Bertolt Brecht: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder 1 Read online

BAAL: A gin!

  FARMERS: My bull is the best! Tomorrow evening, you said? They separate. – Are you staying the night here?

  BAAL: Yes, in a bed.

  The farmers go.

  EKART: What are you trying to do? Have you gone mad?

  BAAL: Wasn’t it wonderful, the way they gawped and gaped, and then they got the idea and began to add up.

  EKART: It brought in a few gins! But now we’d better get out quickly.

  BAAL: Go now? Are you mad?

  EKART: You’re crazy! Think of the bulls!

  BAAL: And just why did I jockey the boys?

  EKART: Well – for the drinks?

  BAAL: Wake up! I wanted to give you a treat, Ekart. He opens the window behind him. It grows dark. He sits down again.

  EKART: You’re drunk on six gins. You should be ashamed.

  BAAL: It’s going to be tremendous. I love these simple people. You’re going to see an impressive sight, Ekart. Your health!

  EKART: You love pretending to be more naive than you are. Those poor fellows will beat me up – and you.

  BAAL: It’ll be part of their education. I’m thinking about them now on this warm evening with a certain tenderness. They come, in their own simple way, to swindle, and that pleases me.

  EKART: All right, the bulls or me! I’m going, before the landlord catches on.

  BAAL: The evening is so warm. Stay another hour. Then I’ll go with you. You know I love you. One can even smell the dung on the fields from here. Do you think the landlord would stand the promoters of the bull business another gin?

  EKART: There’s someone coming!

  PARSON enters: Good evening! Are you the man with the bulls?

  BAAL: I am.

  PARSON: What is the object of this hoax?

  BAAL: Because we have nothing else in the world! How strong the smell of the hay is! Is it always like this in the evenings?

  D

  PARSON: Your world seems to be very impoverished, my friend.

  BAAL: My heaven is full of trees and naked bodies.

  PARSON: Don’t talk like that. The world isn’t a circus for your entertainment.

  BAAL: What is the world, then?

  PARSON: Just clear out. I’m a very good-natured person, you know. I don’t want to make things difficult for you. I’ve dealt with the matter.

  BAAL: The man of God has no sense of humour, Ekart.

  PARSON: Don’t you realize how childish your plan was? To Ekart: What does your friend want?

  BAAL leaning back: In the evening when it gets dark – of course, it has to be evening and of course the sky must be cloudy – when the air is warm and the wind gentle, the bulls come. They come trotting from every direction, an impressive sight. And the poor farmers stand in the middle and don’t know what to do with the bulls, and they’ve miscalculated: all they get is an impressive sight. I like people who miscalculate. And where else can you see so many animals together?

  PARSON: And just for this you wanted to mobilize seven villages?

  BAAL: What are seven villages compared with an impressive sight?

  PARSON: Now I understand. You’re just a poor fellow. With a particular liking for bulls, I suppose?

  BAAL: Come, Ekart, he’s spoilt it all. Christians don’t love animals any more.

  PARSON laughs, then seriously: I can’t agree with you there. Be off now, and don’t make yourselves conspicuous. I think I’m rendering you a considerable service.

  BAAL: Let’s go, Ekart. You’ve missed your treat, brother. He slowly leaves with Ekart.

  PARSON: Good evening! I’ll settle the gentlemen’s bill.

  LANDLORD behind the table: Eleven gins, your reverence.

  Trees in the Evening

  Six or seven woodcutters are sitting on the ground leaning against a tree, among them Baal. A corpse in the grass.

  FIRST WOODCUTTER: It was an oak tree. It didn’t kill him at once. He suffered.

  SECOND WOODCUTTER: Only this morning he said the weather seemed to be getting better. This is how he liked it, green and a bit of rain. And the wood not too dry.

  THIRD WOODCUTTER: He was a good lad, Teddy. He used to keep a small shop somewhere. In the old days. Used to be as fat as a priest. He ruined his business on account of a woman, and he came up here. Lost a bit of his paunch every year.

  ANOTHER WOODCUTTER: Didn’t he ever say anything about the woman?

  THIRD WOODCUTTER: No. And I don’t know that he wanted to go back. He saved quite a bit, but maybe that was because he was abstemious. Nobody tells the truth up here. It’s better that way.

  A WOODCUTTER: Last week he said he was going north this winter. It seems he had a cabin somewhere up there. Didn’t he tell you where, elephant? To Baal: You were talking about it, weren’t you?

