Page:Emma Goldman - The Social Significance of the Modern Drama - 1914.djvu/109

 by two small windows. They are waiting anxiously for the few pence old Baumert is to bring, that they may indulge in a long-missed meal. " What . . . what . . . what is to become of us if he don't come home? " laments Mother Baumert. " There is not so much as a handful o' salt in the house - not a bite o' bread, nor a bit o' wood for the fire." But old Baumert has not forgotten his family. He brings them a repast, the first " good meal " they have had in two years. It is the meat of their faithful little dog, whom Baumert could not kill himself because he loved him so. But hunger knows no choice; Baumert had his beloved dog killed, because " a nice little bit o' meat like that does you a lot o' good."

It did not do old Baumert much good. His stomach, tortured and abused so long, rebelled, and the old man had to " give up the precious dog." And all this wretchedness, all this horror almost within sight of the palatial home of Dreissiger, whose dogs are better fed than his human slaves.

Man's endurance is almost limitless. Almost, yet not quite. For there comes a time when the Baumerts, even like their stomachs, rise in rebellion, when they hurl themselves, even though in blind fury, against the pillars of their prison house. Such a moment comes to the weavers, the