years after _Drayman Henschel_, nine years after _Rose Bernd_. A first
reading of the book is apt to provoke disappointment and confusion. Upon
a closer view, however, the play is seen to be both powerful in itself
and important as a document in criticism and _Kulturgeschichte_. It
stands alone among Hauptmann's works in its inclusion of two separate
actions or plots--the tragedy of Mrs. John and the comedy of the
Hassenreuter group. Nor can the actions be said to be firmly interwoven:
they appear, at first sight, merely juxtaposed. Hauptmann would
undoubtedly assert that, in modern society, the various social classes
live in just such juxtaposition and have contacts of just the kind here
chronicled. His real purpose in combining the two fables is more
significant. Following the great example, though not the precise method,
of Moliere, who produced _La Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes_ on the
boards of his theater five months after the hostile reception of _L'Ecole
des Femmes_, Hauptmann gives us a naturalistic tragedy and, at the same
time, its criticism and defense. His tenacity to the ideals of his youth
is impressively illustrated here. In his own work he has created a new
idealism. But let it not be thought that his understanding of tragedy and
his sense of human values have changed. The charwoman may, in very truth,
be a Muse of tragedy, all grief is of an equal sacredness, and even the
incomparable Hassenreuter--wind-bag, chauvinist and consistent
_Goetheaner_--is forced by the essential soundness of his heart to blurt
out an admission of the basic principle of naturalistic dramaturgy.

The group of characters in _The Rats_ is unusually large and varied. The
phantastic note is somewhat strained perhaps in Quaquaro and Mrs. Knobbe.
But the convincingness and earth-rooted humanity of the others is once
more beyond cavil or dispute. The Hassenreuter family, Alice Ruetterbusch,
the Spittas, Paul John and Bruno Mechelke, Mrs. Kielbacke and even the
policeman Schierke--all are superbly alive, vigorous and racy in speech