Authors: Bertolt Brecht
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) (17 page)
MARIE
: Where are you off to?
KRAGLER
with no cap, collar turned up, hands in his trouser pockets, has entered, whistling
: What kind of a red fig is that?
MARIE
: Don’t run so.
KRAGLER
: Can’t you keep up?
MARIE
: D’you think someone’s after you?
KRAGLER
: D’you want to go to bed? Where’s your room?
MARIE
: But that’s no good.
KRAGLER
: Yes.
Wants to go on
.
MARIE
: It’s in my lungs.
KRAGLER
: Why tag along like a dog, then?
MARIE
: But your
6
…
KRAGLER
: Pooh, that’s been scrubbed! Washed out! Cancelled!
MARIE
: What’ll you do till morning, then?
KRAGLER
:
7
There’s knives.
MARIE
: Dear Jesus …
KRAGLER
: Quiet, I don’t like it when you scream like that, there’s also
8>
schnaps
<8
. What d’you want? I can try laughing if you like. Tell me, did they lay you on the steps before you were confirmed? Scrub that! D’you smoke?
He laughs
. Let’s go on.
9>
MARIE
: There’s firing down by the newspaper offices.
<9
KRAGLER
: We might be useful.
Exeunt both
.
Wind. Two men in the same direction
.
THE ONE
: I think we’ll do it here.
THE OTHER
: Mightn’t have a chance down there …
They make water
.
10>
THE ONE
: Gunfire.
THE OTHER
: Hell! In the Friedrichstrasse!
<10
THE ONE
: Where you watered the synthetic alcohol.
THE OTHER
: That moon alone’s enough to drive you crazy.
THE ONE
: When you’ve been selling doctored tobacco.
THE OTHER
: All right, I’ve sold doctored tobacco, but you’ve stuffed human beings into rat-holes.
THE ONE
: That must be a comfort to you.
THE OTHER
: I won’t be the only one to hang.
11>
THE ONE
: You know what the Bolsheviks did? Show us your hands. No callouses? Bang bang.
The Other looks at his hands
. Bang bang. You’re getting smelly already.
<11
THE OTHER
: O God.
THE ONE
: Fine business if you turn up in your bowler hat.
THE OTHER
: You’ve a bowler too.
THE ONE
: Battered, my dear fellow.
THE OTHER
: I can batter mine.
THE ONE
: That stiff collar of yours is as good as a hangman’s noose.
THE OTHER
: I’ll sweat till it’s soft; you’ve got button boots, though.
THE ONE
: Your waistline!
THE OTHER
: Your voice!
THE ONE
: Your look! Your way of walking! Your manner!
THE OTHER
: Yes, they’ll hang me for that, but you’ve a grammar school face.
THE ONE
: I’ve a mangled ear with a bullet through it, my dear sir.
THE OTHER
: The devil!
Exeunt both. Wind
.
From the left now the entire Ride of the Valkyries: Anna, as if fleeing. Next her, wearing an evening coat but no hat, Manke, the waiter from the Piccadilly Bar, who behaves as if intoxicated. After them comes Babusch, dragging Murk, who is drunk, pale and bloated
.
MANKE
: Forget it. He’s gone. Blown away. He may be swallowed up in the
12>
newspaper district
<12
already. They’re shooting all over the place, all kinds of things are happening at the newspapers, this night of all nights and he might even be shot.
Speaking to Anna as if drunk
: One can run away when they shoot, but one can also choose not to. Anyhow: another hour and no one will be able to find him. He’s dissolving like paper in water. He’s got the moon in his head. He’s running after every drum. Go! Save your beloved that was, no, is.
BABUSCH
flinging himself in Anna’s path
: Halt, all you Valkyries ! Where are you going? It’s cold and there’s a wind too and he’s landed in some schnaps bar.
Aping the waiter
. He who waited four years. Nobody’s going to find him now, though.
MURK
: Nobody. Not a soul.
He sits on a stone
.
BABUSCH
: And look at that, will you?
13
MANKE
: He’s nothing to do with me. Give him a coat. Don’t waste time. He who waited four years is now running quicker than those clouds are drifting. He’s gone quicker than this wind is gone.
MURK
apathetic
: The punch had colouring matter in it. Just now when everything’s set. The linen got together, the rooms rented. Come over here, Bab!
MANKE
: What are you standing about like Lot’s wife for? This is no Gomorrah. Does drunken misery impress you? Can you find a way round? Is it the linen?
14
Will the clouds hang back for that?
BABUSCH
: What business is that of yours? How are the clouds your affair? You’re a waiter, aren’t you?
MANKE
: My affair? The stars run clean off their rails if a man’s left unmoved by unfairness.
Seizes his own throat
. It’s driving me too. It’s got me by the throat too. A man frightened out of his wits is nothing to be petty about.
BABUSCH
: What’s that? Out of his wits? Where did you see that? I’m telling you: something’s going to be bellowing like a bull down at the newspapers before daybreak.
15>
And that’ll be the mob thinking here’s a chance to settle old scores.
<15
MURK
has stood up, whines
: Dragging a man round in this wind! I feel terrible. What are you running away for? What is it? I need you. It’s not the linen.
ANNA
: I can’t.
16
MURK
: I can’t stand on my feet.
MANKE
: Sit down! You’re not the only one. It’s infectious. Father gets a stroke. The drunken kangaroo is in tears. But the daughter goes down to the slums. To her lover who has waited four years.
17
ANNA
: I can’t do it.
