"This was my first 'world stage'" "My paradise." "I grew up in a penitentiary for 19 years." "The first women I met, besides my mother and Wilhelmine came from theft" "from incest, from child murder" "and the death breathing ghosts are still haunting me." "This is where I discovered the flickering light of this world." "It was my nursery and my early university." "It was my storybook my primer." "Those were my learning years" "Those were my learning years" "Learning years" "Grabbe?" "Christian!" "You are back?" "But Grabbe..." "I am Krohn, your class mate." "You?" "I thought you were long dead." "No!" "I don't want him in the house." "That would be something in Detmold!" "If I had never married him..." "He squanders my fortune he is a burden no, no, no!" "Not in my house!" "I am going to put myself in custody of the authorities, Sophie." "Petri, old friend!" "You've made your career here." "So you've put yourself up here" "The Frau Auditor" "She doesn't want me anymore." "You have aged, Christian." "Stop drinking." "Hogwash!" "I slept poorly last night" "Come on, drink a little warms the blood and creates ideas." "Wasn't it better for you to be in Frankfurt or Düsseldorf?" "Frankfurt?" "Frankfurt is where one does business and is fashionable." "To be successful among that vermin you have to wear glacé kid gloves" "knot your neckband according to latest fashion wear a smile with a note of lavender" "and master one classic art:" "to lie." "Why didn't Düsseldorf work out?" "In the beginning, Immermann really helped me but I suppose later on I became a burden on him." "Your drunken rage!" "What is to become of a person whose first memory it is to have walked an old murderer outside on a red wool leash?" "Christian there was no murderer in the penitentiary during the time you spent there." "No?" "To me, It felt like there was." "In Frankfurt, I didn't want to become my publisher's guard dog" "In Düsseldorf, I didn't want to be Immermann's bloodsucker." "But where to go?" "I will talk to your wife, Christian." "No, no, that's nonsense." "My "Hermannsschlacht"." "How is my mother, Moritz?" "Well." "I just saw her in your garden at Knochenbach a few days ago with Wilhelmine." "Ah, Wilhelmine..." "The Herr Auditor is here!" "The Herr Auditor has returned!" "Is it really true that Henriette Meyer, twice my bride died in Stolzenau at the age of 23 and that Blaufärber is a widower?" "Yes, Christian, he is dead." "Now she's all mine!" "Pristine!" "A star above my grave." "How old was Wilhelmine when you and father took her in?" "14" "She married Sergeant Kreimeier" "(incomprehensible)" "Your wife (incomprehensible) thinks she's better than everyone else and sits on her money and all I get is a 40 thalers pension." "If you don't add 8 thalers to my income" "I'll have to pick for food between my teeth on Mondays as if I had meat on Sunday." "Christian, what are you thinking of?" "What's to become of your things?" "The porcelain and the commode." "For God's sake, the woman doesn't want me in her house!" "First I have to finish my "Hermannsschlacht."" "The Mrs. doesn't give me any peace and quiet for it." "For God's sake, do not sell the garden at Knochenbach." "I want to live in the shed and write new play." "One "Alexander"" "and then, in exalted style, a "Christus."" "After that, the prince will surely make me storyteller to my fatherland of Lippe." "What kind of foolish prank is this?" "You're just a stupid boy." "That old cat..." "Rat water!" "(entertaining)" "Money?" "That helps." "(incomprehensible)" "Can you play "La Marseillaise?"" "Nobody wants to hear it nowadays." "It's even forbidden in a lot of places." "And since then you don't play it on the barrel organ!" "But I can still sing it." "I was there when we threw that French tartar in the water on that island." "You?" "That Napoleon?" "The lice onto the lion..." "The lion is dead but the lice, they are still alive." "And what did you win in the wars for freedom?" "What did you win?" "Where is the freedom now?" "How's your health, where's your money?" "(begging for money)" "(entertaining)" "Come on in Grabbe, you old drunk." "Christian" "I waited for you over there." "Come on." "Do you have any money left?" "I only have 36 thalers you sent me." "I'll go on a binge with it." "What does my wife say, Moritz?" "She doesn't want to see you." "I will rent accommodations for you somewhere else." "Maybe at the tailor's house -- not in a motel." "You can't write here." "My "Hermannsschlacht."" "You awoke it." "I only need 15 pennies a day" "Christian!" "My dear colleague from better times, when I wasn't married do you have judicial transcript work for me you or your friends, the Detmold advocates those sharks who steal the bread from poor farmers and weavers?" "I write accurately and legibly as is expected from a former military judge." "I'm sorry Grabbe" "I don't have files stacking up." "My accounting is now accurate as well." "Dignity, Christian!" "In the last 30 years I didn't have a more talented student than Grabbe." "I don't know that I ever did." "Grabbe had a marvelous imagination bubbling humor and.. he's a patriot." "Linde, another round of rum." "Come on Christian, we better get going." "Come here, Wilhelmine." "We would've done well together young and lustful." "You were closer to me than anyone else." "Ah, go to hell!" "Give me the bottle." "Am I really that bad?" "No." "Am I ruining it with everybody so they're after me?" "Not everybody." "You don't know anything." "My god, I feel terrible today." "What are friends?" "I could die in this motel and nobody would care about me." "Damnit!" "Come over here and write" "I don't want to touch it." "Do you have ink?" "Yes." "Write cleanly like I taught you." "Write this..." "To Frau Auditor, Luise Grabbe born Clostermeyer" "I petition you" "to immediately send" "two of my shirts" "two handkerchiefs" "and two pair of socks to me." "Should you not send those immediately" "I will know where to get them." "Detmold" "May 29th, 1836." "Come on and join our table!" "We're going to have fun." "Leave me alone, I