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IO2 Gerhart Hauptmann
that he runs risks of which the workman never dreams;
that he is often driven distracted by all the calculations
he has to make, and all the different things he has to take
into account; that he has to struggle for his very life
against competition ; and that no day passes without some
annoyance or some loss. And think of the manufactur
er s responsibilities, think of the numbers that depend on
him, that look to him for their daily bread. No, No!
none of you need wish yourselves in my shoes you
would soon have enough of it. You all saw how that
fellow, that scoundrel Becker, behaved. Now he ll go
and spread about all sorts of tales of my hardhearted-
ness, of how my weavers are turned off for a mere trifle,
without a moment s notice. Is that true? Am I so very
unmerciful ?
The weavers are too starved, too subdued, too
terror-stricken not to accept Drelsslger s plea
in his own behalf. What would become of these
living corpses were it not for the rebels like
Becker, to put fire, spirit, and hope in them?
Verily the Beckers are dangerous.
Appalling as the scene in the office of Drels-
slger is, the life in the home of the old weaver
Baumert is even more terrible. His decrepit old
wife, his idiotic son August, who still has to wind
spools, his two daughters weaving their youth and
bloom into the cloth, and Ansorge, the broken
remnant of a heroic type of man, bent over his
baskets, all live in cramped quarters lit up only
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