Mrs. Hassenreuter monologue (Act 1) — The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann, Volume II

Just think, to-day at the dinner-table we had to drink wine--suddenly, to drink wine! Wine! For years and years the city-water in decanters has been our only table drink ... absolutely the only one. Dear children, said my husband.--You know that he had just returned from an eleven or twelve day trip to Alsace. Let us drink, my husband said, the health of my good and faithful Mrs. John, because ... he cried out in his beautiful voice ... because she is a visible proof of the fact that the cry of a mother heart is not indifferent to our Lord.--And so we drank your health, clinking our glasses! Well, and here I'm bringing you at my husband's special ... at his very special and particular order ... an apparatus for the sterilisation of milk.--Walburga, you may unpack the boiler.