even the little stone that has rolled out of its socket of earth arrests the eye with a sense of something beyond the immediate presence of that which is seen. An ethereal touch has come and pleasure no longer waits, as in spring, on the beauty of detail: the appearance of a starry flower, or some faint change in color, or the coming of a new bird song. Flowers there still are amidst the fluflF of blown thistles and purple asters, and in the morning the meadow lark still sings its song. But every little incident no longer binds the eyes by its beauty and its youth to earth; here is some power invisible, and separable from our lives. The trees denuded of leaves, of the exquisite incident of blooming life, the meadows stripped of their wavering linked grass, the fields razed of their burden of grain, — the imagination becomes supreme. And when in the blue mist of twilight, red apples gleam, the mind looks forward into the 'vague land.' It is as if life had been filled with the loveliness of concrete objects, — earth enamelled with the bright beauty of green fields and blue skies and golden sun, and now, with the light glimmering through the trees on the hill-horizon far away, and the somber arabesque of moss underfoot, changing swiftly to the monotones of dusk. Wide flumes of shadow reach up the darkening hills, little shadows lie motionless, the wind steps softly amongst the corn and its sentinel shadows, and in the chill luster of moonshine stars hang on the bare branches. •Copyright by Jeannette Mark«, 1907. 393 394 THE PASSING OF THE GREEN Life — with the subduing of the colors of autumn, the metamorphosis from crimsons and glowing yellows to the little pale flames and dun colors of the wide-spread meadows and woods, with the wind in the corn, and the shaken cry of the owl at night — life grows suddenly tenuous, sufi^ering a change into that which abides elsewhere. With the thought of the repeated bloom and decay of nature, its unceasing revolutions of natural existence, the mind dwells more and more on that which is shaped in the spirit, and clouds and seas and mountains disappear, as with Michelangelo, in that greater sea which is the soul of man, boundless and dim, crossed by trade-winds 'from eternity.' One feels the vitality of nature apart from its beauty. Even the very mist is haunted by a shadow of that which is beyond. The mind broods on something out of its perception, something that dwells unseen in the far sound of the pines, in the wail of the wind, in the surging of branches, in the twitching of little shadows in a twilit room — something inscrutable and yet mirrored in the settling dusky light and felt in the altering silences. Beyond the eye, invisible to the eye, a procession passes, the mind alone beholding the land of its quiet light, its spectral forms of unknown hills, and the rush of its eternal winds. And gray in the midst of that procession there is one figure, vast, pervasive, followed by a multitude, their thoughts obedient, their hearts sighing. And on the path behind is an eddy as of whirling leaves and the sound of them is like the clatter of the winter wind. Here with the force of great moments when one stands face to face with the inexplicable, here is the unrelieved meaning to the end of life. Sucked into that path of the wind, swept toward those unknown hills the spirit seems suddenly captive and powerless. Then for the first times come that pitiful severance between our hearts and the nature about us; and we are touched with home sickness ever after, knowing that the beat of the vine on the window pane has been no measure of a human pulse. The division between our being and nature's is present with us; because we came we must go. This is a season of great natural drama; now one is aware of the direc- tion of all the forces which have been growing, the working out of law. But there lies something in that dreamy haze, that pensive level light which finds no sensuous expression — an incommunicable idea, pellucid, misty, like little treetops caught for an instant in crystal presence on a dusky hill. Even the shadows have a kind of transparency pale and thin with a spiritual effect of receding. And beyond the hills beneath the strips of level green sky is the underlight of an unseen sea. There, in that somewhat of which nothing is known, is one's certainty of hope — acknowledged ignorance potent with faith. THREE DAYS By Helen Sharpsteen I S lilies 'neath the feet of May Sprang, marking where she trod, So springs each year a flower-sweet day Beneath the smile of God. And it is ours to bend each year And pluck the warm sweet rose. Renewing memories fragrant, dear, The day's heart doth enclose. II Dear hands I loved when long ago You took my heart and me, Dear eyes through which alone I know The joys of things to be; — Take once again, in symbolwise, This day — which doth renew The fragrance of those memories, — All that belongs to you. Ill Three days that mark the sum of life, Marking the sum of love, A trinity with meanings rife For us to take thereof. One day that opened life with love. One day love's own caress. And one the sum of all to prove. To crown, confirm, and bless. 395 THE POETRY OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON By Alexander Jessop LOOKING at the features of Stevenson, one is tempted to exclaim, in the language of the painter enraptured before the respondent model, 'Character, character, is what he has!' As it is true of the man himself, so may it be said of his writings, 'Character, character is what they have!' Plainly, Stevenson is a writer with a style — a writer for the sake of a style, some have been heard to expostulate. In truth, Stevenson is a writer with several styles, each one of which is best adapted to set forth the message of its own particular subject. Yet, though the glow and glitter of language are music to him, they make but tunes after all; still more to him, one imagines, are the meanings that sing to them, the life he depicts. 