don't like anyone today." "Are you not making progress with your new play?" "I'm almost finished." "Well, I suppose we'll play it here next winter." "This isn't for here." "Oh?" "Where else will it be performed?" "In Berlin?" "In Paris?" "There too." "Strange, we have colleagues there, they don't know about it." "Soon." "Well then, almost a worldwide success." "To your laurels, Grabbe." "Leave me alone!" "Seriously" "I'm fond of you" "Too kind!" "Should I shake hands with every ass who praises me?" "Provincial theater!" "How often have I pissed myself laughing at your tragedies and became melancholic in your comedies?" "Isn't this a little bit the fault of you poets, Grabbe?" "Since Goethe's death" "Hearsay and Untruth!" "The guy writes even his most private letters in affected style." "He didn't know anything about hunger, greed, power and politics and those are the drivers of world history." "But Schiller..." "Not much more so." "He just gushed about it." "Schiller's idealism today is like a steed without ass or crotch." "Full of artificiality and sentimentality." "Sour grapes, Grabbe?" "Don't leave out the title of Auditor, Mister von Glassizinski" "I left my post after 8 years of honorable service." "Honorable?" "Another round!" "You too, Grabbe?" "Yes..." "Rum." "What am I going to do with a tail sans horse?" "Was Pöter here already?" "Yes, but he left an hour ago." "Reality no imitation castle in the air with holes in the roof through which eternity is supposed to seep in but out in the world are thunderstorms and snow there is murder and hunger." "It wasn't good for Goethe never to be short of food." "Schiller was of a different kind there." "Look at Shakespeare you've got a world there and what a world it is!" "A world full of lunacy anger terror gambling hate murder love, revenge" "none of those tattered ideals from Weimar" "You don't reconcile, Grabbe." "Reconciliation is the classic challenge." "Long live the Rat." "Herr Grabbe?" "I will not call you by the title of Auditor you are larger than that you are a poet" "a theatrical poet." "But by the heavens, why don't you write a play that the likes of us can perform?" "You disregard the rules of theater, Herr Grabbe and sentence yourself to failure to disaster." "Given time, I'll succeed." "That's exactly not the case." "In your "Napoleon" you bring the public on stage!" "How is a director to stage-manage that?" "The public is a wonderful appearance." "So you're also for the freedom of the masses?" "The masses are a beast." "The heroes, a blood-soaked misfortune that falls upon the masses." "I don't understand that, Herr Auditor." "Well, then it's bound to impress you." " What's your name?" " Dietrich." "Dietrich?" "That's not right." "That's my name." "From now on, your name shall be Gottlieb." " Your age?" " I'll be 17." "Very well, Gottlieb." "At your age, I started my Gothland." "Let's not pretend, Grabbe" "All in all, you too want one thing:" "to be successful." "Long live the Rat." " A theatrical poet has to (interrupted)" " Stop with all this nonsense" "I never wanted to write for the stage as it is today because I don't write for this society that just wants peace, wealth, and pleasure a few of them maybe education and culture." "What the hell else are the arts for if not amusement and education id est: culture?" "Explore discover" "The Greenland of humanity and it's Africa" "My theater has as much to do with culture as an elephant with ivory carving a bull with a festive roast!" "You shouldn't make fun of me" " But... (interrupted)" " Long live the Rat." "I want to write drama!" "that makes everything else out there look frippery like curd cheese that was stepped on." "I want to rattle the iron curtain of the status quo to make their nightcaps fly off their dull heads and they go back to pissing their pants like in 1789, when they would eat a green herring that came too close to the word "revolution" as the grocer wrapped it up in newspaper." "You mustn't despise the people, Grabbe." "That is the end the end of the arts, too." "Let's talk about some other bullshit." "About your wife?" " About my wife?" " After your death, she will describe your great life" "Why shouldn't we talk about the Frau Auditor?" "It's a shame that machines weren't invented yet that could take the man's place in the disgusting business of procreation." "Noble gentlemen!" "Noble devil's tails!" "I offer for public auction" "The Frau Auditor Grabbe of Detmold in Lippe." "Whoever offers me accommodations including table, chair and bed" "and 15 pennies a day may by all means have her tonight!" "The woman has tits that even Romulus and Remus would have salivated over." "Her rump is delicate" "vintage" "Weimarian humanistic, idealistic full of grace and dignity." "It is the rump of rumps!" "You just didn't ride it manly and often enough -- that is what your wife is missing." "That's why your marriage is such an affair." "Even the old whoremonger in Weimar could do better than that." "Scoundrel!" "How dare you insult the great Goethe?" "I couldn't spend one night under one roof with you, much less in a bed." "To speak like that of your own wife, and to wish for such machines!" "May god save me!" " Come on Dietrich, go to sleep." " Yes, mother." " To what we hope for" " To what we love" "Long live the Rat." "Sophie?" "Sophie?" "Sophie!" "Sophie?" "The servant is getting wine to welcome you." "In the meantime, just drink a bottle of Einbecker." "Luzie?" "Luzie?" "Luzie?" "It's me." "Luzie!" "What are we going to do?" "We are husband and wife." "We were good for one another." "I still love you, Luzie." "In this marriage we belong together until death do us part." "I came home to you, Luzie!" "Sick right now but full of drama and hopes" "Now we will celebrate our renewal of wedding vows and everything will be different everything will be good." "Luzie!" "None of this sentimental stuff, Grabbe." "There used to be something there feeling your heart beat in your throat flirting glimpses" "half-finished words and letters" "and kisses and nights and tears" "and