Spring Awakening

Act One
SCENE ONE
Bergmans' living-room.
Wendla You've made it so long, Mother. It's too long.
Frau Bergman Wendla, you're not a little girl any more, this is your fourteenth birthday.
Wendla I'd rather never be fourteen than have to wear a dress this long.
Frau Bergman It is not too long. What can we do? Every spring you've shot up another two inches. You're a young woman now, Wendla. That little-princess frock is beginning to look ridiculous on you.
Wendla It suits me better than this dreary thing. Oh, Mother, let me go on wearing it. Just this summer. Till my next birthday. This will keep — Look at it, it gives me an awful feeling. It's like a prison sack or something for criminals. My legs would feel trapped in it.
Frau Bergman Ah, Wendla, if only I could keep you exactly as you are now. At your age most girls are such gangly, awkward creatures, but you're exactly the opposite. When they're all full-grown, what will you be like, I wonder?
Wendla Maybe I shan't be here.
Frau Bergman My darling child, where do you get such ideas?
Wendla Oh, Mother, don't be upset, I'm sorry.
Frau Bergman My precious little darling.
Wendla But I do sometimes think about it. Sometimes at night when I can't sleep. Thoughts like that just come. They don't make me sad at all. And they do make me sleep. Is it bad to think those thoughts, Mother? Is it sinful?
Frau Bergman Here you are — go and hang it in the wardrobe. Wear your little-princess frock if that's what you want. Perhaps I can tack a bit of flounce round the hem some time.
Wendla Please no, not that. I'd rather be twenty right now.
Frau Bergman I don't want you to catch a chill, Wendla. That little dress used to be long enough but —
Wendla Mother, it's nearly summer. You don't catch diphtheria in your knees. You're such a worrier. Girls my age don't get frostbite — least of all in the legs. Would you prefer me too hot? How if I were too hot? What if your precious little darling cut off the sleeves altogether, right up to the armpits. What if I came home one night without shoes or stockings or knickers? When I wear that prison gown, believe me, my underwear will be something else. Next to my skin I'll be Queen of the Fairies. Oh, please don't be silly, Mummy, nobody will ever see it.
SCENE TWO
Evening
Melchior I'm bored. I've had enough of this game.
Otto If you stop, we all stop. What's our homework, Melchior, do you know?
Melchior Why don't you just carry on with the game.
Moritz Where are you going?
Melchior A walk maybe.
Georg But it's nearly dark. Have you done your homework already?
Melchior I like walking in the dark.
Ernst Central America. Louis the Fifteenth. Sixty lines of Homer. Seven equations.
Melchior To hell with homework.
Georg That Latin has to be in tomorrow.
Moritz Whatever you want to do, whatever you want to think — homework's there first, like a great crack in the earth at your feet.
Otto I'm off.
Georg Me too. Homework here I come.
Ernst And me.
Rilou Good night, Melchior.
Melchior Good night.
All go but Melchior and Moritz.
I wish to God I knew what we're doing on this earth!
Moritz Why do we have to go to school? I'd rather be a flea on a dog. Why do we go? To take exams. And why exams? So they can fail us. They have to fail seven of us. The class above only takes sixty. Seven of us have to evaporate. Ever since Christmas I've felt so peculiar, a bit desperate somehow — If it weren't for my father I'd be gone, bags packed and gone. I'd be in America.
Melchior Let's talk about something else.
Moritz Did you see that black cat?
Melchior You superstitious?
Moritz Ha, who knows? She came right over from the other side and crossed in front of us, tail up. Meaningless, of course.
Melchior You know what I think? All who scramble out of idiot religion topple headfirst into imbecile superstition. Let's sit under that big beech tree. This lovely warm wind is coming off the mountains. Do you know what I'd like to be? A tree spirit, a baby dryad. Up there in the highest branches, swayed and lulled and cradled the whole night.
Moritz Unbutton your jacket, Melchior.
Melchior Wonderful how this wind comes in under your clothes.
Moritz It's suddenly so dark. I can't see my hand in front of my face. Where've you gone? Melchior — don't you believe that man's sense of shame is completely artificial — manufactured by his upbringing?
