ourselves. In the unsought, accidental, ingenuous details which ingratiate themselves in spite, or perhaps because of their insignificance, he is not to be compared with Grillparzer; nor, in the capacity to create a poetic atmosphere, with Otto Ludwig. His language is rugged and masculine; his style, frequently forensic. Taken as a whole, his work furnishes more abundant food for thought than objects of naïve esthetic enjoyment; but, like Grillparzer's, his plays were written for the stage; and proper enactment has seldom failed to produce with them an effect of power worthy of his powerful personality, which swam against the tide, knowing that the tide would turn and that the flood would bear him to the haven.

* * * * *

FRIEDRICH HEBBEL

* * * * *

MARIA MAGDALENA

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

Master ANTONY, a joiner

His Wife

CLARA, his daughter

CARL, his son

LEONARD

A Secretary WOLFRAM, a merchant_

ADAM, a bailiff

Another bailiff

A Boy

A Maid

Place. A fair-sized town

MARIA MAGDALENA (1844)

TRANSLATED BY PAUL BERNARD THOMAS

ACT I

A Room in the Joiner's House.

SCENE I

Enter CLARA; the MOTHER.

CLARA.

Your wedding dress? Oh, how well it becomes you! It looks as if it had been made today!

MOTHER.

Yes, child, fashion keeps on going forward until it can go no farther and has to turn around and go back. This dress has already been out of style and in again ten times.

CLARA.

But this time it is not exactly in style, dear mother! The sleeves are too wide! It must not annoy you!

MOTHER (smiling).

I should have to be you for that! CLARA.

And so this is the way you looked! But surely you carried a bunch of flowers too, didn't you?

MOTHER.

I should hope so! Else why do you think I nursed that sprig of myrtle in the pot for so many years?

CLARA.

I have often asked you to, but you have never before put it on. You have always said: It is no longer my wedding dress; it is my shroud now, and that is something one should not play with. I got so that I couldn't even look at it any more, because, hanging there so white, it always made me think of your death, and of the day when the old women would try to pull it on over your head. Why then today?

MOTHER.

When one is very sick, as I was, and does not know whether one is going to get well again or not, a great many things revolve in one's head. Death is more terrible than you think—oh, it is awful! It casts a shadow over the world; one after the other it blows out all the lights that shine with such cheerful brightness all around us, the kindly eyes of husband and children cease to sparkle, and it grows dark everywhere. But deep in the heart it strikes a light, which burns brightly and reveals a great deal one does not care to see. I am not conscious of ever having done a wrong; I have walked in God's ways, I have done my best about the home, I have brought you and your brother up to fear God, and I have kept together the fruits of your father's hard work. I have always managed to lay aside an extra penny for the poor, and if now and then I have turned somebody away, because I felt out of sorts or because too many came, it wasn't a very great misfortune for him, because I was sure to call him back and give him twice as much. Oh, what does it all amount to? People dread the last hour when it threatens to come, writhe like a worm over it, and implore God to let them live, just as a servant implores his master to let him do something over again that he has done poorly, so that he may not come short in his wages on pay-day.

CLARA.

Don't talk in that way, dear mother! It weakens you.

MOTHER.

No, child, it does me good! Am I not well and strong again now? Did not the Lord call me merely to let me know that my festal robe was not yet pure and spotless? And did he not permit me to come back from the very edge of the grave, and grant me time to prepare myself for the heavenly wedding? He was not as kind as that to those five Virgins in the Gospel, about whom I had you read to me last night. And that is the reason why today, when I am going to the Holy Communion, I put this dress on. I wore it the day I made the best and most pious resolutions of my life; I want it to remind me of those which I have not yet carried out.

CLARA.

You still talk as you did in your illness!

SCENE II

CARL (enters).

Good morning, mother! Well, Clara, I suppose you might put up with me, if I were not your brother?

CLARA.

A gold chain? Where did you get that?

CARL.

Why do I sweat so? Why do I work two hours longer than the others every evening? You are impertinent!

MOTHER.

A quarrel on Sunday morning? Shame on you, Carl!

CARL.

Mother, haven't you got a gulden for me?

MOTHER.

I haven't any money except for the housekeeping!

CARL.

Well, give me some of that then! I won't grumble if you make the pancakes thinner for the next two weeks. You have often done so before! I know that all right! When you were saving up for Clara's white dress, we didn't have anything decent to eat for a month. I shut my eyes, but I knew right well that a new hair ribbon or some other bit of finery was on the way. So let me get something out of it too, for once!

MOTHER.

You are absolutely shameless!

CARL.

I haven't much time, else—[He starts to go.]

MOTHER.

Where are you going?

CARL.

I won't tell you, and then, when the old growler asks you where I am, you can answer without blushing that you don't know. Anyway I don't need your gulden—it is best not to draw all your water from one well.

[To himself.]

Here at home they always think the worst things they can about me; why shouldn't I take pleasure in keeping them worried? Why should I say that, since I don't get my gulden, I shall have to go to church, unless a friend helps me out of my predicament?

SCENE III

CLARA.

What does he mean by that?

MOTHER.

Oh, he grieves me terribly! Yes, yes, your father is right! Those are the consequences! He is just as insolent now in demanding a gulden as he was cunning in pleading for a piece of sugar when he was a little curly-headed baby. I wonder if he would not demand the gulden now, if I had refused him the sugar then? That often hurts me! And I think he doesn't even love me! Did you ever once see him cry during my illness?

CLARA.

I didn't see him