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The Awakening of Spring 125
Wendla! I know everything. See, I didn t want to
say a word to you. Wendla, my Wendla !
Wendla. But it s not possible, Mother. ... I have
loved nobody in the world as I do you, Mother.
The pathos of it, that such a loving mother
should be responsible for the death of her own
child ! Yet Frau Bergmann is but one of the many
good, pious mothers who lay their children to
"
rest in God," with the inscription on the tomb
stone: "Wendla Bergmann, born May 5th,
1878, died from chlorosis, Oct. 27, 1892.
Blessed are the pure of heart."
Melchior, like Wendla, was also
"
pure of
heart "; yet how was he
"
blessed "?
Surely not
by his teachers who, discovering his essay on the
mystery of life, expel the boy from school. Only
Wedekind could inject such grim humor into the
farce of education *
the smug importance of the
faculty of the High School sitting under the por
traits of Rousseau and Pestalozzi, and pronounc
ing judgment on their
"
immoral
"
pupil Melchior.
Rector Sonnenstich. Gentlemen: We cannot help
moving the expulsion of our guilty pupil before the Na
tional Board of Education ; there are the strongest reasons
why we cannot: we cannot, because we must expiate the
misfortune which has fallen upon us already; we cannot,
because of our need to protect ourselves from similar
blows in the future; we cannot, because we must chas
tise our guilty pupil for the demoralizing influence he
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