Melchior The other day I was thinking about just that. I would say shame is rooted in human nature. You can't escape it. Imagine: you're ordered to take all your clothes off in front of your best friend. You wouldn't. Or you'd do it — only if he did exactly the same, at the same time.
Moritz If ever I have children they'll all sleep in the same room — right from the start. If possible, the same bed. Night and morning they'll help undress and dress each other — boys and girls, all together. In summer, when it's hot, they'll all wear a very simple short tunic — white linen or something of that sort — light and simple. Fastened with leather thongs. Think how those children would grow up — so relaxed and easy with each other. And look at us.
Melchior You're right, Moritz. I'm sure you are. The only snag is — what happens when the girls get pregnant?
Moritz What do you mean? Get pregnant?
Melchior Instinct, Moritz. That's one thing we have to believe in, like it or not. The instinctive drives. Suppose you shut up a tom-cat and a female cat together, from birth, for life, no other cats near them, never a glimpse of one other cat — nothing in there with them but their own drives. What happens? One day, bang, the female's pregnant. And neither of them ever got a hint how to do it from any other cat. Not one lesson.
Moritz Yes, well, that's animals. I'm sure it's that way with animals.
Melchior And not humans? Think how it's going to be, Moritz, when all your boys and girls are tangled happily together in that big bed of yours. One night one of the boys begins to dream and he wakes up fairly bursting with instinct. With the male drive, Moritz. I'll bet you —
Moritz All right. All right. Maybe you're right. Even so —
Melchior And when your girls get to the same point — do you suppose one or two ideas don't come bubbling up for them too? I know girls are slightly different — it's not quite the same — In fact, the truth is we don't quite know, do we? But we can assume. Can't we assume? The physical moment, the idea, the big bed — and curiosity does the rest.
Moritz One question.
Melchior Yes?
Moritz Promise you'll answer.
Melchior Of course.
Moritz Promise.
Melchior Yes, I promise. What is it?
Moritz Have you done that Latin homework?
Melchior Moritz, nobody can hear us. Spit it out. What is it?
Moritz These children of mine, they will have to spend the whole day working, quite hard — in the yard or the garden. Or playing energetic games, the most strenuous games. Horse-riding, gymnastics, rock-climbing. Then they'll really sleep. They'll go deep, deep down – utterly exhausted. When you're deeply asleep, truly asleep – I don't think you dream at all. We're so pampered and spoiled, half the night we're dreaming.
Melchior From now on till after the grape harvest I'm sleeping in my hammock. I've stowed my bed away. It folds up. I had the weirdest dream last winter: I was flogging our dog, Lolo, so hard and so long, in the end he couldn't move a limb. The most horrible dream I ever had. Why are you staring at me like that?
Moritz Have you felt it?
Melchior Felt what?
Moritz What was it you called it?
Melchior The male drive?
Moritz That.
Melchior Ha! And how.
Moritz Me too.
Melchior As a matter of fact, I've been experiencing it for quite some time … a year.
Moritz I thought I'd been hit by lightning.
Melchior Was it a dream?
Moritz Funny, just a flash — There were these legs in sky-blue tights climbing over the teacher's desk — To tell you the truth, I thought they were — I just got a glimpse.
Melchior Georg Zirschnitz dreams about his mother.
Moritz He told you that?
Melchior On the road out to the old Gallows Hill.
Moritz Ever since that night — if you knew what I've been through.
Melchior Bad conscience?
Moritz Absolute death-agony.
Melchior Oh, my God.
Moritz I thought I'd caught some ghastly disease. I thought I was going rotten inside, falling to bits inside. Then I started writing it all up in my diary — that seemed to calm me down a bit. Melchior — this last three weeks, talk about Agony in the Garden!
Melchior I was better prepared for it. I felt a bit ashamed, but that was all.
Moritz And you're nearly a year younger than me.
Melchior I wouldn't worry. According to all my experience, there is no particular age at which this phantom first appears. You know Lammermeier — he's three years older than me. Hanschen Rilow says he still dreams about chocolate éclairs and apricot jam.