plans, wishes, ideals." " Break the door" " But Herr Auditor (interrupted)" " Hogwash!" "Break the door!" "The police have to protect me, I'm threatened with abuse!" "Go on, quick!" "Here." " But Herr Auditor (interrupted)" " Don't talk, break in the door!" "Tralalala!" "The chickens caught, Mailänders strung up, long live the emperor!" "I bring the welcome wine" "Such a solid old door makes one thirsty." "Sit next to me" "We're waiting for the Mrs." "You get 10 pennies, you were brave." "Here!" "Sit next to me!" "Long live the emperor." "Do something!" "Shall I dig my own grave?" "I am begging you, Blanke!" "I am asking the authorities for help!" "Allow me." "How are you, Herr Auditor?" "Outstanding!" "I just wanted to make sure all is well." "This house is as much mine as it is my wife's" "I want to resume living in it." "We should drink to it with a good bottle of red wine, Blanke." "I require protection!" "I fear for my life!" "Herr Auditor is calmly resting on the sofa, next to Herr Wolff." "Sophie?" "Count it." "Ah?" "You?" "Isn't she required by law to take in her husband, Moritz?" "Yes, she is." "But why did you have to intrude this way?" "Do you lust after scandal?" "Bullshit!" "I require money from my chest so I don't have to go into debt in Frankfurt!" "Why don't you sit down, Moritz?" "Let's drink to my return." "I really want to move in again!" "I'm out of money." "The "German Revue," which was supposed to pay me 30 thalers for my work, censored me." "Too liberal!" "Let's empty our glass, Moritz." "We are considering what is best for you let us consider responsibly." "You'll have to bear Frankfurt a few more days." "Let the tab be my concern." "I once knew a lady of nobility who carried her nose not in her face but on her bottom which caused her a lot of problems in life." "You're a crude clown at times." "Stop the boozing, Christian." "Stupid boy." "No no, my feet will get wet." "Stop that boozing, Christian." "God damn weather!" "It's just drizzling." "It's warm, Christian." "I was in the motel people are saying you left a couple of minutes ago" "It's beautiful and warm outside today, great for a walk through the woods." "Your "Hannibal"" "Our history teacher at school teaches completely differently than you" "Hannibal failed because of distance distance to his fatherland, Carthage." "Not supplies... that's hogwash." "Hannibal overcame the Pyrenees and the Alps, Gottlieb." "The Alps during the winter, with 60,000 men and elephants -- try to imagine that, Gottlieb." "No no, he did not fail because of distance" "He saw more with his one eye than the geese in the capital and their hawks." "He failed because of his government's acquisitiveness and the stupidity and callousness of those peddlers in Carthage." "Please excuse me, but" "I got lost completely behind Stukenbrock" "I'd like to spend the night in Detmold, maybe you could recommend a motel?" ""Stadt Frankfurt"" "But why spend time in that cursed place?" "It's something to pass by." "Unfortunately, my feet need to rest." "I have gout." "Do you read the Bible?" "The Bible.. yes definitely." "Are you from Detmold?" "Yes, unfortunately." "It is proud, solid, and infallibly average." "Yes, but do you know the poet, Grabbe?" "Detmold's son." "The poet Grabbe?" "You mean the crooked Auditor Grabbe who also happens to write tragedy?" "What would you want from that debauched fellow?" "I admire him" "I want to sketch him." "Bergius is my name, from Braunschweig." "You admire Grabbe?" "That is colossal that Grabbe?" "Of all people, Grabbe?" "Well you're in the right place at the "Stadt Frankfurt." It's where he guzzles his rum." "Thank you, Mister..." "May I invite you to a drink?" "No no, not me." "My clothes are too shabby." "They would take you for a bum if you were to accompany me to the noble society of Detmold." "This gusher will pay for Grabbe's drink tonight." "My tragedies were worth it after all." "You're the poet, Grabbe!" "I thought so!" "Sometimes I am." "Most times just "Grab" (grave), without the "be."" "I already visited Tieck in Dresden and Immermann in Düsseldorf." "I want to get to Paris on foot, to see Heine." "May I draw a sketch of you?" "I'll be right back right away." "I like your deep blue eyes your high forehead." "It's certainly bald like a battlefield on the day after the fight." "I'd know better models for you." "Sketch the last glimpse of a person sentenced to death, before they cover his eyes." "Sketch a debauchee hiding behind a painting of our savior on the cross, eavesdropping on the docile singing of two young nuns." "You are a genius." "The proof is that I share the table with hunger more often than with a person." " But without genius (interrupted) - you're going to become boring, you're right." "One bottle of Rhein wine for me and the boy Raffael!" "We took the ladies home to the kids, and now we'll celebrate until the larch sings." "Cheers!" "Gentlemen!" "Outstanding." "You are acting with bottles like suicides do with pistols, Christian." "Why don't you join us, Grabbe?" "We'd like to sing freedom songs." "Freedom songs?" "No, no." "That's my Eckermann my biographer and long-time advocate, Ziegler." "He will poignantly describe my life and death." "40 years after battle, soldiers are always idolized." "Oh, why don't you join us over here, Grabbe?" "We seem to be unworthy so come on!" "What's going on with you today?" "Ein Schifflein sah ich fahren (german soldier song, 1787)" "What's going on with you, Grabbe?" "A different song." "Something great, merry?" "Grabbe?" "Did you finish your "Hermannsschlacht?"" "We want to raise a monument to our liberator." "Petri will hold the speech." "Yes soon difficult but a colossus everything is up to date." "Our Detmold receives mention, too!" "I want to hand the act to prince Leopold." "That'll earn you a medal." "You'll become our Goethe in our Werra-Athens, Grabbe a secret advisor to the court ladies come on, let's hear it." "That sows thalers." "Do you really want to hear it?" "Yes, let's hear it!" "Let's hear it Grabbe, everybody at this table is a friend of the