Frank Wedekind

“ The aim of these lines is not to hail Wedekind as the Messiah of the drama, nor as the John of a coming Messiah. For all I care, he might be the devil himself. Only one thing is certain: he is a power without his like among us, and where such a power has worked once it produces after results. Power releases power. With this drink in their bodies the public will not long continue to support either lyrical lemonade on the stage nor the dregs of dramatic penury. ”

“ Moritz.
Priapia?
Ilse.
With Nohl, with Fehrendorf, with Padinsky, with Lenz, Rank, Spühler—with all of them possible! Kling, kling——things were lively!
Moritz.
Do they paint you?
Ilse.
Fehrendorf painted me as a pillar saint. I am standing on a Corinthian capital. Fehrendorf, I tell you, is a gibbering idiot. The last time, I trod on one of his tubes. He wiped his brush on my hair. I fetched him a box on the ear. He threw his palette at my head. I upset the easel. He chased me all about the studio, over divans, tables and chairs, with his mahlstick. ”

“ We have too many examples of bad students becoming distinguished men, and, on the other hand, of brilliant students not being at all remarkable in life. At any rate, I can assure you that your misfortune, as far as it lies with me, shall make no difference in your association with Melchior. On the contrary, it will afford me the greatest pleasure to see my son going with a young man who, let the world judge him as it will, is able to win my fullest sympathy.
And, therefore, hold your head high, Herr Stiefel!——Such a crisis as this comes to all of us and will soon be surmounted. ”

“ One must be a man to be able to talk that way! One must be a man to be able to blind oneself so with the dead letter! One must be a man to be so blind that one can't see what stares him in the eyes. I have conscientiously and thoughtfully managed Melchior from his first day, because I found him impressionable to his surroundings. Are we answerable for what has happened? A tile might fall off the roof upon your head to-morrow, and then comes your friend—your father, and, instead of taking care of you, tramples upon you!——I will not let my child be destroyed before my eyes. ”

“ As an antithesis to von Keith we are introduced to Ernst Scholz, a weakling whose soul is torn by internal strife, until its owner is at peace neither with himself nor the world. Scholz wastes his time seeking a reason for his own existence and in longing to become a useful member of society; von Keith scorns to bother his brain with such trifles, boldly proclaiming the Nietzschean doctrine that the only way to be useful to others is to help one's self as much as possible, and asserting that he would rather gather cigar stumps in the café gutters than live in slothful peace in the country. ”

“ The frightful beating in my breast shows thee that I do not murder thee from frivolous emotion. The thought of my lonely nights is strangling me. I swear to thee, child, on my soul, that it is not satiety which rules me. ”

“ If you land Melchior in the House of Correction, I will get a divorce. Then let me see if [Pg 127] I can't find help and means somewhere in the world to rescue my child from destruction.
Herr Gabor.
You must prepare yourself for it——if not to-day, then to-morrow. It is not easy for anyone to discount misfortune. I will stand beside you, and when your courage begins to fail will spare no trouble or effort to relieve your heart. The future seems so gray to me, so full of clouds——it only remains for you to leave me too. ”

“ Be it understood, Strindberg is never pornographic, nor does he show a naked soul merely to afford a charming diversion, which is the practice of some French dramatists. That kitchen—fancy a kitchen as a battlefield of souls!—with its good-hearted and pious cook, the impudent scoundrel of a valet eager for revenge on his superiors, and the hallucinated girl from above stairs—it is a tiny epic of hatred, of class against mass. ”

“ Melchior.
I know that, Wendla. You have the silly children's stories to thank for that. Believe me, such brutal men exist no longer.
Wendla.
Oh yes, Melchior, you're mistaken. Martha Bessel is beaten night after night, so that one sees the marks of it the next day. Oh, but it must hurt! It makes one boiling hot when she tells it. I'm so frightfully sorry for her that I often cry over it in my pillows at night. For months I've been thinking how one can help her.——I'd take her place for eight days with pleasure. ”

“ If we want to preserve a glimmer of hope, and keep our spotless consciences as the parents of the victim, it is time for us to go to work determinedly in earnest.—Don't let us contend any more, Fanny! I feel how hard it is for you. I know that you idolize him because he expresses so entirely your genial nature. Be stronger than yourself. Show yourself for once devoid of self-interest towards your son. ”

“ Has any gentleman something further to remark?——Gentlemen! We cannot help moving the expulsion of our guilty pupil before the National Board of Education; there are the strongest reasons why we cannot: We cannot, because we must expiate the misfortune which has fallen upon us already; we cannot, because of our need to protect ourselves from similar blows in the future; we cannot, because we must chastise our guilty pupil for the demoralizing influence he exerted upon his classmates; we cannot, above all, because we must hinder him from exerting the same influence upon his remaining classmates. ”

“ Melchior.
I have——
Sonnenstich.
You have to keep quiet!——In spite of this likeness, recognized as crushing evidence by incontrovertible authority, we believe that we should allow ourselves to go further and to take the widest latitude in examining the guilty one at first hand, in order to make him answerable to this charge of an offense against morals, and to discover its relationship to the resultant suicide.——
Melchior.
I have——
Sonnenstich.
You have to answer the exact questions which I shall put to you, one after the other, with a plain and modest “yes” or “no.”——Habebald! ”

“ We observe lovers and see them blush before each other, foreseeing that they are deceived deceivers. We see parents bringing children into the world that they may be able to say to them: “How happy you are to have such parents!”——and see the children go and do likewise. We can observe the innocent girl in the qualms of her first love, and the five-groschen harlot reading Schiller.——We see God and the devil blaming each other, and cherish the unspeakable belief that both of them are drunk——Peace and joy, Melchior! ”