'I never cared a cent for anything but art, and never shall,' says Stevenson's Loudon Dodd, in 'The Wrecker.' An impression that one gets from reading Stevenson is that he cares as much for art and as much for life, each, as Loudon Dodd cared, he says, for art alone. Stev- enson's two animating passions are youth and courage, if indeed they are two, and not rather (as Stevenson makes us think) one and indissoluble. t\^^| All Stevenson's writings have certain characteristics in common. The poetr}' of Stevenson displays the same animation of youth and courage, the same felicity of word and phrase that his prose does. But it has in addition other qualities that his prose writings do not share. Some of these qualities are, doubtless, those which make the distinction between prose and poetry, beyond the mere form of utterance. Similarly, his poetry may be said to lack some of the enticing aspects of his prose writings. For example, 'The Vagabond,' beginning: Give to me the life I love, Let the lave go by me, Give the jolly heaven above And the byway nigh me, has almost exactly the qualities that are to be felt in his essays. Walking Tours,' ' .^s Triplex,' and others. That poem might just as well have been written in prose. Not that its qualities are not excellent, but that they are different from those of pure poetry. But the best of Stevenson's poems embody the poetry that cannot be or cannot be so well expressed in prose, ALEXANDER JESSOP 397 as well as his other qualities; the poem, 'The Unforgotten,' for example, beginning: She rested by the Broken Brook, She drank of Weary Well, She moved beyond my lingering look, Ah, whither none can tell! That poem has qualities that could be expressed not only not so well in prose, but perhaps not at all. The first stanza (the one quoted), at least, has a lyric spontaneity united with a grave simplicity that is fully equal to Wordsworth's: She dwelt among the untrodden ways, Beside the springs of Dove, A maid whom there were none to praise And very few to love. One advantage, of course, that even such a poem as 'The Vagabond' has over prose utterance on the same theme is, that poetry is more quintessential. Poetry is a more concise vehicle of expression than prose. That is one reason why it is so much easier to discern Stevenson's particular char- acteristics in his poems than in his other writings. In common with those of Wordsworth and many other writers many of Stevenson's poems are strongly impressionistic. The tendency to impres- sionism is now increasingly apparent both in poetry and prose; and, on the whole, literature gains by it. It is in the direction of emancipation — a protest against academicism and conventionality. Conventionality never yet did anything for literature, and never will. On the other hand, it may be said that impressionism, if too freely followed, is itself in danger of becoming a convention. But it is most effective when applied sparingly, as in this poem by Stevenson which bears no title: Bright is the ring of words When the right man rings them, Fair the fall of songs When the singer sings them. Still they are caroled and said — On wings they are carried — After the singer is dead And the maker buried. Low as the singer lies In the field of heather, Songs of his fashion bring The swains together. 39S THE POETRY OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON And when the west is red With the sunset enihers, The lover Hngers and sings And the maid rememhers. The first two lines of the second stanza are, to my tiiinking, the most effective ones in that poem, and all the more so from their position among lines not so strongly stamped with the impressionistic hall-mark. Through every true lover of poetry, reading that poem for the first time, a wave of compre- hension and emotion surely passes as he comes to those lines. The effect and purpose of such impressionism is, of course, to make one feel what is described or hinted at. Thus it may be seen that it is bound up with the ver}' essence of utter poetry, which does not appeal primarily to the intellect (as academic traditions would have us think) but to something more subtle — the emotions of the heart and of the soul. The reason why this impression- istic writing, especially in poetry, is most effective when sparingly applied doubtless is because, giving as it does of the very essence of poetry, the note cannot be sustained for any length of time, even by the greatest poetic geniuses. Sometimes it is so sustained, and then a perfect poem is the result. But most poems have to depend for their effect on a charm that is to be felt as the total result, rather than as sustained at every point. Various academic writers have, at intervals during several thousand years, endeavored to formulate definitions and theories of what constitutes poetr}'. These specifications have been very useful, no doubt: but without a doubt, too, they have been felt as a fetter to originality rather than as an aid and inspiration. It is just what has been written outside of such rules, without precedent, that has proved of greatest value in poetry. Yet differ- ence is not always excellence; even originality may be trivial or grotesque. The difference, in order to be worth while, must be excellent difference. When a high degree of both difference and excellence is to be found in the same piece of writing we may be sure that something has been written that mankind will not willingly forget or value slightly. Stevenson's poetry is excellent, and it is largely different from the poetry of any other poet. Like all good poetry, it has something in common with the work of other poets, great or fine — it contains the universal prime essence. But Stevenson's point of view is highly original. That it is which constitutes his claim to remembrance in this highest department of literary art. All single definitions must partly fail when the attempt is made to foist one of them upon so wide and intangible a thing as poetry. Yet, if I were to give a definition of poetry's quintessence in a single sentence, from a single point of view, I should say, 'The spirit of poetry is loneliness, ALEXANDER JESSOP 399 a world-aloofness.' In the midst of commonness we feel the uncommon — the stars are above the plain, and in the midst of sordidness we feel the ideal beckoning on. The purpose of poetry, then, is to represent the ideal as it is to be found in the ordinary — that is, in life. If we consider the highest flights of poetry in this age, or in any age, we will find that they all more or less uphold that definition. Other definitions, too, might be truthfully applied; but, as I have already tried to indicate implicitly, suggestiveness is the finest quality not only of poetry but of prose definitions about it. For melody, for successful impressionism, for utter pathos, Stevenson's 'Wandering WiUie' is unsurpassed, not only among his own poems but in all poetry: Home no more home to me, whither must I wander ? Hunger my driver, I go where I must. Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather; Thick drives the rain, and my roof is in dust. Loved of wise men was the shade of my roof-tree. The true word of welcome was spoken in the door — Dear days of old, with the faces in the firelight. Kind folks of old, you come again no more. Home was home, then, my dear, full of kindly faces. Home was home, then, my dear, happy for the child. Fire and the window bright glittered on the moorland; ' Song, tuneful song, built a palace in the wild. Now, when day dawns on the brow of the moorland. Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold. Lone let it stand, now the friends are all departed. The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the place of old. Spring shall come, come again, calling up the moor-fowl, Spring shall bring the sun and rain, bring the bees and flowers; Red shall the heather bloom over hill and valley, Soft flow the stream through the even-flowing hours; Fair the day shine as it shown on my childhood — Fair shine the day on the house with open door; Birds come and cry there and twitter in the chimney — But I go forever and come again no more. I do not incaii the word 'pathos' in its original Greek sense, of course, but in its modern English application. Does this poem somewhat pale beside 400 THE POETRY OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON such supreme achievements treating of a similar suhject as Tennyson's 'A Farewell,' 'In the Vallev of Cauteretz,' 'Break, Break, Break,' 'Tears, Idle Tears,' etc. ? The difference hetween those poems and Stevenson's is a difference in kitiJ rather than in quality. The greatest poetry appeals to the universal soul of man; somewhat below these highest peaks of song comes that poetr>- that appeals primarily to the heart; the lower heights are occupied by the dreary academicism whose appeal is mostly to the intellect. What might be very effective in prose may be wholly out of place as poetry. The truth may as well be confessed. Wonderfully impressionistic as is Stevenson's poetn' at its best, its appeal is rather to the emotions of the heart than of the soul. His poetry, even at its best, is somewhat lacking in austerity. This quality at times comes perilously near to academicism and pretentiousness. But, at its truest and best, it is of the essence of the greatest song. Stevenson, to be sure, writes a good deal about austerity. But that does not make his art austere. But what the poems of Stevenson lack in austerity they make up in their warmth of human appeal; they are the intimate poetry of personal relations. That is what constitutes their uniqueness. If 'Wandering Willie' has a rival among Stevenson's poems, it is the one entitled 'In Memoriam. F. A. S.': Yet, oh, stricken heart, remember, oh, remember, How of human days he lived the better part. April came to bloom and never dim December Breathed its killing chills upon the head or heart. Doomed to know not Winter, only Spring, a being Trod the flow^ery April blithely for a while. Took his fill of music, joy of thought and seeing, Came and stayed and went, nor ever ceased to smile. Came and stayed and went, and now when all is finished, You alone have crossed the melancholy stream, Yours the pang, but his — oh, his the undiminished, Undecaying gladness, undeparted dream. All that life contains of torture, toil, and treason, Shame, dishonor, death, to him were but a name. Here, a boy, he dw-elt through all the singing season And ere the day of sorrow departed as he came. I have not attempted to speak of 'A Child's Garden of Verses.' The best of their kind, those 'poems' are not to be judged as poetry proper so SARA TEASDALE 401 much as delightful reminiscences of childhood, which happen to be written m verse. The remarks in the present essay do not, therefore, apply to them. Stevenson's poetry is not very reminiscent of the work of other poets. But It is remmiscent of all the more tender and animated aspects of life — the mtimate, vital emotions of the heart. And, as its best, the charm and pathos of It are irresistible. As long as idealism and romance are unfailing m their appeal it will not, it cannot, be forgotten. SILENCE By Sara Teasdale To Ehonora Duse E are anhungered after solitude, Deep stillness pure of any speech or sound, Soft quiet hovering over pools profound; The silences that on the desert brood; Above the windless hush of empty seas. The broad unfurling banners of the dawn; A faery forest where there sleeps a Faun; Our souls are fain of sohtudes like these. O woman who divined our weariness. And set the crown of silence on your art, From what undreamed of depths within your heart Have you sent forth the hush that makes us free To hear an instant, high above earth's stress, The silent music of infinity .? HYMN TO THE WINGED NIKE By Florence Kiper I N earth-hound priestess, hampered and secure, I scarcely dare approach thee, sovereign form, I scarcely dare essay the rapturous joy Of movement and of hre that is thy heart. Yet know There burns in me the glow. The restless glow that feedeth thy desire, -- Pulsating, winged heart of joy and fire. I too aspire As thou, O goddess; I too feel the urge Of passions and of utterances high That break through to the Infinite and cry Against the clouds their pulsing movements vast, My soul has wings like thine. And those full limbs that flaunt The fluttering drapery And that deep bosom free Are mine, are mine! II What quickeneth the urge Within thee ? — dost thou feel the sweep and surge Of the vast flowing of illimitable life. Life beyond life, and striving beyond strife ? Ah, from what amplitude of powers emerge That stern and glorious strength that thrills through thee, Thou vivid, burning song of victory! Large freedom's high imagination thou, Sweeping the cleaved air with haughty stroke, As if thy great life broke Free from our prisoning cells that bruise and bow. The poet thou, — The poet's soul all vivid things above, — 4.02 FLORENCE KIPER 403 More vivid and more vital in its love Than love of woman who has waked to love. Triumph of burning justice and its might! Triumph of soul and its august decrees: Triumph of right! Ah, what vast things to be are in thy sight! Ill Art thou indeed the Godhead, molded strong In the calm marble which must needs be white Because it focuses all shades of light The crimson passion and the yearning hue Of the pale spiritual blue! Dost all to thee belong ? — Emotion and emotion, strong or weak ? — All powers and shades of song ? Ah, could'st thou speak: Speak to me, bend above me, touch my lips, Anoint me with thy presence, consecrate My soul unto thy state, And I shall burst into such power of words As men have waited for with eager hearts Since last the gods walked big among us. It may not be! I may not see thee naked-free and pure, — An earth-bound priestess, hampered and secure. 