ig. His language
is rugged and masculine; his style, frequently forensic. Taken as a
whole, his work furnishes more abundant food for thought than objects
of _naive_ esthetic enjoyment; but, like Grillparzer's, his plays were
written for the stage; and proper enactment has seldom failed to produce
with them an effect of power worthy of his powerful personality, which
swam against the tide, knowing that the tide would turn and that the
flood would bear him to the haven.

* * * * *

_FRIEDRICH HEBBEL_

* * * * *

MARIA MAGDALENA

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Master ANTONY, _a joiner_

_His Wife_

CLARA, _his daughter_

CARL, _his son_

LEONARD

_A Secretary_ WOLFRAM, a merchant_

ADAM, _a bailiff_

_Another bailiff_

_A Boy_

_A Maid_

_Place. A fair-sized town_

MARIA MAGDALENA (1844)

TRANSLATED BY PAUL BERNARD THOMAS

ACT I

_A Room in the Joiner's House._

SCENE I

_Enter_ CLARA; _the_ MOTHER.

CLARA.

Your wedding dress? Oh, how well it becomes you! It looks as if it had
been made today!

MOTHER.

Yes, child, fashion keeps on going forward until it can go no farther
and has to turn around and go back. This dress has already been out of
style and in again ten times.

CLARA.

But this time it is not exactly in style, dear mother! The sleeves are
too wide! It must not annoy you!

MOTHER (_smiling_).

I should have to be you for that! CLARA.

And so this is the way you looked! But surely you carried a bunch of
flowers too, didn't you?

MOTHER.

I should hope so! Else why do you think I nursed that sprig of myrtle in
the pot for so many years?

CLARA.

I have often asked you to, but you have never before put it on. You have
always said: It is no longer my wedding dress; it is my shroud now, and
that is something one should not play with. I got so that I couldn't
even look at it any more, because, hanging there so white, it always
made me think of your death, and of the day when the old women would try
to pull it on over your head. Why then today?

MOTHER.

When one is very sick, as I was, and does not know whether one is going
to get well again or not, a great many things revolve in one's head.
Death is more terrible than you think--oh, it is awful! It casts a
shadow over the world; one after the other it blows out all the lights
that shine with such cheerful brightness all around us, the kindly e