Names

First Act

First Scene

In Insterburg in Prussia.

LÄUFFER: My father says I am not suited to be a pastor's assistant. I believe the fault lies in his purse; he doesn't want to pay for the post. I am, anyway, too young, too handsome, and I have seen too much of the world to become a pastor. And in the municipal school, the privy councilor didn't want to accept me. So be it! He is a pedant; and to a pedant, of course, the devil himself is not learned enough. Within half a year I would have reviewed what I have acquired in school, and then I would still have been much too learned for a school teacher; but the privy councilor must know better. He always calls me just Monsieur Läuffer, and when we speak of Leipzig, he asks about Händel's cake garden and Richter's coffeehouse. I'm not sure: is he trying to mock me, or—I have heard him discourse profoundly enough with our deputy headmaster from time to time; he probably doesn't take me seriously.—There he comes with the major; I don't know why, but I fear him worse than the devil. The fellow has something in his face that I find unbearable. (He passes the privy councilor and the major, scraping and bowing profusely.)

Second Scene

Privy councilor. Major.

MAJOR: But what do you want? Isn't that quite a well-behaved little man?

PRIVY COUNCILOR: Well-behaved enough, only all too well behaved. But what is he supposed to teach your son?

MAJOR: I don't know, Berg; you always ask these strange questions.

PRIVY COUNCILOR: No, honestly! You must have some purpose in mind when you take on a tutor and open your purse wide enough for three hundred ducats to fall out. Tell me, what do you think you'll achieve with the money; what will you demand from your tutor in return?