Page:Poet Lore, volume 35, 1924.pdf/534

 conceive what a hell I have lived through here. I have been like a plaything under everybody’s feet, to be kicked about from place to place. But now that poor grandfather is dead, I can run away at last, thank God! ( smiles again.) Please, please, don’t laugh at me! Your smile is very unbecoming to you on a night like this.

( has approached unobserved. She stops to listen.)

Hans.—This night, although we are watching at the deathbed of my father, is so full of irony, so laughably in keeping with the fate of my entire life, that it seems impossible for me to reflect upon it without a smile. It is true—it is the account of your experience that constitutes the main cause of my mirth.

Julia.—In that case I shall never cease to regret the confidence I placed in you.

Hans (As she turns to go).—No, no, don’t go! I must talk to you. Your doctor he loved you very much? (She nods.) I know. It cannot be expressed in speech. Any one who has been in heaven and then descended into hell will understand us No one else can. As your doctor loved you, I loved your sister, and I carry in my memory a night of parting

Julia.—I was sure of that since yesterday.

Hans.—That night Andrew played the spy for us to warn us of my cousin. He guarded us well from him, but not from ourselves. At dawn I had to leave the country.

Julia (Unable to suppress her emotion, points to the death chamber).—And he

Hans.—But love is stronger than death! I carried mine in my heart through all the horrors of the battle fields and the Siberian exile. Meanwhile at home my cousin thrived on my absence. I find him a pharmacist and mayor, enjoying all that should have belonged to me Son of my father, husband of my wife

Ann (Coming forward).—And father of your son.

Julia.—Ann, dear!

Hans.—You came just in time to take the words out of my mouth. Any one might have guessed, and yet the sharpest man in Potsedin has remained blind.

Ann.—And you are joking at the most serious moment of your life. You are still only wild Hans of the drug store.

Hans.—I am not joking, Ann! That is only a sort of exultation, a kind of tragic enthusiasm. Everything seems but a wild