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Hauptmann, Gerhart, 1862-1946

"The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann Volume I"

_] It's two years now since I took the sacrament. I went
straight after that an' sold my Sunday coat, an' we bought a good bit o'
pork, an' since then never a mouthful of meat has passed my lips till
to-night.
JAEGER
_We_ don't need no meat! The manufacturers eats it for us. It's the fat
o' the land _they_ lives on. Whoever don't believe that has only to go
down to Bielau and Peterswaldau. He'll see fine things there--palace upon
palace, with towers and iron railings and plate-glass windows. Who do
they all belong to? Why, of course, the manufacturers! No signs of bad
times there! Baked and boiled and fried--horses and carriages and
governesses--they've money to pay for all that and goodness knows how
much more. They're swelled out to burstin' with pride and good livin'.
ANSORGE
Things was different in my young days. Then the manufacturers let the
weaver have his share. Now they keeps everything to theirselves. An'
would you like to know what's at the bottom of it all? It's that the fine
folks nowadays believes neither in God nor devil. What do they care about
commandments or punishments? And so they steals our last scrap o' bread,
an' leaves us no chance of earnin' the barest living.


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