Spring Awakening

Frank Wedekind

• Publisher: Start Publishing LLC
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781625585936
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Classics
• Index: Literature

Set in late 19th century Germany, it concerns teenagers who are discovering the inner and outer tumult of sexuality. The plays performance was threatened with closure when the city's Commissioner of Licenses claimed that the play was pornographic, due to its portrayal of abortion, homosexuality, rape, child abuse, and suicide, but a New York trial court issued an injunction to allow the production to proceed.

ACT III

SCENE FIRST.

The Board Room—On the walls pictures of Pestalozzi and Jean Jacques Rousseau.

Professors Affenschmalz, Knüppeldick, Hungergurt, Knochenbruch, Zungenschlag and Fliegentod are seated around a green-covered table, over which are burning several gas jets. At the upper end, on a raised seat, is Rector Sonnenstich. Beadle Habebald squats near the door.

ONNENSTICH.

Has any gentleman something further to remark?—Gentlemen! We cannot help moving the expulsion of our guilty pupil before the National 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 chastise our guilty pupil for the demoralizing influence he exerted upon his classmates; we cannot, above all, because we must hinder him from exerting the same influence upon his remaining classmates. We cannot ignore the charge—and this, gentlemen, is possibly the weightiest of all—on any pretext concerning a ruined career, because it is our duty to protect ourselves from an epidemic of suicide similar to that which has broken out recently in various grammar schools, and which until to-day has mocked all attempts of the teachers to shackle it by any means known to advanced education—Has any gentleman something further to remark?

KNÜPPELDICK.

I can rid myself of the conception no longer that it is time at last to open a window here.

ZUNGENSCHLAG.

Th- th- there is an a- a- at- atmosphere here li- li- like th- th- that of the cata- catacombs, like that in the document room of the former Cha-Cha-Chamber of Justice at Wetzlar.

ONNENSTICH.

Habebald!

HABEBALD.

At your service, Herr Rector.

ONNENSTICH.

Open a window. Thank God there’s fresh air enough outside.—Has any other gentleman anything to say?

FLIEGENTOD.

If my associate wants to have a window opened, I haven’t the least objection to it. Only I should like to ask that the window opened is not the one directly behind my back!

ONNENSTICH.

Habebald!

HABEBALD.

At your service, Herr Rector.

ONNENSTICH.

Open the other window!—Has any other gentleman anything to remark?

HUNGERGURT.

Without wishing to increase the controversy, I should like to recall the important fact that the other window has been walled up since vacation.

ONNENSTICH.

Habebald!

HABEBALD.

At your service, Herr Rector.

ONNENSTICH.

Leave the other window shut!—I find it necessary, gentlemen, to put this matter to a vote. I request those who are in favor of having the only window which can enter into this discussion opened to rise from their seats. (He counts.) One, two, three—one, two, three—Habebald!

HABEBALD.

At your service, Herr Rector.

ONNENSTICH.

Leave that window shut likewise! I, for my part, am of the opinion that the air here leaves nothing to be desired!—Has any gentleman anything further to remark?—Let us suppose that we omitted to move the expulsion of our guilty pupil before the National Board of Education, then the National Board of Education would hold us responsible for the misfortune which has overwhelmed us. Of the various grammar schools visited by the epidemic of self-murder, those in which the devastation of self-murder has reached 25 per cent. have been closed by the National Board of Education. It is our duty, as the guardians and protectors of our institute, to protect our institute from this staggering blow. It grieves us deeply, gentlemen, that we are not in a position to consider the other qualifications of our guilt-laden pupil as mitigating circumstances. An indulgent treatment, which would allow our guilty pupil to be vindicated, would not in any conceivable way imaginable vindicate the present imperiled existence of our institute. We see ourselves under the necessity of judging the guilt-laden that we may not be judged guilty ourselves.—Habebald!

HABEBALD.

At your service, Herr Rector!

ONNENSTICH.

Bring him up! (Exit Habebald.)

ZUNGENSCHLAG.

If the pre-present atmosphere leaves little or nothing to desire, I should like to suggest that the other window be walled up during the summer va- va- va- vacation.