arts." "I want to read it to you, just as it is being made." "Yes." "Do you really want to hear it?" "Yes, sure." "Let us hear it!" "Come on guys, let's listen." "Well then we can get started." "This scene plays at the Dörenschlucht, in the midst of battle." "Hermann exclaims:" ""Germany!"" "Many in his army:" ""He speaks of it so often where is this Germany, anyway?"" "Soldier:" ""Somewhere around Cologne, I think."" "Other soldier:" ""Nonsense, it's Hesse territory."" "Hermann:" ""You don't even know your own name, my people?"" "Come on, let's continue our game." "(playing a game)" "Listen up!" "Hermann fell asleep under an oak tree." "No, not yet" "That's the end of the scene at the Dörenschlucht!" "Big fires" "Everybody is sitting on wooden blocks, singing, playing and drinking." "Very rainy weather wisps of hay are being arranged" "Hermann is alone he's leaning on an oak tree, and I'm letting him say" ""Am I to make it through this adventure?"" "as the windstorm howls through the trees." "(repeats, get's talked over)" "Suspend life, Grabbe." "Go on boozing, you're better at that." "Since Goethe's death, German poets have been unable to come up with anything enjoyable." "(asks for food)" "No, no." "It isn't possible." "But soon, at my house, I want to invite you all." "All of us will" "I rewrote the "Hermannsschlacht" four times and now toilet paper for Detmold's noble society!" "You have to rest for a few weeks, Christian." "You need some care." "Luzie isn't taking me in." "What's with the sentimentality, Christian?" "See to it that you go to bed." "The world the world" "what an untalented face!" "I'd be glad if I was dead." "It'd be better if I had never lived." "Away with it!" "(repeats)" "Away with it" "There, put this in the privy so people can piss and shit on it with joy!" "Calm down, for heaven's sakes." " The people need you" " The people?" "To me, they are mostly one thing: disgusting!" "What are you doing in my chamber at night anyway, Herr von Köpfekritzler?" "Uh, I have " "I hunt rats." "Are you afraid of rats?" "Then you must have never noticed the people around here." "So go to hell!" "The motel is crawling with rats -- didn't you know?" "That's what it's known for all over the place." "In addition to those roasted haunches that went over so well tonight." "No nausea, no anxiety please!" "They are exquisite species, the size of rabbits, jet-black with tails the length of snakes." "I value those astute critters immensely" "Maybe my love goes mostly to the titans and the rats." "However considering my limited wealth for 15 pennies a day I would gladly be willing to be your cat." "This is all stupid." "I'll uproot the Teutoburger forest!" "Herr Kanzleirat Petri is here." "Give this letter to Frau Grabbe." "I demand a response immediately!" "I found accommodations for you, Christian at the tailor's." "No, no, I'd rather move to the evil seven -- my wife." "She has to take me in." "We have an arrangement of joint property according to the laws of Lippe." "I'm in the right and I want to make use of it." "Your stubbornness" "your drunken rage!" "With a clear head, you wouldn't have made a fool of yourself yesterday" "Your drunken rage, your hypocrisy and your insufferable swinishness as witnessed lately in the "Posthaus"" "Oh get over yourself, Kanzleirat you too have only excrement in your gut." "One more reason to pick yourself up and get over your nature, Christian." "Poetry for monkeys!" "With such harsh thoughts with your world-weariness you destroy your whole life, Christian." "How can I live when I see that what I loved is a fallacy?" "Why can't you live your life decently" "and steer it level-headedly like other intellectuals of our fatherland?" "Because I can't stand myself." "It is impossible, Moritz." "Because there can't be agreement between me and society." "In Detmold you have true friends, Christian." "We are a loyal bunch, us Westfalians, and that counts for something." "In Westfalia a poet is taken for an unpalatable, fattened ox." ""I'm under protection of the authorities"" "Period." ""I'm under protection of the authorities"" "That's all she has to say after three years of marriage." "After I searched for my well-being out there for two years, down the Main, down the Rhein." "Just wait now I'm going to move in with her tomorrow." "Wilhelmine has to come and also the policeman, Blanke." "I can't chance it entirely without the help of the police." "I will also need witnesses." "Don't go too far, Christian things could still improve." "I really am a different kind of person, but I never got around to being him." "I hope you're back in good health?" "At all times, but I don't know who you are." "But I am the artist Bergius from Braunschweig!" " Last night you let me sketch you" " You must be talking about my brother -- he looks exactly like me." "Go now, Wilhelmine keep mother in the house, she isn't allowed to visit me or I'll have to suffer for it but I will visit you every evening." "Do you need something, Herr Auditor?" "You've become a woman, Sophie!" "I couldn't recognize you the other day, you rushed to the police so quickly." "Don't take me too seriously" "I couldn't harm a child." "Do we have Rhein wine in the cellar?" " Let's go in and have a drink" " I thank you but it'd be best if I go, Herr Auditor" "I thank you, Herr Auditor" " I'm sure things will work out." "Frau Auditor..." " It's all right, Blanke stay tough." "Where is the wine, Sophie?" "Herr Auditor why don't you go upstairs to your wife?" "But you're almost bald on my head the lice get dizzy on my high forehead." "Do we have Rhein wine in the cellar?" "But your wife is waiting for you." "Do sit down." "You look good still fit." "Would you like some Rhein wine, Dietrich?" "Yes you too?" "No." "I've read that in classic Greece one didn't drink before sundown." "Everything is still like it was." "Father loved this room especially." "I know." " I am going to take a walk." " Are you going to take office in Detmold?" "I will be Detmold's poet laureate and privy councilor with a heart size star of honor