Moritz How does Rilow know that?
Melchior He asked him.
Moritz Asked him! I wouldn't dare ask anybody.
Melchior You asked me.
Moritz So I did. Isn't this a very strange game they're playing with us, Melchior? All these things being done to us. And we're supposed to be glad. Supposed even to be grateful. I'd never felt anything like it before — such a craving — for such unbearable excitements. Unbearable! Why wasn't I left to sleep through it — and wake up when it was all over? My parents could have had countless children who would have pleased them better than I do. Maybe I'm the most evil one they could have had. But here I am. And God knows where I came from or how I got here. Yet I'm supposed to justify my being here. To myself, to everybody. How did we ever come to wake up in this morass? Did you never try to puzzle it out, Melchior?
Melchior Is this something else you don't know yet?
Moritz Where could I get to know? Oh, yes, chickens lay eggs, I've seen that. And Mama's supposed to have carried me around somewhere under her heart — so I've been told. But isn't there a bit more to it? You know how the Queen of Hearts shows her bare shoulders right down to —? When I was only four or five, I used to dread anybody turning that card up — She made me feel so — God knows, awful. I've got over that, but I can hardly speak to a girl without my brains going into a kind of spin down a drain — I think the most horrible things, and I swear, Melchior, I swear I've no idea what they are. It's all just horrible.
Melchior I will explain everything. From beginning to end. Some of it I got from books. Some of it from pictures. And some from observing the natural world. It will amaze you. It knocked religion out of me, I can tell you. I told Georg Zirschnitz. He wanted to tell Rilow, but do you know what? Rilow had it all from his governess, years ago.
Moritz I've been through the encyclopedia from A to Z. Huge, ponderous volumes, solid with words. Masses and masses and masses of words. But not one plain description of what actually goes on. It's this weird feeling of — shame. What's the point of an encyclopedia that gives you the answers to everything — except the most basic question of life.
Melchior You've seen two dogs in the street?
Moritz Stop. That's enough. Nothing more today, Melchior. I've still got Central America, and Louis the Fifteenth, and sixty lines of Homer, and seven equations — and the Latin prose. Otherwise, tomorrow I've had it. If I'm going to deal with all that tonight, I need to be dumb as an ox. So please, Melchior.
Melchior Come to my room. In three-quarters of an hour I'll see to your Homer, the equations and two Latin proses. I'll chuck in a few mistakes for you. And that will be it. Mama will make us some fresh lemonade and you and I, Moritz — we'll have a cosy little chat about sexual reproduction.
Moritz I can't. I can't just have a ‘cosy little chat about sexual reproduction'. The only way I could take it would be — if you wrote it all out, Melchior, like instructions. That would really help me, I think. Write down all you know about it, very simple, but really clear. And put it among my books, tomorrow, during gym. Then I'll take it home not even knowing it's there. I'll come across it unexpectedly. My poor weary eyes won't be able to avoid giving it a glance. If you feel it's absolutely vital, you could put some diagrams in the margins.
Melchior Moritz, you're behaving like a girl. But if that's the way you want it … I'm sure it's going to be a very interesting exercise. One question, though, Moritz.
Moritz Hm?
Melchior Have you ever seen a girl's body?
Moritz Of course.
Melchior I mean with nothing on.
Moritz Stark naked.
Melchior So have I. Then I shan't need to provide illustrations.
Moritz It was in Leilich's anatomical museum during the shooting match. If I'd been caught, I'd have been thrown out of school. Right there in broad daylight — incredibly lifelike.
Melchior Last summer when I was in Frankfurt with Mama — Are you going?
Moritz I've got to get that homework done. Good night.
Melchior Goodbye, Moritz.
SCENE THREE
Wendla, Martha and Thea: stormy day.
Martha How the water gets into your shoes!
Wendla How the wind buffets your face!
Thea How your heart hammers and hammers!
Wendla Let's go to the bridge. Use said there's a flood — trees and bushes are being swept away. The boys have a raft out on it. They say Melchior Gabor nearly got drowned last night.
Thea He's a good swimmer.
Martha He's a wonderful swimmer!
