Bertolt Brecht: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder 1

  GLUBB: Yes, perhaps you’ll say something.

  The men allow Kragler to get up. There is silence, the wind is heard, two men pass by in a hurry.

  64>THE ONE: They’ve got the Ullstein building.

  THE OTHER: And artillery’s getting into position outside the Mosse building.

  THE ONE: We’re far too few.

  THE OTHER: Far more are on the way.

  THE ONE: Far too late.

  They have passed.
  AUGUSTA: There you have it. Pack it in.

  MANKE: Stuff the answer down his gullet, that bourgeois and his tart!

  AUGUSTA tries to drag Kragler along: Come along to the newspaper buildings, love! You’re beginning to wake up.

  GLUBB: Let her stay on her stone if she wants. The underground starts at seven.

  AUGUSTA: It won’t be running today.65

  THE DRUNK MAN: Forward, forward to alleluia!

  Anna has risen to her feet again.

  MARIE looks her over: White as a sheet.

  GLUBB: A bit pale and a bit thin.

  BABUSCH: She’s on her way out.

  GLUBB: It’s just the unflattering light. Looks at the sky.

  AUGUSTA: 66>Here come the workers from Wedding.
  GLUBB rubbing his hands: You came with the guns. Perhaps you belong with them. Kragler is silent. You don’t say anything, that’s sensible. Walking round. Your tunic’s been slightly shot up, and 67 altogether you’re a bit pallid, a bit worn down.68 But it doesn’t much matter. The only slightly displeasing thing is your shoes, they squeak. But you can put grease on them. He sniffs the air.69 Of course, one or two star-spangled skies have gone under since eleven and a number of Redeemers have been gobbled up by the sparrows, but I’m glad you’re still there. Just your digestion worries me. All the same you aren’t transparent yet, at least one can see you.

  KRAGLER: Come over here, Anna.

  MANKE: ‘Come over here, Anna’.70

  ANNA: Where is the underground, does anyone know?

  AUGUSTA: No underground today. No underground, no elevated, no local services, for the whole of today. Today there will be universal rest, on all tracks today the trains will be stopped, and we shall walk around like civilized people till evening, my dear.

  KRAGLER: Come over here to me, Anna.

  71>GLUBB: Won’t you come along for a bit, brother gunner?
  Kragler is silent.

  GLUBB: One or two of us would like to have drunk another schnaps or so, but you were against it. One or two would like to have slept in a bed again, but you hadn’t got a bed, 72>so it was no good planning to go home either.

  Kragler is silent.
  ANNA: Won’t you go, Andy? They’re waiting for you.

  MANKE: Fish your paw out of your pocket, mate, anyhow.73

  KRAGLER: Fling stones at me, here I am: I can rip the shirt off my back for you, but bare my throat to the knife, I will not.

  THE DRUNK MAN: Heaven, arseholes and little bits of string.

  AUGUSTA: And and and the newspapers?74

  KRAGLER: It’s no use. I won’t let myself be dragged down to the newspapers in my shirtsleeves. I’m not a lamb any more. I don’t want to die.75 Takes his pipe once more from his trouser pocket.76

  GLUBB: A bit pathetic, isn’t it?

  KRAGLER: Look, they’ll riddle your chest like a sieve. 77>Anna! What the devil are you looking at me like that for? Have I got to defend myself to you too? To Glubb: They shot your nephew, but I’ve got my wife back. Anna, come.

  GLUBB: It looks as though we’d better go on without him.

  AUGUSTA: Then was all that lies, Africa and so on?

  KRAGLER: No, it was true. Anna!

  MANKE: The gentleman was bellowing like a stockbroker and now he wants his bed.

  KRAGLER: Now I’ve got my wife.

  MANKE: Have you got her?

  KRAGLER: Here, Anna. She is not untarnished, nor is she innocent; have you been an honest woman or have you got a brat in your body?

  ANNA: A brat, yes, I’ve got one.

  KRAGLER: You’ve got one.

  ANNA: Here he is, inside here, the pepper didn’t do any good and my figure has gone for ever.

  KRAGLER: Yes, that’s her.

  MANKE: And us? Soaked to the heart in schnaps and filled to the navel with talk, and with knives in our paws, and who did they come from?

  KRAGLER: They came from me. To Anna: Yes, that’s the sort you are.

  ANNA: Yes, that’s the sort I am.