on my chest." "No" "I want to finish my "Hermannsschlacht" and write three tragedies maybe then the prince will make me storyteller to Lippe." "They lay into you a lot in Detmold" " Because you didn't properly balance the books of the military court." " They lay into me?" "That's really all I want" "The way you talk again" "don't make me unhappy, Dietrich." "What would the world be without you, Luzie?" "You have the wrong friends the brothers Runnenberg, Petri and also Ziegler stay away from them." "Do you bring debt from Düsseldorf?" "239 thalers." "Why?" "Advance payment from my new publisher the landlord, the barber." "I want to pay them off for you less the advance payment for the "Hermannsschlacht."" "How much will you get for that?" "Maybe 100 thalers." "So I will pay the debts but do not make me unhappy again, Dietrich." "You were malicious." "Yes and ungrateful, too." "Yes" "I'm an old scruffy bear." "Should I bite you like in the old days, Luise?" "Grabbe, you have such a sudden nature" "You threatened me with pistols." "I love you more than you think -- they weren't loaded." "I recently read "Hermann und Dorothea" again" "I already know -- phrases by heart" "That cold ugly thing!" "Why do you speak derogatively of Goethe so often?" "Out of jealousy, and rightfully so." "Wouldn't it be smarter, Dietrich, to take lessons dancing, fencing, music" "you've never learned the enjoyable side of society" "I was brought up with life in the grandiose cities." "Itchy feet instead of passions idle talk instead of a single true word!" " What would you like for dinner?" " Peasant food." "You have no appetite?" "I find this fish disgusting it looks so mutilated." "You have no appetite because you're ruining your stomach with rum!" "Sometimes it gives me a warmer attitude towards life, Luzie." "You're undermining your health, Dietrich." "Your face is puffy bloated." "You used to be stronger your face was chiseled." "My health is strong as iron." "Don't talk like that." "How?" "Like a ruffian -- without manners." "I think the Ätna feels it's best when it billows." "What's the matter?" "I've always liked fire." "Why are you still dressing in those tattered, shabby clothes?" " In the cabinet there (interrupted)" " I don't care" "Red wine!" "Red wine doesn't go with fish." "Red wine!" " That nice, expensive glass!" " It doesn't matter, Sophie." "Don't, Dietrich!" "It's missing mace." "It's missing lemon." "I was hoping that while I was gone for two years, Sophie would've learned how to cook." "I did it" "I was in the kitchen." "You should open a bar association in Detmold there is demand for it." "The ironclad dictionary of jurists" "I'd rather be a craftsman." "A household requires money and we have barely any income." "We have enough wealth for decades." "We?" "I brought almost 12,000 thalers into this marriage." "Yes, and I 863 toads!" "You have a blurred understanding of marriage." "Marriage?" "Love is an instrument to the lust of the flesh." "Marriage is a disgusting speculation." "Procreation is a necessary evil." "Don't listen to him." "Dietrich" "don't go too far again." "Yes, Madam." "One can be a poet as well as a humorous and wealthy man like the privy council for Goethe." "That rascal Frankfurter merchant who hoisted himself to nobility" "You're embarassing yourself again." "You aren't comfortable, you aren't well." "I'm well, I am very well!" "The noble society of Detmold people of rank and dignity" "Oh god, something is on fire!" "Sophie!" "Sophie!" "Sophie!" "My god it's on fire!" "To ashes!" "To ashes everything!" "This blue room, this dwarfish residence, let it go up in flames!" "Dull red, burn it down, grind it down, hack it to pieces!" "Murder.. murder." "Why aren't you doing anything?" "What are you talking about?" "I just recited a few lines of "Hermann und Dorothea"" "Sophie!" "Sophie!" "I want nothing from people the noble society of Detmold can kiss my ass!" "The two of us though, Luzie..." "Out, right away!" "I want to see who has the last word in my house" "There's a creature here!" "You are drunk again!" "And that Wilhelmine, the whore, put her into his bed early on." "Go, go!" "A merry person?" "She's a thief!" "a half-animal!" "Go right now!" "She's drunk again!" "The world is mine and the "Hermannsschlacht" is almost finished just a few finishing touches." "Are you happy?" " Are you breathing again?" " Oh, stop talking nonsense." "I breathe when I'm in the midst of it but now" "what now?" "Let's drink a bottle to our Cheruskers!" "They beat not only the Romans, but also their culture." "Valiant ambushes!" "I don't want to drink right now, Christian and you can't put it away like you used to." "Your stomach" " your liver." " Hogwash!" "My misery stems from the climate and our social circumstances." "I go sour among those brainless herrings." "I want to go to Paris, or wherever Rhein wine grows." "How's your wife?" "My wife a genius, Karl at catching moles and counting money." "Here!" "30 pages re-worked but that beast will flog it to the Jews!" "I don't believe that, Christian." "She means well it's just she doesn't know how." "What is your problem with the Jews, Christian?" "Nothing." "They're successful those Heines and Börnes." "May I now read everything?" "In context?" "Not yet but had you arrived five minutes earlier, you could have heard another piece a piece set in a a hallway, stairs, and an alley -- the likes which only Aristophanes and Shakespeare could create." "Do you know why I'm enjoying life again today, Karl?" "I will write a comedy" ""Till Eulenspiegel." "He isn't just a comedian he represents the German irony that sprung from deep sternness." "A German comedy we have almost no others." "The Germans will hear their language the language of roof tile makers trumpeters coopers thieves, horse traders, whores, fools!" "The language of the poor, the people." "You should write another political piece, Christian." "The winds of revolution are still blowing in Europe you have always said so yourself." "Blowing?" "It whispers." "Furthermore what good are revolutions when