“ None knows better how to show the peculiarities of a neurotic woman, or to betray a man's weakness by a few short sentences. The demonstration is direct and thorough, and we watch it fascinated, as we might the work of a skilled vivisectionist. When the job is finished we feel convinced that Wedekind's personages are real, although many of them are not the kind we enjoy meeting in actual life. We do meet them daily, nevertheless, tolerating them chiefly by our own polite habit of ascribing imaginary virtues to those that possess them not. ”

“ I had always lived in the conviction that a child was not a plaything; a child should have a claim upon our most earnest efforts. But, I said to myself, if the spirit and the grace of the one parent are able to compensate for the serious maxims of the other, they may be given preference over the serious maxims.——I am not reproaching you, Fanny, but don't stand in my way when I seek to right your injustice and mine toward the lad. ”

“ Even the iconoclast Strindberg writes romantically at times, and gives us something resembling Maeterlinck; but when Wedekind departs from pure realism his fancy creates a Gothic nightmare of horrors, peopled with such terrifying creatures as the headless suicide wandering amid the graves.
Wedekind's kinship to the dramatists of the “domestic tragedies” is shown clearly in the tragedy “Musik,” which deals with a phase of music study only too common in Germany. ”

“ Moritz.
Is it enjoyable then, Melchior?——The maiden's enjoyment is as that of the holy gods. The maiden controls herself, thanks to her self-denial. She keeps herself [Pg 75] free from every bitterness until the last moment, in order that she may see the heavens open over her in an instant. The maiden fears hell even at the moment that she perceives a blooming paradise. Her feeling is as pure as a mountain spring. The maiden holds a cup over which no earthly breath has blown as yet ”

“ We know that everything is stupidity, everything that men do and contend for, and we laugh at it.
Melchior.
What good does that do?
Moritz.
What good does it have to do?——We are fit for nothing more, neither good nor evil. We stand high, high above earthly beings—each for himself alone. We do not associate with each other, because it would bore us. Not one of us cares for anything which he might lose. We are indifferent both to sorrow and to joy. We are satisfied with ourselves and that is all. We despise [Pg 150] the living so heartily that we can hardly pity them. ”

“ Melchior.
Life is a worthless commonplace. It wouldn't have been a bad idea if I had hanged myself in the cradle.——Why doesn't Mamma come with the tea!
Moritz.
Your tea will do me good, Melchior!——I'm shivering. I feel so strangely spiritualized. Touch me once, please. I see,—I hear,—I feel, much more acutely——and yet everything seems like a dream——oh, so harmonious.——How [Pg 69] still the garden stretches out there in the moonlight, so still, so deep, as if it extended to eternity. ”

“ Dealing with adolescence, an unformed period of human life, it is necessarily without the climaxes we expect in dramas in which the characters are adult, and the gruesome scene in the churchyard with which the play closes—a scene with such peculiar symbolism could spring only from a Teutonic imagination—leaves much unended. ”

“ For six days one has to think, and on the seventh one opens one's mouth. When out walking, one gives one's hand to the school-girls and boys, and when one comes home the coffee steams, the cookies are brought out and the maids fetch apples through the garden door.——Can you imagine anything more beautiful?
Hans.
I imagine half-closed eyelids, half-open lips and Turkish draperies.——I do not believe in pathos. Our elders show us long faces in order to hide their stupidity. Among themselves they call each other donkeys just as we do. ”

“ A fine natured man would just as surely turn into a criminal, like the plants when they are kept from sun and light. I am conscious of no injustice on my part. To-day, as always, I thank heaven that it showed me the way to awaken righteousness of character and nobility of thought in my child. ”

“ Melchior.
If nobody is waiting for you, let us linger here a little longer. Under the oak tree there is my favorite place. If one leans one's head back against the trunk and looks up through the branches at the sky, one becomes hypnotized. The ground is warm yet from the morning sun.——For weeks I've been wanting to ask you something, Wendla. ”

“ The dictum of the Swedish dramatist, August Strindberg, that the playwright should be a lay priest preaching on vital topics of the day in a way to make them intelligible to mediocre intellects, is not appreciated in this country as it should be; but once admit the kinship of dramatist and priest, and the position taken by Wedekind in writing “Frühlings Erwachen” becomes self-evident. There should be no question concerning the importance of his topic, nor should it be forgotten that the evident lesson he seeks to inculcate is one now preached by numerous ethical teachers. ”

“ The carnival was over; the police arrested me; what was I doing in man's clothes?——They took me to the Central Station. Nohl, Fehrendorf, Padinsky, Spühler, Oikonomopulos, the whole Priapia came there and bailed me out. They transported me in a cab to Adolar's studio. Since then I've been true to the herd. Fehrendorf is an ape, Nohl is a pig, Bojokewitsch an owl, Loison a hyena, Oikonomopulos a camel——therefore I love one and all of them the same and wouldn't attach myself to anyone else, even if the world were full of archangels and millionaires!
Moritz.
I must go back, Ilse. ”

“ That you imply a threat to take your own life in case flight is impossible for you, to speak plainly, has somewhat surprised me. No matter how undeserving is a misfortune, Herr Stiefel, one should never choose improper means to escape it. ”

“ You women are not accustomed to judge such things. Anyone who can write what Melchior wrote must be rotten to the core of his being. The mark is plain. A half-healthy nature wouldn't do such a thing. None of us are saints. Each of us wanders from the straight path. His writing, on the contrary, tramples on principle. ”

“ The imaginative realism, the poetic psychology, of this story of the abnormal Thérèse who kills her lover; of the simple minded Julien who becomes an accessory after the fact for love of her, and finally “let himself fall” into the river, having first dropped the body of Colombel over, are gripping and intense. The masochism at the basis of the love of Thérèse and Colombel, resulting in the murder, is depicted with wonderful art and yet without any coarseness. ”