Wendla Well, if he weren't he'd be dead.
Thea Your braid's coming loose, Martha — your braid's coming loose.
Martha Oh, let it, stupid thing. It's forever in the way. Such a nuisance! They won't let me wear my hair short, like yours. Or all free, like Wendla's. I can't have a fringe. Even at home I have to keep it all done up — because of my aunt.
Wendla I'll bring my scissors to Religious Instruction tomorrow. And while you're reciting ‘Happy are they who walk in the paths of righteousness' — one big snip and your whole braid will be. gone.
Martha For God's sake, Wendla, don't scare me. My father would hammer me black and blue. And my mother would lock me up three days in the coal shed.
Wendla What does he beat you with, Martha?
Martha I sometimes think they actually need a pest like me simply for shouting at and beating. If they didn't have me, they'd feel something missing in their lives.
Thea You poor thing.
Martha Are you allowed to thread a sky-blue ribbon through the top of your night-dress?
Thea Only pink satin. Mama says it goes with my jetblack eyes.
Martha I liked blue. It looked really pretty. But Mama whipped back the blankets and dragged me out of bed by my braid. I went smack down hands-and-knees on to the floor. Mama prays with us, you see — every night.
Wendla In your shoes, I'd have run off long ago.
Martha ‘So that's what you're up to,' she screams. ‘I see. I see where it's all leading. But you'll learn — Oh, yes, you'll learn. Then you'll know just how right your mother was — And so will she, poor woman, her conscience will be clear!'
Thea Heuargh!
Martha What do you suppose she means, Thea? What am I going to learn?
Thea She sounds mad. What do you think she meant, Wendla?
Wendla I would have asked her.
Martha I'm lying there, crying and wailing, and in comes Papa. One rip — and my night-gown's gone. I'm curled up on the floor, stripped and freezing. And he's roaring at me: ‘There's the door! There's the street! Why don't you just walk straight out exactly as you are?'
Wendla I can't believe this.
Martha I was crouching, shivering — I had my head right down. Suddenly he grabbed me and shoved me into a sack. I spent the whole night in a sack.
Thea Slept the whole night in a sack? I could never do that.
Wendla Oh, if only I could take your place, Martha, and do it for you —
Martha It's the beatings I can't stand.
Thea But wouldn't you suffocate in a sack?
Martha Your head's left out. It's tied under your chin.
Thea Then they beat you?
Martha No. Only if there's a special reason.
Wendla What do they beat you with, Martha? What do they use?
Martha Anything. Does your mother think it's wrong to eat a piece of bread in bed?
Wendla Good Lord, no.
Martha They enjoy it. They don't talk about it, but I'm sure they love doing it. When I have children, I shall let them grow up like the weeds in our garden. Everybody ignores them and they grow tall and thick. But the roses — all staked out, trained on frames, fertilized, pruned, cut back and cut back, and worried about. Every year they look sicker. Then one spring they just don't seem to make it. And it's obvious they're dead.
Thea When I have children, I shall dress them head to foot in pink. Pink hats, pink dresses, pink shoes. Apart from their stockings — their stockings will be coal-black. And when I take them out, they'll all march in a line in front of me. How will you dress yours, Wendla?
Wendla What makes you so sure you're going to have children?
Thea Why shouldn't we?
Martha Aunt Euphemia hasn't got any.
Thea Don't be idiotic. How could she? She isn't married.
Wendla My Aunt Bauer's been married three times and she has no children.
Martha But if you did have children, Wendla, which would you rather have, boys or girls?
Wendla Boys! Boys!
Thea Me too. Boys every time.
Martha Me too! Twenty boys rather than three girls.
Thea Girls are boring.
Martha If I weren't already a girl, I would never want to be one.
Wendla I think, Martha, that is a question of taste. For me — every single day I thank God I am a girl. I honestly do. I wouldn't swap sexes, even with a prince. Even so, I still want to have boys.
Thea But that's really silly, Wendla. It's illogical.
Wendla My dear child, do you think so? It is a thousand times better to be loved by a man than by a woman. It's more ennobling.
