HANSY--Let’s not be sad.--When we think back, thirty years hence,--why, we may laugh at ourselves!--And now it is all so beautiful! The mountains are glowing, the grapes droop into our mouths, and the evening breeze whispers along the rocks like a little playful wheedling-- ... CURTAIN SCENE VII.--_The graveyard, in a clear November night. On bush and tree rustles the withered foliage. Jagged clouds speed by under the moon._--MELCHIOR _clambers over the wall above_ MORITZ’S _grave--set much farther up-stage than in Scene II--and jumps down, knocking over_ MORITZ’S _cross_. MELCHIOR--The pack won’t follow me into this place.--While they’re searching brothels, I can catch my breath and see how far I’ve gotten.... Coat in tatters, pockets empty,--even from the most harmless I have something to fear.--During the day I must try to get farther on in the wood.... I have kicked down a cross.--The little flowers would have been frozen to-night!--All around the earth is bare.... In the realm of the dead! To climb out of the skylight was not so hard as the road before me.--This was the only thing that I was not prepared for.... I hang above the abyss--everything swallowed up and gone!--Oh, that I had stayed back there! Why she thru my fault?--Why not the guilty one!--Inscrutable Providence!--I would have broken stones and gone hungry...! What is left now to keep me straight?--Crime will follow on crime. I am abandoned to the mire. Not even the strength left to wind things up.... I was not bad!--I was not bad!--I was not bad!... Never has mortal wandered over graves so filled with envy!--Pah! I should never screw up the courage!--Oh, if insanity would but seize on me--this very night! I must look over there among the latest ones.--The wind whistles past every stone with a different note--a heart-chilling symphony! The rotten wreaths blow apart and dangle on their long strings piecemeal round the marble crosses--a forest of scarecrows!--Scarecrows on all the graves, each more horrible than the next, house-high, putting the devils to flight.--The golden letters glitter so coldly.... The weeping willow moans, and gropes with gigantic fingers over the inscriptions!... A praying cherub--a bare slab---- Now a cloud casts its shadow down here.--How fast it flies, crying!--like a host pursued it rushes up in the east.--Not a star in the sky!---- Evergreen round the plot?--Evergreen?--a girl?... [Illustration: · _Here Rests in God_ · WENDLA BERGMANN BORN · MAY · 5 · 1878 DIED _of_ CHLOROSIS OCTOBER · 27 · 1892 · _Blessed are the Pure in Heart_ · ] And I am her murderer!--I am her murderer!--Despair is left me--only despair!--I may not cry here. I must get away--away! [MORITZ STIEFEL, _with his head under his arm, comes stumping over the graves_.]