Hassenreuter monologue (Act 2) — The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann, Volume II

Aha! Then let us begin _ab ovo_. I have letters here [_he shows a bundle of them_] one, two, three, five--about a dozen! In these letters unknown but malicious individuals congratulate me upon an event which is said to have taken place in my storage loft. I would pay no attention to these communications were they not confirmed by a news item in the papers according to which a newborn infant is said to have been found in the loft of a costumer in the suburbs ... a costumer, forsooth! I would have said nothing, I repeat, if this item had not perplexed me. Undoubtedly there is a case of mistaken identity involved here. In spite of that, I don't like to have the report stick to me. Especially since this cub of a reporter speaks of the costumer as being a bankrupt manager of barn stormers. Read it, mama: "The Stork Visits Costumer." I'll box that fellow's ears! This evening my appointment at Strassburg is to be made public in the papers and at the same time I am to be offered as a kind of comic dessert _urbi et orbi_. As if it were not obvious that of all curses that of being made ridiculous is the worst!