Adorno

164 Part II: A Change of Scene

The girls sleep in the bushes,

A beggar hurries to the gate,

I wake them up in a flash,

Sleep in gentle ease.^106

The song of Muff Potter, who is about to be hanged, contains elements
that are as alien to Mark Twain’s original story as the Frankfurt dialect
that, according to the libretto, some of the characters are supposed to
speak. For this ‘Song of the Innocent’, Adorno has adapted lines from
Wilhelm Taubert’s ‘Lullaby’, a song which he once told Walter Benjamin
was his favourite because of its use of the beggar motif.^107
Muff Potter’s song cuts the boys to the quick, since they know he is
innocent. For this reason they do not just give him moral support. Tom
Sawyer also resolves to speak up in the court hearings.
Scene 4 takes place on Jackson Island in the Mississippi. The friends
fled there after Potter’s release in order to escape the revenge of the
malevolent Indian Joe. The highpoints of the scene include Tom’s ‘Song
about Dying Needlessly’, and also the antiphonal songs in the first finale
when the runaways decide to return home to escape the dangers of a
life of adventure.

Tom We must go back

We’re out of luck

There are no adventures here

In Hannibal we are freer

You’ve heard it all before

We must go back once more.^108

Scene 5 is set in the notorious haunted house in Hannibal where
Huck and Tom are looking for treasure. Once again, they see Indian
Joe planning further dark deeds. He has escaped punishment and is
now the owner of some treasure he has found near the fireplace of the
abandoned house. He is just about to hide it in a nearby cave when, in
scene 6, the three main characters suddenly find themselves face to face.
The powerfully built Indian Joe hurls himself at Tom, but slips and falls
to his death. They find themselves in utter darkness, but finally see a
chink of light which enables them to escape to freedom. In the final
scene Tom and Huck are welcomed back into respectable Hannibal
society and acknowledged as the legitimate owners of the treasure.
Whereas Tom reluctantly accepts his new role as an adult, Huck escapes
from the constraints of a regular life.
The theme of the second finale at the end of the Singspiel – and
at the same time the leitmotif of the entire piece – is futility. Huck’s
refusal to fit in is as great a delusion as Tom’s decision to abandon
his childhood dreams of a life of adventure in favour of bourgeois
security.