How can you save the honour of your situation in life, if the honour of your heart be lost, and that must be lost among these people?--You have removed honest Gernau, because he acts up to his duty.--Your sister weeps bitterly,--the town despises you;--I have not yet frowned on you. and will not do so now, because I pity you. But I will leave this town, and take shelter with honest Gernau, who is to be my son-in-law. (P. Coun: You will leave this town?) I do not wish it. I shall, with tears, leave my timber-yard and the work which hitherto I have carried on with pleasure and success. But as there is no remedy to save you from destruction, I must go. I cannot witness it. (P. Coun: Is it my fault, if--) Your faults are many and great; your native town knows them, and despises you. I cannot see you lowered thus, Jack. It has not been in my power to make a great man of you, but I have educated you to be an honest man. I have taken care of the tree, while young, and now it is grown up, one branch decays after the other. And if it must be so, that no green sprig shall henceforth flourish, then I will turn my eyes from it, visit it no more, nor live on the spot where the withered stem, that I am so fond of, shall fall.

Clarenbach Monologue from The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts

Rehearse Clarenbach's monologue