Ivan Cankar

“ Such injustice is an unpardonable sin, permanent, enduring, unforgettable in one's conscience. Sometimes the sin is forgotten, eroded from your life, drowned in the eventfulness of the days; but suddenly, perhaps in the middle of a beautiful enjoyable day, perhaps at night, it comes back upon you, to weigh down your soul, to pain and burn your conscience as though you have just committed it. Almost every other sin or bitter memory may be washed away with atonement and good thought, except this sin of injustice against someone whom you love. ”

“ Hvastja. (drinks up and turns around) . You will confess them to me, and you will ask me for a pardon, only when you plead for it, kneeling. (Retreats to the exit and leaves the place.)
Lojzka. There was no need to insult!
Komar. This dark spying soul! . . . What? Honest people meet up at a fair time . . . At a celebratory time . . . Hearts filled with both hope and fear . . . with the word of liberty in their mouth. Out of no-where, this shadow-cleric in their long black suit appears. My dear, I myself am inflamed and I feel no shame. ”

“ I ask god to divert me from such evils. The whole village is drunk. A drunkard has no carry for my mouthings! Preach to a bastard for an hour and longer. They will listen to you for the hour and more . . . At the end, they will take up their blades and shatter your skull. The lands of ours are drunk and it cannot be exorted by words. Be patient for the wine to mist.
Jerman. Now I declare: shall only bastards attend the gathering of ours, I shall come by and tell the bigots what bigots are to be elucidated. ”

“ Jerman. I thank you from within my heart. Did you not name me an honest man? I am truly not born to serve. I like being fed and cared for; yet my ankles and my knees are rigid; though I command them. There was no need to declare what I had knowledge of. I do not have the strength to be a martyr; I do not have the gift to be a hero. Let the future bring its command. Stick feathers on a dog and it will be no pigeon. Let the pigeon turn around nine times – it won't ever bark. ”

“ Jerman. (Grabs doctor's hand.) Elaborate . . . How did I treat... How should've I treated them? (To Lojzka.) Make them some tea! . . . Do elaborate! For . . . My chest is stuffed with worries . . . A bad thought, sir! One worth dying for. I must hear you utter it. (Offers the doctor some tea.)
Doctor. You are unhealthy . . . This cup makes your hands shake . . . This common and unclean lifestyle has broken into your soul and damaged it badly . . . For you fail to live, you cannot live! A human being is a human only: wine and bread come first, all the rest is just a shadow. ”

“ Komar. (Shows up at the door.) Your cases are packed! Thus you have signed your leave a thousand times.
Jerman. The one to have voiced their anger is among them; among the worthless keepers, serving stupidity and licking its boots, to eat its bread! The one to have voiced their anger is not the only to have come – there are a thousand, there are seventy and seven more thousand of them – bowing their heads, preaching for pity! ”

“ Hvastja. Those who have a wife and a triplet of children never commit the sin of murder.
Lojzka. (Stands up.) Hence you have brought us a beating heart in the cloaked pack you carry?
Hvastja. (Sits down on the left.) It was so . . . I think . . . The heart and belief and such – that which suits the youth. Let the young party! I have since aged; I have married and I now have three children. For me, belief is like a cherry: where am I to put it when there is no cake?
Lojzka. It is thus better for one to refrain from the cherry – because of the cake. ”

“ We are all naughts and poors, we stink like muck! (Taking a look at Jerman.) Who are you? We take care of you, we feed you; you remain a rebel and stare at us as though we were uncivilized bastards. Do we require some calm-less soul here? ”

“ Three or four months later a strange woman brought a cup of coffee to my room. Suddenly I felt a sting in my heart. I wanted to cry out from pain. I shivered, my whole being trembling in stark agony.—For a man's heart is a just judge; a man's heart does not concern itself with paragraphs in statute books or trifles. ”

“ The purpose of artists has always been, is and, shall remain, to show nature so to say a mirror of its soul: show of her beauty its true greatness, show of her shame its true grief, show of her centuries and bodily time its truest picture. ”

