says, "Ich wunsche Gesegnete Mahlzeit."

The servants pass around coffee--Beermann conversing with Bolland comes down stage ...

BOLLAND. You will receive two thousand votes more than the Socialists. That's certain.

BEERMANN [skeptical]. No,--no.

BOLLAND. If all the Liberals combine with the Conservatives, the result cannot be in doubt.

BEERMANN [taking coffee from the servant]. If ...

BOLLAND. Fusion is here. It's the logical development. I am an old politician. The time for discussion is over. Now it's a straight fight to a finish.

DR. WASNER [coming nearer]. The German fatherland is rallying to the support of the national flag.

BEERMANN. But there are controversies everywhere. I know best. I always am told by campaign managers: don't say this and don't say that.

BOLLAND. In what way?

BEERMANN. For instance, I'm to speak at the Liberal Club the day after to-morrow. You would not expect me to say the same things I told the Conservatives last night ...?

BOLLAND. Your details, of course, must differ. But fundamentally it amounts to the same thing.

BEERMANN. The same thing? Believe me, all this masking confuses me. [Drinks.]

EFFIE [calling across the tea table where she has been standing with others]. Papa! Listen to Frau Bolland. She also says that the Indian Dancer is so interesting.

FRAU BOLLAND. Positively won--derful, Herr Bolland! You can conceive the entire spirit of the Orient,

EFFIE. Why haven't we gone to see her?

FRAU BOLLAND. You surely ought to go. Professor Stohr--you know him--told me he never in his life saw anything so gorgeous.

FRAULEIN KOCH-PINNEBERG. She's so picturesque in her greenish gowns.

FRAU BOLLAND. I did not know that the Hindoos could be so charming.

BEERMANN. We'll have a look at her some night.

EFFIE. But to-morrow night is her last appearance.

BEERMANN [going to the humidor]. Very well darling. Will you remind me of it to-morrow? [Taking a box of cigars offers one to Dobler who is standing near him.] Smoke?

DOBLER [taking one]. Thanks. But I am not accustomed to the imported ones.

BEERMANN [patronizingly]. You'll get used to high living soon enough.

BOLLAND [to Dobler]. How long have you been in the city now?

DOBLER. Two years.

BOLLAND. And before that you were in ... eh?

FRAU BOLLAND. You must excuse him Herr Dobler. Why in Unterschlettenbach, dear ... You know that!

BOLLAND [correcting himself]. Certainly. Bit of literary history. Mighty interesting place that Unterschlettenbach ... eh?

DOBLER. Hardly, Herr Kommerzienrat. Poor and unsanitary. Most of its inhabitants are miners.

BOLLAND. Fancy that! And I never knew it. Full of miners! Tell me though, what do you think of our set here ...? How do you like this well-to-do circle ... the big city ... wealthy surroundings?

DOBLER [lighting a cigar]. I like it well enough. But I think I will always feel out of place here.

BOLLAND. Can't get used to it?

DOBLER. Everything is so different. It seems to me at times as though I had suddenly entered a beautiful house while outdoors my old comrade was awaiting me patiently--the open road.

FRAU BOLLAND. Isn't that won--derful? So very re-a-lis-tic-ally put! I can just picture it. Oh Herr Dobler ... I must tell you: your novel--my husband and I talk about it all day long.

BOLLAND. Tell me though--did you yourself experience the life of that young man you describe?

DOBLER. It's the story of my youth.

BOLLAND. But it's somewhat colored by poetic imagination?

DOBLER. N---o.

BOLLAND. For instance, you have never actually starved?

DOBLER. Oh, yes. There's no imagination in that.

BOLLAND. Just the way you describe it--so that everything turned red?

DOBLER. Everything had a pink color. On one occasion I did not eat anything for four and one-half days.

FRAU BEERMANN [compassionately]. You poor thing!

FRAU BOLLAND. That's exceedingly interesting!

BOLLAND. Do tell us all about it! Then you saw dancing fires?

DOBLER. Yes. Everything danced before my eyes, and I saw it all through a hazy veil, and towards the end my hearing was affected.

BOLLAND. You don't say so? Your hearing also?

DOBLER. When any one spoke to me it sounded as if he stood a great distance off--a great distance.

FRAU BOLLAND. Our set never dreams of such things.

BEERMANN. How did it all turn out?

DOBLER. What do you mean?

BEERMANN. Well, in the end you got something to eat again?

DOBLER. Finally I fainted; I was found lying in a meadow, and was taken to the hospital.

FRAU BEERMANN [sighing]. Are such things still possible in our day?

FRAU BOLLAND. What can you expect--of these idealists! DR. HAUSER. They deserve nothing better.

BEERMANN. And after you were in the hospital--how did you get out?

DOBLER. As soon as I got stronger. Later on I became a printer-- found a position--studied and published my book.

BEERMANN. That's all in your novel, I know. But the part where you describe how you were a tramp--that's not true?

DOBLER. Yes, I "hoboed" almost a whole year.

FRAU BOLLAND. "Hoboed!" Fancy that! How unique!

FRAULEIN KOCH-PINNEBERG. I can just picture it. Tramping along the railroad tracks.

DOBLER. Yes. You folks think you can picture it with four square meals a day. But it's quite different, I assure you. There were three of us at that time. We worked our way from Basel upwards-- sometimes on the left--sometimes on the right bank of the Rhine. In Worms we spent the last of our money and we had to PEDDLE for HAND-OUTS.

FRAU BOLLAND [not understanding him]. "Handouts?" What is that?

DOBLER [with pathos]. To beg for something to eat, gnadige Frau, for our daily bread.

[They all remain silent. Only the voice of the butler who is serving liqueur can be heard.] "Cognac monsieur! Chartreuse! Champagne?"

BEERMANN [taking a glass]. To a man of refinement, such an existence must have been quite unbearable.

DOBLER [taking a glass of cognac from the butler]. Unpleasant. [Drinking.] But you lose your sensitiveness. At first it is hard-- but one learns. In one hot day on the road ... when you get fagged out--and with every stone hurting your feet--you'll learn. The dust blinds you--but you've got to go on just the same. In the evening you come to a small hamlet with smoke curling above the house-tops and the houses themselves look cozy--then you have to hold your hat in your hand and beg for a plate of warm soup. [A short pause.]

DR. WASNER [deep bass voice]. Home sweet home!

BOLLAND. The story reminds me exactly of my late father.