people don't revolutionize themselves?" "Today, money and hedonism rule." "It is time for the spirit of God to come back to us." "People don't want great times anymore, Christian." "So many hundreds of thousands of deaths destroyed cities, villages" "so many cripples orphaned children" "so much hunger." "You're right, Karl." "We don't live in heroic times -- today you have to play them in tragedies, on stage." "Who do I write for, Karl?" "Who is my audience?" "The people?" "They can't read, can't understand me and those who can read, can understand, they don't want to because I rattle their false columns," "I rock their bed canopies made of a fabric of lies." "Someone like me, out of a penitentiary, isn't seen rather hushed up." "Or would you rather have Rhein wine, Karl?" "I'll have to leave, Christian." "Pustkuchen is waiting for me in the "Ressource" about a quarrel over a heritage." "Pustkuchen?" "But her name is Möller" "Sophie Möller." "Have you nothing on your mind besides copulation?" "To make a little pissy shred of flesh the center of your life -- disgusting!" "Disgusting and ridiculous." "Until tomorrow, Christian." "People say that a rabid dog bit you when you were young -- is that true?" "Not a rabid dog a dog made of people." "They are all in for a surprise that stingy beast!" "Don't ever get married, Gottlieb." "It erodes everything love work" "hope." "You know what the best thing is between people?" "An attic night with a friend who shares, who you share with to whom you can open your soul" "an attic night until the lights burn out." "I rarely found those in life, the attic nights." "People don't like it when we walk together but my friend, Georg Weerth he'd like to join us some time." "You know my mother, when I couldn't walk yet put a rum-drenched cloth in my mouth" "so I would sleep and she could do her work." "A lot of people in Detmold do that with bread crust and brandy but they're not all drunks later in life." "When people around here drink, they just become abrasive and blubber like bullfrogs." "Mozart!" "Our stupidity is our fate." "All of us will die all of us" "you too, Gottlieb." "Nothing will remain but worm food and rattling bones" "but I will continue my business on Earth." "Who is there?" "Help!" "Help!" "Sophie!" "Help!" "Help!" "Help!" "Help!" "Help!" "Satan!" "The expression in her eyes!" "Luzie?" "Luzie?" "I am not feeling well at all" "I have to take Councilor Piderit's medicine at once!" "Luzie?" "Luzie?" "Luzie!" "I have to vomit!" "I think my heart stops beating." "Luzie?" "Luzie?" "Please open up don't let me die in my own waste" "Luzie?" "Luzie, please open up don't let me die in my own waste." "You are acting you aren't being yourself again, Dietrich!" "Are you really not well, Dietrich?" "It's from the rum -- don't pity yourself.." "A doctor in my room what is this nonsense?" "Things are looking up for Grabbe!" "I'll visit each one of you on your deathbed and sing Christmas songs to you." "Lie down only for a short while, Grabbe." "You are scrawny like a broom handle, and ice cold." "What else but scrawny and ice cold could a man like me become in this life?" " Stop your brutish boozing." " Shut up, doctor!" "How is it your business if I drink myself to death?" "What good is it if I live a few more years, living against my urges and then having to die anyway?" "If you don't quit the rum and the brandy, Grabbe we can't talk about years -- merely weeks." "Well then" "I'll leave out the rum and the brandy in the end it was nasty anyway." "Beer is also an honest drink." "What is wrong with me anyway, Councilor?" "Atrophy of the stomach?" "Syphilis?" "I feel thin like never before." "Yes, thin, Grabbe" " you're starving with a mouth full of food." " Yes, I'm starving, but not because I don't have any bread crust." "Are you taking your pills regularly?" "So help you God." "Do you need me?" "Should I stay?" "No." "What is this?" "I don't like those pills so I fed them to the chicken." "I really believe he has hour long spells of insanity." "Yes, insane!" "Am I not correct, advocate?" "He hasn't spoken a word in days." "Did I hurt you, Dietrich?" "Leave me alone, Madam." "You have to look after him more often so he isn't alone and becomes emaciated." "Ah you too are such a dark Westfale, Ziegler, some of them hang black drapes in their windows." "You northern Germans are petrified human beings -- especially you, Grabbe." "My nerves tingle from your colossal stubbornness your unruliness" "I am afraid." "Her mind is troubled" "Councilor Piderit should treat my wife instead, Ziegler." "He is ruining me" "Grabbe is ruining me." "Also you forgot my birthday on the 15th of August." "You should thank me for it from the bottom of your heart." "Don't follow the procession, Karl." "Stay with me, don't leave me by myself." "I don't want to go there." "Come on, let's have a drink!" "And here, do you want to read this with me?" "This is peasant humor, it's genius." "Look over there on the bookshelf, I already wrote a few scenes for the German comedy!" "Oh Jesus oh Jesus, you can't find anything?" "This is killing me." "My manuscripts about Schiller and Goethe should be there, too." "What harm this vain fellow has done to us!" "I mean, us Germans." "He overshadowed our quest for reality!" "Goethe knew the language, never the world, the gritty reality!" "He didn't even see the rift between the two!" "I'll have to leave again, Christian." " The deposit register (interrupted)" " Oh you only visit because you want to write a book about me!" "So include that I also liked to fart!" "Don't forget to stop by at my mother's house, Karl!" "Tell her to drink a lot of tea with rum in this kind of weather." "I'll pay for it later, you hear?" "Just a good amount of rum." "Just look at the expression in Satan's eyes exactly like my wife's." "Look, this bird walks exactly like Luzie." "Generally, the world seems more like my wife all the time." "So much about marriage, Ziegler." "Instead of golden times a very earthen crumbling will come." "Full of half measures, silly lies, and