I can't get my uncle's words out of
my head.

[MARY _lights the lamp and puts it on the table by the_ FORESTER.]

FORESTER.

Did you ask the lawyer how long it would be before the matter is
settled? Till I have my rights?

WILLIAM.

He refuses to institute proceedings.

SOPHY (_drawing a deep breath; aside_).

Then there is still some hope left!

FORESTER (_rises; quite perplexed_).

He refuses--

WILLIAM.

He says you are not in the right, father.

FORESTER.

Not in the right?

[_Is obliged to sit down_.]

SOPHY (_as before_).

If he only would yield.

WILLIAM.

He said state officials could not be deposed, unless it could
be proved against them that they deserved it. But you were not a state
official; your master was not the state, but he who owned the forest,
the owner of the estate.

FORESTER (_with suppressed anger_).

Then, if I were an official of the state, Stein would not be allowed to
do me an injustice. And because I am not, he is allowed to brand me as a
scoundrel?--You did not understand him rightly, William!

WILLIAM.

He repeated it to me three times--

FORESTER.

Because you did not represent the matter to him as it is--that already
your great-grandfather had been forester of Duesterwalde, and your
grandfather after him, and that for forty years, throughout the whole
valley, people have called me the Hereditary Forester.

WILLIAM.

That, he said, was an honor to both masters and servants; but before the
court nothing could be based on it.

FORESTER.

But he does not know that Stein wants to depose me, because
I had his best interests at heart, that the forest is exposed on the
north and west. A lawyer does not know that a forest is like a vault,
where one stone always holds and supports the others. Thus the vault can
withstand any force, but take out only a dozen stones from the centre,
and the whole thing comes tumbling about your ears.

WILLIAM.

At such arguments he only shrugged his shoulders.

FORESTER (_growing more excited_).

And my money that I have put into it? And all the trees that I planted
with my own hands? Hey? Which the wind now shall wantonly break?

WILLIAM.

At that he only smiled. He said you might be a very honest man, but in
court that would prove nothing.

FORESTER (_rises_).

If one is an honest man, that proves nothing? Then one must be a rascal,
if he is to prove anything in court?--But how about Rupert of
Erdmansgruen--hey