# Man — Woman, Prelude

*Image not included in the drama*

MAN: So you want to leave me to my fate again tonight,  
To run off to your company,  
Which robs me and the children of you.  
Stealing you away from me and the children.

WOMAN: You've told me so many times  
That you've come to terms with it.

MAN: But every time it hurts me  
All over again,  
When I have to watch  
How stranger and stranger you become  
To everything that makes my life worth living.

WOMAN: You have often spoken differently about that too.

MAN: The lover admits  
What he cannot change,  
Without causing the beloved deep hurt.

WOMAN: It is possible for you to admit  
What seems impossible for me  
To concede.

MAN: But it is incomprehensible to me  
How you can demand  
That what has been heard a hundred times  
Now also be seen as a puppet show.

WOMAN: What is essential to life becomes meaningful In every new way.

MAN: Essential to life — but also  
alienating from life.

WOMAN: Shall I now repeat to you for the hundredth time  
How inappropriate  
This alienation from life is.  
I once lacked  
From everything your educational will  
Turned toward women,  
The courage to raise children.  
You yourself have long understood  
That I owe not only the courage  
To this way of thinking,  
But also insight and strength.  
And since you have seen the fruits of my path,  
You could never completely deny  
Its significance to me.  
Nevertheless, you have always shown yourself reluctant  
To take the matter seriously.

MAN: You can see from this that I am not blind.  
Just understand that my work  
Does not fit with incomprehensible ideas.

WOMAN: I never pressured you  
To come with me.

MAN: It would hardly have helped.  
For even if curiosity  
Had sometimes driven me,  
The curse of ridicule  
Would always have held me back.

WOMAN: In everything else, you are  
A man with a heart of gold.  
Just tell me, is it really just women's logic  
That those who find ridiculous  
What they so clearly see as valuable in life  
Find ridiculous  
What they so clearly see  
As worth living for?

MAN: I only know that the best of our time  
Agree on this judgment.  
Public opinion  
Looks on these activities with pity,  
If it does not consider them dangerous.

WOMAN: Public opinion  
Is quick to pass judgment  
Even when it is miles away  
From understanding a matter.

MAN: Let's not argue about that.  
I must not resist the public,  
If I do not want to undermine my position.

WOMAN: It is too sad that it has to be this way.

MAN: Just today I read again,  
On what weak foundations  
Everything that is said stands.

WOMAN: The writer's knowledge  
Will probably be as deep this time  
As everything else that came before my eyes.

MAN: May be; but the matter is different,  
When the ideas are taken into consideration.  
And even more so when  
The machinery plays out theatrically.  
Then even taste is spoiled.  
What may come of  
From such a performance?  
In the best case  
Symbols that, like straw dolls,  
Have been hung with figments of the imagination;  
Allegories for so-called profound ideas.  
It bothers me that you  
Resist me even in these matters.  
How often have I asked you  
To go with me,  
When I wanted to relax  
From the day's hustle and bustle  
With my wife and see the lively dramas

WOMAN: You know, I did it once.  
I always found myself  
Even in nothingness,  
From which you always said,  
Something is going on there.  
I also found that the stage  
Reflects life in its fullness;  
But unfortunately, this full life is so empty.  
And should characters on stage  
Captivate me, the puppets are in life?  
I bore myself with that new art,  
That wants to burst with life.  
It is either without substance,  
Because it must be,  
If it truthfully reflects the present.  
Or it is a critique of life,  
Then it is fruitless,  
Because no hunger is satisfied,  
No tears are dried,  
When starving people  
And tear-filled faces  
Are shown on stage.

MAN: Isn't that precisely  
The fruit of the new art,  
That it does not flee  
Into the ideal world of dreams,  
But reflects the struggles  
Of everyday life?

WOMAN: You speak like a theater critic;  
It's clear you read between the lines.

MAN: I have found little good  
In your favorite ideas.

WOMAN: That makes me happy,  
Because once these ideas  
Are ripe to be served up,  
Then they must force themselves  
Into the trivial measure of good wit  
And witty contemporaries.

MAN: Woman, it's time for your performance.  
My time has come too.  
I didn't tell you before,  
That today of all days,  
Our first stage  
Is attempting  
A truly social drama.