'Tis but for me to see The splendor keen that darts From out thy garment folds; Some touch upon my hand I know, same far Faint rustle of thy gown, And yet my quick heart holds Its yearning, aching, passionate dream of thee. RECENT WORKS BY GERMAN WRITERS By Amelia von Enoe NEW works by authors who have long passed the zenith of their powers make one reaHze the rapid pace at which we are moving along in the procession. It seems but yester- dav that students of German were ravished by the poetic sentiment and verbal beauty of 'Die braune Erika.' Yet what a distance Wilhelm Jensen has covered since the publication of that exquisite little story, and from what a distance the readers look back to him, who was then thirty-one, now that he has reached his threescore and ten and has one hundred and fifty volumes to his credit. It must be admitted, also, that although the radiance of his name may at intervals have been totally eclipsed by the newer and noisier fame of novices, the sound of it still falls upon the ear with something of a tender caress, for it recalls visions of beauty which at that time only his pen was able to evoke. Jensen visualized upon the printed page atmosphere, color, litrhts and shadows, as the painter does on canvas. He introduced in fiction the element of nature study and limned with genial realism the scientist type, which had previously been the butt of satire. The formid- able quantity of his works is hardly more bewildering than the versatility of his mind. The poet's temperament, the painter's vision, the philosopher's perspective, the scholar's knowledge, the earthborn's experience — all these enter into his work, which with crystalline transparency reflects his serious reading of life. The dominant quality of his verse, collected some time ago under the title ' Vom Morgen zum Abend' and recently re-issued in a new edition (B. Flischer, Leipzig) is sincerity. With remarkable fearlessness he gives utterance to religious heresies, but even in his combative mood there is never a touch of indelicacy. One of the most interesting poems in the book is 'Lilith.' In her, the prototype of woman, the mother of life, the poet sees the supreme spiritual power of mankind. But Adam could not grasp her greatness; he begged the Creator to give him only a woman, not a goddess, one who would willingly receive, not imperiously demand. So Lilith was left alone with her great longing to love and to render happy the man whose companionship she was to share. In her despair she tore out of her heart this longing and implanted it in the hearts of the human 404 AMELIA VON ENDE 405 race that was to be. In time this heirloom of Lilith became the great dynamic force which spurs man forever to seek some far-off goal, and the source of the greatest sorrows and the greatest joys of life. For originality of conception and dignity of expression this poem is a rare achievement. There are other poems in the volume full of the mature wisdom of noble manhood. Many readers familiar with the 'Lieder aus Frankreich-von einem deutschen Soldaten,' which were considered the best poetical monu- ment of the war of 1870, will be surprised to learn that these peoms are not included in the book. Jensen is one of the few German writers of the older generation whom the material prosperity of the country has not made insensible to its spiritual poverty. The new empire not having fulfilled its ideal promises, his patriotism would not allow those songs to be re- published. While the appearance of Jensen's poems must be welcomed both as a human document and an artistic achievement, one can but regret the publication of the poems of two other seniors among the German writers. Surely an author of such high standing as novelist and dramatist, as Adolf Wilbrandt, should hesitate to give to the public a volume of verse so little calculated to enhance his reputation, as ' Lieder und Bilder' (Cotta, Sutt- gart). The book is mainly composed of occasional poems of which Ger- many has already more than all the other countries combined. Birthday greetings, even if they are addressed to Bismarck, lines sent with a bouquet to be worn at a ball, verses written for festival monographs or special editions of magazines, or for recitation at some solemn celebration, are not likely to be inspired bv a spark of true fire. There is much of this inartistic timeliness in the book of Rudolf von Gottschall: Spaete Lieder' (Gebr. Paetel, Berlin). These prologues for Schiller days, for a navy festival, for various occasions lend themselves to a display of resonant phrases which may strike a responsive chord in masses keyed up to the mood of the occa- sion, but when the spell of the moment is past, the hoUowness of their ring becomes almost painful. Genial spirit and fluent form do not save either of these books from bearing the stamp of mediocrity. Of quite another character is the book of verse by Georg von Oertzen. His 'Memorien des Znf nils' (¥. Bielefeld, Freiburg i. B.) reflect a somewhat robust, but lovable personality. The poet is an octogenarian, but he has not lost the sense of values. He offers impressions and confessions full of sane acceptance of reality, a virile joy of life. A sage who sees the meaning of the passing show, who bravely lashes the follies and sympathetically pictures the sufferings of his fellow-beings, there is a strength and a spontaneity in his book, which sharply contrasts with the weary senility of some of the 4o6 RECENT WORKS BY GERMAN WRITERS junior poets of his country. Prince Scheonaich-Carolath, too, shows no signs of age in his 'Gedichte' (Goeschen, Leipzig). In his early formative period he drank deep of the fountain of tolk-song and has derived from that source an admirable simplicity. His is a religious nature; there are moments when he speaks like one inspired with a mission to raise mankind to a higher spiritual level. In his purely personal moods he often strikes lyric notes of rare charm. Maurice Reinhold von Stern's new volume ' Dortner iind Lerche' (Literarische Bulletin, Leipzig) proves him to be a nature poet of distinction, whose spiritual searchings into the