  BAAL: Leave me alone. I don’t know anything.

  THE PREVIOUS ONE: You wouldn’t be thinking of moving in yourself, eh?

  SECOND WOODCUTTER: You can’t trust that one. Remember how he put our boots in the water that night, so we couldn’t go to the forest the next day. Only because he was lazy as usual.

  ANOTHER WOODCUTTER: He does nothing for his money.

  BAAL: It’s not a day for wrangling. Can’t you spare a thought for poor Teddy?

  A WOODCUTTER: Where were you when he packed in?

  Baal gets up, sways over the grass to Teddy. He sits there.

  THE PREVIOUS ONE: Look, he can’t walk straight!

  ANOTHER: Leave him alone! The elephant had a shock!

  THE THIRD: Can’t you keep it quiet just for today while he’s lying there.

  THE OTHER: What are you doing to Teddy, elephant?

  BAAL by the corpse: Teddy is at peace, and we are the opposite. Both are good. The sky is black. The trees shudder. Somewhere clouds gather. That is the setting. One eats. After sleep one wakes. Not him. Us. And that’s doubly good.

  THE OTHER: What did you say the sky was like?

  BAAL: The sky is black.

  THE OTHER: You’re not all there. The good ones always cop it first.

  BAAL: How right you are, my dear chap!

  A WOODCUTTER: It couldn’t happen to Baal. He’s never around where there’s work.

  BAAL: But Teddy, he was a hard worker. Teddy was generous. Teddy was friendly. One thing’s certain: Teddy was.

  THE SECOND: Wonder where he is now?

  BAAL points to the dead man: There he is.

  THE THIRD: I always get the feeling that the wind is made of dead souls, especially on spring evenings. But I get the feeling in autumn too.

  BAAL: And in summer, in the sun, over the cornfields.

  THE THIRD: That doesn’t fit. It has to be dark.

  BAAL: It has to be dark, Teddy.

  Silence.

  FOURTH WOODCUTTER: What are we going to do with him?

  THE THIRD: He’s got nobody who wants him.

  THE OTHER: He was just on his own in the world.

  A WOODCUTTER: What about his things?

  THE THIRD: There isn’t much. He carried his money off somewhere, to a bank. It’ll stay there even if he doesn’t turn up. Got any idea, Baal?

  BAAL: He doesn’t stink yet.

  A WOODCUTTER: I’ve just had a good idea.

  THE OTHER: Out with it!

  THE MAN WITH THE IDEA: The elephant’s not the only one with ideas, mate. What about drinking Teddy’s good health?

  BAAL: That’s indecent, Bergmeier.

  THE OTHERS: Rot, indecent. What shall we drink? Water? What a lousy idea!

  THE MAN WITH THE IDEA: Gin!

  BAAL: I vote in favour. Gin is decent. Whose gin?

  THE MAN WITH THE IDEA: Teddy’s gin.

  THE OTHERS: Teddy’s! – Sounds all right. – Teddy’s ration! – Teddy was careful. – Not a bad idea for an idiot.

  THE MAN WITH THE IDEA: A brainwave, what! Something for you blockheads! Teddy’s gin at Teddy’s funeral! Cheap and fitting! Anybody made a speech yet? Isn’t that the proper thing to do?
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  BAAL: I did.

  SOME: When?

  BAAL: Earlier. Before you began to talk rubbish. It began with ‘Teddy is at peace’… You don’t notice anything until it’s over.

  THE OTHERS: Blockhead! Let’s get the gin!

  BAAL: It’s a disgrace!

  THE OTHERS: Oho! – Why, you big elephant.

  BAAL: It’s Teddy’s property. The bottles must not be opened. Teddy’s got a wife and five poor orphans.

  A WOODCUTTER: Four! Four orphans!

  ANOTHER: It’s all coming out now.

  BAAL: Do you want to drink the gin that belongs to Teddy’s five poor orphans? Is that Christian?

  THE PREVIOUS ONE: Four! Four orphans!

  BAAL: Taking gin out of the mouths of Teddy’s four orphans.

  A WOODCUTTER: Teddy hasn’t any family at all.

  BAAL: But orphans, my friend, orphans.

  ANOTHER: Do you think these orphans the elephant keeps kidding you about are going to drink Teddy’s gin? All right, it’s Teddy’s property …

  BAAL interrupts: It was …

  THE OTHER: What are you getting at?

  A WOODCUTTER: He’s jabbering. He’s not all there.

