ollecting himself). H'm! Well ... Didn't think of
_that_. One forgets. Pardon me!

ANTOINETTE. Will you not help yourselves, ladies and gentlemen? (To
LENE, who is just passing with dishes in her hands.) Serve around
once more!

VON TIEDEMANN (helps himself). My favorite dish, veal-roast!... (To
BODENSTEIN.) What do you say, Doctor, you are so quiet?

DR. BODENSTEIN. Do whatever you do, with a will! I am now devoting
myself to culinary delights!

MERTENS. I regard this sauce a phenomenal achievement.

MRS. SCHNAASE. There are tomatoes in it, I think.

MERTENS. I must ask for the recipe.

RAABE, JUNIOR'S (voice in the background). Here's to you!

VOICES (in confusion, in the background). Here's to you! Your health!

LASKOWSKI (gets up, raises his glass toward the background). Here's to
everybody!

VOICES (from behind). Here's to you, Laskowski!

SCHROCK'S (voice). Here's to you, old rough-neck!

PAUL. Don't drink so much, Laskowski! (ANTOINETTE bites her lips and
looks away.)

LASKOWSKI (whispering). Let me drink, brother! Drink and forget your
pain, says Schiller. Ain't that it, old chap, ain't it, now? You're a
kind of a poet yourself, ain't you?

VON TIEDEMANN (in an undertone, to MERTENS). He's tanking up again!

ANTOINETTE (to PAUL, through her teeth). Awful!

PAUL (in an undertone). Oh, don't mind him.

LASKOWSKI. Let me drink, old fellow. I'm not going to live long anyhow.
It's on my chest ... Do you hear it rattle, old boy? Listen! Just
listen! Listen to _me_, not to my dearie. When we're dead, we're out of
it! We'll not get another drop! An' then we'll sleep till judgment day
in the pitch-dark grave. Then you'll be rid of me, dearie!

ANTOINETTE (gets up). Excuse me, Doctor!

PAUL (also jumps up). Are you ill, madam?

MRS. VON TIEDEMANN (moves aside). Now it is getting a bit uncanny.

MRS. BOROWSKI (her hand at her ear). Are they talking about the
judgment day?

KUNZE (who eats away lustily, partly to himself). On the judgment day
when the Lord will return to judge the quick and the dead.

PAUL (to ANTOINETTE, who partly leans upon him). How are you,
Antoinette!

ANTOINETTE (has become composed again). I am all right again.

MRS. SCHNAASE. Would you like a glass of water?

MRS. VON TIEDEMANN. Yes, water!

ANTOINETTE. No, thank you! This awful heat!... Don't let me disturb
you.

[The conversation which had become very loud is carried on in a
more subdued manner. Al