(German dramatist and poet, born 1862. The present play is a wonderful picture of the lives of the weavers of Silesia, driven to revolt by starvation. Moritz, a soldier, has just come home to his friends) ANSORGE:--Come, then, Moritz, tell us your opinion, you that's been out and seen the world. Are things at all like improving for us weavers, eh? MORITZ:--They would need to. ANSORGE:--We're in an awful state here. It's not livin' an' it's not dyin'. A man fights to the bitter end, but he's bound to be beat at last--to be left without a roof over his head, you may say without ground under his feet. As long as he can work at the loom he can earn some sort o' poor, miserable livin'. But it's many a day since I've been able to get that sort o' job. Now I tries to put a bite into my mouth with this here basket-makin'. I sits at it late into the night, and by the time I tumbles into bed I've earned twelve pfennig. I put it to you if a man can live on that, when everything's so dear? Nine marks goes in one lump for house tax, three marks for land tax, nine marks for mortgage interest--that makes twenty-one marks. I may reckon my year's earnin's at just double that money, and that leaves me twenty-one marks for a whole year's food, an' fire, an' clothes, an' shoes; and I've got to keep up some sort of place to live in. Is it any wonder that I'm behind-hand with my interest payments? OLD BAUMERT:--Some one would need to go to Berlin an' tell the King how hard put to it we are. MORITZ:--Little good that would do, Father Baumert. There's been plenty written about it in the newspapers. But the rich people, they can turn and twist things round--as cunning as the devil himself. OLD BAUMERT (_shaking his head_):--To think they've no more sense than that in Berlin! ANSORGE:--And is it really true, Moritz? Is there no law to help us? If a man hasn't been able to scrape together enough to pay his mortgage interest, though he's worked the very skin off his hands, must his house be taken from him? The peasant that's lent the money on it, he wants his rights--what else can you look for from him? But what's to be the end of it all, I don't know.--If I'm put out o' the house.... (_In a voice choked by tears._) I was born here, and here my father sat at his loom for more than forty years. Many was the time he said to mother: Mother, when I'm gone, the house'll still be here. I've worked hard for it. Every nail means a night's weaving, every plank a year's dry bread. A man would think that.... MORITZ:--They're quite fit to take the last bite out of your mouth--that's what they are. ANSORGE:--Well, well, well! I would rather be carried out than have to walk out now in my old days. Who minds dyin'? My father, he was glad to die. At the very end he got frightened, but I crept into bed beside him, an' he quieted down again. I was a lad of thirteen then. I was tired and fell asleep beside him--I knew no better--and when I woke he was quite cold....