Collected Plays, Volume 4 (Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry & Prose) 8 Read online

PAPA roaring: Take cover! It’s only her arm.

  He runs out and drags Mme Cabet away, into the house. Babette, stunned, collects up the pan and the spoon. Halfway to the house she also falls.

  GENEVIÈVE restraining Jean: Jean, you mustn’t go.

  JEAN: But she isn’t badly hit.

  GENEVIÈVE: Yes, she is.

  JEAN: She isn’t.

  FRANÇOIS: They’re coming. Fire! He fires.

  JEAN back at the barricade, he fires too: You swine! You swine! You swine!

  One of the civilians runs away. Papa comes back. Regular soldiers advance from the street on the left, they kneel and fire. François falls. The salvo has torn down the banner. Jean points to it and falls. Geneviève takes the red flag from the barricade and withdraws with it into the corner where Papa and the cuirassier are firing. The cuirassier falls. Geneviève is hit.

  GENEVIÈVE: Long live the … She falls.

  Mme Cabet drags herself out of the house and sees those who have fallen. Papa and the remaining civilian carry on firing. From all the surrounding streets regular soldiers advance with fixed bayonets against the barricade.

  14

  From the walls of Versailles the bourgeoisie watch the end of the Commune through lorgnettes and opera glasses.

  BOURGEOISE: My only concern is lest they escape towards Saint-Ouen.

  GENTLEMAN: No fear of that, madame. We signed an agreement two days ago with the Crown Prince of Saxony. The Germans won’t let anyone escape. Where is the picnic basket, Emilie?

  ANOTHER GENTLEMAN: What a noble spectacle! The fires, the mathematical movements of the troops, the boulevards! Now we appreciate the genius of Haussmann in providing Paris with boulevards. There was some discussion as to whether they contribute to the beautifying of the capital. But there can be no doubt now that at the very least they have contributed to its pacification.

  Huge explosion. The company applauds.

  VOICES: That was the Mairie de Montmartre, an especially pernicious den.

  DUCHESS: The glasses, Annette. Looks through the opera glasses. Splendid!

  LADY NEXT TO HER: If only the poor Archbishop had lived to witness this! It was a little unkind of Him not to swap His Eminence for that Blanqui fellow.

  DUCHESS: Nonsense, my dear. He explained it perfectly, with Latin clarity. That worshipper of violence Blanqui was worth a whole army corps to the rabble and the murder of the Archbishop, God have mercy on his soul, was worth two army corps to us. Oh, here He comes himself.

  Enter Thiers accompanied by an adjutant, Guy Suitry. The company applauds him, he smiles and bows.

  DUCHESS softly: Monsieur Thiers, this will make you immortal. You have given back Paris to her true mistress, to France.

  THIERS: France, mesdames et messieurs … France is you.

  Final chorus.

  Turandot or The Whitewashers’ Congress

  Translator: TOM KUHN

  Characters:

  The Emperor of China • Turandot, his daughter • Yao Yel, his brother • The Dowager Empress • Her doctor • A cleaner • The Prime Minister • The Court Tui • The Minister for War • Xi Wei, Chairman of the Association of Tuis • Ke Lei, Dean of the Imperial University • Munka Du • His mother • His two sisters • His secretary • His portrait artist • Nu Shan, Secretary to Xi Wei • Wen, another Tui • Wang, Secretary of the Tui Academy • Gu, Ka Mü, Mo Si and Shi Ka • A Sha Sen, an old peasant • Er Fei, his grandson • A clerk • A waiter • Gogher Gogh, a bandit • Ma Gogh, his mother • Two bodyguards • Turandot’s two maidservants • Two Union Tuis • The delegate of the Clothesmakers • The delegate of the Clothesless • A teacher • Si Fu, a pupil • Pupils • A scribe • Shi Me, a young Tui • Meh Nei, leader of a group of young Tuis • The geographer Pauder Mel • An unknown head on the city wall • The hangman • The Tui for General Education • The Tui for Economics • The Tui for Medicine • The Tui for Love-Life • A street-seller • Customers • Qiung, Su and Yao, washerwomen • A swordsmith • Woman at the window • Tuis • Armed men • Bandits • Officers • Soldiers • Members of the Clothesless

  The Tuis are characterised by small hats after the style of Tibetan or European priests. The hats differ according to the importance of the Tui, more or less decorative, and of different colours.

