Brecht Collected Plays: 5: Life of Galileo; Mother Courage and Her Children (World Classics) (27 page)

YVETTE
: They won’t do it. That one-eyed man’s impatient already, keeps looking over his shoulder, he’s so worked up. Hadn’t I best pay them the whole two hundred?

MOTHER COURAGE
in despair:
I can’t pay that. Thirty years I been working. She’s twenty-five already, and no husband. I got her to think of too. Don’t push me, I know what I’m doing. Say a hundred and twenty, or it’s off.

YVETTE
: It’s up to you.
Rushes off
.

Without looking at either the chaplain or her daughter, Mother Courage sits down to help Kattrin polish knives
.

MOTHER COURAGE
: Don’t smash them glasses, they ain’t ours now. Watch what you’re doing, you’ll cut yourself. Swiss Cheese’ll be back, I’ll pay two hundred if it comes to the pinch. You’ll get your brother, love. For eighty florins we could fill a pack with goods and start again. Plenty of folk has to make do.

THE CHAPLAIN
: The Lord will provide, it says.

MOTHER COURAGE
: See they’re properly dry.
She cleans knives in silence. Kattrin suddenly runs behind the cart, sobbing
.

YVETTE
comes running in:
They won’t do it. I told you so. The
one-eyed man wanted to leave right away, said there was no point. He says he’s just waiting for the drum-roll; that means sentence has been pronounced. I offered a hundred and fifty. He didn’t even blink. I had to convince him to stay there so’s I could have another word with you.

MOTHER COURAGE
: Tell him I’ll pay the two hundred. Hurry!
Yvette runs off. They sit in silence. The chaplain has stopped polishing the glasses
. I reckon I bargained too long.
In the distance drumming is heard. The chaplain gets up and goes to the rear. Mother Courage remains seated. It grows dark. The drumming stops. It grows light once more. Mother Courage is sitting exactly as before
.

YVETTE
arrives, very pale:
Well, you got what you asked for, with your haggling and trying to keep your cart. Eleven bullets they gave him, that’s all. You don’t deserve I should bother any more about you. But I did hear they don’t believe the box really is in the river. They’ve an idea it’s here and anyhow that you’re connected with him. They’re going to bring him here, see if you gives yourself away when you sees him. Thought I’d better warn you so’s you don’t recognise him, else you’ll all be for it. They’re right on my heels, best tell you quick. Shall I keep Kattrin away?
Mother Courage shakes her head
. Does she know? She mayn’t have heard the drumming or know what it meant.

MOTHER COURAGE
: She knows. Get her.

Yvette fetches Kattrin, who goes to her mother and stands beside her. Mother Courage takes her hand. Two lanseque-nets come carrying a stretcher with something lying on it covered by a sheet. The sergeant marches beside them. They set down the stretcher
.

SERGEANT
: Here’s somebody we dunno the name of. It’s got to be listed, though, so everything’s shipshape. He had a meal here. Have a look, see if you know him.
He removes the sheet
. Know him?
Mother Courage shakes her head
. What, never see him before he had that meal here?
Mother Courage shakes her head
. Pick him up. Chuck him in the pit. He’s got nobody knows him.
They carry him away
.

4

Mother Courage sings the Song of the Grand Capitulation

Outside an officer’s tent
.

Mother Courage is waiting. A clerk looks out of the tent
.

THE CLERK
: I know you. You had a paymaster from the Lutherans with you, what was in hiding. I’d not complain if I were you.

MOTHER COURAGE
: But I got a complaint to make. I’m innocent, would look as how I’d a bad conscience if I let this pass. Slashed everything in me cart to pieces with their sabres, they did, then wanted I should pay five taler fine for nowt, I tell you, nowt.

THE CLERK
: Take my tip, better shut up. We’re short of canteens, so we let you go on trading, specially if you got a bad conscience and pay a fine now and then.

MOTHER COURAGE
: I got a complaint.

THE CLERK
: Have it your own way. Then you must wait till the captain’s free.
Withdraws inside the tent
.