Thea Are you saying that Pfille, the young trainee forester, loves Melitta in some more uplifting way than she loves him?
Wendla Yes, I am. Pfille has great pride. He's proud that he's the trainee forester. He's proud that he'll become a forester. Because Pfille has nothing else. But Melitta — all that Melitta can be proud about is what Pfille gives her. And he gives her a thousand times more than she had — so she's ecstatic.
Martha But, Wendla, aren't you proud of being yourself?
Wendla That really would be silly.
Martha If I were in your shoes, I'd be proud.
Thea Just see how she walks — look at her, Martha. What poise! And you have a very bold, straight look, Wendla. I'd say that's being proud.
Wendla Why should I be proud? I'm simply glad I'm a girl. If I weren't a girl, I'd kill myself, so that next time —
Melchior passes and waves.
Thea Oh, he's such a handsome boy.
Martha When they talk about Alexander the Great as a marvellous youth — that's how I imagine him.
Thea Ugh, Greek history! All I remember is how Socrates lay in a barrel while Alexander sold him the donkey's shadow.
Wendla They say he's the third best in his class.
Thea Professor Knockenbruch thinks he could be top if he wanted.
Martha He has a very attractive face. But I always think his friend looks more sensitive, more soulful.
Thea Moritz Steifel? That boy is an utter cretin.
Martha I've always liked him.
Thea He always manages to make me squirm somehow, wherever I meet him. At that children's party the Rilows gave, he offered me some chocolate. Can you imagine, Wendla, it was all soft and sticky. Isn't that just — He said he'd had it too long in his trouser pocket.
Wendla Do you know what Melchi Gabor said to me at that party? He told me he doesn't believe in anything. Not in God. Not in the beyond. Not in anything on earth.
SCENE FOUR
Boys in front of school.
Melchior Does anybody know where Moritz Steifel is?
Georg He's in for it now — Oh, boy, is he in for it!
Otto One of these days Steifel will go too far and that will be …
Georg I'm glad I'm not in his shoes, I can tell you.
Otto What a nerve! It's unbelievable.
Melchior What is? What's going on? What's happened?
Georg Don't ask me for bad news.
Otto I'm saying nothing.
Melchior Look, if somebody can't tell me straight out –
Robert All right. Moritz Steifel broke into the staff room.
Melchior He did what?
Otto He broke into the staff room. After the Latin lesson.
Georg He was last out. He stayed behind on purpose.
Otto I saw him. I was just coming round the corner along the corridor as he opened the door.
Melchior Jesus Christ!
Otto Ha! He'll need Jesus all right. One of the staff must have left the key in the door.
Rilow It wouldn't surprise me if Steifel has a skeleton key.
Otto That would be just like Steifel.
Georg Bit of luck it won't be much — Sunday afternoon detention. And a black mark on his report.
Otto Unless he gets kicked out of school altogether. He just might.
Rilow Here he is now.
Melchior White as a ghost!
Georg Moritz, what have you done?
Moritz Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Otto You're trembling.
Moritz With happiness — with joy. I'm trembling with joy.
Otto They caught you?
Moritz I've passed, Melchior. I've passed. Now the whole world can go to hell. I have passed. Who'd have thought I'd ever pass. I still can't believe it. I had to go through the list again and again — and I'm there. My name's there. In black and white. Written with a finger of fire. Holy God, I can't believe it, I've passed. I feel peculiar. My head's reeling a bit. Melchior, oh, Melchior — if only you knew what it's been like!
Rilow Congratulations, Moritz. Just be thankful you got away with it.
Moritz Hanschen, you don't understand what was at stake. You cannot possibly know. This last three weeks I've been creeping past that door as if it were the jaws of hell. And today I happened to notice — it was open, just a crack. Unlocked. Nobody could have stopped me, not if they'd offered me a million. Nothing could have stopped me. Before I know it, there I am in the middle of the room, staring at the register. I open it. Turn the pages. Find the page — and the whole time — God, I'm still trembling —
Melchior Go on — the whole time?
Moritz The whole time the door behind me is gaping wide open. I can't remember how I got out and down those stairs.