  GLUBB: You didn’t yell ‘To the newspaper buildings!’ I suppose?

  KRAGLER: Yes, I did that. To Anna: Walk over here.

  MANKE: Yes, you did that, it’ll be the end of you, mate, you yelled ‘To the newspaper buildings!’ all right.

  KRAGLER: And I’m going home. To Anna:78>Get moving
  AUGUSTA: You swine.

  ANNA: Let me alone. I pretended to Father and Mother, and I lay in bed with a bachelor.

  AUGUSTA: Swine too.

  KRAGLER: What’s the matter?

  ANNA: I bought the curtains with him. And I slept with him in the bed.

  KRAGLER: Stop it!

  MANKE: Look, mate, I shall hang myself if you change your mind.

  A distant shouting off.

  AUGUSTA: 79>They’re attacking the Mosse building.

  ANNA: And despite the photo I forgot everything about you.

  KRAGLER: Stop it.

  ANNA: Forgot! Forgot!

  KRAGLER: 80> And I don’t give a damn.
  ANNA: Yes, fetch me. Yes, with the knife.

  MANKE: 81 Into the water with that lump of rotten flesh!

  They fling themselves on Anna.

  AUGUSTA: Yes, let’s get rid of his tart!

  MANKE: Get a hand on her neck!

  AUGUSTA: Under water, that profiteer’s tart!

  ANNA: Andy!

  KRAGLER: Hands off!

  No sound but panting.

  In the distance dull gunfire is heard irregularly.

  MANKE: What’s that?

  AUGUSTA: Artillery.

  MANKE: Guns.

  AUGUSTA: God have mercy now on all of them down there. They’re bursting open like fishes.

  KRAGLER: Anna!

  Augusta runs upstage, bent double.

  BULLTROTTER appears on the bridge upstage: For God’s sake, where are you all?

  GLUBB: He’s going to the lavatory.

  MANKE: Louse. Making his way off.

  KRAGLER: I’m going home now, dear man.

  GLUBB has reached the bridge: Yes, 82 you’ve got your balls intact.

  KRAGLER to Anna: It’s whistling again, hold on to me, Anna.

  ANNA: I’ll make myself very thin.

  GLUBB: You’ll hang yourself all the same, tomorrow morning in the lavatory.

  Augusta and the others have already gone.

  KRAGLER: You’re heading for the wall, man.

  GLUBB: Yes, my boy, the morning will see quite a lot of things.83 Some people will manage to get away safely, of course. He disappears.

  KRAGLER: They almost drowned with weeping over me and I simply washed my shirt in their tears. Is my flesh to rot in the gutter so that their idea should get into heaven? Are they drunk?

  ANNA: Andy! None of it matters.

  KRAGLER doesn’t look her in the eyes, wanders around, grips himself by the throat: I’m fed up to here. He laughs irritably. It’s just play-acting. Boards and a paper moon and the butchery offstage, which is the only real part of it. He walks round again, his arms dangling, and in this way he fishes up the drum from the schnaps bar. They’ve left their drum. He bangs on it.84> Half a Spartacist Everybody is Top Man in His Own Skin. ne and the swine’s going home. He draws breath. I’ll put on a clean shirt, my skin’s intact, my jacket I’ll take off, my boots I’ll put grease on. Laughs unpleasantly. The shouting’ll all be over tomorrow morning, but tomorrow morning I shall lie in bed and reproduce myself so I don’t die out. Drum. Stop that romantic staring! You racketeers! Drum. You bloodsuckers! Laughing full-throatedly, almost choking. You cowardly cannibals, you! His laughter sticks in his throat, he cannot continue, he staggers around, throws the drum at the moon, which was a lantern, and drum and moon together fall into the river, which is without water.86 Very drunken and infantile. Now comes bed, the great, white, wide bed, come!

  ANNA: Oh, Andy!

  KRAGLER leads her off: Are you warm?

  ANNA: But you’ve got no coat on. She helps him on with it.

  KRAGLER: 87>It’s cold.

  88The two walk side by side, without touching one another, Anna slightly behind him. In the air, high up, a long way off, a white, wild screaming: it comes from the newspaper buildings.

  KRAGLER stops, listens, puts his arm round Anna: It’s now four years.

  As the screaming continues they walk away.