YOUNG SOLDIER
enters aggressively:
Bouque la Madonne! Where’s that bleeding pig of a captain what’s took my reward money to swig with his tarts? I’ll do him.

OLDER SOLDIER
running after him:
Shut up. They’ll put you in irons.

YOUNG SOLDIER
: Out of there, you thief! I’ll slice you into pork chops, I will. Pocketing my prize money after I’d swum the river, only one in the whole squadron, and now I can’t even buy meself a beer. I’m not standing for that. Come on out there so I can cut you up!

OLDER SOLDIER
: Blessed Mother of God, he’s asking for trouble.

MOTHER COURAGE
: Is it some reward he weren’t paid?

YOUNG SOLDIER
: Lemme go, I’ll slash you too while I’m at it.

OLDER SOLDIER
: He rescued the colonel’s horse and got no reward for it. He’s young yet, still wet behind the ears.

MOTHER COURAGE
: Let him go, he ain’t a dog you got to chain up. Wanting your reward is good sound sense. Why be a hero otherwise?

YOUNG SOLDIER
: So’s he can sit in there and booze. You’re shit-scared, the lot of you. I done something special and I want my reward.

MOTHER COURAGE
: Don’t you shout at me, young fellow. Got me own worries, I have; any road you should spare your voice, be needing it when captain comes, else there he’ll be and you too hoarse to make a sound, which’ll make it hard for him to clap you in irons till you turn blue. People what shouts like that can’t keep it up ever; half an hour, and they have to be rocked to sleep, they’re so tired.

YOUNG SOLDIER
: I ain’t tired and to hell with sleep. I’m hungry. They make our bread from acorns and hemp-seed, and they even skimp on that. He’s whoring away my reward and I’m hungry. I’ll do him.

MOTHER COURAGE
: Oh I see, you’re hungry. Last year that general of yours ordered you all off roads and across fields so corn should be trampled flat; I could’ve got ten florins for a pair of boots s’pose I’d had boots and s’pose anyone’d been able to pay ten florins. Thought he’d be well away from that area this year, he did, but here he is, still there, and hunger is great. I see what you’re angry about.

YOUNG SOLDIER
: I won’t have it, don’t talk to me, it ain’t fair and I’m not standing for that.

MOTHER COURAGE
: And you’re right; but how long? How long you not standing for unfairness? One hour, two hours? Didn’t ask yourself that, did you, but it’s the whole point, and why, once you’re in irons it’s too bad if you suddenly finds you can put up with unfairness after all.

YOUNG SOLDIER
: What am I listening to you for, I’d like to know? Bouque la Madonne, where’s that captain?

MOTHER COURAGE
: You been listening to me because you knows it’s like what I say, your anger has gone up in smoke
already, it was just a short one and you needed a long one, but where you going to get it from?

YOUNG SOLDIER
: Are you trying to tell me asking for my reward is wrong?

MOTHER COURAGE
: Not a bit. I’m just telling you your anger ain’t long enough, it’s good for nowt, pity. If you’d a long one I’d be trying to prod you on. Cut him up, the swine, would be my advice to you in that case; but how about if you don’t cut him up cause you feels your tail going between your legs? Then I’d look silly and captain’d take it out on me.

OLDER SOLDIER
: You’re perfectly right, he’s just a bit crazy.

YOUNG SOLDIER
: Very well, let’s see if I don’t cut him up.
Draws his sword
. When he arrives I’m going to cut him up.

THE CLERK
looks out:
The captain’ll be here in one minute. Sit down.

The young soldier sits down
.

MOTHER COURAGE
: He’s sitting now. See, what did I say? you’re sitting now. Ah, how well they know us, no one need tell ’em how to go about it. Sit down! and, bingo, we’re sitting. And sitting and sedition don’t mix. Don’t try to stand up, you won’t stand the way you was standing before. I shouldn’t worry about what I think; I’m no better, not one moment. Bought up all our fighting spirit, they have. Eh? S’pose I kick back, might be bad for business. Let me tell you a thing or two about the Grand Capitulation.
She sings the Song of the Grand Capitulation:

Back when I was young, I was brought to realise

What a very special person I must be

(Not just any old cottager’s daughter, what with my looks and my talents and my urge towards Higher Things)

And insisted that my soup should have no hairs in it.