“ Lojzka. Tears of joy?
Komar. Comrade, you will pay, you will pay! You think I did not notice how silent you went in the last week? When a peasant fears hail, straw is secured swiftly. Look at her, this intellectual smokes no more. She will carry a bible one day, given this pace. You and Jerman . . . A neat couple! Idealism does little for you, huh? I know your sort, pigs! Jerman knows well, who will pay him the most. At the mayor's, he has made himself lunch as never seen before. I do not blame them. They would kill one just to sell the clothing.
Geni. Are they not a friend of yours? ”

“ Principal. Long story short, it is only graceful and bright to forget those days of unfortunate past – think of them as little as necessary to ever remind you of the dangers and your evils . . . For there is no book worth more than the novel of your very own suffering. Go, dear Hvastja! Go and call for Jerman to join us. You, Hvastja, are a man of brainstem, of truest heart and of wise wordings.
Hvastja (bows and leaves the scene) .
Komar. Why bother? If they are to make trouble, let them do so. Shall we plead to them, kneeling, not to work on the Sabbath and not to pray to the Devil? ”

“ Geni. (To Lojzka.) Why force yourself, oh lost soul, wander into the rural of Athens?
Komar. Hvastja as well does so . . . One could not examine their inner self, not even with a dozen or more lenses of magnification.
Principal. They weigh their words and when met, always wear black.
Komar. That was on my mind! God knows whether his suit is truly black. Who crawls silently and builds through loneliness and privacy . . . Where will they crawl and what will they build? ”

“ Take a look at Komar! They've been drunk for three days now, they are on the verge of going nuts . . . due to enthusiasm! There are not many people of such greatness out there . . .
Geni. Drunk for three days now? (Turns to the bartender arriving from the balcony.) A glass of beer will do!
Minka. They've bet on ten liters of wine that the enemies of ours will be batted into the ground by force. The banner of free thought will . . . You know . . . What is your judgment?
Lojzka. ”

“ Who would rebel against the people? My heart is sorry for you . . . I pity you, truly! It would not be sweet to march up there, into the hills . . .
Jerman. Into the mountains? On Goličava, wherever the clergy abducts the hatches of the tabernacle for a mirror, used to monitor whether the teacher crosses themselves while doing the sacrifice. There? (Takes a step towards the Komar.)
Komar. It seems one has informed you by now . . . You must have readied your cases by now, poor Jerman. Whoever takes a turn to Goličava does not return – as of now, not one has. They forget you, that's it! ”

“ The people, countless, have by now entrenched their brains and have thrown their conscience into the most handy trash bin by their way to their daily bread. Those who made fun of god kneel in front of his worthless serfs – first sinning, then praying – the wordings are empty, for their hearts are empty. ”

“ Hvastja. ...As for the sausages, I'd say one does not know when they will desire food the most. God has implanted a dark thought in you; it's shining through your eyes; god will retract it at the right moment. (The two of them go further back. Hvastja leaves.)
Jerman. Now, Lojzka, hand me your palm, hand me both of them.
Lojzka. I am in no hurry to voice a good bye . . . I do not want to be alone, I am fearful in the dark.
Jerman. Lock yourself into a room . . . Think of me at the evening prayer; our thoughts will meet half-way.
Lojzka. I believe souls can talk and thoughts can hail. ”

“ Did you know I study the history of the Slovenian Nation?
Komar. (Looks at him, baffled.) Do not blame me . . .
Geni. You won't be writing it down in the mountains.
Jerman. Await my words . . . You won't miss the evening mass! Now I'm covering the history of Counter-reformation. At that time, they murdered half of all honest people of our lands; the other half went into exile. Only dirty animals remained . . . We are the ancestors of our forefathers.
Turns towards the door; Komar steps away; Geni and Lojzka take on their hats, stepping towards the door.
THIRD ACT
In Jerman's room. ”

