are at times brief; in _The Rats_ even minor figures are visualised with
remarkable completeness. Pastor Spitta, for instance, is thus introduced:
"Sixty years old. A village parson, somewhat 'countrified.' One might
equally well take him to be a surveyor or a landowner in a small way. He
is of vigorous appearance--short-necked, well-nourished, with a squat,
broad face like Luther's. He wears a slouch hat, spectacles, and carries
a cane and a coat over his arm. His clumsy boots and the state of his
other garments show that they have long been accustomed to wind and
weather." Such directions obviously tax the mimetic art of the stage to
the very verge of its power. Thus, by the precision of his directions
both for the scenery and the persons of each play, and by unmistakable
indications of gesture and expression at all decisive moments of dramatic
action, Hauptmann has placed within narrow limits the activity of both
stage manager and actor. He alone is the creator of his drama, and no
alien factitiousness is allowed to obscure its final aim--the creation of
living men.



VI

In the third act of Hauptmann's latest naturalistic play, _The Rats_
(1911), the ex-stage manager Hassenrenter is drawn by his pupil, young
Spitta, into an argument on the nature of tragedy. "Of the heights of
humanity you know nothing," Hassenrenter hotly declares. "You asserted
the other day that in certain circumstances a barber or a scrubwoman
could as fitly be the subject of tragedy as Lady Macbeth or King Lear."
And Spitta reaffirms his heresy in the sentence: "Before art as before
the law all men are equal." From this doctrine Hauptmann has never
departed, although his interpretation of it has not been fanatical.