Rilow Did Ernst Robel pass too?
Moritz Yes, yes, Robel's passed too. I saw his name.
Rilow Your head was spinning a bit too much, Steifel.
Robel's name can't have been there. If you knock out the complete dunces, with you and Robel there's sixty-one of us. The class upstairs takes only sixty. Sixty's the limit.
Moritz No, he was there. I saw his name as clear as my own. We're both going up. But for us two, it's provisional. They'll decide which of us to keep during the first term. Poor old Robel. I don't have to worry — I've seen the bottom of the pit, I know what's needed.
Otto I bet you five pounds, Steifel, that it will be you who will have to give way to Robel.
Moritz You can't afford it — and I'd prefer not to rob a beggar. My God, see me slog from now on. Let me tell you something — I don't mind telling you all now it doesn't matter — but I'd made my mind up. If I hadn't passed, I was going to shoot myself.
Otto Big-headed bullshitter!
Georg You daren't even pick up a gun. What you really need is a good smack in the face.
Melchior (giving him one) Come on, Moritz. Let's go to the forester's lodge.
Georg You don't swallow all that garbage of his, do you?
Melchior What's it got to do with you? Come on, Moritz. Let them say what they like. Let's get out of here.
Professors go by.
Professor Knockenbruch My dear fellow, look there. My best pupil and my worst. And yet those two are the closest pair of friends in my class. Incomprehensible!
Professor Hungergurt My dear fellow, I do agree, it is incomprehensible. Quite incomprehensible.
SCENE FIVE
Melchior and Wendla meet in the wood.
Melchior Is that you, Wendla? What are you doing up here? Are you alone? I've been roaming about in this wood the last three hours without meeting one soul and suddenly — you burst out of the thicket like something in a folk-tale.
Wendla Well, it's only me.
Melchior Wendla Bergman. If I didn't know you so well, I would have to say you must be a dryad, fallen out of the high branches.
Wendla No, no — it's the same old Wendla Bergman. What are you doing here anyway?
Melchior I'm on the trail of my thoughts.
Wendla Well, I'm on the trail of woodruff. Mama wants it for her May brew. She meant to come with me but then at the last minute Aunt Bauer turned up and she can't face the hill — so here I am alone.
Melchior Have you found any?
Wendla A basketful — look. Over there by that beech it's thick as clover. And now I'm trying to find my way out of this wood. But I seem to be lost. What's the time?
Melchior Just gone half-past three. When do they expect you?
Wendla Only half-past three! I lay on the moss by the stream for I don't know how long — I had such a daydream, I just floated off. It seemed like ages. When I came to, I felt sure it must be evening.
Melchior You've plenty of time. Let's sit here for a bit.
This is my favourite spot, this bank, under the oak here. I love this place. If you lean your head back against the trunk and look up into the sky through the leaves, you can go into a trance. Feel the ground, it's still warm from the sun. Wendla, do you mind if I ask you something. I've been wanting to ask you for weeks.
Wendla I have to be home by five.
Melchior I'll show you the way, don't worry. And I'll carry your basket. We'll beat a path through the undergrowth along the old river-bed — we'll be at the bridge in ten minutes. When you're lying here, with your head propped, you get the most peculiar ideas, believe me.
Wendla So what was the question?
Melchior I've heard you go visiting very poor people. Taking them food, clothes, even money. Is that your idea or does your mother send you?
Wendla Oh, Mother sends me usually. They're families of labourers, with hordes of children. Their fathers can't find any work. So there's no food. No heating. No new clothes ever. And our house is so crammed with stuff, spilling out of wardrobes and cupboards. But why do you want to know?
Melchior When your mother sends you on errands of that kind — are you quite happy to go? Or do you feel reluctant?
Wendla Of course I'm happy to go. How could I not be?
Melchior But the children are dirty. The women are sick. The houses are full of filth, you can see that just in passing. The men hate you because you're well off and don't work.
Wendla But that's not true. And if it were true, it wouldn't make any difference. I'd be even more determined.
Melchior What do you mean, ‘even more determined'?