  In the Jungle of Cities

  The fight between two men in the great city of Chicago

  Translator: GERHARD NELLHAUS

  Prologue

  You are in Chicago in 1912. You are about to witness an inexplicable wrestling match between two men and observe the downfall of a family that has moved from the prairies to the jungle of the big city. Don’t worry your heads about the motives for the fight, concentrate on the stakes. Judge impartially the technique of the contenders, and keep your eyes fixed on the finish.

  Characters

  Shlink the lumber dealer, a Malay ‧ George Garga ‧ John Garga, his father ‧ Mae Garga, his mother ‧ Mary Garga, his sister ‧ Jane Larry, his girl friend ‧ Skinny, a Chinese, Shlink’s clerk ‧ Collie Couch, known as Baboon, a pimp ‧ J. Finnay, known as Worm, hotel owner ‧ Pat Manky, a first mate ‧ A Salvation Army preacher ‧ Two Salvation Army girls ‧ The pugnosed man ‧ The barman ‧ C. Maynes, owner of a lending library ‧ Waiter ‧ Railway workers

  [Numbers in the text refer to notes on p. 450 ff.]

  1

  The Lending Library of C. Maynes in Chicago

  The Morning of 8 August 1912

  Garga behind the counter. The doorbell rings. Enter Shlink and Skinny.

  SKINNY: If we read the sign right, this is a lending library. We’d like to borrow a book.

  GARGA: What kind of a book?

  SKINNY: A fat one.

  GARGA: For yourself?

  SKINNY who looks at Shlink before each answer: No, not for me; for this gentleman.

  GARGA: Your name?

  SKINNY: Shlink, lumber dealer, 6 Mulberry Street.

  GARGA taking down the name: Five cents a week per book. Take your pick.

  SKINNY: No, you choose one.

  GARGA: This is a detective story, it’s no good. Here’s something better – a travel book.

  SKINNY: Just like that you say the book is no good?

  SHLINK stepping up to him: Is that your personal opinion? I’ll buy your opinion. Is ten dollars enough?

  GARGA: Take it as a gift.

  SHLINK: You mean you’ve changed your opinion and now it’s a good book?

  GARGA: No.

  SKINNY: Ten dollars will buy you some fresh linen.

  GARGA: My job here is wrapping books, that’s all.

  SKINNY: It drives the customers away.

  GARGA: What do you want of me? I don’t know you. I’ve never seen you before.

  SHLINK: I never heard of this book and it doesn’t mean a thing to me. I’m offering you forty dollars for your opinion of it.

  GARGA: I’ll sell you the opinions of Mr J. V. Jensen and Mr Arthur Rimbaud, but I won’t sell you my own opinion.

  SHLINK: Your opinion is as worthless as theirs, but right now I want to buy it.

  GARGA: I indulge in opinions.

  SKINNY: Are your family millionaires?

  GARGA: My family live on rotten fish.

  SHLINK obviously pleased: A fighter! I’d have expected you to come across with the words that would give me pleasure and get your family something better than fish.

  SKINNY: Forty bucks! That’s a lot of linen for you and your family.

  GARGA: I’m not a prostitute.

  SHLINK with humour: I hardly think my fifty dollars would interfere with your inner life.

  GARGA: Raising your offer is one more insult and you know it.

  SHLINK naïvely: A man’s got to know which is better, a pound of fish or an opinion. Or two pounds of fish or the opinion.

  SKINNY: Dear sir, your stubbornness will get you into trouble.

  GARGA: I’m going to have you thrown out.

  SKINNY: Having opinions shows you don’t know anything about life.

  SHLINK: Miss Larry says you wanted to go to Tahiti!

  GARGA: How do you know Jane Larry?

  SHLINK: She’s starving. She’s not getting paid for the shirts she sews. You haven’t been to see her in three weeks. Garga drops a pile of books.

  SKINNY: Watch your step! You’re only an employee.

  GARGA: You’re molesting me. But there’s nothing I can do about it.

  SHLINK: You’re poor.

  GARGA: I live on fish and rice. You know that as well as I do.

  SHLINK: Sell!

  SKINNY: Are you an oil king?

  SHLINK: The people in your neighbourhood feel sorry for you.

  GARGA: I can’t shoot down the whole neighbourhood.

  SHLINK: Your family that came from the prairies …

  GARGA: Sleep three in a bed by a broken drainpipe. I smoke at night, it’s the only way I can get to sleep. The windows are closed because Chicago is cold. Are you enjoying this?