mysteries of being have revealed to him the secret bonds between the universe and the individual soul. He gives plastic utterance to his abstract imaginings, yet always preserves a rare delicacy of outline and intimacy of feeling. Ernst von Wolzogen has been so identified with the spirit of modern Germany, even in its most absurd manifestation, the ill-starred Ueherbrettl, that it is difficult to imagine him to have reached the age, when the human mind is inclined to ramble over the road of the yesterdays. His new book, ' Ferse zu meinem Leben' (Fontane, BerHn) maintains his reputation for originality. It is a sort of diary with poetical annotations. Were it not for the biographical material they contain, some of the verses might as well have remained unwritten; but the preface of the author justifies their publication. The portrait of the author, whose hearty humor and refreshing Bohemianism have made him a favorite figure among contemporary writers, smiles at one through the pages of his curious book. Otto Erich Hartleben, too, was an amiable Bohemian, but his posthumous volume ' Meine Verse' (S. Fischer, Berlin) reflects his Dionysian joy of living with the measured cadence and the tempered tone of classical tradition. Unlike his stories and his plays, which tackle social problems with sparkling humor or with mordant satire, his verse expresses his reading of life but indirectly. It is a book which deserves to be taken more seriously than that of the confrere who survives him, but it lacks the intimate personal charm of the other. As a self-made artist Christian Wagner once bid fair to be ranked with Conrad Deubler, the Austrian poet-philosopher, whose prose was read and whose presence was sought by men of distinction in many walks of life. But his poetic fund soon gave out and spoiled by his critics he became artificial. Now he has made a selection from his poems under the title ^ Ein Blumenstrauss' (Germann's Verlag, Schwaebisch-Hall), which ^is remarkable both for philosophical content and poetic form. There are few German writers today who have caught the undertones in the harmony of nature with such a sympathetic ear. The book is radiant with a serene acceptance of fate and a solemn faith in eternity. AMELIA VON ENDE 407 Among the newcomers are two poets of an originality as distinct as it is divergent: Ernst Lissauer and Alfons Paquet. Lissauer takes up in his book, Der Acker' (Hugo Heller, Vienna), one segment of life and makes it the pivotal point for a panorama of symbols, clear, strong, vital and tangible, moving with admirable consistency in the narrow compass of his vision, yet opening vistas into the larger world. Paquet, whose book bears a no less significant title, 'Auf Erden' (published by subscription and already out of print), roves and loafs over the earth with the Wanderlust of a true worldling, embracing, owning, sensing all and seeking its meaning. Lissauer limits himself to the traditional meter and form; his lines and his stanzas are short, his style is terse, and in some instances he arrives at that finality of expression which is the artist's ultimate aim. Paquet Hstens with ear intent to the song of hfe, as his wheel whirrs at midnight through the valleys of his native land, as he stands on the railroad bridge, or gazes into the glare of a foundry, or peers into the infinitude of the steppe, or hails the bewil- dering vastness and activity of the new world. And as he hstens, the hues he speaks echo it all, and the plaint of toil, the clarion of strife, the chant of faith, the cancan of pleasure and the monody of death become a many- voiced, endless canon, sung over an organ-point of multifarious rnachinery, beating the time and holding the key in an awesome, mysterious hum. Paquet recalls Whitman; his horizon is as large, his conception as demo- cratic ; the rhythm of the ' Leaves of Grass ' vibrates in his lines and his style often becomes diffuse. Both Lissauer and Paquet have been the first in some years to strike a new note in the poetry of Germany; they are both unusually virile individualities. Men who have encompassed experience, they sing of vital things and their songs ring convincingly true. The dramatic production of the past months has not been great, but it has brought at least one surprise. When a writer belonging to an older generation achieves a genuine dramatic success by means as old as they are naive, before an audience as sophisticated as that of the Schauspielhaus of Berlin, the world has cause to wonder. Ernst von Wildenbruch has long stood for an interpreter of truths through the medium of historical images. A certain fraction of German theatergoers never fails to respond to the patriotic appeal which his works convey, be it ever so indirectly. But 'D/^ Rabensteinerm,' which was given shortly before the close of the season, is not a historical but a romantic drama, the plot whereof is childishly simple and the treatment almost trite. Yet the secret of his success is not far to seek. Wildenbruch is the last heir of the Schiller tradition; with him it may die, unless a revival is close at hand. He is a poet who has remained young at heart in the very hotbed of premature senility. He has kept the 4o8 RECENT WORKS BY GERMAN WRITERS hoK- lamp ever burning before the ideals of his younger days. In his flamboyant enthusiasm there is no false note; he is thoroughly in earnest and he is always sincere. The ring of this sincerity finds response in the hearts of the people and wins the favor of his audiences. There is no other man today who could risk the experiment of presenting in the Schauspielhaus a play on the same lines; for no other man would be credited with having a spark of the spirit, of which Schiller is the embodiment. Nor is his success entirely due to this element in his work. Wildenbruch is an admirable technician; he has an architect's eye for construction, an almost infallible instinct for building up situations with a logical assurance that makes them appear natural and even necessary, and for reaching a final dramatic climax. His treatment of the masses is theatrical, but it is effective, and under the spell of the dramatic moment the audience asks not for psychology. One motive enters into the plot of 'Die Rabensteinerin' which claims the attention of American readers. When the scion of the old patrician Welser family has succeeded in winning for his bride the daughter of the robber-barons, the father, hurt in his Welser pride, but impressed by the racial