Spring Awakening

by Frank Wedekind

  WENDLA. I would have asked her.

  MARTHA. I’m lying there, sobbing my heart out. Then Father arrives, tears off my nightdress and shoves me out the door. ‘There you are!’ he says. ‘Why don’t you go out in the street like that?’

  THEA. That isn’t true, Martha.

  MARTHA. It was freezing outside, so I went back in. They made me sleep all night in a sack.

  THEA. I could never ever sleep in a sack.

  WENDLA. I’d love to take your place, Martha – and sleep in your sack for one night.

  MARTHA. If it wasn’t for the beatings.

  THEA. Don’t you suffocate in a sack?

  MARTHA. Your head’s free. They tie it under your chin.

  THEA. And then they beat you?

  MARTHA. No. Only for special transgressions.

  WENDLA. What do they beat you with, Martha?

  MARTHA. I don’t know – all kinds of things. – Does your mother think it’s vulgar to eat bread in bed?

  WENDLA. No, of course not.

  MARTHA. I really think – deep down – they enjoy it – though they’d never admit it. If I ever have children, I’ll let them grow like the weeds in our garden. Nobody pays any attention to them and they’ve grown so tall, so strong – but our roses, which are carefully trained and pruned, look more miserable every summer.

  THEA. If I ever have children, I’ll dress them all in pink. Pink hats, pink dresses, pink shoes. Except the socks – the socks will be jet black. When I go for a walk they’ll all have to march in front of me. What about you, Wendla?

  WENDLA. How do you know you’ll have any children?

  THEA. Why shouldn’t I?

  MARTHA. My Aunt Euphemia hasn’t any.

  THEA. That’s because she isn’t married, silly.

  WENDLA. My aunt Bauer was married three times and has never had a child.

  MARTHA. If you were ever to have children, Wendla, what would you prefer? Boys or girls?

  WENDLA. Boys! Boys!

  THEA. Me too. Boys!

  MARTHA. Me too. I’d rather have twenty boys than three girls.

  THEA. Girls are boring!

  MARTHA. If I wasn’t a girl already I certainly wouldn’t want to be one now.

  WENDLA. I think it’s a matter of taste. I feel happy every day that I’m a girl. I wouldn’t swap with a prince. – But I still only want boys!

  THEA. You’re talking nonsense, Wendla, utter nonsense!

  WENDLA. Come on, it must be a thousand times more uplifting to be loved by a man than by a girl!

  THEA. You’re not saying that Junior Forester Holz loves Melitta more than she does him?

  WENDLA. That’s exactly what I’m saying. Holz is proud. He’s proud to be Junior Forester, because that’s all he has. He gives his love freely, having nothing else to give. What makes Melitta so happy is that he gives her ten thousand times more than she could ever be alone.

  MARTHA. Aren’t you proud of what you are, Wendla?

  WENDLA. That would be silly, wouldn’t it?

  MARTHA. I’d be proud if I were you.

  THEA. Just look at the way she walks, her level gaze, the way she holds herself. If that isn’t pride!

  WENDLA. And why not? I’m happy to be a girl. If I wasn’t a girl I’d kill myself, so that next time . . .

  MELCHIOR waves as he passes.

  THEA. The shape of his head is wonderful.

  MARTHA. That’s how I imagine the young Alexander when he went to his lessons with Aristotle.

  THEA. Oh God, Greek history! All I remember is that Socrates lay in a barrel and somebody sold him a donkey’s shadow. Was that Alexander?

  WENDLA. He’s supposed to be the third best in his class.

  THEA. His form master says he’d be the best, if he tried a bit harder.

  MARTHA. He has a beautiful forehead, but his friend Moritz has more soulful eyes.

  THEA. Moritz Stiefel? – What a sleepyhead!

  MARTHA. I’ve always found him easy to talk to.

  THEA. He embarrasses you wherever you meet him. At Hans Rilow’s party he offered me some chocolates. Just imagine, they were warm and soft. He said he’d kept them too long in his trouser pockets.

  WENDLA. You know, Melchi Gabor told me he didn’t believe in anything, not in God, not in life after death – not in anything in the world.

  Scene Four

  In front of the school. MELCHIOR, OTTO, GEORG, ROBERT, LÄMMERMEIER, HANS RILOW.

  MELCHIOR. Have any of you seen Moritz Stiefel?

  GEORG. He’s for it this time! He’s really for it!

