VERONIKA
What would you, darling, with the Lonely Man?
What do you wait to see?
JAN
[shyly]
To see Him smile.
[The women murmur. The PIPER comes down
further to speak to VERONIKA.
PIPER
You are some foreign woman. Are you not?
Never from Hamelin!
VERONIKA
No.
AXEL'S WIFE
[to her child]
Then run along.
And ask the Piper if he'll play again
The tune that charmed the rats.
ANOTHER
They might come back!
OLD URSULA
[calling from her window]
Piper! I want the tune that charmed the rats!
If they come back, I'll have my grandson play it.
PIPER
I pipe but for the children.
ILSE
[dropping her doll and picking it up]
Oh, do pipe
Something for Fridolin!
HANSEL
Oh, pipe at me!
Now I'm a mouse! I'll eat you up! Rr--rr!--
CHILDREN
Oh, pipe! Oh, play! Oh, play and make us dance!
Oh, play, and make us run away from school!
PIPER
Why, what are these?
CHILDREN
[scampering round him]
We're mice, we're mice, we're mice! . . .
We're mice, we're mice! We'll eat up everything!
MARTIN'S WIFE
[calling]
'T is church-time. La, what will the neighbors say?
ILSE
[Waving her doll]
Oh, please do play something for Fridolin!
AXEL'S WIFE
Do hear the child. She's quite the little mother!
PIPER
A little mother? Ugh! How horrible.
That fairy thing, that princess,--no, that Child!
A little mother?
[To her]
Drop the ugly thing!
MARTIN'S WIFE
Now, on my word! and what's amiss with mothers?
Are mothers horrible?
[The PIPER is struck with painful memories.
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