So have I found it again without trying, the grassy bank? The mulleins seem to have grown since yesterday. The vista between the willows is the same still. The river is flowing heavily like melted lead. Don’t let me forget.... [_He draws_ MRS. GABOR’S _letter from his pocket, lights a match, and burns it_.]--How the sparks fly--back and forth--up and down!--Souls!--Shooting stars!---- Before I lit the match you could still see the grasses and a strip of the horizon.--Now it’s gotten dark. Now I’m not going home any more. CURTAIN ACT III SCENE I.--_The Faculty Room. Two small, high windows, one of them walled up. Portraits of Pestalozzi and J. J. Rousseau on the walls. Long, narrow, green table, with a gaspipe and six flaring burners over it. At one end, on a platform_, PRINCIPAL SONNENSTICH[4] _sits. Behind the table sit, quite close together, in a grotesque row_, PROFESSORS AFFENSCHMALZ (_nearest_ SONNENSTICH), KNOCHENBRUCH, FLIEGENTOD, HUNGERGURT, ZUNGENSCHLAG, _and_ KNÜPPELDICK. HABEBALD, _the beadle or proctor of the school, cowers near the door_. SONNENSTICH--May one of the gentlemen perhaps have something further to remark?--Gentlemen!--If we find ourselves unable to avoid the necessity of moving the rustication of our crime-laden pupil before a superior Board of Education, it is for the very weightiest reasons that we cannot help it. We cannot if only to do our best to atone for the misfortune that has already burst upon us; still less if we would insure our institution for the future against further calamities of the same order. We cannot if we are to discipline our crime-laden pupil for the demoralizing influence that he has exerted upon his classmates; we cannot, most conclusively, if so we may prevent him from exerting the like influence upon the remainder of his classmates. We are compelled to it--and this, gentlemen, is perhaps the most fundamental ground of all, against which no protest =can= prevail,--because it is for us to protect our institution from the ravages of a suicide-=epidemic=, such as has already broken out at various schools like ours and has so far defied all efforts to attach the schoolboy to those conditions of existence best adapted to his education into cultivated manhood.--May one of the gentlemen still have something to remark? KNÜPPELDICK--[_Furthest away; middle-aged._] I can no longer repel the conviction that it may at last be about time to open a window somewhere. ZUNGENSCHLAG--[_Next him, bearded, choleric._] There--there prevails here an at-at-atmosphere like that in subterranean cata-catacombs, like tha-tha-that in the archive-repositories of the quo-quondam star-chamber tribunal at We-Wetzlar! SONNENSTICH--Habebald! HABEBALD--Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich? SONNENSTICH--Open a window. We have, Heaven be praised, atmosphere enough out-of-doors.--May one of the gentlemen have anything further to remark?