  THE OTHER: As I said, it was Teddy’s property and so we’ll pay for it. In cash. That’ll fix the orphans.

  EVERYBODY: A good suggestion. So much for the elephant. He must be mad, not to want any gin. Let’s leave him and get Teddy’s drink!

  BAAL calls after them: Come back, you bloody scavengers! To Teddy: Poor Teddy! And the trees are pretty strong today and the air is good and soft, and I feel fortified within. Poor Teddy, don’t you feel a tickle? You’re through, I’m telling you, soon you’ll stink, and everything will go on as before, the wind will blow, and I know where your cabin is, and your property will be taken over by the living, and you abandoned it and only wanted peace. Your body wasn’t so bad, Teddy, it isn’t so bad now, only a little damaged on one side and the legs … it would have finished you with women, you can’t put that on top of a woman. He lifts the dead man’s leg. With a bit more luck you could have gone on living, though, in that body, but your soul was too bloody choosy, the building was condemned, and the rats left the sinking ship. You were just a victim of your own habits, Teddy.

  THE OTHERS returning: Hey, elephant! You’re in for it! Where’s the gin Teddy kept under his old bed? – Where were you when we were looking after Teddy? Teddy wasn’t even dead then. – Where were you then, you son of a bitch, robbing the dead, protecting Teddy’s poor orphans, eh?

  BAAL: You’ve got no proof, my friends!

  THE OTHERS: Where’s the gin, then? In your esteemed opinion, did the bottle drink it? – This is a serious matter, old chap! – Stand up, you, get up! Walk in a straight line and then try and tell us it’s the shock, it’s because you’re completely rotten, body and soul, you swine! – Get him on his legs! Liven him up, boys. Besmirching Teddy’s poor old name! They put Baal on his feet.

  BAAL: Bastards! Don’t trample on poor Teddy! He sits down and takes the arm of the corpse under his arm. If you do anything to me, Teddy’ll fall flat on his face. Is that piety? Anything I do will be in self-defence. There are seven of you, seven, and sober. And I’m on my own and drunk. Is that right, is that honourable? Seven against one! Calm down! Teddy’s calmed down.

  SOME sad and indignant: Nothing’s sacred to him. – God forgive his drunken soul! – He’s the blackest sinner on God’s earth.

  BAAL: Sit down, I don’t like this preacher’s cant. There are some with brains and some without. It makes for a better division of labour. Now you’ve seen for yourselves. I work with my brains. He smokes. You’ve always been too irreverent, friends! And what effect would it have if you sank that good gin? Me, I make discoveries, let me say. I was telling Teddy some most important things. He takes papers from Teddy’s jacket and looks at them. But you had to run after that wretched gin. Sit down. Look at the sky growing dark between the trees. Is that nothing? There’s no religion in your blood!

  A Hut

  You can hear the rain. Baal. Ekart.

  BAAL: This is the winter sleep of white bodies in the black mud.

  EKART: You still haven’t been to fetch the meat?

  BAAL: You’re working on your mass, I suppose?

  EKART: Why worry about my mass? Worry about your woman! Where have you driven her to this time, in the rain?

  BAAL: She runs after us like a mad woman and hangs round my neck.

  EKART: You’re sinking lower and lower.

  BAAL: I’m too heavy.

  EKART: You’re not reckoning to peg out, I suppose?

  BAAL: I’ll fight it to the last ditch. I’ll live without a skin. I’ll retreat into my toes. I’ll fall like a bull. On the grass, where it’s softest. I’ll swallow death and know nothing.

  EKART: You’ve got fatter while we’ve been lying here.

  BAAL putting his right hand under his left armpit: My shirt has got bigger. The dirtier it gets the bigger it gets. There’s room for someone else, but no one fat. What are you lolling about for, you lazy bag of bones?

  EKART: There’s a kind of sky in my head, very green and vast, where my thoughts drift like featherweight clouds in the wind. They’re completely undecided in their course. All that’s inside me.

  BAAL: It’s delirium. You’re an alcoholic. You see, it gets you in the end.

  EKART: When I’m delirious I can feel it by my face.

  BAAL: Your face has room for the four winds. Concave! He looks at him. You haven’t a face. You’re nothing. You’re transparent.

  EKART: I’m growing more and more mathematical.

  BAAL: Nobody knows your history. Why don’t you ever talk about yourself?

  EKART: I shan’t ever have one. Who’s that outside?