  SHLINK: Of course your sweetheart …

  GARGA: Sews shirts for two dollars a piece. Net profit: twelve cents. I recommend her shirts. We spend Sundays together. A bottle of whisky costs us eighty cents, exactly eighty cents. Does this amuse you?

  SHLINK: You’re not coughing up your secret thoughts.

  GARGA: No.

  SHLINK: Nobody can live on twelve cents profit.

  GARGA: Each man to his taste. Some people like Tahiti, if you don’t mind.

  SHLINK: You’re well informed. That’s the simple life. On Cape Hay there are storms. But farther south you’ve got the Tobacco Isles, and green rustling fields. You live like a lizard.

  GARGA looking out of the window, dryly: 94 degrees in the shade. Noise from the Milwaukee Bridge. Traffic. A morning like every other morning.

  SHLINK: But this morning is different; I’m starting my fight with you. I’m going to start by rocking the ground you stand on. The bell rings, Maynes enters. Your man has gone on strike.

  MAYNES: Why aren’t you taking care of these gentlemen, George?

  SKINNY bitingly: His relations with us are strained.

  MAYNES: What do you mean by that?

  SKINNY: We don’t care for his greasy shirt.

  MAYNES: How dare you come to work like that, George? Is this a hash house? It won’t happen again, gentlemen.

  SKINNY: He’s saying something. He’s cursing up his sleeve! Speak up, man, use the voice God gave you!

  GARGA: I must ask you for new shirts, Mr Maynes. You can’t be a gigolo on five dollars a week.

  SHLINK: Go to Tahiti. Nobody washes there.

  GARGA: Thanks. Your concern is touching. I’ll send my sister to pray for you in church.

  SHLINK: Please do. She has nothing else to do anyhow. Manky’s the right man for her. He runs himself ragged for her. Your parents are starving and she doesn’t bat an eyelash.

  GARGA: Are you running a detective agency? Your interest in us is flattering, I hope.

  SHLINK: You’re just shutting your eyes. Your family is headed for disaster. You’re the o
nly one who’s making any money, and you indulge in opinions! When you could be on your way to Tahiti. Shows him a sea chart that he has with him.

  GARGA: I’ve never seen you before in all my life.

  SHLINK: There are two passenger lines.

  GARGA: You just bought this map, didn’t you? It’s brandnew.

  SKINNY: Think it over, the Pacific!

  GARGA to Maynes: Please ask these gentlemen to leave. They didn’t come to buy anything. They’re driving the customers away. They’ve been spying on me. I don’t even know them.

  J. Finnay, called Worm, enters. Shlink and Skinny step back, pretending not to know him.

  WORM: Is this C. Maynes’s lending library?

  MAYNES: In person.

  WORM: Shady establishment, if you ask me.

  MAYNES: Are you looking for books, magazines, stamps?

  WORM: So there are books? Filthy business. What’s the point of it? Aren’t there enough lies? ‘The sky was blue, the clouds flew east.’ Why not south? What people won’t swallow!

  MAYNES: Let me wrap this book for you, sir.

  SKINNY: Why not let him catch his breath? And I ask you, does this gentleman look like a bookworm?

  GARGA: It’s a plot.

  WORM: You don’t say! Listen to this. She says, ‘When you kiss me I always see your beautiful teeth.’ How can you see when you’re kissing? But that’s the way she is. Posterity will find out. The lewd bitch! He grinds his heels on the books.

  MAYNES: Look here, sir, you’ve ruined those books, you’ll have to pay for them.

  WORM: Books! What good are they? Did libraries stop the San Francisco earthquake?

  MAYNES: George, get a policeman.

  WORM: I’ve got a liquor store. That’s an honourable business.

  GARGA: He isn’t even drunk.

  WORM: The sight of such loafers makes me tremble like a leaf.

  GARGA: It’s a put-up job. They’re out to get me.

  Couch, called Baboon,1 enters with Jane Larry. Worm steps back pretending not to know them.

  BABOON: Come on in, my little white chick. This is Maynes’s rental library.

  GARGA: You’d better close the shop, Mr Maynes. Strange vermin are crawling into your papers, moths are eating your magazines.

  WORM: I always say: Look life straight in the eye.

  BABOON: Get your face out of my way! I can’t stand paper, especially newspaper.