d you also please
resume your natural charming form? Otherwise I shall die of fear.

BUGBEAR (_in his own form_).

Those are tricks, friend! Don't you
think so?

HINZE.

Marvelous! But another thing--they also say you can transform yourself
into very small animals--with your permission, that is even far more
incomprehensible to me; for, do tell me, what becomes of your large
body then?

BUGBEAR.

I will do that too.

[_He changes into a mouse_. HINZE _leaps after him, the Bugbear flees
into another room_, HINZE _after him_.]

HINZE (_coming back_).

Freedom and Equality! The Law is devoured! Now indeed the
Tiers--_Etat_! Gottlieb will surely secure the government.

SCHLOSS.

Why, a revolutionary play after all? Then for heaven's sake, you
surely shouldn't stamp!

[_The stamping continues_, WIESENER _and several others applaud_,
HINZE _creeps into a corner and finally even leaves the stage. The
playwright is heard quarreling behind the scenes and then enters_.]

PLAYWR.

What am I to do? The play will be over directly--everything would
perhaps have run smoothly--now just in this moral scene I had expected
so much applause. If this were only not so far away from the king's
palace, I would fetch the peacemaker; he explained to me at the end of
the second act all the fables of Orpheus--but am I not a fool? I
became quite confused--why, this is the theatre here, and the
peacemaker must be somewhere behind the scenes--I will look for him--I
must find him--he shall save me! (_Exit, returns again quickly_.) He
is not _there_, Sir Peacemaker! An empty echo mocks me--he has
deserted me, his playwright. Ha! there I see him--he must come
forward.

[_The pauses are always filled by stamping in the pit and the
playwright delivers this monologue in recitative, so that the effect
is rather melodramatic_.]

PEACEMAKER (_behind the scenes_).

No, I will not appear.

PLAYWR.

But why not, pray?

PEACEMAK.

Why, I have already undressed.

PLAYWR.

That doesn't matter. (_He pushes him forward by force_.)

PEACEMAKER (_appearing in his ordinary dress, with, the set of
bells_).

Well, you may take the responsibility. (_He plays on the bells and
sings_.)

These sacred halls of beauty
Revenge have never known.
For love guides back to duty
The man who vice has sown.
Then he is led by friendly hand,
Glad and content, to a better land.

[_The pit begins to applaud; meanwhile the scene is ch