trumpery." "Until the Weltgeist is resurrected and opens the floodgates behind which the flood of revolution lurks." "Councilor Piderit you are starving here" "You grabbed my crotch!" "The shame is on you!" "I will report this to Ziegler." "Don't be upset with me, Sophie!" "It wasn't anything serious!" "You disgust me." "(ranting about something)" "(congratulating himself)" "What are you doing there?" "Why are you sitting at the window behind closed curtains?" "I'm playing theater!" "You're drinking again" "the smell in here is vicious." "The society meeting was pleasant all women of high standing and my birthday verses were met with gusto." "I was sure of that." "Why don't you perform it for me, your poem?" "You didn't want me to yesterday." "Yesterday my brain was clogged." "(birthday poem)" "Why do you always have to be cynical, Dietrich?" "I'm not cynical this society is cynical" "I just unbutton its shirt." "A baroness from München was there as well, very charming." "Yes, the southern Germans extrude more education, more culture." "Because your family is from Regensburg?" "You in Westfalia, no sensitivity, no soul." "No no, we aren't so stupid to have a soul." "Only you have one." "We agree in so many things, Dietrich." "You've had liqueur " " Hence the reconciliation." " No, seriously!" "I want to be a good wife to you but you..." "I was raised this way and I find it to be God's will and in right order that the husband is the provider and protector." " Why not the wife?" " But my father (interrupted)" " Was an honorable man" "Grabbe" "At all times you're afraid to show weakness when you're not being a lout." "Your eyes were the first thing I liked and your forehead." "I knew right away you were a poet." "Fine then let's talk about the money." "As you wish" " My goods and chattels (interrupted)" " That is what I'll write on your tomb stone" "My goods and chattels." "I will survive you, Luzie" "Pietrid confided it to me today you suffer from cachexia." "My God that isn't true!" "It is but don't take it too hard you are to have two years left." "So" "your goods and chattels... but we have an arrangement of joint property." "I will get the arrangement annulled" "I will make quick work out of you." "Based on your change of life-style I want you excluded from the agreement." "I will be given sole custody of joint property you will become a burden on me sooner or later." "You will not do that, Luzie." " In my house (interrupted)" " Who brought the house into the marriage?" " You mother doesn't own (interrupted)" " We should stop talking about my mother!" " Your father?" " Was a warden in the penitentiary!" " So you were a poor devil?" "Yes, I was." "That's in part why I was looking for some domesticity" " if I had to settle for absence of love." " Love?" " I married you out of pity." " Pity?" "I haven't discovered that character trait in you." "Do you know why you hate me so, Grabbe?" "I don't hate you, Luzie." "You are my entire goods and chattels." "You hate me because I see through you you fooled everybody else with your wild speeches and your fantastic masks and scurrilities." "But I, I saw through you and you won't forgive me for it." "That every day you have someone in front of you whom you can't fool whom you can't hide from." "You are a coward" "you are sneaky, convinced of your genius and full of self-pity." "Bizarre extremely bizarre" "Out with you!" "Sleep well!" "Desdemona!" "Your Cassio is just money." "What wonderful tits." "You drank again!" "Why did it all come to this?" "The greed for money and the scholarly stupidity" "The mind is sometimes a restless dog, Luzie and I have to throw it a hunk of meat" "but I want to change!" "And once we leave here away from this place away from this time" "the two of us, Luzie..." "Just take care of me like a child so my condition will improve." "It's too late for that, Dietrich." "Yes it's too late for anything these days" "or too early." "Good night." "I'm practicing dying." "If only there was a war" "I'd be healthy at once." "In the long run, peace makes everything bland." "We want to become soldiers, too me and my friend, Georg Weeth." "Sailors scientists tribunes of the plebs or democrats!" "Yes, go and take your big step life has three good events:" "Your springtime first love and the revolution." "Everything after that is haggling, idle talk and swinishness." "The gossipers and the peddlers spend their lives like turtles disgusting!" "People in town say you are a prince's son out of wedlock." "Those philistines want to shame my mother and father." "Scoundrels!" "But a prince's son, I could've been that." "Son of Louis Ferdinant of Prussia." "What would've become of me?" "Something different that's for sure." "When you grow up, Gottlieb and you're a soldier or sailor or a tinkerer or democrat and you come to Detmold do not forget to visit my mother and give her a thaler." "She shall always have tea in her life, and rum." "Yes, Herr Auditor." "Bring me a bottle of beer from the bucket over there." "I want to visit the forest of Lippe one more time." "Nothing in these lands is greater than the wonderful glow of an autumn day." "Tell me a story, Stedtfeld!" "From Paris" "I'm so very cold nothing inside me hails and thunders anymore." "Paris..." "I was there my God those were days come closer" "Liberté, égalité, fraternité!" "I was there when people became brothers and walked arm in arm" ""bras dessus bras dessous"" "they marched the boulevards into the future." "Humans being brothers weak idle talk." "How about the whores?" "Did they become cheaper due to the revolution?" "More expensive?" "Did they give better sex?" "Or were they caged?" "As a pious and revolutionary, I didn't go to any whores!" "Can you sing in French, Stedtfeld?" "But of course, Herr Auditor" "I was there!" "14 years I spent in Paris as a tailor and as a human." "I was there for the sunrise of humanity." "I've experienced it!" "This is all stupid stuff, Stedtfeld." "The feudalists the preachers and the bourgeoisie survived and made a pretty penny on the back of the revolution." "Now