chieftain's wife.

The theme of HEIMAT treats of the struggle between the old and the
young generations. It holds a permanent and important place in
dramatic literature.

Magda, the daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Schwartz, has committed an
unpardonable sin: she refused the suitor selected by her father. For
daring to disobey the parental commands she is driven from home.
Magda, full of life and the spirit of liberty, goes out into the
world to return to her native town, twelve years later, a celebrated
singer. She consents to visit her parents on condition that they
respect the privacy of her past. But her martinet father immediately
begins to question her, insisting on his "paternal rights." Magda is
indignant, but gradually his persistence brings to light the tragedy
of her life. He learns that the respected Councillor Von Keller had
in his student days been Magda's lover, while she was battling for
her economic and social independence. The consequence of the
fleeting romance was a child, deserted by the man even before birth.
The rigid military father of Magda demands as retribution from
Councillor Von Keller that he legalize the love affair. In view of
Magda's social and professional success, Keller willingly consents,
but on condition that she forsake the stage, and place the child in
an institution. The struggle between the Old and the New culminates
in Magda's defiant words of the woman grown to conscious independence
of thought and action: "...I'll say what I think of you--of you
and your respectable society. Why should I be worse than you that I
must prolong my existence among you by a lie! Why should this gold
upon my body, and the lustre which surrounds my name, only increase
my infamy? Have I not worked early and late for ten long years?
Have I not woven this dress with sleepless nights? Have I not built
up my career step by step, like thousands of my kind? Why should I
blush before anyone? I am myself, and through myself I have become
what I am."

The general theme of HEIMAT was not original. It had been previously
treated by a master hand in FATHERS AND SONS. Partly because
Turgeniev's great work was typical rather of Russian than universal
conditions, and still more because it was in the form of fiction, the
influence of FATHERS AND SONS was limited to Russia. But HEIMAT,
especially because of its dramatic expression, became almost a world
factor.

The dramatist who not only dissem