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BEGRIFFENFELDT
- Here's a knife!
HUSSEIN [seizing it].
- Ah, how I shall lick up the ink now!
- Oh, what rapture to cut oneself!
- [Cuts his throat.]
BEGRIFFENFELDT [stepping aside].
- Pray do not sputter.
PEER [in increasing terror].
- Hold him!
HUSSEIN
- Ay, hold me! That is the word!
- Hold! Hold the pen! On the desk with the paper-!
- [Falls.]
- I'm outworn. The postscript-remember it, pray:
- He lived and he died as a fate-guided pen!
PEER [dizzily].
- What shall I-! What am I? Thou mighty-, hold fast!
- I am all that thou wilt,-I'm a Turk, I'm a sinner-
- a hill-troll-; but help;-there was something that burst-!
- [Shrieks.]
- I cannot just hit on thy name at the moment;-
- oh, come to my aid, thou-all madmen's protector!
- [Sinks down insensible.]
BEGRIFFENFELD
