Brecht Collected Plays: 1: Baal; Drums in the Night; In the Jungle of Cities; Life of Edward II of England; & 5 One Act Plays: "Baal", "Drums in the Night", "In the Jungle of Ci (World Classics) (10 page)

THE BEGGAR
: That’s fishy.

BOLLEBOLL
: I know where you got that champagne. But I won’t give you away.

BAAL
: Here, Ekart! Any glasses?

MAJA
: Cups, kind gentlemen. Cups.
She brings some
.

GOUGOU
: I need a cup of my own.

BAAL
doubtful
: Are you allowed to drink champagne?

GOUGOU
: Please!
Baal pours him some
.

BAAL
: What’s wrong with you?

GOUGOU
: Bronchitis. Nothing bad. A little inflammation.

Nothing serious.

BAAL
to Bolleboll
: And you?

BOLLEBOLL
: Stomach ulcers. Won’t kill me!

BAAL
to the beggar
: There’s something wrong with you too, I trust?

THE BEGGAR
: I’m mad.

BAAL
: Here’s to you! We understand each other. I’m healthy.

THE BEGGAR
: I knew a man who said he was healthy too. He believed it. He came from the forest and one day he
went back there as there was something he had to think over. He found the forest very strange and no longer familiar, he walked for many days. Always deeper into the forest, because he wanted to see how independent he was and how much endurance there was left in him. But there wasn’t much.
He drinks
.

BAAL
uneasy
: What a wind! We have to move on tonight, Ekart.

THE BEGGAR
: Yes, the wind. One evening, at sunset, when he was no longer alone, he went through the great stillness between the trees and stood beneath one of the highest.
Drinks
.

BOLLEBOLL
: That was the ape in him.

THE BEGGAR
: Yes, perhaps it was the ape. He leant against it, very closely, and felt the life in it, or thought so. And he said, you are higher than I am and stand firm and you know the earth beneath you, and it holds you. I can run and move better, but I do not stand firm and I do not reach into the depths of the earth and nothing holds me up. Nor do I know the quiet of the endless sky above the still tree-tops.
He drinks
.

GOUGOU
: What did the tree say?

THE BEGGAR
: Yes. And the wind blew. A shudder ran through the tree. And the man felt it. He threw himself down on the ground and he clutched the wild, hard roots and cried bitterly. But he did it to many trees.

EKART
: Did it cure him?

THE BEGGAR
: No. He had an easier death, though.

MAJA
: I don’t understand that.

THE BEGGAR
: Nothing is understood. But some things are felt. If one understands a story it’s just that it’s been told badly.

BOLLEBOLL
: Do you believe in God?

BAAL
with an effort
: I’ve always believed in myself. But a man
could
turn atheist.

BOLLEBOLL
laughs loudly
: Now I feel happy. God! Champagne! Love! Wind and rain!
He reaches for Maja
.

MAJA
: Leave me alone. Your breath stinks.

BOLLEBOLL
: And I suppose you haven’t got the pox?
He takes her on his lap
.

THE BEGGAR
: Watch it!
To Bolleboll
: I’m getting drunker and drunker. If I get completely drunk you can’t go out in the rain tonight.

GOUGOU
to Ekart
: He used to be better looking, that’s how he got her.

EKART
: What about your intellectual superiority? Your psychic ascendancy?

GOUGOU
: She wasn’t like that. She was completely innocent.

EKART
: And what did you do?

GOUGOU
: I was ashamed.

BOLLEBOLL
: Listen! The wind. It’s asking God for peace.

MAJA
sings
:

Lullaby baby, away from the storm

Here we are sheltered and drunken and warm.

BAAL
: Whose child is that?

MAJA
: My daughter, sir.

THE BEGGAR
: A virgo dolorosa.

BAAL
drinks
: That’s how it used to be, Ekart. And it was all right too.

EKART
: What?

BOLLEBOLL
: He’s forgotten what.

BAAL
: Used to be! That’s a strange phrase!

GOUGOU
to Ekart
: The best of all is nothingness.

BOLLEBOLL
: Pst! We’re going to have Gougou’s aria. A song from the old bag of worms.

GOUGOU
: It’s as if the air was quivering on a summer evening. Sunshine. But it isn’t quivering. Nothing. Nothing at all. You just stop. The wind blows, and you don’t feel, cold. It rains, and you don’t get wet. Funny things happen, and you don’t laugh with the others. You rot, and you don’t need to wait. General strike.

THE BEGGAR
: That’s Hell’s Paradise.

GOUGOU
: Yes, that’s paradise. No wish unfulfilled. You have none left. You learn to abandon all your habits. Even wishing. That’s how you become free.

MAJA
: What happened in the end?

GOUGOU
grins
: Nothing. Nothing at all. There is no end. Nothingness lasts for ever.

BOLLEBOLL
: Amen.

BAAL
gets up, to Ekart
: Ekart, get up. Were fallen among murderers.
He supports himself by putting his arm round Ekart’s shoulders
. The vermin multiply. The rot sets in. The maggots sing and show off.

EKART
: It’s the second time that’s happened to you. I wonder if it’s just the drink.

BAAL
: My guts are hanging out … this is no mud bath.

EKART
: Sit down. Get drunk. Warm yourself.

MAJA
drunk, sings
:

Summer and winter and snowstorms and rain

If we aren’t sober we won’t feel the pain.

BOLLEBOLL
takes hold of Maja and pummels her
: Your aria tickles me, little Gougou. Itsiwitsi, little Maja.

The child cries
.

BAAL
drinks
: Who are you?
Amused, to Gougou
: Your name’s bag of worms. Are you a candidate for the mortuary? Your health!
He sits down
.

