[_Pushing PAULINE out and herself going out of the room with her, in the same detached tone._] All right. Let him come, girl. _MRS. JOHN has gone out into the hall for a moment. She now returns without PAULINE. She seems strangely changed and absent-minded. She takes a few hasty steps toward the door of the partition; then stands still with an expression of fruitless brooding on her face. She interrupts herself in this brooding and runs to the window. Having reached it she turns and on her face there reappears the expression of dull detachment. Slowly, like a somnambulist, she walks up to the table and sits down beside it, leaning her chin on her hand. SELMA KNOBBE appears in the doorway._ SELMA Mother's asleep, Mrs. John, an' I'm that hungry. Might I have a bite o' bread? _MRS. JOHN rises mechanically and cuts a slice from the loaf of bread with the air of one under an hypnotic influence._ SELMA [_Observing MRS. JOHN'S state of mind._] It's me! What's the matter, Mrs. John? Whatever you do, don't cut yourself with the bread knife. MRS. JOHN [_Lets the loaf and the bread-knife slip involuntarily from her hand to the table. A dry sobbing overwhelms her more and more._] Fear!--Trouble!--You don' know nothin' about that! [_She trembles and grasps after some support._ THE THIRD ACT _The same decoration as in the first act. The lamp is lit. The dim light of a hanging lamp illuminates the passage._ _HASSENREUTER is giving his three pupils, SPITTA, DR. KEGEL and KAeFERSTEIN instruction in the art of acting. He himself is seated at the table, uninterruptedly opening letters and beating time to the rhythm of the verses with a paper cutter. In front of him stand, facing each other, KEGEL and KAeFERSTEIN on one side, SPITTA on the other, thus representing the two choruses in Schiller's "Bride of Messina." The young men stand in the midst of a diagram drawn with chalk on the floor and separated, like a chess-board, into sixty-four rectangles. On the high stool in front of the office desk WALBURGA is sitting. Waiting in the background stands the house steward QUAQUARO, who might be the manager of a wandering circus and, in the capacity of athlete, its main attraction. His speech is uttered in a guttural tenor. He wears bedroom slippers. His breeches are held up by an embroidered belt. An open shirt, fairly clean, a light jacket, a cap now held in his hand, complete his attire._ DR. KEGEL AND KAeFERSTEIN [_Mouthing the verses sonorously and with exaggerated dignity._] "Thee salute I with reverence, Lordliest chamber, Thee, my high rulers' Princeliest cradle, Column-supported, magnificent roof. Deep in its scabbard ..." HASSENREUTER