Upon this final picture Wedekind has expended his full power of biting irony. Josef Reissner, the cause of Klara's misfortune, is thanked by her mother for all he has done for her, while Franz Lindekuh, a literary man, whose rôle in the play has been that of a good Samaritan, is accused as the author of her disgrace. During previous tribulations Reissner has assured Klara repeatedly that her suffering would develop her artistic temperament and result in bringing her fame as a singer. At the end, when Klara, after undergoing imprisonment, exile, poverty, public disgrace and the loss of her beloved child, finds herself bereft of even Reissner's regard, she is led away in a stupor from her miserable attic. It is then, in reply to a wish of the physician that she will suffer from no lasting mental disturbance, that Lindekuh preludes the fall of the curtain by the caustic remark: “She'll be able to sing a song.” Here, truly, is a tragedy! There can be no doubt but what Wedekind has handled it in a powerful fashion. He sounds the tragic note upon the first rising of the curtain, a note which grows in intensity until the auditor wonders if it is possible for it to reach higher----and yet it swells. “Frühlings Erwachen” is the best known of the Wedekind dramas and the most original in its treatment. It has peculiarities, however, which make it somewhat difficult to give as a stage performance. To see what this German playwright can do on more conservative lines, and to appreciate his mastership of the conventional technique of the stage, one must turn to the dramas of modern life in which he handles such subjects as socialism, woman's emancipation, naturalism and divorce; frequently, it must be confessed, in a way which Americans refuse to tolerate upon the stage, despite their fondness for the same sort of information when supplied by the newspapers. Selecting his characters from all classes of life, Wedekind brings to their making the knowledge of life as the police reporter sees it plus the science of a skilled psychologist. There is something sardonic about his art. He does not appear to sympathize with any of his characters, but to stand outside of life making note of the foibles and failures of his fellow-creatures. His irony appears in the most tragic places, and his dialogue, wrought with a cunning which requires strict attention on the part of the auditor if its subtleties would be grasped, serves Wedekind as an instrument for dissecting souls which he wields quite regardless of the mess he may make in the operating room.