  OTTO. If he doesn’t watch out, he’ll end up in big trouble.

  LÄMMERMEIER. Damn it, I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes right now!

  ROBERT. What a nerve! It’s outrageous!

  MELCHIOR. What are you talking about?

  GEORG. You wouldn’t want to know.

  LÄMMERMEIER. My lips are sealed.

  OTTO. So are mine.

  MELCHIOR. If you don’t tell me immediately . . .

  ROBERT. Alright – Moritz Stiefel has infiltrated the staffroom.

  MELCHIOR. – The staffroom?

  OTTO. Yes, the staffroom! Straight after Latin class.

  GEORG. He was the last one to leave. He stayed behind on purpose.

  LÄMMERMEIER. As I turned down the corridor I saw him open the door.

  GEORG. One of the masters must have left the key in the door.

  ROBERT. Or Moritz has a skeleton key.

  OTTO. I wouldn’t put it past him.

  LÄMMERMEIER. If he’s lucky he’ll get off with a Sunday detention.

  ROBERT. And a warning in his report!

  OTTO. Unless they expel him anyway because of his bad results.

  HANS. There he is.

  MELCHIOR. He’s white as a sheet!

  MORITZ enters, highly excited.

  LÄMMERMEIER. Moritz, Moritz, what have you done?

  MORITZ. Nothing – nothing –

  ROBERT. You’re shaking!

  MORITZ. With happiness – with delight – with relief –

  OTTO. Were you caught?

  MORITZ. I passed! – Melchior, I passed! Now the world can go to hell! Who would have thought that I’d pass! – I still can’t believe it. Good God, I saw it, I saw it with my own eyes! I passed! (He smiles.) I don’t know – I feel so strange – the floor is spinning . . . Melchior, Melchior, if you knew what I’ve been through!

  HANS. Congratulations, Moritz. Just count yourself lucky that you got away with it!

  MORITZ. You don’t know, Hans, you can’t guess what was at stake. For three weeks now I’ve crept past that door as if it was the mouth of hell. Then today I noticed that the door hadn’t been shut properly. Nothing would have held me back, not even if someone had offered me a million! I’m standing in the middle of the room – I open the report – I turn the pages – I find my name – and all the time . . . God, I shudder to think of it –

  MELCHIOR. And all the time?

  MORITZ. The door behind me is wide open. How I got out of there and down those stairs, I don’t know.

  HANS. Has Ernst Röbel passed?

  MORITZ. Yes, Hans, Ernst Röbel passed too.

  ROBERT. You must have read it wrong then. Leaving out the numskulls, with Röbel and you we’ll be sixty-one, and the upper classroom only holds sixty.

  MORITZ. Of course I read it right. Ernst and I have both passed – admittedly both provisionally. They’ll decide after a term which of us moves down again. Poor Ernst!4

  OTTO. I’ll bet you five marks that it’ll be you.

  MORITZ. You don’t have any money. I wouldn’t want to rob you. God in heaven, I’ll work my guts out from now on! I can tell you now – if I hadn’t passed I would have shot myself.

  ROBERT. Show-off!

  GEORG. Coward!

  OTTO. You would have shot yourself? I’d like to see you try.

  LÄMMERMEIER. What you need is a clip around the ear.

  MEL
CHIOR (slaps LÄMMERMEIER). Come on, Moritz. Let’s go to the woods!

  GEORG. Do you believe this rubbish?

  MELCHIOR. Why should you care? – Let them talk, Moritz! Let’s get out of here.

  They set off. The other boys disperse.

  PROFESSORS HAMMERHEAD and BLUEBOTTLE enter and observe the departing MELCHIOR and MORITZ.

  HAMMERHEAD. It is a mystery to me, dear colleague, why my very best student should be so attracted to the very worst.

  BLUEBOTTLE. A mystery indeed.

  Scene Five

  Sunny afternoon. MELCHIOR and WENDLA meet in the forest.

  MELCHIOR. Is it really you, Wendla? What are you doing up here on your own? I’ve been roaming the forest for hours without meeting a soul, and all of a sudden you step out of the bushes.

  WENDLA. Yes, it’s me.

  MELCHIOR. If I didn’t know you as Wendla Bergmann, I would say you were a wood nymph that’s fallen out of the branches.

  WENDLA. No, it’s just Wendla Bergmann. What brings you up here?

  MELCHIOR. I’ve been following my train of thought.