traits of the young woman, decides that they should work out their salvation in the new world. This final chord is a fine psychological touch, emphasizing at once the gulf between two generations and pointing the way out of the inevitable conflict. The play is published by Grote, Berlin. Eberhard Koenig's 'Stein' (Egon Fleischel & Co., Berlin) was written for the Lutherfestspiel verein and perhaps not intended for anything but a festival play. But the work deserves notice, not only for its good work- manship but for its national meaning. The central figure is Stein, the Prussian diplomat and patriot, so prominent during the momentous period of 1806 13. Although the poet has by no means exhausted the dramatic possibilities of the life of Stein, he has conveyed the idea of a nation's regeneration through the ideals of a hero convincingly and eflPectively. His language is dignified and powerful. The success at the initial per- formance in Jena was due more to the poet who has profoundly touched by his stirring scenes and gripping words the patriotic chord, than to the dramatist who had previously proved, that he is able to do better work. ' Thomas Mann's ' Fiorenza' has at last been performed in Frankfurt and has proved not only a poetic drama of power, but a thoroughly playable play. Eduard Stucken's 'Gawan' is another proof that even in Germany the poetic drama often has to go begging before it finds a stage to undertake its performance. 'Gawan' (S. Fischer, Berlin) has been performed in Munich. The play is based upon the English poem of Sir Gawain, the AMELIA VON ENDE 409 main outline of which has been faithfully adhered to until the end, when the 'green knight' becomes death. Obeying an order from the Lord and assisted by the Virgin Mary, who lends her shape to the seductive chatelaine of the poem, the hero is tempted. He promptly repents of his failure and lays down the magic girdle before the statue; this rapidly changes into the living Virgin, who wards off death from the penitent, unveils the Grail and offers him the sacred draught. By this conclusion the sub-title of the play — a mystery — is justified. The play could not fail to find favor with various portions of the audience by its appeal to the taste for gruesome decapitations, which have recently proved so effective, by its introduction of Parsifal motives and by the exquisite stage management. Franz Duelberg is a writer on art belonging to the younger Munich school, whose dramatic attempts always excite some controversy. His imagination is exotic, his language affected and his composition lacks the simple lines of a great work of art. But he has an abundance of ideas and he expresses them in myriads of images, and although it is difficult to find one's way through the maze, he succeeds to impress with a semblance of power. His ' Korallenkettlm' (Egon Fleischel & Co., Berlin) has a mediae- val plot of great strength, the theatrical resources of which have been thoroughly exploited and even exaggerated by the author. Yet the play tends to confirm the hope that Duelberg will some time learn to discipline his gifts and use them to better results than at the present time. Whether he writes lyric verse or little stories, like the exquisite ' Ge- schichten vom lieben Gott,' Rainer Maria Rilke is always a poet of noble dis- tinction. But his first dramatic attempt has hardly conveyed the impression that he is also a dramatist of power. He has written a series of well- constructed, but detached scenes, in which the dialogue takes the place of action. Although the psychology was convincing enough and the suggestion of undercurrents of thought and feeling admirable, these dynamics of the ^ drame intime' did not save the play from failure through the lack of a firm groundwork. In the fiction recently published there is one volume by Rudolf von Gottschall which ranks high above the poems of the monogenarian author. Yet it does give one a peculiar feeling to see the vast difference in manner more than matter, which separates him, who was once the champion of a young (jermany against the conventionalities of an older generation, from the young writers of the day. In ' Neiie Erzaehlungcn' (Gebr. Paetel, licrhn), he has retained much of the ardor and of the combativeness of his younger days; but even in these stories he cannot ignore an opportunity to vent his wrath upon the mutual booming society which the young gener- 410 RECENT WORKS BY GERMAN WRITERS ation of German literati seems to have organized. He calls them a race of 'blast' megalomaniacs, fed on false philosophisms and suffering from congested mysticism.' Though there is some truth in his remarks, they mar the tenor of stories otherwise harmless. Still he cannot be denied a mastery of narrative style, a language full of color and mobility and great constructive power. He was always a landscapist of no mean order, and the setting of the stories lends itself to charming descriptions. The time of the first two stories is the present, the scene of the last is Silesia shortly before the peace of Tilsit. It would be interesting to trace the connection between the new chapter of psychology, which is called child-study, and the new chapter of literature which has given us the child in drama and fiction. Among the writers who have treated the child types in their works from the standpoint of superior psychological knowledge, Franziska Mann is likely to be ranked first. Her insight into the growth and the w'orkings of a child soul is admirable; she watches over her little men and women as a mother over her brood, as a sculptor over his shapes of clay. There is a tender solicitude in the way she reveals to her readers some rare individuality, still in the making, but already endowed with all the instincts and impulses of the adult human being. The stories in her latest book, 'Kinder' (Axel Juncker, Berlin) are sketchy, her portraits are not finished; but neither are her models and the lives in which they will figure. The little book has a tantalizing charm of suggestiveness. Frau Viebig has in her latest novel returned to an older manner. ' Absolvo te' (Egon Fleischel & Co., Berlin), the story of a young girl, married by her mother to a wealthy old man, is told with the directness which has once made the author rank with the greatest disciples of Zola in Germany. The daughter of a schoolmaster, the heroine has a modest education and can claim a refinement quite unusual in the country place, whither she has come as