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) (8 page)

BAAL
from behind the curtain
: Small am I, pure am I, a jolly little boy am I.
Applause. Baal continues, accompanying himself on the guitar
:

Through the room the wild wind comes.

What’s the child been eating? Plums.

Soft and white its body lay

Helping pass the time away.

Applause and whistles. Baal goes on singing, and the noise gets rowdier as the song gets more and more shameless. Finally, uproar in the café
.

PIANIST
phlegmatically
: My God, he’s packing up. Call a doctor! Now Mjurk’s talking, they’ll tear him to pieces. No one censored that!

Baal comes from behind the curtain, dragging his guitar
.

MJURK
following him
: You bastard! I’ll have the hide off you!
You are going to sing! As stated in the contract! Or I’ll get the police.
He goes back behind the curtain
.

PIANIST
: You’ll ruin us, Baal.

Baal raises a hand to his throat and goes to the lavatory door
.

PIANIST
not letting him pass
: Where are you off to?

Baal pushes him aside and goes through the door, dragging his guitar after him
.

SAVETTKA
: Taking your guitar to the lavatory? Lovely!

GUESTS
peering in
: Where’s that bastard? Go on with the song – don’t stop now! The filthy bastard!
They return to the room
.

MJURK
: I spoke like a Salvation Army general. We can rely on the police. But they’re shouting for him again. Where is he? He’ll have to go on.

PIANIST
: The main attraction’s sitting on the lavatory.
Cry from behind the scenes: Baal!

MJURK
drumming on the door
: You. Answer me! Damn it, I forbid you to lock yourself in! While I’m paying you! I’ve got it in writing. You swindler!
Thumps wildly
.

LUPU
in the door on the right. Blue night sky outside
: The lavatory window’s open. The bird has flown. No drink, no song!

MJURK
: Empty! Gone? Out through the lavatory? The cutthroat! Police! I want the police!
He rushes out. Calls in rhythm from behind the curtain: Baal! Baal! Baal!

Baal. Ekart
.

BAAL
slowly coming through the fields
: Since the sky turned green and pregnant, summertime, wind, no shirt in my trousers.
Back to Ekart
. They rub my backside, my skull’s blown up with the wind, and the smell of the fields hangs in the hair of my armpits. The air trembles as if it were drunk.

EKART
behind him
: Why are you running away from the plum trees like an elephant?

BAAL
: Put your hand on my head. It swells with every pulse-beat and goes down like a balloon. Can’t you feel it?

EKART
: No.

BAAL
: You don’t understand my soul.

EKART
: Let’s go and lie in the river.

BAAL
: My soul, brother, is the groaning of the cornfields as they bend in the wind, and the gleam in the eyes of two insects who want to devour each other.

EKART
: A mad summer boy with immortal intestines, that’s what you are! A dumpling, who’ll leave a grease spot on the sky.

BAAL
: Only words. But it doesn’t matter.

EKART
: My body’s light as a little plum in the wind.

BAAL
: That’s because of the pale summer sky, brother. Shall we soak up the warm water of a blue pond? Otherwise the white roads that lead across the land will draw us like angels’ ropes up to heaven.

Evening. Farmers. Baal. Ekart on his own in a corner
.

BAAL
: I’m glad I’ve got you all here together. My brother will be here tomorrow evening. The bulls have to be here by then.

FARMER
gaping
: How can we see if a bull’s the right sort for your brother?

BAAL
: Only my brother can see. They all have to be strong, fine beasts. Or they’re no use. Another gin!

SECOND FARMER
: Will you buy the bull on the spot?

BAAL
: The one with the strongest legs.

THIRD FARMER
: For your price they’ll bring them from eleven villages.

FIRST FARMER
: Come and have a look at
my
bull.

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.

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?