  WENDLA. I’m looking for woodruff. Mother needs it for her summer wine. She was going to come with me, but then my aunt arrived and she can’t manage the climb. – So here I am alone.

  MELCHIOR. Have you found any?

  WENDLA. My basket is full. It grows as thick as clover under those beech trees. And now I’m looking for a way out of here. I seem to be lost. What time is it?

  MELCHIOR. Just gone half past three. – When are you expected home?

  WENDLA. I thought it was later. I lay on the grass for ages, dreaming. The time passed so quickly. I was afraid it was almost evening.

  MELCHIOR. If you’re not expected home yet, why don’t we sit down here for a while? This is my favourite spot. If you lean back and gaze up through the branches at the sky, you can go into a trance. – The ground is still warm from the morning sun. – I’ve been meaning to ask you something for weeks, Wendla.

  WENDLA. But I have to be back before five.

  MELCHIOR. We’ll go together. If I carry your basket, we can cut through the old riverbed and be at the bridge in ten minutes. – When you lie on the ground like this, with your head in your hands, you think the strangest things . . .

  WENDLA. What did you want to ask me, Melchior?

  MELCHIOR. I’ve heard that you often visit the poor. You take them food and sometimes clothes and money. Do you do that of your own volition, or does your mother send you?

  WENDLA. Mostly Mother sends me. They are poor daylabourers with too many children. Often the father can’t find any work so they freeze and starve. We’ve got a lot of things lying around in cupboards at home that we don’t need any more. Why do you want to know?

  MELCHIOR. And when your mother sends you, do you go willingly or not?

  WENDLA. I love going! How can you ask that?

  MELCHIOR. But the children are dirty, the women are ill, their homes are filthy, and the men hate you, because you don’t have to work . . .

  WENDLA. That isn’t true, Melchior. And even if it were true, I’d go all the more willingly!

  MELCHIOR. Why all the more?

  WENDLA. It would give me even greater pleasure to be able to help them.

  MELCHIOR. So you visit the poor because it gives you pleasure.

  WENDLA. I visit them because they’re poor.

  MELCHIOR. But if it didn’t give you pleasure, would you go all the same?

  WENDLA. Can I help it, if I like doing it?

  MELCHIOR. And as a reward you will go to heaven. So I’m right. This has been nagging away at me for months! – If a miser doesn’t get any pleasure out of visiting sick and dirty children, is that really his fault?

  WENDLA. I’m sure it would give you pleasure.

  MELCHIOR. But his reward will be to go to hell. – I’m going to write an essay on this subject and hand it in to the pastor. He put me on to this. He is always blabbing on about the joy of self-sacrifice! If he can’t give me a satisfactory answer, I’ll stop going to bible class and refuse to be confirmed.

  WENDLA. Why do you want to cause grief to your parents? It won’t hurt you to be confirmed. If it weren’t for the terrible clothes we have to wear, we might even enjoy it.

  MELCHIOR. There’s no such thing as selflessness or self-sacrifice. The good people rejoice in their goodness, and the bad people wail and gnash their teeth – and you, Wendla Bergmann, toss your hair and laugh, while I feel as cheerless as an outcast. – What were you dreaming about, Wendla, when you were lying in the grass?

  WENDLA. Just silly things –

  MELCHIOR. With your eyes wide open?

  WENDLA. I dreamed I was a poor beggar-child, who was sent out into the streets at dawn to beg all day in wind and rain amongst cold-hearted, brutal people. I would come home in the evening, shivering with hunger and cold, and if I hadn’t collected as much money as my father expected, I was beaten.

  MELCHIOR. I know where you get this from, Wendla – from stupid children’s stories. Believe me, people as brutal as that no longer exist.

  WENDLA. Oh yes they do, Melchior, you’re wrong about that. – Martha Bessel is beaten every night. You can see the welts the next day. She suffers terribly. I go hot and cold all over whenever she talks about it. I feel so sorry for her, I often cry into my pillows in the middle of the night. I’ve been thinking for months of ways to help her. – I’d gladly take her place for a week.

  MELCHIOR. Her father should be reported. Then they’d take her away from him.

  WENDLA. I’ve never been beaten in my life, Melchior – not once. I can hardly imagine what it feels like, to be beaten. I’ve sometimes tried beating myself to find out. It must be a horrible feeling.

  MELCHIOR. I don’t believe any child is ever the better for it.