No one makes a sucker out of me!

(All or nothing, only the best is good enough, each man for himself, nobody’s telling
me
what to do.)

Then I heard a tit

Chirp: Wait a bit!

And you’ll be marching with the band

In step, responding to command

And striking up your little dance:

Now we advance.

And now: parade, form square!

Then men swear God’s there –

Not the faintest chance!

In no time at all anyone who looked could see

That I’d learned to take my medicine with good grace.

(Two kids on my hands and look at the price of bread, and things they expect of you!)

When they finally came to feel that they were through with me

They’d got me grovelling on my face.

(Takes all sorts to make a world, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, no good banging your head against a brick wall.)

Then I heard that tit

Chirp: Wait a bit!

And you’ll be marching with the band

In step, responding to command

And striking up you little dance:

Now they advance.

And now: parade, form square!

Then men swear God’s there –

Not the faintest chance!

I’ve known people tried to storm the summits:

There’s no star too bright or seems too far away.

(Dogged does it, where there’s a will there’s a way, by hook or by crook.)

As each peak disclosed fresh peaks to come, it’s

Strange how much a plain straw hat could weigh.

(You have to cut your coat according to your cloth.)

Then I hear the tit

Chirp: Wait a bit!

And they’ll be marching with the band

In step, responding to command

And striking up their little dance:

Now they advance

And now: parade, form square!

Then men swear God’s there –

Not the faintest chance!

MOTHER COURAGE
to the young soldier:
That’s why I reckon you should stay there with your sword drawn if you’re truly set on it and your anger’s big enough, because you got grounds, I agree, but if your anger’s a short one best leave right away.

YOUNG SOLDIER
: Oh stuff it.
He staggers off with the older soldier following
.

CLERK
sticks his head out:
Captain’s here now. You can make your complaint.

MOTHER COURAGE
: I changed me mind. I ain’t complaining.
Exit
.

5

Two years have gone by. The war is spreading to new areas. Ceaselessly on the move, Courage’s little cart crosses Poland, Moravia, Bavaria, Italy then Bavaria again. 1631. Tilly’s victory at Magdeburg costs Mother Courage four officers’ shirts

Mother Courage’s cart has stopped in a badly shot-up village
.

Thin military music in the distance. Two soldiers at the bar being served by Kattrin and Mother Courage. One of them has a lady’s fur coat over his shoulders
.

MOTHER COURAGE
: Can’t pay, that it? No money, no schnapps. They give us victory parades, but catch them giving men their pay.

SOLDIER
: I want my schnapps. I missed the looting. That double-crossing general only allowed an hour’s looting in the town. He ain’t an inhuman monster, he said. Town must of paid him.

THE CHAPLAIN
stumbles in:
There are people still lying in that yard. The peasant’s family. Somebody give me a hand. I need linen.

The second soldier goes off with him. Kattrin becomes very excited and tries to make her mother produce linen
.

MOTHER COURAGE
: I got none. All my bandages was sold to regiment. I ain’t tearing up my officers’ shirts for that lot.

THE CHAPLAIN
calling back:
I need linen, I tell you.

MOTHER COURAGE
blocking Kattrin’s way into the cart by sitting on the step:
I’m giving nowt. They’ll never pay, and why, nowt to pay with.

CHAPLAIN
bending over a woman he has carried in:
Why d’you stay around during the gunfire?

PEASANT WOMAN
feebly:
Farm.

MOTHER COURAGE
: Catch them abandoning anything. But now I’m s’posed to foot the bill. I won’t do it.

FIRST SOLDIER
: Those are Protestants. What they have to be Protestants for?

MOTHER COURAGE
: They ain’t bothering about faith. They lost their farm.

SECOND SOLDIER
: They’re no Protestants. They’re Catholics like us.

FIRST SOLDIER
: No way of sorting ’em out in a bombardment.

A PEASANT
brought in by the chaplain:
My arm’s gone.