Thereupon answered the mother, and said:  “Thou shouldest not, Hermann,
Be so long vexed with the children:  indeed, they are all of them children. 
Minna, believe me, is good, and was always disposed to thee kindly. 
’Twas not long since she was asking about thee.  Let her be thy chosen!”

Thoughtfully answered the son:  “I know not.  That mortification
Stamped itself in me so deeply, I never could bear to behold her
Seated before the piano or listen again to her singing.”

Forth broke the father then, and in words of anger made answer: 
“Little of joy will my life have in thee!  I said it would be so
When I perceived that thy pleasure was solely in horses and farming: 
Work which a servant, indeed, performs for an opulent master,
That thou doest; the father meanwhile must his son be deprived of,
Who should appear as his pride, in the sight of the rest of the townsmen. 
Early with empty hopes thy mother was wont to deceive me,
When in the school thy studies, thy reading and writing, would never
As with the others succeed, but thy seat would be always the lowest. 
That comes about, forsooth, when a youth has no feeling of honor
Dwelling within his breast, nor the wish to raise himself higher. 
Had but my father so cared for me as thou hast been cared for;
If he had sent me to school, and provided me thus with instructors,
I should be other, I trow, than host of the Golden Lion!”

Then the son rose from his seat and noiselessly moved to the doorway,
Slowly, and speaking no word.  The father, however; in passion
After him called, “Yes, go, thou obstinate fellow!  I know thee! 
Go and look after the business henceforth, that I have not to chide thee;
But do thou nowise imagine that ever a peasant-born maiden
Thou for a daughter-in-law shalt bring into my dwelling, the hussy! 
Long have I lived in the world, and know how mankind should be dealt with;
Know how to entertain ladies and gentlemen so that contented
They shall depart from my house, and strangers agreeably can flatter. 
Yet I’m resolved that some day I one will have for a daughter,
Who shall requite me in kind and sweeten my manifold labors;
Who the piano shall play to me, too; so that there shall with pleasure
All the handsomest people in town and the finest assemble,
As they on Sundays do now in the house of our neighbor.”  Here Hermann
Softly pressed on the latch, and so went out from the chamber.

THALIA

THE CITIZENS

Thus did the modest son slip away from the angry upbraiding;
But in the tone he had taken at first, the father continued: 
“That comes not out of a man which he has not in him; and hardly
Shall the joy ever be mine of seeing my dearest wish granted: 
That my son may not as his father be, but a better. 
What would become of the house, and what of the city