Франк Ведекинд - The Awakening of Spring

It is characteristic, also, that the crowd which denounces von Keith as the cause of Molly's death, and which threatens to do him bodily harm, is composed of tradesmen whose initial cause of discontent is to be found in the promoter's failure to pay his bills.

Wedekind's certainty of touch is as much in evidence in his handling of his minor characters as it is in the portrayal of von Keith. There is Molly, whose little bourgeois soul fears the great world, shrinks from her husband's acquaintances, and dreads to take its place among the wealthy classes; Simba, the artist's model, who is astonished at anybody pitying her as a victim of civilization when she can get drunk on champagne; Casimir, the wealthy merchant; and the Bohemian painter Saranieff, with his friend Zamrjaki, the composer. 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. There is no doubt about von Keith being a rogue, in the conventional acceptance of the term, but his enthusiasm appeals to us and we feel for him in his undoing at the end of the play.

In “Die Junge Welt” Wedekind shows us the laughable attempts of a party of young girls to live a life of celibacy in pursuance of a resolution taken in boarding school. It is an amusing comedy, and contains, among other interesting personages, a literary man, who nearly drives his wife to divorce by his habit of jotting down notes of her emotions, even when he is kissing her.

An opportunity to comment upon the German lese majesty is not neglected by Wedekind in the romantic drama, “So ist das Leben,” a dignified and carefully wrought work, partly in verse, which deals with the tribulations of a deposed monarch in his own country. This exiled king becomes tramp, tailor and strolling player, to end eventually as court jester of the very man who has taken his place on the throne.

“Der Kammersänger,” three scenes from the life of a popular tenor, is little more than a dramatic sketch. “Der Erdgeist” and “Die Büchse der Pandora,” two plays which constitute an integral whole, deal with a lady who embraces Mrs. Warren's profession. These, with “Der Leibestrank” and “Oaha,” two farces, with traces of real psychology, round out the total of Wedekind's dramatic works. In addition, he has indulged in verse-making and written a number of short stories somewhat in the manner of De Maupassant.

One may feel at times that Wedekind's art would gain by the exercise of more restraint, but there is no denying it is a great relief from “lyric lemonade.”

An attempt to explain symbolism is usually a dangerous matter. If a failure, it makes the one who essays the task ridiculous. If successful, it cheapens the value of the symbolism; symbolism being a kind of an overtone to verbal reasoning, to which it bears much the same relationship as music does to poetry. In spite of this double danger, the translator ventures to close this review with a guess at the personality of the Masked Man who plays such an important part in the final scene of “Frühlings Erwachen” and to whom the author has dedicated the play. To the translator, then, this mysterious personage is none other than Life, Life in its reality, not Life as seen through the fogged glasses of Melchior's pedagogues or the purblind eyes of the unfortunate mother who sends her daughter to an untimely grave.

June, 1909.

Why have you made my dress so long, Mother?

You are fourteen years old to-day.

Had I known you were going to make my dress so long, I would rather not have been fourteen.

The dress is not too long, Wendla. What do you want? Can I help it that my child is two inches taller every spring? As a grown-up maiden you cannot go about in short dresses.

At any rate, my short dress becomes me better than this nightgown.—Let me wear it again, Mother, only through this summer. This penitential robe will fit me just as well whether I am fifteen or fourteen. Let's put it aside until my next birthday, now I should only tear the flounces.

I don't know what to say. I want to take special care of you just now, child. Other girls are hardy and plump at your age. You are the contrary.–Who knows what you will be when the others have developed?

Who knows—possibly I shall not be at all.

Child, child, how do such thoughts come to you!

Don't, dear Mother, don't be sad.

My own darling!

They come to me at night when I can't sleep. I am not made sad by them, and I believe that I sleep better after them. Is it sinful, Mother, to have such thoughts?

Go hang the long dress up in the closet. Put on your short dress again, in God's name!—I will put another depth of ruffles on it.

No, I would rather be twenty at once–!

If only you are not too cold!–The dress was long enough for you in its time, but–

Now, when summer is coming?–Mother, when one is a child, one doesn't catch diphtheria in one's knees! Who would be so cowardly. At my age one doesn't freeze—least of all in the legs. Would it be any better for me to be too warm, Mother? Give thanks to God if some day your darling doesn't tear out the sleeves and come to you at twilight without her shoes and stockings!—If I wore my long dress I should dress like an elfin queen under it.—Don't scold, Mother! Nobody sees it any more.

This is too tiresome for me. I won't do anything more with it.

Then we others can stop, too!–Have you the work, Melchior?

Keep right on playing!

Where are you going?

For a walk.

But it's growing dark!

Have you the work already?

Why shouldn't I go walking in the dark?

Central America!–Louis the Fifteenth!–Sixty verses of Homer!–Seven equations!

Damn the work!

If only Latin composition didn't come to-morrow!

One can't think of anything without a task intervening.

I'm going home.

I, too, to work.

I, too, I too.

Good-night, Melchior.

Sleep well! ( All withdraw save Moritz and Melchior. ) I'd like to know why we really are on earth!