MURK
: You’ve got all the linen. And the furniture’s already in the rooms.
MANKE
: The linen is folded, but the bride is not coming.
ANNA
: My linen has been bought, I laid it in the cupboard piece by piece, but now I need it no longer. The room has been rented and the curtains hang ready and the wallpaper is up. But he is come who has
18
no shoes and only one coat, and the moths are in that.
MANKE
: And he is swallowed up by the
19>
newspaper district
<19
. Awaited by the schnaps saloons. The night! The misery! The dregs! Rescue him!
BABUSCH
: All this is a drama called The Angel of the Dockland Boozers.
MANKE
: Yes, the angel.
MURK
: And you want to go down there
20>
to the Friedrichstrasse?
<20
And nothing’s going to stop you?
ANNA
: Nothing that I know of.
MURK
: Nothing?
21
Won’t you still be thinking of ‘the other thing’?
ANNA
: No. I don’t want that any more.
MURK
: You don’t want ‘the other thing’?
ANNA
: That’s the tie.
MURK
: And it doesn’t bind you?
ANNA
: It’s broken now.
MURK
: Your child means nothing to you?
ANNA
: It means nothing.
MURK
: Because he is come who has no coat?
ANNA
: I didn’t recognize him.
MURK
: It’s no longer him. You didn’t recognize him.
ANNA
: He stood in the middle like some animal.
22>
And you
<22
beat him like an animal.
MURK
: And he howled like an old woman.
ANNA
: And he howled like a woman.
MURK
: And cleared off and left you sitting there.
ANNA
: And went away and left me sitting there.
MURK
: Finished, he
23>
is.
ANNA
: And he’s finished.
<23
MURK
: He has gone away …
ANNA
: But when he was gone away and he was finished …
MURK
: Nothing remained. Absolutely nothing.
ANNA
: There was a turbulence behind him and a slight wind and it grew very strong and was stronger than anything else and now I am going away and now I am coming and now it’s all finished for us, for me and for him. Because where is he gone? Does God know where he is? How big is the world and where is he?
She looks composedly at Manke and says softly
: Go to your bar, I’m grateful to you, and please see that he gets there.
24
But Bab, you come with me!
And hurries off right
.
MURK
plaintively
: Where’s she off to?
25>
BABUSCH
: That’s the end of the Ride of the Valkyries, my boy.
<25
MANKE
: The lover has already vanished, but his beloved hastens after him on wings of love. The hero has been brought low, but his path to heaven is already prepared.
BABUSCH
: But the lover’s going to stuff his beloved down a sewer and take the path to hell instead. O you romantic institute, you!
MANKE
: She is vanishing already as she hastens
26>
down to the newspaper buildings
<26
. Like a white sail she can be seen still, like an idea, like a final cadence, like an intoxicated swan flying across the waters …
BABUSCH
: What are we to do with this sodden clod?
MURK
: I’m staying here. It’s cold. If it gets any colder they’ll come back. You know nothing about it. Because you don’t know the other thing. Let her run. He won’t want two. He left one behind and got two running after him.
Laughs
.
BABUSCH
:
27
She’s vanishing heavenwards like a final cadence.
Slogs after her
.
28>
MANKE
calls after him
: Glubb’s bar, Chausseestrasse! That whore with him hangs out in Glubb’s bar.
Spreads both his arms widely once more
: The revolution is
<28
swallowing them up. Will they find one another?
29>
THE DAWN IS TURNING RED
<29
)
A Small Schnaps Distillery
Clad in white, Glubb, the proprietor, sings the ‘Ballad of the Dead Soldier’
1
to guitar accompaniment. Laar and a sinister drunk man stare at his fingers. A small square man called Bulltrotter is reading the paper. Manke, the waiter, brother of the Manke from the Piccadilly Bar, is drinking with Augusta, a prostitute, and all are smoking
.
BULLTROTTER
: I want schnaps, not a dead soldier, I want to read the paper and I need schnaps for that or by God I won’t understand it.
GLUBB
with a cold glassy voice
: Don’t you feel at home?
BULLTROTTER
: Yes, but there’s a revolution on.
GLUBB
: What for? This is my place where the scum feels at home and Lazarus sings.
THE DRUNK MAN
: I’m scum, you’re Lazarus.
30>
A WORKER
enters and goes up to the bar
: Evening, Karl.
GLUBB
: In a hurry?
THE WORKER
: Hausvogteiplatz at eleven.
GLUBB
: Plenty of rumours.
THE WORKER
: There’s been a guards division at the Anhalt station since six. All quiet at the ‘Vorwärts’ building. We could do with your boy Paul today, Karl.
MANKE
: We don’t talk about Paul here usually.
THE WORKER
paying
: Today’s unusual.
Exit
.
MANKE
to Glubb
: Wasn’t it unusual last November? You need a gun in your hand and a sticky feeling at the tips of the fingers.
GLUBB
chilly
: What can I do for you, sir?
BULLTROTTER
: Freedom!
<30
He takes off his coat and collar
.
GLUBB
: Drinking in shirtsleeves is against the law.
BULLTROTTER
: Reactionaries.
MANKE
: They’re practising the
31
>
Internationale
<31
, in four parts with tremolo
32
. Freedom! Then I suppose a fellow with clean cuffs will be put to scrub the lavatories?
GLUBB
: They’ll make a mess of the false marble.
AUGUSTA
:
33
So people with clean cuffs are not to scrub the lavatories, eh?
