(_With his head under his arm, comes stamping over the graves._) A moment, Melchior! The opportunity will not occur so readily again. You can't guess what depends upon the place and the time---- MELCHIOR. Where do you come from? MORITZ. From over there----over by the wall. You knocked down my cross. I lie by the wall.----Give me your hand, Melchior.---- MELCHIOR. You are not Moritz Stiefel! MORITZ. Give me your hand. I am convinced you will thank me. It won't be so easy again! This is an unusually fortunate encounter.----I came out especially---- MELCHIOR. Don't you sleep? MORITZ. Not what you call sleep.----We sit on the church-tower, on the high gables of the roof----wherever we please.---- MELCHIOR. Restless? MORITZ. Half happy.----We wander among the Mayflowers, among the lonely paths in the woods. We hover over gatherings of people, over the scene of accidents, gardens, festivals.----We cower in the chimneys of dwelling-places and behind the bed curtains.----Give me your hand.----We don't associate with each other, but we see and hear everything that is going on in the world. We know that everything is stupidity, everything that men do and contend for, and we laugh at it. MELCHIOR. What good does that do? MORITZ. What good does it have to do?----We are fit for nothing more, neither good nor evil. We stand high, high above earthly beings--each for himself alone. We do not associate with each other, because it would bore us. Not one of us cares for anything which he might lose. We are indifferent both to sorrow and to joy. We are satisfied with ourselves and that is all. We despise the living so heartily that we can hardly pity them. They amuse us with their doings, because, being alive, they are not worthy of compassion. We laugh at their tragedies--each by himself----and make reflections upon them.----Give me your hand! If you give me your hand, you will fall down with laughter over the sensation which made you give me your hand. MELCHIOR. Doesn't that disgust you? MORITZ. We are too high for that. We smile!----At my burial I was among the mourners. I had a right good time. That is sublimity, Melchior! I howled louder than any and slunk over to the wall to hold my belly from shaking with laughter. Our unapproachable sublimity is the only viewpoint which the trash understands----They would have laughed at me also before I swung myself off. MELCHIOR. I have no desire to laugh at myself. MORITZ. The living, as such, are not really worth compassion!----I admit I should not have thought so either. And now it is incomprehensible to me how one can be so naïve. I see through the fraud so clearly that not a cloud remains.----Why do you want to loiter now, Melchior! Give me your hand! In the turn of a head you will stand heaven high above yourself.----Your life is a sin of omission---- MELCHIOR. Can you forget? MORITZ.