wife of Herr Tiralla, a typical Gutsbesitzer of the province of Posen, good-natured, ignorant and coarse. The mother did not long witness the material prosperity and marital misery of her child. The young wife had in her youth been inclined toward a semi-spiritual, semi-sensuous devotion to the church, and never forgiven the mother for marrying her to an old brute of bibulous habits. Even when a little girl is born to them, the parents remain strangers. The child has inherited the mother's religious nature and as she grows up, shows symptoms of religious hysteria. While she has heavenly visions in her room, the father in his apartment consumes greater and greater quantities of liquor. The idea of getting rid of him becomes an idiosyncrasy with Frau Tiralla, long AMELIA VON ENDE 411 before her unspent woman love finds a worthy object in the friend of her step-son. All this is told with a virile, but not repulsive realism. The atmosphere of the story is hot with the breath of strife in the breast of Frau Tiralla and Martin Becker. When death comes to the old man by his own hands, and Martin leaves the house, Frau Tiralla reads in the ecstatic eyes of her daughter that forgiveness, which even her confessor might deny the unfortunate woman. ' Absolvo ^^' is a very powerful book. Books on Schiller are still appearing on the market. An important little volume was recently added to the series called 'Die Kultur' (Bard, Marquardt & Co., Berlin). It is entitled 'Schiller's Weltanschauung und unsere Zeit,' and the author is Alexander von Gleichen-Russwurm. Calling poets the conscience of their nation, he is of the opinion that Germany has failed to reach the goal which Schiller had cherished. His ideal reading of life lacks the material character of the present time. It is constructive, while the present is destructive. He was a builder who would have hedged in with walls whatever he thought worthy of reverence. Our generation on the contrary tears down the walls. The author defines Schiller's idea of freedom, and emphasizes the fact, that the poet deemed only him capable of becoming a liberator, who had the proper amount of reverence. In Schiller's ideas about the aesthetical education of mankind the author sees a valuable ethical factor. He would have the poet remain our leader in the world of beauty. The references to Schiller's international influence are interesting. Among other illustrations there is the reproduction of a miniature of Schiller which had been in the possession of Charlotte von Kalb. TWO SONNETS By Harry T."^ Baker The Elizabethans ' 'Attempt! attempt!' the inner Genius cried. Then eager, vast, unconquerable youth Opened the flood-gates, and the crimson tide Came rushing, heart to hand. Tameless, in truth, Their utterance, yet no man had seen of yore The virile splendor that flashed o'er their page. Bounds they admitted none, but more and more Dared and accomplished till it seemed dull age Could ne'er o'ertake them. To the verge o' the world Quested their voyagers of soul and sea. Barbarians, gods, with credulous lips uncurled, They wrote, unwitting, for eternity. Earth bloomed anew, and, while these voices rang, The primal morning-stars together sang. After Reading Shakespeare^ s Sonnets Are these but trifles of his empty hours, His cold convention after passionate flame In Romeo and Antony } These but flowers Of artifice, and love a dainty name \ Rather, the poet's mighty heart beat on In truest music, murmuring his woe O'er passion Profitless and hope forgone, Or sounding the deep joy that comrades know. His unrecording century stands aloof. Austere in silence. Cherish, then, the few Inestimable strains what whisper proof Not always did he shun our eager view: Though Lear and Hamlet mirrored not his mind, Here without mask he greeted all mankind. 412 FIDELITY By Catulle Mendes Translated by R. T. House A GOD was a rich shepherd of the plain. His wife left her pitcher on the earth upon a day when the sun was like fire. She laid her down in the shade of a tree, and there came a dream to her: She dreamed that she slept sweetly and awoke hearing the voice of Agod speaking thus and commanding: 'Let us arise; for I sold to the dealers of Segor, a year and half a year in the past, five score of sheep; they owe me yet more than a third part of the purchase-money. I am old and my feet are heavy; the debtors are far hence. Who will go for me and claim the debt from them ^ How may I find a faithful messenger? Bring thou the twenty silver pieces; for thus it is better.' His docile helpmeet urged not the lonely desert, nor its hungry wild- beasts, nor its cruel robbers. 'I am thy servant,' she said, 'speak thy will.' With arm extended, 'Thither' said the shepherd; and then without loss of time she took her mantle of wool and departed. Her feet were heavy in the way; for the path was filled with sharp stones. Her foot-soles shed blood and her eyes shed tears; but she went morning and evening and paused never at all. The terrible night came, and everything was black and silent; but she went and paused not. Then she heard a dreadful cry, and a hand of iron covered her mouth, and one tore her mantle and thrust a great knife into her breast with a sure thrust. She awoke in great fear and all her body trembled. Then she saw her husband at her side, and he said: 'I sold to the dealers of Segor, a year and half a year in the past, five score of sheep; they owe me yet more than a third part of the purchase-money. I am old and my feet are heavy; the debtors are far hence. Who will go for me and claim the debt from them .'' How may I find a faithful messenger .'' Bring thou the twenty silver pieces; for thus it is better.' The faithful helpmeet answered, 'My lord and master has spoken; I am ready.' She called her sons. The older was a noble boy, and she put her right hand about his neck. And she kissed the little brother, and took her mantle of wool and departed without loss of time. 413 LIFE AND LETTERS IT otten occurs to us that in this age when every one has something to sav and wants to sav it to as many people as possible, and con- versely nobody is especially anxious to hear what any one has to say, that we are terribly in need of some cheaper way of repro- ducing our thoughts than printing. With a maximum of orators or sages or seers and a minimum of audience of laymen it is next to impossible to sell enough copies of anything at twenty-five cents to pay the printer's bills, let alone any pay for the kindly sages and