  1

  IN THE IMPERIAL PALACE

  A cleaner is scrubbing the floor. The Emperor sweeps in, followed by the Court Tui and the Prime Minister, both in Tui-hats.

  EMPEROR: I’m beside myself. It’s bad enough to have to hear how the state is being brought to the edge of ruin by mismanagement and corruption. But then to cancel my second breakfast pipe! That’s too much! I’m the Emperor of China, I don’t see why I should put up with it.

  PRIME MINISTER: Your heart, Your Majesty! It was on account of your heart!

  EMPEROR: My heart! If my heart is suffering, then it’s because people don’t take me seriously. Last week they took away two hundred of my racehorses - am I not to go riding any more? I was silent then…

  PRIME MINISTER: Silent!

  EMPEROR: Well, as near as dammit silent. And today I discover that my second pipe has been cancelled. My heart! The revenues are slipping away! They left it to me to choose between the silk monopoly and the cotton monopoly. I was all for silk. But they said, take the cotton. Nobody I know wears cotton, they all wear silk. But all right, I thought, maybe the common people wear cotton, all right, I’ll wager on the people. And now I’m bankrupt! To his brother, Yao Yel, who has just entered: Yao Yel, I’m abdicating.

  YAO YEL: And why, pray, this time?

  COURT TUI: China without its Emperor!

  PRIME MINISTER: Unthinkable! We’ll have to adjust the revenue accounts.

  EMPEROR: They shouldn’t cancel my morning pipe, if they value me even a little bit.

  CLEANER to whom the Court Tui has been whispering: Emperor Sir, you mustn’t leave us. She kneels down, in response to a gesture from the Court Tui. A simple woman of the people, I beg you to continue to bear the burden of the crown.

  EMPEROR: I’m moved, but I can’t do it, my good woman. I simply can’t afford to be Emperor. To Yao Yel: And you’re to blame, don’t contradict me. If I hadn’t agreed to transfer the monopoly to you …

  PRIME MINISTER with a glance at the cleaner: Your Majesty formally abjured the monopoly, so that no one could maintain…

  COURT TUI: … that His Majesty had anything to do with business.

  EMPEROR: Exactly! So that someone could make a decent profit. And are we making a profit? I demand to see the accounts.

  YAO YEL angrily: I’ve heard enough of this. He pulls the cleaner forward. What did you pay for the headscarf?

  CLEANER: Ten yen.

  YAO YEL: When? When did you buy it?

  CLEANER: Three years ago.

  YAO YEL to the Emperor: And do you know what it would cost now? Four yen.

  EMPEROR feels the scarf, interested: This is cotton?

  PRIME MINISTER: Cotton, Your Majesty.

  EMPEROR darkly: And why do they sell it so cheaply these days?

  PRIME MINISTER: Majesty, you’d better know the truth. We’ve just had one of the most awful years in the history of China. The harvest …

  EMPEROR: So what about the harvest? Has the weather been bad?

  PRIME MINISTER: It’s been very good!

  EMPEROR: So were the peasants lazy?

  PRIME MINISTER: They worked very hard!

  EMPEROR: So what is wrong with the harvest?

  PRIME MINISTER: It’s massive! That’s the misfortune! There’s too much of everything, so nothing’s worth anything any more!

  EMPEROR: Do you mean to say, I’ve got too much cotton to get a decent price for it? - Well then, just get rid of it!

  PRIME MINISTER: But, Your Majesty, public opinion!

  EMPEROR: What? You don’t mean to tell me that you, in your great big Tui-hat, are fearful of public opinion? You’d better prepare the text of my abdicat
ion! Exits.

  PRIME MINISTER: Dear God!

  EMPEROR returning: And I refuse to permit anyone, this time, to do anything which might damage my public standing. Finally exits.

  PRIME MINISTER: Make me an omelette, but don’t break the eggs! Friends, I grew up in the best Tui academy in the country, I’m familiar with all the Tuistic literature, for thirty years I’ve debated with the leading Tuis every idea which might save China. My friends, there is no solution.

  THE DOWAGER enters, carrying a small tea service: Now here’s a pretty cup of tea. Where’s my son?

  YAO YEL: Gone. Have they let you … She hurries to the door. It’s dreadful the way the doctors keep letting her escape. The tea is sure to be poisoned again.

  COURT TUI: The doctors are always taken in, she mostly seems so sensible.