“ Are they not human inside, created by god? Won't they listen to a human being, though they do not follow them? Would not a fair word do them better than the book most-complex, more than the talk most-questionable? ”

“ Jerman. One never knows when their sleep will be the final one . . . Answer when you hear my greetings!
Lojzka. Tonight I'll have the lights turned on; I'll await your address!
Jerman. (Shakes her a goodbye.) Go . . . May god and glad be with you!
Kalander knocks on the door and enters the room.
Kalander. Do not blame me, Sir, but in the daytime, one would stare at a person.
Jerman. What is it that you mean to tell me?
Kalander. Two things. I picked up the one who wounded you . . . How should they pay for their sins?
Jerman. Hvastja was right as he brought me sausages. ”

“ Jerman. It most certainly is so. You have made simple and clear academic chants of so many others. They have created a whole field of science out of this question. Your words are sharp: betrayed their knowledge and belief for a piece of the pie . . . An academic, on the contrary, goes on to stretch it out, explaining from the dawn until the sun sets . . . They build layers and layers of paragraphs, touching the sky and the Sun, wordings gathered from dozens of glossaries . . . At the end of the day you lose your consciousness . ”

“ So its relatives came to chain it in its room and told it: "Do not bother traveling the roads, for you better not lose your immortal soul! Remain by your fireplace; cry in hunger, thus your soul will be granted timeless gold!" - Poor stupidity remains by the fireplace and whimpers in hunger, as its sacred keepers cheer and are being fed through her ounces and her rubles. ”

“ Hvastja. Truly. At first it feels sinful, later questionable; finally, it becomes natural. When one is married and has three children, they are struck, erudite . . . Any wording, be it seemingly fancy and excellent, is always a metaphor for bread.
Lojzka. Truly, The Evangelism of Willful Servitude is bitter. Why live?
Hvastja. You ask a lonely tree in the midst of a desert: why grow? Grows, stands, dies off, rots. Ask god as though why it was made grow there.
Jerman and the Pastor arrive from the back side. The pastor passes the room silently and leaves to the left. ”

“ Jerman. There certainly are some among you who desire knowledge – I call them to accompany me. They will be enlightened and will come to understand how Catechism is not the start nor the end of the Library of Alexandria; the time has come to lower the wall set to the human being by both holy and secular hawks and birds of prey. Some in the country of ours, many of them, would not come to a hold, had god sent all four great and minor preachers after them. ”

“ Drink by yourself! Are you not smart and aged sufficiently not to gather with people left behind by any Christian? Not to gather with the people who back-stab their faith and their goddess, who shall be met by the darkened devil as they pass?
Kaladner: She is such, and there is not much one can do! That is little compared to her blunders at home, where her preaches are only tougher! ”

“ Conduct their sentencing of the whole Slovenian nation?
Geni. Jerman is a smart-head. I as well prefer a sweet ration to this funky comedy. Those tricks are barely any excuse for drinking and that only.
Jerman. Who is being sentenced? And by whom?
Minka. Did you not think of the election?
Jerman. Ah, yes! Shall they elect only saints or only "gypsies", my cloak will be no less patched together and my footwear no more compact.
Minka. This very playfulness and mindlessness digs an early grave to the nation of ours!
Jerman. Do not babble! The Nation shall judge for itself ”

“ Komar. Do not resent – and goodbye! (Limps to and through the door, turns back to Jerman, blocking the door.) What would comrade Hvastja comment? You will conduct penance for this drunkard, true penance! (Leaves.)
Lojzka. It did seem as though I had an escort.
Jerman. (Steps to the workbench, turning on the lamp.) You think they are a straw-man, and in fact they are a genius. He has come to realize how the overlord no-when has redemption for their loyal, though unpleasant, serf. He could easily work in a church, preaching and pardoning. ”

“ Minka. Do you have no heart beating in your chest, no brain in your head, given how you laugh and smile as our nation falters? You declared yourself an intellectual, you smoke as much as other smart-heads. ”