[_Cries in a rage._] Pause! Period! Period! Pause! Period! You're not turning the crank of a hurdy-gurdy! The chorus in the "Bride of Messina" is no hand-organ tune! "Thee salute I with reverence!" Start over again from the beginning, gentleman! "Thee salute I with reverence, Lordliest chamber!" Something like that, gentlemen! "Deep in its scabbard let the sword rest." Period! "Magnificent roof." I meant to say: Period! But you may go on if you want to. DR. KEGEL AND KAeFERSTEIN "Deep in its scabbard Let the sword rest, Fettered fast by your gateway Moveless may lie Strife's snaky-locked monster. For ..." HASSENREUTER [_As before._] Hold on! Don't you know the meaning of a full stop, gentlemen? Haven't you any knowledge of the elements? "Snaky-haired monster." Period! Imagine that a pile is driven there! You've got to stop, to pause. There must be silence like the silence of the dead! You've got to imagine yourself wiped out of existence for the moment, Kaeferstein. And then--out with your best trumpeting chest-notes! Hold on! Don't lisp, for God's sake. "For ..." Go on now! Start! DR. KEGEL AND KAeFERSTEIN "For this hospitable house's Inviolable threshold Guardeth an oath, the Furies' child...." HASSENREUTER [_Jumps up, runs about and roars._] Oath, oath, oath, oath!!! Don't you know what an oath is, Kaeferstein? "Guardeth an oath!!--the Furies' child." This oath is said to be the child of the Furies, Dr. Kegel! You've got to use your voice! The audience, to the last usher, has got to be one vast quivering gooseflesh when you say that! One shiver must run through every bone in the house! Listen to me: "For this house's ... threshold Guardeth an oath!!! The Furies' child, The fearfullest of the infernal deities!"--Go ahead! Don't repeat these verses. But you can stop long enough to observe that an oath and a Munich beer radish are, after all, two different things. SPITTA [_Declaims._] "Ireful my heart in my bosom burneth...." HASSENREUTER