seers. A type- writing machine which when one played upon it would engrave plates, to be run off by oneself on a hand press, would convert every man into his own printer and he might then market his ideas at even a small profit. * * * These thoughts have been inspired by the appearance of a new infantile magazine published at 66 Cornhill, and called ' The Inquisitor.' It conceals its identity behind the terrors of anonymity like the inquisitors of old, and frankly admits that the editors are not millionaires, and though not 'in- quisitioning' for money they would be grateful for as many 'quarters' as possible. We have no quarter for them, but we should like to be able to present them with the sort of type-writing machine it is our dream that somebody will some day invent, for we sincerely believe that all the people who have things to say should be encouraged to say them, principally for their own good, for after a while they will suddenly wake up to the fact that millions of people have been saying similar things for thousands of years and after that whatever they say will be said with becoming modesty, or at least with some consciousness that their ideas are not entirely new and startling. 'The Inquisitor' warns us not to decide positively whether we like it or not on the first issue and we are not going to. We will only fill up its last page with remarks as it invites us to do. * * * Its editorial platform is spiritual freedom. This is good! But it contends that the world has well-nigh freed itself from physical slavery, but is not yet spiritually free. Our own observations of society, on the contrary, would lead us to the exactly opposite conclusion, namely that there is a vast deal more of physical slavery in one form or another today, than there is of spiritual slavery. Another article pleads for the living of 414 LIFE AND LETTERS 415 life instead of the realization of it at second hand through novels and plays. It does not appear to us that any such plea is needed. We should rather have thought that quite an alarming number of people were experimenting in their own lives upon the ideas which modern plays and novels present to them and with effects so disastrous that they ought to be learning by this time that life is not intended to be experimented with, but to be fashioned into as perfect a work of art as the raw material will permit. Be it said that the experimenters, who think they are living life, dodge the palpable, tragic consequences which an Ibsen or a Sudermann or a Hauptmann always lay upon the altar of the eternally right; the tragedy with these would-be livers-of-life is the gradual killing out of all desire for that which is holy and true and beautiful in life, and the sinking into contentment with the shams of emotional phenomena. But possibly the writer has in mind only plays that tell of noble and great actions; perhaps he would like to be a John the Baptist, rather than a Peer Gynt, or at least the highway-man in the 'Girl from the Golden West' rather than the sheriff. * * * Still another writer doesn't agree with Burbank that a change of environment may change the nature of a human being. The point he makes is both subtle and interesting; he writes, 'While doing homage to the insight manifested in Burbank's book, we would, nevertheless, submit for con- sideration exactly the opposite view of the relation of environment and the life force, to wit: that so-called environment has no reactionary causal effect whatever on the life-force, but that an apparent effect is produced by the manifestation of this life-force through a different environment, as flame would appear in varied forms through iron gratings of different patterns. Under this view, change of environment would in no way alter the nature of the human being, but would merely supply it a different medium for expression. The apparent practical effects might be the same, but the point of view of the observer or experimenter would be quite different.' It strikes us that the difference of opinion here is more apparent than actual. Burbank would not claim, for example, that a cactus could be changed into a rose, only that the cactus nature may be so changed that it will become a much nicer cactus — all its fine pomts emphasized, all its unpleasant ones suppressed. Similarly, given a child that shows a tendency to cruelty and bravery, if trained one way it might grow up into an abnormally daring and cruel man, trained another vyay, the cruelty might be completely suppressed and the bravery emphasized so that when it attained to the full exercise of its own will, it would find itself possesed of the fine (juality of bravery to work unhampered by 4i6 LIFE AND LE FERS cruelty. That people do actually develop and do not, upon a change of environment, revert to past modes of Action, but do truly gain control of their bad environment, shows that environment is more that a mere medium of expression to the full)' conscious being. Consequently, to the growing consciousness, environment may be made a means of permanently turning the nature into channels tor its best development. * * * Another article plunges bravely into a discussion of free-will, the writer deciding according to his own temperament, as this subject has always been settled time out of mind. Discussions in the realm of philosophy are always, however, absorbingly interesting, if only for the play of intellectual faculty which they bring forth. We hope this will be a regular feature of the magazine. * * * As usual with writers of the day, when the subject of women is touched upon, the opinions expressed give a rather appalling revelation of the status of the masculine mind in this regard. There is a poem not bad in expression but made according to the most commonplace of receipts: An ounce of love, twenty-five ounces of pain, and the delights of secret passion according to taste. Can it be possible that the latest-day poets have no other con- ception of love but this, or is it a disease of youth ? The expression of a belief in, or at least an inspiration toward a noble, whole-hearted, dignified love w^ould be, at least, a pleasant change. Perhaps the day may come when poets will be as much ashamed of these diseases of the emotional nature as they are now at intellectual or physical degeneracy. University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 • Box 951388 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 653 307 9 IVERSITY or '.^ MivrFi'.iiF, i ifjiiary 3 1210 01274 96 8