[_His voice is heard through the closed door._] My dear people: don't be formal! I'll be with you in a moment. Loth, my sister-in-law, Helen Krause! And, sister, my friend, Alfred Loth! Please consider yourselves introduced. HELEN Oh, what a way of.... LOTH I don't take it ill of him. As I have often been told, I am myself more than half a barbarian when correct manners are concerned. But if I intruded upon you, I.... HELEN Not in the least; oh, not in the least, believe me. [_A pause of constraint._] Indeed, indeed, it is most kind of you to have looked up my brother-in-law. He often complains that ... rather, regrets that the friends of his youth have forgotten him so entirely. LOTH Yes, it just happened so this time. I've always been in Berlin and thereabouts and had no idea what had become of Hoffmann. I haven't been back in Silesia since my student days at Breslau. HELEN And so you came upon him quite by chance. LOTH Yes, quite--and, what is more, in the very spot where I've got to pursue my investigations. HELEN Investigations in Witzdorf! In this wretched little hole. Ah, you're jesting. It isn't possible. LOTH You say: wretched? Yet there is a very unusual degree of wealth here. HELEN Oh, of course, in that respect.... LOTH I've been continually astonished. I can assure you that such farms are not to be found elsewhere; they seem literally steeped in abundance. HELEN You are quite right. There's more than one stable here in which the cows and horses feed from marble mangers and racks of German silver! It is all due to the coal which was found under our fields and which turned the poor peasants rich almost in the twinkling of an eye. [_She points to the picture in the background._] Do you see--my grandfather was a freight carter. The little property here belonged to him, but he could not get a living out of his bit of soil and so he had to haul freight. That's a picture of him in his blue blouse; they still wore blouses like that in those days. My father, when he was young, wore one too.--No! When I said "wretched" I didn't mean that. Only it's so desolate here. There's nothing, nothing for the mind. Life is empty ... it's enough to kill one. _MIELE and EDWARD pass to and fro, busy laying the table to the right in the background._ LOTH Aren't there balls or parties once in a while? HELEN Not even that! The farmers gamble, hunt, drink ... What is there to be seen all the long day? [_She has approached the window and points out._] _Such_ figures, mainly. LOTH H-m! Miners. HELEN