Overview
- Female: 0
- Male: 2
Context
Jacob Hummel has just seen the student, Arkenholz, apparently talking to thin air. He recognizes the younger man from his heroic involvement in an accident the previous day. Hummel is intrigued by Arkenholz, especially when he realizes that he is the son of his former business partner. Hummel sets out to charm Arkenholz, despite having driven Arkenholz’s father to bankruptcy many years before.
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OLD MAN Excuse me asking, but I couldn’t help hearing you were caught up in the accident yesterday evening...I’ve just been reading about it in the paper…
STUDENT Have they already got hold of it?
OLD MAN Yes, the whole story; and your picture as well, though they regret not having the name of the brave young student…
STUDENT Really? It is me, too! Oh dear!
OLD MAN Who were you talking to just now?
STUDENT Didn’t you see?
[PAUSE]
OLD MAN Would it be impertinent to ask--to be allowed to know--your now-illustrious name?
STUDENT What’s the point? I don’t like publicity--no sooner do they praise you than they find fault with you--these days cutting people down to size is one of the fine arts--besides, I’m not looking for a reward…
OLD MAN Rich, I take it?
STUDENT Not at all...quite the contrary! I’m extremely poor.
OLD MAN One moment--I seem to have heard that voice before--when I was young I had a friend who couldn’t say ‘window’ but always said ‘winder’--he’s the only person I’ve ever heard speak like that; and now you--are you related to Arkenholz, the merchant, by any chance?
STUDENT He was my father.
OLD MAN Fate’s a strange thing...I saw you as a little child, in particularly difficult circumstances…
STUDENT Yes, I am supposed to have come into the world in the midst of a bankruptcy.
OLD MAN Precisely!
STUDENT Might I ask your name?
OLD MAN My name is Hummel, Company Director.
STUDENT Are you…? Then I do remember…
OLD MAN You’ve often heard my name mentioned in your family?
STUDENT Yes!
OLD MAN And with a certain animosity, perhaps? Yes, I can imagine!--I suppose they said I ruined your father?--People who’ve ruined themselves with idiotic speculations always put their ruin down to the one person they couldn’t fool. [PAUSE] The fact is, your father swindled me out of 17,000 crowns, all my savings at the time.
STUDENT It’s strange how a story can be told in two such different ways.
OLD MAN You surely don’t think I’m lying, do you?
STUDENT What am I to think? My father didn’t tell lies!
OLD MAN That’s true, a father never lies...I’m a father, too, though, so…
STUDENT What are you driving at?
OLD MAN I saved your father from destitution, and he rewarded me with all the terrible hatred that a debt of gratitude breeds...he taught his family to speak ill of me.
STUDENT Perhaps you made him ungrateful by poisoning your help with needless humiliations.
OLD MAN All help is humiliating, young man.
STUDENT What do you want of me?
[For full text, please see The Ghost Sonata]
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