Produced by Charles Aldarondo Keren Vergon Thomas Berger and theOnline Distributed Proofreading TeamTHE DRAMATIC WORKSOFGERHART HAUPTMANNAuthorized EditionEdited By LUDWIG LEWISOHNAssistant Professor in The Ohio State UniversityVOLUME TWO SOCIAL DRAMAS1913CONTENTSINTRODUCTION_By the Editor_DRAYMAN HENSCHEL Fuhrmann Henschel_Translated by the Editor_ROSE BERND Rose Bernd_Translated by the Editor_THE RATS Die Ratten_Translated by the Editor_INTRODUCTIONThe first volume of the present edition of Hauptmanns Dramatic Works isidentical in content with the corresponding volume of the German editionIn the second volume _The Rats_ has been substituted for two early prosetales which lie outside of the scope of our undertaking Hence these twovolumes include that entire group of dramas which Hauptmann himselfspecifically calls social This term must not of course be pressed toorigidly Only in _Before Dawn_ and in _The Weavers_ can the dramaticsituation be said to arise wholly from social conditions rather than fromthe fate of the individual It is true however that in the seven playsthus far presented all characters are viewed primarily as in a largemeasure the results of their social environment This environment is inall cases proportionately stressed To exhibit it fully Hauptmann usesbeyond any other dramatist passages which though always dramatic inform are narrative and above all descriptive in intention The silentburden of these plays the ceaseless implication of their fables is theinjustice and inhumanity of the social orderHauptmann however has very little of the narrow and acrid temper of thespecial pleader He is content to show humanity It is quite conceivablethat the future forgetful of the special social problems and thehumanitarian cult of today may view these plays as simply bodying forththe passions and events that are timeless and constant in the inevitablemarch of human life The tragedies of _Drayman Henschel_ and of _RoseBernd_ at all events stand in no need of the label of any decade Theymove us by their breadth and energy and fundamental tendernessNo plays of Hauptmann produce more surely the impression of having beendipped from the fullness of life One does not feel that these men andwomenHanne Schäl and Siebenhaar old Bernd and the Flammsare calledinto a brief existence as foils or props of the protagonists They ledtheir lives before the plays began they continue to live in theimagination long after Henschel and Rose have succumbed How doesChristopher Flamm that excellent fellow and most breathing picture ofthe average man adjust his affairs He is fine enough to be permanentlystirred by the tragedy he has earned yet coarse enough to fall back intoa merely sensuous life of meaningless pleasures But at his side sitsthat exquisite monitorhis wife The stream of their lives must flow onAnd one asks how and whither To apply such almost inevitable questionsto Hauptmanns characters is to be struck at once by the exactness andlargeness of his vision of men Few other dramatists impress one with anequal sense of lifes fullness and continuityThe flowing flowing flowing of the worldThe last play in this volume _The Rats_ appeared in 1911 thirteenyears after _Drayman Henschel_ nine years after _Rose Bernd_ A firstreading of the book is apt to provoke disappointment and confusion Upona closer view however the play is seen to be both powerful in itselfand important as a document in criticism and _Kulturgeschichte_ Itstands alone among Hauptmanns works in its inclusion of two separateactions or plotsthe tragedy of Mrs John and the comedy of theHassenreuter group Nor can the actions be said to be firmly interwoventhey appear at first sight merely juxtaposed Hauptmann wouldundoubtedly assert that in modern society the various social classeslive in just such juxtaposition and have contacts of just the kind herechronicled His real purpose in combining the two fables is moresignificant Following the great example though not the precise methodof Molière who produced _La Critique de lÉcole des Femmes_ on theboards of his theater five months after the hostile reception of _LÉcoledes Femmes_ Hauptmann gives us a naturalistic tragedy and at the sametime its criticism and defense His tenacity to the ideals of his youthis impressively illustrated here In his own work he has created a newidealism But let it not be thought that his understanding of tragedy andhis sense of human values have changed The charwoman may in very truthbe a Muse of tragedy all grief is of an equal sacredness and even theincomparable Hassenreuterwindbag chauvinist and consistent_Goetheaner_is forced by the essential soundness of his heart to blurtout an admission of the basic principle of naturalistic dramaturgyThe group of characters in _The Rats_ is unusually large and varied Thephantastic note is somewhat strained perhaps in Quaquaro and Mrs KnobbeBut the convincingness and earthrooted humanity of the others is oncemore beyond cavil or dispute The Hassenreuter family Alice Rütterbuschthe Spittas Paul John and Bruno Mechelke Mrs Kielbacke and even thepoliceman Schierkeall are superbly alive vigorous and racy in speechand actionThe language of the plays in this volume is again almost whollydialectic The linguistic difficulties are especially great in _The Rats_where the members of the Berlin populace speak an extraordinarilydegraded jargon In the translation I have sought so far as possible todifferentiate the savour and quaintness of the Silesian dialect from thecoarseness of that of Berlin But all such attempts must from their verynature achieve only a partial success The succeeding volumes of thisedition presenting the plays written in normal literary German willoffer a fairer if not more fascinating field of interpretationLUDWIG LEWISOHNDRAYMAN HENSCHEL_LIST OF PERSONS_DRAYMAN HENSCHELMRS HENSCHELHANNE SCHÄL _later MRS HENSCHEL_BERTHAHORSE DEALER WALTHERSIEBENHAARKARLCHENWERMELSKIRCHMRS WERMELSKIRCHFRANZISKA WERMELSKIRCHHAUFFEFRANZGEORGEFABIGHILDEBRANTVETERINARIAN GRUNERTFIREMANTime Toward the end of the eighteen sixtiesScene The Gray Swan hotel in a Silesian watering placeTHE FIRST ACT    _A room furnished peasant fashion in the basement of the Grey    Swan hotel Through two windows set high in the left wall the    gloomy light of a late winter afternoon sickers in Under the windows    there stands a bed of soft wood varnished yellow in which MRS    HENSCHEL is lying ill She is about thirtysix years of age Near the    bed her little sixmonthsold daughter lies in her cradle A second