THE BEGGAR
: Watch out, Bolleboll! Champagne doesn’t agree with me.

MAJA
hanging on to Bolleboll, sings
:

Seeing is suffering, keep your eyes shut

All go to sleep now, and nothing will hurt.

BAAL
brutally
:

Float down the river with rats in your hair

Everything’s lovely, the sky is still there.

He gets up, glass in hand
. The sky is black! Did that scare you?
Drums on the table
. You have to stand the roundabout. It’s wonderful.
He sways
. I want to be an elephant in a circus and pee when things go wrong
… He begins to dance and sing
. Dance with the wind, poor corpse! Sleep with a cloud, you degenerate God!
He goes up to the table, swaying
.

EKART
gets up, drunk
: I’m not going with you any farther. I’ve got a soul too. You corrupted my soul. You corrupt everything. And then I shall start on my Mass again.

BAAL
: Your health! I love you.

EKART
: But I’m not going with you any farther.
He sits down
.

THE BEGGAR
to Bolleboll’
: Hands off, you pig!

MAJA
: What’s it got to do with you?

THE BEGGAR
: Shut up, you poor thing!

MAJA
: You’re raving!

BOLLEBOLL
venomously
: He’s a fraud. There’s nothing wrong with him. That’s right. It’s all a fraud!

THE BEGGAR
: And you’ve got cancer.

BOLLEBOLL
uncannily quiet
: I’ve got cancer?

THE BEGGAR
turning coward
: I didn’t say anything. Leave her alone!
Maja laughs
.

BAAL
: Why’s it crying?
Sways to the box
.

THE BEGGAR
angry
: What do you want?

BAAL
leans over the box
: Why are you crying? Have you never seen them at it before? Or do you cry every time?

THE BEGGAR
: Leave it alone, you!
He throws his glass at Baal
.

MAJA
: You pig!

BOLLEBOLL
: He’s only having a peep under her skirt!

BAAL
gets up slowly
: Oh you swine! You don’t know what’s human any more. Come on, Ekart! We’ll wash ourselves in the river.
He leaves with Ekart
.

Baal. Ekart
.

BAAL
sitting in the thicket
: The water’s warm. You can lie like a crab on the sand. And the shrubs and white clouds in the sky. Ekart!

EKART
concealed
: What do you want?

BAAL
: I love you.

EKART
: I’m too comfortable here.

BAAL
: Did you see the clouds earlier?

EKART
: Yes, they’re shameless.
Silence
. A while ago a woman went by on the other side.

BAAL
: I don’t care for women any longer …

Wind. Night. Ekart asleep in the grass. Baal comes across the fields as if drunk, his clothes open, like a sleepwalker
.

BAAL
: Ekart! Ekart! I’ve got it! Wake up!

EKART
: What’s the matter? Are you talking in your sleep again?

BAAL
sits down by him
: This:

When she had drowned, and started her slow descent

Down the streams to where the rivers broaden

The opal sky shone most magnificent

As if it had to be her body’s guardian.

Wrack and seaweed cling to her as she swims

Slowly their burden adds to her weight.

Coolly fishes play about her limbs

Creatures and growths encumber her in her final state.

And in the evening the sky grew dark as smoke

And at night the stars kept the light still soaring.

But soon it cleared as dawn again broke

To preserve her sequence of evening and morning.

As her pale body decayed in the water there

It happened (very slowly) that God gradually forgot it

First her face, then the hands, and right at the last her hair

Then she rotted in rivers where much else rotted.

The wind
.

EKART
: Has the ghost risen? It’s not as wicked as you. Now sleep’s gone to the devil and the wind is groaning in the willows like an organ. Nothing left but the white breast of philosophy, darkness, cold, and rain right up to our blessed end, and even for old women nothing left but their second sight.

BAAL
: You don’t need gin to be drunk in this wind. I see the world in a soft light: it is the excrement of the Almighty.

EKART
: The Almighty, who made himself known once and for all through the association of the urinary passage with the sexual organ.

BAAL
lying down
: It’s all so beautiful.

Wind
.

EKART
: The willows are like rotten teeth in the black mouth of the sky. I shall start work on my Mass soon.

BAAL
: Is the quartet finished?

EKART
: When did I have the time?

Wind
.

BAAL
: It’s that redhead, the pale one, that you drag everywhere.

EKART
: She has a soft white body, and at noon she brings it with her under the willows. They’ve drooping branches like hair, behind which we fuck like squirrels.

BAAL
: Is she more beautiful than me?

Darkness. The wind blows on
.

Long red switches hanging down. In the middle of them, Baal, sitting. Noon
.

BAAL
: I’ll satisfy her, the white dove
… He looks at the place
. You get a good view of the clouds here through the willow … when he comes there’ll only be skin left. I’m sick of his love affairs. Be calm!

A young woman comes out of the thicket. Red hair, a full figure
.

BAAL
without looking round
: Is that you?

THE YOUNG WOMAN
: Where’s your friend?

BAAL
: He’s doing a Mass in E flat minor.

THE YOUNG WOMAN
: Tell him I was here.

BAAL
: He’s too thin. He’s transparent. He defiles himself.

He’s regressing into zoology. Do sit down!
He looks round
.

THE YOUNG WOMAN
: I prefer to stand.

BAAL
: He’s been eating too many eggs lately.
He pulls himself

up by the red switches
.

THE YOUNG WOMAN
: I love him.

BAAL
: You’re no concern of mine.
He takes her in his arms
.

THE YOUNG WOMAN
: Don’t touch me! You’re too dirty!