Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/199

Rh it soon bursts out into reproaches: abuse vies with abuse. In the midst of all, one dame, more vehement than the rest, bounces out with the truth; and now an endless din of scolding, railing, and screaming. There is no lack of more decided outrage, and at last the peace-officers are compelled to interfere.

The second act opens with the court of justice. In the absence of the podesta (who, being a noble, could not lawfully be brought upon the stage), the actuarius presides. He orders the women to be brought before him one by one. This gives rise to an interesting scene. It happens that this official personage is himself enamoured of the first of the combatants who is brought before him. Only too happy to have an opportunity of speaking with her alone, instead of hearing what she has to say on the matter in question, he makes her a declaration of love. In the midst of it a second woman, who is herself in love with the actuary, in a fit of jealousy rushes in, and with her the suspicious lover of the first damsel, who is followed by all the rest; and now the same demon of confusion riots in the court, as, a little before, had set at loggerheads the people of the harbour. In the third act the fun gets more and more boisterous, and the whole ends with a hasty and poor dénouement. The happiest thought, however, of the whole piece, is a character who is thus drawn: an old sailor, who, owing to the hardships to which he had been exposed from his childhood, trembles and falters in all his limbs, and especially in his organs of speech, is brought on the scene to serve as a foil to this restless, screaming, and jabbering crew. Before he can utter a word, he has to make a long preparation by a slow twitching of his lips and an assistant motion of his hands and arms: at last he blurts out what his thoughts are on the matter in dispute. But, as he can only manage to do this in very short sentences, he acquires thereby a sort of