  BAAL: You’ve got a good ear! There’s something in you that you hide. You’re a bad man, like me, a devil. But one day you’ll see rats. Then you’ll be a good man again.

  Sophie at the door.

  EKART: Is that you, Sophie?

  BAAL: What do you want this time?

  SOPHIE: May I come in now, Baal?

  A Plain. Sky

  Evening. Baal, Ekart, Sophie.

  SOPHIE: My knees are giving way. Why are you running like a mad man?

  BAAL: Because you’re hanging round my neck like a millstone.

  EKART: How can you treat her like this? You made her pregnant.

  SOPHIE: I wanted it, Ekart.

  BAAL: She wanted it, and now she’s hanging round my neck.

  EKART: You behave like an animal! Sit down, Sophie.

  SOPHIE sits down heavily: Let him go.

  EKART: If you throw her out I’ll stay with her.

  BAAL: She won’t stay with you. But you’d desert me!

  Because of her? That’s like you.

  EKART: Twice you took my place in bed. You didn’t want my women. They left you cold, but you stole them from me although I loved them.

  BAAL: Because you loved them. Twice I defiled corpses to keep you clean. I need that. God knows, it gave me no pleasure.

  EKART to Sophie: Are you still in love with this depraved animal?

  SOPHIE: I can’t help it, Ekart. I’d love his corpse. I even love his fists. I can’t help it, Ekart.

  BAAL: Don’t ever tell me what you two were up to while I was inside!

  SOPHIE: We stood together in front of the white prison wall and looked up at your window.

  BAAL: You were together.

  SOPHIE: Beat me for it.

  EKART shouts: Didn’t you throw her at me?

  BAAL: You might have been stolen from me.

  EKART: I haven’t got your elephant’s hide.

  BAAL: I love you for it.

  EKART: Keep your damned mouth shut about it while she’s still with us!

  BAAL: Tell her to get lost! She’s turning into a bitch! He puts his hands up to his throat. She’s washing her dirty laundry in your tears. Can you still not see that sh
e’s running naked between us? I have the patience of a lamb, but I can’t change my skin.

  EKART sits down beside Sophie: Go home to your mother.

  SOPHIE: I can’t.

  BAAL: She can’t, Ekart.

  SOPHIE: Beat me if you want, Baal. I won’t ask you to walk slowly again. I didn’t mean to. Let me keep up with you, as long as I can. Then I’ll lie down in the bushes and you needn’t look. Don’t drive me away, Baal.

  BAAL: Throw your fat body into the river. I’m sick of you, and it’s your own doing.

  SOPHIE: Do you want to leave me here or don’t you? You’re still uncertain, Baal. You’re like a child, to talk like that.

  BAAL: I’m fed to the teeth with you.

  SOPHIE: But not at night, Baal, not at night! I’m afraid alone. I’m afraid of the dark. I’m frightened of it.

  BAAL: In your condition? No one will touch you.

  SOPHIE: But tonight! Just wait both of you tonight.

  BAAL: Go to the bargemen! It’s midsummer night. They’ll be drunk.

  SOPHIE: A few minutes!

  BAAL: Come on, Ekart!

  SOPHIE: Where shall I go?

  BAAL: To heaven, darling!

  SOPHIE: With my child?

  BAAL: Bury it.

  SOPHIE: I pray that you’ll never have cause to remember what you’ve just said to me, under this beautiful sky you love. I pray for it on my knees.

  EKART: I’ll stay with you. And then I’ll take you to your mother, if you say you’ll stop loving this swine.

  BAAL: She loves me.

  SOPHIE: I love him.

  EKART: Are you still on your feet, you swine! Haven’t you got knees? Are you besotted with drink or poetry? Depraved swine! Depraved swine!

  BAAL: Simpleton.

  Ekart attacks him, they fight.

  SOPHIE: Mother of God! They’re like wild animals!

  EKART fighting: Did you hear what she said? Back there! And it’s getting dark now. Depraved animal! Depraved animal!

  BAAL against him, pressing Ekart to himself: Now you’re close to me. Can you smell me? Now I’m holding you. There’s more than the closeness of women. He stops. Look, you can see the stars above the trees now, Ekart.

  EKART looks hard at Baal, who gazes up into the sky: I can’t strike this thing!

  BAAL his arm round Ekart: It’s getting dark. We must find a place for the night. There are hollows in the wood where the wind never penetrates. Come, I’ll tell you about the animals. He draws him away.