Wendla I'd be even more determined to go. I'd get all the more pleasure out of being able to help them. Nothing would stop me.
Melchior So. You visit the poor because you get pleasure out of it.
Wendla I visit them because they're poor, Melchior.
Melchior But you wouldn't go if it gave you no pleasure.
Wendla Can I help it if it gives me pleasure?
Melchior So it gives you pleasure and at the same time gets you into heaven. Then I was right all the time. I've been chewing at this for the last month. A man doesn't have to be a miser to get no pleasure from visiting children who are sick and dirty.
Wendla I'm certain it would give you a great deal of pleasure.
Melchior And yet just because he gets no pleasure from it, that man is damned to hell for all eternity. I'm going to write an essay about this and give it to Pastor Kahbauch. He started me thinking about it. The way he blathers on about the joys of self-sacrifice. If he can't explain it all, then I'm finished with Sunday School and I shall never take confirmation.
Wendla But how could you do that to your parents? They would be mortified. Why not let yourself be confirmed. It's not the end of the world. If it weren't for the ridiculous clothes they make us wear, I could get quite excited about it.
Melchior Genuine self-sacrifice doesn't exist. There is no such thing as selflessness. I watch the good people, so admired by everybody and so pleased with their own self-righteousness. I see the bad people, condemned by everybody, grumbling and sulking about. And I see you, Wendla Bergman, shaking your curly hair and laughing — and all the time I feel so solemn and far-off, like an outcast. As if I were looking at you all from some other world. Tell me, Wendla, when you were lying by the stream there — what were you dreaming about?
Wendla Oh — just — nonsense really.
Melchior With your eyes wide open?!
Wendla I was dreaming I was a child beggar, dreadfully poor. Pushed out on to the street at five in the morning. And forced to beg all day — rain, snow, freezing wind, whatever. Begging from cold, heartless, hard-faced people. Then at night when I came back home, maybe soaked to the bone, frozen, faint with hunger — if I hadn't collected enough money to satisfy my father, then he'd beat me, he'd beat me and beat me and beat me —
Melchior Wendla, this is what those insipid, inane children's stories have filled you up with. Don't you know brutal fathers like that don't exist any more?
Wendla Oh, really? Well, you're wrong. They do exist. Martha Bessel gets beaten night after night. You can see the welts on her legs, all blue and red. The things that girl has to go through. It would make anybody sweat to hear her talk about it. I wake up at night thinking about her and I just cry. She's so pitiful. If only we could help her somehow. I would take her place for a week if I could — if that were possible, I'd gladly do it.
Melchior Her father should be reported. Then Martha would be taken away from him.
Wendla I have never been beaten, Melchior. Never once in my whole life. I can't even imagine what it would feel like.
I've tried beating myself, just to get some idea — it must be the most horrible feeling.
Melchior I cannot believe any child is ever the better for it.
Wendla Ever the better for what?
Melchior For being beaten.
Wendla I suppose this switch would be the sort of thing — tough and lithe.
Melchior That would draw blood.
Wendla Melchior, beat me with it — go on — just once.
Melchior Beat you?
Wendla Yes. Me. Now.
Melchior Wendla, what's got into you?
Wendla Why not?
Melchior Stop it, Wendla. I'm not going to beat you.
Wendla But I'm giving you permission.
Melchior No.
Wendla But what if I ask you to? Melchior!
Melchior Are you crazy?
Wendla Nobody's ever beaten me, ever, not once in my whole life.
Melchior If you can ask for something like that —
Wendla Please, Melchior, please.
Melchior Please? I'll teach you to say please.
Hits her with switch.
Wendla Oh, God! I can't feel it, I can't feel a thing!
Melchior That's because of all your skirts and your — all those underthings and protection —
Wendla My legs! Hit my legs!
Melchior Wendla!
Hits her harder.
Wendla You're only stroking me! That's not beating — that's stroking and tickling!
Melchior You witch! Just you wait! I'll thrash the devil out of you —

Attacks her with fists, etc. She screams. He attacks more violently — sudden sobbing fury. Breaks away and more dashes off among trees — wild sobbing.


© Ted Hughes, 1995