they're devouring again and they're excited about life." "Come on and sing, Stedtfeld!" ""La marmotte?"" "No, damn it!" "I don't want to hear anything anymore about this god-damn groundhog." "The Frau Auditor wishes to see the tailor to take her measurements." "Black doesn't look good on her." "How are you today, Herr Auditor?" "Well." "The crab in his hole is a great monarch." "The September weather is so nice, I thought it lends itself to a visit to our fallen Prometheus." "Prometheus had a liver problem, pastor." "Are you here to talk about my boozing?" "I'm so happy to find you so devotional, Herr Auditor." "I read that the Chinese enjoy eating swallow nests full of shit, pastor." "Maybe the grievances among the poor farmers of Lippe could be fixed that way since you fabricate so much shit yourself." "Thank you, Sophie Möller." "Four years ago" "I was in a catholic church." "That's when I realized how much better off I would be with faith in a better world." "On this bloody, wandering star" "I've always felt out of place." "But you are Lutheran" " baptized in the name of (interrupted)" " I don't remember all that well." "But I'm still rheumy from the cold water." "Pastor you are beautiful like Christ" "you have this all-round smile" "such a sentimental touch..." "However the holy spirit " "that didn't get into you." "Herr Auditor you are a desperate soul." "As God wandered through the Teutoburder woods and created the first Westfale" "You know that one, don't you?" "But yes, yes." "From a tree root!" "The first Westfale right after creation uttered a brash word:" "Why are you pushing me?" "God almost tripped over that tree root." "You asshole." "What?" " "You asshole," he said." " No, that's not what he said." "Yes, yes. "You asshole."" "No, not towards the Lord!" ""You asshole," he said." "Herr Auditor" "God is alive!" "No, no." "There is no God." "I am assuming this to his credit when I look around in this world." "We're all crawling towards decay." "But now we have talk about hell, pastor, or this act is stuck." "Certainly!" "You know, pastor" "I bet you can get used to hell." "I've been there many times in my life, even as a child." "At least you believe in that." "If in hell I could just have this one delight to watch that beast of a wife of mine climb off a colossal razor blade into that heaven of hers!" "I'm healthy as iron, Sophie, but my soul is dead." "You're coming back to life already, Herr Auditor." "No." "Because I don't love anything anymore." "Now I could take my revenge for everything you did to me." "I lived in peace, was respected." "You soiled my house in insanity and debt." "I'm no longer afraid of your anger, your rage." "You're scrawny and you smell like mutton." "Now I have it back!" "Go, Luzie." "Be patient soon I will be what they call dead." "Since last night" "I'm afraid of this woman." "You were in a fever, Christian, you were dreaming." "How are you really doing, Christian?" "Close the door -- the walls have ears here." "The door is closed, Christian." "I don't eat anymore." "She would poison me if I did." "The newspapers write about you again, Christian." "Now that the unruly lion roars through the woods watch as out on the green field a child plays with the sun." "I am loved still." "She is counting her money." "She's writing my obituary and waits." "She tried her best, Christian, but it would just not come together." "Yes in your triteness, that's what it comes down to." "I married the wrong girl." "No no, Karl." "Tragedy doesn't walk around in underwear." "After my death" "Luzie will prune Hermann for her noble society," "she will cut off his dick, and place him at the piano." "The decayed Lazarus is rising." "He smells like the plague but he is alive again." "He is at work." "I will write at least another 3 dramas" "Alexander Christus Eulenspiegel." "Please bring me a fresh bottle, Karl." "Do you desire anything, Herr Auditor?" "Do you desire anything, Herr Auditor?" "Should I drink another one to satisfy my desire, Karl?" "Yes." "A few fresh bottles of beer." "A few cigars." "Two clean glasses." " Shouldn't I bring something to eat?" " No! The work of a giant" "What a boring piece" "Sometimes music affects me even though I can't hear it all" "That Mozart..." "Drink up, Karl!" "Sophie?" "Shouldn't I get Councilor Pietrid again, Christian?" "Hogwash!" "That fellow cures me until I'm a cripple." "I will get up tomorrow" "Alexander Eulenspiegel" "Rest up to get well, Christian." "Until tomorrow." "Wait" "I'm coming with you" "I have to look after that owl." "Go!" "This is my house." "Go at once!" "The old woman will not come into my house again." "I will make sure of it." " His mother stays, she will not leave the house." " She has a mean nature!" " Grabbe is miserably ill!" "Cold cold" "cold" "He is going too far." "Now he's laying in bed." "It's all acting and sniveling!" "The divorce..." "The divorce is set for the 16th of September." " Grabbe is miserably ill" " Grabbe is miserably ill..." "What about me?" "!" "What's wrong with him? This old woman is of raw nature!" "This young thing was his whore!" "I do not tolerate this riffraff in my house!" "Death is visible in his eyes." "At least let his mother " "You too?" "Ziegler ensnared you!" "Stand up!" "That is my chair!" "This chair is my father's!" "The old woman is not to sit on this chair!" "cold" "His mother will stay here -- she will not leave this house." "Your presence is a horror for Grabbe!" "I am in charge here, Councilor." "He is my husband." "What, you want to make rules around here, Councilor?" "Grabbe will survive us all!" "Who are you?" "But you are" "My dear Christian You're now going to your father." "I once loved him, too more than all of you." "Now I'm alone" "alone." "He is redeemed but me too." "May he live on in the eternal world of the arts." "No!" "It can't be true." "He's just sleeping a little bit." "My Christian fell asleep so gently and peacefully." "O , sun!" "If only I could grab you by your beams -- On a cliff I want to shatter your brain And let you feel what pain is like."