  WENDLA. For what?

  MELCHIOR. Being beaten.

  WENDLA. With this switch for example! – How tough and springy it is.

  MELCHIOR. That would draw blood!

  WENDLA. Wouldn’t you like to beat me with it, just once?

  MELCHIOR. Beat who?

  WENDLA. Me.

  MELCHIOR. What are you talking about?

  WENDLA. Why not?

  MELCHIOR. Stop it, Wendla! – I’m not going to beat you.

  WENDLA. But I’m giving you permission!

  MELCHIOR. No!

  WENDLA. Even if I ask you to, Melchior!

  MELCHIOR. Are you crazy?

  WENDLA. I’ve never been beaten in my entire life!

  MELCHIOR. How can you ask me to do something like that?

  WENDLA. Please – please –

  MELCHIOR. This will teach you! (He hits her.)

  WENDLA. For goodness’ sake! I didn’t feel a thing!

  MELCHIOR. Of course not . . . with all those skirts you’re wearing . . .

  WENDLA. Then hit me on the legs!

  MELCHIOR. Wendla! (He hits her harder.)

  WENDLA. You’re stroking me! – You’re stroking me!

  MELCHIOR. Just you wait, you witch, I’ll beat the Devil out of you!

  He throws down the switch and pummels her with his fists. She screams. He ignores her screams and carries on beating her in a rage, tears streaming down his face. Suddenly he jumps up, holds his head in his hands, and then runs into the forest crying.

  ACT TWO

  Scene One

  Evening in MELCHIOR’s study. The window is open and a lamp burns on the table.

  MORITZ. I’ve woken up again now, I’m just a bit on edge. But I slept through Ancient History like the drunken Cyclops himself. I’m surprised old Bluebottle didn’t pinch my ears. – I was nearly late this morning. My first thought when I woke up was the irregular verbs. Hell and damnation! I conjugated all through breakfast and on my way to school until my head was swimming. – I must have nodded off around three in the morning. When Mathilde woke me, the lamp was still smoking and there was a huge inkblot in my book where I’d dropp
ed the pen. The blackbirds beneath my window were singing so merrily – it immediately made me feel miserable again. I fastened my collar and brushed my hair. – But you do feel as though you’ve conquered something inside you.

  MELCHIOR. Shall I roll you a cigarette?

  MORITZ. Thanks, I don’t smoke. – The important thing is to keep up the momentum. I will work and work until my eyes pop out of my head. – Ernst Röbel has failed to answer a question six times this term. Three times in Greek, twice in Trigonometry and once in German Lit. I’ve only been caught out five times, and after today it will never happen again! Ernst would never shoot himself. Ernst doesn’t have parents who sacrifice everything for him. He could run away to sea or join the Foreign Legion if he wanted to. If I fail, my father will have a stroke and my mother will end in the loony bin.5

  MELCHIOR. Life is full of unpleasant surprises. I sometimes feel like hanging myself from a tree. – What’s keeping Mother with the tea?

  MORITZ. Your tea will do me good. I’m shaking, Melchior. I feel slightly unhinged. I see, hear, and feel everything so much more intensely, but as if it’s all a dream. It’s amazing how your garden expands in the evening light, how peaceful it is. Infinite. I see diaphanous creatures emerge from the bushes, flit breathlessly through the glades and vanish into the twilight. I’m sure there’s a conference going on under that chestnut tree. Shall we join them, Melchior?

  MELCHIOR. Not until we’ve had tea.

  MORITZ. Can you hear what the leaves are whispering? It sounds like my grandmother back from the dead to tell me a bedtime story. – Once upon a time there was a queen, as beautiful as the sun, more beautiful than all the maidens in the land – except that, unfortunately, she’d been born without a head. She couldn’t eat or drink, couldn’t see or laugh. She couldn’t kiss. The only way she could convey her wishes to the court was with tiny hand gestures. With her dainty little feet she tapped out death sentences or declarations of war. Then one day she was conquered by a king, who happened to have two heads, which were always getting in each other’s hair and squabbled so much that neither of them could get a word in. So the court magician took the smaller of the two heads and put it on the queen’s shoulders. And lo and behold, it suited her perfectly. So the king married the queen, and the two heads no longer quarrelled, but kissed each other on the brow, the cheeks, on the lips, and lived happily ever after. – What an idiotic story. Except that, whenever I see a pretty girl, I imagine her without a head.6