The Weavers
By Gerhart Hauptmann
(German dramatist and poet, born 1862. The present play is a
wonderful picture of the lives of the weavers of Silesia, driven
to revolt by starvation. Moritz, a soldier, has just come home to his
friends)
Ansorge:—Come, then, Moritz, tell us your opinion,
you that's been out and seen the world. Are things
at all like improving for us weavers, eh?
Moritz:—They would need to.
Ansorge:—We're in an awful state here. It's not livin' an' it's not dyin'. A man fights to the bitter end, but he's bound to be beat at last—to be left without a roof over his head, you may say without ground under his feet. As long as he can work at the loom he can earn some sort o' poor, miserable livin'. But it's many a day since I've been able to get that sort o' job. Now I tries to put a bite into my mouth with this here basket-makin'. I sits at it late into the night, and by the time I tumbles into bed I've earned twelve pfennig. I put it to you if a man can live on that, when everything's so dear? Nine marks goes in one lump for house tax, three marks for land tax, nine marks for mortgage interest—that makes twenty-one marks. I may reckon my year's earnin's at just double that money, and that leaves me twenty-one marks for a whole year's food, an' fire, an' clothes, an' shoes; and I've got to keep up some sort of place to live in. Is it any wonder that I'm behind-hand with my interest payments?
Old Baumert:—Some one would need to go to Berlin an' tell the King how hard put to it we are.