FLIEGENTOD.

If our esteemed colleague, Zungenschlag, does not find our room ventilated sufficiently, I should like to suggest that our esteemed colleague, Zungenschlag, have a ventilator set into his forehead.

ZUNGENSCHLAG.

I do- do- don’t have to stand that!—I- I- I- I- do- do- don’t have to st- st- st- stand rudeness!—I have my fi- fi- five senses!

ONNENSTICH.

I must ask our esteemed colleagues, Fliegentod and Zungenschlag, to preserve decorum. It seems to me that our guilt-laden pupil is already on the stairs.

(Habebald opens the door, whereupon Melchior, pale but collected, appears before the meeting.)

ONNENSTICH.

Come nearer to the table!—After Herr Stiefel became aware of the profligate deed of his son, the distracted father searched the remaining effects of his son Moritz, hoping if possible, to find the cause of the abominable deed, and discovered among them, in an unexpected place, a manuscript, which, while it did not make us understand the abominable deed, threw an unfortunate and sufficient light upon the moral disorder of the criminal. This manuscript, in the form of a dialogue entitled “The Nuptial Sleep,” illustrated with life-size pictures full of shameless obscenity, has twenty pages of long explanations that seek to satisfy every claim a profligate imagination can make upon a lewd book.—

MELCHIOR.

I have—

ONNENSTICH.

You have to keep quiet!—After Herr Stiefel had questioningly handed us this manuscript and we had promised the distracted father to discover the author at any price, we compared the handwriting before us with the collected handwriting of the fellow-students of the deceased profligate, and concluded, in the unanimous judgment of the teaching staff, as well as with the full coincidence of a valued colleague, the master of calligraphy, that the resemblance to your—

MELCHIOR.

I have—

ONNENSTICH.

You have to keep quiet!—In spite of this likeness, recognized as crushing evidence by incontrovertible authority, we believe that we should allow ourselves to go further and to take the widest latitude in examining the guilty one at first hand, in order to make him answerable to this charge of an offense against morals, and to discover its relationship to the resultant suicide.—

MELCHIOR.

I have—

ONNENSTICH.

You have to answer the exact questions which I shall put to you, one after the other, with a plain and modest “yes” or “no.”—Habebald!

HABEBALD.

At your service, Herr Rector!

ONNENSTICH.

The minutes!—I request our writing master, Herr Fliegentod, from now on to take down the proceedings as nearly verbatim as possible.—(to Melchior.) Do you know this writing?

MELCHIOR.

Yes.

ONNENSTICH.

Do you know whose writing it is?

MELCHIOR.

Yes.

ONNENSTICH.

Is the writing in this manuscript yours?

MELCHIOR.

Yes.

ONNENSTICH.

Are you the author of this obscene manuscript?

MELCHIOR.

Yes—I request you, sir, to show me anything obscene in it.

ONNENSTICH.

You have to answer with a modest “yes” or “no” the exact questions which I put to you!

MELCHIOR.

I have written neither more nor less than what are well-known facts to all of you.

ONNENSTICH.

You shameless boy!

MELCHIOR.

I request you to show me an offense against morals in this manuscript!

ONNENSTICH.

Are you counting on a desire on my part to be a clown for you?—Habebald—!

MELCHIOR.

I have—

ONNENSTICH.

You have as little respect for the dignity of your assembled teachers as you have a proper appreciation of mankind’s innate sense of shame which belongs to a moral world!—Habebald!

HABEBALD.

At your service, Herr Rector!

ONNENSTICH.

It is past the time for the three hours’ exercise in agglutive Volapuk.

MELCHIOR.

I have—

ONNENSTICH.

I will request our secretary, Herr Fliegentod, to close the minutes.

MELCHIOR.

I have—

ONNENSTICH.

You have to keep still!!—Habebald!

HABEBALD.

At your service, Herr Rector!

ONNENSTICH.

Take him down!

SCENE SECOND.

A graveyard in the pouring rain—Pasto...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• A Proem for Prudes
• ACT I
• ACT II
• ACT III
• From a Lengthy Essay in “The Frankfurter Zeitung”