  YAO YEL sighing: Sometimes I understand her all too well.

  THE DOWAGER has turned back. To Yao Yel: You have some at least.

  YAO YEL: Mama, you’re impossible.

  The Dowager makes to leave, disappointed. A doctor rushes in.

  DOCTOR: Please, give me the cup, Your Majesty.

  He takes it from her. Exit both.

  PRIME MINISTER: I give China two years, at most.

  2

  THE TUIS’ TEAHOUSE

  Tuis are sitting at small tables, reading and playing board-games. Boards with notices: ‘Two minor formulations, three yen’, ‘Opinions changed. They’ll seem like new’, ‘Mo Si, king of excuse-makers’, ‘You want to bargain? We’ve got the arguments’, ‘Why you’re innocent – Nu Shan reveals all’, ‘Whatever you say - it’s the way you say it’. Potential clients, mostly from the country, study the notices.

  MO SI: I’d better hurry, I’ve got some hard wording to finish today. For a cashier in the city bank. About the inflation.

  KA MÜ: I’m taking a day off today. Yesterday I sold a cat-gut dealer an opinion about atonal music.

  MO SI: For or against?

  KA MÜ: Against. I don’t just sell opinions off the peg, opinions that’ll do for anyone. I only sell tailored stuff. My clients don’t want to express an opinion that anyone might have. But I hear your notions for the little man are also selling well, Shi Ka?

  SHI KA: Indeed, I’ve introduced a purchase scheme. You know how I thought of it? The wife of one of my clients was set on getting a baking tray. He consulted me for an excuse. She told him she could get the baking tray by instalments, and he wanted to know if he could have the excuse by instalments too. It might have come cheaper to buy her the tray. Hard times. What’s this?

  A waiter sets up a notice: ‘No service for customers in rags. By order.’ A Tui in rags leaves with dignity. Groans.

  A TUI: The price of clothes the way it is!

  ANOTHER TUI: Soon the little folk won’t be able to afford opinions!

  QUIET VOICE: Long live Kai Ho.

  Laughter.

  FIRST TUI: No politics in here, please.

  SECOND TUI: So no tea prices here either.

  FIRST TUI: Do you really suppose Mr Kai Ho, seditious agitator that he is, can achieve what the greatest of the Tuis have failed to achieve, to make China a land fit to live in?

  SECOND TUI: Yes.

  General hilarity.

  BUXOM CUSTOMER: What would you charge for a little formulation, about an affair?

  MO SI: Up to four yen, depending …

  She sits down next to him. Enter Turandot with the Court Tui. She is not recognised.

  TURANDOT: So this is one of the Tuis’ most famous teahouses!

  COURT TUI: Only for the most lowly, Imperial Majesty. The more important, who maintain the law, write the books, educate our young, in short, those who lead humanity, according to their ideals, from their tribunes, pulpits and professorial chairs, they don’t come here. Nonetheless, even these lesser Tuis do their best to lend intellectual support to the population, in all its dealings.

  TURANDOT: By telling people what they should do?

  COURT TUI: More by telling them what they should say. Why not try it?

  TURANDOT lazily: So why am I innocent?

  NU SHAN: Of what? Ah yes. He laughs loudly. Ten yen. He takes the payment. Would you demand your ten yen back, Madam, if I were to confess that I don’t know why you’re innocent, but that you may nonetheless always maintain that you are innocent?

  TURANDOT lazily: I’m a sensual creature. Hui, explain to the man what my weakness is.

  COURT TUI: Here?

  TURANDOT: Absolutely.

  COURT TUI: The particular personality, of whom we are speaking, simply cannot resist intellectual qualities. A certain kind of elegant formulation arouses her.

  TURANDOT: Physically.

  COURT TUI: New ways of presenting …

  TURANDOT: … problems …

  COURT TUI: … completely enslave her.

  TURANDOT: Sexually. - Tell him about the blood!

  COURT TUI: The blood rushes to her head at the sight of a domed forehead, an eloquent gesture, at the sound of a well-turned…

  TURANDOT: … sentence.

  A WAITER passes between the tables calling out: Whitewasher needed for the La Me department store!

  Three This rush off backstage.

  A TUI at the next table: There’s only one problem here that’s really hard: who’s going to pay for the tea?

  Gogher Gogh enters, accompanied by a bodyguard who waits at the door.

