He has just gone out.

WOLFRAM.

I have come—­my jewels have been found!

CLARA.

Oh, father!  Why are you not here?—­He has forgotten his spectacles—­there they lie!  Oh, if he only notices it and returns for them!—­How then?  Where Who had them?

WOLFRAM.

My wife—­tell me frankly, Miss:  Have you ever heard anything strange about my wife?

CLARA.

Yes!

WOLFRAM.

That she—­[Points to his brow.] Is that it?

CLARA.

That she is not altogether in her right mind, to be sure!

WOLFRAM (bursting out).

My God!  My God!  All in vain!  Not a single servant that I have ever taken into my house have I allowed to leave me; to each one I have paid double wages and closed my eyes to all remissness, in order to buy their silence!  And yet—­the false, ungrateful creatures!  Oh, my poor children!  Only for your sake did I seek to conceal it!

CLARA.

Do not blame your servants!  Surely it is not their fault!  Ever since your neighbor’s house burned down, and your wife stood at the open window laughing and clapping her hands at the fire, yes, and even puffing out her cheeks and blowing at it, as if she wanted to make it burn more furiously, people have had to choose between taking her for the devil himself or for a lunatic.  And there were hundreds who saw that!

WOLFRAM.

That is true.  And now, since the whole town knows about my misfortune, it would be foolish for me to exact a promise of you to keep still about it!  So listen!  The theft for which your brother is in prison was committed by a lunatic!

CLARA.

Your own wife!

WOLFRAM.

That she, who was once the noblest and most sympathetic soul in the world, has become malicious and mischievous; that she shouts and screams with joy when an accident happens before her eyes, when a maid breaks a glass or cuts her finger—­I knew that long ago; but that she also takes things in the house and puts them out of sight, hides money and tears up papers—­that, alas!  I found out too late—­only this noon!  I had laid myself down on the bed and was just about to fall asleep, when I became conscious that she had tiptoed noiselessly up beside me, and was watching me intently to see if I were yet asleep.  I closed my eyes tighter.  Then she took the key from the pocket of my vest, which was hanging over a chair, unlocked my desk, took out a roll of gold pieces, locked the desk again and put back the key.  I was horrified!  But I restrained myself, so as not to disturb her.  She went out of the room and I crept after her on tiptoe.  She climbed up to the attic and threw the gold into an old chest, which has been standing there empty since the days of my grandfather.  Then she glanced timidly around the room, and, without seeing me, hurried out again.  I lighted a taper and searched the chest; in it I found my youngest daughter’s doll, a pair of the maid’s slippers, a ledger, several letters, and, alas! or, God be praised!—­which shall I say?—­away down underneath, the jewels!