  TURANDOT: Who’s that handsome fellow?

  COURT TUI: An infamous bandit called Gogher Gogh.

  NU SHAN: Not so loud, sir. He likes to call himself a Tui. Although he’s failed our lowest grade exam twice … You’ll hear, he’s still studying.

  GOGHER GOGH has joined the Tui with the sign, ‘Two minor formulations, three yen’: Here’s your three yen, now listen. I needed money for my studies.

  WEN: You’ll never get through the exam.

  GOGHER GOGH: You mind your own business. In any case, I’ve finished with school, it’s a load of nonsense. But, like I said, I had to have money.

  TURANDOT: Why would a bandit want to become a Tui?

  NU SHAN: He only became a bandit in order to become a Tui.

  TURANDOT: He caught my eye right away.

  GOGHER GOGH: For the first exam I took the money from the company till.

  WEN bored: Borrowed.

  GOGHER GOGH: Borrowed. I could only get the money the second time by taking the company’s machine-guns and all the ammunition to a pawnbroker.

  WEN: To be cleaned. If you need any more you’ll have to pay again.

  Gogher Gogh fumbles in his pockets for coins.

  TURANDOT: Is life so much easier as a Tui, rather than as a bandit?

  NU SHAN: There’s not so much difference. But he doesn’t really live off banditry. Not since the inflation started anyway. He and his gang make their living from protecting the laundries in the suburbs.

  TURANDOT: Against what?

  NU SHAN: Against attacks.

  TURANDOT: By whom?

  NU SHAN: By his gang. You see: as long as they pay, they don’t get attacked.

  COURT TUI cynically: Just like the state. Pay your taxes, and you get no trouble from the police.

  TURANDOT enamoured: Hui! Not in public! Everyone can see us!

  GOGHER GOGH: Three yen. I just want one more formulation. How do I explain it to my people?

  WEN pointing to the bodyguard: You mean people like him over there? Let me think about that.

  Sen, a peasant with a white beard, enters with a boy. The Tui Gu leads him to Nu Shan’s table.

  GU to the whole assembly: It’s an outrage! This man is from the province of Szechwan. He’s been on the road for two months with a small handcart laden with cotton. This morning he was on his way to sell the cotton at Threefinger Market, when they confiscated it!

  General protestations.

  WEN: And there’s such a shortage of cotton, you can pay fifty yen for a neckerchief!

  ANOTHE
R TUI: The mills have long since shut down. For lack of cotton. The Union of Clothesmakers has been threatening trouble if the government won’t say where all the cotton has gone.

  WEN: Peking is in rags.

  GU: Allow me. He sits down with the old man, the boy remains standing behind him. What brought you to Peking?

  SEN: My name is Sen. This is Er Fei. I’ve come about studying.

  GU: The young man wishes to study?

  SEN: No, I wish to study. He has time enough. First of all he can become a sandal-maker. But for myself, I think I’m sufficiently mature, sirs. For fifty years I’ve dreamt of joining the great brotherhood who call themselves the Tuis – after the initial letters of Tellect-Uell-In. It is in accordance with their great thoughts that the whole state is governed. They lead mankind.

  GU: They most certainly do. And with the profit from the cotton you intended …

  SEN: To attend a Tui school.

  GU stands up: Gentlemen! I’ve just learnt that this old man here, who’s had his cotton confiscated by the organs of the state, was intending to use the profit to attend a Tui school! He thirsts after learning, and the state robs him! I have a proposition: let all of us here present adopt the cause of our future colleague.

  NU SHAN: There’s no point! Everything to do with cotton is determined by the Emperor.

  Turandot, responding to a gesture from the Court Tui, gets up and leaves with him.

  A TUI: Not by the Emperor! The Emperor’s brother!

  Laughter.

  NU SHAN: There’s nothing doing, old man.

  A waiter, to whom the Court Tui has whispered something in the doorway, comes up to Sen’s table and speaks quietly in his ear.

  GU: Gentlemen, something extraordinary has just happened. A benefactress, who would like to remain anonymous, has offered Mr Sen the price his cotton would have fetched on the market. Let’s join Mr Sen and celebrate this unexpected opportunity to join our brotherhood!

  Several of the Tuis surround Sen and congratulate him.

  GOGHER GOGH: You’ve thought about it long enough. What should I say to my firm?

  WEN gives him his three yen back: I don’t know.